Disclaimer: Hasn't changed.

Farseeing Eyes: Those of Many Faces

10: The Phoenix

Shinichi couldn't tear his eyes away from the gold statuette. The air in the chamber was thick with rising power and it was growing harder and harder to breathe as the world itself seemed to press down and in all around him, but none of that was registering as more than a minor annoyance in comparison to the spectacle growing before his eyes. The archeologist had inserted three more colored stones into their respective holders and with each addition the light in the chamber had shifted and pulsed like the beating of a heart.

And a heart it was, he thought. With each wave of light the air flexed and the phantom shape of the phoenix grew larger. Translucent orange and yellow flames danced along crimson feathers, picking out the fineness of those ghostly feathers until they looked real enough to touch. Light blue flames washed across the floor and up the walls, cool to the touch and yet full of some strange, tingling energy that made a person want to pull away like they'd been burned. Forced as he was to sit in its midst with Hakuba and Eisuke, Shinichi felt like he was drowning without water.

He had no idea if those were stars dancing before his eyes or the sparks dripping from the phantom bird's wings.

What really worried him though was the way the archeologist seemed to be fading into the light. He'd thought at first that it was the lack of oxygen causing him to see things, but the longer he looked at her the more he was sure. Standing in the central circle with the statuette, her entire body was wrapped in the pulsing light. The edges of her form seemed to literally have become a part of the light, but even more than that it was as though she herself had been lit from within. It no longer looked to him like she was standing in the room with them. Instead she looked like what one might think of if one tried to picture the opposite of a shadow.

The woman herself hadn't seemed to notice though. Or maybe she had and just didn't care. She was staring down at the glowing statue with the rapt eyes of the mesmerized.

Shinichi felt the sudden desire to throw himself at statue and woman and knock them apart—to scatter the stones and burry the golden bird relief where it would never again see the light of day.

"Uh…hello?" Shinichi asked a bit tentatively, watching the woman's transfixed expression for any signs that she'd heard him. There were none.

"What's happening?" Eisuke asked in a small voice that sounded like it was coming from the other end of a very long tunnel despite their not being all that far apart. "It's like she's frozen."

Hakuba shifted uncomfortably in his place, glancing up at the chamber entrance for any sign of Ran. Finding nothing, he turned his gaze back to the woman standing in the center of the room along with the rest of his present teammates. He was starting to feel lightheaded.

"Hey!" Eisuke shouted abruptly, trying to jar some kind of reaction out of the unmoving woman.

Still nothing.

Shinichi was seriously debating trying to get on his feet and hop over there to do what he really wanted to and knock over that statue when something metallic flashed through the air.

Faster than a striking snake, Sharon turned. Light like feathers swirled around her, tongues of it snapping up to wrap around what turned out to be a shuriken. It hung motionless for an instant before dropping to splatter in steaming, metallic splotches on the stone.

Shinichi tore his eyes away from the molten metal to see a familiar figure perched on the lip of the chamber entrance. His momentary relief however was eclipsed by the realization that the archeologist was no longer motionless. Indeed, her face had contorted into a mask of anger and the phantom phoenix was growing brighter. No longer hovering over the statue, it burned in the air around the woman herself like a living shroud.

"You!" The woman's voice crackled and snapped like fire, holding barely a trace of the voice she had had before. "You have my stones."

"That I do," Kaito said lightly, apparently unperturbed by the strange sight before him (Shinichi knew better. He could see the tension in the spy's shoulders even from here). Raising a hand, he displayed three stones: one green, one purple, one clear. The moment he held them up however they burst into light. Startled, he closed his fingers over the stones and felt them grow hot as they strained against his hold like living things struggling to fly towards their brethren. "What—"

A hand closed over his shoulder suddenly, pulling him back and away from the drop into the ritual chamber. "Go!" the man attached to the arm shouted, stepping past him. Kaito caught a glimpse of orange light reflected in a pair of glasses. "You have to get those as far away from here as you can! Don't come back until the light fades!"

Kaito stared at the man for a moment but he could feel the stones beginning to burn like coals in his grip as they fought to free themselves. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he spun and bolted out of the ruins. Part of him was screaming at him that he was going the wrong way. Shinichi was back there in the middle of that eerie scene with the mad woman and the phantom bird of flames. Shinichi who he would not—could not—lose. But his instincts were telling him that the newcomer was right. He had to get the stones away from there.

Even as he ran he could feel a presence behind him. It was a terrible, burning presence and it was hungry.

X

Shinichi had no idea what he was seeing anymore. The air all around him was ablaze with flickering lights. The center of the room was a storm of it and the phoenix…

The phoenix of light and shadows had spread its wings and shot out of the room the instant Kaito had disappeared from sight and Shinichi had the horrible suspicion that he knew where it was going. It had left behind it a woman who now resembled not so much a human as a luminous ghost of a person whose eyes burned white.

She had made a move to follow the bird but someone else had gotten in her way.

A someone Shinichi recognized even if Hakuba and Eisuke were looking confused.

The temperature in the room shot up and suddenly the dancing flames felt a lot less ethereal and a lot more real.

"Get out of my way, Mortal!" the archeologist hissed.

"I can't do that," Kudo Yuusaku replied, voice steady as he stared hard at the woman before him. "Four fragments, Sharon. Are you so lost now that you would lose yourself so easily and let a mere half a soul control you?"

"No one is controlling me!" she snapped, taking a menacing step forward. "For once in my life I've found something worth creating. You will not get in my way!"

With the woman's attention focused entirely on the new arrival, Shinichi shifted and swung his bound feet towards one of the many flames licking across the floor. It caught at the bindings and they began to burn merrily. As they devoured the rope he shifted quickly to do the same with the ties on his wrists, gritting his teeth as the flames grew too close to his skin for comfort. Once he was free he hurriedly patted out the flames trying to take root in his clothes.

Scrambling to his feet, he made a lunge for the statue just as the archeologist threw herself at his father with her hands held up like talons.

The medic snatched the statue from the floor and nearly dropped it again as his fingers came in contact with the searing metal. Jaw clenched, he tugged at the glowing stones set into the base. They seemed to have melted into the metal and for a moment he thought it wasn't going to work, but then the stone beneath his fingers came away with a sudden clink and its glow dimmed.

"Shinichi!"

The warning came a moment too late as something struck the medic from behind, sending him sprawling across the floor. The statue shot from his hands and rolled towards the wall.

"You dare—!" a voice like fire hissed into his ear only to cut off with an outraged shriek. Through the flames all around him Shinichi could see Hakuba jerking two more of the stones from the statue's base before a blast of red light threw him back into another wall.

Sharon appeared in his line of vision then, snatching the statue from the floor and cradling it against her like a mother would a child. Satisfied that the statue was all right, she stepped towards the stones Hakuba had dropped but Eisuke threw himself over them before she could grab them. She snarled and made to kick him.

She was intercepted by Yuusaku who had snuck up behind her and ripped the statue from her grasp. A moment later the last stone was pulled from it and thrown across the room.

For an instant everything froze.

Then the aurora of lights that had been swirling through the chamber gave a final pulse and rushed inward. It was like a tide receding. All the light and the fire spiraled in upon the glowing archeologist who let out a small, almost surprised gasp. She grew brighter and Shinichi had to shield his eyes as there was a final burst of radiance. When he could see again, the chamber was dark once more but for the dim light of a setting sun seeping in from above.

The archeologist was gone.

Kudo Yuusaku dropped the now lifeless phoenix statue with a sigh and turned to face the room's three remaining occupants.

"Are you three all right?"

X

For years to come the people of Shintako would tell stories of the day when they saw a young man run over the very waters of the lake followed by a massive bird whose flaming wings burned gold against the evening sky.

For his part Kaito couldn't say how much of a tall tale the story was because he hadn't seen the bird. He'd been too busy running faster than he'd ever run in his life because he knew that the moment he slowed down whatever was following him would consume him and take the stones burning their shapes into his palm.

It wasn't until the overwhelming presence faded from his senses and the stones cooled in his grasp that he dared slow his pace. By then he was far into the countryside and Shintako was entirely out of sight. Tired but unwilling to rest just yet he made his way back the way he'd come, noting the scorch marks that adorned the ground every few steps along his path.

He reached the ruins just as the sun vanished beneath the horizon. There he found Hattori helping a shaky Ran down from the roof followed by a familiar woman with dark brown hair.

"Oh, are you all right?" she asked when she caught sight of him.

He nodded. "And you?"

He got a nod from Hattori, a smile from Ran, and an incongruously chipper 'yep' from Kudo Yukiko.

Hattori joined him as he made his way back into the ruin's altar chamber where the new hole in the ceiling cast dim, gray light over the people below. Shinichi's face lit up with relief as he caught sight of Kaito and the spy felt an answering smile tugging at his lips.

"Where's Ran?" Hakuba demanded before any of them could say anything though.

"She's outside with Miss Yukiko," Hattori replied before he glanced around again in search of something. "So where'd that archeologist go? Did she get away?"

"She's gone," Yuusaku said quietly, tone solemn as he adjusted his glasses. Their lenses glinted with the motion. "Without the ritual to channel it, all that built up power backlashed and consumed her. Or her body at any rate. I believe the phoenix had already consumed most of her mind."

Shinichi frowned at his father. "What do you mean?"

The man let out a sigh of his own. "We should return to town for now. We could all use the rest. Come to Hanami's tomorrow and we'll talk."

Shinichi didn't particularly like the idea of having to wait, but he could see the sense in the suggestion and the weariness in everyone's faces so he relented and let Kaito help him up. He frowned slightly at the way the spy was moving. He was definitely favoring his left hand.

Stopping in his tracks, he tugged on the spy's sleeve. "Show me."

Kaito gave him a questioning look.

"Your hand," he clarified, gesturing impatiently.

"It's just a burn," the spy said by way of explanation as he held out the appointed hand. The medic inspected it, the corners of his mouth twisted down. 'Just' wasn't quite the word he would have used for it. It looked like the spy had been trying to hold fire. It had to be painful, no matter what Kaito said.

"Don't move it," he instructed.

Kaito considered pointing out that they were being left behind, but decided against it and let Shinichi work. This kind of injury was something the medic could handle fairly easily anyway, and, well…it felt like ages since they'd last had a moment to themselves. The others could do without them for a few more minutes.

TBC

A.N: Only one chapter left. ^_^ See you all next week! Oh, and my computer, the one with tie virus, is almost done being fixed so I should be able to use it soon. Which is good because the one I'm borrowing has a tendency to give me headaches.