--I know it's been months since my last update, and I'm blaming it all on exams and college. Hereafter, updates will be faster…not, due to various reasons. I bow my head in shame. As always, reviews would make me absurdly happy, but I have to admit that they won't be able to make me write any faster (I want to, but I simply can't), and I would keep writing regardless of the number of reviews I get. So even if it seems I'll be abandoning this fic forever, I'm really not, it's just that I don't have the time. Updates will be sporadic, though I'll try my very, very best to churn out a measly chapter every three or four months.

Chapter 3

Hisoka pressed his forehead against the cool glass, watching as the scenery whizzed past in a blur of colours. It was already late autumn, without the beautiful reds and golds that were usually associated with the season. All that remained was the austere heath, and the few solitary trees that kept their foliage throughout the year.   

Autumn was said to be beautiful, yet Hisoka felt it had never been more desolate.

"I still think this is unnecessary," he muttered. Of course it was. No point in taking the train, no point in acting like normal people. Muraki already knew they were coming; there was simply no reason in subtlety.

"We might have the advantage of the element of surprise if we did it this way…" Tsuzuki trailed off. Muraki could never be caught unawares, not this way. "At least he wouldn't know exactly when we'll be arriving, not like if we teleported straight there. He could have felt us that way," he finished feebly.

Hisoka rolled his eyes before turning to look out of the window again.

"Besides, I need the time," Tsuzuki said softly, and there was a note of despair to his voice, the hidden plea in it painfully obvious.

"We don't have…" At the look in Tsuzuki's eyes, Hisoka couldn't bring himself to say it. Foolish, he knew. Tsuzuki was foolishly avoiding the truth, and he even more so, for allowing him that illusion.

"Whatever," he muttered. We don't have time. Strangely, he hadn't felt more relieved. Calm, even. Everything was coming to an end. No more long nights of worry, no more having to face the looks of sympathy from the people around him, no need to pretend anymore.

"Don't you just want all of this to end?" he asked absently. Didn't Tsuzuki feel the same? The shock he felt emanating through their bond at his words was alarming. For a while, Hisoka wondered what was wrong with such a seemingly innocent question. He slowly ran the words back in his mind.

"Don't you just want all of this to end?"  On second thought, that sounded like…but surely Tsuzuki wasn't stupid enough to actually think…

"Tsuzuki, you idiot," he snapped, jerking his head back to face his partner. "Surely you don't think I have suicidal notions. That's your department." Tsuzuki at least had the grace to look abashed, although he looked decidedly offended at the last statement.

"Well, you have to admit that you sounded like you did," Tsuzuki retorted defensively.

"To you, maybe," Hisoka said acidly.

"You're always grumpier when you're worrying over something," Tsuzuki muttered darkly, downing the entire cup of tea before him in one gulp.

"I am not worried, not right this moment anyway. I'm grumpy because it's within my nature to be so, especially when I have to put up with…" Hisoka scowled when he saw Tsuzuki grin at him triumphantly, eyes crinkled in mirth.

"Very funny," he grumbled, turning back to the window as he fought to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching.

"Feel better?" Tsuzuki asked.

"No." Hisoka blinked when strong hands cupped his face and turned him towards violet eyes that were still twinkling mischievously.

"Ha." Tsuzuki looked so smug that Hisoka was almost tempted to smack him. Almost. "You're smiling."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not." Hisoka realized that they might well go on forever if he didn't put a stop to this. "And quit fooling around already."

Tsuzuki pursed his lips comically. "Spoilsport." He tilted his head to the side and studied Hisoka thoughtfully. "But seriously, are you alright?"

Hisoka sighed. "What I actually meant just now was that after this, we don't need to…worry anymore," he glared at Tsuzuki, daring him to make fun of him over that, but Tsuzuki wisely remained silent, "or see everybody wear those pitying smiles…"

Or feel the pain, the fear, the despair.

"One way or another, it's all going to end." Hisoka waited, watching hopefully as Tsuzuki traced some unintelligible character on his knee with his forefinger. Tsuzuki resolutely refused to look at him, and dipped his finger into the teacup, wetting his finger with the moisture from the still-damp tea leaves, then tracing the strokes again. This time, the bold and graceful character surfaced, the kanji rapidly blurring as the soft material of Tsuzuki's pants absorbed the moisture greedily.

Courage.

When the character finally disappeared, leaving only the slightly creased patch of cloth as a sign of its existence, Tsuzuki looked up. "Aren't you afraid? What if…?"

"There has never been 'what-ifs,' Tsuzuki," Hisoka said firmly, "Not for me, not for us. Never."

"I can't allow myself to fail this time," he continued, hoping he sounded confident enough, or at least was able to convince Tsuzuki of what he himself did not fully believe.

Tsuzuki smiled, a heartfelt smile of such sincerity that it made Hisoka catch his breath as a slow flush started to rise in his cheeks.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki said softly, "You…well…" He looked down at the crumpled patch on his pants and tried to smooth out the wrinkles by stretching the cloth. "I suppose you won't need this anymore."

"Unlike me," he added so quietly that it was obviously not meant to be heard.

But I do. Hisoka wanted to tell Tsuzuki that, but knew he mustn't, couldn't. Tsuzuki needed the reassurance, the comfort; he needed something to place his faith in. Hisoka couldn't take that away from him, else Tsuzuki might break and reveal the lost, despondent soul that no longer had anything to live for.

"You know that won't work," he told Tsuzuki, who was still pressing the wrinkled cloth with his palms. Leave it. I need it.

"Um," Tsuzuki looked up, "it doesn't matter anyway." Hisoka nodded, and pressed his face to the window again. Only this time, a single reddish brown leaf had plastered itself to the clear glass pane. Hisoka rapped his knuckle sharply against the window, trying to dislodge the leaf. The leaf shuddered with the force of his rap, but stubbornly refused to fall.

"What are you doing?" Tsuzuki asked curiously.

"It's obscuring the view," Hisoka answered irritably.

"The view?" Tsuzuki asked, and Hisoka understood his perplexity. The barren trees, the stark lands, the grey skies…there was no beauty in the world they lived in right now.

But he loved it anyway.

"Yes, the view." The leaf remained where it was, lines of crimson and gold crisscrossing in magnificent and intricate designs. Hisoka sighed and leaned back, silently admiring one of the few objects that retained its beauty in this bleak autumn.

"It's pretty," Tsuzuki commented suddenly.

"Aa." Hisoka knew Tsuzuki wasn't referring to the scenery outside.

"Thank you." Hisoka looked at Tsuzuki in surprise. Surely he couldn't know…surely Tsuzuki didn't know that he had been lying to him, surely Tsuzuki wouldn't know that he had been hiding his own fears to protect him.

"But I really think…" A warm hand, rough with the years it's seen and much larger than his own squeezed his hand comfortingly.

"I really think you are brave."

***

Hisoka was jolted awake was the train slowed to stop. Passengers were already chattering animatedly—mothers chiding their children from being too slow, people commenting on their eagerness to finally get onto firm ground…He nudged Tsuzuki, who didn't even seem to notice.

"Tsuzuki?"

"I know." Tsuzuki closed his eyes for a brief moment, before turning around and smiling at him. "We have to go."

"Hold on." Hisoka pushed open the window and reached out for the dried leaf, still steadfastly adhered to the glass. It felt rough under his fingers, coarse and smelling of fresh earth and damp air.

"As a souvenir," he said simply in answer to Tsuzuki's silent question.

***

This is it.  That familiar presence, dark and twisted in its essence, still unfathomable, but no longer as overwhelming to Hisoka as it had been nagged at the edges of his consciousness, beckoning, calling.

Tsuzuki's grip on his hand tightened, almost enough to hurt, but Hisoka barely registered the touch. Adrenaline rushed through his veins; his blood was roaring in his ears, and the heat…his mind, it could no longer focus on anything else beyond living.

Life was so difficult to grasp.

"Good evening, Tsuzuki-san." Hisoka didn't even flinch; he already knew where Muraki was. The hand around his tensed ever so slightly, but Tsuzuki betrayed no other sign of his inner turmoil.

The doctor smiled--a confident, self-assured smirk that almost, but not quite, touched his eyes; one remained a lifeless, mechanical object, the other shrewd and calculating.

"A pleasant surprise, Tsuzuki-san," Muraki said amiably, extending a hand, which Tsuzuki promptly ignored. Muraki shrugged, as if it was a matter of no consequence, his smile not slipping for a second.

            "I doubt it's a surprise, Muraki," Tsuzuki answered scathingly. Hisoka could have spent years analyzing the feelings the surged through their bond; fear and determination, despair and hope, all the contradictory emotions within one mind, one man. Tsuzuki's hold on his hand was now so tight that Hisoka could feel the tips of his fingers gradually becoming numb, the uneven ends of Tsuzuki's fingernails digging painfully into his palm.

Muraki laughed. "Perhaps, Tsuzuki-san, but I was merely observing formalities, you understand." Hisoka he ignored, and Hisoka couldn't help feeling the usual flicker of resentment at the contempt so openly displayed. A mere boy, to use and throw away, of no value whatsoever.

That was what he had always been, hadn't he?

"You know what we came for, Muraki. Nullify the curse." A long time ago, Hisoka would have been surprise at how outwardly calm Tsuzuki remained, not when everything he felt told him otherwise. But Tsuzuki's will and determination, his passion in saving others, how much the man felt for people, had been one of the first things he had ever learned about Tsuzuki, were what made Tsuzuki the person he knew now.

One silver eyebrow rose in amusement. "How peculiar, to have you making demands of me, Tsuzuki-san. You seem to be forgetting your position."

Hisoka quelled the bout of anger that welled up in him. What are we? Petitioners? But he remained silent. This time, he wanted Muraki to hold him in contempt.

This will be the last time he'll see that condescending, dismissive glance, that disparaging smile.

It must be.

"I gain nothing from doing so," Muraki lifted a hand towards Tsuzuki's face, gently tracing a path from forehead to chin. Tsuzuki slapped his hand away angrily, and Muraki made no other move. If anything, he seemed to find it entertaining, if his smile was any sign.

"You gain your life." Muraki's quizzical look of amusement quite obviously showed that he thought it an empty threat. And Hisoka thought so too, he did not think Tsuzuki was capable of killing, not for him, not yet. Perhaps in the heat of anger, when rage had made him lose all sense of control, but not now, when fear still dominated his mind; fear would always make him still his hand, keep that fearsome power in check, if nothing else.

He knew Tsuzuki was not a man to kill out of fear, and no doubt Muraki knew it as well.

Instead, Muraki turned and looked significantly at Hisoka. It was the first time the doctor acknowledged his presence. "A life for a life…how quaint, Tsuzuki-san." And suddenly, something in his tone and eyes, in the aura that he radiated made Hisoka's hair stand on end.

"I don't believe in such sayings, however." Muraki made as if to touch Tsuzuki's face again, and Tsuzuki took a single, rapid step backward. Which was actually a mistake, Hisoka knew. He could sense an almost childish glee, if it could actually be described at such coming from Muraki. Triumph at the outward display of fear.

"But you obviously do, Tsuzuki-san," he continued, his eyes gleaming with that same possessive, almost insane light Hisoka had seen in Nagasaki.

"Hence, in return for my life…" He smiled again, a lazy, predatory grin that spread across skin of unnatural pallor.

"I expect the boy to pay with his."

That was when all hell erupted.

***

He was losing something, a force in his being that slowly ebbed away. It wasn't a sudden tug, but a slow, insistent pull, the pain gradually increasing to the point where red overcame his vision and white spots of agony flickered across that brilliant crimson.

It was only after a few moments, those precious, dire moments, that Hisoka realized what was actually happening.

That bastard has somehow latched onto his soul and was slowly drawing it out.

Damn him, he has no hold over me. None!

Still, he had no idea of how to hinder the attack, or even defend himself. Mind already numb from the pain and totally incapable of coherent thought, all he did was scramble futilely for whatever he had left, try to stop that slow dissipation of his spirit. Even in that haze of pain, he could somehow imagine Muraki's victorious smile, the contempt that must be in that doctor's mind. Useless boy that was always tagging along behind the stronger ones. Interfering brat.

He should have known there was more to the curse on him than the simple desire to satisfy Muraki's sadistic urges. It gave his killer leverage, gave Muraki control.

Fury laced the edges of his pain, anger at being used like an object, being defeated repeatedly, being so weak when he had sworn to be otherwise.

He had no idea where Shinigami went to after their death, and he was in no hurry to find out. He was almost certain he would never end up in Hell, but he doubted he was enough of a martyr to reside in Heaven.

Even if he was, surely Heaven would seem empty if he were unable to quench his thirst for revenge. Death wasn't an option; it never was.

And what of Tsuzuki? His friends?

Wait…Tsuzuki.

With their bond, Tsuzuki was liable to experience anything Hisoka was. Anything. Already Hisoka could see the signs. The slight, almost imperceptible creases of pain around Tsuzuki's eyes, the tightening of fists

Oh God. What was happening?

Surely even Tsuzuki wasn't fool enough to actually allow his soul to be torn away from his material body. For a living human, it would have been possible to continue some kind of pathetic existence if one lost his or her soul. Without a soul, the physical being could still survive as a mindless husk. For a Shinigami, who was made out of soul substance, it meant final death.

Tsuzuki wasn't suicidal. He wasn't. They'd gotten over that part a long time ago. It was history. Tsuzuki had promised not to do anything foolish or life-threatening, and they had left it at that.

Actually, Hisoka didn't recall Tsuzuki promising anything like that. Not in those actual words, anyway.

But he had said something to similar effect, he had, damn him.

"You're not supposed to be doing this!" Hisoka wanted to yell in frustration, but the words didn't come. This was crazy. Tsuzuki hadn't come here to die. But he couldn't kill either, not when they knew Muraki still had power over Hisoka's soul.

Muraki was no fool, and his eyes were already narrowed in suspicion. Already, Hisoka could feel the tug on his soul loosen ever so slightly, as the first traces of comprehension dawned in the doctor's eyes. Hisoka thought he almost saw shock flash across Muraki's face, before the _expression was replaced swiftly by anger.

Don't like having unexpected side effects, do you? No doubt Muraki didn't want his most favourite plaything to be broken along with the discarded one. It was all they had ever been. Them and about everyone else.

He couldn't describe how much he hated this man, hated him so much and so long that those feelings of hatred bubbled up to the surface of his mind, so hot and searing it almost numbed him to the pain he was experiencing.

Some people say hate was as strong an emotion as love. It was true. In fact, sometimes Hisoka would lie awake and wonder if hatred was more powerful than love. Sometimes, in the back of his mind, there were those thoughts he wouldn't admit to having, or confessions, more precisely. Admitting to himself that he was the person he was today due to hatred, and not love. Admitting that he was here because of Muraki.

He closed his eyes, concentrating, and he thought he could see the weaves that pulled his soul from him. His and Tsuzuki's. His years of a Shinigami had taught him to exert some control over his empathy, and he had found that it branched out into other areas, including sensing magical ambiences.

Then he saw something that made him suck in his breath in disbelief, made hope course through his mind.

Surely that wasn't a flaw in Muraki's spell. It could not be. Muraki wasn't one to make mistakes.

Reaching out, he felt the crackling aura of Muraki's magic, could almost see the interweaving of the complex spell that at this very moment leeched his soul from him. It was beyond his comprehension, the convoluted webs of sorcery something that would require him many years more of study and practice to accomplish.

But he was almost certain there was a weak point there, almost unnoticeable. But he was an empath, and that made all the difference.

It went against everything he had ever learned; it went against the basic rules that every novice omnyouji learned. Never dabble in the unknown. But he was desperate. And they were both dying.

He did it, garnered all the strength he had left, did what was probably the stupidest thing ever in his existence.

He smashed the weaves of Muraki's spell; the weaves tore at the seams, but did not actually give way; and when he had no remaining strength, he drew whatever Tsuzuki had.

It was more than enough. The spell broke, and he could feel his soul rebounding back into his body.

But even as Muraki stumbled backwards from the force of the backlash, he could already see the calculating glint in Muraki's eyes, and…anticipation. And the shock from Tsuzuki, the disbelief.

Tsuzuki probably didn't think he would do anything so reckless. But already his partner was reacting, grabbing Hisoka roughly by the arm and pulling him to his feet. Trying to get away.

It came; feeling almost as if the entire world crashing down on him, collapsing under the raw power of the fight between Muraki and him combined with Tsuzuki. Borders between worlds blurred, barriers between what was and what was meant to be crumbled, and Hisoka had this weird sensation of falling, to where, he did not know.

This wasn't real…this descent into nothingness, being swallowed by waves of roiling darkness…it was as if he were above a cliff, the wind roaring at the edges of his hearing, and if he looked down, he could see the angry sea below, sprays of white devouring anything within sight.

It was as if he had taken that one fatal step, and now he was feeling the merciless tug of gravity, falling-the sea was rushing up to meet him-hearing nothing but the ear-piercing shriek of the wind, knowing nothing but the imminent splash and the stinging pain as water meets skin.

''We'll find a way, Hisoka.''  Tsuzuki said that once; it seemed so long ago.

But where are we supposed to go, Tsuzuki? They were falling past the boundaries of reality and illusion, beyond the flickering lights of the souls the lie in this world.

He did not even know if they were going to die. His experience of death wasn't like this. Death was more of a departure than a descent, more like a release than this pull towards an unknown world.

And there was Muraki. His mind was so confused he could no longer sense Muraki's presence.

He closed his eyes and waited for the splash.

He refused to believe this was death.

But was it?

***