I know Muroi is almost universally hated, and rightfully so- but I really liked his character at first, and wanted to explore it a little more. This takes place many years after the events of Shiki. I also leave the ending open to interpretation, but if it matters, I see this as a neutral ending, at best. Like Shiki- whether you think of it as a tragedy or simply neutral or whatever is up to you. In my headcanon, this meeting happens, and then Seishin leaves with Sunako again and very little changes except how Toshio thinks of him.
The first year, Toshio systematically went and burned every connection he had left to Sotoba. It was not hard. The few survivors wanted nothing to do with him or the village, either.
The second year, Toshio started a clinic again. It was in a small village once more, one that had previously relied on transport to Tokyo if a doctor was needed. It didn't matter, really- Tokyo, another Sotoba; there was no difference. Nobody knew the name Ozaki Toshio anymore.
The third year, he took down the protective statues in his office. He left them in the patient rooms.
The fourth year, rumors spread that he was a devout Christian. He let them spread. Small towns had little to talk about, and if they found the cross that he could not take off worthy of discussion, he was not one to stop them.
The fifth year, he buried his mother, Ritsuko, and Kyoko.
(Set of keys, gifted charm bracelet, and wedding ring, covered only in dirt. Toshio hated to admit it, but even the idea had made him physically ill to the point that it truly had taken him five years.)
The sixth year, Toshio was taken to Tokyo by ambulance when he broke down screaming at the stroke of sunset. He was in the hospital for two weeks, muttering of blood that would not wash off and then screaming until his throat was raw. When he at last returned to his clinic, fatigued and withdrawn, he would not speak of it. But whenever he washed his hands, he did so until they were red and raw.
The seventh year, Toshio stopped closing the clinic at sundown.
The eighth year, Toshio went out on a date.
(Five days later, he swore off women alltogether.)
The ninth year, Toshio swore off friendship.
The tenth year, Seishin came back.
Sunako and Seishin, to be precise.
Once upon a time, Seishin would've been a welcome sight. But when Seishin had turned his back on him, Toshio had done the same. Now, he was as unwelcome as any single one of those terrible creations molded straight in the pits of hell.
Rather than take a few seconds to reorient itself after the deadening blast to a time he would very much rather forget, his blood simply started to boil immediately. His fist curled in aching hatred, and rather than fear, a deep seated anger started to bleed straight through and soak into every fiber of his being.
"...You do not have permission to enter my clinic," he ground out. "You never have, and you never will. Leave now."
Sunako looked no further chastised now than she ever had, and she shook her head, childlike features as still and aware as she was old. "No. You will help Muroi-san."
Toshio's lip twitched, and he glanced down at the monk slumped, motionless, against the tiny girl's side. "It was his choice to cavort with you demons, was it not? What, did you suck too much of his blood? Go elsewhere. And count yourself lucky that I don't have a stake in hand."
Sunako's hand crept over her tiny heart, long, pale fingers curling protectively, and his still vicious grin hardened. He had no idea how she had escaped that burning nightmare, ten years past, or Seishin with her, but it looked as if she had gotten close to a permanent death. As far as he was concerned, the only regrettable thing was that she still breathed.
If she even does. Kyoko didn't.
His heart skipped a beat, and his stone cold facade hardened.
"...Muroi-san still trusts you," Sunako pleaded, and she failed to move him by even an inch. "Please. He's ill."
Tremulous, like a timid little girl. It sickened him.
When he did not say a word, or make any attempt to move by even one step, the demoness scowled at him and took a step forward, as close as she could come. He stayed resolute behind his ironclad barriers, standing tall above her and glaring on, hatred beating with every pulse of his heart.
"You must help him! He said we could trust you! You understand us!"
"Understand you?!" he cut in harshly. He brought a knee forward with as much strength as he could give, sending Sunako sprawling backwards and Seishin to slump motionlessly on the sidewalk. "I understand you should've stayed in your grave. I understand the only thing in this world for you is on the end of a stake. I understand you killed my wife and mother. Seishin was wrong, and you were very wrong to come to me expecting sympathy!"
He had said it because it was true, not to elicit any kind of reaction from her, nor had he expected one. Which was good, because if he had expected guilt, or regret, or even a twinge of feeling, then he would have been let down- there was none of it.
Then, who but a fool would expect such humanity from soulless death?
Sunako, in all her childish innocence, merely cocked her head to the side and frowned up at him.
"I didn't kill your mother or wife. ...You killed my mother. ...And, you killed your wife. Yes?"
The rage that swept through him was so powerful it almost pulled him straight out of safety to wrangle the little vampire's neck.
His heartbeat quickened, and Toshio sucked in a dizzying gasp, shutting his eyes against the black depths of nothing that were her eyes. He clenched a fist around the doorknob until it hurt, struggling against every instinct that tried to rebel against common sense and drag him out to kill her right this instant.
"Leave," he breathed, when he could speak. "Now."
"...I'll have to go hunting, if you don't let us in, Sensei. ...Muroi-san would be sad."
It was a guilt trip, and an infuriatingly awful one at that. Maybe Seishin should've rethought his position, then, if hunting humans made him so very sad, before he went to the side of murderers and demons that lived off the blood off innocents. It really wasn't his business, and he really didn't care, if Seishin was sad or not, and he didn't care about Sunako's play at innocence either. She was used to getting what she wanted from humans she needed alive by playing as a child. Toshio was far past viewing her in that light. To him, she was nothing more than evil in human skin.
But, one part of what she had said was true.
She would have to go hunting if he didn't help Seishin. Hunting meant more innocent lives taken.
At it's worst, hunting meant more Risen.
Another nightmare like Sotoba... all over again...
Besides that fact that another nightmare like Sotoba could quite possibly spell the end of this new city, Toshio didn't think he could live through that again. He knew that he lacked the will to.
It was with an air of defeat that, reluctantly, he closed his eyes and took a step back.
"You have permission to enter my office. This is not permission to enter any patient's rooms. This is not permission to enter any other offices, the lounge, or the nurse's locker room."
Ritsuko.
"I will not hesitate to kill you if you find any loophole in these instructions, or attempt to take any step deviating outside of them. If you return after tonight, I will kill you. Do you understand?"
One tiny nod.
Without another word, Toshio turned his back and swept away from the door. He did not look back to see her follow him as he led the way to his office.
He touched the cross that hung around his neck, heavy and rusted silver both. It was an ugly thing, and he had many times been asked why he wore it, when he was not a religious man.
He wore it for tonight.
He had always worn it since then, in case what played out now had crossed from terrifying dreams to reality. Ten years were not long enough for him to even unlink the chain in daylight. Ten years were not long enough for him to even sleep through the night.
He brusquely shouldered the door to his office open and turned back around, watching with folded arms as Sunako struggled to pull Seishin's much larger body with her and after him. The devilless showed no sign, no matter how minute, of looking into other rooms or searching for other victims to suck; she only marched forward towards him without complainant or hesitation, headed firmly a path straight into the lion's den. For all she knew, there was a stake in his office, and he had only needed to get her there so she could kill him.
God knew he would do it. Of the Risen killed that kept him up at night, she would not be one.
"Let me guess, you've sucked his blood for these ten years?" he deadpanned when she at last crossed the threshold. His hand tightened around his cross. "And you're so surprised he's ill? It's a near miracle you haven't lost control and killed him yet."
Panting, Sunako stopped to rest, one hand gripping the arm of a chair, the other still clasped around Seishin's. She shook her head, blackened eyes still on the floor. "That's not it; I've been careful. I think Tatsumi was wrong, Ozaki. I think werewolves need blood to survive, not just be strong. And he hasn't... not once..." She shook her head weakly. "He's never done it."
The odd statement made no sense to him. He stared, nonplussed, as Sunako set to work again, heaving on Seishin to get him up and onto the couch while he stood by without even the slightest inkling to help either of them. He left his arms crossed, glaring down at them both while she struggled and pulled until at last, she had gotten him safely onto the couch. There he sat listing to the side, still thoroughly unconscious, pale as the full moon and drawn as those in their last days living, heart struggling to beat on so little.
Then, he looked closer.
His breath caught.
He looked exactly the same as ten years ago.
Seishin had not aged at all.
In the seconds it took for logic to catch up with him, logic and soulless comprehension, Toshio felt almost like leaving the room and not looking back.
When he finally understood, he expected hatred.
What he did not expect was sadness, as well.
"...Seishin's a werewolf," he said numbly.
Sunako frowned at him. "Yes. You didn't know? ...He rose when you were- hunting us." Small, tremulous, and wary; in her child's voice and child's guise it sounded almost frightened. "There were humans and fires everywhere... he helped me escape."
There was something just inherently wrong with that sentence, you were hunting us, and it made Toshio want to scream. He shut his eyes for a moment, breathing through clenched teeth, and his fist was so tight now nails bit into the skin and made it bleed.
Yes; humans hunting the Shiki. That was exactly how it had happened.
Yes; humans scaring those demented Shiki. Exactly right.
As far as Toshio was concerned, they had gotten off easy.
It also didn't matter to him. They were dead. That was all that he cared about.
All except Sunako and, now, Seishin.
"...So, what," he managed bitterly, when he could speak again. "You've been sucking his blood ever since? You can do that- feed off each other?"
Sunako shook her head carelessly. "No. Not off other Shiki. But Muroi-san thought that werewolves could be different. He... begged me to try it, actually. I don't know why. But, now, I live off his blood. I haven't bitten a human since Sotoba. ...Does that displease you, Ozaki? Muroi-san thought you would like that."
"Tch." Toshio looked away, black glare meeting the floor in hatred again. His heart skipped and stuttered, shock still very real indeed, before it settled on a new path of vengeance and rage, and it took everything he had not to lash out and kill them both.
This was how it ended, then. Seishin and Sunako, immortally bound to a circuitous cycle of parasitic sustenance. It was ironic, almost. Seishin had wanted so very much to protect those cursed Shiki that he had become one himself. He had been so convinced that just because they spoke like humans and smiled like humans and had needs like humans, it made them human, and to take the life of a human was never justifiable. He had wanted so very much for a peaceful end to the hell that Sotoba was.
Well, he had found it.
To Toshio, it still seemed very much like hell.
"What does he eat?" he muttered, unable to look at the man he had once called a friend. "Human food? He has never drank blood?"
"No," Sunako said quietly. "Not once. ...I don't understand why he refuses it. He said that he understood me. He said I wasn't bad- he said that I... even though I have killed so many... he could still accept me. But, he will not accept himself."
The cross was now squeezed so tightly in his hand, the pointed edges felt slick with blood. Still, he clung to it.
Scarcely able to breathe, Toshio ripped away from the wall and ran for the door as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. "Stay right here," he gasped out, and he barely made it around the corner before he started to shake.
Accept himself? Seishin, who would not take a life to save a village- and she was surprised he would not take a life to save himself? He barked out a bitter laugh and shook his head at the insanity of it all. No, it was not ironic. It was a fitting curse, a judgment that may let him believe a god existed after all, exactly what he deserved for walking out on Sotoba to lie in bed with the enemy. Given immortality, at the cost of an innocent's life for every day of eternity that he lived. A fitting punishment indeed, one intended to torture him into madness.
But... Seishin had not taken it.
Seishin was like Natsuno.
Natsuno refused to even once partake, not until I offered him my arm myself...
Toshio did not know if Natsuno lived still or not. If he had, though, it was not in any sickening pact like the one Seishin had drawn with Sunako. Natsuno would live as a human- he simply would not die.
And if ever crossed paths with a Risen again, then Natsuno would kill again.
He laughed once more, his own voice loud and edging into hysteria in the darkness of his clinic. To live forever would be a curse in and of itself to Natusno, as he understood it. Yet, Natsuno had tried from the start to stop the Risen, fighting against them before Toshio had even accepted their existence himself. If God was existed at all, he was perhaps a cursed thing, not on humanity's side at all but overseeing eventual assured destruction with no more than a few wickedly placed snares only to cause pain. To curse Natsuno, and gift Seishin?
Because that was the only way he could see it. To Seishin, to be a werewolf was the greatest gift; it would let him stay by his beloved Shiki's side forever, and keep them alive while still playing inside his twisted morality.
His hands were shaking so much, Toshio barely managed to hold on to vials of blood. They clinked together with a cascading, chime-like quality, glass hitting glass until it rang in his ears. He didn't bother to falsify the paperwork, going as far to put Muroi Seishin down as the patient and his own signature at the bottom.
Faking medical records was what the Shiki had done.
How many died, only for me to first burn the proof of it and then their bodies... how many...
Toshio briskly walked back into his office, preparing the intravenous drip in a business like manner. He nudged Sunako aside with his knee, again so rough she hit the floor, and found himself unable to drudge up and ounce of guilt at the sight of her hitting the wood like a discarded piece of trash. "I see you even look at this blood," he warned, holding up one of the vials, "and you're out of here. I may not have a stake, but I know the things that work on you. This blood was meant for somebody human. By giving it to you, I'm risking somebody's life."
Sunako frowned at him and pulled herself away. This time, she did not rise off the floor. "I came to you, didn't I?" she asked quietly. "I could've gone hunting for him. But I didn't. I won't drink it."
"Forgive me, then, for not being so trusting of you."
The Shiki looked away.
Darkly, Toshio turned his back. He switched hands on the cross, squeezing it with his left now while his right fiddled with Seishin's arm. He kept his eyes away from the still, unchanged face, though whether it was because he didn't think he would be able to control his anger in such close proximity, or he simply didn't want to see him sick but unchanged forever, he didn't know.
"...You hate me, don't you?" she murmured, again breaking the deadening silence.
Toshio said nothing at first, still focusing on setting up the drip into Seishin's arm. The skin was pale and sunken, and he wondered just how little of his own blood Seishin had left. The question was easy enough to answer, if it was even that; a question had to contain an element of uncertainty to it, and there was no uncertainty to this.
"Yes," he said flatly at last, but he still kept his eyes down and his hand, occupied with Seishin's arm. "Why- does that bother you? Maybe, if you wanted to not be hated, you wouldn't have attacked us. Maybe-..."
"I would have had the good sense to die, when God made me this way?"
"..."
There was the sound of rustling cloth as she shifted, and then, her child's voice laden with adult misery. "I didn't ask to become like this. Maybe I should've died, back then. But I didn't. ...Am I so bad a person for not starving to death, Ozaki?"
His grip over Seishin's arm tightened.
This was irony, now; come with Seishin in tow and talk to him like this, try to elicit sympathy like she deserved anything like it, talk to him like he was as weak-willed as this monk-turned-werewolf and like sad words would be enough to make him forget Sotoba.
"You killed my family. You killed my friends. I watched you drag Setsuko out there and murder her; you burned my home to the ground and you watched as we bathed in blood and now, you come to me and mince words and play with sad stories and expect me to say what you want to hear?" He turned at last, piercing the demoness with the most poisonous stare he could muster. "If I could kill you now, I would. I would kill both of you. Does that answer your question?"
There was nothing childlike in Sunako now.
Before his eyes, he saw only a killer.
"We... we only wanted more of us. We didn't want to be alone," she whispered, tremulous, but to Toshio, all there was was her endless black eyes that led straight to hell. "Were we so wrong in that? We didn't want you to die. We wanted you to rise, just like us."
"Join you in your cursed existence?!" he spat. "What- kill the world until nothing was left but Shiki?! What of those that didn't want to join your world, huh?!"
Ritsuko...
Kyoko...
"Ri-chan starved rather than eat her friend! Ri-chan starved until we came and stabbed out her heart! But that didn't matter to you, did it?" He shook his head and laughed again. The cross felt unimaginably cold in his hand, even colder then Seishin's dead skin, so cold even wet with blood now and as far from a comforting talisman as he could get. "You know what Seishin's father said to us when we came for him? Thank you. He thanked us for killing him; he'd rather be dead then live as one of you."
Sunako's eyes widened, her mouth opened in a little gasp, and he grinned again, now his only purpose to see her hurt. "What, you didn't know? Yes; you killed your precious Seishin's father. All you Shiki do is kill, one way or the other- even those that Rise would rather they had stayed dead."
"I didn't kill him!"
"You ordered it! You ordered it all!"
Sunako flinched at last, and now, she did not respond.
Toshio heard his own gasping breaths finally, felt the points of the cross again digging into his newly mangled hand, felt his blood boiling with rage, and had to turn away before he did something he wasn't sure he would regret.
"...You wonder how we can kill some many people... how we can justify it..."
He scoffed but kept his eyes down. He'd heard it from Natsuno's own mouth. The teen frozen as a werewolf murmuring how very oppressive the thirst was, that even though he did not need it did not mean it did not take his entire self control to not bite his own father. The Shiki were worse. The Shiki needed it, they said. They didn't know if Shiki could actually starve to death, because none had resisted for more than even a few days.
Irresistible impulse to kill sounded like something, in the human world, that would eventually get you killed yourself.
To the Shiki, though, it seemed that self defense, protecting loved ones, morality- they were all meaningless.
When he did not deign to speak to Sunako again, she went on, quietly explaining while he worked worthlessly over Seishin. "No one wants to kill at first. They all say they'll go without. But, then they can't take it anymore... the thirst, Ozaki... and once they've done it once... they understand. You humans eat animals. We Shiki eat humans. It's- just, natural."
In the space of a moment, fear beat with his heart, and Toshio spun around. He yanked this collar aside and pulled the cross forward before he saw that Sunako wasn't coming for him at all- she wasn't even off the ground.
The demoness cried out, burying her head at the sight and curling away from him, paralyzed in mortal fear over what had forsaken her.
Toshio stayed paralyzed, too.
In just that moment, right now, Sunako looked human.
He curled his fingers tightly around the cross, swallowed, and forcibly moved himself around Seishin so he could see both at the same time. Human, yet he had just been afraid she was going to try and kill him. This was just what she wanted to happen, most likely. This was probably how she had drawn Seishin in. Acting sad and human.
"...I'm not going to bite you. I promised Muroi-san I wouldn't."
"As far as I'm concerned, your promises don't mean a damn thing."
Toshio didn't even have to try to infuse the venom into his voice. It was already there.
Again, another deadening silence took hold, and he let his hand drop to Seishin's neck. He traced along the pale skin, quite literally cold as death, and struggled to keep his eyes down instead of straying to his face. He pressed against the carotid, feeling in vein for a pulse that had not beat in over a decade.
He'd thought Seishin had died, back then. Turns out he was right.
"Ozaki, I won't stop you from hating me. I have no reason to like you, either. ...But please don't hate Muroi-san. He misses you, you know."
"Perhaps he should've thought of that before he went to Kanemasa."
Seishin missed him? As if. His former friend had always been an enigma, and he'd always failed rather spectacularly at making the best decisions for himself, but regret wasn't something he did. Once he made his decision, taking however agonizingly long he needed to be set, he didn't change his mind. Of all things he didn't know about Seishin now, one thing he was certain in was that he did not miss him.
Sunako frowned at him. "He didn't come to us to spite you- he didn't join our side- he just wanted the fighting to stop. You can't begrudge him that!"
"And you repaid him by sucking him dry; nice."
"That's not what happened!"
"Right," Toshio muttered, glancing at her again. She still sat curled up against the far wall, arms drawn around her knees and head resting on them. Her wild hair brushed twisted around her face and obscured her expression from view, but he had no doubt it was as foul and innocent-like as she was.
Sunako shook her head emphatically. "No, we didn't kill him! ...I was asleep when it happened, and Muroi-san refuses to tell me. But he insists it was an accident. ...We wouldn't have killed him, Ozaki."
Somehow, he had trouble believing that.
When he did respond, Sunako sighed miserably and turned inwards, burying her head in her knees. "Believe what you must. But he didn't betray you. He's missed you for years. ...He is still more human than Shiki or werewolf."
He laughed out loud. The sound was harsh and grating against his ears. "Do you jest? He does not age. His heart does not beat. He's somehow survived turned into a vessel to suck blood from for a near decade. There's not an ounce of humanity left in him."
Sunako shook her head, still hidden away in the cocoon created by her knees. "No. ...Perhaps you are right- humanity is not what I thought it once was. You turned as savage as Shiki." It was not accusatory, it was simple fact, and Toshio gritted his teeth, fighting to not explode have you never heard of self-defense?! She was right, in a way. They had turned as savage as the Shiki, to survive. Perhaps even moreso.
If the cost of survival was their humanity, then Toshio, for one, was willing to pay it.
"Muroi-san, he is... how I once pictured humanity." She raised her head just enough to peer up at him. "He says we are forsaken by God. He says that means we have been removed from God's jurisdiction. If there is no judge, then killing... killing rather than starving... it must be okay. If there is no judge- then, anything should be acceptable. That's what I thought it meant. But he refuses. He says he believes God would not judge, and yet he still begs me to drink from him, and refuses to kill any others himself. I do not understand it. ...He says he does not want anybody to die for him, even if not by his hand. That he could not live with himself, if he had taken a life."
Her entire form shook, racked once with a powerful shiver. She lowered her eyes. "He retained his humanity... I gave it up without thought. I am a terrible person, compared to him."
Toshio didn't know if she intended it. In fact, he doubted she did.
But he heard the unspoken and so are you clear as day.
In the end, he said nothing to her at all.
It was the height of summer. The sun rose early, and set late. Off season for the Shiki, as he understood it. Their strength waxed and waned with the seasons.
It allowed Toshio to rest with Sunako just as anxious fueled fear began to taper off, the sun pulling its way up over the horizon and sending Sunako into her sleep while he watched warily all the while. He kicked her once, smashing her into the corner, dropping his foot down with a clinical feel to it. She didn't make a sound or even twitch to break her fall.
Satisfied, Toshio dropped himself down into his desk chair, and lay his head on top of his arms.
Sleep was still a far way's off.
Even as exhausted as he was, even as much as he wished to just close his eyes, and when he opened them, have Seishin and Sunako be gone- nothing further to do with this absolute nightmare- he could not do it.
He stayed awake, watching the traitor he had once called friend with veiled eyes.
It was a 6:34 precisely that he woke.
Toshio stayed silent, and he wondered why he felt nothing at all when two black eyes slid to crack open, thin onyx crescents sliding open to look around the office. Not even when they found him did he allow himself to feel a thing.
Seishin smiled slightly. He looked almost amused.
"I asked Sunako not to bring me here."
Toshio let out a bitter chuckle. "She told it otherwise."
Seishin did not move from his prone position, not even twitching save for his gaze that soon left him to roam around the office. It rested on Sunako, and Toshio did not miss the sigh of relief. "Thank you for not killing her."
It was honest gratitude, and Toshio scowled. Seishin was right to worry. "Don't expect me to extend the courtesy again. If I ever even see one of you near this building again, I will not be so kind."
"I suppose that we did not have a right to expect this kindness at all."
"No. You did not."
Seishin paused. Then, silently and with all the grace of one not just brought back from the brink of a second death, he brought himself upright. He brought his hands together and half-bowed in a sign of very formal gratitude, a monk entirely without a sign of anything else- human or otherwise. "Thank you. If I could repay you, I would."
"You can repay me for getting out of my sight the moment you can stand."
Seishin sat for a moment, motionless, still in the position of a near bow. "...You are still angry, then."
What- had he been expecting something different?
Toshio simply scoffed. That statement did not deserve words.
Seishin sat quietly for a few moments, his soulless eyes focused on the ground. "You have every right," he said quietly at last, and brought his hands down. He folded his legs underneath him, again sitting as a monk would. Habits long set were hard to break, perhaps. "You don't need to worry. Sunako and I will take our leave as soon as night falls. If this happens again... we will seek another supply."
Toshio grimaced. Supply; a very callous way of putting it. Blood was simply a supply to them, sustenance; it was their bread and water. Nothing more. With that mindset, he could easily see how Sunako had taken no thought to bringing death wherever she went. It was just her food, that was all. Why should she care?
Evidently, though, Seishin did care.
"...How did you find me?" Toshio asked, at length. It wasn't that he particularly cared, but a neutral question was easier than all that was left unsaid between them.
"We overheard discussion of the brilliant Ozaki Toshio-sensei. I only know of you. We did not go looking for you, Toshio." Seishin smiled tentatively again. "As I said, I asked Sunako specifically to not bring me here. I knew that you would not appreciate it."
Did not appreciate it was a very gentle way of putting it. A small, petty part of him wanted to whip out the cross again, put Seishin through an ounce of fear that his Shiki friends had put them through. An even smaller part wished he still kept stakes in his office.
"Does Sotoba still stand?" Seishin asked quietly, when he did not respond. "Did you rebuild? Or..."
Toshio raised an eyebrow. "After you burned it, you mean?"
"...Sunako issued no such order," he said monotonously, after a moment. "We were just as surprised as you must have been."
Toshio believed him. Or, at least, believed that Sunako had told him the Shiki were uninvolved. He didn't trust Sunako as far as he could throw her.
He sighed, lacing his fingers in front of him and continuing to watch Seishin. "Well, no. Sotoba was not rebuilt. Or if it was, we had nothing to do with it. After we escaped, no one wanted to go back. I opened a clinic here... I don't know, or care, what happened to any others. All I can tell you is that they didn't return to Sotoba." He laughed softly. "God help anybody who chooses to rebuild that place now."
Seishin's lip twitched, and Toshio blinked. He hadn't intended to use that phrase- Seishin and Sunako, both far removed from help any deity would ever give. But, he couldn't bring himself to care. Seishin had made his choice.
"...My father died, didn't he?"
Toshio frowned. So, Seishin hadn't known, either. "...Yes. Ookawa-san killed him."
The former monk's eyes widened, but in what emotion, he could not tell. Then he shook his head darkly, seeming almost amused. "Ookawa-san? My father rose, then?"
"You didn't know."
He shook his head again. "No. But I'm not surprised. There seems to be a genetic component, in who rises and who does not. ...I knew the Shiki had taken him, regardless. I found a letter, after he disappeared, one he instructed me to give to the Kirishiki's. I give you permission to enter my room, it said," he quoted eerily, as if it was only yesterday. "This is not permission to enter my wife's room. This is not permission to enter my son's room." Seishin shook his head faintly, thin and impeccably neat hair dislodging from behind his ear with the motion. The strands of silver, longer than he remained, trailed to fall over his sunken left eye and cheek. "He knew, somehow, what they were. ...When I saw it, I knew he must have died."
That was a surprise to Toshio, though he wasn't sure why. If he had stopped to think about it beforehand, it did make sense- somebody had to have invited them into the temple, and and it seemed unlikely the senior monk would've been their first target.
Unless, of course, he was the one who had invited them.
Toshio shook his head himself, letting out one small, sardonic smile. "Like father, like son. Both of you volunteered yourselves as food to them."
Seishin narrowed his eyes, though, lowering his gaze thoughtfully to his hands. "...No," he said at length, and shook his head. He pushed at his glasses, thin swath of hair till obscuring one eye from view. "No. He wanted to die, I think. He had no interest in befriending the Shiki... but, suicide is an immortal sin no matter what religion you follow. He asked for them to kill him, so he would not have to do it himself."
Toshio frowned. "So- like father, like son, then. My point still stands. He just cut deeper than you did."
Both of them looked towards Seishin's upturned arm. The scar there was more vivid in death than in life.
A lifetime ago, Toshio would never have brought up Seishin's attempt on his life like that. But now, it had not even been difficult. Seishin's actions had effectively sliced clean through the bond between them in a way that time or physical distance never could have, and he spoke carelessly and without thought. He wondered why it was so much harder to hate Seishin now, when they were face to face again. One would think it would be even easier, werewolf sitting before him in innocence and life when so many others were dead.
"...Yes, I suppose he did," Seishin said at length. He delicately turned his arm over, and hid the scar from view.
Toshio looked at his arm still.
"...Do I want to know you escaped?" he muttered at last. "Or will that only depress me more?'
Seishin shifted slightly. "Probably, yes," he admitted. But when Toshio did not speak again, the former monk continued on, evidently taking it as permission. "Sunako was cornered by Ookawa-san, at the temple. I was dying. The humans were frightened... they attacked everybody in the temple. They didn't know who was involved, they thought even the innocents had betrayed them, they killed them all..."
How easily he said 'humans', as if he was not one of them. How easily he had removed himself from the disaster that had fallen into place, a calm bystander instead of one the chess pieces at play.
How easily he commented on humanity's depravity, as if he himself was not something far worse.
"I rose," Seishin said calmly. "I killed Ookawa-san before he killed Sunako. And we ran."
Somehow, Toshio was simply too tired to be surprised.
"What happened to the only life you were willing to take was your own?" he said back, folding his arms. Fallen from his moral pedestal, then. Just as depraved as the rest of them.
Good.
Seishin looked at him through hooded eyes. "He would not have escaped the fire. We could."
"Excuses? Or, you were playing God?"
"...I have tried to make up for it every day since."
"Yeah. No." He snorted. "Sorry to break it to you, but not killing people now doesn't make up for the fact that you did."
"...I know."
"What, that's it- you know?" He brought a hand down against the desk; it smacked harder than he intended, the noise and the stinging leaving him takenaback. Then he did it again even harder, and Seishin jumped. "You wouldn't kill one of those Shiki to save us, but you'd kill one of us to save them?!" he spat. "You're despicable. I can't believe I ever thought we were friends. I never knew you at all."
Hurt flickered across dead features, just a flash of real pain before it was gone again, and he was as unreadable and still as he had been all night. The silence dragged on, Toshio breathing hard and suddenly enraged again, just the sight of Seishin enough to make him want him dead- and Seishin just, sat there.
"...Coming here was a mistake."
"Yes. It was," Toshio snarled. The heavy resignation, defeat in his voice did nothing to make him regret it. No; it emboldened him. "What made you think it would ever be anything but, Seishin?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "As I've said, I asked Sunako not to bring me here. I don't know why she did."
Toshio scoffed, sending another dark glare at the sleeping demoness. "She kept making excuses for you. Talking like you were such a moral devil, you know; wouldn't kill anyone, wouldn't even let her kill anyone... I think she hoped to change my mind about you. Well, I don't care what you've done since we last saw each other, Seishin. I don't care how moral of a dammed werewolf you are. You chose this life. You chose to help them kill us all. If our friendship meant something to you, anything at all, you wouldn't have turned your fucking back when I asked for your help. It's too late for apologies, Seishin! It's too late for anything! Get out!"
Seishin stayed entirely too calm.
Being berated, screamed at, and thrown out onto the street didn't give his infuriating mask one single crack. If it was even a mask- Toshio would believe the Seishin was really as uncaring as he looked. Ten years was a long time- he did not know Seishin anymore.
If he had even still known him when he left.
At last, the werewolf bowed his head in respect, not repentance, and his black eyes lowered to the ground. "I will be gone as soon as the moon rises," he said stiffly, when the silence had passed long enough to be stifling. "...Sunako will die if we leave now."
"You think that matters to me?!" he screamed. How the hell could Seishin sit their calmly, act as if nothing as wrong, and ask him to harbor murderers for a single second longer? Toshio rose and grabbed Sunako by the wrist, tossing the limp form across the room with as much force as he could muster. Her tiny form crashed into Seishin's arms and slammed them both down, the werewolf still too weak to hold her up. "I don't care if she burns to death! I don't care if you burn to death! Get out!"
Seishin remained still for only a second more. The werewolf looked at him passively, one hand on Sunako curled in primitive protectiveness, but when he did not relent he bowed his head in acceptance.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Ozaki-san," he said stiffly. He stood delicately, rising to unsteady feet and carefully dusting himself off. In him he saw the same fatigue that had been in Natsuno, in werewolves that declined blood, and he hated it. He hated that Seishin had been as moral as a devil as there ever was.
He hated him.
Seishin swayed for a few moments, still weak and uneasy, but a hand around Sunako's the entire time. When he was steady again, he carefully knelt down by her side and zipped her coat up, then folded a pair of gloves onto her unresponsive hands. Toshio's lips curled and he looked away, fighting rage; yes, protect the monster from burning to death. It was a very monk-like thing to do, and infuriating to say the least.
"Enjoy yourself with your murderer," he said as a biting last remark, leaning back in his chair. He rubbed the cross faintly, still watching the pair's every move.
Seishin, however, stilled.
"...She is not a murderer."
Oh, he could scream at Seishin until he was blue in the face and call him a despicable murdering monster and the werewolf did not care- but he wouldn't let even one ill word about Sunako go on unanswered for?
Was he fucking serious?
Defend the bitch. See if I care.
Except- he did care.
He couldn't stop himself from caring to the point that he wanted to scream.
"Are you serious?!" he gasped out, staring at him. "Do you have any idea how many people she's killed?"
Seishin stayed motionless, not even looking over his shoulder at him. "She is a killer, yes. But she is not a murderer."
"That is a line of distinction that is meaningless!" he cried. "Oh, I didn't murder my wife, I just killed her! That makes it all better, Seishin!"
Seishin still did not look at him. But his hand over Sunako's collar tightened, and his head bowed lower in a protective curl over the Shiki. "You had intention to kill Kyoko. Sunako has never had the intention to kill anybody. She was so young when she rose... she only knew instinct. She only knew that she was hungry, and her instinct had her biting people. Should she have refused her instinct? She was a child, Toshio. Is it so bad that she did not choose to starve to death? Is she such a bad person for simply following her instincts?"
It seemed Seishin had only come here to make him hate him more. At least, that was all he was succeeding in.
"So, I'm a worse person than Sunako, then." He laughed humorlessly. "Wonderful to know where you stand."
"...That is not what I said-"
"It's exactly what you said. Perhaps you didn't intend to put it to words, but you think it."
It was perhaps good that he did not have a stake. If he had, this moment would've been when he snapped, and used it out of nothing more than anger.
At his words, Seishin lowered his eyes, and perhaps now it was guilt. Finally soulless guilt to wrack against an unbeating heart, finally just some form of emotion that was not unspoken and unintended moral superiority.
Now, the demon was unable to meet his eyes, and Toshio would've drawn pleasure from the minute victory if it was really a victory at all.
He shook his head, lowering his eyes to his desk again. The gesture felt like admitting defeat. It was. "I killed my wife," he said simply. "I know it. Sunako killed her, really- her heart did not beat when I stabbed it. But I still feel as if it was me."
"She still thought. She still felt. ...She still loved you."
I know that.
I know that, Seishin.
...Shut up.
"What would you have had me do?" he choked out, half strangled. "Let her die? Let her rise? Let her kill me? There's no reverse to a Shiki bite. I couldn't have turned her human again. And like it or not there can be no coexistence between us and them. You and Sunako have your screwed up balance. You think any other werewolves would be so content to exist only so Shiki don't have to kill? That there would even be enough werewolves for Shiki?" He shook his head and shut his eyes, simply the sight of him too much to bear. "When my wife rose, all she would be able to do is kill people. She wouldn't have wanted that- I don't think anybody does. I used her death to understand how to end it all. I knew what I was doing, and I would do it again, Seishin."
"You speak as if it was a mercy killing."
Toshio kept his eyes shut. "What, are you opposed to that, too? That's ironic, for one suicidal."
The silence fell once more, and when Seishin spoke again, he again let the comment slide. "I am not necessarily opposed to it, no. But it was not a mercy killing. You killed her as a- a test subject."
His hand curled.
"...You killed her like an animal, Toshio."
She couldn't speak, but she kept mouthing my name.
"We are both cowards. I joined the Shiki because I couldn't bear killing Sunako- not through morality or ideals. You killed your wife to figure out how to slaughter an entire people- not to take mercy."
Shut up, Seishin.
SHUT UP.
"Shiki, and you, killed Kyoko. Not just Shiki."
"G-Get... get out."
There was a lengthy pause. Not once did he hear Seishin take a single step.
"I said, get out!"
It was hard to breathe.
"...Toshio, I-"
"Don't say another word! Get the hell out now!"
"Toshio-"
"LEAVE!" His voice sprang from a guttural growl that scratched at his throat to a piercing scream ripped straight from agony, his heart pounding and his hands shaking so much the cross at last slipped from numb fingers. He pushed himself out of the chair and stared wildly down at Seishin, the werewolf crouched over Sunako and looking at him finally with wide eyes and an ageless face that finally at last showed pain.
In that moment, Toshio wanted it so much he actually saw it- the stake, piercing through his nonbeating heart.
The spray of blood, so magnificent and huge it ruined the entire office.
His own hand going straight through Seishin's chest.
"You had no problem leaving ten years ago! You had no problem walking out the god dammed door, you and your high and mighty judgement and moral superiority! What's stopping you now?! Get out of here! Get the hell away from me NOW!"
"I'm sorry, Toshio!"
Toshio was too furious to even care.
"You're sorry?! Now?! You say you're sorry now?! Fuck you, Seishin!"
"Toshio, I'm sorry, I was angry when I saw- I didn't think-"
"Oh, you were angry, is that?" His hands slammed against the desk again, sheer frustration and rage claiming him again until all he could see was him driving a stake through Seishin's heart. "You were angry?! You?! Yeah, sorry for not stopping to consider your feelings, Seishin. I should've realized that the sight of my wife impaled on a stake would be upsetting for you. Next time I decide to up and kill my wife, for kicks and giggles, apparently, I'll be sure to consult you first and make sure you won't be angry over it!"
"Toshio! I was wrong! I was wrong! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have reacted like I did- I know it now, okay?! It was selfish of me, and stupid, and I was too caught up trying to find the right way to consider what you were going through. I'm sorry, Toshio. I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have turned my back on you, and I'm sorry."
Toshio had never been so stunned in his life.
Seishin was... sorry.
He was genuinely sorry.
"Toshio!" The werewolf knelt until his forehead met the carpet, shaking in actual sorrow and regret, but it wasn't the bow of a monk it was simply completely Seishin, entirely his childhood friend that had once dreamed of a better life. "I know it has been ten years. I know it is too late to apologize- I know that it was too late the moment that I turned around and walked out. But... please. Accept my apology. I'm sorry, Toshio."
Toshio had long hated Seishin. He'd spent the first year furious at him, the second year trying to understand him, the third year just missing him, and by the fourth, he had hated him with every fiber of his being.
He'd vowed, that third year, that it would be the last time the former monk managed to make him feel a damn thing. He'd been done being hurt over someone who'd managed to make all the wrong choices even when the right ones were handed to him on a silver platter.
He'd believed Seishin was dead, but still promised himself that if he ever saw him breathing again, he'd kill him himself.
Now, Seishin was making him break those promises, when just the sight of him like this made his heart throb in an agonizing way, and he was left speechless.
Seishin was actually sorry.
"Y-you..."
Seishin pressed his head even harder against the floor, fingers curling and shaking.
"Seishin..."
"I have lived ten years trying to help Sunako to accept who she is and what she has done. She is closer, I think, she finally is starting to understand... but now I realize I am no closer to accepting myself. I have lived ten years trying to defy what God has ordained for us; I tell her that He has forsaken us and we are not to be judged by Him anymore, that this was not through His will, but- I think that I was cursed. I think He cursed me to live immortal along the line that I could not cross even when it meant the lives of everybody in Sotoba. He cursed me to eternal hell and I... I defy it. Sunako defies it for me. But it will never be enough!"
Seishin's hands twisted against the carpet, fingers curling inwards in anxiety as his voice rose until it cracked on anguish. He trembled until his neatly combed hair broke free of order and spilled over his neck to hang down his face, hiding everything but shaking along with him from the sheer weight of emotion. "You killed a hundred in Sotoba. I killed so many more through my inability to act! I couldn't ever raise a hand against another and this is what I am cursed as... the instinct to kill. Just because I refuse it does not mean it is not there. Please, Toshio."
He's... he's begging me...
"If there is a god," Seishin gasped, "he does not hear me." His voice broke. "He is deaf and blind to me." Then it shattered over the burden of defeat. "Please, Toshio. Give me absolution. I made mistakes. I did things I shouldn't have done. I wanted to die so long ago and now I only live for her, I only live to help her see who she is, to help her accept it- but without Sunako I would die. I would beg for death. I repent to world's end but- no one hears me."
Cursed, and deity whether vengeful or merciful or both deaf to plea for a shard of a blessing. Very utterly alone.
"Please," Seishin begged. "You hear me, Toshio... you hear me... don't you..." he trailed off under pain of torture, unable to go on. He gasped in a ragged breath, then another, shaking so much now he looked as if he would fall apart, until at last he managed a final plea.
"Please forgive me."
Seishin was sorry.
Seishin was asking for his forgiveness.
It was too much to handle.
Help me clean this up.
So real he could feel it; see the dark shadows of autopsy and see Seishin eyes widen in disgust, his features twist in judgment. Hear the footsteps echoing as he walked away from the one time Toshio had ever asked anything from him. Smell the hot wash of blood, rotted and pungent. Taste it from the splatter on his face.
Feel the devastating heartbreak from his wife's destroyed body in his arms- and his best friend walking away.
Help me clean this up.
That single moment he had replayed, over and over again in his mind...
Searching for where it all went wrong...
Once upon a time I could've called him, and he would've come, and he would've understood without words and helped me and not only seen that I had murdered my wife.
How had Seishin missed that then upon ever was when he had really needed a friend...
How did I miss him changing to the point where he could walk away?
"Toshio!"
Frantic and desperate; human scream mixed with werewolf's howl until suddenly he could not help himself; his mind refused to reconcile with the fact that it was a werewolf sitting in front of his desk and a vampire in the corner and that his entire life had been flipped upside down, torn to shreds, and set aflame without so much as a careless afterthought by the two immortals forsaken by God.
He saw Seishin.
Crushed against the floor, begging forgiveness, and so utterly, undeniably human he could not take it anymore.
I hate you, Seishin.
Toshio flung himself out of his chair and stumbled around the desk, catching his hip on the corner and not even feeling the pain.
I can never forget what you did.
He grabbed Seishin by the collar and yanked him up off the floor. He heard him gasp even as he crushed against him, a force stronger than hate bringing his arm up to embrace his friend.
But I can forgive it.
"Seishin!"