It's never a sight one's eye could ever be wonted to; the resonant silence that seemed to keen a grey melancholy into your soul under the draping pink of blossoms, that bestowed the ground with rivers of sallow petals like a million wings of dead fireflies.

A beautiful quietus.

Silent malaise.

Death was rhapsodised in every engraving in the gelid stones that seemed to stand out like thousands upon thousands of thistles in such an Eden. The blond couldn't quite put his hand on whether he felt swamped with sorrow or washed in the peace he had desired so direly, till he saw it with his very own eyes.

True peace only lay with the dead.

The young man brushed away his shame, placing a hand to his temple as if it could kneed the relentless tire out of his brain. Head hung low as if in apology to his ignorance, he stalked down the cemetery- eyes cast down on the floor as if too heavy to lift up. He wound his way groggily to the centre of crossing pathways as he dared to gazed up into the sky, blue seeming immortal. Sempiternal.

Where he would usually find comfort into the way clouds seemed to cascade over the stretch of blue, it felt as though it mocked his mortalness. A grimace pursed his lips into a thin line. After all, monsters die too.

Shizuo Heiwajima cast his eye on the canopy of trees, emerald palms condensing the golden rays as it came down in silver kisses across the gravestones, till they trailed down the bamboo sticks down to where the mess or footprints lay.

The man let out a silent curse.

He was already in a foul mood from work, the berating of excuses- one after the other in order to push away the weight of shame off them- quite like a certain insect Shizuo knew all too well. Except he doubted that that particular insect had ever discerned shame or humanity. The pure reminiscence of the sharp, disgusting smirk of intoxicating lips made his face crease into a scowl.

People never have any respect these days.

Why Shizuo had even ended up at the cemetery after work seemed long forgotten as he stormed over the trails of feet, looming over, with what someone with slightly more perception could see, was the crust of dirt off male shoes. Though something about those prints made his glower melt into a frown: it was as if those footprints had stayed there a long time, dust circling around it and the round marks that were quite patently left by knees. I was wrong. He cursed his bluntness as he thought about the mere length of time needed in order to leave such markings and, out of guilt, his line of sight dragged across the silt as he peered at the gravestones through the corners of his eyes.

They widened till they became all whites. Abruptly he stood up, scanning across neighbouring stones hastily till his face paled so that all that was visible under the bleached mop was two irises.

No.

Like a young child, he rubbed his eyes out of pure disbelief and would have been ashamed of the action if not for the pure shock ridden in the beating of his chest, now seemingly heavy.

Why should I care about the flea anyway-

His frown shadowed a pair of hazel eyes.

That insect doesn't deserve any grub's sympathy for all he's worth.

But as if in almost perfect paradox to his train of thoughts, a sort of dull ache weighed his body down, dragging his legs down with him as he slumped towards the stones that seemed to engrave mercilessly the very words into the backs of his eyes.

'ORIHARA….ORIHARA…ORIHARA….'.

And there were at least sixteen of them.

Doubt and question gnawed at the lining of Shizuo's very skull as he stormed down the streets of Shinjuku, the tops of high rise buildings engulfed by the dead of night. His fists seemed to swat at the air as if that action alone could rid of the buzzing of unwanted thoughts poking round his head as if his brain was some habitat being poked about by a curios finger- and that habitat was on knife's edge from self-destructing. Unknowest to him, he let out a threatening growl which turned heads, owners scurrying away as they had the fortune to lay their eyes on a bartender suit- the trademark of the fortissimo of Ikebukuro.

What he was conscious of however was the crushing of clay under his fingers as a fist left a neat pothole in the side of an alleyway. The buzzing wouldn't cease.

Why did they all share the flea's family name? Were they actually his family? What the hell happened to them? Did they all die at the same time or does that crack house all just burry their folk in the same grounds? Whose footprints marked the graves recently? Who took such great care of the stones? The man's eyes softened. All sixteen of them?

The informant's home wasn't exactly confidence, due to it being the cynosure of information throughout all of greater Tokyo. In spite of his denial of the flea's calibre, his name was infamous and figure recognised as a master in manipulating information- who had as many clients as he had enemies, his very existence and remnants of his portentous ploys pandemic. The man's brows knotted themselves, his body giving off an aura that even rendered the cicada's silent in the lengthy turn of the last hour. That damned greedy bastard- isn't one country enough for him? Isn't the whole of Tokyo wanting to tear at his throat enough for the flaunty insect. Eyes sharp, he swallowed his rage with gritted teeth as he gazed up the rings of endless stairs. If he had known his archenemy's door was so blatantly obvious and conspicuous to the eye, he would have gladly marched over to Shinjuku to pummel the shit out of him. Except in his last attempt to do so, some lowlife thugs were coincidently waiting at the mouth of the stairway.

His grip on the railing constricted around the railing with godly strength, but Shizuo was a man and of peace, and lo he let his hand slip off the railing- leaving the deformed skeleton of a balustrade as he leaped from twist to turn- the cool metal shuddering under his burdensome load.

As he lay the ball of his foot on the door (too impatient to use the handle of course) the flash of pastel colours called a halt in his movement- his mind suddenly balking. If in a clear state of mind, the man would have registered the strange trail as silt and blossom petals, but his body was focused on the objective in front of him as the frame gave way with a quiet shrill- wry frown deepening as he agnized the 'so-called' silt to be the moss residue of incense.

Impossible.