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Just a Little Lower Than the Angels
A Yami no Matsuei fan fic by Inverse function
[insert legal jargon here ^_^]
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"Are you awake?"
I dimly heard a gentle voice calling my name. Eh? I tried to move and an involuntary moan escaped my lips. My body ached. My head throbbed dully. Wha-? I wondered hazily.
"Kurosaki-kun?" came the voice again.
"He's awake," joined in another voice. "I'm going. Take care of him Watari."
"Hai...Tatsumi-san."
What happened? Groggily I forced my tired mind to remember. Black...fire...
There was a black fire, hot, so hot...that it would raze the very flesh of a Shinigami from his bones...and kill him. In the middle of the flames Tsuzuki was crying...the emotions from him were so filled with bitter guilt and grief... but the most was the sorrow and self-hatred. Blinding, intense and fierce it burned in the depths of his heart, eating his soul away. Why Tsuzuki? Why do you hate yourself so much?
"I'm tired..." Tsuzuki said in an exhausted, resigned voice. "I've lived for too long. Now, I just want to die..."
"TSUZUKI! NO!!!" I screamed, jolting out of the bed with my arm outstretched. "BAKAYAROU!" Rasping breaths shook my body. "Tsuzuki..."
There was no sign of him. I only saw a room of Ju-Oh-Cho's partially damaged medical section. A vase of yellow flowers stood on the table next to the bed. They were fresh. I sat staring at them for a few moments panting, sweat trickling down my face.
"Kurosaki-kun." I heard a voice at my side. I turned around to face Watari.
"Where is Tsuzuki?" I demanded, my heart pounding still. A strange coldness gripped me. "The last thing I remember was Tzusuki's Shiki's black fires. Is he alright?"
Watari did not answer. His expression was not his normally cheery one.
The coldness around my heart suddenly increased to the point where it was suffocating. It wrapped itself around my heart, my lungs and squeezed. I couldn't breathe.
No...
I had been too weak to notice them before. Now the emotions I picked up from Watari were...
"No..." I whispered.
"Kurosaki-kun..." Watari began in a soft voice, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
"NO! It can't be!" I yelled, suddenly angry. I slapped his hand away and grabbed the front of his lab coat. "Tsuzuki can't be dead!" I yelled, furious. An unreasonable denial burned within me, despite the cold reality my empath senses had picked up. "He's not DEAD! I was with him! In that black fiery pit! If he had died then I would have too! He's not dead! He's NOT!!!"
Watari just looked away.
Emotions and memories from Watari pushed and forced themselves into my mind, despite the barricade of fierce denial that I had built around it. I didn't fully understand what had happened at Shion-Dai. I did NOT want to know. But they rushed through the barrier like a dagger tearing into tissue, each rip cleaving into my soul, stabbing deep and undeniable. I saw what Watari had seen in the black flames of Shion-Dai.
Tsuzuki pushed Hisoka away from himself at the last minute, into Tatsumi's Shadow Dimension which had engulfed him, saving him from the fire. For Tsuzuki it was too late. Staring straight at Hisoka just before he was swallowed up by the Shadow Dimension, as if in a final farewell. Then the black flames completely engulfed him. A small sad smile and dark, intense purple eyes stared out before they too were swallowed in the fire.
The Shadow could have saved them both if Tsuzuki hadn't pushed away at the last minute.
"Why, Tsuzuki? Why you baka? You could have made it too if you wanted too..." I whispered, letting go of Watari's lab coat, hands falling limply onto the bed. All the anger had gone, leaving instead an unbearable, lonely emptiness.
"Kurosaki..."
Why?
"Because I did not desire to live any longer. And I didn't want the one who is most precious to me to die too..."
"Didn't you realize, Tsuzuki? With your death I lost the one most precious to me."
***
They erected a tomb for Tsuzuki in Meifu. They gathered his ashes and buried it under a sakura tree, and planted tulip bulbs nearby. In spring the grave would be over flowing with flowers. His funeral ceremony was simple. Everyone just gathered around and cried. At least that's what I heard from Watari. Tatsumi was the only one who did not cry. He just stood there staring at the grave. I was told that he remained there long after the others had gone.
I did not go. I could not bring myself to. I just stayed in my room and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of him. The fact that he was gone forever-I did not want to accept it. That I would never again sense his presence, see his cheerful smile, feeling his warm love-the love that gave me what I never had before-a family. He had always been kind to me. I would never see those purple eyes again, those which I had always thought looked beautiful, unusual, however hard he had despised them, reflecting his emotions within.
He had always hidden something from others, letting his silly antics and love for sweet things cover up his past and pain-desperately trying to forget, even for the briefest moment. I could feel those feelings radiating from him sometimes, slight, barely a hint. He knew how to disguise them well, from himself and even from an empath.
How I wish I had taken that chance to comfort him during that time in Kyoto, when he was sobbing unbearably. But I had let my inexperience and fear override my better judgement. The fear that I would make things worse, make him sadder. I wish now that I had taken the chance, giving him the helping hand which he had always freely offered to me. Maybe things might have been different, then. But then I scoffed at the thought. Who was I that I thought I could change Tsuzuki's wish? Maybe he would have died anyway.
But I wouldn't know. I felt that I had not given him enough love, or even tried to except at the last minute when it was too late.
I would never know.
***
"Tsuzuki Asato..."
"Tsuzuki Asato... " The voice repeats itself. The laughter of small children playing appears and disappears.
Appears and disappears. Like the ripples of a pond.
Tsuzuki Asato...? That...that's my name, isn't it? I-I can't remember...
"Where would you go from here?" The voice comes again. The non-existent children continue to laugh and play.
Where would I go...?
"Where would you go?" The children's laughter stops, waiting. Waiting for his decision.
I...I would go...to the place I deserve.
Hell.
The children start to wail, wails which, gradually turn to screams.
***
The Earl of the Castle of Candles sat in the Hall of Candles, brooding. Dark shadows flitted across the Hall, cast by the burning light of a million lives, flickering, wavering; waiting, for the time the Earl would extinguish them.
Tsuzuki's death had struck a deep blow to him. But yet...
The Earl stared at a shimmering image in front of him. Frowning, he studied the hologram again.
But yet there was no mistaking it. Something unusual was going on.
***
I stopped just outside the door of the Enma-Cho's meeting room. I could hear voices, raised, angry. Their anger radiated into my consciousness like a sudden heat wave. Peeking in through the crack left by the door which was ajar; I saw Watari and Tatsumi arguing.
"With all those pretty words about respecting his wishes to die, you might as well have killed him with your own hands!" Watari shouted. I had never heard-or felt Watari so angry. That carefree, normally cheerful man now radiated a fierce anger.
"It was his desire to die! I did not want him suffer any longer!" Tatsumi's voice.
"HE was just running away! What about your desire?! Did you really want him to die like thatI. n the frame of mind he was in at that moment, he didn't even know what was best for himself!"
I could feel Tatsumi's emotions rising. "And you think that YOU do? You never saw those tear-stained cheeks, those sad, guilt-filled eyes...You only saw what he wanted others to see! That carefree attitude was what he showed on the outside! You did not know what he was going through! What he was living in was...HELL! I-I wanted him to have an easy death! I wanted to free him from his guilt!" I suddenly saw tears in Tatsumi's eyes. This was the first time I had seen-or felt Tatsumi like this. He had always been so in control of any situation.
"Tatsumi-san..." Watari said suddenly subdued. He was as shocked as I was at Tatsumi's sudden tears. He must have realized that allowing Tsuzuki to die was probably one of the hardest, most heart-breaking choices Tatsumi had ever made.
I opened the door. Watari was looking down at Tatsumi who sat silently at the table. He sat a with a conflict of emotions within him that did not show on his face. They looked at me. The silence was heavy, tension-filled. I looked back at them.
"He damned himself," I slowly said. "By choosing to die. By choosing to abandon everyone and everything. It takes great courage to die by one's own hand. But it also takes an overwhelming cowardice in not facing reality." I glared at them in turn. "There is no use quarreling about him, or crying. He's dead. He's gone. The numbskull left us by his own will! There is nothing, NOTHING anyone can do about it!" My voice rose involuntarily on the last few sentences.
I turned around and left the room, slamming the door. For the first time since his death, I felt the hot prickling of unshed tears.
***
A fortnight had passed since Tsuzuki's death. Still I could not visit the grave. I cursed him for dying, for leaving me alone.
Again.
I was alone again.
He left me alone... He...chose to abandon me...but he did not want me to go to the same eternity that he chose. Is that worse? Or is this?
Tensions had risen in the Enma-Cho department. Watari now rarely showed up except when necessary. Meetings were tensed and oppressive feelings choked the atmosphere. I journeyed into the world of the living whenever I could. The atmosphere of Meifu suffocated me.
The whole of Ju-Oh-Cho was in a state of shock regarding Tsuzuki's death. Word was that he had died by the hand of one of his more rebellious Shikigami when he had lost control over it. Only those within the Enma-Cho department or present at the time of his demise knew the truth.
I did not blame Tatsumi for Tsuzuki's death. I blamed HIM. Tsuzuki Asato. Daily I would curse him, for his stupidity in deciding to die. Yet I still loved him, loved him so much that I hurt terribly every single moment. I was disgusted at him, yet I also felt sorry for him, wondering what could have happened to induce him to seek an eternal death.
I tossed a stone into the water. It skimmed a few paces before sinking into the greenish waters with a plop. I was standing next to a small river, feeling the breeze of the living world, the strokes of the long grass across my ankles as the wind ruffled them.
I threw another stone into the river as I felt Watari approach from behind. He seemed unusually troubled, the emotions running strangely differently than of late.
"Kurosaki-kun," he said. "Konoe-kacho has called a meeting. It seems to be regarding something the Earl has found out concerning Tsuzuki."
***
"Tsuzuki's name appeared on the Kiseki," said the Earl. "There is no mistaking it."
"Wait a minute, I don't understand," I said. "Shouldn't his name have appeared on the List of the Dead? He was going to die..." I trailed off, familiar choking feelings rising. Watari put his hand on my shoulder.
"No," Tatsumi shook his head. "The Kiseki lists only those mortals whose time it is to die, or those whom had lost the will to live." He looked up. "Shinigamis aren't alive. We are already dead. So if we were to die once again, our names would not appear on the Kiseki. A Shinigami's death would be eternal. That is one of the biggest risks in becoming a God of Death."
There was a brief silence.
"So then why did Tsuzuki-san's name appear on the Kiseki? It doesn't make sense," Watari muttered his brow creasing.
"Oh, Tsuzuki..." The Earl sighed. I tried to ignore the uncensored emotions of the Earl. I was trying to think. A strange, unrecognizable feeling had appeared somewhere within me. "Does a Shinigami's death really have to be eternal?" I asked, suddenly.
"Kurosaki-kun?" asked Watari, puzzled.
I stood up. "Can souls really die?" I asked. "I never thought about it before, but can a soul truly die? What if they can't? What if...somewhere somehow...Tsuzuki's still alive?" I recognized the emotion now. Hope.
"Kurosaki-kun," began Konoe. "I know Tsuzuki's death had been hard on you but-"
"No," I said. "No, I did not mean it that way...what I am asking is that can a soul truly die? A soul can only be created by the highest of the Divine. So it won't easily die, wouldn't it? Aren't the souls of humans one of the most complex of creations? If so, then how can it be killed by a mere Shikigami, no matter how powerful it is? Shiki are not full Kamis. Even Tsuzuki's four top Shiki are only Guardians, barely just touching on the tip of being fully, truly divine."
Watari's brow creased even further. "So you are asserting that Seirryu, Suzaku and the others are just demi-deities or spirits with large amounts of power. This means that you are saying that while Touda, Tsuzuki's hellfire Shikigami destroyed his master's body, it could not destroy the soul?"
"Well...yes."
"So then if what you are saying is true, just WHERE is Tsuzuki now?" asked Konoe.
"That I-I'm not sure..." I said.
"Kurosaki-kun, I think that you may be right. A soul should not be destroyed so easily," Tatsumi said quietly. He laced his fingers together, his elbows resting on the table. "At all costs, we are going to find out where Tsuzuki-san is."
"But still, that does not explain why his name turned up on the Kiseki," said Konoe.
"Uh...Oh..." muttered Watari.
"Nani, Watari-san?"
"I think I might be able to narrow down Tsuzuki-san's position..." said Watari. He started to fidget nervously with his hands. He didn't seem to know whether to talk or not. The emotions I had from him were nervous, scared, jumpy, disbelieving. Finally he started.
"A soul of a person after death is judged in Ju-Oh-Cho and sent for reincarnation accordingly. But in some special cases the soul is sent to Heaven or sentenced to Hell. I am sure that he hasn't been sent for reincarnation. If he had then we would have known of his arrival back at Ju-Oh-Cho, before he was sentenced. In some of the special cases, I mentioned just now, the soul doesn't even have to pass through Ju-Oh-Cho but is immediately sent to their destinations. So that just leaves only Heaven and Hell."
"Well, we can't exactly barge into Heaven and demand to know if Tsuzuki is there," I muttered.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Emotional levels were high and I tried my best to ignore them, the hope I had held slowly flattering. It was inevitable. Everyone knew what was coming. But someone else had to say it.
Tatsumi finally came to a decision and spoke. "I doubt that he is in Heaven," he said. His face had taken on a grayish pallor. "Suicide often carries a high sentence." He buried his face in his hands, his emotions slowly crumbling.
Watari nodded. He looked sick. "So that leaves only Hell."
***
I could not sleep that night. The though that Tsuzuki might be in Hell was worse that the thought that he was eternally dead.
I sat near the river where I had been earlier that day. This time I did not toss stones into the river but sat with my knees drawn up to my chest. "Tsuzuki...no baka..." I murmured sadly. I did not know what to feel. Konoe-kacho had decided to try to arrange a meeting with Enma Dai-Oh to see if there was anything he could do to lighten the sentence.
"Kurosaki Hisoka."
The sudden, unexpected enigmatic voice, which spoke seemed to fill the air, although the sound itself was actually barely above a whisper. A coldness, beyond darkness of the frozen ends of the world seemed to fill the air, gripping my heart, penetrating into my soul. I looked up. My eyes widened.
"En...ma...Dai-Oh...-sama," I croaked out in a hoarse voice. Enma Dai-Oh. The Lord Divinity of Hell, the most powerful Cho of all.
He stood there, the finer features of his face obscured by the shadows. Of his face, I could only see his slight, mysterious smile. An unworldly wind blew cold and scattering blades of grass about us and swirled his dark immaculate robes about him, his hair moving with the wind as long tendrils of impossible blackness.
The pale, finely sculptured lips parted. "Kurosaki Hisoka. What is your most precious wish?" they asked.
I found myself answering, before conscious thought. "To have a chance to save Tsuzuki."
"And what is it that you wish to save him from?" said Enma.
"From his past... From himself. Please, Dai-Oh-sama, please give Tsuzuki another chance...please give me another chance to save him..." I pleaded.
Enma smiled, as if I had said just what he had wanted to hear. "Your wish, it shall be granted..."
I looked up at him, hardly daring to hope. "So-so you'll let Tsuzuki out of Hell?"
"No," replied Enma, his transcendental tone suddenly dark. I thought I perceived a slight change in his demeanor. "I will not because I cannot."
"Dai-Oh-sama, I do not understand..."
"You are wrong in perceiving that I sent him there in the first place. Tsuzuki Asato condemned himself. He desired to go into abyss of Hell because he felt that he belonged there, after discovering an eternal death was not possible through the Shikigami Touda. But there is yet still time, for he has not been completely absorbed by Hell. It was his wish to go to Hell, which brought him there, therefore only his wish to leave can carry him out. Did you think that Hell is that easy to enter? Tsuzuki is now only on what you could call the `outskirts' of Hell."
Enma Dai-Oh's tone was dark and deep.
"Kurosaki Hisoka, your wish shall be granted only if it is strong enough to change his."
The wind lifted up the blades of grass, flying, soaring seemingly without effort, silver in the light of the half-moon.
To change his wish...
To change his wish and give him the love he needs...
I swear to myself that I will not abandon him this time no matter what.
I will not let go of him again.
I will save him.
The broken blades of grass soared up into the Heavens without wings. Enma Dai-Oh gave a slight dark, satisfied smile, as if he had read what was in my thoughts.
***
The entrance to Hell opened up before me. The screams struck me like a physical blow. Stenches of rotting flesh and blood almost overwhelmed me. I staggered back. I was glad that Enma Dai-Oh had put a kind of temporary barrier around my empath senses, in order to dilute the waves of horror, terror and grief within Hell.
Casting one look at Enma Dai-Oh whose countenance and features were hidden by unworldly shadows which, shifted about like the feathery wisps of smoke. I steeled myself. I understood. I had to go alone.
I leapt into the swirling vortex of black fire and screams. I felt myself falling, falling endlessly. Around me, living corpses with rotting flesh dripping off their blackened fingers reached out to touch me. Burning skulls screamed obscenities in my ear. Coiled snake like creatures with protruding tongues stretched out to fondle, laughing horribly while clawed hands curved to rip flesh and sinew from bone...
Even through the barrier, I could still feel echoes of the anger, angst, pain and terror they represented.
Unable to control it anymore, I closed my eyes and screamed.
Enma Dai-Oh's voice came back to me.
"Tsuzuki is not yet absorbed completely into Hell. Once he is, there is no escape. Change his wish before he is truly lost."
"Tsuzuki! I'm coming! Don't you dare go anywhere!" I yelled, as I plunged down through the screaming, laughing mass into a darkness beyond twilight.
***
When I came to, I felt wet, sticky damp and cold. My nose recoiled and I almost retched as the overpowering stench hit me.
"What the-?"
I froze. I was aware of something crawling up my left leg. Slowly it inched, ticklish, almost seductively. It stopped and started to fondle itself along my leg, working its way upwards, towards my crotch area. Any idiot would know by now that it was definitely not some kind of insect.
I bolted upright and looked down to see a pale hand, slowly caressing my thigh. Its long white fingers might have been beautiful once, if it hadn't been covered in blood, its long nails caked with dried brown crusts.
I yelped and slapped the hand away, leaping to my feet. The hand flew in the air and landed a few paces away, bouncing a little before it came to a halt. As I watched with horrified eyes, the hand slowly picked itself up, using its fingers, like some sort of a five-legged creature. By now I had realized that it was a severed hand.
My jeans jacket was covered with blood, dark red and black splotches had soaked into the fabric, causing the stickiness that I had felt upon waking. All about me was a field strewn with body parts, either in the process of decaying or having decayed, now lay as crumbling yellowish-brown old bones. My eyes were still fixed on the hand. Picking itself up it started scuttling towards me. That was when the other body parts started attacking me as well.
Blackened, decaying hands with the bones already showing grabbed my ankles. Entrails from dismembered bodies flicked upwards and coiled around my arms. Severed heads parted their dripping lips and howled. All at once, they threw themselves at me, biting my flesh hard, trying to drag me down into the mass of wriggling, wet and sticky flesh.
I screamed and I kicked and pushed at them wildly, trying to fly upwards where they wouldn't reach me. Their grip on me loosened as I increased my efforts to move upwards. Slowly I felt the cold fingers loosening their grip, leaving smears of rotten flesh and blood on my clothing. Shrieking, I kicked at the last few limbs and heads still trying to attach themselves onto me. With cracking sounds, parts of the limbs broke off and fell wriggling into the moving mass of severed body parts below. The remaining pieces still clung determinedly to me.
Finally I managed to get every last bit of the horrors off. My clothes were wet and smeared with decaying flesh and blood. My throat was raw with screaming.
Tsuzuki...if it is this bad already when I have just arrived here, what other horrors do they have in store? Baka...do you really believe that you belong in such a place...?
I discarded my jacket, tossing it down into the field of the decaying dead. Even from this high up, I could still hear the moans and howls of the dead, calling me to come down and join them in their misery. The plain stretched out as far as I could see. Above in what passed for the sky, which was a terrifying infinite blackness, spotted with giant splotches and stains of what seemed like blood, a gigantic severed head hung in place of the moon, its face frozen in a silent scream. Reddish ligaments and tendons hung down limply. I watched as long arms reached out to catch the jacket and rip it apart. On a thought, I discarded my jeans a well, as I was wearing short pants underneath. I could not stand the cold sticky feel of dead hands. I felt unclean.
With only tank tops and a pair of brown pants on, I sped off in mid air in a random direction. I had tried to use my empath senses to try to locate Tsuzuki, but there was too much pain and fear around. I could not find the slightest trace of him. Now I did not know where I had to go or even where I was going.
***
He walks in a forest. The trees here are burning. Burning with an unnatural black fire not unlike the hellfire of the Shikigami Touda he had once commanded. He is hardly aware of the others walking near him, moaning to themselves, crying and sobbing loudly. He for one is silent. His eyes have the glazed faraway look of someone who is in his own world. Yet he has enough presence of mind to keep his feet moving forward. There is no life in his gaze. He walks as if his soul is dead.
He hears the trees whispering to him, accusing him of crimes long past, inflicting the pain over and over again. He sees again the blood on the walls, hears again the screams and feels the hatred of those who had died hating him, hating him so much, it hurt over and over.
His lips part and a strangled whisper of, "I'm sorry," escapes from his lips. "I did not know..." A sudden tear quietly escapes from his sad dark purple eyes and falls sparkling darkly in the light of the burning trees onto the ground.
Slowly he moves with the damned.
***
I had been flying for a long time. Gradually the plain of the severed bodies lessened and after a time, seemed to stop altogether. I did not trust the ground though. In a while I saw that I had been right not to.
Faces bobbed out of the grayish muck their mouths opened in a voiceless scream. Through the barrier Enma Dai-Oh had erected for me, I felt the strong vestiges of horror and pain. I did not want to know what else lay underneath the surface.
As I was surveying the gray mass of faces below, I suddenly felt a hard burning spikes run through my shoulder. Before I had tome to think, something else ripped through my chest. I choked, feeling the warm blood run down my chin. Looking down, I caught sight of a bloody hand, protruding out of my chest. It twisted and tore itself out, ripping through layers of flesh, skin and bone. That action increased further my agony. I screamed as the claw burst into me a second time, this time into my abdominal area. I could feel my intestines being pulled out as the creature tore its arm out again. I could feel my strength draining out of me quickly. Desperately, I needed to get out of its hold. I knew that even though I would regenerate after the creature had torn me apart, I did not want to fall down into the mass of gray heads, which were now greedily slurping and gobbling up the blood and pieces of human flesh that had fallen onto them. The thought of the feel of undead mouths
biting into my flesh with a hungry blood frenzy was almost all that I could bear. With all the desperate strength that had not seeped out of me as my blood had, I forced myself out of the creature's grip. Amid my screams, I heard the cracking of my bones and the ripping noise of my shoulder as I separated from it, leaving behind in its death grip the entire of my left arm.
With ragged breaths and clutching at the bloodied stump of what was left of my limb, I spun around to face the monster that had attacked me. I was weak and dizzy from the pain and loss of blood and, could barely keep afloat, although I felt my flesh already starting to regenerate.
My eyes widened with shock as when I saw the creature that had attacked me. Its features were so distorted with hatred and rage that I nearly did not recognize them.
"Tsu...Tsuzuki...?" I managed.
Tsuzuki was wearing what I had seen him in last at Shion-Dai. His clothing was bloodied and in places charred and burnt. His hands were covered in blood almost up to his elbows. In one hand he was holding my severed arm. He glowered at me with an expression of hatred that I had never seen on his face before. A dark fear and confusion surged through my heart.
Why was he looking at me like that?
Fiercely with hostility, he flung my arm down into the nightmarish mass below. I heard the crunch and snap of bones as they devoured my former left arm. He glared at me with so much hatred that I felt terribly hurt.
"Hisoka..." he spat out my name as if it was a curse. "Why did you come?"
Somehow I managed to find my voice. "Tsu-Tsuzuki...I came to get you back...to save you...Tsuzuki, why are you looking at me that way?" I asked, my voice wavering. His loathing and hatred were so strong that I could feel them radiating from him in hot waves.
I could feel the sudden burst of his hostility as I answered. "SAVE ME?!" he spat out in disgust. "Hisoka, I don't need YOU to save me. I don't WANT you to save me." His features twisted more in hatred. "You are nothing but a pain in the ***. You and your curse! That was all you cared about! You never took my feelings into consideration! I loved you, Hisoka. I cared for you. But did you? You didn't know how many times you hurt me! When I needed you the most, you could do was stand there and watch as I cried! THAT hurt me a lot, Hisoka. That made me want to die even more!"
He glared at me even more fiercely, if that were possible. I had never seen such hatred, not from my family when I was alive, nor on anyone else.
"And when I finally made the decision to die, even that you tried to prevent me from getting what I wanted! You wanted to take away the only hope I had left for peace, the only hope I had left, because of you own selfish desires! The only thing I ever asked from you was to let me die but even that you would not give! What did I ever do to you that you had to hurt me so badly? WHAT?!"
Tears had formed in my eyes, as Tsuzuki showed me his hatred and pain, his true feelings, each word stabbing deep while twisting the handle.
How could I have been so blind? Wasn't this fate his wish? Why can't I just accept it? Why couldn't I make him happy...even once?
"I-I never wanted to hurt you! I wanted you to be happy! I-I'm sorry Tsuzuki..." I choked out. Tears started to run down my cheeks. I started to cry. It was one of the rare times that I did. Was I really so self-centered? When Tsuzuki was hurting I could not say even one kind word to him. "I-I'm sorry," I said. "Please forgive me, Tsuzuki...I love you." I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
Suddenly I felt arms circling around my body. The feelings of hostility and hatred were suddenly gone.
"It's alright Hisoka. Don't cry...let's go back together, okay?" Tsuzuki said gently. "I'm sorry too. Don't cry, okay?"
I cried even harder and hugged him back, afraid of losing him again. "I don't want to lose you again...Please don't try to kill yourself anymore. I...missed you..." I sobbed into his chest, feeling his gentle warmth and his pure, sweet smell. The enormity of the feelings I had kept inside myself without even I knowing of it; burst out of me completely at that moment. I had never missed someone so much before. "Tsuzuki please, forgive me..."
Tsuzuki bent his head forward, his lips almost into my ear. "Hisoka..." he whispered. "It's too late."
My eyes widened. "Tsuzuki?"
"It's too late," he said again. "I don't love you anymore. I hate you." With that I felt his hands go to my neck and started to squeeze. I choked, feeling the air slowly leaving my lungs. Saliva ran down the corners of my mouth. I clutched ineffectually at his strong fingers. I could see his face, twisted again in that semblance of pure hatred. I tried to call out his name, but failed. Tears started to run from my eyes again. Blackness soon started to darken my vision the last thing I saw was him mouthing he words: I hate you. Something within my soul shattered and I knew no more.
***
The first thing I did when I woke up was to cry. I cried like I never did before. I cried because Tsuzuki hated me. I cried because I loved him. My throat hurt badly. There was no sign of him. He had strangled me and left. I cried and cried. I did not cry this much even when Tsuzuki had died. Maybe it was because I did not, even then believe him truly lost to me. I had somewhere a hope that I would somehow find him again. But I had lost him forever the moment he said that he hated me. His hatred was worse to me that his death. I lay on the ground and sobbed until I had no more breath left in me, and then I continued to weep inwardly.
I believe I had fallen asleep several times, only to wake up and cry again. How I could sleep in a place like this, I did not know. But at that time I was so, overcome with grief that I did not know nor did I care where I was.
Finally I managed to summon enough strength to drag myself into a sitting position. My crying fit had passed, for the moment. Now I just felt worn out and empty. It was then that I noticed what I had been lying on.
It was a bed of soft down, white and pure, untouched by the dirt and grime of the ground. I ran my hands along the feathers in wonder. They were almost angelic in their beauty. That was when I happened to look up. I saw a grayish splotch in the distance.
It couldn't be...could it?
Trying to forget my despair for a while, I got up and flew towards the gray area. My body by now had healed fully. As I got closer, my sight confirmed what its nature was. It was the sea of hungry faces. The place over which Tsuzuki had-I stopped myself. Instead I concentrated on the bewilderment of how I came to be almost five kilometers away from the place.
I noticed that I was still holding some of the feathers. Staring at them, I tried reaching out my consciousness towards them, through the barriers that Enma Dai-Oh had erected for me. There was something oddly familiar about them-something warm and gentle-and caring.
My eyes widened. I reached out with my senses again, over the leftover residue of its aura.
"Tsuzuki..." I whispered. I held the feathers to my cheek.
This was from Tsuzuki.
The loving, caring, Tsuzuki: the one who always caught me when I fell. There was not even the least bit of hatred in their aura. Just love and-and a fear? that I would fall.
Rocks crumble from where I am standing. I find myself falling, falling into a dark endless abyss. My hands extend out for help but catch only emptiness. I am lonely and sad, that no one could be there for me.
A flash of light and I see a pair of white angelic wings unfolding, spreading out in a burst of feathers, showing all their beauty. Flying towards me a hand extends outwards to me amidst the gently falling feathers and I hold on to it, feeling it carry me upwards, towards the light again.
Tsuzuki had always been there to catch me when I fell into my soul's darkness, bringing me back again. But can I pull him from his?
"Tsuzuki..." I whispered again. "That thing that I saw...was not the real you, wasn't it? That was just an illusion...maybe like in the Castle of Candles...an illusion from the darkest fears of my heart... But it was so real..." I closed my eyes, feeling the soft tickling of the white feathers. "This...is the real you. You are still here somewhere. I know it. You caught me again. I will find you. Just wait for me, alright?"
***
He looks at two figures in the sky. The screaming head in the `sky' had moved its eyeballs and was now looking at something in glee. He sees the two figures the head is looking at. One of them is strangling the other, trying to kill him.
Dimly he knows that it looks like him. Is that what I am? he thinks. I can hear their screams...their sobs...the people I killed...
He looks again at the two figures. They seem important-somehow. "Hisoka..." he says in a hoarse voice. He knows not whose name he just whispered, but it seems important, something from long ago. He blinks his dark purple eyes slowly. He has stopped walking forward and about him, the figures of the condemned trudge slowly by.
The one that is him and not him suddenly lets go of his grip on the other's throat. The other had gone limp. Have I killed another person? he wonders. Does he hate me for killing him?
He watches as the body plunges towards the gray ravenous mass of heads. The body's frame is young and slight, not more than that of a young boy.
A vision of serious green eyes flash in front of him.
A young boy, perhaps sixteen years of age looks at him sadly as he explains about his curse. Painted in blood the night he witnessed a murder, the curse that had not gone away even after his death. The boy had brownish hair.
Just like the one who is falling.
The boy had wrapped his arms around him and cried into his shirt as the helicopter rose into the air, leaving the sinking ship of the Lady Camellia below.
During an archery contest, the boy had twisted his wrist, and had allowed him to take his place.
He had always been sarcastic and slightly rough in attitude, but beneath that-beneath all that...
"Tsuzuki...did you think that I came all this way just to see you die you numbskull?!"
Hi...soka... That is his name. Hisoka...
"Hisoka! HISOKA!!!" screams Tsuzuki, abruptly snapping out of his own nightmarish world. From somewhere deep within him, an enormous, mysterious power is released, all on his strong, overpowering desire to stop the boy from falling-from getting hurt.
The power escapes as a burst of light and catches the boy just as he is about to fall into the gray expanse. With a flare never seen before in that part of the world, the light bursts into a pair of pure white wings, carrying the boy to somewhere he can rest.
Tsuzuki blacks out from the exertion, and does not know it when he is dragged by creatures unknown, moving along with the rest of the damned.
***
Letting the leftover residue of the angel-like feathers guide me, I found myself in a forest of trees which, burnt with hellfire. The faint trail stood out amidst the pain and suffering of the place like a dim faraway light. It was probably because it had been left there so recently. I was running a risk, lifting the barrier slightly so that I could sense the trail. Even so, powerful feelings bombarded me, giving me a throbbing headache.
The trees were charred and blackened, and as one burnt into nothing, another appeared to take its place. The trees were twisting around in agony. On closer inspection, I noticed that the trees had black charred skulls growing on their branches, as ordinary trees would have fruit. They seemed to be struggling to get away. Every now and then one or two would actually break loose and fly, screaming and on fire, moving randomly.
I had learnt at Shion-Dai and was careful not to let any of the black flames touch me, as much as I could. I saw, just a little farther off, a line of humanoid figures trudging slowly. I heard the clank of rusted chains and the low dull moans and high wails of misery emitting from them. The trail led directly towards them.
Cautiously I walked towards them, avoiding flying skulls. Soon I was so near them, I could see the features of their faces. Their mouths opened and closed with their lamentations like the souls damned, which was what they precisely were. I immediately slammed the barrier across my mind down. I could not stand the waves of dark feelings which threatened to overwhelm me, and besides, I had almost blacked out from the weight of the emotions pressing in upon me.
Pushing and shoving, I search among the faces for Tsuzuki. His blackish-brown hair, his thin frame, his purple eyes-anything. I was sure I was close to him now. In this way, I made my way upwards in the crowd, before I remembered that I could fly.
***
He had been chained to a tree. Spiked branches had wrapped themselves around his legs, torso and arms, some of the long spikes having pierced their way through his body he hung, bleeding profusely. The spikes were each about as long as a small dagger. One particularly large one had sunk itself into his abdomen, its bloody end coming through out of his back. The plant obscenely produced blood-red flowers, as if sucking his blood made its color richer.
"Tsuzuki..." I whisper in shock. All around me, the same plants were erupting out of the ground beneath the condemned souls' feet and catching them, spikes stabbing deep while blood flew and screams tore themselves free from raw throats.
Tsuzuki appeared to be unconscious, his eyes closed while blood streams from a wound on his forehead. His dark hair hangs in limp locks across his forehead, nearly obscuring his eyes. His skin is very pale, so pale that I scares me.
He is being absorbed...
He is being absorbed by those plants...into HELL! They are the true gateways to Hell!
"TSUZUKI!!!" I scream and swoop down towards him. He slowly moves his head and turns towards my voice. He wasn't unconscious after all.
"Hiso...ka.." he said weakly.
"You baka! Did you know how much trouble I went through to get you back?!" I yell as I pull ineffectually at the wooden branches, trying to tug them loose. The wood feels warm, like a living organic thing. It pulsates beneath my touch. It is sucking up Tsuzuki's blood. The flowers seem to become redder by the minute. I pull out a penknife from my pocket, and start to saw at the wood. The wood squirms and blood start to trickle down from the area where I had slit. I feel nauseated and angry, because I know that it is Tsuzuki's blood that it is flowing, sucked up by that horrible plant.
I angrily hack off a blossom as it unfolds in front of me. Blood spurts out as if I had cut an artery.
"Hang on, Tsuzuki," I say. "I'll get you out of here."
Tsuzuki looks at me, his eyes dead. "I don't want you here," he says softly. "Go away, Hisoka. Leave me alone."
I stop cutting at the branches. Tsuzuki had closed his eyes again. I could see that he was paler now than before. He must be losing blood fast.
"What are you saying?!" I yell back at him. "Tsuzuki! Look at me!" I shout when he did not open his eyes.
Dark ominous eyes, which reflected only tiredness and death meet mine once again. "Please, just go away, Hisoka," he said in the same resigned tone as before.
"Baka!" I slapped him hard across the cheek. I couldn't help it. "Ididn't come here to see you DIE! I made a promise to myself, that I would not let you go another time!!! Don't give up on me now!"
Tsuzuki says nothing. I glared at him angrily, angry tears starting to form in my eyes. "Look at me, you idiot! Do you really think that you belong in a place like this?! That is not the you I know! Tsuzuki!"
"You...do not know me as well as you think...I have done terrible things when I was alive...things that can't be forgiven..."
"Says who!" I retort. "It's enough if you are sorry for them! If you are, then no matter what crimes you have committed, you will be forgiven! It doesn't matter if you don't realize this now! Just come back!"
Maybe you will realize it someday, Tsuzuki. You are not as bad as you think. I for one do not think that...
He does not answer. Then I suddenly fling my arms around him, like I did at Shion-Dai.
"I don't want to lose you again!" I yell. "Don't leave me! Why won't you come back? Why Tsuzuki?! I need you!" Tsuzuki looks at me, a slight flicker of emotion appearing in his eyes. Slight, but it was there. And then it was gone as quickly as it came.
"You don't..." Tsuzuki said in a voice barely audible, "...need a monster like me."
"You are not a monster!" I said, hugging him harder. "When will you get that into your thick skull?!"
"Hisoka..." he says. "I cannot go back...I have seen over and over again the faces of those who had died by my hand, when I was alive and when I was a Shinigami... I-this suicidal person has no right to take the life of those who want to live so much...I took the lives of others...so that I might live...
"That was not right...Why should I keep on living? This person who is not needed in the world... So just leave me Hisoka...please..."
"Stop trying to run away!!!" I say, furious. I notice a wound on his right wrist, bleeding, untouched by the thorns, festering with pus and infection. "Shinigami may be humans but we are given the same job as the Tenshi-guiding those souls whose time it is to die to the afterlife!"
That wound-that was how you died Tsuzuki, wasn't it? You killed yourself once. I am not going to let that happen again!
"I NEED you! Even if no one else does, I do! I decided a long time ago...that my place to return is to you-by your side! So if you don't follow me-then wherever you are going I'll follow you!"
"Don't be stupid, Hisoka!" Tsuzuki says. For the second time I see another flicker of emotion-this time it was fear.
"Just who's the one being stupid?!" I say. My throat is hoarse from shouting. "Fine, if you want to be stupid we'll do it together! I'm coming with you!" I slam down my hand into one of the protruding spikes. I feel the vampiric wood pass through my palm, pushing the bones of my hand apart, breaking them and tearing muscle. I scream. It hurts terribly. The wood starts to suck greedily. I can hear the sucking noises of the plant as it absorbs my blood. I feel a strange pulling at my soul. It hurts even worse than the physical wound.
"Hisoka! Don't..." Tears form in his eyes. "I-I don't want you to be like me! Please stop it!" he cries as I slam my other arm into a spike. This time it pierces my wrist. Blood flows thick and warm.
"NO!" I yell. "I won't leave you! Where ever you are going we will go together!"
Tsuzuki looks at me desperately. "Why...why Hisoka?" Tsuzuki says, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Why?"
"Because I love you!" I yell. "Don't you understand?! Whatever it is you have to overcome, we will do it together! Whatever past pain you have I will share it! We will get through our trials together! I will stay by your side no matter what!" By now I am crying too, partly from the pain and partly from emotion.
Tsuzuki is silent, looking at me with tear filled eyes. "To...gether..." he whispers finally. His eyelids lower and shut, a small slight smile appearing on his lips. I feel the warmth of his arms as they suddenly circle around me.
"I'm sorry, Hisoka. For all the trouble I have caused..."
"Baka..." I say, falling into his embrace. A gentle silence fills the air. The thorns and the plant slowly disappear, leaving my arms free to hug him back. Wings of light slowly unfold and stretch, filling the air with fallen feathers. I close my eyes. The wounds on my hands are healing, and I know that his are too. More importantly, his emotional wounds are starting to heal. They will not go away immediately, but they have started.
"Thank...you...for bringing me back..."
The wings bring us back towards the light, towards home.
***
I wake up to find myself in Tsuzuki's arms. I look up to see his face, serene now, sleeping. Smiling, for the first time in many years, I lift a hand to stroke his brow. He mumbles something and shifts onto his back, opening his eyes.
"Morning, Hisoka," he says with a smile.
"Hey, baka," I reply. "Feeling alright?"
"I had a bad dream..." Tsuzuki says groggily, yawing. "I dreamt that I died and went to Hell but you came to get me out again..."
Reaching for a snow white feather, I place it in his hand. "It was not a dream, I say. "I'm glad you came back, Tsuzuki."
***
Epilogue
Tsuzuki stands beside me outside Ju-Oh-Cho. He smiles, enjoying the breeze. "Tatsumi-san is so niceeeeee!!!" he says, cheerfully. "He made five apple pies just for me!!! Ahahahahaha..." He is practically drooling. "He says that I can have them ALL as soon as they cool down!"
"You'll get a stomach ache," I mutter. He is not listening.
"And Watari-san says he will work even harder so we can have the chance to experience how it is like to be women!" he continues.
I do NOT know what to say to this. Sometimes I think that the Earl's personality is rubbing off on to him. I settle for a simple "Baka..."
We remain in a comfortable silence for a while. Then he turns to me suddenly serious. "Hisoka," he begins, "I just want to say...thank you...you stuck by me no matter what and I-"
"Baka," I say. "We're family aren't we? There are no need for thank yous. So shut up already. Besides, you already said thank you before."
Tsuzuki smiles at me. I know he understands.
Even with `hate' as food, if I can go on, if I can be by your side, I am content. May be one day I will surpass the person I am pursuing, so Tsuzuki, if I can do it, you can surpass the tragedies of your past as well. Let's do it together.
Our new goal.
Maybe this time, we can touch the sky. After all, aren't we only just a little lower than the Tenshi?
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Author's hot air:
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I hope this fic is not TOO bad. I'm not exactly an accomplished fanfic writer and this is one of the two fics that I actually managed to complete. Some of you might notice some of the phrases etc. were stolen from various other anime. It's not THAT much though. I hope. :P
That tree thingy was inspired by believe it or not...Sailormoon. ^_^ I once saw a flashback of Venus entwined in thorns in Sailormoon R. : 3
The title was chosen because of Ruka's statement about Shinigami and Tenshi doing the same job...and the title was stolen from I book I never read but just saw in my school's library. YES I am still in SCHOOL, not university or college or anything. You can tell by my writing skills level.
Fans of Yamimatsu...please don't kill meeeeee!!! [begs on knees] I think I messed up rather badly in Hisoka's personality...I think everyone is somewhat occ. Yeah, I stink at writing...yada, yada, etc. etc. I know. Send your rants to inversefunction@animejunction.com or just write a review or somthin ^_^
Thanx goes specially to Theria-san for posting Yamimatsu manga translations ^_^
btw, 4 those of u who don't know, Tenshi = Angel
9/02/02 - completed [but probably going in for a serious rewrite in the future... :P]
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Just a Little Lower Than the Angels
A Yami no Matsuei fan fic by Inverse function
[insert legal jargon here ^_^]
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"Are you awake?"
I dimly heard a gentle voice calling my name. Eh? I tried to move and an involuntary moan escaped my lips. My body ached. My head throbbed dully. Wha-? I wondered hazily.
"Kurosaki-kun?" came the voice again.
"He's awake," joined in another voice. "I'm going. Take care of him Watari."
"Hai...Tatsumi-san."
What happened? Groggily I forced my tired mind to remember. Black...fire...
There was a black fire, hot, so hot...that it would raze the very flesh of a Shinigami from his bones...and kill him. In the middle of the flames Tsuzuki was crying...the emotions from him were so filled with bitter guilt and grief... but the most was the sorrow and self-hatred. Blinding, intense and fierce it burned in the depths of his heart, eating his soul away. Why Tsuzuki? Why do you hate yourself so much?
"I'm tired..." Tsuzuki said in an exhausted, resigned voice. "I've lived for too long. Now, I just want to die..."
"TSUZUKI! NO!!!" I screamed, jolting out of the bed with my arm outstretched. "BAKAYAROU!" Rasping breaths shook my body. "Tsuzuki..."
There was no sign of him. I only saw a room of Ju-Oh-Cho's partially damaged medical section. A vase of yellow flowers stood on the table next to the bed. They were fresh. I sat staring at them for a few moments panting, sweat trickling down my face.
"Kurosaki-kun." I heard a voice at my side. I turned around to face Watari.
"Where is Tsuzuki?" I demanded, my heart pounding still. A strange coldness gripped me. "The last thing I remember was Tzusuki's Shiki's black fires. Is he alright?"
Watari did not answer. His expression was not his normally cheery one.
The coldness around my heart suddenly increased to the point where it was suffocating. It wrapped itself around my heart, my lungs and squeezed. I couldn't breathe.
No...
I had been too weak to notice them before. Now the emotions I picked up from Watari were...
"No..." I whispered.
"Kurosaki-kun..." Watari began in a soft voice, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
"NO! It can't be!" I yelled, suddenly angry. I slapped his hand away and grabbed the front of his lab coat. "Tsuzuki can't be dead!" I yelled, furious. An unreasonable denial burned within me, despite the cold reality my empath senses had picked up. "He's not DEAD! I was with him! In that black fiery pit! If he had died then I would have too! He's not dead! He's NOT!!!"
Watari just looked away.
Emotions and memories from Watari pushed and forced themselves into my mind, despite the barricade of fierce denial that I had built around it. I didn't fully understand what had happened at Shion-Dai. I did NOT want to know. But they rushed through the barrier like a dagger tearing into tissue, each rip cleaving into my soul, stabbing deep and undeniable. I saw what Watari had seen in the black flames of Shion-Dai.
Tsuzuki pushed Hisoka away from himself at the last minute, into Tatsumi's Shadow Dimension which had engulfed him, saving him from the fire. For Tsuzuki it was too late. Staring straight at Hisoka just before he was swallowed up by the Shadow Dimension, as if in a final farewell. Then the black flames completely engulfed him. A small sad smile and dark, intense purple eyes stared out before they too were swallowed in the fire.
The Shadow could have saved them both if Tsuzuki hadn't pushed away at the last minute.
"Why, Tsuzuki? Why you baka? You could have made it too if you wanted too..." I whispered, letting go of Watari's lab coat, hands falling limply onto the bed. All the anger had gone, leaving instead an unbearable, lonely emptiness.
"Kurosaki..."
Why?
"Because I did not desire to live any longer. And I didn't want the one who is most precious to me to die too..."
"Didn't you realize, Tsuzuki? With your death I lost the one most precious to me."
***
They erected a tomb for Tsuzuki in Meifu. They gathered his ashes and buried it under a sakura tree, and planted tulip bulbs nearby. In spring the grave would be over flowing with flowers. His funeral ceremony was simple. Everyone just gathered around and cried. At least that's what I heard from Watari. Tatsumi was the only one who did not cry. He just stood there staring at the grave. I was told that he remained there long after the others had gone.
I did not go. I could not bring myself to. I just stayed in my room and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of him. The fact that he was gone forever-I did not want to accept it. That I would never again sense his presence, see his cheerful smile, feeling his warm love-the love that gave me what I never had before-a family. He had always been kind to me. I would never see those purple eyes again, those which I had always thought looked beautiful, unusual, however hard he had despised them, reflecting his emotions within.
He had always hidden something from others, letting his silly antics and love for sweet things cover up his past and pain-desperately trying to forget, even for the briefest moment. I could feel those feelings radiating from him sometimes, slight, barely a hint. He knew how to disguise them well, from himself and even from an empath.
How I wish I had taken that chance to comfort him during that time in Kyoto, when he was sobbing unbearably. But I had let my inexperience and fear override my better judgement. The fear that I would make things worse, make him sadder. I wish now that I had taken the chance, giving him the helping hand which he had always freely offered to me. Maybe things might have been different, then. But then I scoffed at the thought. Who was I that I thought I could change Tsuzuki's wish? Maybe he would have died anyway.
But I wouldn't know. I felt that I had not given him enough love, or even tried to except at the last minute when it was too late.
I would never know.
***
"Tsuzuki Asato..."
"Tsuzuki Asato... " The voice repeats itself. The laughter of small children playing appears and disappears.
Appears and disappears. Like the ripples of a pond.
Tsuzuki Asato...? That...that's my name, isn't it? I-I can't remember...
"Where would you go from here?" The voice comes again. The non-existent children continue to laugh and play.
Where would I go...?
"Where would you go?" The children's laughter stops, waiting. Waiting for his decision.
I...I would go...to the place I deserve.
Hell.
The children start to wail, wails which, gradually turn to screams.
***
The Earl of the Castle of Candles sat in the Hall of Candles, brooding. Dark shadows flitted across the Hall, cast by the burning light of a million lives, flickering, wavering; waiting, for the time the Earl would extinguish them.
Tsuzuki's death had struck a deep blow to him. But yet...
The Earl stared at a shimmering image in front of him. Frowning, he studied the hologram again.
But yet there was no mistaking it. Something unusual was going on.
***
I stopped just outside the door of the Enma-Cho's meeting room. I could hear voices, raised, angry. Their anger radiated into my consciousness like a sudden heat wave. Peeking in through the crack left by the door which was ajar; I saw Watari and Tatsumi arguing.
"With all those pretty words about respecting his wishes to die, you might as well have killed him with your own hands!" Watari shouted. I had never heard-or felt Watari so angry. That carefree, normally cheerful man now radiated a fierce anger.
"It was his desire to die! I did not want him suffer any longer!" Tatsumi's voice.
"HE was just running away! What about your desire?! Did you really want him to die like thatI. n the frame of mind he was in at that moment, he didn't even know what was best for himself!"
I could feel Tatsumi's emotions rising. "And you think that YOU do? You never saw those tear-stained cheeks, those sad, guilt-filled eyes...You only saw what he wanted others to see! That carefree attitude was what he showed on the outside! You did not know what he was going through! What he was living in was...HELL! I-I wanted him to have an easy death! I wanted to free him from his guilt!" I suddenly saw tears in Tatsumi's eyes. This was the first time I had seen-or felt Tatsumi like this. He had always been so in control of any situation.
"Tatsumi-san..." Watari said suddenly subdued. He was as shocked as I was at Tatsumi's sudden tears. He must have realized that allowing Tsuzuki to die was probably one of the hardest, most heart-breaking choices Tatsumi had ever made.
I opened the door. Watari was looking down at Tatsumi who sat silently at the table. He sat a with a conflict of emotions within him that did not show on his face. They looked at me. The silence was heavy, tension-filled. I looked back at them.
"He damned himself," I slowly said. "By choosing to die. By choosing to abandon everyone and everything. It takes great courage to die by one's own hand. But it also takes an overwhelming cowardice in not facing reality." I glared at them in turn. "There is no use quarreling about him, or crying. He's dead. He's gone. The numbskull left us by his own will! There is nothing, NOTHING anyone can do about it!" My voice rose involuntarily on the last few sentences.
I turned around and left the room, slamming the door. For the first time since his death, I felt the hot prickling of unshed tears.
***
A fortnight had passed since Tsuzuki's death. Still I could not visit the grave. I cursed him for dying, for leaving me alone.
Again.
I was alone again.
He left me alone... He...chose to abandon me...but he did not want me to go to the same eternity that he chose. Is that worse? Or is this?
Tensions had risen in the Enma-Cho department. Watari now rarely showed up except when necessary. Meetings were tensed and oppressive feelings choked the atmosphere. I journeyed into the world of the living whenever I could. The atmosphere of Meifu suffocated me.
The whole of Ju-Oh-Cho was in a state of shock regarding Tsuzuki's death. Word was that he had died by the hand of one of his more rebellious Shikigami when he had lost control over it. Only those within the Enma-Cho department or present at the time of his demise knew the truth.
I did not blame Tatsumi for Tsuzuki's death. I blamed HIM. Tsuzuki Asato. Daily I would curse him, for his stupidity in deciding to die. Yet I still loved him, loved him so much that I hurt terribly every single moment. I was disgusted at him, yet I also felt sorry for him, wondering what could have happened to induce him to seek an eternal death.
I tossed a stone into the water. It skimmed a few paces before sinking into the greenish waters with a plop. I was standing next to a small river, feeling the breeze of the living world, the strokes of the long grass across my ankles as the wind ruffled them.
I threw another stone into the river as I felt Watari approach from behind. He seemed unusually troubled, the emotions running strangely differently than of late.
"Kurosaki-kun," he said. "Konoe-kacho has called a meeting. It seems to be regarding something the Earl has found out concerning Tsuzuki."
***
"Tsuzuki's name appeared on the Kiseki," said the Earl. "There is no mistaking it."
"Wait a minute, I don't understand," I said. "Shouldn't his name have appeared on the List of the Dead? He was going to die..." I trailed off, familiar choking feelings rising. Watari put his hand on my shoulder.
"No," Tatsumi shook his head. "The Kiseki lists only those mortals whose time it is to die, or those whom had lost the will to live." He looked up. "Shinigamis aren't alive. We are already dead. So if we were to die once again, our names would not appear on the Kiseki. A Shinigami's death would be eternal. That is one of the biggest risks in becoming a God of Death."
There was a brief silence.
"So then why did Tsuzuki-san's name appear on the Kiseki? It doesn't make sense," Watari muttered his brow creasing.
"Oh, Tsuzuki..." The Earl sighed. I tried to ignore the uncensored emotions of the Earl. I was trying to think. A strange, unrecognizable feeling had appeared somewhere within me. "Does a Shinigami's death really have to be eternal?" I asked, suddenly.
"Kurosaki-kun?" asked Watari, puzzled.
I stood up. "Can souls really die?" I asked. "I never thought about it before, but can a soul truly die? What if they can't? What if...somewhere somehow...Tsuzuki's still alive?" I recognized the emotion now. Hope.
"Kurosaki-kun," began Konoe. "I know Tsuzuki's death had been hard on you but-"
"No," I said. "No, I did not mean it that way...what I am asking is that can a soul truly die? A soul can only be created by the highest of the Divine. So it won't easily die, wouldn't it? Aren't the souls of humans one of the most complex of creations? If so, then how can it be killed by a mere Shikigami, no matter how powerful it is? Shiki are not full Kamis. Even Tsuzuki's four top Shiki are only Guardians, barely just touching on the tip of being fully, truly divine."
Watari's brow creased even further. "So you are asserting that Seirryu, Suzaku and the others are just demi-deities or spirits with large amounts of power. This means that you are saying that while Touda, Tsuzuki's hellfire Shikigami destroyed his master's body, it could not destroy the soul?"
"Well...yes."
"So then if what you are saying is true, just WHERE is Tsuzuki now?" asked Konoe.
"That I-I'm not sure..." I said.
"Kurosaki-kun, I think that you may be right. A soul should not be destroyed so easily," Tatsumi said quietly. He laced his fingers together, his elbows resting on the table. "At all costs, we are going to find out where Tsuzuki-san is."
"But still, that does not explain why his name turned up on the Kiseki," said Konoe.
"Uh...Oh..." muttered Watari.
"Nani, Watari-san?"
"I think I might be able to narrow down Tsuzuki-san's position..." said Watari. He started to fidget nervously with his hands. He didn't seem to know whether to talk or not. The emotions I had from him were nervous, scared, jumpy, disbelieving. Finally he started.
"A soul of a person after death is judged in Ju-Oh-Cho and sent for reincarnation accordingly. But in some special cases the soul is sent to Heaven or sentenced to Hell. I am sure that he hasn't been sent for reincarnation. If he had then we would have known of his arrival back at Ju-Oh-Cho, before he was sentenced. In some of the special cases, I mentioned just now, the soul doesn't even have to pass through Ju-Oh-Cho but is immediately sent to their destinations. So that just leaves only Heaven and Hell."
"Well, we can't exactly barge into Heaven and demand to know if Tsuzuki is there," I muttered.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Emotional levels were high and I tried my best to ignore them, the hope I had held slowly flattering. It was inevitable. Everyone knew what was coming. But someone else had to say it.
Tatsumi finally came to a decision and spoke. "I doubt that he is in Heaven," he said. His face had taken on a grayish pallor. "Suicide often carries a high sentence." He buried his face in his hands, his emotions slowly crumbling.
Watari nodded. He looked sick. "So that leaves only Hell."
***
I could not sleep that night. The though that Tsuzuki might be in Hell was worse that the thought that he was eternally dead.
I sat near the river where I had been earlier that day. This time I did not toss stones into the river but sat with my knees drawn up to my chest. "Tsuzuki...no baka..." I murmured sadly. I did not know what to feel. Konoe-kacho had decided to try to arrange a meeting with Enma Dai-Oh to see if there was anything he could do to lighten the sentence.
"Kurosaki Hisoka."
The sudden, unexpected enigmatic voice, which spoke seemed to fill the air, although the sound itself was actually barely above a whisper. A coldness, beyond darkness of the frozen ends of the world seemed to fill the air, gripping my heart, penetrating into my soul. I looked up. My eyes widened.
"En...ma...Dai-Oh...-sama," I croaked out in a hoarse voice. Enma Dai-Oh. The Lord Divinity of Hell, the most powerful Cho of all.
He stood there, the finer features of his face obscured by the shadows. Of his face, I could only see his slight, mysterious smile. An unworldly wind blew cold and scattering blades of grass about us and swirled his dark immaculate robes about him, his hair moving with the wind as long tendrils of impossible blackness.
The pale, finely sculptured lips parted. "Kurosaki Hisoka. What is your most precious wish?" they asked.
I found myself answering, before conscious thought. "To have a chance to save Tsuzuki."
"And what is it that you wish to save him from?" said Enma.
"From his past... From himself. Please, Dai-Oh-sama, please give Tsuzuki another chance...please give me another chance to save him..." I pleaded.
Enma smiled, as if I had said just what he had wanted to hear. "Your wish, it shall be granted..."
I looked up at him, hardly daring to hope. "So-so you'll let Tsuzuki out of Hell?"
"No," replied Enma, his transcendental tone suddenly dark. I thought I perceived a slight change in his demeanor. "I will not because I cannot."
"Dai-Oh-sama, I do not understand..."
"You are wrong in perceiving that I sent him there in the first place. Tsuzuki Asato condemned himself. He desired to go into abyss of Hell because he felt that he belonged there, after discovering an eternal death was not possible through the Shikigami Touda. But there is yet still time, for he has not been completely absorbed by Hell. It was his wish to go to Hell, which brought him there, therefore only his wish to leave can carry him out. Did you think that Hell is that easy to enter? Tsuzuki is now only on what you could call the `outskirts' of Hell."
Enma Dai-Oh's tone was dark and deep.
"Kurosaki Hisoka, your wish shall be granted only if it is strong enough to change his."
The wind lifted up the blades of grass, flying, soaring seemingly without effort, silver in the light of the half-moon.
To change his wish...
To change his wish and give him the love he needs...
I swear to myself that I will not abandon him this time no matter what.
I will not let go of him again.
I will save him.
The broken blades of grass soared up into the Heavens without wings. Enma Dai-Oh gave a slight dark, satisfied smile, as if he had read what was in my thoughts.
***
The entrance to Hell opened up before me. The screams struck me like a physical blow. Stenches of rotting flesh and blood almost overwhelmed me. I staggered back. I was glad that Enma Dai-Oh had put a kind of temporary barrier around my empath senses, in order to dilute the waves of horror, terror and grief within Hell.
Casting one look at Enma Dai-Oh whose countenance and features were hidden by unworldly shadows which, shifted about like the feathery wisps of smoke. I steeled myself. I understood. I had to go alone.
I leapt into the swirling vortex of black fire and screams. I felt myself falling, falling endlessly. Around me, living corpses with rotting flesh dripping off their blackened fingers reached out to touch me. Burning skulls screamed obscenities in my ear. Coiled snake like creatures with protruding tongues stretched out to fondle, laughing horribly while clawed hands curved to rip flesh and sinew from bone...
Even through the barrier, I could still feel echoes of the anger, angst, pain and terror they represented.
Unable to control it anymore, I closed my eyes and screamed.
Enma Dai-Oh's voice came back to me.
"Tsuzuki is not yet absorbed completely into Hell. Once he is, there is no escape. Change his wish before he is truly lost."
"Tsuzuki! I'm coming! Don't you dare go anywhere!" I yelled, as I plunged down through the screaming, laughing mass into a darkness beyond twilight.
***
When I came to, I felt wet, sticky damp and cold. My nose recoiled and I almost retched as the overpowering stench hit me.
"What the-?"
I froze. I was aware of something crawling up my left leg. Slowly it inched, ticklish, almost seductively. It stopped and started to fondle itself along my leg, working its way upwards, towards my crotch area. Any idiot would know by now that it was definitely not some kind of insect.
I bolted upright and looked down to see a pale hand, slowly caressing my thigh. Its long white fingers might have been beautiful once, if it hadn't been covered in blood, its long nails caked with dried brown crusts.
I yelped and slapped the hand away, leaping to my feet. The hand flew in the air and landed a few paces away, bouncing a little before it came to a halt. As I watched with horrified eyes, the hand slowly picked itself up, using its fingers, like some sort of a five-legged creature. By now I had realized that it was a severed hand.
My jeans jacket was covered with blood, dark red and black splotches had soaked into the fabric, causing the stickiness that I had felt upon waking. All about me was a field strewn with body parts, either in the process of decaying or having decayed, now lay as crumbling yellowish-brown old bones. My eyes were still fixed on the hand. Picking itself up it started scuttling towards me. That was when the other body parts started attacking me as well.
Blackened, decaying hands with the bones already showing grabbed my ankles. Entrails from dismembered bodies flicked upwards and coiled around my arms. Severed heads parted their dripping lips and howled. All at once, they threw themselves at me, biting my flesh hard, trying to drag me down into the mass of wriggling, wet and sticky flesh.
I screamed and I kicked and pushed at them wildly, trying to fly upwards where they wouldn't reach me. Their grip on me loosened as I increased my efforts to move upwards. Slowly I felt the cold fingers loosening their grip, leaving smears of rotten flesh and blood on my clothing. Shrieking, I kicked at the last few limbs and heads still trying to attach themselves onto me. With cracking sounds, parts of the limbs broke off and fell wriggling into the moving mass of severed body parts below. The remaining pieces still clung determinedly to me.
Finally I managed to get every last bit of the horrors off. My clothes were wet and smeared with decaying flesh and blood. My throat was raw with screaming.
Tsuzuki...if it is this bad already when I have just arrived here, what other horrors do they have in store? Baka...do you really believe that you belong in such a place...?
I discarded my jacket, tossing it down into the field of the decaying dead. Even from this high up, I could still hear the moans and howls of the dead, calling me to come down and join them in their misery. The plain stretched out as far as I could see. Above in what passed for the sky, which was a terrifying infinite blackness, spotted with giant splotches and stains of what seemed like blood, a gigantic severed head hung in place of the moon, its face frozen in a silent scream. Reddish ligaments and tendons hung down limply. I watched as long arms reached out to catch the jacket and rip it apart. On a thought, I discarded my jeans a well, as I was wearing short pants underneath. I could not stand the cold sticky feel of dead hands. I felt unclean.
With only tank tops and a pair of brown pants on, I sped off in mid air in a random direction. I had tried to use my empath senses to try to locate Tsuzuki, but there was too much pain and fear around. I could not find the slightest trace of him. Now I did not know where I had to go or even where I was going.
***
He walks in a forest. The trees here are burning. Burning with an unnatural black fire not unlike the hellfire of the Shikigami Touda he had once commanded. He is hardly aware of the others walking near him, moaning to themselves, crying and sobbing loudly. He for one is silent. His eyes have the glazed faraway look of someone who is in his own world. Yet he has enough presence of mind to keep his feet moving forward. There is no life in his gaze. He walks as if his soul is dead.
He hears the trees whispering to him, accusing him of crimes long past, inflicting the pain over and over again. He sees again the blood on the walls, hears again the screams and feels the hatred of those who had died hating him, hating him so much, it hurt over and over.
His lips part and a strangled whisper of, "I'm sorry," escapes from his lips. "I did not know..." A sudden tear quietly escapes from his sad dark purple eyes and falls sparkling darkly in the light of the burning trees onto the ground.
Slowly he moves with the damned.
***
I had been flying for a long time. Gradually the plain of the severed bodies lessened and after a time, seemed to stop altogether. I did not trust the ground though. In a while I saw that I had been right not to.
Faces bobbed out of the grayish muck their mouths opened in a voiceless scream. Through the barrier Enma Dai-Oh had erected for me, I felt the strong vestiges of horror and pain. I did not want to know what else lay underneath the surface.
As I was surveying the gray mass of faces below, I suddenly felt a hard burning spikes run through my shoulder. Before I had tome to think, something else ripped through my chest. I choked, feeling the warm blood run down my chin. Looking down, I caught sight of a bloody hand, protruding out of my chest. It twisted and tore itself out, ripping through layers of flesh, skin and bone. That action increased further my agony. I screamed as the claw burst into me a second time, this time into my abdominal area. I could feel my intestines being pulled out as the creature tore its arm out again. I could feel my strength draining out of me quickly. Desperately, I needed to get out of its hold. I knew that even though I would regenerate after the creature had torn me apart, I did not want to fall down into the mass of gray heads, which were now greedily slurping and gobbling up the blood and pieces of human flesh that had fallen onto them. The thought of the feel of undead mouths
biting into my flesh with a hungry blood frenzy was almost all that I could bear. With all the desperate strength that had not seeped out of me as my blood had, I forced myself out of the creature's grip. Amid my screams, I heard the cracking of my bones and the ripping noise of my shoulder as I separated from it, leaving behind in its death grip the entire of my left arm.
With ragged breaths and clutching at the bloodied stump of what was left of my limb, I spun around to face the monster that had attacked me. I was weak and dizzy from the pain and loss of blood and, could barely keep afloat, although I felt my flesh already starting to regenerate.
My eyes widened with shock as when I saw the creature that had attacked me. Its features were so distorted with hatred and rage that I nearly did not recognize them.
"Tsu...Tsuzuki...?" I managed.
Tsuzuki was wearing what I had seen him in last at Shion-Dai. His clothing was bloodied and in places charred and burnt. His hands were covered in blood almost up to his elbows. In one hand he was holding my severed arm. He glowered at me with an expression of hatred that I had never seen on his face before. A dark fear and confusion surged through my heart.
Why was he looking at me like that?
Fiercely with hostility, he flung my arm down into the nightmarish mass below. I heard the crunch and snap of bones as they devoured my former left arm. He glared at me with so much hatred that I felt terribly hurt.
"Hisoka..." he spat out my name as if it was a curse. "Why did you come?"
Somehow I managed to find my voice. "Tsu-Tsuzuki...I came to get you back...to save you...Tsuzuki, why are you looking at me that way?" I asked, my voice wavering. His loathing and hatred were so strong that I could feel them radiating from him in hot waves.
I could feel the sudden burst of his hostility as I answered. "SAVE ME?!" he spat out in disgust. "Hisoka, I don't need YOU to save me. I don't WANT you to save me." His features twisted more in hatred. "You are nothing but a pain in the ***. You and your curse! That was all you cared about! You never took my feelings into consideration! I loved you, Hisoka. I cared for you. But did you? You didn't know how many times you hurt me! When I needed you the most, you could do was stand there and watch as I cried! THAT hurt me a lot, Hisoka. That made me want to die even more!"
He glared at me even more fiercely, if that were possible. I had never seen such hatred, not from my family when I was alive, nor on anyone else.
"And when I finally made the decision to die, even that you tried to prevent me from getting what I wanted! You wanted to take away the only hope I had left for peace, the only hope I had left, because of you own selfish desires! The only thing I ever asked from you was to let me die but even that you would not give! What did I ever do to you that you had to hurt me so badly? WHAT?!"
Tears had formed in my eyes, as Tsuzuki showed me his hatred and pain, his true feelings, each word stabbing deep while twisting the handle.
How could I have been so blind? Wasn't this fate his wish? Why can't I just accept it? Why couldn't I make him happy...even once?
"I-I never wanted to hurt you! I wanted you to be happy! I-I'm sorry Tsuzuki..." I choked out. Tears started to run down my cheeks. I started to cry. It was one of the rare times that I did. Was I really so self-centered? When Tsuzuki was hurting I could not say even one kind word to him. "I-I'm sorry," I said. "Please forgive me, Tsuzuki...I love you." I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
Suddenly I felt arms circling around my body. The feelings of hostility and hatred were suddenly gone.
"It's alright Hisoka. Don't cry...let's go back together, okay?" Tsuzuki said gently. "I'm sorry too. Don't cry, okay?"
I cried even harder and hugged him back, afraid of losing him again. "I don't want to lose you again...Please don't try to kill yourself anymore. I...missed you..." I sobbed into his chest, feeling his gentle warmth and his pure, sweet smell. The enormity of the feelings I had kept inside myself without even I knowing of it; burst out of me completely at that moment. I had never missed someone so much before. "Tsuzuki please, forgive me..."
Tsuzuki bent his head forward, his lips almost into my ear. "Hisoka..." he whispered. "It's too late."
My eyes widened. "Tsuzuki?"
"It's too late," he said again. "I don't love you anymore. I hate you." With that I felt his hands go to my neck and started to squeeze. I choked, feeling the air slowly leaving my lungs. Saliva ran down the corners of my mouth. I clutched ineffectually at his strong fingers. I could see his face, twisted again in that semblance of pure hatred. I tried to call out his name, but failed. Tears started to run from my eyes again. Blackness soon started to darken my vision the last thing I saw was him mouthing he words: I hate you. Something within my soul shattered and I knew no more.
***
The first thing I did when I woke up was to cry. I cried like I never did before. I cried because Tsuzuki hated me. I cried because I loved him. My throat hurt badly. There was no sign of him. He had strangled me and left. I cried and cried. I did not cry this much even when Tsuzuki had died. Maybe it was because I did not, even then believe him truly lost to me. I had somewhere a hope that I would somehow find him again. But I had lost him forever the moment he said that he hated me. His hatred was worse to me that his death. I lay on the ground and sobbed until I had no more breath left in me, and then I continued to weep inwardly.
I believe I had fallen asleep several times, only to wake up and cry again. How I could sleep in a place like this, I did not know. But at that time I was so, overcome with grief that I did not know nor did I care where I was.
Finally I managed to summon enough strength to drag myself into a sitting position. My crying fit had passed, for the moment. Now I just felt worn out and empty. It was then that I noticed what I had been lying on.
It was a bed of soft down, white and pure, untouched by the dirt and grime of the ground. I ran my hands along the feathers in wonder. They were almost angelic in their beauty. That was when I happened to look up. I saw a grayish splotch in the distance.
It couldn't be...could it?
Trying to forget my despair for a while, I got up and flew towards the gray area. My body by now had healed fully. As I got closer, my sight confirmed what its nature was. It was the sea of hungry faces. The place over which Tsuzuki had-I stopped myself. Instead I concentrated on the bewilderment of how I came to be almost five kilometers away from the place.
I noticed that I was still holding some of the feathers. Staring at them, I tried reaching out my consciousness towards them, through the barriers that Enma Dai-Oh had erected for me. There was something oddly familiar about them-something warm and gentle-and caring.
My eyes widened. I reached out with my senses again, over the leftover residue of its aura.
"Tsuzuki..." I whispered. I held the feathers to my cheek.
This was from Tsuzuki.
The loving, caring, Tsuzuki: the one who always caught me when I fell. There was not even the least bit of hatred in their aura. Just love and-and a fear? that I would fall.
Rocks crumble from where I am standing. I find myself falling, falling into a dark endless abyss. My hands extend out for help but catch only emptiness. I am lonely and sad, that no one could be there for me.
A flash of light and I see a pair of white angelic wings unfolding, spreading out in a burst of feathers, showing all their beauty. Flying towards me a hand extends outwards to me amidst the gently falling feathers and I hold on to it, feeling it carry me upwards, towards the light again.
Tsuzuki had always been there to catch me when I fell into my soul's darkness, bringing me back again. But can I pull him from his?
"Tsuzuki..." I whispered again. "That thing that I saw...was not the real you, wasn't it? That was just an illusion...maybe like in the Castle of Candles...an illusion from the darkest fears of my heart... But it was so real..." I closed my eyes, feeling the soft tickling of the white feathers. "This...is the real you. You are still here somewhere. I know it. You caught me again. I will find you. Just wait for me, alright?"
***
He looks at two figures in the sky. The screaming head in the `sky' had moved its eyeballs and was now looking at something in glee. He sees the two figures the head is looking at. One of them is strangling the other, trying to kill him.
Dimly he knows that it looks like him. Is that what I am? he thinks. I can hear their screams...their sobs...the people I killed...
He looks again at the two figures. They seem important-somehow. "Hisoka..." he says in a hoarse voice. He knows not whose name he just whispered, but it seems important, something from long ago. He blinks his dark purple eyes slowly. He has stopped walking forward and about him, the figures of the condemned trudge slowly by.
The one that is him and not him suddenly lets go of his grip on the other's throat. The other had gone limp. Have I killed another person? he wonders. Does he hate me for killing him?
He watches as the body plunges towards the gray ravenous mass of heads. The body's frame is young and slight, not more than that of a young boy.
A vision of serious green eyes flash in front of him.
A young boy, perhaps sixteen years of age looks at him sadly as he explains about his curse. Painted in blood the night he witnessed a murder, the curse that had not gone away even after his death. The boy had brownish hair.
Just like the one who is falling.
The boy had wrapped his arms around him and cried into his shirt as the helicopter rose into the air, leaving the sinking ship of the Lady Camellia below.
During an archery contest, the boy had twisted his wrist, and had allowed him to take his place.
He had always been sarcastic and slightly rough in attitude, but beneath that-beneath all that...
"Tsuzuki...did you think that I came all this way just to see you die you numbskull?!"
Hi...soka... That is his name. Hisoka...
"Hisoka! HISOKA!!!" screams Tsuzuki, abruptly snapping out of his own nightmarish world. From somewhere deep within him, an enormous, mysterious power is released, all on his strong, overpowering desire to stop the boy from falling-from getting hurt.
The power escapes as a burst of light and catches the boy just as he is about to fall into the gray expanse. With a flare never seen before in that part of the world, the light bursts into a pair of pure white wings, carrying the boy to somewhere he can rest.
Tsuzuki blacks out from the exertion, and does not know it when he is dragged by creatures unknown, moving along with the rest of the damned.
***
Letting the leftover residue of the angel-like feathers guide me, I found myself in a forest of trees which, burnt with hellfire. The faint trail stood out amidst the pain and suffering of the place like a dim faraway light. It was probably because it had been left there so recently. I was running a risk, lifting the barrier slightly so that I could sense the trail. Even so, powerful feelings bombarded me, giving me a throbbing headache.
The trees were charred and blackened, and as one burnt into nothing, another appeared to take its place. The trees were twisting around in agony. On closer inspection, I noticed that the trees had black charred skulls growing on their branches, as ordinary trees would have fruit. They seemed to be struggling to get away. Every now and then one or two would actually break loose and fly, screaming and on fire, moving randomly.
I had learnt at Shion-Dai and was careful not to let any of the black flames touch me, as much as I could. I saw, just a little farther off, a line of humanoid figures trudging slowly. I heard the clank of rusted chains and the low dull moans and high wails of misery emitting from them. The trail led directly towards them.
Cautiously I walked towards them, avoiding flying skulls. Soon I was so near them, I could see the features of their faces. Their mouths opened and closed with their lamentations like the souls damned, which was what they precisely were. I immediately slammed the barrier across my mind down. I could not stand the waves of dark feelings which threatened to overwhelm me, and besides, I had almost blacked out from the weight of the emotions pressing in upon me.
Pushing and shoving, I search among the faces for Tsuzuki. His blackish-brown hair, his thin frame, his purple eyes-anything. I was sure I was close to him now. In this way, I made my way upwards in the crowd, before I remembered that I could fly.
***
He had been chained to a tree. Spiked branches had wrapped themselves around his legs, torso and arms, some of the long spikes having pierced their way through his body he hung, bleeding profusely. The spikes were each about as long as a small dagger. One particularly large one had sunk itself into his abdomen, its bloody end coming through out of his back. The plant obscenely produced blood-red flowers, as if sucking his blood made its color richer.
"Tsuzuki..." I whisper in shock. All around me, the same plants were erupting out of the ground beneath the condemned souls' feet and catching them, spikes stabbing deep while blood flew and screams tore themselves free from raw throats.
Tsuzuki appeared to be unconscious, his eyes closed while blood streams from a wound on his forehead. His dark hair hangs in limp locks across his forehead, nearly obscuring his eyes. His skin is very pale, so pale that I scares me.
He is being absorbed...
He is being absorbed by those plants...into HELL! They are the true gateways to Hell!
"TSUZUKI!!!" I scream and swoop down towards him. He slowly moves his head and turns towards my voice. He wasn't unconscious after all.
"Hiso...ka.." he said weakly.
"You baka! Did you know how much trouble I went through to get you back?!" I yell as I pull ineffectually at the wooden branches, trying to tug them loose. The wood feels warm, like a living organic thing. It pulsates beneath my touch. It is sucking up Tsuzuki's blood. The flowers seem to become redder by the minute. I pull out a penknife from my pocket, and start to saw at the wood. The wood squirms and blood start to trickle down from the area where I had slit. I feel nauseated and angry, because I know that it is Tsuzuki's blood that it is flowing, sucked up by that horrible plant.
I angrily hack off a blossom as it unfolds in front of me. Blood spurts out as if I had cut an artery.
"Hang on, Tsuzuki," I say. "I'll get you out of here."
Tsuzuki looks at me, his eyes dead. "I don't want you here," he says softly. "Go away, Hisoka. Leave me alone."
I stop cutting at the branches. Tsuzuki had closed his eyes again. I could see that he was paler now than before. He must be losing blood fast.
"What are you saying?!" I yell back at him. "Tsuzuki! Look at me!" I shout when he did not open his eyes.
Dark ominous eyes, which reflected only tiredness and death meet mine once again. "Please, just go away, Hisoka," he said in the same resigned tone as before.
"Baka!" I slapped him hard across the cheek. I couldn't help it. "Ididn't come here to see you DIE! I made a promise to myself, that I would not let you go another time!!! Don't give up on me now!"
Tsuzuki says nothing. I glared at him angrily, angry tears starting to form in my eyes. "Look at me, you idiot! Do you really think that you belong in a place like this?! That is not the you I know! Tsuzuki!"
"You...do not know me as well as you think...I have done terrible things when I was alive...things that can't be forgiven..."
"Says who!" I retort. "It's enough if you are sorry for them! If you are, then no matter what crimes you have committed, you will be forgiven! It doesn't matter if you don't realize this now! Just come back!"
Maybe you will realize it someday, Tsuzuki. You are not as bad as you think. I for one do not think that...
He does not answer. Then I suddenly fling my arms around him, like I did at Shion-Dai.
"I don't want to lose you again!" I yell. "Don't leave me! Why won't you come back? Why Tsuzuki?! I need you!" Tsuzuki looks at me, a slight flicker of emotion appearing in his eyes. Slight, but it was there. And then it was gone as quickly as it came.
"You don't..." Tsuzuki said in a voice barely audible, "...need a monster like me."
"You are not a monster!" I said, hugging him harder. "When will you get that into your thick skull?!"
"Hisoka..." he says. "I cannot go back...I have seen over and over again the faces of those who had died by my hand, when I was alive and when I was a Shinigami... I-this suicidal person has no right to take the life of those who want to live so much...I took the lives of others...so that I might live...
"That was not right...Why should I keep on living? This person who is not needed in the world... So just leave me Hisoka...please..."
"Stop trying to run away!!!" I say, furious. I notice a wound on his right wrist, bleeding, untouched by the thorns, festering with pus and infection. "Shinigami may be humans but we are given the same job as the Tenshi-guiding those souls whose time it is to die to the afterlife!"
That wound-that was how you died Tsuzuki, wasn't it? You killed yourself once. I am not going to let that happen again!
"I NEED you! Even if no one else does, I do! I decided a long time ago...that my place to return is to you-by your side! So if you don't follow me-then wherever you are going I'll follow you!"
"Don't be stupid, Hisoka!" Tsuzuki says. For the second time I see another flicker of emotion-this time it was fear.
"Just who's the one being stupid?!" I say. My throat is hoarse from shouting. "Fine, if you want to be stupid we'll do it together! I'm coming with you!" I slam down my hand into one of the protruding spikes. I feel the vampiric wood pass through my palm, pushing the bones of my hand apart, breaking them and tearing muscle. I scream. It hurts terribly. The wood starts to suck greedily. I can hear the sucking noises of the plant as it absorbs my blood. I feel a strange pulling at my soul. It hurts even worse than the physical wound.
"Hisoka! Don't..." Tears form in his eyes. "I-I don't want you to be like me! Please stop it!" he cries as I slam my other arm into a spike. This time it pierces my wrist. Blood flows thick and warm.
"NO!" I yell. "I won't leave you! Where ever you are going we will go together!"
Tsuzuki looks at me desperately. "Why...why Hisoka?" Tsuzuki says, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Why?"
"Because I love you!" I yell. "Don't you understand?! Whatever it is you have to overcome, we will do it together! Whatever past pain you have I will share it! We will get through our trials together! I will stay by your side no matter what!" By now I am crying too, partly from the pain and partly from emotion.
Tsuzuki is silent, looking at me with tear filled eyes. "To...gether..." he whispers finally. His eyelids lower and shut, a small slight smile appearing on his lips. I feel the warmth of his arms as they suddenly circle around me.
"I'm sorry, Hisoka. For all the trouble I have caused..."
"Baka..." I say, falling into his embrace. A gentle silence fills the air. The thorns and the plant slowly disappear, leaving my arms free to hug him back. Wings of light slowly unfold and stretch, filling the air with fallen feathers. I close my eyes. The wounds on my hands are healing, and I know that his are too. More importantly, his emotional wounds are starting to heal. They will not go away immediately, but they have started.
"Thank...you...for bringing me back..."
The wings bring us back towards the light, towards home.
***
I wake up to find myself in Tsuzuki's arms. I look up to see his face, serene now, sleeping. Smiling, for the first time in many years, I lift a hand to stroke his brow. He mumbles something and shifts onto his back, opening his eyes.
"Morning, Hisoka," he says with a smile.
"Hey, baka," I reply. "Feeling alright?"
"I had a bad dream..." Tsuzuki says groggily, yawing. "I dreamt that I died and went to Hell but you came to get me out again..."
Reaching for a snow white feather, I place it in his hand. "It was not a dream, I say. "I'm glad you came back, Tsuzuki."
***
Epilogue
Tsuzuki stands beside me outside Ju-Oh-Cho. He smiles, enjoying the breeze. "Tatsumi-san is so niceeeeee!!!" he says, cheerfully. "He made five apple pies just for me!!! Ahahahahaha..." He is practically drooling. "He says that I can have them ALL as soon as they cool down!"
"You'll get a stomach ache," I mutter. He is not listening.
"And Watari-san says he will work even harder so we can have the chance to experience how it is like to be women!" he continues.
I do NOT know what to say to this. Sometimes I think that the Earl's personality is rubbing off on to him. I settle for a simple "Baka..."
We remain in a comfortable silence for a while. Then he turns to me suddenly serious. "Hisoka," he begins, "I just want to say...thank you...you stuck by me no matter what and I-"
"Baka," I say. "We're family aren't we? There are no need for thank yous. So shut up already. Besides, you already said thank you before."
Tsuzuki smiles at me. I know he understands.
Even with `hate' as food, if I can go on, if I can be by your side, I am content. May be one day I will surpass the person I am pursuing, so Tsuzuki, if I can do it, you can surpass the tragedies of your past as well. Let's do it together.
Our new goal.
Maybe this time, we can touch the sky. After all, aren't we only just a little lower than the Tenshi?
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Author's hot air:
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I hope this fic is not TOO bad. I'm not exactly an accomplished fanfic writer and this is one of the two fics that I actually managed to complete. Some of you might notice some of the phrases etc. were stolen from various other anime. It's not THAT much though. I hope. :P
That tree thingy was inspired by believe it or not...Sailormoon. ^_^ I once saw a flashback of Venus entwined in thorns in Sailormoon R. : 3
The title was chosen because of Ruka's statement about Shinigami and Tenshi doing the same job...and the title was stolen from I book I never read but just saw in my school's library. YES I am still in SCHOOL, not university or college or anything. You can tell by my writing skills level.
Fans of Yamimatsu...please don't kill meeeeee!!! [begs on knees] I think I messed up rather badly in Hisoka's personality...I think everyone is somewhat occ. Yeah, I stink at writing...yada, yada, etc. etc. I know. Send your rants to inversefunction@animejunction.com or just write a review or somthin ^_^
Thanx goes specially to Theria-san for posting Yamimatsu manga translations ^_^
btw, 4 those of u who don't know, Tenshi = Angel
9/02/02 - completed [but probably going in for a serious rewrite in the future... :P]
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