New Kid in Town

A/N: Monochrome Factor and BtVS, not mine. MF picks up after the anime, and goes fixit AU from there. Ever wonder what Sunnydale and the Scoobies might look like to someone who has their own secrets?

"Come on, pick up, it's only - what, eleven in Japan? I know that's late enough for you to be up-"

"Bar Still, can I help you?"

Akira Nikaidou hmphed, tapping fingers on the phone jack as he looked over the awful mess he'd have to clean up before his mother got back from yet another late work night. "Shuichi. Someone exploded on me. They weren't human. I have weird dust all over my kitchen and it got in the rice. I think I'm ordering pizza."

"Exploded? Wait - Akira? I thought you were in California."

Might as well start with the shattered dishes. Akira went after the biggest fragments on the floor, flicking them up and into the trash. "I am."

"And someone exploded." Shuichi Wagatsuma sounded more resigned than surprised. But then, the adept had been dealing with the shadow-dwelling kokuchi and like creatures for more decades than Akira wanted to know.

"After I got him with a spoon," Akira nodded, dumping the rice in the trash just to be sure. Adrenaline was still singing through his veins; he liked a good fight, sure, but this one had turned from the expected new-kid hassle into combat, and the battle had been a lot closer than he'd liked. "Tough bastard. He could take more damage than Kengo."

"A spoon." Shuichi sighed. "I think you'd better start from the beginning."

"Well, the day kind of went downhill after I met the principal..."

"Akira Nikaidou." Principal Snyder tapped a manila folder on his desk, a small, sadistic smirk lighting his face. "Getting this translated was worth every cent. Absenteeism, breaking and entering, chronic truancy, disrespect to teachers, explosive destruction of school property... I could go on, but it looks like you've managed to hit every letter of the alphabet."

Slouched in his chair, Akira raised an unimpressed brow. So the little balding goblin of a man had his disciplinary record. Was he supposed to be shaking?

Though under his usual bored mask, he was worried. This place, Sunnydale... it just didn't feel right. He hadn't noticed it too much moving in yesterday - jet lag sucked - but something about this town was wrong. And it was worse inside Sunnydale High.

An inversion? No; I'd hear the kokuchi, even if I didn't see them.

"Ryuuko's spirit has taken its leave of you, and you gave Shirogane his dark power back," Shuichi had told him a few weeks ago; blind eyes closed, absently polishing a glass as he stood behind the bar. "But you still have the pattern of using shadow in your energies. A little longer to heal up, and you'll have the makings of a skilled adept."

Right. Because Akira couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than jump back into mortal combat with whatever monsters Homurabi had sent across the boundary this time. Oh, wait; school and a root canal! Those would make the day just perfect.

Though even the prospect of risking his life again didn't seem nearly as important as the first bit of Shuichi's dry news. "Ryuuko's spirit?" Akira demanded. "Are you saying I was possessed?"

"Wasn't it obvious?"

"No!" Argh; why couldn't anyone tell him things before he walked into them?

"Oh." Shuichi pursed his lips, then shook it off. "Kou and Shirogane should have known, if they'd bothered to count human years. But it's easy for shin and rei to lose track of time. I'm lucky to have Mayu to help me keep track of when the taxes are due-"

Akira gritted his teeth. "Just give me a straight answer!"

"I ended up starting this bar as a way to cloak my presence after Ryuuko was assassinated." Shuichi set one glass behind the counter, and picked up the next. "You can see yourself from the sign, we've only been here seven years. Reincarnation can mess with time a bit, but not that much."

He was going to hurt someone. Possibly Kengo.

...Or maybe not, given he did like breathing through intact ribs and his buddy turned dark adept could, by definition, punch harder than any mere human. "Ryuuko possessed me?"

"You are of rei royal blood, and you've been friends with Kengo a long time," Shuichi mused. "His dark factor would have left you picking up background energy, and therefore vulnerable-"

"How does that even work?" Akira cut him off. "Five Children for each King; two Kings for each side. That's twenty. And I thought Children were bound by a contract. Blood has nothing to do with it."

"That's not quite true. A King may have more than five," Shuichi noted. "The Children are the strongest rei and shin, and it's easier to make a contract with someone who descends from us. But it is possible to awaken a descendant's power without a contract." A dark brow arched. "Though that's dangerous for shin, unless they can quickly learn to travel into the shadow realm. Death by energy starvation isn't pretty."

That was putting it mildly. Akira had seen Shirogane translucent and fading, before the Shadow King had dissolved out of the realm of light. It still made him shiver. "But that won't happen to me," Akira said flatly. "I'm human."

"...Yes."

Oh, he did not like the little hesitation he'd just heard. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Ah. Your pardon. Old habits." Shuichi shifted his shoulders, half a shrug. "I'm not sure anyone of rei blood has been made a shin before. Much less ended their contract and returned a King's gift to him. You're unique, Akira." A quiet smile. "And I'm glad you've stayed that way. Your courage gave Ryuuko the chance to face the one who ordered his murder. A chance to achieve a measure of... peace, you might say. He should reincarnate properly now."

Akira tried not to shift in place, uneasy. "What would you have done if he hadn't?"

Shuichi paused, face utterly still.

He's Shirogane's friend. And Shirogane... he can act silly. But he isn't nice.

"I suppose that would have depended on how badly we needed to fight Homurabi," Shuichi said at last. "His darkness was a lethal threat to both our worlds. It still is."

Akira rubbed at the back of his neck, and dragged up some manners. "...Thanks."

"Oh?" A dark brow flicked up, closed eyes creased with interest.

"At least you told me," Akira grumbled. "Shuichi? If you... or Shirogane... if you need me, just tell me." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his school jacket, trying not to fidget. "That's not too much to ask, is it? Don't leave me flailing around in the dark, trying to get a straight answer from my enemies because my friends think I shouldn't know. Just tell me."

The adept sighed. "I wish I could promise you that." Shuichi had set down the next glass, then, and flattened his hands on the bar. "But I can promise I'll try." His shoulders fell. "Though there is something else you should know. About Ryuuko, and your wounds, and what it cost to heal you."

All in all, it'd been the politest potential death sentence Akira had ever heard.

"-Are you even listening, Nikaidou?"

Oh. Right. The goblin. "My mother is grateful your school was able to accommodate our move into the area," Akira said neutrally. Which is looking like a worse and worse idea every minute.

Not that he could persuade his mother to move again just because of a bad feeling. Women working in corporate law always had something to prove. Single mothers, even more so. When the company had asked her to move abroad, Akane Nikaidou's only question had been, what flight did they want her on?

"I suppose you think you're cute," Snyder snorted. "You're almost as good at faking as Summers is. But she doesn't fool me, and neither do you. I can't throw you out based on miscreant behavior in Japan. Pity." The principal leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "But one screw-up here, just one step out of line, and I will take extreme pleasure in physically tossing you off this campus for life."

He shouldn't react to that. He really shouldn't.

But he couldn't help meeting Snyder's eyes.

"You have good eyes," one of Aya's kendo instructors had said; before a kokuchi had possessed the man and sent him on a bloody rampage through the streets. "You've been fighting."

Snyder went white around the lips, and slammed Akira's folder back into a desk drawer. "Get to class."

Afterschool detention for looking at the principal funny. This school sucks.

Akira slung his backpack over his shoulder, hesitating inside the main door so he could glance around at the grounds outside before he risked stepping into open view of the parking lot. Bad feeling or no bad feeling, he was a new kid on his first day, and the odds of being accosted by the local school thugs approached 100%. Frankly, he was surprised no one had tried to corner him yet.

...Scratch that. He wasn't surprised. He was worried.

Akira's lip curled. Maybe they're all busy working on their science fair projects.

Yeah, right. He'd only gotten out of signing up today because he'd literally just gotten here. The science teacher had scowled, eyed him suspiciously, then granted him a few days' grace to come up with something. Or else.

Or else wasn't any scarier from him than it was from Snyder. But while normally Akira would blow this off like the rest of school, this time he had to at least try to make an effort. Just for a few weeks. Until Snyder'd had a chance to forget what he'd seen.

I don't... I don't want my mother to worry. Not about something she can't fix.

He'd caused her plenty of headaches over the years, getting into fights with every idiot who thought gray eyes meant target and wouldn't take you're boring as a warning to back off. But the world Shirogane had dragged him into didn't have anything as innocent as fighting in it. And while his mother had never seen him as a shin, thank Amida, much less bleeding and half a breath from dying...

She knows. I don't know what she saw, or what she heard. But she knows something's wrong.

Which, fair enough, it was. But her solution, dragging him across the world from any possible help if a kokuchi poked its head through the barrier and decided to munch on him - it set his teeth on edge.

Oh, and it'd left him dealing with an annoying little goblin of a principal, too.

Not to mention a whole new set of school gorillas... aha. There they are.

Three of them. Of course there were three; no thug felt complete unless he had at least two lackeys to show who was boss. Too muscle-bound to be anything but jocks; not enough brains to take advantage of attending the practices Akira could hear going on around the school grounds. Two were leaning against the parking lot fence. The leader was smoking a cigarette, evidently unfazed by the prospect of goblin-spawned detentions.

Right where they can see someone coming out the front, and cut them off from the street. Well, at least they've mastered the obvious.

Akira faded back inside the school, thinking fast. He could go out there and fight them. Three of them, one of him - even as a human, those odds were in his favor.

Get in a fight on the first day. That'd give Snyder what he wants.

No. He had other options.

Side doors, windows... there's supposed to be a skylight in the library...

He didn't have to go that far. One of the homerooms wasn't locked.

...Well. It wasn't very locked. Honestly, the roof door back at Kiriba Private High School was harder to jimmy. Which made him even more paranoid.

It's like they're trying to get kids to break in after-hours.

Put that together with the hairs-on-the-back-of-his-neck bad feeling Akira'd had since he stepped onto the school grounds - he wanted out of here.

Don't be stupid. Look first.

Coast was clear. He slid out the window, ghosting away from the school and the annoying prospect of violence. His nose wrinkled as he passed a dumpster; chasing kokuchi had dragged him worse places, but the smell was-

Death.

He didn't want to look. He didn't want to know.

Steeling himself, Akira swung up the lid.

Well. That's new.

Pieces. Lots of scattered... pieces. He hadn't seen anything this bad since the last time Homurabi's pet psycho Nanaya had cut loose. He wanted to slam the lid, bolt for the street, and not stop running until he was at LAX with a ticket back to Japan.

Akira made himself breathe air tainted with death and formaldehyde, and gently eased the lid back down. Grabbed a stray napkin out of his backpack, and carefully wiped down every surface he'd touched; lifting the lid again, just a little, to be sure he got his thumbprints.

Walk. Do not run. Walk.

Akira sauntered down Sunnydale's streets home, and didn't breathe freely again until he'd thrown every lock on the front door.

What do I do?

Akira dumped his backpack on the ridiculous tan couch the realty agent had decided to inflict upon this house, and tried to think. Back in Tokyo, he would have stopped on the next block and called the cops. He wouldn't have given his name, and he wouldn't have expected them to get very far; that kind of crazy almost screamed parasite kokuchi possession, and kokuchi were a shin problem. But he would have called.

Here? Sunnydale felt wrong. The school felt wrong. And he was a foreigner in a country where he'd taught himself to speak and read the language. So far he'd gotten by with a headache and a pocket dictionary up his sleeve. Under police interrogation? He'd seen the movies. The first person to find the body was always the first suspect.

Though I might have an alibi. No blood on the cuts. Formaldehyde. Those bodies were dead before I got to California.

And the fact that he knew that was kind of depressing. Plus, that put him right back on the suspect list; maybe not for murder, but cutting up dead bodies would definitely be all the ammo Snyder needed to toss him out of school.

So what do I do?

First things first. Set up his homework; Kengo's teasing aside, he did do homework. Set up supper. His mother was putting in another long day, and everything would be simpler to explain if she could just grab a meal and go to bed without having to ask him about food. Or school. Or anything.

So. Rice simmering on the stove. Schoolbooks on the living room table; he'd knocked off the math, not a big deal, but English was going to be a headache. And he still hadn't figured out any ideas for a science project. Not when he kept wondering who might be walking around town with a shadow inside them that someone who'd been forcibly turned back to human just couldn't see.

Does a shadow exist when no one sees it?

...Wait a minute. Akira sat up on the couch, recalling some of the other sign-up ideas he'd seen. It's not exactly scientific, but it uses science. All I'd need is a light, a little solar cell, a voltmeter, and something to cast shadows.

It wouldn't come anywhere close to the effects of light deprivation on fruit flies. But it'd show he did grasp the idea of things happening even when he personally didn't see them. Compared to "Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable?" it ought to at least get the science teacher to stop looking at him like yet another teenage gorilla.

...Not that he cared what the science teacher thought. He just didn't want his mom to have trouble from the people they had to live with the next year or so-

The doorbell rang.

Argh. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was more English.

On the bright side, if the gorillas had tracked him down, they were off school grounds. Meaning he could thrash them with impunity.

Moderately cheered, Akira peered through the spyhole in the door.

Huh. Teenager, looked like a senior; not anyone he recalled bumping into earlier today. Letter jacket meant a jock. Annoying. Though jocks generally didn't come for trouble bearing covered dishes. A little hard to see his face, it was shadowed...

If he's absorbed some dark energy, he might be able to tell me all the spooky places he's been. If I can check those out, I'll know if there's a kokuchi problem or just some really sick people out there.

And if it was just some sick person, he could definitely call the cops. With a mental shrug, Akira opened the door. "Hello?"

"Hi! We saw the For Sale sign was down, so Mom sent me over with a casserole. Can I come in?"

"Sure-" Akira's ears caught a hiss of water steaming on a burner. "K'so. Hang on, I've got something boiling over."

"Looks nice in here," the teenager observed as Akira headed for the kitchen. "Little empty, though. Still unpacking?"

"Electric burners don't cook like gas does," Akira muttered to himself, using the wooden spoon to get at sticky rice before it could weld itself to the bottom of the pot. "There wasn't that much to unpack, we travel light..."

Something was wrong.

"Huh. Guess you'll have to get new stuff here."

The backsplash behind the stove still had a just-moved-in sheen. Not very shiny, but he could still make out a faint reflection of himself, the pot, the stove...

But not a trace of the visitor whose sneakers had just squeaked on the kitchen's tile floor.

"Hope you didn't burn it too bad," the unseen voice behind him said gleefully. "I'm hungry."

Spoon in hand, Akira drove an elbow back in a move that would have laid Kengo out gasping.

It was like hitting a tree. His elbow jolted with pain, his fingers threatened to go numb-

And there were long-nailed fingers reaching for him.

"Ooo, feisty!" The teen's shadow writhed, his face morphing into something that made even some kokuchi look pretty. "I love to play with my food!"

Play with this! Left hand sweeping over the stove, Akira latched onto the pot handle, and swung.

...It was a really, really bad sign when opponents took a scalding as a reason to just keep laughing.

That was the last coherent thought Akira managed for what felt like an eternity, but what he knew from past experience was probably less than a minute. His opponent was strong, tough, and cruel. But not fast.

Don't care what it is, Akira concluded as he slipped out of an attempted grapple, sucking chest wound ought to slow it down-

The wooden handle jabbed between ribs with the skill of a veteran knife fighter. His fanged opponent looked... surprised.

Poof.

"And that's when I called you." Akira took a look inside the casserole dish. Shuddered, and dumped it in the trash. Forget the human-shaped-dust-thing that had attacked him; the mold-monster in there could qualify for the Gojira lineup. He didn't care when rubbish pickup was around here, that bag was getting out of this house tonight. "What was that thing?"

There was a long pause. "Where are you in California, exactly?"

"Sunnydale," Akira frowned. "What does where I am have to do with-"

"You're on the Hellmouth?!"

"Hellmouth?" That was not a squeak. No one would ever prove otherwise.

"There are more dangers in the world than just the balance of light and shadow," Shuichi said soberly. "Akira, you're in grave danger. Don't open the door to anyone you don't know after dark - and never invite someone in."

"Too late," Akira said wryly.

"No; you destroyed that vampire, you'll be fine. Just don't issue any other invitations."

"Vampire?" Akira sputtered.

"Shirogane will explain."

"Like he ever explains anything-" Akira's brain caught up with his ears. "Shirogane's alive?"

"And he owes me one," Shuichi said cheerfully. "You'd better order your pizza. It's going to take me a few hours to get what you need."

"What I need? Wait, you're not expecting me to get answers out of Shirogane-"

Dial tone. Argh.

And he still had half a kitchen to clean up. And bruises to hide. Which meant he had to work fast.

Vampire?

They know. People around here know something.

Akira sat on his bed in the dark - fully clothed, he knew Shirogane - and quietly stewed. His mother had given him a definite look when she'd gotten home to a table set with pizza and salad. And the less said about her thoughts on the garlic breadsticks, the better.

Discounted with every order after 5 PM! the pizzeria had declared. With an undertone of, and if you don't order them, we're not delivering.

Given the reputation of vampires and garlic, not to mention what he'd found in the school paper - yeah. The locals definitely knew something.

Which led to chilling thoughts about how long his attacker had carried around that moldy casserole. How many For Sale signs had been taken down in Sunnydale, cueing in the monsters that here was someone who'd be easy prey?

Monsters. Shuichi said that vampire. That means there's more. How many vampires are there in Sunnydale? Do they know that one of their own went missing?

Are they going to try again?

The room seemed to shiver, as if a breeze had blown through the closed bedroom window. "My. So pensive, Akira-kun."

Black hat. Black suit and coat. Long-skulled staff. All made brighter by that incredible braid of white hair, and that smirk painted in peach lip balm. "Shirogane," Akira said numbly. "You look good." Solid, and moving with an ease no injured person could pull off. He didn't know whether to be relieved, or...

"I do, don't I?" Shirogane preened, the tip of his cane firmly planted on the floor. "Amazing what a few weeks in the shadow realm can do when Homurabi's Children are too busy to hunt me-"

No, definitely not relieved, Akira decided. "You bastard!"

"Eh?"

A human wasn't fast enough to punch out a Shadow King. But that wasn't the point. The point was to try.

A few minutes later, Shirogane perched weightlessly on the foot of his bed, lips curved even more into a smile. "Feeling better?"

"A little," Akira panted, knees giving out as he flopped down on the edge of the bed. "You idiot. I had to hear you were still alive from Shuichi? Who were you planning to have tell me, Kengo?"

"Why, Akira-kun." Blue eyes twinkled. "You almost sound as if you worried about me."

"I did. Bastard."

Shirogane blinked, nonplussed. "You... did."

"I didn't want to be caught up in your war," Akira said bluntly. He'd spent the past few hours thinking over what he might say; he just hoped he'd picked the right words. "I didn't want to kill people if we couldn't break a possession in time. And I didn't want to give up everything that's me just so you could have your Light King back." Pause. Take a breath; try not to gulp it. "But I never wanted you to die."

"Never?" One elegant brow arched, as the shin leaned forward. "Two kings of Shadow, one of Light dead, Shadow threatening to overwhelm the world, and you still say never? I know it occurred to you."

"As one of Kengo's stupid ideas, maybe," Akira shot back. "You just wanted to destroy me. Homurabi would have killed everything human."

"Destroy?" Shirogane sat up, startled. "Is that what you-"

Akira cut him off. "What else would you call it if someone took over your life, forever? I'm not Ryuuko."

"No," the shin said quietly, blue eyes dark with thought. "I see now that you are not."

"Good." Akira relaxed a hair. "So stop being so creepy and turning up in my bed. It's my bed. And I don't want anyone else in it."

"Anyone?" Shirogane blinked, innocent as a white kitten. "But I was just being your shadow."

"Anyone," Akira grumbled. "You've scarred me for life, you pervert." He cracked his neck, hoping they'd gotten all the touchy-feely stuff out of the way. "Shuichi said you'd tell me about the Hellmouth. And vampires." Which was twisting the blind adept's words so far they'd probably scream assault. But you couldn't give Shirogane one inch. Ever.

Blue eyes went wider. "It's a very bad place, and they're very evil creatures?"

Akira heaved a sigh.

The pale head dipped. "You don't have to stay here, you know. I have the strength to take you through the shadows, back to Japan. No one would even be surprised. People disappear in Sunnydale all the time."

"I know." Akira reached for the thin sheaf of paper he'd left on his bedstand, already turned to the appropriate page. "Read this."

Frowning, Shirogane took it. Squinted a bit, then seemed to realize it was English and started reading left to right.

From his flinch, Akira knew when he'd hit the dates.

Shirogane lowered the page, as if distance would change the words. "This is-!"

"An obituary column," Akira said grimly. "The high school paper has an obituary column." He fisted his hands on the blankets. "So don't tell me you can help me run away."

"...Very well." Shirogane's eyes closed a moment, as if to arrange his thoughts. "You're familiar with tears and portals between the world of shadow and that of light. For all the damage they can do, they're still a natural phenomenon. Both are necessary for the universe as we know it to exist." The Shadow King glanced up, eagle-fierce. "The Hellmouth is different. It leads to somewhere else. A universe violently different from our own; a dimension that was never a natural part of our world. A place inhabited by creatures that those who survive them can only call demons and devils, because a human mind can only perceive so much of evil before it shatters."

Akita swallowed hard.

"Homurabi would drown the world of light in shadows, if he could," Shirogane said seriously. "But if the true demons, the Old Ones, were ever to invade our world, he would be our staunchest ally. He wants humans to die. What the Old Ones want is worse."

Slow breaths, Akira told himself. "If you're trying to scare me... it's working."

"I wish I were," the shin murmured. "The Hellmouth is... hmm. Somewhat like a half-sealed tear. Creatures can't get through it, unless it's deliberately opened. But it leaks demonic energy constantly, and that flow draws evil creatures who are already dwelling in this world."

Akira nodded. "Vampires."

"Among other things." White-gloved fingers unfurled, as if offering the story. "They say the last of the Old Ones driven from this world corrupted the blood of a dying human. It spawned a lesser demon, a possessing evil entity, that incubated in a victim's body and then rose up to hunt the living by night. A bite alone will not pass the curse. They must feed you their blood."

"Good reason to bring my own bentos," Akira grumbled.

Shirogane stared, aghast. "I'd never considered that."

"Maybe they haven't either. You should have seen his casserole." Akira worked his fingers into looser fists. "So how do I fight them?"

"You shouldn't fight them at all," the shin said flatly. "They're much stronger than humans. Some of them are faster. And some, the truly dangerous ones, can cloud and enthrall minds, worse than any possessing kokuchi. Your will is strong enough to resist such enchantments. Most of those around you won't be. You survived because this one wasn't expecting a fight."

"Neither was I," Akira shot back. He was not going to back down on this. "They're looking for outsiders. People who don't have a clue how to protect themselves. So what do I do when they come looking for me?"

Smiling, Shirogane handed him a box of exorcising salt.

"Oh. Right," Akira deadpanned. "Because this works so well on evil spirits."

"It's actually much more effective on true demons than on kokuchi and shadow energy." Shirogane waved an instructing finger. "It won't kill them, but it will distract them long enough for you to run."

The wooden box felt like light, somehow. Like sun on bare skin, and a quiet morning breeze.

Only one problem. "So what happens when I can't run?"

"Ah." Shirogane stood, hands clasped on his cane. "That will be trickier. In Japan, I'd simply give you an adept's weapons. Here, many of the humans in power have been compromised by evil. Even daylight isn't safe. If you're determined to stay, you need weapons humans can't find."

Akira eyed him warily. "Is this going to be another one of those 'trust me' situations?"

Shirogane's pale cheeks might have had a trace of pink. Maybe. "Truly, I was about to ask if you would be willing to try something dangerous."

He'd planned to ask? That was almost enough reason to say yes right there. "Go on," Akira said neutrally.

"Homurabi knows you burned through Ryuuko's energy, and exhausted yourself," Shirogane obliged. "He may not know Ryuuko's spirit has left you entirely." The shin's hand slipped into his vest, and came out with-

Light.

A blue rose, no larger than Akira's thumbnail, caught in a pendant of frosted crystal. The petals glowed from within, light tracing veins and thorns like foxfire against the night-black setting.

Shirogane drew a deep breath, then closed the rose away in its black locket. "This was a gift."

"Shirogane," Akira cut in, alarmed. That sadness on Shirogane's face... he knew whose gift it had to be.

The Shadow King raised an imperious hand. "This was a gift, and I will miss it," he said simply. "But if it will allow Ryuuko the time to grow into his memory and his powers, it is well worth it." He met Akira's gaze, unyielding. "And if carrying it for a time will allow you to defend yourself, it is also worth it."

Whoof. "It's a weapon?" Akira asked cautiously.

Shirogane shook his head. "It is Light. But as humans are beings of both light and shadow, carrying a shard of Ryuuko's light will allow you to also carry shin weapons."

Ryuuko's light. And Homurabi might not know what really happened. "You want me to be a decoy."

The shin gave him a dark-coated shrug. "I did say it was dangerous."

Yes, he had. "Do you think Homurabi would come here?"

"I don't know. I would hope not." Shirogane's face was still. "Are you willing?"

What the hell. Homurabi might come looking for him anyway, just for kicks. The rogue shin were like that. "What do I have to do?"

Shirogane sat down on the bed beside him.

Of course. Akira tried not to sigh. For an eons-old shadow, Shirogane could be clingy.

"Hold out your hands," Shirogane murmured, "and duck your head."

Duck?

The black chain dropped over his head, sliding down to rest against his buckled collar. Heat seemed to lick up the chain and through his shirt from the locket, searing into his heart. Too much heat, too much light; like standing in the Sahara under a thousand suns-

Ice. Drowning. Pain.

Akira coughed and choked as if he'd just been dragged out of an icy ocean. Cold and dark shivered through his hands, through his veins; surged like a tide against the light and bid it cease.

This far, and no further.

Shirogane had one hand supporting his wrists, holding them up as his arms trembled. His free hand was combing through Akira's brown hair - it was still brown, thank the Buddha - as the shin whispered ancient, half-heard words.

Almost sounds like a lullaby...

Oh, hell no. "I'm alright," Akira coughed, trying not to lean on Shirogane. "I'm-"

Blood.

Translucent silver blades, sunk to their dark-wrapped hilts in each palm.

Pain.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?"

"Hush," Shirogane ordered. "Pain is a shadow. Control it. Make them part of your shadow."

Oh, sure. Control the fact that he was in bleeding, screaming pain because some idiot shin had shoved knives through his hands-

Shin knives. Shin weapons are... shadow and will...

He remembered how to form his blades. And how to dismiss them.

Reach into the sharpness; the shine and shadow of steel. Make it part of your resolve. Make it yours.

Chill and pain melted.

Shaking, Akira flexed whole hands, dried blood flaking away from fresh scars. "You could have warned me!"

"If you'd flinched, I might have cut a tendon. Even with Master's salves on hand, that would be tricky to heal." Shirogane's face was still serious. "Keep those for emergencies. Use the salt and mundane weapons if you can; you've already proven that a wooden stake to the heart is the surest kill. But above all, use your mind. I'm not strong enough yet to bring other help to you at need. Not Aya, and certainly not Kengo. Not on the Hellmouth. Dark and demonic energy at once? It'd be too much of a risk."

Yeah. Kengo had a little... berserking problem. Kou was training him to handle it, but even Kengo would admit he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Better to give him as much time to practice as possible. "So what else ends up attracted to a Hellmouth?" Akira flexed his fingers, trying to get the ghosts of pain out of his hands. "I don't think vampires care about cutting up dead bodies."

"You'd be surprised. The demon keeps many of the victim's memories. Turned coroners can be quite spooky," Shirogane mused. "Though I've heard most master vampires won't allow them to be created. They tend to take advantage of their first stab at a body to pare down the competition." Blue eyes sparkled. "But if you really want to know, I suppose I could give you a start..."

The binder that landed in Akira's lap threatened to crush his knees. "You realize, my school textbooks aren't this heavy," Akira said dryly. "All of them."

"Survival should be more important than school, don't you think?" Shirogane leaned over his shoulder, flipping it open near the beginning. "See? The bakeneko."

Akira eyed the entry, complete with illustrating diagrams. Including one that showed Shirogane assaulting the corpse-eating cat with a drawn blade, just like the traveling exorcist in Kengo's wild version of How We De-Possessed My Sister (No, Really). "...Why do I even ask?"

Shirogane chuckled. "There's much to be learned, if you mean to hunt more than light and shadow."

Uh-oh. That was the Shadow King looking speculative. "What now?" Akira asked warily.

"Hmm... only wondering." The shin laid his cane across his lap, gaze still on Akira. "It's good to see you when you're not bored."

Not bored? Who could be bored when a vampire tried to turn them into snack food-

Akira peered down the tracks where that train of thought was heading, and tried to bury it in a landslide. "I hate fighting."

"You hate fighting without a purpose," Shirogane said firmly. "But when you have a reason, a place or people to defend-"

Akira cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. "Ch'. Keep that up, and you'll be starring in one of Kengo's stories about us as space heroes with blasters." He missed that optimistic idiot. Damn it. "If everybody who fights monsters is as head-in-the-clouds flighty as you two, why hasn't Sunnydale been sucked dry? Come to think of it - why's the world still here?"

"I am not flighty," Shirogane huffed. Tapped his fingers on his cane, and smiled.

Automatically, Akira catalogued the nearest exits.

"If you really want to know how your high school survives on the very Mouth of Hell..." Blue eyes gleamed, almost cat-slitted. "I suggest you ask your local librarian."

A/N: It's never said how long ago Ryuuko was killed, and Homurabi himself is uncertain how many years it's been. But the Aging Bar (Bar Still in the anime) has a sign "established 2001", with the manga out in 2008, and the details on Shuichi as Rei King make it clear he's been hiding from Homurabi there. From canon, we know that Homurabi went after Shuichi around the time that he hit Ryuuko. Admittedly, we don't know if that's the only place Shuichi's been hiding. But there are enough loose ends left in the official canon that the timeline is fuzzy.

So, this is an AU fixit fic for MF. But I tried to hang the fixit on canon.

Ms. Akane Nikaidou - we don't know his mother's name in canon, I'm sticking to one I invented for an earlier story.

Buffy timeline: this fic starts during the ep. "Some Assembly Required."