A/N:

I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.

It's so easy, once you detach. When past happiness fades like a dream, and the future was repeated yesterday. Doesn't matter. Nothing does. What happens around you doesn't concern you. What happens to you barely concerns you. Each night is the goal line you never reach; each day you rise from the grave to start another disconnected marathon. Breathe and move, that's all it is. Do that and you'll be fine. Breathe and move and you're technically alive - that's all they need to know. By the by, that replaces any goal you had. Days mass-produce. Life becomes a monotone routine, safe and steady like tank treads that go straight ahead and loop, loop, loop their tracks around your thoughts and cut them up in minimum functional slabs.

It felt almost appropriate to get a mission at a mental hospital.

Metal doors. No windows. Naked concrete corridors without heating. A hospital…? Or a prison?

"Matsuri-san? Thank you for coming." Male. Doctor coat. Nasal voice. "I'm Katou Hideki. This way, please."

More corridors. More doors. Locks. Lock them all away, the broken things no one wants to see. Still fans, like giant spiders hanging from the ceiling. A hospital for mentally ill patients, or one for making patients mentally ill?

"The patient in question has been examined by several doctors already, and found to be physically perfectly healthy despite not being so. She eats and drinks like normal, but for some reason she grows weaker and weaker – we're at our wits' end, to be honest. Her condition was put down to hallucinati-" Coughing. Embarrassed professionalism. "To hallucinations – excuse me, I seem to have come down with a bit of a cold. Yes, hallucinations: and no psychopharmaca seem to alleviate them."

Elevator. Key required for operation. Security measures.

"The patient insists that what she has is jinmensou, and that the wound only opens up and speaks when nobody is around to see it. It's close at hand to pass it off as superstition fuelled by mental instability, of course, but-" More coughing. Handkerchief. Shallow, rattling breath. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I hope you don't catch it because of me. Now, this is the ward the patient lives in - if you follow me, please…"

It wasn't the patients that were ill. It was the hospital. Shivering through concrete veins, blubbering to itself under the echoes of footsteps on naked walls: demons marinating in depression and distress. This was their version of a buffet.

Detach. It didn't matter. Get the job done.

"Normally, it would be called hallucinations, but I have friends who have been in contact one way or the other with the knights of the True Cross. Jinmensou is held by tradition to be a demonic disease, so I convinced the board to at least let you see the patient. Perhaps you can diagnose her in ways we can't. I- Ah, have you been informed of my request? As a fellow doctor, I would be very interested to see this for myself – if possible, of course."

"You may not be able to see the demons themselves, but you might be able to observe some physical anomalies occurring while we treat the patient", Matsuri-sensei informed. "Jinmensou is not a disease, per definition; it's a parasitic insect demon whose larvae produce miasmic cytokines that induce abnormal growth in the basal layer of the epithelium. It's sentient cancer, essentially, where the larvae act like a primitive brain through sophisticated quorum sensing. It kills the host if left untreated, whereafter the larvae metamorphose into nymph state and emerge to mate and lay new eggs. You don't need to know the exact timeline of this life cycle on the exam in May", she told the students over her shoulder. "Only the progression of the symptoms of infection. Is this…?"

"This is the room, yes. What you say sounds highly interesting, Matsuri-san. Would you mind telling me more about this after- *cough* I'm sorry: after you have seen the patient?" Rattling keys, and the smooth clicks of a well maintained lock. "Itou-san? Hello. How are you feeling today?"

Starved. Starved for food, starved for the sky locked away behind iron bars covering the window.

Windows never look so tempting as they do when barred. The free fall outside them clenches so tangibly in the gut. Strange, isn't it? That fear and excitement share similar symptoms.

The room was small, naked: carefully disinfected of everything that promised cutting and stabbing. And Itou stared at them, all bird bones and dried-out IV tears merged with sheets in a sickbed.

"It says I'm going to die, doctor." Hollow eyes. Eggshells framed in sleepless sockets. "I'm going to die soon, and then I will become a dragonfly." A twitch in her pale lips. She knew nobody believed her. Half of her had stopped believing her, too.

"I will not let that happen, Itou-san", Katou ensured. Velvet voice. Force-fed reassurance. "I've brought a different kind of doctor to look at you."

Doubt. Resignation. That was all response Matsuri-sensei's presence drew from Itou's eyes. She didn't want another doctor. She wanted an end.

"Matsuri-san is an exorcist", he explained patiently. "These are her students, Fujimoto-san and Yaonaru-san. They can treat jinmensou."

This time, Itou looked at Matsuri-sensei for real. At the black robes. At the red and blue of the exorcist badge on her chest.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

The change was so immediate and so complete that Kita and Shiro both flinched. From dying woman to panicked animal. Itou struggled, kicked, screamed: sharp rattles of metal punctuated her fit and bit into her wrists as she thrashed against the cuffs that held her to the hospital bed. Like a broken ragdoll shaken by a sadistic child. She shrieked at Katou, begged and screamed for him to take Matsuri away, not let her near, that she'd die if that woman touched her, that-

"It's been tapping into her nervous system!" Matsuri shouted over the outburst, hands pressed over her ears. "It's telling her things to protect itself! It's alright, Katou-san, it's a typical symptom of progressed jinmensou! Where does she say the wound is?!"

"On her right thigh! On the side! Please, Itou-san, you're hurting yourself! Matsuri-san only needs to look at you!"

No effect. Itou was too weak to cause harm, fortunately. Shiro and Kita each held one leg down by the ankle, while Matsuri-sensei peeled away the sheets and the hospital robe from the pasty skin. And the tape. And the bandage. If not restrained, it seemed Itou-san would try to remove the infection with her fingernails.

"Fujimoto-kun, I'll need your services as Aria! Do you know the verses to bring the wound to manifest itself?!"

He began to recite. Tuned the pleading and the screaming out. Centred himself to pour his concentration into the chant.

"You are the Lord, you alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. To all of them you give life, and the host of heaven worships you…"

The cluttered flesh began to ooze. Contract. Muscles spasmed where there were no muscles, raw meat boiling like thick, congealed porridge; there was a wet, sucking sound, as of dragging out a boot stuck in mud… and the flesh split.

"Heeeaaaarshlaaaaahhhrr…!"

It wasn't human. It wasn't even a face: it was a mouth, sore and cracked and hissing, studded with damp, fleshy nodes that could have been the buds of infant teeth. The edges of the wound twitched and seemed to form words, but produced only guttural noises. Boils rose up through the skin around it; milky, wiggling boils that looked like frog's eggs when-

"Oh god, it's… Eyes…"

Staring, oozing, convulsing... eyes. They lay embedded in her leg, like squishy pearls, and gyrated blindly without lids or muscles. Next to him, Kita quelled a gag reflex.

"Good work, Fujimoto, keep reciting!" Matsuri-sensei did her best to hold Itou still without getting bit by her. "Yaonaru, you know how to treat jinmensou?!"

Kita merely nodded, not trusting what would come out of his mouth. Fritillaria verticillata. Shiro had helped Moriyama harvest the bulbs just weeks ago. They had dried them and ground them into a fine powder that Kita poured into the wound's mouth.

"Too bad it didn't get your hand."

Because jinmensou tumours had a nasty habit of rising out of the flesh, in a dying effort to bite and transfer the parasites to a new host. Like jumping frogs.

Kita yelped, but the tumour missed and fell limp against Itou's thigh: a stretched, oozing sack of tissue that evaporated into miasma before their eyes. Within seconds, the infected flesh had rotted and fallen off, with a clear, healthy wound left behind.

Itou had finally fallen silent. Her chest rose and fell at shocked speed, fluttering in the silence, but she wasn't afraid anymore. Wasn't being eaten anymore.

"Much better, isn't it?" Matsuri-sensei murmured softly, soothing her with idle talk and gently rubbing hands. "You won't become a dragonfly now. It's gone. I'm just going to clean this for you and get you some new bandages, then we'll move you to a regular hospital to heal. How does that sound?"

Itou nodded; first once, as in trance, and then three rapid times that didn't remember the first.

"That's good. And this, we will burn." Matsuri scraped the clot of grey flesh into a black plastic bag brought for the purpose, careful to use medical gloves for the task. "It's standard procedure for leftovers of rot and insect demons."

Katou was greatly impressed. He wanted to know everything about demonic illnesses and parasites, or so it seemed, because Matsuri-sensei remained in his office for an eternity. And left her two students in the pale yellow corridor outside.

Shiro had nothing to say to Yaonaru Kita. He wouldn't mind if a bus ran him over, but didn't see the need to spend breath on telling him that.

"What is the appropriate thing to say to a conversion? Congratulations?"

It was likely a strategy for easing the tension, pairing them to work on a mission like this. Clearly conceived by somebody with no sense of strategy at all.

"I haven't converted yet. I do in April, if my faith is considered matured enough."

Kita did it on purpose, he was sure. Muffled the derisive snort, but only enough that it could still be heard.

"There's no need for us to pretend, is there? You convert for other reasons than faith."

"There is no reason to convert if it's not for faith", he replied flatly. Eyes on the office door. Lacquered wood around a tinted glass window. Let Kita prod and pry. He would have nothing to show for it.

"Ostensibly", he drawled. "You have also been taking classes in Italian." Sharp, intelligent eyes in his peripheral vision, scanning him for response. "You've been approved as an exchange student to one of the Papal Universities in Rome. Scampering off with your tail between your legs, Fujimoto?"

Pathetic. With Samael for teacher twice a week, no shitty amateur like Kita could put even a scratch on his composure.

"I know things, Fujimoto", he hissed. Threatening? Pff. "I find out things. I'm not stupid. There is a reason you're suddenly converting to Catholicism, just as there is a reason you're applying to study abroad – a reason you're still in the Order. Want me to spell that reason out for you? Me-phi-su-to Phe-les." Kita glared. Long and hard. "Oh what a good dog you are", he sneered when no reply came. "Such a loyal, obedient little lapdog. You won't tell me? Fine." Kita stepped in front of him, glowered down at him, tried to look intimidating. He did a fair enough job, actually. "But if you think you're getting away because you're sent to Rome, you're wrong. Very wrong."

Shiro returned the stare in silence. He wouldn't have been Samael's dog if Kita and his brother hadn't given him a hand. How would that be for a retort? Stupid, was what it would be. It would only make Kita even more determined to break his resistance. Break his silence. Silence that chokes you nice and slow with secrets burning in your blood.

Kita's head angled, puzzlement creasing his brow. He wasn't glaring now. He was searching, studying...

"When did your eyes-?"

"Good work today, students", Matsuri-sensei announced. "Not torn each other's heads off yet?" Her eyes lingered on Shiro with the hint of a smile once Kita had stepped out of his face. "That means Ando-sensei owes me a dinner. Well done, both of you."

A/N:

Jinmensou – is what I'd consider high-octane nightmare fuel. Face wound. It's like cancer, and it can friggin' think. X_X It's never said exactly what it looks like… but I went with ectoderm-derived tissues as the basis. Ectodermal cells are the precursors of the cells that constitute your skin (epithelium). Ectodermal cells also form the corona and lens of the eye, so… with a bit demonic meddling with gene expression in cells… you could grow eyes out of your skin. =S Fritillaria verticillata is the flower that supposedly kills jinmensou.

Quorum sensing – is a really cool system by which many microorganisms and some social species of insects communicate. On the microbiological level it's all about signals and receptors for said signals, but this allows even the most primitive organisms to "warn" each other of dangers like change of pH or immune cells, and coordinate their actions for the preservation of the colony. Theories suggest that it does, to a certain extent, function like a neural network not unlike a primitive brain.

Mental hospitals in Japan in the 70s – were apparently not very nice places to be. I didn't manage to find any pictures for reference, but a couple books that were fairly informative.

Dear Dare mo
Haven't read TRC, but I'll take your word for it. ^_^ (Is it a good series so it's a good thing to be similar, or a bad series so it's a bad thing? =X) I think that what could "stay" with the body during possession is muscle memory (fingers remembering the settings on a musical instrument, the articulation organs remembering the settings for language) and innate physical properties (taste buds, nerve array; also addictions the host has acquired), but not the mental properties (artistic talent, knowledge of language and grammar, knowledge of songs and music notation). So I'm not sure that possessing a talented artist would make Mephisto better at art: his fingers might be better at conducting pencils and brushes, but the artistic genius itself lives in the mind that isn't "present" anymore. More on this in Rome. ^_^

Concerning Sen's question in ch 114: you're veeeery close to hitting the mark here. Very close, but not quite right. More on this in Rome. =P

Concerning Samael's monologue in BtEatB ch 17: no, you think too highly of me. x') That wasn't something I did consciously – can't answer for my
subconscious, though. …more on this in Rome. (I should re-title this chapter "more on this in Rome".)