Woot! Two chapters in a semi-timely fashion!
I actually had to pull out my Yami DVDs and start checking stuff, it's been so damned long since I've written Yami fanfiction. How scary is that?
Chapter Fourteen
“A big mistake how?” Tatsumi asked sharply, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose. “Contain yourself, Watari-san, and explain.”
“The spell can’t infect more than one person at once,” Watari said. When Tatsumi blinked at him, he said, “The spell can’t infect more than one person at once, right? We’ve got mounds of evidence in that direction. So when we brought Tsuzuki to the Meifu, it cut off the spell – ”
“Allowing the demon to infect Mibu-san,” Tatsumi said slowly.
“And then we brought Mibu-san here as well, so the demon could theoretically go out and infect someone else now,” Watari said.
Tatsumi winced. “Probably not the best of things, but – ”
“But it hasn’t,” Watari said, his eyes bright, almost feverish. “Tatsumi, it hasn’t. The only people it’s infected are Tsuzuki and Mibu-san.”
“So?” Tatsumi asked cautiously.
“So I don’t think coming to the Meifu arrests the spell at all,” Watari said, his words spilling out over each other in their rush to come out. “I think Tsuzuki woke up because Bon woke him somehow.” He hastily explained what Hisoka had said, watching the lines in Tatsumi’s forehead wrinkle. “So Tsuzuki is awake, but still infected. Mibu-san is infected.”
“If it can infect more than one person at once, then why hasn’t it before?” Tatsumi asked, calmly sitting down in the chair across from Watari’s desk.
Watari stopped. He felt as though the answer was on the tip of his tongue, just outside his field of view. “Because,” he said slowly, waiting for the rest of the sentence to come out. “Because . . . because . . .” He wilted. “I don’t know.”
Tatsumi looked at the door to the infirmary. “Perhaps,” he said, “it’s because it didn’t want to draw attention to itself. If it needs to infect thirteen people and take all their spiritual energy. If it did that to all thirteen at once, it would cause a surge in demonic power – the Makai would have noticed.”
“Yes!” Watari smacked his hand against the table. “That’s why! But now it’s got Tsuzuki to feed off of – all that power. It’s not afraid of the Makai anymore, so it can do as it likes. And that’s how it infected Tsuzuki and Bon at the same time, too.”
“But why infect Mibu-san at all?” Tatsumi asked. “If it can get all the power it needs from Tsuzuki-san, why do that?”
“It met Muraki,” Watari said. “It would have acknowledged him as a formidable enemy. If it infects Mibu-san, it gains considerable leverage over Muraki.” He heard Tatsumi let out a disbelieving snort. “Deny it all you want, Tatsumi – but Muraki cares for him.”
“I don’t believe he’s capable of it.” Tatsumi’s voice was stiff, careful.
Watari shrugged. “I guess maybe he isn’t capable of love as any of us would recognize it. But he certainly showed concern over Mibu-san when he got infected. Besides, you’ve already acknowledged it – you agreed to bring Mibu-san here because you knew it would get on Muraki’s nerves.” He delivered this with a charming grin.
Tatsumi made a slight noise of assent. “That’s not exactly how I would phrase it, but – ”
“But it’s true all the same.”
“All right, fine,” Tatsumi conceded. “But where does this get us?”
“Well,” Watari said, drawing the word out to stall for time, given that he had no real idea where his stunning conclusions left him. Tatsumi waited rather impatiently. “We could track down the demon, using Mibu-san and Tsuzuki. We can use Reibaku to force the demon out, and then kill it.”
“That’s not news, Watari-san,” Tatsumi bit the words off. “That may kill Tsuzuki-san, if we do that.”
Watari’s mouth opened. Closed. He frowned, then smiled suddenly.
“What?” Tatsumi pressed. “I know that look. You’ve had an idea.”
“Maybe we’re going about this all the wrong way,” Watari suggested. “Rather than a Reibaku, which would force out a powerful demon that we would then have to kill, with unknown consequences, why don’t we try to trap it in its human host?”
Tatsumi’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see how . . .” he began.
“It’s simple,” Watari said. “There are a hundred ‘jutsu that could do the trick, if we had someone strong enough – like Tsuzuki, or hell, even Muraki – perform them. Then, we mortally wound the host. Force the demon to relinquish its hold on Tsuzuki, bargaining to release him from the body.”
“And do we uphold that end of the bargain?” Tatsumi asked. His voice and face were neutral, but his air spoke volumes of disapproval.
“Sure,” Watari said. “It’ll run like hell. The Makai will get it.”
“I dislike leaving my dirty work to the Makai,” Tatsumi said, mostly to himself.
“Then we break our bargain and leave it bound to the host while the host dies,” Watari stated. Tatsumi gave him a look that bordered on a glare. “Pick your poison, Tatsumi. The host was due to die decades ago. We’re just doing our job. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got no sympathy for this demon.”
“Agreed,” Tatsumi said, in a clipped voice. “Let’s find that binding spell.”
“Hey, Rambo?” Watari said. “Let’s sleep. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about three hours of actual shut-eye since this whole mess started. We’ve got at least three days before Mibu-san’s time is up, so there’s no real rush.”
A pause. Tatsumi seemed to be considering something.
“What?” Watari asked.
“Rambo?” Tatsumi asked.
Watari chortled. “Someday, my friend, I’m going to introduce you to the fine art of American cinema. Unfortunately, today is not that day. I’m gonna sleep in my cot in the back – too lazy to go home. So I’ll be here in case something happens. Go get some rest.”
“I will.” A beat. “Watari-san.”
“Hm?”
“I suddenly remembered why we actually pay you.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.”
~~~~
Tsuzuki was surprised to find that he was comfortable in the silence with Hisoka. They had talked for a little while, about things of no consequence, until the conversation had gradually trailed off. Under normal circumstances, he thought he would have felt the desire to say something, anything, to keep the silence from crushing him. But sitting with Hisoka was different.
He could watch the light play off the younger Shinigami’s green eyes and almost know what he was thinking just from that. Slight shifts in his expression, the way his fingers tapped against the table. Subtle signals that he recognized without knowing how.
If Hisoka was uncomfortable, he gave no sign of it. Tsuzuki doubted that he was; he knew instinctually that Hisoka had spent so much of his life alone, silence was what he was used to. Physical silence, that was. For someone like Hisoka, there would never be silence in his mind.
“Does it bother you?” he asked suddenly, without meaning to.
Hisoka glanced over at him, knowing what he meant, although Tsuzuki hadn’t bothered to clarify. “My empathy? Yeah, sure. Less now than it used to. I guess sometime over the past couple years, I got mostly in control of it. It was horrible in the hospital.”
Tsuzuki shuddered, thinking of the hazy mist that constituted his memory of his own time in the hospital before his death. “It’d be hard to make an experience like that worse, but I bet that would do it.”
“Yeah.” Hisoka huffed a bit of laughter. “No kidding.”
The silence sat between them for a few moments.
“Do you want more tea?” Hisoka asked. “I need to stretch my legs.”
“Sure,” Tsuzuki said.
Hisoka left the small room and went in search of tea. He didn’t know where Watari had gotten it earlier, but was sure that the blonde scientist would be glad to help. Once he got out into the lab, however, he heard the light sound of snoring. Watari was sound asleep, using his lab coat as a blanket, hair straggling around his face. 003 was asleep on his chest, her feathers ruffling as he snored.
“Can I help you with something, Hisoka-san?” a bright voice asked, and Hisoka jumped.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, turning to see a floating chicken. “Uhm . . . yeah. I was hoping to get some tea. Maybe a little something to eat?” He wasn’t hungry, but Watari had been pestering them to eat earlier.
“Of course!” Gushoshin showed him out into the lobby, where there was a hot water machine and some tea bags. Hisoka automatically got Tsuzuki coffee with lots of cream and sugar, not realizing until afterwards that he had meant to get him tea. In fact, he had no idea if Tsuzuki even liked coffee – his hands had acted on their own.
“I think there’s some pastries leftover from breakfast in the break room,” Gushoshin said, flying ahead of him. It was deathly quiet and still in the abandoned office.
“Why are you still here?” Hisoka asked curiously.
“We live here,” the Gushoshin explained. “And we don’t sleep. I was just bringing Watari-san some books he had requested.”
“Ah,” Hisoka said, and fell into his usual silence. There were some donuts in the break room, carefully covered by plastic wrap. He took two and headed back into the infirmary. Tsuzuki greeted him a little more enthusiastically, and wolfed down his donut.
Watching him, Hisoka couldn’t help but smile. The image seemed to fit better in his mind than the moping Tsuzuki he had been dealing with lately.
“What?” Tsuzuki asked, licking frosting off his upper lip.
“Nothing,” Hisoka said. “I was just . . . remembering. But not remembering. If that makes any sense.”
Tsuzuki looked at him, then nodded. “I think it does.” He reached out and picked up the second donut, apparently not realizing that Hisoka had gotten it for himself. Hisoka didn’t protest. “Do you think we’ll get our memories back if we kill the demon?” he asked, and Hisoka shrugged. “Do you want your memories back?”
“I don’t know,” Hisoka said. “I guess so. I think . . . there are some special things I’m missing. And in a way, our memories make us who we are, because everything that happens changes us.”
“Yeah.” Tsuzuki tore the second donut in half and offered half of it back to Hisoka, who rolled his eyes, but accepted it anyway. “I think I’d be happier with some memories between me and . . . what happened before I died.” He polished off the rest of the donut. Hisoka was still nibbling at his half. “You saw one of my memories while I was sleeping, right?” he asked, and Hisoka nodded. “Maybe . . . you could try to find them?”
Hisoka frowned. “I’m not sure how that would work . . .”
“You said you had control over your empathy now, but that most of it was subconscious, that it happened without your thinking about it, right?” Tsuzuki said. “So maybe if you just try, it’ll happen. That’s all I’m asking. Just try.”
Hisoka looked at Tsuzuki. He wanted to ask him what was so horrible that he would willingly be a guinea pig, but he remembered his own death all too clearly. He could not ask. “All right,” he said, “but I don’t think this will work.”
They sat down on the bed facing each other. Hisoka reached out and lightly, tentatively, placed his hands in Tsuzuki’s. The other man didn’t feel the way Hisoka’s subconscious wanted him to; the warmth was muted, distant. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, trying to not think of the last thing he had seen in Tsuzuki’s mind, that black fire and crushing despair and fear.
His mind wandered along the pathway into Tsuzuki’s, sensing nothing more than the present: the taste of donuts still on his tongue, the feel of the blankets under his feet, the worry over their current situation. He was going to give up, but gradually, Tsuzuki’s mind stilled. The present faded.
// “Why did you go that far for me? Why, for me? I’m not . . . I’m just . . .”
“Because you’re my partner.”
A pause, a beat. A huffing noise. “Idiot.” //
Hisoka wanted to stay there, in the rain, feeling warm in spite of the cold water that dripped on his head. His hands tightened in Tsuzuki’s. The memories were there, just under the surface. What was blocking them?
// Reaching up towards the Heavens and that light came from everywhere and nowhere at once, and there was a beautiful dragon, black flame, and an overwhelming sense of relief that soon everything would be over, he could rest, he could put everything behind him, he could rest –
“Tsuzuki!”
A pause. A twinge of some unidentifiable emotion. Guilt, perhaps.
“Stay there! I’m coming to you!”
Tsuzuki searched for a way to explain to the boy that it didn’t matter, he was too tired, he couldn’t do this anymore, he needed to rest. The words fell out of his mouth without his really being aware of what he was saying.
A pair of arms around his neck, a warm body pressed against his, a sob muffled in his shoulder.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore! Where I belong . . . is by your side! I need you!”
Slowly, as if he was in a dream, Tsuzuki’s arms came up to embrace the boy, and although the thought of rest was still very nice, he thought maybe living wouldn’t be so bad if he could just –
“Can I stay with you?”
Another sob, a nod, and the flames consumed them. //
Hisoka broke free with a shuddering cry, and Tsuzuki gripped his arms, holding him carefully. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What did you see?”
“Did it work?” Hisoka choked out, praying that Tsuzuki had regained his memory and he wouldn’t have to explain the memory he had just seen. It was so intense, so powerful.
“No,” Tsuzuki said. “Hey, are you all right?”
Hisoka nodded, and shuddered. He managed to describe the scene he had witnessed. “And I felt – ” He stopped, not sure if he should be the one to tell Tsuzuki how had been feeling, even during something he didn’t remember. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Tsuzuki left his hands on Hisoka’s upper arms, and the two of them looked at each other for a moment. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” Tsuzuki mused, almost to himself. “That even though we don’t remember things, everything still sort of feels the same. Now that we’re back up here, together again – it’s like I still know the way things were, even though I don’t know what happened to make them this way.”
“Yeah,” Hisoka said, trying to shake off the confusing flow of emotions coming from the older Shinigami. He was utterly surprised to feel Tsuzuki’s lips pressed against his in a gentle kiss, and flinched away without meaning to. “W-What?” he stammered.
Tsuzuki gave him a thoughtful look. “That’s right, isn’t it?” he asked, almost as if he were seeking Hisoka’s approval. “This is the way things are supposed to be between us.”
“I . . .” Hisoka suspected that there was some flaw in Tsuzuki’s logic somewhere, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Tsuzuki kissed him again, and this time he leaned into it, closing his eyes, letting the warmth of Tsuzuki rush over him. He didn’t care if this wasn’t the way things had been, this was the way things should have been, and that was the important part.
After a few moments, Tsuzuki pulled away and kissed him on the forehead. He put his arms around Hisoka’s waist and pulled him into a tight hug. Hisoka pressed his face into Tsuzuki’s shoulder and decided that he would stop worrying about everything for a little while. “I don’t know why,” Tsuzuki said, “but when I’m with you, I feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
“That’s because everything is,” Hisoka said, knowing it was a stupid answer. He opened his eyes and let out a surprised squeak to see that Oriya’s eyes were open, and he was staring at them blankly.
“What’s wrong?” Tsuzuki asked, letting him go.
“Mibu-san?” Hisoka asked, getting off the bed and walking over to the other man. “Are you awake?”
There was a long pause. Then his voice, slow and sleepy. “Yes.”
Hisoka looked uncertainly at Tsuzuki, who shrugged helplessly. “How are you feeling?” Hisoka asked.
Again, it took a long time before there was a response. “Tired.”
“I’m going to go get Watari,” Tsuzuki decided.
“He was sleeping,” Hisoka said.
“I think he’d want us to wake him for this,” Tsuzuki said. “Because this isn’t right.” He went out into the main room and shook Watari by the shoulder.
Watari rolled over. “I turned that burner off,” he muttered.
“Wake up, Watari,” Tsuzuki said.
Watari sat bolt upright, and appeared to be fully awake as he grinned at Tsuzuki. “Morning, Tsuzuki!” He looked around at the dark lab, with the curtains still drawn and no light coming around the edges. “Is it?”
“Not yet,” Tsuzuki said. “Sorry to wake you, but Mibu-san is awake and he’s acting a little off.”
“Off how?” Watari asked, getting to his feet and sweeping his hair out of his face in a practiced gesture. He tied it behind his face with the bright orange ribbon as he hurried into the infirmary room. “Mibu-san, how are you feeling?” he asked brightly.
There was the long pause, then the same response. “Tired.”
“That’s what he said last time,” Hisoka said.
“Uh huh,” Watari said absently. He took out a pen flashlight and shined it in both of Oriya’s eyes, took his pulse. “What is your name?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Oriya said, staring blankly at them.
“Do you know how old you are?”
“No.”
Watari asked a few more questions about where he lived, where he was born, and always received the same blank stare, long pause, then a lack of knowledge in the answer. Finally, he sat back, and said, “Huh. I guess that means I was right.”
“About which part?” Hisoka asked. He had sat back down on his own bed, and Tsuzuki had sat next to him, dangling his legs over the side. Watari glanced at them and noticed how close they were sitting together, and couldn’t help but grin widely at them.
Then he remembered himself and said, “Coming to the Meifu hasn’t halted the spell for Mibu-san. It only did that for you two, because you’re Shinigami – or it didn’t do it at all, but we thought it did because the spell acted so strangely for you two.”
“So what does all this mean?” Hisoka asked.
“Well, to start off with, we’ve got a definite time limit,” Watari said. “Mibu-san has lost his memory, and it seems that he’s lost his personality as well. So that means we’ve got about two and a half days left to find the demon, corner it, and kill it.”
“You seem so cheerful about this,” Hisoka said.
Watari shrugged. “We’ve been in worse scrapes a million times. Nothing to worry about! I’m gonna go catch some more Z’s. See you in the morning.” He wandered out of the room with a yawn.
“You think he’s always been like – ” Tsuzuki asked, then stopped, and shook his head with a smile. “Yeah. He has.”
“Yeah,” Hisoka agreed.
~~~~~
Yami no Matsuei Fanfiction
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