Chapter Fourteen
It takes me so long to manage a full level of consciousness that I think I’m awake for a good hour or so before it really sinks in. I still feel all fuzzy. Hazy. The last -- how long? -- is nothing but a blur. Everything after the doorway through the dimension closed is disjointed, like I was watching it through --
through shattered glass?
Force my eyes open. It takes a minute to focus, and I just sort of look around the room. Slowly adding together the pieces. Wooden walls. Wooden ceiling. Bed. Blankets. I’m very cold. Even though I can feel the weight of the blankets on top of me, they’re not doing anything to take away the chill.
I can only think of one place that I’ve been in that’s totally made out of wood, still, or at least looks like it is. Ko Kaku Rou. We’re back at Oriya’s.
Continue to look around. Akimiya is sitting in a bed beside my chair, reading. He hasn’t noticed that I’m awake. And lord, does he ever look terrible. I mean, the bags under his eyes are truly impressive.I can’t help but wonder why he’s still conscious.
Right, try to muster up the energy to speak. I feel totally drained. But then again, I suppose I probably am. After what Ryuushi did to me, then getting through the Arechi no Shisou, then getting out of Hell -- not that I remember very clearly how we did that . . . I manage to make a little cough, and Akimiya nearly falls out of his chair.
His face splits into a wide grin when he sees me looking at him. “Hey, you’re finally awake!” He sounds damn near overjoyed. Really, Akimiya, I didn’t know you cared. At least, not that much. “We’ve all been really worried.”
“What . . .” I have to cough again before I can manage to talk. “What happened?”
He waves this aside. “I’ll get to that in a minute. You must be exhausted. Do you want anything?”
I consider this. “Cold,” I finally manage. “I’m so cold.”
He nods slightly. “I’m really not surprised. We figured when you were unconscious it didn’t really matter, but -- ” He catches my glare and laughs slightly. “Let me get you some more blankets and some tea. Are you hungry?”
I shake my head. I might be if I had a little more energy, but not now.
“Okay. You’ll have to eat something soon, but not right now. I’ll be right back.” He walks out of the room and returns a few minutes later with two blankets slung over one arm and a cup of tea in his hand. He puts the tea on a side table and spreads the blankets over me, then helps me sit up and holds the mug at my lips. I hate feeling like an invalid, but I can’t deny how weak I am.
The tea is so hot it nearly burns my tongue, but once I’ve got it down, I finally warm up a little from the inside out.
Akimiya helps me lie down again. “You should get some more sleep,” he says. “Real sleep, not this catatonic shit that you’ve been pulling.”
Hm, interesting. I sure don’t remember being catatonic. But I suppose if I’d been here to remember it, I wouldn’t have been catatonic, would I. Few questions before I sleep again, though. “Tsuzuki . . .?”
“He’s here,” Akimiya says with a reassuring nod. “Not right here, though. Tatsumi-san took him out for a while, I think to try to cheer him up. Or at least distract him. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for days; it’s been really hard on him. He’ll be back by the next time you wake up.”
“How long was I . . .” Was I what? I can’t finish the question, because I don’t know what the second half of it should be.
“Well, you got out of Hell about two weeks ago now,” Akimiya says, and my eyes nearly fall out of my head. It’s been two weeks? “But . . . well, it’s kind of complicated and I’m not going to explain it right now. Now that you’re awake, I’m going to get some sleep.”
“You need it,” I grumble, and I can feel myself drifting off again. Wait, just have to stay awake a little longer. Two more questions. Shake myself. “Muraki?”
“He’s here too.” Akimiya’s nose wrinkles. “He was pretty badly hurt, but Watari helped him out once Tsuzuki said it was okay.”
I don’t remember Muraki being hurt, but I guess that’s one of the things that Akimiya can explain once we’re both awake. “And Ryuushi?”
Akimiya shrugs. “It’s anyone’s guess. Odds are pretty good that he was disintegrated by that blast at such close range. Especially since he had just been so badly wounded earlier. Even if he wasn’t killed, he won’t be bothering any of us for a long, long time. So don’t worry about it.”
Close my eyes. “Thought he still had me.”
“It’s okay, Hisoka,” Akimiya says quietly. “You’re safe now.”
Safe. So I fall asleep again.
~~~~
When I wake up again, I feel much more alert, though I still can’t really move much. I guess energy returns first to the mind, then to the body. Good to know for future reference. Akimiya is again sitting in the chair next to my bed, but the dark circles under his eyes are less pronounced. I guess he really must have gotten some sleep.
“Akimiya?”
He glances over at me and smiles a little. “Hey. How are you feeling?”
I analyze and come to a few conclusions. “Still cold, ravenously hungry, and I want Tsuzuki.” Oops. That last part sort of fell out of my mouth.
“Well, you’re not going to thank me, then, because I can only get you one out of three,” Akimiya says dryly. “You have every spare blanket that Oriya-san owns, and Tsuzuki is asleep.”
“Go get him,” I say stubbornly.
“I would,” Akimiya says thoughtfully, “but I don’t dare. See, he’s barely slept since you got here. Worried about you and all. And Tatsumi-san finally got him to fall asleep late last night, and told us that if anyone woke him for any reason less than the Apocalypse, he would personally disembowel them with their own shadow.”
I blink at him. Then snicker. “Tatsumi must be having a bad day.”
Akimiya sighs. “We’ve all been having bad days, Hisoka. It’s been a very long two weeks. I’ll go get you some soup.” He walks out of the room and is gone for about five minutes, then comes back upstairs with a bowl of soup in his hands. Oriya is lurking behind him, carrying a mug of tea.
“Yo,” he greets me.
Right. Brain, function. “Hi.”
“Gave us all quite a scare there, kiddo,” he says.
I manage a weak smile. I’d like to argue with his use of the word ‘kiddo,’ but seeing as I’m relying on his hospitality, don’t dare. “How’s Muraki?”
Oriya shrugs and sets the tea down on the end table. “He’ll live. Takes more than that to get him down.”
Which reminds me, I still don’t know exactly what happened to Muraki. Or, for that matter, to me. “Ah.” That’s about all I can say. Oriya smirks at me and leaves the room.
Akimiya helps me sit up and props me up with a few pillows. Unfortunately for my dignity, he has to feed me the soup. My arms aren’t quite up to working yet. It’s really good, kind of a Chinese type of soup. Like wonton soup, except the noodles are really small so I can swallow without really chewing.
“Oriya-san made it,” Akimiya tells me, seeing my questioning look. “He says all he’s been doing all week is being nursemaid. Don’t be too impressed, though; I think it was canned or dried or something.”
I can’t help but laugh. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”
“It isn’t a pretty story,” Akimiya warns me.
I give him a look. “Well, duh.”
He laughs. “Where should I start?”
“The last thing I remember is the doorway to Hell closing with me still inside,” I say, and frown slightly. “And Ryuushi . . .” A shiver runs through my body, and Akimiya thoughtfully gives me a minute to compose myself before aiming another spoonful of soup at my mouth.
“You don’t remember what Tsuzuki did?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. Then frown. “He . . . set the world on fire.”
Akimiya nods slightly. “He channeled his power through you,” he says, as if this is something that happens every day. “Synchronized with you and used your body to unleash that . . .” His voice trails off as he searches for the right word. Muraki called it a maelstrom, but that doesn’t really seem right. Then Akimiya shrugs. “Anyway, Ryuushi was presumably killed in the ensuing destruction, the barrier between Hell and Chijou was collapsed, and you lost your mind.”
I look at him. “Start at the second part of that sentence. If the barrier had collapsed, wouldn’t they have merged?”
He shrugs. “You didn’t destroy it wholesale, the way Ryuushi was trying to. It’s just like you tore a section out of the wall. And I’m sure a lot of demons would’ve rushed through the hole, if the blast hadn’t killed everything within a fifty-mile radius. On both sides, so it’s damned lucky that it was in an empty part of the coutryside.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Anyway, we were already waiting, but no one you know was at that exit. There’s more than one, you know. Ryuushi must have used that one because it was the closest to his home base. Of course, we all rushed there and patched up the hole.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Interdimensional spackle?” I ask skeptically.
He grins. “Don’t ask me how they did it.”
“So what then?” I ask.
“Well, everyone thought you were done for. The gate had collapsed right on top of you. And Tsuzuki kind of lost it and started digging through the rubble.”
“If the blast killed everything in a fifty-mile radius . . .” I say slowly.
Akimiya nods. “Since Tsuzuki was standing right behind you, so to speak, it probably would have killed him too. But Muraki knocked him down; that’s how he wound up getting injured. The blast caught him in the back.”
I give this due consideration, then nod for him to continue. Somehow, nothing Muraki does will surprise me anymore.
“Anyway, Tsuzuki was digging through and managed to pull you out. Tatsumi-san and I went to help him, and you were unconscious, but you were in one piece, so we thought you might be okay. But then . . . you opened your eyes and looked around a little, and started to babble. I mean, making absolutely no sense babbling. Tsuzuki . . . he reached out and touched your face, called your name . . . and you started screaming. Really, all out wailing.
“Tatsumi-san sort of turned away, and he told me later he knew then that your mind had been shattered by the power that had gone through it. Tsuzuki didn’t seem to understand, though. He just kept calling your name, getting more and more hysterical, and you just kept screaming.” Akimiya shudders a little. “It was . . . it was really bad. Tatsumi-san finally had to pull Tsuzuki away from you just so you’d shut up.
“We didn’t know where to take you, since you weren’t really Shinigami anymore and we sure weren’t bringing Muraki to the Meifu, but Tsuzuki said he’d saved his life. Tsuzuki was coherent long enough to tell us to bring the two of you here, which we did, and called Watari to come look at the two of you.”
He pauses in silence for a minute. The bowl of soup is empty, and he folds his hands in his lap. “Are you still hungry?”
“Yes, but I want the rest of the story more than food,” I tell him. I’m dying to find out what happened.
“Well . . . Watari came and checked you out, and told Tatsumi-san and I that there was really nothing he could do for you. Tatsumi-san broke the news to Tsuzuki, and then, from what I can tell, spent the rest of the night trying to keep him from throwing himself off a bridge or coming to some equally unpleasant end.
“They would have just sent you on, but . . .” Akimiya hesitates and bites his lip. “But I didn’t want them to.”
I stare at him. “You what?”
“I just . . .” He shifts uncomfortably. “I just didn’t want you to go without being able to say goodbye to any of us. Anyway, Tatsumi-san said he’d give you a week, but if you hadn’t showed any progress, he would take you back to the Meifu and see you on. So I said okay. You had stopped babbling and just gone into catatonia, but then on the third night you had this massive screaming fit and Watari sedated you.
“So I figured you were asleep, I can go into sleeping people’s minds, so I did.”
I continue to stare. “Don’t you have any idea how dangerous that is?” I ask incredulously, thinking back to when I was locked into Tsuzuki’s mother’s mind.
He shrugs, looking away. “Well, yeah, but . . . I had to try, you know? I couldn’t just let you go. And anyway, your mind was just totally dark and empty, but the floor was . . . covered with shattered glass. I didn’t get it, so I reached down for a piece.”
“Shards of broken glass,” I murmur. “Memories.”
He nods. “Yeah. Since I was there, your mind had taken on a physical representation -- thus the glass. Whenever I picked it up, I saw a part of your Self. So I figured hell, I’d just put it all back together again. And I tried, I really, really did.” He shrugs. “But I couldn’t; there was too much that I didn’t know where it went.
“Tatsumi-san had finally gotten Tsuzuki to fall asleep, so I pulled him in and asked him if he thought he could help. And he sort of blinked at me for a minute, then started sorting the glass. And together, the two of us managed to do it. Took us damn near a week just to get the pieces sorted, then three more days to put them all together in the right order. There were a few that even Tsuzuki didn’t know where they went, but you know with a jigsaw puzzle, once you get to the end you can fit them in by shape.”
I nod slightly.
“So we got it all put together. You hadn’t moved or spoken since Watari had sedated you that first time, but when I came back out of your mind, your eyes were still closed. And it looked like you were really sleeping. So we figured maybe with a few days to rest and regain your energy, you’d be back.
“But it didn’t happen. So I went back in and found that all the glass was starting to separate. I managed to shove it all back together, and then I asked Tatsumi-san about it. He said that none of us are really more than the sum of our memories, but that we’re held together by our essence, our soul. And that’s what was missing. That your soul wasn’t there anymore.”
He takes a few deep breaths and takes a sip of the tea that’s supposed to be mine, then realizes it and holds it out to me. I let him hold it to my lips for a minute impatiently. “Anyway, I dragged Tsuzuki back in, and told him to just call to you. Which he did. God . . .” Akimiya pushes his hair out of his face. “He stood there for hours on end, just calling to you. I thought I was going to cry just listening to him. But nothing he said helped. Finally, he turned to me and said he couldn’t do it. That your soul was gone, and he was the one who had killed it. And then he started to cry, so now I’m thinking crap, so I yanked Tatsumi-san in.”
“And he started to yell at me,” I say suddenly. Akimiya blinks at me. “That’s . . . the only thing I remember from the whole time. Tatsumi screaming that I was being a selfish little brat for leaving Tsuzuki on his own like this. That was when I knew it was safe to come out. Because Ryuushi could have been faking the rest, could have pulled it from my mind . . .” I laughed slightly. “But my imagination could never come up with Tatsumi screaming.”
Akimiya laughs slightly. “Yeah. When Tatsumi-san finished yelling, the pieces just all . . . snapped into place and sealed together. Then you . . . just sort of rose up through the glass that had just sealed, without breaking it. And you pulled Tsuzuki into a hug, then looked at Tatsumi-san and I and said you were tired. Then I woke up. You booted the three of us right out of your mind.”
He shrugs. “That was two days before you woke up last time. We’d been waiting, and hoping . . . but it’s been really hard for Tsuzuki.”
I nod. I can sense him in the back of the mind, our link back in place the way it always was. He’s definitely asleep, and I won’t bother him. “Can I have some more soup now?”
“Sure,” Akimiya says, and gets up to get some. He returns another minute later with a refilled bowl and helps me eat it in silence.
“Thanks,” I finally say quietly.
He grins at me. “Hey, that’s what partners are for.”
// “Because . . . you’re my partner.” //
“How long am I going to be an invalid?” I ask, trying not to sound too annoyed with that fact.
“Not sure,” Akimiya says. “You’ve obviously been concentrating all your energy towards trying to put your mind back together, so I don’t know how long it’ll take you to get back up to par now that you don’t have to worry about it. But I’d say at least another week in bed for you.”
“Great,” I mutter.
~~~~
Akimiya brings me a book and I read for a while, but I drift off back to sleep pretty quickly. It surprises me how much sleep I still seem to need, but I guess that it makes sense after what happened. To judge by the amount of light coming through the window, it’s evening when I wake up again. The room is empty except for me. I wonder if Akimiya went home, to Rika.
But more importantly, I can feel Tsuzuki lingering on the edge of my senses. He’s awake now, and close by, and I want to see him more than anything. A quick test of movement reveals that I’m not going anywhere. So he’ll have to come to me, which is a bit of a trick since I can’t send anyone to get him.
So I take hold of the link and give it a little tug. My empathy isn’t doing much for me at the moment -- other people in the house are hazy, like they’re very far away -- but my bond with him is just as strong as ever. Maybe even stronger. You can’t do something like synch through a dimensional wall without there being consequences.
At my mental touch, I feel a surge of emotions from him -- and not the ones I was hoping for. Yes, there is love, and yes, there is relief that I’m okay, but they’re both drowned by a wave of guilt and fear. I frown and give the link a harder tug. He won’t be able to ignore that. Struggle into a sitting position, propping myself up against the headboard.
The door opens a minute later and he peeks in, looking apprehensive. God, why is he torturing himself like this? Doesn’t he know I’m glad to see him?
I do the only thing I can; give him a warm smile and a “Konban wa, Tsuzuki.”
He flinches inwardly, and walks into the room, shutting the door beside him. “How are you feeling?” he asks, and takes the chair next to my bed. This isn’t the way I pictured our cute little reunion going. For one thing, I want a hug, damn it.
“I’m fine. Tired, but fine.” I give him a critical look. “What’s wrong with you?” I’m too tired to not be blunt. Whatever strange thing he’s gotten into his head, now I’m going to have to talk him out of it. In general, no fun.
“Nothing!” He immediately gifts me with his huge, genki smile. I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I’m fine, and now that you’re fine we’ll both be fine and do you want anything to eat? I could get cookies if you wanted and -- ”
“Tsuzuki,” I interrupt gently. “You remember that whole empathic link we have?”
He wilts instantly. “Maybe.”
“Then stop trying to fool me.” I reach out with one hand and touch his cheek. “Honestly. What’s wrong?”
His face sort of crumples inwards and I can tell he’s trying not to cry. “I . . . I nearly killed you.”
Right. Knew it was going to be that. “Tsuzuki, I’m fine. Give me a week in bed and I’ll be as good as new, I swear.”
He shakes his head adamantly. “I hurt you. I promised to never let anyone hurt you, then I . . . I thought I had killed your soul, that I would never be able to see you again, the way you were . . .” The guilt pours out of him and makes me want to curl up and cry. God, this has been eating away at him ever since we left Hell.
“Tsuzuki,” I say firmly, “what else could you have done? There weren’t any other options. I chose to let you in, and I knew damn well what the consequences would be.”
This stops him. He blinks at me, puzzled. “Y-You did?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hell, it nearly drove you crazy the first time you unleashed your powers, and Tatsumi had told me about that. I knew my mind wasn’t strong enough to take it. But I let you in. I let you use me, because there was no other choice.” I take his chin in my fingers and make him meet my eyes. “I would have rather died than been trapped by Ryuushi.”
Let him go and shrugged. “Besides, in retrospect, I got off light. I thought it might tear my body apart, too.”
Tsuzuki is just staring at me, and shakes his head stubbornly at this. “No. There must have been some other way. I shouldn’t have . . . what we have is so special, and I used it to . . .”
“You used it to save me,” I say firmly, reaching out and caressing his face again. “Tsuzuki, believe me, there was nothing else you could have done. And even if there was . . . I still love you. If you want I’ll forgive you, even though there’s nothing to forgive you for.” Open up the bond and let him feel what I do, let him know that I’m telling the truth.
He leans forward and rests his head in my lap, closing his eyes. I can tell he’s trying not to cry. I just run my fingers through his hair, trying to be as reassuring as I can. “I was so scared,” he manages, and then the tears start to fall.
I open myself up to him, entering his mind, washing away the pain with love, smoothing over the guilt with forgiveness. It takes a long time before he finally falls silent, and rests quietly in my lap. The sky is fully dark.
“You . . .” He sits up and gives me a funny look. “You fixed me. You made it . . . stop hurting. Made me stop feeling it.”
“Yeah,” I say, and am struck by the sudden, paralyzing fear that he might be angry with me for doing it. For changing the way he felt. “I . . . I didn’t like watching you hurt like that.”
He rubs his eyes, then manages a smile. “Thank you,” he says. “I feel much better now.”
And then I get my hug. He pulls me into his arms in a sheltering gesture, holding me tightly. Then, after a long minute, lets me go. “You hungry?”
“Yeah,” I say, but helping Tsuzuki has taken the last of my energy and I’m in desperate need of some sleep. “But nothing I have to chew.”
He laughs and leaves the room, only to come back a few minutes later with a bowl.
“Oatmeal?” I ask him, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t like oat -- ”
“Meal unless it’s got lots of brown sugar and butter and this does,” he finishes for me with a bright smile.
I can’t help but laugh. He helps me eat and then gives me a mug of tea. “You should get more sleep,” he says.
“I know,” I say, but even after the oatmeal and tea, I’m still cold. “Cold, though. There are no more blankets?”
“No,” he says, and crawls under the covers with me. “But that’s okay.”
And it is. I snuggle up to the warmth he provides and fall asleep quickly, feeling safe and content.
~~~~
Chapter Fifteen
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