Thank you very much to all my reviewers! Especially Sere-chan, Rinoa Redcloak and Sissy who reviewed me twice!
This chapter is a little of the line, but I just had to write it in.
Yamatoforever: yeah, that's why, I wasn't sure how clear it was, since I obviously know.
Yamatoforever&Sissy: About Hisoka's sight… still not sure.
Rinoa Redcloak: I guess you have got it, but in this chapter it will become even more obvious.
Dr Mwaahaha: Never enough T/H fics I have to agree.
I have read so many fics lately that I hope I have not unwittingly plagiarized someone... please let me now if you feel otherwise.
Disclaimer: I don't own YnM or any of the characters. I hopefully have invented Sacha and Anya though
For Hisoka the next few days went in a blur. He feared and at the same time longed to be alone with Tsuzuki, but it never seemed to happen. They would always be so tired when they got back home, or there would be people over. He sort of thought it was for the better though.
Muraki had also been out of his mind for a while. The doctor had been injured but not killed, yet he did not seem to have returned. Until one day…
"Emergency meeting" Tatsumi had called up everybody in the lunch room. Hisoka noted with surprise how Saya and Yuma were there too. They looked very worried.
Tatsumi went over the basics. Some people were dying in Hokkaido. It seemed like the connection between their soul and their body was already severed, but the soul somehow lingered inside the body to prolong the agony of the people. Saya and Yuma couldn't make head or tail of it. All the five people had disappeared for a brief time of which they had no recollection. 3 of them were dying faster, whatever that meant.
The group listened in silence. Then Sacha spoke. "Curse marks?"
"Haven't seen any." Replied Saya "But we are no experts…"
"This definitely sounds cursy to me. Or magicky anyway. Watari and I could lend a hand…" She cast a glance to Tatsumi, who nodded in approval.
Watari nodded too. These cases had a familiar feel to them. But he was trying hard not to think about the link. Because somebody in the room might notice… He cast a quick glance to Hisoka. The boy seemed perturbed but no more than usual. Wasting disease. Lingering soul. Shall NOT think about Bon's death…
"Ok, Watari-san and Sacha, who's acting as his partner temporarily, will help you guys. Tsuzuki-san, Kurosaki-kun and Anya-san, I have a simple case for you. I thought it would be a good way to start back Kurosaki-kun on field duty..."
Shall NOT think about Bon's death…
Watari and Sacha strolled along the streets of Sapporo. They were approaching the hospital in silence. They knew- and this time no empathy whatsoever was involved- that they were thinking about the same thing. They were looking forward to checking out for curse marks and discover that they had nothing to do with Hisoka's.. and yet things could get messy if they were…
Yuma and Saya met them outside the main entrance. It was night and they had to keep invisible. The hospital was ghostly. Apart from a few nurses walking around there was hardly any movement in the corridors. The intense care unit was full of the gentle beeping of the machines. Watari reflected how strange it was to see Saya and Yuma so silent and serious. They clearly felt they were out of their depths here.
The five victims were located in two adjacent rooms. Hardly a word spoken, Watari gently recited the incantation that Sacha had taught him just a few days earlier to visualize the curse marks. Every single body in the room lit up. When they looked under the cover, they saw no good news.
In the dark of Watari's lab, Watari and Sacha looked at the projection screen as a computer program superimposed 6 images… First the curse marks of the 3 people that were dying faster. All identical. Then the other two, identical between themselves and marginally different from the other three. Then the last one…
Sacha pointed at the part that differed. "This is a time symbol… 3 weeks in the faster dying group, 3 months in the slower group…"
"And 3 years for bon. Three, two, one."
"He is playing a game with us."
Silence. Then Watari slammed his fist on the table. He was trembling from rage. Sacha had never seen him so angered. His brow twitched.
"Muraki-sensei… we cannot lose this game."
It was impossible to keep Tsuzuki and Hisoka out of this. Watari and Sacha limited the damage by avoiding showing the curse marks.
"It is him for sure. He is playing some sort of riddle, with the three, two, one pattern…"
"One?" Hisoka was quite sure he had missed something.
"Oh yes. There is another yet slower victim." Curtly explained Watari, casting a quick glance to Saya and Yuma who had looked surprised for a second.
"We are working on this. We have no clue where he is. He may not even be in the area any more."
"So there is no point you charging in." Concluded Sacha with a meaningful look to the Kyushu duo. "We'll take care of this. We will ask for your help if needed." There was a definitive tone in her voice.
Damn she could really sound like Tatsumi sometimes, thought Tsuzuki.
Watari and Sacha worked 24/7 to try to stop Muraki. They had a few days left before the first three people died. But the curse was unbreakable from outside. Sacha had to recognize Muraki was a hell of a good warlock. There were no loose ends and she was clutching on straws as a result. They had to find the seal.
The seal the seal the seal. And how does Bon fit into this? Watari sighed. "Let's go back to the basics…" He started… then he stopped.
Sacha and him had an epiphany at the same moment.
"Intro to magic 101… The seal can be an object, a word or an action…" whispered the girl.
Bon fitted in perfectly.
There was the key to their riddle.
The following night Watari and Sacha returned to the hospital with greater hope. They were still working against time, but they confided that they would find what they were looking for fast. The game consisted in finding the pattern, and it would have been no fun if the objects had been impossible to find. And without fail there they were, three identical bracelets tied to the arms of the victims. Right under their noses.
Watari took care of it. He was getting quite the hang of Western magic. Few words, concentration and props seem to be key. Within minutes the bracelets were gone. The three victims screamed in pain as the bracelets burned away. The marks lit up, for one last excruciating moment, to then go out forever. If Sacha hadn't warned him of this, Watari would have been worried that the procedure had failed. In the mean time Sacha proceeded to use a remembering spell on the other two. The amnesia was keeping them from remembering the hateful words which had sealed the curse. They had to wait until the next day to proceed with them though.
The next day Watari and Sacha were at the hospital again. They wished they had had time to find a cover story for their presence, but time was short. So they just posed as wackos. It took them amazingly little to convince the loved ones of the two remaining victims to say the words that, after a night of pondering, they had decided would free them of the curse. These people are so desperate, it clenches your heart. Did Bon's parents ever feel like this?Or could they really not care less? Thought Watari.
At first the victims' relatives were scared when their loved ones screamed in pain. But as the pain receeded and their conditions improved, they turned grateful to the funny couple. But by then, Watari and Sacha had gone far and away.
The duo left the place with different feelings.
That night Watari had a good night sleep, for the first time in a long while. They had won. In a way. Ok, Bon was still cursed but they could only hope couldn't they? It was somewhat satisfying to know the doctors would wonder what the hell had happened. And these people would live. It happened so rarely in their line of work.
Sacha spent the night in the lab. She felt different about this. She could imagine Muraki smirking somewhere in the shadows. They had lost. Unless Hisoka set himself free, they would still lose to Muraki's riddle.
Sitting in the lab, Sacha cast a sad glance outside the window.
Memories came back. Tears flooded to her eyes as she cried herself to sleep.
Anya and Sacha were back at the house the following night. The Shokan division was providing them with a nice apartment for the time being. Anya absent-mindedly cooked while her partner took a shower. Her partner… Anya was no longer sure she could call Sacha her partner. She worked with Watari and Anya with Hisoka and Tsuzuki nowadays. Ok, it should have seemed like a blip of time in the decades they had been together, but yet it seemed like the last few months had inserted themselves like a wedge between them, a wedge that was going to pull them apart forever. And the previous night when Sacha hadn't come back at all, to sleep in the lab, was just the last straw. Actually it all started back then… What the hell happened to us? What the hell happened to you, while I was in that coma? Her loyalty to Sacha would never fade and she knew that for a fact. But her old friend had changed so much in the past 15 years. She had become aloof, emotionless, distant. And coming back to Japan had made things worse, much worse. Anya sighed. She had been doing that a lot lately.
Sacha approached the kitchen toweling her hair.
"How was your day?" Sacha asked her partner.
Anya snapped out of her thoughts in a minute. "Hisoka is making little progress lately. So it's tiring and frustrating most of the time. Sacha, why can't we just tell him?"
"Tell him what?"
"Everything! That he could really easily get the curse off himself. That his power comes from Fate changing."
"We can't. He needs to decide that independently. And Fate changing is bad. What are you going to tell him? 'Oh, boy, all our actions are meaningless because we walks the predicted paths of fate, while you a fate changer can see and change anybody's fate at will?' That's a lot of responsibility for one person. He needs to find out for himself. He needs to find the limitations for himself."
Sacha always took decisions for the both of them. With no explanations. Something inside Anya finally snapped. "How do you know this Sacha? Are you a fate changer? Is this what that was, that shocked you so much? Or do you always just think you know everything?" The exasperation in Anya's voice was evident.
Sacha didn't respond. But Anya realized she had struck the right cord, as her friend plumped down on a chair and stared at the floor. "I don't want to talk about it now."
"When are you going to? It is fifteen years now! And you never told me what happened! You are my partner… who am I to you? Why have I followed you this far? I have been such a fool!" Anya threw the apron on the floor and dashed out of the house. Sacha made no move to follow. But she lifted her eyes and looked at where the other girl had been standing.
" I think you'll know all very soon, Anya."
!!