by Korii Shoujo
ChapterFour - Hinote
'It's taking too long.'
Desperate thoughts coursed through Mitsuru's head as his frantic search for what he called 'The Shrine of the Eighth Tear' continued without so much as a half smile from the devious Lady Luck. Locking his jaw in place tightly and gritting his teeth together painfully, the tengu moodily stared out at the silouettes of the buildings against the fading horizon of the city where the bustle of the work day was slowly ceasing and being replaced with the clever crawl of those who thrived during the night. He sighed, closing his darkened amber eyes tightly, forcing his emotions back into the pit of his heart where they lay captive in public places. The third day of his search was setting, heralding the rise of the half moon into a sky dotted with stars, most blocked by the 'protective' smog that curtained the city. So far, all of his efforts had been fruitless to the extent of frustration as the horrible thought of simply giving up and allowing Mahiru to rot within the earth began to creep up along the unguarded edges of his thoughts.
"No!" he growled suddenly, banging his fist along the cold, metal railing that lined the edge of the building he was currently resting the weight of his body on, "Damnit, Mitsuru! Why would you even think something like that? She needs you..."
Falling to his knees, Mitsuru whimpered pitifully and allowed his emotions to grasp him in their sickly hands once more. Shuddering as stray tears coursed down his flushed cheeks, he looked up at the sweet orb of his Mother Moon, who glowed an eerie, pale yellow and allowed a smile to tug at the edges of his lips. Neglect to his person showed clearly in the light of the moon; stubble grew all over the sides of his face, above his upper lip, and under his chin; dark, weary bags framed the bottom of his eyes; and direct neglect of his nutrition was displayed from his lack of energy. His voice emerged, choking and soft.
"I will never fail you."
Calling the ever faithful winds to his hands once more, the exhausted Mitsuru continued his trek above the moonlit city of Osaka, unaware of the deviant eyes which beheld his every move with cunning and cruel calculation. Hokuto smirked snidely as he watched the tengu soar away, whom he knew was too consumed in his grief to even sense the presence of him and his dear seer, Keiko. Turning, he placed his steely, cold eyes upon the girl who had just taken in her full image aged in 5 years and sighed dramatically, bowing his head in mock despair.
"Oh, what ever will we do, my dear?" Poisoned wine casually dripped out of his mouth, causing Keiko's gaze to harden immensely, her hatred of the one who owned her growing every second.
"Oh, shut up, Hokuto," Keiko spat, venom dripping from the corners of her lips in invisible trails, "You know exactly what we're doing. We're leading that stupid tengu to the shrine where the Eighth Teardrop is and then we shall dispose of him."
Hokuto's smirk grew broadly as he placed a casual arm around a disgusted Keiko, who looked ready to completely destroy the man in front of her at any given moment. With her fists clenched together painfully, she growled lightly and picked up the arm that was draped around her shoulders, removing it with grimacing disdain. Shuddering away her loved yet despised feelings, the silenced medium replaced them with an indifference so powerful that she knew no one would ever be able to look through it, casting her eyes over in a very melancholy manner towards her fiance as he spoke.
"Very good, my little eyes!" he praised, almost sarcastically, "Poor man. He won't even know what hit him. Ah, well. All's fair in love and war."
Keiko 'hmphed' as Hokuto raised a questioning eyebrow to her.
"Well, well. I'll let that pass this time, dear. Now, all we need to do is put a spell on the Tear to intensify its aura and then lead him to the Bakufu Shrine when we're fully prepared..."
2 Days Later...
The feeling started at a mere twinge far back within the very corners of Mitsuru's mind, but soon began to gradually intensify to become an immense pounding and tugging towards somewhere nearby. The tengu kept the annoyance at bay by trying to think of other matters, yet still it persisted its never-tiring drum beat deep within, so much until his fray with his curiousity ceased, the second winning triumphantly. During the deep night of the fifth day, he began his inquisitive pursuit of the ache. To his amazement, it actually lead him on in certain directions, until Mitsuru Suou was standing in front of the Bakufu Shrine, one of the areas he had already searched but had recieved no luck with. His heart began to pound against his chest rapidly as he suddenly realized what the feeling was.
"Could it be? The Teardrop?" he murmered softly, staring at the quiet doors that lay in front of him with apalled wonder.
"You are quite right, sir," A voice ejected deep into Mitsuru's thoughts from the impenetrable darkness inside of the mysterious shrine, causing the tengu to startle suddenly, as he crouched low to the cold, dusty earth and glanced around at his surroundings suspiciously to search for the owner of the despised voice. He knew he had heard those deep tones before, from somewhere else from a very long time ago. A man, the same man the tengu had bumped into earlier on in the week, emerged from the desolute corners of the building, garbed in traditional robes with an old-fashioned bow held in his hand and a sinister looking quiver of arrows at rest on his back. Suddenly, memories flew back into Mitsuru's head, his amber eyes widening with shock as he remembered the tense incidents with Dawn's Venus, five long years ago, almost forgotton in the carefree passage of Time.
"Hokuto..." he growled out, clenching his reddening hands in fists, then relaxing them as he regained his composure to look the hated enemy over with a seething countenance. It was then the tengu noticed the pale, thin woman standing behind Hokuto in a stoic fashion, arms crossed tightly against her chest and narrowed eyes blazing with a barely contained conflagration. Mitsuru suddenly recieved a very strong empathetic feeling coming from her, one that screamed, 'I don't want to be here!'
"My, my, Keiko," Hokuto sneered broadly, half looking towards the one he was addressing and half towards Mitsuru, "Wasn't it fun to make this little tengu suffer by killing off his little girlfriend?"
Like a knife, the syllables Hokuto had just uttered pierced through Mitsuru's chest like melted butter, cutting straight into the remains of his rapidly dying heart. His mouth opened slightly as he tried to utter a cry, yet not a sound emerged from his gaping mouth, the tears behind his eyes threatening vehemently to force themselves out of confinement and spill down the paled cheeks of the tengu like warm blood from a freshly reopened wound. Falling to his knees, he let the entire truth of everything sink in like a rapidly capsizing ship. His dulled eyes widened, realizing that everything suddenly made sense. Mahiru's disease was not natural, but instead caused by magic. The tengu wanted to die a thousand deaths and more for his stupidity at not seeing the truth.
"You...bastard," Mitsuru choked out, gripping the dirt beneath his palms firmly, his arms shaking with the force of his emotion. Looking up at Hokuto, the tengu's eyes rapidly changed from human to animalistic, pain and fury mixed in the pools that melted everything they gazed upon with sheer force. Markings crept up the side of his face, spilling out like ink upon pristine, white paper.
"I'll rip you from miserable limb to miserable limb," Mitsuru snarled, his transformation already beginning to take place right before Keiko and Hokuto's eyes, much to the latter's immense pleasure. Calmly, Hokuto removed an arrow from the quiver on his back and put the deadly object in place on the bow with delicate, graceful ease.
"Well," he proclaimed, eyes twinkling sinisterly, "Today you die, tengu."
His response was a feral cross between snarl and growl, filled with loathing, sorrow, and the pain of being forced into depression by someone else.
"Not until she lives again."
A/N: It's finally done! Erg, sorry it took forever. I had to go to a retreat, I had a bazillion projects and reports in school, I was having relationship problems...but that's all over now!
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