Note: Yay, Literary Eagle got my Gackt reference! I was wondering if that was too obscure. . . . In case it wasn't clear yet, I will be going back and forth with the chapters a la Murakami Haruki's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which was probably my biggest influence. Which means back to Hisoka and 003, yes! Thanks, everyone, for such positive feedback on his last chapter. I hope I don't disappoint. Your reviews did influence me some also, and let the record show credit where credit's due. Please note also that it's a bit longer and contains techno-BS.

Hisoka was dumbstruck. He couldn't believe it. He wasn't able to believe it. It was not that it was far fetched — it was impossible. For an owl to transform somehow into a human, or vice versa, defied any laws of physics he knew about. This thought was coming from a person who had seen Watari pull material objects out of paper, and guardian gods appear out of thin air, and his own wounds repair themselves instantaneously. . . . Regardless, in some way or another there was an explanation behind those events, even if mankind had not yet found it. What this woman was claiming . . . that was something different.

It had to be a joke someone was playing on him, he decided. An impostor. Certainly. What else could it be? But there was something about the woman he found unmistakably familiar that nothing else could explain: while she couldn't be 003, she couldn't not be 003 either.

It was a long moment before Hisoka realized he was staring.

"Hisoka . . . ?" the self-named 003 started cautiously. Her wide eyes bored into his. "Are you all right? I understand if this comes as a shock to you . . ."

"Mm," he said.

The woman blinked.

Suddenly he snorted in disbelief, though it was terribly forced, which surprised both of them. "You almost had me there," he said. "That's a clever trick, finding someone who actually resembles Zero-zero-three . . . in some abstract way . . . but you didn't really expect me to believe an owl could turn into a human. I'm pretty sure that goes against the First Law of Matter, or something. Did Muraki put you up to this to throw me off?" He didn't dare to wave his gun at a woman, especially one who looked so innocent, but his look was hard enough for an inquisitor. "Who are you really?"

"But I am she," the woman insisted; "Zero-zero-three. And I am an owl. Usually, that is."

"Then how do you explain this?"

"I'm not so sure I can." Suddenly she became solemn, and hung her head and leaned against the bridge railing; and Hisoka felt slightly bad for being so harsh. But surely she understood that he could not trust anyone so easily on a night as uncertain in its very, tenuous existence as this.

"If you mean can I explain it technically," she said, "I suppose I could try, though I'm afraid it would be a long story and I would lose you with all the scientific details, and even then it would be largely based on speculation because evolutionary science just hasn't developed any clear hypotheses on the problem, in turn because I'm fairly sure it doesn't occur in nature, with the exception of several species of fish which have a tendency to change sex in a single-sex environment for obvious reasons of the survival of the population, but something like my case with such an extreme and spontaneous cross-class transmutation has never been documented by any credible sources, let alone thoroughly researched."

Hisoka stared. Well, he thought, he had asked. . . .

"If one had to call it anything I suppose," she went on without missing a beat, "to put it simply, it might be a kind of hex. I wasn't born with the ability, you know, and I don't control it: I really am supposed to be an owl."

"Hex? What, you mean like a curse?" Whoever she was in reality (and the scientific mumbo jumbo had helped the case for her knowing Watari intimately if nothing else), he couldn't help but sympathize with her if what she said was true. "I didn't realize it was . . . that kind of thing."

"It's not that bad, really, just inconvenient; it's not like I could transmutate automatically wearing clothes . . ." she began as she looked up at him again.

—That is to say, as her head jerked up in his direction and her eyes met his without once moving in their sockets. Hisoka couldn't help it; he freaked. "What the . . . !"

"Oh." Her brows furrowed at his surprise. "Am I doing it again? I keep forgetting that I can move my eyes by themselves now." She laughed at the brilliance of it, and just to rub it in proceeded to blink and roll her eyes this way and that experimentally. "I think that has to be the best thing about being human. Am I right? That and being able to eat anything I want."

Again, Hisoka stared.

"Oh, but you take that sort of thing for granted, don't you? Of course. I'm sorry I startled you, and so soon after our first meeting like this! I'm such a scatterbrain. Well, I will make a more concerted effort from now on."

"T-that's good. You wouldn't want to scare anyone else."

"Does this mean you believe me?" 003 clasped her hands behind her back and beamed. "Of course, if it would help to persuade you I could tell you what I had for dinner—"

"No," Hisoka said quickly. "No, that's okay, I believe you." He sighed. "But . . . you have to understand: it's just so weird." It wasn't just her, either: the whole night seemed unreal and impossible.

003 apparently understood as she nodded rather seriously. "M-m. Thus . . . maybe we ought to get back inside."

"I was going to suggest the same thing," Hisoka said. Until the eclipse was past, he didn't want to spend another unnecessary minute outdoors.

The mist was still a thick blanket over the grove of cherry trees. Somewhere out there were Tatsumi and Muraki, but the visibility was so poor that they probably could have passed within a few dozen yards of them and not noticed (if they were not engaged in mortal combat, of course). Anything could be just sitting out there hidden in the fog. And Hisoka was glad 003 knew where she was going. As they walked together he experienced a sudden, intimate flash of emotion. Perhaps emotion wasn't the right word: a confusion of snapshot-like information and nostalgic desires was a more accurate description. He thought it could only have come from 003. Scatterbrain or superbrain, he couldn't be sure so soon, but one thing was certain: he had never imagined her to be like this.

—

This is the way all mysteries seem to start, with a beautiful woman. Dames they usually call them in English, but when it's not that it's 'birds' or 'chicks.' How ironic.

And there I was, literally, with a bird of my own. I mean, she wasn't the most beautiful woman I had ever met, but there was certainly something attractive about her. She had the kind of body that would get a guy in trouble, anyway. Truth be told, I've never been very interested in women. I never had the time or the women to be interested in to begin with, and what would I even do with them if I was? But I had to admit to myself that I was interested in her on some level. And that wasn't good. She's an owl, I had to keep telling myself. You've held her naked, albeit covered with feathers. And what's worse, she's Watari-san's owl, and there's something inherently wrong with coveting your deceased co-worker's pet bird, even if she has inexplicably turned into a cute, if eccentric, rather buxom woman. (Strong chest muscles, you know, for flying.)

It must have been something in her personality that made her so attractive. On first impression she had that combination of bigheartedness and simplicity that sort of reminded me of Tsuzuki. Plus, even though I had no idea what she was talking about, she blew my mind. And when she looked at me with those big, light yellow eyes . . . She didn't have to ask any favors. I knew I wanted to help her. That's what I'd gone out to the garden to do, even though I hadn't expected this. And anyway, I couldn't help myself. I might be dead, but I'm still just a guy.

—

"The office looks so much smaller from here," 003 said as she sat waiting in an office chair, swinging her legs.

They had returned in the hope of finding some decent attire for her. And since the only woman Hisoka knew well at all was Wakaba, he had decided to try her locker, with keys borrowed from her desk, to see if there was anything that could be of use in it. "Wakaba usually keeps a suit on hand just in case something comes up that calls for professionalism," he explained to 003. "I think you and her are about the same size."

"You don't think she would mind me borrowing her clothes?"

He gave it some thought. She'd just laugh at him if he said they were for 003.

"I'm sure she would understand," he said.

He tried another key, the lock clicked, and he opened the door. He breathed a sigh of relief. The suit was where he thought it would be, along with a light turtleneck sweater, stockings, and pumps. There were no two ways about it: Wakaba was a saint of being prepared. He would never second-guess her decision to wear a school uniform 24/7 again. He retrieved the outfit and placed it on the desk. 003 thanked him and immediately started undressing.

He quickly turned around.

"No problem," he said, blushing as he occupied himself with closing up the locker and returning the key. "So . . ." He tried to make conversation. "What's going to happen to you now? Are you going to stay like this forever?"

"Fortunately, no. I'll revert back to my natural state eventually."

"Like one of Watari's 'inventions,' huh?"

The smell of the sex-change formula-cum-stain remover on his skin wasn't quite so noticeable now.

"Very much like that, actually. You see, I'll only remain in this state as long as he's deceased."

"Oh, right, he must have some kind of counter-measure."

That seemed the most feasible explanation to Hisoka, but 003's ensuing silence made him wonder. He thought it might be best at a time like this to lighten the mood. "At least most of his concoctions wear off," he tried, although he felt bad joking about a man who had so recently died. "I'm sure those fish you were talking about change their sex permanently. I'd hate to think what would happen if he isolated some gene or another and slipped it in our coffee."

"Oh, don't tell him about them!" said 003. "Right now he seems to have forgotten."

"Don't worry. I have no desire whatsoever to turn into a girl. I get enough crap as it is now."

She laughed quietly. Hisoka's eye twitched. "He really does mean well," 003 put in quickly. "I know it doesn't always seem that way, but, well . . ." She trailed off. "You can turn around now."

So he did. She looked much more human now. The cut that Wakaba had hoped might give her more of a figure worked even better on someone with actual curves. There was still something about the image that reminded him of Watari — as though his sex-changing formula had finally worked, and amazingly well — but, after all, they do say pets tend to look like their masters. The deep blue and violet of the outfit made her complexion seem even more pale. The hem of the skirt and the sleeves were not quite where they were supposed to be, but one had to make do.

"It's a little short," 003 said, "but what do you think? Will it work?"

"Sure. Looks fine," Hisoka said.

He had said it in as unimpressed a tone as he could manage without being curt, but she beamed anyway, and, draping the lab coat over one arm, grabbed his wrist. "Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"To the lab," she said. "I want to see Watari."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean . . ."

"I'm well aware that he's dead," she said indifferently. "But he's still my Watari. What should it matter to me what state he's in?"

He did not understand her logic, but it was pointless to argue. It was either go with her or let her go alone and lose track of her, which was not something he felt he could responsibly do. She needed someone at a time like this; but more than that, he felt somehow reassured by her very presence. The rapid tapping of her shoes on the hall floors had a refreshing, feminine ring, even though 003 had to occasionally steady herself as, she explained, she was not used to walking in shoes.

The lab and Watari were just as Hisoka had left them. Nothing had stirred, though he instinctively expected the place to be busy as always. The full gravity of the situation was difficult to take in — especially when everyone around him, including 003 herself, failed utterly to grasp it.

"Oh, Watari!" she said fondly, and hurried with arms open wide and tilting like airplane wings to plop herself on the bed beside him, about to give him a great big hug. . . . Hisoka could not bear to look. It would be too weird. She seemed to notice his discomfort at her faux pas and stopped. "He looks so peaceful," she said instead, quieter, and tenderly brushed a lock of hair out of his face. "So precious, just like he was sleeping. I'm glad. It wasn't like him to be so melancholy."

Hisoka took a seat on the bed opposite.

"Did you see it happen?"

"No," she said thoughtfully. "No, I didn't want to see that. There wasn't anything I could do, so I went out the window before . . ."

"If you knew he was going to die, then . . . You must have seen someone enter the lab."

His question puzzled her. "I didn't see anyone. Most everyone went home for the night." Her wide eyes blinked. "Why did you ask that, Hisoka? Is there a reason someone would want to come in the lab?"

He hadn't expected her answer — her story didn't quite match up — but it was clear she was ignorant of the killer; so he merely said, "That's what I'm still trying to figure out."

"Mm." Suddenly, with a long sigh, she curled up against Watari's body, despite the skirt hitching up even more, and placed one arm over that which he had resting on his stomach. But she did not squeeze as hard as she appeared to have liked, so as not to upset Hisoka's sensibilities — though her action startled him enough as it was. It wasn't so much that she was hugging a corpse, he decided, as that she was actually so utterly happy about it. "I can't help it," she apologized. "I never get to do this. With arms, that is."

"I understand," Hisoka said. Of course, he didn't really — even with empathy he couldn't appreciate what it would be like to suddenly have arms — but it seemed like the only thing to say.

"Did you know that in some tribal cultures the owl is a symbol of death?" She said it with fascination as she smiled against the doctor's shoulder. "It's unlucky. Ironic, isn't it? That when Watari really is dead I'm no longer an owl." She closed her eyes, still beaming, relief radiating from her. And they looked to Hisoka like two people who had merely fallen asleep at a moment of pure bliss and fulfillment, even simply in appearance they complemented each other so well, two eccentric peas in a pod.

"It was almost twenty-two years ago to the day," she said quietly. "On a night just like this, as a matter of fact."

"What was? Did you become human before?" Hisoka felt overwhelmingly that he was intruding, but his curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "If you don't mind . . . Could you tell me what happened?"

She blinked. "Well—"

"Watari-san!"

"Watari-san!"

The two looked up as the caretakers of the records, the twin Gushoushin brothers, drifted into the lab. They stopped in their tracks, practically making a sign to ward off the evil eye, when they saw her sitting on the bed. "Ack! It's you!" they exclaimed in unison.

"Good evening, Gushoushin!" 003 said, grinning merrily back.

This pleased them even less.

Gushoushin the younger grumbled.

"What are you doing here?" said Gushoushin the elder. "What happened to Watari-san? Is he dead?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Ah—" they screeched, exchanging glances. "This isn't good."

"How could he do this to us, dying on the job?"

"How inconsiderate. This is all his fault to begin with."

"And he's the only one who could help us."

"What are we going to do now?"

"You mean, you recognize her?" Hisoka said.

"Of course," said Gushoushin the elder. "How could we not?" added his younger twin. "It's a bad sign."

"Why? What's going on?"

The twins grumbled again in their endearingly constipated way.

"Should we tell him?" the younger whispered to his twin, as if he thought it would keep the other two from hearing him. Hisoka found it rather rude, talking about him in the third person when he was right in front of them. "I guess we have no other choice," said the elder. He turned to Hisoka. "It's security," he said. "We're having a bit of a problem — that is to say, a very big problem."

"It's an emergency!" his brother cut in. "Juuohcho's barrier shields are malfunctioning. It's been on and off all night, we've been trying to fix the problem for the last hour and a half but we don't know all the codes—"

"Not to make us sound incompetent, of course. But this particular problem . . . Watari-san helped design the system. The specific information we need is inside his head. And now he's dead!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," said 003, suddenly rather serious, as she stood and straightened the suit. "I wouldn't be so certain it's still in his head. That was a long time ago. A lot has changed since then, you know."

The Gushoushin glared. "All right, then, what do you suggest we do?"

She shrugged. "I'll give it a go."

"What? You can't just 'give it a go'; this is a matter of life and death! We need someone who knows how the system works. Results, not attempts."

"But I know how Watari works, so it shouldn't be so hard to repair the system he designed — at very least enough to hold it up until someone can fix it properly."

After some deliberation (it seemed they were just looking for an excuse to cave without admitting she was right), the twins nodded. "Okay, come with us. Hisoka-san can come too," the elder added, as if that hadn't been Hisoka's intention the entire time.

The Gushoushin led them to the file room, into which typically only authorized personnel were allowed — and into which Hisoka had tried many times to sneak — which explained their reluctance. But the difference tonight was that it was an emergency. Set up on a group of desks that had been pushed together was a row of old computers, all glowing with status reports and attempts to restore the system, all showing rather dismal results. One showed in flashing red what parts of the shield at what wing of headquarters was weakened, but there was some hope while it still flashed. Another was receiving a cryptic stream of characters as to whose meaning Hisoka could not even guess. Nothing gave any clue as to the source of the problem. "Is there any way to know what's going on out there, what's caused this?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, no," said Gushoushin the younger. "All that information would be coming through the security center, then get passed to us. We keep records here. We can't do much more than run diagnostics at this point. A lot of good that does us."

"Of course, we would be able to do more if we had sufficient funds for newer computers. . . ." the elder mumbled under his breath.

"And what about the security center?" Hisoka said.

"We've been trying to contact them for an hour, but—"

"But there appears to be some kind of interference. They're there, we just can't get through. All we're getting from them is static and this gibberish data. I can't make heads or tails of it." The elder gestured to the second screen.

Hisoka held the headset that had been laid on the table to his ear. It was a hiss of static, punctuated occasionally by sounds that were just as likely to be human as not. "Electrical interference?" he asked.

The elder nodded. "Or spiritual."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Technically. But the cause would be different."

"So," said Hisoka, "it's either a mechanical malfunction, or . . ."

The Gushoushin looked solemn. It went without saying. The possibility of it being a malevolent force at work was high.

Meanwhile, 003 had taken a seat at one of the terminals and had begun typing quickly. "The connection seems fine," she said, the calmest of the four by far. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the system itself. Therefore I should be able to hack into it from here and control it directly. The security system, like everything, is controlled by the Mother computer. It's been a while, but Watari's entry codes should still be valid. Mothers are always sweet on their children."

Hisoka leaned his hand on the back of her chair, watching her work. "You know Watari's entry codes?"

"No," she said with terrible nonchalance. "But I do know Watari. It shouldn't be too hard to figure them out." The other three watched as she attempted to crack the codes, not missing a beat between a failure and her next try. It seemed like only a few minutes before there was a pleasant ding and the screen changed. "We're in," she said, and the Gushoushin breathed a sigh of relief. Columns of data immediately filled the screen in a quick stream. It was still unintelligible to Hisoka, but at least it looked more orderly this time, with dates next to each string of data. "Huh," 003 said as though to herself. "Interesting."

With lightning speed she typed in new commands and scanned the information it brought her, meanwhile telling them, in her Western lisp: "According to security's report, the barricade came under attack at approximately twelve-oh-seven, in the general area of the engineering department."

"That was a little more than fifteen minutes ago," Hisoka said. "We got back around then . . ."

003 nodded. "It's been trying to get inside the building complex ever since. Looks like a large, unidentified material object. The barricade probably rejected it for consisting of or carrying trace amounts of some illegal essence banned by King Enma. If it was truly a powerful spiritual entity there would have been a general warning throughout the system. We would have heard it in the office. This is strange, though. Its movements are very persistent but stubbornly consistent. From these readouts, I would imagine whatever it is is just sitting out there leaning on the shield, waiting for it to break. It shows a remarkable lack of ingenuity; you usually don't see that kind of trait in an intruder who's managed to get this far into Juuohcho."

"It isn't a demon, then?"

"I don't think so." 003 bit her lip as she scrolled up. The numbers reflected off her large, staring eyes. "Look at this." She pointed. "Radar detected a large, moving object approaching the building shortly after ten p.m., and before that an anomalous breach occurred to the northeast of here."

Hisoka started. "The Castle of Candles is in that direction. Is that where it was located?"

"It seems there have been several similar anomalies in the past three hours, though most of them have been small, and they all seem to be limited to the Castle of Candles and the cherry groves to the immediate northwest of headquarters."

"We noticed something was wrong about that time," said Gushoushin the elder. "That's when we first tried to contact security, to see what was going on, but . . ."

"Alas," said the younger, "no luck."

003 was silent for a long moment but for the clacking of her fingers on the keys. She moved the chair suddenly, brushing off Hisoka — who was worrying about Tsuzuki's status — as she moved to the next terminal, this time entering a different section of the Mother computer. A warning light came on. The twins started. "What are you doing?" screeched the elder.

"All that weight on one area of the barricade will eventually cause it to crack if neither the intruder's position nor the shield situation changes soon," she explained. "I estimate, the way this is going, worst case scenario, it could collapse in ten minutes . . . eh, give or take five." The Gushoushin squawked in unison. 003 blinked. "It's a good thing I came in when I did. The solution seems simple enough, it's just a matter of careful strategizing. I'm going to tweak the program to turn it into a temporary deflector shield. First I'll increase the shield's magnetic charge, then reroute the electrical to send a concentrated surge of energy into the barricade generator from our primary power source. We'll lose power for a few seconds, but the backup should bring it back on. The barricade'll be unstable for a while, and it might make it impossible for anyone to enter or leave the building, but it should hold."

"Are you sure a power surge will be enough to dissuade the intruder, whatever it is?" Hisoka asked. "I mean, we don't know what it is, and if it's as persistent as you say . . ."

"I have a hunch. Trust me," 003 told him, and winked. Hisoka blushed. "Anyway, that's not what we have to worry about. Our biggest concern should be to make sure the power surge doesn't cause the system to explode."

"Explode?" cried the Gushoushin. "That's an awful lot of 'shoulds' and 'mights' for an emergency of this magnitude!" complained the younger.

003 pretended she hadn't heard as she concentrated on the monitor before her. "I know what I'm doing," she said in a sing-song voice that, for a moment, made her sound just like Watari. It was a tense few minutes while they watched her operate, eyes glued to the computer screens. "Here . . . we . . . go. . . ." she said, entering the last few commands, and Hisoka held his breath.

Almost immediately, the file room lights flickered and died, and the computers went out with a dying whir. His heart pounding painfully in his chest, Hisoka expected the whole building to shake and the walls to collapse on top of them at any moment. But nothing happened. They could not hear, inside the well-insulated room, the roar of pain and frustration that issued from the direction of the engineering labs, and echoed for several kilometers around, shaking the ground to its very atoms — the kind of roar that could only come from a great behemoth of a being.

Instead, it was the sound of the computers starting back up that made him jump, and then the lights came on in the room faintly. Data came streaming in slowly, all of it encouraging judging by 003's reaction. "It worked," she said with a relieved sigh.

The Gushoushin laughed out loud.

"It worked . . ." Hisoka could only echo back, still not sure whether it was safe to believe it. At that moment, he wanted to hug 003. But he couldn't bring himself to do it, as she turned her chair toward him and beamed at him as though he'd had just as big a part to play in their success as she. "M-hm!" she said.

Once again he felt the blood rush to his cheeks.

—
tbc