Summary: There is no war in Ba Sing Se, or something like that. Yukio is seeing things, but that shouldn't be unusual, except they look like Rin, and he hasn't talked to Rin in days.

Notes: Merry Christmas/ Christmas Eve lol I seem to make a lot of updates around the holidays when I'm supposed to be bonding with family lmao Sometimes the call of fic is stronger.

Song of the Chapter: Lose Your Soul by Dead Man's Bones


"It's all dead-ends!" Shiro snarled around the pen in his mouth, yanking it out and using it to stab at the scribbled mess he'd made of his notes.

Yuri hung her head, not wanting to agree with him–one of them needed to keep positive in the face of overwhelming loss–but knowing they had been running in circles for weeks pouring over squeaky clean records and tight book-keeping.

If they hadn't known for a fact that illegal shipments were being made somehow, some way, and that the new drugs on the market definitely had to come from somewhere, they would have called it quits and gone home to their sweet cat who must have forgotten all about them by now, must have been feeling abandoned, alone and mournful and…

She scrubbed at her eyes, knowing when she started speaking Shiro's words in her mind that she was truly tired. The truth beneath his surface-level complaints wouldn't leave her, though. They had to get home soon because their boys were waiting for them, and she needed to assure herself they were safe after seeing what she had recently.

At least things back home were safely handled so that they could work. Shura was a bright woman who'd taken to her position naturally and kept a smooth-running operation when they needed to leave for cases like the one currently giving them the run-around. The boys knew who to go to if they needed help.

"No one's talking," Yuri said to bring herself from her constant thoughts. Though it was old news they'd gone over multiple times by now. Not even the voices came in she usually used to find who would help them, and who was only interested in maintaining the lies.

"It's like they're so afraid, or so doped up they'd never reveal their source."

A shudder went through Shiro's frame at her words, and Yuri mirrored it.

"If I never have to step another foot into that tourist trap," he muttered in revulsion. It was a true revulsion, too. Not one brought on by something mildly annoying, but utterly reprehensible.

So many smiling faces, and all of them terrifyingly empty of anything but euphoria.

But the drug left their system too fast, the effects lingering long after any traces remained.

"We have to," Yuri said for her own benefit, using it as a way to bolster her mental defenses she knew were getting frayed the longer they were on the case. "Those people are relying on us. There's something horribly wrong here."

The pen wound up tossed to the table and Shiro stood with a growl, hand scrubbing his face. Yuri joined him in gathering their things to head back to the town surrounding the lab. Her chest ached, and she missed the warmth that the start of winter had long chased away.

She missed the fire that used to accompany her into the thick of even their worst cases, guiding her like a wil-o-wisp in the dark until she'd discover the one thing they needed to solve them and letting them go home.

And she missed her boys.

"Another lukewarm continental breakfast?" Shiro said in the usual way he dealt with a bad situation, with grace and poise.

Yuri couldn't stop the smile or flutter in her heart, nodding and playing along. "Well, their eggs might pass inspection with enough hot sauce and shredded cheese."

"Not by a mile," Shiro scoffed, scowling at the buffet. "Rin would throw a fit and teach those guys a thing or two and this would become the best known motel for its breakfast in the whole damn district."

That he would, and also it showed their boys weren't far from Shiro's thoughts, either.

It really had been too long.

"Ready to head into the first layer of hell?" Shiro said when they'd finished and arrived at the town. Already she could hear the sounds of laughter just a hair too wild to be natural. It made her shudder with a fear she couldn't find a match for except in her most surreal nightmares.

"Welcome to Inarizushi!" the same woman–or possibly a woman who they'd cloned in a lab somewhere the same as the last dozen who had greeted them–said as she offered them the multi-colored food-stall coupons that they had piles of in their motel room.

Everyday, it was the same, like a carousel that kept spinning faster and faster and they were the only ones who noticed they hadn't gotten off yet, hadn't been allowed to leave.

If their tests they'd had conducted at their labs back home had come back with even a hint to something, or if they'd been able to find at least one of the people who had gone missing here, then maybe…

But they hadn't, so they had to keep looking.

"Thank you," Yuri said with a smile just as wide until she thought her lips would crack. "And if you could point us in the direction of a manager here, we would really appreciate it."

"Oh." The woman's smile never changed, she kept pressing her hand with the coupons at Shiro. "Well, I'm the manager here, how may I assist you, ma'am?"

Yuri tried not to let the way she'd said that unflinchingly, when the last few women they'd asked over several days had responded the same, throw her from her task. Instead, she ran through the usual questions, who was their employer, could they tell them anything about the missing people in the town–they couldn't, it was sad, but many people went missing in such busy towns, such a tragedy–did they know anyone who was related to the missing persons still left in the town who might talk with them? Any friends of theirs?

She didn't.

"Thank you for your time," Yuri said, not letting her frustration or disappointment show.

"Do another sweep of the town?" Shiro sighed when the woman had left with her brightly-colored coupons for the next guests to arrive.

"Can't hurt," Yuri said and began in another quadrant. They tried to change up their route each time, though the town had a million little alleys and nooks to sweep into that they kept finding the longer they stayed, and more cropped up every day.

Their steps drew them past stalls with food so beautiful Rin would have cried to see it, especially after the continental breakfast.

But, if Yuri's voices had all but left her, they'd been loud and clear about not touching a grain of the food in the stalls, even if, once again, tests came back negative for any tampering with the samples they sent in.

Poison dart frogs and venomous snakes came to mind, she thought, and shuddered.

Eyes seemed to follow them on their path, though they were surrounded by so many that to pick out who watched them was an impossible feat, one Yuri wasn't sure would make sense if she uncovered the answer anyway.

What was worse, were the people they questioned on the streets.

"Oh, we've been here our whole lives!"

"We're on our honeymoon, we never want it to end!"

"Don't care, have you tried this amazing food?"

Horrible. Horrifying. Yuri wanted to pull her hair out and scream, anything to escape the worst sleep paralysis she'd ever found herself trapped in.

Thinking about the missing people they needed to find and the trail of money they'd followed here, she knew they'd be in this nightmare town as long as they had to.

Variation didn't exist, despite the chaos that suggested it should. Everyone wore the same ecstatic smiles and the colors blurred until Yuri thought her eyes must be as glazed as the people beside her in the side-street.

Look.

She stopped, Shiro noticing immediately and pausing with her as she listened.

Look.

Where? Her gaze traveled the length of the street, scanned over the crowds constantly moving in a dizzying stream of patterns and colors.

The noise faded as Yuri felt her gaze fall in a natural conclusion to one point of stillness in the crowd, a rock that stood alone amongst the shifting waters of the river.

Plain clothes, a simple hair cut, eyes that weren't glazed.

A young woman.

Something so complete in its sheer normality that she wouldn't have shown at all amongst other crowds. This crowd, though, with its wild colors and confusing whirl, she was the one thing that did.

Yuri started towards her without thought, knowing she would be the key to their case. The girl bolted, her eyes widening on them as if she hadn't realized she'd been spotted. Luckily, Shiro was on the hunt, and he loped ahead of Yuri like the most dedicated hound.

While Shiro bound ahead, Yuri focused on keeping up, her short legs always ten paces behind his as she ignored that she most definitely wasn't built for quick bursts of speed to try keeping the girl in sight. They passed alleys and numerous bolt holes and Yuri knew it would only take a moment before they lost her and had to hope they could find her again.

Her lungs ached, but she found the breath to call for the young woman.

"Wait! Please!" A glance showed the girl ran with the whites of her eyes visible in a display of true fear. "We want to help. Please!"

Whatever was in Yuri's voice stuttered the pace the woman ran at and allowed Shiro to reach an arm out to cut her off, a whoosh of breath forced from her lungs as she ran straight into him trying to turn a corner.

"Hey!" Shiro grunted, "Calm down, what's the matter with you?"

Yuri panted as she caught up and raised her hands, making herself look smaller and trying to focus the attention on her. "Shh, please relax, you're safe."

Other meaningless words left her lips, keeping the tone soothing and steady until the panic began to recede from the woman and she stopped looking quite so animalistic in her terror. After a while, Yuri could put her hand on the trembling shoulder, feeling for the moment she could be sure she wouldn't bolt again as she rubbed her back and kept speaking.

"Are you ok?" she said with a dart of her eyes up to Shiro's to let him know they were almost in the clear.

A sharp nod came along with an inhale that shivered from the woman's lips before she met Yuri's carefully neutral gaze and she thought it was safe to release her.

"Please," Yuri began after Shiro slowly backed away and the woman stood in a sway of her body, likely dizzy after the frantic chase she'd just experienced. "Can you tell us what's going on here? We want to help, but we need information, and you're the first person who looks…sane."

Which might have been generous, now that Yuri looked closely.

Makeup could only help hide the bags under the brown eyes so much, signs of exhaustion in the whites where vessels shown in stark contrast. Her nails had cracked from what could have been biting or just lack of nutrition making them brittle, and her brown hair that would have been a cute bob cut had a straw-like quality because of the split ends.

"I can't help," the woman said, exhaustion and gravity weighing her shoulders down.

"What's your name?" Shiro said, not unkindly, using the voice he tended to bring out when Rin or Yukio needed it from him, something comforting because it said he would stand between them and the rest of the world.

"It's Paku," she said, "Noriko Paku. And I can't help you, but my friend can."

Hope began to kindle from the spark Paku's discovery had struck. They'd found their crack in the case, they just needed to keep digging.

"Your friend?" Yuri said and made her voice stay even despite the excitement running through her body. "Can you take us to them?"

A nod, "I can." They left, following her path through the winding streets, Yuri being very careful not to react to the flinches and tension the sight of the crowds caused in Paku.

Her eyes tightened and had gone glassy by the time Yuri realized they were heading up the steps to the Inari Shrine, a temple nestled above the town and where it had gotten its namesake from.

She shared a look with Shiro. They'd been to the shrine several times, but hadn't gotten anywhere with the employees or visitors there either.

What would they find here?

Red fluttered from various fabrics decorating the temple, and chimes rang amidst them to create the impression of a dance around them, like the ones performed at the temple every day. One was in session; Yuri could hear the sounds of the drums and awed gasps of delight in an intent crowd.

Paku parted the cloth and paused, her head turned to the stage she'd revealed, though her face showed nothing, the same sadness that seemed carved into her features unable to be broken by the beauty of the dance being performed.

And it was beautiful. Yuri couldn't help but pause to take it in. Red and white whirled in the shifting fabric of the lone dancer on stage. Dark hair shone almost purple in the lighting where it hung in a traditional ponytail down her spine, though her face was hidden by an ornate fox mask.

The mask glinted with the light it caught when it dipped, and when it rose, Yuri's heart rose with it as if compelled by the graceful sweep of arms in the robe the dancer wore.

Beneath the beat of the drums and the voices in the crowd, whispers caught in Yuri's ears, long used to listening for that deeper level and attuned to pick it up even in the loudest spaces.

These whispers seemed different. Instead of an aimless breeze without intent, they moved as if in unison, as if conducted. The longer she stared, the more she thought the dancer on stage might be guiding the whispers to join in her dance like a maestro in a concert hall.

It was entrancing. She could have sat and listened for hours.

"Yuri," Shiro said and it brought her back to earth.

"Sorry, it's just–it's beautiful," she said and meant it with all of her heart.

There was one real thing in the entire town, and Yuri knew who they were going to see, then.

"She is," Paku said, some of the shadows in her eyes taken away and the ghost of a smile on her lips. But it faded in the next moment and she gestured for them to follow her again.

A door led them backstage, Paku taking them through a series of winding hallways until the sounds from the outside muffled and they wound up in front of a plain door. At Paku's touch, it opened into what Yuri guessed was a dressing room.

"We have to wait for the show to finish," Paku said. She seemed to be steeling herself, shoulders straight-backed when she settled into a chair as she bit at her chapped lips and picked at the edges of her nails.

With nothing to do, Yuri and Shiro chose two other seats.

Some time passed in silence, Yuri knowing Paku wouldn't be made less anxious by small talk and not wanting to break the atmosphere of the room.

Whispering alerted her that it was time, the soft sounds preceding steps that paused by the door before opening it to a face that could have belonged to a porcelain doll. Eyes a cinnamon brown that appeared red under the lights of the room sat beneath two round brows that must have been plucked to that shape to better mimic a traditional style to go along with the red and white robes.

Those eyes went to them in an instant and the brows wrinkled in a scowl of fury as the woman spoke.

"Who are you people? What are you doing in this room?" The eyes flicked to Paku, who winced. "Paku? What is this?"

Yuri began to speak until Paku bowed and cried out. "I'm sorry, Izumo. I just couldn't sit and do nothing. Forgive me!"

"Hey, cool it, there's no need to ask anybody for forgiveness, we're here to help," Shiro spoke up, rising and jerking out his hand to Izumo.

"Inspector Shiro Fujimoto and consultant Yuri Egin." He kept his hand out even at the suspicious glower Izumo wore. "Now, we're here because this town is nuts and there's folks going missing and you two seem like the only ones not under the crazy pills they're keeping everyone on."

"To put it more gently," Yuri said with a smile, "can either of you tell us what is in the food here and how it's connected with the Morningstar labs and the missing persons cases in this town?"

An explosion sent her freezing as Izumo shouted. "Paku! How could you? You know why–you know what's going to happen, why we can't go blabbing to these two idiots!"

Desperation filled her words, and beneath the rage and perfect stage-makeup, Yuri saw someone who was terrified.

Her hand went out to catch the fist Izumo clenched at her side, getting a face carved into a deadly snarl turned on her for her actions.

"I can't tell you anything." The words came out through clenched teeth, and the fist Yuri held trembled, though from fear or anger or a mixture of both, Yuri couldn't tell. "You think I wouldn't have already if I could have?"

"Who's being threatened?" Shiro said, and by the way Izumo's pupils dilated and her hand flinched in Yuri's, she'd say the guess had been right on the money. "We can't protect you or anyone else if no one will give us information."

"And," Yuri added, "whatever they promised you, would someone who's doing all this really follow through on it?"

They never did. She'd seen so many people in desperate situations waiting for promises that never panned out, taken advantage of because they had nothing left to lose but the thing being held over their heads like a carrot always out of reach.

This woman before her wasn't stupid, not if she'd survived under these conditions as long as she had.

"We will do everything in our power to help you," Yuri said slowly, making sure she put every bit of her own promise into it and firming her grip on Izumo's hand.

Izumo stared with her cinnamon-colored eyes and Yuri thought she might be her sons' age.

She nodded once, sharply, and Yuri smiled, heart lighter than it had been for a while now as Izumo began to talk.


Tea swirled in idle turns of the cup in his hands.

Yukio stared, tracking the patterns in the cup.

Back and forth, back, and forth. Back. Forth

Back.

"Everything alright, Mr. Okumura?"

Forth.

"Are you getting enough sleep?" A hand pressed to Yukio's, and he snapped his gaze from the cup, startled from the pattern and smiling on automatic, the one he presented others with when he was having an especially difficult day.

He'd been having them more often, recently.

"Yes, sir, sorry," Yukio said. Lied.

He hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks now.

"Have you talked to your family?" Santoka said with a frown. His face shown with concern, but the patterns in Yukio's tea were more interesting.

"I've been very busy, sir," Yukio said, this time, the truth. "And my parents are on a very important work trip, so we haven't had time to talk."

"And you brother?" Santoka's eyes pierced Yukio with a slow intensity, somehow hazy, like most things were to Yukio now, and glinting with a honey hue that almost took Yukio from the question he'd asked.

And your brother.

"Rin…" Yukio trailed off. When had he last talked with Rin? He glanced at his phone to remember–why was it so hard to remember?

Oh yeah, the nightmares. Yukio resisted the urge to press at his burning eyes as he looked at Rin's messages. The last one had said…

'Are you ok?'

From three days ago.

Below it, nothing. Yukio hadn't responded.

'Are you ok?'

No. No, he wasn't.

Some days, he wanted to see Rin so badly it ached. A childish part of him would think that, if Rin were there, he would fight away the monsters in every shadow and turn to Yukio with a smile and things would be fine. Yukio would be fine, then. His head would be his own, he would sit by Rin at their parent's home and eat a meal together and he would be fine.

Then he'd remember the shadows were always stronger near Rin, the voices louder, the lick of flames at his spine almost a tangible pain, and his hand would freeze over the call button.

Like a coward.

"I think I need to go and prepare for my test later today," he said when he couldn't stand himself anymore, bowing and draining the last of the tea from his cup.

Honey-colored eyes followed him from the room in the form of Santoka's concerned gaze, but all Yukio saw was the ash swirling in the teacup.

Thoughts followed Yukio further than that. His head rang with a whirl of sharp voices that cut through him like knives but barely pierced the haze created by his frayed nerves. Instead, he returned to the ashes he'd just swallowed.

How could they be in his sanctuary? He'd thought he was free from them when he stayed near Todo, and for so long, they had been.

Not recently, though. Recently, his grades had slipped.

Recently, he hadn't gotten more than four hours of sleep a night. Yukio had held tight to his grades through pure willpower, clawing for every piece of goodwill from his professors and hanging on to his scores by his fingertips. His grip was slipping every interrupted night he woke to another vision standing across from him with a gaping mouth that only made wordless screams beneath a crackling fire.

Those dreams were beginning to seem better than Yukio's waking moments.

"When are you going to call, Yukio?"

He flinched and didn't look where the voice over his shoulder had come from. His hand went to his pocket before he clenched it and let it drop again.

"Ignoring me, huh?" Rin said, casual, like it didn't bother him that Yukio hadn't responded in three days. Like they were having a regular conversation and not one only Yukio could hear as he walked through the halls to the next building where he'd have all of ten minutes to prepare for a final he needed to not just pass, but excel in.

"Hey," Rin said, standing in front of Yukio's desk–when had he arrived in his class? When had he sat? Why couldn't he rememb–wearing his favorite hoodie and those ratty jeans he refused to throw out despite the holes in the knees. "When are you gonna tell me you hate me?"

Hate!

His breath pushed through his lungs, squeezed from the pressurized chambers he couldn't tell were full of ash or just a panic-attack because he couldn't tell much of anything apart anymore, let alone reality.

When would he tell Rin he–wasn't okay–hated him? When whenwhenwhenwhenwhe–

"Are you gonna tell mom and the old man?" Rin said, ignoring the way Yukio's pen bled out on the page he'd been making notes on. Except the notes looked less like the laws he was supposed to memorize and more like a single phrase repeating over and over and over–helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme–until the ink ran into the page beneath it and stained there too.

"It's not like you've ever told any of us anything before."

His pen had been blue, but the ink looked red, then black, then a sickening blur of the three that wouldn't settle.

"Maybe," Rin kept talking, walking back and forth, back and forth, his steps leaving ash until the trail darkened the floor in front of the desk. His feet were bare. "Maybe, you're afraid."

"You've always been afraid, remember?" Rin didn't look like Rin anymore. His skin where his hands gestured in those haphazard motions he'd used all their lives together was cracked and blackened.

"The monsters under your bed, the ones in your closet–" the voice whispered in his ear from over his shoulder again, and the lips touching his ears were dry, rasping, but the voice, the voice came out sweet and soft. The voice was Santoka's– "in your head."

"I can't help the ones in your head," Rin shrugged, Santoka shrugged, the burning man shrugged, "but after this long, maybe there's no saving you."

"Maybe," Rin snarled and slammed his blackened palms to the sides of Yukio's desk, "you should just off yourself and die without telling me how much you hate me."

Yukio jerked his head up, pulse juddering through his veins and heart slamming to his fragile ribs.

A door stood before him, his hand on the knob.

It was his parent's door.

When had he–?

"Although, killing yourself is probably the easiest way to let me know how much you hate me, huh?" Rin continued as if dread wasn't filling Yukio's entire body at finding himself several bus stops away and with no clue how he'd done on his final, if he'd even completed it, if he hadn't just stood up and left with his notebook full of the writings of an insane person for everyone to see just how not fine he was.

"I've gone insane," Yukio said in answer to the voices in his head. The empty door stared back at him without response, so at least he wasn't hearing inanimate objects yet, just his brother, voicing all his insecurities and the things he woke to every day. His hand completed the motion.

He'd gone insane, but he still had to feed Kuro.

"It's ok, you know," Rin followed him in, "I can feed Kuro. I'm not afraid of this house."

'I don't need you,' he heard.

Fur brushed Yukio's legs as Kuro wound there, but he couldn't feel it, watching his body move on autopilot to feed him and wondering when he'd lose this moment, too, when he'd blink and wake up somewhere else.

It might be better if he didn't wake up at all.

"Have you made sure you're keeping on top of your duties to your family?" Santoka's voice came next in a gentle reminder that still stung like it'd been shouted.

His hand found the mail that had come in through the slate in the door. Yukio had to make sure it was organized so his parents had less to do when they came home. They'd be so tired–he was so tired–after a case that had gone on as long as the current one had. It was the least he could do to help them in this small way.

Various bills passed by as he shuffled them, coupons, things that could be tossed, and…

Delicate paper in a simple, unlabeled envelope settled to his palm.

The rest of the mail fluttered to the floor around his feet and horror stole Yukio's senses from him faster than he could process that he'd fallen, too.

"You promised me lunch, remember, Yukio," Rin whispered honey-sweet in his ears. A burnt hand smoothed ash over the symbol on the front of the envelope.

"When's the last time you heard from me, again?"

A twinflower bloom in neat black ink vanished beneath the thick ash and his throat filled with it, choking Yukio and narrowing his vision on the calling card resting like a ticking time bomb that threatened to explode and shatter everything of Yukio that he had left until he shattered with it.

"You should read it," Santoka said in a polite suggestion. "It's addressed to you."

Yukio slid his thumb to open the letter and red bloomed on his skin where he'd given himself a papercut.

Inside, a folded paper unfurled in his shaking hands.

Thought about tethers?

Yukio, this is for you,

And one for Rin, too

"When's the last time you heard from me, Yukio?"

Three days.

He hadn't heard from Rin in three days.


End Notes: Oh Shit, Yukio, maybe that'll teach you to communicate better lmao