"I'm being moved again?" Not that it came as much of a surprise that once again she was in danger, only Ukyou was really getting tired of fearing for her life. "I thought you said the Castle of Candles was the safest place for me!"

"It is," said the Count.

"Then why am I leaving it?" And why couldn't they just let her go home?

She knew the answer to the latter question, of course. Nonomiya and Keijou had already explained it to her on half a dozen separate occasions. But that didn't change what she wanted: an end to all this. A return to her normal life. While she still had a life.

The Count—hiding his face behind an okina mask, but at least visible in body, in dress trousers and a smoking jacket and cap—sighed a long-suffering sigh, and let Nonomiya answer for him.

"Because you're still a target. And because the Castle is a nearly impenetrable fortress, that means whoever comes for you will have to penetrate its defenses in order to get what they want. Which makes the Hall of Candles a target vicariously."

"Those candles must remain inviolate," the Count explained when Ukyou's wide eyes turned back to him. "They represent the lives of millions of souls. We here are forbidden to tamper with those candles, but that doesn't mean they cannot be tampered with. If their flames were extinguished here, people would die in the Living World. It would be a slaughter of untold proportions. I am sorry, Doctor, truly. But I'm sure as a woman of reason you can understand that two souls, no matter whom they belong to, do not outweigh millions."

Ukyou's thoughts went to the child in her womb at the reminder. Rationally, she could not fault the Count his logic. Yet somehow she didn't think the child would let anyone or anything sacrifice its mother so easily.

"You really think someone's coming for me?" Todoroki and Zepar both came to mind, the latter wearing Tsuzuki's features all wrong. She'd rather not have to face either.

"Right now, we don't know enough to say for sure—"

"Sorry it took so long," Kazuma said as she breezed into the room, past Watson who was holding the door. "Had to make sure all our ducks were in a row." Placing hands on her hips over her great coat, "We all ready to go?"

Kazuma had found time enough to change into clothes easier to travel in, though she hadn't bothered with the hair and makeup, which still looked ready for a formal function. It was the harassed-looking man who followed behind her that Ukyou was curious about.

Kazuma caught the direction of her gaze. "Oh yeah. This is Detective Imai. Imai, Dr. Sakuraiji. He's the one who got a warning something was going to happen," she elaborated with a thumb over her shoulder.

"What exactly is supposed to happen?" Keijou said in a voice as skeptical as Ukyou's look. All he knew of Imai was that the man had died during the fighting at Ukyou's home a few months ago, and that he had been made a Peacekeeper to fill the spot left by Keijou and his partner, when it was believed they'd both perished. He didn't see how Imai could have the clearance to be here. He was a complication.

"We don't know all the details just yet," Kazuma said before Imai could do more than open his mouth. "But we need to be ready in case more information comes in. Count, I'll call you about any new developments. I trust you'll alert the necessary parties as you see fit."

"I will do what I can. But as you know, my first duty is to the candles. I could not leave them if I wanted to. This fortress must be defended."

Kazuma nodded. "I understand."

And looking on at the exchange, it seemed to Nonomiya as though something that was damaged between Kazuma and the Count had not just been mended, but strengthened tenfold.

The four shinigami hoisted hastily packed bags onto their backs and the whole group made their way downstairs. One of the bags carried basic gear and provisions, mostly for Ukyou, who could not go forever without eating or hydrating like the others could. The rest were full of weapons loaned to them by the Count from his own collection. Keijou had also brought his own katana and Kazuma her pistol, and both she and Nonomiya were prepared to call on their shiki for help if necessary.

"The tunnels are a maze," the Count warned them as they moved, "so stick to the map I gave Ms. Nonomiya. But be assured that if you have a hard time orienting yourself down there, so will anyone who may try to follow you. You should find no shortage of defensible positions. I've taken the liberty of marking a few of them for you."

Ukyou wasn't sure what came over her. Maybe it was these new hormones, or that she now had something to be more afraid of than her past, but before she took that first step and followed Nonomiya and Keijou into the darkness, she turned and flung her arms around the Count in a grateful hug. He must not have been expecting it, because he sputtered like a startled rooster before returning the embrace.

Despite that, for some reason she couldn't quite nail down, it felt like hugging Kazutaka. Or Kazutaka as he had been, back when she could still delude herself that he wasn't the monster he claimed he was.

"The Count's mask!" Konoe all but collapsed into his office chair at the news. "Tsuzuki, are you trying to give me a second heart attack?"

"It makes sense now," Watari said. "I didn't think the Count would ever intentionally show his face to everyone in the Judgment Bureau. At least not without more pomp and ceremony to accompany the unveiling."

"Not everyone," said Wakaba, who seemed a bit bitter that she had left before the Count came down the stairs, thereby missing the big reveal.

Either that, or she was still sore about catching Terazuma dancing with Kazuma Shin after he swore up and down he didn't dance. (For that matter, Terazuma still hadn't returned Tatsumi's call to come to the office. He might have turned his cell off, Wakaba had informed them, before declaring that she couldn't care less what that backstabbing partner of hers did.)

"But I don't understand why Tsuzuki would do such a reckless thing," she added, tone softening with concern for her longtime friend and colleague. "He just got back. He couldn't stop talking about how he was going to do a better job this time around and appreciate every day here. Doesn't he know what this could mean for him? There's no way Enma's going to be so lenient this time. If he lets Tsuzuki off with another slap on the wrist, what kind of message would that send other shinigami who might be thinking of breaking the rules?"

Hisoka feared their King's lenience had already done enough damage. To the amicability between Summons and the other departments, to Tsuzuki's coworkers, even to Enma's credibility. He doubted Summons' ability to protect Tsuzuki now, even if by some stroke of luck they managed to locate him soon. But he was in no hurry to explain his partner's motives with the mask to the rest of the department.

As if reading his train of thought, Konoe barked, "Kurosaki," startling Hisoka. "You were the last person to see Tsuzuki. You were with him. So why don't we have eyes on him as we speak?"

Hisoka clenched his fist tight until he felt his nails bite into his palm. But it was all he could do to stop from trembling. How was he supposed to tell them . . .

In his hesitation, Tatsumi stepped in, clearing his throat. "Kurosaki didn't want you to know, Chief," he began, while Hisoka's heart hammered in dread of what he was going to say next, "but he, well, overindulged at the Count's party. Not on purpose. It seems someone, who shall remain nameless, plied Kurosaki with liquor while telling him it was a soft drink."

"I'm gonna box that Natsume's ears when I see him," Watari muttered under his breath. So much for remaining nameless. Though if their bespectacled young colleague wanted to defend himself, he should have answered his email and been here by now, too.

At least Watari's outburst lent credibility to Tatsumi's explanation. "Why don't you tell the chief what you told me," Tatsumi said to Hisoka. But it was the reassuring hand he placed on Hisoka's shoulder that made Hisoka's mind for him.

Taking a deep breath, Hisoka repeated the alibi as he received it down through Tatsumi's touch. "When I caught up with Tsuzuki, I took him back to my apartment, thinking it would be the best place to keep watch over him. He was clearly distraught and I thought maybe I could calm him down before work in the morning, but . . . well, I guess the alcohol and the strength of his emotions took a toll on me because I fell asleep. I didn't mean to. But when I woke up, Tsuzuki was gone, and the mask with him."

It was a pretty good lie too, just close enough to the truth that Hisoka could swear to it. He had gone back to his apartment before everyone got to the office, accompanied by Tatsumi. For moral support as well as Hisoka's safety. Just in case Tsuzuki was still there.

He wasn't. But the recent emotions of that place were hard enough to face, Hisoka didn't think he would have had the courage to go back so soon alone. He stayed just long enough to change out of his tux. And to be certain he still couldn't get a sense of where Tsuzuki had gone.

"What about your tracking spell?" said Konoe. "This is the sort of situation King Enma must have been thinking of when he ordered it placed on you two."

Hisoka shook his head apologetically. "It hasn't been working since I woke up. I don't know why."

"You'd have to be incredibly powerful and familiar with these kinds of spells to know how to even begin to tamper with it," Wakaba said. "You don't suppose Tsuzuki just got lucky and stumbled on a way to fool it, do you?"

"What, like burning it off with fuda?" Watari said.

Wakaba didn't seem to think it could work that way. Although, "Tsuzuki does know his fuda magic. Still. He'd be more likely to blast his hand off than alter a spell like that."

"Tsuzuki may be powerful, but if he's an accidental genius, I haven't seen any proof of it in forty years working with him," their chief grumbled.

"Could be the Count's mask of invisibility interfering with your ability to track him," Watari suggested with a shrug. "The fact is we just don't know what that thing is capable of."

Wakaba hummed, giving it some serious thought, but Hisoka said, "I doubt it. Tsuzuki was wearing it when I first caught up with him, so I didn't see him right away. I thought maybe I'd interpreted the signal wrong. But I hadn't. The spell led me right to him, without fail. This is different. More like . . . like the connection's been severed."

Almost like a limb had been severed, Hisoka thought as he looked down at his wrist, and the scar of the locating spell still circling it, white and dead. Or a part of me has been severed. It was a queer sensation, but now that that tether to Tsuzuki's soul had been cut, his absence was like a solid thing to Hisoka, a persistent itch. A phantom partner. "There's just nothing there."

"Impossible," Wakaba insisted. "He must have found someone to fool the spell for him. But who?"

"There's another possibility," Tatsumi said. "That the reason you can no longer feel Tsuzuki, Kurosaki, is that he no longer exists."

The others didn't know what to say to that, so they were silent. No one wanted to believe it could be true, but there was a precedent of trying.

But Hisoka was certain that wasn't the case. "If Tsuzuki offed himself while the spell was still intact, I'm sure I would have felt that." Then he would have experienced something worse than phantom limb syndrome. If Tsuzuki tried to destroy himself, let alone if he succeeded, Hisoka was certain his whole world would have screamed it to him loud and clear. At very least, he would not have slept through it.

"Then I guess there's only one thing left to do!" Watari yawned as he stood and stretched his tired back. "No sleep tonight, my friends. Looks like we're gonna have to go looking for Tsuzuki on foot. I'll put on a pot of coffee—"

"I'll put on a pot of coffee," Wakaba cut him off, moving quickly toward the office coffee machine to head the scientist off. Even at a time like this, old mistrust died hard.

"I'll phone the Count," Konoe said as he reached for the landline unit on his desk. "He should be kept abreast of any developments concerning the search for his mask."

He may not have meant it, but Hisoka took an accusation from his words. He should have tried harder. He had one job, to keep Tsuzuki accounted for and out of trouble, and he'd failed. If he had just stayed—

But Hisoka didn't want to think about what might have happened to him if he had.

It was then that Terazuma rushed in, breathing hard. "Tatsumi, I just got your message. What did I miss?"

The coffee pot rattled so hard in the machine, it sounded as though it might crack. Perhaps from the ice in Wakaba's tone. "You sure took your time coming in, Hajime."

"I was asleep. Okay, Mom? The first good sleep I've gotten in months, as it turns out. Sorry, didn't hear my phone ring."

"Really? And where am I to suppose you got this mythical good sleep?"

"In my own bed. I do have my own apartment, you know—and Jesus, Kannuki, what's with the third degree all of a sudden? If a guy wants to sleep in his own bed on occasion, a guy deserves the right to sleep in his own bed! And get some peace and goddamn quiet."

"It's who you're sleeping in it with that's the problem."

"Huh?" When in occurred to Terazuma what she meant, he laughed. "Wait, you mean Kazuma?! You think I'm sleeping with Kazuma Shin? The gorilla woman?"

"Well, what am I supposed to think? You were dancing with her, Hajime, after swearing you don't dance and that you wouldn't dance with me! I saw the look you had on your face. All these years we've been partners, you've never once looked at me that way."

"Damn it, Kannuki, if you would stop being so goddamn jealous for one minute, you'd realize you're blowing this whole thing way out of proportion!"

Wakaba was barely holding it together. Hisoka could feel how fragile a facade the righteous anger was, how easily it could shatter and give way to the fear underneath if Terazuma didn't change the tone of his responses and soon. The lack of sleep was wearing on everyone, this new source of stress further unraveling already frayed nerves.

And Hisoka felt it all. It would have been one thing if it distracted from his own worries, but as it was, it just fed Yatonokami and heaped more rubble onto the weight of negative emotion that was already crushing his soul. He supposed it was a small blessing that he wasn't the center of attention for a little while, but it didn't feel like anything to be grateful for.

Tatsumi was warning his two coworkers to calm themselves and lower their voices, and they must have felt very strongly about the matter if they were ignoring even his threats of disciplinary action.

But Konoe's sudden gesturing did get their attention. As the others quieted their squabbling, drifting back toward his office, Konoe said, "Hold on, Count, I'm going to put you on speaker. I'd like you to tell my team what you just told me."

The cherry trees that surrounded the offices of the Judgment Bureau glowed in the night, like a violet afterimage on the back of the eyelids. Even on a moonless night, they seemed to produce a faint luminescence all their own. And in the quiet with no one else around, the stirring of their branches in the slightest breeze seemed like whispered gossip passed between them.

It was all a lie.

Worse than a lie. Hypocrisy. A reminder of the fragility and transience of life, but in an eternal, unchanging shape. Even the petals that fell from the blossoms during the day Tsuzuki was sure disappeared from the ground and were regrown at night. Those trees were a mockery of everything the living suffered for, of the truth and beauty they wasted their own lives and each others' pursuing.

And they weren't even real. Just an illusion, conjured up by a cruel god to torment the souls he kept suspended in animation. Giving them all something of home to remember their humanity by. Except without that crucial thing, transience, all those trees did was numb the dead to the steady march of time outside this world, so eternity might seem bearable. And life seem like nothing but a dream. . . .

And if life was a dream, then nothing they did was real, right? Just reap, those trees seemed to tell them, and don't worry yourself wondering how it feels. The farmer doesn't worry if the field can feel his scythe. Why should you?

It deserved to be destroyed, that illusion, that lie. Everyone who worked in the service of King Enma deserved to see the truth of who and what they served. And decide for themselves, whether despair was something worth fighting for, killing for. Whether a throne of bones was worth kneeling to.

It was up to Tsuzuki to tear down the proverbial curtain, once and for all. No one else had the will nor the power to do it. But he had his shikigami, and the Count's mask, and his own cursed blood on his side. When he was finished, Enma would regret not ending him when he had every chance.

The Judgment Bureau appeared empty at that time of night, no tiger-headed guards to bar his way. If there had been, they might have spotted him by the half-mask which seemed to float on its own through the halls. Surely security had been alerted to the theft and was already on the lookout for Tsuzuki and the Count's mask. He could practically feel the eyes glued to security monitors in dark rooms, scanning the feeds from the cameras he had passed beneath along the way for any sign of him.

But that didn't worry him. With any luck, he would have finished with his task before anyone could arrive to stop him.

Not that he needed luck.

"Taimou."

At her master's voice, the shadow that had been following him along the corners of the ceiling and floors coagulated, and reshaped itself as a tall, thin, humaniform black mist behind the floating mask.

"Behind that door," Tsuzuki told her, "is Juuohcho's mainframe. I wish to access it—but I need you to bypass the locks."

As if responding to the threat in his words—or, more likely, to Taimou's prying gaze—the charms that held the great doors locked closed flared into relief. Layered mandalas of arcane writing and forbidding symbols glowed like a three-dimensional neon sign, and from the center of it all stared an ornate, all-seeing eye.

Of which Taimou's was a mirror. "This will take a moment," she observed, that eye flickering and rolling as she set to work examining Enma's magic. "But I must warn you that even attempting to remove these spells will alert all guards in the surrounding area to our location—"

"Okay, but can you get us in?"

Taimou paused for a beat. Dare he say in concern? "Of course. However, once that is done, I fear your mask will no longer provide adequate protection."

In other words, Tsuzuki would have to prepare himself to receive company. Well-armed company, and a lot of it.

Tsuzuki looked over his shoulder, at the cameras in the corners that monitored that door. It didn't really matter what they saw or didn't. Or who came to greet him. He could handle anything Enma threw at him tonight. He had nothing else to lose.

"Break it down if you have to, Taimou. It's time we all stopped keeping so many secrets."

"Which way now?" Kazuma said as they came to a particularly hairy junction in the tunnels. Paths branched off every which way into the dark, each one looking very much like the next.

"Hold on," said Nonomiya, juggling flashlight and map. "If I remember right . . . Ah, yes. If we take the tunnel at two o'clock, it should lead to an area marked on the map as a bunker. At very least, it should be structurally sound enough to keep Dr. Sakuraiji safe."

Those words filled Ukyou with dread every time she heard them. As though with each repetition, something stalking her was summoned closer, and given new strength. It didn't help that her flashlight's beam only penetrated a little ways into the dark passages. The shadows of pillars seemed to move like living things with every swing of the light, and it didn't take much stretch of her imagination to think of the low fog that drifted through some of the tunnels as the breath of some subterranean beast.

"What exactly are we keeping her safe from?" Keijou spoke up, impatience clear in his tone of voice. "You still haven't said."

"Detective Imai received an anonymous warning—" Kazuma began, but Keijou cut her off.

"Yeah, so you keep saying. But a warning of what? You expect us to follow this rookie, but you won't even tell us what it is we're running from? Now, why in Hell should I trust you? Why should I take another step when, for all I know, you might be leading the doctor into a trap!"

"How could you even think that we, as Peacekeepers, would risk the life—" Nonomiya tried, but he would hear none of it.

"You weren't acting very much like a Peacekeeper when you decided you'd rather defend that renegade, Tsuzuki, over the law and order you swore to protect."

"My actions that night were justified. You were the one attacking fellow shinigami. I was only trying to mitigate the damage so no one would be permanently hurt!"

"I see. So Agrippina's demise was your failure, then. And what about all those bystanders who died in their sleep? Or was it only the souls of Summons agents that concerned you? Me and my partner were disposable to you, is that it?"

"Don't they have a right to know?" Imai whispered to her in the dark, and with a sigh, Kazuma relented. It was better than listening to Keijou and Nonomiya argue over who was more responsible for destroying Ukyou's home, in front of Ukyou no less, for the rest of the night.

Or so she thought. Needless to say, when Imai was done explaining what he had seen, no one was OK with the idea that dragons and a fiery inferno were coming their way.

"How sure are you about this?" Ukyou asked Imai. "You said it was a premonition, so that means there's a chance it might not happen. Right? That somebody can do something to stop it?"

Imai shook his head. "I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Maybe 'premonition' isn't the right word. It's more like time is screwed up in my head. I get these . . . flashes, these visions that feel just like memories, only they're memories of things that haven't happened yet. Things that will happen."

"And you're sure there's nothing we can do to change things?" Nonomiya tried one last time.

"We are doing something," Kazuma said. "We're preparing for the inevitable. So when it comes, maybe the effects won't be so bad." Though that argument sounded pretty weak even to her own ears.

"Then what are we doing lugging him around?" Keijou said, meaning Imai. "If he's the one seeing these things before they happen, making backwards memories or whatever, then that means he's present for them. We should be getting ourselves as far away from this albatross as we can."

Imai had half a mind to agree, but Kazuma had other ideas. Also, she apparently had little love to lose for Keijou. "He's our canary!" she shouted back. "And we need him. Imai's our early-warning system, the only one we have. If something's coming that could threaten Dr. Sakuraiji's life, don't you think it'd be useful to know what it is?"

"He's a distraction. At best. At worst, a big target painted on our backs that we can't afford with a mortal's life depending on us. We need to stay focused on our mission. Imai's too green to know what he's doing—"

"Your dissenting opinion has been noted, Agent Keijou, but the detective is staying with us. Unless there's some other problem you have with him that you're eager to share?"

Keijou clenched his jaw and wouldn't say any more. He'd made his misgivings clear.

"Now, if there's nothing else, let's pick up the pace. We don't know how long we have until . . . what we're waiting for comes to pass."

And with that, the five were back on their way.

They didn't get far when, out of nowhere, Imai suddenly shouted and braced himself and looked up at the ceiling.

"What's wrong?" Kazuma asked him in a voice close to a panic. Needless to say, she had been waiting for a dragon to show itself ever since Imai first told her about his vision.

Keijou, on the other hand, sighed his exasperation loudly.

"I don't know." But clearly Imai was expecting more. "I suddenly had a feeling like I was being shaken. If any of you've ever been in an earthquake—"

Before he could even finish, the tunnel around them shook violently. Nonomiya grabbed Ukyou and braced the two of them against the wall, covering Ukyou's body with her own. But whatever had just happened, it didn't do much but loosen a few chips of concrete from the ceiling.

"I don't think that was an earthquake," said Keijou when the shaking stopped. He seemed to be listening for something Nonomiya couldn't hear.

As did Kazuma. "It sounded like blasting. And it seemed to have come from the main campus. . . . Yes. Judgment Department."

"How can you tell from down here?" said Imai, but though Kazuma didn't say, Nonomiya suspected it was Kokushungei increasing the sensitivity of her hearing. She noticed Kazuma hadn't actually needed her flashlight beam to see where she was going, either, though she still carried one out of habit.

"Never mind that," Nonomiya said. "Why would anyone be blasting in Judgment. Unless—"

An alarm sounded, even in the underground, the ear-splitting blare echoing through the tunnels. "That's the intruder alert!" Nonomiya shouted over it. "There must have been a security breach!"

"We've got to get Dr. Sakuraiji bunkered down!" Kazuma yelled back. "This way!"

Nonomiya could not have agreed more. She handed Ukyou off to her partner as Kazuma and Imai led the way, and glanced back to make eye contact with Keijou.

But when she turned, it was only just in time to see him fading back into the darkness of the tunnel they had just come from. She was just about to ask him where in the world he thought he was going when Ukyou needed his protection, but the grin on his lips was one she could only describe as malicious. As difficult as Keijou could be to work with, Nonomiya had never seen him smile like that in all the years she had known him, and it chilled her to the core and froze her in her tracks.

His retinas glowed ominously from the shadows a full two seconds before he vanished completely. But Nonomiya couldn't risk going after him now. Ukyou's life depended on her.

Focalor allowed himself a chuckle as he strode through the underground labyrinth, Keijou's great coat billowing around him like the wings he had once had. Though he had no love for the man, he sent a silent thanks to Tsuzuki for the distraction. And what was more—

You've just made my job that much easier.

Of course he knew it was Tsuzuki who had caused the blast. He had been acting just unstable enough at the Count's party—stealing the Count's mask, of all things, definitely the act of a man who has taken leave of his senses—that Focalor would have been surprised if anyone else were responsible for it. He could also sense, like a change in the charge of the air, that Enma-cho's defenses had just been weakened. Ideally Focalor would have preferred to use Keijou's clearance within the Judgment Bureau to find a shortcut through the system, use Enma's own technology against him to open a portal. But, he supposed, one had to work with what one was given.

And what he had was a shinigami's body and a shinigami's powers, and knowledge of a soft spot in this world's membrane that he had passed along the way here. It would take only a little pressure to pop it like a bubble.

Keijou, naturally, resisted when he understood what Focalor planned to do. It was repugnant to everything he was and stood for as a shinigami to help the devil in his treasonous task.

But at this point he could do little but watch. Even without his consent, Focalor had been propagating himself inside the shinigami's body, a process which the endless supply of rich energy had made exponentially faster than when he had possessed mortal humans. Now he understood that Sargatanas hadn't been a fool for taking refuge inside one of Enma's trained dogs. Quite the contrary. His only mistake had been aiming for the top dog, when any old shinigami would have served his purposes just fine.

"Todoroki's still not answering his damn phone," Konoe announced, after returning his to its cradle with a slam.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Watari sang under his breath.

"Normally I would say yes, but under the circumstances . . ." Konoe would have liked to get in contact with anyone from the Peacekeeping Division at this point, but either no one was around at this time of night or none had the guts to answer their chief's phone for him. "How close are we to establishing a link to the security system?"

"I'm just about patched in," Watari said as he typed away at his setup, which now consisted of the monitors and CPUs from various workspaces cabled together, plus some equipment he had rushed over from his own office. Hisoka didn't understand what it was all supposed to do, but if it got them even a little closer to finding Tsuzuki, he was ready to do whatever was necessary to help, including staying out of Watari's way.

"Bingo!" Watari cracked his knuckles as an array of security camera feeds popped up on three of the monitors. "We now have access to the CCTV. If Tsuzuki passes by any of its cameras, we should know right away."

"Assuming Tsuzuki doesn't know exactly where they are and avoids them," Tatsumi said, leaning on the back of his coworker's chair as he watched over Watari's shoulder.

In the meantime, they had Terazuma and Wakaba and the other section teams popping into Tsuzuki's favorite haunts in the Living World, narrowing down the places he might have run off to by process of elimination. Tatsumi had sent Saya and Yuma to Peacekeeping, to find out from them directly why Summons' phone calls were being ignored. Not a task anyone in their department normally would have wanted, but Saya was determined to get answers for them soon, no doubt seeing the mission as her opportunity to prove herself worthy of Konoe's trust.

"I should be out there with everyone else," Hisoka muttered, growing impatient sitting around the office. "I'm not doing him or you guys any good here. At very least, I could be searching Juuohcho grounds—"

"Absolutely not," said Konoe, with a force that surprised Hisoka. "We'll need you close by when we do find Tsuzuki."

The emphasis on "when" didn't escape him. Neither did the chief's true feelings on the matter. And his fears. In case I have to talk him down, you mean.

But that wasn't the whole story. "We're wasting time, and you know that with my powers—"

"Your powers are exactly why I need you to stay put." The Count's warning had not been far from anyone's mind since they'd first heard it, even if they had all been hesitant to jump to conclusions or early accusations. Realizing he could no longer dance around the matter, Konoe sighed. "Look, Kurosaki, don't take this personally, but we can't ignore this threat that a dragon matching Kurikara's description is going to attack Enma-cho."

"But that's all it is at this point: a threat. I haven't even thought about— How can anyone even know that in advance? Are you really going to base your strategy on a premonition somebody had?"

"Not just a premonition. The person who delivered the information . . . Apparently he hasn't been wrong yet."

The chief was trying very hard not to reveal the identity of said person, but Hisoka could piece it together. It had to be that new Peacekeeping recruit, the former detective who'd accused Hisoka of his murder at the Count's party. He said Rikugou had killed him—and one of the powers Rikugou was known for was seeing the future. But how did they know that this "premonition" hadn't merely been invented by a man who wanted revenge for his own death?

"So you understand," Konoe went on, "we have to take every precaution—"

"By muzzling me?" Hisoka cursed under his breath. "This is ridiculous. Tsuzuki hasn't even done anything that would make me think of summoning Kurikara here. What if I swear that I won't summon him, no matter what happens?"

But Konoe shook his head.

"I can't sit here doing nothing, Chief! You know the longer Tsuzuki's out there, unaccounted for—and with the Count's mask . . ."

He didn't need to finish that threat. This night was starting to feel like a rerun. Like they'd been here before, and knew things would only get worse. It was all Hisoka could do to keep his heart from beating out of his throat with anxiety. He didn't need the power of foresight to feel that something awful was coming. And if there was something he could do to prevent it, that he wasn't being allowed to do—

"Once Natsume gets here," Tatsumi suggested, "he and I will conduct a thorough search of Juuohcho grounds. He knows all the shortcuts, and I know the places Tsuzuki visits most frequently." And he nodded in Hisoka's direction, as if to say, Would that be enough to reassure you?

"Sure," Watari said without looking up from his monitors. "If Natsume ever gets here. Still no mail, Bon?"

Hisoka checked his phone for what felt like the hundredth time in minutes. Still nothing.

"And no sign of K either," Tatsumi thought aloud.

Which, on the surface of things, was nothing unusual. She would be with Natsume, if she was doing her job properly. But it was the way Tatsumi voiced his concern that filled Hisoka with yet another unwelcome source of dread. He hoped Natsume would forgive him, but the time to keep quiet was over.

"I have some idea where they might be," he started to say.

But before he could get out more than that, an enormous boom shook the building around them, as if from an explosion. Hisoka, Tatsumi and the chief rushed to the windows to see if there was any visual indication of what had just happened. But if they were expecting some sort of fireball mushrooming into the sky, they were at least a little relieved to see none.

"Uh, security's indicating a breach in the offices of Judgment," Watari told them, "unauthorized access in the restricted zone, and whatever it was just blew through a whole slew of impossible-to-crack spells like they were wet tissue paper. Enma's Guard is mobilizing to respond and emergency lockdown is in place, but if our intruder made such quick work of the first set of locks, I don't see how well those are gonna hold. Shit . . ." A waver of fear in his voice: "The Judgment Bureau's mainframe is in the restricted zone. Though so far it looks like the only damage is to Environmental Controls—"

"They're already down," Konoe said.

Below them, the grove of cherry trees was gone.

Or perhaps, not gone, but not in bloom either. Where just minutes ago there had been purple clouds outside their office window, there was now a bleak stretch of dead, ashen ground and scraggily black tree trunks, their limbs reaching as though in desperation to escape some torment toward a lead-gray sky. It was the kind of landscape left after a devastating fire, a nuclear winter, with no brightness left in it. It was a vision of a certain kind of Hell, one of barrenness and despair.

It wasn't the first time Hisoka had seen Enma-cho as it really was, but there had been more immediate matters to preoccupy him that other time—namely Suzaku attacking anyone who tried to get close to Tsuzuki—that had kept the reality of it from soaking in.

That time Tsuzuki had been responsible for it, albeit inadvertently. Now Hisoka was sure he was to blame again, only with intention. Even without proof, even with the connection between them severed, Hisoka knew it was true. The bad way Tsuzuki had been in when Hisoka last saw him was damning enough. And he wanted to lash out in his frustration. It was happening again. Had happened again. And he hadn't done a damn thing to try and stop it.

"Holy shit . . ." Watari breathed, sounding as though he had just seen a ghost.

And when they turned to peer at the monitor with him, Hisoka understood why. Even being dead himself, and having seen the demons and monsters he'd seen in his career, he was not prepared for the image of a giant, man-shaped shadow loping through Judgment's halls, stretching itself into impossible lengths, dissolving itself over here and reforming over there. It was as if an alien had appeared in Juuohcho, and it almost seemed as though they were the ones being watched by this thing, down the wires and circuits and electrical signals that connected them to its image. Even Tatsumi's shadows weren't as intimidating. At least they were subject to his will and didn't have a mind of their own.

"Where in hell did that come from?" Hisoka heard himself ask.

"Tsuzuki," Tatsumi practically spat through his teeth. "It's one of his."

"You're certain?" said Konoe. Seemed none of them wanted to entertain what they knew to be true.

Tatsumi nodded. "Entirely. That's Taimou. I would recognize her anywhere. A mistress of forbidden magic."

And the awe in his voice when he whispered the last bit didn't escape Hisoka's notice. A shadow-user afraid of a shadow—should that concern them? Had Tatsumi seen Tsuzuki use her before? Hisoka remembered running into Taimou his first time in Gensoukai. Her facelessness had given him a start, but at least then she had looked more or less human.

"Wait. What kind of 'forbidden' are we talking about here?" Watari said when no one else spoke. "Blood magic or mind control, or . . ."

"A bit of all of the above, including breaking any and all manner of spells. If you were wondering how Judgment's defenses were cracked so easily," Tatsumi snapped his fingers at the computer screen, "there's your answer."

That would explain why the spell binding him to Tsuzuki no longer worked, too, Hisoka thought.

"Can she be stopped?" Konoe wanted to know.

"It's worth a try."

And before Hisoka could ask him what he meant, Tatsumi was heading briskly for the door without a glance back. Hisoka opened his mouth to tell him to wait, he was coming too—

But as if reading his mind, Konoe's hand on his shoulder and the command in it stopped him where he was.

"He needs help, Chief! We know where Tsuzuki is now, and Tatsumi can't face him alone—"

"You're the last person I want trying to help right now, Kurosaki!" Konoe shut him down. "Under no circumstances can we risk Kurikara coming to Meifu! You don't even know if you can control him! What we need right now is to contain the situation, stop the damage from spreading to other systems, and allow the proper authorities to do their jobs. Do you understand?"

Hisoka clamped down tight on the protest that threatened to burst out of him. Rationally, he knew Konoe had a point. Even if he promised not to summon Kurikara, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't break that promise as soon as it suited him. They couldn't risk it.

But the snake inside of him thought differently. It coiled and flexed and stretched itself out until he felt it pressing against the back of his throat, threatening to do the speaking for him. It was all Hisoka could do to repress it. He could feel its desires as his own, and it desired to rush to Tsuzuki's side. It desired to be released.

He glanced over at Watari, and saw the scientist staring back at him. Fear for Tatsumi written plain across his face. But also fear for Hisoka.

Or else fear of what he might do.

Another all-night hole-in-the-wall whiskey bar with no sign of Tsuzuki, or a floating mask. Wakaba sighed as she ticked it off her mental list of Tsuzuki's usual Tokyo haunts, hoping their coworkers were having better luck in Kyoto and Kyushu. Or any luck for that matter. Though she wasn't sure which counted as lucky: finding Tsuzuki drinking himself senseless somewhere in Chijou, or not finding him.

"You know," she said to Terazuma for what might have been the dozenth time that hour, "we'd cover more ground if we split up."

"No way. We can conserve our energy if we teleport together. We might need it later."

In other words, he wasn't letting her out of his sight. Not until they talked about earlier that evening.

So, Wakaba figured, they might as well just get it out of the way so they could focus on the task at hand. "If you're looking for the right time to apologize, you might as well just do it."

"Me? Apologize?" Terazuma snorted. "For what? I'm not the one making mountains out of molehills. The only thing I did with Kazuma was dance with her."

"But that's just it, Hajime! That's everything I wanted you to do with me! And for so long we couldn't. You knew how much it would mean to me to dance with you now that we could, and you took that away from me. How can you expect me to believe that it meant nothing to you when it meant everything to me?"

"Why is it even that important to you? You don't see me getting my panties in a twist when I see you dancing with Tsuzuki."

I will not get upset, Wakaba repeated to herself, knowing it wouldn't help her case to get teary-eyed over this. But it did matter to her. How could she ever get him to see that? "It's not the same—"

She was interrupted by both their cell phones chiming with a new message from Konoe. One of Tsuzuki's shikigami had been spotted in Meifu. In the offices of Judgment, to be exact. He couldn't be far away from it. All Summons officers were ordered to return immediately.

But before they could teleport, Terazuma seized her wrist. "Hajime, we have to go—"

"It was Shungei," he said before she could utter another word of protest. "That was who was I was dancing with. Okay? Kazuma's her host now, whether the two of us like it or not, and . . . Well, damn it, I missed her. That was the closest I'd been to Shungei in months. I did it for her sake, not for Kazuma's. And Kazuma certainly didn't do it for me."

How could I not have seen that? It must have been a highly compatible possession if Wakaba had missed all the signs.

Or maybe she'd simply been too happy to have Hajime all to herself for the first time ever to notice just how hard he was taking the loss. Here she'd felt something precious was being torn away from her, but Hajime had already had that precious thing taken from him, and he had been powerless to do anything about it. Could she really say she blamed him for wanting to feel, if only for a little while, what it was like to have it back?

"I wish you'd just told me," Wakaba said, not ready to say she was sorry. "I wouldn't have been so jealous."

"Mmm, somehow I don't think it would have made much difference—"

She punched him in the arm for that.

But after his "oof," Terazuma looked back at her with a softened expression. "Can we pick this up later, Kannuki? I promise, I'll be nothing but frank."

"I'll hold you to it," she said as she took his hand in hers to make the jump back home.

The blast that rocked the offices of the Judgment Bureau was muted down in Billing, but still startling enough to make K stop in her tracks and look up at the ceiling, just to make sure it didn't start caving in. Her ears and whiskers pointed forward, on alert for any signs of coming danger.

Structural integrity did not appear to be affected, however, nor did anyone arrive to stop her from her business, so she continued on her way toward the server rooms. If that blast was a sign of anything, it was that she didn't have much time to act. Natsume had been right to split up, after receiving that warning from Kira. K's talents were needed here. She just hoped he didn't do anything too stupid while she wasn't there to watch him.

"Another dead end," Kazuma sighed, shining her flashlight over the brick wall in front of them.

"Damn it!" Nonomiya pored over the map, going back over their route easily a dozen times, but she couldn't make it add up. "I was sure we were heading in the right direction! Either the scale is off or this map hasn't been updated in forever, because there should be a vault right here!"

"Let me take a look," Ukyou said, edging in.

While the three of them retraced their steps, Imai swung his beam over their surroundings. In part to make sure nothing was waiting in some dark corner to ambush them, in part to see if there was some clue that the passageway had been altered. There appeared to be an old archway within the section of brick, which might have once served as a door or window, but might also have been for structural support—

Bang! A gunshot rang out in Imai's head. He spun to see where it had come from—and saw Kazuma go down. The bullet must have struck her spine, he thought, because after that she didn't move—

He shook his head in shock, and everyone was still where he'd last seen them, Kazuma talking to Nonomiya and Sakuraiji. Another vision. . . .

But he didn't know when this one was going to come true, and he didn't want to take any chances. "Sempai!" he called out in warning, and even before she turned he was throwing himself on her, pushing her to the ground.

The shot did ring out then. Imai felt the bullet tear into his shoulder and through a lung and probably his liver before exiting out his back. He'd never been shot before, but it was every bit as awful as he'd always imagined. He couldn't even breathe for the pain. Forget that. He couldn't even move.

But if there was one consolation, he had changed the future from what he'd been shown in his vision. He hadn't thought that was possible.

"Imai . . . Imai!" Rolling the detective off her, Kazuma shook him when he failed to respond the first time. If he'd been alive, that wouldn't have been an immediately fatal wound. But seeing as he was dead, she expected some sort of response. Instead, Imai lay there as if stunned, stiff, only his jaw clenching in pain and his eyes rolling towards hers in panic to indicate he was still conscious. Just unable to talk or move.

Poisoned. And Kazuma knew what by. Which had to mean someone from her own department had fired the shot. Was this what Keijou had been planning when he left them? He hadn't bothered to hide his distrust of Imai. But what could he possibly hope to accomplish by attacking them?

Kazuma reached for her pistol—but stopped as if stunned herself when she heard the warning: "Next one goes through your spine, Agent Kazuma. Put your hands up and turn around slowly."

Kazuma did as told, seeing Nonomiya place herself as a shield in front of Ukyou. "Mind explaining what this is about, Chief?" she said, trying to keep her voice level when everything inside her—Kokushungei included—wanted nothing more than to tear Todoroki apart. "Mind telling us why you just shot one of your own agents?"

"Detective Imai?" Todoroki waved the name away with his free hand. "I have nothing against him. He just got in the way."

"You were aiming for me?"

Her chief grinned. "I had to do the math, Ms. Kazuma, neutralize the most difficult threat first. What can I say, I was supposed to have more help when I got here but I notice Mr. Keijou is no longer with you."

"He wandered off on his own a while back," Nonomiya said. "We don't know where he is."

"But now we know he was supposed to sell us out to you, so thanks for that," Kazuma growled, feeling her lip twitch into a smile as the Black Lion readied for a fight. "It's still three against one. We can take you before you get to Sakuraiji."

"I wouldn't recommend that," Natsume said, stepping out of the shadows to join Todoroki. He too leveled his weapon, a shotgun, at Kazuma, as he said in that deceptively calm and genial voice of his that she'd never quite trusted, "If you transform down here, this tunnel could come down and Dr. Sakuraiji could be crushed, or hit by a stray bullet. None of us wants that to happen, so I believe for now you have no choice but to do as we say."

"I can believe this of him," Kazuma said with a nod toward her boss, "but I can't believe you'd betray your friends, Natsume."

"Mr. Natsume betrayed no one," Todoroki said. "He was merely convinced that working for me would be the surest way to see his various transgressions against the Judgment Bureau expunged from his record."

She studied the young man's face to see if that was true, but either Natsume was very talented at not letting any emotion show through his immutable smile, or else he had gone over to Todoroki's side body and soul.

"I had hoped," the chief continued, "that I might convince the two of you to see the same sense and surrender yourselves peacefully, but I see I may have been reaching."

"We'll never let you harm Ukyou," Nonomiya vowed. "We will fight you both, tooth and nail, if that's what's necessary."

Todoroki just laughed at that. "But I have no intention of harming the doctor! No, I very much want her alive and well. Her and that child she carries."

Ukyou didn't understand. She thought for sure that Todoroki wanted her baby dead before it could be born. Wasn't that what all those wicked looks he had given her every time he saw her were meant to convey? His disgust at what he thought was Kazutaka's child?

"You too?" Kazuma scoffed. "Why does everyone want this baby? We both know you're not the fathering type, Chief."

"That child represents the next step in the evolution of the human race," Todoroki declared. As though they must have been idiots not to have figured out the answer for themselves. "It is a living example of humanity perfected! Just as its father is humanity perfected. But how could I expect the lot of you to know that? The records have been sealed for decades, and they only tell pieces of the story.

"But I remember. I was there with Dr. Muraki through the crucial stage. It was his dream, his life's greatest ambition to create the ideal human being—a superman, if you will—one that did not suffer from disease or decay or that infirmity we call a conscience—"

"Sounds like he's trying to create a psychopath," Kazuma spat. "No wonder Enma wants him dead."

But Todoroki shook his head. "Not Muraki Kazutaka. The grandfather, Yukitaka. It was his desire to raise humanity out of its base, animal nature by kickstarting a new race. My only regret was that I was not alive to see his success in person. That's why I've taken the liberty of summoning him here."

"Yukitaka?" Then, were the rumors that his soul had been erased just that? Rumors?

"Of course not." The chief of Peacekeeping grinned, and it rather reminded Ukyou of a shark moving in for the kill, its lips pulling back off the teeth. "I'm talking about his creation. His . . ." Todoroki chuckled, as if they all should have found the word as entertaining as he did: "grandson."

The smoke and vapors from chemical suppressants made Tsuzuki cough and his eyes burn, but it was worth a little discomfort to see the mess he had made of Enma-cho's environmental controls. It would take more than a hard reboot to repair that Gordian knot of melted slag and wires.

"You did not tell me this was what you planned to do once I got you in here."

He didn't care for the note of regret in Taimou's voice, faint though it might have been. "Would you have refused my orders if I had?"

"No. It is my pleasure to serve. However—"

"Then what difference does it make?"

The Judgment Bureau had bounced back from worse damage before, and in short order. But it would provide sufficient distraction while he accomplished what he needed to do. And in the meantime, every human soul who occupied and worked here would see Enma-cho for the place of desolation and despair that it truly was.

"Guards are closing in on our position."

Good, Tsuzuki thought. After that little explosion, he was itching for a fight. "I can handle them," he told Taimou. "What I need from you now is to locate the Kiseki. Can you do that, or do I need to call on someone else?"

He thought he detected a split-second's hesitation before she answered "Leave it to me, Master Tsuzuki," and vanished. Though he could not be sure whether her hesitation was concern for his safety, or for the rest of the building's.

True to Taimou's warnings, the first wave of guards arrived shortly after. Their snarling tiger faces and armor and spears might have been enough to stay Tsuzuki's hand with a sense of sacrilegious trespass before, but he was beyond concerns like that now. If he was going to blaspheme against his God, against Enma, then let it be completely. Let there be no doubt left in Enma's mind what he needed to do.

By habit, Tsuzuki reached into his tuxedo jacket for a fuda. But he had not thought to bring any to the Count's party, so there were none. That was alright. He did not actually need them.

The guards closed in, their spear tips lowered, ready to skewer him if that was what it took to restrain him. But Tsuzuki had a dynamo churning inside him. He let his anger and his thrill at destruction become his weapon, releasing a wave of telekinetic energy that slammed the guards hard enough into the walls to dent them and blew out the nearest lights.

It was satisfying, to hear the crunch of wall panels and bones, the crackle and pop of light fixtures. But it took enough out of Tsuzuki that he had to pause to catch his breath.

As he was doing so, the next wave of guards rushed forward to fill the void. He felt the edge of a halberd slice through his jacket and shirt and take a shallow gouge out of his side. He was lucky. If he had not been wearing the mask, no doubt the blade would have run him through.

And then, Tsuzuki thought, even as the halberd was still continuing along its line of thrust, he would have been in real trouble. Already he could feel the singeing pain of a venom-laced weapon. But Muraki had shown him how even that pain could be fought through. If he let it fuel him. If he let the spreading numbness dull not his senses, but his scruples.

He seized hold of the pole of the halberd as it passed and, his hands unseen, gave it a hard yank and thrust it back the other way. The guard was taken unawares, stumbling back as his own weapon hit him hard in his armored middle, and letting go. Tsuzuki sliced two more with the blade of it before the others blocked his blows. One of them swung down hard on the halberd's shaft, breaking it in half. Oh well. Weapon combat had never been Tsuzuki's forte, and he had a slight advantage using his bare hands and his feet, which his attackers could not see. They had only half a mask to aim for, and after a little difficulty, and more energy spent on deflection, Tsuzuki was able to dodge their blows and flee down the hall.

An "explode" command, hastily scrawled on a wall in his own blood, blew out another section of hallway as he ran and set off another, even more urgent-sounding alarm. But it wouldn't keep the guards off him for long. He could summon another one of his shikigami. Setting a tiger god on the half-tiger demons would have been a type of poetic justice, but he could not risk Byakko bringing down the building around him.

Daiin, Tsuzuki thought with a grin. Get the guards so drunk they would be falling over each other trying to follow him. Add Kouchin to the mix and they would be partying in the halls while Judgment burned. Oh, how Enma would torture his army for their failure then.

But Taimou materialized around him once again, and he sobered. "You found it? Already?"

"I will take you there now," she said, and Tsuzuki found himself being swirled up in darkness and spirited away before the next wave of guards could close in for the attack.

Ukyou reeled, catching herself against the rough, damp wall. Kazutaka's coming here?

No. Nonono, this was the last thing she needed! He would kill the baby. If anyone could find a way, he would. He was that determined to do it, and Ukyou wasn't sure anything she could say would convince him otherwise this time.

She wanted to scream that the child wasn't his, that it was Tsuzuki's. Only the thought that that might make it Todoroki's enemy stayed her. Even if she ultimately feared Kazutaka more, Todoroki was the immediate threat. And she did not know him as she knew Kazutaka.

"You invited Muraki Kazutaka here," Kazuma exploded, "to Meifu? Are you out of your fucking mind?! Why don't you just let the fox right into the fucking hen house, serve it a cup of tea while you're at it!"

"Now, Ms. Kazuma, is that any way to speak to your chief?"

"What chief? I don't see one around here. You're talking about committing treason! I can't believe Natsume would stand for it, either," she tried with a desperate look at the bespectacled young man.

But he met her gaze silently, before turning his eyes to Todoroki.

As for Nonomiya, though she trembled in outrage, Ukyou thought she caught the other woman muttering something under her breath. It sounded like a litany of some sort, but she didn't dare interrupt to find out.

"Is it?" Todoroki said. "Is it really treason when everything I've done has been to raise our race, yours and mine, up to the place it deserves? We are still human, after all, no matter what these shinigami bodies of ours are made of. And it isn't just the Living World that must be transformed. Look around you. Demons are fleeing Meifu left and right, and those who stay are subservient to mankind. Yet we still kowtow to the will of one man—who isn't even a man at all, but a demon," he snarled the word, as if it were mud to him, "answerable to no authority but himself."

"Your King is a god," Kazuma growled, as though that ought to explain everything he needed to understand.

But Todoroki just scoffed at the word. "Oh, I know what he is. God, demon—it's all the same thing, really. Our Great King Enma is a creature of darkness and dark ages—and he would keep us there with him if we let him. Look at the sort of behavior he allows of his most beloved subjects: wanton death and destruction! His own shinigami are more a threat to humanity than all the armies of Hell, and what does he do but grant a full pardon to his top murderer for hire? But then, can you blame him, when Tsuzuki brings in so many souls? No need to wait for nature to take its course with a cur as loyal as that!"

Kazuma should have known his hatred of Tsuzuki was at the heart of it. But could Todoroki really believe that justified deicide? "So the solution is a coup? What, are you going to put yourself on the throne?"

Todoroki shook his head. She still failed to grasp what to him was so obvious. But she would understand. Everyone would soon enough. "I'm not worthy to judge the dead. But there is someone who is. I, like the Baptist, am simply the one who paves the way for he who comes after me."

"Really, now. What makes you so certain your messiah even wants to rule over the dead, Major Todoroki?"

At the sound of that voice, Ukyou felt her blood run cold. The smile dropped from Natsume's face, but Todoroki glowed as though he had just heard God Himself speak his name.

A rapturous shudder ran through him, and he turned to face the figure stepping toward him out of the shadows. Surely the use of his rank from life was just icing on the cake, but it was vindication of everything he had devoted his career to, even after death. It was all he could do not to fall to his knees in awe. That might have come across as too sycophantic. But he did bow low, all the careful words he had prepared abandoning him now that he looked into that beatific face. "Dr. Muraki, I can't tell you what an honor—"

But he never got any farther as Muraki stepped forward to embrace him, and instead thrust a blade up under Todoroki's ribs.

Note: The chapter title, "Cave canem," is Latin for "Beware of dog".