I know it's a been a while since I've updated but...well, I have no excuse. I've just been lazy and updating other stories. (Please go check out Secrets Unheard that's my pride and joy at the moment)

Hopefully, I'll be quicker next time.

But we all know how that goes.

Enjoy!


My heart jumped to my throat as I watched a small ghostly boy jump at two boys about three times his height and weight, yet I almost cowed; the tiny boy was simply radiating danger. Tiny hands wrapped around one boy's throat and blood spurted everywhere as he snapped the neck with a swift upturn of his arms. I was horrified; I wanted to scream but no sound came out. If my limbs didn't feel like they were made of lead, I would've reached out and restrained the boy. Helpless, I merely looked on as the corpse of the first boy dropped to the ground.

Realizing the danger in the situation, the second boy began to run away, screaming his head off. But all for naught as the tiny monster launched himself at his legs and with a sickening crunch, they slammed to the ground the screams suddenly cut off. The murderous boy glared over his shoulders for any onlookers and he caught my eyes. His eyes were dilated so much the icy blue of his irises were almost obscured completely.

Eyes that were exactly identical to mine.

"Noo...!"

Tetsuya?

I snapped up, fully awake and immediately my head started swimming, black dots forming at the edges of my vision. Reaching out for something to lean on, my hand scraped a dirty stone wall. Gently, I let myself lean against it, careful not to let my bare skin get scratched by the jagged texture of the wall. Vague memories were slowly coming back; encountering Shi; Shi becoming the Light; Shi trying to kill me; my friends coming...Was I dead? What had happened?

Tetsuya...

Sudden vile burned my throat, but it didn't go down properly. I coughed uncontrollably as the memories sharpened with frightening clarity, coming from a seemingly different world: a man with white hair; a blindingly bright figure; an alienated sort of rage; blood spurting from my chest...from my feet...

"My feet!" I gasped and felt for the bottoms of my legs. Stumps of muscle and bone extended where my leg ended, steam rising off from the open flesh. "Shit...shit..."

Tetsuya, calm down, the Shadow muttered to me. I'm trying to regenerate your lost limbs, but I can't do it all at once. Your body wouldn't be able to handle it.

"Yeah, okay," I moaned, stretching out my legs painfully. Panic had flared so intensely that my body was shaking with adrenaline. Another memory came in: a long thin familiar saber. Hesitantly, I felt my chest and found a large rough spot on my chest. Dried blood crumbled off the closed wound and into my hands. "I thought I was dead for sure," I muttered as I watched the dark brown flakes scatter across my hand.

Very nearly, the Shadow said. Seems like he can hurt you so long as he's possessing a human. I guess it's a bit of a relief, since he can't touch you without a vessel to possess, like that man Shi.

"Shi..." I breathed, the satisfying sensation of driving his throat against the pavement was too disgustingly welcome in my fingers. Through clouds of amnesia, I saw the old man's broken form in the center of the huge broken crater. "Is he dead?"

Most likely. Although, I would like to believe that Shi was already dead before the Light got to him. I don't remember seeing that man when we played against Kirisaki Daiichi. He was being used like a puppet, if that paints a better picture for you.

"What a gruesome puppet," I said wearily. I looked around for the first time since my awakening and found myself sitting in the alley way between two buildings. Neither building had any windows for people to look out of and see a disheveled basketball player with two of his limbs missing. I cocked my head upward painfully and saw an inky black sky, lit up by the occasional feeble star. To the side, cars raced by on the street outside the alley way, sending my surrounding into relief. "How did we get here?"

You lost control for a little bit. I thought it would be best to take to the shadows and hide from the human authorities. What we really don't need right now are those annoying people hunting us.

Hardly aware of what I was doing, I nodded even though there was no physical entity to agree with. So I had let go of my control, something I had been keeping for over sixteen years; granted that one time...The Shadow's power this time had been overwhelming, more overwhelming than I had expected. Almost like going against the Kiseki no Sedai for the first time, but worse and with worse consequences. My body was hurt, I was tired...and my friends...

"Kagami-kun! Akashi-kun!" I almost screamed, terror shaking my body; sudden rushes of emotion were rather foreign and had a terrible effect on my body. What had happened to them after I left? They'd been kicked to the ground, and were found at the scene of my fight, next to a dead man. The authorities were probably all over them, and they had nothing to do with what I had done. I was half in the motion of jumping up when I remembered I had no feet to jump onto.

Tetsuya, calm down!

"My friends," I moaned, glaring down at my stumps. "What if they're in danger? What if-?"

Calm down, Tetsuya. If you're to find your friends, I need to regenerate your feet.

"You can do that thing, right?" I gasped as I moved toward the street on my butt. "Where you transport using the shadows?"

In order to use that, I need to have some sort of control over your body. If I do that now, you will surely die. You are no use to your friends dead.

"Well, shit." I exhaled slowly and mentally relaxed myself. No cursing. I cursed when I was emotionally fired up and the more fired up I was, the more liable the Shadow was to take over my body, and thus I was more liable to die. And it was true: what use was I to my friends as a corpse? "Well, is there any possible way to speed up the regeneration process?"

...I could just focus on one foot, if you're comfortable with hopping on one foot.

"Anything," I said, looking out onto the street. I recognized some of the buildings; Kagami-kun's place wasn't too far from here. "I can hop if I need to."

I believe you can do anything if you really wanted to, Tetsuya.

I blocked the Shadow's sarcasm out and looked down at my stumps. The left one stopped steaming and the right one began to steam two-fold. It was barely visible, but as I stared at the sinews surrounding the bone, I was pretty sure I could see the stump end in a heel and turn outwards for a foot. For what seemed like an eternity later, I could wiggle toes at the end of a extremely pale foot, but as I got to my feet, it supported weight so long as I leaned on a building.

Try to conserve energy, you are very weak.

I nodded and hopped forward, shaking the fabric of my pant leg down to cover the ugly stump that was my left foot. I turned onto the street, keeping a steady pulse in my head: hop, lean, hop, lean, hop, lean...

For what wasn't the first time I was glad for my lack of presence; for the most part, I was able to walk by pedestrians without attracting attention. When I bumped into someone, which was too often for comfort, they glared at me and wondered at my strange appearance but kept walking on. Coming up on a crosswalk, I wobbled dangerously and leaned on the pole for support, looking around for anything suspicious; ironically, I was probably the most suspicious thing on the street.

Tetsuya, something just occurred to me.

"Yeah?"

Don't you think the authorities would be on high alert for us?

This revelation took a second to sink in. My heart rate accelerated and I whipped my head around to be greeted by police officers.

Of course.

BAM!


I decided to choose several curse words to scream, even though no one would hear me.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

A bullet shot through Tetsuya's lower abdomen, piercing his stomach and going clean through his lower spine. Tetsuya dropped to the ground as ear-splitting siren wails filled the air. This had been the one thing I should've figured out before, but hadn't even begun to consider. Of course, of course, it looked like we had killed Shi. Tetsuya was a suspect, being hunted down for murder. At least, at the very least he should've covered his face.

But for now, I needed a memory. I needed to take over Tetsuya's body so I could heal the bullet wound slowly draining blood from his stomach. Shit, and I had just covered up his chest wound and regenerated a whole new limb.

Memory, memory...

"You are merely the prototype. The outdated model has been replaced by a second, new phantom sixth man."

It worked almost too well. Emotion flooded Tetsuya's consciousness and I subdued him. Now I controlled even Tetsuya's mouth and eyes, swiveling his eyesight upwards and towards the police officer standing above us with a gun pointed at us.

"What the hell did you guys do?!" the adult barked, nudging Tetsuya's face with the toe of his shoe. His foot smelled disgusting. If only Tetsuya's body had been capable of doing it I would've snapped the foot off it's leg. "He's wanted alive, not dead! You heard those high schoolers, they'll kill us before the higher ups can."

"Are you seriously afraid of a bunch of teenagers?" the man's accomplice snorted. "I don't care what the redhead says. This guy killed the man, I'm sure of it. And anyway, look. He's blinking. Ugh, those eyes creep me out, they're so black."

"You're lucky he's still alive," the first human snapped, although it was clear he was relieved. "I'll call the station. We'll need a car for this mess. Wow, he's even missing a foot."

Wh-What happened?

We were shot, I muttered, happy at the sound of Tetsuya's voice in his head. It was an indefinitely good thing I was in control now, but if I had too control of Tetsuya's body for too long the little consciousness he possessed would cease to exist completely. I'm sorry Tetsuya. I should have forseen this.

What's happening now?

I swiveled Tetsuya's eyes as far back as they would go. Pedestrians were starting to gather around us and on the street cars were pulling to a stop to ogle at the crowd, police officers trying to keep them back. I considered for a moment what had to be going on outside of what we knew. Obviously, Tetsuya was convicted of killing Shi. If so, did the people around us view Tetsuya...as a killer?!

In the distance, I could see one of those infernal machines driving closer, red and blue lights flashing on the top. I was surprised at the speed of the humans; of course, they could do anything once their safety was brought into question. I felt the wound in Tetsuya's close over with a thin layer of flesh but I could also feel the tear in his stomach. Were the humans seriously going to try and move Tetsuya in the state he was in? The wound was fatal without me!

Then Tetsuya's hand moved without my thought; Tetsuya must have calmed down enough to regain consciousness over his hand. After a few moments, the police car screeched to a stop and out stepped another police officer. Tetsuya's fingers wrapped around his leg as he drew close and he was sent flying into the crowd. A heated argument struck up among the humans.

You need time?

I cast around for a human phrase and landed on, 'I'm so happy I could just kiss you!'. I focused on the little hole in Tetsuya's body as a second officer stepped out of the car, glaring down at Tetsuya with unmistakable disdain. Using his foot, he moved Tetsuya's face toward him. Holy shit that was disgusting.

"I thought he was dead there for a second," he snorted. "What a mess of a person. This is the suspect? Get him in the car."

Dammit!

The other three adults scruffled about for a moment before harsh hands grabbed Tetsuya's body, not taking heed to the wound in his stomach. Tetsuya's attempt at a diversion had proved useless. Blood started to pour from the wound again and with it Tetsuya's consciousness. Heavy metal handcuffs were produced and slapped around Tetsuya's wrists, the metal digging into this skin.

What are they going to do?

"So how're you feeling?" the most dominant of the four humans said with an edge of malice. "You weren't thinking straight were you, when you killed that man? Didn't you remember about all those friends you have back at the station? Hope you know they're worried sick about you, although how they still think you're innocent is beyond me. You killed that man..." Even though he was in the driver seat and the car was already moving, I could feel his eyes on Tetsuya. "You monster."

I had no time to respond, not with the ugly wound open again. Even if I all I wanted was to lay waste to these police officers, these 'heroes of justice', Tetsuya came first.

"Basketball player, pretty good one too, from what I hear from those friends of yours," the man went on, turning the car so sharply that Tetsuya and the other two in the back seat of the car went flying. Luckily, the wound wasn't touched. "What made you do it? Ah, never mind," the man sighed, shaking his head. "I'll never understand you monsters. How you can just...take people's lives like it's nothing."

For whatever reason, the bullet wound started throbbing like crazy. It didn't seem like it was healing anymore. Why? I didn't remember stopping the healing process. Then I realized I was almost at my boiling point. And like Tetsuya, emotion prompted uncontrollable fits of power.

Stay calm, don't get angry. That's what you always tell me to do.

Are you enjoying this, Tetsuya?

I'm not enjoying dying, no.

I glanced down at the police officer's belt and saw the gun poking out of his belt. An idea started to form. It was too easy; I could grab the gun, shoot the four officers before they knew what hit them and get out. Bending down, I tried to draw attention to Tetsuya's upper body as I used his hand to get close to the gun.

What are you doing? We don't have a second foot.

Starting, I remembered the stump of a foot Tetsuya still had. Which injury came first? The foot of the bullet wound? If I healed the foot first there wouldn't be enough time to grab the gun and escape before coming too close to the police station. But the bullet wound was the immediate threat to Tetsuya's life.

I allowed myself another human curse word.

The skin just stretched over the wound as the car pulled up to the front of the station, siren toning down. Dejectedly, I let the adults grab Tetsuya's body and haul him in the building. There would be other opportunities to escape. I just had to let myself believe that. For Tetsuya's sake.

...For Tetsuya's sake?

We were dragged down a dimly lit hall lined with closed doors, an eeriness stealing over me. Humans didn't scare me, not in the slightest. So why did I feel so uneasy inside this human establishment? At the end of the hall, the police officers opened one of the doors and brought us in, seating us roughly in a cold metal chair. One of the adults uncuffed Tetsuya's right hand and attached the cuff to the table which, after I looked closer, was bolted to the floor. He quickly stepped back, afraid of the now free hand.

Don't we get a katsudon?

"Don't we get a katsudon?" I asked, looking around blearily at the police officers.

Why did you say that?!

"I guess you don't appreciate the severity of your situation," the man I had marked as the most dominant sighed, shaking his head like we had failed him in some way. He waved his hand and the three other officers left the room, leaving us with the man and his fierce gaze. "I really wonder what's going on inside that head of yours."

Right now Tetsuya's conscious was growing stronger and yelling at me for making such a snarky comment, exactly what I had been aiming for by saying that silly sentence. I refocused on the foot, feeling the bone reform from the stump. When the foot had regrown, I would let Tetsuya take over and guide him out of here. We would have to run away, to put bluntly. We couldn't stay where we were now under the constant threat of the Light.

"How to crack you," the police officer was saying, sitting down across from us, resting his chin on interlocking fingers and observing us like a particularly tasty meal he couldn't wait to devour. I couldn't help but feel uneasy around him. If not for the handcuff and the fact overexerting Tetsuya's body at this point would probably kill him, I would've strangled the officer just to get that uneasiness out of the room. "Could we get you morally? By telling you that a man is dead because of your actions? Or emotionally, by telling you how much grief you are causing that man's family right now?"

There was a knock at the door and one of the other police officers poked his head through the doorway.

"I brought them, like you instructed."

"Thank you," the man said without looking at the other, smiling grimly at us. "Come on in, you two."

I didn't bother looking around, too focused on regrowing the foot. I heard the police officer get up and two people sit down in his place; I wondered what the quickest way out of the police station would be. A few moments passed, tension thick in the air, and the heel had grown in.

"Kuroko, please. Why won't you look up?"

Fuck. Fuck.

I knew that voice. I hated that voice.

Akashi Seijuro.

I whipped Tetsuya's head up and stared with disbelief at the two redhead humans Tetsuya held so dear. Akashi Seijuro's short hair was matted down with sweat and his eyes, those infernal eyes that had cause Tetsuya so much pain, were dark with fatigue and grim determination. Next to him was Kagami Taiga. I didn't harbor as much hatred for him as the others, he had treated Tetsuya better than the rest. He refused to make eye contact with us, staring at some point between Tetsuya's eyes.

Why were they here?


Uh oh, what happened here? Well, I mean, duh Kagami and Akashi were brought in.

I'm actually starting to confuse myself with what pronouns the Shadow should use when referring to him and Kuroko. I'm so dead mentally.

Lol until next time!

-Joy Goldenpine