Yay, I actually wrote some. Even I amaze myself sometimes.

disclaimer: Yami no Matsuei and it's characters do not belong to me. Don't sue, I'm broke. YAy for you. Just so you know, there will be no more disclaimers because they take up space unnecessarily.

Twilight
by clover calerica

Chapter 1

The curtains parted, the heavy cloth wrinkled under his death grip. He stared at the light shadow of him face on the cold glass. Morning outside his window wasn't beautiful as people said it was—it was just empty, devoid of colors.

Quickly getting dressed, Hisoka tried to forget the previous week. It was all so strange, especially knowing that you could almost get dismembered just not die. The sun was brightly shinning once again. He started to wonder if it would ever rain in Meifu.

The Shokan division of EnMaCho wasn't exactly peaceful each morning. Seeing Watari begging Tatsumi for research grants and Tsuzuki happily munching on donuts, Hisoka closed his eyes and sighed. It took getting used to.

Picking up the file on his next case, Hisoka read quickly. His eyes scanned over the major words. Something about a woman who was overdue in death. It seemed almost typical now, most cases were either disappearances not ending up in Meifu or people who were overdue.

"Are you ready to go?"

Hisoka's head jerked up. Tsuzuki stared him intently, waiting for a reply. He never received one. Hisoka simply stood up and started walking.

_ _ _ _

"Hisoka! Can we go buy something to eat?"

He fixed his gaze on his partner's bright smile and muttered a simple no. They were wasting time as it is walking nowhere. "Please Tsuzuki, I promise, if we can finish this before this day ends, I'll take you to dinner." It was a simple excuse to not let the other bother him anymore. He could feel a headache coming already.

"Really?" Never had Tsuzuki seen Hisoka so…distracted. But a promise was a promise and it certainly looked good to him.

Their investigating and blindly asking around lead them to an old apartment complex with rusting white paint and musty stairs. Like saw dust whispered over wine. It had a slow feel to it, the washed out green doors felt like something from an old photograph, still and aged.

From the information they had gathered, the woman lived on the second floor. Climbing up the stairs felt so very strange to Hisoka. It was as if every single step upwards, he was becoming more and more dizzy, but when he reached the top step his head cleared immediately but his empathy was no longer sensing much of anything.

Tsuzuki had to help him on the way up—he had almost fallen down. It was embarrassing but also reassuring that he at least had someone to help him when he was not feeling well. They found the door they were looking for after circling the floor several times. There was no distinct order of the numbers, just random placement—it gave the place a maze like feel about it.

Knocking softly on the door, Hisoka wondered at what he should say to the one who opened the door. "Excuse me, but you're suppose to be dead" didn't seem particularly right. After some shuffling behind the faded green door, the locks each clicked and a small head peeked through at him.

With a bundle of frizzy red hair, the little girl stared up at him.

"Are you looking for okaasan?" the tiny voice asked as the girl blinked, "because she's not home right now and I'm not suppose to let strangers in."

Tsuzuki knelt down to talk to the little girl at eye level. "When will she be home?" He added one of his especially kind smiles to encourage the girl to not be afraid, which she clearly was. Hisoka's empathy could sense her fear towards them.

"Okaasan said I'm not suppose to talk to strangers either."

Hisoka rolled his eyes. It wasn't like they didn't know where she lived, and a few other things about her—children were so irrational. Then again, he shouldn't expect a little kid think critically like that. His thoughts were interrupted as a second face pushed through the crack in the door above the little girl.

"Who are you?"

"We're…uh…social services…we're looking for your mother," Tsuzuki stammered. Trust Tsuzuki to make up something on the spot.

There was something about these children that disturbed Hisoka. One thing was that he couldn't use his empathy—it felt like whenever he tried to read Tatsumi. The other was just the aura they projected, or rather didn't project, like someone shut off their life force.

"You can come back later at night, after eight. She should be home then," the boy said defiantly then slammed the door in Tsuzuki's face.

"Charming, isn't he?"

Hisoka shrugged. "There's something abnormal about that kid. He's knows a whole lot more than he needs to," he said as he played with the seams of his coat sleeve. The string suddenly became so interesting.

"I can't help but get the sinking feeling we can't just ask this lady to come with us," Tsuzuki said with a dejected sigh. He always did have problems when it came to overdue people.

"But it's what's right, ne? Tsuzuki?" Hisoka said reassuringly as he placed a hand on his partner's shoulder—which turned out quite awkward since Tsuzuki was so much taller than him.

The purple-eyed shinigami smiled in return. "Say Hisoka, didn't you say you were going to take me to dinner?"

Hisoka stared.

_ _ _

The apartment complex seemed even more of a dump in the dark. The broken blinds in the windows could be seen clearly as the yellow lights inside lit up one by one. Hisoka thought about how he was going to climb the stairs this time.

It was dark, and the dizziness was even worse. Tsuzuki had to half-carry him on the last few steps. The stairs were definitely a major problem—he could feel the magical residue lingering about playing with his senses.

They stood once again in front of the green door staring at the rusting door number after some confusion. You see, there were no working lights in the hallways. This time, Tsuzuki knocked softly in order to not disturb the other tenants.

The woman who opened the door was a timid looking little lady barely taller than Hisoka. Her messy hair and disastrous state of dress pointed to the obvious trouble she had been having with her three children. Latched onto the woman was a child no older than two.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but are you KazakiYumiko?"

The lady blinked and nodded while keeping the door open with her foot and slightly rocking the little girl. "You must be the social worker my son told me about," she said with a weak smile, but there was panic in her tone. Hisoka could feel her fear screaming out at his empathy and strengthened his shields.

"Please come in, I apologize for the state of this place. I wasn't expecting company." Yumiko set the little girl down into her lap as she sat down on the sofa's tattered cloth.

Tsuzuki smiled as he took the chair beside her, which left Hisoka to sit beside Yumiko. The inside of the apartment was even worse than the outside. Discolored walls and grungy carpet with mismatching furniture gave it a cheap dirty feel.

Yumiko looked at Hisoka strangely as he sat down. "Aren't you a bit young to be working?"

Honestly, Hisoka hadn't thought about that yet, but quickly replied, "I'm doing a job shadowing program for school." He tried to sound as friendly as possible but it somehow seemed insincere to himself.

It was the boy that really caught Hisoka's attention. While Tsuzuki and Yumiko were chattering away about something, he spotted the boy spying on them from the doorway of the bedroom. As soon as the boy realized he had been uncovered, he ducked away. Hisoka didn't doubt he was standing there listening.

"Excuse me Kazaki-san, could I speak with your children?" Hisoka inquired. He just had to go talk to that kid—there was no doubt the kid was behind the dizzy spells on the stairs.

"Sure." She looked as if she was going to ask why, but didn't.

Hisoka passed through the doorway into a crowded room with a bunk bed, a crib, and another bed all pressed against the bleached walls leaving the middle space free where the two children were playing. They were playing with simple dolls and cars like the worn out toys were the treasures of make believe.

The boy turned up and frowned at Hisoka. His face contorted to one displaying hatred and fury, yet he was still a still blank space in Hisoka's empathy.

"Hello, my name is Kurosaki Hisoka." The boy glared at him. "I know you did something to the staircase outside."

"I know who you are. You're a Shinigami."

This kid knew. How the heck did he know?

"You're here to take okaasan away," he said bluntly, stating the obvious. The boy looked pointedly at Hisoka, who was lost for words. "I know magic, and I can defeat you, so don't take even try to take her." His childish reasoning and defiance would have made Hisoka smile if it hadn't been the current situation.

"People all die sometime," Hisoka started, trying to rationale with the child, "it isn't good if they don't—"

"NO!"

Silence.

"NO!" he shouted again. "It isn't, because this is my mother. And you can't take her away from me. Wouldn't you like for someone to take your mother away?!"

There was no response.

Hisoka had never really loved his mother. She was just there, part of the family that locked their demon child away to be forgotten. These children obviously needed their mother, if she were to die—they would all have to go to orphanages. Normally, this kind of thing wouldn't bother Hisoka, but this time—these children would be like him, unloved and forced to grow up.

Yet this was the right thing to do. Yumiko would eventually die—these children couldn't prevent everything. Some people were destined to die, and Yumiko just happened to be one of them. The world wasn't fair in its distribution of roads to people, there was only one road for Yumiko—the road into the twilight.

Twilight is where you are lost.

"Your feelings don't matter. It's the principle of it, she has to come with us," he said, voice iced over. The little girl who had answered the door early glanced up just then as if she had missed the entire argument except that one line. The ragged doll hung limp at her fingers.

There is no turning back.

Her huge innocent eyes, filled with the stuff dreams were made of, focused on Hisoka. "Why does Kurosaki-san want to take away okaasan?" She stared at him searching for something in that unnerving manner that made people shiver.

Instantly, Hisoka knew she was really the one who had caused him trouble around the building. She kept looking intently at him, and he found himself unable to look away from her hypnotizing brown eyes.

"Kiri-chan, you're going to have to get him now."

Before the words could register in Hisoka's mind, all sense of feeling shut off and he felt himself falling out of consciousness. The floor faded as he saw it coming closer to him face.