A/N: I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
"Good luck with Knight."
When your sworn enemy wishes you luck, warning bells should go off. Shiro's sole excuse for being deaf to them was that he had been listening to Kita with half an ear – if even that – while the greater part of his overworked brain was absorbed in whether or not he'd gotten it right with the stoichiometric calculations for the antidotes against spider bites.
The Aria classes involved a lot of reading, but the Doctor course was massive. Largely theoretical in nature, too, and after the five hour exam Shiro's head felt like a mushy, over-ripe peach. His pen hand might never recuperate, as he could hear his fingers audibly creak when he flexed them, and he didn't even want to think about the biology exam he would have the day after. Might even be worth trying one of Moriyama Sayuri's experimental herb lotions to keep the stiffness from reaching all the way up to his shoulder before then.
Thankfully, next exam was purely practical.
Kita's words came back to him when the speaker asked the holder of starting tag number 8 to enter the examination area. "Good luck with Knight" - perhaps with a tiny, tiny hint of irony…?
"Don't eat sugihira mushroom, Shiro-kun!" Midori beamed, and waved with her entire arm as he left the antechamber and headed out into the arena.
"Sure thing – why ever the hell I'd do that…" He gave a short wave as he walked, and tossed his head to get the darn hair out of his eyes.
"Means 'don't do stupid things'!" he heard her say before the steel door shut behind him.
Did he really do that many stupid things...?
Knight exam looked a lot like a gladiator game in a Roman coliseum. The fancier coliseums had been designed so that the terrain could be changed to host battles in both open arena, city environment, or at sea: True Cross Academy chose an easier variety, by having Futotsuki-sensei summon a kitsune that created an illusion in the arena. To Shiro's relief, he got a city. Ryuuji had been worrying him with tales of lava pits full of salamanders; something he'd heard from his brother, but Shiro had strongly suspected that was just Ryuuji getting his chain yanked.
The exam took place in the great pit where students usually practiced close-combat against leapers, goblins and such. With a little help from the kitsune, it was now vastly larger than in reality, and refurbished with buildings, cars, benches, cables leaping from lamppost to lamppost: everything. A real, proper city.
"I should be used to these things by now." He touched the wall of a pharmacy, and felt the perfectly rendered surface of rough stone under his fingers. "But it's just so damn cool."
The demons they faced in exams were fairly low-level ones, decided by lottery just like the order the students entered. Shiro could vaguely sense a presence off to the right, gripped his katana tighter, and cast an eye around. Rush straight to the target and the teachers – who were sitting in the metal hub above, or around the edge of the pit – might think he was cheating somehow.
It was a bit eerie, in fact. The landscape was perfect, down to the occasional cracked pavement tile on the sidewalk; but the attention paid to every lifelike detail only highlighted the fact that the city was dead. It was an empty shell that the mind populated with phantom reflections in shop windows and imaginary movements in the corner of one's eye. It was very much like going back in time with Mephisto.
Shiro circled a few blocks deliberately, making his way towards the demon as if he was searching blindly for it. The katana felt heavy and slippery in his hands. Nerves? He rarely felt that, when his mind was focused and his heart closed. He hadn't thought he had let slip that much.
…no, he hadn't let slip.
Shiro paused under the blue marquis of a grocery store. The tip of the sword was quivering in is grip. He stared mutely at it, half expecting an explanation to leap off the blade. The faint motion mirrored in the wide, dark window of the store, where a ghost reflection of him was framed in bright red kanji that advertised fresh vegetables. He sure looked funny; hair hanging down over his glasses, and those strings Mephisto had given him to hang on them, and-
-and-
Shiro stared at the sword in his hand, heartbeat rushing into his throat. Blood. He didn't know where the hell that came from, but his katana was dripping with blood, and he-
plunged the sword into Katsu's gut his face went empty with surprise and the blade went all the way in like-
Shiro dropped the sword with a gasp. …there was no blood on it. He stared at it for the longest time, aware only of the wheezing heaving of air in his chest.
"What is this?" Memories of Deep Keep flitted before his eyes and whipped his heartbeat into thunder. "What the hell is this? The demon isn't here, I can still feel it at least two blocks away it hasn't moved it hasn't-" Close your heart. Focus. Survey the situation and make logic decisions. "Whatever it is, it's only in my head. I'll find the demon, finish the exam, and then I'll find out what's going on."
He bent to pick the katana up – and pulled back as if it had been a venomous snake. Blood gushed out between his fingers, pulsed, heartbeat in his hands-
"What did you do, Shiro-kun…?"
He whipped around awkwardly, hiding his hands behind his back.
"Midori-chan? I- uh, is it your turn already…?"
She shook her head with a weak smile-
a smile for the lost
"Is your turn", she breathed with tears in her voice. "I saw it. I'm sorry, Shiro-kun."
Her words grew icicles in his lungs. She saw…?
An eternity passed, from the moment she raised her sword to strike until his body reacted and moved. An eternity looped around the fear of that very moment-
she knows what you did
The sharp song of steel cut the air where Shiro had stood. He twisted mid-jump and landed on all-fours, barely touching ground before he leapt for his own sword. No time for thinking about blooded hands, unless he wanted the blood to be his own.
The reflection in the shop-window caught his eye for a split second: and the fingers that curled around the sword handle grew limp and powerless…
one doesn't have to be born a demon to be like one you were never a saint to begin with
…and bore claws.
"No…"
He hadn't felt anything, he couldn't be possessed – could he? Midori should know: she always saw the core of things, but she-
Raised her sword in the reflection. He could see her stand behind him with tears streaming down her cheeks: raising the sword for a kneeling execution-
a mercy-kill for one she couldn't save
"No!"
This couldn't be happening, he wasn't that far gone, he wanted to be saved dammit!
Shiro twisted and met her blade with his own, met her crying eyes that said she was doing this for him. For his sake, for his own good – before he could hurt anyone again.
"Midori, I'm not a demon! It's me, it's Shiro!" He blocked heavy blows with steel that only grew heavier in his hands. She should know it was him, fuck's sake, she should smell that it was- Maybe she was possessed? "Then why the hell is my reflection the one with horns?" This didn't make sense – nothing made sense…! "It's the idiot that walked in on you and Sen!"
"It was in your eyes, when you came back smelling of him: death." She advanced with silent tears running down her face, aiming to trap him against the wall. "It found a home in you, the dreamless sleep. Is not going away."
Midori… always saw the core of things…
"You hold on to it, Shiro-kun", she sobbed, adjusting her grip on the sword. "Is not going away. I'm sorry, Shiro-kun, I am."
Shiro dodged the next sweep and circled out onto the deserted street, feeling strings of control coming undone. This was insane - try as he may, he couldn't separate what was real and what wasn't. Was that the real Midori or some illusion? Was he possessed or was she? The demon wasn't even close, how did something like this...!?
"It's a mistake!" The sword was lead in his hands, and he had to remember what Gokuro-sensei had taught him about using his muscles without damaging them. "Look, the demon must've done something with us! Whatever you think you're doing, stop it!"
Those words…
His voice rang muffled in his ears, as if coming from far away – as if the atmosphere was different, as it had been when-
"Shut your mouth." It was Agari's voice that hissed from Midori's lips – or was it only in his mind?
cut her throat and killed her watched her fall down dead like a doll
…overlapping his vision… like multiple exposure in a photography… he was there again, in the sealed chamber with the hourglass…
she will kill you unless you kill her
Agari raised her sword to strike, and he thrust forward on reflex-
-Midori's bright golden eyes wide with horror-
it found a home in you and you will kill again you will kill everyone you love
Shiro tweaked his blade aside with a terrified gasp - what the hell was he doing!? - and Midori's sank through the flesh in his arm like a spoon through jelly.
"Haahngh…!" That was real, that was fucking real! "Don't drop the blade, whatever the hell you do, don't drop the blade!" It was so heavy, and it hurt so bad, but he had to hold it up to block. "Allow the muscle fibres to contract smoothly, not in a jerky manner, and not for too extended periods of time", Gokuro-sensei's words flashed through his mind, and he clumsily prevented Midori – Agari? Midori? – from skewering his liver.
she will kill you...
Shiro's heart rushed adrenaline through him at mad velocities, drowned the pain in his arm and beat sound out of his ears – everything happened so suddenly… and his mind was slowly cornered into detachment, considering what it might have to do to survive.
...unless you kill her
It crawled out into his tissues, crept under his skin and choked reason with thick: the fear. Buzzing toxic webs of fear - fear of what was happening, fear of himself, fear of-
"I don't understand what's real and what's-"
…multiple… exposure…?
In the shop window, behind Midori… there was one more shape moving in her reflection.
"It all started when I looked at the reflection."
Hyperventilating through clenched teeth, Shiro backed away from Midori and raised his sword with both arms fully extended: not towards her, but towards himself. He pointed the tip right between his eyes. And thrust.
A thin squeal, and the pain was gone. Midori was gone, the wound in his arm was gone, and a small breath of miasma swished away from his face, headed in the direction of the demon's presence.
Shiro relaxed his tense muscles smoothly and let the katana slip out of his grip onto the dusty asphalt. He hunched forward, resting his hands on his knees for support.
"Reflecting surfaces", he breathed, taking a moment to let his heart and nerves settle down. It fell off him like snow from a pine in winter wind: big, heavy sheets of glistening cold fear, releasing their grip on his mind. "It was just illusion... just illusion... thank god..."
He knew what he was fighting, finally: an ikelos. A demon that preyed on one's darkest fears and gave them form. They usually tapped into sleeping minds, since they were more susceptible to that kind of influence, but some of the stronger ones – the shapeshifters – could possess objects. Liquids, to be more precise. No wonder he hadn't made the connection between the reflection and shapeshifters! They possessed liquids: glass was liquid, just so extremely viscous that most thought of it as a solid.
…one thing had not been an illusion created by the ikelos. The sword was much lighter when Shiro picked it up again, but as he jogged towards the demon's presence it grew heavier: slowly but steadily heavier. Good luck with Knight?
"Good luck with Knight when you've got a baryon possessing the sword!"
Stupid bloody thing, he should've realised…! But he had been too focused on the presence of the demon ahead to notice the weak, inert one he had literally in his hand.
Shiro was about to exorcise it, but thought better of it. No, he'd keep the sword like this and show the teachers after exams: Kita would hang, he'd make damn sure of that.
It was obvious, when he peeked around the corner of a barbershop and saw it: a visible, oozing veil of miasma hovering over the windshield of a parked car, and little stolons trotting about on stilty legs around it.
"How was that chant again…?" Shiro leaned his head back against the brick wall and closed his eyes for a moment. There was a really handy chant that made you immune to the magic of shapeshifters, but that required barberry, and if he could make barberry grow out of his ass then he would have done that already. "So improvise." He didn't need the effect to last long, only as long as it took to whack that windshield to pieces. The chant itself might just be enough. "Kakariko kokekokko, no, that ain't right… Kokuriko kikkiree." The best thing about studying all classes at once: you always had something to fall back on. Shiro opened his eyes, put one index finger to his forehead, and spoke the words aloud. "That big, huh…?" He could see it now. It rose out of the windshield like a huge, twisted jack-in-the-box of liquid darkness. It reminded him of what plastic looked like when it was melting and blackening at the same time.
Shiro gripped the katana with both hands and drew a deep breath.
"Right…"
Windshields are made to be sturdy. If hit, they can crack and bend, but they aren't likely to shatter: unless you have a sword weighted by a baryon, and inhuman strength to swing it around with.
The arena exit opened to the smooth hum of automatic machinery as the speakers crackled and told the holder of tag number 9 to prepare for Knight examination. Shiro dragged himself through the wide doorway, stained black by miasma residue… and felt the weight evaporate from the sword. The presence of a weak demon flitted briefly against his senses, and disappeared. Did he pass a barrier? A glance at the base of the steel doorframe revealed a small cup of salt on each side, along with wards: safeguards against demons leaving the examination area. Of course.
"Aren't you a clever little fucker?"
Which by no means meant Kita would get away with this.
The only good thing with exams was that regular classes were on hold until they were over: two exams a day, and the rest of the day off.
That's not to say it wasn't taxing. Most students had twelve or so exams to take, if they had cram school on the side: Shiro had stopped counting his after sixteen, and decided that looking further than three days ahead in the calendar was probably very detrimental to his health.
The day he set his eyes on was the one when he would go to the crafts market with his friends.
"Gotta tame this shrub before that", he muttered at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he eyed his next opponent: his hair. It was so long he should be able to make a tiny ponytail in the neck, and he could imagine Kasumi's delight in doing precisely that. "I'll just cut it today, save the bleaching for tomorrow." And add the final touches of cutting as he did: it was always a bother, getting it right at the back of his head with just a handheld mirror and a pair of scissors.
"What the…?"
When Shiro was done with the scissors, he stared at his reflection. Getting an even cut in dead angles was the least of his worries.
A/N:
Sugihira mushroom is called Angel Wing in English, which is a fitting name both visually and in terms of what it does to you if you eat it.
Ikelos means "likeness" in Greek, and is one of the names of Phobetor, the embodiment of nightmares. It was only when I got the volumes in hand that I saw the bestiary that said shapeshifters possess liquids. Luckily glass is liquid, so I don't have to redo the whole thing. xD If you ever visit an old house, with its original window glass still there: take a closer look. You might notice that the windowpane is thicker at the bottom of the frame than at the top. That's the glass "pouring" down towards the ground slooooowlyyyy. =D
Kakariko kokekokko - I just couldn't keep myself from it. =w=' If there were a chant like that, I'd use it forever and always: "Attack, my invincible chickens!" ÒwÓ (good thing Dimwit can't become an exorcist) I don't know how many times I got myself killed in Kakariko Village just 'cause I couldn't stop bothering the chickens... x'D