The music: Sarah McLachlan - Gloomy Sunday, Full of Grace

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Against the Wind
Chapter Five

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17 hours earlier

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Tatsumi never quite liked falling asleep.

The troubles that weighed on his mind often wrenched him out of the soothing arms of sleep, chasing away the sand from under his weary eyelids. He never liked lying awake well into the night, battling himself, thinking and analyzing his mistakes and the seemingly good choices that, on second thought, could have been substituted with ones much better than those he had made.

Waking up, though, was another matter. Whether he woke from a peaceful sleep, or from an occasional nightmare, he appreciated the first minutes back in the waking world; those brief instances of undisturbed, lazy peace. The shadows shifted at the edge of his mind, prodding his consciousness to overcome the sleepy tangles that held him tight through the nighttime rest.

And each morning, as he woke alone, that stubborn cold of his bedroom was the only thing that tainted his mood. Sometimes he let himself wonder how it would feel not to wake alone anymore. Sometimes he let himself remember how that felt; but that hurt, and so those thoughts weren't welcome at all. Most times he wasted no precious minutes dwelling on loneliness – he loathed that word, anyway – and let another day begin, pushing himself again into the whirlwind of work that defined him and helped him go on.

Rubbing sleepy eyes, Tatsumi shifted his weight. His muscles felt strained, his neck stiff. As he moved his arm and felt something pin it down, rendering movement all but impossible, he remembered. Last night, he had come here – to Watari's apartment, he confirmed as he looked around – and had found the man less than half of his usual self. Quiet, as if frightened; as though someone had flipped an invisible switch somewhere in his mind and made Watari's usual warm, lighthearted exterior fall completely apart.

In bright daylight, the apartment looked even worse than Tatsumi remembered from the night before. Contrasting sharply with the cheerful sunshine seeping in through the half-drawn blinds, the shattered glass and bloody stains on the once-white walls stood out, and painfully so.

Tatsumi remembered blood; some of his nightmares almost reeked of it. The sight itself would not have been so bad; but the knowledge of whose blood it was, and the lack of knowledge why, cast a dark veil on his mind.

Carefully, he turned to look at Watari. Still asleep, he was drawing shallow breaths; a dead weight in his arms, he noted uneasily. Strangely enough, the sensation of holding someone that he still remembered was different in his memory. He had thought it would be more familiar. Warmer, he mused reluctantly. Watari's hair was a pitiful mess, but he wore a clean, unstained shirt. Tatsumi didn't remember him changing; the assumption that he must have woken at night to do that was a safe one. Somehow, though, that only fueled the uneasy feeling that had begun to eat away at him, even before Tatsumi himself was awake enough to put his finger on it.

He freed his arm, somewhat numb from having been pinned down in one position for a long time, and glanced at his watch. It read 7:36; the same time Tatsumi always woke up on his own. A pleasant constant, that; he couldn't remember the last time he needed an alarm clock. Stretching a little to relieve the tension in his muscles, he looked at Watari's sleeping face. Without his glasses, the scientist didn't even look his physical twenty four years. There was a gentleness to his soft features, something that made Watari look deceptively vulnerable.

Despite that, Tatsumi had never thought of him that way. Watari was nothing if not perfectly capable of standing his ground; something he had been proving on an almost daily basis for the past quarter of a century. Tatsumi had gone all the way from annoyance to awe at the persistence with which Watari could pursue his goals. He had always seemed-- unafraid, Tatsumi supposed was the best description; daredevil, untamed.

Until last night, anyway. Last night, Tatsumi realized, it felt as though he had passed through an invisible gate, beyond which there was a different world with a different Watari in it. And that Watari had bloody stains on his clothes, and a whole extra dimension to him Tatsumi had never seen before. Yet, he had easily decided, it fell somewhat short of his liking. Watari had been something akin to a constant in Tatsumi's life as well - an annoying one, but there nonetheless.

Yet another illusion, that.

Tatsumi had to wonder, his most private feelings aside, if such a breach of his colleague's privacy was necessary at all. In the end, it wasn't as though he actually did much to help. He had come to apologize, and not even that had made it past his lips. True, he admitted, the time was anything but suitable for bringing up something that Watari would surely dismiss as trivial. It was not nearly as trivial to Tatsumi, though.

"Watari-san," he said quietly. He put a gentle hand on the man's shoulder, intending to wake but not to startle him.

With no response, Tatsumi repeated in a somewhat louder tone. It was getting late; they both would have to arrive in the office soon. About to shake him again as Watari failed to wake, he leaned over his slender form curled up on the couch and his voice caught in his throat.

The small parts of flesh he could see beneath the collar of Watari's shirt were punctured; half-healed skin still bruised. His hand trembled ever so slightly as Tatsumi reached out and pulled the collar open a little further. More bruises and, before he knew, Tatsumi was holding Watari's hand in his, rolling up one sleeve, just to discover even more bruised, punctured skin.

His mind raced along the facts; it must have been no later than one in the morning when he had come. Whatever had happened, Watari would have healed by now. Inhaling deeply to calm himself down, Tatsumi cast another quick glance around the room. Significant as the damage appeared, he couldn't sense any magical influence at work. He thought back to when he had first arrived. No trace of spell-casting back then, either. Nothing on the level he could have perceived, anyway.

"Watari-san." Tatsumi's voice held a higher-pitched note now, betraying the fear that settled deep in his chest. "Wake up. Watari-san," he repeated. Over and over again, his voice subconsciously dropping to a whisper as he took the younger man by the shoulders and tried to shake him awake.

A wave of hot, numbing fear washed over him. He had been there, he realized. All that time, the entire night, he had been there – hadn't he stayed to ensure nothing would go wrong again? And yet it had; something horribly wrong had happened, and he failed to stop it. He held still, listening. Watari's breathing was even. But he wouldn't wake, Tatsumi heard himself whisper. What in Enma's name had happened here?

He touched Watari's face; the cool, slightly damp skin under his palm made him shiver. Watari's hands were ice-cold when he took them in his, and he wasn't moving, save the rhythmical breathe-in, breathe-out, time and again. A very shallow intake of air, like in someone lost in slumber.

The next few minutes were a blur in his mind, with ripples of fear and a voice of responsibility tugging at his conscience. Tatsumi gathered his partner in his arms, swaying a little as he stood up. Watari's body felt heavy, boneless, his head lolling backwards with nothing to support it. Tatsumi cursed soundlessly, shifting him until he could hold him in a safer, more comfortable way. Until the last second he hoped that it was some practical joke on Watari's part; he even vaguely remembered saying as much, out loud, as if hoping it would wake him up. It hadn't.

-

He transported them both to EnmaCho's infirmary, cursing the early hour; nobody had shown up yet. Tatsumi second-guessed the idea of moving Watari there after he had laid him down on one of the beds. But, in the end, it seemed better than staying in that wrecked apartment, where every look around doubled the nauseating fear.

Tatsumi took off his glasses and wiped his face with his hands. A stubborn little voice at the back of his mind kept whispering, it's your fault. Your fault, all of it.

And logic didn't matter when it told him that it wasn't true. That it could not have been. Watari had not so much as told him what had happened. I couldn't have helped you any more, he argued with himself in his thoughts. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know, I didn't do anything--

And that, he mused bitterly, could have been his biggest mistake. You were there, his own thoughts chided. You were there all along.

Tatsumi turned his head. He didn't want to look. He could have sworn Watari was just asleep, but there had to be – something, he couldn't begin to guess – and past the point of coming here, he didn't know what else he could do.

This would be the moment, he thought, when he should get angry. As he always had when something horrible had happened; to one of his colleagues, or anything at all. There had always been a culprit Tatsumi could have focused his built up negativity on, somebody to blame for the misfortune at hand. But as he stood there, his back to Watari but a clear image of him still before his eyes, he was at a loss as to who, sans himself, he could hold responsible for this.

The ringing of his cell phone pulled Tatsumi out of his reverie. He noted, quite dismayed, that his hand was trembling as he fumbled for it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

"Tatsumi-san," the voice in the receiver, to the point as always, rang with a slightly harsh tone. Tatsumi frowned.

"I have no idea where you are, but definitely not where you're supposed to be. Please hurry up."

Tatsumi glanced at his watch and winced. "I'll be right there, Chief."

He turned off his phone and slid it back into the pocket. On top of everything, he had just managed to disgrace himself by being late for work. He realized that he hadn't even noticed where the time had gone. Displeased with himself, he straightened his jacket and fixed his askew tie.

The phone call had distracted him just a little, lifting some of the unease off his chest. But it returned with full force as he turned to look at his partner again. Watari looked as though he slept, his chest rising and falling in a calm, steady rhythm. So misleading, Tatsumi thought, fighting guilt that crashed down on him with the realization that he had no choice now but to leave Watari alone.

"I'll be back," he said quietly, and he caught himself wondering whether the reassurance served himself, or the silence around him. "As soon as I can."
--

Konoe's face bore faint hints of annoyance, but Tatsumi found himself fairly unconcerned. He could handle it, he knew, as he had for years now; never with anything less than success. He drew a calming breath, if only to make sure his voice would sound normal, and inclined his head in acknowledgment of the chief as he entered the office and stood in front of Konoe's desk.

"It's unlike you to be late, Tatsumi," Konoe grumbled, looking up from a set of papers he had apparently been reading for a while before.

"I apologize," Tatsumi started, his voice contrite yet firm. "It will not happen again. However," he cleared his throat. His hand subconsciously wandered up to push his glasses up his nose; an action so instinctive he never really thought about it anymore. "I'm afraid we have a problem."

"A problem?" Konoe raised an eyebrow, a hint of concern drawing the corners of his lips down in an expression of hesitant anticipation.

"I'm afraid so," Tatsumi nodded. "It's Watari-san--"

"What about Watari?"

A sleep-laced voice interrupted him. Tatsumi turned around.

Rubbing the back of his head with one hand, Tsuzuki stifled a yawn. Tatsumi shrugged inwardly. He thought of what he would have to say to explain the situation to them, to Tsuzuki-san of all people, and suddenly it seemed so awkward, so inappropriate. At once he was glad he did not blush easily.

"Well," he started. Relief was a welcome change as his mind stumbled upon a much better way to handle that. "I think it would be best if you came with me."

"Tatsumi?" All traces of sleep escaped Tsuzuki now that he was frowning, staring him up and down, worried and alarmed.

Tatsumi squished his little inner voice that seemed intent on complicating everything even more.

"Tatsumi?" he repeated. "Did something happen?"

"Tsuzuki-san." Tatsumi's eyes softened; an automatic reassurance, though he could use that himself, right now. "This is something we need to find out. I'm sure it can be explained."

"Right." Tsuzuki looked nervous now, glancing over his shoulder at the door, checking his watch, his gaze shifting from Tatsumi to Konoe, to the door again, and back to the Shadow Master.

The chief hesitated. "I have no idea what's going on here, but it had better be important."

Tatsumi only nodded, stepping away to make room for Konoe. The older man raised a questioning eyebrow.

"The infirmary," Tatsumi said, gesturing towards the door.

Tsuzuki started at that loathed word; it meant something had happened, and it could not have been anything but bad, and by now the Shinigami was completely consumed by worry. He picked up his pace, time and again looking back at Tatsumi who suddenly felt like his legs had gained a leaden cast that turned the simple act of walking into an arduous labor.

He shrugged. He had to pull himself together, he thought, it was getting ridiculous. He told himself there was nothing inappropriate in what he had done as he sped up to catch up with Tsuzuki. Still, the thought of having to relay the events of the past eight hours to everyone who asked – because he knew that was expected of him, of all people – made his stomach flip backwards. Uncomfortable didn't even begin to describe the way he felt.

"Is Watari alright?" Tsuzuki asked as soon as Tatsumi leveled with him in the narrow corridor.

That frown on his former partner's face did nothing to make him feel any more secure. "I'm afraid I lack the qualifications to answer that question, Tsuzuki-san," he said.

The other Shinigami's eyebrows drew even closer together. "Would you stop being so cryptic, Tatsumi?" he asked. That annoyed, impatient tone seemed so uncharacteristic for him, yet Tatsumi wasn't surprised by its presence. "Just tell us what this is all about, it will be easier that way."

They walked along a dimly lit part of the hall now, the half-darkness like a balm on Tatsumi's mind. Nothing wrong, he told himself again. You did nothing wrong.

"I found Watari-san unconscious this morning," he began his explanation, schooling his voice to a matter-of-fact tone.

"In his lab?" Konoe asked, looking over his shoulder.

Tatsumi cleared his throat. "In his apartment."

Tsuzuki's eyes grew wide. He skipped a step. "Tatsumi, what were you doing at Watari's place in the morning?"

The Shadow Master took a deep breath to regain his composure. Everyone would have done that, he told himself. Wouldn't they? "I went there last night to discuss something with him," he said.

Tsuzuki opened his mouth, his eyes growing even larger. Tatsumi fixed him with an ice-cold glare, and Tsuzuki bit back whatever comment he'd had on the tip of his tongue. Tatsumi had a fairly good idea what that could have been, and he would rather not have Tsuzuki say it.

"Something had happened there before I arrived," he continued calmly, though on the inside he was anything but calm. His heart rate went through the roof at the memory of the sight that greeted him the previous night. "His apartment was damaged. So was Watari-san, if you could put it that way, though he insisted that he wasn't hurt. I stayed with him to make sure he had all the help he needed."

Tsuzuki bit down on his lip to suppress a smile. "The whole night?"

"Tsuzuki," Konoe huffed. "Let the man finish. Tatsumi," he turned to look at the Shadow Master. "When you say 'damaged', you mean what, exactly?"

Tatsumi let out a soundless sigh, shrugging off the images his memory supplied as he thought back in time. "A lot of broken glass, like a tornado had hurled through the place. Blood on the wall, on the floor, and a complete disorder everywhere. Watari-san's clothes were torn as well. The lights were out, but I would have noticed serious injury if he had sustained any."

Konoe frowned. For a moment, the only sound sans the silence was the echo of three pairs of shoes against the tiled floor.

"Did he say what happened?" the chief asked at last as they stopped in front of a door.

Tatsumi gave his head a light shake. "No. He refused to tell, and I didn't insist. It didn't seem like an appropriate moment for that, his state considered."

Konoe rested his hand on the door handle. "And what happened in the morning?"

Tatsumi suppressed a shiver. He almost felt Tsuzuki tense at his side, the twinkle in his violet eyes gone when Tatsumi met them for a short, fleeting second.

"I tried to wake him up, but with no success. So I brought him here," he explained. He had to chase away an afterthought that he just didn't know what else he could have done. Such situations were anything but common and, if they happened at all, they had always had Watari to take care of it--

His train of thought broke off with the click of the lock as Konoe opened the door. Tatsumi let him and Tsuzuki enter first, following suit soon after.

He still half-hoped to see Watari awake as they came in, grinning sheepishly and ducking a little under Tatsumi's relieved but still icy glare. But no such thing happened. Watari looked exactly the same as when Tatsumi had left him; in the same position, breathing lightly, an eerily strange expression on his face. Or lack thereof, Tatsumi noted. Almost as though something – someone? - had sucked his soul out of the man's body and left only that shell, stripped of will or self, unresponsive, with no spirit to breathe the true force of life into it.

There was a pang in his heart as Tatsumi noticed, out of the corner of his eye, how Tsuzuki bit his lips at the sight of his friend.

"The strange thing," Tatsumi said, as much to distract himself as Tsuzuki out of his reverie, "are these." He walked up and took Watari's hand in his, once again unpleasantly surprised at how cold it felt. He rolled up one of Watari's sleeves. The bruises were still there, though for some reason, Tatsumi had been half-expecting them to have disappeared. He swallowed down the uneasy fear that reestablished itself in his stomach.

Chief Konoe raised an eyebrow, stepping forth to take a closer look. Tsuzuki took a step back. He swallowed audibly.

"These look like he was tied up," Konoe said, running one finger along a thin bruise around Watari's left wrist.

Tatsumi nodded. "I thought about that, too. But I saw him less than an hour earlier, last night--" he broke off as he met two pairs of surprised eyes, one after another.

Great. He refused to dwell on how that must have made him look. "What you're saying," he continued, hellbent on appearing unfazed, "is that in under an hour someone had captured Watari-san, tied him up, hurt him, damaged his house and left, just before I came in?" He heard a dubious note in his own voice as he spoke. That indeed sounded somewhat improbable. "It's too much of a coincidence," he said, shaking his head. "Too... synchronized, if I dare say so myself."

Konoe scratched his forehead. "Perhaps he was experimenting with something?" he guessed. He, too, sounded unconvinced of such a theory.

"I can't tell." Tatsumi sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. He wondered if he was the only one who noticed how cold the room suddenly seemed. "What worries me right now is that I don't know how to wake him up. I mean..." he stopped and looked at Watari's face again. His heart clenched with another surge of disturbing fear. "He's breathing, his heart rate is steady, and--" he looked away. "Apart from the fact that he is very cold, everything seems normal."

"Hmm." Konoe tapped his chin with his thumb. "Tsuzuki, is Kurosaki-kun in the office?"

Tsuzuki frowned. His kept his arms wrapped around him, and he looked like he had to force himself to step forth to rejoin the other two by the side of Watari's bed. "He's in the library. Why?"

"I'm not nearly competent enough to tell for sure, but this doesn't seem like a physical problem, to me." Konoe looked at Tatsumi with serious eyes. "Besides; Tatsumi, how many hours ago did you say you found him first?"

"Eight," Tatsumi said.

"If it were a normal injury, he would have healed by now."

"I didn't sense any trace of spell-casting, chief," Tatsumi said, once again shaking his head.

"Still." Konoe turned to Tsuzuki. "Bring Kurosaki here," he ordered. "Fill him in on everything you've heard so far. Maybe he will be able to help."

Tsuzuki gave him a nod, then he turned on his heel and walked out of the infirmary. Tatsumi stared after him for a while, until the door closed behind him and there was an all but dead silence in the room again.

He held still as he turned around, the sight before him not something he had expected to find. Chief Konoe stood with his back to him, his head slightly bowed. Tatsumi could see how his hand rested on Watari's head, gently stroking his hair; the movement of his hand almost imperceptible, but still very much there.

"For what it's worth," Konoe said, not turning around, "We're the closest to a family one can get, in this place."

There was weariness in his voice, and something like a fatherly concern that Tatsumi sometimes heard when the chief spoke of Tsuzuki; an undertone that underlined even his angry voice when one of them did something wrong.

"For him, it has never been just a job," he quietly went on. "Sometimes I wonder if he will ever move on. It seems like his business can never reach the final end."

Something in the way Konoe spoke, the distant, wistful tone, made Tatsumi's heart skip a beat. The momentary battle between the genuine need to know and his natural restraint from prying into the affairs of others ended with him leaning towards silence.

Konoe said no more. Soon enough, the door swung open again and Tsuzuki walked in, his young partner close behind. Tatsumi almost smiled at the sight of the similarity with which they carried themselves; both with arms crossed over their chests, walking briskly with a certain, now characteristic, resolve in their demeanor. Too well did Tatsumi remember a time when such resolve was far too rare in his former partner.

"Konoe-kachou, Tatsumi-san," Hisoka greeted them both with a small nod.

"Kurosaki-kun," Tatsumi and the chief both turned to return the greeting. "Has Tsuzuki filled you in on everything?"

Hisoka confirmed with another nod. "Yes. May I?" He moved closer, looking down at Watari. He winced. "What has he done this time?" he asked.

"We don't know," Tatsumi said flatly. "But maybe you can find out."

"I doubt it," the boy's matter-of-fact tone sent a small shiver down Tatsumi's spine. "But I can try." He sat down at the edge of the bed and took a deep breath.

"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki prodded. He stood behind his partner and put a hand on his shoulder. "Can you feel anything at all?"

Kurosaki removed his partner's hand; quite gently, Tatsumi noticed, without annoyance. "Strange," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing. But let me try something else..." his voice trailed off as he reached out and put one hand on Watari's chest.

Tatsumi watched the boy's small form grow almost rigid at the moment of physical contact. Tsuzuki moved to reach out for him, but Tatsumi caught him by the arm. He mouthed a voiceless, 'wait', almost pleading with the other man to give the boy time to try.

They both watched Hisoka, concerned, somewhat wary. Tatsumi could swear he felt something shift in the air; like the trembling ripples of spiritual energy moved uneasily under a disturbance of its natural flow. Time slowed down for him as he waited; Tsuzuki shifted uncomfortably at his side, itching to pull his partner out of his strange, trance-like state. Hisoka's eyes were closed, and he squeezed them tighter still as the seconds passed. He seemed to hunch a little and pulled back, forcefully, before he doubled over and pressed one hand to his forehead.

"Hisoka?" Unrestrained, Tsuzuki reached for the boy and caught him by the shoulders. The blond was breathing hard, rubbing his forehead with two fingers of his right hand.

"How... strange," he breathed.

"What?" Tatsumi heard himself demand before he realized the word had slipped through his mouth at all.

Hisoka turned to look at him, and that expression in his deep green eyes chilled Tatsumi down to the bone.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

A deep frown creased the boy's forehead. His otherwise youthful features showed clear signs of his true age. "It looks like-- a dream," he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "But it doesn't feel like one. If that makes sense to you."

Vaguely so, Tatsumi thought, but he remained silent.

Tsuzuki gently squeezed the boy's arm. "What did you see?"

Hisoka ignored him. "The pattern is strange. Like something is holding Watari-san's consciousness captive, like he's..." he broke off, searching for the right words. "Like he's living, or reliving something that is only happening in his mind, but..." he stopped again and frowned. "His emotions are genuine. And strong. Not dulled like in a normal dream. As if he really were there, in that room, and it really happened, and--"

"What room?" Tsuzuki cut in, confused.

Tatsumi felt equally puzzled. All of a sudden the situation seemed even more awkward than it had before. He had a bad feeling about this.

Hisoka's green eyes met his.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Tatsumi held up that stare, but it made him feel exposed, caught in the act. Only he didn't know what that could possibly have been.

"Watari-san's apartment," the boy offered reluctantly. "He and you are in it."

Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. Subconsciously he held his breath. "Dare I ask?" he managed at last. His palms went damp. Suddenly it was far too hot and the room seemed much too small for him.

"Uh, well," Hisoka looked slightly away. "It looked like you were fighting. Facing off, and you held Watari-san... restrained him, with your shadow magic."

Tatsumi felt himself pale. For a second there was a dead silence around him, and then a rush of blood through his ears, the furious pounding of his heart.

"Tatsumi..." Tsuzuki started carefully, an intent look fixed upon his face. The Shadow Master felt all but crushed under that stare. "Tatsumi, is that what happened at Watari's place?" he asked.

Tatsumi released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "No!" he said; almost yelled, he realized, though his own voice sounded as distant to him as though it were a whisper. "No.." he repeated, quietly this time. "I would never hurt him." He looked up, meeting that familiar amethyst gaze. "Never."

Tsuzuki nodded. Tatsumi could see that the other believed him; though he still seemed to ponder something he didn't have the mind to share. Tatsumi's thoughts whirled as he tried to parse what he had just heard. Fighting Watari? With his shadows? Never.

"There's something else."

Hisoka's voice brought Tatsumi back to the present, to that stuffy room that threatened to suffocate him with the lack of air or enough space to breathe. He stole a brief look at Watari before he turned to the boy again. Something in his heart cringed at the thought that he could have done that.. anything like that. Ever. No, he thought. Just no.

"What is it, Hisoka?" Tsuzuki asked gently. This time he wasn't pushed away when he rested a reassuring hand against Hisoka's back.

"I tried to read on, but it suddenly felt like... this will sound strange." He shrugged. "Like something realized I was there and forced me to pull back."

"Watari pushed you out of that dream – or whatever it is?" Tsuzuki asked.

Hisoka shook his head. "Not Watari. He didn't even notice me. It was something else. I couldn't put my finger on it. Something strong, an energy, like a separate entity--"

"Possession?" chief Konoe asked. He moved closer towards Hisoka.

"No, it didn't feel like that. More like..." Looking up to meet Tatsumi's eyes, Kurosaki's resolve to stay composed faltered and there was only confusion on his boyish face.

"Like it's protecting him. Odd as it sounds, since Watari-san seems to be trapped in there, and he isn't enjoying himself, either. But it sure felt that way."

One hand sliding into his pocket, Tsuzuki shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "And what does that mean?" he asked uneasily.

"That I can't pull him out of it, unless I either find out what it is, or how to override it," Hisoka explained, a distant look on his face. "Or both, preferably. But I've never felt anything like that. I have no clue as to what it might be."

The chief cleared his throat. "It's useless to stand here and ponder it the whole day," he said. He went back to the matter-of-fact tone of the boss he always summoned when a situation threatened to slip out of control. "Kurosaki-kun, go back to the library. See if you can find anything even vaguely resembling this. I suppose someone could try to check Watari's computer, as well."

Tsuzuki snorted. "Good luck. Watari is a security obsessive. It would take a mind matching his to get into his files."

"Well." Konoe's shoulders slumped a little. "Talk to the Gushoshin brothers. They often work with him, maybe they'll be able to help. Do what you can; there's not much else we can do right now, anyway. Please report back if you find anything."

Hisoka nodded an affirmative. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

"The two of you," Konoe turned to Tsuzuki and Tatsumi. "Go back to the office. Sitting here won't help, and you have work to do."

Tsuzuki pouted, but any argument was extinguished at the core before he had a chance to voice it when Tatsumi reinforced the chief's orders with a pointed look of his own.

Truth be told, he was reluctant to leave the infirmary, himself. He would rather stay there and make sure Watari was all right; that he wasn't alone when he woke up – if, his thoughts supplied, and Tatsumi recoiled inwardly. He knew well enough that if his presence had prevented nothing the night before, the odds of it changing anything for the better now looked rather pathetic, all facts considered.

Konoe halted, leaning in doorway. "Tatsumi?" he urged him gently.

"I'm coming," Tatsumi said, and he knew that sting of regret that shot through his heart reflected in the tone of his voice. A part of him fought for the right to stay. The logical part told him he was better off away, for now, until he cleared his head and rearranged his thoughts, found his ground again.

He reached out his hand and, from where he stood, it took only a small movement for his fingers to brush lightly across the back of Watari's cold hand. Then he turned on his heel and followed Konoe out of the room.
-

Tatsumi put on his best neutral front, but it only held until he walked into his office and shut the door behind him.

On some level, he regretted not having witnessed what Kurosaki had seen and told them about. Some part of him craved that pain; he wanted to live it through himself, for he began to feel as though reality had started slipping through his fingers and a bitter reverie threatened to overwhelm him. For the most part, though, he was glad to have retained his logic; he knew it would not have done him any good at all.

He found none of his usual, welcome escape in work. He ended up automatically going through his daily tasks, sparing them only as much attention as he deemed necessary. His mind continued to drift off towards the medical facility of EnmaCho; to the man who lay there, unaware and oblivious to the turmoil he caused in the Shadow Master's heart.

The shadows shifted around him; silky tendrils of black brushed against their master's arms. Drowned in twilight, with the blinds drawn and the sun sinking low towards the end of the day, his office swam with ghostly ribbons; their movement soft and smooth across the walls. Tatsumi watched them sweep around the corners, lurk under his desk, sneak slowly up his chair and around his shoulders again. A feeble comfort, that, but at least it managed to somewhat soothe his mind.

He had put away the last report he had been reading when the letters began to blur in front of his eyes. He caught himself looking at one word and almost having his mind convince him it read something else. He went over a sentence and he might have as well not read it at all, for all the comprehension and memory of it that stayed in his mind. Just a residue, that; much like everything else all throughout the day. Even his usual strict policy regarding the importance of the office work didn't help the cause. Focus escaped him; or, if he were to be honest with himself, it fled to where Tatsumi himself really wanted to be.

He gave up on scorning Watari in his thoughts after he had caught himself doing that the first time. It was not the scientist's fault; whether Watari had anything to do with his current state or not, Tatsumi knew better than to unrighteously shift the blame onto another. It changed nothing in the long run, anyway. Chiding himself for letting his mind stray soon proved useless as well. A futile task; he couldn't help it.

Past the office hours, when most people had left, he sneaked out of his own room and strolled slowly down the dimly lit corridor; back and forth, time and again, until he lost the count of both the lapses and his own footsteps. Every sound mingled with too loud thoughts in his troubled mind, where he remembered telling himself that it felt good, last night. That it was fine to care. That acting on it was no crime, no shame.

But fate, it seemed, was a mistress of a changing heart. Swept up and down and pushed to whirl helplessly in place until he couldn't tell which way was down, Tatsumi had to admit that his own heart was a treacherous thing.

In the end, he let it lead his feet to where he wished to go.

Halfway through the hall he stood and let some of the tension loose with a deep sigh. It surprised him how that made him shudder; and he, the habitually cool and composed man, found himself weary, his usual drive and energy all but gone. I just want to understand, he thought frantically. Even if he suspected he wouldn't like it, he just wanted to know.

There were voices inside the room; hushed, desperate in Tatsumi's ears, and his attempt at calming down his shaky nerves rolled back to square one. He didn't have the mind to suppress the shiver that made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He pulled the door open with a trembling hand and entered.

He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the scene that played out inside. For the first few seconds he felt as though he was watching a movie; the silent spectator, locked out on outskirts of a distant place. The sound that reached him seemed eerily muffled, the pictures shifting rapidly before his eyes. He tried to make sense of what he was looking at; frustration gnawed at him as he was failing miserably.

Hisoka was on the floor, shuddering violently; he tried to speak between rapid gasps. Tears ran down his face; his small hands searched Tsuzuki's, seeking comfort, connection to reality, reassurance of any tangible kind. The older man held him tight and, from what Tatsumi could tell, tried to soothe him with gentle, calming words.

He looked up and violet eyes locked on Tatsumi's; a helpless, wordless plea to do something. Anything at all.

Tatsumi took a few tentative steps towards them on shaking legs. Slowly he began to understand. Watari was curled up on his bed; still not conscious as far as he could tell. But his pale face was wet with tears; like Hisoka's, who slowly worked to regain his breath.

Numbness washed over him; the fear that crushed his senses melted into him, until he could no longer tell where reality ended and this nightmare began.

"What happened?" he asked. His own voice sounded strange in his ears. Like everything else in this alien world that could not be real, he played his part because he had no other choice. Or so it felt; but Tatsumi could no longer tell which emotion he should be paying heed.

Tsuzuki swallowed thickly; one arm still wrapped around his partner, rhythmically stroking his back, rocking them both back and forth. "Hisoka tried again," he explained, his voice shaken. "I don't know what exactly happened, but it looked like for a moment he got pulled in and I lost him and then he was back and he only kept repeating how much it hurt..."

At first, Tsuzuki's frantic words made little sense to him. But Tatsumi resolved not to give up now.

"Kurosaki-kun," he said, trying for the gentlest tone he could manage. "What did you see?"

Hisoka's eyes were wide, his pupils dilated; he was staring at Tatsumi as though he saw a ghost.

"Hisoka?" Tatsumi tried again. Something in the boy's frightened stare told him he should not have asked. But he had to, he thought. He needed to know. There was no other way.

The young Shinigami's breathing was still labored, but he regained some manner of composure after a few more seconds had passed. He tried to stand up; at first Tsuzuki moved to hold him down, but Hisoka waved him off. He pulled himself up to his feet, leaning heavily on his partner's arm.

"An illusion," he gasped. "Don't know how but it was--" he broke off. His eyes grew wider still. He froze.

Tatsumi followed his line of sight.

Watari sat upright; motionless save the minute trembling with a clear-cut effort just to breathe. His amber eyes pierced through Tatsumi; a look that all but screamed at him, and a voice in his mind that had Watari's tone did exactly as much. The silence dissolved and Tatsumi cursed himself, but he looked away.

"Enma," Hisoka breathed somewhere to his right.

Tatsumi barely registered the sound.

"It was Enma."