Mark of the Magi

Chapter 7

(part B)

By

Lily of Trust

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Disclaimer: Are you even ALLOWED to sue minors? I don't think so....

Touma pushed off the door and spun around, kicking up little puffs of dust and disintegrated cobwebs. The Captain's cabin was, if possible, even more dilapidated than the rest of the ship. A throw rug-turned-fungi-farm lay in the center of the floor. The furniture in the room consisted of a box bed shoved up against the wall and minus the bedclothes, a sea chest at the foot, and a large oaken desk littered with maps, charts and a compass. The windows were partially covered by tattered woven curtains, allowing little light in, which only served to make the figure at the desk seem more solid.

Heels of knee high leather boots propped on the desktop, hands folded in his lap, the ghost 'sat' in a chair that might have been sturdy once. The dark colors and obvious quality of his wide sleeved shirt, vest, and breeches lent him a brooding, commanding appearance; an effect only slightly spoiled by his transparency, and the chair back visible through his chest. Long hair, most likely firey red in life, now registered only as faded rust. Like the other ghosts on board, his eyes had been replaced by dancing tongue of witch fire, the only exception being that his shone an eerie green in place of ebony.

"Ah...The Captain, I presume?" Touma swallowed dryly and scraped his composure up off the floor.

"Correct," The ghost replied, swinging his feet onto the floor and standing. He strode towards them, hovering a good inch or so above the floor. Yet oddly enough, they could hear the faint clicking of boots on planks as he walked.

"You know of me, but I most certainly know nothing of you," He said, raking that verdant gaze over them all. "I can sense several strong spirits, but they intertwine and overlap so that it is difficult to discern one from the others."

"I really don't think there's time for introductions," Shu said, pulling a curtain aside to take a furtive look at the battle, still going strong. The lack of sound lent an ethereal, dreamlike quality to the scene. Shu shuddered and dropped the curtain, clamping a hand over the wound in his side.

"If you were struck by a phantom's weapon, then you may very well be right," The Captain stared at him intently, then switched his eyes to Shin. "Prolonged physical contact with one most often results in..."

"In what?" Touma asked almost skeptically.

The ghost shrugged. "If you take a closer look out the window, you may notice that several of those brawling are neither corsair nor pirate," He gazed expressionlessly at Shu and Shin. "They are either those who were forced to spend too much time aboard my ship, or who suffered the life-stealing effects of ghost collision."

"In other words, it speeds up the process of becoming a phantom yourself," Touma said grimly. The color drained out of Shu's face as he swallowed hard, eyes darting to Shin, then back to Touma.

"We have to get off this ship," He said shakily.

"I'm afraid that would be impossible for you," The Captain's voice almost seemed sympathetic. "Even if you were to leave, you would still slowly degenerate into a phantom. Your friend as well, because the both of you were touched by one."

Stunned silence fell, broken only by the harsh, erratic gasps of Shin's breathing. He still lay where Touma had set him, curled up around himself as though trying to hold in what little body heat he had left. His lips had taken on a frightening blue cast, and all the color had drained out of his skin, leaving it so pale thin traceries of veins were visible.

"No," Seiji's hoarse voice shattered the quiet. He climbed slowly to his feet, gripping a beam for support. "That's not how these spells work."

The Captain's eyes fell on him, the flames flicking to a pale jade for a fraction of a second. "You do not know of what you speak," He said, but there was something in his voice, something that sounded suspiciously like encouragement.

"Yes I do," The Magi's voice slowly grew stronger. "As do you, though I suspect you to be under some sort of geas that prevents you from telling us as much," His eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Yes, I think that's it. Why don't you tell us exactly how this ship came to be under such an enchantment? I suspect we'll find the answer there."

A look of relief came to the Captain's features, though it was difficult to tell, as he had no real eyes with which to express emotion.

"Gladly," He said, a hint of a smile touching his lips. "My name, to begin with, is Shuten, a fact I suspect has been lost to history. I will be brief, for you are rapidly running out of time."

"Too right," Shu grumbled, flexing the fingers on his left arm. "I can't feel anything above my elbow anymore."

"My crew and I were enlisted close to four hundred years ago by the then-king of Taidem," Shuten began. "The piracy problem was rapidly getting out of hand. His own efforts to halt it had failed, so he chose to 'fight fire with fire', as it were. Though my men and I were corsairs by trade, we made our living by ambushing pirate ships, so there was no love lost between us and the members of the Malacaster's fleet. The King promised us a full pardon for our 'vigilante activities', as well as a hefty reward. My crew voted to accept the offer; a few decades of boarding ships on the seas had left us all extremely wealthy, and most wanted to retire, myself included.

"For weeks we hunted down the pirate fleet, tracing their attacks on coastal villages. We waited until the Malacaster was separated from the rest of the ships, and went in for the kill. We thought it would be an easy mark; loaded down with loot as it was, the ship's maneuverability was cut in half, giving us an advantage. The beginning of the battle went as planned. We ran along side the Malacaster, firing our guns into the ship's hull. The pirates had left the majority of their own cannons with the rest of the fleet, in favor of carrying their plunder instead. Before my men even boarded the vessel, it had begun to sink."

The Captain's ghost paused in his narrative, a troubled look clouding his face. He brought a hand up to push his non-corporeal hair from his eyes and traced a transparent finger along the maps scattered across his desk. The flesh and blood members of the audience waited not-so-patiently for him to continue.

"There was a contingency we hadn't planned for," He said finally. "No one had ever been able to explain how the King's Navy had been consistently defeated by these disorganized pirates, but we were to find out first hand. Aboard the Malacaster was a rouge Magi, a powerful one," Shuten looked up at them, his unsettling eyes gleaming brightly in the shadows of the cabin. "When the ship began to sink, and the pirates crossed over to the Vassaar to continue the fight, he...did...something..."

"Something that resulted in," Touma waved a hand around, "This?"

The ghost nodded. "I cannot tell you much of the spell itself, as I remember nothing of it after it touched me. The sea went mad when the Magi made his appearance on the deck of the sinking Malacaster, and a shadow fell over us all, although I know the sky was perfectly clear that day. The fighting men around me began to fall over where they stood...but their spirits rose from their bodies and continued as though nothing had happened. The shadow reached over the deck and swept over me...there was a feeling of cold, difficult to describe, and then I found myself here."

"The cold must be whatever it is that separates a spirit from a body to create a ghost," Touma mused, looking over at Shu, who looked even grimmer, if possible.

"I came to myself in this cabin, and here I have been ever since," Shuten concluded. "For nearly four hundred years I've paced within these walls, trapped by the geas you spoke of earlier. It confines me to this room, and kept me unable to offer any assistance unasked for. The others of my crew come and go as they please, drifting through the closed door, but none of them seem aware. Every so often we encounter drifting ships, and their passengers become trapped here as well."

"We're not going to become a part of that statistic," Shu growled.

"There is no way to reverse a phantom's touch," The Captain sighed. "Haven't you been listening?"

"...What about that 'anchor' thing you mentioned before, Seiji?" Shu turned to the blonde man, suddenly thoughtful. "You said if we could destroy it, everything twisted about this ship would go back to normal."

The Magi nodded. "I thought the anchor would be in the cabin, but strangely enough I feel less sickened here than anywhere else on the ship. Though the feeling became stronger for a while, when we were walking across the deck..."

"Then my guess is the 'anchor' is below decks," Touma concluded. "We may have passed directly over it during that bizarre flashback outside, and never realized it!"

"Do you really think you have a chance of finding whatever it may be, with three of you incapacitated and ghosts roaming the ship?" The Captain arched an elegant red brow, leaning back against the corner of the desk.

"I'll go alone then," The thief shrugged. "I've got a better chance of avoiding the ghosts than the rest of you...not that you're all that mobile at the moment anyway."

Seiji slid back to the ground and reached over to Shin, touching a faintly glowing hand to chill skin. He nodded and looked up at Touma.

"You have a good point. Take my sword; it seemed to have some effect before," He looked pensively down at Shin. "In the meantime, I'll do what I can to keep him from slipping under."

Shu glared stubbornly at Touma, folding his arms over his chest. "I'm coming with you," He said in a no-nonsense tone. "You might need some kind of magical backing."

"You haven't got a clue how to work those new talents of yours." Touma drew the sword from amongst the packs and turned to jab a pale finger into his chest. "I think you'd just get in the way. You could blunder right through one of those ghosts, and I'd get to say 'I told you so'."

"I wouldn't be too far gone to slam you one if you did," Shu's eyes narrowed even further as he swatted the prodding finger away. "What I mean is, I might be able to pick up on the anchor itself. I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about what I can do now, but there's a kind of buzzing feeling where Seiji and Shin are, so I figure I should be able to point out the general location."

Touma frowned thoughtfully, raking a calculating gaze over Shu. Finally he nodded, albeit reluctantly.

"Alright...but if you bite it, I'm leaving you where you fall, understand?" He turned and grabbed hold of the doorknob. Hesitating for a second, he turned back to the Captain's ghost. "Any last words of advice?"

"Don't do anything stupid," Shuten said bluntly. "I've been trapped here for much longer than the rest of you, and I can't say I've enjoyed my stay."

"Oh that was inspirational," Touma rolled his eyes and shoved the door open.

~

The door creaked shut behind them, closing with a very final thud. They squinted against the artificial sunlight, momentarily deafened by the loud cries and crashing of weaponry.

"Touma! Duck!" Shut cried out, quickly stepping back against the cabin wall. Touma dove to the deck, the gust from a sword's passage rustling the hair along the nape of his neck. He hit the wooden planks underfoot and somersaulted back to his feet, Seiji's sword sweeping in a wide arc through the ghost that had menaced them. It flickered for a moment, dancing and wavering like a heat mirage before vanishing, a look of shock stamped upon transparent, yet stubbled, features.

"...They didn't notice us before!" Shu said, dumbfounded.

"Well they do now!" Touma panted, eyes darting about. Several of the pirates had abandoned the usual play of their repetitive battle, and advanced towards them with drawn blades.

Shu cast about himself for something to use as a weapon; Touma hadn't a chance in heaven or hell of taking on every ghost that attacked them. Sooner or later one would get past his guard, and then he'd only end up like Shu himself, or possibly worse off like Shin.

Touma met the first of them head on, Power-infused sword rebounding off the phantom's in a flare of sparks. While he dealt with it, another lunged at Shu from the side. The ex-docker ducked to the left, his chilled hand coming up to grasp the blade. Any feeling remaining in his arm vanished in an instant, but not before he managed to wrest the scimitar away from its wielder.

"Shu!! What do you think you're doing?!" Touma yelped, shocked and alarmed. Shu took a moment to tear a strip of linen from the hem of his already fraying shirt and caught one end between his teeth. A few deft twists of his wrist wrapped the other around his free right hand. Touma dispatched another ethereal warrior as he pried the scimitar from numbed fingers and transferred it to the makeshift gauntlet.

"I hope, after all that trouble, you know how to use one of those," Touma knocked another cutlass aside, his parry noticeably slower, as though his arm was growing too heavy to lift. "You're only speeding up your own end."

"It isn't going to matter, one way or another," Shu grunted in response. He hacked away at their foes with more force and stubbornness than skill. Fingers of chill worked their way slowly across his chest, emanating from where his left arm hung slack at his side, and the non-existent wound just above his hip.

The two of them were slowly herded towards the center of the deck, until their backs bumped up against the mast. Despite the illusion of noon sun on the high seas, the wooden pillar felt cold and damp through the cloth of their shirts, slick with algae and rot.

Touma's breath grated harshly in his own ears, every gasp sending red-hot lances of pain to the cramps developing in his upper arm and the stitch in his side. It hadn't escaped his notice that he and Shu were only being attacked by the ghosts of the pirates; it seemed whatever spell manipulated them had no such control over the spirits of the corsairs. Perhaps Shuten still held some influence over his dead men.

"Shu," He said through gritted teeth, "Are we anywhere near where Seiji sensed the anchor?!"

The larger man nodded, leaning heavily back against the mast. He braced himself behind his stolen weapon, ignoring the curious lethargy that preceded the cold.

"We have to be," He said shortly, "I can barely force myself to move, and these ghosts seem stronger here. They must be drawing strength from it!"

"Gotta get below decks..." Touma muttered to himself, deflecting another attack into the illusory wood of the mast. Blue eyes darted frantically about behind sweat-damp bangs, searching for a staircase, a ladder, anything through the press of brawling seamen. Hell, he'd even take a hole in the deck right about now.

A hole in the deck..?

Perhaps twenty feet before him, more towards the bow of the ship, a wooden lattice covered a squared off gap in the wood. Below it was a small holding cell, used for the occasional prisoner, loot, or extra cargo. It seemed sturdy enough beneath the false sunlight, but he'd be willing to bet an entire month's take that it wasn't nearly so in reality.

"I've got an idea," He flashed a sideways grin at Shu, who shivered in a sudden chill that had nothing to do with ghosts or spells. "Think you can clear us an opening in that direction?" He nodded towards the lattice, currently hidden beneath many pairs of booted feet.

Shu shrugged. He was getting a terrible feeling of foreboding about all of this, but they hadn't many options. He gathered his strength together and heaved his current attacker back into the crowd, knocking him into several of his fellows. In such a crush, they fell like tenpins, each one taking another two down with him.

"Nice job," Touma congratulated him, sounding rather impressed. He grabbed hold of Shu's numb wrist and took off through the resulting gap. The distance to the holding cell narrowed from twenty feet to twelve in a few long strides, then to maybe four.

In a flash, Shu realized what he intended. "You can't be serious?!"

Touma tugged him along, clearing the last of the stretch without bothering to answer the obvious. Their combined weight left the solid boards of the deck and hit the lattice. With the muffled snapping of rotted wood, the entire thing gave way beneath them, opening up a dark pit under their feet. The two young men plummeted an unknown distance, fragments and splinters of wood raining down around them.

~

Seiji really wasn't a patient person, he was just exceptionally good at faking it. At the moment he soundly cursed his pounding head and churning stomach. He should have gone with Touma and Shu. They couldn't possibly handle something of this magnitude all on their own; they would only succeed in getting themselves killed.

If he hadn't had something to keep his mind occupied, he probably would have gone mad ages ago, but Shin's condition was more than enough to think about.

The smaller man lay slightly curled on his side, his shoulders and head resting in Seiji's lap. The Magi kept arms around Shin's shoulders, forcing as much warmth as he could into the boy's body. But for all the heat he leached out of the folded legs beneath him, Shin's skin barely seemed to warm. The color was entirely gone from his face, and his lips were completely frost-touched. Seiji brushed back locks of tussled auburn hair, shocked to realize that his own skin was darker than Shin's. The permanent tan had vanished, leaving behind flesh pale enough to be translucent. Traceries of blue veins pulsed just below the surface; some life at least remained contained within the scarcely breathing form.

This hadn't been how he'd imagined dying. He doubted anyone really gave much thought to the end until it loomed.

"You don't think they have any chance, do you?" Shuten remarked, leaning against the door the other two had recently exited through.

"Shu is too green to be much use, and Touma is completely mundane," Seiji said flatly. "But I suppose there's always a chance."

"You're a real ray of sunshine, Magi," The Captain smirked.

"I'm not here to reassure you, spirit." Seiji retorted. Shin sucked in a ragged breath, blunt nails digging into the skin of Seiji's arms as though something pained him. His face twisted into a grimace just as something brushed against the edges of the Magi's senses. Seiji frowned, eyes narrowing to slits as he tightened his arms around Shin's trembling shoulders. Something out there was awake, aware, and confident enough that he was no threat to move without bothering to cloak itself.

"So," Shuten raised his head to glance towards the curtained window. "He is still bound here after all. I had my suspicions, but never any proof that he had remained here."

"That who had?" Seiji asked sharply.

"The Magi responsible for this entire fiasco," The ghost replied, spreading his hands as though that should have been obvious. "Who else?"

~

Shu groaned. His entire body consisted of varying levels of discomfort at the moment. He managed to pull his working arm beneath his body and use it to lever himself up. Bits and pieces of wood fell from his back and shoulders as he did so, landing around him with quiet clunks.

Another groan echoed back to him from somewhere near his knees. Shu twisted around, trying to make out anything in the pitch darkness that had enveloped him. He groped towards it, hoping he was reaching towards Touma and not some mutated corpse-rat. His fingers met yielding flesh, and were greeted with a startled yelp.

"Awp! Getcher hands offa me!" Touma shot up and scooted away. "This isn't some peep'n play show!"

"Of course not," Shu rumbled, annoyed at the other man's gutter mind. "That would require some light."

"...Ah," The thief's tone was unreadable, but the soft rustling of cloth and the creaking of boards told Shu he was attempting to sit or stand. "Well, we made it below decks, at any rate."

"As soon as I can see you, I'm going to wring your scrawny neck," The docker muttered threateningly. "I'm sure I can manage that one-handed."

"We can discuss my demise after we deal with the anchor," Touma said absently. He eased himself to his hands and knees and felt around for the cool steel of Seiji's sword. They'd both been extremely lucky not to have fallen on it. "Are we closer?"

Shu took his mind off grousing for a moment and focussed. That buzzing, similar and yet different to what he felt when near either Shin or Seiji, encompassed his mind as though sensing that he sought it. It vibrated through his skull, sending unpleasant shivers right down to his teeth and toenails.

"Much," He replied, voice strained.

"Good," Touma sat up straight, having finally located the sword's hilt. Shu's own weapon must have dissipated into thin air once it had left his grip. He didn't seem to notice the forced quality of Shu's tone. "Then let's find the door and get this over with.

By that point it was actually possible for one to make the other out in the darkness as a faint light fell from the gaping hole overhead. It seemed the sun from the illusion didn't extend any farther than the main deck, but the light from the real night sky above was sufficient enough to see by.

The door was simple enough to find. At some point in the past, the hinges had rusted away, allowing it to fall into the holding cell. Shu rubbed at the small of his back, which now sported a lock-shaped bruise.

Touma padded out into the hall beyond, sword held before him. If he ached as much as his companion, he didn't show it. A quick look to both sides assured him that no ghosts roamed the passage, and he gestured for Shu to follow him.

The moment they were both clear of the cell, the oil lamps hanging from their brackets along the walls popped into life. Both Shu and Touma jumped in surprise, falling back to back in case of attack. No sounds met their ears, and after a small eternity of tense waiting, they relaxed.

"Which way?" Touma looked around himself, frowning thoughtfully.

"That way," Shu pointed to his right, "Definitely that way," The buzzing had reached an almost sickening intensity now.

Though they certainly expected an attack, none came. The passageway was filled only with their footfalls. Shu's own knowledge of a ship's interior led him to believe that they were approaching the main cargo hold, but he wasn't sure if a freighter could be compared to a corsair's ship. The lamps behind them dimmed and went out, even as more before them came alight of their own volition. Not too far ahead, a steady golden glow shone from where Shu judged the hold to be.

"I'm beginning to have a bad feeling about this..." Touma said quietly, more to fill the silence than to share his nervousness.

The lights around them went out, plunging them back into darkness. A cold, sourceless wind blew from behind them, whipping their clothes and hair into disarray. Mocking laughter echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once, filling their ears and freezing their blood. Shu's numb arm gave an agonizing twinge in response.

Touma tried to shout to him over the wind, but the words were snatched from his mouth before they ever touched his lips. He broke into a staggering run towards the light, catching Shu's hand in his. They couldn't go back, and while the wind seemed to want them to go forward, they had no other choice.

They broke into the cargo bay, panting and wild-eyed. The wind vanished, but the laughter remained, though it no longer echoed. It no longer seemed loud and booming either, but thin and reedy. And no wonder, as it sprang from the throat of a wizened little mummy of a man.

He floated a few paces above their heads, his legs crossed, claw-like hands gripping his knees. His skin had a definite greenish tinge to it, and clung to his skeleton as if there was no muscle between it and the bone. Beady black eyes surrounded by yellowed whites gazed crazily down at them. The thin slash of a mouth was framed by a long, wispy mustache that drifted about his face as though made of cob-web. He wore a robe that might once have been indigo, but was now faded to a dull lavender.

Directly beneath him, a glass globe rotated slowly. Within it were ever changing images of the Vassaar and the rooms within it from different angles.

"Alright," Touma said after a stunned pause, "I'm guessing the sphere's our anchor...but the little old man?" Shu shrugged.

"Ignorant fools!" The shriveled bat's voice sounded much as they would have expected; wasted and high-pitched with age. "Fools to not know greatness when you see it!"

"You don't suppose this is that Badamon Shuten told us about?" Touma asked, his voice easily overheard by the levitating elder.

"You must have hit your head when we fell," Shu scoffed. "He'd have to be dead by now!"

"Your friend speaks the truth," The old man's voice came in a hiss, "I am the Magi who holds this ship in his thrall, alive these many years. Magic now flows through my veins in place of the blood of mortal men. I need neither food nor water nor air, only my spell to sustain me."

"Likes to hear himself talk, doesn't he?" Shu grabbed hold of a barrel pushed up against the wall and heaved it over his head. "Let's do what we came to do and get out of here!" He hurled the barrel towards the slowly turning sphere of glass, waiting for it to shatter. Instead, it seemed to collide with an invisible barrier. Curlers of gray mist wound about it, squeezing the barrel until it caved under the pressure.

"My spell is flawless!" Badamon exulted, baring yellowed teeth in an insane grin. "Nothing can break its influence! Now the both of you shall join these other poor fools in an eternity as my playthings!" The doors to the cargo hold banged open, and pirate ghosts drifted in, converging on Shu and Touma with moaning cries and hopeless eyes.

Shu cried out in horror as they plunged their hands through his body, spreading the death-like cold throughout his entire being. He fell to his knees, fighting to regain control of himself as they seized him with chill fingers.

Touma backed up against the wall, gaze flying from his tortured friend, to the ghosts advancing upon him, and then to the laughing husk of a Magi hovering safely above it all. He clutched the worry-stone in his pocket, squeezing his eyes shut and furrowing his brow. He wondered for a moment if it would hurt.

Let it go.

His eyes shot open, widening in surprise. What?

Just let it go faithful one.

A voice in his head. Another one of Badamon's tricks? The flattened stone in his palm gave a little tremor, almost surprising him into dropping it.

Leave this to me. I can save them.

He withdrew the stone from his pocket, staring at it for a long moment. Everything around him seemed to slow, giving him all the time in the world to choose.

You know what needs doing, don't you?

He did. He just didn't want to do it.

Let me save them.

Aw hell...

Touma fisted his hand around the stone, looking up to glare at the Magi as time snapped back to its normal pace. Just before the first phantom reached out to touch him, he drew his arm back and threw the stone with all his might towards the anchor. It slipped through the grabbing fingers of mist, striking the glass and sticking to it as though it were a piece of putty instead of rock. Cracks snaked their way across the surface of the glass, allowing bright rays of light to lance through the fissures and illuminate the room in a blinding radiance. Badamon screamed as the glass shattered, shards and fragments of it tinkling to the ground in a shimmering fall. His form withered even further, skin hardening to a leathery consistency. It cracked and fell away in a cloud of dust, even the screams fading to nothing as his centuries-old body returned to ash.

Shu fell forward onto his hands as the ghosts supporting him vanished. The feeling returned to his body in a flood of heat, leaving a pins-and-needles sensation in his extremities. He sucked in a deep breath, blinking in shock. He...wasn't dead...was he?

He sat back on his heels, going from there to his feet. He looked around himself almost frantically. Touma, where was-?

Oh.

The sapphire glow was a definite hint. Touma hung suspended above the floor by tendrils of cerulean light wound about his body like a marionette's strings. His head was thrown back, the fall of his lashes casting dark shadows over his cheeks, though his eyes remained halfway open. His hands were clasped over his chest, gripping at the fabric of his vest as though his heart ached. He looked more like a limned image in a scribe's storybook than anything real, much less a scruffy second-story thief from the slums of Kichis.

"...Touma?" Shu tried, hating the way his voice shattered on the last syllable. Oh please let him be alright, pleaseohpleaseohplease...

His eyes came open completely, scaring at least five years' off of Shu's lifespan. There were no whites, no iris, no pupil, just a searing light that shone forth from behind his eye sockets. The bands of light holding him up loosened, slackening off so that his feet touched the floor once more. Shu took a tentative step forward. This wasn't anything he was familiar with. It seemed nothing at all like what he had seen Shin do when working with his Elemental abilities, or the little magic he had seen Seiji use...so what was this? Something different?

"Something outside of your scope of experience," Touma said, but not in Touma's voice. Shu swallowed hard, repetitively. He knew a woman's pitch when he heard one.

Touma(?) laughed lightly and stepped forward towards where the anchor had been. Lying amongst the glittering glass powder scattered across the floor was a single stone, flattened and smooth by constant rubbing. Shu recognized it almost immediately as the pebble Touma fiddled with when thinking or nervous. He didn't touch it now, however, merely stood there gazing at it.

"What are you?" Shu finally mustered up the courage to ask. It would just figure that he survive being mauled by specters only to be struck down by something else. "What have you done with Touma?!"

"He's fine, he's in here with me," The feminine voice answered him calmly, turning to look at him as s/he spoke. "Asleep of course. A human mind couldn't stand being in close proximity to mine for long."

"...You're not human?" Shu swallowed again, his throat going dry.

"Naturally not," S/he seemed content to leave it at that.

Shu, however, was not. "Then what...?"

"I didn't expect you to give up easily," The strange voice said, smiling with Touma's mouth. "I am, to put it in a way you could comprehend, the Spirit of Taidem."

Shu's mind reeled. "But...Taidem is a country!"

Touma's blue bangs fell into his eyes as the Spirit nodded with his head. "But it has a soul. And that soul is me," A thumb jerked to his chest. "Mostly I lie dormant, content to observe through dreaming. In recent days, though, the country has begun to fall. Events are coming around that will either make or break it, and I am not one to sit back and allow Fate to decide as she will."

"So you possessed Touma to save us?" Shu's clear blue eyes blinked in confusion. "I don't understand."

"I didn't possess Touma, I created him," The Spirit corrected gently.

Shu staggered as though struck. "Created?!"

"I needed a vessel to operate through," The woman's voice explained. "So I extended my Power and created a human with which to work. Every Magi in the world would know if I manifested directly, so instead I use an avatar. Touma is that avatar. He believes himself to be human, complete with memories of a life and past, but in reality, he has existed for only a few weeks. He does not know of this, or that I am capable of manifesting through him."

"You intervened just now so that all your effort wouldn't go to waste," Shu spat. Hell yes he was angry; not even a Spirit as powerful as this one seemed to be had any right to give or take an entire identity.

Touma's head shook. "No, to save all of you. There is something significant about you, which is why I pushed Touma to go along on your journey."

"Then...you're going to come along with us the rest of the way?" Shu's head was beginning to ache.

"No." The Spirit glanced down at the stone by Touma's feet. "I cannot manifest for long. This simple pebble you see is actually a powerful suppressor stone. It keeps me bound, and protects my vessel from magical attacks. When he cast it into the anchor, it suppressed the spell keeping the spirits trapped here, ending the cycle, but also allowing me to seize control. The moment I touch it again, I will return to being insubstantial."

"Why not just remain in your 'avatar's form?" Shu approached her, not sure where the conversation was heading.

She smiled softly. "When I created his false life, I did too thorough a job. He is more of a person than I had intended; as human now as you or Seiji or Shin. His personality would eventually overcome me." Touma's body went to its knees, one hand now hovering over the stone. "So I will return to Taidem for a while, until I'm needed again. The spell binding this ship outside of the time-stream will shortly reach its end. I suggest you be on your way by then." His fingers closed around the worry-stone, which shone briefly through the gaps between them. Touma's eyes met Shu's and smiled in a way they never had. "Take care of him, will you?"

The suppressor stone drove her from his body, dispersing the bonds of light and returning his eyes to their normal human state. Touma slumped bonelessly forward, and would have fallen face-first into the deck, but was saved from a broken nose by Shu, who quickly dropped to his knees and caught him up.

The deck beneath him shuddered and groaned, a wail echoed by the surrounding walls of the hold. Shu looked up from staring at Touma's unconscious face, recalling the Spirit's words about the spell's end. Centuries worth of rot and decay caught up with the Vassaar all at once, literally liquefying the boards he crouched on.

The ghost ship collapsed in on itself with a final screech of timber and metal, showering the two young men in splinters and rust. The floor finally gave way, allowing dark water to rush in and greet them. Shu sucked in a lungful of air before it closed over his head, enfolding him in a world of brackish green.

He could swim, but it was difficult to keep an arm around Touma as well as strike out towards the surface. Especially since he wasn't altogether sure where the surface was. His lungs were beginning to protest, he could feel the pressure increasing at the nape of his neck and in the back of his head.

Something pale and slender darted out and wrapped around his free wrist. Shu thrashed against it, fearful of becoming entangled, but the grip was relentless. The last of his air rushed out of his mouth in a cloud of fragile bubbles. He didn't realize he was being pulled to follow them.

He broke through the surface with a deep gasp, drinking in the salty air in greedy gulps. Sunlight shone redly through his closed eyes, but he was far too tired to pry them open. The restraint left his wrist, only to return a moment later, lifting his hand and pushing a piece of drift wood beneath it.

"Hold on to that, and I'll see to Touma."

Shu managed to crack an eye open, staring with exhausted incredulity at Shin as he pulled the blue-haired thief away and kicked over to another spar of wood.

"Shin?" He croaked, blinking the salt water away. "But I thought you were ill..?"

"I got better," Came the flippant reply. And indeed, he certainly seemed better; all the color had come back to his face. He didn't even move with the trace of hesitation that marked one recovering from a sickness. Shin tossed a grin over his shoulder as he pounded on Touma's back. "Actually, whatever you did reversed the ghosts' affects, I guess. The whole ship's gone now."

"And it's daylight," Shu leaned his head back to stare at the cloudless blue sky, stretching from horizon to horizon like a bolt of perfectly dyed turquoise silk.

Shin nodded and shook his dripping hair from his eyes. "You're both lucky I found you; Seiji went on ahead to get his bearings and see what he could salvage while I looked around for the two of you."

"Went on ahead?"

"Sure, we're not exactly in the middle of the ocean anymore."

Shu turned in the direction Shin indicated, surprised to notice a stretch of beach spotted here and there with hardy clinging shrubs. It was possible for him to make out a lone figure staring inland.

"..Where are we?!" He clung a little tighter to the plank, kicking his legs to propel himself towards the shore.

"Who knows?" Shin shrugged and helped steer Touma after him. "We're not even sure how long we were on board the Vassaar. One moment I was lost in...some sort of endless cold..." He paused for a moment, contemplating the chill that had pervaded every sense he possessed, then shook it off like a dog shedding water, "And the next, Seiji and I are up to our necks in sea water."

Shu's feet kicked up little clouds of powder-fine sand that drifted around his legs. His toes sank into the muddy silt, but he couldn't recall when anything felt so nice. Shin pulled Touma up onto the shore, splashing a little of the cold water onto the pale, still face. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull, thrown into shadow by his brow and marked beneath by dark circles. His cheeks were gaunt and drawn, and his forehead puckered in a constant frown, but at least he still breathed. Shu stood over him, brooding to himself. Should he tell the others what he had learned in the hull of the Vassaar? Should he tell Touma, at least? Would he want to know if he wasn't what he thought himself to be? Would Shu, if the tables had been turned?

No, he decided eventually. Better to let him go on thinking himself to be normal. As long as nothing catastrophic happened, there would be no need for the Spirit to take control of her avatar again.

"Shu?" Shin looked up at him, questions held within his eyes. "What happened back there?"

"...I'm not sure myself," Came the slow reply. "I'll let you know when I figure it out." He turned and walked slowly down the shore, leaving divots in the sand as he went.

Shin looked down as Touma stirred, his fingers tightening around the gray stone held securely within his hand. The younger man carefully pried it from his grasp and slid it back into the thief's pocket. He seemed attached to the thing, for some unknown reason.

"We had best make camp here tonight Seiji," Shin said, twisting around to speak to the blonde. "With any luck, usable supplies will wash up onshore with the tides. Besides, I don't think Touma's in any condition to move."

Seiji turned towards him, his eyes distant, seeming as though he had only heard the last part of Shin's statement.

"What's the matter?" Shin rose to his feet, dusting away the sand clinging to his knees. "Seems like everyone has something on their minds."

"I'm close Shin," Seiji said quietly, his tone just as faraway as his eyes. "Closer than I was the last time I thought to check. Somehow, our voyage aboard the ghost ship has brought us closer to my old teacher. If I judge correctly, we are within a few days' travel of him."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Shin cocked his head to the side, wondering why Seiji seemed so troubled. "You can return home then."

The Magi just sighed and shook his head, turning away to wander in the opposite direction.

Shin watched him go, looked over his shoulder in the direction Shu had gone, and sighed to himself in aggravation. If anything resembling a camp was going to be assembled, he would have to be the one to do it.

((Ick ick ick, I cannot believe how long I took with this thing (though it's like 12 pages long, so you people can stop growling now ^^). It's been what, TWO MONTHS?! I am a bad, bad Authoress. Would not blame you for smacking the daylights outta me, de gozaru yo...*realizes Angel and Risa are going to take that seriously*...eep!

My excuses? Um...I have a job now! And there were finals and SATs...and of course there was that whole fiasco with my dog and the canoe and the can o spray cheese that combusted in the sun....I am totally making that last one up, but the first two are valid. I would have had this up last night, but ffnet decided that everything past the login-screen is confidential material, so I had to wait.

So yeah! That's the ghost captain ^-^ does the whole ghost thing make sense now? Shuten's dead, and I'm not gonna revive him, be this an AU fic or not. But at least he got to tick the boys off ~_^

*throws hands up* I stand corrected! And you had better have meant it when you said you could handle that much fic in one sitting, because this certainly is a rather large helping, as my helpings go, mary d and Khisanth and V.... Ooowah! I have recruited new reviewers! *giddy about that* I would sit here and leave a note to everybody, but I'm currently sneaking net time ~_^ Better just get this up rather than get caught, hm?

The next chapter should be more fun for me to write. Hopefully it means that won't take two months, but it's best not to make any promises that I can't be sure of keeping ^^; ))