Whoo, this is a slightly longer-ish chapter, mostly because if I broke it off with Watari, it'd only be a paragraph long and that would really make you want to kill me…as if you already don't or won't soon for abusing Tatsumi. This isn't a happy chappie for Tatsumi. See you downwards.

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Watari shuddered, the echo of Tatsumi's terrified shrieks ringing in his ears. It was the same strangled cry he heard late at night when he was woken from a sound sleep. The blonde could envision it with ease, his rolling over and flicking on the bedside lamp, fumbling for his glasses, still bleary-eyed and hardly lucent. Tatsumi would be sitting up, his face ashen, his naked body cold with sweat and gooseflesh, hands clutching the sheets in white-knuckled fists. And Watari would hold him, press his shaking body to his own, lock him in a warm embrace and whisper affectionate words until the panicked look faded from his broken blue eyes.

"Oh Tatsumi, what is he doing to you?" he murmured, setting aside another book.

Hisoka wandered into the laboratory with a cup of some steaming drink cradled in his hands.

"Here, I figured you could use some," he offered, holding out the chipped mug. Watari accepted it and took a tentative sip. Green tea with barely a spoonful of sugar, the preferred drink of frustrated scientists everywhere. He smiled in gratitude at the teenager, who nodded in acknowledgment to Watari's thanks.

"Do you think he's all right?" the teenager queried.

"No, but if I try not to think about it, I can fool myself for a little longer," Watari replied. "I've been concentrating my thoughts on all of the ways I'm going to pound Muraki into the dirt instead. I won't kill him, though, promise; that pleasure goes to you and Tsuzuki. Maybe just knock out a few teeth or something."

"I've gotten a few outside flashes of emotion, I think they're from him. He feels…lost."

Watari nodded solemnly, his blonde head bobbing. "This is speculation on my part, but I think Tatsumi is being forced to pull all of the skeletons out of his closet after finally stuffing them all in and getting the door shut. He hasn't dealt with these memories in nearly a century because they hurt so much, and it's shredding his psyche."

"How can you be so calm about this, Watari?"

"I'm in a state of shock, Bon. As soon as I've sufficiently kicked Muraki's ass and run off with Tatsumi in my arms, I'll break down and start sobbing hysterically," he said matter-of-factly.

Hisoka sighed. "Watari…don't get me wrong or anything, I'm not trying to be pessimistic…what if Tatsumi dies?"

"And I survive? I don't know. The obvious answer is that I kill myself and meet up with him in the afterlife, but that would leave Tsuzuki with two dead best friends. I couldn't do that to him or you."

"And that's why you don't want us helping, either, correct? To preserve our sanity?"

"I'm the only one Muraki hasn't officially tainted yet. Sending you two out to battle him isn't exactly the soundest of game plans. He'd stick those skinny fingers of his into all of the scars you've spent the last seven years closing up and rip them right open again. I'd rather have my arms blown off than have to face post-Kyoto Tsuzuki again. Or see you loitering around the infirmary worrying more about him than the eyeball hanging out your own eye socket. I owe you guys that much at least."

"Watari…" Hisoka sighed again. "I'll never forgive you if you don't come back alive."

He smiled. "I'll even bring you back a souvenir, Bon. Do you want Muraki's left ear, or his right?"

The boy shrugged and walked out, trying to disguise how twisted he felt inside. One of his closest companions was walking towards suicide, and he could do nothing to help him. Right now, the only thing Hisoka wanted to do was to throw himself into a pair of strong arms and cry, though he knew that would do him little good as well, considering he knew that those amethyst eyes would be weeping too. He wondered if there was any persuading Enma into performing a miracle, for it seemed that something drastic was necessary to keep death from casting its pallor over Shokan-ka.

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Tatsumi had seen his life blaze by, seasons whirling through his head, fragments of memories that he'd long forgotten. The death of his father. Moving into his mother's ancestral home. The looks of distain her family gave the remnants of the Tatsumi clan as mother, son and daughter humbly threw themselves at the mercy of the patriarch, Tatsumi no more than ten or eleven. His grandfather extorting their family, allowing them to live in the house but having to pay rent and buy their own food. He worked, the only one who could, toiled in rice paddies until his back ached and his fingernails had been ripped down to the pink part from scrabbling in the muddy and rocky soil. That was before he went to school, learned secretarial work and accounting, got an internship at a rapidly growing company in town. Every bit of money went to supporting his family, protecting his mother, who'd grown so frail since the death of her beloved husband. And Tatsumi had always known that he made her sad, that she would cry at nights when she thought he was sleeping, for she could see her husband in her son, and it broke her shattered heart.

And then that day came, the horrible day that had been lurking in the back of his subconscious for almost a hundred years. Tatsumi was following himself, Seiichiro now ten years younger than his Shinigami counterpart, Kana a very beautiful fifteen. They were coming home from school, his black-haired sister carrying a paper parcel.

"Are you sure you're feeling all right, Seii? You look so pale today."

He waved her off. "Yes, Kana, I'm fine. I worked a late shift last night so we could afford eel for supper, remember?"

"I know, but you better not be getting sick, Seii. If you stop working, even for a day, we wouldn't have enough money to afford some watery miso or even a single soybean. Not the way Grandfather's been hassling Mama for more money lately."

Seiichiro nodded, his eyes growing a little hard. His grandfather was extorting and blackmailing their family, making his own daughter cower in fear of him, all because of his hatred for her late husband. He promised himself that as soon as he'd saved enough money, he'd move his mother and Kana as far away from the place as possible, perhaps to Okinawa.

They stepped into the house, toeing off their shoes at the door. Kana ran ahead, calling for their mother. Seiichiro lingered on the threshold, something not feeling quite right. His sister let out a horrible scream, sending Seiichiro flying, Tatsumi following, matching him stride for stride. She stood in the doorway of the next room, her shaking hand pointing inwards. Their mother was spattered across the room; gore dripping from the walls, the mutilated remnants of her corpse quivering in the middle of the floor. Seiichiro ran to her, screaming, picking up her head and holding it in his lap. Her eyes were still open, face contorted into a soundless scream. Blood seeped into his clothes, smeared on his hands. Kana was sobbing.

"Mama…oh God, Seii…Mama…" she babbled, her knees giving out.

There was a scraping sound, the sound a shoji screen makes when it's being pushed aside, and their maternal grandfather stood there, a katana in his hand, the blade dripping scarlet. His clothes were mottled with blood, eyes cold and cruel. Seiichiro glared at him, Tatsumi as well, the two halves of the same being rising to face him.

"How could you do this?" Seiichiro cried, waving his bloodied hands as Tatsumi mimicked him involuntarily. "How could you kill our mother? Your own daughter?"

"The bitch was having another one of her sobbing fits. This was the only way she would shut up," his grandfather spat. "The useless whore, so lazy, couldn't even do housework. I should've killed her years ago while I had the opportunity. I knew she was going to be trouble, but I never expected this much. Marrying some half-caste cur, giving birth to a son just as worthless as his father. She was screaming for you, Seiichiro. Right before she died."

Both Seiichiro and Tatsumi started at this. He had forgotten all of the conversation he'd had that day, and hearing the words a second time made them all the more painful.

"Stop it! Please, Grandfather, stop this!" Kana cried. The man picked her up from the back of her collar and threw her. Kana sailed across the room, crashing into the screen on the opposite side. Seiichiro saw red, Tatsumi saw black.

"Kana!"

His grandfather stepped forward, malice glinting in his eyes, sword swinging menacingly. "I'll rid myself of you…I've had enough of pretending to be generous. You've shamed your mother, Seiichiro, disgraced her…you failed to protect her. A better son wouldn't have let this happen. I should kill you last, so the final thing you see before you die is your sister's broken corpse, so you can go to the afterlife knowing you failed her as well. You miserable brats aren't worthy of bearing my blood in your veins, and you can tell your fool mother that when you see her in Hell."

He moved towards Kana, ready to swing the blade down on her. Seiichiro leapt into the way, taking the blow, the brutally sharp edge sinking into his flesh along his collarbone. Seiichiro let out an inhuman scream, shadows flinging themselves off the walls, leaping hungrily at his grandfather. The older man let out a terrible cry that was squelched as the shadows rent him limb from limb, blood and blackness splattering the already filthy walls. As long as Seiichiro kept screaming the shadows continued, stopping only when the young man ran out of breath. By then there was hardly anything left of his grandfather. Kana, bleeding, rose from where she'd fallen.

"Seii…what did you do?" she gasped. "How…what did you do?"

Seiichiro stared at her, at the carnage, realizing he'd killed his own grandfather and murdered his mother in failing to protect her. With a strangled cry, he rose to shaking feet and soaked in the blood of his mother and grandfather as well as his own, he ran. Tatsumi stood in the house shaking, his unbroken hand touching his collarbone, the scarred flesh that remained there even after his death. Kana was weeping into her hands, surrounded by death. Tatsumi had killed two people and abandoned his sister, making himself a monster in her mind. This was the taint he lived with, frozen into his heart for a century of suffering, locked away so that no one could see. He left the house, the memory, walking into a void of nothingness before he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Despair strode up beside him and put chill arms around the man, caressing him with a cold and callow touch.

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Notes: So there, that's my interpretation of Tatsumi's life up until a certain point. That should explain a whole hell of a lot, at least, I thought it did. I was going to do something about his actual death, but I couldn't decide on how Tatsumi should die. Part of me says suicide, but both Tsuzuki and Tatsumi killing themselves sounds a bit much to me. I don't know. See y'all next chapter.