Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei
1. The Japanese method of crucifixion, haritsuke, is similar to the Latin method, comprised of nailing victims to a T-shaped cross (later crucifixes would use two crosspieces, to nail the victim spread-eagle). Rather than leaving the victim to die of exposure, spears were thrust into the chest until the victim bled to death.
2. I took some liberties with the lay-out of the museum; it made sense to me that they'd have a basement where they'd store some of the items not currently on display.
3. The Shinigami can't teleport or turn invisible in this universe.
4. As I said last chapter, this universe begins in May of 1998, not 1997 as in the manga. Since Hisoka would have been thirteen in the spring of 1994, it's been four years, not three, since his encounter with Muraki, and Hisoka is seventeen, not sixteen.
5. Eria suggested that I adjust Tsuzuki's incantation for summoning Shiki depending on if he wants them to appear in their human or animal forms. The idea is that a Shiki can be summoned in human form and then transform into their animal form, adjusting their size for their location.
6. I'm using the Rurouni Kenshin version of the zanbatou as the name for Suzaku's weapon, even though real zanbatou probably didn't look like the weapons Suzaku and Sanosuke use.
7. Tetara is based off the demon Lix Tetrax from the Testament of Solomon. The summoning chant is based off the passages in said Testament.
8. I decided to make Seiryuu a woman in order to even out the gender/power dynamics of Yami no Matsuei, and for some story and thematic reasons later on.
I apologize for the very long wait; there's been a lot going on. I also apologize for the lack of quality of this chapter; action scenes are not my forte. Hopefully it isn't too awful.
Nagasaki File - Part III
The first sensation Hisoka felt was the dull but stubbornly present ache next to his spine, bringing with it awareness of the clothes that were sticking to his back, the blood acting as an adhesive.
The next was something sharp holding his wrists together just above his line of sight; as he barely lifted his head he saw that it was barbed wire, and it was wound around just above the crosspiece of a decrepit crucifix. His peripheral vision made out another like it not far from his left, and in conjunction with his memory told him he was in the basement of the Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum.
"I know this isn't the correct way to crucify someone, but I'm not anticipating having the time to go about things properly. Besides, I rather like this way better."
The third, the one beginning to block out all the others, was cold fingers burrowing their way under his shirt and pressing into his skin.
"It's lovely to see you again, my dear poppet. I didn't know they let sick children be Shinigami."
Instinctively Hisoka jerked and instantly he regretted it; a barb punctured his wrist, creating a fresh bead of blood. A hand drew itself almost gracefully out from underneath Hisoka's shirt to press a finger against the new wound; the fingertip lazily wandered around Hisoka's wrist, smearing the blood on his skin like fingerpaint on paper.
"Still quite jumpy, I see. You look thinner, though. I wasn't able to do this before." The hand still underneath the shirt climbed up Hisoka's torso, fingers landing on his ribs as if they were steps in a staircase. It paused for a moment before splaying directly over Hisoka's heart; suddenly Hisoka was aware of how fast his heartbeat was. "Ah…this is quite comforting in its familiarity."
"Who are you?" Hisoka managed to squeeze out of the brick that had once been his throat.
"I'm the man on the other side of the door, poppet…" the free hand descended on Hisoka's head; Hisoka felt a damp spot, a bloody fingerprint, beginning to form on his forehead, "…waiting with the key."
Hisoka yelped; the hand on his head suddenly shot down to his pelvis and yanked him back, pulling him flush against another body. His stomach rioted, threatening to toss up anything that was left inside it, as fingers leisurely crawled down his leg, turned to grab his inner thigh, and jerked back up again.
"Would you like me to unlock the door, poppet?" Teeth bit at Hisoka's ear; Hisoka almost felt the marks left. "You'd like to remember, wouldn't you?"
Now words could not possibly hope to escape Hisoka's throat. He seemed to have forgotten what words were, that "stop it" and "let go of me" were not figments of his imagination; nothing existed except the iciness seemingly trying to seep into his body through his pores.
"It's been a few years…four this passing April, if I recall correctly…but you stick out in my memory as very special, poppet. Would you like to know why?"
The hand came up again, palm covering Hisoka's eyes and fingers on his forehead. Hisoka realized he was beginning to burn up, even leaving aside a comparison with how cold his assailant's hand was.
"You were the only one to never say "no"."
"He said to go to a place that has significance for all three of us…you, me, and him," Miya had said, and it didn't take long for Tsuzuki to figure out where she was talking about. Just outside the church grounds was too inconvenient a place to take a hostage, and he'd never spent time in the May Hotel, leaving the Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum as the only possible place. Worrying to Tsuzuki was that the second and third murder locations, and the location of the attempt at a fourth, all seemed to be a direct message from Muraki to him. The only indication of his family's religion he'd left on earth was his working relationship with Father Hakuro, and that was relatively recent, so either Muraki had been insanely lucky in choosing his locations, or he'd done a frightening amount of research.
Not that it'd be impossible; Tsuzuki was pretty sure that the circumstances of his mother's death had been recorded, but to find that out Muraki would have to know that he'd been raised in Ageo…perhaps he'd had some dealings with the hospital Tsuzuki had died in, and backtracked from there? The name "Muraki" seemed familiar…
Tsuzuki firmly put an end to such ponderings. The museum doors, left slightly ajar after Muraki picked the lock, were in front of him, and rescuing Hisoka deserved all of his concentration. Though he hadn't a scrap of Empathic ability, one didn't make it seventy-two years as a Shinigami without being able to size up an opponent. A sorcerer strong enough to create zombies, and pragmatic enough to keep conventional weapons in his arsenal, was going to be a formidable enemy.
All his preparedness, however, didn't stop the knot forming in his gut. No matter how many times he'd gotten into a similar predicament, and it had been more than once, he'd never been able to mitigate his fear for his partner's safety. And now Hisoka was an especial cause for concern; between his illness and the stress of using the Reibaku and the wound Miya said he'd suffered and whatever Muraki was putting him through now…
Tsuzuki tried not to look at the Pieta wood carving as he passed it, heading for the next open door…Muraki must have somehow proofed the building that alarms were not going off. The door led to another one, which led to yet another, marked "Basement" and opening up to a staircase. The narrow passageway was lit, but the atmosphere grew darker as Tsuzuki descended the stairs; he could only make out dim lightbulbs as the basement's poor attempt at luminaries upon reaching the last step.
The basement, unsurprisingly, wasn't crowded. Most Catholic artifacts had long been destroyed; only the most decrepit of the survivors would have been left out of the exhibits. The lack of obstructions to his view made spotting Hisoka easy, and the knots in his stomach, as well as the rest of it, seemed to turn upside-down.
He fought the urge to sprint to Hisoka, knowing that reckless targets were easy ones. He tried to cross the room equal parts swift and cautious; to his serendipitous astonishment no booby traps lay between him and his partner.
Upon reaching Hisoka, he almost wished for such a distraction.
"Hisoka? Can you answer me?"
Hyperventilation replaced the response Hisoka would have given, if he'd been in any state to speak. He was doubled over as far as the wire would let him be, barbs stuck determinedly in his wrists, stemming a blood flow but painful to look at, let alone experience.
Hisoka yelped, nearly screamed, when Tsuzuki wrapped an arm around his stomach. Tsuzuki grimaced but didn't let go; he could tell that without his support Hisoka would collapse in a trembling heap once freed. With his other hand he tried to untwist the soft wire without pricking his own fingers on the barbs or pressing them deeper into Hisoka's wrists. His instinct proved correct; when he finally wrangled Hisoka out of the barbed wire his knees gave out, and the only thing keeping him from crumpling to the floor was Tsuzuki's arm.
"Quite the deadweight, isn't he?"
Tsuzuki turned his head, his eyes narrowing. Muraki stood several meters away from them, regarding them as nonchalantly as if they were birds in a park.
"The years didn't change him much."
"What do you want with us?" Tsuzuki spat, trying to plant Hisoka on his feet as he turned around.
"The little Kurosaki boy I have no more business with. No more pressing business, anyway." The grin Muraki gave, and the use of Hisoka's family name, sent a creeping feeling up Tsuzuki's spine. "As for what I want with you…well I'm afraid there's no point in the telling."
"I suppose you've got down here sealed off."
"Your instincts astound, Tsuzuki-san. There is indeed a one-way shield set up down here that only I am able to manipulate. It will take an exceptionally powerful force to break it."
Taimo, then; she wasn't called "The Spell-Breaker" for nothing, and Suzaku to cover her. And yet…Tsuzuki narrowed his eyes. For some reason the plan felt like an underestimation of Muraki's prowess. A sort of strong, evil aura seemed to surround him, a silent warning of invisible powers.
Keeping his eyes trained on Muraki, Tsuzuki twisted his body and gently lowered Hisoka to the floor, leaning him against the cross he had just been freed from. Hisoka slumped, but only slightly, once Tsuzuki took his hands away.
"I'm getting you out of here as soon as possible," Tsuzuki said, quietly but loud enough for Hisoka to hear him.
"Don't touch his blood!"
Tsuzuki balked mid-step, only just resisting the urge to look back.
"Don't touch his blood," Hisoka repeated, quietly, frantically. "He's…he's…"
After a second the implications of Hisoka's warning slammed into Tsuzuki's brain, tightening the knot in his gut and twisting it around his other internal organs.
"No sign of drug use," Konoe had said. "No hospital stays…"
That Hisoka shared the same fate as Aimi and Yuuki and dozens of women he'd brought in over the years had been an idea floating in the back of Tsuzuki's head, asking to be acknowledged and being refused each time. Of the mixture of emotions Hisoka had sensed in Tsuzuki upon meeting him, the rage spiked so suddenly and so strongly that it almost covered up the guilt rising alongside it.
"I bow to you and beseech you, the six who protect me. The vermillion swordswoman, queen of the south; the spell-breaker, clandestine guardian of Gensoukai…appear before me, Suzaku, Taimo!"
A ripping sound cut through the air just before a blast of light assaulted Hisoka's eyes. When he was able to open them white circles danced in front of a black background, leaving him able only to hear Tsuzuki's quiet commands.
"Taimo, there's a shield preventing us from leaving; I need you to try to break it. Suzaku, I need you to at least incapacitate that man."
"On it," one of them replied.
"He's a sorcerer, so be careful."
Full color and form were returning to Hisoka's vision; he had begun to make out the shapes of two women standing on either side of Tsuzuki when they both took off; one towards the entrance, the other towards Muraki.
"Kouryuu, appear!"
Suzaku balked at the flash of light and gust of wind that suddenly burst forth from the ground just before her feet; she stumbled backwards as a man emerged from the floor. In a second Suzaku's human form had been replaced by a bird-shaped inferno; the second afterwards her adversary had gone from man to hydra.
"Shit," Tsuzuki growled, but Hisoka could barely hear him over the animal shrieks from Suzaku and Kouryuu; nor could he hear Taimo's shout that the barriers were proving difficult to break down. All he could pay attention to was the hydra attempting to wrap itself around the neck of the phoenix, and the silhouette of Muraki half-disappearing into the shadows.
"Creator of the whirlwind, starter of fires, servant of the Great One. From the tip of the horn of the moon I summon you. Baratara shiararu merukaru…arise, Tetara!"
Hisoka knew what evil felt like. Unlike many of the other emotions, it had no image, only the simultaneous sensations of being weightless and being crushed, a sudden chill brought on by no temperature change, a black hole sitting squarely in his intestines that sucked his guts up into his throat. He felt it from Moriko, from Muraki, from his parents, and he felt it now, stronger than any singular instance before and perhaps stronger than all three combined.
Tsuzuki's voice just barely broke into the dread that had replaced every other emotion in Hisoka's mind: "What the hell is that?"
Tetara was a wastrel, her ill-fitting clothes revealing a frame twice as emaciated as Hisoka's. Stringy white hair was partly bound up in a parody of a style; the rest seemed to be hanging onto her head by force of sheer will. Her eyes held a strange but perfect combination of watery and malicious, and they were focused on Muraki.
"I'm not one of those piddling Shikigami that you can call whenever you want."
"You want something from me, then I'll need something from you," Muraki answered smoothly, swiping his hand through the air towards where Tsuzuki stood, just out of earshot.
"Oh, so that's the one you want to use? Tougher than you thought, is he?"
"Tsuzuki…" Hisoka tried to call, his coarse voice hidden well below Suzaku's continued battle with Kouryuu. He couldn't hear what Tetara and Muraki were saying but he knew his partner was the topic; Tsuzuki's image pranced across both their minds. "Get out of the way-!" His wrists cried out in protest as he set his hands on the floor, to try to drag himself towards Tsuzuki; the healing they managed to procure was immediately undone.
"Go for the little one," Muraki said, straddling the line between a suggestion and a command. He swept his arm out in front of him again, but this time a shrieking sound filled the air with the movement, followed by a thud as Suzaku was slammed back against the newest invisible wall Muraki had set up. Taimo whirled around at the sound; Muraki flicked his hand in her direction and she smashed against another new barrier.
"Tsuzuki!"
Tsuzuki's gaze had gone from Suzaku to Taimo and now to Hisoka, who had finally mustered up the energy to scream. From the corner of his eye he saw Tetara finish creating a fiery tornado between her hands just before releasing it towards them. It flew down the path created by Muraki's barriers at cheetah speed; Tsuzuki barely had time to register who the intended target was, and then to rush himself between it and Hisoka.
Hisoka snapped in and out of awareness in the same second; before the world went dark there was a column of fire bearing down on him, and after it lit up again he was flat on his back, looking up at Tsuzuki's agonized face, the smell of burning cloth and flesh assaulting his sense of smell. Several different shades of panic left him paralyzed as Tsuzuki lifted one hand, the other one shaking with the effort to hold him up, and muttered something. A fuda materialized in his hand, and a translucent green bubble suddenly appeared over them with a grating shriek.
"That is my most powerful barrier," Tsuzuki said, barely. "Nothing can get in or out of it for as long as it lasts." As if to compound the point, another whirlwind of fire slammed against the bubble, creating only an impact tremor before dissipating. The resulting shockwave, however, threw Tsuzuki off-balance, and Hisoka sat up just in time for Tsuzuki to collapse onto his legs. "Dammit."
Hisoka had seen third-degree burns before, in books, and the scorching wound on Tsuzuki's back seemed to surpass the images at least twofold. He could tell that Tsuzuki's healing abilities were setting to work on the injury, but nowhere near fast enough; at this rate it would take hours for Tsuzuki to even be able to stand, and even if the shield lasted that long…
The barrier shuddered again, and so did Tsuzuki. Hisoka looked up as an ominous cracking sound filled his ears; a spider-web had appeared where another cyclone of flame had collided with the shield.
"Tsuzuki…" The sudden stillness of the man draped across his legs reached into Hisoka's chest and squeezed his heart, momentarily stopping it. "Tsuzuki, wake up." It freed itself in double-time, delivering a rush of blood to Hisoka's head that nearly sent him backwards. "Please wake up." His panicked half-thoughts tripled instantly and collided with each other, bringing forth every useless idea and memory in his head and discarding them almost immediately until "I have six Shiki contracted to me" and "Synchronization is the process of a soul leaving its body to go into the soul of another…" ran past each other.
The lesson on Shikigami included the fact that contracts were attached to a soul. That a visitor might be able to find and activate a contract was a logical crapshoot.
The last thing Hisoka saw before his body, now void of a soul, hit the floor in freefall was the vein-like cracks in the barrier deepening.
"All right, all right…Shikigami."
mouth full of dirt crying makes my nose itch my eyes are sticky why mom why my mom why the baby "just get out of here god damn you! go die and rot!" mom my heart hurts mommy I'm so sorry I'm so scared its raining rocks I want to see my mom where are you taking her "hey…what's the matter, bouya?" "I killed my mommy." "I am sure you did not I think I'd like to take you back to Gensoukai with me." Ruka stay away Ruka you'll die too Ruka it's my fault that mom and the baby "you're my brother you have to stay with me!"
A single thought, a lame attempt at finding a contract for Shikigami he had never met and whose names he did not know, pulled Hisoka into a memory that time would not allow to stay coherent and sadness would not allow to rest. Hisoka desperately tried to extricate himself from within it; one of the girls in the memory was Suzaku and so it could be of absolutely no help; Suzaku was already there and that other girl, that sister, she wouldn't let him go…
"A Shiki!"
He was almost pushed back into the same memory a little further down the chronological line; he saw Suzaku take two sets of little hands in hers before he finally managed to escape from it. His Empathy pulled him towards other memories, to a different place entirely. He saw Suzaku there again, laughing, teasing, eating with, sitting quietly with Tsuzuki held tightly in her arms; Taimo as well, before her two winged creatures goofing around with Tsuzuki, trying to get her to laugh.
Hisoka sought after more memories of the pair, trying to track down a contract with either of them; it brought him to a vision of a red-haired girl to whom the pair were really employed. He turned away in frustration, but the thought of seeking out a contract instead of just a Shikigami had finally taken root, and Hisoka was brought face-to-face with a Shiki he didn't recognize; a tall, powerful, arresting woman with long blue hair. He chased after the thought of her, plowing through the memories of … until he nearly ran into the limits of Tsuzuki's soul, where the words of the contract were inscribed. Hisoka scanned one before recognizing it as the incantation for an appearance in animal form; his gaze dropped down to the second line and he spoke the words in time with comprehending them."I bow to you and beseech you, the six who protect me. The azure imperial consort, queen of the east…appear before me, Seiryuu!"
Hisoka turned immediately and relaxed his intention to stay outside of his body. His silver cord yanked him back as it automatically retracted, dragging him through ninety-eight years of Tsuzuki's memories and emotions, faster than he could hope to parse them, slower than he could hope to keep them away from him.
"Tsuzuki?"
Tsuzuki awoke to a firm hand on his shoulder. A sweep of braided blue hair in front of his face, folding haphazardly onto Hisoka's unconscious form, told him who had roused him.
"Seiryuu? How…?"
"I don't know either. Are you all right?" Seiryuu glanced down Tsuzuki's back, surveying the not even half-healed wound and utterly burnt fabric.
"Been better."
"What do you want me to do?"
"There's a demon." Tsuzuki managed to lift his hand and gesture backwards. "Suzaku's fighting another Shiki, and Taimo's trying to break us out of here. Sorcerer trapped us here; he summoned the Shiki and the demon."
"I see." Seiryuu glanced around at the bubble protecting them from more fiery blasts. "If you break this barrier, I can transform. Set it back up once I do."
Still clutched in one hand was the fuda that had brought forth the shield. Tsuzuki stretched it taut between his thumb and fourth finger, and punctured it with his index finger. The fuda and barrier flickered out of corporeal existence, and the gust of air created by Seiryuu's self-controlled transformation into a dragon sent Tsuzuki and Hisoka sliding back across the cement floor, into the wall.
Tsuzuki heard a smashing sound to his left; Taimo had broken through the impromptu and therefore weaker wall separating her from the interior of the basement. She sprinted towards Tsuzuki and Hisoka; Seiryuu released a geyser and cut off a stream of fire Tetara shot in Taimo's direction, before releasing her own torrent of water in the demon's direction.
"Him first, move him away first," Tsuzuki said as Taimo approached, pushing himself off of where."I almost have it," Taimo said as she made to do as bade, taking Hisoka by the upper arms. "I just need a few more minutes…"
"Break it down and get him out before you come back for me," Tsuzuki said, struggling into sitting up. "I have to make sure Suzaku and Seiryuu make it out all right…"
As if on cue Suzaku's beak clamped around Kouryuu's neck, and she slammed him against one of the walls of their own cage. The barrier shattered and disintegrated as Kouryuu fell to the ground, twitching and unconscious. A portal, presumably returning to Gensoukai, immediately opened beneath Kouryuu and swallowed him up.
"Thanks, Taimo," Tsuzuki said. Taimo made an acknowledging noise as she replaced her hand, which had brought up to aim a counter-spell at the cage, on Hisoka's arm.
Suzaku released a high-pitched shriek and flew towards Tetara, distracting her from Seiryuu's blast of water. Tetara slammed back against the far wall and just barely dodged a fireball from Suzaku. Tsuzuki noticed that the wall took no damage; Muraki must have set up a protective charm…
Muraki had disappeared. Tsuzuki's gaze darted around the room, but to no avail. Muraki had mentioned that only he could control the unbroken shields; he had probably opened Kouryuu's return portal, and now had taken himself away from the battle…
"Taimo!" Her head snapped up; she had already dragged Hisoka across the room, towards the stairwell. "Be careful when you get upstairs! That sorcerer might be up there!"
Taimo opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by triplet animalistic screams. Tetara had released two fireballs at Suzaku and Seiryuu simultaneously. Seiryuu immediately sent back a gush of water to extinguish, and Suzaku a stream of flame to counteract, but a second too late; she was forced back and slammed into a stack of dilapidated crucifixes. Tetara surged forward, readying another cyclone of fire. Behind her Seiryuu followed, gathering up energy for another water attack.
Tsuzuki panicked before anything else. A breathless incantation summoned a fuda bearing electricity; as Seiryuu let fly her attack Tsuzuki tossed it in the water's direction. The geyser crackled with added lightning as it shot towards and landed squarely on Tetara's back.
The noise could only be described as unholy. Suzaku returned to her human form to cover her ears; Seiryuu, now seeing that there was no reason to remain a dragon, transformed similarly. Tsuzuki turned his face away as Tetara's agonized screams suddenly cut off; her hair and skull had disappeared first into smoke and next into nothingness, and now the rest of her body was following.
Taimo's heart skipped a beat as the last counter-spell worked its magic and the barrier finally smashed apart. She had never seen a soul being emptied out but she knew that was exactly what was happening, and a morbid curiosity, born of the abundance of betrayals during the war, urged her to finally witness it. She turned her head, but the sight of her employer's partner stopped her; Hisoka had woken up only to curl into a tight ball, his hands fisted in his hair, his eyes leaking tears utterly effortlessly. Duty won out over the macabre.
"Seiryuu! Suzaku!" Taimo called, again putting her hands to Hisoka's upper arms; Seiryuu tore her eyes away from the destruction instantly. "Get Tsuzuki and take him upstairs!" Taimo hoisted Hisoka up so that he leaned limply against her; it was easier than she had anticipated.
Suzaku had already picked herself up and gone to Tsuzuki; as Seiryuu rushed over to join them Taimo clambered up the stairs, keeping a tight grip on the barely-conscious Hisoka. The room behind her had gone unnervingly silent, the only sounds she could catch being Seiryuu and Suzaku's footsteps.
Tsuzuki's warning made her not want to linger in the museum proper, and luckily the door was still ajar. Day was giving way to sunset when she stepped outside, and while this was normally her favorite time of day, the lengthening shadows made detecting others more difficult, especially when the other was a sorcerer whose full prowess was unknown. She remained stiff, like a guard dog sensing an intruder, until those she had left behind finally caught up with her.
"Well…I wasn't expecting that to happen today," Suzaku said, after there was a lull in movement for a handful of seconds.
"Sorry, guys," Tsuzuki ground out. He leaned against Seiryuu for support, not quite as heavily as Hisoka against Taimo, but were she to move away from him he also would fall to the ground.
"Hey, that's what we're here for," Suzaku said reassuringly. "But regardless, all in favor of getting the hell out of here?"
No one waited for the inevitably unanimous response. Taimo, and Seiryuu, tossed one last worried glance back at the museum, but it remained as inactive as when they had finally escaped it, there now being, literally, not a soul left inside.
