Warnings: Shounen-Ai (if you're looking for it, but safe enough for the whole family), mild language, genuine Omi-cynicism, and over-hyphenization.    

Spoilers: references to various events during the anime series, including but not limited to Omi's Tragic Past and the Taketori family. 

Snow

Incident Number Four:  What Smells like Masafumi but has Less Tentacles? 

Aya was gone being his usual reclusive self, Ken and Yohji were outside throwing snow at each other, and I was on my computer, writing my paper on the effects of the Meiji period on the lower class.  Just because I was on vacation didn't mean I could ignore my work, after all.  I leaned back in the wooden chair, sighing.  I still needed two pages, and with the sources I'd acquired so far I didn't have enough.  I yawned, rubbing my prickling eyes and stood up.  I could use more coffee. 

She was in the living room; eyes gleaming as she clawed through the sofa cushions, lifting them up and around and shoving them violently back in place when she was through with them.  I stood in the doorway, empty mug dangling from my fingers as I watched.  She finished with the sofa with a growl, moving to the mantelpiece, her clawed fingers dancing along the few framed photographs that sat there gathering dust. 

"They've got to have one here somewhere" She snarled.  I just knew she was up to something.  Although I couldn't imagine what she could be looking for, unless it was Aya's katana to slice us all into sushi.  She whirled around, her dark hair skirting behind her, flicking her fury across the room.  I blinked.  She saw me staring. 

"Oh, Omi, there you are."  She was out of breath.  What had she been doing?

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for… the remote."

I pointed.  It was on the coffee table. 

"Oh, thank you."  Her voice slipped back into its syrupy jingle.  I walked past her, careful to keep my back from facing her.  Of course, I ended up backing into the corner of the kitchen cabinet, but I'm sure it was worth the pain.  I ducked into the kitchen out of sight, set my mug on the counter and slipped out of the other exit. 

"Aya!"  I said, bursting into his room, "Ayame is a dark beast!"  Okay, so my door-flinging entrance into his room was a bit on the melodramatic side, but with Aya it's important to get his attention from the beginning.  I failed.  He was still where he always was, lying on his bed, staring out the window. 

"Aya!  I saw her sneaking around downstairs, looking for something."

"Omi… go away."

"Seriously, she's a dark beast!  Please believe me!"

That was it, he was done.  I cast a glare at the back of his head and ran off to find Ken.  I wasn't even going to bother with Yohji. 

By then the sky had a smattering of clouds, at least, and the snow's glint was more tolerable as I stepped outside to find Ken.  He and Yohji were sitting on the porch, side by side, talking. 

"Uh, Ken?" He turned to look at me, "Could I, uh, talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure, Omi."  He stood to follow me inside.  I caught the over-the-sunglasses look Yohji gave me, like I was ruining something for him again, and turned my head quickly away.

"What is it?" 

"It's Ayame."  I looked quickly around to make sure she was out of sight.  I figured the living room was safe, since that was the scene of the crime, but I had to check anyway.  I lowered my voice, "I caught her snooping around here, looking for something."

"What?"

"I caught her…"

"I mean what was she looking for?"

"Oh, I… don't know."  He frowned, "It was very suspicious looking, she was angry."  I added, nodding to accentuate my point.  He looked at me evenly, and I stared back.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." I said, nodding some more.  He suddenly broke out into a grin.

"Hey, Omi, don't worry so much.  After all, there's four of us and only one of her.  Keep an eye open, but don't kill yourself, okay?"

"Okay…"

"I'll watch her too.  But really, what could she do out here?"  He reached as if to pat me on the shoulder or something, but his hand faltered halfway and fell into his pocket instead. 

"I guess you're right."  Something had to fill the silence.  He grinned at me and walked away. 

"Oh, Omi dear," The voice shot through my nerves like the sound chalk makes when it squeaks on a board, "Whoever were you talking about?" 

I told myself to turn slowly, casually.  That would have been the smart thing to do, but of course I shot around, darts automatically between my fingers before I could really stop myself.  Hey, those instincts have kept me alive too many times to count.  They weren't about to just drop away.  

She saw the darts, and a soft hand made its way to cover her delicate lips, but she wasn't surprised or afraid.  Her eyes told me that much. 

"What… what are those?"  Too breathy.  She needed acting classes.  She took a step back, her leg brushing the coffee table, but she didn't look down.  A civilian would have looked down no matter how scared they were.  I guarantee it. 

"Nothing." I said, slyly.  

In the instant it took for her eyes to look into mine and back down, the darts disappeared again.  I watched her dark eyes narrow suspiciously, and my mouth set into a kind of morbidly satisfied smile.  Take that, wench.  Then something broke on her face, like a mask fell off.  She looked like she was about to cry.  She fled, and I stared after her, suddenly confused.

Who is she, anyway? 

I told Ken about that incident, too.  One can never be too careful, so they say.  The afternoon continued, and Ayame actually started returning some of Yohji's flirtations.  She did it with an aggressive flair, like time was running out and she needed to get some...thing.  Yohji, of course, upped the ante, and by the time the sun passed the torch to the moon he followed her upstairs.  Ken and I exchanged knowing looks, and we let them have at it, opting to watch the bad subtitled western on the decrepit television, and turning it up so the English drowned out any noises that might make their way downstairs.  It worked, except for the scream.

It wasn't a sex-scream, either.  I've never heard one of those outside of the movies, but I've heard enough screams of pain to recognize that that's the noise I heard.  Ken and I almost tripped over each other in the rush to get to the stairs, and when we finally made it to Ayame's room, Aya was standing in the doorway. 

"Aya, what happened?  What…?"

He was only there for a moment, however, before he took action, unsheathing his katana with a zing and flashing it though the darkness.  I followed his form with my eyes and watched as a huge green tentacle whipped from beneath the window and sent Aya crashing into the wall inches from my head. 

What might have once been Ayame knelt on Yohji's bed, panting as scales and tentacles ripped their way from her skin.  One of said extra limbs wound its way around Yohji's neck.  Ken pushed past me, but realized he didn't have his bugnuks.  He paused, breathing hard, and grabbed Aya's katana from the floor.  Fujimiya was too busy being unconscious to need it, anyway.  In an instant I had my darts poised.  Unlike Ken, I never went without my weapons.  I had them at school, at the movies, at the flowershop—especially at the flowershop—and in the mountains.  And look, you never know when you might have to kill some freaky mutant creation. 

She didn't look like she was having a good time, despite the fact that she was strangling Yohji.  Her face was still fairly human despite the greenish tinge, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain.  I flung three darts at once, hoping to put her out of her misery.  They bounced uselessly off her shiny, dragon-like scales.  Ken went in, swinging the katana like a bad samurai movie.  In all the years we've been together we've never had to use each others' weapons.  I couldn't think of anything to do.  I had my darts but not my crossbow.  People tended to notice that, so it was impossible to carry it and pretend to be a normal happy teenage boy.  So I did what I could.  I grabbed Yohji's hand mirror off the bureau and threw it at her.  It shattered, streaming silver shards from her head.

"Oi! Wench!"  I screamed.  She turned, hissing through her tears, giving Ken the opening he needed to hack at the tentacle that squeezed the life out of Yohji's now-limp body.  Instead she focused on me, sending some octopus limbs shooting in my direction.  I ducked under one, rolling sideways into Aya and readying one dart in each hand.  She was fast—her other tentacle wrapped around my ankle, lifting my up into the air in a way disturbingly reminiscent of Masafumi.  I pulled myself up, jamming both darts into her tentacle as far as they would go.  She screamed but didn't drop me, opting to flick her tentacle and me into the wall.  My back hit it briefly before she flung me the other direction.  My head grazed the wall and she let go, slamming me into Aya's unresponsive form.  She had other things to take care of. 

Ken had managed to release Yohji, and the blood from the wound in her tentacle streamed satisfyingly across the bed.  But Yohji wasn't moving.  Ken, being the sap that he is, dropped the sword and started checking his pulse and breathing before settling into desperate rescue breaths. 

Well, shit. 

"Ken!" I screamed, "Behind you!"  He was quicker than I gave him credit for.  In an instant the sword was in his hands and he leapt into her attack, plunging the blade between her human-like ribs.  She stopped in mid-leap, blood erupting from her mouth and splattering across Ken's hair.  I finished unwrapping myself from Aya's tangled limbs as Ken twisted the sword viciously in her chest, pushing her gasping body backward across the bed and pulling the katana out as she fell. 

He didn't even check to see if she was dead.  Rule number two of dealing with horrific creatures is you always make sure it's dead.  If you don't, it's bound to come back.  Rule number one is never split up from your group.  You might find what you're looking for faster, but it'll kick your helpless solo ass. 

So, I checked for him.  He dropped the sword and went back to Yohji, who started wheezing and rolling around on the floor.  I took it and went carefully to where Ayame fell behind the bed.  I half expected her to not be there, and I checked the ceiling in case she was spider-like in her mutated abilities.  She wasn't; she was right where she was supposed to be, bleeding like she was supposed to be. 

"Omi dear," She whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, sure." I said, my voice catching. 

"He said…" she coughed, blood flicking into the air, "he said that if I didn't kill you by tomorrow night, I'd… I'd turn into this…."

"Who?"

She shook her head, eyes closed, so I tried again.

"Who sent you?"

She died.  I could feel it.  I checked her pulse anyway, and it was gone.  So I went back to Aya.  Conveniently, he was just waking up. 

"What the…?"

I handed him his sword.  He eyed the blood dripping from it with blurry vision, so I wiped it on the bed sheets and offered it again.  They were ruined, anyway.  Ken was helping a gasping Yohji to his feet, and I could already see the bruises forming on his neck. 

"That's one hell of a hicky, Yohji."  I said.  Ken glared at me.  I shut up.