"As requested, Tsuzuki's rap sheet," said Natsume. "And if anyone asks—"

"I didn't get this from you." Tatsumi accepted the file proffered him. Then, looking up over the rims of his spectacles: "I'm not even going to ask if you got the proper clearance. You have a bit of a reputation around here as a hacker—"

"Who? Little ol' me?"

Tatsumi wasn't buying his overly innocent smile, however. "You're not denying it."

"I don't confirm it, either."

"Rumor has it you can get any document in Enma-cho you want, no matter how classified, so long as it's digital."

"Is that your way of asking me if I can get you into Todoroki's personal computer? Chief?"

Tatsumi chuckled. That was something he would have to think about, if only he was sure he could get away with it. After butting heads with the Peacekeeping chief in court, he was beginning to warm to Natsume's and Terazuma's call for more guerilla tactics.

And despite his show of modesty, Natsume was pleased to have impressed him. That much was clear to the Summons chief. They may have had their differences of opinion before when it came to the proper application of technology; but they both recognized the way of the world, even the world of the dead, as a game of survival they intended to win, and could respect that drive in each other.

It helped that they had had similar experiences when it came to Tsuzuki as well. Not identical, but enough that Tatsumi could trust him with this.

He spread the file open on his desk. "You've already taken a look at this, I take it?"

Natsume clasped his hands behind his back. "I did. I wasn't about to go through all that trouble and not take a peek. I'm not going to lie, sir: I think you're going to be surprised."

Tatsumi, however, doubted it. "You and I both knew Tsuzuki fairly well in our own turns being his partner. Do you really think anything he's done can come as a surprise?" Hell, even Tsuzuki's revelation to him that he may be Muraki Kazutaka's biological father had somehow been much easier for Tatsumi to believe than it probably should have. "His flagrant disregard for the rules has broken up more than one of his partnerships over the years." Nor could Tatsumi deny the role said disregard had in ended his. In all Tatsumi's decades as secretary to the chief of Summons, he had seen Tsuzuki bring back the dead and deal out vigilante justice, under no orders but those of his own conscience, to speak nothing of his sometimes questionable physical conduct with doomed cases, and the destruction of property in Chijou as well as Enma-cho itself—

"Yes, I'm aware of the laundry list of complaints against him. I think the surprise is due more to the sheer number of instances."

Tatsumi scanned the document, flipping through page upon page of tightly packed accusations of illegal and unethical behavior. And he knew they were not unfounded.

Natsume did not lie: The length of the list was what Tatsumi found hard to swallow, though not because he didn't see Tsuzuki capable of committing everything on it. Rather, it was difficult to believe Judgment could have compiled such a thorough list, and the fact that they had was only further testament to the number of Meifu bureaucrats whose bad side Tsuzuki had landed himself on over the years. It was an insurmountable mountain of evidence that the nature of his character was antithetical to the responsibilities with which he'd been entrusted.

Tatsumi swore under his breath. He rubbed his temples between thumb and fingertips. "Well, it's never been very difficult to see why Lord Enma wants Tsuzuki firmly under his control. He's a hazard to this entire establishment."

"I'm beginning to wonder why Enma kept him instated as a Summons agent at all. His Augustness can't be unaware of all these infractions."

"Tsuzuki is a powerful asset. He can't risk letting that asset go." But was that all he was? Tatsumi wondered. Was Tsuzuki's power really the beginning and end of the story?

Natsume didn't seem to follow, which the chief saw no present need to correct. "But why infringe so willfully, and so much? Was Tsuzuki challenging Lord Enma or something?"

"I think you know the answer to that as well as I, Natsume." He'd been in that position himself. As Tsuzuki's partner he had had a front-row seat to the man's self-destructive streak. It was clear in so much that Tsuzuki did that he should never have been made a shinigami in the first place. He was not cut out for it.

But then, thought Tatsumi, were any of them?

And if you knew you would never be punished for your wrongs any more than you already were, what incentive would one have to play it by the book? If you had no hope of redemption, if the peaceful end you offered everyone else was forever denied you, what reason was there to keep trying year after year? Decade after decade?

The incongruity of Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science" emanating from Natsume's pocket startled Tatsumi back to present.

"That would be Watari," the young man said, checking the message. "He wants to know if I'd meet him in his lab. Are we done here, sir?"

"You can go," Tatsumi told him, only a second before the cell buzzed again, this time playing Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It".

Natsume turned a very visible shade of pink. "And that would be Tsukiori, asking me where I am."

"The exorcist?" Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. "I'll take that to mean you two are getting along. In an utterly professional manner, I hope."

"Oh, of course. Most professional." Natsume couldn't help but clear his throat, however, as he put the phone away.

Tatsumi closed the file gently before him. "Go and see what they want. And one more thing, Natsume. I would appreciate it if you would not share any of this with Kurosaki."

"Don't you think he has a right to know? He was Tsuzuki's partner longer than anyone—hell, he had more control over Tsuzuki than any one of us even came close to having."

It was not a disagreement, though, Tatsumi noticed. Merely a question, and Natsume curious why he had been singled out for Tatsumi's mission.

Tatsumi tented his fingers together over the file and leaned his chin against them.

"At this point, I need Kurosaki focused on finding Tsuzuki. Nothing can be allowed to distract him from that task, Natsume, not even a case. Do you understand? As important as it is to keep up appearances, to keep the boundary between the living and the dead secured, it is absolutely essential that we find Tsuzuki first, before any other department, and I doubt anyone's ability to accomplish that but Kurosaki's. Even Lord Enma believes that boy has a special role to play in all this, and I'll be damned if I'm the last one to find out what it is."

"If Enma wants us to use Kurosaki to find Tsuzuki, then, sir, are we sure that's really what we want?"

It was a valid point, and one Tatsumi had not failed to ponder himself. One whose implications he had not yet fully worked out.

"I mean, what happens to Tsuzuki when we do get him back?" said Natsume. "What will Enma do to him? Destroy him?"

That was the one question that was persistently on everyone's mind, and the one question everyone was too afraid to entertain outright, let alone voice. Tsuzuki may have been a pain in everyone's ass at one point or another in their careers in the Judgment Bureau, he may have been many departments' biggest persona non grata in centuries; but there were few outside the Peacekeeping Division who actually wished him extinct, and even fewer who could honestly say they were not indebted to him for one reason or another. There was a dread in those Tatsumi spoke to that termination was the fate that awaited Tsuzuki if and when he was returned.

"It's the logical choice," he said to himself as much as Natsume. "If he doesn't, if King Enma allows Tsuzuki to persist after this, then His Lordship risks sending a message to all departments that treason will be tolerated."

"But I take it from your tone that's exactly what you think he will do."

No, Tatsumi didn't see it unfolding quite that way. There were worse fates in Judgment than total annihilation, and Tsuzuki too valuable to Enma's plans, whatever they may be. If it were so little a thing to destroy Tsuzuki, their king would have done so ages ago. There were ways Enma could punish him for his insubordination, and get exactly what he wanted at the same time. He was the god of souls' fates, after all. He would devise a way.

And there was only one person Tatsumi could think of who might yet have some clue as to why Tsuzuki was untouchable. Though he dreaded the trip, it was time he made an appointment to visit the Castle of Candles.


Though it surely defied the laws of physics, Hisoka was convinced time really did move slower between midnight and five in the morning. It seemed like hours had passed since he last looked at his watch, when the display told him it had barely been a few minutes. It was going to be a very long night.

But he didn't feel like sleeping. As long as the devil hung suspended in his restraints in the next room, Hisoka intended to watch him like a hawk. Though so far, Zepar appeared to be unconscious, sleeping. Or, Hisoka amended, whatever it was devils did.

The day appeared to have taxed Tsukiori as well. There was a large cup of coffee in her hand when she came to check on him, and it didn't seem to be doing her any good. "You don't intend to stay here all night, do you?" she asked through a stifled yawn.

"I'm not tired," Hisoka told her.

"Well, that makes one of us." The exorcist didn't exactly need to look around the small office to see Hisoka was all by himself. "Where's Natsume? He isn't answering my mail."

"He told me he had some sort of computer emergency back in Billing to take care of. Something about someone trying to access files without proper clearance." He shook his head. They may have been assigned as partners by Tatsumi, but Natsume still had his old life outside of Summons, and Hisoka didn't bother him for details of it if they weren't readily offered. "I told him I'd take the night shift."

"What if you fall asleep?" Kira looked like she was about to do that herself at any second. Whatever deeper meaning had been behind Zepar's taunts in their interview earlier—though she insisted it was nothing and that she didn't need to talk about it—it had clearly drained her.

"If that happens," Hisoka said, "I have alarm charms set up at each layer of the containment circle. If Zepar does try anything, I'll be alerted to it." The devil had been quiet for the last few hours, however, and before that would merely stare at the wall where he knew the observation window to be, and leer. Lately, "He's been hanging like that for the last hour and a half."

Zepar's frame was relaxed against gravity, his head lowered so his chin nearly touched his chest. At least Hisoka didn't have to look into an unsettling facsimile of a younger Hijiri's face at every moment, though it unnerved him how like a crucifix the devil seemed.

Tsukiori peered closer. "Do devils sleep?" Hisoka asked her.

"You know, I have no idea."

The exorcist covered another long yawn.

"Why don't you go and get some sleep," Hisoka suggested. "There are beds back at Watari's lab. I can hold down the fort myself till morning."

"You're sure?" She obviously didn't think it was a good idea, but at the same time, sleep sounded really good.

Hisoka nodded. "You're still mortal, you need it way more than I do. Only one of us needs to be here to make sure he stays put."

"Alright. But if anything happens, wait for backup before you try to handle it yourself. I can be here in five minutes. No less. You understand? I can't teleport like you people can."

"Go," he assured her for the last time. "I've got this."

Reluctantly, Tsukiori did depart. And, it seemed, also with some relief. It had been a long day for all of them, and Hisoka wasn't so sure himself when he had last slept. It had been longer ago than twenty-four hours; he knew that much.

He was exhausted. He felt it in his bones, which ached for a little bit of shut-eye and recuperation time. But even if he had wanted to give in, his mind was restless, afire with all the implications of what he had learned from the devil, and all that still remained a mystery. They had managed to establish that Zepar's goal was to drag Tsuzuki out of hiding, but beyond that he was unclear. Hell wanted their shinigami commander, but what then? What happened when they had him? And just how close were they to finding him? It seemed there was still so much Zepar refused to tell them.

Such as, how Hell had discovered Tsuzuki had run away from Meifu in the first place. That was something Hisoka would have thought to be privileged information between realms—Enma stood more to lose than gain if word got out that he had lost control of his powerful pet—but it was the level of detail about the circumstances that worried him. If a duke of Hell knew so much, how had he come by his information? Did it come from within Meifu itself—did Hell have a spy in the Judgment Bureau at that very moment? Someone actively working against Enma while Hisoka sat there, pondering his next move?

God, how he missed Tsuzuki. With every lead that ended up getting Hisoka no closer to his partner, the longing inside him only grew more desperate. How much simpler everything seemed with him around. For one, Enma-cho bureaucracy was a lot less of a nightmare when Tsuzuki was there, and they could all spend a lot less time suspecting other departments of working against them.

But just to see his smiling face right now would be a godsend. Hisoka would even have put up with his annoying, kicked-puppy posturing, gladly, just to have him here at this moment. To have him safe and unharmed, before Enma exacted whatever punishment he had in store for the man. Having Hijiri in Meifu again only made the ache of Tsuzuki's absence that much worse. How simple cases had been in those days compared to this mess. At least with the likes of Sargatanas and Focalor, they had known where they stood. They hadn't yet lost track of what was most important, and Hijiri himself had been instrumental in reminding Tsuzuki of that.

That had been the first time Hisoka felt a twinge of jealousy, if he was honest with himself. Sure, there was plenty to envy in Hijiri's musical ability, and his popularity with the student body, the easy way he had shrugged off the goading of bullies—the complete opposite of Hisoka in all but an uncanny, and temporary, physical resemblance. He had reminded Hisoka of his own mortality simply by being: a living example of all Hisoka might have been, if his life had not be cut short against his will.

Somehow out of all those things, what bothered Hisoka most was how carefree Tsuzuki had acted around the Minase boy. He had seemed a different person—a child trapped inside a man's body, with a man's responsibilities he had never wanted nor asked for. Only through Hijiri had Hisoka caught a glimpse of Tsuzuki's inner machinery, for it was only because of Hijiri that Tsuzuki had let down those defenses which were his seemingly absentminded facade. One had to care deeply for another to let them in like that, and what took Hisoka almost three years Hijiri had accomplished in a few weeks.

If he closed his eyes, he could still picture Tsuzuki as he had known him then. Then their acquaintance was still relatively new. Both of them had been changed by Kyoto, but with the clarity of hindsight, Hisoka could see how cruel and impatient he was to Tsuzuki in those first three years. Even long after Tsuzuki's habits had ceased to irritate him, Hisoka still kept up the charade as though they had.

Maybe it was a sort of defense mechanism in itself, treating him that way. It was the only way Hisoka knew how to shield himself from the agony of human emotion, whether it be hatred or unforgiving anger, or dependent need and a growing affection he couldn't admit to himself until the source of it was taken away.

This fog of indecision and doubt he wandered in, he'd been here before. And everywhere he turned, hoping it would lead him to Tsuzuki's side, he only entrenched himself further in the darkness of his own making, and only felt Tsuzuki slip farther from his grasp. Only the echo of his voice, little more than an hallucination, calling back to him through the haze hisoka hisoka. . . .

"Hisoka."

Hisoka started with a jerk and raised his head from where it had been resting on the desk. Just a dream, he realized, fighting back the fear and loneliness. Just wishful thinking, to hear that voice again, after six long months of nothing, whispering his name.

Even if it had felt so real. Not a product of his imagination, but a real whisper, whose vibrations still resonated in his inner ear.

Hisoka chided himself for falling asleep. Clearly dreams were hazardous to his health, if only because they made him ache all over with a longing he knew would not be satisfied. Tsuzuki was gone—Hisoka had let him go—and dreaming about him, wishing for him, wasn't going to bring him back. Nothing would short of action, and for that Hisoka needed a clear head. He needed to be awake, and actively participating in the search.

Which meant getting the answers from Zepar which he was clearly withholding. But how to do that with a creature who only seemed to respond eagerly to threats of torture was beyond Hisoka.

He looked up to see if Zepar had moved while he'd been unconscious.

Only instead of the devil crucified on a hexagram of light, it was Tsuzuki. Dressed as he always was for the field, in white shirt and black slacks, black necktie loose about his neck. His wrists crossed and secured tight above his head, ankles spread apart, a look of desperation in his eyes as he struggled in vain to free himself.

Hisoka shot to his feet, knocking his chair over as he stumbled back from the sight. His first instinct was to run into the room and free Tsuzuki from the trap. It was only rational disbelief which narrowly kept him from doing so, the knowledge that there was no way Tsuzuki would be there, in the exact same place he had last seen the devil, and in the same restraints. That knowledge, and the bit of gold-tinged blade protruding from his ribs, which faded in and out of his sight the more he tried to focus on it, kept Hisoka rooted, albeit tenuously, to reality.

It's an illusion. It isn't Tsuzuki. You already know the devil is an accomplished shape-shifter.

But it was the accuracy of the deception, the truth of every curve and color and twitch of muscle, that horrified Hisoka and, at the same time, would not let him look away. The reddish tint of Zepar's previous incarnations was absent, and his quiet grunts of effort reached into Hisoka's memory and tore at his self-restraint.

"Hisoka," the impostor begged, lost and frightened, eyes darting around the dark chamber. "Hisoka, please."

He tried to shut his eyes, his ears, his mind against it, but the reproduction was too perfect to be ignored. Against his better judgment, Hisoka left the observation room; but he dared not approach the outer circle too closely. Though every fiber of his being longed to go forward, through the containment field, to reach out to that perfect facsimile and embrace it, he knew it was none but Zepar beneath the disguise—a disguise which could only have been concocted to torment him.

So far, Hisoka had to admit, it was working.

"Hisoka, thank god," the false Tsuzuki said upon seeing him. "Get me down from here."

"How are you doing that?"

For a moment, confusion crossed those beautiful features he had missed so much.

Then Zepar smiled. His struggling stopped. The mimicry of Tsuzuki's timid grin was almost exact. But just different enough for Hisoka to wonder how he was ever fooled. "What are you talking about?" It was the right voice, but twisted, vaguely malevolent. "It's me, Hisoka. Can't you tell the real deal when you see it?"

"That's the thing. I've seen you take Hijiri's shape, and Yamada's, and at neither time were you able to disguise who you really were beneath it, Zepar."

The corner of false-Tsuzuki's mouth twitched, but he managed to suppress the wickedness of his smile.

Tsukiori was right: These devils were a proud lot. Well, it might get Hisoka somewhere if he appealed to that pride.

"I'm impressed," he said. Though "impressed" was an understatement if the illusion was so good he itched to reach out and touch it. "I want to know how you pulled off that trick."

It must have been the right thing to say, for Zepar dropped the "I'm the real Tsuzuki" act easily enough, even if the face and form remained unchanged. "Somehow I think you already know the answer to that, Hisoka. You must have had some inkling during our previous interactions."

"You projected on to me." Hisoka had felt it like a persistent knock on the door of his mind. No, like an intruder whom he had unwittingly invited in, only to watch go about the place moving conscious thoughts like knick-knacks out of order. Shaping an emotional response the way he wanted it. "You tried to manipulate my mind directly. You're doing it now with that image of Tsuzuki, which I'm sure you ripped from my memories."

"Very good."

"But it shouldn't be that exact. Unless . . ." He struggled to find a reason for it, but the truth remained just out of his grasp.

"Unless you see only what you want to see."

So saying, false-Tsuzuki slowly lowered himself until his feet were touching ground. He pulled down his hands as effortlessly as though they had never been bound, and rubbed feeling back into his arms.

Hisoka started. For all appearances, the devil had freed himself of the hexagram. And if that had been as effortless as he made it seem, it was only a matter of time before Zepar broke the hold of the containment circle as well. Yet Hisoka, who should have called for help, who should have readied himself to cast a spell, was so unsettled by it all could barely move.

This is just another illusion, he told himself, and was relieved he had not attacked. There was no telling what harm that might have done the spells surrounding Zepar. And though the false Tsuzuki before him appeared free, he was just as certain the devil remained bound as securely as before. Even if the visual proof of that evaded his eyes.

The false Tsuzuki shook his head. "I can't quite fool you, can I?"

"You're reading my mind as we speak?"

"It's what I do, Hisoka. It's the reason I'm so good at my job. What kind of devil would I be if I couldn't read a human's desire, couldn't peer into his soul and see what motivates him, what makes him who he is?"

He cocked his head, as if trying to catch a faint tune. Which did come to him before long. "You, for instance, miss your Tsuzuki so much, it's all you can do not to run into my arms, just to feel me. Just to know I'm really, physically here."

He spread his arms in a gesture as inviting, as promising of love and salvation as Christ the Redeemer. "What's stopping you?"

Hisoka's limbs took him a step forward before he could stop himself. His heart rose into his throat. But he swallowed the emotion that threatened to overpower him, clenched his jaw, and stared down the demon. "Knowing it's just an illusion. Knowing you aren't him, and that giving in would only be what you want. That's reason enough to keep me from doing something stupid."

"Ah." False-Tsuzuki tugged at the knot of his tie. "But you're not denying that this is what you want."

An image flashed through Hisoka's mind—more a sensation than a concrete picture, a feeling stronger than even the most vivid dream could evoke, of Tsuzuki's arms encircling his waist, Tsuzuki's breath heavy against his ear, the weight of his physical presence solid against Hisoka's back. This was not some casual touch as they passed in the office, a throw-away gesture of friendship or support. Tsuzuki's intent was clear in the warmth of his body, spreading out from his center to engulf Hisoka, spreading through his long fingers that pressed against Hisoka's belly, and up through the base of Hisoka's spine, filling him with an unmistakable hunger. Tsuzuki's hunger. It was there in the wordless whisper, the breathy whimper, as his teeth grazed the rim of Hisoka's ear—

Hisoka shuddered, and stifled the shameful sounds that threatened to bubble up from his throat. He tried to shut his eyes against what he knew was just another illusion. But the feeling of it was too strong. Even as momentary as that had been, it overwhelmed him. Being so sensitive to the touch of another human being, even the suggestion affected him powerfully. But then, it had been so much more than a mere suggestion.

The false Tsuzuki chuckled, and heat flooded Hisoka's capillaries. He almost covered himself out of modesty and instinct, but that would only have drawn Zepar's attention.

"No need to be ashamed on my account," the devil assured him. "This is my job, remember. I meet poor souls like you all the time. Conflicted about what they want. Entrenched in denial because they're afraid of the consequences of acting on their desires, satisfying their appetites. So they bottle them up inside, where they need only the proper touch of a skilled individual—such as myself—for the pressure to burst. I've seen it time and again, Hisoka. Nor can I say yours is the most depraved mind I've ever met. Even your Dr. Muraki's isn't the worst, if you can believe that. It's only natural to feel the way you do."

"There's nothing natural about filling my head with artificial thoughts," Hisoka hissed through his teeth.

"Artificial!" Zepar sounded almost offended. "My dear boy, I haven't created anything that wasn't already there. I'm just working with the tools I picked up in that noggin of yours. I might have grabbed the ones that were hidden in the very back of the cupboard, but I assure you they are just as I found them. Oh, perhaps I polished them up a little—"

—Tsuzuki's fingers caressed his throat, gentle one moment and possessive the next as he turned Hisoka's chin—

"—let them shine in the light—"

—his lips against Hisoka's, stronger than he ever thought they could be, and setting Hisoka's flesh afire where they touched—

"—but I didn't invent them out of thin air. I must admit you're easier than most to communicate with this way," Zepar said as Hisoka gasped for breath, touching his own lip incredulously. "Perhaps it's our shared empathic abilities that make the transition between minds so . . . fluid. We play off each other well, don't you think? Like two kindred souls, two peas in a pod."

"No," Hisoka said. Believing his point made, Zepar freed him of the illusion just as abruptly, and Hisoka found his anger again. As well as his revulsion. "I'm nothing like you. I don't fill people's heads with delusions—force them to feel what they don't—"

"Why not?" Zepar seemed genuinely bemused. "This gift of ours works both ways. I'd go so far as to call it a blessing, though it seems you don't see it quite that way. Why that is, I don't understand. We empaths are masters of our surroundings. We can get anything we want. We can read what's in a person's heart, and, if we don't like it, change it at will."

"Maybe for you it works that way. But for me it's a one-way street."

"Are you sure about that? I've never known of an empath who can only receive, and not transmit even a little bit. Unless. . . ." Zepar peered deeper into Hisoka's soul: "Maybe you just haven't learned how to do it yet."

—and his back was against the wall, his fingers tangled in Tsuzuki's hair so hard the strands threatened to cut his skin. Tsuzuki's tongue traced the vein up his throat, each sticky press of his lips resonating in Hisoka's ear, echoing his own ragged breathing. He tried to tug Tsuzuki closer, but the fabric of his partner's shirt only slid around his body with each pull, leaving the press of Tsuzuki's body forever out of his reach. Hisoka ached to feel the heavy weight of his hands, which braced Tsuzuki against the wall instead of against Hisoka, where they should have been. But the knee pressing insistently between his legs was a close enough second. He shivered, his hips bucking of their own accord, moving against the sweet, sweet friction of Tsuzuki's thigh beneath him—

"Or maybe you have," false-Tsuzuki said, tearing Hisoka out of his own imagination so he saw himself as if from across the room, writhing shamelessly against the Tsuzuki whose touch he could still feel, buzzing on his skin—

"And you just haven't realized it."

"Stop it," Hisoka begged. He was alone with the devil, standing before him in Tsuzuki's body, and at the same time another part of himself, indistinguishable from himself, was with Tsuzuki, against Tsuzuki, whom he missed so much it hurt, and whom he wanted just as badly. . . .

And though he knew what was reality and what a product of his imagination, he was powerless to separate the two. One bled into the other. One experience overlapped the next. The emotions of one were just as real as the other, the sensations no less than if they were truth. None of this is real, he told himself; yet, like the fog that haunted his dreams, he could not get out of it. He could not find his way back to what was real.

Nor was he entirely sure he entirely wanted to. Though even that might have been part of the manipulation.

"If you're so sure this isn't real," false-Tsuzuki murmured and Zepar purred, "if it is all a product of your imagination, then it shouldn't be so hard to break yourself out of it. You alone have the power to stop this. If that's what you really want. But I don't think it really is."

—then it was Muraki throwing him to the floor, to the cold, damp earth, and he was thirteen again, he was sixteen, he was twenty-two, trapped in an unaging body, and he tried to push away but Muraki was on top of him, in him, choking the breath from him, caressing him, setting his flesh on fire inside and out. He saw himself, and he was, in agony, terrified, disgusted, and aroused. Muraki's fingertips carved his skin ragged and raw, but his tongue soothed. His lips surrounded Hisoka, and his sixteen-year-old self cried out, arced and twisted, pulled as he was like a marionette on strings of conflicting sensations, both pleasure and pain, maxed out and raging within a body too sensitive for this, too pervious to the lust that was in his captor, and the hatred, and the vicious, destructive intent. Powerless to do anything but absorb every minutiae of his torment like a sponge, a private hell to stand for all eternity, to carry with him beyond the grave, to repeat ad infinitum each time he closed his eyes—

The force of the experience, as strong now as it had been when he first felt it, brought Hisoka to his knees. He felt false-Tsuzuki's hand upon his shoulder. A comfort, a gesture of sympathy, even if he could feel the devil within. Like Sargatanas before him, possessing Tsuzuki's body, the diabolical nature colored his words. It darkened space around him, like a black hole sucking all light, all hope into itself.

"You try," the false Tsuzuki breathed in his ear, "but you can't deny who you are. You hate yourself for it, for the way he made you feel, but try as you might, you can't deny that little part of your nature that enjoyed what he did to you."

"No. That's a lie." It had to be. This wasn't how it happened. "You have no right—"

"To manipulate your memory? Is that what you think I'm doing?"

He covered his ears, but he could not shut out his own screams. He could not fool himself that they were all screams of pain. "You're just playing with my perception."

The false Tsuzuki chuckled. "Dear, sweet Hisoka, have you not learned by now? Everything is a matter of perception. This whole fucking place only looks the way it does to you, familiar and comfortable to your human physique, because your Great King Enma wants you to see it that way. You want to see the truth, see the vacuum of despair and desolation your precious Meifu truly is—you want to see it as I see it, you need only open your eyes."

He ran his hand through Hisoka's hair, and, grabbing a fistful, yanked it back. The sudden violence of the action wrenched a gasp from Hisoka, and more: a thrill of excitement that shot through his flesh like a bolt of electricity. He liked the way that tug had felt. Nor could he fool himself for a minute that Tsuzuki did not have such violence in him, when Hisoka had sensed traces of it himself, buried deep yet an integral part of his partner's nature.

Hisoka bit down on the reaction it provoked in him, tried to suppress his shiver, but the damage was done. Zepar lapped up his arousal with delight.

"It's so much easier to give in to the illusion," he murmured, "isn't it? It's so much nicer here, like coming home after a long vacation. Make no mistake: You opened yourself to me, Hisoka. You have no idea yourself how willfully you let me into your mind, into its deepest, most private recesses. Even now, you keep doing it, opening yourself wider to me, though you beg me to stop."

Foreign bodies reached inside him, penetrating his mind, his soul, cold as Muraki's touch in the harsh April air, so cold he could not feel them moving about the gray matter. Only the slight tugging, plucking the strings of his emotion, in sequences he could not avoid. A music that by rights should have been his own, should have been private, twisted into a sinister leitmotif of itself. He willed the devil out of his mind, commanded him, begged him, pushed back, resisted, denied, but nothing could expel the feeling of invasion.

"Why don't you stop me? Could it be because you know deep down this is what you want? I may bring these memories to the surface, but you control them. You determine how they feel. Your soul is transparent before me, naked and exposed, and for all your insistence to the contrary, you do nothing to cover it back up."

The fingers in his hair twisted, wringing tears, forcing Hisoka to watch his own rape, to participate—

—and Muraki's eyes looked up into his, morphed seamlessly into Tsuzuki's, silver into crimson, though the intent in them remained unchanged, like a sanguine shadow crawling over the icy face of the moon. Hisoka squirmed, certain now he would be released. But his wrists were caught in Tsuzuki's grasp, his body pulled taut as a bow beneath Tsuzuki's. Bare flesh pressed against bare flesh, want against want.

And Hisoka did want him. Despite the shame and the horror Muraki had instilled in him that night, the fear that reaching out for any physical comfort would only bring the agony of it back again, still he wanted Tsuzuki. He wanted him there by his side, wanted to see his smile when he arrived for work in the morning. Wanted to feel his touch, his affection, which drifted about Hisoka like a heady perfume when they were alone together, and Tsuzuki, forgetting to keep his thoughts to himself, slipped and began to project.

"He wanted you, didn't he? And as an empath, you were powerless to do anything but feel it. You let it penetrate you, meld with you, until you couldn't distinguish where his desires ended and yours began. You could have shut it out, of course, if only you'd been strong enough. But you didn't. Now, why is that? Certainly not because you lacked the will power."

But this wasn't right. It wasn't desire Hisoka felt at moments like those. Anxiety was closer to the truth, a pressing fear of getting too close, a tingling in the gut he'd always characterized as repulsion but might have been something altogether different all along. Not the fear of pain if he gave in, but the fear of pleasure—

"Or, maybe we've both been looking at this the wrong way. Was it Tsuzuki who wanted you . . . or you who wanted him, all along?"

The false Tsuzuki flicked his gaze from Hisoka to the versions of themselves making love before them like some perverse museum display. Zepar scowled in disapproval, and the scene changed. To one more . . . satisfactory.

—and Hisoka saw Tsuzuki laid low beneath him, naked and pathetic, a dying Gaul stretched out against the damp grass, the cold concrete floor, eyes heavy, wine-dark and wet with the agony of desire. His body tight around Hisoka, and so responsive to his every touch, his every move, that every gasp, every moan, every cry that fell from his lips only pulled Hisoka deeper into him, until Hisoka felt himself drowning in Tsuzuki's passion.

"You've been projecting all along, haven't you, and you just never realized it. After all, why would such a vibrant soul as Tsuzuki ever desire a depressing, stunted, broken thing such as yourself? But you wanted him to see you. He is a charismatic sort, after all. You wanted to make him yours and yours alone. You wanted it so bad, you made him feel your desires as though they were his own, until it seemed he was projecting them back.

"Until there the two of you were, trapped in an endless feedback loop, building upon itself all by itself. Kind of like the one you and I have going now." The devil laughed. "What could be more delicious?"

Knowing that he was the master of Tsuzuki's desire, hearing the catch in his throat as Tsuzuki begged to be fucked, sent a thrill through Hisoka's body he had only known in his most shameful of dreams. He could hold himself back no longer. A sharp thrust dragged a cry from Tsuzuki Hisoka couldn't distinguish from one of pain and protest, and didn't care. He wanted to protect Tsuzuki and to hurt him—hurt him as he'd been hurt himself, love him as he'd been loved. A thrust for every swing of the cleaver, for every miscommunication that ended in disaster, for every time Tsuzuki abandoned him in his hour of need. Tsuzuki was never more beautiful to him than when he was suffering—

"Yesss," Zepar gasped. "There it is. . . ."

Laughter bubbled up from within the devil and resonated through the room, until it seemed to come from the Tsuzuki beneath him, from Hisoka's own lips parted in ecstasy, and reached its own shuddering climax.

It was the hammer-fall that shattered the grip the illusion had on him, and Hisoka shot to his feet. Arousal still buzzed in him, as did the sadistic thrill, these things proving a deeper part of him and harder to shake off than the daydream of himself and Tsuzuki.

Only now he used them as weapons, and ones he was quite familiar with. He embraced his desire to watch another suffer and turned it against Zepar.

In two steps he had his hands around the false Tsuzuki's throat. It satisfied him on a whole other level when the laugh dissolved into a choking gulp under Hisoka's grip, as he squeezed the devil's trachea. Nor was he afraid any longer what Zepar might do to him: He may have put up a convincing imitation of Tsuzuki, but his limbs were still bound by the hexagram, and by the sword blade still impaling his chest.

Hisoka hoped it was hurting him half as much as his illusions had hurt Hisoka. "Is this what you were looking for?" he growled in Zepar's face. "A monster like yourself?"

"No. I was hoping you would free me," the devil gasped. "But when I saw what a mess you were inside, I couldn't let the opportunity go by without taking advantage." Even through the pain, Zepar smiled. Was there nothing Hisoka could do to elicit a negative reaction from the fiend? "I had to see the look on your face, I had to see the moment when it just killed you: the moment you finally admitted to yourself the truth."

"The truth!" The idea that that tableau of lust and depravity had been any sort of truth at all was something Hisoka could not accept, no matter how strong and how right those emotions had felt. He grabbed the false Tsuzuki by the collar, and slammed Zepar back against his restraints. It might not have accomplished much, but it banished those feelings a little further from his self. "Why should I believe anything you show me is the truth? Your nature is to lie!"

"You want to hurt me, Hisoka? You're welcome to try. But I would urge caution against letting your anger get the best of you."

Unbelievable, Hisoka thought, that he'd still be trying to manipulate me now. "My anger's the most powerful weapon I have."

"Oh, I'm sure it is. After all, you can't perform reibaku on me; I'm not possessing anyone. And you have no shikigami at your disposal strong enough to destroy me. All you can do is rage," the devil said, the mirth gone from his crimson eyes and an unsettling gravity taken over. "And against all reason, you still believe that will save you."

"It's served me well enough so far. And as for you, I've seen through your illusions, your attempts to control me. But I've seen what you are, too, and that's a one-trick pony who thinks he can get anything he wants though mind games and seduction. You'll rot in Meifu, Zepar, until I've tried out every means of revenge I can think of on you. I promise you that."

His threats only earned him a little half-hearted smile. "You think that was all I had? Oh, Hisoka . . . what I've put you through so far has been a tea party compared to what I'm capable of. Scratch that: what the two of us are capable of together. And you have no idea how vulnerable you've made yourself, with just one. Little. Touch."

It shouldn't have been possible. Hisoka knew it wasn't, it was all wrong, another illusion of Zepar's, for he could not have broken out of his bonds just by Hisoka touching him alone.

But suddenly Tsuzuki's mouth was over his, his fingers weaving through Hisoka's hair, and all the relief flooding through him into Hisoka's frame, mirroring that which he felt in himself to have Tsuzuki home, to have Tsuzuki in his arms, and safe, again, without any other pretense or demand, was so real, so genuine, there was no room for anything else.

Tsuzuki filled his senses, his existence, and that was all that Hisoka wanted. To this, he would gladly surrender.


There were a thousand things Hisoka had wanted to say at this moment. He wanted to apologize, and beg Tsuzuki's forgiveness for ever blaming him for anything. He wanted to demand answers, demand Tsuzuki explain where he'd been and what in Enma's name he'd been thinking, and lambast his partner for ever leaving him, and leaving him with this dread the last six months. There was a stubborn part of Hisoka that felt compelled to chastise Tsuzuki for having the audacity to kiss him, on top of everything else, no matter how good it actually felt.

But all that rose to the surface was: Finally. Finally I have you back.

The moment was over only too soon, and, with a groan, Tsuzuki's mouth reluctantly slipped from his. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through Hisoka's gut, which he instantly tried to shut out. But he could not shut out the pain of seeing Tsuzuki, so newly returned to him, hurting so badly. He steadied Tsuzuki when he staggered, then saw with horror the blade protruding from his chest.

But when his partner's legs gave out beneath him, Hisoka could only slow his descent to a kneel. "No," he panted against Tsuzuki's weight, "Tsuzuki, you have to get up—right now. We have to go."

Go where? He couldn't remember. But he knew just as certainly that go they must, and quickly. Something was following them. But what . . .? He tried to grab hold of it, but the answer evaded him.

And how did they get here? He had a faint inkling of being in a dark room, glowing glyphs and a sinister presence, and an incessant pressing against his mind and soul. But the more he tried to hold on to it, the faster it faded and the less he cared. Tsuzuki's here. Now. That's all that matters.

And if I want it to stay that way, we have to hurry.

He tried to tug Tsuzuki back to his feet, but the man was a dead weight in his arms. "I can't—" He gritted his teeth, and gingerly touched the blade. "I can't go with you, Hisoka. It hurts too much."

Panic rose in Hisoka's throat, but he swallowed it back down. He had not found Tsuzuki only to abandon him. "You've got to push through it. There's no time—"

But Tsuzuki shook his head. "It won't let me—I can't go anywhere as long as this thing is stuck inside me, but I don't have the strength anymore to pull it out.

"You have to do it. Hisoka, you have to get it out of me."

Hisoka started. The blade was lodged fast. Barbs arced out of its base like ribs, like tentacles piercing Tsuzuki's back and side. He could already see the bloodbath any attempt to remove them was going to be, not to mention how much more it was going to hurt.

But it wasn't that which stopped him, which held him in the grips of an indecisive limbo. This is all wrong. He knew he knew that sword, he knew he knew there was a reason it was where it was, a reason he shouldn't remove it. It made no sense. Why, when Tsuzuki was clearly suffering, would a part of him refuse to act, refuse to lessen that burden?

He shouldn't be here. Something was terribly off. He needed a moment to think this through, to clear his head—

"Please, Hisoka! God! There isn't any time!"

His partner's cries snapped him out of the grip of indecision. Tsuzuki was right. He knew that. If he stood here and did nothing, Todoroki's agents would catch up to them, and then Tsuzuki would be at the mercy of Enma's judgment. Both of them would be, for Hisoka was no less guilty in this.

"Alright," he said, situating himself behind Tsuzuki to better see the blade's entry point, dangerously close to his spine. A tentative touch brought a sharp hiss from Tsuzuki, which Hisoka mentally apologized for; but that was only the beginning. "It's locked in place," he explained to his partner, "and I don't have the key to unlock it. I'm going to have to pull it out by force." If such a thing is even possible. "Tsuzuki, it's going to hurt like hell."

Tsuzuki, to his credit, managed a laugh. "You think . . . I haven't been through a lot—nn—worse before?"

That was probably true. And if Hisoka was worried about hurting his own partner, he had only to think back to the reibaku he'd performed on Tsuzuki already. If he thought about it that way, such a soul-deep pain as that made this pale in comparison.

But it still wasn't going to be pretty, for either of them. Hisoka took a deep breath, and readied himself against the blowback he would receive from Tsuzuki's psyche.

Nor had he overestimated the intensity of it. At the first tug of the blade, Tsuzuki screamed, and Hisoka nearly felt like blacking out himself. He raised a mental bubble around himself, but the shield wasn't entirely impervious. There was nothing to grab on to but the base of the blade itself, and that already slick with Tsuzuki's blood; and the harder Hisoka pulled, the deeper the well-honed edges cut into his own palms.

It refused to budge. Desperation rose up inside him, a hopelessness that for all this agony he might still fail. Then, at last, a small victory, a give, gave Hisoka the resolve to keep going. The barbs dug in as though the blade had a mind of its own—some living, parasitic creature determined to hold on to its host at all costs—and skin and muscle gave way beneath them with an audible rip. Tsuzuki gritted his teeth. He tried to bear up against the violence Hisoka was doing his flesh, but he could only do so for so long before his wordless pleas seemed more like cries for mercy.

Recognizing that, Hisoka could go no further. He had to stop. He had to catch his breath, his strength, and quell the nausea testing his resolve. But even then, he knew, there was nothing he could do to lessen Tsuzuki's pain or staunch the blood pouring down his arms so long as that blade remained where it was. He had to try again.

He was vaguely aware of alarms going off. But they were tinny and dim, a ringing in his ears. A voice cried out in the distance, as though through bulletproof glass: "Kurosaki, no! What are you doing?"

Peacekeeping agents, and closing in. We can't let them catch us. We have to hurry.

No. That wasn't right. He knew the voice, knew it meant no harm.

But could he take the chance? There was no one he could trust now, not when every department was full of possible spies. No one he could trust but Tsuzuki, who was urging him to hurry, to just do it, rip it out already, he was almost there, panic in his eyes as he looked back, but Hisoka was so close, he just had a little further to go. . . .

Hisoka summoned every ounce of his strength, and pulled. Tsuzuki howled, the force of his agony and the clarity of the sensation of blessed steel, rending his flesh, almost enough to make Hisoka lose consciousness. He bit it back, tried to bolster the shield around his mind, but it was as if he were tearing out his own heart, his own lungs. There was no way to lessen a pain like that. But he could not afford to fail, not when he had come so close to having Tsuzuki back again.

Something gave with a sickening pop, and Hisoka gasped in relief because the blade at last began to slide free. The rays tightened their grip on Tsuzuki, desperate to hold on, but to no avail; though they still managed to carve deep gullies out of his partner's flesh as Hisoka pried them away. Tsuzuki trembled with the effort of pulling against the blade, his fingertips white as he struggled in vain to find purchase on the smooth ground. And though it about killed Hisoka to see Tsuzuki this way, to hear his screams, he found himself strengthened by his partner's determination. He hated that he had to be the one to make Tsuzuki's suffering exponentially worse, but they both knew it was the only way.

At last the blade was out, and Hisoka could catch his breath. It had left a ragged, bloody hole in Tsuzuki's back, and Hisoka knew the next step would not be easy for him. But they had to run or they were both doomed—

Something cold and wet splashed against him, and Hisoka shut his eyes on instinct. Whatever he had been hit with, it tingled where it landed on his brow.

It hissed and melted flesh where it touched his partner. And the roar of anger the other unleashed—no, that was not Tsuzuki at all.

It was no creature Hisoka had quite seen before, and he had seen a lot. If he found the shoggoths terrifying for their resemblance to nothing, this being was terrifying for exactly the opposite reason.

What stood before him was a two-and-a-half-meter-tall naked giant of raw, red flesh. Where there should have been skin there was naught but muscle and sinew, shiny and wet as a new wound. Instead of Tsuzuki's red blood, black ichor pulsed from the opening in its back, which gaped between two skeletal wings folded against its shoulder blades, and covered only with a translucent layer of newly-formed flesh. It turned its face to him, the face of a man flayed alive, the generic, lidless, lipless visage that lies behind every man's mask of skin, and Hisoka found himself petrified by that horrible image, and the bulging yellow eyes that glowed like running lights within it.

It grabbed Hisoka and pulled him bodily against the gaping, melting wound in its chest. Hisoka panicked as his feet left the floor, and he fought for any purchase against his captor; but his arms were held fast across himself, and the edge of the sword blade, still held tight in his own fist by the demon and pressing against his own throat, chilled him to stillness.

Nor was he the only one who had had such a reaction. Natsume stopped in his tracks and looked as though he was fighting the urge to run in the opposite direction, his eyes wide behind his glasses. Even Tsukiori, who had seen countless demons more grotesque in their forms than this, was visibly repulsed by the macabre parody of a human being.

Disbelief that that thing had been hiding behind such a disarming facade lasted only a moment, however, and she and Natsume raised their weapons again. What little hope Hisoka had for being rescued fell when he saw they had come armed with what appeared to be super soakers.

"Let him go, Zepar," Tsukiori warned. "There's no point. You have nowhere to run."

"What did you splash me with?" In his true form, each sound seemed more to resonate through the matter of the room rather than carry through the air, just as Sargatanas's had done years ago. Hisoka felt the voice in his head more than he heard it in his ear. "That is not holy water."

"Not exactly." Natsume grinned as he hefted his gun. "We added a little somethin' extra for good measure."

"Sorry about this, Kurosaki," Hisoka heard Kira mutter under her breath before she and Natsume hosed the devil down.

They were aiming for Zepar's face, but a little of the liquid splashed onto Hisoka as well. Having felt holy water before—and found it no different than water that had not been blessed—he wasn't expecting it to singe like it did. But by the sound of things, Zepar was having it a thousand times worse than he.

The pressure against his throat gave, and Hisoka felt his own blood pour hot down the side of his neck. Zepar tossed him aside as if he were a rag doll, and as Hisoka slid against the concrete, he heard something skitter away into the far corners of the room, knocked aside by his body. Tsukiori's blade clattered to a halt nearby. But it was a hard little bit of mineral digging into his side that worried Hisoka, and the salt that moments ago had been arranged in orderly lines was scattered around him.

No! He tried to raise himself—he had to repair the damage to the containment field his fall had caused before it was too late—but his limbs wouldn't respond correctly. As if his left arm had fallen asleep, it flopped uselessly from his shoulder.

Meanwhile, the circles of light turning on the floor flickered and died.

It was what Zepar was waiting for. He crouched, the wings unfurling from his torn back until their tips touched the rafters. A single strong flap, and the displaced air crushed Hisoka back to the floor, knocking the breath from his lungs. Natsume and Tsukiori struggled to stay on their feet, trying to aim at the same time, but there was no way of landing a shot, let alone catching Zepar. The gust carried the devil to the unlocked door they had emerged from, and the force of his exit bent the heavy plate of steel back on its hinges.

Natsume spoke for all of them when he spat, "Well, shit! What do we do now?"