Chapter 38
"Seekers of Truth"
The Thirteenth Son of Shinigami insisted he wouldn't need a library card, though Heero was adamant against taking anything without permission. Not even the theft of a crummy, badly bound, or badly written book was acceptable. When he had tried to sniff out his own library card from the drawers of his desk, Shini had sealed them by pulling the shadows inside as taut as piano wire, rendering them impossible to open. Heero followed his stubborn husband through the doors of the oldest library in Tokyo with a slight frown on his face, still slightly upset. He did not know it was an expression he would be wearing for quite a time longer.
"What are we looking for, anyway?" he asked with a churlish tone, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"A certain section," Shini answered. He seemed not to notice the grumpy gesture and continued striding through the room, looking intently about. "No one will miss a book from this section, I'm sure. I don't think they could even read it if they did." He stopped at a table where a young middle school girl was reading and snatched the manga book from her hands. As she gave a little shriek of surprise, Shini stuck the pages to his nose and sniffed them.
Heero yanked him to the side and snatched the book from his hand. "Shin!"
The Shinigami crinkled his nose at being scolded, twisted away, his captured arm fading slightly out of existence for a moment, and continued on, still sniffing the air like a bloodhound. Heero quickly apologized to the young girl and tossed the book to her—which she dropped, having not yet recovered from the shock. Watching her for a moment to make sure there'd been no real damage done, the mortal dashed after his husband, catching sight of him rounding a corner towards the nonfiction section.
"Shini!" he called after, trying to keep his voice low. One, it was a library, and there were students trying to read, and secondly, he didn't want to go around shouting his husband's name. "Shinigami, what are you doing?" Catching him by his arm and spinning him about, he put on his best serious face to begin to scold him for being so rude to an innocent girl—only to have Shini blink out of his grip and appear, in mid-stride on the other end of the row.
"Come on, Shin!" he growled. "Stop doing that!"
The Angel of Death grinned. "You're just jealous you're stuck to the ground, Teishu," he drawled and turned around the corner. When Heero had caught up with him, he stood stock still, staring at the carpeting as if it were about to leap up and snap at him. Even his braid of hair, which had begun the supernatural tendency to twitch and float at energetic times, lay still between his shoulder blades. He walked up beside him, choosing not to question the stillness, and saw that the carpet was about to do just that—jump up off the floor.
"What the hell?"
Shini glanced up at him and smiled slightly while he stared at the carpet, twisting and turning as if something alive were trapped beneath it. No one else seemed to see it, though. They read their manga and poorly plotted romance books without the slightest notice to the whirling hole growing between the aisles.
"Didn't I tell you we wouldn't need a card? I found it," the God of Death said, folding his arms happily. "This is the oldest library in Tokyo." He watched Heero's shocked profile for a moment, then broke his stare by snatching up his hand. He gave it a reassuring squeeze before indicating towards the shifting whirlpool of carpet, which had parted the floor to reveal a dark hole, lighted slightly by the glow of distant candles. "Shall we?"
Over the last few weeks of his previously average life, Heero had seen quite a few abnormal and unimaginable things, all with proof of the afterlife as a new spouse, but he could still not squish his mortal awe after all that. A cautious look guarded his dark blue gaze as he looked to the Shinigami, who smirked confidently. He swallowed the small lump of wonder and asked, "So, what book exactly are we looking for? And how is it going to help us get your brother out of the house?"
Shini turned and looked at the hole again. The carpet had slowed to a small, rolling wave, forming into a small stairway done into the glowing darkness.
"Well," he said, tilting his head, "I'm not quite sure yet. But there should be information about how to become more powerful." He flexed his free hand and thin black wisps formed around it, silvery gray stars sparking from his fingertips. "There's a lot of things I would have learned in Hell, so I'll just have to find another way to develop my powers—without asking my mother," he added pointedly. "There must be a book that can help me."
"Whatever we can do to avoid your mother," Heero answered, grabbing his hand even tighter, "I'm all for. One hundred percent."
"Are you two quite done? Ready to come in, or shall the door be open all day?" Both turned at the interruption of a small, squeezed voice from the darkness opened up below them and saw a set of eyes glow up at them. Seemingly afraid to emerge into the light, the entity watched them intently, and spoke up again when they were cautiously silent. "You came for the old tomes, did you not?" The rather wide-set yellow eyes arched one brow at them.
Heero, seemingly affected more by his wonder than usual, only worked his jaw to find his voice in vain. Shini cleared his throat a little and answered. "Yes, we did," though it did not sound as confident as he'd hoped.
The creature seemed to snicker a little. "Then you may come in, Seekers of Truth," the dry, low voice beckoned them, the yellow eyes blending back into the darkness in the middle of the library.
The two newly dubbed Truth Seekers looked to each other in a moment of silent consult, found no reason for particular alarm or danger, and walked up to the hole, where the carpet undulated around the rim like a pacing guard dog. The Shinigami went first and tested out the strength of the steps cautiously. Not surprisingly, the Darkness felt him coming and reached out hungrily toward him, seeking a new and more powerful vessel. Shini could only let it sift in and out his skin without control, and when he reached out for it with his own Darkness as he walked, it would giggle and dodge away, resisting orders of any kind.
At the bottom of the stairs Heero and Shini stood firmly shoulder-to-shoulder, considering the black expanse in front of them. When they blinked, the candlelight light flickered back into life and illuminated the owner of the yellow eyes that had beckoned them down into the dark tunnel in which they currently stood.
The Shinigami tilted his head. "Tortoise?" he drawled, wrapping his head around such a word with some difficulty. He could remember seeing a picture of one in a picture book he'd read in Limbo, and that was what stood before them, hard and stout, wrinkled neck arched up towards them with squinting yellow eyes.
Shini giggled again when he noticed the pair of bifocals on the tip of its reptilian nose, which was quelled by a mild elbow in the side from Heero, trying to signal him it was probably not the best idea to laugh at their host. At this, the Shinigami made a small, annoyed face, and the tortoise gave a dusty, hearty laugh. "Come," he bid, "I can see you are not the patient type. The library is at the end of the corridor."
"No, no, he isn't," Shini grinned.
"Hey! He was talking about you!" Heero answered.
Before he could be caught for the comment, the Angel of Death hopped away from Heero and began following the four-legged librarian, who was surprisingly quick, leaving both walking briskly just to keep his shell in sight. As they passed the candles protruding from the stone and dirt walls, stepping over and ducking plumbing lines at times, they could see the colors of his shell light up—green and brown and purple with golden flecks that caught the light and shined. And another thing—Shini could have sworn he could see another curious set of yellow eyes watching from the back of his shell where a wrinkly tail should have been, but they were gone with a second look. And though he wasn't really frightened, he reached out for Heero's hand.
The corridor seemed to slant slightly downwards as they continued. The tortoise, which still had not seemed to tire, hopped over a water pipe and scurried along. The candles became brighter and more frequent as they went along, growing out of the walls like blazing barnacles. The light from them seemed to reach out to try and touch Heero, and curled away from Shini with a sharp motion, as if he had bitten it. They looked to each other as they walked, but had no time to open their mouths, for they ran into the tortoise. He'd stopped at a large wooden door.
With a sound like bones clattering a bag, he turned his leathery neck clear around to look at them. "Would you be so kind as to open the door? I have to shut it behind me every time someone knocks, but I need the visitor to open for me on the journey back. Makes ding-dong-ditchers especially obnoxious, actually." He even lifted the top of his beak in a strange pantomime of a smile.
Heero untangled his hand to push forward and step cautiously around the round tortoise. His wrinkled neck swiveled to follow him, he noticed with a slight, unpleasant sensation, listening to what sounded like loose bones rattle in his body as he did so. He forced a half smile and reached towards the door latch, a round ring just out of the reptile's reach. The surface was covered with a thick dust and Heero slipped at the first attempt, then dug his heels in and yanked it free.
"Thank you, Mortal," the creature bid, bustling past him as quickly as possible, darting through the doorway as soon as Heero had made a little leeway. An odd yellow-brown light poured out into the corridor, and the candles gave little happy shrieks and the flames grew tall and swayed.
Still standing in the corridor, Shini turned to see that all the candles in sight were giving the same reaction. When he came to stand beside Heero, he noticed that he hadn't made a motion to step through the doorway either, and looked at him with a worried color in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" A hand on the front of his shirt only added to his concerned appearance.
Heero pointed to the air between them, and, as soon as the Angel of Death realized just to what he was indicating, he let out a small gasp and startled backwards. The sudden movement kicked up a wisp of dust into the air, which had suddenly divided itself in to light and dark. Rather strictly, too, Shini would say, as he felt his hair begin to lift around him in the heat of Darkness boiling up from the earth. With his long braid twitching curiously in the air and eartails twisting in the warm, shadowy heat, he almost seemed to lift off his feet—but he was much too busy staring at the opposite side of the fractured corridor, where Heero stood, mired in the conflicting element.
Only a foot away, the dark, murky shadow turned to sharp, clean light, billowing cool and free around him. Heero felt as if someone had suddenly installed an air conditioner in his body and every pore in his skin was an opened window, letting the cold air out into summer's heat. He didn't squint, though, despite it growing suddenly brighter than the afternoon sun, and felt his hair lift weightless around him. True, the Shinigami was made of Darkness, so it was not so surprising to see it condense around him.
But why was he suddenly shining like a lighthouse beacon? As he lifted his hands, noticing they were becoming strangely translucent at the tips of his fingers, they both flinched and turned at the sound of the tortoise's raspy laughter.
"Excuse me, I misspoke. You are not just Mortal," he said, still chuckling while his wrinkled neck shook. "You must be something other than just that. Perhaps your mother was an elf? Or was your father a youkai? Or maybe a combination of the two?"
"What are you talking about?" Heero demanded immediately. He was feeling strangely off-put by this unknown situation and the rattling sound that came every time the reptile moved. "They were nothing like that! They were normal!"
"Ah, but you can see you're not, right?"
"Heero—" Shini had reached a concerned hand out towards him, but as soon as he touched the crossing point of light and dark, he felt an awful buzzing jolt go through him. He gave a shrill yip and stuck it back in his mouth, black and violet sparks flying from where they'd connected.
The tortoise craned his neck towards them, beckoning them to step inside. "Don't worry about that. It's not a permanent thing," he said.
"Well, what is it, then? I'd like to know why I'm glowing like a goddamn Christmas tree!" Heero snapped at him, growing less and less patient the more he felt like a half-floating, air-conditioned house.
"The library must investigate visitors before letting them step inside, that's all. It has analyzed you both and this is how it has chosen to summarize you. The Shinigami is Dark, of course, so that is how he manifests. But you, I would have thought you just a mortal man. But it seems you are not. Otherwise this entire tunnel would be completely dark," the tortoise said. "Don't worry. It will wear off as soon as you step inside. But isn't it nice to know a little something else about yourself, One-Like-A Mortal?"
Heero had nothing to answer to that, only a clenched jaw and his quick step following the reptile through the door to express his irritation, the Shinigami hot at his heels with concern (which manifested itself through the shadows as hovering, frowning ghost faces).
Oh, man, has it ever been a long time. For those of you who believed I abandoned this story... nope. Can't. Just keeps banging on the insides of my head until it's written, though life and time and other annoyingly real things often put themselves in the way of doing just that. Hopefully, it's not too late. It feels like a lot of talent is leaving the Gundam Wing fandom (though, it has been what, over a decade?), but I don't plan to go anywhere. So, here's to a new chapter hopefully as soon as possible! Thanks for reading and all the wonderful reviews encouraging me to continue!