Disclaimer: I do not own Shiki, etc.
Pairings: Various. Will include Natsuno/Tohru and Natsuno/Akira at the least.
Warnings: standard vampire tropes, blood, death, etc; boys kissing each other; gruesome deaths; mass conspiracies; and probably some more stuff will be added later.
Summary: Nearly a decade after what happened in his hometown, Akira is a university student in the city. But perhaps things aren't quite as behind him as he thought.
Things you should know: I've taken a few liberties with canon to facilitate the premise. Natsuno running away with Tohru is probably the most important. There'll be others, but I'll deal with those in-story.
1. Things Forgotten, Things Uncovered
Saturday, 3.50 a.m.
Akira could hear his heart beating. He felt it, too, but the sound stood out more, washed away the ambient noises. For a moment he forgot where he was, or when.
On his knees, hunched over the corpse, Akira recalled the Epidemic all those years ago, but he wiped those thoughts from his mind like so much blood. It occurred to him that he was grinning. Had he really thought it was over?
He stood up. The girl was out cold, but still breathing. Barely any pulse. Her hair reminded him of his sister's—but he didn't care to think long on that. He needed to get her to a hospital, but not before disposing of the body. Time was against him, though, and he settled for a nearby dumpster. It wouldn't do for very long, but he'd deal with that later.
The streets were quiet this time of night, and hardly a soul he met spared him a glance anyway; such was the city, he'd learned. In his arms the girl nuzzled against his chest, her first sign of movement. She just might make it.
Friday, 6.30 a.m.
The sun shone cold and stale in the morning. Through the glass Akira watched as the cityscape swept past. He fingered absentmindedly at his too-tight collar. His shirt was a bit small, now; maybe he'd go shopping Sunday. He leaned back against his seat, head pressing against the window. His arms fell into place at his side.
Friday meant morning lab followed by hours in the library reading dusty old books. Then it was off to work until the wee hours of the morning. And him not yet rested from the night before! But such was his vice. He reached his hand up and tapped at the glass arrhythmically as the train breeched the tunnel. Tap t-tap taptap.
"Sure you can't?" Junta insisted. Most unlike him.
"Really," Akira told his classmate. "I can't afford two days in a row."
Junta hung his head in defeat. "And Kaname was going to finally introduce that coworker of hers she keeps talking about, too."
Just as his friend reached the end of the hallway, Akira called out, "Wait. Tell her I might be able to get off early, okay?"
The green-haired bastard grinned.
Akira laughed. "But don't go expecting too much." He turned around sharply and headed through the stairwell door, slamming it a shade too hard behind him in his haste.
"We don't expect great things from you," his supervisor growled, "only competence." She brought her pen down from her hair to her clipboard. "Do you know how frequently you leave early?" Ms Watanashi stared him down. She may have been twice his age—and half his height—but her grey eyes beneath honey-tinted bangs sent shivers down his spine.
"I'm very sorry, ma'am," he said with an apologetic bow. "It won't happen again."
She smiled. "Yes, it will." Her heels tapped against the tile floor smooth and even. "But that's why you'll be working a double shift next Tuesday." The door swung open before Akira even had a chance to respond. "Now get to work."
"Yes, ma'am," he said as the door slammed shut. The monitors' continued buzzing pierced cleanly through the newborn stillness. Akira tried to look diligent as he could, but he could bear staring at unchanging screens for only so long without reprieve. His chair squeaked as he leaned back. Nothing ever really happened here—not while he was on duty, at least. Despite their somewhat controversial business of genetically modifying crops, there were as yet no attempts at vandalism. So mostly he just sat and twiddled his thumbs while stealing glances at the clock on the opposite wall.
Nine o'clock, it read, on the dot. One hour more and he'd be free to join his friends at the studio. Reclining, head tilted all the way back to watch the clock, he at first didn't notice the lonely figure wander onto the leftmost screen. So surprised was he to see a person not wearing a lab coat this time of night he lost his balance and fell to the floor on his back. Probably she was just some lab technician's daughter who wandered off and got lost, but it was his job to make certain.
By the time he reached her she'd already wandered to the next hall over, but the girl looked no more sure of her whereabouts. She moved with a light sort of grace that struck Akira as almost unnatural.
"Excuse me, miss?" he called to her, but she made no indication she had heard him. "Are you lost?"
"Aren't we all, though," she said at last, still looking away from him.
"I mean, are you looking for someone? Like your dad?"
"That is an interesting question, I think," she said, now turning toward him. "But not how you mean it." Her eyes seemed younger than her words, though she said them playfully. "Do you know my father, perhaps?"
"I do if he works here," Akira said.
"That he does," she said, "but before we go any further, decorum requires I introduce myself, wouldn't you say, Mr Akira?" She grinned.
"A name would help things along, certainly."
"My father calls me Matsue, but don't think I'll let you get away with that." She skipped over closer to where Akira stood. Full of movement in general, this girl was, though she looked only a few years younger than himself at most. "Dr Naroshima is my father, so you may call me 'Oh beautiful and exalted daughter of the brilliant Dr Naroshima,' if you would." She giggled. "Or not."
"Miss Matsue," Akira said, offering his hand, "if you would follow me, I can lead you right to his office."
"No use going there," she said with a twirl. "He's not there—wasn't, I suppose. But he won't be there now either." Her moving stopped suddenly, and her face switched to worrying. "He always comes, right on time. But not today. Help me find him, won't you?"
"Of course," he said, and she took his hand even as he spoke. "Come with me and we can see if maybe he checked out of the building."
She walked with him now in higher spirits, but Akira's thoughts wandered away from her as she chatted away idly. He knew the name, Dr Naroshima, but couldn't say what he did precisely. Didn't see much of him, either, but that of itself was hardly unusual. Everyone who worked there with a Dr affixed to his name treated "the help" with a certain level of disdain. Engineers and technicians usually were nicer, more friendly.
"... and you're not even listening to me, are you?" she said.
"What? Of course I am," he said too quickly. "But, anyway—your father. You meet him here like this regularly?"
"Every week I wait for him in his office, always like clockwork," she said. "But the clock seems to have broken, somehow."
"I'm sure it's nothing major," Akira reassured her.
"It had better be major, for him to leave me alone like that. I won't forgive him otherwise."
"Well, here we are," he said with a flourish as he opened the door. "You can sit over there while I check the computer."
But she was already spinning around in his chair by the monitors. "So who is it?" she said.
"What? Who do you mean?" Akira said as he sat down in front of the computer. He'd checked the database like this before, but the process still intimidated him somewhat more than it had any right to.
"The person you're looking for, of course. I know the face of a man who's looking for someone."
"I'm not looking for anyone," he said. "Other than your father."
"And I know what a lie sounds like just as well."
"Here," he said, ignoring her last statement. "Found him. Says he checked into the library a few hours ago. He should still be there."
"How could he let some boring old book distract him from me?"
"Shall we go, then?" he offered.
In her excitement she knocked the chair over as she stood, didn't bother to right it. "And we'll show him a thing or two, won't we?"
Akira grinned down at her.
The library was all the way on the other side of the building, and up a few floors as well. He'd never given it much thought, how disorienting the building's layout could be. Where other places would have some sort of order to everything, a sense of regularity, all but a few things seemed random from floor to floor, almost like a maze. As always the halls were well lit and too white, with hardly a window in sight. But Matsue seemed at home enough, filled the stark walls with echoes of her bubbling laughter.
"I know it's conceited to laugh at my own jokes, but I can't help myself. Besides," she huffed, "you've not laughed at a thing I've said. And I know I'm wittier than that."
"Well, don't you have a high opinion of yourself," he said with a laugh. "Look, we're almost there. It's just at the end of this hall."
Before the words left his mouth, almost, she already was running ahead to the door, peering, then slipping inside. Yet the room was empty and dark—with no father to be found.
"You said he'd be here," she said in a huff.
"He should be," Akira said. "He's still logged onto his account in here."
On first inspection the room was all books and tables, but further in and around the corner—what you might call a nook were it smaller—a row of computers lined the wall; one of them was still on. The seat in front of it though was long cold to the touch, as far as Akira could tell.
"He hasn't been here for a while," he said, bending over as he spoke to more closely inspect the screen. "Looks like maybe he was in a hurry to leave, or..." he began, but when he turned around Matsue was gone. "Matsue?" However he turned his head she was nowhere in sight, the only clue the billowing curtains of a fresh-opened window. He poked his head outside. "What? How did she even...?"
A glimpse of her hair, just as she rounded the building across the street, and then nothing. How'd she get down there so fast? There weren't even any trees near the window, so how...? But thinking too much about it only frustrated Akira further. He scratched at his head furiously and mumbled what might have been obscenities to himself. Ten till, his watch said; dammit, they didn't pay him enough for this.
He closed the window with a sigh and flicked the light back off before he left, closed the door behind him. A light in the hallway flickered uncharacteristically, like something right out of a horror movie. Looking up, he noted the location, would leave word to the janitors. Not like them to overlook something like that. The thought of lording it over Nanami left a trace of a smile on his lips.
His mood lifted as he walked, and he maybe even whistled after he reached the stairs. Where would he be in an hour, he wondered—but, then, he already knew the answer to that. The door to the security room was open when he got there; must have gotten caught up in Matsue's enthusiasm to forget something so basic as that. He grabbed his coat from off the table before reaching for the radio.
"Ms Watanashi?" he said. "I'm heading out."
"Take care," she said mechanically.