Pain. Fear. Hurled deep into his gut, and he remembers, the screams and the sense of darkness, not just of the night, but the black, unavoidable spill that spreads out across the circle, sweeping away the characters and runes that ran and washed away as though they were chalk.

He remembers each wordless sound, gasps and moans and a scream as bones was cracked, erupting through skin and casting red out into the black.

'We're sorry, we're sorry!'

The magicians, the wizards grown-ups tell you to trust, better than any hedgerow witch, and yet they had lain there, choking out their spells and apologies both with the blood bubbling from their lips like small fountains, and it yet was nothing, nothing at all compared to the volume of the screams in the centres, screams that shivered and distorted the air as though the things making them were just learning how to cry.

Yusaku remembers. He remembers his own mouth opening and shutting with a sound, exhaustion weighing him and the other five children down even without the ropes that bundle them against logs like roasting hogs. He remembers. He remembers even when he dreams.

What he does not remember, is the long line of black, like the spread of ink from a pen, drifting, stroking against his head. Almost in apology.

And when he wakes, it's all he can do to clutch the dagger he nurses in his belt and try to breathe. And even, at times, to forget.

He hunts because he cannot forget. Not completely. Day after day, with Kusanagi, who has yet to learn how to trap a single rabbit, they climb over hills and scour the worn pamphlets pinned in the meeting halls of far-away taverns. Well. Crisp and curled at the edges and Yusaku peers close, carefully deciphering each letter with dogged determination. Reading is for the elite, the nobles, the ones who collect books. And yet ever since that night…

Yusaku knows letters he was never taught, can sing them in his sleep. They dart uninvited inside his head and he thinks he sees them sometimes in the twists of trees, in the shadows that are pulled out from beneath their branches. They guide him sometimes, and he remembers, once seeing a word, a cutesy one saying 'Hiiiiiiii' scrawled across the dark patch that fell between a bundle of firewood and the wall of his home. And his eyes had widened, as his hand slapped down on it, ready to erase it from sight, and then sunk as though the wall, that great boundary of brick and mortar, was suddenly water.

It's different for Jin, Kusanagi's brother, who flees from anything dark, who lights candles round his bed at night and spends all day basking in the sun, hands curled over his knees like a cat about to bolt.

'Careful,' says Kusanagi, tilting his hand across his brother's forehead. 'Don't stare like that; you'll damage your eyes.'

But Jin is in love with the sun, he mouths silent prayers to it, and once, Yusaku, sees his fingers rest, lightly, on a broken sundial, his brow furrowed as though he could see words painted in the shattered panes. And then, like magic, the shattered pieces of stone had shivered back into shape, the jagged pieces tumbling and turning over the ground each like wheels on a cart, sewing themselves back into the lining of the marble frame that had once sat in.

Yusaku knows better than to ask. Besides; Jin is mute in all the ways people seem to think matters.

He stares at the sun, at the twists of fire in their home at night, stares in the same way he looks right through the human eyes that watch him, and fails to answer a single plead his brother throws at him. He's so different than how he was that night, bound across from Yusaku, screaming, pleading eyes making contact with anyone who would stare right back at him...

Yusaku in comparison, is lucky. The words he sees stay in his head and do not bind his tongue. Little crooning melodies of how he could step in shadows and come out the other side of a building, tearing his way through the thin gaps between things called molecules.

'Building blocks for your stupid little world even with all the magic poisoning it,' something tells him in one of his dreams with a sly, mocking and utterly stupid voice, and Yusaku pushes it aside, forgets about it when he wakes. Pretends there's no hint of a personality within.

But he takes advantage of the gifts this strange thing has given him, reads as well as any noble-taught brat and lets his legs sink into the dark, shadow-split land each night, lets them drag him miles, to wherever he hears tales of witches and wizards, people who know what those wretched four tried to do to him and the other children that night…

But…

'What?' rasps one witch at him, yellow bile leaking from her eye, a cat stirring within her lap. 'Demon summoning methods? Oh no, you don't wanna go messing with that.'

And…

'Leave me alone,' a small wizard moans at him, rubbing the sleep furiously out of his eyes. 'Seriously. I'll turn you into a frog. Try and go looking for demons like that!'

All of them are useless. Well versed in reciting charms for luck and fine harvests, good at encouraging the rice fields to prosper with poems, perhaps. But anything else, any real information?

Nobody human has that. But Yusaku doesn't give up.

He sees her one day, the local Lord's charge, a girl with sweet peasant brown eyes and carefully cropped hair, steadily refusing to wear it long and graceful the way other ladies of her standing do. She wades into the stream, water brushing her calves with enthusiastic glee, and lets her long blue kimono sleeves drag against the rocks. It's almost as if she want to get lost in the water itself.

'She's odd,' Kusanagi mutters, concealed by his side in the reeds. 'She never goes out to buy silks the way other women in the estate do. But we can use her maybe – Zaizen has access to all the merchant and their trade routes. Talk to her – she'd take one look at me and scream. But you on the other hand…' He elbows Yusaku in the side.

Yusaku stares at him. Is that meant to be a joke?

Still, he gets shoved out of the reeds, and ends up stumbling over the glistening stones, rich in their gray-blue hues and eroded by fast-moving water, only to stop, halted and confronted with a brown gaze that hardens, turns into a wall the way his often does.

He opens his mouth.

'What is it?' the girl, Aoi, demands – but quietly, in little more than a harsh whisper. 'What favour do you want to ask of my brother? He has no sway over the local guards and he can't halt any executions for you. And he's nowhere near as rich as everyone thinks he is. So taking me hostage won't do you any good.'

She's certainly curter than he expects. And it locks his mouth shut.

She brushes past him and yet something in him whispers – like the curl of darkness from the underside of a leaf overhead, like the wrinkles of black in the bark of a tree and those laughing, flashing shapes of shadows, like fish, that dart beneath the water – and it makes his hand stretch out. And grab her wrist.

She stiffens. And then water bats at his ankles, races and pulls at his feet. Suddenly angry and strong, a river in place of a stream.

'Leave her be.' A feminine voice, calm, steady and so at odds at the voice Yusaku pretends not to hear in his dreams and it breaks through the barrier of his mind. And Aoi, stuck on his hand like a fish on a hook, gasps as though she hears the words too. 'She's one of mine.'

And at its sound Yusaku's awareness of the dark, of the shadows, lessens and for one stark moment, they seem to shrivel – the leaf brightens, sunlight painting over its side, the lines in the tree lessen, now dappled into a darker brown, and those things in the water, retreat. As though in shame.

Aoi stares at him, face pale.

'You didn't hear that,' she says fiercely, ripping her hand away. Yusaku lets her go, eyes hard. For now he has a lead.

That night he does what no peasant, no serf can usually dare. He walks to the walls, those rich elaborate stones that surround Zaizen's estate. And walks through them. The shadows grab at him, pull him in hungrily and he stalks the halls, passes through paintings, letting only the hue of eyes, dappled gray by the night, pass for light. Sometimes he feels more animal than human like this and it should scare him. But no; finding answer for why he is this way, so at ease in the black of night than under the pallid light of the winter sun is more important.

It drags him through, down to the underground cellars, Yusaku falling through a locked trap-door without a key, his body a ghost against the wood and iron bolts. Down and down to a circle, the lines as bright and blinding as they were that night ten fateful years ago.

Yusaku halts. His brow wrinkles. And he stalks forward, fear lapping at his heels, but no, no he tells himself; it's no match for my rage. He stalks forward, past the small hollowed out vases, glowing runes etched in their sides and up, to the dark sword, purple jewels set in its handle. Something in him is tugged at the sight, like a breeze playing with his hair.

Come, this sword seems to whisper to him. I've waited so long…and you have too, right?

Yusaku's only reply is his hand round the hilt. And then one long yank of his arm as he pulls it from the podium of stone.

This, he will think later, was my first mistake.

For smoke spills out like a mighty cloud, black, blacker than night, and as dark as the puddle that spread and cracked the bones of those wizards free of their skin ten years ago. That, he remembers with a sudden surge of shock, reached out with a tendril and stroked his forehead before leaving him alone.

There is no stroking this time. Just purple lines, like runes, but simpler this time, spreading through the body that twirls like a snake round the sword, shortens and then bounces down into the purple gem of the hilt. Only to rear up, feet cloaked in its ambient glow as two arms spread, and yellow pupil-less eyes stare out.

'BEHOLD! My magnificent, handsome, and perfect form! Aaaaaah, it's good to finally be able to stretch!' The…thing, the imp does just that, cracking a few tiny knuckles for good measure. 'You sure took your time, didn't you? Would it have killed you to faze through that painting of Zaizen's stupidly ugly grandmother, back near the front door? You could have been here to rescue me at least six minutes ago!'

Yusaku very determinedly does not swallow in trepidation. He thinks he has a good handle on what, precisely this thing here is. Instead he raises an eyebrow.

'I didn't come to rescue anybody.' he says sternly. 'Especially not some demon who likes experimenting on human children.'

Those yellow eyes once so wide and earnest, instantly narrow. 'Oi! Rude! I can't control how I was born!'

Yusaku frowns. 'Born?' he questions. 'Don't you mean summoned?'

The demon does not quite rub its hands with glee. But the undersides of its eyes curve as though its sporting twin dimples. 'Uh-uh, my cute Yusaku-chan! You've got a lot to learn about well, everything! And you have to take me out on at least a few dates before I give away any of my oh-so-embarrassing secrets!'

Yusaku is tempted to drop the sword on the floor. Instead he knocks the hilt against the stone podium. Hard.

A shiver passes through the imp as it screams. 'Oi! Here I am giving you a present out of the goodness of my heart, a nice sword so you can slay all your wizarding enemies and get revenge and here you are, treating me like dirt.' It throws an arm over its face and mimes wiping away fake tears. 'Boo-hoo. I get stuck with the meanest human of the stinking lot!'

'A present,' Yusaku says crisply. 'Right. And you can't possibly want anything in return.'

The imp taps a finger against its chin thoughtfully. 'Weeeeell…now that you mention it…I am still bound to this thing, trapped in this boring hunk of metal!' It stamps his foot like a toddler. 'Boo! But fear not! I do know where you can track down the people who started this whole ritual mess in the first place! You'll like that, right? Aren't I great?'

Of course. Like Yusaku thought earlier, this is definitely a mistake.

'NO!' the demon screeches. 'Aim the sword towards the thing's head, not at the sky! You don't want to go to heaven just yet!'

Yusaku grimaces and ducks beneath a partially sharp claw. He's pretty sure working with a demon doesn't qualify him for a trip up there anyway.

The dragon promptly turns and spits some mucus into his face. Oh. Well, good thing it's not a fireball.

The black thing stuck to his sword, meanwhile, screeches in one very annoying, high-pitched wail.

'AIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! Go left, go left!'

Yusaku stubbornly turns right. And get knocked down by a green tail for his troubles.

'You're so stupid,' the demon mutters. 'Fine, Mr Suicidal! A present, from me to you, because I happen to be feeling nice...'

It sinks into the gem of the sword, the purple brilliance fading as a wide yellow eye rears up to take its place.

'Ah-hah! Take that and that and that!'

Yusaku is pulled along into a wacky dance, as the sword moves like a magnet, rearing up and striking the dragon across the nose, then against the webbed curl of its chin. Over and over, completely uncoordinated, and he stumbles, almost loses his footing but...

'Pay attention!' screeches the demon. 'Look, look! It's right there for the taking!

Yusaku focuses. He sees the sword fall again, the demon guiding it to strike true, falling right toward the line of shadows in casts across the dragon neck. And he sees it, the way the blood pulses beneath the skin, the way the muscles will cleave, fall about under the hit, just so long as the sword keeps falling into the line of the shadow it casts...

'Ah...' the demon sighs in satisfaction, as Yusaku turns his body into the hit. 'Now you're getting it! It's not just light that guides the way, not matter what hymns you humans sing!'

Yusaku saves his breath for the fight, for the dragon which keens and bow beneath the slide of his sword at long last. And then he pauses, panting, hand raising in aborted thought as flingers clench in a half-prayer; a gesture he'd thought lost to the childhood he was forced out of.

'Eh?' the eyes bulge out from the hilt of the sword, peer up at him curiously. 'Watcha doing? Saying a prayer for this old thing?' It eyes the dragon corpse almost sullenly. 'You were the one who wanted to kill it in the first place.'

Yusaku's mouth twists. 'It's killed several people here already.' He motions towards the other corpses scattered over the mountainside - not all of them picked clean by a hungry dragon. 'And it would go on killing until it was stopped. I don't like it; but it was just doing what was natural. It deserves some respect for that.' He eyes the large eye still peering up at him. 'Just like it's natural for you to not get the purpose of a prayer.' He can't quite help the amusement that seeps into his tone, branching out to feel his voice with warmth. Because what else is there to do in this situation but laugh?

The demon lets out a rude scoff. 'Yeah, keep your prayers far from me! And while you're at it, stop calling me 'you.'

Yusaku turns and walks off.

'Hey! Are you listening? I have a grand name, one which would cause your tongue to burst into flames if you tried to speak it and so you should call me-'

'Ai. Be quiet.'

'...Excuse me, Mr high and mighty human who needed my help to take down a dragon?'

'Ai. That's your name. You wanted one and now you got it.' Yusaku spares a glance at the eye, which despite not having a mouth, manages to convey a flabbergasted expression with unnerving accuracy. 'So you have no room to complain,' he adds just to add insult to injury.

Ai swells up, a curve of black eyelid appearing within the rim of the jewel to narrow his eye into a glare. 'Where did you get such a short and unfitting-'

'Your scream,' Yusaku explains in a bored tone. 'It's the sound you make when you're frightened. I think it suits you.'

'That is the most trite and lazy way to name someone who is helping you-'

Yusaku lets the sword drag against the ground.

'AIIIIIIIEE!' shrieks Ai. 'You're getting mud over my nice, clean home! That's just bad manners! How would you like it if I got mud all over that hovel you call a house!'

It's weird. Truly weird. The chatter from Ai is weird and annoying, so different from what he's used to. And yet, Yusaku finds it strangely preferable to the odd bouts of silence that happen when he stares at Jin, or when he has to tell Kusanagi that no, he has nothing yet.

Here, it feels like something is beginning.

'It was the Dragon Lord who started that ceremony,' Ai explains. 'He sent his minions out to get you brats together. So keep killing these beasties and he's sure to show up.'

Yusaku stares at him. 'This is why you directed me to this mountain? As bait for dragons to swarm over so I could start slaying them?'

Ai snickers, hands folded beneath his chin as he leans out of the rounded curve of the sword's gem as though he's sun bathing. 'Yeeeeep! And now he's going to get all pissed and come racing out to put you down! Clever aren't I?'

Yusaku bites back a bitter retort. It's not like he really expected to be friends with this thing anyway. And...it's not like he's doing anything bad either. These dragons do kill and eat people.

So he experiments. He tries luring the next dragon to a spot where rocks overhang the ground, where the shadows spill out more thickly so he can dive down to escape the fire that falls from its mouth by sinking into them, into the darkness that calls to him, all so he can pass up through the rock seconds later to cleave through an unsuspecting dragon leg.

'Ooooh!' Ai comments, one hand squishing his cheeks as he watches – as though Yusaku's survival has nothing to do with him whatsoever, except to serve as his entertainment. 'You're getting real good at this! Well done.' He gives Yusaku a tiny thumbs up, just as the sword swings down and spatters the both of them in the face with a thick deluge of blood.

Ai promptly freezes, yellow eyes narrowing. Then abruptly his thumb swivels, the blood dripping down from his closed fist. It's the most dramatic thumbs down Yusaku has seen anyone ever give. Ever.

'...You're still not as cool as you think you are though,' his companion mutters.

'I never said I was,' Yusaku comments in return, heaving the sword up again. With a grimace he wipes the blood from his cheek; but without some kind of mirror he's probably just smearing it more deeply into his skin. 'You're the only one who cares about things like that.'

Ai sighs. 'Maybe you should. Live a little! Not every human has the same opportunities you do. How many out there do you think would give anything, even their souls, to be able to use shadows as their own private mode of transportation?'

Fury chokes Yusaku, makes him swing his glare onto Ai who ridiculously enough cowers and hides his eyes behind his eyes with a faint shriek, as though he's the human and Yusaku is the demon.

'Don't talk like you understand.' The words come out harsh and cutting, more so than any blow from a sword. 'You're the one who did this to me; and every day I see people just living, carrying on with their lives the way that they should, but I can't , not while this thing that you put in me, is stuck inside. You say people would give up their soul for this? Well, I would offer up mine just to forget everything and live as a normal person, one who was never touched by you in the first place.'

Ai's hands slide off his face. He's still cowering slightly, but he uncoils so that his eyes meet Yusaku and like bright beads of lights, they glow; not like the sun or the flash of gold coin, it's true, but still, they are brighter than anything else in the shadows of these rocks.

'I guess you really can't see me as your partner, huh?'

The weirdest part is he actually sounds sad about that. Even his eyes droop. And ruthlessly Yusaku shoves aside that memory, the one of the tendrils stroking his head as people died and screamed. Because Ai did that. Those wizards were monsters, but Ai was no better, a sheer dragon like all the ones Yusaku has just slain, ripping and tearing and forcing those human monsters into shapes they were never meant to fit inside.

He grimaces and continues to walk, to wherever the next dragon may be. 'Let's go,' he says tersely, and leaves it at that.

They don't find the Dragon Lord. They find his son. With white hair that blooms out against the mountain like a flower, he walks down in a strangely dramatic fashion, the wind tugging at his matching cloak, creating patterns, like fleeting snow, that flare out and twist against the rock.

'Urgh,' says Ai sounding thoroughly disgruntle. 'Why do you have to look cooler than Yusaku?'

The boy – for yes, Yusaku, realises with a shock, that is what he is, same as him – curls his lip.

'You're a fool,' he spits, eyes hooking into Yusaku's with a savagery that neither startles or surprises him, but one he has to brace himself against all the same. 'To consort with that creature. Hasn't it taken enough from you?'

'My, my,' Ai cuts in his form wavering, growing bigger and for a moments Yusaku feels something close to real fear take over as tentacles sprout, and a neck lengthens, one monstrous eye staring out into the world. Suddenly Ai is large, larger than him, connecting to his sword only by a rope-thin thread of black. And nothing about him looks even remotely human. Worse still is the way his voice dips, turns serious and dark. 'Who are you calling a thief? I didn't take anything Ryoken; your father ripped me out into this world, the same as the others.'

If this other boy, the Dragon Lord's son feels any fear, he doesn't show it. Instead his fists clench and he steps forward.

'He certainly lived to regret it. He told me later, choking on the blood you drew out of him that it was the worst mistake he ever made.'

'He offered his blood freely,' Ai said, oh so softly; and a trace of ice weaves its way up Yusaku's spine at the sound. 'And the Water and Earth demon took most of it as I recall; the elements inside it called to them. Those children on the other hand...those bodies weren't offered up freely in the slightest, were they? And they were too young for their souls to have the right kind of juice to keep us going. No wonder the stupid ritual spiralled out of his control.'

Apparently this is too much. Ryoken lets out a savage 'tch' and then suddenly they are being pelted with stones and pieces of the rocky landscape around them, ones that tear themselves free of the ground.

'Foolish demon! Be gone, back to where you came! This land is no place for your kind.'

Ai instantly wraps his tentacles around Yusaku, pulling him down into a dome of black he creates out of himself, just before the rocks and stones start to saw against his sides, each one trying their best to break through. And Yusaku watches with wide eyes, something in him softening with each curt little 'omph' Ai lets escape him.

'Oi, oi, oi!' the demon calls out. 'There's a human in here! One of your own kind!'

'He made his choice when he sided with you,' Ryoken remarks, though he doesn't sound particularly thrilled about it. 'You and the others are too dangerous to be allowed to live; that's why I spent all those years tracking you all down and sealing you inside objects that were strong enough to hold you. I thought Zaizen could be trusted; apparently not.'

Okay, Yusaku has just about heard enough. He rears the sword above his head and peers down into the darkness beneath his feet, because under here, beneath Ai's dome of protection everything is in shadows. And he stares, waits for the words to come to him, because trapped in here, without the light outside, there is no guiding line, no shadow for the sword to fall into, not without any light to cast it.

Old, he thinks. Cold. Sturdy in a way I am not. And right now, what he needs this mountain to be is anything but.

He remembers now. The words Jin could not say when he pushed that sundial back together, words that would not fall out him in sound. Words he could see in each shattered shard of stone. In the dark, in this element Ai has gifted him with, Yusaku sees them all.

'Age. Age. Age. Wear. Tear. Cracks from rain, the great enemy. Light and heat from deep below. I only remember the passing of the sun, the thousands of steps of the ants that scurry over my side, that spill blood on my side and leave rain, the great enemy, to sweep it away and cut into my sides. Centuries and centuries and I lose more of myself to its cruel drops. Bit by bit, all of me is washed away.'

It scares him, these words, as though the mountain is alive, has a personality. But Yusaku moves, and lets his sword fall over and over, cutting into the parts of the mountain where it speaks most bitingly of rain, hears it speaks of pain and the longing to be

-'cracked open, like the eggs that fall and roll from the nests on the trees at my side, like the ones that crack open to reveal more dragons, it's been so long since I felt the heat inside me, the fire, the red sun below me so much closer than the one that passes me so unfairly by, above.'

It should be impossible of course, to cut a mountain open, to pour out the effort needed to create an opening. But a ravine still opens up beneath his falling sword, the sword that refuses to chip against even a mountain, not so long as it falls through the dark and yes, there is darkness beneath his feet, falling and falling and Yusaku is falling himself-

Abruptly part of Ai wraps himself around Yusaku and rolls him away, far from the new split in the ground. And then there is no darkness, only a river of red that erupts out, splatters of magma coating the mountain with a new kind of rain, one that sizzles and causes black craters to form.

Ai lets out a joyful cry, more words falling out of him, ones that makes the colour in front of Yusaku's eyes blur and the world distort. It's in no language that he can easily recognise and then he blinks as the world falls back into shape. For now there's another creature here, one built similarly to Ai, only brown lines streak through its orange shape as it swivels round through the air.

'How illogical,' it states. 'Holding onto a grudge, when it is your father who is the one who has brought more harm to this world than us. You would be best served leaving my element alone.'

And though it has no face, not in the snake-line form it presents itself with, Yusaku gets the impression it is frowning. And then the rocks fall into the air, tumbling back into the places they were cut out from, melting seamlessly back into position.

Ai snorts. 'Your element? The rocks maybe. The lava? Not so much, no.'

The other creatures twists, one large blue eye staring at Ai.

'That's the Fire Demon's domain and you know it! He lectures us about it often enough!'

'But it is of the Earth,' the other demon – for this is clearly what this thing must be – states patiently. 'My grasp of it is more tenuous, yes, and it burns in a way my element does not. But I can still move it.'

Ai lets out a disgusted snort, but does not bother to argue the point further. And the other demon twists again to offer a baleful blue eye to Ryoken, Ryoken, who has barely managed to avoid falling into the lava, who stumbles back some more and glares.

'Go,' says the demon, brown lines glowing like magma across it's body. 'I will not ask twice.'

Ryoken steps back. He steps again. 'I should never have broken the summoning circle you were bound in,' he says heavily, eyes meeting Yusaku's. 'That is my one regret. Maybe then my father could have survived. I suspect one day you will wish the same.'

Yusaku's mouth is dry. His heart hammers like a drum. Because then that means...that means Ryoken disrupted the ritual, and brought the nightmare to an end. He wants to say something, maybe even a trite and unearned 'thank you' but Ryoken is already turning, walking away, back to his hut of stone.

'Gee, what a buzzkill,' Ai comments as he disappears, the door slamming behind him with a final thud. 'No wonder he tried to seal us all away; he knew this realm wouldn't have any fun without us in it!'

He turns to the other demon which has now turned into a little golem-like creature, one with far more corners and rigid slants to its limbs than Ai has ever possessed. After a second, Ai does the same, turning back into that slim imp that loves to pester Yusaku with innate commentary.

'You took your sweet time,' he remarks, settling his hands onto his hips with a huff.

The blue eyes on the other demon's face narrow. 'I only came because you pestered one of the humans Aqua holds dear. She won't stand for it, and neither will I.'

Ai makes a face. 'Urgh. Aqua? Really?'

'It is a beautiful name,' the other demon says stoutly, crossing its arms. 'It incorporates the element she is bound to. Just as mine, Earth does.' Then he stares at Ai. 'What about yours?'

Do demons sweat? Because Ai sure looks like he's about. 'Aaaaahhhh, heheheh, don't worry about it, you've never really bothered to call me much by my real name anyway...'

Earth stares at him some more. 'I think Lightning is wrong; you are more socially awkward than me.'

'Why is everyone named after their element apart from me...'

Earth pretends not to hear him. 'You didn't need me. You could have taken care of it properly if you had really wanted to.'

Ai lets out a shocked gasp. 'And leave my cute little Yusaku unguarded? Don't you have any hint of a heart? How could I let his handsome face get cut up by all those rocks?'

Earth tilts his head. 'You understate. They would have done more than that. They would have battered him to death.'

Ai's shoulders slump. 'Wow. Nothing gets past you.'

'Nor you either. I see. You have developed the same affliction Aqua has.' Earth stares through them both. 'Come with me and see for yourself.'

They do. Yusaku is not sure why; but his quest feels...over. He has his answers. Sort of. He knows now what he has always personally expected, that he was a pawn in someone else's grab for power, a man who paid for it with his life. As well as the other wizards he roped in. And reading between the lines, it seems the demons chose to take those same wizards as 'offerings' rather than the children that were offered up instead.

He could ask Ai. But Ai is a demon. And they lie. So he doesn't. Beside he's not an idiot. If Ai wants him dead, well then that is what will probably happen. The fact that that hasn't happened means...that Ai is not a soul-sucking monster that preys on humans all the time and dances in their entrails the way the books he's read on demons depict? Hmm.

Either way there's nothing now. No vengeance to be sought, and only...tomorrow. And the day after that. All the days that are now spread before them that Yusaku has no plans for.

So he walks where Ai and Earth want him to. He arrives at Zaizen's mansion. In a daze, he walks through the perimeters of the guards patrolling the grounds by stepping through the shadows of their spears and swords, and through the ones the rising walls cast out.

And so it is sundown by the time he enters the room of Aoi Zaizen. She spins, anger in her face, which rapidly melts into confusion when she sees Earth accompanying them. And her hands, her hands which were a moment ago, arranging a sleeping girl's hair into braids, twisting bright blue forget-me-nots into the strands, flutter and fall.

'You're the boy from the stream!' She exclaims.

And then the pillow supporting the other girl's head, the girl with a face set in stone, with no whisper of an expression moving over to settle into the lines there the way they would if she were dreaming, well it unravels itself. It rises up into a curling snake, before it resettles itself into a small blue fairy-like sprite with eyes of pink.

'Have you come to apologise for startling Aoi?' Aqua inquires, a hint of reproach in her tone.

'Huh?' Ai states rudely, arms folded. 'She looks fine to me. Besides, we're here because you're wanna-be boyfriend here'- he jerks a thumb at Earth who colours as though he's a fire demon instead – 'insisted.'

Aqua sighs. Then she spreads her fingers against the brow of the sleeping girl, her fingers gently dipping into sweat-slicked hair. 'This is Miyu,' she tells Yusaku. 'The girl I was born from, just as Ai was born from you. And if you mean her or my Aoi harm, then I suggest you leave.' Her eyes narrow. 'While I still permit it.'

Yusaku stiffens. 'Born?'

Aqua blinks. Stares at Ai reproachfully. And sighs. 'Yes,' she bites out. 'That is how all demons come to be. Born from the lives offered up to us in exchange for power. We are born from all the things that come together in a ritual. The emotions, the fear, the greed and the physical aspects of it, the bodies and blood within a summoning circle. It is no wonder so many of us turn out...corrupted.'

Ai huddles into the jewel on the sword, uncharacteristically quiet.

'But this time, in this ritual, they offered us innocent souls to start our growth. And they were so much bigger than the bodies that held them.' She pauses. 'I grew out of Miyu, feeding on her love for Aoi and the days they spent by the stream together. I saw the splashes of water as the sun turned it gold and the rainbow streaks it tricked the air into turning. And how I could I have been guided to any other element after that?'

Yusaku stares at Ai, a hollow pit in his stomach. 'And what did you feed on?' he asks, no, demands.

Ai's head surfaces out of the jewel, looking a little like a scolded dog. 'You were lonely,' he says stiffly. 'Happy, I guess. But lonely. Your memories were painted by the families around you, the families you were never a part of. And you would whimper at night, too afraid to let the candle to burn in case it started a fire. But becoming even more frightened the moment that you did blow it out – so I thought I could at least give you the means to become brave, to make that darkness your tool. So that's what happened. And darkness became my element.' Then he laughs. 'But even in that sword I could feel you having nightmares. Guess I wasn't a huge help after all, huh?'

Yusaku stares at him, down at this tiny demon he could hold in his hand, could smother with his fingers, this being that came from him and instead of tearing him open, the way Ai did with all the wizards, he gifted Yusaku with powers to rob him of the crushing darkness that smothered him when he was a child.

'It's not their fault,' Aoi says softly; but when Yusaku glances at her, startled, she meets his gaze evenly with a hint of steel behind her brown eyes. 'They didn't ask to be made the way they were. And they could have chosen to be worse. To continue to hurt other people the way those wizards hurt you and Miyu and...' her face twists. And a blue tendril unfolds from Aqua's body, spreading like the delicate curl of a flower stem to pat Aoi on the hand.

'Lightning was the catalyst,' the blue demon says. 'His human broke him out of the sundial Ryoken trapped him in. And I broke out of Zaizen's fountain when Aoi prayed there, for my Miyu's recovery. And I freed Earth and the others once I realised what had happened to Miyu.' She narrows her eyes again. 'Though Ai insisted on staying in that sword as a late birthday present for you.'

Yusaku stares down at the sword.

Ai stares back. He fidgets. 'How about that, how silly of me, I could have left this sword anytime I wanted!'

Yusaku stares some more. And much like a guilty child, with his head bowed, Ai shuffles his way out of the gem. 'Surprise!' he offers up weakly.

Yusaku turns his stare back to Aqua. But her eyes are fixed on Miyu again, a fierce expression on her face. 'Miyu won't wake up,' she says, and there's a chill to her tone, a real hint of anger underneath. 'Lightning has...done something to her. And I don't know how to fix it.'

Yusaku looks at Miyu, at the way her hands are folded over the covers, the way her breath stirs from her nostrils, the way all her sinks into the bed as though she belongs there. He wonders how he would feel if he were in her place, stuck without even a voice to wake him from his dreams. And he wonders if she dreams like he does, if she has nightmares about that night that she cannot escape from.

Then he turns and walks away.

'Oi!' Ai calls attempting to balance himself across the trembling line of the sword, now that he's no longer fixed to the jewel. 'Where are you going?'

'To talk to Jin,' Yusaku says. 'I'm going to find Lightning and make him give Miyu back.'

Ai stares at him. His eyes waver, as though tears want to spill out. 'Yusaku...' he says softly. And Yusaku can feel them as he walks, tiny fingers touching his face, as Ai whole body lengthens, all of him stretching from Yusaku's arm to his head in a taunt tightrope of black.

'This is why I couldn't leave you alone,' the demon murmurs. 'You're so brave, so strong, even though your heart's going to run out one day. Even without me, it's there.' He sounds almost fond as he mentions offhand; 'it's what makes you so cute!'

The fact that Yusaku doesn't immediately brush away those small hands says a lot. Too much. But he refuses to stare back down at Ai in return.

Jin is lying on a hill, grass brushing his hair, fingers sinking it to tear the blades away from the soil. Rip, rip, rip...ruthlessly the plant fibres fall away from each other, and even the small flecks of colours down there trailing at their ends, all the petals that make up the flowers, are not spared.

'Had a nice adventure?' he asks Yusaku brusquely without even looking at him. 'My brother's been worried, you know?'

Yuskau can feel Aoi tense beside him; he didn't want her to come, and yet, she had kept pace with him all the way back here, to his home village, despite the way she had floudered over the more winding trails her brother has probably warned her away from.

'I've been worried too,' she says curtly, 'over my friend, Miyu. Ever heard of her? She hasn't had the oportunity to go on any adventures.'

Jin tilts his head at her and smiles, very delibrately. Gone is the wide-eyed blankness that Yusaku is used to, and he quickly holds a hand out, to keep Aoi from stalking forwards.

'How long have you been able to talk?' he asks Jin pointedly. 'Or am I talking to Lightning somehow?'

Jin laughs. 'Both, actually. I gave myself up to him; it was just so tiring, just being here.' He gestures to the sky, fingers spreading out as though they want to clutch the sun, the far-away disc of gold that rests in the sky. 'The light is always so far away; it's either a fire which will burn me if I touch it, or it's from the sun which I can't drag down to me. Or it's reflected in glass and mirrors which break too easily. At least with Lightning in me, I can feel a little warmer. He burns. All the time.' He giggles. 'We burn.'

'Why did you attack Miyu?' Aoi demands, her hand clutching a kitchen knife she's smuggled into her skirts. 'She didn't have anything to do with you!'

'She didn't have anything to do with the light either,' Jin or whoever he is now, says. 'And neither did those children who gave birth to demons of air or wind or earth. And don't get me started on fire! Just a paltry imitation of my element. So I shone all my light into their minds, just to show them what could be done. Not my fault if they started to sizzle.' He giggles again and then glares at Yusaku. 'Not you though. All those shadows that silly demon poured into you...they're so cold. I hate them. I don't want them anywhere near me. You should have stayed gone.'

Aoi has heard enough. Before Yusaku can stop her, she ducks round his hand and sprints out towards Jin, her knife now held in front of her like a battering ram, the sharp edge catching the light with an unsteady glint.

But Jin simply laughs at her daring, throwing out his hand as light, hot intense light pours out of his skin in a wave, the grass burning to a crisp at his feet. Aoi recoils with a cry – but she lets the knife fly out of her hand as she does so, so that it lands with a soft whack in Jin's arm.

He gasps and sputters. Then rounds on her, fury turning his face into an ugly mask. Aoi stumbles back, her other hand flies out, and Aqua springs out of it, water ripping from the grass and squeezed out of the stems to form razor-quick projectiles. They streak up into his eyes with a force that makes him recoil with a roar. And then Yusaku is there. He reaches out, peering to find the shadows in Jin's face the ones that fall from his hair, or under the bridge of his nose-

There's nothing. He emits light, there's nothing black on his skin at all.

'Guess it's my turn to take the starring role,' Ai comments as he unwinds himself into his snake-like form, curling his way around Jin, his shadow barely a pale grey as it falls on the boy beneath, and attempts to fight against all that horrific light.

Still, Ai lets out a yelp as he sizzles, and Yusaku quickly grabs for the words he can see in those delicate wavering shadows his partner's burning body provides.

'Leave me alone, leave me alone-'

'Such righteous fools, all of them, blaming us for their evil, this world won't bend to let us in, so we should strike the mess of our origins out, start anew-'

No, Yusaku thinks, let me in. He catches Jin's face with his hand and even as it sizzles like Ai, his skin turning pink, out it pours – his fear, his hate, his anger that has held parts of him still for years. Parts he nursed both in the dark and the light, during both the night and the day, wanting someone to reach out back to him and-

'I'm here, Yusaku,' Ai murmurs, a thick line of smoking black wrapping round his hand. 'I'm here.'

And something pours out from Ai too, the gallop of fear that struck him as he erupted into being on the night ten years ago, everything in the world too big and bright in the dark, all those spirits of rocks and grass and air, with voices no one was listening too, with words no one could hear.

And then Yusaku. Yusaku who was crying inside himself like him, begging to be saved.

'Help me, help me, I don't want to be here anymore.'

'Help me, help me, I hurt, I'll make these ones hurt, those who have hurt us both.

'Help us, Jin's so scared, help him.

Help me, what are these things in your mind, these colours, these people, you mean there are things in this world better than this?'

And so it had began. A conversation neither had really been aware of it.

Ai's limb melts against Yusaku, it curves round Yusaku's hand, forms fingers that close round his own. And together, they flood Jin's mind with the cool river of their combined darkness.

Jin buckles. He screams. He collapses.

And Yusaku blinks. He gasps. And turns, hand still clutched by...

The other guy blinks at him, delicate lashes framing eyes even more golden than the ones that have stared out at Yusaku again and again these past few weeks, but this time, this time, they shine a little like a coin.

'Ah,' he says, voice a little deeper – a little sharper too. 'Surpr-AI-se! ...Again.'

Miyu stumbles around on legs that are too thin, eyes wide at all the colour she has been denied. And Jin watches her, curiosity stirring in his eyes. He still picks at the grass restlessly, but this time, does not tear it free of the ground. And whenever his fingers linger, on flower and their petals, they stroke. And refuse to rip.

Ai however has no such qualms. He yanks the whole flower off the ground, singing to himself as he plucks each petal off with an artful flick of his fingers.

'Yusaku loves me, he loves me not~.'

Yusaku sends him a withering glance but Ai just grins back at him smugly. 'Sorry, but you're not so scary now that I can pull the same frightening muscles.' He furrows his brow and sends a heated glare at Yusaku. 'How's this scorcher?'

'Pathetic,' says Flame, the fire demon at his side, who has turned up, less than a day ago, along with his confused partner; apparently Lightning and Jin can't infect them anymore. 'You look like someone vomited over your ridiculous boots and you're about to cry.'

His orgin, Takeru, lets out a blustry sigh. 'I get the feeling that your taste wouldn't be much better. Not when you keep urging me to try and wear spiked armor all the time.'

'I do not need to. I don't have to overcompenstate for anything unlike certain flippant idiots here. Besides; the armour can protect you better than the regular sort can. Therefore it is cool.'

Takeru thumps the shabby bronze chest-plate coating his chest. 'Sure. Says the one who wouldn't have to constantly take it on and off again.'

Ai glances upwards and then sticks out his tongue. 'Good, we're agreed; Flame's taste is rubbish.'

Flame folds his arms and looks deeply affronted. 'I don't want to hear that from someone who's named after the sound of his own scream.'

Ai's eyes narrow from beneath their thick lashes. And he glares. Hard.

'Hmm.' A finger rises up to curl its way beneath Flame's chin thoughtfully. 'Better. Now you look like you actually want to murder someone.'

'You're so annoying,' Ai mutters, before sneaking a sly glance at Yusaku. 'And wrong. Because the only thing I want to murder here are Yusaku's lips!'

'Not in front of everybody you're not,' Yusaku tells him sullenly. But Ai just smiles, as though he's told him yes, certainly, and leans over so he can rest his head in his lap. 'Ah...'he says. All those words you humans don't say...it took me a while to understand them all. But I'm glad I decided to meet you. It gave me enough time to understand myself and what shape I needed to take to make you happy.'

Well. That's nice. Yusaku's not sure, entirely, if he understands everything himself. Lightning still hasn't shown up, for instance, even after their fight. But Jin is speaking now, so perhaps all that darkness he and Ai fed them has cooled them off so that they can coexist without so much fission between them.

But then there's Ryoken of course. Who knows if he's out there, still plotting to lock the demons away again?

'There are so many words I still want to say to you,' Ai murmurs, breaking into his thoughts. 'I don't know if there's enough time, in your short human life to say them all, but you know now, right? How to read them all?' He peers up at Yusaku, his hair creating rolling dark waves over Yusaku's lap, and Yusaku can see them in those inky strands, words that spill out such an un-kept secret.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Yusaku lets a hand rest on them, strokes them over with a gentle thumb. He'll answer them all later that night. In the dark. Where they both belong.