This chapter is too short and I don't like it, but after this, I get to the good stuff! Like, the original premise of the fic. -_-;;

Chapter Three

"Ne, Tatsumi . . ."

Tatsumi shook himself quickly. "Yes?" he asked, flipping to another page in the newspaper he was looking at and trying to pretend he hadn't been asleep, not even for the shortest of moments.

Watari's lips quirked in a smile. "Maybe you should go take a nap. We've been here all night, you know."

Tatsumi glared at him. "I'm perfectly awake, thank you. What did you need?"

Watari yawned and stretched. "Other than breakfast, a hot shower, and clean clothes?" he asked dryly. Though jokes were often made about Watari living in his office, he tried not to prove them true most of the time. "I need that stack of papers that you were not sleeping on top of."

Tatsumi admirably managed to not turn pink in the slightest. He simply picked up the folder and handed it over. "Do you think you have something?"

"I think I finally may," Watari said in a satisfied tone of voice.

Tatsumi made a comment underneath his breath about how, if he'd known that Watari was going to be fine on his own, he wouldn't have bothered to stay. That was uncharitable at best. "Do you want some coffee?" he asked. "I think I'm going to go get some."

"Coffee'd be great, thanks," Watari said absently, too absorbed in his reading to even make a crack about Tatsumi being nicer than usual.

He flipped to a certain page in the folder as Tatsumi left the room, then shuffled through the mess on his desk. By the time Tatsumi came back with two mugs of coffee, he had four sheets of paper lined up in front of him and was looking quite pleased with himself. "Take a look," he said, gesturing to the papers.

Tatsumi handed him one of the mugs of coffee and bent over his shoulder. He scanned the papers and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "What is it?" he asked. "And don't just say 'look closer', or you'll be wearing this coffee."

"These clothes are just about done for anyway," Watari said cheerfully. However, he didn't torture Tatsumi any longer. He took out a yellow highlighter and highlighted four lines of text: one on each sheet.

Tatsumi glanced down. "Same name, four times. What are these lists?"

"Pages of the Kiseki."

Tatsumi nearly choked on his coffee. "How did you get these?!"

"Hi~mi~tsu!" Watari grinned at him. "Aw, c'mon, you know me. Just because they're locked up in that castle doesn't mean that no one ever entered them into the computer. And where the computer goes, I go. Anyway, that's the guy we're looking for. Every fifteen years, like clockwork, his time runs out and he's supposed to die, but he's doing this . . . thing, to stop it."

"This . . . thing," Tatsumi said dryly. "I'll be sure to relay your nice specific explanation to Tsuzuki-san and Kurosaki-kun."

Watari glared at him. "Look, do you have any idea what he'd be doing?"

"No," Tatsumi admitted.

"Then don't make fun of me. Just call them up and get them here and I'm sure between the four of us, we'll figure it out."

~~~~

"So let me get this straight," Hisoka said, studying the sheets of paper. "Whoever's doing this is basically doing a spell every fifteen years to renew his life force. And the reason it's so regular is because the energy he manages to gather always runs out at the same time. Right?"

"Right," Watari said. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, his legs swinging back and forth, and looking quite pleased with himself. "That's all it is. Pretty simple, ne?"

"Very simple," Hisoka said. "And the simplicity of it is going to make him impossible to catch."

"Mou, Hisoka, how hard can it be?" Tsuzuki asked, looking disappointed with his younger partner. "We even have his name!"

"Oh, yeah," Hisoka said. "And I'm sure he's listed in the directory, too."

Tsuzuki wilted.

Watari shrugged. "You're doing better than you were the other day, aren't you? Whatcha looking so down for?"

"He's just in a bad mood," Tsuzuki confided to the scientist in an undertone. "He doesn't like hospitals."

Hisoka stood up. "Let's get going," he said briefly, and left the office without waiting for Tsuzuki. The older Shinigami pouted and bounded after him.

"So where to?" he asked, once the two of them had transported back to Chijou. Hisoka sat on one of the beds in their hotel room, and was looking intensely thoughtful. "The draining process must take four days," Tsuzuki added thoughtfully. "He probably steals their soul away to wherever he is and imprisons it until he's siphoned off all its power. That's why the man last night had no psychic essence."

Hisoka nodded. "Yeah. And once it's renewed, he just goes back to . . . whatever it is he's doing."

They sat in silence for a long minute.

"Who would want eternal life anyway?" Hisoka asked, looking out the window. It had begun to rain; the entire world was a dreary grey color. He had always hated rain, until that day that Tsuzuki had accepted him as his partner. It had been raining that day. He didn't hate it anymore.

Tsuzuki shrugged. "We do."

"No, we don't," Hisoka said wearily. "We just accept it as part of the job. No one wants to live forever."

Tsuzuki accepted this with a nod.

"I was going to leave," Hisoka said quietly. "That was my plan. I became a Shinigami to find out who had killed me, and after that I was going to leave. And yet . . . I stayed. I didn't go on like I had intended to."

"Why not?" Tsuzuki asked curiously.

Hisoka shook his head. "I don't really know."

Tsuzuki wanted to ask if it was because of him, and he wanted to badly, but he knew that Hisoka wouldn't answer. And even if he did answer, he would be annoyed about it. Besides, he couldn't count on it to be true; Hisoka had decided to stay before the two of them had officially become partners. That couldn't be the only reason.

He flopped backwards onto the bed. "There must be some way to track him," he said, after the long moment of silence that had followed Hisoka's statement.

Hisoka picked up the phone book and flipped through. "Not listed," he finally said in a monotone, putting it back into the drawer. "As we expected. And Watari would have already looked to see if he could find him anywhere online."

"So, we're back at square one, with only a name to help us," Tsuzuki said. "I don't suppose the families of any of the people he's killed would know him? I mean, enough to give us a description?"

Hisoka shook his head. "He probably picks strangers off the streets. Much safer that way."

"Unless the spell is complicated," Tsuzuki said eagerly. "It could take days to put something into effect."

"I really doubt it," Hisoka said, still shaking his head. "This guy is obviously really careful. If it was something that easy, he would have been caught before, by one of the other Shinigami who had been sent to investigate. No, my guess is that all he needs is minimal touch, and if more than that, it wouldn't take longer than an hour."

Tsuzuki sighed. "So now what?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hisoka said. "I just wish there was some way we could use the latest victim to track him . . . it's too bad we didn't know the victim beforehand, because then I could try to trace their essence, but . . ."

"We could trick him into taking me!" Tsuzuki said. "Then you could track me!"

"Of course, that would involve finding him first," Hisoka said dryly.

Tsuzuki deflated. "There must be something we can do," he said dismally.

Hisoka pushed his hair out of his face. "It does really feel like there's some obvious solution we're missing," he admitted. "I just have no idea what that would actually be."

"This isn't that big a city," Tsuzuki said hopefully. "Maybe we should try just wandering around and seeing if we find anything useful. Anyone out of the ordinary. If we ran into this guy, do you think you'd be able to tell? Empathically, I mean."

"Maybe," Hisoka said, though he sounded doubtful. "I mean, empathically speaking, he would be . . . hm, larger isn't the word I want, but maybe more intense? Because he's carrying around more than himself with him. I could try, I suppose."

"Then let's go! I want lunch."

Hisoka rolled his eyes, but he followed Tsuzuki out of the hotel.

~~~~

They had wandered the small city for nearly two hours, before they gave up and took a break for lunch at a small sushi bar. Hisoka was discouraged and tired and in general didn't feel like eating. No matter how many pieces of sushi Tsuzuki waved in his face, for the most part, he ignored his lunch.

Tsuzuki happily ate his own and then Hisoka's. The fruitlessness of the day didn't seem to bother him. Hisoka knew better; he knew how easily Tsuzuki got disheartened when cases were going nowhere.

It was that, more than anything, that was the cause of Hisoka's decision.

"Let's try something new," he said, once Tsuzuki had devoured every last bit of sushi on both their plates.

Tsuzuki blinked at him, wondering why Hisoka had suddenly announced this. He would think that if there was anything they hadn't yet tried, Hisoka would have brought it up hours ago. "What?" he asked, examining the bill and then frowning at Tatsumi's expense booklet.

"Something so old and so evil would have a specific psychic scent, for lack of a better term," Hisoka said with a sigh. "And it would be strong. If I let down my shields, I should be able to sense it, no matter how far away it is."

Tsuzuki blinked at him. "Let down your shields?" he asked, alarmed. "Entirely? Hisoka, that's dangerous!"

"You think I don't know that?" Hisoka snapped.

"But . . . really, really dangerous!" Tsuzuki said, as if this was a different statement entirely. "You said that even as a kid you could partially shield! If you let them down all the way you might get lost in everyone else's minds!"

"Do you want to catch who's doing this or not?" Hisoka asked angrily. He pushed back from the table and stalked out of the restaurant. Tsuzuki hurriedly put some money on the table and followed. Hisoka was walking quite quickly, and it took Tsuzuki quite a few minutes to catch up with him.

"Hisoka . . ." he said, and then caught the green-eyed Shinigami's glare. "Are you sure?" he finally asked.

"I'm sure," Hisoka said resolutely. "We're never going to catch him by just wandering around, hoping. There has to be a better way."

"But what if . . . what if you get lost out there?" Tsuzuki asked, then added in a quieter voice, "What if you don't come back to me?"

Hisoka forced back a shudder. The thought of his mind drifting, assaulted on all sides by the horrible mess and noise that was humanity, was not a pleasant one. But if Tsuzuki saw him uncomfortable with the idea, he would try to stop him from doing it, and as far as Hisoka was concerned, there was no other way. "I will," he said firmly. "Only touch makes me synch with other people -- this will just be sensing. It's not as dangerous as it seems."

Tsuzuki gave him a suspicious look, then nodded. "Should I do anything?"

Hisoka shrugged. "Not much you can do." He spotted a bench and sat down on it, making himself as comfortable as popular. "Just keep people from bothering me."

"Are you going to do it right here?" Tsuzuki asked, surprised.

"Aa . . . our hotel is on the edge of town. It'll be easier from here."

"Well, okay . . ." Tsuzuki looked around. There were plenty of people out walking around, and he wasn't sure how he could keep any of them from wondering what Hisoka was doing if he just sat there with his eyes closed. "I suppose touch would make it harder?" he surmised. Hisoka gave him a suspicious glance, then nodded. Tsuzuki plopped down on the bench next to him and determined that if anyone gave them a strange look, he would just give them his best smile. That ought to get rid of most people.

Hisoka closed his eyes. He had learned more and more about controlling his empathy ever since becoming a Shinigami, and letting go of that control completely was wildly against his instinct. It was going to take more effort to do that than it normally did to keep it under wraps.

He started out small -- sensing Tsuzuki next to him, his gentle concern and worry over the situation. The other minds on the street were easier to sense. He stretched his mind further, flexing his mental muscles.

And couldn't let go.

He frowned slightly and felt a flare of worry from Tsuzuki. His control had been so hard-won, and he kept as much as he could clenched in an iron fist so much of the time, that this was going to be near impossible.

The best way to lose control was to attempt to do something that would normally be completely impossible for him. Keeping this in mind, he tried to stretch his mind towards the Meifu. The reach was not impossible, but then he ran up against the dimensional barrier, spun out of control --

and was everywhere at once.

// I can't even believe that they gave the promotion to Kiyoshi. That lazy ass never does anything to help out! // // God, I hate traffic these days. I'm going to be late -- //

// so you can see that if you carry the one into the tens column -- //

// English is so hard to learn! Can't they just stick to one way of pronouncing things?// // are you going to be all right? //

//well, that's the good news//

and spun further out until he ran up against another barrier and braced himself against it for a few seconds before he was dragged down in the maelstrom of humanity. But this time his descent was just a tiny bit more controlled, and he was able to look, to search --

And when he found it, the presence was so intense he was amazed it had taken him so long.

Everything was dark, and the figure was cloaked in shadow, but it turned and it looked at him, and smiled. A welcoming, beckoning smile.

Hisoka's eyes snapped open.

"Are you all right?" Tsuzuki asked him worriedly, and Hisoka realized with some amount of embarrassment that he was being cradled in the older Shinigami's arms.

"Aa . . ." He shook his head to clear it. "Did I pass out?"

"No, you just fell over," Tsuzuki said brightly, as if this might be considered and improvement. "Did you find anything useful?"

"Yes, but . . ." Hisoka closed his eyes as the emotions of everyone around him threatened to swallow him. He couldn't manage to build his shields back up to full strength. Somehow, he had lost that vital piece of separation that he carried with him at all times. "Yes," he finally said. "I found him."

"So what should we do?" Tsuzuki asked, giving him a careful look. Normally, he would have been gung ho about taking off to track the killer down, but Hisoka was looking extremely pale and unhappy.

Hisoka pulled out of Tsuzuki's arms and stood. The voices crowded in on him and he wavered slightly. "We should go," he said. "I can track him. I don't think he's far." He had unconsciously assigned a gender to the person in question, from what he had felt of their mind. Tracking a mind was not something he could usually do, unless he got a flash of their actual position from their minds, but this was different. This mind was so large, so loud, that he couldn't help but be drawn to it like a moth to flame.

He shuddered at the analogy. It wasn't helping his nerves.

"All right," Tsuzuki said, and put an arm around his shoulders.

Hisoka pushed him away, a bit more roughly than he had intended. "I'm all right to walk," he snapped, and started to wobble down the street.

"Hisoka, wait . . ." Tsuzuki hurried to catch up with him. "Do you think this is such a good idea? You're acting kind of funny. You look dazed."

"I can't block everyone out." Hisoka pressed one hand against his temple, as if the physical action might help. "My shields aren't working very well. I'll need total quiet and probably at least a few hours to rebuild them to full strength, and we don't have time for that right now. If we can find him, we can maybe return the last soul to its body and they won't have to die."

Tsuzuki gave him another worried look, but nodded. "At least let me help you."

"If you touch me, I won't be able to track him," Hisoka said sharply.

Tsuzuki drooped. "All right . . ."

Hisoka kept walking. That presence was like a hornet's nest in his head, and the incessant buzzing was coming close to drowning out everything else. He couldn't get away from the image of that smile. Or the image of a moth getting caught in a flame.

He stopped abruptly.

"What?" Tsuzuki asked.

"It's calling me . . . I think he must know that we're coming . . . probably even who we are, what we are."

Tsuzuki gave him a serious look. "What do you want to do?"

"What can we do?" Hisoka countered, and he started walking again.

Tsuzuki put both hands in his pocket, his fingers tightening on one of his ofuda. Hisoka's path gradually led them out of the more populated part of the city, and he stopped on the outskirts of a small playground. It was deserted, and obviously had been for some time; there was rust on the monkey bars and one of the swings was only connected on one side.

Hisoka started to shiver and couldn't stop. The buzzing was so loud that even when Tsuzuki turned to him and said something, he couldn't hear. He had never met anyone or anything that simply gave off static. No thoughts, no images, no emotions. Just that same buzzing static.

There was a girl sitting on the swingset. She looked about ten years old; her shining black hair was in pigtails, her dark eyes framed by small glasses, wearing red overalls and a white shirt.

She smiled, that same welcoming smile. "Konnichi wa." Her voice was light, but low. It did not sound like the voice of a ten year old girl.

Hisoka went to his knees. The buzzing had gotten so loud that it now sounded like someone was screaming inside his head. Tsuzuki's eyes widened and he knelt beside Hisoka, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hisoka? What's wrong?"

Hisoka drew in a harsh breath and spoke the only words he could think of. "Kill it," he whispered. "Oh, God, kill it, it's evil, Tsuzuki, kill it!"

Tsuzuki stared at Hisoka for a long minute before looking back at the girl. She climbed off her swing and walked forward, and Tsuzuki yanked out a handful of ofuda, ready to do -- something -- he wasn't sure what.

Hisoka pressed both his hands against his face and began to scream.

The girl smiled, looking at Tsuzuki's ofuda. "I'm afraid those won't be necessary," she said. She reached her hand out to both of them. Tsuzuki knew of at least a dozen ways to make her stop, but he could feel himself falling. Though it seemed to take an eternity, in all reality it was only a few seconds before the world went dark.

~~~~