Author's Note: This story is one that I've wanted to write for a while; I've just never found the time or the motivation. I don't have an exact place to where it falls in Yami no Matsuei's timeline, but it takes place sometime after the Kyoto arc. I hope that everyone likes it!

Disclaimer: If I owned Yami no Matsuei, I would force Matsushita-sensei to end her stupid hiatus and finish the series already!

Prologue

Before he had died, this was always how Hisoka had imagined the afterlife. Dark, cold and dreary. Of course, in his vision, there had been a lot more people, and not quite so much white mist, but other than that, this was it. It wasn't the typical optimistic picture of fluffy clouds and blue skies he knew most people had, but considering his background, it was understandable that his own view would be a bit more negative.

To tell the truth, he wasn't sure where he was or how he had gotten here in the first place. However that didn't concern him much, though he was aware that it probably should have. There was something about this land that made things like that unimportant. It was a realm where such questions were trivial and the very concept of time had no place.

Perhaps he had had the right idea all along, and he really was dead. After all, while he had moved on to Meifu after death, it wasn't the true afterlife. It was merely a sort of limbo for those who were not yet ready to pass on.

Although Hisoka supposed that his demise was a plausible explanation, he wasn't sure that he believed it. He had died once before, after all. While the whole process that had taken place before he had been offered the chance to become a shinigami was a bit fuzzy, he was certain there would be some feeling of familiarity if he had kicked the bucket a second time around.

Dead or not, Hisoka couldn't deny that there was something very unnerving about this place. It possessed a sort of unnatural stillness that Hisoka wasn't comfortable with. That, coupled with a sense of urgency that he couldn't explain made it abundantly clear that wherever he was, he couldn't stay here for long. He needed to find a way out, and as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, it appeared that the very air permeating the land had other ideas. As soon as he started moving, the light mist surrounding him suddenly became a dense, heavy substance. With impossible strength, it began to pull Hisoka down to some kind of unimaginable depth that he had been previously unaware of.

Hisoka tried to struggle, but it was like trying to walk through a current of mud, and the harder he tried, the tighter the hold became. He just kept being dragged down further and further, and somehow Hisoka knew that if it was allowed to continue, he wouldn't die. No, his fate would be far worse than that. He would simply cease to exist.

Dimmly, Hisoka was aware that he was in a lot of danger, but it was hard to focus on that as tendrils of mist coiled around him seductively. It was so...pretty. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he allowed it to take him. It wasn't hurting him, really, and he was suddenly so tired. He could just give up, let go of all that kept him tethered to the world. It would be easy. His life, his name, what did it matter? It all seemed so insignificant, and he was so very warm wrapped in this nothingness. He could just close his eyes and allow himself to sink into eternity…

No. It came in a flash of consciousness, in the form of a voice that could have been his own, but he wasn't sure. It was followed by a sharp moment of clarity as he fought to remember himself in this suffocating darkness.

What had he been thinking? Hisoka couldn't just disappear. He refused to allow it. Maybe once he would have let it happen, back when he had nothing to live for, but things were different now. He was different now. For the first time in all his memory, he had friends, a family who were waiting for him. He wasn't willing to give that up.

But obviously, if he ever hoped to return to them, he was going to have to change tactics. Struggling wasn't doing him any good; it only seemed to make things worse. It was like trying to swim against the flow of a great river. However, being on the brink of losing his identity had given Hisoka an idea. What if he didn't try to fight the pull? Instead of participating in a losing battle against an unstoppable force, what if he rode it instead? Maybe it would lead him to shore. It was crazy plan, possibly suicidal, but that only made Hisoka all the more certain that it could work.

Leaning back against the strange waves of energy, Hisoka forced his body to relax. Almost immediately, the grip slackened, and Hisoka discovered the experience of floating on virtually nothing that probably would have struck him as strange in different circumstances.

Closing his eyes, Hisoka cleared his mind. He could still feel the mist's strange pull, but this time he made sure to keep a firm hold of his sense of self, no matter how tempting it was to give up. Instead, he telepathically felt out his surroundings. The terrain was featureless; he wouldn't discover the way out with his eyes. However, the air was thick with energy. All he needed to do was focus his senses and wait for an opening.

There. It was faint, but Hisoka thought he could detect a barely discernable difference in the air. A kind of charge that wasn't present anywhere else. There was no way to see it visibly, but it felt like a rip in the veil. A door, and in his experience, doors usually led to exits.

He allowed the mist to carry him the slightest bit further, and then took a lunge for his freedom. As soon as it was disturbed, the mist coalesced and hardened around him, but it couldn't hold Hisoka this time. Not when he had a goal in his sights. He ran for the exit, conscious that the substance was still behind him, ready to drag him to oblivion.

But when he reached his destination, he discovered that he had been mistaken. The object Hisoka had been so desperately running towards was not a door at all. It was a wall. A thick, impenetrable wall that was blocking his way.

No, Hisoka thought as the fog drew closer. It couldn't end like this. There was still so much he wanted to do. So much he wanted to say. He wouldn't accept this cruel fate.

With a strength that not even Hisoka was consciously aware he possessed, he pressed against the blockade and focused all his power on a single word. Open. Open, open, open, open.

And the wall obeyed, at least in a matter of speaking. It didn't open exactly, it was more like Hisoka fell through to the other side, but it was enough. However, once he got there, he soon discovered that he might not be any better off. Hisoka hadn't had time to consider what he expected to find behind the barrier, but he hadn't been prepared for the pain.

It was the most excruciating thing he had ever felt. He was being crushed by an unbelievable pressure and it was pulling at him, tearing him apart; making him into something new. His entire world was shattering, leaving him to suffocate in the rubble of what he once was.

Hisoka would have screamed, but he had neither a mouth to form the sound, nor was someone there with ears to hear it.

Author's Note: You're all probably very confused. What's happening to Soka-chan? Don't worry, it will all be explained (eventually). I know that the prologue is vague and confusing, but the next chapter will be better, I promise. Please bear with me and review.