Again, beta'd by the wonderful AliceInTheSunlight.

Time to start tying plot threads together after this one. :)

Death Game

Chapter 4: First Meeting

Death was no stranger to the Game. He came on crow wings, swooping in to adorn the grounds with new graves and stone markers to mark the site of his visitation. Shinichi saw him from a distance, at first. A spectre stalking the battlefield. And soon, he saw him up close, close enough to smell the scent of rot and decay rolling off his black skin. As Death placed his sucking kiss on the cheek of his victim – sometimes through Shinichi's doing, sometimes through the doing of the others – Shinichi could hear a whispered question. Are you still living?

Strange, that he had not heard the voice of Death so clearly before. Death had left his residue for him to clean up for as long as he'd remembered. But he had never spoken – gone too soon for him to notice the detective shadowing his every move. But now Death knew him, his hands, his heart, as dearly as himself.

They were tentative acquaintances now. In each battle initiated by the girl – she still remained nameless, he'd never found the right time to ask – Death spoke with Shinichi.

Best to strike at the heart, with a clean shot. He seems to be proficient at close range.

I know.

So he took a card which summoned arrows made of ice and sent them piercing towards the man's unprotected chest.

Before he could hear his dying scream –

He's coming too close. Why don't you lop off his hands, so he can't wield that sword?

I know.

The knife blade flicked out and severed the hands off the wrist in two clean cuts. It was followed by a slice to the neck, and the head slid off with a muffled crunch of bone and muscle. Best to finish them quickly, before the pain struck. Before he had time to look – really look – at the organs decorating the trees like macabre Christmas lights, and his own fastidious attempts at keeping himself free of blood and evidence, which made him all the more suspect in this red painted amusement park.

And when Shinichi still stood after each encounter, Death would depart with a soft sigh, and a promise to return later. He wished to be friends, after all.

Most of the time, Shinichi turned his back and rejected Death's proffered hand and heart. But there were the occasions, where he sat on a holographic tree branch and clutched his head in his hands so he would actually have time to think about who was behind the game, why the mindless murder, and if there was any end to the pixels indicating the distance of the blue sky (logically, he knew there was). At this time, though, logic escaped him, and all he wished was to speak with Death.

But these moments were also the ones where Death remained silent.

"We're getting closer," the girl said one day. Shinichi, Dodo and the girl sat in a circle around the small fire they'd lit with the driest branches they could scavenge to minimize the smoke. The circle was too close – Ed's absence was an almost palpable wall between them.

She held up the deck of cards. It had grown from three, to seven. "Three more," she said, a flushed light in her eyes. "And we'll have them all."

Three more, Shinichi thought tiredly. And maybe I'll have some answers.

Dodo gave an excited hiccup and clapped his thick paws together.

"I have information on the next encampment," the girl said. She had a faraway look in her eyes. "It won't be easy, they've noticed our movements and they're prepared. From a distance, it looks like they've holed themselves in an underground network of caverns."

"It'll be dangerous," Shinichi acknowledged, voice flat. "If the tide comes in before we're done..."

The girl nodded. "We'll go in as early as we can. And even then, we'll only have two hours."

There was an awkward silence around the camp. Nobody asked the question hanging like a thicket of spears above them. And after they'd recovered the final three cards? What then? Would they be the only ones left, and have to turn their blades on each other? Would they be betrayed, and the mission aborted before it began?

Neither of them had the answers. Nothing to do then, except curl up and scoop a blanket of loose holographic leaves over themselves and surrender to sleep. Would Death visit him tomorrow, wondered Shinichi. He thought he heard a faint whisper on the wind.

Not yet... not yet...

He was waist deep in water.

They had come in as soon as the tide allowed – meaning the cavern was still half full of brine that stuck his clothes – borrowed permanently off the last group of people they'd ambushed – to his body. Shinichi suppressed a shiver. The thin breeze blowing through the cavern stole the heat from his body and left him cold, sopping and miserable.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his legs to move. The current tugged at the hem of his pants and threatened to pull his feet out from under him. Sharp stones poked at his skin through the thin rubber soles of his shoes.

Though he knew it was all holographic, in the moment, it hardly seemed to matter. The warm mugs of coffee brewed fresh from the antique model in the police headquarters was a distant memory now. He recalled the taste not as sensation, but a memory of something pleasant. Something decidedly missing from his current lifestyle.

The girl had given him two cards for his mission. Dodo held three, and the girl held the remaining two. It would be enough – the cards themselves more than compensated for numbers. And numbers their target had in droves.

Shinichi half swam, half walked on the slippery rocks. He brushed a hand on the surface of the rock wall beside him. There was a small indent, too small for the eye, but just enough for a sensitive hand to feel. Shinichi nodded to himself. Reaching his hand out confidently, it landed on another indent.

Fighting the sucking of the tide as it withdrew from the cavern, he shuffled his way forwards with the guidance of the markings.

He came soon to an open chamber. Pulling himself out of the water with a gasp, he lay down on the cool rocks like a stranded fish, catching his breath. Finally, he stood, and looked around. Rock spires twisted in structures barely manmade – they seemed to be taken straight out of a fairytale universe. Something even Nature was loathe to replicate, made possible by the wonders of holographic technology.

Shinichi touched on of the tendrils of rock, marvelling at the texture of rock and the slight wetness on his fingertips where the water had soaked into the minute cracks inside. Light scintillated and bounced off the tiny crystals of water caught in the minute grooves, casting the place in a soft glow of blues and faint rose.

There was a large pool in the centre of the cavern, dark and fathomless. The rock spires reached up to form an arch over it. Every couple of seconds, Shinichi could hear a faint drip as the water collected by the stone merged into a single droplet that fell rhythmically into the black depths.

He was not here to admire the scenery, he reminded himself. He'd heard a scream – it came to him hollow and distorted, but he thought he heard the deep bass of a man. Taking a quick glance around him, he hurried off along the side of the lake, hands skimming the wall.

There.

A groove – slightly deeper than the rest, carved into a star shape gave under his touch. Rock crunched against rock, and suddenly a doorway was revealed between the embrace of two smooth boulders.

Shinichi slipped inside, quiet as a cat. Ensconced in the darkness, he listened. The scream came again – clearer this time. Dodo, he realised, and felt a chill. What had made the man scream so desperately? And he holds three cards.

He would know soon enough. Gripping the wall behind him, he navigated by touch alone through the passage, tracking the sound of Dodo's voice.

Where are you? Hold on.

The darkness of the passageway melted gradually into a cold blue glow. He edged out cautiously, keeping himself in the shadows.

He was on a veranda overlooking a circular room.

On the floor, hands behind his back, face broken and bleeding, was Dodo. He was whimpering now, eyes wild and straining at their sockets. Around him were their targets, clothed in black and wielding silver whips.

Shinichi felt his heart leap. His eyes counted the figures. Thirteen. Too many.

Thirteen was the total. They were supposed to go two ways - Dodo to take down half, the girl to deal with the others, locking their enemy into a stalemate. And then Shinichi, the concealed knife, would deal the decisive blow in the thick of the battle.

But all thirteen were gathered in the one place, and the girl was nowhere to be seen.

He had no choice but to wait, Shinichi decided. The odds were against him – Dodo looked broken, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to stay on his feet, let along fight. And Shinichi only had two cards with him, while the three Dodo carried were likely to be in their enemy's possession.

A silver whip, quick as a snake and with as poisonous a bite, would flicker onto Dodo's exposed back and leave an angry red welt. For a moment, Dodo's face would contort, and he would struggle with his bonds, whuffing like a mad animal. Then the pain would tumble down from its unbearable heights and into the range of a scream of ripping agony.

Shinichi gritted his teeth, his knuckles white from where they gripped the stone wall behind him. Each lash, each blood curdling, pitched scream from Dodo taxed his control. But his mind knew with the cold clarity of logic, that he would only be dooming them both, rushing down to save him like the brash hero.

So he held himself back, and suffered along with the man for his inability to act.

Dodo's head thrashed, and his eyes rolled with each lash and following scream. Suddenly, his red eyes swivelled and caught on Shinichi's own wide blue ones. Dodo uttered a low moan, gaze pleading, imploring.

Shinichi's heart thudded, his palms grew hot and sweaty. I'm sorry, he tried to send with his eyes. I can't. Endure just a bit more.

All this time, Dodo's gaze never left him. Finally, his eyelids swelled shut from the lashes dealt to his forehead and he rocked blindly like a mannequin to the whim of his torturers.

"Enough, " a voice rasped. "there are more bugs we have not squashed. Yet. Leave him, he has learnt his lesson."

The remainder of the hooded circle quietly picked themselves up from their positions beside Dodo's unmoving body and joined the man with the raspy voice. They had barely gone two steps towards the mouth of the entrance when a flood of needles shot into the room and pierced each surprised acolyte through the fabric of their shoulders.

Amidst the howls, Shinichi could make out a shadow panting by the doorway.

It was time.

He took out his card with steady hands and whispered a word. A flood of energy washed through his arms as he was filled with an instinctual control. Thirteen pristine icicles, fashioned like oval spearheads, rose from the vapour in the air and positioned themselves at his fingertips.

With a silent command, they streaked towards the recovering acolytes. Some were pierced through vital areas – heart, liver, stomach, brain – and died immediately. Others had been prepared, their peripheral vision or instinct noticing the danger approaching. Impromptu shields were thrown up, or daggers drawn to deflect the ice.

And Shinichi entered into the equation.

Taking a deep breath, Shinichi tucked himself low and darted across the gallery, hearing the crack and whizz of holographic projectiles pinging off the stone wall above him. He kept a careful watch on the gaps between the railings, and kept his knife in one hand. It was almost an extension of his body now, and he used it with the same ease as his soccer ball, deflecting stray projectiles with deft flicks of his wrist.

Jumping down from the final few flights of stairs, he reached open area. Taking a deep breath, he felt Death's presence at his shoulder as he rushed through into the melee where the girl was currently engaged, feet planted firmly in front of Dodo's motionless body, damaging and killing with the reckless abandon of a murderer.

Shinichi joined her. His arms ached, his legs moved with a mind of its own, fuelled by adrenaline and an overpowering scent of blood that dug into his bestial instincts and drew forth an urge to survive. He alternated between sending ice crystals careening into the enemy and summoning the shield to frustrate the blows of their foe.

Slowly, they cut them down. He stood at last by the corpse of the final man, whose eyes contained a filmy gleam that spoke of the trance of death that reduced all knowledge of his surroundings to an omniscient mass of grey noise.

It was too easy, Shinichi realised. The hands clutching his cards were shaking. "They don't have the cards," he said softly to the girl, who was bent over Dodo's body.

Her head snapped around. "What?" she exclaimed. Her eyes widened. "Look out!"

Too late.

Shinichi couldn't move. Behind him was a shadow. Another cloaked one, he thought, a bad taste in his mouth as he felt an arm slip around his waist and gently pluck the two cards from his frozen hands.

The girl's eyes were shaking, but her body seemed similarly frozen.

"So much trouble," the man behind Shinichi murmured. He gave a short laugh. "But all worth it. Now I have all ten. And you? You have nothing."

The fourteenth cloaked one gave a hollow laugh. "Do you think I was not aware of your plans?" he said, chuckling. "You weren't exactly – how do you say – discreet. It was obvious you were after the cards, if the trail of corpses you left behind were any indication. And as I have them, that which you seem to seek with so much fervour – it would be natural to assume that you would come to me. And what luck! You did, and solved the other half of my problem as well." He gestured to the carnage around him. "I was wondering how I was going to dispose of these people. But you, vicious, heartless little murderers, have done my job for me."

As he spoke, he'd plucked the cards from the girl's hand, and another three from his robe.

Grinning, he brandished the complete set of ten under Shinichi's nose. He could smell it – the plastic of the laminate tinged with the metallic scent of blood. But his body would not move.

"So close," the man said, bringing the cards even closer. "So far away."

He laughed.

And was abruptly cut off when a pink pellet suddenly appeared in midair and exploded in his face.

TBC