Disclaimer: YnM does not equal mine. Equals Matsushita-san. I get no cash benefits/rewards for this. Mwahaha.

Warning: This is where the T rating comes into play. Watch out for violence and mild sexual situations.

Allos people. Another early update! For no reason other than I'm going to be super-busy very soon and might not have time to update. It's a longer chapter too.

Anyways, at least I'm a tiny bit popular o/ -whee-

Hey, Literary Eagle, -laughs- surprisingly that's how I had hoped people would react to him. He is like that! In the manga, Tatsumi can look very psycho with his butcher knife. Hehe.

Yo, happygreendragon! Aww, don't wilt. Tend to your petals! –v- Thanks for the review! I'm glad you like my writing. –grin-

Thanks to all who're reading, and a double thanks for the feedback I get!

Blarggle, I don't have much to say this time around. I had to make up more OCs for the Godotenrincho department, 'cause the only mention of them up to vol. 8 was that Asuka (One of Tsuzuki's ex-partners in the manga) transferred from there.
–cries- I wish I had the money to obtain vol. 9.

I let your touch cool my weather veins

and I let you press a greenstone in my palm,

turning and turning the amulet of calm

as the moon slid out her reddened eclipsed eye.

I could have lived like that in the dark.'

--"Being in the cave of time" by Sara Berkeley

Unbelievable. Watari's face warped with another decade of age hovered over the concoction. Nothing I have seems to nullify the staying effects the coffee had on the potion! He hummed merrily, mind distracted by the possibilities of coffee's addition to several choice potions. How useful!

003 cooed, concerned with Watari's aged face and the white streaks through his hair.

"Yo, doc—" Terazuma stopped mid-step holding the door open, and stared openly at Watari cigarette falling from his lips. He smirked maliciously then he thought better than to bait him, not wanting to piss the potion tinker off, remembering the last time he did. He tapped his pack and gripped a new cigarette between his teeth, placing the pack back from whence it came. "Didja finish it yet or not?"

Watari eyes affixed to the list of ingredients, waved his hand towards a small box. "Take it, take it."

Giving him a fanged grin and a grunt of thanks, Terazuma scooped the box under his arm and walked out, never keen to stay around Watari long especially when he was distracted.

How right he was to leave because at that moment, Watari's hand accidentally knocked the half-formed antidote over into a chemical bath, which sloshed over his active Bunsen burner.

"Oops!" Watari yelped.

A large explosion blew out the door followed by smoke as Terazuma continued to walk down the hall, hands in his pockets, and head ducking luckily right before a piece of the door bounced over his head.

People from the surrounding offices with fire extinguishers in hand rushed by him to help quell the errant fires and dig the resident scientist out.

Meanwhile, he entered the office he shared with Wakaba.

'Can someone please explain to me why Tsuzuki and I keep getting crappy hotel rooms?'

is what Tsuzuki imagined Hisoka'd say once he saw the room.

He set his bag down; sitting on the single, large bed in the room. It was a misbooking, but there were no doubles vacant, and he didn't have enough money to his name to get a different hotel room.

He laid back, resisting the urge to twiddle his thumbs and stare at the door restlessly. After the first case of sending a soul off early yesterday afternoon (after they had a quick snack), they found no clue on who murdered all those people, since that soul, though his death was unfortunate, was uninvolved in the plot.

At present, this minor assignment was a case of tampering with occult in college. Less clumsy and better educated in the past 100 years of scientific breakthroughs than Tsuzuki was, Hisoka took on the role of an intern and teacher's assistant at some kind of chemistry lab. Tsuzuki had enrolled as a mere student.

Staring up at the ceiling, he traced over the patterns on the fan's blades. It'd been so long since the last time he got to mingle and pretend to be as young as he looked, but this waiting-for-Hisoka was killing him with impatience.

They both agreed that it would have looked too conspicuous if he had waited hours on campus after-school for him; he rolled over smashing his face into a pillow.

The fumbling sound of a key in the lock alerted him and the door swung open. Tsuzuki was immediately up, leaning against the wall, head tilted curiously.

"Welcome back! How was it?"

Hisoka sidestepped and moved past him and dropped the bag by the desk, shrugging off his suit jacket. "Annoying. I got invited to an occult meeting tomorrow night, and I suspect it deals with Necromancing. I—" He stopped noticing the bed. He grimaced angrily. "I thought we had a double."

"I know, I know. I'll sleep on the floor."

"No."

I blinked, and laughed worriedly. "I can't take the bed myself; you have to 'work' longer hours than I do anyway."

He turned his head sharply and pinned me with his eyes. "…"

Huh? Furiously blinking more, my mouth hung open before catching myself, feeling a faint blush on my cheeks. He wants to sleep in the same bed? Easily banishing the blood from my face with a firm shake of my head, I spoke cheerfully. "We're taking turns sharing a bed then! You sleep for 7 hours, then it's my turn."

He sighed at me, grabbing a change of clothes and shut himself in the bathroom.

What was that? Baffled by his actions, I couldn't stop feeling warmed by my partner's offer. He probably was having trouble sleeping and needed me to get sleep. I dressed myself in pajamas and pulled the cover up and comfortably tucked myself in, happily drifting to sleep.

"How weird."

Gray eyes blinked holding the camera steady, and checked the viewfinder again.

"Find something?"

Moonlight streamed in through the small side window from a half-waxed moon. This late at night was the only time that the reclusive storekeeper left his shop. The blank stares of dolls hiding in the shadows could have frightened any child.

"I'm seeing a faint aura signature coming from the trash heap in the corner."

Feet stepping lightly over the creaky, wooden floor, she reached into the pile pulling bits of fake hair and broken appendages away. Her hands stopped when she uncovered a half-burned out doll, missing an arm, both legs, and a hand.

She pulled it into the moonlight to get a good look at it; one of the eyes that hadn't melted stared with its empty indigo blue eyes, and long golden-brown curls and bangs of what was left of its hair used to be tucked under a fluffy dark-colored bonnet trimmed in blackened white lace; the bonnet was currently lying on the ground. It had originally been tied under the doll's cracked and scorched face, but the fabric that had tied it in place was gone and it had tumbled merrily off when Nui's hand lifted the doll up.

Sensing the spirit they had been searching for, she knew it no longer took refuge within the doll. The browned and blackened pieces of what might have been an ornately elaborate dress fell apart in her hands, while Sachiya capped the lens of his camera and placed it back into his bag.

"What do you think?" She asked her rookie partner, fingers toying over the scorched doll.

"The old man had been troubled by a possessed doll and he destroyed it, but only managed to set it free?"

"No…" She flipped the doll over and slipped her forefinger and middle carefully under the back of the dress and pulled out a wilted, yet magically intact slip of paper with markings all over it. "Something or someone trapped our target into this doll." She held the fuda up for him to look at. "I know for a fact that this is meant to seal the spirit's movements, but I bet that it's also the cause why no one found the poor bastard to send him on his way for so long." After temporarily locking its power with a few chants, she pocketed the slip of paper. Watari-san would love to research this. "Though if this talisman is still intact then I don't know how the soul could have escaped…"

" You mean it's not in that? Um.. So where's it?"

"behind you"

At the barely breathed-out whisper, they both spun around; Nui suddenly with several lit cigarettes in hand, and Sachiya with his camera.

Eyes so dark they reflected nothing, stared at them; his arms relaxed to his sides and barefoot, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. His pale skin clashed with his simple, brown clothes.

This kid looks harmless…

"What are you doing Kato!" His partner barked at him.

Snapped from his immobile state, he raised his camera up to take aim, but he was thrown back slamming through the wooden wall.

After landing a roundhouse kick on the Shinigami's jaw snapping the neck only in part-dislocation, the boy landed delicately on his toes, before gracefully flattening them to stand. Focusing his attention on the other, smoke surrounded him like fog, clouding his line of sight; his head jerked in funny angles as his ki sense reflected in on itself, and then his leg caught fire. He could not acknowledge it or the pain brimming up as he felt flesh melt and drip and reform, even as the fire traveled higher and higher. His unfeeling eyes turned instinctively to her, even while the smell of his flesh burning reached his nose.

Mother of hells. While the soul had been busy taking down her partner, Nui had thrown the cigarettes down in dual reversed triangles in the area where she guessed the freakishly strong boy would step. Once he had stepped back into it he was trapped, and, muttering a few more chants to seal off the illusion spell, she grabbed her comatose partner kicking off her high heels. Lugging the drama queen over her shoulder, she ran like the fangs of a thousand widow spiders were grasping at her heels.

This was supposed to be an easy job! She cursed her bureaucratic job and its informational shortcomings. She halted, holding up a hand with a barrier fuda in it just in time for a wall of tendrils made with lightning to lick at her defenses. She guessed at that moment that she would be overpowered within the hour, approximating the power of her opponent. Her ability was not cut out for long-drawn out battles, and she didn't want to chance a transitioning in the middle of a spiritual fight. That could get messy.

Tucking the kekkai fuda into her waist band and setting her partner down, she made a few gestures writing a spell into the air from memory over Kato's form, then held her hands in prayer, eyes closed and concentrating hard. "I command and implore thee, the Sprite of wind with agile care, the speed of Gods, take form, Cirrus!"

A puff of smoke appeared in front of her.

Don't argue with me. You can only take one. Now go! "Return home!"

The wisp made a keening noise, as it spiraled into a vortex of wind and picked the unconscious one up; as the wind howled, both strange cloud and teen faded from view.

Her weary coal-black eyes aflame with glee; she turned to her attacker, demonic power emanating from him. "Time to play, you little monster." Her hands pulled the lighters from their strapped positions on her belt and flicked them open, green fire springing forth.

It was a full two-thirds of an hour before he left the bathroom fully dressed; steam roiled out when the door opened.

Why had he bothered to suggest they use the same bed?

Normally he would have thrown himself on the floor with a pillow and curled up by now, but he also knew that that was childish and stupid to follow through with. It couldn't hurt to get another night of decent rest, right?

With a stake of irritation he acquired his travel pillow from his bag, and moved under the sheet. He curled up on his side head nestled on it, pushing the hotel pillow behind him, hating its moldy smell.

Some small part of him was frightened at logical conclusion of the observation that he made the morning before, what seemed longer than a day and a half ago. Things like that never hit him in full force until he had time to contemplate its implications. Things like Tsuzuki wanting a deeper relationship than Hisoka wanted to give. Getting stuck on that train of thought made him more ill-tempered, than ill-at-ease.

He had forced Tsuzuki to stay behind when all he wanted was self-destruction. He was selfish, and Tsuzuki was so absolutely determined on not blaming anyone, but himself, for the misfortunes that befell his friends. It was driving Hisoka crazy with agitated restlessness. He wanted Tsuzuki near him all the time, be his shoulder to cry on, and to protect Tsuzuki from his own mental demons. There was no way Hisoka was going to admit it though, not when he was unsure about it all.

Even when he wanted to fulfill Tsuzuki's wishes, he selfishly was too afraid to try; it irked him that Tsuzuki seemed to understand his insecurities and backed off whenever he felt uncomfortable. He would only think about himself, and it never ceased to stop agitating Hisoka.

Rolling over, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep without dropping some of his control, but somehow he'd have to manage. Staring at the wall, he went over a few of the simpler chemical reactions he'd done that day, adding this and that chemical, measuring and distilling, until he fell asleep; his control slipped of course.

There was dripping. A constant, drip-drip-drip. Can someone please turn that off?

He couldn't see though. He couldn't move. Yet, unerringly that drip-drip-drip sound continued irritatingly, until it morphed into a soft tihp-tap sound.

At last he opened an eye; a ceiling met his view. His eyes drifted down to the orangey glow of a sunset pouring through with the rapid tihp-tap sounds of the butterflies trying to get in. Shouldn't someone let the dead in? His sight vanished again; the dripping sound was back. It made him want to scream in frustration.

He was standing; a flurry of stilted whispering, speaking of barely harnessed violence, replaced the maddening noise until it nearly overwhelmed him.

What do you want? He shouted.

A tiny twisted voice of a child purred in answer. "They're all dead" The voice giggled.

What? Shocked, he glimpsed down at the smirking Tsuzuki-child.

"They want your body in return for..."

Bloodied hands and fingers grasped at him then as he let out a frightened cry, wrenching away from them. "..killed us!" "Murderer!" "Why did you—" "MONSTER!"

They clutched at his clothes, inhuman claws tearing through them easily into the soft flesh underneath as he screamed for forgiveness, another hooked his eye and tore it open rather than simply severing the optic nerve, yet they dug deeper splitting him open like a ripe melon through muscle and tendon towards the vulnerable organs— Hisoka jerked awake in a panic, hands instinctively over his face and gut, feeling sick.

Where the hell— I looked impulsively over at Tsuzuki, who hadn't so much as twitched. Concentrating a tad, the nightmare was still going as raw and violent, yet Tsuzuki didn't show any discomfort while he slept. Even in his sleep, he never asks for help. Fantastic. I thought grimly. Throwing the pillow between us off the bed, I carefully placed an arm around him, and awkwardly drew him close, even though I resisted the urge to pull away from the mental anguish wafting off of him.

Staunching the flow of insecurity and loneliness by empathically offering refuge from his fears, I began soothing Tsuzuki with calm and peaceful feelings, timidly testing out a few murmurs of reassurance I had heard from him before. I looked over his head, hand on his nape my fingers treading through his hair softly.

The reaction was almost instantaneous. Tsuzuki nuzzled my chest, clinging, yet insistently a voice from his subconscious told him he didn't deserve such attention. I about whacked that voice, but resisted and instead tussled with that doubt and self-loathing; it finally quieted when I allowed my warmth for him, my feelings of gratitude and contentment, to flow into him. His psyche gave up the struggle and curled up on itself, until I managed to coax him out of that too. He, however, continued to resist and slip past my advancements. I was already frustrated with his persistent self-worthlessness, but, even though I was starting to tire out with the constant scuffling with his psyche, I didn't want to give up. That's when a thought hit me; I could synchronize with him.

I had done it before several nights ago, and he had slept just fine.

But, it agitated me to think about it. I almost felt like I'd be unfairly invading his mind, Yet.. last time it hadn't seemed that way. It had… I couldn't think of a word to describe it.

Maybe synchronizing required both the recipient and trespasser to agree?

Before I could change my mind, I gathered him up in my arms, jittery and nervous, closing my eyes.

I didn't even remember passing out.

Sachiya, or as he preferred it Shade, woke up to concerned tired voices surrounding him.

"She's not back yet…" "…might be dead." "Poor Sachi." "…notified Enmacho…"

Jerking into a sitting up position, he swore loudly, since the last thing he could remember was underestimating his target, before being knocked liberally unconscious. He looked around the small, familiar medical ward of Godotenrincho, his area's department.

"What in god's name happened?"

His head jerked up to see the stern face of his boss, Imano.

"We were overwhelmed." He bowed his head forward, angry with himself for being overly eager and failing to back her up.

"I take it that the soul was corrupted by demonic power."

Sachiya nodded. "Very much."

"I see." The very short, petite department head, mused over the coincidence as she had done before. "There's not much we can do until reinforcements come, but right now I've been told they're out on assignment. There's been a messenger sent out to inform them."

"Thanks."

Already missing the familiar sight of her reliable agent, Hatakeyama Nui, and hoping for her safe return, Imano nodded at him and exited. She knew why her Shinigami subordinate had saved his life, even if it meant sacrificing her own, but kept the secret sealed behind her eyes. What good would it do to make such a sad truth known anyway?

Surrounding his bed, the few coworkers that were still there so late gave him soft, hopeful words too kind for his mistake. After managing to convince them that yes, he was alright, he miserably rolled over sulking. He was a failure here, and envied his time alive where there was only glaring success.

He couldn't let himself think Nui was dead; she was collected, smart, and very experienced. His young soul couldn't imagine that she was dead. She had to be alive.

With a loud growl his stomach intolerably let it be known that he was hungry. He brushed a hand through his hair as he sat up. Senda What's-his-face told him to take it easy and that not to worry since the best Shinigami team in the field would be arriving sometime soon. He nodded quietly and hardly ate anything in the breakroom, sipping down a mostly-cream cup of coffee. He remembered Nui laughing because he couldn't drink anything bitter without 'softening' it up. She wasn't gone, he told himself firmly. She'll be back. Leaning his head against his arm on the table, he dozed off, limp fingers still clutching at the cup in his left hand.

Light.. Warmth.

Violet eyes. Pupils dilating in pleasure.

Smiling softly, touching caressing reassuring gently.

Pushed against. Above me.

His head bent back, eyes closed, mouth loosened, tongue darting out to lick his dry lips.

My hands on his bare back.

He screamed my name.

I--

Winded, Hisoka violently pulled away as the erotic dream plowed down on him, kneeling by his bag and hurrying to the bathroom to shower and change. His mind was on autopilot and didn't slow down until there was a knock on the door.

His thoughts supplied him with a face and his body replied with a stiffening.

The shower had long since gone ice-cold, but he couldn't care less. He couldn't banish the look of pleasure he had 'seen' in the dream. Why did he feel so sick about it?

"You alright in there?" Tsuzuki's groggy voice spoke through the door.

His face burned. "I'll be out soon." For some reason his voice was deeper than usual and thick like molasses. Gods, it must sound so obvious.

Somewhat foggy from sleep and very mellow from pleasant dreaming, Tsuzuki scratched his chin, worried about his partner. It was two in the morning afterall. He had woken up from his partner's violent thrashing and was aware when he retreated to the bathroom. Tsuzuki knew that when he did that it meant he dreamt something that disturbed him.

Though he knew what kind of dream Hisoka had, Tsuzuki withheld jumping to conclusions or making assumptions. In fact he wasn't going to think about it; he was sure that Hisoka hadn't meant to share that dream with him.

There was an ethereal squeak-squeal, and he glanced over his shoulder

A messenger? He opened the window and it landed on his hand relaying an emergency situation in Chuubu. Replying that they'd be in Godotenrincho within the hour, he sent the magical courier on its way.

Automatically remembering Asuka who had transferred from that department, he tried to recall the last time when he was physically needed in Chuubu to take care of a case, and an old memory cropped up with the names of the Shinigami that had helped back him up.

Before he went much farther down memory lane, Tsuzuki moved himself towards the bathroom and talked through the door. "Hey, we gotta get ready to go; there's a major lead."

A muffled utterance answered him.

He grinned, knowing that though the dream had troubled Hisoka it hadn't made him any less callous, meaning that he would be okay in the amount of time they had to get ready.

Half an hour later, Hisoka emerged, lips not in the least hinting how cold his shower had been, and scrubbed clean; his dirty briefs stuffed in the trash.

It was going to be one long day.

TBC.

A/N: So this is really random, but when I was on some prescription pain meds wisdom teeth had been surgically removed, I hallucinated/dreamt small round tribbles furry things from Star Trek stole my eyes. Lemme tell you it freaked me out. I snapped out of it/woke up trying to get furry balls off of my face, yelling 'My eyes!'. I had zoned out/fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. My mom looked at me like I was nuts. I stopped taking them, and told my doctor who said it was ok, but if I felt very much in pain to keep taking them. Apparently hallucinations weren't that common a sideeffect, but aren't very rare. Weird huh?

-Authoress doesn't condone stopping medication without doctor's supervision!-