Author's Note: Hey guys, I know it's been a while, but this story is back in action! I blame the hiatus on my end for multiple reasons; burnout, RL issues, computer issues (I'm having to use my tablet for everything now, so working multiple stories is much more taxing), ect. Omni is no longer working on the story for multiple reasons of his own; computer issues, health issues, personally stepping away from the fandom, etc. He and I still talk from time to time, and he encouraged me to get back to this story on my own. I told him since I had people demanding I went back to 'Pyromacy' on completely unrelated stories, I needed to get back to and finish that one first. But, I've been planning to come back here. In the meantime, I have received an offer of assistance from The Maniac Shiki Fan. So, if this chapter feels like a different writing style, it was written almost entirely by The Maniac Shiki Fan on fanfiction . net and I just cleaned it up a little and added input where I felt I had room to do so. I will continue to consult and edit the chapters from now on, and will try to get back into writing a few new chapters for this story as well. As always, I hope you guys enjoy, and comments are welcome. Let us know what you guys think. ^_^
Synopsis: Toshio tries a new experiment on Megumi and Kaori and Akira make an appearance
Shiki: Malpractice
Chapter 9 Chi no Chō
After plunging it right into one of the veins of Megumi's right wrist, Doctor Ozaki stopped on his feet and walked to the other side of the room they are in just to be able to see the whole progress of blood-mixing between a Shiki's veins by using just a packed blood cell or cells that belonged to Natsuno Yuuki or in other words, A Jinrou's blood cells.
An instant reaction came from Megumi's body as a whole... Her body color has started to change from a dead person's chalk-white one, when that process has finally ended. Ozaki saw that her colors before the whole transformation to Shiki and her death had finally returned to her body just by a simple amount of blood-mixing experiment just by him using a syringe that contains the Jinrou blood cells.
"So it was really that simple at the end, huh?" Toshio whistled at the thought that he might have just created a new species by transferring a few blood cells of a Jinrou right into a Shiki's veins just by using the syringes. "I wonder what Seishin would have called this breed?" he quietly laughed to himself, knowing Sunako had pulled the names from his friend's latest masterpiece in progress. "Half Ketsueki seems pretty derivative."
Then, after that was done... another unexpected reaction came from Megumi's body... She woke up! While it was still pretty early for her and other Shiki to wake up. Toshio looked at his watch, still pretty early in the afternoon. "I really regret not thinking to bring the camera down so I can record this as scientific proof it works," he lamented. Her body colour was pretty normal right now, "Maybe that means she is just not dead right now and I somehow managed to make a Jinrou with the technique that I have used?" Toshio thought to himself.
Megumi managed to get up on her legs and started to look around her. "Wha...? What's going on?" she mumbled to herself, "Why am I awake so soon?"
Toshio called out to her from the door just to see if she was truly awake and not simply walking in her sleep. "Good morning, Megumi?"
Megumi frowned at the fact that her name was being actually called out from somewhere around the room and the obvious fact that this was not a dream or nightmare, after all... "Doctor?" She turned and looked up the stairs to see Toshio standing at the door. "Doctor, am I truly awake? What happened?"
Toshio did not flinch in the slightest and kept standing firm near the doorframe. "Well well, you have become an advanced host of that little sickness which have plagued the village. So, how does becoming that even feel?" he asked, leaning on the stair rail, looking down at her, "Is there is anything out of the ordinary which you want to tell to me about?" Toshio asked.
Megumi frowned a bit at the sudden rain of questions from Toshio, but managed to overcome all her adrenaline which was a leftover side-effect of transforming into a Jinrou out of nowhere. "I... I don't feel much different," she said, patting her head, cheeks, chest, hips, and stomach. She blushed a little as she patted her stomach and it rumbled in reply, "Maybe a little hungry, though."
Toshio smiled, as his name for this metamorphosis dawned on him, the word meaning 'Blood Butterfly'. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll bring you down something, my little Chi no Chō."
"Meanwhile"
Natsuno complied with Yoshie's orders for him to sit at the table with her long enough she could fill him in with the information of what happened in Sotoba, and why he and Tatsumi had even lost their memories.
After she was halfway done with telling him what happened in Sotoba, being certain not to leave any crucial detail or truth, to her knowledge, out of her explanation, Natsuno felt mad... and felt a tad bit guilty about the fact that he ruined their only plan to keep their kind preserved. Even if he was still not sad and begged her forgiveness since they probably were equally at fault in this particular case, though.
Natsuno thought about a certain something and got spooked, "So will you try to kill me now that I'm weaker than you and try to get back at me as a means of revenge?!" He clenched his fists against the table, and steeled himself for the reply. He may have been in the wrong, but that part of him that still clung to his old life wouldn't let him take a physical attack lying down.
"Of course not, you stupid dummy!" Yoshie responded, "If Tatsumi and I were going to take you out, we would have done so by now! No warning, not reminding you what you'd done," she stipulated, "And most likely while you were still asleep in bed," she added with a wink and a giggle, "That's the usual Okiagari M.O." Natsuno calmed himself down and sat down at the table once again. Yoshie clapped both of her hands together and made a sound like a bird chirping... "And with all that being said, you have been filled in, completely, just like Tatsumi was!"
However, Natsuno has one more question in store for Yoshie, "So... I will just have to consume a reasonable amount of blood even though I can sustain some of my hunger by just eating normal human food, right?"
Yoshie simply nodded, "That's right," she giggled, as she went for the door to leave.
Natsuno brought the other question that was in his mind on the table... "So, do you hate me that much for attempting to kill you off by hypnotizing Seishirou and ordering him to shoot every Okiagari that was currently in Sotoba, though?"
Yoshie paused, her hand at the doorknob, and looked back at him with an emotionless face that Natsuno could not read. Her eyes suddenly looked as though she was trying to say that she felt indifferent to it. Without another word, Yoshie left and ran straight back to her own apartment, which was right on the same floor and just down the hall.
Natsuno was left sitting there, feeling numb when the girl he'd opened up to left without any direct answer for his little petty confession, after all...
In the Meanwhile
Tatsumi went to donate his blood to the doctor simply to avoid getting him too suspicious of them since both of them were seeing that girl, Yoshie, very often… "Or should I say, Natsuno's dear girlfriend?" Tatsumi mumbled to himself. No matter how profusely Natsuno denied the accusation; Tatsumi could tell Yoshie seemed to like the younger male, and he had his suspicions Natsuno liked her too.
Toshio was watching from the window of the upper floor of the clinic when Tatsumi arrived. He opened one of the windows and called down to invite the Jinrou in. "Wait for me down in the lobby, Tatsumi, I'll be right down!" he called.
Toshio met Tatsumi in the lobby as promised and led the Jinrou right to the experiment room. He could smell lots of urine, sweat, and blood once again. "Eww, it's still gross even after experiencing all this smell just once." Tatsumi thought to himself, as the smell assaulted his nose.
Then, he willingly pulled his shirt sleeve up to his arm and exposed his right wrist to Ozaki just so the doctor could be done with him and get what he wanted. Tatsumi was ready to leave fast and get some additional time to do one of these planning sessions with Yoshie and Natsuno.
Much to his advantage, Toshio quickly drew the blood samples and let him leave as soon as he had managed to grab a pack of his blood cells. Tatsumi noticed the sounds of movement coming from the basement again. However, Tatsumi did not care about that person or who it was at all and rushed out of the clinic to have a meeting with Yoshie when he realized that Toshio probably won't be coming back for at least a few hours, give or take.
He still winded up running as Toshio might really have an unexpected side or sides to him, if what Yoshie mentioned of how the civil war even started… or more precisely, how Shiki's as a whole even got discovered by the villagers were even true.
Toshio stood outside the clinic for a few minutes, taking a drag off one of his cigarettes, watching Tatsumi leave. When Toshio came back inside, he realized that Megumi was standing at the doorway to the stairs. Not having been invited out yet, she was could go no further than the door frame, but there she stood, looking at him with quite the begging eyes. Her eyes were still dark black, but their natural blue was slowly returning and he could see it in them that she was bored sitting down there in the hot, stuffy, dusty basement, when her fellow Okiagari were all still fast asleep. He got a bit soft at that moment and agreed to let Megumi go to the park that was only a few miles away from the clinic. He showed her a map of the area and gave her directions on how to get there. With Sotoba still under reconstruction, the odds that anyone who recognized her would be there would be slim. Toshio strictly told her that she needed to come back within a few hours, even if she was a Jinrou that could walk in pure daylight, however. She simply nodded and agreed as she left the clinic to see that park which she had really wanted to see for a few days by now.
After she managed to put some distance between herself and the abandoned clinic, Megumi clapped her hands and chirped with her mouth, "I am glad you are letting me out and so grateful that you let most of us live in that basement very peacefully, so I will do just as you say... Doctor Ozaki." and left the clinic to go to some of those parks that are nearby.
After a few minutes of wandering around the park as a whole, she suddenly bumped heads with a girl that seemed to be the same age as Megumi herself is.
"Megumi?!" The girl screamed in shock.
Megumi whined. "Great, another one of these peeps that I do not even remember due to my memory loss."
It was one of the people that Megumi was or at least had been well-acquainted with in the past, but yet there she was, in a situation where she could not remember Tanaka Kaori in the slightest.
After a few minutes of silence in-between the two girls, Kaori was the first one to start the conversation once again, after all.
"I almost thought you were… dead back at the village of Sotoba. But… you are here in body and soul… and you can… you c-can even walk in the sun NOW?!" A hard realization hit Kaori as she tried to take in the fact that Megumi, who was supposed to be dead, is alive and standing right in front of her, to begin with. Kaori gave a stifled gasp and covered her mouth, she could feel the threat of tears in the corners of her eyes. "Me...Megumi-Chan..."
Then, all of a sudden… Akira started to rush towards the park and screamed on top of his lungs since he was still far away from Kaori, "Hey there, Megumi…? and Kaori! I have got the ice creams for both of us and I could get you one too, Megum-" Tanaka Akira roared in genuine surprise as he pointed his fingers straight at Megumi. "BWAAAH!"
Akira accidentally dropped both of the ice-creams onto the ground in a moment of shock and screamed out very loudly without even realizing it, and those two ice cream balls made a splashing noise when they dropped onto the ground.
"Goddamn her... that piece of shit killer Okiagari, I will kill her with my bare hands to save you if she forces me to do so, Kaori!" Akira screamed like a hero would and jumped right in between the girls.
Still holding one hand over her mouth, Kaori caught her kid brother's shoulder with the other, "Akira, no! Stay back," she insisted.
Megumi was confused and got a very minor headache from all that screaming from the boy, so she winked with both of her hands to her ears, turned back to be on her way straight to the abandoned clinic of Ozaki since these two were rude to her.
She ran back as fast as she can while both Kaori and Akira watched her actions and were still in shock.
Then, Akira slowly turned around to face Kaori… and frowned his mouth towards her left ear. "Goddamn it, this means that Natsuno or a few others may be alive and kickin' too!"
Kaori shook her head to both sides and responded back at Akira just after a few minutes of being shocked and subconsciously paralyzed, "We don't know that for sure, Akira!" she exclaimed.
"C'mon, Kaori? Don't tell me you pity her after what she's done? What about our parents?" Akira reminded her.
"No, of course not," Kaori refuted, shaking her head, her eyes dotted in tears, "But... It's still Megumi-Chan..." She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands, "I still can't stand to think of her becoming one of those monsters, and to think what she did to Moutou-Kun, just to get at Natsuno-Kun. Seeing her walking around in broad daylight like this..." She sniffled and shuddered.
"The Megumi-Chan you knew is gone, Sis," Akira said somberly, "Natsuno-Nii-San may be gone now, too." The thirteen-year-old gently placed his hands on his older sister's shoulders. "If any of those things are still out there, it's up to us to finish what we started with him," he reasoned.
"I... I know," Kaori nodded, "That's why... How can we even know that they are alive? We need to lurk around this area for… at least a few days to make sure about who is alive and who is not…"
They left the park and went back to their houses after they made a pinky promise with their fingers to come back and lurk around secretly just to find out more things about where any surviving members of Shiki could even be located and then later on… staked to death.