Chapter 4: Dreaming of Past

"My inner slumber, streams of reflections, veils of impressions, misty diffusion. Transparent visions, the center of me."

Dreams of Reality; Myraid

"Tsuzuki! Are you all right?" was the first thing that Tsuzuki heard as he awoke. His eyes fluttered open and he saw Hijiri's face.

"Yeah . . . " he sat up and rubbed his forehead. A deep sigh escaped his lips to calm himself. "I'm fine."

When he smelt the strong scent of fresh and blooming cherry blossoms, he knew where he was. Not back in Kyushu, but at the Bureau. A strong burn grew upon every piece of skin that Lucifer had touched. Especially his lips. He looked over to Hisoka. "How did you know to come after me?"

Hisoka shrugged and crossed his arms, bringing them tight to his chest. "Your emotions made it hard for me not to come after you." He noticed Tsuzuki trying to sit up. He lightly put his hand on his chest and forced him back down onto the sheets. "No, you've got to rest."

"I burn . . . everywhere . . . why?" a groan moved out of his lips. "It's like I'm on fire . . . "

"I don't know exactly. But, you've got red hand prints all over your body. Mostly around your chest." He looked down at him, eyeing him cautiously. "Why were you associating with him?"

"He . . . Lucifer was one of my old partners. We were . . . very close . . . he decided one day that he was going to torture our victims before death. He'd burn their skin until it rotted. He told me he'd kill me if I told. And because I cared for him, I kept it secret. He moved his torturing to me . . . I eventually went mad and blacked out. I tortured him just as he did me and eventually killed him. Somehow, he moved what was left of his soul into the violin he loved to play."

"Did you know that he was still in the violin?" Hijiri asked. He had an interested look as Tsuzuki told his story. It was nothing like the stories he had been told as a little kid.

"No, I thought he was dead." He rubbed his head in frustration. How could he not have realized this before?

"We're ready for Hijiri." Tatsumi said as he stepped in. He hadn't spoken anything at all about the night with Lucifer. He had the same type of burn on his face that Tsuzuki had on his chest.

"Ready for him?" the Shinigami looked over at Tatsumi with a confused look. He had been asleep so he had been missing out on a lot of things that went on.

"Yes." Hisoka took a seat next to his bedside. "Hijiri is going to be taken to the Dream Chamber where they are going to pick out every dream he has had from the day he had the contract cornea put into his eye to see if there are any clues to decrypting the 'Angel and Demon talk' on the violin." Hisoka watched as Hijiri took his leave from the room. Tsuzuki sat back up but was pushed back down just as easily. "You get to stay here until they get finished."

"Lay back." Tatsumi ordered to Hijiri. They were inside a room where everything was white. The walls, the furniture, everything. Tatsumi had got Hijiri to lie down on a bed and cuffed his arms and legs down with metal cuffs. He pressed his eyelids closed using his fingertips and strapped a headband around his eyes.

Hijiri felt a nervous break down coming up. The cold cuffs on his wrists and ankles made shivers run up and down his spine. The cold metal seemed to burn his skin. With the bandana on his eyes, he could not see what they were going to do to him.

"Just relax and everything else will happen for you." Tatsumi whispered to him. The last thing Hijiri heard from the Chief's assistant was the loud and growing faint click clack click clack of his shoes and marble flour.

"Dream Chambers monitors on." Was the final drifting noise he heard before being taken into the darkness.

"Let's see . . . " Watari said. Watari was head of the Kinki sector. The blond-headed man specialized in electronics and had been wanting to try out this machine for quite a while now. The 'Dream Chamber' basically scanned a human's brain through the left and right eyes and rewound dreams. The room outside of the 'Dream Chamber' was called 'The Seeing Room' where they could monitor the dreams and dream patterns. That was where Watari and the others stood.

"Here you go Hijiri." They heard a voice appeared as they rewound it.

"Woah-woah. Stop there." Watari commanded. The person in charge of the rewinding hit 'STOP' and then 'PLAY'. They watched the dream of Hijiri's father giving him the violin and the violin being taken and played by the demon. Watari hit pause when Hijiri's eyes caught the signature. "There it is." Watari looked over both eyes. The good one came first because they could see it better with no luck though.

As they examined the left and foggy eye, Watari noticed something. "Zoom in on the left eye." He squinted hid eyes and moved his face closer to the screen. He fixed his glasses up on the arch of his nose. "Ah-ha! That's it! There it is!" he pressed his index finger to the clouded up screen. "His left eye must have had some demonic traces in it and was able to decode the words." He cleared his throat and began to read, "In this violin, is a soul. A soul of dark, pure, and evil. This soul it sucks souls of the pure until it is able to revive and reappear. Until this violin is broken and tortured just as the soul does to others, the soul shall roam free just as the dark, pure, and evil desires."

"Broken and tortured, eh?" the Chief said, scratching his chin in a thinking manor. "That's easy enough. I'll get the violin and allow Tsuzuki to take care of it."

"Right. I'll get Hijiri awake again and inform them all of our situation."

As the Chief entered the Lost and Found Item's Department, he heard that familiar tune of 'A Night on Bald Mountain' being played like a broken record. The violin had been up in the air when Tatsumi had came in. This time, it was different. The angel in white had returned to play on his violin.

"Lucifer . . . " Chief Konoe spoke the name as if it was a curse word. His disgusted tone made Lucifer turn around and glared.

"Chief Konoe . . . How long has it been? Thirty-five? Forty years?" he lowed the horse strings bow and violin and placed them both neatly on the red velvet fabric they were laid out on.

"Way too long for this old one to remember." He spoke truthfully to him. One hand reached to his back pocket to pull out a fuda, but Lucifer caught him doing so.

"Way too long and you're still the old bastard I remembered." He raised up his hand to his face which made the old man flinch. "Old people's skin is so much easier to burn. That takes the fun out of everything." The door slammed hard behind Konoe. Everything went pitch black and silent. Except the faint tapping noise of Lucifer's advancing feet.

Tap tap tap . . .

It was only a matter of seconds before the Chief felt something soft like baby fingers wrap around his wrist.

"What the Hell?" Konoe asked.

Before he knew it, he was violently jerked into a tight hold. He was up lifted off the ground and into the air with that same thing tightly holding onto him.

"Shall we be going? The day light is passing and you know what tonight is?" Lucifer smiled to himself.

"The night of the blood moon . . . " Konoe gasped. His eyes widened. Tonight was the one night in every thousand years that a red moon came out. The Vampire Moon . . .

"My dear Tsuzuki will be in full bloom tonight . . . I'll assure you that."

Tsuzuki...