The dampness in the hem of his trouser legs was creeping its way up, and now Tatsumi could feel it cold against his ankles. When Watson had told him to prepare for a break-out, he hadn't said anything about traveling through the old drainage tunnels. Otherwise Tatsumi would have dressed accordingly, and worn something he didn't mind burning when this was through, rather than his most comfortable pair of trousers. Alas, Watson had said to dress comfortably. . . .
"Are you certain this is where he's being held?" he asked into the darkness, doubt rising again as the waiting entered its second hour.
"Sh-h-h." In the dim glow of Tatsumi's light-up watch face, the Count's white glove, a finger of it pressed against his invisible lips, glowed a ghastly blue-green. And here Tatsumi had thought he was being particularly discreet. "Just give it time. I've had Watson tailing this Manju character ever since we learned the identity of Konoe's jailor. My poor man has had to wade through kappa dens for more than a week, but he made sure to take extensive notes on Manju's schedule. I just wish the map he'd made had been a little more illuminating. . . ."
Or that they had a better light to see by, which was Tatsumi's main complaint with their efforts to follow said map, which rather resembled a page out of a book of maze puzzles filled in by a child. Yet the Count insisted on turning off the flashlight at every suspicious drop of water—which was to say, at every drop of water—and now Tatsumi was certain they had gotten themselves lost.
"Still," said the Count, a wry smile evident in his voice, "the irony is not lost on me that Konoe has been hidden from us beneath my very residence all this time. Well, in the labyrinth of tunnels that connect my residence to the Hall of Judgment, to be exact, which is a lot of ground to cover, I will grant you. But I feel responsible nonetheless. I should have retrieved him sooner."
"I don't know how you could possibly know he was here. One could hide a herd of elephants in these tunnels and you would never know the difference." Tatsumi checked his watch again, disheartened to see only two minutes had passed. "I vote we head back and try again tomorrow. I've been gone too long for my absence to be inconspicuous. According to Watson's notes, the jailor should have been here by now, and we're not even sure if we're in the right—"
But the press of the Count's arm across his body silenced Tatsumi, albeit partly out of the strangeness of the weight of that phantom limb. "Oh, we're in the right tube, alright."
And then Tatsumi saw it: a faint light reflecting off the damp walls in the direction they had come, swinging as if from a handheld lantern.
He grabbed on to whatever he could of the Count, and pushed them both back against the wall of the tunnel. The shadows, of which they had no shortage here underground, rose faithfully at his beckoning, shrouding them both in a darkness that even lantern light would not penetrate.
The lantern turned the corner toward them, but the little body attached to it remained indistinguishable until it was upon them. Tatsumi could hear the slap of long, flat feet on wet concrete, then a wheezy breathing as it pulled nearer. He had no doubt that he and Count were well hidden from it; but when the creature stopped just beyond them, and turned curiously in their direction, he held his breath and bolstered his grip on the shadows, just to be sure.
If anything could have shaken his concentration, the kappa's appearance came close. In the glow of its lantern light, its skin was an oily dark green and pebbled like a toad's. Tatsumi had always heard kappa compared to turtles for the shells they wore on their backs, but this one had none, just hard plates of leathery skin that were contracted with age, forcing the kappa to walk bent. There were claws on its webbed feet and hands like a terrapins, and its muzzle drooped in a kind of fleshy beak, but the eyes behind it—wide and marbled and faintly luminous in the dark—were distinctly amphibian. As if attached by some cruel god, pointy goblin ears stuck out of its head.
But worst was the skull, which, true to the legends, was depressed at the top, as if caved in from a blow. Lank hair like strings of pond grass bleached white circled this caldera, inside of which a gelatinous sort of membrane protected the brain and kept it moist, and Tatsumi could see it pulse with every beat of the kappa's heart.
For one tense moment, it seemed certain the kappa would detect Tatsumi and the Count's presence. Though he had faith in the shadows, he was prepared for the mission to fail when the little creature ran back the way he had come, too distrustful of his surroundings to lead them all the way to Konoe's cell.
But his worrying was for naught. Convinced there was nothing there, the kappa shrugged, grumbled something unintelligible to himself, and continued on his way.
The two in the shadows waited until the lantern light had just bobbed around the next bend, then hurried to follow as quietly as they were able.
Not for the first time was Tatsumi amazed by the sheer variety of environs that existed in the maze of tunnels beneath the Judgment Bureau. Cyclopean vaults that looked to have been excavated in the late Jomon period sat on top of modernist constructions on top of half-submerged Meiji-era substructure, entirely oblivious to the laws of superposition, as if history itself had no meaning here.
They followed Manju through this stone and brick and concrete labyrinth until he emerged in a semi-circular chamber lined with immense, clearly heavy doors. Each looked identical to the one next to it, but the kappa went right away to the proper one. He inserted one key at a time from a ring that seemed half the size he was, then pushed the heavy plate with every ounce of strength in his little body, until enough of a gap had opened for him to fit comfortably through.
The Count left the shelter of the shadows as the door began to close behind the kappa, the grinding of its hinges masking the sound of his footsteps.
But in his race with the door, the door won. Its locks clicking into place resonated in the passage way with all the gravity of a rung gong.
That did not stop the Count from trying the latch and testing the door's strength with his shoulder. "It must lock automatically," he breathed, staring up at the immensity of it. "I don't suppose teleportation will work on a place like this, either, or else Konoe would have found his own way back to us by now."
"Shall I try to pick it?" Tatsumi suggested.
"You have a kit with you?"
He shrugged. "I've had good enough luck in the past with the shadows."
Though the Count's unmoving masked visage seemed to be contemplating the mechanics of using a non-physical phenomenon like shadows to open doors, he had to dismiss the idea. "Not unless they can undo enchantments, too. No, if I know His Lordship, unless we somehow had in our possession a skeleton key for opening charmed locks, there's no way we can force ourselves into this one."
With one last rake of his gloved hands across the door, the Count stepped back. "Well, there's no helping it. We'll have to wait until his captor comes back out."
Tatsumi only hoped they wouldn't have to wait too long.
Another day, another stack of files to comb through.
Maybe it was just how long he'd been down here without sunlight or fresh air, or maybe it was the weight of his memories pressing him down until he finally cracked, but the files had gotten harder to put aside after just a few glances. Like quicksand, they sucked at him, pulling him farther down inside their horrors. Inside his own past.
Another file, and a face that was etched in his mind staring back up at him. I remember this one. One of the few women from that period of his life. But he had never learned her name, and she had looked quite different the last time Konoe had seen her.
"You don't have to do this," she says, not knowing Konoe's name but sure that if she holds his gaze, if she smiles at him through her fear, he won't be able to deny her. He will intervene on her behalf. "I give you anything you want if you let me go. I can be good. . . ."
She tries to touch his face, but he grabs her hand before it can get there, forces it back to her side so he can apply the strap. He tries to be gentle, he wants to tell her he's sorry, but the guilt won't let him speak. Smiling back is useless, telling her she'll be fine, a lie. He hates himself as she begins to sob, words he doesn't understand emerging in a broken, staccato rhythm, but he must finish tightening the restraints. That is his one responsibility, and he supposes it could be worse. He could be asked to participate in what follows.
"Nice and tight now, Mr Konoe," the Doctor says as he prepares his tools, his theater. An easy tone of voice, as if telling a colleague a joke that should be funny. "We don't want her to hurt herself."
He can't be serious, Konoe thinks. What kind of monster is worried about this woman hurting herself, when he knows what he's about to do?
The Doctor prepares a syringe. An anesthetic, the one mercy he allows these people, as paltry as that is. But Konoe steps in the way.
"Is this really necessary?" he hisses. Can't stand it any more. "Prisoners and traitors are one thing, but she's done nothing wrong. She doesn't deserve this."
"She's a foreigner, Mr Konoe. Why should you care why I've had you bring her here? If it soothes your conscience, she may be the most important subject yet in this project. What we can learn from her could be the saving of humanity, no matter what happens in this bloody war. There is more at stake here than the pride of nations, and I thought you understood that better than those jingoistic puppets out there. Was I mistaken?"
It's the coolness of his dark eyes behind their glasses, charismatic and beautiful even in their abject cruelty, the steadfastness of his fingers around the syringe, poised still for injection, that chill Konoe to the core. He really believes these things he says. He really thinks they'll make a difference to me.
"Is it that this one is a woman that bothers you so much?"
It's more the knowledge that in a few days or a few weeks he's going to have to bring her back to this room and this table under the blinding lights, and watch from the sidelines as the Doctor and his assistants cut her open, as they always do, in the name of their science. It's knowing he'll be standing against that far wall as her terrified eyes find his across the room, as they always do, pleading for an end he cannot give while the professionals rummage through her insides, oohing and ahhing over the curious things they find there he doesn't understand nor care to, drawing out her life and her agony until she can take it no more and those eyes holding his finally, mercifully glass over.
The cold hand on his shoulder shakes him back to the present, pulls him away from what has not yet happened. He wants to squirm away from it, as one would from the touch of a viper, but he is the inferior here.
"Every new race must have its Eve, Mr Konoe."
But Konoe knows better. She's as dispensable and nameless as all the others.
The door opens, and a bullish figure steps into the room. Standing in the shadows, in uniform, Konoe can make out few individual details, but he knows he doesn't like the way the man stands.
"Ah," says the Doctor, stepping around the operating table to greet him. "I was told to expect a replacement for the late Mr Mito. So, you'll be overseeing the staff here—Todoroki, was it?"
"It's Major Todoroki, actually." Not that ranks and titles matter to the Doctor—other than his own. "And you must be the Dr Muraki I've heard so much about."
It may be the Doctor the newcomer addresses, but it's Konoe his eyes flicker toward out of the dark. Like a predator in the night, sensing the fear in his prey. A man as cruel as Dr Muraki, Konoe can sense from the major's look, only he won't commit his crimes out of some lofty belief in progress, but simply because he's told to.
Manju's grunting over the creaking of the heavy door to his prison shook Konoe back to reality. Though he was sure there was nothing in this file that would interest Enma, he hurried to bury it under some more innocuous documents, like a teenage boy with a girly magazine.
"Lunchtime again already?" he managed to muster up some sarcasm. Never mind that his stomach was growling.
"Same as every day," the kappa mumbled back. "You have anything useful?"
Konoe's silence was apparently answer enough. Manju sighed. "See? You give me something to take to Enma, I shake things up. Maybe bring a nice piece of cake for our chief, hm?"
Not that Konoe expected a kappa cook's idea of cake to be edible to humans. "Quid pro quo, Clarice?" he muttered under his breath while his captor laughed at his own joke.
Manju sobered quickly enough, though. "What was that?"
"Nothing." Konoe surprised himself. His jaw hurt from clenching it so hard, and for once he could think of a dozen horrible things he would have liked to happen to Manju, just so he wouldn't have to see the old kappa's face again. It must have been the files, he thought, Muraki Yukitaka's own sadism wearing on him.
"Just put it down and get out," he growled at the kappa, who to his credit knew when to leave well enough alone. It may have been decades since Konoe had a case, but he was still a very capable shinigami, and as such, liable to blow if one found the right combination of buttons to push.
Then again, his lack of patience might have had less to do with Muraki and simply been a sign of his own growing desperation. He was little more than a caged animal down here, locked in with a thousand ghosts he was doing his best to fight off tooth and nail. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up the fight.
They were waiting for him when Manju shut the door behind himself and turned around.
"No," he said, then wailed: "No! Damn it, I knew this would happen!"
He ran, and heard the Count of the Castle of Candles swear as Manju managed to dart around his invisible legs. The kappa felt a little stirring of hope within him. The passageways were dark and convoluted, but he could see his way through, and he was quick. If he could just make it to the first bend, he was sure he could lose them in the maze of tunnels.
Unbeknownst to him, the man who had come with the Count was a shadow-user. And also unbeknownst to Manju, Tatsumi had expected some sort of trouble—though whether he was expecting the old kappa to scamper off like a frightened chicken was another story. Yet, he had his calm, and the shadows were certainly on his side in the dark passages.
They responded at a thought, rising up in front of Manju like a sudden wave and blocking his escape. He had only a second to skid to a halt before they were crashing over him, encircling him in their tight fist and dragging him back to where the two stood before the door.
"And so," the Count laughed down at him, "the captor has become the captive."
If Manju had a little more room to maneuver, he would have spit in the demon's porcelain face.
Tatsumi was a bit more direct. "We need for you to open the door, Manju."
"Absolutely not!" said the kappa with a stamp of his foot. "I know what you want, and I made a vow to Great King Enma himself to let nobody in without his strict approval. Let alone abominations like shadow-users and . . . whatever this perverted demon is!"
The Count laughed at that. "Why, Mr Tatsumi, not only is our charge a devious little twerp, I believe we have on our hands a kappa-supremacist."
Manju growled, but if that was a challenge, he refused to rise to it. "Besides, even if I wanted to—"
Before he could finish, the shadows in question loosened their hold. Tatsumi's concentration, however, was another matter entirely. "I should warn you," the Count said to Manju, "those shadows can slice just as well as they can hold. And they are notoriously difficult to control. I'm talking hair-trigger. If you try to run again, neither Mr Tatsumi nor I can guarantee they won't cut you to ribbons before you can take two strides."
And Manju could see from Tatsumi's calm, cool, bespectacled glare that he would not hesitate to make it so.
"We don't need you alive to open the door," said the Count. "Just your keys, a hand, and an eye are all that are needed to get the job done, if I'm not mistaken. Those can easily be removed."
"Ante- or postmortem," Tatsumi agreed.
"Wait!" Manju hated himself for capitulating, but it beat losing a body part or more to the likes of these two.
When he took this post, he had been ready to defend it with his life; but that was before learning what a soul-numbing bore this schlepping back and forth was, bringing meals like some sort of indentured footman and putting up with Konoe's ungrateful bullshit day in and out. Giving in was an insult to all kappakind, not to mention Lord Enma's displeasure would be immense; but this job was an insult as well, and he had always been a loyal servant. He could think of nothing he had done to deserve this punishment—other than not being born a stinking human—and he was not about to lose a limb to remind all kappa who saw him of what he'd come to.
But he did not intend to be defeated so easily, either. Perhaps there was a way he could still turn this to his advantage. Some way he could use it to wheedle his way back into Enma's good graces.
"I'll do it," Manju grumbled. "But you have to promise not to harm a hair on my head."
"I assure you," said the Count as the kappa turned toward the door again with key ring in hand, "I have no intention of even touching a hair on your slimy head."
"Forget something, Manju?" Konoe grumbled when the door opened again. He didn't bother to look up, revisiting old memories having left him in no mood to entertain company.
"Actually, I believe we've found what we were looking for."
Konoe shot up in his chair and spun around. As if he hadn't missed that voice enough—or any voice that wasn't his own or Manju's, for that matter—he thought he might just about cry of happiness to see Tatsumi standing beside the Count's masked visage. And smiling, on top of everything: a rare and treasured sight.
Though Tatsumi was by far the most surprised of the four there when Konoe rushed over and threw his arms around his old secretary's shoulders. "Boy, I know it's cliché," Konoe exclaimed, "but am I glad to see the two of you!"
Tatsumi didn't hug him back, but nor did the old Summons chief expect him to. However, the cleared throat and flummoxed grin on Tatsumi's face as he adjusted his glasses afterwards were quite welcome. "Likewise, sir. It's been far too long."
"Hah, you're telling me!" Konoe looked between his rescuers. "Just please don't say you're only here for a visit."
"Of course not. This is a proper break-out." The door hardly seemed secure, propped open by a mostly invisible Count, but Manju stood nearby in case they needed his services again, looking defeated and pissed in his circle of threatening shadows. "It's a crying shame, if you want my opinion," the Count said, "the way they've been treating you. After your long record of service. Couldn't happen to a less deserving fellow."
At a glance from Konoe, Manju bristled and looked away.
"I appreciate this," the former said. "You have no idea what it's been like. But I can't ask you two to stick your necks out for me like this. There's too much at stake out there for you two to go jeopardizing your freedoms at a time like this. I assume Tsuzuki hasn't been caught, because otherwise I wouldn't still be in here."
Tatsumi confirmed that was true. "Whatever false information you've been feeding back to Enma," said the Count, "it's been working. Or, at least, keeping the status quo."
"Peacekeeping is getting desperate," said Tatsumi. "They've had no good leads, and they see our department as undermining them at every turn."
"Is that true? Are they correct?"
A pause. "I would say the deception is more passive than active," Tatsumi confirmed with a wry grin, to Konoe's delight, "but we can't hope to keep it up much longer. I'm afraid once word gets out about your escape, Chief, what few privileges our department enjoyed will be taken away for good. But it had to be done."
Escape. The word stopped all the hope Konoe had felt returning at the sight of his colleagues in its tracks. "I'm sorry—believe me, I am—but I can't go with you two. I'm more grateful to you than I can say," he said to Tatsumi's start, "but I can't ask you to put the department at greater risk just so I can be comfortable."
"But, sir, you have to!" The panic that suddenly seized Tatsumi, at the thought of going back up there alone, without the one person who could give him any sort of direction. . . . "We didn't come all this way for a social visit. We need you up there. Summons needs you. The situation is falling apart, and I don't think I can keep it together much longer. I don't have the pull you do, and I'm afraid we might lose more of our people on account of my not being good enough for this job."
For a moment, Konoe could only listen in shock. And it seemed he wasn't the only one surprised by such uncharacteristic candor, if the color in Tatsumi's cheeks was any indication. Konoe didn't think he had ever heard the man speak so disparagingly of his own abilities, though that could only be testament to the amount of pressure the search for Tsuzuki had him under.
Still: "I understand care of the entire department is a lot to be asking of you at a time like this, Tatsumi, but it isn't as simple as you make it sound. Even if I do leave, I can't just go back to Summons like nothing happened. Hell, much as I've been dying to get out of this place, if Enma finds out what the two of you have done—"
"It'll be treason," Manju sneered through a cackle. "You've gone against his divine will, Count. Oh, I can't wait to see what he does to you two when I tell him what you've done here. He'll string you up, for daring to defy him, and let his crows pick at your—"
"You tell him?" Tatsumi could all but see the Count blink behind his half-mask. The invisible man laughed. "Oh my, Manju, I think you're sadly mistaken about your future role in all of this.
"You can stay if that's what you really want, Konoe," he said to the chief, "but we're taking your jailor with us, one way or another. You see, we had an inkling you wouldn't betray your king so easily, Manju, so we came prepared. You won't be speaking a word of this to anyone but us for a long time."
At that cue, Tatsumi took out the child-sized set of manacles the Count had given him to bring along. For what purpose he had child-sized manacles, Tatsumi was sure he didn't want to know, though he had to admit their usefulness now.
Manju balked and shuddered when Tatsumi came toward him. Which gave the former secretary an idea. "Maybe I should let you do the honors, Chief," he said, holding the manacles out to Konoe.
Who did not hesitate to take them off his hands. "With pleasure."
That saved Tatsumi from having to touch the little old kappa, at least. Manju squirmed and made a ruckus as the irons clamped down around his wrists, as if they burned him (which Tatsumi would not have ruled out, since any perversion seemed possible where the Count was involved).
But Konoe told him, with far more sympathy than Tatsumi would have been able to muster for the pathetic creature: "Quit your bellyaching, Manju. You're not going to get treated any worse than you treated me. I'll make sure of that."
By the wary glance Manju shot the Count, however, it was clear he didn't quite believe it.
"Does that mean you'll come with us, Chief?" said Tatsumi.
This was the very thing Konoe had been praying for since he'd been locked in his converted storeroom; and yet he hesitated to leave. The energy in that dank space still exerted its pull on him, though he did not think for a moment it was the fault of some charm or hex.
It was the inhabitants of that room, the stories of so many dead men and women and children Enma had thought, in his desperation, might have some connection to Tsuzuki, no matter how vague or far removed. How many of the young man's case files, recounting events from when Konoe himself was just a child in the Living World, had he been forced to comb through—how much of Tsuzuki's pain had he been forced to bear witness to in this mad search for his current whereabouts?
And none of it, Konoe thought, had proved an ounce of help. None had accomplished anything but to further torture Konoe with the crimes of his past, as if each day he remained in existence were not reminder enough of his complicity in the Muraki family's secrets and their continuing consequences.
But maybe therein lay the answers, after all. Somewhere Enma suspected a connection between Tsuzuki and Muraki Yukitaka that he was unable to see himself. Whereas someone who had been by the doctor's side during a crucial time in his experiments, someone who could testify to his character—the true nature of his goals, and what lengths he was willing to go to in order to achieve them . . .
Konoe begged his colleagues' patience, and hurried back to the desk he had spent the last few nightmarish months all but chained to.
While Manju looked on in horror, the Summons chief dumped out the contents of one box and shoved armfuls of case files into it, checking what he had against a mental list so he didn't leave a single important document behind. The bento that had been left on the corner of the desk, no one but the kappa noticed, he left untouched.
Looking quite satisfied as he hurried out the door with it, Konoe huffed back at his colleagues, "Now we can go."
"And you're sure you'll be alright here without us, Kurosaki? I would so hate for anything to happen to you that I could have prevented."
Being swaddled in Shungei's arms struck Hisoka as what it must be like to be hugged by a real lion. Hot and comfortable with the faint rumbling of her purring, but any pleasantness completely ruined by that ominous feeling that at any moment he might be eaten alive.
"I'll be fine, thank you," he said stiffly, just waiting for it to be over.
She beamed at him as she held him back at arm's length, something like pride in her shimmering eyes. Hisoka just hoped she wouldn't try to tousle his hair, too. In casual robes of soft red and orange silks, and sated from the feast, here was a gentler side to Shungei than Hisoka could ever have imagined from her explosive entries into the outside world.
"I will personally take it upon myself to look after his well-being," Rikugou assured the lion woman with a bow as magnanimous as his omnipresent smile. At Shungei's suspicious sniff, he added for good measure: "To do anything less would be an affront to my master, so you know I could no more break my word than go against my nature."
That at least seemed to assure Shungei, for she let go of Hisoka. "I've grown fond of the boy," she said, "so you'd better keep your word, Rikugou, or I'll personally murder you." And Hisoka did not doubt her ability to do it. Though it seemed she was unable to meet Hisoka's eyes after such sentimental words, which only struck him as another similarity between her and her host. She cleared her throat.
"Same goes to you, Susie-Q," she said, extending a hand to Suzaku, who told her, "Don't call me that if you want to keep your hand."
Yet despite the harsh air between them, Hisoka was mildly surprised to see them clap each other on the shoulder in an amicable semblance of a hug. "I look forward to more of your tricks when we next meet," the firebird said with a wicked grin.
"And I look forward to soundly beating you." The flames in Shungei's eyes surged in anticipation. "Well! Hajime, we'd better get a move on if we want to reach our lodgings by nightfall."
Kill me now, Terazuma mouthed to Hisoka as he was dragged away by the wrist, but he didn't really mean it. "Don't tell me we're walking all the way there."
"Of course not! I never get to fly you anywhere when we're in the same body," the black lion said. "It will be my treat. Climb aboard!"
"Parasites," Suzaku hmphed when they had launched themselves from the courtyard and into the sky, in a massive, bounding cloud of black fur and flame. "You would never catch me being so irreverent to my master. Certainly not in front of an audience."
Beside them, Rikugou suppressed a laugh. "Their relationships with their hosts are different from ours, Suzaku. One cannot be intimate with another on the same level as they are and still maintain the proper deference to their masters that we summons types find so easy."
"Yeah, I guess so," Suzaku grudgingly admitted. "You know, she's not as bad as I always thought she would be," she said, looking pensively after the dark blip in the sky that Shungei had become.
"Kokushungei was one of Kurikara's generals during the first civil war," Rikugou said for Hisoka's benefit. "Though she denounced him when he was locked away, as so many did."
Hisoka had to admit, that came as a bit of a shock after how easily the others had welcomed her into their circle. "I guess what they say about time healing all wounds has some truth to it."
Then again, their amicable air might have been purely for the benefit of their human guests, nothing else.
"I don't know about that," Suzaku snorted. "If they were so quick to betray their side once, they may not hesitate to join him again when he returns."
"On that front, I prefer to reserve judgment," Rikugou was quick to add. "It certainly seems as though Kokushungei's current match and her time spent in the real world has been good for her. Can any of us say we're exactly the same as we were before we met Tsuzuki? If anything, I will concede that time does have a way of making you question what it is you're fighting for."
The look that passed between the two shiki left Hisoka in the dark. How he wished he could read them all a little better.
With a curt bow, Rikugou told the two: "I'll leave you to it, then."
There must be some mistake, Hisoka thought. He hadn't expressed any wish to be alone with Suzaku. But not for the first time did it seem that the astrologer knew what he needed better than Hisoka knew it himself.
The sky was pastel on the horizon—the feasting, or rather, drinking having lasted all night, to the torment of the two tired humans among them—and a faint perfume of magnolias was floating their way from Tenkuu's gardens. "Shall we walk?" Suzaku suggested.
"I wish that I could be of more help to you, Hisoka," she said after they had lost themselves a little ways down a gravel path. The same resignation was in her eyes that he had seen in Byakko's, and all the others. "In the old days, I might have flown to the human realm myself to check up on Tsuzuki. But since our world began to fall apart, since it had to be moved, I'm stuck here until I'm called on. Like a bird in a gilded cage. . . . And I hate this feeling of powerlessness more than anything."
A rock that happened to be in her path felt the brunt of her frustration, flying off the toe of her boot into the morning light, until they finally heard a distance splash.
"I know the feeling." Every night was the same: waking up in pitch-darkness with the weight of Tsuzuki's absence squeezing Hisoka's chest until he could barely breath. Until he felt he could just about die all over again with the not-knowing.
Not knowing when or if he would ever hear Tsuzuki's voice again. Not knowing if he would ever get that chance to say he was sorry, that he'd been wrong. A chance to tell Tsuzuki what he really meant to Hisoka.
"That's why you have to be my ears!" She stopped in her stride, turning to Hisoka and taking him roughly by his arms. "Stop wasting time here in the Imaginary World and go looking for him, as is your right as a human! There's nothing for you here. All our stories are the same. We're all going mad down here waiting for just the smallest bit of proof that he's still out there somewhere—proof that only someone like you can bring us!"
"Why do I keep getting the feeling that none of you wants me here?"
Suzaku started, catching herself. "That's not what I was trying to say, Hisoka."
"But it's true, isn't it?"
The other was silent for some time as she gave the question some thought. Or, as Hisoka truly suspected, while she searched for some way to cleverly avoid addressing that subject.
"Maybe there are some here who feel that way," she finally said. "As for myself . . . well. I can only believe that Gensoukai will endure, and that our love for Tsuzuki is somehow tied to that survival.
"Which is why I feel compelled to help you." She flashed a warm smile. "Now that you're going to be staying a little longer than you planned, perhaps we should look into finding you some shiki of your own again. Yes? No dragons, if we can help it, but I'm sure some powerful and relatively benign individuals can be located."
She was trying to be helpful and accommodating, Hisoka knew. But all he heard was: "Someone who's loyal to Sohryuu's cause, you mean. You just want to fill out the ranks, use bonding with a human to increase the power levels on your side."
Suzaku laughed out loud at that, rubbing the back of her neck. "I guess that's a guilty as charged, huh? You know, sometimes I forget you're an empath, Hisoka. That's a skill that could really come in handy winning a guardian. It's not so wrong that I want to find a solution that benefits both of us, is it?"
She was perfectly serious, however, when she added: "And I do believe you and I are on the same page, Hisoka. No matter what some others think of you, I'm certain of that much. We both want what's best for Tsuzuki. Even if it isn't what he thinks is best."
He had witnessed her idea of "best" on several occasions, some with more collateral damage than others. Yet if there was one thing Hisoka was certain of where the firebird was concerned, she would protect Tsuzuki at all costs. Even if the cost was her own life.
"What you did for him in Kyoto—"
"Was selfish."
Suzaku blinked, and Hisoka had to admit it surprised him just as much to hear those words come out of his own mouth. No matter how true they were. "It was selfish," he repeated, as if tasting the fact on his tongue, determining whether its bitterness was good for him. "When I begged him to stay, it wasn't for his own good. It was for mine—because I needed him. Because I believed I would be lost without him."
With the fading dark, the fireflies began to wink off, one by one, above the surface of the garden pond. Hisoka moved toward them, not daring to face Suzaku when he said what he had to say.
"I know you won't agree with me, but I think Touda was right. I mean," he pressed on, feeling the shiki's ire rising like rote at the mention of her rival's name, "I don't regret what I did. I don't wish we had left Tsuzuki to his own devices, and let Touda destroy him. He's needed too much—by me and our coworkers, and by this world. He may be a major screw-up, but Summons wouldn't be the same without him. Without his heart. And neither would you twelve.
"But I understand now. Why someone would simply not want to exist. It's the easiest thing in the world. And, in a way, it's what we all deserve. Isn't it? An actual end, a rest after all our struggles? It's this eternity afterwards that's unnatural."
He forced himself to turn then, to meet Suzaku's eyes. Only hers were focused on the gravel path between their feet, and looking far away. Into another time that Hisoka wasn't privileged to.
"There are worse things than oblivion," he said, urging her to hear that truth. "And if I don't find Tsuzuki first . . ." He shook away the possibilities. "I hate to think what they'll do to him. They think he defected from Meifu, that he's a traitor, and they won't let him get away with it with a slap on the wrist and a 'back to work' if they catch him. They certainly won't let him come here again, where he can disappear with powerful protectors to keep him out of Enma's reach. They'll make sure he never leaves Meifu again, and that he suffers for what he did. And I can't—"
His voice wavered, but he managed to catch it, barely. Like one of these fireflies in his hand, if he held on too tight, he would lose it completely.
"I can't bear to see him in that kind of pain again, Suzaku.I'm lost without him, it's true, but it's worse if I'm the cause of his suffering. He doesn't deserve that. After all he's had to go through, he deserves to be happy. Even if that means oblivion."
Suzaku did raise her eyes to his then. Set with a dark determination, she stepped toward him, and Hisoka felt certain for a moment that she would attack him, as she was so quick to attack all those whom she viewed as a threat to her master. And with his talk of oblivion, would Hisoka had been able to blame her?
But she stopped when she was within reach of him, and only placed her hand on Hisoka's shoulder. The heat of it, like a balm on his achy muscles. She would not pull him closer, he noticed, dared not wrap him up in her arms. As if he were fire to burn her up.
It was a gesture of comfort and solidarity nonetheless, and mutual longing—a gesture that Hisoka could not help but be grateful for, even if a part of him resented it as well. Because if he'd done his job from the beginning, he wouldn't be here needing such empty reassurances. He should have been stronger than this—strong enough to keep Tsuzuki safe, to protect him from the likes of Muraki and all those who would make him take the blame for what he could not control. Tsuzuki was gone, and Hisoka had missed his chance to protect him when he was able—if he had ever really been able. He'd been too selfish to even understand all that that entailed.
A part of him longed for Suzaku's embrace, as he would for the arms of a mother or older sister, neither of which he had really known in life as a child rightfully should. But she was not his to control, and he would not have been soothed by it anyway. It would only remind him further of what he had lost.
It was a rather human thing, Rikugou knew, to tend to the rituals of gardening—pruning a branch here, staking a vine there—as if the plants noticed the difference one way or another. It was his qi they responded to, his nearness and the sound of his voice: with health and vigor when he was pleased with them, with wilt or hibernation when he was not. Ephemeral cherry blossoms and spring irises bloomed longer here than in other cultivated parts of Tenkuu, and his fellows asked him what he did special, refusing to believe him when he professed he did nothing.
He might have said it was they that cultivated him,had he been in a poetic mood. The green of young leaves, what brought him back to earth after a night spent watching omens turn in the starry sky. It seemed there were so few omens that were good these days. . . .
And none grounded him so well as the paulownia tree, which stood like a purple pagoda at the center of his manor's garden. Though now even its pleasant anise scent seemed tainted by melancholy to him, as he recalled Sohryuu's latest intellectual obsession.
"Tell me truthfully, Rikugou . . . do you even remember the Golden Emperor?"
He had not been the same since he and Tsuzuki had returned from Kurikara's sanctuary in the Floating Desert, going on four human years ago. Such existential matters had their place, but if one was not careful to put them away again after examining them under the light . . .
A man could lose his mind going too far down that road, Sohryuu.
The eye in the center of his right palm caught a curious sight over the paulownia blossom, and Rikugou smiled. "I know you're there, Touda. Stop slithering in the shadows and come out."
From behind a limestone formation, a somewhat petulant Touda stepped into the light. Even with his back turned, it was nigh impossible to sneak up on the astrologer. "You reminded me of someone. Just now. I didn't want to disturb you."
Rikugou released the branch, and turned to face his guest. "And yet, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were keeping an eye on me."
A bad joke, but the astrologer knew better than to expect a witty riposte. The serpent god's black visor gave no indication of a change of expression, yet Rikugou could feel his tension. "I know what you're planning, Rikugou," Touda said. "I've come to warn you: It won't work."
"Oh? Can you read the stars now, too, you know the future so well? Or is it just my mind you think you know?"
Sarcasm was only a lure to him. He stepped closer. Though there was nothing threatening in Touda's vibe, only urgent. "I've seen how you act around the boy. Ever since he first came here, you've gone out of your way to protect him."
"I would hardly call saving Sohryuu from making a terrible mistake 'going out of my way'." Though Rikugou did have to admit, from that first moment, he had felt a connection. A premonition that their paths would intersect more than just the once. "Besides, I'm not the only one here who has an interest in Hisoka's fate."
Touda did start at that, however just slightly. Surely he could not have believed his own movements about the palace grounds had gone unnoticed?
"You know it's different," the serpent god all but sighed. "If anything should happen to the boy while he's in our care, when Tsuzuki returns—"
"Yes, I know. We have our own skins to look out for, on top of everything else."
"I'm serious, Rikugou. This is what I have been entrusted, and unlike some others around here, I intend to stay true to our master's intentions, even in his absence. You know what it would do to him if the boy came to harm," Touda said, chasing away images of flame and crumbling beams from the astrologer's mind. "It's for his sake and his alone that the boy must be protected."
Rikugou still remembered the day he laid eyes on Tsuzuki. How he had ventured into his own garden to find an intruder waiting for him, admiring the one wild rose that grew there. At the time, Rikugou had just been contemplating digging it up: He couldn't remember inviting it in.
"I'm sorry," the young man laughs. "I must have gotten lost! I didn't realize this was private property. You don't mind too much, do you? This place is like a paradise."
He pushes away a strand a hair that has fallen over his face, and his eyes are like nebulas, the nurseries of young stars. Full of possibilities, both good and evil. Full of the power to move worlds.
Rikugou blinked away the memory. He couldn't help it if he now saw those possibilities in another.
"I quite disagree," he found himself saying. "I understand where this comes from, Touda, I know that you feel you have much to make up for. But the boy is far from the feeble creature and crutch you seem to think he is. I rather think that the reality is the other way around: If anyone can save Tsuzuki, Touda—from himself, from us, from anything that would desire his downfall—it's that boy. He has a strength the vastness of which even he doesn't know. You feel it as well as I do. It must be nourished, before it's too late."
"But the way you're thinking of going about it—" Touda shook his head. "It's impossible!"
"Perhaps." And perhaps he would be risking more than just Hisoka's life, if it came to that, for nothing. "But if it is possible . . . Don't you think it's worth a try?"
The boy was already sound asleep when Rikugou found him, when he came to ask Hisoka if he would take some supper.
Let him sleep. He's had a tiring couple of days. And an exhausting couple of weeks, from what I can gather.
A new kind of curiosity would not let him leave entirely, however. Not until he had some sort of answer to satisfy him. What he was thinking was impossible, was it? Well, there was only one way to know for sure, though Rikugou didn't think it could hurt to preview the terrain he would be working in.
He knelt beside the bed and placed his palm to Hisoka's forehead—eye closed, and gentle, so as not to wake the boy—then let the tide pull him out to sea.
Long moments he sat there in stillness, while his consciousness shifted through the reeds, searching for that one line that would lead him to what he sought. Groping blindly, he felt it near; and grabbing hold, let it reel him in, towards its Source.
There was great anger there, he felt as he drew nearer, but also the intelligence and love necessary to temper it. And something else, something that only seemed more amorphous the nearer he drew to it. He had only the impression of coils, tightening upon themselves, and of a deep, dark hatred that seemed as alien in its surroundings as Rikugou, and as bottomless as a black hole twisting at the heart of this galaxy.
He longed to investigate further, but dared not touch it and wake the restless thing, which for now slept as deeply as the boy. He strained closer, hoping for one last, clear look.
But no sooner had he done so than a swarm of twisted, ancient characters flared and shimmered crimson red across the coiled thing's surface, and Rikugou was forced to break contact in his surprise. At least his shock had not been enough to wake Hisoka, he was relieved to find when he opened his own eyes.
Interesting.
This altered things somewhat, even if it did not sway him in his decision about what had to be done. It was simply another factor to add into the equation, another puzzle for Rikugou to solve.
The great serpent had been thrown down from its seat in the axel of the sky. But it turned still, off-center, waiting until the time came for it to resume its rightful place. Had Touda sensed this—was that the reason for his warning? Had something called out to him from within the boy, from one serpent to another?
"And you're convinced something in these documents is going to help us find Tsuzuki?" the Count said, placing a gloved hand on the top of the box.
Between bites of his third sandwich, Konoe nodded enthusiastically.
"As sure as I can be," he said when he came up for air. "I was told to use my intuition to find anything that might be of use in this manhunt, and my intuition tells me those files," he pointed, "are the ones that are gonna lead us to him."
"But you said they were all from the war and the Nineteen-fifties. Tsuzuki died right around the end of Taisho. I fail to see the connection, Konoe."
"Trust me." Konoe fixed the Count—or what one could see of him—a steady stare. "I was there. Some of the events in those documents, I experienced first-hand." It wasn't something he was proud of, to say the least; but maybe there was a way he could still bring some justice to all the unfortunate souls lost in those years, and facing his own part in it was a start. "I was a corporal in the unit assigned to assist Muraki Yukitaka during the war. He was conducting some sort of experiments in a bunker inside a mountain."
"The Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters," said the Count. "I've heard of it. I thought it was supposed to house the emperor and his court in case of invasion."
"I wouldn't know. The whole time I was there, my clearance only extended to the labs."
"I heard about it, too," Tatsumi said, fixing his boss a skeptical glance. "I never heard anything about laboratories being part of the complex."
Konoe twisted the napkin around his fingers a little harder than necessary. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Tatsumi. I was there. I'd tell you to check my dossier, but I'm pretty sure any mention of it has either been classified or redacted. The project's existence was classified Top Secret by the wartime government as well. Most of the men assigned to it took that knowledge to their grave. I'm not sure anyone in the Diet today would have even the faintest idea of what was really going on down there, let alone believe you if you told them."
"Unless they're part of the Muraki family conspiracies," Tatsumi sighed, with a concurring nod from Konoe.
"So all these files have to do with Muraki Yukitaka's experiments." The Count crossed his arms, cradling his head in one hand in thought. "Isn't this all water under the bridge by now? The man died a long time ago. And I would remember: They made a big hullabaloo about bringing him down. Enma asked me personally to do some rather unprecedented and unethical things to get that man here. There was a huge inquest. It was like Christmas morning over in Judgment, everyone running around like they'd hit the mother lode. Anything Enma wanted to learn about the man, he would have learned then, straight from the source."
But Tatsumi wasn't buying it. If Enma knew so much, why go through the hassle of locking one of his strongest leaders like Konoe away? Simply to weaken Tsuzuki's coworkers, his strongest allies—or to take the chief out of Todoroki's way, make it easier for Peacekeeping to fulfill their mission? There were easier ways to go about it, ways that didn't involve imprisoning the Summons chief and torturing him with the task of weeding through endless stacks of ancient files. It didn't make sense.
And there was the name Muraki again. Like a foul odor, it just lingered around. Tatsumi had been secretary to the previous Summons chief at the time represented in those files. He served as interim for Konoe when Yukitaka's soul was finally brought in for judgment, in the late 1960s; but he had never known the reason for the chief's absence until now, had never known in what capacity he was involved, let alone that he had been a witness to that man's vast list of crimes.
"But Enma destroyed his soul too soon," Konoe said. "The scope of the trial was so focused on the number of lives the doctor had taken in the name of his experiments, the meat of those experiments themselves was overlooked."
"And that's where you think the connection with Tsuzuki comes in?" said the Count. "Everyone knows he was the last person to see Tsuzuki alive, that he studied him the last several years of the boy's life. Yukitaka became obsessed with him, spent his whole life trying to replicate Tsuzuki's regenerative abilities."
"I think it went beyond mere obsession. The things I witnessed during the war—I think Muraki was convinced he was going to use what he'd learned to give rise to a new race of human beings. A superior race."
No, Tatsumi thought, the pieces falling together with a cold rush of blood through his veins, not a race. One individual was all the late Dr Muraki managed to produce in his lifetime, but it had been enough. Enough to cause all this death and chaos in the last decade, enough to tear the Judgment Bureau itself apart.
Do you think Enma knows? Tsuzuki had asked him the last time they saw each other, a mere piece of paper between them confirming everything those files could only hint at. Now Tatsumi knew the answer: No one knew. No one who still existed, anyway, but Tsuzuki and Muraki Kazutaka, and now Tatsumi himself.
And the risks of such information falling into more powerful hands were too great, the possible consequences too varied to predict. Why did you have to entrust me with this terrible knowledge, Tsuzuki? What am I supposed to do with it?
"You alright, Tatsumi?" the chief's question shook him back to the opulent interior of the Castle of Candles. "You looked like you were going to be sick for a moment."
The secretary shook his head, finding a brief, reassuring smile somewhere deep down inside his person. "Only that the longer this goes on, the stronger the connections to the Muraki family become, and I'm sick and tired of that man getting away with things."
"It pisses me off, too," Konoe grumbled. "Kazutaka's the one Todoroki's men should really be going after, not one of our own."
The Count concurred. "Maybe they think they'll find the doctor where they find Tsuzuki. I've not been given any orders where Muraki Kazutaka's lifeline is concerned, but I agree, Konoe, it is a grave injustice. If it were up to me, I'd strike the man down where he stands; but I suppose that's why the checks and balances of this place exist: to prevent any one person from having such arbitrary power.
"In any case, I understand the urgency you must feel to return to active duty," he went on to Konoe as they walked the castle halls. "You have your people to protect, and it must be killing you to leave their well-being in the hands of another. Even if that other is one as trustworthy as Mr Tatsumi."
Hands clasped behind his back, the secretary resisted the urge to take offense at the note of sarcasm he detected. He had some idea how difficult it was for the Count to pay him a compliment, as that feeling cut both ways, even if the words were genuine. "I'll keep you as informed as I can of new developments, Chief," Tatsumi said, "but I can't make any promises. I may be under increased scrutiny after this. It will be difficult to come here without tipping someone off."
"And we do want to keep nosy Peacekeeping dogs from sniffing around our castle," the Count agreed. "I have authority to keep them out, for the time being, but I can only refuse a direct request from Lord Enma for so long. I'm sorry you'll have to be held prisoner here in my mansion until the matter is resolved, Konoe. You will let me know if I can do anything to make your stay more comfortable, while you plumb those horrible files of yours more closely?"
Konoe, however, waved it off. "Are you kidding? Did you see the last place I was in? I'd hardly call being a guest in the Castle of Candles imprisonment."
"You obviously haven't been here for long," the Count said as if to himself, a mysterious smile coloring his tone as they made their way back to the dining room.
"Ah, Watson," the Count said when they returned. "Are you keeping our guest entertained?"
At the extraordinarily long formal dining table, the old kappa scowled and glared back at them, looking small as a child's toy in his stately, high-backed chair.
"He doesn't like the hors d'oeuvres, milord," the Count's butler warbled from his own, gesturing mournfully to the untouched platters of fruit tarts, tea biscuits, and petit fours that covered the table.
"Doesn't like the—" The Count placed his gloved hands on his invisible hips. "What's wrong with you, Manju? Watson is the finest pastry chef in all of Enma-cho."
"I believe kappa prefer their food raw," Konoe suggested helpfully.
"Oh, for Enma's . . . It's the principle of the thing, Konoe! It's the height of rudeness to refuse refreshments in your host's home, even for a kappa."
The being in question trembled, partly with rage, partly with fear of what a powerful demon like the Count might do to him if he let that rage become too apparent. Still, he had the temerity to mutter, "Your blatant racism is offensive, milord."
"You're a talking, walking terrapin, Manju. Get over it."
Konoe shot Tatsumi an embarrassed look through the Count's shoulders, and shrugged. He couldn't say he minded the tables being turned, even if the Count was being a tad harsh.
"What do you plan to do with him?" Tatsumi asked. "If you let him go, word will get back to King Enma how the chief escaped. But if he doesn't report back at all, the suspicion that arouses will undoubtedly send someone looking for answers."
The Count sighed. "Though it pains me to say the words aloud, Tatsumi, you're right. I suppose we'll have to keep the kappa here in the meantime—"
Manju squeaked. Konoe tried not to let his relief show too obviously.
"—until some more appropriate fate can be deduced for him. I should have planned for this," the Count admitted. "To be honest, I was more concerned about getting him and Konoe here than what to do afterwards."
Thankfully, someone had been thinking about that matter. "Mr Manju makes weekly reports back to Lord Enma about Chief Konoe's progress, or lack thereof," Watson supplied. "The last one was yesterday afternoon, so His Augustness should not suspect anything is amiss for at least five more days. If all goes well, that is."
"There you have it," the Count said to Tatsumi's nod. "I do hope that will be enough time for you to set in motion whatever plans you need to before the proverbial feces hits the fan?"
"It will have to be enough, Count."
"Meanwhile, I get to look forward to having a kappa in my house for another five days. Note my immense joy. Poor Watson will not be looking forward to all the sanitizing that will need to be done, neither." The Count shuddered. But he added grudgingly, "I suppose I might have some English cucumbers ripening out on the patio, if the pastries are really that difficult for him to stomach."
Tatsumi eyed the desserts, glistening invitingly on their platters. He didn't have much of a sweet tooth himself, but Watson was surprisingly talented in the kitchen. And it would be such a waste to throw them out, what with all the work and fine ingredients that had gone into them. . . . "Count, if I might make a suggestion—"
"Yes, yes," the Count said with a wave, "I'll have Watson deliver the pastries to Summons for the enjoyment of your minions. You just get yourself back to work, Mr Tatsumi, before anyone can start to talk."
"Thank the Maker," Shungei purred as she dipped her toes in the hot spring, "this is going to feel so good!"
Eyes shut as he relaxed against a boulder, enjoying the heady heaviness of the steam on his brain and muscles, Terazuma would have been able to sense her there even if she had slipped into the water with cat-like stealth.
The bond that existed between them was like a physical chain connecting their two beings, and sometimes he half expected to see a length of heavy, rusted metal snaking between them. No matter how far they drifted from each other while they were in this world, every movement Shungei made felt like a tug on that metaphysical chain, just as he was sure she felt sympathetic vibrations of everything he did. It was an odd feeling, like an out-of-body experience—which he supposed wasn't really so odd at all, seeing as they had grown used to sharing the same material body for so many years.
It was her little grunts as she swam toward him that made Terazuma open his eyes. And he had to laugh inside. Her wild mass of hair piled haphazardly on top of her head, Shungei was putting just as much effort into keeping her chin above water as she was getting over to him. "I guess it's true what they say, huh? Cats just don't like water."
They didn't mind birds so much though. Shungei flipped him one in between strokes.
Terazuma knew where she was going, and put out an arm to draw her in. Her naked skin was soft as suede against him under the water, the curves and the power coiled beneath them the kind that would have overwhelmed him when he was a younger shinigami, and on his first visit to the Imaginary World. It was mostly familiarity they aroused in him now, a familiarity that bred an easy and comfortable silence that could only come from sharing a mind with someone. It was something he could be sure he'd never have with Kannuki, but he wasn't sure he would want to, either.
Terazuma put up a hand to keep from being poked in the face by a horn, and Shungei settled her head against his shoulder.
He put it off until he just couldn't put it off any longer. "Do you think we're poorly matched?"
Having just started to feel her mind drift towards sleep, Shungei mumbled, "Who says we're poorly matched?"
Not that he needed to answer that question aloud. Tsuzuki had said it every chance he got, with a self-righteousness that Terazuma had loathed at the time. To be fair, he still did just thinking about it; but after meeting some of his old mentor's shikigami again, he couldn't help feeling that, professions of love and loyalty aside, Tsuzuki might not have been the best possible master for some of them either.
"I know I was more or less forced on you," Shungei sighed, reluctantly stirring herself back to wakefulness, "that it wasn't your wish to be saddled with a shiki. But I like to think we've made a pretty good run of it, given the circumstances. You don't feel disfigured around your associates because of me, do you?"
He did at first, but now? "Eh, I don't know if I'd go that far. I kinda think the stripes make me look badass."
"Damn straight, they do," the black lion agreed. Terazuma couldn't help a little smirk. "I suppose if I were a different element type we might be a little more compatible. Or were I male."
That was a weird thought. "Nah, that's okay. I don't really go in for the bromance thing."
He should have known by now that he didn't need to say anything for her to guess where his train of thought was headed. "You know I like Kannuki, Hajime, I really do." Of course, thatwas the heart of it. "I can't help it if I'm a little jealous and have to blow up from time to time."
"Jealous?" Terazuma snorted. "You're a god, and you're jealous of a human girl?"
"Ah, but she's not just any human girl, is she?" Somehow he didn't think Shungei was referring to Kannuki's skill as a miko, either. "She's your partner, and not just in the staking-out-the-joint, got-your-six sense," the shiki said, earning a little chuckle from Terazuma. "She's the one you've chosen, and it's clear she chose you long ago, too."
"You chose me long ago. Long enough we might as well be common-law married."
"Yeah." A pout. "But it isn't the same, is it? You and me had lots of fun the first time you came here—boy, did we have lots of fun!"
Just the memory of his first visit to Gensoukai caused Terazuma's blood to run hot within him. The crazy fights the two of them had, and the resentment he'd harbored for her and Tsuzuki, whom he'd both seen as complicit in roping him into this relationship he never asked for. Not to mention having his bones jumped in more than one way by the black lion.
Yet somehow, despite the special level of Hell he had believed himself in then, as he adjusted to sharing his body with her alien qi, now Terazuma could look back on the awkwardness and drama of it all and almost laugh. Though he supposed Shungei's rather more sunshine-and-rainbows way of remembering it might have been exerting some influence there as well.
In life, with a promising career with the police force ahead of him and little time for a personal life, he would never have believed that a woman like Kagan Kokushungei could be attracted to him on any level. But then she wasn't just some woman. And what she had been attracted to was a side and a strength he didn't even know at the time he had in himself. Truth was, he had to give the shiki credit for pulling it out of him. In a way, she'd made him the man Kannuki had fallen for, even if she'd simultaneously been the biggest hurdle in their relationship.
"But it was never going to be romantic. It's hard to be romantic when you share the same skull. Luckily, yours had plenty of room for both of us. And still with room to spare for one more, if you wanna use this visit to make it a party!"
"Hey!" Terazuma said. Although he wasn't entirely sure whether she was insulting his intelligence or suggesting a threesome.
Shungei laughed. But he couldn't help the feeling that there was hurt behind it as well, and not just the aches and pains she still griped about from the toxin working through her system. She might have been out of range of communication during his convalescence, but Terazuma was sure she had been right there along with him for every bit of the ride. He could only imagine what it must have been like. Like a night terror, or demonic possession or blowfish poisoning—able to see and hear and feel everything Terazuma did, but unable to react in even the most minimal way.
And here he'd seen her silence as his opportunity to finally cement the affection and the longing that had been building between him and Kannuki. The last week had passed like a whirlwind, albeit the best whirlwind in his entire afterlife, but at the time he had spared little thought for anyone's needs or wants but his and his partner's. Forgetting that Shungei was still there. Forgetting that she was suffering. Forgetting that on top of everything else, she could feel every kiss and touch and climax just as well as he could, but couldn't do a damn thing about it.
His train of thought must have shown. "Hey," Shungei cooed, "why the long face all of a sudden?" She straddled his lap, cradling his face in her long-boned hands which were somehow soft as a kitten's paws despite their lethality. And he felt that the apologetic smile on her lips must have been a mirror image of his own. "If you and me were so incompatible with each other," she said, "would I have been able to take the blow for you like I did? Would I have been able to bear the brunt of your suffering?"
"It hardly seems very fair to ask you to do that."
Her grin twitched, as if she had heard a joke that for once he hadn't. "And yet, I made my choice. And I stand by it. I know I don't treat you like Tsuzuki's shiki treat him—"
"For which I'm glad," Terazuma put in with a roll of his eyes.
"But that doesn't mean you mean any less to me than he does to any of them. I may not always show it, but you are my lord and master," she said to his eyes, to his mouth, "mind and body and soul. Especially body."
He leaned forward and seized her lips before she could say another word. Quite all of a sudden, Terazuma decided the water and Shungei's thighs were hot around him and he didn't want to waste any energy on talking. The muscles of her back tensed beneath his hands like a wild thing about to pounce, but she pulled herself free of his mouth long enough to ask, "S'okay? I know it's been a while, and Kannuki—"
"I don't know." He was fond of his partner. Hell, he might as well admit he loved her and had for a while, even if he was generally pretty bad at showing it. What they had was the result of the trust forged by hundreds of cases: witnessing humanity at its most desperate, and learning it was OK to rely on the other when that became just too much. The last thing Terazuma wanted now was to hurt Kannuki in any way; but at the same time, he couldn't help feeling what he had with Shungei was something different. And not just because the shiki had gotten to him first. "It's gonna sound weird," he thought aloud, "but somehow this feels more like masturbation than cheating."
Apparently that was an answer Shungei was happy to hear. A purr in his ear: "Why don't we go back inside."
"I thought you were looking forward to soaking your aching bones," Terazuma teased.
The canines grazing his earlobe told a different story, however. "I've been looking forward to this even longer."
She hopped up onto the boulders and padded back toward the open doors of their quarters. Terazuma watched her leonine tail switch against the backs of her bare legs as she went, knowing there probably should have been something wrong with finding that arousing. But that was a quandary he could worry about some other time.
The gentle tinkling of a bell hanging in the eaves slowly tugged Hisoka from his sleep.
It was a minute before he remembered where he was: in a spare room of Rikugou's manor within Tenkuu. In Gensoukai. And it was morning.
The morning after the afternoon he had lain down for what was meant to be a brief nap. Had he been back in Enma-cho, the shame of neglecting his duties would have been too much to allow him the luxury of so much sleep. But here, he was barred from that world and all its troubles by a metaphysical wall he hadn't the wherewithal or access to break through.
And sleep was something he had obviously needed. It might have been the first night of genuine rest Hisoka had gotten in several months, with no dreams of Tsuzuki or Muraki to terrorize his unconscious mind. Maybe the process of being digitized had something to do with it, but it was also the first morning he could remember in the last week and a half in which he had not awoken feeling like he was battling fever; the last traces of the widow-spider toxin seemed to have vanished from his bloodstream.
From its painted panel on the wall beside the bed, a beautifully rendered houou bird looked benevolently down on Hisoka as he got his bearings. Its variegated feathers shone where the morning sun touched the gold leaf that laced them. It reminded Hisoka of Suzaku's suggestion he try to find some shiki for himself while he was here.
Before his growling stomach turned his thoughts elsewhere. Even in Gensoukai, he still had to eat.
He found Rikugou seated in a room overlooking his courtyard garden, his figure draped in the same shapeless robes Hisoka had ever seen him in. A table set with rice and broiled fish for two sat beside him.
He seemed to know Hisoka was there before the boy made a sound. Then again, the eye in his palm was open and staring at Hisoka around the body of his tea mug, which the astrologer held carefully with the tips of his fingers.
"I was just about to come and see if you wanted some breakfast," Rikugou said, turning around to face Hisoka with his normal set of eyes. "But then, I had a premonition that you would come looking for me, rather than the other way around." He gestured to the vacant cushion on the other side of the table. "Won't you join me?"
Hisoka hardly knew what to say to that. He thanked the astrologer as he sat, and picked up his chopsticks. It seemed like the polite thing to do, so he apologized for being a selfish guest and sleeping so much the day before.
Rikugou chuckled quietly at that. "No need to apologize when it was clearly needed. I trust you're relieved of a little of what ailed you?"
"Yeah." The chopsticks paused. There was something suspicious about that smile. "You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"
"You should give yourself more credit," the other said, "and never underestimate the power of a good night's rest. Although I have heard it said that even the very air in Gensoukai is restorative."
Hisoka supposed he could see that. Even the plain white rice tasted better, as if under enchantment. Or else it had been coded that way, someone's overcompensation for masking the reality that each grain of rice was in fact digital.
"Unless that air is a flowering wind," Hisoka said.
Rikugou blinked behind his glasses, as if wondering where this dark line of talk had come from; but Hisoka could not believe that old prophecy had not been on his mind lately, ever since Hisoka had reappeared here.
He put down his tea, and sighed. "I should not have let Byakko say those things to you the other night," he said to Hisoka. "You came here with worries aplenty already, you didn't need any more added to your conscience."
"I'm glad he said it. I have a right to know what damage I caused."
"But that's just the thing," Rikugou said, holding stubbornly on to that patient smile. "Are you responsible? I have my doubts what you did caused any significant change to a sequence of events that was long foretold."
"But Sohryuu thinks it was my fault," Hisoka shot back. "Genbu apparently thinks so. How many others here just have to see my face or hear my name to curse it as the one responsible for what's happening to their world? No, Rikugou. The tengu were right. I let Kurikara escape from his prison, I'm the reason your kingdom is at war right now—because of my pride, because I just had to have the most powerful shikigami anyone could think of."
"A first-timer's mistake," Rikugou said with an excusing shake of the head. "And his name was in your list of matches. You could not have known what would happen."
"But you did. Didn't you?" The astrologer just sat there, unblinking behind his glasses while Hisoka accused him. "Tsuzuki knew. That's why he tried to stop me. Only you all should have tried harder."
"Everyone has to try for themselves where their personal matches are concerned. We had no right to physically stop you."
"Well, then I should have listened better!" Hisoka got to his feet, unable to sit there another second longer and listen to the one man who should have known better than to make excuses for him. "The point is," he said, hand over his heart as though the gesture might convey his sincerity to the other, "I made this mess. And so long as I'm stuck here, I ought to try and do something about it. It was my fault, it's my responsibility."
"Now, hold on." In another second, Rikugou was standing before him, though Hisoka noticed he would not go so far as to reach out a hand to stop him. As if even he is afraid to touch me—as if my very presence is poison to this place. "You're not actually planning to try to fix this."
Hisoka met his stare boldly. "That's exactly what I mean to do."
"Well, I mean it can't be done! How do you propose to fix a war in the first place—you, who couldn't control his own temper before a dragon lord?" Rikugou began to pace, but now Hisoka could see his true feelings emerging from behind the diplomatic facade. "Do you think you can un-burn the districts Kurikara's forces have razed? Do you think you can mend the hearts that have turned against us?"
"If I can just go back into the Floating Desert and find Kurikara—just to talk with him—"
"And do what? Convince him to put aside his differences with Sohryuu?" A bitter laugh escaped Rikugou. "Hisoka, your 'talking' to him is how this all started in the first place! You barely survived your last encounter with him—no one's even sure how you managed to survive it, and yet you're so eager to go back for more? Do you honestly think this time the outcome will be different—that he won't try to fix his mistake of letting you live the second he lays eyes on you?"
Hisoka's fists clenched at his sides, though he bit back a retort. How could these gods know, in their gilded cage that was Gensoukai, what he had gone through? They fought their battles over principles, wounded each other only to regenerate and go back for more, but they had no concept of real pain. They had no clue what it was like to be mortal and suffer. To lose.
"Only talking was never really your plan, was it?" Rikugou went on with a sneer. "It wasn't then, and I know better than to believe that would be your only reason now. You want a powerful shiki, and you will not rest until you have the most powerful one there is."
That isn't what this was all about, Hisoka wanted to yell right back. He had changed. He understood now that there was more to holding on to such power than just having it.
"But are you willing to pursue this damned-fool goal of yours until it destroys you? How many times do you have to be knocked down, Hisoka, until it's enough? What will it take to make you understand: Even you have a limit. This war, this Kurikara business—it's a distraction! Pay no attention to it! You're here for one reason and one reason only, and you can't help Tsuzuki if you're dead!"
"I can't do this alone!"
That was the crux of it, Hisoka realized in the moment of silence that followed his outburst: the truth that he'd been holding back and holding back these past several months without realizing it was there. As if he had known just saying it, just admitting it to himself, would make it finally sink in: that Tsuzuki didn't want to be found. He wasn't coming back on his own accord. Not for anything or anyone.
And certainly not for me.
Tears stung his eyes, threatened to overflow, and Hisoka masked them with a bow.
"Please, Rikugou," he begged, not sure what he was even begging for, but just trying to hold on to the words, to make them clear. "Everyone keeps telling me that I'm the only one who can find him, but I'm not strong enough to do it. After all these years, after all this time together, I haven't grown at all. I can't read his thoughts, I have no idea where he would be or what he'd want me to do. I can't even keep a Level One shiki, for goodness sake! I know I'm not strong enough to win someone like Kurikara, and I'm certainly not worthy, but I don't know what else to do!
"I'm desperate. Don't you see that? I've tried everything else and I'm out of options! You people tell me to go back to the outside world, when all I can see up there is Enma getting closer and closer, and no matter how I try, I know if I keep going after Tsuzuki the way I am now, I'm going to fail. We're all going to fail, and lose him, and I can't—"
He sank to his knees then, although not entirely out of supplication; he was not sure that would have made a difference to a being like Rikugou. Only the ache in his chest was too great to bear, as if some knife he'd gotten used to being there had suddenly been violently wrenched and twisted around. His fists tightened on top of his thighs to keep from grabbing at his heart. There was nothing he could do for this pain and hopelessness, no way he could pull it out.
I can't lose him again, not like this. Not knowing I didn't do everything I could have to prevent it. I couldn't live with myself if I have to watch him suffer on account of me, and my weakness. My selfishness.
"Please." Voice small, he bowed his head. Clasped his hands together and held them, trembling, against his brow. "We both want the same thing, for Tsuzuki to come home safe. But I'm just not strong enough to do it on my own. Rikugou, I need help."
Silence greeted Hisoka's pleas. So absolute, he feared for a moment he had gotten his wish and slipped through a wormhole once again to that quiet desert. Slowly he forced himself to look up, wondering if he would find a look of shock or disgust on the astrologer's face for behaving so pathetically.
So it was Hisoka who was surprised to see the grave determination in Rikugou's eyes—not only the pair behind his spectacles, but those that stood open and staring on his brow: inhuman and glowing with a faint fire, like the roiling surface of the sun when viewed through a filter. His variegated robes, cheerful in other lights, seemed alien now, impossible to pin down, like a psychedelic hallucination or a color out of space. Before, Rikugou's face had been one that reminded Hisoka somewhat of Watari, benevolent, rarely ever nothaving a kindly smile upon it, and so he could be forgiven if he had treated the astrologer in much the same fashion.
Only now that smile struck him as cruel. Shades of Muraki played across it. And why should Hisoka expect anything less? This was not a man standing before him, or even a shinigami. If that smile resembled the anticipatory licking of lips of a leopard about to pounce, it should not have come as any surprise. This, Hisoka had to remind himself, was a god. And before a god, he was prey.
"Then, it's decided," the astrologer said, and it seemed to more than Hisoka, though they were the only ones present. Unless one counted the trees, the manor, the universe itself. "I knew this was a possibility from the day I first laid eyes on you, though I could have no knowledge then of the circumstances under which it would arrive. I will not lie to you, Hisoka: This will push you in ways you are as yet unaccustomed, and if you cannot adapt, there is a good chance you may not survive. Only I do hope you do, for Tsuzuki's sake as well as your own."
Hisoka could only dumbly shake his head. "What are you talking about?"
"This is the challenge I put forth to you," Rikugou said, "to test if you are worthy of this guardian."
Before Hisoka could ask what he could possibly mean by that, the floor between their feet sank away and expanded before his eyes with lightning speed, spiriting Rikugou away in one direction without stirring a corner of his robes or a hair on the shiki's head, until he was little but a distant figure on an impossible horizon.
Hisoka shot to his feet, intent on following the god and getting an explanation, but a shoji screen snapped shut before him, cutting him off from the vast distance that now separated them.
And when he looked around, he saw himself surrounded by identical doors on all four sides. The richly furnished Chinese-style sitting room where he had been but seconds ago had disappeared, leaving a stark, ten-foot square tatami room in its place.
