Tensions cooled somewhat after Kurikara's battle with Hisoka, though there remained a palpable sense that the right provocation could undo the fragile truce. As a distraction, Suugo challenged Senrima to a race through the desert, which the horse shiki only barely won—by a few hundred meters, or a few seconds—defending her legendary status; and the tengu learned the hard way never to make wagers with astrologers.
Inside Kurikara's cliff-edge fortress, where Hisoka had first encountered the dragon, Ame-no-Murakumo and the Dragon King's other generals discussed terms for a resolution to the war, with Kijin and Rikugou representing the residents of the Capital, while the elders of Mount Kurama made sure both parties behaved themselves in accordance with the sacred laws. Even the tsuchigumo, who since the days of the Golden Emperor had refused to recognize the rule of any government over Gensoukai, declared their intentions to forge a new path of cooperation into the future, even if they still refused to bend any one of their eight knees to any master.
Kazuma, who along with Nonomiya represented Meifu's interests in the proceedings—such as those were in a world where Enma had no jurisdiction—had been quick to pass the tsuchigumo off as dumb, barbarous arthropods. But as talks went on, she came to understand them as a people, with a proud and cultured past, and extraordinary weavers of some of the finest raiments worn by Gensoukai's citizens, a few of which they were gracious enough to gift to the shinigami. Kazuma found herself humbled by their generosity—even if it was still incredibly nerve-racking to stand next to one of them. Or to think that the gorgeous tunic that fit her like a second skin had originally come out of some of their people's butts.
Sohryuu's representatives arrived not long after the dust from the duel had settled, just as concerned as Kazuma was to see their worst fear had come to pass. Except, in their case, it was what Kurosaki might do with his newfound power that they feared most; Kurikara was, at least, a known entity to them. But they grudgingly joined the conversation, none quite having the temerity to contradict Rikugou's wisdom or that of Sohryuu's own son. Not to mention, none wanted to be the one who dealt Kurikara an offense that restarted hostilities as soon as they had ceased.
Of course, once everyone had returned to the Capital, opinions were sure to come out in the open. But by then, Kazuma could assure herself, she and her coworkers would be literally worlds away.
As for Hisoka, now that he had accomplished what he set out to do, he could feel what time he had left in this world slipping away from him.
And still Kurikara had been avoiding every opportunity to speak with Hisoka alone, surrounding himself with his subjects and diplomatic talks so that it appeared he was too busy for anything else. If Hisoka returned to Enma-cho without getting that chance, this trip may not have been in vain, but it would be about as useful to him as if he had just stayed home. He could not risk summoning Kurikara in the Real World as he had done Rikugou, without first testing to see where the two of them stood. The records may have shown that they were compatible, but by just how much?
At last, Kurikara ducked out while the conversation had moved on to matters that did not need him present. But not without meeting Hisoka's eyes across the room first, his own narrowed in a distrustful glare.
Even if it was a frosty one, it seemed like the only invitation Hisoka was going to get. And Rikugou's encouraging elbowing indicated the Astrologer had caught that look and come to the same conclusion. Seeing as the peace talks didn't concern him—in fact, given his history in Gensoukai, it would be better for all if he butted out of them completely—Hisoka slipped out of the room after Kurikara, confident he would not be missed.
He followed the Dragon King deeper and higher into the rock, until he emerged on top of what appeared to be a vast plateau, open to the sky, and the foundations of a huge palace complex rivaling Tenkuu in size.
Or the ruins of one, anyway. There were walkways that extended like runways, and bridges spanning canals and large pools cut into the rock. There were terraces of steps leading up to grand hallways, with tiled roofs and elaborately carved stone colonnades and bannisters. But if one looked closer, one started to see the evidence of scorching everywhere. Many of the carvings had collapsed, crumbled, or eroded away. And where there should have been lakes and gardens, there were only rain puddles and barren, hard-packed soil.
"There used to be a great city here, if you can believe it," Kurikara said, startling Hisoka from his thoughts. "An advanced civilization—for its time, anyway. One to rival even the Capital of the gods."
Hisoka recalled the ancient murals that peeked out of the caves and rock faces in these parts, and he wondered just how old this place was, how many ages of Gensoukai history had it seen. Was it older than Kurikara himself? Older than the Emperor? Was it even possible for anything in this world to be older than the man who had supposedly dreamt it into being?
"This whole place was filled with life," Kurikara went on. "Green, growing things, as Rikugou likes to say. And happy people. Humans and gods, living in harmony, side by side. It was a paradise in the middle of the desert. Shambhala, they called it. The Place of Peace."
"Shambhala was a real place?" Though Hisoka wasn't sure why he should be surprised. He was in a world full of dragons and unicorns, after all.
Perhaps thinking the same thing, Kurikara chuckled. But there was sadness in it as well. "Once," he said, sobering. "It was as real as anything is here. And I was its king. Until I destroyed it."
Kurikara said so so casually, as he leaned against a railing overlooking the ruins, Hisoka could almost forget the deep well of pain buried beneath those words.
But he had felt it. Keenly. As if that pain were his own. The responsibility. The guilt. The loss for what he had built and then destroyed with his own hands. Those memories were a part of his own now. If he wanted to experience them, he had only to bring them back to the surface. Like checking out a book from his own internal library, that he could peruse any time he wanted.
It must have been knowing that that made Kurikara so cold to him, and so honest at the same time. After all, he had tried to hide his past from Hisoka already. No, not hide exactly. It was a matter of public record. Kurikara had tried to keep it his alone to bear. He had holed himself up in this prison so that he would be reminded of his sins day in and out for millennia. But in the end he had failed. A touch was all it took, and suddenly he was no longer the only one shouldering that burden.
And yet he resented Hisoka for lightening that load.
"We need to talk," Hisoka said, feeling the urgency of the matter press upon him all the more now that he stood across from Kurikara. "I need to know where we stand now that your test is over."
"You want to know if you passed, is that it?" Kurikara glared at him from the corner of his good eye. A smile itched at his lips, but Hisoka couldn't hope it was anything but sarcastic. "You want to hear me say, in my own voice, that you won me."
Rikugou had cautioned him not to use that word, and Hisoka thought it wise to take his advice. He had shown enough hubris already, in provoking Kurikara into their duel. But his goal here was not to provoke. Quite the opposite.
"I just want to understand what happened," Hisoka said gently, ignoring Kurikara's knee-jerk scoff. "And, yes, I would like to know, once and for all: Are you my guardian now or not?"
"Your decisive victory was not proof enough?"
"To be honest, it didn't feel like much of a victory. More like a stalemate. And when you said that you refused to serve me, I had to wonder if I had failed in some vital way."
Maybe Kurikara's refusal had been only empty words, as Rikugou had assured him. The posturing of a dragon who didn't want to accept that he was yoked to a new master. But what if they were true? If Kurikara's power level was virtually unparalleled, what was to say that he couldn't simply decide for himself to reject Hisoka as his master?
The dragon's answer in no way clarified matters, either. "If you want to know why I was so against the idea of becoming your shikigami, Kurosaki, you need only look around you."
"Makes sense," Hisoka said as he looked out over the once-great city. "As soon as I touched you, I knew how you felt about this place. I know you still suffer for what you did here, and I wouldn't want to set myself up for that kind of pain all over again, either, if I thought I could help it."
Perhaps that was the real reason Tsuzuki had failed to gain Kurikara when he tried before. Matters of compatibility weren't everything, or else Terazuma and Shungei would never have worked at all. But if two souls were too alike . . .
If they had experienced the same trauma, committed the same crimes, were still in the thrall of similar guilt, the result would have been a toxic relationship of epic proportions. Each one feeding the other's bad habits, and added to that, the powers that each possessed . . . It could not have led anywhere good.
"I don't think you do understand." But Kurikara thought better of whatever else was on the tip of his tongue. He said instead: "Let me see your hand."
He meant the one Hisoka had injured in their battle. The request so took Hisoka by surprise that he tried to hide it behind himself, but Kurikara was quicker. He grabbed Hisoka's wrist, and Hisoka hissed as his burns, just starting to heal over, pulled in the dragon's strong grip.
Muscle and nerve and bone ought to have been exposed where the flesh had melted off the back of Hisoka's hand. Instead, there was a thin layer of finely scaled dermis over the wound, smooth as the skin of a baby snake beneath a first shedding, and the same caramel-apple green as a fresh scab.
"Ah," Kurikara said. "I wondered how you survived my qi the first time we met. Now I see it was protecting you all along."
"'It'?"
Kurikara practically shoved his hand away again. "Don't play dumb. You already know what it is I mean. You called on it to aid you, to prove to me that you were special."
And to prove to you why I needed to be killed. Hisoka could hear that indictment between his words. "You mean the yatonokami."
Kurikara tried not to visibly chafe when Hisoka said that name, but his aura gave him away. As though just saying the name Yatonokami were speaking a curse. "Just how much did Rikugou tell you about that creature inside you, Kurosaki?"
Why keep bringing Rikugou into this? But Hisoka thought he knew why. It had bothered him as well, the nagging feeling that the Astrologer had somehow set him up, made of him an unwitting subject in a controlled experiment. "Not as much as I would have liked. He didn't seem to know much about it. Until, suddenly, he knew more than he was saying."
"Typical of him," Kurikara muttered under his breath.
"But I spoke to Yatonokami himself, and he showed me everything I could possibly want to know about him. Things I wish now I could forget. What he did to my village—what he did to my family—"
"And did Yatonokami happen to share with you, in this little dialog the two of you shared, that it was an embodiment of sin? The delusion of hatred and vengeance made flesh?"
Something in the way Kurikara said so made it seem to Hisoka that the Dragon King could think of nothing worse than that; yet it sounded mild compared to some of the enemies Hisoka had faced. "I got the hatred and vengeance part easily enough," he shrugged. "But it's not like the thing didn't have good reason. My ancestor killed its original body, and the only way it's been able to survive is by clinging to the DNA of its murderer. It's a pretty pitiful existence, if you ask me."
"Of course, it would want to gain your sympathies, wouldn't it? You two do share a body, after all. Even if you didn't, that's how it works. It feeds on your insecurities, on your lusts, magnifying your weaknesses until you feel that you're justified in taking actions against your enemies that ought to be repugnant to you. And, believe me, you see your enemies everywhere. Even those you once loved you suspect of scheming against you, until there is nothing left you can trust. Nothing except that little voice in your ear whispering its lies, telling you no matter what you do, no matter what atrocities you commit on the least deserving of victims, you are right and they had it coming."
"Are we still talking about Yatonokami, or Chaos?" Hisoka said. "Kijin described it pretty much the same way. He said the last war let it into Gensoukai, and that it incited both sides against each other?"
"Chaos is just a word we give to it for what it sows among us," Kurikara said. "But it is anything but disordered. It knows exactly what it wants. It feeds on our fear and our hatred, grows stronger on it. And no matter how much we fight it—if we have the strength to recognize and fight it—it always manages to survive, and regenerate. Just the smallest sliver can in time grow into a menace threatening all existence.
"That's what Yatonokami is, Kurosaki. Just one of many such slivers, scattered across the surface of the Earth. Digging under the surface, where they are allowed to fester while life prospers above. In time, poisoning the water around them, and all that drink from that water. Becoming a cancer on anything they touch, a plague—"
"A curse."
Kurikara almost sounded sorry as he said "I don't need to tell you what that entails, do I? If that yatonokami showed you what it was up to the past millennia, you already know. Just as you know, from my memories, that I allowed myself to succumb to that particular poison once already. I felt that anger and lust for vengeance overtake my soul. Chaos used me like its puppet—I, the Destroyer of Delusion, was made its slave!"
"Touda was made from that force, too, wasn't he?" Now Hisoka felt like he finally had the context to understand what Kurikara had shown him, and why the dragon had acted as he did. The Emperor had been audacious enough to think he could fight Chaos with harnessed chaos. It had been a choice of last resort, a decision made in desperation. Only Touda had proved beyond his ability to command.
It was a lesson that had cost Gensoukai dearly to learn. So it was no wonder that what shikigami still feared most was a repeat of it. "That's why you were so eager to destroy me when I called on Yatonokami. You were afraid just letting Chaos, in any form, back into this world might allow it to gain the same foothold it did in the last war.
"But you didn't know the yatonokami was in me when we first met. When I didn't die in your initial attack, you had no reason to wish me dead enough to want to fight me again. Now that I look back on it, you seemed to go out of your way to avoid a fight. You didn't want to kill me then. As if you didn't want my death on your hands. The way you looked at me, it was almost as though . . . you pitied me."
Hisoka could still recall that look on Kurikara's face, even through the searing pain that had wracked his body at the time, inside and out. Even as he had struggled to get breath into scorched lungs, even as he raged at Riko's murder, he had seen that pity staring back at him, and it had made it that much harder to hate the Dragon King when he wanted to most.
Then why did you put me through that hell? Why make me suffer? What was it all for if you wouldn't even finish the job and put me out of my misery? Hisoka could remember thinking. But the question wasn't a new one. It seemed he had been asking it his entire existence.
Suddenly Kurikara couldn't meet his eyes. But his jaw clenched with the shame he couldn't quite hide from Hisoka.
"Then you understand that it was nothing personal. When you revealed that you carried that same living poison inside you . . . A blade recognizes a blade, and I knew that one's subtle edge all too well. Whatever my feelings about you, they were irrelevant. I felt compelled to destroy it, before it had a chance to work its evil on me again. If that meant I had to destroy you along with it, then that was how it had to be."
That was the second time Hisoka had heard that expression in so many days: "A blade recognizes a blade." It made sense coming from Ame-no-Murakumo, who was a sword. Though in his dragon form Kurikara looked to be some amalgam of organic creature and machine—not unlike Sohryuu or Touda or Suugo, or a dozen other shikigami—he looked nothing like a sword. And Hisoka told him so.
Much to the dragon's amusement. "But I am one," he said with some measure of pride. "I was forged with the soul of a sword. A sword of wisdom, brought into this world to cut through all falsehoods and delusions."
"Except one, I'm guessing."
"The Sword of Night embodies an ancient force," Kurikara said in a low voice, as though careful not to wake its iteration inside Hisoka. "Much older than myself—much older than Gensoukai, even. It is said that if you could see its true form, it would be like staring into the Abyss. In a sense, we all have a bit of that abyss inside ourselves. Not even gods are immune.
"Rikugou understood that. Otherwise, as your sworn guardian, he would not have felt confident enough to push you on me, and risk losing you completely. He knew you would be safe in my jaws, because the Sword of Night is a sword I cannot break. No matter how I try, the best I can ever do is neutralize its power. The moment the yatonokami revealed itself in you, I should have guessed the outcome of our fight, as he had. Still, I resisted, believing I could beat you, if only so I wouldn't have to serve the very thing I loathe most."
"Not to mention, your streak of masterlessness would go on unbroken."
"That being inside you is a creature of sin incarnate!" Kurikara said with renewed fervor, as though convinced Hisoka still wasn't getting it. Though, in truth, Hisoka hadn't said that to be glib. "Its ilk are a curse on all worlds that should have been hunted to oblivion ages ago! The Sword of Night is nothing but pure aggression honed into an indestructible form. It stands for everything that I have been battling in myself ever since I was betrayed. So I know better than most what an evil and tenacious thing it is. Do you understand now why I was so determined to either destroy or avoid you at all costs? I cannot afford to be attached to that sin as you have! Never again!"
Hisoka bristled under the accusation. I am a creature of sin incarnate. It may have been the first time anyone had put it in terms so blunt, but in many ways he had been hearing it his entire life. From his victims as a shinigami. From his own parents when they shut him away. He must have known, even in his childhood, in the back of his mind where he filed the things servants whispered about in terror when they thought he couldn't hear, that this thing in the Kurosaki line, this curse, was caustic. Malignant. A disease, not just in the village's water, but in his cells. In his soul. One destined to rot him from the inside out. He felt it in Yatonokami when he reached out to it directly—when it showed him his own conception, and how he had never been given the choice but to be a monster.
And for that—"You fear me."
Kurikara made a face of disgust, reluctant even now to admit as much. "I distrust you. You're unnatural, and antithetical to my very nature. You represent everything I was made to control, yet now you are in a position to control me. So, perhaps," he bitterly conceded, "I do fear you. I fear what you will make me do. I fear that you will drag me down into that pit of vengeance with you."
"I would never—"
"Ah, but you already tried to do the same to Rikugou. You can't deny it, Kurosaki. When we touched, my mind may have been as an open book to you, but you passed something to me as well. I felt a little of the pain that you experienced, and the anger and hatred you still harbor for the man who killed you. It was only a taste, but it was more than I felt I could stand. I wanted to tear him apart myself. I wanted to sink my teeth into his flesh and taste his blood, until I could feel the pounding of his heart cease."
As he stood there, watching Kurikara curl his fists at the thought of Muraki, Hisoka felt a hope he had tried unsuccessfully to bury within him surge. Rikugou had warned him against using shikigami to seek his revenge, but here Kurikara seemed not just willing but eager to carry out justice for him.
But it surprised him as well, because it meant, if only once, Kurikara had felt protective toward him. Fiercely so. And if he was to be Hisoka's guardian, surely that was a reassuring first step?
"But I don't know what good it will do," Kurikara went on, relaxing his hands, "if the opposition in our natures cancels out our powers. I worry that if you should call on me, that conflict between us will render us both useless, just when we need our strength the most."
Hisoka wanted to deny that the same thought had occurred to him, but he could not. It was there in the back of his mind from the moment Kurikara said that he could only neutralize the powers of the Yato.
But that couldn't be all that compatibility meant! Their names were written together in that tome inside Tenkuu, and for what any of this was worth, Hisoka had to believe there was some deep significance to that. Or else why would Rikugou and Kijin both risk so much to ensure he gained Kurikara as his shikigami? Surely it couldn't be to remove Kurikara and himself both as a threat, in one fell swoop. Hisoka might have believed Sohryuu capable of such underhandedness, but not the others.
Unless he really didn't know them at all. Rikugou and Kijin were fighting for their world's survival, after all. Hisoka would not have been able to say he blamed them if they saw neutralizing him and Kurikara in each other, as one might neutralize a flesh-eating acid, as the most effective way of doing that. Neither of them really owed him anything. Even Rikugou, for all he professed to serve Hisoka, was Tsuzuki's guardian first.
"There's another possibility," Hisoka found himself saying, because he had to have hope that there was some higher reason to all this—one that didn't involve leaving him powerless. "Maybe the two of us were meant to be together, not to spite our natures, but because of them. Maybe I need you not because you cancel out my powers, but because you cleanse them. Stabilize them. If it's true that I can't escape the sinful nature of the yatonokami that made me, then maybe it's your wisdom I need behind me to help me do what's right, and filter out all the negative stuff that could cause me to fail."
Kurikara looked as though he wanted to say something in protest, but something stopped his tongue. He let Hisoka keep going.
"Maybe you even need me—though God knows what for. But I know that what you fear more than anything is losing control again. You don't need to be ashamed of that. I understand what that feels like. But maybe, just maybe, by yoking yourself to me as my guardian, ensuring I don't overstep my bounds, your powers won't be taken away from you. They'll be focused. Like how a lens," Hisoka grasped for the first analogy to come to mind, "focuses light into a single, intense beam. A beam that is not diminished in any way but is perhaps made even stronger, because it can then be aimed with precision."
For a long moment, it seemed, Kurikara could only stare at him in a kind of stunned silence. Perhaps the same thought had not yet occurred to him.
Or perhaps it had, but it took someone else voicing the same crazy theory to finally lend it the legitimacy it lacked before. Kurikara smiled wryly at the thought, saying, "I think I'm beginning to understand how you were able to use the Emperor's bow against me."
There he went with that bow again. "What's so special about it anyway?" Other than the power that Hisoka had felt flowing through him when he used it, as if the bow and even the arrows in flight had been a natural extension of his body and mind. "You keep bringing it up like it's some sort of super-weapon, but it didn't seem to do me much good."
"Only because you were using it against a dragon. It was really no more than a silly bet Genbu dreamt up to trick Sohryuu and me into working toward a common end, back before the war," Kurikara explained to Hisoka's blank look. "Sohryuu insisted the bowstring was the most important part of the weapon, while, naturally, I said it was the arrows. So we each set out to prove we were right, throwing our very souls into our work, but in the end we were forced to concede a draw. The only real winner was the Emperor. He had a brand-new bow and quiver of arrows, both blessed from having been made by dragons, and vastly superior to any others in the land."
"So, the Emperor was a real person. He wasn't just some metaphor or a false memory, he really did exist." Wasn't this old debate the reason for Sohryuu's current condition? That was what Hisoka had gleaned from his last visit to Gensoukai, anyway. That doubt over the Emperor's existence had begun Sohryuu's descent into a kind of madness. Or maybe he had it backwards. Maybe the current conflict or Tsuzuki's disappearance had started it, and the doubt was just a symptom.
Hisoka thought he was on to some great revelation with that statement, but Kurikara gave him a strange look that took the wind out of his sails. "I never said the Emperor didn't exist."
"I thought you told Sohryuu you didn't believe in him."
"I don't. But believing in someone and acknowledging that they existed are two entirely different things. Heavens, Kurosaki, surely even a child like you can see that!
"Which only makes what you did that much harder to believe," Kurikara added before Hisoka had a moment to take offense at his first comment. "Such a bow can only be wielded by a righteous person. Yet everything I know about what you are and how you were brought into being tells me that it shouldn't have worked for you. Not in a million years. It should have been as a lump of lead in your hands—impossible to pick up let alone to nock. And even if sheer will had gotten you that far, the twang of the bowstring should have been repellant to your ears. The arrows should have circled back and pierced you, like the demon spawn that you are."
Gee, thanks, Hisoka thought. Even if he knew Kurikara said that, not as an insult, but as though he were merely stating a fact, still he could have chosen a nicer way to phrase it.
"But my creations cannot lie. Somehow, despite that creature inside you, the fact that you were able to use that bow proves your righteousness. Or, at very least, that you came here, to my kingdom, and used that weapon against me with righteous cause. I cannot deny that, but I cannot explain it either, and that pains me like you wouldn't believe."
"Then don't try to explain it." Shikigami put far too much trust in fate and prophecies and everything working according to its intended function within the machinery of their world, as far as Hisoka was concerned. "Whatever I may be by birth, that doesn't dictate what kind of person I have to be in the present, or how I have to act."
"It does in this world," Kurikara said with a glare.
But it was a wary one, expectant. Waiting to see whether Hisoka could succeed in making his case. "I'm not from your world," he said. "And, forgive me, but that's an awfully fatalist view for a being as powerful as you to bow down to."
"Yet you expect me to bow down to you. As per the conditions of our duel and the nature of my being. How is that any different?"
"Because I refuse to run from or deny the truth of what I am," Hisoka told him, "and I refuse to let it control me. Yatonokami is a part of me, it's true, but it's only a part. I may be shinigami, but I'm still, at heart, human. And I feel as a human feels. I know better than most what it's like to be constantly fighting what everyone tells you is your fate. But far from a weakness or a curse, or something to be ashamed of, I have to think of what I am as an asset. An opportunity I've been afforded, to do what I would never have been able to do if I'd been born an ordinary human. Or else I don't know how I would find it worth my while to keep going. I have to believe that I can do better. For the people I care about, I have to believe that I can overcome my nature. Not defeat it, not change it exactly, but control it. Use it. Products of sin though they may be, I can take the abilities the yatonokami gave me and use them to do good. To do something righteous, as you say."
"And is slaying Muraki your idea of righteousness?"
It seemed the battle may have ended, but Hisoka was still being tested by the dragon. He could not deny how his longing for justice fueled him, but it was only one of the reasons he wanted Kurikara now, and no longer as near the top of his list as it was even a year ago. Finding out you were half monster had a way of upsetting the order of your priorities.
"You were a protector once before," Hisoka said instead, aware he was taking advantage of their surroundings but knowing it had to be done if he hoped to pierce through all of Kurikara's defenses. "You defended the people who lived here—at least at one time. It was what you were made for, and you believed in it with your entire being. You still do. I've felt it. And I've seen it these last few days in the way you stand up for the creatures that live in this wasteland, the way you want to make sure no one is denied their fair shot. Well, aren't you tired of being thought of as the aggressor, the villain? You say you can't change who you are, but maybe the bigger question, Kurikara, is are you being what you were made to be?"
After a long moment's thought, Kurikara's good eye, which had remained focused unblinking on Hisoka, seemed to soften with resignation. And . . . something else. Tenderness, perhaps, if only a reluctant kind.
"You asked if I would fight for you, Kurosaki," Kurikara said, "and I tell you now, in no uncertain terms, I will. Not because I like you or completely trust your motives. I see all the worst qualities of myself when I look at you, and that doesn't exactly inspire my confidence."
But? There had to be a "but" in there somewhere, right?
"But I'll fight for you," Kurikara said, "because while you saw into my soul, I caught a glimpse into yours. And even though I know how much you're like me, I also know how you're not like him. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
That I'm not like the Emperor. You're trusting me not to turn my back on you when you need me most. You're asking for my loyalty in return.
Hisoka knew as soon as he asked himself whether that was a condition he could fulfill what his answer was. "Perfectly."
"I just hope you're right about this focusing theory of yours," the dragon grumbled. "And you'd better make sure that when you do call on me, it's for a cause that's truly worth it. I'm putting too much on the line, trusting you with my power, to have you drag me down to hell."
While he watched Hisoka leave after Kurikara, someone flicked Rikugou's ponytail—what little of it had grown out in the last few days—from behind, and he started.
"Didn't see that coming, did you," said Kokushungei, glaring at him, "Mister King of Birds—"
"I am king of nothing." And really, he never liked that name. Not that calling oneself "Universe" was any less pretentious. But just because he had finally let his true form show, after all these centuries. . . .
"No," Shungei hummed in agreement, "I suppose not. But you are the prime mover in this world now, by your own design. More dangerous than both dragons combined, if you ask me, simply because of the choices you have made. Using that boy as your pawn. . . . And all us other pieces on the board have played our parts exactly as you wanted us to."
She stared at him as though waiting for him to try and deny it. But what good would that have done?
So instead, he smiled.
And Shungei clucked her tongue. "You devious sonofabitch. Playing us all for fools. No wonder Tsuzuki never called on you for assistance. There's no telling what you would do, or if you would even obey. Or was he just as blind as the rest of us to what you really are—"
"And what am I?"
"Someone who would sell out his own master to serve his interests."
Rikugou laughed. If only she knew that she was part of those interests. They all were: their entire world. But, again, he didn't care to correct her, no matter that this time her accusation had flown quite wide of the mark. As to be expected, it said more about Shungei than it did about Rikugou himself.
"I swore that I would be avenged on you," she admitted to him, her casual tone belying the seriousness of the confession. "Whatever I may have said about Hajime back there, I don't blame him for our disconnection. You and I both know it was your qi that exorcised me back to this realm."
Then it was Rikugou's turn to glare. "I suppose you want to have it out with me."
"I did. That was the promise I made to myself, should I ever see you again."
"But . . .?"
Shungei heaved a great sigh. It seemed to take some effort to speak honestly. "I know an equal portion of the blame rests with me. I was not strong enough, and the two of us not compatible enough, for me to hold on to him. No matter how fond of him I've become."
"You protected him from my attack," Rikugou reminded her. "Hajime still exists now because you sacrificed yourself to save him. You have nothing to be guilty for, when I was the one who lost control."
"But I could have tried harder!" Shungei hissed through gritted teeth. "I should have been stronger for him!"
"Or," Rikugou interrupted, "one could argue that you did precisely what you were meant to."
That put a pause to Shungei's protests. She blinked at Rikugou, her features softening.
For all of a few seconds. Mere words could not soothe the kind of guilt harbored by a shiki who had done less than what he or she had intended. But it did give her something to think about.
"Speaking of masters and interests," Rikugou said in a lighter register, "I seem to recall an old Daughter of the Dragon telling me not that long ago that she was done with humanity completely. . . ."
He turned his gaze toward Kazuma, who was scratching K while the cat sat in her lap, she and Nonomiya laughing at some ribald joke a tengu had just told them.
Even against her dark skin, he caught Shungei's blush out of the corner of one of his several eyes. She did not try to hide it from him, either. "Yeah. Well. You can't plan for everything, can you? When the right person comes along—"
"You just feel it," Rikugou finished for her. He remembered the sensation well. Reaching into his soul and shaking him, as though he had been disturbed from an eons-long meditation. It was a calling, like a song from out of the past that he could not ignore, even if he wanted to.
And for a moment he had wanted to. Because in the moment he heard the call, he knew what answering it meant he would have to give up. Though Heaven knew he had fought to keep it all. He was still fighting. Even knowing logically that it was futile, he still believed against all evidence that he was special and strong enough to do what others could not. You cannot serve two masters, Rikugou.
"How are you going to explain this to him, Shungei? When you return to Meifu?"
Keijou screamed as the barbs of the whip carved chunks of flesh out of his back. It was music to a devil's ears, the screams of a man who had no dignity left in him to lose.
Or, perhaps, he had a little left. "He's given us nothing, milord," said the chicken-legged, nearly-toothless crone who ran this particular block of torture chambers. "Not even when we put him to the screws. He will only tell us his name and rank and date of death, and that there is no possible way for a demon of Hell to enter of its own volition into Meifu."
Focalor narrowed his eyes as he watched through the one-way window. That he could not believe.
"Perhaps," the crone ventured when he continued to say nothing, "it makes no sense to torture someone who is already dead. What does he have to fear to make him talk?"
"All you do is torture dead souls," he spat back at her. "Shinigami are no different. If anything, they have more incentive. What that man has to fear is that there will never be an end to the torments we can heap upon his material flesh. However," it was plain to see that Keijou had trained himself well, if he could endure this torment without speaking. "I doubt anything more will make him give us the answers we need. He's more loyal than a whipped dog. He isn't likely to turn on his master."
"I-if I may make a suggestion, milord. . . ." A foul new thought lit up the crone's face with an ugly smile that showed off one rotting fang. She wasn't ready to throw this useless fish back just yet. "I know this one's type, seen it countless times before. He won't bend no matter how inventively we wound the flesh so long as he has his hopped-up sense of his own masculinity to fall back on. But if we have him buggered . . ."
She trailed off in a sadistic little laugh that turned even Focalor's stomach. Maybe he had spent too much time in this mortal vessel. It was starting to give him a conscience.
"I must insist otherwise. His body would repair itself, but I need his soul to remain useful," he told the crone, much to her disappointment. "But test your theory. Have him stripped, make him think your most obscenely endowed goons are going to have their way with him, and at the last moment, spare him. Extend to him my express mercy. Say I caught wind of your evil little plot just in time to put an end to it. But be sure you give him no reason to suspect my hand in anything but his salvation. I am his only friend in this entire place. Is that understood?" And Focalor added to himself, recognizing a familiar excitement growing inside him, I will have him agreeable to me and me alone.
"You have my word," lisped the crone in a conspiratorial whisper, "when we're through with him, he'll be singing your praises, milord."
Not that Focalor found her word to be terribly reassuring. But he had to trust that fear of retribution would be sufficient to ensure she followed his orders. He might have stayed himself, to see that the job was done right, if one of his legions had not arrived at that moment to tell him he had a call. "A call? From whom?"
His dead heart sank in him when the legion answered: "It's an exorcist, milord."
Inside her protective circle, back in the throne room, the projection of Tsukiori Kira crossed her arms over her chest. "I demand to speak to King Astaroth herself," she said to the horse-headed and bull-headed demons who had answered her call. She had tried reasoning with them for the last five long minutes and it had gotten her nowhere. "I need to hear it from your Lord's very mouth, that this rumor she's holding a mortal woman captive in Hell isn't true."
"Not only is it true," Focalor said as she strode into the room, "but it's all completely above-board." He gestured to Ashtaroth's two demons that they were dismissed. He would handle the exorcist's complaints himself.
At the sight of him, Kira fumed. "I don't believe that. It goes against the very laws she helped put in place—"
"We have a legitimate contract, stating that Muraki Kazutaka surrenders a child of his blood to King Ashtaroth in exchange for his freedom from all further obligations to Her Majesty."
As he anticipated, that stopped Kira's self-righteous posturing in her tracks. At least temporarily. "That woman is carrying Muraki's child?"
"You know who he is?"
"Of course I know who Muraki is." Kira blinked, offended he thought so little of her. "A mortal man who does that much business with demons and isn't an exorcist himself? I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't know about him. Now answer my question, Focalor!"
Focalor couldn't help a wry grin. He should have known this young woman, who was such a thorn in his side, wouldn't be satisfied by his explanation. But it was no skin off his nose to answer. "No. Muraki is not the father. But there is ample genetic similarity for the child to be said to be 'of his blood,' or else the deal wouldn't hold. And since the contract has been ratified by both parties, I don't see that you have grounds—"
"But the child hasn't been born yet, has it? Your master's contract is only for the child, not the mother. And I would wager she didn't agree to any of this. She ought to be released at once."
Focalor gritted his teeth against what would have been some unwise words. Had he a stronger body, and had he been in her world rather than she in his, he might not have held himself in such close check. Even if the part she had played in nearly destroying him in Nagasaki had been minor compared to those shinigami, and even if Kira did still work on behalf of his queen, his King, he could not forgive her her arrogance and meddling.
"Released into what?" Focalor argued instead. "Into a wilderness of other forces that would just as soon destroy her than let her be delivered of that child, forces over which we have no control outside this world? Ms. Sakuraiji is being treated to luxuries no human soul has ever been treated to in this realm, even in her captivity. We are doing her a favor keeping her from harm."
"Locked up, you mean. Like a breeding bitch."
Truth be told, Focalor was actually enjoying this, if only for how much the whole thing bothered Tsukiori. "That is how you see it, with your anthropocentric bias. You're all animals from where I'm standing. There's not one of you that couldn't benefit from some time in a cage. But I fail to see what difference any of this makes. You serve the will of Ashtaroth, it is by her name that you are granted the power to cast out our kind, and this is her will."
"I cast out your kind in the name of the Almighty God and Jesus Christ," Kira corrected him.
The name still offended, but the Okazaki boy had said the name of Christ so many times while Focalor was sharing his body, he had grown used to it in a masochistic way, like a habit of cutting or battery licking. A little pain to release a little pleasure. He merely shrugged. "Semantics."
And yet, despite her bullheadedness, Kira must have seen the reason in his arguments. She knew there was nothing she in her power could do if Ashtaroth refused to listen to her pleas. This was what came of believing she could serve both the ideals of Heaven and a devil of Hell. Sooner, rather than later, the two were bound to oppose one another.
"Let me see the contract," Kira said.
A request Focalor was happy to comply with.
The words hovered in glowing script before her, the ancient symbols demanding careful attention even from someone with as much proficiency in them as the exorcist. Finally, Kira said, "Zepar was the notary on this?"
Oh, how delicious her displeasure was to him! Though, if he were honest, Zepar wasn't the first devil Focalor would have trusted to this task, either. That creature was ambitious and self-absorbed, not the best choice for a job that demanded absolute fidelity. Still, "You don't trust the legality of the contract because you have a personal beef against the one who drew it up? Even after you humiliated him? I'd say you two are damn well even, after you stripped him of his glamour for all his peers to see."
"Do you trust him? With something this delicate?"
Focalor's smile fell. No. No, he did not.
"Do you even know where he is right now?"
As if out of a pleasant dream, the voice called Ukyou. His voice. Comforting. Safe. Asking her only to receive the love it was giving.
And in that, reminding her so much of Kazutaka. Not the one who always came to visit her, perhaps, but the one who spoke to her through letters: the romantic, the idealist, the one who actually felt things. The honest Kazutaka she always knew he could be. If he only tried.
She gave in to that voice once already. Under the influence of alcohol and nostalgia, but it hadn't been the alcohol or the nostalgia's fault. Somehow that voice found her within a loneliness she had buried so long she had forgotten it was there, and forgotten how deep it truly was.
So why had he turned so cold on her after the warmth of that new year's eve night? Avoided her at all hours of the day? If she looked back, she regretted that she had treated him just the same, old fears preventing her from getting that close to him again. But surely he must have known how she was drawn, like a magnet, to his beauty, and grace, and the safety of his touch. Surely he must have felt it. So why did he have to take it all away again?
She felt the soft weight of his hand, warm as it stroked down her arm, and let it pull her into wakefulness, like a lifeline to the surface. "Tsuzuki. . . ."
He laughed softly, and her ears delighted in the sound. Just as her eyes delighted in his face, his beautiful smile, slowly coming into focus. "Well, yes. Who else would it be?"
Could it be the last several months had been nothing but a dream? Would she wake to find the new year was just beginning, last night's sake and soba still waiting for their return?
But with consciousness, so came her surroundings. This wasn't a dream.
This was Hell.
"What are you doing here?" Sleep drugged her vocal chords, her limbs. It felt like she was under a spell, if such things existed. Though in Hell, perhaps, spells were commonplace. She looked up into his eyes for assurance. The same purple hue she remembered, shifting toward wine-crimson in the warm, low light of her dining room.
But different. Something different there that was vicious, malignant. Something skull-like, hollow, in his face. Even if she could only catch the briefest glimpse of it before it was covered up by the illusion.
That feeling of safety turned to terror. With a jolt, Ukyou sat up, edging away from his touch as much as she was able in her stubborn stupor—and why, for that matter, did she feel drunk when she was certain she hadn't had a drop of alcohol to drink in all the time she'd been here? "Who are you?" she demanded.
"What do you mean?" To his credit, his hurt could have passed for the real thing. "Don't you recognize me? Tsuzuki Asato? You only let me live with you for, what, almost seven months."
"You're not Tsuzuki." She didn't know how she knew that, but she did. With growing certainty. She looked about wildly. "Where's Keijou?" unsure whether she asked because suddenly she needed his protection, or she didn't want him to see her like this. As though this impostor before her were merely a manifestation of some guilty dream, some flashback of her own secret lusts.
"Shh, he's merely out taking some exercise—"
The false Tsuzuki tried to calm her, but Ukyou slapped his hands away. "Don't touch me! I don't know who you are, but I know who you're definitely not!"
And she was ready to swear that as many times as it took.
But the man must have taken the hint. He sat back on the foot of the bed with a sigh. "Well, this is slightly embarrassing. Usually I don't have this problem."
"Problem?"
"Convincing you I am the object of your deepest desires," false-Tsuzuki explained. "Unless I misread the situation. Perhaps it's not really Tsuzuki that you desire after all."
Or perhaps, Ukyou thought, she had once. If only in a moment of weakness. Her talk with Keijou had changed her already tarnished perspective of Tsuzuki, however, even if she still couldn't help defending him. He frightened her, more than anything, repulsed her with the knowledge of what he was capable of doing, and she chastised herself endlessly for ever allowing herself to fall under his spell, let alone give in to it.
She might have given in to Kazutaka's, too, once upon a time, if he hadn't been so adamant about protecting Ukyou from himself. She understood now that he meant it all those times he wrote that he loved her—that it was because he loved her that he could only speak truthfully and intimately in a posted letter. It was just this kind of regret and self-disgust he'd been saving her from all along.
"Still, I hope you don't mind if I keep this face," said the devil-Tsuzuki. "For the meantime. Let me live in the illusion." And he smiled.
Now Ukyou saw the cast to his eyes was far more red than violet—even his complexion and hair color were ever so slightly redshifted. "Who are you?"
"I don't think so," Zepar laughed. "Tell you my name, and give you power over me? You can continue to think of me as your Tsuzuki, if it pleases you—"
"It doesn't."
"Nonetheless. I won't bother you long. Just came to see how the child was coming along."
There was something in the way he said "the child," as if it were literally a bun baking in an oven, that made Ukyou clutch the blanket tightly over her belly. As if that could possibly protect her from a devil and its intentions. She wanted to scream for help—surely her guards, though she despised them, would come to her rescue if she were in danger—but she worried it might only make this one angry. And he was too close to risk angering him.
"Relax," Zepar told her, lest this human give herself a heart attack. "I'm not here to hurt it. Perish the thought. I serve the same master as Focalor, so why would I want to damage my master's property?"
"My child doesn't belong to you devils," Ukyou growled. Surprising herself in the process. She usually was loth to think of it as her child, but this devil brought out a protective instinct in her.
But Zepar shook his head.
"Then it really pains me to tell you—" though it sounded anything but painful, "—that, in fact, it does. You see, a deal was made wherein that child was submitted as trade for the closing of accounts. One soul for another. Blood for blood. Oh, the child will be given the best of everything, grow up a prince, I don't mean to imply it's some sort of sacrifice," he said to the horror on Ukyou's face. "Only, when we draw up contracts here, we make them to last. To be honest, I didn't think you'd mind us taking the babe off your hands when the time comes. You already tried to get rid of it once."
How dare he throw that back in her face? He had no right, none whatsoever, and no idea what she had been put through. Something gave within Ukyou that she had never felt give before, and she lashed out at the devil, hitting him like she had never dared hit another living thing. Her teeth hurt so much from gnashing them in her fury that she worried they might break.
But even that outburst was short-lived. Cursing the woman, Zepar managed after a few blows to get her wrists in his hands. His growled "Stop it!" delivered in Tsuzuki's voice and body, had the desired effect. "I only came to check up on you because Muraki was concerned about the quality of your care," Zepar spat, "and this is the thanks I get?"
That, more than the strength of his grip, made Ukyou stop her struggling. "Kazutaka sent you?"
"No. But he asked about you, and that got me curious." A wicked sneer. "I had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I'm not so sure yet it was worth it. Then again, it's the bland, predictable cooking of home we always run back to, isn't it, once we've had our fill of more exotic fare?"
Ukyou's stomach turned at that sneer. He reminded her of those lecherous young men in the park. "So, what?" She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice, and failed. "You thought you'd come in here wearing that face, and seduce me?"
"It's what I do. And it's usually much more effective. Maybe I need to work on my Tsuzuki. . . ."
"Or maybe I'm just not attracted to monsters."
At the accusation, Tsuzuki's face transformed into something truly hateful and demonic. Now she had done it, Ukyou thought with instant regret. Whatever his promises to Muraki, the devil wouldn't let that insult go unpunished.
But then something changed. His cruel lips curved upward in a grin, as though at some inside joke. And he purred, "Based on your history, I beg to differ."
The door of her cell screeched open before Zepar could raise a hand to her to test his theory, and Ukyou caught the look of concern on Focalor's face in the split second before it turned to murderous rage. "You," he growled at Zepar.
Who shot to his feet, his features shifting into something he thought his colleague might find more sympathetic as he backed away. "Now, brother, before you do anything rash—"
In an instant, Focalor was across the room. His vessel may have been decaying on him, but righteous indignation fueled him. His hands closed around Zepar's throat and shirt collar, and he lifted the red devil off his feet, slamming him down on top of the dishes from Ukyou's last meal.
"I don't want to hear any bullshit excuses, Zepar," Focalor said through teeth gritted so hard, Ukyou half expected them to crumble in his mouth. "If I find you have harmed Sakuraiji in any way, so help me I will castrate you with my bare hands—"
"He didn't do anything," Ukyou found herself saying, surprising all three of them. But it wasn't in Zepar's defense, she realized, nor even really to calm Focalor. It was what Zepar had said about Muraki that made her want both of them to just go away as soon as possible. Before Zepar could mention that Kazutaka had asked after her. If he had asked, it was possible he may have been planning to come for her as well. "He just wanted to see if I would give in to him," Ukyou told Focalor, "if he tested me. But I wouldn't."
She shot Zepar a hateful look. Only briefly. She could barely stand to look at him, and the beautiful face that wasn't his to wear. "He disgusts me."
Zepar grinned a smarmy grin beneath him, and it felt as though it took all Focalor's self-restraint not to punch it in. That and he had already taxed his vessel in his initial attack. And he was certain Zepar could sense it.
"Enough of your perverse games," Focalor spat at him. "If I see you anywhere near here again, Ashtaroth will know of it. She will not be as forgiving as I am."
"Or as weak."
Zepar chuckled as he lightly leapt up from the table, straightening his wrinkled clothes. Whatever trace of Tsuzuki Ukyou had seen in him was gone, even though the features were nearly identical. It took more than just the right shapes in the right places and proportions to make a believable facsimile.
For his part, Focalor felt an uncharacteristic and unwelcome dread settle in his stomach as he watched to make sure Zepar left. This was a development he hadn't expected, and certainly couldn't risk. He would have to act quickly if he didn't want to lose his chance. But he wasn't sure he was ready.
Even with Kojirou and Kotarou's advance warning, it still came as something of a shock, upon returning to Meifu, to have Todoroki's and his agents' faces be the first Hisoka saw.
"Grab her before she can disappear," the chief said as K sprang through the portal.
Her eyes went wide, her ears pinned back. She tried to pass through the floor, but a strong hand pinning a fuda to her back and grabbing her by the scruff of the neck kept her solid and stuck. "Hey, don't hurt her!" Natsume said, but another Peacekeeper was keeping him from taking more than a step toward K.
With a pistol and sword trained on him by two different Peacekeepers, Hisoka didn't feel he had any choice but to surrender. "Is that really necessary?" he said to Todoroki, as Endo picked the kitten up roughly. "She's just a cat."
"Seeing as this cat was the one who opened the illegal portal that allowed you into Gensoukai," Todoroki answered him with far too much satisfaction for Hisoka's liking, "yes, I would say we are justified in taking every precaution. Which is the least of what I would like to do with you." Though his words may have been meant for Hisoka, it was Nonomiya and Kazuma, coming through the portal behind him, that Todoroki reserved his glare for. "To ensure that you don't summon any beings from that world into ours. But if you can be reasonable, Mr. Kurosaki, and submit to coming with us peacefully, perhaps restraints will not be necessary."
"Go peacefully to what?" Hisoka said.
And didn't like the smile Todoroki returned him. "Interrogation. The two of you are under arrest."
"I'm sorry, Kurosaki," said Konoe, where he stood next to a silently furious Watari and Wakaba. (There must have been a certain amount of coercion involved in opening the portal to retrieve Hisoka, judging by the looks those two wore.) "But in this matter Chief Todoroki has just cause to take you into custody. You entered Gensoukai without permission, and when you knew full well that travel there was forbidden. The fact that K abandoned her charge to help you represents a serious breach of protocol."
"I don't see why I need to be interrogated, then," Hisoka said. "You already know what happened and I don't deny doing it."
"Alas," said Todoroki, "what we have yet to ascertain is what went on on the other side of that portal. Whether you obtained for yourself any new shikigami, perhaps, and what sorts of . . . side effects we should expect when you summon them."
"If you're asking about Kurikara, why don't you just come out and say so! Yes, I won him, and I've the right to summon him as my guardian if the need arises!"
Looking around the room, that had apparently been the wrong thing to say. Watari held the bridge of his nose as he shook his lowered head. Konoe's and Wakaba's expressions were more sympathetic, if shocked and displeased that Hisoka had chosen to confess so readily to Todoroki.
But what was Hisoka to do? Okay, so maybe Todoroki's provocative style brought out the worst in him, but everyone was going to find out sooner or later. And, travel bans aside, it wasn't illegal to obtain new shikigami. That was, unless new restrictions he wasn't aware of had been announced while he was in Gensoukai.
But that wasn't why Todoroki wanted Hisoka in his custody. He could feel it from the man, and saw on Konoe's face that he was worried about the same thing. It wasn't just Hisoka's connection to Kurikara Todoroki was interested in anymore, or even matters to do with Tsuzuki. His suspicions had turned to nearer threats. Like a repeat of Hisoka's failure with Rikugou. But whether Todoroki suspected anything regarding Yatonokami, Hisoka couldn't yet be sure. He would have to feel the Peacekeeping chief out. Maybe an interrogation wasn't the worst thing for him at present, come to think of it.
"Kurosaki will be happy to answer any questions you may have, Chief Todoroki," Tatsumi piped up, with a hard look at Hisoka to keep his trap shut. "But I remind you, he is entitled to have council present—"
"I don't believe this," Endo muttered, but Todoroki held up a hand to silence him.
"In that case, I offer my services," came a voice from behind them, where the now-closed portal had been. And no one seemed more surprised than the other Peacekeeping officers present that Nonomiya had offered to defend Hisoka. "I was there, too," she reminded them. "I can corroborate Kurosaki's statement."
"Which is why you will be participating in this interrogation, too," Todoroki said. "Not as council, but as co-conspirator."
Nonomiya opened her mouth to protest, and even Watari and Konoe seemed about to jump to her defense. After all, it was on Todoroki's order that she had gone into Gensoukai—no longer as a Summons liaison who deserved to be watched, but as a Peacekeeper with a mission. Todoroki may as well have slapped Nonomiya across the face in front of all her peers for the disrespect he had shown her.
But before any argument could erupt, Tatsumi said: "I will accompany Kurosaki to this debrief. If not as council, then as his immediate supervisor. You have my word," he added with a glare at the Peacekeeping chief, "that I will not interfere in your questioning, so long as your officers treat Kurosaki with due civility."
Todoroki hmpfed at that. "So long as Kurosaki returns the favor." But he conceded to Tatsumi coming along, even if it was clearly against his wishes.
"Can I come too?" Natsume said.
"I really don't think that's a good—"
"Come on! You're going to interrogate a cat! Any of you pigs even know how to speak cat?" A quick glance around the assembled officers, who couldn't help but snicker at his question, told Natsume all he needed to know. But just in case that didn't convince them . . . "Besides, I've been away from K's influence for so long, I might not be able to control myself. Who knows, I might have some demons left in me—"
"Fine," Todoroki growled. "You can translate for your furry friend. Now, can we move this along, before the entire Summons Division decides to join us?"
But before he could be shuffled too far toward the door, Hisoka felt Tatsumi grab his arm. Even if it was only for a moment, and even if the secretary risked nothing else before the Peacekeepers, still Hisoka felt the urging he sent through that touch. And understood it, clear as a bell.
A silent plea, for Hisoka to keep quiet where anything remotely regarding snakes or Hisoka's own past was concerned.
No sooner did she cross the barrier between the Imaginary World and Meifu than Kazuma swooned. It felt like something foreign was being crammed into every part of her body, and no part more so than her head, which seemed it would split from the pressure. She thought her tolerance for physical pain was high, but this tried her to her limits.
She managed to bite down on her scream and steady herself on her feet, but her vision was blurred by black spots and flashes of light. Still, she recognized enough of the smell of the place—like hot electronics with a faint, background twinge of chemicals—to know she must be in one of Watari's labs. Voices were talking over each other. She could make out Todoroki's clearly, though, saying something about interrogation and Kurosaki being under arrest.
Then everyone was moving. And Nonomiya was saying her name, though it felt like her voice was trying to reach Kazuma from the other side of a wall. She felt her partner's hand on her arm—
And jerked away. Not even sure herself why she'd done it. Only it felt as though Nonomiya had just given her an electric shock, one big enough to make something inside her jump.
"Are you okay?" Nonomiya asked, just as the pain subsided enough for Kazuma's surroundings to come back into focus.
She straightened. "Yeah. Just a splitting headache. Must be from the change of pressure." Though for some reason, Kazuma thought she could really go for a cigarette. She hadn't felt that particular craving for a couple of decades.
By the look on her face, it seemed Nonomiya wasn't quite buying it. "You don't look so hot. I mean—" Nonomiya caught herself when she realized how that might sound.
Which Kazuma just laughed off. "I mean it, Kochou. I'll be fine. Just need to hydrate, is all."
"That's good," Nonomiya said with a glance around, "because the chief wants to question us about the mission. We need to go, Shin."
Now Kazuma saw her peers, milling uneasily about her, waiting for her and Nonomiya to get a move on. Kochou reached out as if to offer her arm in support—but reluctantly thought better of it.
And Kazuma knew then that she wouldn't be able to pretend this away. This pressure in her head wasn't some temporary headache; it was her new reality. This wasn't going to change. And Nonomiya knew that too.
"I suppose you're going to want us to work together now," Kurikara said without lifting his head when he felt the other come into the room.
He could hear Rikugou's smile as the Astrologer said, "That would be helpful, yes. Now that we serve the same master, it would do no good for us to remain at odds. And, indeed, I hope you can come to realize that I never saw you as my enemy."
Kurikara couldn't help but laugh at that. He couldn't believe that Rikugou saw those around him, even his own peers, as anything but opponents to be bested. It had been ages since he'd sat face-to-face with the Astrologer, but he remembered how frustrating the man could be. Every interaction with him was carefully measured. One always had to be wary of falling into philosophical traps. It was worse than dealing with Sohryuu. Whatever Sohryuu may say to you, at least you knew he meant what he said, and nothing more.
"I know you set me up," Kurikara said as Rikugou set a box down on the table between them, and opened it up. "Once you found out just what Kurosaki was carrying around, you knew I wouldn't be able to defeat him."
"Oh?" Rikugou said disinterestedly. But what Kurikara heard was, "Just what do you plan to do about that?"
And Kurikara knew as well as he did that there was nothing he could do. Now.
"You had no right to manipulate me like that—"
"And if I hadn't, would our world not still be in the throes of war? Did bringing Hisoka to you, making you his shikigami, not put an end to our useless fighting? Would you really hold it against me, that I stopped you from making another terrible mistake you would never forgive yourself for?"
Kurikara silently fumed. He was right of course. Somehow Rikugou always was. And Kurikara hated him for it, even now. It wasn't fair. "Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?"
"Every now and then I think I would like to know what it feels like to be genuinely surprised, just once," Rikugou mused. "But generally, no. I don't tire of it."
"That was a rhetorical question, asshole," Kurikara grumbled.
Rikugou only smiled silently at the jab, and removed the two lidded bowls from within the box.
"Have a little faith in Hisoka," he told the dragon instead, as usual cutting to the heart of what really troubled Kurikara. "You don't have to like him, or what he is. But give him a chance to surprise you. We may not be able to overcome our natures, but they can. If given the right nourishment."
I know, Kurikara wanted to say. But there was too much history wrapped up in those simple words, it seemed insufficient to voice them.
"Now!" Rikugou flipped over the open box, transforming it into a Go board. "What do you say to a quick game? I'll even let you be black."
"I think I know by now not to play games of skill with a fortune-teller," Kurikara said with disdain. But he scooted closer to the table anyway, and took the bowl of white stones.
Notes: So, lots of stuff going on in this chapter. I've taken a lot of artistic license, combining elements of different religious traditions to try to answer why in the first place Hisoka survived an attack that, by all accounts, should have destroyed him. Kurikara as the wisdom sword of Fudo Myo-o (very briefly name-dropped in the manga) that cuts away sin/delusion is primarily a Buddhist concept, as is the mythical city of Shambhala. Kurikara Ryuu-Oh coiled around and chowing down on the sword he embodies (or the sword embodying his foe, depending on the version of the story) is a common image, and one that inspired me in the battle scene in Chapter 22.
In Shinto, Yatonokami are fearsome gods but of nature, therefore probably amoral (neither good nor evil). But the serpent also represents the delusions (or poisons or attachments) of anger and hatred in Buddhism, and this can be echoed in how it is portrayed in the manga as pursuing a vendetta against the Kurosakis. I use "sin" in connection with Yatonokami in the sense that it embodies those poisons of the soul. It's a more endemic sense of the word, as opposed to karmic sin born of deeds. "Abomination" might be another good word for it, in the sense of "hated thing" (although Hisoka kinda fits the more modern definition of "freak of nature" too).
Chaos itself might be interpreted as an amoral, natural force, but clearly its effects on Gensoukai are seen as being evil, as it causes others to sin and gains nourishment from that. Much like how a black hole just does what its physics make it do, but could be seen by its victims as a malevolent thing with agency. I'm totally extrapolating that Touda is somehow "made of" chaos. Chaos, in the sense of primordial disorder, often takes the form of a great serpent in mythology, like Tiamat or Apep or Orochi. Apep in particular must be perpetually battled and his destructive powers contained, not unlike Touda with his visor, or Yatonokami being sealed within the Kurosaki male heirs.
Rikugou's calling Shungei a "Daughter of the Dragon" refers to the nine Sons of the Dragon of Chinese mythology, one of which is Suanni, or lion-dragon, of which "Shungei" is the Japanese reading. I like to think the Dragon in this scenario is Kurikara, but that's mainly because he laments for his lost "children" in the manga, and wants to get justice for them. But what form these children take—they might be swords or subjects—remains a mystery.
In Go, the player who is regarded as weaker plays as black and moves first. So Rikugou may sound like he's being gracious letting Kurikara make the first move, but Kurikara doesn't take it that way.