"Remind me again. Why did I think wandering through a deserted castle at night was a good idea? And a reportedly haunted one at that?" Yuri complained.  He was not in a good mood.

After they left that village, (Yuri suspected that it didn't even deserve a name), they had walked for literally hours. Unfortunately, while he became exhausted, Death Emperor became more animated about the castle and it's possible ghosts. While they were initially interesting, Yuri really was sick of the sixteenth rendition of the hauntings.

When the castle began to loom on the horizon, Yuri breathed a sigh of relief. It was not until he had been walking for another hour that he realised how big the castle actually was. As a result, they had arrived at the castle about an hour after sunset.

"Well? Are you going in or not?" Death Emperor had demanded while Yuri stood at the base of the castle and stared up, up, up to the battlements.

"Isn't it haunted? I don't think so!" Yuri retorted. He shuddered at the thought.

"Here's your options. Either you go inside a building, away from marauding monsters, or stay outside and get eaten by aforementioned monsters. Take your pick." Death Emperor replied. He was barracking on Yuri deciding to go inside the castle. His opinion was confirmed.

"Fine, the castle it is. I haven't heard of anyone actually dying from ghost attack yet," Yuri decided. He shook his head suddenly when he had a vague recollection of a whole town dying in such a manner. He shrugged it off as mere fancy and started to scale the castle walls.

Yuri reconsidered his choice when he was in the castle proper. The total absence of light meant that there was much squealing as he walked into spider webs.

"There's a set of matches in your backpack. Grab a stick and make a torch you stupid boy!" Death Emperor said, getting sick of Yuri's squealing. Yuri scowled, but fumbled in his backpack until his fingers landed on a small box. Grasping that box in his left hand, he felt around in the dark until he found a stick. Lighting a match, he placed the fire near the stick, and was pleased when it lit.

Using this to light his way, Yuri began to search the castle for somewhere where he could rest. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful, and Death Emperor was oddly silent.

"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!" screamed Death Emperor suddenly. Yuri jumped and spun around, searching for the cause of Death Emperor's terror. It was not until he heard Death Emperor snicker that he realised that Death Emperor was messing with him.

"Not funny," he said vehemently. Death Emperor's response was to start laughing uncontrollably. Yuri glared into the darkness and promised to himself that if he ever had a chance to hit Death Emperor, well he wouldn't stop there.

Death Emperor continued to amuse himself in that manner for another fifteen minutes. Yuri, on the other hand, was not amused. Finally, his patience wore thin.

"Would you just SHUT UP!!!" he screamed.

"Who, me?" called a feminine voice. Yuri jumped. Death Emperor sniggered. He turned around slowly, brand in one hand. Moving toward him was a silhouette, the flickering flame ensuring that making out any more details was a futile exercise. It stopped in front of him.

"Were you talking to me?" the shadow asked curiously. Yuri shook his head dumbly. "If you weren't, who were you talking to?"

"No-one," Yuri stammered. "I mean, I keep hearing things. Like ghosts or something." The girl laughed.

"I haven't found any ghosts yet, and I've been searching for hours. And you keep hearing them. Trust my luck!" she said ruefully. "Well, guess I should borrow you then. Name's Juliet. I'm an exorcist."

"Evidently, not a very good one, if she can't find the ghosts." Death Emperor commented. Yuri scowled.

"I've got a safe-place about two floors up. We should go up there and collaborate," she suggested. Yuri nodded in agreement and began to follow Juliet.

Once in the safe-place, Yuri's eyes widened. His pupils shrank to mere pinpoints as he was blinded. Either Juliet was a really bad exorcist or he had really good spectral vision, because her safe-place was literally filled with ghosts. He was choking on them.

Apparently he was literally choking, because Juliet was hitting him repeatedly on the back. He raggedly drew a breath.

"What happened?" Juliet asked anxiously, her face illuminated by the brand. Distantly, Yuri took note of her features, auburn hair, green eyes and a ski-jump nose, but a larger part of him was quaking at the sheer number of ghosts in the room.

"Can't you see them?" he asked, voice shaking.

"See what?" she asked.

"The ghosts! They're right here!" Yuri gasped. He could hear his heart beat pounding in his ears, his breath rasping through his throat.

"She can't see them. She hasn't got the Sight. What the hell does she think she's doing if she can't See them!" Death Emperor asked incredulously.

Yuri suddenly felt an impact on his face. Shocked, he looked at Juliet as he snaked a hand to feel the damage.

"You were hysterical," she offered in way of apology. "There aren't any ghosts here, I made sure of that." Yuri shook his head. When she hit him, he lost his spectral vision. He saw no one else in the room but Juliet.

"I can't see them now, but they were there! Can't you See them?" Yuri asked, dreading the answer. Juliet shook her head.

"Church said that if my faith was strong enough, I wouldn't need to see," she said. "So I blessed the room and the ghosts should have gone. Are you saying otherwise?" Yuri nodded.

"If her faith was strong enough? In what, exactly? I have faith that she'll be dead tomorrow. Blessing a room doesn't scare ghosts, it attracts them! Does she not know anything?" Death Emperor ranted. "She needs to perform an exorcism!"

"Do you know how to perform an exorcism?" Yuri asked abruptly. Juliet blinked, then shook her head.

"I'm still an apprentice. I don't learn that 'til next year, I think," she replied. "Why?"

"Great, just great. She's an apprentice exorcist, that hasn't learnt how to exorcise ghosts." Death Emperor grumbled. "That used to be the first thing exorcists learnt. Youth these days!"

"How do you know so much about exorcists anyway?" Yuri subvocalised. Juliet looked at him strangely.

"Are you possessed? Cause if you are, I can solve that!" she said cheerily. Yuri shuddered.

"I'm not possessed and if I were, I wouldn't have answered, would I?" he said allowed. Mentally he continued. 'And I wouldn't let you do anything about it either.'

"I'm touched," Death Emperor commented. "In case you're wondering, your great, great-uncle was an exorcist before he became a harmonixer." Yuri blinked, then his eyes widened again. The ghosts were back, except it appeared that they had brought all their friends too. He reached across and grabbed Juliet's hand.

"You've got to get out of here. Hell, we've got to get out of here!" he said urgently, nervous eyes staring over her shoulder toward the ghosts.

"Why?" she asked, oblivious to his frightened stare. Yuri didn't reply, just roughly pulled her upright.

"Hey!" she protested. "What's the deal?" Yuri started to run, pulling her behind him.

"Come on!" he growled as he pulled her closer to the stair well. He stopped abruptly. Juliet had stopped and was glaring at him.

"I have no idea what the hell you think you're doing, but I am not participating in your delusions!" she said harshly. "I'm not moving!" She crossed her arms. In Yuri's imagination, she was frowning, glaring at him under her brows. The ghosts loomed closer. Yuri looked around wildly. His frantic gaze was attracted to a large window on his left. He shrugged and, still holding Juliet's wrist, jumped through the window.

"Yuri, wake up, damn you! Do you want to die here or what?" Death Emperor demanded. Yuri groaned, winced when that made his head hurt more, and opened his eyes. The ghosts were streaming out of the window, and heading toward them. He leapt to his feet, headache forgotten. Juliet was sitting on the ground near his feet. Part of him noticed the pool of blood on the ground, but he dismissed it as unimportant. He could worry about that later.

"You….jerk!!" she screamed. Yuri, sick of her histrionics snapped, "Whatever. If you want to die, stay here! I'm leaving!" He started running. Actually limping would be a better term. Juliet, seething with frustration, clambered to her feet and ran after him.

"You can stop running now." Death Emperor offered. "The ghosts can't leave the boundaries."

Yuri, broken from his trance, stopped. And fell to his knees, the concussion and blood loss finally catching up to him. The world began to loop in sickening circles and Yuri fell flat on his face.

"You can stop joking now!" Juliet said angrily. The world went dark.

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Authors Note: I'm not quite sure what to do with Juliet. Might keep her around, don't know yet. Any suggestions? I've also had a suggestion to tell Death Emperor's story, with DE as the narrator. Any suggestions on that one too?

I am enjoying this. Thanks for all the reviews! And, if you're not demanding a section for Shadow Hearts from ff.net every time that you're online, you're not doing it enough!

Nights Mistress