Lost in Paradise

by Experimental

Follows Damaged and Gone to Earth. On the surface, it's return to status quo for Enma-cho, but nothing is the same. Tsuzuki is still missing, for certain in Muraki's clutches. And this time Hisoka isn't sure the damage he caused is something anyone, least of all he, can fix. Though he will try, even if it costs him his existence.

16. Push through

Sometimes Ukyou could almost make herself forget where she was, or the circumstances that had landed her here. Lost in a dream of back home, or an engrossing book that took her mind somewhere else entirely, she could almost delude herself that the last several months had never happened.

But then she stood to get herself a drink of water, and the child growing inside her decided to give a sudden sharp kick.

It took her so aback that a little cry escaped her before she could stifle it, and she bent over, bracing herself against the wall until the discomfort passed.

It was too much to hope her trouble had gone unnoticed. "What's wrong?" On the other side of the privacy curtain, she heard Keijou put down his own book. Though mentally she begged him to stay right where he was, he rushed to her side anyway. "Are you hurt? Should I call for help?"

"It's nothing, just leave me alone," Ukyou tried breathlessly to wave him away. But he refused to listen. And as he reached for her to support her, despite her shying away, his hand brushed across her belly.

So far she had been successful at hiding it from him, asking Focalor to bring her increasingly looser clothes when he came to check on her. She had been fine so long as Keijou kept his distance. But she felt the shinigami go still beside her, then withdraw his hand like he'd been burned, and she knew. Any chance she might go on hiding this from him had just flown out the narrow, almost nonexistent window.

"You're pregnant." A thousand thoughts must have been racing through Keijou's mind, as a thousand fears were Ukyou's. He said, with a sudden anger that frightened her, "And you've been keeping this a secret from me the whole time? You have been pregnant this whole time, haven't you?"

Eager to put some distance between the two of them, Ukyou slid along the wall to her right. "It happened before they brought me here. It's bad enough that it happened in the first place, I didn't want you to know."

"You didn't think that was maybe some information I should have? That's why they wanted me to guard you, isn't it? I'm not just protecting you, I'm protecting that child!"

"Please, don't raise your voice." It was bad enough that he was in such a temper. As if all of this were her fault, let alone her choice, her wish.

Finally her fear of him and his outburst must have sunk in. Keijou sobered, and the kindness returned to his eyes, if not to the edge in his voice.

"I'm sorry." But his teeth were still gritted. "It's not you I'm angry with. It's just, Hell is no place for a pregnant woman—"

"Tell me something I don't already know."

"And you're sure it wasn't some demon that put it in you?"

Sure? Since learning what Tsuzuki was—or, perhaps it was fairer to say, what he wasn't—Ukyou wasn't sure of anything. But at least she knew it was no resident of Hell that was the father. She shook her head in answer to Keijou. "But they want it," she said, wrapping her cardigan sweater tighter around herself, as though that might offer some protection from the forces outside her cell. "I know that much. That's why they brought me here. To make sure they get the child when it's born. And . . . that I do give birth to it."

She couldn't be sure how much Keijou read from her words. Had Focalor told him that she had tried to kill the fetus? She would have been ashamed of him learning that, once upon a time—a few minutes ago, even—but despair and defiance had a way of making her numb to pride. She wouldn't have cared what this man thought of her and her decisions, if she didn't still have several months of his company to look forward to enduring.

Keijou ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh as he crossed to the other side of the room, a muttered Enma-daioh on his lips. Funny how men seemed to react to the news of pregnancy as if they were somehow the victims in need of sympathy. You think this is your nightmare, Ukyou wanted to say to him, then what about me? How do you think I feel? But would it have done either one of them any good?

Keijou sat heavily in his chair, and stared through the books scattered across the table. Finally: "Who's the father?"

"I don't see what business that is of yours," Ukyou shot back.

"That Muraki guy, is that it? That his kid?"

A rebuttal was on the tip of Ukyou's tongue, but she bit down on it. Let him take her silence for an affirmative, if it meant she didn't have to talk about it anymore.

"You guys were close, weren't you? That's why we found him at your house."

"Once," Ukyou ventured to say. "We were close once. We were engaged to be married. Still are, technically."

"No shit?"

"Not that it counted for anything. We'd been engaged since we were in college. Before that, our fathers got together and decided it would be good to unite our families. That was, until my father decided he could no longer work with Kazutaka's. Too damaging to his reputation. But by then, Kazutaka and I were already good friends."

Why am I sharing all this, Ukyou thought, chastening herself. But she knew why. Even if she still hadn't warmed up to Keijou, he was the only other soul she had to talk to. Other than Focalor, but he only ever seemed interested in whether she was healthy, and still alive—and he was a devil, besides, hardly confidante material. If nothing else, at least Keijou was human, or had been once.

"You mean you actually cared about that psychopath?" he said, more curious than disbelieving.

Ukyou clenched her teeth. "I didn't know him the way you shinigami seem to know him. Oh, I know what he's capable of, I've got a good idea of the things he's done. I'm not deluding myself as to what kind of person he is. Only. . . . You have to understand that he was never that person around me. The Kazutaka I knew was truly a kind soul, deep down, someone with a strong sense of right and wrong, and a calling to heal. He just couldn't help punishing people who hurt others, he felt compelled to take justice into his own hands, and he hated himself for that."

She wasn't expecting Keijou's snort. "You really believe that bullshit?"

"Sorry?"

"That he hated himself for being such a bastard. You really believe he didn't just revel in it? 'Cause my colleagues and I had to tidy up after more than a few of his messes, and I gotta tell ya, I didn't see anything to ever indicate to me that Muraki possessed anything approaching a guilty conscience."

Ukyou felt her face grow hot. She couldn't deny the things the Kazutaka had done, but how could she let Keijou go on accusing him either? "You don't understand. You didn't know him like I did—"

"So you keep saying, but it's not like you've provided me with any evidence this noble side of him actually existed like you claim it did." But Keijou must have reminded himself that it wasn't very gentlemanly behavior to argue with a pregnant woman, let alone about her child's supposed father, and made an effort to be nicer.

"It's like this guy I used to work with," he said in a much more amicable tone. "Or, rather, we worked in separate departments, but sometimes our jobs overlapped. He worked in Summons—you know, bringing the souls of people who refused to die in for judgment—and one of the people whose life he was charged with ending just happened to be my partner."

Ukyou wasn't sure where Keijou was planning to go with this line of discussion, but if she heard him out, that just meant she didn't have to try to find something to say to fill the silence.

"She died quite a while before I did," he went on, "back in the nineteen-forties. As a kid, her parents had dropped her off at this leper colony, figuring a life of prayer and being around people with the same condition as her might do her some good. It was a rough life—back in those days, they believed you must have done something in your past life or deep down in your soul to deserve having a disease like leprosy—but she made the most of it, devoting her life to God and helping others, like her, whose families had given up on them. Took the veil, even. During the last years of the war, when rationing got really bad, she often went hungry so others could eat. A noble thing to do, maybe, but it was killing her. Still, somehow, the need to see others through that time kept her going after she should have died. That's when Summons got involved.

"The shinigami they sent—oh, everyone back home thought the sun shone out of his ass. You know the type, I'm sure, since you know Muraki. Has everyone fooled he's some sort of closet genius, can do no wrong, and that there's not a mean bone in his body. But once he got there, and saw she wasn't going to just let him take her soul back to Enma, he got angry. Lost his shit. Tried to take her soul against her will.

"When she ran, he chased her down," Keijou spat in disgust, "pinned her to the ground. And when she fought, because she was afraid for her safety and virtue, and justifiably, he made his partner join in. Holding her down while he beat her into submission. She told me she could feel him literally crushing the life out of her. Her ribs were shattered before she even died. She could feel herself drowning on her own blood before she gave up her spirit. She never forgot the pain and humiliation of it."

It was at that point that Keijou had to stop. Even if what he described had happened to another, it was another whom he must have cared deeply about to be affected by her pain as though it were his own. Ukyou's sympathies went out to him, but she was cautious. If what he said was true, no one deserved to be the victim of it. But she could not help feeling that his story had a moral to it, one she wouldn't like.

"She said she could never forget his face," Keijou finally resumed in a much more somber voice, "screaming down into hers, for as long as she existed. And the worst part was, after she died she had to see him constantly. Passing in the halls. Working the same cases. Always behaving like a professional. To this man who had violated her soul. Knowing there was no way she could ever ask for justice to be done for what happened to her."

"But if she was supposed to have died in the first place," Ukyou found herself saying, "wouldn't she have been able to avoid all that pain if she'd just surrendered and let the shinigami do what they were meant to do?"

"Would you have just surrendered if you'd been in her position?"

Keijou didn't say it to be cruel. Even if trying to imagine herself in his partner's place only took Ukyou back to the trauma of her own past, and the what-ifs about that night in the park that plagued her nightmares. She shook her head. If those young men had succeeded in doing to her what they'd intended, she wasn't sure she would have had the courage to fight, rather than just freeze up in terror, though she hoped she would have. For what little good fighting would have even done.

"It's beside the point, though," Keijou went on, "isn't it? Everyone saw this guy as kind and gentle, too much of a doofus to ever hurt a person intentionally. None of them saw the side of him that my partner did, the side that laughed when she tried to get him off her, like her struggling was a joke to him. What reason did they have to believe her when she said that's the kind of monster their paragon of virtue really was? None of them was there. No one else witnessed it, except his asshole partner, and it wasn't like he was gonna rat out his superior, was it?"

"But you believed her," Ukyou reminded him. "You took her word for it, because you trust her." Just as I trusted Kazutaka, when he fed me his lies—if they were lies—; because I wanted to believe them, whether they were true or not. "That's what matters. Not what may have happened in the past, but the fact that she has someone to stand up for her now, someone to take her side. Someone like you."

That earned Ukyou a bitter laugh. "Yeah," Keijou said sadly. "I guess it would matter—if she was still around. If the last thing I saw before winding up in Hell wasn't my partner getting vaporized right before my eyes, by one of her killer's fuckin' guardian spirits."

He closed his eyes, and shook his head. To free himself of the memory, Ukyou wondered, or to hold on to it, as a memento of vengeance as yet unserved? Could she blame him one way or another?

"So, basically, he killed her all over again. Where's the justice in that? And you wanna know the ironic icing on the cake? Less than a year after she died, the whole sanatorium got razed to the ground in a firebomb raid. So, even if she'd never skipped meals, she probably would have died anyway."

Which was worse, a slow death by starvation, being dragged to the underworld kicking and screaming by creatures from a fairy tale? Or choking and burning to death in an inferno? It seemed clear to Ukyou that Keijou had arrived at his own opinion years ago. "Did you ever look for proof yourself, that what she said about this guy was true? She could have remembered it worse than it was because she was angry—and who could blame her for not wanting to die?"

Keijou shrugged. "I thought maybe you could help clear that up for me." And Ukyou felt her stomach sink, she had known something like this was coming when he said: "You let him into your house. I don't know what Tsuzuki was doing there that night, but I assume he didn't force his way in. At least, not at first. That isn't his style. He likes to turn on you after he's gained your trust. What, did he lure you in with talk about the baby?"

Dread and relief both fought for primacy within Ukyou. So he doesn't know! Suddenly she feared what Keijou might do, that he might forget whatever promises he had made to Focalor, if he found out, even suspected, that the child she carried was really Tsuzuki's. Given how much Keijou clearly hated the man. Would he try to harm it? It wasn't that possibility she feared so much as that he might try to harm her. She couldn't say anything that might hint at the truth. But how long could she go on pretending the baby was Kazutaka's?

"I don't remember," she said, trying to keep the frightened waver out of her voice. "In the time I knew him, he wasn't anything like your partner described. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what she had to go through, but the Tsuzuki I saw was only ever kind, and patient."

Keijou narrowed his eyes at her. "And just how long did you know Tsuzuki?"

"Not long enough, apparently."

Ukyou held her breath, terrified she was stretching the truth so thin he would see right through it.

But her answer must have been vague enough. Keijou shrugged at it. He couldn't hope to win every battle, even if he still harbored some hope he might convert her to his point of view. "I guess he would try to hide what he was really like from you, though. After all, you catch more flies with honey."

---

Hisoka woke to the wonderful aroma of fresh fish cooking over an open flame.

For sleeping on a bed of ferns, with a large horse for a pillow, he had slept remarkably well. Remarkably well by any measure, in fact—which was testament enough to how tired he must have been by the time their party stopped for the night. The three had found a tiny, abandoned hut in a sheltered spot in the woods; but the insides of it were so ramshackle, the little cleared patch outside the door actually made for a more appealing hearth and sleeping place than the moldy tatami and fire-hazard of a brazier inside.

He had had misgivings at first about curling up next to a strange horse—or, well, any horse, but a shikigami besides—but its warmth and the steady rise and fall of its breathing must have lulled him right to sleep. So much so that when he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he was surprised to find that Senrima was nowhere in sight. Nor did he see K, though that didn't mean much. K was very much her own person. In a manner of speaking.

Instead, seated on a log and flipping the fishes on their spit was "Kijin?"

The youth wore traveling clothes rather than the fine raiments Hisoka was used to seeing closer to court; but he was unmistakable in his usual shades of cool, oceanic blues and stormy grays. "What are you doing here? Where are the others?"

"Taking a walk," Kijin said, "to give us some privacy."

Needless to say, that left Hisoka with just as many questions as answers. What would they need privacy for? And how had Kijin found him, anyway?

The latter must have gone without saying, because Kijin said, "Did you think your arrival would not be noticed? Even if you did sneak into Gensoukai, I'm a seer, remember? I could see this moment approaching and knew I had to find you, and meet with you."

"Don't tell me. You came with a warning." And since whatever Kijin had to say had a tendency to come true, Hisoka wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

"Take it as you will," said the boy, raising his palm in caution. "Warning or blessing. But I'm here to help you get what you came for."

"And you know what that is, huh?"

Kijin nodded. "And you won't find it in the Capital. So it would be best if you avoid that place altogether, and stay clear of my father's wrath." Every time Hisoka came to this world, it seemed it only pissed off Sohryuu more. He didn't even have to do anything half the time. Just show up. "There is a fortress outside of Tenkuu, in the mountains and high jungle to the south and west. Very difficult to reach, but not impossible for one who is properly motivated."

Hisoka eyed him warily. "What makes you so sure what I'm looking for is there?" He had never heard of the place.

"Because these days my father dares not imprison someone he views as a traitor and a powerful threat so close to his person." His cloudy eyes softened in sympathy when he said next: "Rikugou is being held in that fortress, for his sins against his master and Gensoukai."

"Well," Hisoka said as he made a show of checking the fish, "Tsuzuki was able to get Touda out of his supposedly impenetrable prison, no problems that I ever heard of."

"I'm afraid it may not be the getting out that's the hard part. Lord Kurosaki." There was something so grave, so candid in the way he said Hisoka's name—and Hisoka rather missed being called by his given name by Kijin in particular, whom he most saw like a peer in this world—that he had no choice but to meet the youth's eyes, even as he feared what prophecy might come out of Kijin's lips. "Do you remember when I was poised to wage war with Kurikara all over again, in my father's name, and you stepped in the way and challenged him for a second time—even after nearly being destroyed by his power? Perhaps you did not realize it at the time, perhaps it was furthest from your intentions, but you saved me that day from doing something I could not undo."

Hisoka remembered little after that, having never had a chance to finish that second test before being yanked out of the Imaginary World along with Tsuzuki. Konoe had called him in to inform him his parents had both died after a long illness, and that had supplanted any thoughts of returning to Gensoukai in Hisoka's mind for some time. "But the war went on anyway. Didn't it? The fighting continued after I left. Byakko told me about the attacks by Kurikara's army—"

"Yes, I'm afraid by that point the damage had already been done. Chaos had been given a gap through which to pour itself into our world once again, and we've been fighting it ever since."

"Chaos?" Why was this the first he was hearing of it? If there was some greater enemy controlling everything from behind the scenes, one that both armies could unite against—

Kijin must have understood the direction of his thoughts. He quickly shook his head. "Chaos isn't a being like you and I, if that's what you're thinking—though if any being comes close to embodying it, it's Touda. It is much more like a force. One that makes a strength out of weakness. That insidious little voice that whispers in your ear that all your worst fears are true, and the only way you'll ever have peace is if you fight. It can only exist where rational beings set themselves at odds with one another, the irony being that once they destroy each other, it will cease to be as well. But that does not stop it from spreading its lies, and pushing people to do what they ought to know they should not.

"It had me in its grip that day," Kijin confessed, head bowed, "and Kurikara as well. I suspect it's the same madness that afflicts Father now. But that day on the battlefield," the youth said with a fond smile on his lips, "only your courageous act was able to free me from its spell. I am still grateful to you for saving me, and I owe you a great debt, which I do not take lightly."

"It isn't really a big deal," began Hisoka, who didn't feel like it had had as much to do with courage as it did his bullheaded determination to gain Kurikara as his shiki. But Kijin would not let him finish.

"It is a bigger deal than I can impress on a human. Suffice it to say, I don't think the same mechanics are in play as in yours and Rikugou's case, but I felt something change within myself in that moment you released me from my own pride and fear. I would fight for you, Lord Kurosaki, I would give anything to protect you, if you called on my assistance."

"Wait." Kijin must have been speaking in riddles again, because Hisoka couldn't have heard that right. "Are you saying you're . . . Are you saying I won you, too?" It would be just his luck if he'd picked up such a powerful shiki on his first trip here and never known it.

Then it was Kijin's turn to blink in confusion, and blush. "What? Er, no, not quite like that. My bond with Tsuzuki is still firmly in place. Only that I think I understand what Rikugou meant when he tried to explain to me how tying himself to you was not a betrayal. I feel that in serving you and your interests, I am serving Tsuzuki, so my nature is not in conflict. But it is different. Suffice it to say, in showing me the error of my ways, you conquered my soul, even if you did not capture it."

He said it with such a beatific smile on his face that Hisoka could almost forget how violent that sounded. As though he had enslaved Kijin in some way, or was exploiting him. Why it should suddenly bother him, he wasn't sure, seeing as he'd been so eager to do the same to other shiki all along. Only Kijin made him see the relationship between guardian gods and humans another way. "Conquered?" Hisoka said in a small voice. "That's a strong word."

"It was a strong thing you did—at great peril to yourself. I could have destroyed you, had I reacted emotionally to your interference and unleashed my full power upon you."

"Seems to be the story of my life in this place."

"Indeed. The tengu have told me how you saved one of them from what should have been a fatal injury. You yourself should have died at Kurikara's sword. It would have easily slain even the strongest human soul. And yet," that Buddha smile again, "here you are. I cannot help but wonder if you are protected. But by Fate, some distant angel, or an even greater power, I can only guess. And I can only guess what its motive may be."

That's right, Hisoka reminded himself, the people here seemed to believe that the future, to some extent, was already decided. Rikugou and Kijin certainly had a sense of what was in store, though their knowledge came from different sources. Yet Hisoka felt, even still, as though he were wandering in the dark. "Can you see anything related to my task?" he asked Kijin.

"Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"I don't suppose it's too much to ask for you to only tell me if you foresee something good?" But Hisoka was tired of going into everything blind. He needed every advantage he could find. Even if it was bad news, it might help to know ahead of time. To know what to expect. "I'm not sure if I want to hear it, but I think maybe I need to."

Kijin closed his eyes and thought on that a moment. When he opened them again, something had changed in them. As though he were looking into some hidden dimension. "Shooting stars streak the sky in day. And in the darkness, stone shifts, falling—and rising, in equal measure. The higher you climb, the stronger it will pull you down." Just like that, though, the queer light seemed to leave his eyes. "But that is only the beginning. Inside those walls I cannot see. It must be Rikugou's interference blocking my vision. He is much more a master of time than I. But you can count on being tested."

But having been tested by that particular master of time before, Hisoka doubted whatever games Rikugou's jailers had in store for him this time around could be so difficult.

"Do I hear our Sleeping Beauty up and awake?"

Rather than a horse, the Senrima that appeared out of the brush with K riding on her shoulders was in human form. A woman in her thirties with the powerful build of a wrestler, a deep tan, and an intricately braided faux-hawk that fell down over one shoulder like a horse's mane. She wore Mongolian riding trousers and boots, the latter embroidered with little stylized wings over the ankles, but just a simple chemise in the humid morning air, which showed off the outline of six-pack abs.

She nodded a greeting to them both. "Sorry if we're interrupting, young Master Kijin, but the smell of breakfast was making our tummies rumble. My salutations."

"And mine as well." Kijin nodded back. "It has been too long since you've graced us with your presence in the Capital, Senrima."

With that, he stood, and brushed off his tunic.

"Stay for breakfast?" Hisoka asked him, but Kijin waved off his invitation. "I should be getting back before my father's retainers grow too suspicious of my whereabouts. I would not want to lead them to you before you've done what you came to do. But you should remember my words, Hisoka." It seemed to take him a greater effort to use Hisoka's given name than it had when he first arrived, when everyone had just copied Tsuzuki's form of addressing him. Still, the meaning of it was not lost on Hisoka.

With a parting wave exchanged with Senrima, the young man disappeared in the direction she had come. Senrima grabbed one of the skewered fish off the spit, sat down and, after plucking half of it off for K, tucked in.

"Aren't you a vegetarian?" Hisoka asked.

"Because I'm a horse, you mean." She snorted. "Beggars can't really afford to be choosers out here, can they? Though I can't say I wouldn't give my right hoof for a box of apples from Tenkuu's gardens. Fruit always grows sweetest in the Capital. Maybe it's something in the water. I do credit your Rikugou for some of that, too. The man is a ray of sunshine—literally."

It seemed like there was a story there. "Why did you ever leave, then?"

Senrima ruminated on that as she picked bones out of a bite of fish. "A difference of opinions, I suppose. I have always believed our reason for existence was to act as helpmeets to humanity. But then the war came, pitting one extreme against another, the Emperor disappeared, and everyone seemed to have their own idea about what we were supposed to be. I loved the Capital—I still do—but at some point it began to feel less like a home and more like a place to visit. And, of course, more recently, the wormholes started showing up."

Hisoka had an inkling of where she might be going with that. He remembered how Sohryuu, even having never met Hisoka before, even knowing of his dearness to Tsuzuki, had already pegged Hisoka as the source of his troubles. "Let me guess. Does a flowering wind have anything to do with it?"

A scowl passed over Senrima's features. "The downside to being trapped in this world," she said, "and dependent on those outside of it, is that after a while the isolation starts to change a person. They cling all the tighter to the old ways, and hate anything that may be construed as change, when in fact they are the ones changing without realizing it. Retreating inside themselves—reducing, in fact, to some exaggerated version of themselves.

"Don't get me wrong: The wormholes pose a significant threat to the stability of this world. They deserve to be feared, within reason. But it is how we react to a threat that defines us, and Sohryuu clings all the tighter to the past the more our world changes. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad if he weren't a leader of so many."

Hisoka had been given a sense of that opinion the last time he was here, though Byakko had been far more cryptic in his way of expressing the same concern. Which was only natural. Byakko would have found it disloyal, either to Sohryuu or Tsuzuki, to be as frank as Senrima was being. And Rikugou had made it sound as though it were some madness that afflicted Sohryuu's mind, some disease. Kijin named it Chaos. Perhaps neither of them was so far off the mark. Doubt and fear held a powerful sway over a person's mind, and could make a hell of even this heaven.

"I bear him no ill will for the path he's chosen," Senrima clarified, "but I cannot follow it, and I cannot condone it by association. All the more in the middle of a ridiculous war in which I refuse to choose sides. I have always favored the Emperor and human progress equally, but this war isn't even about ideology, and to fight our own brothers and sisters over old grudges is a pointless waste. I had to get away, and see if I could discover an answer to the wormhole mystery on my own. Maybe in that way I could make a meaningful, and peaceful, difference."

"I don't suppose the cure for whatever's wrong with Sohryuu is to just get out more often," Hisoka said as he picked at his own breakfast.

Senrima didn't laugh, however, and anyway, it hadn't been a joke. "By most accounts, his power is as great as ever. But there are other factors that can lead a guardian further into instability."

"Like an absent master, you mean."

"Mmm. Neglect is a heinous weapon. It's destroyed more powerful denizens of the Imaginary World than even the great Blue Dragon. We were created by humans, after all. In the beginning. Even if some of us deny it, and swear on our autonomy, we all still require a reason to be."

They finished their breakfasts in silence with that dark thought hanging over them. Afterwards, while Senrima doused the fire and cleaned up, and K gave herself a quick bath, Hisoka scrounged around the little hut for supplies for their journey to Rikugou's prison. As he was doing so, his eyes alit on a bow, hanging from a hook above the brazier, where last night there had been nothing.

He took it down, and tested its size and tension. The bow seemed to have been built for someone a little taller than Hisoka, or at least with slightly longer arms, but otherwise it was comfortable, and well made despite the crudeness of its surroundings. He found a quiver of arrows nearby, and decided to take them both with him. If there were obstacles between him and Rikugou, as Kijin had warned, he ought to arm himself accordingly. It was foolish of him not to have brought a weapon, now that he thought on it. But if there was some truth to the existence of Fate, Hisoka was grateful it placed the bow and arrows in this hut where he might find them.

And if someone a bit more physical had placed them there while he was still sleeping, he thanked them too.

He took his new weapons out around the back of the hut to get a better feel for them. His arms were getting stronger every day of recovery, but they still trembled some when he pulled the bow as taut as he could. He would just have to work harder to overcome that weakness. He couldn't afford it, considering what challenges still lay ahead of him. He willed his muscles and his mind to calm as he relaxed his pose. Pulling the string back again, he loosed the arrow before his arm could begin to shake.

The arrow lodged square in the center of the tree trunk he had been aiming at. Maybe his skill was returning with his strength, or maybe he had lucked out on that shot. Either way, maybe it was time he start trusting in himself again. Though that would be a lot easier once he had spoken with Rikugou, and got some answers as to where everything between them had gone wrong.

Hisoka went to retrieve the arrow. And as he did so, a faint but curious sound in the brush caught his ears. It wasn't like the sound of an animal passing in the undergrowth—if anything, there was a queer absence of the usual noises of snuffling and disturbed leaf litter. It was more musical, but utterly natural at the same time, like the tinkling of a chime in the breeze. Or, perhaps, what the sparkling of light on the surface of a river would sound like, if it were able to produce a sound.

As silently as he was able, Hisoka moved toward it. Heart hammering, his grip on the bow was tight, instinct telling him to prepare to encounter some threat at the source of that sound; and yet he was struck by a strong wave of peace the nearer he came to it. A form moved between the trees ahead of him. Hisoka went still, crouching down. Stared in disbelief as the thing crept nearer, and finally, even brazenly, showed itself.

Staring back at him was a creature the likes of which simply didn't exist in any real-world zoo or wildlife park. It looked like a deer in some respects, with delicate hoofed feet and a single, branching antler, but had the tail and mane of a lion, and the graceful but fierce, bewhiskered face of a dragon. The combination should have made for an inordinately ugly creature, but Hisoka would have sworn in that moment it was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen—almost too beautiful to bear. Instead of fur, it was covered in scales, which shimmered like gold mail yet appeared even from that distance to be so feathery soft that Hisoka longed to reach out and touch them. All around it shimmered a fiery light, though no foliage burned where it stepped. Even in that world that had such impossible things as dragons and phoenixes and flying horses in it, it seemed like an alien creature, terrifying in its unknowability; yet as it stared at him, Hisoka thought he felt some presence touch his mind, with a peace and reassurance that was almost as awe-inspiring in its depth and purity and otherness as the great swelling of power he could feel in the thing.

"You know what it is, don't you?"

Hisoka started as he heard Senrima's whisper beside him. He blinked once, automatically, and the creature was gone. Funny, it didn't seem like there was any reason for it, but he felt like crying to see it had disappeared, and blaming Senrima for it, though it probably wasn't her fault. He just wanted that feeling back so badly, that feeling of supreme peace and reassurance that all was right in the world that he had felt in its presence. "You saw it too?" She must have, otherwise she wouldn't have asked. Only suddenly Hisoka couldn't be sure he hadn't just imagined the whole thing.

Senrima nodded, gravely. "It's been many years since kirin have been spotted in this world. Thousands of years, in fact. They disappeared when the Emperor went away. Some say it was the fighting that drove them away, that they found some other dimension to hide themselves in. Others, that their grief drove them to extinction."

They were clearly not extinct, though. "It's an omen." Hisoka could not have said what made him so certain of that. Maybe something he was picking up from Senrima or her words. Maybe everything else that seemed to ever happen around him in this place.

Senrima seemed shocked at him, however. "Yes—but a good one! The legends all say that the kirin's return would herald the return of the Emperor."

"But didn't he die a long time ago? When he gave his powers to Sohryuu?" And would his return really be a good thing, if everyone here seemed to imply that he was part of the reason for the civil war that nearly destroyed this world the last time? Wasn't it in his name that they were still fighting now?

Senrima shook her head, but Hisoka found it impossible to guess her meaning from it. She shrugged deeper into her jacket. "Sohryuu should hear of this. He would want to know of this. Only there's no time to tell him at present, nor any way I can see of informing him that would not also put you and your mission in danger. If he would even believe us. . . ."

She glanced down at the bow in his hands, and smiled. "Now, if you've had enough fresh air and exercise, would you mind helping us secure a few saddlebags so we can be on our way? You do realize once I transform, you will possess all the opposable thumbs in our party."

---

It didn't strike Tatsumi as particularly curious when Natsume failed to show up to work that morning. He still had his old desk and colleagues in the basement, after all, and on slow work days would spend part of his time there.

But when the day dragged on and Kurosaki still hadn't arrived, that was when Tatsumi really began to get suspicious. The chief was no help in the matter, and those shinigami who were not out on assignment that day just shook their heads when Tatsumi asked if they had seen either of the two. When he tried contacting them, Natsume's cell just rang and rang. Kurosaki's went straight to voicemail.

Frustration growing by the moment, Tatsumi sent passive-aggressive emails to both. For now, his professional pride got the best of his temper, but there was a niggling worry in the back of his mind any time something like this happened now. This was how innocently Tsuzuki's disappearance had started, too.

When he asked Watari if he had seen either of the missing agents, the answer he got didn't bode well. "Why? What's the kid done?"

His act of nonchalance was entirely transparent. Tatsumi bent over Watari's desk so he wouldn't be overheard: "Watari, if you know anything . . ."

"Nothing, I swear!" That, at least, was genuine. "Only, the last time I saw Hisoka he was complaining about some recurring nightmare keeping him up, and asked me if I could help him with that."

He hesitated to say anything more. Tatsumi had to prompt him—a tad sternly: "What exactly did you do to help?"

"I just gave him some sleep aids—but he knows, Tatsumi." The confession, once started, came out of him all in a rush. "He knows what we saw—I was careful, I swear, but he must have figured out I was keeping something back and he—I couldn't stop him, he grabbed me and then he was in my mind before I knew what to do about it, and I tried but I couldn't think of anything else—"

It was all Tatsumi could do to lead him to some place away from the prying ears and eyes of others before he growled through his teeth: "What, exactly, does Kurosaki know?"

Watari took a deep breath. "He saw what I saw the night we brought him to the infirmary. The weird eyes, the scales—but, Tatsumi, he ran out of there before I could even try to explain. I don't know how much he put together, but the way he was talking about his dream and his family, I don't think he ever knew the yatonokami was real. Or, even if he does believe the legend, I doubt he knew that it was still alive, and living in that house with him the whole time he was growing up, right under his nose."

"I suppose we can only hope it stays that way," Tatsumi said as much to Watari as himself.

"Yeah, but what if he comes demanding answers now? What do I do then, huh? Cos I don't know if I can keep lying to the kid, about his family, about what he is—"

"We don't actually know what he is," Tatsumi said, giving the other a hard look.

Watari blinked. "Maybe not for certain, that's true, but I think you and I have a pretty good hunch. And after having Hisoka in my head—you know, he might have seen what I saw, but I felt some of what he was feeling looking at it, too. The anger he had in him, knowing we were keeping this back from him, the betrayal. . . . Can't exactly say I'd blame him, either, if it was me. The kid has a right to know what he is, Tatsumi."

But Tatsumi shook his head. "I disagree. And more importantly, so does the chief—"

"But this is about his most basic sense of his own identity!"

"That's precisely why it was so important that he never know what we saw!"

The accusation in Tatsumi's tone made Watari recoil a step, but Tatsumi was not sorry for it. His colleague should have been more careful protecting this information. He should have taken greater steps to safeguard his own mind. And as far as Tatsumi was concerned, Watari should not have needed Tatsumi to tell him so. "I don't need to remind you what trouble Tsuzuki's doubting his own humanity has cost this department. His little existential crisis has touched everyone here at one point or another, none for the better. And if we ever see him again, we have no idea what state he will come back to us in. Will it be the Tsuzuki who believes he's human, or the demon? The last thing we need is for Kurosaki to be put through the same wringer."

"And I suppose Chief Konoe would echo that reasoning?" Watari said, crossing his arms.

Tatsumi nodded gravely, earning a snort of disbelief from the other. "If Tsuzuki ever does come back here—and right now that's a big 'if'—we're going to need Kurosaki to be at his most focused, his most confident."

"You think we're gonna need the kid to talk Tsuzuki down?"

After being so long in Muraki's influence? Yes, that was precisely what Tatsumi and the chief suspected. "All I know is, it won't help matters any if Kurosaki is too worried about whether or not he's human himself. And furthermore, we have our orders. No matter how much we may feel for Kurosaki and his situation, we must not exacerbate his sense of crisis."

"So, I'm being ordered to keep my big mouth shut," Watari said through his teeth, "is that what you're saying?" Nor did Tatsumi enjoy being the target of his displeasure, of all people's, but this time sacrificing a bit of amicability was a small price to pay if it kept the department together. "Damn it, Tatsumi, you could have told me—"

"I was going to. I didn't think you would volunteer that information to Kurosaki. I thought you and I were already on the same page on this—I thought—" Tatsumi sighed. If he were truthful, "I thought I had more time."

Watari stared at him long and cold. "I understand, I really do. You have to believe me when I say I didn't intend for Hisoka to read me." His tone, however, was far from conciliatory. "But now that the suggestion has been put in his mind, it's not like we can take it back. What the kid needs now is context, before he does something stupid trying to figure out who he is on his own, like running off to Gensoukai again or something."

"What, did he try to get you to sneak him in, too?"

The two men turned at the sudden interjection, unsettled to think they had had an eavesdropper the whole time. That worry must have been clear on their faces, because Kannuki backpedalled: "Er, I was just passing by and couldn't help overhearing you mention Gensoukai and Hisoka."

Watari exchanged a glance with him, and Tatsumi said, "Why did you ask if Kurosaki was trying to get Watari to sneak him in 'too'?"

"Because he came and visited me in Takehara about doing just that," said Kannuki. "I told him there was no way I was going to help him do it. Not that I wouldn't love a chance to stick it to Todoroki, but I don't have any desire to get disciplined for doing something I probably shouldn't be doing anyway." And she stuck her hands on her hips. "After what happened the last time, I figured I'd just be enabling Hisoka if I gave in to his demands. Besides, he seemed too worked up about Tsuzuki to be making any trips into Gensoukai right now. A person needs to have their wits about them for that."

Tatsumi wasn't about to tell her that he didn't think it was Tsuzuki's absence that was weighing so heavily on Kurosaki's mind at the moment. Beside him, Watari swallowed and lowered his guilty gaze to the floor between them.

And if Tatsumi knew Kurosaki at all, he had his suspicions about where the boy had gone and what he planned to do. How he might have accomplished it was of less importance at the moment. The thought that he might be correct only filled Tatsumi with dread.

But first things first: He had to locate Natsume.

---

They had been up in the air for hours, and in that time Hisoka had seen no structures resembling a fortress. In fact, the forest was getting so thick and the hills steeper and closer together, he couldn't see any signs of settlement whatsoever.

"You're sure we're going in the right direction?" he shouted to Senrima over the wind.

"Kijin said it was in the mountains southwest of the Capital, didn't he?" she said back, her voice rumbling beneath him. "I remember seeing an old complex in these parts. Wasn't sure it was a fort, though, but looks can be deceiving."

"There is nothing out here."

That uttered mainly to himself in frustration, but the other two heard. "Trust me, it's here," said the horse, repressing an urge to toss her head at his lack of faith. Clinging to the roots of her mane between Hisoka's knees, K craned her neck to do her part and scan the hillsides for any sign of buildings. It was a thoughtful effort, but Hisoka didn't see what good it would do, since cats were supposed to be nearsighted.

It would have been nice if the stony peaks in this area didn't naturally cleave in such a way they looked carved. Anyone who said nature doesn't make straight lines needed to go back to school, as far as he was concerned. There were a couple of peaks that got Hisoka's pulse racing, believing they were close, that on closer inspection turned out to be, simply, mountains.

Until— "Wait a second. Am I imagining things, or does that look artificial?"

"You're not imagining it. I see it too." Senrima swooped lower and slowed, circling the peak in question to get a better look. "It's a little more overgrown than I remember from the last time I passed by here, but that's definitely the place."

Overgrown was an understatement. It did in fact look like the jagged peak had been carved down into symmetrical, intricately decorated stupa-like towers, but the place was ancient, doubtless at least a few thousand years old judging by the erosion. And the massive vines and roots that squeezed it like the arms of an octopus must have been growing there for centuries. "How can you tell," he asked her, "if it's so overgrown?"

At which Senrima snorted. "Child, that's precisely how I know we've found the right place." When Hisoka didn't seem to be following, she added under her breath. "Clearly someone went through some trouble to make sure it wouldn't be easy to find."

A way into the structure was proving just as difficult to locate. At one point, an impressive staircase, with carved balustrades and delicate arches spanning deep gullies, had led from the forest floor up to the entrance, but most of the crucial part up near the top had fallen away in a landslide. There looked to be a little strip of doorstep left in front of a crumbling gopura, and that Senrima and Hisoka decided would be their landing pad.

The fortress, however, had other plans. And Hisoka should have known their approach had been too easy to last.

At their approach, a swarm of what looked like cave swallows came pouring out of their hiding places among the gopura's carvings. It was too much to hope that was all they were, and that they had merely been frightened from their lair. Instead of fleeing from Senrima and her riders, they flew right for her; and their wings more than just looked sharp, cutting the horse's flanks and Hisoka's arms and cheek as they zoomed past. Even K attempted just one swipe at the things before deciding it would be safer to hunker down behind her guardian and wait the attack out.

And they weren't swallows, either—even though they were screeching like them—but tiny women. Tiny feathered women with electricity in their clawed hands and serrated teeth. That Hisoka discovered with horror as one got a little too close, latching onto his arm and trying to chew through his shirt. That one K did swat off, with great pleasure.

"Hold on!" Senrima shouted to him over the screeching of the winged women, as she descended rapidly. "I'm going to set you two down right away, see if I can't keep these things off you!"

The place she chose wasn't ideal, a piece of the stairway disconnected from the main complex, but in light of current circumstances, it seemed the best Hisoka and K were going to get. When K didn't hesitate to leap down, Hisoka followed her, making sure he had his bow and quiver over his shoulder. "What about you?"

"Don't wait up for me," the horse said, bounding off just as soon as she had landed, with a boom like thunder. "Just find a way inside that fortress!"

Hisoka didn't complain—seeing as how Senrima had given herself the poorer end of the deal—but that was going to be easier said than done. The platform where she had landed them was little more than a pillar of stone sticking up out of a chasm, the stairs connecting it on either side long ago crumbled away. And now did one get a sense of the true height and sheer sides of the fortress and its mountain, a sense that Hisoka didn't quite get looking down from the air. The nearest stupa still towered like a skyscraper above him, and below, the forest was largely concealed in mist. A thread of waterfall poured from some opening higher up the mountainside, dissipating into vapor long before it could reach the tops of the trees below.

If not for the massive roots and vines of the trees that had grown up around the place, Hisoka wasn't sure he would know where to go next. But K seemed to think those roots and vines were the way in, and Hisoka was inclined to agree with her, relying on his powers of flight to help him leap from one to the next, and keep from falling into the abyss. Keeping an eye out for those miniature harpies along the way, though so far they seemed completely preoccupied with Senrima, trailing after her like a stream of bullets after a fighter plane as she galloped through the sky.

Maybe it was the elevation making it harder to breathe, but the higher Hisoka went, it seemed the more gravity weighed him down, and the harder it was to muster any power of flight. Even K seemed to be having the same trouble, thinking twice before executing leaps that normally would have come as second nature to her.

It must have been something in the fortress itself, Hisoka thought. Kijin had warned him of just this phenomenon, and of stone. Rising up—like the mountain towering above him—and falling down—like the landslides that had already destroyed so much. What if there was something endemic to this place that made it the ideal location for a fortress prison, something buried deep inside the mountain, like a powerful magnet at its heart, or a black hole? It wasn't just Hisoka's muscles that felt exhausted the longer he climbed. His vision reeled, his sense of equilibrium being thrown off by . . . something. It seemed to resonate inside him rather than in the landscape, ever threatening to throw him off his balance and down into thin air.

But at last, with great effort, he and K reached the balcony beneath the gopura—or what was left of it—hauling themselves up the broken cliffside until they lay panting on the cool, slightly damp tiles. Hisoka's throat burned with thirst—and, unfortunately, what water they had brought with them would have been with Senrima or cast off into the forest below by now.

But at least the sense that he was fighting extra gravity seemed to have abated. For the meantime. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Hisoka pushed himself to his feet, and readied the bow and an arrow, just in case those mini-harpies weren't the only creatures guarding this place. Seeing that he was ready to continue on, K got up from where she was sprawled out catching her breath, and trotted after him.

It was refreshingly cool inside the galleried entrance, but the sunlight didn't make it far into the structure, the stone columns, braced by chimeric beasts carved out of the same mountain, casting long, dark shadows over the interior. At least K seemed to have no trouble, and after a short time, Hisoka's eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark, a benefit of being a shinigami. In fact, he couldn't help but feel like this was too easy. Though the bulging eyes of the statues did feel eerily like they were watching him, there was no one here—no living being that his empathy could detect. No sound, but the ever-present—and slightly worrying—sound of shifting, crumbling rock echoing from some distant place.

And there should have been someone else here. Something other than those tiny harpies to guard this place from infiltration. Why would Sohryuu leave this place unprotected, if he was so intent on ensuring Rikugou stayed here?

The answer revealed itself soon enough in the sound of footsteps at Hisoka's back. He had thought it was merely settling rock, but it moved with the distinctive rhythm of a bipedal creature. He turned, just in time to see one of the very creatures he had thought were just statues, carved out of the native sandstone, raising a massive stone sword above its elephantine head, ready to bring it down on top of Hisoka with crushing force.

Before it could do so, however, a pissed-off animal scream split the air, and Senrima charged out of the shadows, taking a flying leap at the stone beast, all four hooves first. They connected with the force of a wrecking ball, knocking the stone beast backwards into a pillar and cracking it down the middle.

Senrima let out a huge sigh and transformed, hefting the statue's discarded sword onto her shoulder as she did so, with no more effort than if it were a normal-sized, steel one. And all this while ichor oozed from dozens of little cuts. "What was that thing?" Hisoka asked her.

"Temple guardian. Normally they guard against evil spirits, but they must have been programmed to view anything that comes in here as an invader."

That wasn't exactly what Hisoka had meant by his question. As he stared at the fallen statue, it seemed like a huge, bipedal lion with ram horns and an elephant's trunk attached to its snout—not to mention a dozen tusks that bristled out in all directions from a very large mouth. "Enough standing around," Senrima said, as though to pull him out of his stare. "There's bound to be more of those things. Get ready for a fight."

"With what?"

Senrima looked at him like he had made a bad joke. "You're armed, ain't ya?" she said, giving him a once-over.

Hisoka wanted to ask her what good a bow and arrows were going to do against giants made of stone, but another of the living statues came charging around a corner on three legs, roaring and getting ready to swat Hisoka flat with the fourth.

K leaped up onto its face, using the trunk like it was a scratch post, and laid into its eyes. The statue reared, trying to scratch her off, and while it was distracted, Hisoka didn't think. He took aim, loosing an arrow right into the beast's armpit. It was a purely instinctive move, should not have done a creature made of solid stone any damage; but to his surprise, a crack formed in the base of the arm, growing wider as the statue flailed.

In the midst of battle with her own opponent, Senrima saw—or heard—the arrow fly home, and chuckled. That was all the encouragement Hisoka needed. He nocked another, taking aim at the underside of the statue's jaw. His shot flew true, lodging beneath that mass of tusks; and with a little push from K, the statue's head slowly cleaved off its shoulders.

Hisoka almost laughed. It shouldn't have been possible to take down stone statues with arrows, but he was doing it. Even if his kill count was nowhere near what Senrima was racking up with her sword. He took aim at another that was charging between the pillars toward them, putting it down with a shot between the eyes. Had to dodge another that nearly sent him flying with a sweep of its trunk, and cracked it in half with a shot that, had it been a creature of flesh and blood, would have gone straight to the heart.

But their numbers were closing in faster than even Senrima could keep up. With a cry of frustration, she threw down her sword. Soon, the three would be overwhelmed. But before that could happen, she had just enough time to charge herself up to her full power, and slam her fist down into the mountain beneath their feet with all her strength.

Hisoka was shaken off his by the shockwave rippling through the tiles. Whatever Senrima had done, it had been violent enough he could feel his bones humming and rattling inside him.

But the effect was worse on the living statues. Not blessed with soft tissues to absorb the blow, their legs cracked and split beneath them and they tumbled over where they stood—alive still, trying to haul themselves back up with whatever limbs they had left, but momentarily halted in their tracks.

That was Senrima's cue to pick Hisoka up and put him back on his feet. "Come on!" She practically dragged him along with her. "We need to go now!"

The reason why became apparent a few seconds later. It wasn't just the statues Senrima had broken. The whole structure moved beneath their feet, the crack of splitting rock drowning out all other sound, and pieces of the ceiling began to rain down around them. Hisoka had no way of knowing how close they were to the next chamber, but he doubted they would make it there in time.

The same thought must have occurred to Senrima. As K dashed off ahead, she grabbed Hisoka tight and threw him over her shoulder, transforming herself back into a horse in mid-stride. Her breath sounded loud as a steam engine chugging away to Hisoka as he held onto her neck in a vice grip, not daring to look back over his shoulder, hating that there was nothing he could do but urge her silently to run faster than she already was. Her hooves hit the floor tiles with such speed as to make sparks.

With a deafening crack, the ledge and the anteroom on it began to give way. Hisoka swore he could feel the floor tilt beneath Senrima's hooves.

But then they were through the door and on solid ground. Senrima turned just in time for Hisoka to see the gopura that had stood perched on the edge of the mountain for untold millennia, itself as tall as an office building, tumble as though in slow motion down the slope. Of the pitch-dark gallery where they had just been, there was just a few meters left, and that flooded by bright sunlight.

"Believe me," Senrima said as she watched in abashed amazement, "I wasn't expecting that to happen."

"This fortress may be more delicate than it looks," Hisoka said. And it looked damned delicate.

"Maybe. Then again," a thoughtful lilt, "maybe not. Either way, we should prepare ourselves for anything that may come our way."

---

"For the last time," Natsume said from the hot seat—which was to say, his desk chair back in the Summons office, "I don't know how to reopen the gate because I wasn't the one who opened it the first time. I mean, I helped, but K took care of all the stuff that really mattered."

"You really expect us to believe your cat hacked her way into the Imaginary World," said a Chief Todoroki who could barely contain his derision, "without using any of the proper gates or their keepers, then disappeared inside with Kurosaki, sealed the gate up behind her, and hasn't been heard from since?"

"Yes," Natsume shot back, "because it's the truth. Are you happy now? The cat's out of the bag."

"Literally," Watari snorted. But the humor was lost on everyone else.

"You know what this means, don't you, Mr. Natsume?" said the Peacekeeping chief, relishing every word. "You're out of contact range of your minder. Which is a gross violation of the terms of your probation. As a division chief, it would be my pleasure to report this to Judgment and have it entered in your file. Some might say the safest course of action would be to have you locked up until we can ascertain whether K even intends to come back—"

"But any punishment shall be decided by myself," Konoe butted in, much to his agent's relief, "as Mr. Natsume's actions and the responsibility for them fall under Summons' jurisdiction."

Natsume uttered a thanks under his breath for that, but Tatsumi's stone-cold stare didn't fill him with any confidence he would be getting off lightly.

"And Mr. Kurosaki's punishment?" Alas, Konoe's interruption had not knocked the smug smile off Todoroki's face. If anything, it made it worse. "He broke the law, Konoe. As did that freak of a cat—and I don't believe for a second that she didn't know exactly what she was doing. If she knew enough to open a gateway into the Imaginary World, she must have known just as well that it was forbidden. To speak nothing of what we should be preparing ourselves for the boy to come back with this time. Another monster he cannot control?"

Tatsumi did not bother to hide the frustration in his sigh, but he held his tongue.

"The way he explained it to me was that this was purely a fact-finding mission," Natsume said, looking up at each of the division chiefs in turn. "He wanted to find out from his shiki what had gone wrong when it was summoned. Nothing illegal in that, is there?"

But Natsume's explanation did nothing to assuage either side.

"I want to send a team of my own officers in," Todoroki said, "immediately. With orders to retrieve Kurosaki and K. By any means necessary, if they must. And I want her to send them in."

He jabbed a finger in Wakaba's direction. It seemed more like a stab, the way she recoiled from it with a distasteful grimace.

But Konoe said: "The second condition is fair enough. I will have Mr. Watari and Ms. Kannuki prepare the transfer. The first I have some hesitation about. I want Kurosaki and K unharmed, and I want one of my agents to accompany yours."

"What, to keep an eye on them?" Todoroki's snort made it clear he found the very suggestion of a Summons agent chaperoning ludicrous.

But Konoe crossed his arms determinedly over his chest. "To make sure everything is handled above-board. I've had enough of your representatives acting as though the laws of our world apply to everyone but them."

"Well, that won't matter much, will it, seeing as they won't be in our world much longer? This is non-negotiable, Konoe. If you do not agree to my terms, it makes no difference. You know very well I can force your employees to comply if you force my hand."

"And just who do you plan to send in?" said Tatsumi.

"I was thinking Agent Kazuma," Todoroki said, watching Nonomiya's face throughout this exchange, "and her new partner. Two shinigami with experience in law enforcement are just what's needed to get to the bottom of this nonsense."

Nonomiya must have been practicing, because she managed to give very little of the insult she felt away. But Kazuma could see the signs. They were slight, but no one knew Nonomiya like she did.

"Sir," she spoke up, "if I may make a suggestion?"

Her chief wouldn't be pleased with her contradicting him, even if he wouldn't lower himself to showing it in front of Summons officers. But what did she care? He could chew her out for it later if his ego were so fragile it bothered him that much.

"Detective Imai is still green. He hasn't quite settled down into his existence as a shinigami yet. I fear that if I took him into Gensoukai in his current, unprepared state, without any assessment of his innate skills, let alone shiki compatibility, he could get possessed or torn apart by something over there. Considering the way he died, both of those are strong possibilities. And I'm sure you don't want to lose another member of your division so soon."

It was taking a gamble, speaking to her chief that way. And of Imai, who Kazuma suspected Todoroki had some ulterior motive for taking under his wing. At the moment, it was still nothing more than a suspicion, but she wondered if Imai's feeling of deja vu had anything to do with it.

Whether she was close to the mark or not, the tactic worked. After a moment of thought, Todoroki conceded: "You make a fair point, Ms. Kazuma. Nevertheless, I can't send you in to do the job without a partner." His grin widened. "You and Ms. Nonomiya have a history together. She even has a shiki or two of her own, if I'm not mistaken. Besides, it seems her particular talents are being wasted at Summons. I'm sure they wouldn't mind being relieved of a little dead weight. Why don't we have her accompany you into Gensoukai?"

Kazuma wasn't sure which she hated the most: the way Todoroki said she and Nonomiya had a history, or his dig at Nonomiya's performance in Summons. But if he had honestly expected her to work at odds with Tsuzuki's friends and colleagues, he should have known better and picked someone else.

Like me, she thought bitterly, still chafing at the memory of the raid she had led on the Castle of Candles. She could tell Nonomiya all she wanted that she had just been following orders, but the truth was, Kazuma envied her old partner her resolve. Though she wasn't sure how she could ever tell her that.

She noticed Nonomiya was looking back at her with a distinct glare, even as she politely answered Konoe's question of whether the arrangement was fine with her with a "I would be delighted to be of assistance in this matter."

Todoroki clapped. "Then it's decided. Your miko will open the gate, Konoe, and Nonomiya, with Ms. Kazuma, will journey into Gensoukai and retrieve Mr. Kurosaki before he can do any further damage. Shall we all plan on meeting again in Mr. Watari's lab, oh, two hours from now?"

---

There are few things more subtly disturbing than the certainty you are being watched, and that you have no idea whom by. That was the feeling that pervaded their party as the three made their way through the empty cyclopean stone halls of the mountain fortress, half-expecting some new monstrous creature to jump out of an alcove and try to kill them. But so far none of the bas reliefs their torchlight played across felt like stepping down from the walls they were carved out of.

"The architecture in this place doesn't look anything like the rest of Gensoukai," Hisoka observed as they passed by friezes of vague animals shapes that were as disorienting as fractals. "Or, at least, what I've seen of it. How old do you suppose it is?"

"Far older than any of us," Senrima said in a low voice. Out of reverence or to avoid being overheard, Hisoka couldn't tell. "Older than Tenkuu, I would imagine, and we call him the Old Man for good reason. But Tenkuu is based on deep, ancient magic, even if he keeps himself up-to-date. A place like this is more like an artifact, a bit of old code carried over by dumb coincidence and the tenacity of its own provenance."

A bit of old code, huh? "You think the fortress is intelligent? Like Tenkuu?"

"Kid, finding anything approaching an operating intelligence in this heap of rubble would be like finding a big brain at the center of Jupiter. Not impossible, just highly . . ."

Again, she trailed off. And this time paused in her tracks. In the silence, broken only by the crackle of their torch flames, Hisoka could almost swear he felt the mountain breathe. Perhaps with the rumble of machinery, churning deep in its heart. Then again, perhaps with magma, just waiting for a wanderer's careless step to come erupting up through these halls.

"I can swear to you, I've never been in here before," Senrima supplied, just when Hisoka thought he couldn't bear that silence any longer. "And yet, I feel like I know this place. That's what unsettles me."

"Could it be Chaos? Kijin said it's been around as long as there've been two heads to butt together."

But Senrima shook her head. "No. I've felt Chaos's influence, I know what that feels like. This isn't it. If anything, it's the opposite. There's a logic to this place, perhaps even too much logic that it starts to lose its own sense. It's almost as if . . . Yes." She strode forward, with some renewed purpose at the revelation, and Hisoka had to hurry to catch up. "This may sound crazy, I don't know how to even begin to describe it properly, but walking around here feels as though we're in a dream!"

Hisoka wasn't sure he was following, and he told her so.

"There are ancient legends," Senrima explained excitedly, "more like whispers, really, they're so old—describing a place known as the Fortress of Dreams. The stuff of dreams formed the foundation of the Imaginary World, so it's natural that a place to gather and protect their energy would have sprung up in those early times. Before our world became sophisticated enough in its infrastructure to maintain itself."

So she said with a kind of religious awe that Hisoka was at a loss to understand. Maybe it was a shikigami thing. When he looked down at K, she seemed more intent on getting to their destination, wherever that may be, than taking in the scenery.

For his part, Hisoka might have felt a bit more of that wonder if he hadn't come all this way in part to cure himself of his own dream problem. "It seems like a weird place to imprison someone you think is a traitor."

"Precisely what I was thinking. The security measures we've encountered so far have been geared toward keeping intruders out, but they're all but useless for keeping something in."

There had to be a good reason for the location, though.

Some indication of that arrived not long after, when (after coming to a thick, heavy door barred with a complex, equally heavy lock that K literally climbed inside in order to finagle open) the path before them dropped away into a humongous underground chamber. The way forward continued on the far side, but between them and where they needed to go was a moat easily the length of a sports stadium, and deeper than Hisoka could see. Because when he looked over the ledge, all he saw down below was a roiling sea of fire, like the surface of the sun. Not unlike the Lake of Fire back home, actually, only larger. And more of an impediment.

"Not a problem," Senrima said as she rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles. "We'll all just fly across and be on the other side in two shakes."

Somehow Hisoka had a feeling it wasn't going to be all that easy. He told her how he had felt weighed down by the mountain to the point he felt like he was walking through mud, and was unable to fly at all. K, in her way that only her shiki was able to understand, must have echoed his concerns, because Senrima's expression sobered the more she looked between the two of them.

Still, she was determined to put a positive face on it. "That's alright. I can take you both across on my back. I've made leaps thrice this length easy."

"Are you sure your abilities haven't been compromised in any way?"

Senrima snorted. "As if any mere building, no matter how old, can compromise the legendary Thousand-Li Horse!" But Hisoka could sense a healthy amount of doubt there in the moment before she transformed.

In any event, it didn't appear as though they had a choice. There was no other way over that moat.

Senrima put everything she had into her launch off the ledge. But a curious thing happened. Hisoka had half-expected her to start losing altitude the moment she left the ground; but the farther out over that gulf they went, the more even and easy the flight became. He dared to look down at the fires below, and saw them shimmering with translucent shades of blue and violet, until what stretched below them was an infinite sky. It filled the entire chamber around them—or rather, the chamber disappeared, leaving only blue eternity in every direction. Wind ceased to exist. Hot and cold—even up and down—had no real meaning. Hisoka couldn't even tell if they were the ones moving, or if the sky was moving around them.

Only when they alit again on the platform on the far side of the chamber did its edges come back into focus. The moat behind them was black, no trace of fire in it to light its depths. Hisoka wasn't going to admit it out loud, but for a while there, he hadn't wanted the ride to end.

"What just happened?" he asked Senrima.

Who shrugged. "I don't know how to describe it exactly. Have you ever found yourself dreaming a certain terrifying thing, and, frustrated with the way it's going, you just take hold of it and force your will on it until it changes into something more pleasant for you?"

"Sure." Not lately, of course. Almost all his dreams these days were flashbacks or variations thereof that he would give anything to be able to alter at will. But there was a time, Hisoka supposed, when he was alive, when he could remember changing his dreams while he was in them. "But those are just dreams."

Senrima laughed at his choice of words. "Yes, precisely! If my suspicions are correct, that is the true magic of this place! Anything is possible if you can dream it into being. If only you believe it hard enough."

"Couldn't I just dream us to the place where Rikugou is being held right now?"

Hisoka didn't bother hiding the frustration in his voice. And with it, Senrima's smile fell. He didn't mean to ruin what was apparently a deeply moving experience for her, but after the tense climb outside and dodging stone giants and feeling like the weight of this whole mountain was pressing down on him, he was weary and just wanted to be done with this place.

He sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just, all I've had for the last decade are nightmares. I hate going to sleep, because even though I need the rest, I know I'll never really get it. So forgive me if I'm a little slow to trust a place that operates on the same principles. I don't have much patience for mind games. Or anything that tries to get inside my head."

"Understandable," Senrima said with a sage nod. "I suppose an empath would get quite enough of that on a daily basis. In any case, it looks like you'll be able to give your mind a rest for a few moments."

While they were talking, K had wandered on ahead, and must have triggered some feature within the fortress. The floor around them began to glow. And in front of them, barring their path, appeared a sort of holographic display. Upon closer inspection, it was made up of square tiles each sporting some sort of hieroglyphic, and the manner in which they were arranged looked suspiciously like mahjongg solitaire.

"Is this really the next test?" And did that mean the fortress had a sense of humor?

But Senrima looked quite serious as she grabbed Hisoka's arm, and stopped him from stepping forward. "This one isn't yours."

Indeed, K had this task well in hand already. As her eyes rapidly scanned the hologram, tiles began to light up and move or disappear, apparently at her will. Whatever game she was playing, it didn't fit the rules of mahjongg solitaire, as many of the tiles that winked out didn't seem to match up. Many even changed their symbols. But perhaps the configuration only made sense to K. It wouldn't have surprised Hisoka if she could see a whole other layer of order to the tiles that went right over his head. Either because of her experience with programming and hacking, or due to some wavelengths that her cat eyes picked up easily and his did not. Maybe a bit of both.

Whichever the case, soon the display was down to a handful of tiles scattered across the space. When those too disappeared, some mechanism beneath them was activated, and Hisoka felt the floor dislodge and rise beneath their feet. He glanced over at Senrima, but her expression was impassive, whatever she was thinking a mystery to him as they rose.

When their elevator reached its destination, they found themselves in a room like a large polygonal box with coffered bronze walls. A room with no door out but that which they had just come through. That didn't stop them from all feeling around for one, though.

"You fumble about in vain," a resonant, disembodied voice said after a few minutes of fruitless searching. "There is no escape from me."

It wasn't a voice Hisoka recognized. More like Tenkuu's than Rikugou's or any other shiki with a human form that he had met, and he would have wagered that it belonged to the mountain itself.

That didn't bode well with Hisoka, but Senrima lit up with excitement. "Incredible! Are you the keeper of this fortress?"

"No one invited you here. You seek that which you are not worthy to possess."

"Are you intelligent?" Senrima tried. She said aside to Hisoka, "An intelligence can be reasoned with—"

"You destroyed my foyer!"

So his suspicions had been correct: They were being watched. The horse shiki rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Er, yeah, sorry about that. A complete accident, I assure you."

"But you will find your weapons useless here. I control all possibilities, all outcomes!" the voice proclaimed, and Hisoka didn't need empathy to tell that even for a building, it sounded pretty pissed off. "You will be devoured as I have devoured every blasphemer who has set foot inside this holy ground!"

Even before it could finish its threat, the coffers set in the many walls lit up, and the many walls themselves began to slowly move inward. The three knew precisely where the fortress was headed with this new tact and redoubled their efforts to find some hidden door out of their prison. Senrima tried as a horse to kick down the walls, but nothing she did made even a dent. Only made the room resonate like a rung bell. She reared and tossed her head in frustration. "It's no good!"

K let out a plaintive caterwaul.

Which hardened her shiki's resolve. "I will stay in this form and try to hold back the walls as long as possible, give you two a little extra time to figure out a solution—if one even exists—but I fear it will only delay the inevitable."

Hisoka wasn't listening. As he looked around at the walls hoping desperately for a way out they might have missed before to present itself, he noticed not all of the coffers had lit up. Some were out completely, but a few others, too high up for him to reach, winked wanly, like candles running out of wick. An idea sprang to his mind, and he took out the bow and nocked an arrow.

When he let it fly, his aim was true, but some invisible force repelled the arrow from the coffer's surface. "Ah, well," Senrima said with a desperate whinny. "It was worth a try."

But Hisoka wasn't done yet. "No. That's our way out. I don't know how I know it," he said to the other two's skeptical looks, "I just do. If I can just hit those blinking coffers, the room should stop shrinking and let us out."

"But you heard the voice. Weapons won't work here."

No, perhaps they wouldn't. But Hisoka had a hunch. He unslung the quiver from his back and handed it and the bow to Senrima. "This test is mine," he assured her. "I know what needs to be done." If she was right, and this place operated on the logic of dreams, then he already had the tools he needed to get them out of here inside his person. He could remember when he was a child, and in his dreams his hand could be a gun, and take down anyone who wished him harm if he only believed in it deeply enough.

Going through the motions of making the gun-hand and shooting noises as a conscious adult was almost too embarrassing to concentrate properly through, but he had to do it. To save not just himself, but Senrima and K as well. He took careful aim at the blinking coffers with his index finger, and put all his faith in his shots as he made the noise. It wasn't so different from casting spells as a shinigami, when he really thought about it. He already possessed the powers of a god; what he needed now was to embrace the powers of his human imagination.

Even then, he was surprised when said "shots" actually hit their targets, and the wall panels one after another stopped their progress inward.

He barely had a second to breathe a sigh of relief before Senrima grabbed him in a great bear hug, lifting him up off the floor and squeezing what air he still had out of him. "You did it! You see? I told you all you needed was to believe in your own power and this place would do the rest! Now we should be able to find the exit. . . ."

But Hisoka's relief was short-lived. As soon as Senrima had taken a few steps away from him, the floor opened up beneath Hisoka's feet, and he found himself plunging downward into darkness. Without companions or weapons to defend himself—without even a trace of light to see the way.