Sssssso. I'm not dead yet. I'm feeling close to it sometimes, but it's not the case yet, so hooray for me, I guess ^^"

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys. I love you all.

Please enjoy~


The first rule of possession goes like this: always be certain about what you want. And it made sense – how can you expect yourself to be strong enough to take over someone else's mind – no matter how weak or broken it is – if your own is just a whirling mess of shaky ideas? Kid was sure that he was doing a good job with that – his objectives were always clear, and the possessed body followed his orders just as it should've.

The second: be ready for everything. There's no telling which innocent-looking person might turn out to be a serial killer, a psychopath, a pervert, a sadist, someone rotten to the bone. Kid had his fair share of them too, seen so many things he believed that he was more than just ready. Fragments of a broken childhood, glimpses of torture, uncertain images of slaughter and blood, all of it tainted with red… Kid was numb to it. If being a ghost had one advantage, it was that he didn't feel so strongly about others anymore. His own sorrow sometimes felt like it would drive him crazy in seconds, but the suffering of others… It faded into the background, like an old, black and white photo that lost its contrast. And the voices blended together into an odd mess, where there was no telling what was speech and what was a scream, so Kid could move on just as he wanted to, moving pawns across the chessboard, then leaving them when he didn't need them anymore.

And don't forget your surroundings, or so said the third rule. Even if you struggle with a soul, even if you dig deep into memories, you must never forget where you are, and where the body is. Always pay attention to the outside world, even when you're in the deepest, darkest pits of one's mind. And that…. that was the rule Kid found himself breaking.

There he was, sitting with his back against the mossy wall with that sobbing… thing on the other side, still in the library. He could've gotten out, he should've too, but he just didn't want to move.. Numbness took over him – not the kind he felt when he was facing the ugliness of human nature, no. This one was like fear, a toned down version of it, that felt like ivy curling around his limbs, slowly immobilizing him. Sometimes he had to look down to make sure that it was just his imagination.

He lost his track of time – maybe minutes passed, maybe hours, maybe a day. He just sat there, not really waiting for anything, not thinking about anything. Whatever thought settled in his mind, it was incoherent, a mess. The beast could come for him and devour him there, maybe he wouldn't have even noticed it. His gaze kept wondering back to the blotches of crimson blood on the white marble. The scent reached his nose, crawled down to his lungs, to his stomach, until he felt like choking and throwing up.

The sobbing never ceased. It echoed in his ears stubbornly, as if it was mocking him. Don't you feel like crying too, it seemed to ask. Kid just shook his head each time. No. He didn't want to cry, not quite. He wasn't even sure what broke him down so suddenly – it had something to do with his clone, that was for sure, but other than that? It was just a clone, for all he knew, it could've been a trick the beast was playing on him and nothing more… But he did feel like it was something more. That ominous feeling that spread through his whole being when he shot that boy… And his words, too!

"Dad… he would be ashamed to see you like this…"

This is what he said. And wasn't it odd, really? Talking like he not only knew Kid, but also his father. What did that even matter? His father was…! He was…!

His mind was blank. Empty. Where memories of his father should've been, there was nothing. Well, nothing coherent, nothing that could be translated into normal sentences that would make sense. There were shades of red and orange, and flashes of pain – physical or emotional, Kid didn't know – but other than that… Just that blank space. Kid didn't like the way it made him feel, so he choose to forget about it as soon as he could. He had other things to deal with anyway. Like the beast, or that annoying sobbing on the other side of the wall.

And with that in mind, he stood up and turned to the mossy wall. The sobbing just got more hysteric, more frantic. "Get me out of here," it seemed to say now. "Get me out of here, I beg you." Kid let himself smile for a moment. Oh yes, he would've loved to help that stranger with getting out. Whether he got out in one piece or not, it didn't matter. Kid took a deep breath, and raised his fists, landing a strong blow on the wall.

"Hey! Won't you stop whining already?" He didn't feel the need to be polite, not with the beast, or whoever else decided to sneak in there. He might've been a thief, but he didn't appreciate burglars on his own territory.

Either from his shout, or the loud sound of his fist colliding with the wall, or possibly both, the sobbing suddenly stopped with a gasp from the other side. A few moments of silence came, and the only thing Kid could hear was the thundering heartbeat in his ears. And then a voice, eerily similar to his own, but not in the way the clone's voice was, someone asked from the other side:

"Kid? What are you doing here?" It sounded odd. It showed so many emotions, so many things about its owner, Kid couldn't even decipher all of them – there was fear, worry, hysteria even, but it also had pride, power in it, and no small amounts of curiosity and disbelief. But these were not the things that disturbed Kid the most. It was the way this stranger asked him. What he was doing there? Like it was something unbelievable, something impossible, when it should've been the most natural thing in the world, right after the fact that the Sun shines and the Earth is round. What insolence, Kid thought with a little, cruel smile.

"Who are you?" he asked. Not that it really mattered, since it looked like it wasn't the beast after all.

"Come on, Kid, don't play games, not now. Do you know where we are?" The voice spoke like he's known him for ages. Like he was…

And then it clicked. Kid wanted to smash his head against the wall for being this stupid, this slow, but he realized in time that it wouldn't help anyone. The guy on the other side was none other than the previous occupant of the body, Shinichi or whatever his name was. Kid chided himself for that, he wasn't supposed to forget the name of the guy whose body he took. But he managed to forgive himself pretty quickly. He had more important things to deal with. Like how on earth was this Shinichi guy still in there? Why wasn't he outside, floating around like the empty shell he was supposed to become after Kid possessed the body for good? Oh, how Kid wanted to shout at him, to demand an explanation, to punch a hole in the wall and shake the explanation out of this moron who decided to stick around despite the fact that he was clearly not supposed to do that…! He sighed. At moments like this, he needed to remember another rule of possession: always stay calm, no matter what happens. If you let the haze descend on your mind, you might as well leave the body behind. Possession required a strong mind – that was why the spirits of broken psychopaths could never stay around for too long. Kid knew that, he knew that already, but still! Another sigh. No. This isn't how it's going to be. He will stay calm, get the answers he needs, and then make sure that Shinichi disappears.

"So you don't know where you are?" he asked cautiously. The other boy's question did seem weird after all. Didn't he… feel where he was? He was supposed to, everyone Kid possessed before did too. Though he took their bodies only temporarily… Maybe it was different when he wanted to take it for good?

"No, I don't. Would I ask you if I did?" came the reply with a huff. Snarky, aren't you, Kid thought. Like the bastard wasn't sobbing his heart out a minute ago. But his voice was still shaky and tearstained, and that gave Kid at least a tiny bit of satisfaction. He needed to think about another thing though: should he tell him? He might not leave in peace, if he found out. Kid had to lie something, but without making the other realize what happened.

"You sounded less feisty when you were bawling your eyes out…" Kid said absentmindedly, as he was still debating with himself. The response he got was just a small yelp, one he was sure that Shinichi would deny later on with everything he had.

It would be nice to see what kind of place Shinichi was at, Kid thought. It would make lying a lot easier. He could get a better explanation to why they were separated by a wall too.

"So, Kid, where are we exactly?" Shinichi asked again. No time to think, just lie something.

"You're-"


"-inside the heart."

Shinichi blinked. He was expecting Kid to continue, but the thief stayed quiet. He sounded so confident, so sure of what he was saying, but his words were cryptic at best, and that wasn't really what Shinichi needed at the moment. He'd welcome Kid's challenges and get to solve his riddles anywhere else, but this place… This place freaked him out.

He was crying, yes. Not anymore, as soon as he heard someone on the other side, someone he knew, someone harmless… his worries lessened, just a tiny bit. But he was still sitting in complete darkness, the sound of leaves and… other things he didn't want to think about were there, ten times louder in that silence. Kid's voice, though Shinichi would never admit it to him, was like a tiny light in the middle of it all. But even so, he wanted to get out of that place, and see the light with his own eyes. Eyes that were probably red from crying.

"The heart of what, exactly?" Shinichi asked uncertainly. He half expected some snarky answer from Kid, how it should be his job to find out, or something similarly cryptic, the other half of a riddle… but he heard nothing. Seconds passed, then a minute, two, three… No signs of Kid, not a sound. Silence, again, was creeping around him – Shinichi felt like he was suffocating. "Kid, can you hear me?" He asked, and he turned around to rest his palms against the wall. It was stone cold now – the kind, pulsing warmth gone like it was never there. Kid still didn't answer.

"I don't know what kind of sick joke this is…" Shinichi muttered under his breath, trying to sound angry, or at least annoyed, but he just wanted to break the silence. He was tempted to talk to himself. It didn't matter what he said, as long as he said something, as long as there was a voice that cut through this dead quiet, even if it was his own. He couldn't bring himself to do it though, not yet. If he started it… he might lose his mind soon. And he didn't want that. His mind was his only real weapon when everything else failed, the thing that saved lives and what stayed with him even when his world was turning upside down. He didn't want to let it go just yet.

And then the noises, the sounds of leaves and all the other things Shinichi didn't want to think about… they slowly, but surely died down. Stillness, complete stillness came. He held his breath too and didn't dare to move. He was scared, terrified to the core, by an enemy he didn't, couldn't see, desperate to wake up from this nightmare, but despite all that… he felt warmth. Flooding his whole body, washing over him like a wave. It was warmth and relief, the slightest hint of happiness and peace, sliding next to the confusion in his mind – he had so many questions, what, how, why…

A warm light - small and weak, but so inviting – sparked up and shone through the darkness. It was far away, behind the twisted, sick trees, oily leaves and the monsters that were hiding behind them, but… Shinichi wanted to go there. He needed to.

Someone was waiting for him.