Somehow, simple repetition has a way of breaking down the will better than force. Tell a man without any warning or preamble that what he doesn't believe in is true, and he will reject your claim and all evidence even if he has to stick his fingers in his ears and whistle a tune. But expose him to little pieces of it over a long enough period of time, and he will convince himself he believed the whole time.

It was amazing how quickly a new routine, even one he found repulsive, could start to feel normal. So much so, in fact, that Tsuzuki had lost count of how many days they had spent sparring, though he was certain it couldn't be as many as it felt like. Muraki's instruction seemed more like a trial by error on Tsuzuki's part, the reason given that none of what Muraki showed him—or rather, inflicted on him—was beyond Tsuzuki's ability to learn and counter. The more blows he failed to block, the more incentive he had to watch for cues as to what was coming, and improve his reaction time. And he failed to block enough that the only times he felt like he earned a victory were when he repeated that day's maneuvers in his dreams.

Tsuzuki never would have thought he could ever get used to a regimen that put him in physical contact so constantly with Muraki. Yet with each new day of "training," it became easier to bear Muraki's touch. There was nothing overt in it when they sparred, the only intent seeming to be to challenge Tsuzuki, to push him further, like a student receiving necessary instruction. Like a respected opponent, rather than the object of desire.

It was Tsuzuki who found himself blushing when he found himself pinned to the ground, immobilized, Muraki's thigh across his throat.

"That time was better," Muraki treated him to the rare bit of praise as he helped Tsuzuki up. "Your reaction time has improved, but you're still slow protecting your left side. Natural for someone who is right-hand dominant, but you'll need to do better still."

He moved to a far corner of the room, where a pitcher of water had been placed on a small table in the hopes it would avoid their struggle. So far today it had been successful. And when Muraki poured out two glasses, Tsuzuki took that to mean he could take a breather. Though he had been wrong in that assumption before.

"Better still for what?" Tsuzuki said as he caught his breath. Muraki had never been subtle about all this leading up to something else.

But, as usual, he went to great lengths to avoid saying outright what that something was. "Isn't it enough that you should always be prepared for a fight? One can never be certain when or whence it will come."

Tsuzuki tensed at the choice of words, but when Muraki turned, it was only to hand him a glass of water. Still, he kept himself on edge, expecting a surprise attack. Doubtless that was what Muraki wanted of him. It was due to his conditioning, after all, that Tsuzuki felt he need always be on his guard.

"Still," he said as he cradled his water, undrunk, in his hands. "I know there's more to this, more than you want to tell me. You're still plotting something, and I don't appreciate being kept in the dark. Especially when I'm so obviously a part of it."

"Is that why you're holding back? Trying to feel me out, Tsuzuki?"

Tsuzuki almost laughed. "What makes you think I'm holding back?" He felt like he was giving their bouts everything he had. At least, he was physically and mentally worn out enough by the end of them. Did Muraki know something that Tsuzuki didn't even know about himself?

"I suppose it's fair to say I haven't provided you enough reason to expend your full effort," Muraki said. "True life-and-death situations are doubtless more motivating than what we're doing here. This must come off as so much a game to you. After all, you have no reason to fear serious injury or death, and it seems so long as I have no mortal victim to hold over you and incite your desire for revenge, you can't muster up the proper will."

"You think I'm not fighting back harder because I don't want to hurt you?" Was Tsuzuki imagining it, or was that what Muraki was really accusing him of?

"Why not? You may not believe me, but I was like you once. Reluctant to raise a hand against someone I had no real intention of harming. I had to be desensitized to that fear, both in my medical training and in self-defense. It's an understandable precaution when you have made a career of protecting life—"

"Forgive me if I can't exactly swallow that," Tsuzuki scoffed. "You? Protect life? I guess we all have to make a living somehow, but in all the time I've known you it seems you've been doing your darnedest to ruin and destroy it. That should be reason enough to want you to suffer, don't you think?"

That earned him a little smirk.

"You don't think I truly understand what plagues you," Muraki said. "You seem to think I've always been this way. But I too struggled to accept what I was. Some days I wasn't sure it was worth continuing to live, knowing that my urges were not something I could cure, but an indelible part of me. But I learned to embrace them as the way things were meant to be. I would have thought seventy-five years would be ample time for anyone to come to grips with their true purpose."

"If you're trying to say I'm a killer, like you—"

"That is precisely the paradox of our existences. You wish to help people, but it seems the way you are best suited to do that is by ending their lives." Muraki shrugged. "You can deny all you want that that makes you a killer, but by the very definition of the term . . ."

But Tsuzuki couldn't deny it, and wouldn't. That was a truth about himself he knew all too well. How many new partners had he been able to tell that to with an ironic sort of pride, as he explained to them the virtues—and difficulties—of being a shinigami? If he couldn't reach a certain level of peace with that aspect of his existence, he wasn't sure he would have made it as long as he had.

"I'm different than you, though. I don't find any enjoyment in killing."

"Not even your enemies?"

Some little voice way back in Tsuzuki's mind strained to be heard, but Tsuzuki kept firm control over it and his mouth shut.

"And what about your cases. The souls you're summoned to take. From what I understand, killing them is intended to be for their own good—"

"Maybe I should give Enma your resume, you sound interested enough in the position," Tsuzuki said with a sarcasm he couldn't make himself feel. Except he was pretty sure Enma already knew Muraki's work history, seeing how much of it was against his ministry.

The doctor chuckled. "Problem is, I understand one needs to be deceased first."

That could be arranged. But Tsuzuki wished he had never joked about that. It felt like a sacrilege somehow, imagining Muraki as having any say in the fates of souls. "This isn't the sort of job a person takes on for an excuse to kill."

"Right." Muraki nodded solemnly. "It's to maintain balance, isn't it, between the living and the dead? To preserve the order of the universe? Or so you keep telling yourself to justify what you do, year after year.

"But I wonder. Do you really believe it? Or is it all that keeps you sane and functional? Enma won't let you pass on. Though, clearly, the impulse to kill yourself hasn't diminished with time."

"It's an honor to serve," Tsuzuki said through clenched jaw. "A shinigami's calling is a noble one. We help souls find peace."

"Other than the ones that end up in Hell, I take it you mean. But enough of the platitudes, Tsuzuki. Be honest with me. There's no one here to judge you for your opinions. If it were up to you—if you had Enma's power to decide who lives and who dies, who reaps their eternal reward and who suffers for their sins, what would you really do with it?"

There was a trap here somewhere. "What do you think I'd do with it?"

"Answering a question with another question is not an answer."

"I don't see the point of this line of questioning anyway—"

Tsuzuki began to turn away, as though in doing so bodily he might somehow avoid answering. But it only provided Muraki the opportunity to attack.

He grabbed Tsuzuki's wrist that was closest to him, yanking it behind his back before Tsuzuki had a moment to protest. The glass fell to the floor, spilling its contents. But it was the metallic rattle that startled Tsuzuki to stillness when it should have spurred him to action, the cold touch of steel around his wrists that made his heart leap in that old fear. The fear of being in any way made more powerless in Muraki's presence.

The doctor was fast, and had the cuffs on Tsuzuki while the shinigami was still sputtering and cursing. "What is it with you and tying me up!" Tsuzuki finally managed.

He could hear Muraki's grin in the exhale beside his ear. "You mean I haven't yet made that clear to you?"

"What you've made clear is that you have a serious obsession with doing sick things to me. Makes sense you wouldn't want me to fight back. Sort of gets in the way of your plans."

While he was saying this, Tsuzuki's mind and his powers were working. Muraki might have taken away his ability to call for outside help, but not all of his power came from forces greater than himself. Nor was this the first time Tsuzuki had found himself in cuffs. He'd been on a few cases and made a few mistakes that landed him in hot water with the living world's law enforcement. To speak nothing of that one time Tatsumi thought he could benefit from a little corporal discipline. . . .

Tsuzuki felt the vibration of the lock's inner workings click, and the cuffs loosened. No need for bruised or broken bones this time. He tossed the cuffs back at Muraki's chest. "Anyway, you forgot even we inept shinigami have basic telekinetic abilities. You didn't honestly think that would be much of a challenge, did you?"

Famous last words. Muraki charged him, knocking the breath out of Tsuzuki and slamming them both to the floor. They grappled. And Tsuzuki was certain now that Muraki had been holding back for the benefit of Tsuzuki's "training," as he felt as though anything he did was entirely useless. Possibly allowed Muraki to get him into a hold he couldn't break himself out of that much easier. From somewhere Muraki produced a length of silk cording, and within seconds had tied a disbelieving Tsuzuki's wrists together behind his back, and cinched them tight.

Tsuzuki bit down on a curse. This was worse than the cuffs. Because as soon as he tried to push himself up, Muraki knotted his ankles together, too, and left him hog-tied. "Let's see your telekinesis get you out of this."

Refusing to give him the satisfaction, Tsuzuki just growled. He supposed if he concentrated long enough, he could find a way to undo each knot, but they were painfully tight and he, too pissed off at being strung up like an animal to concentrate. Not to mention, being tricked. He was certain now those cuffs were just a distraction.

"While you're working on that," Muraki went on, having barely broken a sweat, "why not answer my question."

"Which question was that?" Tsuzuki gritted back.

"What you would do if you could be Enma for a day. I'm curious. It's merely a hypothetical, of course," Muraki added, as though it needed the clarification, "and whatever you say will not leave this room. No need to answer diplomatically on my account."

"I see what you're trying to do." Muraki's curious hum told Tsuzuki he wasn't wrong. "You're trying to turn me against Enma and against my friends. Make me believe what we shinigami do is wrong."

"And is it working?"

"Do you think that hasn't all crossed my mind before?" Tsuzuki shot back. "That I haven't been kept awake nights by this exact question?" Muraki might have thought of this like a game, but it was so old to Tsuzuki, it had long lost its humor. "Of course I hate that we have to take people's lives. Of course that makes me a killer. I know all that. But if not me, who? The job has to get done, people have to die. Eventually. Why not someone like me, someone who's sympathetic to what they're going through, who can give them dignity and a certain amount of peace? Better me than a psychopath who kills for sport," Tsuzuki growled as he twisted in his restraints, "like someone here I could mention. . . ."

"Come, now, Tsuzuki." Muraki crossed his arms over his chest, unimpressed. "You don't expect me to believe that you've truly swallowed the company line."

"It's true, isn't it? People die, in order to make room for those who are born. It's been that way forever."

"But who says it has to be?" Muraki roared. "Enma? The Lords of the Dead? Biology? The latter could be fixed if the former weren't standing in the way, sabotaging any progress that threatens their power! Don't tell me you wouldn't rejoice if it was decreed tomorrow that Death was no more! It would make you irrelevant, sure, but somehow I get the feeling you wouldn't mind becoming irrelevant."

Of course it was a tempting idea. Didn't everyone harbor that hope inside themselves at one time or another in their lives? The religions Tsuzuki had grown up around had promised it, and it had certainly been a popular idea, judging by its tenacity and the number of faithful believers. Eternal life. Only most people would admit that it was more of a metaphor than a future reality. They would look at what he had, his eternal afterlife, and think it a kind of hell, a curse, not something to aspire to.

"Your grandfather spent his life searching for immortality, too," Tsuzuki recalled. "And how many were robbed of their lives in the pursuit of that, huh? If that isn't your idea of irony, I don't know what is. The only thing he ever left to show for it was you—a doctor who takes lives rather than saves them."

"I have saved more lives than you ever did," Muraki said, smile dropping.

"And taken more than me too, no doubt."

"The power to choose who lives and who dies should not rest in the hands of gods or demons, like your Great King Enma, whichever he is."

"Maybe not. But it certainly shouldn't rest in the hands of a monster like you!"

"Tell me truthfully, Tsuzuki." Muraki's manic grin was back, his eyes all but shining with morbid curiosity as he leaned down over Tsuzuki. "I want to hear it from your lips. Tell me that, if you had Enma's power yourself, you wouldn't seize it. Tell me you wouldn't leap at the opportunity to pass judgment on the wicked and restore the innocent to life."

"Yes! All right? If it was up to me, of course that's what I would want! Every soul deserves justice!"

"On that we're agreed. Now, don't you feel better now that you've admitted what you truly believe?"

But that didn't mean it was right, Tsuzuki wanted to shout back. He didn't see what good it would do, though. Muraki seemed pretty convinced of his own deserts where the power over life and death was concerned. Doubtless it ran in the family.

And Tsuzuki did feel better, if not for the reason Muraki was thinking. While they were speaking, he had been twisting in his restraints—for all Muraki knew, trying to loosen the knots in his bonds. In fact, it was his back trouser pocket that Tsuzuki was trying to reach, and the fuda he had folded up there. With his hands already trapped behind his back, Muraki had made it easy for Tsuzuki to disguise what he was doing.

The problem was, in this position, Tsuzuki couldn't read which was which. For that matter, he wasn't sure they would work. Muraki hadn't granted him any writing materials, but the yellowed blank pages in the front and back of some of the old books in the library worked as a fair medium, as did the little shavings of chocolate Tsuzuki had managed to slip undetected into his pocket, and store up and melt for a kind of ink later. He'd never made fuda out of food or old paper, however. He had no way of knowing if it would even work.

No way except to try it, and see what would happen. He managed to get one free and positioned correctly in his fingers—no easy task, working around the cord. He took a guess as to which one it was—a hope, really—and muttered the activating word: "Explode!"

There was a snap, of sudden sparks. And then another one, that of rope giving way. Tsuzuki could feel the skin on his hands singeing, but they were free. And Muraki was close enough, his face just right there, Tsuzuki might only get one shot at this—

He raised another fuda before him, catching only a glimpse of the words written on it, but glimpse enough for the word of command to form on his lips by second nature—

But the stunt with the cord had given Muraki enough time to figure out what he was up to. At least, just enough time for him to reach out and grab Tsuzuki's wrist, twist it until the piece of old paper was pointing away from him. The last syllable came out of Tsuzuki in a cry of pain as those sensitive nerves in his hand were abused. The fuda misfired, seizing them both in what felt like an electric shock.

Even through that pain, Muraki was relentless. He tore the other fuda from Tsuzuki's pocket, staring in surprised displeasure at the Frankenstein's monster Tsuzuki had made of his library's collection. "Once again it appears my trust in your ability not to deface my property behind my back was unfounded—"

"The task was to get out of my restraints. Am I right?" Worried he probably played his hand way too soon, Tsuzuki tried to keep the focus on the exercise. "Well, I used my head. I came up with a solution, and I got out."

"By changing the variables of the experiment so as to render it a waste of both our time! The point of the exercise was to escape from your bonds without any access to outside resources."

"So I didn't play by your imaginary rules? I can't believe that's the part you're upset about, here! I could have blasted half your face off with one of those things, if I'd really wanted to, and you're getting yourself bent out of shape because I cheated?"

For a moment, Muraki looked as though he had much more he wanted to add to that subject. And it didn't seem like him, in Tsuzuki's opinion, to be flustered and at a loss for what he really wanted to say.

Eventually, calming himself, Muraki began again in a cold tone: "You fail to understand what's truly at stake—"

"Again, if you would just tell me in words I can understand—"

"Perhaps more practice is in order," Muraki said as he moved quickly toward the door.

Tsuzuki hurried to follow him, but the doctor was ready for that, holding up one of Tsuzuki's makeshift fuda and whispering the activating word. A barrage of fireballs shot out—not as effective as if Tsuzuki had been able to make the charm properly, but stinging and blinding enough that he instinctively raised his arms to shield himself, and stopped in his tracks long enough for Muraki to make his escape.

As expected, the door was locked when Tsuzuki reached it.

By the time Tsuzuki freed himself several hours later, all the books in the library were gone. And with them, every fuda that Tsuzuki had made and stored behind their pages. He knew at a glance it was useless to check and see if any of his stashes between the shelves and cushions of the couch had gone undetected. Muraki would have been thorough.

The smug smile he tried but could not keep from his lips told Tsuzuki enough. Though, perhaps, the anger Tsuzuki did not even attempt to hide was more telling. "You should have known it wouldn't work," Muraki told him from his seat on the couch, as though Tsuzuki were a child, making a simple, stupid mistake like children make.

"So you destroyed your own property because of a few fuda?"

Muraki's smile grew. "What makes you think I destroyed anything? I merely removed any incentive you might have to try the same tact again. I thought I made it clear when we started this. You already possess all the weapons you need to defend yourself in any situation."

Tsuzuki's anger rose like clockwork within him at the word "weapon." But he willed himself to calm. Getting upset about it and pushing back was just the sort of reaction that gave Muraki an excuse to patronize him.

"What is this all about?" he said instead, trying all the while to unclench his jaw. "Why the Houdini games? I think I've 'practiced' enough I've earned some answers, Muraki."

To his astonishment, and relief, the tactic worked.

"I believe I mentioned when you first woke to consciousness in this place," Muraki said as he stood, "that I do not intend to hold you here forever."

"You said you would release me when I was ready," Tsuzuki recalled, watching the other carefully. "I wasn't sure I believed you. Given our past together, I thought you'd want to keep me to yourself as long as you could. Trap me in some sort of sadomasochistic fantasy of yours." That earned him a sardonic smile, if only for a beat. "But . . ."

When the rest was not forthcoming: "But?"

"Everything you've done so far has made it seem as though you were preparing me for something else. Like you're trying to unlock something within me."

A raised brow. Muraki seemed impressed.

But Tsuzuki wasn't. "It isn't going to work. If Enma couldn't do it in seventy-five years—"

"But I am not as patient as Enma. I don't have an eternity to get what I want."

"Maybe the Tsuzuki you want doesn't exist. Did you ever think of that?"

Muraki chuckled. "Oh, he exists. I've seen him with my own eyes. He's just very good at staying hidden."

And suddenly Tsuzuki didn't like the way the doctor's eyes were boring into him, or what unsettling thoughts might be turning behind them—thoughts about Tsuzuki's own nature, and about those things of which he was most deeply ashamed. He turned his face quickly away.

"When I release you," Muraki confessed, "and you go running back to your friends in the Judgment Bureau, as I am certain you will do, the powers that be will want to make sure what's coming back to them is not some sort of Trojan horse. They will restrain you."

"What if I don't go back there?" Tsuzuki said, trying to sound more defiant than he actually felt. "What if I go to Hell instead? You yourself keep reminding me Ukyou's there because of me. What if the first thing I do when I get out of here is try to save her?"

But Muraki shook his head, smiling. "You won't go to Hell."

"I could—"

"But you won't. I know you well enough to know that, Tsuzuki. I know how just the thought of that place terrifies you. You know what's waiting for you there. That other Tsuzuki you insist doesn't exist knows what awaits you there, and that's why you will do whatever it takes to avoid that place. Even if Ukyou should rot in it."

Tsuzuki refused to admit aloud that he was right, so he didn't. "Then why do you keep bringing her up, if you know that I won't try to save her?"

But it seemed he already knew the answer to that, and Muraki knew he knew the answer to that, so the doctor did not see it as worth the breath it took to voice it.

"Alright. So, let's suppose I do go back to Meifu. Why would they have me locked up?"

"To assess whether what's returned to them is a ticking time bomb, naturally." An intimate tone came into Muraki's voice as he came to stand in front of Tsuzuki, a sympathetic one even—if that man was even capable of sympathy. "They'd be fools not to take the necessary precautions. They will throw everything at their disposal at you, testing you, to see if you've remained loyal to them while in my custody."

"Try as hard as you like, I'm not going to turn traitor—Ow!"

Tsuzuki hissed as, quick as a striking viper, Muraki slashed out at him with a hidden blade. When he examined the cut to the side of his neck with his fingers, he was relieved to feel it was shallow, and not even close to any major arteries. Certainly not a debilitating blow. And if he knew anything about Muraki by now, it was that that man rarely did anything that didn't have a point. "The hell was that for?" Tsuzuki began.

But before he could even finish, he felt a curious tingling, burning sensation around the cut. The last syllables of his question felt muddled in his mouth, his throat and tongue fighting against him, as though he were going into a seizure. He had felt this before. . . .

To confirm his suspicions, Muraki revealed his hand. Or rather, the shuriken needle that he had concealed there. Tsuzuki recognized it as having belonged to one of his colleagues, standard Peacekeeping issue. Doubtless the very one he had had stuck into his back the night he was brought here.

"A curious weapon," Muraki said, as he watched the knowledge of what was to happen to him dawn on Tsuzuki's face. "I wasn't sure the poison it was laced with would still work, but it appears to be coated in a way that ensures its viability over multiple uses. Practical. Though I must say, I am amazed that an agent of Enma would risk having a substance that can stop a shinigami so quickly in his tracks so close to their own person."

Tsuzuki willed his heart to slow from its gallop, but it was no use. It just spread the burning poison faster through his system. An epithet was on his lips, but he couldn't get it out. And when he tried to take a step toward Muraki, to take a swing at him, his arms felt like lead weights, and his knees and feet betrayed him.

Muraki was there to catch his fall, his arms going around Tsuzuki's waist in what seemed to Tsuzuki some grotesque parody of a dance hold. "I did say they will use everything in their power to restrain you." To his credit, Muraki almost sounded genuinely apologetic. "Every tool in their arsenal, even this one. Especially this one. You cannot let it stop you. You must learn to defeat even this."

But how? The task seemed impossible.

The question must have been written across his face. "Through practice. And repetition. Until you get it right."

Inside his floating world, in the courtyard of the Kokakurou, was one matter. But outside, the time for the cherry blossoms came and went, and he still he heard no word.

Remembrances of things past, even unpleasant things, had somehow evolved into spring being the time for reconnection. Oriya often wondered if it wasn't cruel, to ask her to sit with him beneath that reminder of a night she would rather forget, or if somehow the female psyche was so much stronger than the male. Why Ukyou would want to see him at that time, and be reminded, was beyond his ability to understand.

Then again, he thought, perhaps she needed to share the springtime with him precisely because it was the time she felt most vulnerable. Like clapping away wicked spirits, or filling up the darkest time of the year with light and laughter. She needed to see him when the cherry blossoms came out, to remember she was strong.

Which made her gift to him, the everblooming cherry tree in his courtyard, seem like a mean joke.

It was her way of challenging herself, he knew. But more: Everyone saw the flowers as beautiful. Everyone except she. It was as if she had told him Here, take these so that she never had to burden herself with them again. She let him see the boughs in bloom all year round, as if in forcing him to do so, she might exorcise herself of their power over her.

Until she came to visit him again.

The flowers reminded her of Kazutaka, too. She had confessed as much to Oriya on one of her visits, and he had confessed that he felt the same way. Flower-viewings on his veranda were bittersweet when conversation turned to Muraki. Was it three years now or four since he had passed? Too long to hope that he might have faked his death and was still out there somewhere. But at times like those, they needed each other's strength. Each had lost the love of his or her life, and the most tenacious enemy of their soul. They needed their hope, their reason to go on, and, if they could not have that, their mutual grief.

Only this year he had heard nothing. There was the obligatory card at New Year, the call Christmas Eve, but since then . . . silence.

He gave Ukyou her space. She was not a person to hurry, or crowd. But when the rhododendrons began to burst into bloom, and then the first of the irises, and still he had not heard a word, he began to worry. Then word reached him that Kaede had died overseas—of a heart attack, it was said, though at her age and given how she looked after herself he had his doubts—and his worry turned to dread.

And when he tried to call, and every number he had of Ukyou's was either unavailable or just keep on ringing, Oriya could bear it no longer. He arranged a trip to Tokyo.