The man stands before his altar, and on its base he bows. He pours blood - lamb's blood, pig's blood, and human blood, not a little of it his own - over the rough stone stone of power, and then steps back to wait.
He need not wait long. The demon he has called appears before him almost anticlimactically, hovering over the alter in amorphous evil, and not bothering to look beautiful because the man did not want it that way. The man falls on his knees in response before it; and then, it speaks.
"Why have you called me here?"
"To fulfill the bargain this blood has wrought, " the man replies, his voice hoarse and almost unrecognizable with fatigue.
"And what is the bargain of this blood?" speaks the demon, forming two almond-slanted eyes - one yellow, one red - because it scares the man and he enjoys it.
"For those who are shinigami," replies the man, rising on his filthy knees and raising rusty hands stained with ichor.
"Shinigami?"
The man's face lifts in triumph. "For Tsuzuki Asato," he says, and clenches his fingers so tightly they crack.
"It will be done. Release me," says the demon; and the man - using means not suitable for description - does.
"Tsuzuki," he breathes, body trembling now with the strain of what he has done. "Soon... soon you will be mine." His voice fills the cavern, echoing in sordid emptiness. "....mine."
And Hisoka awoke with a scream.
Watari loved his job.
All shinigami had, along with the basic bag of magical tricks, a special or unique talent - and Watari's was certainly unique: he had the ability to make drawings, machines, and other inanimate objects come to life. No one was quite sure how he did this; but considering that Watari was a man whose long-term goal was to invent a formula that enabled the drinker to change genders, it was felt by the general public that the wise course was simply not to ask questions.
Which worked just fine for Watari; he didn't mind being alone. He had his machines, and sometimes his drawings, and also, a small, round, pet owl which he kept near him almost all the time. The owl - named 003, perhaps in contrast to the mechanical Bobs and Jasons he had scattered around his workplace - was quite an enthusiast of Watari's work, and had been trained to "clap" its wings together to praise him every time he accomplished something. Watari was completely content.
Hisoka had initially been surprised to find that no one worked alongside Watari. The pervasive optimism that characterized Watari's outlook was apparently disconcerting to some people, which made no sense to Hisoka; to him...
It was like a port in a storm. Even if he'd die before admitting it.
Watari seemed to be incapable of feeling really anything truly negative; no matter what was going on - demons, Muraki, vampires, Muraki, criminals, Muraki - whatever the problem, Watari's attitude remained essentially unchanged, a steadiness difficult to find in the afterlife. The most he would do was occasionally shout at people - usually a warning - or perhaps lose just a hint of the peace in his eyes.
This was important because Hisoka was an empath. He channeled emotions; it wasn't something he could choose to do or not. The moment he was unfortunate enough to touch someone, that person's reality and experience flooded into his being without restraint, without warning, often overloading him - and always hurting.
That never happened with Watari. And as far as Hisoka could tell, it never would.
"Hello, Bon!" said Watari, looking up from his desk; 003 was clapping, so clearly he'd just accomplished something. "Do you want some toast?"
Hisoka made a face. "Um... no," he said, and wandered a little closer. He looked around, taking in the usual neat piles of scientific bric-a-brac that lay scatterd everywhere. "Watari," he asked. "Does your database have much information on dreams?"
"Mmmm... let's see," Watari said, putting down the blueprints he was studying and turning to his computer screen. "We do have a fairly extensive set of information from various cultures dating back to Babylonia. What did you need, Bon?"
"Premonition," Hisoka answered without hesitation; and Watari tilted his head.
"You need a premonition?" he repeated, smiling innocently, and Hisoka glared at him.
"No. I don't need a premonition. I need information on premonitions. Baka," Hisoka insulted, spitting the last word in such a way that 003 jumped.
"Maa, maa," Watari soothed, waving one hand negligibly and wheeling his chair to the next computer terminal over; there were five total in the room. 003 followed him, hopping along the desk. "Let's see, dreams, dreams, dre - ah. Here we go; 'Dreams: Premonition and Foreknowledge.' Is that what you wanted, Bon?"
"Yeah. That's it."
Together they leaned toward the monitor while Watari - clearly mouse-happy - scrolled through page after page of information. Hisoka seemed disappointed.
"That's it?" he challenged.
Watari blinked. "Most of it."
"Well, where's the rest?" Hisoka blurted, straightening and looking terribly irascible.
"The rest, bon?"
Hisoka sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You know what?" he said. "Never mind. Just... never mind." And he headed for the door.
"Bon - wait! Bon...?"
But Hisoka was gone.
Watari settled back in his chair, scritching 003 thoughtfully and gazing at the door. "Mmm. Well, THAT'S not good," he muttered to himself. "Bon seems more irritable than usual, don't you think?" He was addressing Bob, who, in response, sprang two pieces of golden-brown toast at him.
Watari sighed. "You're SO sarcastic today," he said, and went back to work.
Everything happened too quickly.
Hisoka showed up for work on time the next morning. Well, naturally he did; he was responsible, in spite of his youthful appearance. Duty was something that he took very, very seriously.
Of course, that didn't mean he enjoyed it.
Kurosaki Hisoka had been sixteen when his life was taken from him; physically, he would never grow any older. It was an odd thing, to age eternally and never show it; to be a thirty year old trapped in a sixteen year old body, a forty year old, an eighty year old. No matter how long he lived, his appearance would never change. He already felt embarassed that none of the other shinigami were quite as young physically as he was; he had really only just begun puberty in earnest when he'd died.
Technically speaking, it was something of a mystery that Hisoka remained a shinigami. He'd initially taken the job so he could find out who had killed him and possibly exact revenge - but that was all past. The reason for his death had been given; his revenge had not. Muraki was so far out of his reach as to almost be a colossal joke.
So why did he stay? Why did he continue to work, day in and day out, surrounded by what he felt was mocking condescension and rampant insanity?
"Hisoka!"
The reason was very, very simple:
"Oi - Hisoka-kun!"
Tsuzuki Asato.
Tsuzuki beamed and bounced up to him, waving a fistful of take-out menues and speaking quite rapidly. "I have to go to lunch with Charles so could you keep an eye on things he's being a really great source thanks a lot Hisoka bye!" And with that, he ran.
Hisoka sighed; it seemed that weird ability Tsuzuki had to make everyone love him had already worked its dubious magic on Charles, and Hisoka was on his own for now. He watched the elevator doors close behind his partner, wondering how Tsuzuki always managed to behave as though every ounce of attention was a treat to his starving soul.
It didn't matter now. Tsuzuki could have the attention; Hisoka didn't want it, and besides - he had work to do. Stopping first at the janitorial closet, Hisoka gathered the few cleaning supplies he needed to complete his costume, and then began the miserable job of working the thirty-third floor.
It took him a few hours; he made his way around various offices, conspicuously invisble in his bright orange janitorial garb, really wishing that people would stop saying things just because they assumed no one could hear them. By the end of the first hour, Hisoka was half-convinced that there was not a faithful married man in the building; by the second, he was sure that all of them had at least one crime-lord connection and/or were possibly gay. By the end of hour three, however, he'd changed his mind. By then, he'd realized that they were all stark raving mad.
The really annoying thing that while all these unwanted details were readily available, the information he actually wanted was not.
No one seemed to care about the three horrific murders that had occurred in their midst. No one believed it was serious; no one considered that it might be repeated, and most of all, no one thought it could possibly happen to them. To his disgust, some of them even joked about the incident - making comments about ground beef and other crude analogies, as if this were something to be spoofed on TV and not a tragedy that had yet to see it's one-week anniversary.
Now, it was true that none of them really understood what had happened, but even so - they should have at least been scared. At least somebody should have been sorry for those who died, and for the familes of those who were gone. It was inconceivable even to Hisoka's jaded mind that no one showed a hint of compassion; however, this was exactly the case, and after a while, it began to wear on him. Eventually growing tired of the ceaseless, foolish shallowness of the lives he was trying to protect, he retreated to the nearest stairwell for a breather. Hot in his orange jumpsuit, he unzipped it and sighed, appreciating the air conditioning cross-drafts and taking the moment to unwind.
It was blessedly quiet. He sat for a while, enjoying the silence and wondering what kind of lunch break Tsuzuki was on that took more than three hours. That idiot Charles had probably dragged him to Kyoto, or something.
Well; it wasn't important. Come to think of it, it was hard to consider anything important at the moment, half because Hisoka just felt so good, and half because comfort like he'd never known was stealing for no apparent reason over his skin. Clearly, he must have fallen asleep; comfort like this had never been known to him, not even when he was alive.
Oh yes, he'd definitely fallen asleep - now he had proof. After all, he saw the monster, but he knew it had to be a dream. How else could he feel no fear?
Sleepy and pleasanty relaxed, Hisoka studied it. The creature was probably eight feet long from head to foot, but it walked hunched over almost double so that it was barely taller than he. The skin - if it could be called that - looked like old lava, but it moved with a weirdly undulant suppleness that belied description. The eyes were the disturbing part, though; the eyes - solid red, shaped not at all symmetrically, intelligent - and very, very alive. Its gaze flicked over Hisoka as he watched the monster dully, noting that it of course had no sound, no smell, and no feel, since it would have had to be real for those to be palpable.
At any rate, it didn't seem to have much interest in him; the thing looked him over slowly, and then continued on its way. Moving with a strange, unnatural gait, it walked straight past Hisoka and through the door.
Without opening it, of course. Since it wasn't real.
Afterwards, Hisoka had no idea what had come over him, but he never forgot how it felt. Such a complete sense of lassitude, a total lack of fear, a lack of anger, and a warmth of perfect contentedness filled his spirit that it really didn't seem like the smart thing to do to confront the beast or call for help, even after people started screaming. Feeling calm and honestly happier than he ever had in his life, Hisoka rested on the stairs. He stretched, placed his arms behind his head, and fell asleep.
"Hisoka!"
The voice was miles away.
"Hisoka! HISOKA!"
...inches away?
"HISOKA!" And then somebody slapped him, right across the face.
"Wha..." Hisoka mumbled, feeling as though he were coming out of the deepest possible REM sleep and not at all coherent. His vision took a moment to clear; he felt warm, relaxed, almost slightly buzzed. Perhaps this was why he stared for a few moments at Tsuzuki without recognition of either who he was or the fact that he was clearly feeling ill.
Tsuzuki stared back, breathing hard. He held Hisoka upright with both fists in the boy's uniform, only just now returning from the edge of panic he'd felt when Hisoka had not responded to his initial calls. Even now, he didn't feel completely relieved. Hisoka looked drugged. Cradling the younger man to him, Tsuzuki stood and transported them both to the hotel room. It made no sense to wait; Hisoka was clearly not going to be of any use in the current situation.
Besides. It was too late to save anybody else.
"Hisoka?" he asked quietly, shaking his partner gently as he laid him on the bed. He noticed with a guilty flinch that the boy's cheek was swelling slightly where he'd hit it.
"...'zuki?" Hisoka mumbled showing his first sign of recognition since Tsuzuki had found him. He blinked slowly, as if there was molasses over his eyes. "Go 'way. Lemme 'lone. Wanna go back to sleep..."
"Oh, gods," Tsuzuki said roughly, did his best to make Hisoka comfortable. "You stay here. You... gods, as if you were going to GO anywhere...."
Hisoka didn't answer. He was as limp as a sleeping cat.
Tsuzuki tucked Hisoka into bed, taking off his partner's shoes and then leaving him to his rest. Perhaps it was better this way; the scene of the crime was so horrible that Tsuzuki did not wish it on anybody else.
The police had not yet arrived simply because there was no one left to call them; at least this meant that Tsuzuki had the chance to explore undisturbed.
It seemed whatever was doing this had personally applied the principle of progessive satisfaction, which stated one had to go beyond one's last goal in order to receive the same amount of pleasure. The gore was everywhere; on every wall, under every desk, embedded in every crack and crevice in the room. It had even been ground into the ceiling tiles.
"...horrible," Tsuzuki said weakly, looking at the room. No one was left alive; no one had been spared. He did not need Watari's special camera to know that all of these people had been dealt the ultimate deathblow: their souls had been ruined like tissue paper in the rain.
Hisoka was the only survivor. Perhaps the culprit could not see dead people? But no, that made no sense - clearly it had done SOMETHING to him; Hisoka was as clingy and overtired as a tranquilized child. Trembling slightly, Tsuzuki covered his nose with his sleeve and returned to the front of the room.
"Blurg," Charles said, or something very close to it. Looking very ill, he leaned against the doorframe, the color of his face matching the worn green carpet; wetly, he burped.
"Gonna... call the cops now," he said, perhaps a question, perhaps not.
"Yeah," said Tsuzuki. He had not known all these people who died; he had not needed to.
They'd died on his watch. That was all that mattered.
"I'm gonna do that right now," he said, and feeling heavy in both heart and soul, he picked up the phone.
The thirty-third floor was now considered off-limits.
This seemed like a logical step, of course, and the police chief had wondered loudly and repeatedly just why it had not been done before. It was fairly clear that some sort of a maniac was on the loose, and that he/she/it/they really liked the thirty-third floor.
Of course, the men who ran the company had had no answers. No, as they'd said before, there had been no threats, no kind of absurd competition - corporate personal, or otherwise - and for the last time, they did NOT know who could have done this. Their concern was that the show had to go on, and as the hour was late, there was really nothing that anybody could do so maybe everyone should just go home. The police would be sorting body parts for the next couple of weeks, anyway, and even when all the bits were picked up, the room itself was going to have to be gutted. Nothing in there was salvagable; it was a complete and total loss.
The business managers wept over the ruin of their data in disks and computers; Tsuzuki wept over the ruin of life. And Charles proclaimed so often and so loudly that he had NOTHING to do with it that the police decided to give him extra special attention.
For Hisoka's part, he had done just what he'd said he wanted to do: slept. He slept for nine hours straight without even moving so much as an inch, even when Tsuzuki took him home; and by the time he finally came out of his odd stupor, Tsuzuki had already had time to give his report and receive his verdict.
Hisoka blinked at Tsuzuki as he woke, who sat beside him. Tsuzuki's hands were in his lap; he looked guilty, unhappy, and quiet.
"We're off the case," he said first thing, not really giving Hisoka a chance to get his bearings.
"....what?" Hisoka said. Case - wait, what had...
"We're off the case. They're calling in the big guns."
...case. And he'd - and they'd -
"Oh, shit," Hisoka emoted, putting his face in his hands, and Tsuzuki smiled weakly.
"Yeah," said Tsuzuki, and shuddered just a little. He was obviously not well - his cheeks were pale, flushed with red. "That about sums it up." His eyes, focused on something far away from Hisoka, filled like weeping crystal and sent fresh tears down his cheeks. "None of them survived."
And Hisoka, who was only beginning to understand what it meant to Tsuzuki to lose people's lives, watched him sadly and had nothing to say.
"Well, YOU'VE had a busy couple of days," Watari said cheerfully at them as they entered his lab. "I have marmalade now - do you want some toast?"
Neither Tsuzuki nor Hisoka had the energy to answer him.
Watari sobered. "It's not your fault - either of you. Really, cheer up - it looks like the Earl pulled you off because it was just getting far too dangerous for your own good, you know? Don't take it so personally," he soothed, and then brightened. "After all, it's not like you're fired, or something - you've only been reassigned!"
Tsuzuki rubbed his eyes. "Yeah," he said, trying to put a good face on it. "That's not so bad, right? But I think I need to get some sleep before I take on this new assignment," he said, looking the very picture of puppy-dog weary.
"Oh, you certainly can do that; nothing like extra practice at the laziness that comes to you so naturally."
Everyone in the room straightened; Konoe - head of the entire division - swept into the room, filling it with his presence and his voice. Tatsumi was right behind him.
Konoe looked sternly at his two disheartened employees. "Well?" he said, which could mean just about anything.
"It wasn't his fault!" both Tsuzuki and Hisoka said simultaneously, and pointed at each other.
Tatsumi sighed. "Listen up, you two. The failure of this particular step of the mission has nothing to do with either one of you. In fact, your reassignment is actually still part of the case - it's not a punishment, but a precaution. You just won't be so much on the front lines. As it is, there's a danger you could be recognized." He looked pointedly at Hisoka.
Tsuzuki's entire face lit up. "You mean it?" he asked. "We're still on the case?"
"...I don't know about this," Hisoka replied dubiously. "What do you mean, not on the front lines?"
"Don't argue," said Tatsumi, and handed them both manilla folders. "Here are your new assignments." He adjusted his glasses as he watched them read. "What little information you were able to gather in this two day period has been fed into the computer along with what we know from the previous deaths. Your new assignments seem to us the most likely sources for you to explore."
"The temple at Shigoto?" Hisoka said, eyeing Tatsumi with grave doubt. "That's crazy. They don't even eat anything with blood in it over there - what could they possibly have to do with this?"
"Don't argue," Tatsumi said again. "There has been a 28.2% increase of negative energy generated in the temple area in the last three weeks," he explained. "It's all there in your report. We don't know if it's related or not, it's not worth taking the chance. Watari, their new gear."
Tsuzuki and Hisoka both looked blank as Watari handed them each a small, black piece of equipment.
"It's sort of like an extra hand," he explained, pointing to the devices. "Tsuzuki-san, this is a multi-functional two-way beeper - or at least, that's what it looks like. It's really a much more complicated communications device, but nobody needs to know that just by looking. You can surf the web, tap into any network, and contact us at any time. Oh," he added, "and its name is Kirby."
Tsuzuki looked fascinated.
"Bon, your cell phone doubles as a stun gun."
Hisoka stared in disbelief. "You gave me a stun gun?"
"I'll have to show you how to work it, of course - don't want you knocking yourself out," Watari said.
"You gave me. A stun gun."
Watari blinked. "Don't worry, it's not alive," he assured. Well really, who'd want a living stun gun?
"What, my own gun's not good enough?" Hisoka sounded offended.
"Not for this, Bon. You have to ride on an airplane. This, at least, you can take with you."
"...an airplane?" Hisoka repeated, looking lost. He looked to Tsuzuki for help, but none was to be found there; Tsuzuki had discovered that his new beeper could talk to him via the small text window at the top, and his attention was riveted there.
"Argh," Hisoka said.
"If you're both quite ready," Tatsumi interrupted, trying to bring the topic back around, "I will be giving you the details of your assignment shortly. The three of you will go to the temple in the Shigoto area, where you will pose as tourists and meet with a pre-arranged contact. The rest of your information is in your folders. Any questions?"
"Three?" asked Tsuzuki, and Watari waved.
"I make it three - four, if you count 003. Which is almost an oxymoron, but not quite."
Hisoka looked as though he were getting a headache, but he simply nodded. It was no use arguing. Grimly, he went to pack his things and prepare to leave. There was much to be done.
And sitting at the computer console, Tsuzki became fully acquainted with his new beeper and smiled.