Disclaimer: See previous chapter for the depressing details. --;;
Notes: Beware of Tasuki-language, angst, and complex resurrection rituals. And, kids, I don't care if you are a certified genius with tragic past issues, do not try this at home. ^_~.
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2. Resurrection.
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"Chiriko, this is fuckin' nuts. Listen to yourself! You don't really think this's fuckin' possible,
do ya?"
Despite Tasuki's protests, they'd reentered the inn, slipped past their near-catatonic companions, and then trekked upstairs to the room Chiriko shared with Mitsukake. The boy, after tugging shut the window curtains and bolting the door, had dropped a doeskin satchel onto the floor, flopped down beside it, and begun pulling out various objects--candles, flint, a pouch of sand, and three small, round black stones.
Now, the young seishi was spreading the candles around him in a rough circle, his legs folded carefully beneath him, his brow slightly furrowed as if in concentration.
"Tasuki-san." He sounded weary.
"Do you...do you want Nuriko-san back?"
Tasuki pressed his back up against the wall, arms
folded over his chest, and stared at the boy with pain in his eyes. "Of...of course, I want 'im
back," he admitted quietly.
"But...but, shit, Chiriko, this isn't gonna work! It's
fuckin' nuts!"
The boy stared at him placidly. "Tasuki-san, please keep your voice
down. And--" He sighed.
"--if it doesn't work, then what's the harm? But...but, if it works... If it works, Tasuki-san..."
The flame-haired bandit bit down on his lower lip and looked away. "It's not fuckin' gonna work," he mumbled.
And, suddenly, Chiriko was standing there in front of him, small hands clutching at the sides of his shirt, eyes wide and urgent and wavering with...tears? "Tasuki-san," Chiriko exclaimed. "Please. I-I can only do this once and if you keep talking, you'll distract me and then it might not work and I can't let that happen!" The boy stood there for another moment, frozen, and then he seemed to realize just what he was doing and took a long step back, disentangled his fingers from the bandit's tunic. "Sumimasen," he whispered. His head was bent towards the floor, the waver of candlelight casting one side of his face into shadow. "Sumimasen. Demo...Nuriko-san can't stay dead. W-We need all the seishi."
Frowning and feeling a little shaky, Tasuki took a small step forward, paused just beside the ring of candles to stare down at his young companion. The boy had folded his legs beneath him again and was drawing flame onto the last two wicks, murmuring words that were too soft to hear. It was difficult not to notice the way the small fingers trembled as they moved, or the slight quiver that had crept into the boy's voice.
"Ch...Chiriko," Tasuki managed after a moment. He dropped onto his knees on the splintery floorboards, raised a hand to touch the child's shoulder. "Wha...what's goin' on with ya, huh, Chiriko? I mean...I want 'im back, too, but...but, seriously, this is nuts. It's fuckin' impossible. Once you're dead...you're dead."
Chiriko went rigid beneath his hand, and the low murmurs stopped. When he spoke, he kept his eyes on the floor, his face turned frontwards and away from Tasuki. "Iie," he said, very clearly. "Iie, Tasuki-san. I'm going to bring him back." The bandit was aware of the child's fingers moving, slid forward so he could glimpse just what he was doing--
And, froze. There, pressed between Chiriko's fingers, was the glossy, otherwordly parchment that Miaka had captured all of their images on--a photograph, she'd called it. Except, Chiriko was slicing at it with the blade of a small knife, tearing away at the material in neat, precise strokes. Once this task was completed to his satisfaction, the boy crumpled the rest of the photograph into a noisy ball, then tossed it over his shoulder and let it roll beneath Mitsukake's bed. Tasuki, however, didn't see where it landed, as his eyes were locked on what remained in the boy's shaking fingers.
It was Nuriko.
He looked...so happy. One slim hand was pressed to the side of his face, cupping the curve of his cheek--the bracelets that Miaka now wore glittered from his wrists, hinting at their power while emphasizing, at the same time, the excessive thinness of the wrists they adorned. The eighteen-year-old's hair, meanwhile, hung in soft violet tufts about his face, and his eyes were squeezed into slits of pure, unshadowed happiness.
The familiar lump formed in his throat, and he had to sit back. "Wh-what's that for?" he breathed.
Chiriko didn't look at him, and his voice was so soft as to be nearly inaudible. "It's to guide the magic to Nuriko-san's spirit." He lifted the Nuriko-shaped photograph, placed it carefully between the three stones so it stood upright. Next to it, he dropped a tiny clump of violet hair that he'd drawn from his pocket--a part of Nuriko's braid?? When had he...?
"I'm ready to start, Tasuki-san," Chiriko said quietly. "Could you go stand by the door and make sure no one comes in?"
A slight breath of air swept in from behind them, made
the candles waver. "Too late, na
no da."
Startled, the pair spun. Chichiri stood with his back pressing against the closed--and, still bolted, for that matter--door, arms folded lightly over his chest. His mask was off and nowhere to be seen, thus giving the two seishi a more-than-telling view of the sorrow and grief and pain dragging at his features.
"Ch-Chichiri-san!" Chiriko exclaimed a
little breathlessly. "B-Boku
w--"
"Iie no da," the monk said. His voice were soft, as if he couldn't find the will to speak any more loudly, but it cut through the boy's words as effectively as if he'd shouted. "Iie. Chiriko...you can't do this no da."
The boy slapped his hands down onto the floor, bent over
them and let out a frustrated breath.
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" he demanded. "I-It's like no one wants him
back!"
Tasuki winced.
"Fuck, that's not it!
O...Of course, we want 'im back.
But...but, this is crazy!"
Azure bangs dangling over his eternally-closed eye,
Chichiri took a few steps forward. His
arms dropped to his sides as he moved, and Tasuki was startled to see the
collection of half-moon-shaped wounds on the monk's forearms. They looked like the imprints
of...fingernails?
"Chiriko," the monk said gently, "we're all upset no da. We're all grieving. But, we have to move on. Nuriko is dead--he's been returned to the sky, to Suzaku. To take him back for our own selfish reasons no da...it would be wrong."
Tasuki blinked. "You...you mean it's fuckin' possible? We could..." His words fizzled out, and it was a long moment before he could find them again. "We could really bring him back?"
The reddish brown eye snapped shut. "Hai no da. It's possible."
"Well, fuck, why don't we, then!? Shit, I didn't think we could
actually... We gotta bring him
back! 'Chiri, you know he'd fuckin'
want us to bring him back!"
"It's not...that simple no da."
"Simple? Simple?" Tasuki leapt to his feet, determination churning like flames in his eyes, and advanced on the monk, grabbed onto his collar and tugged it upwards. "He can fuckin' bring Nuriko back, and you don't want 'im to? Why? Fuckin' why?"
The monk's eyebrows pushed against each other, and his
lips pulled just slightly downwards.
"Because," he murmured, "dying is not like sleeping no
da. It...changes a person. If we brought Nuriko back, there's no
guarantee that he would be the Nuriko we knew na no da. And, there's a very good chance...that he
would hate us for it."
"Hate us?
Why the hell would he?"
The eye flared open, bored into Tasuki with flames of
its own. "He feels no pain now,
Tasuki. He feels no heartache and no
anger and nothing but happiness and contentment and peace. If we were to bring him back...he would have
to leave all that no da. He would have
to leave his...his sister. And,
there is no guarantee, once a soul is pulled back from the Sky, that it can
ever go back no da."
Tasuki's fingers went limp, dropped from their hold on
Chichiri's collar and thudded down to his sides. "You mean..."
His voice was very soft.
"You mean, if we brought 'im back...he might not be able to...to
get back up there again when he died?"
"Hai no da.
If Nuriko's soul were brought back now, there's no telling what would
happen if he were killed again. He
might just...fade away into nothingness no da.
There's just...too much at stake no da, to risk trying to bring him
back. It would b--"
He broke off.
The breath seemed suddenly to be stilled in his lungs, and his eye to be
frozen in a wide, unseeing stare--he looked, Tasuki found himself thinking,
almost exactly as Miaka had when she'd been encased in ice by the Genbu
shichiseishi. He was just opening his
mouth to ask the monk what was going on when it hit him.
Chiriko. They'd...they'd forgotten about Chiriko.
Tasuki spun, following the shocked stare of his companion, and felt the breath trickle from his lungs in a flood of dry, stale air. Chiriko had turned away from them, now sat with his back to them, his hands moving slowly through the air in a pattern of distinct, rhythmic symbols. And, if the low, barely-audible hum was anything to judge by, the boy was chanting.
"Shit!" he cried. "Shit, Chiriko, sto--"
A hand clamped over his mouth, muffled the rest of his
words. "Quiet na no da," came
Chichiri's tense whisper in his ear.
"He's already begun the ritual.
If anything interrupts him, now...bad things could happen to Nuriko no
da."
"But...but, what about what you said--??"
"Shh. There's nothing to be done about it now, no da. It's..." The monk gave a heavy sigh, and Tasuki couldn't help but notice the hopeless anguish that crept into his tone. "It's too late."
~*~
Notes: Big gomen ne that this chapter is so short. The reason it is is because...well, it's not finished yet. ^_~. However, I wanted to post it simply because I'm not sure when I'll be getting the chance to write more. Thus! Here it is. Part 2 of Chapter 2 will be up as soon as I write it. Until then, dooooo leave a revieeeeew and Iiiii'll love youuuuu. Arrigato. ^_~.