Broken Doll

By Eva_kokaze_black (RhblackY@netscape.net )

Disclaimer: YnM belongs to Yoko Matsushita, not to me.

All comments, etc., are welcome. A sort of continuance/companion of Idols I have Loved so Long. Notify before archiving. Muraki angst, H/T ,T/T, and several other pairings. Excuse any Japanese errors; I read YnM in Chinese. ~_~ **WARNING! This chapter has spoilers and pretty graphic violence! You have been warned!

Broken Doll- A Yami no Matsuei Fanfiction

FOUR

*

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch you soul's warmth--I pluck the rose

And love it more than tongue can speak--

Then the good minute goes.

-Robert Browning, "Two in the Campagna"

***

He remembered little after that first night in the moonlit room aside from the golden hair. The next morning was white and cool, and Saki was already gone, leaving a slight dent in the sheets. Kazutaka fingered the still-warm fabric and smiled before remembering himself. He's got a grip on me, he berated himself as he dug his fingernails into his arm as punishment, he's using his devilish ways to trick me. He wants to blind me to his evil. He dabbled at the five bleeding half-moon marks on the white skin on the inside of his elbow and changed into his school uniform.

*

She was digging her painted claws into his shoulders. "You little demon!" A trickle of warmth was slipping down his chest, and he knew it to be the blood she was drawing. "You little slut." She clapped him on his cheeks, first one and then the other. "I should have known what you were doing to him. He's your brother! You shamless creature, just like your father...at least your father didn't sleep with his brother. You're nothing like my son, you bastard child!" She gave him a blow that made him stumble and then another that he felt sure had broken something (vitally important, probably, he thought). He could not remember another time when she had been so fierce, so determined, as it seemed, to kill him. Her shrieks faded in his ears as his vision was blotted with sparkling darkness. Some time ago he'd fallen to his knees, and now with a kick he landed heavily on his gut, which took the last of his breath from him. I don't care, he told himself sleepily, let her have her fun. She would never break her precious plaything, not after sixteen years of enjoyment. She would never...and he went into the gentle night.

He woke to a shout. It had come from somewhere above, and was not that of his mother. The words were indistinct but the meaning obvious. Do not touch him, anymore. He opened his left eye--the other was stiffened with something and throbbed like a brand laid on his face--and saw Saki, who had opened the door, pulling back on Kuroko's arms with waving red-lacqured claws at the ends...his vision wavered and the unreal scene warped in on itself, converging and then another noise, abrupt and painful, woke him again. Astonished by the sheer incrediblity of it, Kazutaka watched his mother's hand plunge into his half-brother's body, her jabbing fingernails like spearheads as she used the momentum of her weight to push her fist in deeper. With a splash of red two fingers emerged, having driven diagonally through diaphragm and brushed against a lung before severing the thin webbing between two ribs. Saki stared at the arm and hand that had impaled him and started, wonderingly, to pull himself free. Kazutaka, who had learned not a little from his father, stumbled to his feet and put a hand behind Saki and another on his mother's arm, keeping down the instinct to pull his brother free. If he did so, Saki would not have time to so much as be surprised before he bled to death. And Kazutaka knew, with great conviction, that no one could kill his demon except himself.

In a smudged procession he saw the next moments; his mother screaming and trying to pull her arm free while Saki (hysterical now) swayed, moaning, and looked extremely white as blood welled around Kuroko's arm and dribbled into his clothes. Then his father entered, and then in a flurry had taken the wounded boy and his wife to the hospital. Kazutaka was left to finger the rough spots of dried blood on the tatami, until black came and swallowed him.

He got up from the heap he'd fainted in on the floor later, at night. The injured eye was still sealed shut. Outside, in the hallway, he heard the ticking of a distant clock and eight chimes. His legs felt like wet paper, and only by clinging to bits of furniture did he manage to get to his own bedroom (and that evil thing's, he reminded himself). Saki was not there, of course, except in the form of his possessions (quite few). Kazutaka sat on his bed and waited for something he knew to be important but was not sure of, exactly. At fifty minutes past one a pair of headlights paused outside and two doors opened and closed, and then the front door opened. He waited, silently breathing with his hunter's face set like stone. They came nearer and then the door slid open and they stood there, his parents, darkened by the back-light of the corridor. "Kazutaka," said his father, with unwonted gentleness, "Saki is--"

He lunged. Even in the dimness of the room he could make out his mother's hand, still rimed with faded blood, held stiff as though broken at her side. He would rip it off if he had to. She had killed his demon, and that was beyond anything she'd ever done to him, even her slandering of Ukyou, her beatings, her refusal to feed him or give him water or medicine or any of a thousand other things. His hands were around her neck as she fell and he on top, ignoring her thrashings, only tightening his fingers, tightening, tightening and pretending that it the evil demon she had killed that was under his power. The feeling of dominance was wonderful; his mother's wild golden hair (just like his) flailed helplessly soft and her red lips smacked and gasped for air but he relentlessly continued. And then she went as limp as her hair. He did not let go immediately, but when his father gave him a rough pull on the collar and hauled him upright he let go of her neck and heard nothing but the dull knock of her body on the floor. "Kazutaka." He turned and glared, only to be startled by his father's passivity. While he'd waited for their return he had planned on his father, pulling him away from his mother or otherwise hampering his revenge. But the man was perfectly calm, without even the smallest bit of anger, reproach, or even surprise. "I was going to say that Saki will live."

*

"Muraki Kazutaka," read Konoe from a mess of papers, that, despite Tatsumi's fussing and straightening, had refused to pile neatly. "Was a practicing doctor born to a family of physicians. Mother had been diagnosed as a severe narcissic and schizophrenic; possibly had inherited these from her. Father died while was attending medical school. Behavior was savage and unnaturally cruel; probably had been a mercenary assassin to boot." He drew breath to continue but was interrupted by Hisoka. "Don't speak of him in the past tense. He's still alive." The boy drew up a sleeve and displayed the spell-scars that glowed faintly even in daylight.

"He found us yesterday, in fact," said Tsuzuki. "He talked to us."

"About what?" Konoe's hands had tightened on the papers. Of course he knew of the meeting already, but still--to think that they had been so careless!

"His past, maybe." Hisoka shook his head. "He didn't get very far before he...he..."

"Got emotional?"

"Yes."

The kachou had sent away all the others long ago; the conference room was deserted, and although filled with sunlight seemed eerie. "What else did he say?"

The partners exchanged looks. "He said he'd continue today."

Konoe stiffened. Whatever manner you deem best, Enmadaiou had said. "You--shouldn't go." He added, as an excuse, "I've a mission for you."

*

"Why wouldn't he want us to go?"

"Maybe he thought we'd get hurt." Like we've always have before.

They were in a cake shop, and Tsuzuki, aside from purchasing the eclairs the kachou had asked for, had also treated himself to a good deal of starry-eyed looks at the pie display before Hisoka had relented (muttering all the while) and bought him a slice. They sat at one of the outdoor tables, made for two. Tsuzuki had consumed his pie to the last crumb almost as soon as he had sat down, and was now eyeing Hisoka's tea. With a sigh it was pushed across to him, and gratefully he gulped at it as though he hadn't drunk for a week. "But still, you'd think it would be more convenient to have us go, when we were going to meet him anyway."

"Mrmfglup," said Tsuzuki, and finished the tea with a satisfied smack. "You're right."

"Besides, he said that he'd 'find us'."

Tsuzuki, whose hand had started to reach into the bag under the table for an eclair, sobered. "I know." He turned his face to the road and watched the cars and pedestrians pass, as though Muraki would appear magically on the sidewalk before them at any moment."What--how do you think he's still alive?"

"I've no idea." Hisoka gripped his hands into fists and stared at them. "He's not a normal human, though."

"Yes." Inhuman, thought Tsuzuki, and flinched.

No, said Hisoka in his head, don't go back there again. He still looked at his hands, but his mind's voice was anxious. "Let's go," he said aloud, and rose, with Tsuzuki following. I wonder what Tatsumi-san would have said in my place, Hisoka said, making sure that Tsuzuki could not hear. I wonder how much more Tatsumi-san could give him than me.

*

"In here," said his father, and opened a door. Beyond was a stretch of white, gleaming in contrast to the drab walls of the basement they had passed through. Another door was at the end of the white passage; it was huge, made of stainless steel perhaps. At either side were two padlocks with slits in their sides. His father extracted two cards from his pockets and handed one of them to Kazutaka. "Go to the right." They slid the card-keys through the padlock (something so ridiculously like a science fiction novel that Kazutaka was hard put to to keep from laughing aloud) and the door parted in half.

Beyond was another white chamber, high-ceilinged and echoing their footsteps. In the center an enormous bundle of cords, wires, and pipes cradled a six-foot tank of reinforced plexiglass, eight inches thick. What he saw inside the tank revolted and excited him at the same time: Saki's head and spinal column, hooked by dozens of cables to various clicking machines that supported life. After a moment of amazement he broke out in choked giggles; his father looked on warily as he went to the tank and put his hand on it, still laughing. It was so gratifying to see his enemy floating helplessly like a dead fish. The golden hair was muted by the liquid of the tank, the eyes shut. If not for his father informing him of the situation earlier, he would have thought the boy dead. "Hello, Saki," he said to the head. Then he realized that the head, albeit entirely unable to survive without the sustenance of the tank and the machines, was still alive. Abruptly he stopped laughing and straightened. The head inside the tank opened its terrible eyes and smiled at him, the same leisurely smile. He whispered a curse at it.

"I'll find him a body, Father."

His father thought it a joke, and smiled (a little too quickly, given the circumstances). "Will you?"

"Yes." He made a vow, and sealed it with his own life. Now he had to find Ukyou and kill Saki. Other men had made more weighty promises to themselves. I'll find him a body and then kill him.

END FOUR

Notes: Agh. Do I need to change the rating? Then again, this is definitely going to be the most graphic this fic is getting (unless it runs away with me). Why is Enmadaiou so leery about Muraki talking to our wondeful shinigami duo? What exactly will Muraki tell them? Review and I'll try to write the next chapter faster.