Dedicated to rusalkaz
Watanuki had little energy left after the whole fiasco and all he wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up, but Doumeki had convinced him that now was the time to finish their job, while the spirits of the house were reeling from the amount of exorcising that the archer had done.
He hadn't had a chance to properly thank Rikuou yet for saving his life, but it appeared as if the boy didn't really want thanks, at least at the moment. It really sucked when it was two against one, as Rikuou seemed to agree with Doumeki's view of things.
"Are you all right, Kudou-san?"
Kazahaya blinked and smiled wearily at Watanuki. "I'm fine, just really tired."
Watanuki tried not to stumble and it was only Doumeki's constant hand on his elbow that kept him from falling. Somehow he had lost his glasses, but that was fine with him. If the ghosts and evil beasties weren't clearly seen, they didn't scare him quite as much.
"Where exactly is this thing that we have to get?"
"Basement," Watanuki echoed at the same time as Kazahaya. They shared a worn-out smile, but laughing was beyond them all at this point. Watanuki had never been in such dire straits as he was right then. Never before had his life been so deeply and profoundly threatened as it was in this decrepit house. Kazahaya apparently agreed, since there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he could not forget what he had seen when he touched the wall of the house.
"It's locked."
Before he knew it, Rikuou's voice had penetrated into his daze and they had already reached the door leading to the basement. Watanuki could only cover his mouth in revulsion at the smell that leaked around the edges of the doorframe. It was so much worse than the roof of the school that he and Doumeki had investigated so many months ago. The last thing he wanted was to have that door unlocked.
"Hold you breath, Watanuki."
"Eh?" He barely had time to do as Doumeki told him when Rikuou shattered the lock with his power and the door seemed to swing open of its own accord, as if to beckon them into the hell he knew was waiting for them like some terrifying gargoyle perched on a cursed castle.
He felt like retching violently when the black smoke billowed around the four of them and he knew that if Doumeki hadn't had his elbow in a death grip, he would have passed out by now. He was so going to kill Yuuko for this. Did she have any idea what the hell he was going through in this house?
…Knowing Yuuko, she probably did, but sent him in anyway.
"How far down do the stairs go?"
Kazahaya's tone was that of apprehension somewhere behind him and he realized why it was so awkward going down the stairs: Rikuou was in front, Doumeki and he squished side by side on the narrow, rickety staircase, and Kazahaya in the back. It was extremely difficult to not tread on Doumeki's feet, but even when he did, the archer didn't complain. Maybe he was beyond that at this point.
"Seems we hit bottom," Rikuou muttered, halting the progress.
There was a strange sound and Watanuki strove to pinpoint what it was…it was like hard-soled shoes on loose but abundant gravel, but it was not entirely the same. It didn't feel like gravel, and amid the strange noise, sometimes he clearly heard something that echoed like crunching sounds.
"Oh my god, it can't be!"
"What is it, Kudou-san?"
Doumeki's voice was sharp and Watanuki found himself being dragged closer to the archer's taller body. He didn't know what everyone else saw, because all he could see was blackness and smoke. There was the faintest glow coming from his feet, but instincts honed after sixteen years of dealing with spirits had told him to not look down the moment they had gone down the stairs.
"They're…bones. What we're stepping on…they're shattered bones…Like someone was grinding them, but didn't finish…That's why it's so uneven and…"
"Calm down, Kazahaya. Don't freak out on us."
Somehow Rikuou had moved behind them, judging from where his voice was coming from. He was somewhere near Kazahaya. Watanuki was using his ears to the fullest he could get, breathing shallowly in his mouth amid his coughing. Suddenly, he almost felt as if he was the luckiest one, since he couldn't see anything and wouldn't have to witness the horror that Kazahaya was.
"How am I supposed to calm down, you jerk! I'm walking on human bones here! I can't forget about the smell or the sight of all the blood in my head! I can't, I can't I ca—"
Silence suddenly overwhelmed the noise behind him and he wondered what Rikuou had done to calm Kazahaya, since his rising, panicked voice was suddenly quiet. Doumeki hadn't moved once since they had paused and it was getting harder to keep his eyes from falling shut. He just wanted to lean against the pillar that was his rival, if only for a moment, to rest, but he knew that if he did that, he'd fall asleep. Chances were that if he fell asleep, he wouldn't be waking up ever again.
"Let's go."
Rikuou's voice hadn't much changed, so whatever he had done didn't bother him. Watanuki didn't want to move, knowing that he was walking on human bones, but Doumeki seemed prepared to drag him if absolutely necessary, so he wasn't left with much choice. He wanted to ask Kazahaya if he was all right, but his voice wouldn't work and his throat closed too often to block out the wretched scents and the stickiness that it brought to his mouth.
There was no telling how long they'd been walking or would have walked, had Watanuki not frozen in place after several minutes. No matter how much Doumeki tugged him, there was no way the boy could make his legs move. Even without his glasses, it was as if what he was seeing was in crystal clarity and he wished he couldn't see all the details he did.
"What's wrong, Watanuki-san?"
"Wh-whatever you do, don't touch me, Kudou-san," Watanuki whispered, unable to tear his eyes away from the horrifying…thing before him. He did not want Kazahaya to read his memory and have to bear what he was seeing.
Right before them, less than a foot away, hovered the most disgusting thing he had ever seen. It could have been human once, but now it bore no resemblance of any kind to anything Watanuki had ever known. Amid the darkness and smoke that was all he could see, this shown with a red aura, like a beacon of evil. Blood dripped soundlessly in terrifying patterns on the bones beneath it as it hovered at chest level.
It was small and mutated, with one short leg and another almost too long. Its skin was…well, it was as if someone had peeled off the skin and left whatever was beneath red with blood and other internal organs exposed. The teeth were sharper than any razor and it grinned maliciously at him. Could it possibly be that it was his imagination that it was chewing on something that looked suspiciously like flesh?
He couldn't help it. Watanuki turned his head just in time to vomit onto the bones at his feet. It was so disgusting that even after he had emptied his stomach, he still wanted to throw up. The deformed face, eyes nowhere near where they should be in placement on the skull, seemed to glow in satisfaction and a forked tongue flitted in and out of its mouth, as if tasting the air laden with smell and thickness of bile.
"What do you see?" Rikuou demanded and despite all the warnings he'd told him, Kazahaya grabbed his wrist. Watanuki had no strength in him anymore to protest or drag his hand away.
But whatever Rikuou had told or done earlier kept Kazahaya from screeching in the same terror that had struck Watanuki. He honestly didn't know why he wasn't screaming in horror. Maybe it was because after all that he had seen that night, he was numb to it. …No, he was not numb, it was just too disgusting, too shocking, that he didn't believe it. That his throat closed and refused to acknowledge that such a thing could exist.
Kazahaya's hand was shaking as he lifted it to point at the thing. "There's…something very…disgusting…in front…of you. N-no wonder…Watanuki-san…threw up…I w-want to too…"
Doumeki suddenly pushed Watanuki toward Kazahaya and the boy had a horrible sense of vertigo that wanted to make him throw up again. He heard the stretching of the bow and the sudden twang…there had barely been a pause in it, as if he didn't dare wait to aim.
"Again…Doumeki," he rasped, even as his vision was fading into blackness. "I-it blocked…"
He hadn't even finished his sentence before he passed out from the overwhelming evil that had pounded against his senses for far too long.
What was all the yelling about? What about the shaking?
Watanuki opened his eyes to see the back of someone's calves. They were running and he could see the ground was shaking. What was going on? The last thing he remembered was falling unconscious with that thing glaring maliciously at them, as if trying to decide which of them to eat first.
"Hurry up! It's going to collapse!"
"Tell me you grabbed the damn pouch!"
"Shut up, Rikuou! I got it, you think I'm stupid or something!"
He listened faintly to the arguments of Kazahaya and Rikuou before groaning. It seemed to alert them that he was awake…speaking of which, how did he wake up? And why did he have this overwhelming feeling that he was missing or not getting something of huge importance that was happening at that very moment?
"What's going on?" he muttered groggily, not even trying to lift up his arms or struggle. His limbs felt as if someone had tied lead weights to them and he didn't have the energy to fight for control of his own body. Who was carrying him over their shoulder?
"The house is going to collapse. We have to get out of here or we'll be crushed!"
Barely seconds after Kazahaya finished speaking, the harsh light of the moon hit his eyelids and fresh, cold air assaulted his face and body. Contrary to the rest of the house, the basement they had been in had been stiflingly hot, like they had truly ventured into the depths of hell, with infernos of heat and fire just out of sight no matter how much you had walked.
Vaguely, he judged that sun would be coming up in an hour. Normally he was a good student, but then and there he decided that not even for Himawari-chan would he go to school that day. He just felt too physically awful to even think it.
"I do not believe we made it out alive," Kazahaya muttered and from around a leg that could only be Doumeki's, he saw the boy drop onto the pavement in exhaustion.
"Good job, all of you. I'm so very glad you're all alive as well."
It was a voice he didn't recognize, but it was clearly male, despite it's somewhat softness. He experienced once again a strange sense of vertigo as Doumeki set him on his feet and he blinked in blurriness. He really wished he hadn't lost his glasses…
"Hey, here." Watanuki wavered on his feet as Rikuou held out his hand. "You dropped these when we were upstairs."
His glasses! Speaking of stairs…Watanuki slipped them on and turned to look over Doumeki's shoulder at what remained of the nest of evil they had narrowly escaped from. It was completely totaled and not even a single billow of dust hit the air. The wood even seemed to be disintegrating as he watched, as if whatever evil that had been there had held up the house long after the point where it should have decayed into dirt.
"Kakei!"
Watanuki turned from the house one final time, at Kazahaya's relieved and upset voice. There were three, well really four, people waiting for them. Two of them, he didn't know. A man even bigger than Rikuou wearing black sunglasses towering over a smaller man, whose face seemed to be carved by angels, with soft but pretty features, holding a gentle expression despite the worry and relief he showed.
But it was when his caught sight of Yuuko that he felt his blood boil with rage. This was all her fault! He nearly died more times than he could count and had the worst experience of his life because of her! She had warned him, but hadn't seen fit to truly explain the depths of depravity he had experienced and seen in that evil house.
"Yuuko-san!" he screeched.
The effect of his anger silenced everyone until they all watched him. Yuuko's eyes were expressionless and unfathomable, as if she had expected the fury he felt. What she had done was wrong. She had barely warned him what would happen and had given him no help whatsoever in the form of anything. Not to mention she hadn't even told Rikuou and Kazahaya what they would be facing!
He couldn't even think of anything to say. Oh, there were a whole lot of rude swear words that he wanted to spill from of his mouth, his arms were shaking in his anger, but habit kept them from coming out.
"I," he said distinctly, drawing out each word with a perfect pronunciation and emphasis, "hate you."
"I expected you would," she replied calmly.
"I nearly died! Do you not even care about that! You didn't tell me what was in that house! You didn't warn Kudou-san or Himura-san! You didn't help me at all! What if I died! What would you have done then! Merely waved it off, possibly gone to my funeral! You…you…you…!"
Doumeki seemed to sense that he was on the verge of spilling out terrible invectives and cursing, and his hand grabbed his shoulder tightly, as if trying to either calm him or redirect the focus of his verbal attack before he could say something that he truly would regret later.
Yuuko's expression hadn't changed, as if she was prepared for such a reaction. "Watanuki, I know that I just threw you to the wolves in that house. I know just how bad, how rough, you would have it. Your power is stronger than even you suspect. I imagine you truly would have died if it hadn't been for Doumeki and the others."
"Then why did you do it!" he screamed.
"Because there was no other way."
He wanted to scream how could she play with other people's lives that way, how she could use them as pawns on a chessboard with no regard to their feelings or future, but his voice was stopped up from everything he was feeling. Not to mention the overwhelming guilt. If he hadn't gotten involved with Yuuko, neither Doumeki, Rikuou, or Kazahaya would have had to go through the trauma that they had that night.
Summoning up all the dignity he had left, he lifted his head as calmly as he could and looked her straight in the eye. "I can't leave your shop because I haven't paid off my wish, I know that. But after tonight…I'm going to request that you never again involve Doumeki or anyone else. I'll still do your jobs, I have to, but don't put anyone else in this situation again."
"Watanuki--" Doumeki began, sounding somewhat surprised, but Yuuko's voice overrode his.
"You realize what you're doing, Watanuki? Some of these jobs cannot be completed without Doumeki with you. And if he's not with you, you know what can happen to you. He's your protection, the reason I keep involving him."
"Damn it, Yuuko-san, I don't want anyone to get hurt or die for me!" he yelled. "I'll find a way to do all your damn jobs without Doumeki, so don't go involving him!"
There remained nothing but silence after his outburst and he could feel all the eyes on him: Rikuou's, Kazahaya's, the two men he didn't know, Doumeki's and Yuuko's. Mokona was suspiciously silent on her shoulder.
"Watanuki."
"What the hell do you want!" he snapped at his rival, who had finally stirred and broke the quiet that had gripped the eight people in the predawn light.
"I don't go with you on your jobs because Yuuko-san asks."
"Will you just shut the hell up! I'm trying to help you here!"
"That kind of help I don't want."
The firm voice, the unwavering stance, finally made him turn around to glare with his bloodshot sapphire eyes. He knew he looked like hell, but he hoped it only gave more weight to his words and his gaze. "What the hell are you talking about! Why do you go through all this crap anyway! You don't even get paid for it!"
Golden eyes seemed to weigh him and in answer, without so much as a word, Doumeki leaned down and kissed him, right in front of everyone just as the rays of the sun touched the horizon in a flash of bright hues.
End
