I'll leave you guys to get right on with the fic. My babbling will just ruin the tense dramatic moment of the chapter. See you down at the bottom.

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Tatsumi heard a voice at the edge of his subconscious, where he'd buried all that was left sane. It sounded familiar, but far away, shrouded in layers of shadow. Murderous shadow. He wanted to stop that voice, silence it so he could die in peace. Muraki had gone, leaving the small portion of his sanity still screaming in agony at the torture he'd succumbed to. But there was still that voice, warped in his mind, sounding foreign and horrible.

            "Tatsumi…" it beckoned, that monstrous voice. The voice of death? Tatsumi let out a shrill cry, lurching upwards and clawing at the air with his nails. He struck flesh, raking it. He held his fingers on the wounds, trying to dig them deeper, the furrows of broken skin closing underneath his fingertips. Flesh that healed instantly. Someone brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, kissing his temple with the gentlest touch.

            "Stay away from me," he rasped, unable to move, lying facedown in a viscous pool of blood. "Don't touch me. He'll come, I know he will. He loves me."

            "Tatsumi, it's me…I'm here…I've come to take you home, love. We're going home."

That voice…he knew that voice with its Kansai accent and its awkward lilt. He'd heard that voice every day for thirty-three years. He reached out, eyes unfocused, blood and tears wet on his face. Bloody fingers snagged something, he couldn't feel what it was. There was a jerk, the thick rope in his hand unraveling to silk. Tatsumi began to sob, his ruined body convulsing.

            "Watari…"

It had to be a trick, another memory, another phantom Muraki was dangling in front of him. He'd been abandoned; there was no one to save him now. Who would want to? But he couldn't deny the soft touch, the long fingers rough from work and chemicals, the murmur of words, the flurry of kisses. His mind felt like so much shattered glass, all of it slogging down into the miasma of pain and blood Muraki had brought bubbling to the surface. Every death scream, every eye full of tears, he'd seen them playing as constant pain sang through his body. He'd seen Tsuzuki sobbing on the edge of a ratty hotel bed and remembered the panic, thinking of his mother in her crying fits, thinking of what would happen if Tsuzuki didn't stop. He remembered Tsuzuki trying to die at Kyoto, how helpless he'd been. And he saw Watari being tortured, screaming in pain, not a memory but a future threat. He couldn't hold his mind together; it kept slipping through crushed fingers like sand. He was losing his sanity fast, needed something to cling to desperately.

"Help me…" he whispered, clutching that handful of hair as tightly as he could. "Help…"

The sensation of being lifted, it felt more like falling. He was falling, fading, dying. Enma help him, he'd never ask for anything ever again if he just kept his mind. Tatsumi didn't even care if he was an invalid, a useless Shinigami lying in a bed, he wanted his sanity back. He was losing everything, even those pretty fragments of happy memories, forgetting it all, down to his own name. He clung tightly to one last thought, the sensation of being loved, a pair of intense amber eyes, and a name.

"Watari…"

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            Tatsumi was in bad shape, Watari had known that instantly. Beyond the broken bones, the blood, and the matter of being partially raped, he could feel the psychological damage and it was beyond repair. The scientist could feel him unraveling and had no words, his wouldn't do much good anyways. Tatsumi sounded so broken, lost, somewhere far from anywhere. The blonde man scooped him up in his arms, cradling him close as he teleported outside the crypt. He couldn't just make the jump from Chijou to Meifu in one go, the force might tear Tatsumi to shreds. Flying seemed to be the only option, flying or walking through a Torii Gate, a manmade barrier between the realms of mortals and spirits.

            "There's nothing left," he breathed, realizing that the entire cemetery had been decimated, scorch marks on the ground, tombstones cracked, shreds of paper tumbling across the burnt earth. Muraki was nowhere to be seen, but that was probably a good thing. Hopefully he wouldn't resurface any time soon, Watari simply didn't have the energy to face him.

            "Tatsumi? Can you hear me? Don't you dare go catatonic on me now, I didn't risk my life for you to leave me, got that? You have to pull yourself out, I can't go where you are right now. Please, Tatsumi, don't abandon me."

There was no reply, not even the flutter of his eyelids. Just the squelchy sound of his breathing and the torpid beat of his heart.

            Watari decided to get down the hill, there was a Torii Gate at the end of the street that he could shift through and save teleportation for getting to their Diet Building. Tatsumi was a heavy weight in his arms, slick with blood and sweat. He stumbled, staggering slowly down the path. A swirl of white mist rose from the ground in front of them, Muraki materializing in his way. The doctor was bleeding from any number of gashes, bruised, his nose still bent at the odd angle Watari had left it at when he'd broken it. And he was smiling the sick grin of Death.

            "I must say you surprised me, Mr. Watari. I didn't expect you to put up such a decent fight. But as you can see, it wasn't enough."

            "Move out of my way, Muraki, I don't have time for this."

The silver-haired man hardly seemed fazed by the order. "You Shinigami are forever meddling with my plans, aren't you? It's so bothersome. First that boy, then the secretary, now you. I suppose I'll have to make you pay now."

            "Make me pay?" Watari retorted. "What more do you want?! You got your vengeance on Tatsumi…that's what you wanted, wasn't it? Vengeance? You decided you'd make him suffer, is that it? That's low even for you, Muraki. Tatsumi has done nothing but suffer for a hundred years of existence. And you have the balls to say you're going to make me pay. I really should hate you, you know. You've damaged him beyond anything I can ever hope to repair, you've taken my one reason for existing away from me and you've sentenced him to eternal damnation. I should hate you, but I don't. I pity you."

            "Pity me, really? Do expound on this, Mr. Watari, I'm eager to hear why."

            "Underneath all of that wickedness, that soul-consuming magic, the bravado, is a scared little boy who doesn't know how to cope with his own self-loathing. Saki took everything from you, left you alone and miserable, and you vowed you'd never feel that way again. So you tried getting pleasure from bringing other people to that same misery, hoping it would take the empty feeling away, but it doesn't, does it? I'm sure you don't go home at night and say to yourself 'I feel good about myself, I raped a thirteen-year-old boy, cursed him and murdered him.' You swore to get your revenge, and that promise swallowed you whole. You could've been something better than this, you didn't have to end up as a demon. You didn't have to be another Saki. And I'm sorry that you deem your life so wretched that taking away others' is the only way you feel better. I'm going to leave, and you're not going to stop me. I suggest you go back to whatever rock you've been hiding under for the past seven years and pray I can undo the damage you've done to this poor man. And if I can't, then I suggest you have your will written up, because you will have all of Meifu to answer to. Good night, Doctor."

            Muraki said nothing, watching as the blonde man and his burden flickered out of existence. Watari hadn't wanted to teleport, but he wasn't about to try walking any further. Not unless he wanted the steely-eyed doctor to reach out and stick a knife in his throat. That very same doctor stood staring at the empty air, unable to move or speak. This had been a far more serious defeat than any he'd been dealt. The young scientist's words had burned more than even Toda's flame, and he felt seared straight through to his bones. More than physical pain, he'd torn decades of emotional scarring out and held the cruel, cold truth in gloved hands. And somehow, Muraki had been put on the same level as the victim he'd tortured, forced into the shadows he'd created. He couldn't handle the concept, prisoner and jailer one and the same. Muraki did the only thing he thought appropriate at a time like this. He passed out.

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            Notes: Hey, if I were Muraki and I had all of that psychiatric mumbo-jumbo whipped at me at a high rate of speed by a very put out scientist with a Kansai accent, I'd probably pass out too. Serves him right, though, thinking he was superior to anyone and everyone else. And I made sure Watari's logic was airtight, just in case somebody wanted to argue with why Muraki was being such a bitch to everyone. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. See you next chapter!