YAMI NO MATSUEI - DESCENDANTS OF DARKNESS

KYOTO FILES REVISITED

Chapter Nine - Cracking the Code

To the Reader

For those who are not familiar with Yami no Matsuei (YNM) or Descendants of Darkness, this anime/manga series is shounen-ai (guy/guy relationships or suggestions of such). This entire fic has a PG-13 rating due to its content, and keeping in line with how the actual anime and manga are rated.

For more information about the series, I refer you to Theria's website and SakuraCrisis' scanlations. Theria's site is an awesome resource for Yami no Matsuei and Yu-Gi-Oh fans. SakuraCrisis' scanlations are the best ones out there so far. I give them credit and acknowledgement since their sites served as references for me to further understanding the series.

As soon as Tsuzuki Asato's eyes fluttered open, he bolted from the bed and took a few good minutes to be acquainted with his surroundings. With a wave of rattled panic reflected in his eyes, he looked down to his left and realized that Kurosaki Hisoka slept beside him – still looking pale, but nonetheless seeming much calmer than he did earlier.

The two shinigami were in Troy's house and fell asleep in his grandfather's bed.

Tsuzuki's chest pounded, as he reminded himself that the two of them did not have the luxury to take a break...let alone sleep when every minute counted. After looking down at his wrist-watched right hand and realizing that only thirty minutes had passed since he closed his eyes, he tried to pacify the racing of his heart.

Quickly getting up from bed, he gathered what they had uncovered hours ago and placed everything in a box - a mason jar of assorted herbs, a larger mason jar with an unidentified concoction, two journals, and a card that Troy's father had written to his mother.

"Tsuzuki..."

The elder shinigami's heart skipped a beat, as he turned around with the box of items at hand and his gaze landed on a weakened and disoriented Hisoka. With a gentle smile, he asked his younger partner as the latter sat on the bed, "Let us go back to EnmaCho. Are you up for it now?"

After letting out an exhausted sigh, Hisoka stood up and almost lost his balance if Tsuzuki were not there to assist him. The young man who normally chastised his partner for any gestures of care or concern was now too weak to even argue, let alone talk.

Hisoka's lack of energy for verbal sparring made Tsuzuki worry more about him. Instead, he kept his concerns to himself, was thankful that there were no undercover work hours for now since it was not a school day, and used most of his spiritual powers to transport the two of them from Troy's home to EnmaCho.

A large slab of smoky quartz sat alone at the center of a circular wooden table, its owner monitoring the subtle changes that the gem had been undergoing the past couple of weeks….and those minuscule changes now became more blatant during the last three days.

The quartz, which used to be unblemished, now had an unknown onyx-like stone growing inside it. Aside from the dark stone inside the smoky gem, cloud-like shadows embedded inside the quartz now marred its crystal clarity.

As marred as it is, the smoky quartz had a mesmerizing and enigmatic beauty in its new form…as well as an ominous message to send to others, but elating news to its owner.

With his mind vividly picturing the enthralling and mysterious amethyst eyes, as well as their handsome owner, that haunted his dreams and waking hours, a charmingly twisted smile escaped an amused Muraki Kazutaka's lips as he stared at the smoky crystal that served as a divining object for him.

Placing down the medical files that he was reviewing at the nearby end table and standing up from his upholstered chair, he walked over to the wooden table where the crystal rested. As he stared more closely into the ever-transforming stone, he mused, "My pet served me well last night. Strings are not the only ways to control puppets, or have them wrapped around my finger. It's only a matter of time when the spawn will fall in my hands and serve his purposes…followed by my beautiful doll. After that, my dear Tsuzuki-san will follow them like a meek lamb to the slaughterhouse. My gift is about to be unleashed..."

It was almost seven in the morning...two hours after Tsuzuki and Hisoka returned to the Shokan Division's infirmary.

After the two shinigami briefed Tatsumi Seiichiro and Watari Yutaka about their findings just outside Troy's room, they handed Watari the two mason jars that they found in Troy's home while Tatsumi divided the workload between the four of them.

All four men had work cut out for them. They had less than four days left before Tsuzuki must kill Troy and take his soul to Meifu.

With the two jars in tow, Watari immediately marched towards the medical laboratory to find a cure for his patient. In between waiting for budget reports from various divisions within EnmaCho, Tatsumi kept tabs with the Gushoshin Twins as the avian gods worked on clues hidden within the hexagram carved on each victim's chest. Tsuzuki and Hisoka sat in respective areas in Watari's office, with the elder shinigami poring through clues in Troy's grandfather's diary while the younger one was busy wrapping up loose ends from the time he researched data with the blonde scientist.

At ten-thirty, an exhausted and grim-looking Watari stepped inside his office after leaving Troy with Chief Konoe. Although his peers were buried in their respective work, each person stopped and focused on the new arrival.

A tightlipped Tatsumi had his gaze transfixed at the blonde scientist. "What are your findings?"

Clearing his throat and retying the ribbon that kept his unruly wavy blond locks in place, Watari replied as he entered and stood in the middle of his office, "Those herbs and that weird liquid that Tsuzuki and Kurosaki-kun brought in are stabilizing Troy."

Tsuzuki stood up, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the desk where he was working. "How's Troy doing?"

Watari looked straight into Tsuzuki's eyes, as he told the other after a heavy sigh. "It doesn't look good, Tsuzuki-san. The kid's blood has a lot of toxins, but there's more going on..."

Silence laced with fear and tension filled the infirmary room, making Hisoka more nauseous and panicked as the rest were bracing themselves on what they were about to hear.

"I've been comparing the blood samples that I took from him before he went home, versus the ones that I recently drew out from him. Although his DNA shows non-human qualities, his body still responds to poisons just as humans would."

Tatsumi pushed back his glasses towards his face. "What about those black scales on his body, Watari? Are they some form of infection?"

Watari sighed and shook his head, wishing that he could give a more optimistic answer. "No, it's not. If it was an infection, there will be foreign antibodies present in his blood to fight it off. There's definitely poison present in his system, but there are no new antibodies. His blood composition, though, now shows a change."

"Change?" echoed Tsuzuki with a raised eyebrow and arms crossed before him.

The blonde scientist did not respond, as his focus was diverted to the symbols displaying on the monitor where the Gushoshin twins worked. Lifting an index finger as a polite signal that Tsuzuki had to wait a few minutes more for his reply, he went closer to the Twins' computer and examined the zoomed-in anagrams closer. Shortly thereafter, he asked Tatsumi to move so that he could use the computer.

Many minutes of silence after analyzing what Tatsumi had worked on in conjunction with what the Twins had produced, and frantically typing in various solutions to what he saw on the monitors, a shocked and pale Watari muttered under his breath, "Oh, dear..."

"What's wrong?" asked the amethyst-eyed shinigami, as he saw the already-grim concern further clouding his friend's gentle face.

"You're partially right, Kurosaki-kun…. There's an embedded soul extraction ritual within the anagram, but it goes deeper than just the first layer. "Using his right index finger as a pointer to further explain his theory, Watari thoughtfully said as the others gathered behind him, "Once you solve the code's first layer, another set of anagrams are revealed. It's similar to opening a safe. You can't unlock the combination unless you get the first layer right, and everything else thereafter."

After another long pause to examine the anagram layers before him, the scientist continued as he maintained his index finger pointed to the sections that he was browsing, "From the looks of it, the spell works at least four ways. It places a death curse on the victim, extracts the person's soul, and transfers spiritual energy to the demon. If the victim happens to be not fully human, the hexagram nullifies the death curse and then activates the fourth layer – a purification ritual."

As chills traveled down everyone else's spine, Hisoka murmured under his breath as he read the blond scientist's emotions, "It brings the demon out of the victim…."

As Watari stared into his peer's amethyst eyes, he explained, "To answer your question, Tsuzuki-san, Troy's physiology is slowly but surely transforming. He's not healing as fast as he did the last time that he was here, and the poison's affecting his mental and physical processes. His DNA's rearranging, and that's making him less and less human as time passes. I wouldn't be surprised if the toxins in his body were caused by this transformation. Eventually, the stabilizing antidote that I concocted from those herbs and the mixture you've brought in will lose their effect on him."

Tsuzuki ran his fingers through his already-tousled-up hair and down to the nape of his neck, as he made a vain effort to relieve some of the additional tension now coursing through his body. "Is there another way to help him? What's causing him to transform?"

The blonde scientist let out a worried sigh while he crossed his weary arms over his chest. "I don't know what's triggering it, Tsuzuki-san. It might be that nasty scratch from the demon, the hexagram's spells, or the change within him is inevitable. The part that makes matters more complicated is that Muraki's involved in this mess. If we don't get any answers soon, Troy could die or turn into something that we couldn't handle."

Pushing his glasses back once more after looking down on the marbled floor and absorbing all the information that he was hearing, Tatsumi remarked, "We must do whatever we can to save him, but we also must accept the fact that we can lose him."

Tsuzuki's silent resentment over what he just heard was clearly reflected in his amethyst eyes, as they stared back into spectacled and steadfast azure ones.

Feeling rather awkward, Watari informed his peers, "I need to check on our patient and see how he's responding to the antidote." As the three men gave their consenting nods, he turned around and marched back to the infirmary.

"Tatsumi-san's right," said Hisoka, who was feeling woozy but was nonetheless paying attention to the entire conversation since Watari arrived. "Accepting what can happen doesn't mean that we're giving up on him." After many minutes of silence had passed, he then motioned his partner for them to go and visit Troy at the infirmary.

As the three men walked through the series of hallways leading to the infirmary, the flash in Tsuzuki's eyes had already cooled down. He realized that Tatsumi and Hisoka, as blunt as they might seem to be for him, were right. Looking back into the secretary's eyes with slight guilt, he murmured, "I'm sorry, Tatsumi-san. I didn't mean to be rude, or put meaning behind your words."

A slight but understanding smile crept from the Secretary's lips and radiated in his azure eyes, "It's all right. We want to save him, as much as you do."

Before Tsuzuki could thank his former partner, a series of loud thuds and crashing noises echoed throughout the hallway...the shattering of glass and piercing screams then followed it.

Knowing that the noise came from the infirmary, the three did their respective best to run as fast as they could.

With Tsuzuki leading the pack and being the first one inside the room, he saw Chief Konoe and Watari sprawled on the floor. His two companions, on the other hand, immediately joined the amethyst-eyed shinigami in helping their two stunned comrades. Watari had a deep cut on his now-exposed left shoulder blade, and the elderly chief sported a nasty bruise on his forehead.

Once a shaken Watari and disoriented Chief Konoe were on their feet due to their help, the five men assessed the damage inside the room and could not believe at what they now see.

Almost everything fragile was broken, the bed and other heavy furniture were turned upside-down, the entire room was in disarray, and the thick glass windows lay shattered on the marbled floor.

The one responsible for this destruction, Troy, was no longer there.

End of Chapter Nine

Normal Disclaimer

Yami No Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness) and its characters are copyrighted properties of Matsushita Yoko. This fan fiction and the original characters (Troy Tsuuri, Yuta Tsuuri, Aiko Ikuru, Senji Kota, Tia, and Principal Yamada) that appear within this fan fiction belong to Zatken.