Woohoo! My worst cliffhanger yet! XD
By the way, I liberally reference both anime and manga in this chapter, so if you don't know who everyone is, it's not really that important.
Chapter Twelve
We all just gape at her. Let’s hear it for brainpower. Even Muraki looks totally poleaxed, and on his face, that’s a pretty amusing expression. Tsubaki-hime just smiles prettily at all of us, then offers Muraki a flower. A camilla, of course. My brain is shutting down from the shock of this.
Sure, somewhere deep down I know it’s all in my head. All in our heads. The figure took on something that would have meaning to all three of us. So why am I quaking in my metaphorical boots, wondering if she’s going to be mad about my shooting her? Which I wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the fact that she would have died anyway.
She can’t be here. Even if she somehow had wound up in Hell -- and I won’t believe that, I won’t, I won’t -- then she couldn’t be here. No damned souls in the Arechi no Shisou.
I can only hope that Muraki and Tsuzuki remember that too.
“Are you the Gatekeeper?” I ask her hesitantly.
She laughs, a light, lingering laugh that I remember painfully well, even though I only heard it a couple times. “Do you see a gate?”
“If you aren’t the Gatekeeper, what are you?” I ask.
Tsubaki-hime just shrugs. Then she reaches out and caresses my face briefly, then moves on to Tsuzuki. “You shall be first,” she (it?) proclaims, and pulls Tsuzuki a few steps forward.
Whatever is inside you, that makes you weakest. Muraki and I can only stand there, watching Tsuzuki blink helplessly at her, trying vaguely to prepare himself.
Tsubaki-hime’s form molds and shifts, apparently taking on some other form that is unique to Tsuzuki. I wait apprehensively to see what that will be. After a moment, it splits in two, and morphs until there are two high-school girls standing in front of Tsuzuki. I remember them, though not their names. The two girls from Kyoto. Mariko and . . . Maki? I’m not sure. And I feel horrible for not remembering, but it was nearly a year ago.
Muraki is watching them impassively. I wouldn’t bet money that he even recognizes them.
What do they represent?
Tsuzuki’s inner weakness . . .
“Murderer,” Mariko says softly, her voice deathly calm. “You killed us.”
Tsuzuki stares at them and shakes his head. “No . . . I . . .”
It isn’t fair. Muraki killed the first, and the death of the second was an accident that Muraki engineered. Tsuzuki was trying to save them, not to hurt them! And certainly not to kill them!
//I . . . I don’t want to be a killer anymore . . .//
I start forward, trying to think of something I can say to help him, when I realize that I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t even use my empathy to help him. I’m frozen in place; there’s nothing I can do. Somehow, he has to get through this on his own.
“You have killed hundreds,” Maki says, and her form shifts and we’re presented with Maria Wong. Apparently Muraki recognizes her; I can feel a flare of emotion from him. Confusion more than anything else. So my empathy still works. I can feel what Tsuzuki is feeling, but I can’t project.
“You even kill those you were trying to help,” a tiny, chirpy voice states, and I stare around wildly to see Kazusa, clutching a teddy bear in her arms.
“Because that is what you are, Tsuzuki,” a sad voice drifts over. I don’t remember his name. The teacher from St. Michael’s, that Tsuzuki was friends with, in a weird sort of way. He was so upset when he died; I remember that. “You are nothing more than a murderer. What makes you think you have a right to live?”
“I . . . because I . . .” Tsuzuki’s voice is faint, and he’s gone to his knees. I can tell he’s losing this inner battle with himself. He believes what the shadows are telling him. Shadows of death. Because we die if we cannot defeat the shadow of ourselves.
I hate it when things suddenly become clear.
“Because . . . Hisoka . . .”
That’s it, Tsuzuki, think of me, remember me. Remember what I said to you earlier, come on, Tsuzuki . . . you can do this, I know you can . . .
There’s an ugly laugh, and someone I don’t recognize is standing in front of Tsuzuki now. Well, that stands to reason; he’s been a Shinigami far longer than me. I can’t recognize everyone he has to face. “Oh, yes, your darling Hisoka,” the man snarls. “You get to go on and be happy, but we all had to die! Because of you!”
“No!” Tsuzuki cries desperately, trying to stand up. “I didn’t mean to -- !” But the man kicks him in the stomach, sending him back to his knees.
“You killed all of us!” the voices clamor, and the figure continues to split exponentially. Two becomes four, four becomes eight, eight becomes sixteen. There’s a sea of disembodied voices. You killed me, you killed us, you have no right to be happy. Tsuzuki’s guilt and grief tears at me like a living thing, and there’s nothing I can do.
“What right do you have?” Mariko asks sweetly. “After everything you’ve done, what right do you have to love?”
Tsuzuki looks up at her, and I can see the tears streaming down his face. “Because . . . I make Hisoka happy . . .”
There’s a moment of perfect silence, like all the spirits are holding their breath. Then, abruptly, the figures melt and snap back into one. Another figure I don’t recognize. “How can you possibly make him happy?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Tsuzuki says honestly, and there’s strength in his voice that wasn’t there before. “But I do. And that isn’t mine to question.”
I hear her laugh gently, and I’m abruptly released of my paralysis. I stumble forward, pulling Tsuzuki into an embrace. He’s crying, just a little, and hides his face in my shoulder.
“It is done,” the woman intones softly. “He may pass.” Her gaze shifts to Muraki, and I feel the paralysis return. I get to go last. Goody for me!
Muraki just looks back calmly, apparently waiting for whatever’s coming. And what is coming? This ought to be interesting. I’ve never really wondered about Muraki’s inner weaknesses, so I suppose it would be mean to gloat that I’m going to find them out.
More specifically, what’s going to happen during my turn? That’s what I should be thinking about. But my brain seems to have frozen and I can’t come up with a damn thing. The woman just smiles rather mysteriously and seems to melt into the background.
And who should stride out of the darkness but that man we all know and love, Shindou Saki. Lucky Muraki gets a second chance to kill him, even though it won’t really be him.
Or will it? The spectres that haunted Tsuzuki gave off no empathic presence of their own, but Saki does. I think it’s probably really him. He followed us here. For this purpose? Maybe. Damned souls can’t come into the Arechi no Shisou, though. So that must mean . . .
Muraki is having similar thoughts, though he’s only giving his half-brother a cool look. “Were you a demon the whole time?” he asks quietly.
Saki laughs, a grating sound that wears at my already worn nerves. “No,” he says. “But if you can impress the right demons once you get here, you can ascend.”
“Is that what you call it?” Muraki asks, and his voice is deadly calm, but I can hear the rage straining behind it. “Ascending?”
Saki laughs. “My poor, dear, brother. All your miserable little life you’ve hated me. Ever since we met. It never even occurred to you that you were turning into me, did it? You’d be a good demon, and probably get chosen for the honor, if you ever died and ended up here. All that time you were trying to resurrect me, I was here.” He laughs again. “You’re lucky you didn’t manage it; there would’ve been quite a surprise waiting for you after you’d gotten me into the new body.”
Muraki is so angry that I’m seeing red just from my proximity to him, but trying not to cut myself off from his mind. If he’s going to break, I want to know -- not that I think there’s anything that any of us could do about it.
“I . . . was not . . . turning into you,” Muraki finally drags out from between clenched teeth.
“Oh, please,” Saki says disdainfully. “To have your revenge on me, you turned into a callous murderer. You don’t even remember the people you’ve killed; there’s so much blood on your hands. And all for your ‘cause’. You’ve twisted yourself to the point that you can’t love, and don’t even recognize love when you see it.”
I feel a brief flash of startlement from Tsuzuki, but somehow I don’t think Saki is referring to him. He’s talking about Oriya.
“Shut up,” Muraki whispers.
“You’ve betrayed all you hold dear,” Saki continues, as if Muraki hadn’t even spoken. “The only friend you have merely stays with you out of some sense of deranged loyalty. You’ve given up everything, become what you most despise, and yet when you finally find me, you can’t even manage to harm a hair on my head.”
“You ran!” Muraki, for the first time I’ve ever seen him, loses his cool. It’s not a pretty sight, and I hope I never see it again. “You ran like the pathetic coward that you are! I could have killed you!”
“And that would’ve just been the last step,” Saki sneers. “By killing me, you would’ve merely taken my place.”
“That isn’t true!” Muraki yells.
“You know it is,” Saki says with an elegant shrug. “Or it wouldn’t bother you anywhere near as much.”
Muraki snarls something incoherent and launches himself at his brother. Apparently, the move takes Saki offguard, because they go down in a tangle of limbs and anger. I can’t even see which one of them is which in the thick of the fight.
Finally, the movement stops. Saki has Muraki pinned to the ground, his hands around Muraki’s throat. As strange as it seems, I don’t want Muraki to die here.
“Pathetic,” Saki whispers. “That’s what you are, brother. Pathetic.”
Muraki just stares up at him.
“Don’t you even care that I’m going to kill you?” Saki finally asks.
Muraki looks up. “No,” he finally says.
“Why not?” Saki asks, apparently nonplussed by this.
“Because one of us has to die,” Muraki finally says. “I’ve known that since you killed our father. And if what you say is true, if I can’t kill you without becoming you, I’d rather die. Thanks.”
Tsuzuki and I just stare.
Saki slowly lifts his hands from Muraki’s throat and stands up.
“You aren’t going to kill me?” Muraki asks.
Saki gives him a rather bitter smile. “It’s forbidden to kill someone undergoing the trial of Arechi no Shisou until it’s judged that they failed.”
“Oh,” Muraki says vaguely. Then he shrugs slightly. “In that case.” He pulls out a single ofuda from his pocket and flicks it casually into the air. It lands squarely on Saki’s chest.
It’s rather like watching an action movie in fast forward. Saki just stares at it dumbly for a second, then I see a wisp of smoke. Then everything’s happening at once, and he’s burning and burning and burning. His screams echo in the plain, and the terror of his soul rips through me until I’m shaking in Tsuzuki’s arms, despite the paralysis that holds me still.
And then he’s gone. Soul and all. Dissolved and sent . . . nowhere. Because there was nothing left to send.
Now it’s my turn. Peachy.
I feel myself pulled by some invisible force, out of Tsuzuki’s arms and upright. I take a few steps forward, and then, abruptly, both Muraki and Tsuzuki vanish. I’m too confused to think about what it means, but it occurs to me that I might have disappeared for them during their tests.
“And you . . .” The woman sighs and steps back out of the shadows, but her form has morphed again and she looks . . . like . . . my mother. “You’re a tough one, you know that? Always have been.” Her voice has taken on the sharp, disapproving tone that I’m so painfully familiar with.
I just stand there and wait, not knowing if there’s anything I should be doing or can do.
“Your greatest weakness . . . is also your greatest strength.” She gives me a confused look.
Ah, that would be Tsuzuki, then. Her next words confirm my thoughts.
“When you lose him . . . it is as if the world ends for you.” She crosses her arms over her chest and glares. “You’re damn near unable to function without him. Yet . . . your love for him brought you through five levels of Hell. I don’t understand.” She shakes her head, annoyed. “I can’t test you with that. But . . . there’s really nothing else?”
“So I can’t be tested?” I stare at her, confused. And hoping really hard that it doesn’t mean I can’t go through at all.
She shrugs. “Your test will come later. Most likely when you least expect it.”
And then she’s gone.
Tsuzuki pulls me into a hug, and I can feel how terrified he is. “You were just . . . you just disappeared,” he blurts out, holding me tightly.
I smooth his hair. “Shh, I’m okay.” Which may or may not be true. The spectre’s words weren’t very comforting. Not that they were supposed to be, or like there’s anything else I can do about it.
“Is it done, then?” Muraki asks, sounding hazy.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Oh good.” He falls forward, flat onto his face. I can tell from where I’m standing that he passed out, and I’m not particularly surprised. The strength of that spell he used must have taken it right out of him.
“Can we rest?” Tsuzuki whispers, but he’s already sinking to the ground. I’m bone weary, and I can’t see any way to get moving again. I let him pull me down with him, and barely have time to register the ground before I’m asleep.
~~~~
I don’t know how long it is before I wake to Tsuzuki shaking me slightly. I snap back to consciousness. There’s a haze of cold on the edge of my senses. “Ryuushi’s coming,” I blurt out. Tsuzuki pales, and I wish for the thousandth time that I could control my mouth. He didn’t really need to know that.
“Let’s get moving,” Muraki says, and he’s up and looking better than he has in days. I feel better, too, though certainly not back up to par. “The trial will slow him down. It can’t be much farther now.”
“But Ryuushi said it would take a full day, and we didn’t walk that long,” I say, though I’m not arguing with the first part of the statement. We’re all walking again before we’ve really processed what’s going on. The fog has lifted somewhat, and we can see each other again.
“True,” Tsuzuki says thoughtfully. “But if that entire demon army had needed to undergo the trial, that would have taken a long time. Especially since it seems it has to be done one person -- well, spirit -- at a time.”
That’s a good point, and we continue on with somewhat lifted spirits. The fact that the fog is gone and that we’re almost to the exit is making us all pretty cheerful. “Won’t Ryuushi just follow us out?” I finally ask, hesitant to break the mood.
“Probably,” Tsuzuki says. “But he’ll be weak now, and he can’t really hurt us. Well, he’s still probably got enough strength to do some basic ‘jitsu . . . but I’m not sure he’ll want to leave Hell. He’d risk the Shinigami capturing him again.”
“Like they’re going to capture us,” I can’t help but mutter. Tsuzuki gives me a disapproving look. “Where does the gateway spill out into Chijou?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” Tsuzuki says. “There are probably several places, like there are several entrances. Or maybe it’s thought commanded . . . I really don’t know. We’ll just have to see once we get there.”
And we plod on for what seems like an eternity. Ryuushi’s coldness keeps wavering on the edge of my sense. He’s close, but not too close. And he doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. I suppose he can’t go much faster than us. Then again, he’s probably counting on the Gatekeeper to delay us. Don’t ask me what we’re going to do about that.
“There . . .” Tsuzuki breathes out, and I see a large arch in the distance. There are characters carved into the black marble that I don’t recognize. But apparently Tsuzuki does.
It takes nearly another hour to get there.
The arch leads out onto a narrow, rocky path. We can see a tiny bit of light at the end of it. The light at the end of the tunnel. An oncoming train? I sure hope not. We start towards it, but predictably find ourselves again locked into place. We can talk now, though. I hear Muraki breathe out a soft curse.
“You cannot pass.”
The voice isn’t what I expected it to be. Not firm and foreboding. Just a small, timid voice, weak nearly to the point of being inaudible.
“But -- ” Tsuzuki begins, and then his voice stops as the Gatekeeper emerges from the shadows.
She’s tiny, a woman of no more than my height. I’d guess she’s in her mid-twenties, younger than Tsuzuki and Muraki. Her hair is brown and matted, reaching to her waist, and her clothes are tattered, hanging off her. She looks so weak that she can barely stand, and from what I can see of her arms, she’s thinner than can possibly be good for her. Her face is hollow, and her eyes . . .
Her eyes are a deep brown, and they look like you could fall into them forever.
Tentatively, I reach out and try to touch her mind --
but her pain screams at me so loudly that I’m forced to close her out before I lose my mind.
“You have to let us out,” Tsuzuki says insistently.
She shakes her head. “Can’t. Can’t.” Her voice is hollow, terrified. “He knows. He knows everything.”
“Who does?” I find myself free of the paralysis and walk up to her. We could get by her, almost certainly, but we’re trapped by something far stronger. Compassion.
She looks at Tsuzuki and shakes her head. “He’d hurt me if I let you pass . . .”
What is she? She isn’t a demon, that’s for damned sure. But then, what? I hold onto Tsuzuki to steady my mind and reach out for hers again. It’s hard, but I manage to hang onto it for a few seconds.
I stare at her. “You . . .”
She cringes away from me.
“Hey, we’re not going to hurt you,” Tsuzuki says gently, and reaches out to touch her shoulder. She keeps cringing. Tsuzuki looks at me questioningly.
I can hardly speak. “Tsuzuki . . . she’s human. She’s alive.”
Tsuzuki blinks at me. “Then why on earth is she here?”
“Punishment. Punishment.” She rocks back and forth, hugging her knees to her chest. “He was mad. He knows everything.”
Tsuzuki continues to look at me, and I shrug helplessly. “Why don’t we take you with us?” Tsuzuki finally asks her, unsure if there’s anything else that we can do. I second the motion, nodding vigorously.
“Can’t,” she says, shaking her head. “Can’t leave. He rips at my soul . . . ties it here. Can’t leave.”
Tsuzuki looks at Muraki and me. “Is there any way to tell if that’s true?” he asks us.
Muraki snorts. “Of course it’s true. She’s standing here guarding the gate. If she could leave, she would have by now.”
I have to admit that he has a point.
“Tried,” she whispered. “Tried once. Hurt. Hurt so bad.”
“What if . . .” I swallow hard. The cold of Ryuushi is growing stronger. We don’t have much time. “What if we killed you?” Tsuzuki gives me a horrified look, but I ignore him. “Would you be free then?” God only knows how she’s staying alive down here anyway; there must be some spell set on her.
She shakes her head. “Trapped here. Punishment. He knows everything.”
Tsuzuki looks at me.
“I’m going into her mind,” I say softly. “Tsuzuki, you’re going to have to be my anchor, or I’ll get lost.”
He nods and takes my hand.
Just a light touch is enough to send me spiralling out of control.
//nothing but shattered glass//
I pull out quickly, and take a deep breath. That alone was enough to know that this poor woman, whoever she is, has gone totally insane. I’m not particularly surprised. I probably would be too in her position. “Let me try again,” I say to Tsuzuki’s worried look.
Slide into her mind.
// “WHERE IS HE?” //
oh God
so much fear
// “I can make you pay for this, you witch! I can make you suffer, now tell me! Tell me what you’ve done with him!” //
She’s
I know who she is
// “I can use you the way I would have used him” //
trapped into a tiny space and forced through, shatter shatter glass everywhere and there’s nothing left but shattered glass the ruins of a shattered mind only able to feel pain and fear nothing left
I pull out of her mind and gasp for breath, clinging to Tsuzuki. “She’s -- oh God, she’s -- ”
“Shhh.” Tsuzuki holds me tightly. The cold is starting to numb my sense. He’s close, he’s so close. How much time when by while I was in your mind. “What is she, Hisoka?”
I swallow hard. “She’s your mother.”
He stares at me.
“Ryuushi . . . was mad at her for taking you away . . . tried to use her to break down the barrier instead. It . . . it shattered her mind. He left her here to guard the Gate, and put a spell on her so she wouldn’t age or die, and can’t leave Hell.”
I can feel his shock seeping through me, but we need to go, God damn it.
“Kaasan . . .?” Tsuzuki says questioningly, reaching out to touch her face.
She flinches away. “No can’t he hurts me he . . .” She breaks off and looks away.
“Is there any way to fix it?” Tsuzuki asks. “Or at least break the spell so she can leave?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know of any way to break the spell, and we just don’t have time to fix her here. Even if we knew how.”
“There is one way to break the spell,” Muraki says softly.
Tsuzuki and I both look at him.
“What do you think?” Tsuzuki asks me.
“Do it,” I say softly. “If you could touch her mind . . .you would understand.”
Tsuzuki takes his mother by the arms. “How do we operate the gate?” he asks her.
She blinks at him. “Can’t tell you!” She bursts into laughter, ringing in my ears. High-pitched, hysterical laughter.
“Please!” He yells. “Please, tell us and . . . and we’ll end this pain . . .”
“No rest for the weary,” she murmurs, slumping into his arms. “No rest for me. Can’t get out. Can’t get out.”
“Trust me,” Tsuzuki says, staring into her eyes. “Trust me, we can. We’ll make it stop hurting.”
She stares up at him for a long minute. “There’s a lever . . .” For the first time, her voice sounds coherent. “Down is out. Up is trapped.” She giggles. “But be careful, because he’s coming, and he can just pull it up. Trapped in Hell, just like me.”
“We’re out of time,” I say. The cold is making my throat close over and my body shake. “Do it, Muraki.”
Tsuzuki kisses his mother’s forehead and steps away. Then he goes over to the wall to find the lever, not wanting to see. I understand that much. Muraki makes no objection to my giving him orders, but takes out his ofuda.
She doesn’t make any noise as she burns. Just, at the end, there’s a relieved sigh as her soul dissipates.
“The lever’s down,” Tsuzuki says. “We’d better run.”
The three of us stumble along the rocky path. We’re about halfway down it when we see the door start to close. Ryuushi must have pulled the lever the other way. We don’t say anything, just run faster.
Tsuzuki reaches the door first and ducks through it, then starts pushing on it, trying to keep it open. As the one with shortest legs, of course I’m last in line, which doesn’t make me too happy. Muraki squeezes through the door, and I’m only a few feet behind him.
I hear a shout from behind me and the ground ripples underneath me, throwing me off my feet. Tsuzuki lets out an alarmed cry, and I see him trying to holding the door open.
I wonder what’s on the other side?
And get just a glimpse of Muraki pulling him through, keeping him from being crushed as the door swings shut.
I’m so cold . . .
Scramble to my feet and turn to face Ryuushi. His anger is so cold, and it’s making his eyes burn.
Tsuzuki and I trapped on opposite sides of a door. Purple eyes glowing red.
//And then . . . the world caught fire.//
This is not good.
I back up until I’m backed against the door, then Ryuushi’s fingers twitch and I realize I can’t move. So he does still have enough magic to do basic ‘jitsu. Good to know. Needless to say, all this thinking is being done by the part of my brain which is not screaming in terror.
“Well, well, well,” Ryuushi says softly. “What have we here.”
Pressed up against the door, I can feel Tsuzuki on the other side. Feel his panic and denial. Feel him all through me.
“You know, this works out very well,” Ryuushi purrs, a smile on his face. “I was going to have the army destroy Asato utterly, but . . . maybe this is better. Because now I have you instead . . . the one thing in the world he cares most about.”
He leans close, and I can feel his breath against my ear. Try to contain the part of me that’s panicking. “I can destroy you,” he whispers. “And I will. But I’ll do it slowly. I’ll do it so slowly that you’ll go insane from it long before I ever let you go. I will reduce your mind to nothing but so much ashes, and all the while . . . using your power . . . I will return to what I was.”
There are no wings, now. Not even the skeletal ones. Funny, I’d gotten so used to seeing Tsuzuki’s that Ryuushi looks strange without them.
“I will feed off you until you’re nothing more than a broken little shell of what you are,” he says viciously, and I can feel his teeth sink into my ear. Blood. All my power. “And then I’ll return that husk to Asato . . . and he’ll know that he’s the cause of this . . . that because of him, the one he loved was erased forever . . . because even if you died, your mind would never recover from what I can do to it.”
// “HISOKA!” //
My head snaps around, fighting the paralysis Ryuushi put on it. I can feel Tsuzuki . . . so much that I can hear him . . . which means he probably knows exactly everything Ryuushi just said.
// “Synch with me!” //
Synch with him. He can use my body to use his powers. He can --
set the world on fire.
// “Hisoka, please!” //
But he can’t, my mind -- my mind isn’t strong enough to withstand that much power, it would collapse under the strain like his mother’s did. So much broken glass.
Wouldn’t that be better than leaving myself to Ryuushi?
it’s all happening so fast I can’t think, can’t make decisions
// “PLEASE, HISOKA!” //
his mind battering at mine, pleading to be let in, to have control
There is no other way.
// “SYNCH WITH ME!” //
Close my eyes.
Open my mind.
Let Tsuzuki in.
Spread my arms wide to embrace the world, and together, Tsuzuki and I unleash Hell.
~~~~
Chapter Thirteen
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