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Searching for Eden
One
By RubyD
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It was late afternoon when Tsuzuki and Hisoka finished their latest assignment in Nagasaki. It hadn't been a terribly dire case, and, having nothing better to do, they decided to take a walk through one of the city's large and peaceful parks. Summer had given away to autumn, turning the trees into the colors of fire. Hisoka took a deep breath of the cool breeze, tilting his head slightly as if listening to the hushed rustle of leaves. So calm.
"Hisoka! Let's stop by the bakery later. We haven't had any of Nagasaki's cakes in over four years!" Tsuzuki said as he stretched, trademark grin ready and eager on his face.
"Trust that you would know when you've had a dessert last," Hisoka answered, smiling gently at his partner's enthusiasm. That was back on their first mission together, when he had mistakenly thought that his new partner was a vampire.
"Four years isn't that long," he pointed out.
The younger one nonchalantly shrugged. "Not for you, maybe."
"Are you calling me old?" Tsuzuki said with a playfully suspicious look, pouting.
"Not at all," he answered, light tone saying otherwise.
"Hisoka-a-a...!"
He put on an innocent expression. "Didn't you say something about going to the bakery?"
"Oh yeah!" He grinned again. Hisoka could almost see the images of baked goodness swirling around in his partner's head. "Hurry! They'll be closing..."
The Shinigami nodded absently, trailing quickly after him. The park looked no different than it had the last time they were there. Same trees, same benches, and only a change in season. A sigh. Four years, huh? I would have been, what, twenty-one? He glanced down at his youthful hands. "How much would I have changed?"
He came to a halt. A pair of smooth yet strong fingers had suddenly wrapped themselves around his own.
"I think you've changed a lot," Tsuzuki said, beaming softly down at him.
Hisoka blushed, having not meant to speak out loud.
"Tsuzuki, I - " he started, but couldn't quite think of anything to say. After Kyoto they had become close, closer than anyone they knew, but some aspects of their relationship stayed quiet. Meaning, even now, after all this time, Hisoka still wasn't sure how to consider themselves. The best of friends? Family? Or something more...
And it wasn't as if they were avoiding the issue, if there was a so-called issue. There were barriers between them that had worn away long ago. To anyone who might have been watching they did seem like they were, well, together. He almost stiffened at the thought. Yes, together. Wasn't that what Tsuzuki had said after Kyoto? They could overcome anything, if only with each other. To hell with issues. Nothing was standing in their way, was there?
Tsuzuki chose this moment to give him a swift kiss on his forehead, which brought out a brighter blush from Hisoka. "Ne, how about if I go get the cake? There's something else I need to do, anyway. Just wait here!"
"H-hai." Fingers squeezed and released. The air seemed colder without their warmth.
"I'll be back in a second!"
Then he was off, running across the field towards a long line of gray buildings. But halfway there the man tripped and slammed his face impressively into the ground. Grass flew, and Hisoka winced in sympathy. The dark-haired Shinigami immediately stood back up, tenderly clutching his nose.
"I'm okay!" He waved back.
Hisoka stifled a laugh. "Baka."
Tsuzuki sniffled; the only thing really hurt was his dignity. The physical pain was leaving and had fully disappeared by the time he had reached the other side of the park. Good thing, too, since he realized he wasn't exactly sure where to find the bakery from there. Embarrassing himself further by returning to Hisoka wasn't an option. He'd have to depend on the delicious smell of sweets to lead him. After all, in anything related to food, he might as well have been part bloodhound.
The scent steered him true, and he started to recall the streets from his short trips there whenever a case took place in the area. The cobblestone roads branched off like ever shrinking rivers flowing with people. A few shortcuts down some alleys and viola! The bakery stood modestly on a corner, welcoming patrons with a painted sign. Tsuzuki could have wept with joy.
Food bought and bag in hand, he stepped back out into the sunlight ten minutes later.
He looked left, then right, then paused, thinking.
The problem now was trying to find his way back to the park. Hmm, to the west?
"I swear this was a road," he grumbled to himself, confused look on his face as he jogged. And he thought Watari was the directionally challenged one of the group. The alleyway was not one he had passed through, but lead in the way he needed to go. Being out of the way it was untouched by tourists, and the stench of garbage nearby blew through the air like a deterrent.
The drumming of another pair of footsteps. From an adjacent alley, a pale young man in black jeans and sweater had exited up ahead. He was glancing around with a lost expression on his face that was similar to the Shinigami's. It cheered him a bit; at least he wasn't alone in his dilemma. Maybe they could help each other out.
"Hey, are you looking for the road, too?" Tsuzuki called, smiling.
The teen spun around violently at the sound of his voice. Light eyes stared, then widened in disbelief. Jaw slack, a strangled and muffled cry emanated from the boy's throat. He shook his head in alarm, as if confronted with a vision, sending the fluffy platinum hair waving.
Tsuzuki slowed his pace and stopped. That was definitely not the reaction he was expecting. "Ne, are you all right?"
The answer was slow to come, and his trembling voice could only choke, "You..."
He blinked, friendly smile beginning to wane. The kid was blatantly staring at him. "Hello?"
"Tsu...Tsuzuki?" the pale teen said, tentatively stepping forward. "Is that - are you - ?" The boy cut himself off, looking fearful of what the man would respond.
He scratched the back of his neck. "Um, yes...?"
Something like shock rippled through the colorless limbs. Then a cry; one filled with a shining, happy tone that lifted years from the kid's shoulders that the Shinigami hadn't realized were there. "It is you!" he said. "You're all right! I thought that you - when you disappeared after the fire - " He broke off, the last word cracking. The boy suddenly took a running leap and flung his arms around the taller Shinigami, burrowing his face into the man's chest.
Dropping the shopping bag, Tsuzuki awkwardly returned the hug, surprised. Huh? Who was this? The back of his mind told him there was something frighteningly familiar about the boy - he looked a bit like Hisoka, even - but exactly who he was, Tsuzuki didn't know.
After a moment he gently put him at arm's length, gazing into somewhat misty eyes.
"I'm sorry," he started slowly, "but do I know you?"
"You... what - ?" The teen gripped the hand on his shoulder, looking up in an almost hurt confusion. "Hey, come on, don't joke around."
"I'm not," he apologized.
"B-but it's me," he sputtered. "Muraki Kazutaka. I'm your partner."
Tsuzuki chilled. "You...?"
"Yeah! Me." He smiled, mistaking the hesitation as recognition. "I was so worried. Where have you been all this time?"
"Muraki..." Silence.
"You mean Kazutaka," he insisted, giving a strange look. "Hey, what's the matter? You're not acting like yourself."
Tsuzuki shoved the boy away without warning. He looked down then up. White hair, snowy skin, and silver eyes. Could it really be? Was it... "Muraki," he growled, drawing out a fuda. "What sick game are you playing this time? Why are you like this?"
The youthful Muraki stumbled back, stunned, retracing his earlier steps. "What are you doing? I'm your partner!"
"You are not," he declared adamantly, fuda wrinkling as hands balled into fists. "Hisoka is!"
"Hisoka? But that's Kurosaki," he said, eyes narrowing.
*
Back at the park, Hisoka was growing impatient as he sat on a stone bench. His partner had been gone for almost twenty minutes, and he knew that the store was not too far from here. Though, he might have expected for the older man to get turned around in the busy roads. The city was just beginning to prepare for a big festival held next week. For what, Hisoka wasn't sure. Their excitement was muted, though he could feel it well enough.
Cold.
A pulse of darkness washed over his empathy. The hairs on his arms rose, and dread kissed a path down his spine with curious teeth. He shivered, sitting straight and eyes searching. The only other person that could draw such a reaction out of his powers was Muraki - but this hardly felt like the doctor. It was different and, strangely, very much the same in its hollowness.
Coming from... close by...
Turning inconspicuously to his right towards the sunset, he spotted a man watching him from under the shadow of a red maple tree. The glowing silhouette might have been that of a statue's, but a nearly invisible nod of the head betrayed its life. Hisoka couldn't see the figure's face very well, but it was quite clear that the pair of bright eyes were locked steadily on him. The observer was dressed in a tan trench coat, gold in the light, that matched the caramel hair and cream of his skin. Something about him put Hisoka very on guard
Who...?
He sent his empathy towards the man, hoping to discover why he felt so wrong. But whatever window of emotion he had seen through a minute earlier now slammed shut at his prodding. The young Shinigami gasped at the backlash, sensing pain across his mind akin to a slap.
He glared at the man. What was that?
Then, as if finding whatever he was looking for, the light-encircled man turned and walked calmly away.
Hisoka, unsettled, decided that he better go look for Tsuzuki. His partner was taking too long, anyway.
The streets were busy, but he navigated them well enough. The... essence... of Tsuzuki could be felt miles away if Hisoka concentrated, so it was merely minutes before he heard the shouting. It was the older Shinigami, and someone else. Then, his name was spoken, growled out really, but by an unfamiliar voice.
"Tsuzuki, is that you?" Two heads turned at the sound. Hisoka had appeared at the other end of the alley, glancing between his friend and a pale boy. No one said a word, but he picked up on the tense atmosphere, the park incident forgotten. A confrontation? "What's wrong?"
The boy was the first to speak. "You," he hissed hatefully. The word was laced with dark recognition. With maddening speed a white blur had rushed Hisoka and tackled him to the ground.
"Hisoka!" Tsuzuki cried out, just as the first punch landed across the young man's face.
That HURT. What the Hell?! The fist drew back for another hit, but he was ready and easily caught the wrist. He shoved the other boy sideways in self-preservation and scrambled to his feet in time to dodge a third hit.
"Kurosaki, you bastard!" the flushed teen panted, then rushed him again. They collided, hand in hand, nails digging like claws.
"What? Kuro - ? I just met you!" Hisoka tripped the boy up, but the other wrestled him to the floor as he fell.
"Shut up! I'd know you anywhere." They were equally matched in strength, and ended up tumbling over and over down the alleyway. The Shinigami knocked into a trash can, sending its contents skittering away. Hisoka finally twisted them around and sat on the other teen's chest, while griping the black sweater.
"Who the hell are you, kid?!" The young man's anger was bleeding into the empath.
"Don't call me that," he gasped, "my name is Kazutaka!"
There was so much hatred directed at Hisoka behind the statement that he became dizzy. Kazutaka; where had he heard that name? Kazutaka certainly felt he knew him. "I've never seen you before, I swear!"
"Liar! What have you done to Tsuzuki?!" Accusation in those searing gray eyes.
"Tsuzuki?" he asked, fazed. "How do you know - "
"Stop pretending!" With a power born of blind rage, Kazutaka literally threw Hisoka into the wall behind them. Bits of brick shattered, and his back went numb with shock. The young man stood, pounced like a cat, and wrapped his hands around Hisoka's neck.
Hisoka sucked in a pained breath before the fingers tightened. It was too close, and his shields were wavering. Each thought in Kazutaka's mind impacted on him as a waterfall to a wooden bridge. Then the thin ropes broke, neatly ripped apart by the intensity of emotions. The empath frantically fought the onslaught of images and feelings surging into him.
Red.
The boy remembered red. There was fire. The bite of smoke.
And through it, from a great distance, a pair of flat, empty, amethyst eyes.
His heart ached.
Hisoka froze, thoughts going fuzzy and erratic from the lack of oxygen. What is this? Suddenly he felt as if he were back in Kyoto, watching as Tsuzuki was surrounded in flames and heat. Oh God oh God oh God, got to get to him before the building collapsed -
But it did collapse. At least, that was what Kazutaka recalled.
How do you know him? Hisoka wondered, panicking. Whose memories were these? He'd had nightmares like these, but even this was too real to be a dream. This - this never happened! Didn't it?!
Tsuzuki... where's Tsuzuki?!
The dull purple faded away, melting into the shadows. Fear overwhelmed him, spiking his soul like shards of glass driven through yielding flesh.
"Tsuzu...ki!" Hisoka rasped desperately through the vice-like hold, petrified, for a moment confusing what he was witnessing with reality. That one night was brought back in full force, as if no time had passed. Except now he was looking down a dark hallway instead of a wrecked lab, his lonely screams swallowed by the rumble of the ground. A sob worked its way from his throat. His partner...
Then someone else ghosted into his sight, not Tsuzuki, but a man young and tall with jade eyes that turned away as the walls died all around.
I know him, he realized. It was the man at the park. It was...
Another violent shake, and he fell to his knees. Debris and cement fragments fell, kicking up dust. He could see the ceiling coming down to greet him -
The hands on his neck released, ending the vision. Someone had wrenched the two teens apart and stood with his back facing Hisoka. The teen clutched at the black coat thankfully, brushing at tears that had leaked out.
Tsuzuki held up a fuda to the other boy's forehead. "Sleep," he ordered. Kazutaka gaped at him, surprised. An expression of deep pain and betrayal graced his features before the pale eyes slid close and thin body slumped over on the ground.
Hisoka didn't see it. He had buried his face into a free hand, noting distantly that his body was trembling. He could only focus on those faded orbs, and the man whose coat he was holding on to like a lifeline.
The fabric shifted, and someone gently pried his hands into their own. A real pair of purple eyes, beautiful and aware, yet brimming with worry, bore through his own green ones. Tsuzuki was right here. Safe.
"Breath, Hisoka, come on, it's okay," he begged.
Hisoka started, the world rushing back along with the pain in his chest. He'd been holding his breath. Air, needed air. Lungs jerked into action.
"What the hell happened?" he finally coughed, gagging on phantom smoke.
Tsuzuki sighed in relief, smiling brightly before abruptly switching back into seriousness. He released his grip, a bit to Hisoka's disappointment, and turned towards the sleeping boy. "I don't know," he admitted. "He just showed up. He said... he said he was Muraki Kazutaka."
Hisoka stared, now knowing where he had heard that name. "But this can't be Muraki. It couldn't be."
"They look alike."
"Maybe if Muraki were years younger."
"Do you think they're related?"
"I don't know... how would he know you?"
"Uhm."
"Well, from what I felt, their emotions, their souls, have nothing in common," Hisoka said. "Of what little soul Muraki possesses, anyway.
"But he saw things," he continued, softer, "Weird things. Like you in - in a fire."
His partner made a face. "You mean Kyoto? Then he's Muraki. He was there."
"No! Not like that. Different. And not the lab... you were in the fire, somewhere at the end of a hall, and the building collapsed." His voice was strained. "It was like he was dying inside, too."
Tsuzuki shook his head in confusion. "Still sounds like Kyoto."
He shut his eyes, frustrated. The visions were still crisp in his mind, and he still felt the leftover bleed of emotions. He quickly looked up again, trying to banish them. "Imagine that you were seeing through my point of view," he explained quietly. "Except that I never got to you."
The Shinigami pondered this, not liking the picture it made in his head. "Oh," he said after a minute.
"And," Hisoka added, "I think, you didn't get out." Talking like this, about this, it made him feel - detached. Numb, almost. A play happening to another person; this boy, maybe. It was more than a bit eerie.
Tsuzuki, his Tsuzuki, tilted his head. "You know this?" "I felt it."
The man nodded, understanding.
"But I don't think it was Touda's," Hisoka murmured.
He blinked at the mention of the Shikigami. "What do you mean?"
"The fire," he said. "For one thing, the flames were red."
"And Touda's flames are black."
"Right."
"So why are you still looking at me like I'm going to disappear?" Tsuzuki placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping to drive away the haunted appearance in his green stare.
He flushed. "Sorry," he stammered. "It's just that he, um, to him, y-you... did. I think. Then, I sort of caught it."
"Uh-huh," he answered, tone halfway-unconvinced. He held tighter, though.
They stayed there, contemplating as Kazutaka dozed, ignoring the fact that evening was fast approaching.
Tsuzuki broke the silence. "What should we do?"
Hisoka ran his gaze over the calm porcelain face. "We should bring him back with us to JuOhCho. Watari might be able to tell us who he is. Then we'll figure something out when he wakes up."
"All right," he nodded. "I'll carry him, since you might synch up with him again."
"Okay."
Together the two Shinigami, one cradling a limp body, left.
At the mouth of the alley, hidden under the shadow of a doorway, a man with jade eyes watched in interest.
***
To Be Continued
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Notes: Look! In-continuity! Sorta. I'm using the Anime timeline, but keeping Manga!Touda's black flames. 'Cause I like them.