Author's notes: -singing along to Survivor- :D

Disclaimer: I don't own YnM or the characters therein. Any plot deviations and OCs are mine though. :3

Warning: One brief mention of an OC. Watch out for violence and implied slashy sexual content too, kiddies.

Literary Eagle, thanks for the review! And I agree on both counts.

Stratus5, Tsuzuki is depressed, but he'll cheer up during this chapter! And some more Muraki-ness too. Imagining Watari freaking out amuses me too.

Thanks for reading and staying with me guys! I hope I'm not too rusty after six months of my computer's deadness and dust. –sweat- And wow no First POV amazing. :o

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"Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him."

-William Carleton

For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Then, Tsuzuki smiled and reached out to him murmuring his name softly. His face was caressed lightly by the tips of his partner's fingers as they brushed the hair off of his forehead. The numbing relief of not feeling anything but warm skin in the dream-reality was washed away by the amount of feelings that flooded through him by Tsuzuki's fingers. His breath caused Hisoka's hair to tickle his cheek when Tsuzuki sighed out an unnecessary, "I love you" more definite and confident than anything Hisoka had heard passing his lips before. Yet it was redundant to voice since Hisoka had been sensing it from him for the past few days.

"tsuzuki..." he managed shakily, uncertain and confused. He was far too aware of the situation for it to be a normal dream, and all the more aware of his emotional vulnerability due to his empathy and how fragile their partnership had become because of it. He was pulled into a hug, and his head drawn to Tsuzuki's chest, cheek to skin, his ear hearing his partner's heart beat. "Shh, it's okay 'Soka. It was only a bad dream right?"

Irked, Hisoka wondered how his brain could create such a realistic, vivid representation of his partner, yet forget that he was much larger than Tsuzuki now due to Watari's potion. He rolled his eyes and pulled away, sighing as he attempted to materialize some clothes and slip into another scene. Dreams with Tsuzuki didn't usually end well.

"Don't leave." Tsuzuki's tone and eyes demanded pitifully. "I don't.." Hisoka tugged his nightshirt out of Tsuzuki's grip, even as he silently heard 'wanna be alone anymore..' as the tail end of his sentence. Hisoka stood there, trying to persuade the scene to shift already assuming he had control when he had made clothing appear. The scene did shift. Right back to where it started, except Tsuzuki's being, his emotions and everything else that made him up, bored into him like a pin holding an insect in place. Hisoka forced his eyes open when he realized gentle hands were cupping his chin. Lips met his. Instantaneously, Hisoka felt their relationship dynamics slam to pieces.

The very nature of his nightmares disallowed his meddling and he knew he would not be able to escape from the hunger and possessiveness in those eyes. He surrendered, knowing better than to fight in dreams like these.

Baffling enough, as soon as he relinquished control, he returned the kiss heatedly. Tongue was actively involved; Hisoka didn't even have the experience to kiss that well. What he expected to devolve into a dark Tsuzuki-rape scene didn't seem at all to be. How could he be answering Tsuzuki's advances so eagerly?

Oh my gods, he thought distantly. He's the one dreaming.

It started off slow. Tsuzuki's hands and lips drifted lower running over his tense muscles the nightshirt slipping off as he heard murmured assurances. He felt the tension in his shoulders drain away. Feelings grew ever more knotted and indecipherable between each of them as their actions became more heated.

The next shift had him with his legs hooked over Tsuzuki's shoulders and his fingers digging into the thickness of his arms as they frantically pressed and slid together towards release.

He could feel both sides of the story, unable to lose himself in the madness of passion. Before either had reached an orgasm, Hisoka disconnected, woken partly from shock and partly because the dream Tsuzuki had locked him into had been far too alien in feeling. Where there should be pain, there was only intense pleasure, which had not only been intensified because of Tsuzuki's own pleasure, but because their joining lacked something else Hisoka was very familiar with. What that lack was eluded him. The part of him that had wanted to see the dream out, his curiousness, had been squashed when fear won out. In unfamiliar situations he could only run.

As he futilely tried to block out the flashing progression of images that stubbornly came to mind and the memory of touch with it, his arms, chest, and thighs tingled hotly. He realized with some surprise that his cursemarks were reacting to the dream he had just had, and rolling up his sleeve he discovered they were glowing an amber-orange color, rather than the crimson they were supposed to be. Re-covering his arm quickly, he settled down back into his bed, glad for once that he had woken up quietly. Through the door he heard the Hokkaido duo bantering idly with one another, and with some surprise he smelled something delicious wafting through the door.

The cursemarks were worrisome, but the dream bothered him more; it had been the dream that had been raw and underhanded in its moral because he personally couldn't agree with sex as not being agonizing between two men.

Then again Tsuzuki had been patient. The large majority of his time was spent on careful touching than the actual act. Hisoka found it puzzling. Wasn't love just an ideal that man tacked onto passion to separate it from lust? To somehow make it 'okay'? He frowned chewing on his bottom lip, for once wondering where he had learned that. He shuddered from a sudden perceived chill. He didn't know who, but considering his past his bet was on Muraki.

In light of this revelation, he cracked down on his own prejudices. The difference between love and lust then is that… He stopped realizing that besides what he thought he always knew, he didn't know anything. He contemplated on this for a bit until it occurred to him that he could compare memories of feelings from each emotion. So, he let himself more deeply feel out the memories of Tsuzuki's feelings whenever his partner thought of love, shaving off the bubbliness and other personality traits he normally had.

Once the general idea was firmly in mind, Hisoka hesitated doing the next step dreading even the vestigial memories of Muraki. He decided it would be better if Muraki hadn't been focused on him, and dredged up memories of Muraki's emotions, current and past, whenever the doctor lusted after Tsuzuki.

With startling clarity, it was a stark contrast of emotions, even ignoring the depth of Muraki's insanity. The difference was so complex that it couldn't be merely simplified into one sentence, but the fact that there was a definite contrast alleviated some of his worries with Tsuzuki. The physical attraction seemed to be the only thing the two emotions had in common, besides the overwhelmingness of both.

With some anxiety, Hisoka looked back at the dream Tsuzuki had unconsciously shared with him, but he just couldn't compare it to his other, less appealing experiences since it was only Tsuzuki's fantasy, leaving any comparisons between the two irrelevant. It bothered him that because of that he couldn't also compare this experience to his other experiences.

The only obvious conclusion about sexual intercourse he could settle on was that if he had no choice in the matter of doing it, he would choose Tsuzuki over Muraki.

However, he was aware that this particular choice could not help him determine his feelings concerning his partner because, if it was a choice between someone and Muraki, he would choose the one that wasn't his murderer. The one who hadn't raped him: body, soul, and mind. Of course if he had any choice at all, he wouldn't have sex with either of them.

He chuckled darkly. Maybe the owner of that brothel had a point. Maybe he really did hate Muraki more than he cherished Tsuzuki, and a part of him was a little sad at that. Did Tsuzuki really mean that little to him?

Hisoka wondered bitterly if his premature death would keep him stunted forever in terms of how emotionally similar to a kid he was, but then discarded that thought because he didn't believe in forever. Forever didn't exist and neither did a painful hard-on from a stupid synchronized dream.

Slipping into something more loose-fitting, he laid back down. Though he wasn't a masochist, he coasted on the familiar feeling of pain, and eventually it subsided as he went soft. Just in time too.

"Hisoookaaa!" They jerked open the door, hands bearing gifts of a light dinner: pan-fried vegetables, some steamed rice with braised fish, and a small cup of green tea. "Time to eat!"

After his shower, Tsuzuki hadn't been sure what to do with himself. There was a television, but he had never found them to hold his attention for more than ten minutes at a time.

He had ended up falling asleep sitting up against the headboard, reading through some reports on the case by some of the Demon Exorcist agents, having been emotionally exhausted worrying over Hisoka and taking care of the case though he hardly did anything about either of them.

The next moment of coherency had him blinking the sleepy haze out of his eyes for several moments. Perverted dreams about Hisoka aren't usually that.. sweet. He thought to himself, then blushed at the imagery of an eager Hisoka responding well to his touch. The dream had been more like what he would do for real if he was allowed such freedom of hands and mouth than what he usually dreamt. Then again Tsuzuki had been more aware of his actions.

Usually his dreams were incoherent and vague, and he'd have little control. For a brief moment, it had seemed clear in that erotic dream that Hisoka was merely an extension of himself, but that made no sense at all, beyond the typical 'I'm in love and he's my missing half' deduction. Even that deduction felt wrong, as the connection he had felt was deeper and more ingrained than a flippant desire processed by his subconscious. In the meantime, his hand would do the trick for the side effects of his dreaming.

After tidying himself up, he went back to reading the report he had found most interesting. Apparently a demon liaison that had been sent from hell by Ashtaroth to notify Enma of the whole fiasco had mentioned that they knew the renegade's whereabouts were somewhere north in the Chuubu region, meaning that Tsuzuki and his group were in the middle of things. Unknown to him, it had corroborated information Nui had gotten from the shopkeeper.

If only there was a lead, he could… He sat up straight adjusting his shirt to answer the loud banging on his door.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" Receiving a blank look from Tsuzuki, Sachiya passed over it. "Never mind. Let's get going! We've connected the missing people to the case."

Tsuzuki blinked taking his work-issued cell phone out and realized that the battery was dead. He'd have to re-charge it later. "There's more missing people?"

His temporary partner slapped his forehead. "You don't know 'cause you left the shop before the fat man spilled his guts. Yes, there's been quite a lot of reports around here if you hadn't been so—"

"Good Morrow, Zukin." Nui stated loudly, knocking Sachiya aside with a precise elbow. "There seems to be a correlation around a certain traditional inn that people have been disappearing from." She looked at Sachiya with a raised eyebrow.

Her partner scowled finishing her thought. "We'll be checking that out. So far only three people have gone missing, none of them particularly 'important', so the police haven't gotten quite frantic yet. I think they're holding on to the hope that they got lost or something."

Tsuzuki shrugged into his jacket, smiling. Sleep had done him good. "So where are we off to?"

"Tate-yama."

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They hadn't given their Demon Exorcist escort a thought. The poor sod was left wandering around city, unable to determine their signatures amid the chaotic searching forces of hell that had arrived a day before them and cursing left and right of all the bad luck he had, since he had only been given one of their phone numbers that didn't connect, and head office was too busy to be looking up any others.

He gave up, and decided that it would be best to just enjoy the time like a vacation; he hadn't had one in months. Of course he didn't notify anyone important that he lost his assigned group and was taking an impromptu break on company time.

In a freshly laundered man's darkly patterned kimono, the young man laid out onto a flat rock in the boulder-hills behind the Tateyama Ryokan nearly on the edge of the mountains. He was sure in his ability to hide, and how sweet humans tasted.

His new master was neither sweet nor graceful, but had let him free to do as he pleased as long as he stayed within range of his master's senses and stayed out of sight. However there was just something that felt so good about the sunlight on his skin. Instinctively he knew he was supposed to love the dark and all things in it, but the warmth was something he missed and secretly yearned for.

Then he felt them appear, and left towards the direction of his master's mental beckoning and into the sanctuary of the neglected temple shrine nearby. Cracked brittle bones were all that remained of the consumed local and foreign tourists.

Considering what just appeared at the inn, it would be a problem if he tried feeding again. Problem was, was that he was already hungry.

Terazuma frowned when they left the hospital where Takahashi Lily had died. The problem was that no child had been born by the records and thus no child had been registered as dead or missing.

"Well, that only means that Takahashi's wife died of complications of a failed miscarriage but no child was ever delivered." Watari restated.

It was very strange, either the demon who had started this whole bit had stolen the baby away and wiped the memories of the doctor and nurses in charge of its birth or Takahashi himself had delivered the baby at home and handed it directly to the shopkeeper before calling the ambulance. Very perplexing, though his gut was telling him it was the former since humans left too much behind of the truth to get away scot-free.

"And that gets us back to where we started." Wakaba huffed, crossing her arms in concentration.

Araki didn't comment knowing better than to say anything else ever since Terazuma had gone 'Black' on her, turning into the frightening Shikigami that inhabited him when she had let it slip that green of her ribbons was an ugly color for Wakaba before they had gotten to the hospital.

She had screamed frightened by his sudden change, legs frozen. The annoying scientist had grabbed her out of the way of the snarling, lunging beast. His slight partner had then slapped an ofuda on him and, changing back, he calmly took a proffered cigarette and lighter from her and lit it.

The look he sent Araki was one filled with murderous intent, and she, properly forewarned, stayed quiet. The only tribute left of the transformation had been a gutted brick wall into someone's private backyard, and a shredded pile of Terazuma's old clothes. Wakaba had wordlessly handed him a new set minus a coat from her knapsack.

As the Shinigami discussed their next course of action, her phone chirped. She answered, and then almost dropped it in surprise and fright. She held it out to Watari. "It's for you."

He answered jovially, but went quiet when he listened to whoever it was. "I understand." Hanging up, his eyes looked sharp as he looked at each one of them. "We've been ordered by Enma himself to take Muraki into Juuohcho custody."

Terazuma looked grim and tired, while Wakaba's mouth was a thin line of worry.

"Muraki?" Their exorcist escort asked curiously.

"A very dangerous man, still living. I s'pose Enma got tired of his meddling bullshit." Terazuma answered gruffly, the hand holding the almost burnt out cigarette muffling his words. "Or it might just be for questioning about his brother, who knows how a god thinks?"

"So you've been told to detain him without any preparation? No wonder you guys have such a high turnover rate. Now I'm not surprised that so many of you Shinigami die for all your near-immortality or fail on the job with so little consideration for time and planning for an attack."

Wakaba cleared her throat. "Araki-san, I know that you seem to be a very knowledgeable person, but I prefer to listen to advice on the matter, not a rant on our supposed incompetency. Muraki has been causing trouble for the Ministry for years and years. His intentions birthed one of our Shinigami, and single-handedly created at least fifty cases for us to solve one at a time over the years. It's true that he's a dangerous man, but he is also very cunning. We wouldn't dream of just jumping in as you're suggesting!" She smiled at the exorcist, who blinked back stunned and fell silent again.

In the end it took them a day to develop a plan. To do so it wasn't necessary to survey the surrounding area, as they weren't going to pull help from the surrounding spirits, who, while it was true that they were strong, were also highly unreliable when called upon by fuda users of average strength.

The plan was to trap him in a large open area so he couldn't flee when Wakaba's preventative barrier was erected which Watari would sustain while she worked on the final phase, then attack him with Terazuma's Shikigami until he was weak enough that Wakaba could seal his ability.

From there it was smooth sailing. Araki stood by silently agreeing to herself that it was a good plan, but a back up plan was in order in case it failed. She guessed that since they didn't include her that she was the back up plan. Unbeknownst to her, they hadn't included her because she might be a poor team player, she might not have any strengths to speak of towards the collective action, and might ruin their plan on accident. They simply couldn't afford to trust her.

Konoe a day later had word that the Kinki and Chugoku sectors' Shinigami had been notified to apprehend one Muraki Kazutaka based on the grave charge of disrupting the paranormal duties of the Ministry of Hades and the more minor offenses of kidnapping, torturing, and inchoate practices against Shinigami.

"Tatsumi." He barked out as he entered the room. The secretary looked up concerned. "I need you to go support Watari, Terazuma, and Wakaba as they attempt to apprehend Muraki in Nagoya. I'll keep up with the communication channels here."

With a stern nod, Tatsumi took off his headset, bid a quick farewell, and disappeared. Sighing heavily, the elderly chief sat down resuming Tatsumi's work.

He decided that that was probably not going to be enough manpower, and primed backup forces from the Exorcist division just in case.

TBC.

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