Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matsuei, or any of the characters. If Matsushita Youko sensei is willing to give them to me, I will gladly accept though.
Author's Notes: This is a re-write of the first chapter. It's a bit different in two ways. First off, it's different from the original, first chapter. Some of the parts were taken out, and some added in. The battle between Hisoka and Kurikara is one of them. Secondly, Kurikara and Hisoka's battle is a whole lot different from the one in books 9 and 10. To be honest, I dont' remember much of what happened during the battle, only the results, and besides, I thought it would be more fun to write it out a bit differently. If you don't like this, I'm truly, truly sorry. I just thought I'd let you know so I don't get a whole bunch of confused responses asking about their battle. ;;
-----------------------------------Let's get Started!---------------------------------------
"I had a dream last night," Tsuzuki whispered, his amethyst eyes catching Hisoka's.
Hisoka could tell right away that it had een a bad one, but it didn't take empathy to know that. he could tell merely by the look on Tsuzuki's face and the state of Tsuzuki's clothes.
Tsuzuki wasn't ordinarily a neat man, and often times Hisoka caught him in clothes so wrinkled they looked like they had never been ironed.
Today, however, they were much worse.
Tsuzuki's crinkled, dirty dress shirt was half hidden by his blank trench coat, which to Hisoka's dismay, was just as wrinkled. His features matched. His long, chocolately brown hair, though usually brushed, fell into his amethyst eyes in a splasy of wavy knots. If it had any body to start with, it certainly had lost it by now.
But his face was the worst.
Hisoka, used to seeing large, amethyst eyes wide in a style matching only the lopsided grin, was instead met with not only a dark stare, but emptiness etched deeply onto his lips.
Something was wrong.
Hisoka thought about using his empathy powers to read Tsuzuki's mind and see what was wrong. But deep inside he knew already what it was.
Riko.
It had been only a few weeks since his little shikigami, Riko had met it's dismal end.
And though Hisoke tried not to about it, the image swelled up in his mind. Suddenly, he w was re-living the past, re-living the day Riko had died.
Flashback
Kurikara stood before them, nto a couple feet taller than the two footed cactus pot, Riko. But in Kurikara's case, size didn't seem to determine strenght or measure fighting abilities. Becaue of this, Hisoka was haivng a hard enough time just staying out of the attacking shikigami's reach.
Tsuzuki's shikigami had been right to warn him against challenging such a formidable opponent as Kurikara
He could still hear Rikugo's outburst when he had told the six-eyed man he was planning on facing Kurikara, the strongest shiki known. All six of Rikugo's eyes were wide open, and over and over he begged Hisoka not to go. But Hisoka didn't listen. 'I didnt' listen... he thought angrily. But it was too late to think about that now.
He wondered how much longer he could take before Kurikara would get him. Kurikara was attacking now, using no knife or sword, but instead massive amounts of energy, transfixed in balls.
Using both his empathy and natural instincts, Hisoka had managed to dodge each energy ball Kurikara had flung at him, but he wasn't sure how much longer it would last.
"Hisoka-sama!"
Riko had been unusually quiet through out the whole battle. It wasn't a shikigami's place to take charge when their master was failing in a shikigami battle, as Rikugo had warned him of profously before Hisoka left. But still, his master was going to be finished if he didnt' do something.
In between attacks, Hisoka took a peek at the owner the voice belonged to. The little cactus was hopping up and down now in frustration, spilling dirt everywhere. He didn't seem to notice though; his eyes were focused on Hisoka, and wide with fear.
'Please don't die, master" those eyes seemed to say. 'Let me take over!'
Hisoka dove into the sand, nearly missing an energy ball. The ball flew over his head, nearly missing it, and exploded into a briliant flash of reds and blues.
'Like Firecrackers', Hisoka would have thought, if he hadn't been in this situation of course.
Hisoka took the moment to look up from the sand and glare at Riko.
"No!" He shouted, making sure Riko heard every word he said, "This is my fight Riko. Don't get involved!"
And with that, he picked himself up from off the ground, making sure to dust off his jeans.
Kurikara waited for his opponent impatiently. Though he despised his opponent, he still kept his honor during the fight; which meant to him that you c an't hit an opponent when he's on his knees. It just isn't right.
"Are you ready to finish this?" He sneered, curving his lips into a smile.
Many shinigami, when they first came here, had confused the shikigami for men. It was almost as if they couldn't believe shikigami not only had beast forms which they used while being summoned, but human forms as well. And Kurikara, despite being so short, was no exception. He stood before Hisoka today in tied back black hair, appropriate for dueling, and long flowy robes that blanketed the ground every step he made.
Those were the traits of a shikigami, somethng the shinigami had always overlooked.
Hisoka nodded, green eyes gazing intently on the shiki before him.
"All right, then." Kurikara replied, his voice as hard as steel, "Let's go."
Hisoka assumed defense mode, lowering his body towards the ground, hands in front of him and ready to block. He readied his legs again, confident that Kurikara would use another energy ball.
He was wrong.
Through a loud cry in a speech that Hisoka could not understand, Kurikara summoned up a sword.
Hisoka's eyes widened as he saw the sword pixilize and form into Kurikara's hand, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
And though that was exciting enough to send him running, his shock morely came from the sword itself and the realization that he knew this sword. It had been the one that had tried to kill Riko and him when they had first arrived here, before it's master had come and stopped it from attacking.
It resembled more of a European art with it's flat, straight blade and long form. and though Hisoka preferred Japanese made, he had to admit, this sword was pretty impressive.
Dark gems covered the hilt, showing off the wealth of the sword and making the blade of the sword stand out on purpose. Hisoka knew that was a tactic to instill fear in the enemy; once they took a look at the sword, with it's blade so expressive and long, in their heads they would imagine the sharpness, and the blade cutting into their side. This would cause them to become afraid, and fear was a weakness.
Kurikara shifted into stance mode, bringing the sword up before him like some lunatic baseball player with his bat.
For the first time, Hisoka felt that overwhelming power take him, and fear rose through out his entire body, from head to toe. Energy balls were one thing, but a sword? Especially a sword which not only had one mind, its user, but another mind resting inside itself. A mind set out to kill him for entry. He wasn't sure if he could avoid that; that feeling of hatred.
They kept at their duel well into the day. the scenery around them, unknowest to them, had changed immensely, with the sun movements. And now this desert, so bright and full of life, was sinking into the still coldness of night.
Kurikara charged at him again, and Hisoka, in an almost dance-like fasion, leapt out of the way to avoid it.
He felt his body begin to grow tired, and wondered if kurikara felt the same way. They'd been at it for nearly three or four hours, but Kurikara was a shikigami after all, and who knows what effects a duel this long would have on them.
Looking at the shikigami's face, he found nothing there that would tell him of the shikigami's energy level. There was no sweat, to twitches from muscles too tired to go on, just his big red eyes, narrowed in determination, and a placid girn etched onto his face, sure that he would win.
Hisoka sighed.
His blows were no different either. Kurikara attacked Hisoka with the same strength and speed that he had start out with near the beginning, not reflecting any signs of weariness. If he had the time, Hisoka could have used his emphathy powers to read his mind, but Kurikara was leaving him no room for concentration, and for empathy, concentration was vital.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't even noticed Kurikara's swing, or see the blade coming dangerously close to him.
He did, however, hear the cries of Riko, coming closer to him at the moment. That was when he knew something was wrong. For a shikigami to interfere with this sort of battle, something had to be wrong.
It all happened in slow motion. Kurikara, realizing his opponent wasn't with the game, took the few moments to snatch the victory.
Normally, he wouldn't have done such a dishonourable thing; but like the boy, he was growing tired (though he showed no signs of it), and this battle had gone on long enough. He was sick of it.
Closing his eyes and raising up his sword, he struck the enemy in a hard, swish like motion. He expected to feel the scrape of the bones against his metal, then hear the sounds of them crack and make punctuaring him much, much easier; instead, he felt the blade slice through something soft and squashy. He felt his heart drop; something was wrong. This was not the way a human was supposed to feel.
He opened his eyes to see what was wrong, but didn't get far when a spray of water hit him directly in the face. Water came down in buckets everywhere, drenching both Hisoka and the shikigami.
it didn't take long for either of them to realize what had happened; or whose water had been spilt.
"Riko..." Kurikara whispered into the approaching darkness. "I...." His heart pounded rapidly within his chest; so loud, he wondered if the boy could hear it as well.
He had done the unthinkable; takea sword against his own kind, a helpless shikigami. Sure he had fought other shikigami in the past, but nothing like this. Those fights were different, they were fights of territory, of nobility. Here he had just been a murderer, killing off a poor little shikigami who had done nothing more than protect his master's life.
If that wasn't dishonourable of Kurikara, he didn't know what was.
Hisoka was now in shock.
"Riko..." his voice trembled.
He searched high and low across the desert sands, hoping and praying thatsomehow the little cactus had made it out alive; that the water had come from somewhere else, perhaps a quick rainstorm; after all, anything like that was possible here in the shikigami world. Or so he hoped.
His search was frantic, combing over each area of sand, hoping that out of one of them, he'd find his small shikigami, or that Riko would pop up and say something stupid to him.
What he found however, was something much worse.
Half buried in sand, and looking as though it had been flung into the sand instead of covered, Hisoka found Riko's hat. Riko, a lover of the south and all things American, had been wearing a little cowboy hat when Hisoka found him. There was never any explaination for the hat, and so Hisoka had assumed the shikigami had found it one day and thought it loooked "cool". But that sort of thing didn't matter now.
"It's your fault." Kurikara spoke up suddenly.
Hisoka looked up suddenly, and found Kurikara standing behind him, an empty expression on his hard face. Hisoka noticed that he looked somewhat pale; and tapping into his empathy, he realized something much worse. Kurikara was trying to keep from crying.
He could sense the weariness of the battle, but even more so, the pain of killing another shikigami. That pain lay deep inside his heart, and swirled in with his self-pride, surrounding and defeating it.
Hisoka nodded, and felt the tears roll down his cheeks. At that moment, he and Kurikara were almost alike; standing here in the cold sand, mourning the death of a friend.
end flashback
Seeing how his partner was so down, Tsuzuki dropped his comment, instead focusing entirely on his withdrawn partner before him.
Hisoka was off in his own little world. Standing near Tsuzuki in the snack shop, he looked as normal as evern in his neatly ironed sweatshirt and jeans; but something was troubling him. Tsuzuki could see it reflected in the boy's eyes.
Hisoka's green eyes, half hidden by locks of sandy brown bangs, were squeezed together tightly, void of all emotion.
"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki's voice was calm and quiet, with the lack of urgency that most questions seemed to hold.
Hisoka took a minute to respond. Then, in an almost choking voice, he said "Yes?"
His eyes were now on Tsuzuki, and wet with tears.
Tsuzuki could tell Hisoka was trying not to cry, but at the moment, fighting a losing battle.
Touched by a wave of emotion, Tsuzuki longed to hug the poor boy, right then and there. But instead, he kept his hands to himself, and asked Hisoka the simple question, "Are you all right?"
Hisoka nodded, and took his gaze of Tsuzuki; as if Tsuzuki couldn't see his eyes, he couldn't see the like Hisoka had spun. But deep down inside he knew better. Of all that pain and anguish buried deep inside his soul, Tsuzuki knew.
end chapter 1
To My Reviewers:
J.J Blue and Ola - Thank you very much for your response. In fact, there are three or four more chapters waiting to be re-written and edited. I hope to get them up ASAP, but with school starting, it may be a little tricky. I will try my best though .
Till next time, Ja ne!