Author's Notes: Dun dun dun! Chapter one.
A couple of notes here: The anime puts a lot of stress on Nezumi's love of Shakespeare, and not a lot of emphasis on what Nezumi's love really is. Yes, Nezumi loves Shakespeare, but that's just one part of it. Nezumi loves reading. Period. Hand him a book and he will read it. Any subject, any genre, anything. It's one of the things I'm going to try and emphasize here, try being the key word.
Safu too, will be a part of this story. I didn't like her in the anime, but when I read the novels that changed, and though her part may be minimal in my story, I'm going to try and put a good face on her.
Also, this is where the story really starts! The first chapter was completely from Shion's point of view, but it's the only chapter that I plan on being that way. I plan on skipping mostly between Nezumi and Shion's POV, with occasional other POVs thrown in there.
Anyway, enjoy!
When Nezumi looked back to that day, he thought of Shion. It was not what he should have thought of. In all other cases, the darker events overshadowed the lighter ones, and by using that logic, it was the nameless, faceless men that should have popped into his thoughts time after time. It wasn't. It was Shion, his grinning, his pulling...his kindness.
Humanity was not kind. The common animal held more kindness in its soul than any human Nezumi had ever met - minus Shion, his marked one. Shion's face, Shion's actions, Shion's oddities, they were so fresh in his mind that it was sometimes hard to believe that four years to the day had passed. It was hard to believe that today was the day. It felt weird.
For a moment, Nezumi smiled to himself. That word, it was the word he had used in abundance that day. Shock had led to that. His vocabulary, usually so large, had been reduced to weird. It had been a lucky thing that weird was exactly the word to describe that night- that person. Weird. He had said that his kiss was a reward, but in truth Nezumi knew it would quickly become a burden for Shion, a steep increase to the debt that was owed.
Today was the day. It was time to make good on this debt. It was time to start making good on his bet.
A man walked by him, and said something above the din of noise that was Shinjuku. Smile. Nezumi was pretty sure that's what it had been. He could hear the full phrase in his head right now, "Smile, you look prettier that way." It was something men said to women. It was something that women hated being told, and though Nezumi wasn't a woman, he was often mistaken for one, ( a compliment really, a nod toward his face and delicate features that he had only grown moreso the older he got, ) and Nezumi hated that phrase just as much as any woman.
Most days being told to smile would draw a woman's voice out of him, yes, a woman's voice, a rather violent gesture, and a soft, yet awfully clear, "Fuck off." Not today. He didn't have the time today. Today Nezumi shook his head, moving his hair out of his eyes, and he drew his hood up over his hair, to avoid any other verbal irritations that he could not afford.
As he continued to walk, he let his fingers play with the edges of the hood, well, it wasn't really a hood, it was a cloth, a very special cloth. It wasn't something you could buy, no, it was, for lack of a better term, an experiment. What had they called it? Nezumi spent precious seconds trying to recall, ah, yes, superfibre. Lighter, stronger, more durable, and more portable than Kevlar. If wrapped correctly, it could take a bullet, or an explosion, or, oh, hell, while they were at it, they would just go ahead and say it would resist radiation too. Nezumi wasn't too sure about that last claim, but it could be handy if it did...
Not that Nezumi expected the power plant to blow up.
He continued to fiddle with the hem of the cloth as he walked, his nerves beginning to build higher and higher. It was such a human thing, to look forward to something. Even more human to not know exactly which side of the tracks his nerves lay on. Was he excited? Or was he nervous? Knowing how he felt had always come easily to him. Knowing how he felt allowed him to mask any emotions he had, allowing him to be placid even in the face of pain or threats. It became harder when he could not see or predict how he felt.
"Hello there," Nezumi quirked his lips up into a smile as he felt little paws clawing their way up his pants, his shirt, right up to his shoulder. It was a small nezumi, the brown one, he believed, though he was not able to properly see it. In greeting, the little nezumi pushed its nose against him, and its whiskers tickled his ear. "Are we waiting for our other friends?" Friends, the little nezumi, there were three of them, were the only creatures in the whole of the world that Nezumi called friend. They were much the same as his superfibre - experiments, cooked up in the same laboratory even, and stolen at the same time.
Nezumi had only intended to release the members of the species he called his namesake, and yet, oddly, they had stayed with him. He was unsure why, perhaps because they had never known kindness before Nezumi had snatched them from their mazes and wheels. If that were the case it was a sad thing; Nezumi was far from kind, so if he were preferable...well, it didn't matter. The little nezumi stayed with him, and in exchange for crackers and scant amounts of attention, they did his bidding. They were incredibly intelligent nezumi, as well they should have been, considering where he found them.
The brown one nudged his ear again, and instinctively, Nezumi brought his hand up to his shoulder. It tickled. "What is it?" He asked evenly, "If you have something to say, say it." He heard the smaller nezumi sniffing at his ear again, and, as it relayed its message, Nezumi's eyes grew wide.
Normally, he could not understand his friends so clearly. Between what he was and what they were there would be an understanding, often in the form of a riddle almost, or charades, something to be decoded. This was clear, almost as if the brown one had spoken Japanese with those little rodent teeth.
"Cheep - Cheep!" The simple translation: 'I found him.'
"Where?" There was no question of who the nezumi meant. Shion. The boy was normally a creature of intense habit, according to his friends. He had not seen the boy since he'd left that night, but as the day had grown closer, he'd wanted to know where he'd find him when the day came. Today was the day, and today, of all days, Shion had broken the habits the little nezumi had come to know so well.
"Cheep - Cheep!"
Nezumi clicked his tongue. The message was not clear this time. The message took its time forming in his mind, and even then, only as a riddle. He bit his lip as he wasted valuable time trying to decode it. "Where the faithful one waited." On his shoulder the brown one moved its head up and down in a nod that was just barely visible in his peripheral vision. So that was correct. Faithful one... "Hachiko. Shibuya Station." It was said as a statement, but the nezumi nodded its little head again, and Nezumi smiled fondly. "Thank you." They were so useful to him, and so much more dependable than humans. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cracker. The brown one took it gratefully, and Nezumi could hear it munching away on his shoulder.
Now that he knew where Shion was, it was time to get going. From another pocket he pulled his phone, old and pathetic as the thing was, set a number, and put it to his ear. One, two, three rings before the line was picked up. He didn't even wait for a greeting, "It's starting."
A thick male voice wafted over the phone, and Nezumi could almost swear he could smell the alcohol that inevitably lingered on the man's breath. "You're as rude as ever, Eve. What happened to hello?"
He didn't have time for this. "Whatever. It's starting."
"It is?"
Nezumi grit his teeth, his patience wearing thin. "Don't make me say it a third time."
"Right, right...starting..." Nezumi could hear shuffling of both feet and papers. Perhaps the man had been trying to write something again. He found he didn't particularly care. "What should I do?"
Nezumi resisted a roll of his eyes. The man was godless, ridiculous, and corrupt to boot, but he was useful. Not as useful as his friends, but useful enough for now, despite the apparent language barrier. "Get Mowgli-"
"Mowgli?"
There was a brick building here. Maybe if he banged his head against it he'd feel better about this man's lack of what Nezumi considered rudimentary knowledge. "The Jungle Book. Mowgli."
"I've never heard of it."
Of course he hadn't. Nezumi resisted both the temptation to try to reach through the phone and grab the man and the temptation to actually start describing the atrocious cartoon feature that most people connected with the book, with its ridiculous singing bears. No. He was not going to do it. "In The Jungle Book, Mowgli, the main character, is raised by wolves." There, he'd managed to remain perfectly calm and even, "Does that sound like anyone we know?"
There was a short pause, and Nezumi knew the drunkard had finally caught on. "You mean Inukashi."
Finally. "Yes. I meant Inukashi."
"But Inukashi was raised by dogs."
Oh the headache he was going to have before this week was over. Why had he picked this man? He had to remind himself, he was easily manipulated, and that would make the difference. "We can call him a Mowgli reject then. Whatever. Go get him. Meet me outside Shibuya Station in an hour. Wait for me. Are we clear?"
"I guess."
"Great." Without another word Nezumi ended the call. He would probably hear about how rude he was again, but caring about what that man thought of him was very low on his priority list. Very high on said list was getting to Shibuya Station.
He leaned against the brick building he'd previously been contemplating banging his head against and looked down at his feet. "Welcome back," Nezumi said with a wry smile. There sat his other two nezumi. They stared up at him with their beautiful grape colored eyes, waiting. Perhaps he was rude, but they were such polite little things, waiting for him to finish his conversation before chirruping at him for attention. "It's time to go." He knelt down for a moment, and the two nezumi, which were gray and black, hopped into his hand.
As the young man rose back up he spared his two friends rubs on their tiny skulls, to which they chirruped happily, and then they were placed on his shoulder, where they curled up in the folds of the superfibre, just as the brown one had after it had finished its cracker. They could sleep all they liked for now. They had done their job. Now it was time for Nezumi to do his.
He began to run. He needed a taxi. He didn't have much yen, he never did, but it didn't matter. Money would soon be worthless anyway.
"A whole year..." Shion shook his head in an almost disbelieving fashion. "That seems like forever."
"It will be three hundred sixty five days, fifty-two weeks, twelve months, or, as you put it, one year." Safu huffed as though annoyed, but the smile that graced her pretty face showed that her annoyance was fake. "One year isn't forever, Shion."
"I know," the boy bowed his head, properly chastened. "It's still a long time."
"Yeah..." Safu stirred her tea absently, eyes gently closed, her lips still turned upward in a smile. "It'll go by quickly though, you'll see."
"Hm...maybe." Shion let his somber expression go on for another moment, but then he smiled just as brightly as the girl across from him. "I'm excited for you though!" Foreign exchange. Safu was going to go to America. It truly was an exciting opportunity. He'd known about it for months, and still it seemed strange and new to him. Perhaps that was because it was Safu. Foreign culture, people relations, and language were hardly the things that Safu was interested in, yet, as Shion had started to mull it over more and more the more it started to make sense.
Shion had never known his father, but he'd always known his mother. Safu had never known either, instead she had been brought up by her loving, but elderly, grandmother. Said grandmother had died late last year, and the last of Safu's blood relations had disappeared, leaving her utterly alone. She had things to remember her by, scarves and sweaters that her grandmother had knitted for her with love laced in each stitch, but something to remember a person by was not always enough, Shion knew. Every time he looked in the mirror, he thought of that boy, but memory was not enough. Surely, it was the same for Safu.
Maybe a foreign exchange was exactly the change of pace she needed.
"Oh! A nezumi!" Upon hearing the word, Shion spun his head around to look in the direction Safu was looking. Sure enough, sitting in the window was a small nezumi. It was not his Nezumi, the boy he had cared for four years ago, but it was cute, with it's pink tail, brown fur, and grape colored eyes.
"That's absolutely disgusting!" It was also inside the restaurant. "Should we tell someone?" Without waiting for Shion to answer Safu began to look around for the nearest waiter. "We should tell someone. That's a health code violation-"
"It's fine."
The girl stilled. "What?"
"It's fine. Look at it. It's nowhere near the food, and it's really clean. Don't you think?" Shion thought it looked almost overly clean. Far too clean for the common sewer nezumi, and it was being so well behaved in its little corner. Perhaps it was someone's pet. It still didn't belong in a restaurant, but Shion didn't think it was worth making a fuss over.
Safu shifted her gaze between the nezumi and the boy a couple times and then shrugged. "Fine, but if I get sick there will be hell to pay."
"I can live with that."
They finished their meal, paid, and began to head out. As they passed Shion took one final look in the window. The nezumi was gone. Perhaps it had gone back to its master. Or perhaps the hostess had found it. Maybe he was biased, but Shion didn't want the creature to be hurt. Even now, four years later, he still felt protective over the boy who shared his name with a rodent. Somehow it felt like hurting a nezumi would be like hurting his Nezumi. He couldn't bear it.
Absently, Shion sighed, and ran a finger through his hair. He was used to it now, but his hair was not like that of others his age in Japan. His hair looked like pure white snow, though, if you looked closely enough, you'd see that it was translucent, rather than just white. A reminder of his time with Nezumi. There was another reminder too, but that one Shion hid under his clothes, even in the heat of summer. He'd considered hiding his hair too, dying it, but in the end he'd decided against it. Hiding the scar was one thing, but his hair...hiding his hair would be like hiding that night, even though he didn't really think the two were connected. He would not hide. He wanted to see Nezumi again.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Hm?"
Safu looked up at his face, her black eyes wide and curious. "I just want to know what's got you sighing."
"Oh," Shion gave a nervous laugh. Nezumi was not someone he talked about. His secret. Not even his mother knew much beyond the fact that someone had been there that night. He wasn't comfortable sharing his memories with other people, not even Safu, whom he held so dear. "I was just thinking about my hair. That's all."
"A delayed genetic defect, right? That's what you said." A huff of her breath and a puff of her cheeks betrayed that she wasn't quite convinced.
"That's what the doctors said." Truth be told, Shion wasn't sure they were right either. Both he and Safu shared a love of science, though distinctly different fields of it. Even at their young ages, they weren't easily fooled by the half truths doctors told their patients to keep them from panicking. "I can't exactly prove them wrong."
"Well. Someday, I will get to the bottom of it," his friend huffed again. "But for now, don't worry about it. You're great, just the way you are, Shion."
Shion smiled. A compliment from Safu was rare, and she never minced her words, so you knew it was genuine. "You're really great too, Safu," he called after her as they began to make their way into Shibuya Station. It was time to wait for Safu's train to arrive. When it came it would be the last time he'd see her for the entire year. She'd get on that train, from there she'd get on a plane, and from there...America, all the way on the other side of the planet.
He would miss her.
The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and he fell silent as they waited for Safu's train to arrive. This wasn't the time to be quiet, he knew. Now was the time to talk, because they couldn't do it face to face later, yet...no words came. It was Safu that finally broke the silence. "Shion."
His head jerked up to look at her. The smiles she had been wearing earlier were all gone, and in their place was a serious, determined look. "What is it?"
The girl took in a deep breath, opened her mouth, and then-
Off in the distance the train sounded, and Safu's face fell, all of her previous determination melted away like snow in the spring. "Nevermind."
"Hey, wait a-"
"A year."
"Hm?"
"I'll tell you when I get back in a year." The train began to roll into the station and all the people around them began to shuffle anxiously. "So wait for me, okay?" She smiled again, lighting up her pretty face, her black eyes warm, yet full of farewell. "It can be your reward, for waiting."
Shion opened his mouth to argue. Now that she had started to say whatever it was he was curious; as well she knew he would be! Yet, as he began to speak the doors hissed open, and his argument was lost among the din.
"A year," Safu repeated. "I will see you then."
Before another word could be said the crowd began to gently push their way into the train, swaying like the ocean before a storm started, and Shion had to stand perfectly still to avoid being swept along with the current of people. When he looked, Safu was gone, and a familiar loneliness gripped at his heart.
A year. It seemed like such a long time.
The station had mostly cleared out, but there were still enough people around that Shion shrugged his shoulders a little uncomfortably and made his way into an unoccupied corner to wait for his own train to arrive. It would be a little while, an hour or so, but he had nothing left to do but wait. Coming to Shibuya had been Safu's idea, a good way for her to spend her last afternoon here, and now that she was gone, the will to do anything but go home to Nerima was gone with her.
He closed his eyes, even though he knew he wouldn't fall asleep, he didn't need to watch for it, the sound would alert him to when he needed to get onto the platform again. It wouldn't be too long.
The sound around him was mostly that of people talking, or the sounds of shoes clicking on the floor, but the distinctness of these sounds was distorted by the station around them, the vibrations bouncing from wall to wall in echos. It made the station seem much larger than it really was, and Shion could only imagine the tunnels and tracks that ran for miles and miles across Tokyo.
At long last he could hear the train approaching, and Shion opened his eyes to make for the platform, only to stop short. Something was wrong. He wasn't just hearing the train coming into station, and he realized that the shaking under his feet wasn't just from the train either. A short gasp escaped his lips as he realized what was mixed in with the normal train station noises; it was an earthquake.
This was Japan. Earthquakes were a common occurrence, but Shion didn't think he'd ever felt one come on so strongly or quickly. As the shaking began to increase he heard people screaming, saw them running, but all Shion could do was press himself more tightly against the corner as dust began to fall from the ceiling of Shibuya Station, threatening to collapse upon them all. The the worst thing of all happened; the approaching train derailed.
A sound of utter horror escaped Shion's lips, unheard by anyone, including himself, as the train rammed into the station, crushing people in its path as it made its final stop into the wall across from him. Shion was unharmed, but he was perhaps the only one in the station to be so lucky. 'If I had chosen the other corner, I'd be dead' he thought to himself, and it was true. As it was, the wreckage was red with spatters of blood.
The quake had stopped somewhere between the train derailing and the train meeting the station wall, but Shion's legs shook so violently that it might as well as kept on going. He couldn't move. How could he move? He had witnessed something beyond his imagination. Never in a million years would he have ever thought something so awful would happen, yet there it was, right in front of his eyes, and he wasn't waking up. How could it possibly get worse?
From the wreckage there came noises and Shion's head snapped over to look. Survivors? It was possible, and if he had survived that, he'd want to get out of that train as fast as humanly possible. After a second of indecision he made to try and push himself out of his corner. He was alive. He was unharmed. It was his responsibility to try and help, yet the second he made to move one of the doors on the overturned train simply burst open and Shion stopped in his tracks. No human had that kind of strength...
So wasn't it logical that what came out of the train wasn't human?
What they were, Shion wasn't sure, but they were dark, shadowy shapes that seemed to ooze and slide out of the train car. They had legs, and at first they walked on all four, but as they touched the floor that the train had careened into they shifted into an upright position. One of them had antlers. One of them had claws. The last of them looked perfectly human in shape, but it had eyes. Those eyes were the most frightening thing Shion had seen yet. Round, the literal size of dinner plates, one black dot in the center, but the rest of it was colored, like a television when the picture faded in and out. It wasn't human. It didn't even seem real.
"A human." No mouths moved, yet Shion could hear them speaking in plain Japanese. "He's unharmed." The shaking in Shion's already jelly-like legs redoubled. They'd noticed him.
"Should we eat him?" The first voice had been calm, light, but this was low and grating, more animal-like.
"Kill." This one was hardly a voice at all, and as the word was spoken the third one, with its frightening eyes opened its face to reveal row after row of bright white, sharp, teeth. It didn't lunge at him to bite though, instead, something formed in its mouth, right where the uvula would normally be. Instinctively, Shion knew that if he were to be hit by that substance, whatever it was, he would die, yet fear rooted him to spot. He could not move.
Whatever it was, it was ejected from the creature's mouth, and Shion did all he could do; he closed his eyes and raised his arms to shield his face, his body bracing for the death he knew was coming.
He knew it was coming, yet it never came.
Shion felt it impact something, he felt something press against him because of it, and he even heard a grunt, but when he opened his eyes, all there was was black. Something, no, someone, had shielded him. Something shifted slightly, and light from the few still operating lamps gave form to the person in front of him. There was dark hair cut short just at the jawline so that it framed what was a very beautiful face perfectly, and long arms that circled around his head protectively. The hands attached to those arms held something. It seemed to be a cloth, or a cape. Shion's eyes took those things in, but they stopped short when the figure adjusted enough so that light caught in those eyes. They were breathtaking. They were gray.
"Nezumi."
A short bark of a laugh. "Long time, no see, Shion." Four years ago, it had been Nezumi's voice that had given away the fact that he was male, and it was the same way today. That face gave away nothing. Those eyes with their long lashes were equally untelling, but his voice, a deep timbre, marked him as male.
"Nezumi-!" He was cut short by a long finger being placed against his lips.
"There will be time for catchup later, but we have to get out of here first." Slowly, still shaking too much to do anything else, Shion nodded, and Nezumi pulled his finger away. "Good. Give me a second." Suddenly, with a rush and flutter of the cloth Nezumi turned and rose to his full height, pulling the cloth high over his head in a single motion, like a matador pulling the red cape away from the bull at the last moment.
He was graceful, Shion thought, perhaps more graceful than anyone Shion had ever seen before. Through his shock, he wished he could be like that.
"Back!" Nezumi shouted, his tone as authoritative as the word itself. "Away!" His voice lowered into a growl. "Or else."
To Shion's surprise the shadowy creatures obeyed his command. They seemed apprehensive in their movements, but he heard the one with the calm voice whisper, "The Voice..." After that all three of them began to babble amongst themselves, but Nezumi seemed not to care.
"That won't hold them long." With another graceful movement Nezumi turned back to Shion, one hand held out. "I need your phone."
"My phone?"
"Yes! Am I speaking some language you don't understand?! Your phone!"
Shion shook his head. "I don't have it." It was the truth. He'd left his phone at home, not wanting to be disturbed by anyone, not even his mother, as he spent this last afternoon with Safu.
...Safu. Shion shuddered. She, at least, would be safe from all this. She had probably already gotten off the train and to her plane.
In front of him, Nezumi cursed. "Dammit!" He bit down on the pad of his thumb. "There's no other choice." The young man reached deep into the pocket of his own pants and pulled out a phone. It looked older, but more than that Shion thought it looked like a custom. Custom made phones were expensive. Where had Nezumi gotten one? "Here!" The phone was tossed at him, and Shion fumbled for it, only just managing to grip on it of it before it clattered to the ground.
"Turn it on."
Shion hurried to obey him. He could see the prudence in doing so. Nezumi had said they didn't have long, and already he could see that the creatures were starting to inch forward again. Whatever Nezumi wanted, they had to do it now. "It's on."
"There's an app in the corner."
"Yeah?"
"Click it."
With the old, custom phone it took Shion's fingers a couple tried to get it right, but soon it opened, and what loaded up made no sense to him. "Demon Summoning App?"
"That's it. Hold it out toward me." The creatures were starting to gain a little more confidence now, and Nezumi's stature had become more defensive. What could he possibly hope to do against such monsters? They were already penned in. Even so, Shion continued to obey. Even if it meant his death he would trust the other boy, after all, he was the only hope he currently had. "Operation. Phone transfer."
The phone spoke back in the same sort of calm female voice that answered whenever Shion dialed a wrong number. "Code."
In turn, Nezumi's voice became just as calm, yet just as stilted. "Nine-Four-One-Six."
"Accepted. Name."
"Eve."
Eve? "Is that your name?" He'd always wondered. Nezumi was not a name, so was Eve his real name?
"No. It's just a handle. Now shut it."
Shion went to open his mouth again, only to stop short as the phone spoke again. "Accepted. Request processing."
"Process faster!" Nezumi snapped. One of the creatures, the one with the horns was almost within arm's reach of Nezumi. It had its arm reached out, clearly ready to do something like rip off his face, and Shion had no doubt that it could do it.
"Request for transfer accepted. Owner information uploading now."
"Fine! I'm acting - now!"
In his hands, the phone voiced its advice against any action until the process ( whatever it was ) was complete, but Nezumi was no longer listening. Shion could see that he didn't have the time to listen. The creatures had drawn too close to their position. He had to move. Shion had never seen anyone move so quickly. The creature had taken a swipe at him, and it seemed like Nezumi simply glided out of range, and as he did so, something jumped from his being, somehow latching itself onto the shadowy figure. It snarled in pain and recoiled.
"I did warn you." Nezumi's eyes narrowed. "My friends don't like it when someone tries to harm me." Friend? Shion wanted to ask what he meant, but the other boy was already speeding off, in his hand a knife that had seemed to simply appear out of nowhere. This time Nezumi was the aggressor, speeding into the clawed creature's personal space with ease, his knife making its way between what might have been its ribs without any apparent effort at all.
The clawed one gave off a shrill gasp, and then a resounding wail as Nezumi deftly removed his blade, only to plant it into the creature again as it fell forward, this time just at the base of its neck. It lay still. Nezumi had killed it.
"Phone transfer complete."
"Nezumi!"
"What?!"
"It says it's done."
The dark haired boy smirked, ripping his knife out of the creature's body. As it did so the creature seemed to simply crumble into ash, as though that was what it had been all along. "Great. I'll leave Sir Horns here to you then." Nezumi looked up. "Don't worry. He's already weakened. It should be easy, even for you."
Shion might have been offended, if he hadn't been so dumbfounded. What was he supposed to do? Before he could ask any such questions Nezumi had already engaged the one with the frightening colorful eyes, whipping a second knife from somewhere on his being and throwing it into the creature's shoulder. He couldn't ask Nezumi now. It would distract him.
"What would you like to do?"
Shion looked down at the phone. Previously, it had spoken to Nezumi, but now it seemed to be speaking to him. "Uhh..." He bit his lip, his eyes flitting from the phone's screen to the antlered creature, who had shaken off whatever had latched onto it, and was now approaching him. "I'd like to not get killed, please."
"Then choose a summon." Was it just Shion, or did the cool female voice somehow sound slightly amused?
"Any summon!" He had no idea what a summon was, or how it would help him, but it seemed like his only choice. He wanted to live.
"Processing." The creature was close now. It was so close that if it were breathing, Shion was sure he'd be feeling it, but there was nothing, no breath, no wind, no scent, and all that was somehow more frightening. It reached out to him in the same manner that it had to Nezumi, slowly, very slowly... "Request complete. Summoning Angel now." There was a flash of light, a high pitched scream, and then it cleared. Where the creature had been a girl stood, no, floated. She had wings and bright blonde hair. She looked like an angel indeed.
She turned to him, a smile on her face, and then she bowed, that blonde hair falling in her face. "I am happy to serve you, Master Shion." The voice was high and musical, but before any of that could register in his mind the angelic girl became a ball of light and disappeared into the phone.
He was shaking again. What had just happened? Moreover, where was Nezumi? He couldn't see him anywhere. His eyes flitted past the carnage all around him and toward the station entrance. Had he already left? It seemed likely, but Shion wasn't going to let him get away. Not this time. He had wanted to see this boy again for four years. He wasn't going to let another four go by, no matter what had just happened.
His gelatin-like legs carried him up the stairs and out into the sunlight. It was brighter than the now destroyed train station and he had to squint his eyes to see, but his hearing was perfect.
"Cheep - Cheep!"
Shion looked down, toward the sound, and at his feet was a small brown nezumi. It looked like... "You're the one from the restaurant!" The one that had looked so clean and well behaved. It had gotten away after all, but why was it here? He thought about it for a moment and then he remembered. The antlered creature, when it had first tried to attack Nezumi something had launched itself from him to the creature. Nezumi had called it a friend. "Was that you?" He asked the nezumi fondly, kneeling down and letting it climb into his open hand. "Are you Nezumi's friend?" The brown nezumi chirruped at him, and Shion smiled, feeling calmer than he had since before Safu had left. He would take that as a yes.
"Isn't it kind of ironic?" A harsh laugh drifted into his ear from his right. "All of Nezumi's friends are also nezumi."
Shion lifted his head in the direction that the voices had come from. Two people were approaching him. One was a child, and the other was an older man, perhaps his mother's age, maybe a little older. The child was dark from head to toe, from skin, to clothes, to hair, with wide, round eyes that held a certain curiosity to them. The older man was graying, with beady eyes. He wore a suit that went very well with his facial hair. They seemed like stark opposites. "Do you know Nezumi?"
"I know his phone when I see it," the child said, nodding curtly toward the very phone Shion held onto. "I know Nezumi would not part with it, not now. Why do you have it?"
A quiet chuckle emanated from the station behind him, and Nezumi came out lightly, tossing his hair out of his eyes. "Is it really so hard to believe that I would give someone a gift?"
"Yes," the child growled bluntly.
Nezumi sighed, his hand elegantly clutching at his chest in an overly dramatic way. "Inukashi, you wound me."
"I do no such thing."
Nezumi shrugged. "Perhaps not, but-"
"Inukashi?" Shion said, unable to restrain himself any longer. He was glad that Nezumi had reappeared unharmed, but now that the danger had apparently passed he was filled with questions. "As in a keeper of dogs?"
"Exactly so, and the old man," Nezumi gestured grandly toward the second of the new arrivals. "Is Rikiga, but you can call him whatever he wants. He responds to anything." Rikiga seemed perturbed by Nezumi's introduction, but Nezumi simply either ignored it, or didn't notice.
Politely, Shion bowed his head, "It's nice to meet you both." It wasn't as nice as it perhaps could have been, his shaking and shock at what had just happened were still very present, but that wasn't their fault, and Shion knew he shouldn't let it affect how he treated them.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Nezumi." The child turned their face back to look at him. "Everyone's gathering at 109. Are we going?"
Everyone? Shion glanced around him. It seemed to be true. Everyone. The streets around them, usually so full of life, were empty of people, and full of abandoned cars. "Why are they gathering there?"
Nezumi shrugged. "They want information about the earthquake and blackout. They think they'll get it there."
"Blackout? There were lights lit in the station."
"Yeah. Emergency lights. Those will soon be gone too."
"Well?" Inukashi's voice was beginning to rise with impatience and petulance.
"Calm down, my child," Nezumi smirked in what Shion could only call a condescending manner. "We're heading to Miyashita Park."
"Why there?" It was the first time Rikiga had spoken. He had the sort of deep voice that Shion would expect of someone of his age and size, but there was a bit of shrillness to it that had an air of constant disbelief. "Shouldn't we be trying to gather information too?"
"Why?" Nezumi's voice was sharp, and it left no room for argument. "We already know more than anyone at the 109 will know for two or three days." He rolled his neck a little. Even the smallest of movements from Nezumi was somehow exaggerated and graceful. "Soon people will flock to the more comfortable areas. We should be ahead of the trend."
Rikiga opened his mouth as though to argue with that very finite tone, but, as apparently thinking better of it, closed it again only a moment later. Nezumi nodded. "Let's go then. No point in waiting any longer." Those gray eyes peered over his shoulder back into the station. "More will come out soon." Shion shuddered, thinking back to what they had just faced. What were those things? He wanted to ask, fairly certain that Nezumi or one of the others could at least give him an idea of what they were, or even what had come out of Nezumi's phone, but before he could even take in the breath required for questioning Inukashi and Rikiga were making their way across the empty street. Only Nezumi lingered.
After a moment, Shion realized that the other boy was holding out a leather gloved hand for something. "Oh!" He placed the phone there, "Sorry."
"No." The phone was pushed back, not gently into his hand as Shion had done to him, but firmly into his chest, as though if he pushed hard enough it would adhere itself there. "It's yours now. I transferred it to you. I can't use it anymore."
"I'm-"
"Don't!" Nezumi began with a snap. "Say you're sorry. If you're sorry for taking my phone; Live. From this day forward that phone is your lifeline. You lose it, you die. Don't die. Do you understand?" Shion nodded. It was all he could do. "Good. I want my friend back."
As though on cue a small squeak came from Shion's shoulder. The brown nezumi! Shion had almost forgotten it. It clambered down his arm and onto Nezumi's hand. "I saw him earlier," he confided. "I was at a restaurant. He was there, in the window."
"Yes. He told me where you were." Nezumi used one gloved finger to stroke the small creature under its chin before it bounded away, disappearing into the cloth that he had wrapped around his shoulders. "He's the reason you're alive. You should thank him."
Shion nodded. "I will." Nezumi began to turn. "Nezumi."
"What?"
"If the phone is my lifeline; what's your lifeline?"
Nezumi paused for a moment. Shion couldn't help but think that he was contemplating how much he should give away. "Those things; they are called demons. The phone summons demons too. Fire with fire and all that. I don't need fire. I can do it myself. The phone only made it easier. I will be my own lifeline." With that Nezumi turned away from Shion and took off at a run after Inukashi and Rikiga. Shion followed.
When they arrived at Miyashita Park, it was almost empty. Nezumi and Inukashi picked out a spot together, a very green spot. Nezumi said those would go the fastest, once people started being ushered over, and Shion believed him. The grass was itchy, but it was softer than concrete. He was sure that roofed areas would be coveted too, but the sky was clear, so they didn't have to worry about rain.
"Why can't we just go home?" Rikiga moaned with a sigh, and Inukashi snorted at him.
"Home? What's home? You find a place to sleep and be grateful you have it, dammit."
"Inukashi is right," Nezumi said coolly. "For now, many buildings are going to be structurally unsound, because of the earthquake, and soon demons will start appearing where there are untapped cells. I don't want to be eaten in my sleep, but if that sounds preferable to you, old man..." He made a gesture toward the taller buildings in the distance, his meaning all too clear: You don't have to be here. I won't put up with your whining.
"Fine. I get it." Rikiga said haughtily, but Shion distinctly heard him muttering to himself. He heard "Eve" somewhere among those mutters. So the phone wasn't the only thing that knew Nezumi by that name. That was good to know.
While Rikiga muttered to himself, Nezumi paused by Inukashi. "Did you get everything I asked for?"
"Yeah," the pack that the child had been carrying was removed and unzipped so that Nezumi could peer inside. "All except that very last thing. I couldn't steal it, and I definitely couldn't afford it."
In one swift movement, Nezumi dismissed it. "I thought not. Don't worry about it. Everything else?"
"Yeah." They nodded at each other, and the bag was rezipped.
After that, they sat in silence for a little while, but soon it happened as Nezumi had said it would; people started filing in from the streets. They passed around their foursome with stares and glares, all of which Nezumi returned with the most winning of smiles. Shion couldn't smile. In the time that had passed his shock had melted away and he was left with worry. Safu was all right; he was almost certain of it, but his mother...she had been at work. What if something had happened to her? He couldn't bear the thought, and yet every time he thought he'd gathered the nerve to ask he stopped short. Not yet, he told himself. He'd ask in the morning. Maybe things would calm down by then. Maybe it would be over. Nezumi didn't seem to think that would be the case, but...maybe. Maybe Nezumi was wrong.
Soon after the park had begun to fill out people came by with blankets had food that had obviously been taken from refrigerators. That made sense, Shion supposed. It was only early autumn yet, if it wasn't eaten, this food would spoil. Better to lose the profit than to see it go to waste.
Inukashi had a very different take on it. "Man, one little tragedy and people are giving out food to everyone, but any other day of the year, you're shit out of luck if you don't have the cash." The child's head shook, long hair swaying back and forth. "I can't believe it."
"It just shows how false charity is," Nezumi said philosophically. "They only see the rotting underside when it takes over the entire beast. Don't worry about it too much. This won't last long."
Without light they all decided to retire soon after the sun went down. They couldn't do much without being able to see, so they all agreed that they needed their energy for the morning. They settled underneath the blankets they'd been given, and soon Inukashi and Rikiga's breathing evened out, but Shion couldn't fall asleep. He was cold. He'd worn a jacket today, and he had the blanket, but the clear autumn night kept him shivering. He tossed and turned back and forth, trying to keep quiet so he wouldn't wake the others, but...
"What am I going to do with you? You're such a pampered little prince." Nezumi's whisper was accompanied by an exasperated sigh. Shion felt extra weight fall on top of him and then a rush of cold as his blanket was lifted. He heard a small thud as a body laid itself behind him, and he gasped as a pair of long arms wrapped under his own, pulling him back into a chest. Nezumi's chest.
Instantly warmth flooded him, and the shivering subsided. "Better?" Nezumi's voice asked as he felt the other boy curl his body so that his forehead rested against the back of Shion's neck.
"Y-yeah. Thanks."
"Whatever. You were just keeping me up with that constant shifting, and it's not like I'm not getting warmth from you too." Shion smiled. Had Nezumi been cold too? It didn't seem like it. The arms that held him were strong and warm, no matter how cold his tone seemed. Warm. Warm was alive. Live. That was Nezumi had told him. He would live, he would not waste these gifts that Nezumi kept giving him.
He fell asleep to that thought.