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This is sort of an experiment in writing one shot horror. It has a bit of a shonen-ai hint in it so if boyxboy bothers you please don't read. Note: I do not own anything here but my own ideas, the characters and the universe in which they exist are the exclusive rights of CLAMP and their parent companies, lawyers, etc.
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Watanuki laid his head atop his bended knees. He was hiding behind the sinks in the boys' locker room again. It was where he always went when he didn't want to deal with something. It didn't matter what either. From ravenous spirits to angry teachers, nobody ever followed him in here. Maybe it was the smell of old socks? He didn't know and didn't much care in his sanctuary.
He closed his eyes and tried to make himself as small as possible. He hoped that even if people did come in to use the sink that they just wouldn't see him and continue on their way. The sound of a soft sigh was the only indication of his crying.
"It's not fair," he thought to himself. "It's not my fault that other people can't see the damn things!" All people, well regular people anyway, saw was Watanuki spazzing out once again. He'd even caught a person making the sign against evil … AT HIM! The norms just couldn't understand that a big purple cloud with 7 eyes and 3 huge mouths was trying to eat the soul of the little boy at the playground. Instead they saw some weird high school kid instead waving his gangly frame around and screaming. The part that hurt the most was that the parents of the little boy were frightened of him. They grabbed their oblivious offspring and sped off the playground. It just tore his heart into pieces.
Watanuki didn't know how long he stayed wrapped in his little ball of misery, both literally and figuratively. Time did pass however. He didn't notice anything around him until he heard a very soft little "ohf" of a grunt that followed a hollow "thock" sort of sound. He cracked open one eye and spotted someone else sitting under the sinks although he clearly did not fit well at all under the small space.
Doumeki had his body turned mostly away from Watanuki's form. He absently rubbed the spot on his head that had connected with the sink bowl. His other hand stayed loose at his side and slightly extended toward Watanuki. He knew Watanuki would never take his hand, but he held it out to him for comfort anyway. For Doumeki, this was almost the same expression of caring as it would if someone else had grabbed Watanuki, cradled him and wiped his tears. Doumeki was definitely NOT expressive in that way.
The archer sat quietly by his seer for a very long time. It was well after dark, but Watanuki had not seemed to notice from within his womb of misery. The school had closed and even the custodians had not spotted them. After many hours he spoke to Doumeki.
"It was unlike anything I've ever seen before," his voice croaked out, thick and clogged with emotion. "This one made me feel his death and it was so horrible because he was a seer like me."
The story began to pour forth from his lips in a continuous stream. He wasn't even aware of his own words; it was simple need to get rid of this burden.
He was one of three brothers. They lived in a tower out on a hillside where the forest crowded right up to the walls. He and his brothers had been farmers and seers and really kept to themselves. Many, many years later, he… he told me his name was Tohru… he was the last of the brothers. Illness and accident had claimed the other two by this time.
Tohru had been working in his field when he saw the first of them. It was the smell that tipped him off. That awful mucky miasma assaulted his nose and he bent over gagging. When he cleared his streaming eyes, he saw the shape of something with way too many arms tipped in very sharp things. That one look was enough to send him running for the safety of the tower.
A hundred myriad things emerged from the woods and moved so fast that he couldn't do anything but run. He ran to the top of the tower but before he could leap out of the window, they caught him.
"No, I don't think so." trilled a delicately high feminine voice. "You are mine." And from the crowd stepped the smallest, scariest one of them all. She looked like a little girl in lacy garments. She had high, button-up boots. She even wore curly pigtails and a parasol, for god's sake!
She looked over at something that looked like a praying mantis with two sets of forearms. He nodded and went downstairs. As soon as he was out of sight, a huge number of the more corporeal spirits grabbed Tohru's arms and legs and lifted him about 3 meters above the floor and carried him down the stairs.
As he struggled to see where they were carrying him all he could see was a clear space near his table. The mantis thing was waiting at the head of the table. The giggling, capering mass of monsters dropped Tohru the last meter onto the table, knocking the wind out of him. As he lay there gasping, pain ripped through his body. Each of his limbs was pinned to the table by one of the blades of the mantis. Through the pain, he felt the odd sensation of hundreds of tiny tongues licking his blood from his wounds.
A high giggle emanated from a part of the room that he couldn't see. The little girl climbed on top of him and lifted the knife above him. She slipped the knife under his shirt and slit it in half. She then started to butcher him at that point. She opened his abdomen to the sound of reverent silence that was broken only by the sound of Tohru's panting.
He was in shock from the pain and blood loss and could not cry out at all. It was as if his voice had been locked in a box somewhere far from his body. She grabbed his intestines and pulled them out. The difference between living intestines ad those you pull out of a dead animal is that the living intestines are hard and ropelike. They aren't soft like the ones in a butchered animal. The little girl grabbed the ropes and pulled and kept pulling.
With every tug, Tohru would grunt. This part actually didn't hurt, but he could feel the yanking from deep within his body. The little girl paused. Her pretty little lacy dress was now covered in gore and she had a beautifully radiant smile on her face.
She took Tohru's intestines and examined them where he could easily see what she was doing. She grabbed one end of his intestines and squeezed it. Then she slid her gripped hand forward through the whole length of the muscular tube. He could hear the wet thumps on the wooden floor as the contents were removed from the intestines. Then he heard snarling and groans from floor level as the monsters fought over the offal.
Once they were cleaned, the girl giggled and tossed the tube to another woman who was standing over the stove and had already started the pan sizzling. As she began to cut the intestines into sausage-sized lengths, the little girl continued her work.
What she did next was pain without comparison. She began cutting apart his liver. She was slicing it into bite sized amounts and tossing it into the waiting crowd.
The last thing Tohru knew, he heard her tiny little voice, say "Damn it!" He died at this point because she had nicked his diaphragm.
When Watanuki had finished his story, he felt deflated. He looked deflated too. The tight ball he had started out, became a limp puddle of tears and snot on the floor. His arms were still wrapped about his belly as if protecting it.
Doumeki silently stood up and then crouched beside the seer's form. He lifted Watanuki's pointed chin and waited patiently until the watery, mismatched eyes looked up at him. When he looked up, Doumeki pulled him to a very unstable standing position out from under the sink. He grabbed the seer and wrapped him in his arms.
The negating influence that the archer produced removed everything from Watanuki. The memories that the seer was experiencing were actually a form of possession and the temple-keeper knew it. He didn't see any reason to tell the smaller boy all of this however. As his influence removed the possession, Watanuki became limp in his unconsciousness.
Doumeki scooped him up and carried him out of the room. He gazed at the seer's face and held him closer to his chest while sending up a silent prayer that Watanuki would not remember a thing.
