"TSUZUKI-I-I-I!"

No sooner does he hear Hisoka's voice calling his name than he can feel it: a pull behind his navel, an expanding inside. And—nononono, with the hole still gaping in his chest, his limbs turning to concrete, this is the last thing he needs. He tries to keep the power inside, but it's not his to control anymore, just an echo and he's along for the ride, knowing this can only end badly for all involved, but God, can even he be prepared for how quickly everything goes to hell. . . .

Everything out of time, he looks up at Muraki standing above him. Frozen. Helpless. Can feel it in his head like it's his own thought, his own command—"Destroy that man." No. Not like this, Rikugou, not now. Don't do it. Listen to your master—damn it, listen to me! Stop this at once!

STO-O-OP!

The sunbird's eyes go wide in terror. His howl splits the very air apart. The flare stops in front of Tsuzuki like hitting a glass wall. He keeps waiting to be swallowed up in its flames, can feel their heat, but it's everything else that is, never him. It should be me! But no, it's Hisoka who's sucked into the ricochet's inferno, arms going up over his face as though they can hope to save him from the fire. He vanishes in light, but Tsuzuki can still hear him screaming—

Muraki's cup connected with its saucer with a muted ring. "I've lost you again, haven't I? Even wiped off the face of the earth, it seems that boy commands your attention better than I ever could."

It seemed pointless to respond when Muraki already knew the answer, so Tsuzuki didn't. As though his existence this last month consisted of anything other than reliving that night, over and over again. The moment of Hisoka's death, the reminder that it was all Tsuzuki's fault. That he could have prevented it. If he hadn't ordered Rikugou to stop, he and Muraki would have been the only ones destroyed by the shiki's light, and Hisoka would still be.

If Tsuzuki had been a better master, Rikugou might never have agreed to obey Hisoka, and Hisoka would still exist.

If Tsuzuki had never run away from Meifu in the first place, forcing Hisoka to turn to Gensoukai in desperation—if he'd just been honest with Hisoka about what he was, what Muraki was to him, and damn his pride or the fallout, it's not like Hisoka would have been the first partner he pushed away—if he'd never gone to Muraki Yukitaka's clinic when he was eighteen, if he'd just thrown himself off a bridge instead, like countless other disillusioned youths in those days—

If! If! If! What good did they do him now? This was his reality. Hisoka, gone! And nothing he ever did would change that.

"But I mustn't be selfish and complain. This process is good for you. It shouldn't be rushed. You need to feel the full weight of your loss, your culpability, before you can move on—"

"On to what? What could possibly be left for me?"

His own voice shook Tsuzuki back to the present, and this farce of a tea party that Muraki insisted on staging for him day after day. Another memory of my time with the grandfather, Tsuzuki knew. A Taisho-era record played on the gramophone in the hall. The china was period-appropriate, as well as the tea inside it. Even the fucking doilies on the tables and the blanket on Tsuzuki's lap, that he was tucked into as though he were some sort of invalid—

What sick game is he playing at, invoking Yukitaka in everything?

It hurt all the more that Tsuzuki found himself all but helpless. He could barely lift himself out of this chair by himself. How was he supposed to do anything about the view or the mood music in his state? The tea was drugged, he knew; and though he hated himself for it, he knew he would drink it just the same.

Muraki had been forthcoming about its contents from the beginning. An opioid to numb the pain that still troubled him: the physical pain of his injuries and the ache of his grief that constantly tore him apart like an ever-widening chasm. A not-so-mild sedative that would knock Tsuzuki out within an hour of ingesting it and give him a few more of dreamless sleep.

He should have minded. He would have even just a month ago. Indignant and troubled by thoughts of what Muraki might do to him while he was unconscious. But it was a relief to get a few hours of blessed nothingness, even if it did have to be under Muraki's roof. It was a few more hours in the day he wasn't confronted with what he had done. That was worth more than any physical torture Muraki might inflict.

"You aren't the only one who lost someone dear." Muraki's voice wouldn't let him wallow in his misery alone. "Lest you've forgotten, your recklessness nearly killed Ukyou—"

"But it didn't. Did it? At least she's still alive—"

"Yes, still alive! And taken to Hell by the Queen of Hell herself, subjected to who knows what ungodly torments! And you did nothing to stop it. No, you put her there. You put that abominable thing in her—"

"No—that's enough—"

Tsuzuki wanted to cover his ears, but the effort was too much. He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut he thought his eyes might burst from the pressure. It was too much to hope that that might take the images from his mind.

That would have been too easy an out for Muraki's purposes. He shot to his feet, and kicked Tsuzuki's chair away from the table. His hand heavy on Tsuzuki's shoulder shook Tsuzuki's eyes open. "It's never enough," he muttered through his teeth, satisfied when his roughness brought a fresh upswell of tears to those wine-dark eyes. "I need you to feel it, Tsuzuki—every single—little—bit of it—"

"You think I don't? You think I don't blame myself for everything that's happened? Don't you think I would take it all back if I could? I would kill myself a thousand times over if I knew it would bring back a single one of them!"

How many had lost their lives because of him? Suffered because of him? And the ones he was guilty of failing to save, the Rukas, the Ukyous. The Mitanis—he could still see the young professor's face when he closed his eyes, the devil staring out of it as he carried Ukyou away—and Marikos, who were never supposed to die, but fell too quickly for him to reach. He remembered them all. Their smiles, their trust. Their innocent faces twisted in agony, because of him. They'd all believed in him, and he'd let them all down. Hastened their destruction. Hisoka was just one of an innumerable many.

But he was the last one. The only one whose loss Tsuzuki knew now he would actually survive, and didn't want to. What an idiot he was to have left Hisoka behind just because he was afraid to face the truth—afraid if he did, he'd lose Hisoka's trust. Now he'd lost him forever, without ever knowing if the truth would have kept them apart. How was that choice worth it?

I killed him. And now he's gone. I'll never see him again.

Something caved within Tsuzuki like rotten floorboards finally giving way, sending him plummeting down into darker depths of realization, of feeling, of despair, than he'd ever known were there. How was it even possible a person could withstand such pain? He wanted to tear out his own heart just to feel some relief. Tears rolled in a hot torrent down his cheeks, and he let them, hoping they would wash away some of this guilt, but knowing that they wouldn't. They were only the very least of what he deserved.

"This is good," Muraki's voice slithered low and soothing in his ear. Almost sorry, if Tsuzuki didn't know him better. "Now we are starting to make real progress."

He couldn't take this anymore. He needed the pain to stop. "I'll drink your poison, Muraki. Please. . . ." I've had enough.

A teacup was placed gently in his hand. Tsuzuki drank the tepid contents as quickly as he was able, though he had to fight through the tightness in his throat to get it down. How long would he have to wait—forty minutes? forty-five?—before his one remaining friend, the numbness, started to set in?

As if reading his mind, Muraki said, in that same soothing tone, "It's just tea, Tsuzuki. Nothing more. You can't keep running away from what you've done. Now you need to own it. Become it."

The cup was flying out of Tsuzuki's hand before he even knew what he was doing. The agony inside him coalesced into a burst of rage, and the cup crashed against the wall.

Muraki got back to his feet, took a step back, tsked when he saw the damage. "That was almost a hundred years old."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Tsuzuki wailed at him. "What do you want? You already have me here! Take me, tear me apart—do whatever it is you've always wanted to do to me! I don't care! What are you waiting for?"

Wasn't this what he'd been wanting for years? For Tsuzuki to come begging to him to be violated, unable to resist? But throughout his outburst, Muraki only stared silently at the broken teacup, as if unsure whether to tell and reveal his hand.

"For you to shatter," he finally said, so matter-of-factly Tsuzuki was unsure for a moment if he had only imagined it. "Only then can we start to rebuild you into what you were always meant to be."

And then he calmly walked out, lifting the needle from the record along the way. Leaving Tsuzuki in the silence and solitude of his own guilt and self-loathing. Knowing full well there was no escaping from it.