A/N: This is a spontaneous one-shot I sat down and wrote today. I hope you enjoy! It's AU, by the way.

Enjoy! BT

Specter

Yin watches him when he sleeps. He looks younger, somehow. Maybe even peaceful. She watches as his chest rises and falls in a pendulum rhythm, his breath evening out over time. It is nights like these which make it all worth it, when Hei strips off his mask, and just melts.

Mao and Huang have gone back to base—the makeshift back apartment they rented somewhere downtown. But Yin has decided to stay here, back on the bed, the hot summer air causing her to hitch up her skirt, just a little bit, to let the fan's breeze take off the heat. She has one hand dipped in a shallow bowl of water on the table. While Hei lies dreaming, Yin is able to go far away.

Sometimes she goes to the river, or to the fountain in the park. Sometimes, like tonight, she stays at the apartment, just looking. Silver hair falls into her face, but she's too tired to brush it away. Her own breasts rise and fall as she slips lower into sleep.

It isn't long at all before the entire city of Tokyo falls into darkness. They don't know the machines which walk among them, don't know that they live and breathe beneath human skin, blending in as a wolf would in sheep's clothing. But Yin doesn't mind. She's at peace now, at least, until tomorrow.

Tomorrow is reprogramming day.

BTBTBT

Hei never talks about it, but every time Yin comes back from programming he always stays a tad too quiet. Mao pretends like nothing is wrong, and Huang isn't concerned enough to actually harbor feelings for these monsters.

Today, Yin feels a bit like silver. All hard metal, no seams, and cold. They time these sessions on star cycles, unique to each individual. At the peak, the zenith, they have named it, something like a soul begins to latch onto her body. The scientists aren't sure where it comes from. This soul? It can't really be a soul, can it? All they know is that they can't control it.

Yin is a unique case, they told Huang. She seems to develop one faster than average. Every three months she's sent back to the Syndicate's programmers, and each time, it is like watching silver tarnish.

No one has really seen what goes on inside these pristine white buildings, many meters underground. All they know is that no one comes out unchanged. Yin is put on an assembly line, sent through several checkpoints, before arriving at the actual station. Once there, she's strapped down, and one of the doctors there puts her under a sort of trance. Her memory file is washed out, downloaded onto a doll network, and a new file is inserted. It's not exactly a physical chip, but more of an idea which comes into existence and latches itself onto her brain.

Like all things mysterious and unnatural, it came from the Gate. Just, no one knows exactly how. because naturally, the entire team was murdered.

This new...thing, enters into Yin's head and tries to find a niche there, but can't for several moments. It's because there's something already there, fighting it, but that thing is in its infancy. It's weak and dies out. The doctors don't report anything, scared that they'll be killed too. Yin is sent back, a little altered, a little sad.

What they don't know is that this thing inside of her grows stronger by the minute.

BTBTBT

The next time Yin goes back is the day Hei goes on a date with Misaki. She returns to an empty house and watches them come up the street from the window. Hei doesn't look up, but Misaki has seen her. When Misaki points, Hei simply shakes his head. He denies it. It's another room, he tells her, a new neighbor, perhaps.

Misaki laughs it off and nods. Yin steps away from the window and waits for Hei to come up.

Tonight as they sleep, Yin can't stop thinking about that woman. She's older, more mature, is tall, with beautiful, long black hair. In other words, she's everything Yin's not. She pulls the covers higher over her bare legs, shivering from the cold. Hei sleeps with his mask close by the bed, scared if he needs to make a quick escape. Yin has no mask. But she sleeps guarded, hand dipped in water, she makes rounds and rounds around the apartment complex. She doesn't admit it, but she's searching for Misaki...

BTBTBT

The next day, Mao is sent to follow people from MI-6. Misaki is with them and they are all investigating some sort of artifact from the Gate. Hei volunteers to go with, to which Huang simply grunts. He tells Yin she can have the day off, as if she can shut off who she is, what she does.

The rest of the day, Yin wanders the town, wondering what everything looks like. She has her hand dipped in a cup of water, but luckily no one is paying too much attention to her. She's not sure how, but by noon, she is on the steps in front of the police building, wondering who she's waiting for. Clearly there's something to do in there, so she sends her specter out and searches. Unfortunately, the police have wised up and her specter can get no further than the front door. Sighing, she turns around.

It is at this moment that Misaki herself is coming up the steps. When she looks up, she nearly falls back down, startled as she is to find that peculiar silver haired girl at her workplace.

"Do you need something?" Misaki asks, not unkindly.

Yin knows she should shake her head, but instead she murmurs, "Yes."

"Let's go inside."

Yin is surprised that Misaki leads her inside, expecting to be turned away. She's actually astounded at her kindness, wondering how she could ever hate such a sweet woman.

"Do you need more water?" Misaki asks her, standing up and reaching out as if to grab the cup.

"Yes, please."

As soon as Misaki leaves the room, Yin does too. Her first instinct is to get out of here. She has no business in there, and it's dreadfully awkward. But something calls to her, something that seems just a bit like silver.

Curious, she follows the pull until she reaches a locked door, apparently made of glass. When she pushes against it, she hears locks sliding into place. Panicked, she turns around, only to be met with a single voice.

"Lost?"

Yin shakes her head, "No."

The boy smiles, slightly. He's a bit shorter than her with mouse blonde hair and dull, grey eyes.

"You aren't supposed to be here. November said so." the boy says.

Footsteps run towards them, and Yin backs up into the door.

"Oh, there you are!" Misaki gasps, out of breath. She must have been running. "July, do you know this person?"

July shakes his head. "Yes. Her name is Yin."

Yin doesn't start, but she's none the less alarmed.

"Did November need something in there?" Misaki asks presently. "I'll let you in."

"Yes."

There's a click and the sound of locks moving and uncoiling inside the door. Yin steps back until she can feel the boy beside her.

"Thank you, Misaki." July says tonelessly.

At that moment, Misaki's cell phone goes off. The woman makes a quick excuse before leaving both dolls alone in front of the vault.

"How do you know me?" Yin asks the boy.

The boy doesn't answer for the longest time. Finally he says, "because your soul told me. It's in here." He points into the room, but Yin can't see very well.

"What is that?" she asks, feeling the pull stronger now.

"Don't know." July says.

Yin frowns. This can't be good. In fact, her program is screaming for her to run. She wonders if July feels the same way. Upon closer inspection, Yin finds that the object so heavily guarded is no more than a crystal. It feels warm to the touch, and she can feel something like a pulse from inside it. Instead of feeling repulsed, she holds it tighter, letting it pulse inside her fist like some heart or some rodent.

"Place it on your forehead." July tells her quietly.

"My forehead?"

July nods.

So Yin does it. She touches the crystal to her forehead as the power goes out...Yin can't remember anything after that.

BTBTBT

The next day, Yin wakes up in Hei's apartment. He's sitting by her bed, looking tired and worried.

"Why did you do it?" he asks. "You didn't know what it did! It was from the Gate! It could have killed you!"

That's when Yin places a finger to her lips and smiles. When she speaks it is with a fullness of a thousand souls, a thousand stars, a thousand lives.

"I'm just a doll, Hei. I'm made to hold things. Whether it is programming or directions, or a whole personality. Hei, isn't it so much better to have myself inside me?"

Mao hops from the window onto the floor, while Huang comes barging in from the kitchen.

"What were you thinking?" they shout at her, but they do so with concern.

"I'm not going back there." she says firmly. "I can't. I'll die."

Huang acquiesces, but only because if they see her in this state, he'll be murdered for sure.

BTBTBT

Now when Yin sleeps, it is without water. She lets both hands rest on her stomach and she lets the covers pool around her waist. Hei stays up, listening to her breathing rise and fall. He doesn't tell anyone, but he's terrified of what may happen to her. Sometimes he wakes and her slender arms are around his waist, her mouth nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

When he asks what she dreamed about last night, she gives him a coquettish smile and says she doesn't know. Then she stretches and preens her long silver hair. It's not bad to have her own personality, Hei thinks, but something isn't quite right. He misses the old Yin, but perhaps this was her all along. He tells himself this, that this is better. She talks more, laughs more, almost like a human, except she's not.

There's no evidence that anything went wrong that day. No side effects whatsoever. Yin has stopped working for a while since Huang had to lie and say she injured herself. He can't exactly say she died because her star is still in the sky.

There's no change at all except that she's afraid of water. She says she's tired of it, that's all. But one day, Hei watches her. And when she accidently steps into a puddle, a figure rises out of the water and smiles...

A/N- Thanks for reading! I wasn't sure if Yin was blind or not in the series. I thought she could see, and then as I started reading fics and rewatched the series, it became apparent that either she was extremely dependent or blind.

Yin- "So what? I just become Izanami?"

Hei- "It would appear so."

Huang- "And you're not...concerned about this?"

Hei- *shrugs*

July- "PLEASE REVIEW!"