Dark Adaptation – Dead Men Working.

DISCLAIMER: Yami no Matseui and its' affiliated characters, concepts and locations belong to Yoko Matsushita and I am earning nothing but the sole satisfaction of telling this story to you fine people.

A/N: I'm most relieved to finally present to you a chapter involving actually gore! Oh happy day! As such, I am required to present a few warnings. Some scenes in this chapter may be considered violent and or disturbing. Please keep in mind that if such things easily upset you, you might wish to avoid the latter half of this chapter or skip over it in parts. Use your own judgment here people! With that being said, enjoy.

"You can be a king or a street sweeper,
but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper."

~Robert Alton Harris

Carnage

Tsuzuki

"Say Tsuzuki, you seem tired." Watari's voice took on an impish tone, his eyes momentarily straying from the road to appraise me with his classical teasing stare. "Have one too many last night?"

"You know I'm trying to cut back." I stated bluntly, gazing out the window. The Tokyo lights seemed even brighter than I remembered them, as though all my senses were dramatically enhanced. I imagined I could even feel the small nodes in the leather seat covers digging through the seat of my pants and into the skin of my thighs. Something was different tonight… I felt on edge. "No, I'm just having trouble sleeping… I keep having strange dreams."

"Oh, I see." Watari mused seriously, titlting the wheel so as to overtake a slow moving truck in the lane ahead of us. "Well, don't let that sort of thing bother you. Summer brings out the hormones in all of us. Just don't forget to change your sheets…" He added offhandedly. I swatted his arm for his efforts.

"No, not those kinds of dreams! Take me seriously for a moment, would you? They're about… Muraki coming back." I saw Watari's face become serious so quickly it seemed to almost fall into place, much like a curtain over a stage. "And my… sister. My dead sister calling for help."

"Your sister, huh?" Watari said softly, a frown pressing unfamiliar lines into his forehead. "Kind of weird to mix her in with a degenerate like Muraki."

"Tell me about it." I sighed, pressing my forehead against the window. "But I have been thinking about the both of them a lot lately… it seems like I can't stop doing that long enough to get a decent nights rest."

Watari flashed me a supportive smile. "Well, you shouldn't have any trouble sleeping after we finish up tonight. Can you give me the lowdown?" He said, gesturing to the pocket into which I had tucked the hastily read fax. I retrieved both it and my reading glasses, sliding on the latter so as to be able to read the former.

"Okay," I said, clearing my throat. "At approx 5:35 tonight the police received a distress call from the library clerk. She reported an extremely strange occurrence. An individual in a hooded jacket arrived in the library. Shortly thereafter, the other patrons as well as the desk clerk started to experience vivid and quote, 'terrifying' hallucinations. When the clerk came to, everyone was screaming and those that weren't screaming were already dead, most completely emaciated as if drained of all vital bodily resources." I scrutinzed the details laid down in the fax more thoroughly. "She says that they were 'dead' but reports that they continued to 'breathe' but showed 'no other signs of life'. They didn't react to her attempts to speak with them, nor did they seem to have a pulse. She tried to find others but it was Hellish. 'People were dying left right and center'… she said she barely made it out before the door slammed shut and seemed to seal in upon itself."

Watari absorbed this in a silent, reflective manner. "Sounds… unexplainable to the inexperienced ear."

"Hell, I've been in this job over seventy years and it still sounds weird to me. Since the Tartarus barrier has been breached, it seems only natural to assume that a demon is somehow involved."

"But why the library you suppose?"

I shrugged. "My guess; they're after something in there."

Watari looked at me, a hint of humor still shining in his eyes. "I suppose it's too much to assume they were simply there to check out the latest Harry Potter?"

I smiled back. "You assume correctly." I glanced back down at the fax. "We haven't got much of a description but the clerk seemed to think that it was a young boy."

"Great. Demons and children. Always a good combination." Watari said, rolling his eyes. "Mission objectives?"

I skipped to the last paragraph of the fax. "Retrieve any lost souls and detain suspects. We've been given authority to liquadate the felon if we find ourselves unable to contain him."

"Liquadate… gotta love that pencil pushing, up-tight, head office lingo."

I sweat-dropped. "Actually… that was my own wording."

Watari shrugged carelessly. "Eh, well you're a dork anyway. Nothing further, your honor." He grinned as I drove my knuckle into his side. "Would you give it a rest already?"

"If you actually sounded apologetic, I might not feel the need!"

"Oh, you're a big complex ball of angst, ain't ya? Anyway, we're here."

I looked out the front windscreen to encounter a huge crowd of people blocking the carpark surrounding the Tokyo Metropolitan Tachiagara Library. Watari had to carefully maneavuer about them, progressing until the localized police blockade forced us to park. We weren't able to negotiate our way into an allocated space and were forced to simply halt the car in the middle of the milling civillians.

"Quite a crowd." Watari remarked, gathering his things together. I put away my glasses, folded up the fax and placed it back into my inside pocket. We both tossed our heavy wear coats into the backseat, knowing they'd just be in the way once we'd entered the library, adopting instead light-wear jackets. "Hope none of these lolly-gaggers scratches my car or murder won't only be done inside the library, I'll tell you that much!"

"The police haven't been able to enter." I said, ignoring his tirade in favor of distributing all the facts. "The localized entrances have been sealed… as though they have been wielded shut, apparently."

"Well, we'll just see about that shall we?" Watari said with the air of a man with supreme self-confidence, as we both climbed out of the car. "I must say; I feel rather professional, don't you?" He gave me a silly grin, hitting the button on his keychain to instigate the automatic locking system. I smiled back at him, shaking my head in mirth.

"You say the weirdest things sometimes, Watari." I was forced to slide up tight against the door of the car as two paramedics rushed by me, carrying a woman between them towards a waiting ambulance. The victim was trembling, as though completely traumatized, her eyes glaring wide and unseeing towards the sky, fingers clenched into a claw shape and held up in front of her chest as though attempting to ward something terrifying away. She was liberally coated in blood and I could see her lips trembling, her breaths rushed and frantic and incoherent mumblings trickling out of her, clear to me even with all the background noise. Police sirens blaring, ambulance sirens, people yelling, screaming, jostling for a closer look at the scene of the massacre… Only then did it really strike me, the manner of job that Watari and I were performing. This was not ordinarily Shinigami work. We were more the underhanded, quiet, detective side of the Ministry… very rarely were we called in to a scene of a huge disaster like this! Our job normally came later, after the Kiseki had been correlated, so as to ascertain whether all deceased souls were accounted for. And if not… well, then there's a problem! Send in the Shinigami! But since Watari and I were the only one's who had been hanging about so late, there really wasn't much choice. Head Office could hardly allow a possible demonic perpetrator to escape, based on the grounds that Shinigami didn't usually perform this sort of field work.

"Dear God… that poor woman." The coppery scent of blood hung thick in the air and I forcefully reigned in the errant desires dictated by my unusual cells, which reacted so inappropriately to that smell. "So much blood…" I found myself musing with great introspection.

Watari gazed over at the woman as she was carried past. "That's Kohaku Tomodashi, the clerk." We both watched as she was carefully loaded into the back of the ambulance. "What do you suppose happened in there?"

I shrugged, swallowing back a thick knot that had formed in the nadir of my throat. The scent and sight of blood always had that effect on me. "Guess we'll find out. Is it okay to park here?"

"Hey, we're the SIT, baby." Watari declared brashly. "We can park wherever the Hell we damn please. And it's not like we have a choice. This way rookie." He walked towards the police line, slapping his thigh in a condescending manner as though ushering along a dog. I jogged after him, grabbing a handful of his long hair and giving it a vindictive tug to emphasize my feelings.

"If anyone's the rookie around here it's you, jailbait." I snarled, releasing his hair before we both came off as looking entirely unprofessional and lacking all possible credibility we might have hoped to exorcise.

"Don't even start in on me, Chastity-boy." Watari sneered, rubbing the crown of his head. I elbowed him for that little comment, unable to reign myself in and we ended up shouldering one another all the way over to the officer holding fort at the police line. Watari stopped jostling me long enough to whisper instructions into my ear.

"This fellow is a liaison of the Ministry, so he should know who we really are. But flash the bling anyhow, for the sake of everyone else." We both held out our fake ID as we approached. "How do you do? I'm Agent Chinatsu from the Special Investigations Team, Tokyo Metropolitan. This is Agent Hotaru, same division. (1) Please be patient with him, as he is a boy of very little talent."

Back in my day, parents when speaking about their child to another (usually a teacher) often employed this particular phrase. It may have sounded quite disparaging but it was really a means of conveying humility. Watari was not however my parent nor my supervisor. He was simply trying to goad me. And doing a rather fine job of it, I must confess. I flashed him the dirtiest look I could possibly muster but it was lost on account of him not paying me the slightest bit of attention. I suppose he thought that if he were to look at me, neither of us would be able to keep a straight face.

"You contacted our department 15 minutes ago?" Watari continued, his voice not betraying a hint of anything other than straightforward, hands down professionalism. I'm sure his sides were busting for trying not to laugh however.

The Police Officer was an interesting looking man. He was taller than both Watari and I, probably six foot two and of a considerably more slender frame, which seemed odd, given his profession. His eyes were, for the most part, hidden beneath his hat and what I could see of his hair was that it was deep black, even darker than my own. And when he spoke, it was with some unfamiliar, exotic accent. His Japanese wasn't perfect, so I assumed that he was possibly foreign.

"You boys mustn't have much of an after-hours life." I saw just the hint of a smile form from beneath the overhanging shadow of his hat. I found I didn't care much for that sort of unsolicited pun, even if it was unintentional.

"We were in a position to respond, officer so I would hope that you would appreciate that, rather than make your little jokes at our expense." I stated firmly, trying to maintain an entirely professional demeanor.

The Officer's smile didn't waver but he did dip his head in a reverential gesture, which I suppose constituted an apology. "You must excuse me. That was what you might call inappropriate. Thankyou for responding so quickly."

"May we step on through?" Watari asked, using formal Japanese for some reason. I suppose he was attempting to sound extra professional or something.

The officer nodding, pushing down the police tape with his foot so that we could walk on through without disruption. "You're cleared for entry. Come on in."

"What's the update on the situation?" I asked as we stepped over the black and white marker tape and into the restricted area proper. From there I could gain an unobstructed view of Tachiagari library. Three stories overall, with an extensive basement and garden area to boot. The windows were lit up, so electricity on the inside was still running which would help things along considerably. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not but I thought that I could see dark marks obscuring the windows of each story. Blood perhaps… or something else entirely?

The officer followed my gaze, tilting the tip of his cap down a little to the effect that even more of his face was obscured. "It's a little difficult to say with any real certainty. We removed the desk clerk only moments ago, having treated her for minor blood loss. She since appears to have gone into delayed shock and the paramedics were concerned for the state of her heart. She wasn't able to give us any further information outside of what we have already forwarded to your office in the initial order." He gestured with a flick of his head towards the front entryway, where a number of uniformed police officers were milling. "The Sergeant has some members of the explosives squad working on the door but so far they haven't made so much as a dent in it."

Watari caressed his chin, eyes surveying the upper window that I myself had just been inspecting. "I see… well that certainly is troubling."

The officer crossed his arms; glancing back and forth between us I would presume. I can't imagine for the life of me in which direction his eyes might otherwise have been pointing. "Do you suppose you and your chum would have any luck?"

"We'll certainly make a good go of it." I said, offering a curt bow. "Would you excuse us then, Officer? My partner and I would like to take a closer look."

He immediately stepped aside, swaying his arm across his body to indicate that I was more than welcome to it. "Of course. Please."

I bowed a second time, just to be respectful and then stepped past, my eyes trained on the building the entire while. Was that someone gazing down from the upstairs window? Or was it a reflection of the siren lights from the police cars and ambulance? A shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the slight shift in temperature outside.

Watari went to follow me and then, seeming to be reminded of something, returned to speak with the policeman.

"Officer, in the event that we are able to enter the building, it is imperative that we be permitted to regulate the situation ourselves." He explained, stowing his hands deep in his jacket pockets and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "If we happen to encounter difficulties beyond our means, we shall make a duress call. Under no other circumstances should any member of your department be allowed to enter. For their own sakes. Do you understand?"

The officer nodded, slow and deep. "But of course. If the situation should transpire, I would personally respond." He raised his hand in a formal, stiff gesture. "Best of luck."

"Thankyou." Watari bowed to him before returning to my side. Together we approached the library, weaving in and out of the police vehicles and the assorted officers standing about, trying to control the panicking crowd.

"Sheesh, friendly guy, huh?" I whispered to Watari, gesturing back towards the affiliated officer with my head.

Watari smiled indulgently and tossed a strand of hair out of his line of sight with a flick of his head. "Never mind him now. We have to concentrate on how we're going to get in here."

I pursed my lips, gazing up at the building as we made our approach. The upper windows were inaccessible due to the amount of people in plain sight from the street. "If we approach from the back, we could probably fly up and enter through a window out of sight from the crowd." I suggested, gesturing towards the front entrance. "If we blow open the front door for them, the police might head inside regardless of our instructions. We might inadvertently increase collateral. Not to mention we'll lose all control over the scene."

"Tsuzuki, we're cleared for entry." Watari reminded me, acknowledging a female police officer with a nod of his head. "I'm sure that Officer has some authority here, otherwise he wouldn't very well be our liaison now, would he? I think we should trust him to keep the rest of these goofs on a short leash."

We climbed the five or so steps leading into the libraries wide entranceway. A group of heavily suited police officers were huddled about the double doors, three of which were valiantly attempting to cut their way inside with the use of a large, noisy buzz saw.

"Good evening, gentleman." Watari called in a friendly manner, waving lightly as we joined them. Two of the officers standing at the rear turned in response to his greeting and then glanced at one another with a knowing smirk.

"Well, well, well… if it isn't Barbie and Ken." Said the tallest of the pair, eliciting a chuckle from his companion. Watari's smile slid downwards like melting ice cream and formed into a frown, as did my own I'm sure. "Sorry ladies but the beach party has been moved to another location."

"Oh, you're funny." Watari said, setting his hands on his hips and breathing in so deeply his chest expanded to an almost disproportional degree. "A fine time this is to start making dumb cracks like that. Ya wanna step aside?"

"Aww, what's the matter, Barbie?" The shorter agent simpered, leaning over to flip Watari's hair provocatively. "You the new PMS model or something?"

Watari chuckled dryly and before I could so much as blink he had sunk his hand into the officers groin area and viciously twisted. The officer shrieked, his legs buckling. He would have gone down onto his knees if Watari hadn't kept him suspended by his grasp.

"You ever want children smart guy, I suggest you start showing some respect." Watari said angrily, squeezing a tighter still. A police officer with broad features and a carefully groomed moustache appeared from the front of the gathering, significantly more ornate than the others and directed his hard, hawk like gaze towards the line of Watari's arm.

"Ryoto-san, I do hope I'm not finding you're making trouble for yourself again." He said in a most docile voice to the man Watari was in the midst of permanently disabling. "I take it that you fellows are the SIT agents?"

Watari released his hold on 'Ryoto's' more sensitive area (Ryoto immediately made use of his newfound freedom in scuttling as far from Watari as he could) in favor of offering the exact same hand to the new arrival.

"That's us. Nice ta meet ya…?"

"Tatsuo. I'm the Sergeant in charge of this division." The policeman said, wrinkling his nose a little in response to Watari's proffered hand and quite deliberately refusing to take it. He offered me a curt bow. "Thankyou for coming on such short notice."

"That's all right." I replied, offering him a deeper bow in return. "If you wouldn't mind, could we please examine the door?"

"Knock yourselves out." The Sergeant said, gesturing for the rest of his team to clear a path, which they proceeded to do with rather amusing alacrity. Most had seen what Watari had done to Officer Ryoto and didn't seem particularly eager to further bar our efforts. "Don't know how much luck you'll have. I ain't never seen anything like it."

Watari and I knelt down about a foot from the double doors in order to examine them. The exposed skin of my chest and face immediately prickled in gooseflesh as an icy coldness stole over me, seeming to emanate directly from the wood itself. Watari too must have experienced the same disconcerting sensation as I because he drew his thin jacket considerably tighter about his upper torso, concealing the exposed skin peeping through the gaps of his top.

The doorway itself appeared to have been deliberately welded shut with the use of a black viscous substance, which had coated the hinges and lines of both wooden doors. In some places it had actually solidified into a compact crystallized mass, whilst other areas freely leaked as though the dark cedar were bleeding blackened blood.

"If you place your fingers against the door," The Sergeant continued from somewhere behind us. "It feels as though the wood is being suctioned inward at a phenomenal rate."

Reluctant though I was, we did as he had instructed and I was most astonished to feel a phenomenal force seeming to radically draw the wooden surface away from beneath my fingers. It appeared as though something were pushing at it but of course no one was providing such pressure on our side. It could have only come from within. I bowed my head, on the pretense of examining the substance congealing at the base of the doorway and whispered so that only Watari could hear me.

"It's a soul seal. Don't you agree, Agent Chinatsu?"

Watari smirked grimly as he touched his fingers to the door. Some of the goo came away on his fingers. I thought that this was rather ill advised myself but Watari had always played by his own rules. "I think you're right. The demon, whomever it is, has bound some poor erstwhile spirit to the doorway. Their wandering only pulls the bonds tighter, like two loops of a shoelace, pulling the halves of a shoe together."

I stood up, brushing the knees of my trousers off. "The spirit must be wandering close by. If we can find it and liberate it –"

" - we should be able to open the doors." Watari concluded, examining his fingers curiously. "I couldn't say for sure what exactly this substance is…"

My initial assumption was that it was perhaps spiritual residue or protoplasm. But then this did not fit the profile precisely because protoplasm was usually either clear or milky white in color, rather than black. But if I was ignorant as to its' origins, then it seemed only natural to me that Watari might have had a clue as to what it was. He was rather knowledgeable when it came to the Occult. "You don't recognize it?" I asked, failing to keep the air of impatience out of my voice.

He shook his head, seeming to take his ignorance on the matter as a personal insult. "It's completely unfamiliar. Cold as ice though." From out of his pocket he revealed a small petri dish, which he then used to take a sample of the subject. Once this had been safely tucked away, he wiped his fingers off on his pant leg and also stood up, turning to address the explosives team. They regarded him as I suppose they might have otherwise a very large and unstable bomb and obstructed the direct line to their loins as best they could. "Would you excuse us, gentleman? We have some delicate equipment that should be able to handle this job."

"I see…" Sergeant Tatsuo mused as we strolled past him and back down the stairs. "Shall we keep trying in the meantime?"

"Sure." I said as we turned to the left and started to make our way around the side of the building. "Just don't blow a blood vessel."

Of course we didn't have any 'delicate equipment' to speak of. But then, how do you explain to the local law enforcement that you're just stepping out to search for a specter? I tugged Watari by the elbow, guiding him around the corner down the left hand lane that ran alongside the Tachiagari. There were no outside lights on the wall of the building, so we each turned on the small portable torches kept in our holsters. Their beams danced eerily off of the brickwork as we made our way towards the garden at the rear of the building.

"One of the perks of being a Shinigami; you get to act totally superior to the local law enforcement agents." Said Watari, with a satisfied chuckle. I tutted softly as I glanced at him with a disapproving expression. Though I'm sure he failed to appreciate it in the dark.

"Watari, be nice." My eyes strayed towards the library wall as we strolled past. A niggling thought was tugging at the corner of my mind and would not be denied, though I felt it would have been stupid to mention. "You don't suppose the spirit could be inside, do you?"

Watari sighed in such an exaggerated fashion it seemed as though he were praying for patience. "Spiritual seals don't work that way. The spirit has to be located outside of the barricade area in order to create the metaphysical pull, otherwise there's no point. You know that, ya duffer."

I felt truly irritated with myself for not remembering such a basic piece of information. Though I did feel that Watari might have been a little more tactful in pointing it out. "Sorry, I forgot. It's such an old fashioned barricade method I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with it."

"It would behoove you to study other areas every once in a while, Tsuzuki-san." Watari said, in a scarily uncanny imitation of Tatsumi. We laughed quietly, having both been the recipients of that particular lecture more than once during our time as Guardians.

"Yeah, yeah, all right." I muttered, as we emerged out into the library garden. It was a small-enclosed area with a number of stone and wooden benches set about the perimeter. There was a tall oak in the center of the grounds and a number of overhanging Sakura trees and weeping willows. Flowering shrubs framed the surrounding area and the grass was neatly trimmed, almost anally so and as lush and green as you could ever imagine.

"Nice place…" I said, shining my torch about in order to inspect everything. "It would be peaceful on a warm summers day."

Watari chuckled in a way I didn't quite like. It sounded suspiciously sneaky. "Yeah, I remember it well." We both set to work, panning about the area with our torches, checking for any hint of spiritual activity. "I came here after a particularly indulgent New Years party."

I curled my lip upwards to express exactly what I thought of this comment and swung my torch about from every horizontal surface I could land the beam upon. "… Which bench was it?" I asked with deliberate foreboding.

Watari laughed in a doleful manner from somewhere behind the oak tree. I could see the beam of his torch arching through the upper most branches. I'm not quite sure what he thought the spectral phantom might have been doing up in the tree exactly but I suppose it never hurt to be thorough.

"Oh Tsuzuki, you think I would have knowingly defiled a bench upon which the studious sit during the day and dutifully invest themselves within the time honored admirable pursuit of knowledge? How thoughtless do you suppose I am?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know." I said carefully, refusing to bite.

"Well not that thoughtless." His torch beam arched around the oak tree and landed on me as I bent over to lift the branch of an overhanging bush in order to shine my torch light beneath it. "It was beneath that rhododendron."

I froze. Down to the very last molecule in my body. "… You mean… the rhododendron I'm touching right at this very moment?"

I caught a hint of Watari's straight white teeth arching into a mischievous smile in the refracting glow of his torch. "The very same."

I released the bush quickly and backed away, wiping my hand feverishly against my pant leg as though contaminated by something rancid.

"Jesus Christ… remind me to scrub off my epidermis after I get home."

Watari huffed as he sashayed past me, making a perfunctory swipe at my head as he went. "I was only joking. Don't be so mean."

I ducked under his hand and strode towards the left hand side of the garden, aiming my torch towards the upper dividing wall. "Should have known. Otherwise that poor plant wouldn't still be standing."

"Meow, meow, kitty."

"You haven't had many one night stands have you? I mean, seriously."

He was oddly silent for a minute or so, apparently thinking back with great difficulty. "I think I did once… some years ago now. It was that receptionist fellow from the Suppression department…"

"You think?!" I exclaimed with great distaste, swinging the torch beam about to shine into his eyes. He blinked back virginishly. "What, don't you look at faces anymore?"

He shrugged disconnectedly, as though the matter were not of great importance! "Of course I look at faces now. I said it happened once years ago. It was my death day. It was dark, I was drunk, I was lonely and I apparently was not the only one who felt that way. You know, these things happen!"

"Apparently not only in the soapies." I grumbled, returning to my inspection with that familiar feeling of pressure rising up to accommodate space within my chest. I had never been comfortable with people who adopted this kind of cavalier attitude towards relationships. I had only been in one or two long-term partnerships and never, had I once entered into them casually. It was a mark of respect to both your partner and yourself, to take the time you spent together seriously.

Watari seemed to take my surly silence as a sign that we had stumbled into that area we oh so often disagreed upon because he hastened to rectify himself. "But I don't do that sort of thing anymore." He quickly assured. "I was really messed up back then. I'm a good boy now."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Since when?"

"Since paper shufflin' Sam the receptionist man or whatever his name was."

I shone my torch beam down the right hand lane running besides the library, finding it disconcertingly empty. "Watari… I do care about you but you have got to be one of the free-ist guys around when you've got it in your head to behave that way."

Watari's beam joined mine. Apparently he'd finished checking his half of the compound. "I prefer the term 'emotionally-liberated-,' thankyou. And say used to would you? I've only had like one serious partner in the last eight years. Been busy living my own death, thankyou very much."

'Emotionally liberated' sounded like the kind of excuse Muraki might use as a means to explain his behaviour. I turned about and gave Watari a gentle swat upon the cheek. "One day you'll find someone you really want to invest yourself in and you'll want it to be special and then you'll be embarrassed about how carefree you were."

Watari made a retching noise as though the idea of being committed to someone was utterly repulsive. "Oh gawd, I couldn't think of anything worse."

"What's the big whoop?" I asked, steering him about so that we could head out towards the center of the garden. "You were married when you were alive, right?" He had worn a wedding band his first few years within the Summons Department but had removed it after becoming involved with someone and 'moving on' so to speak. But the skin about his ring finger always maintained that residual tan line, showing where the band once sat, so I gathered he might have even worn it at times when I was not about to see.

Rather than lapse into a composed silence, Watari instead gave a brassy laugh, poking me in the back with the end of the torch. "And once was more than enough, thankyou. I'm not what you would call the 'committed' type. I like my own space."

"Not that you would know it." I muttered, shining my beam up into the oak tree for one last inspection before turning back to face Watari. He took revenge for my smart comment by flashing his torch beam into my eyes, temporarily blinding me.

"All right, that'll be quite enough of tha-" Through the white dots dancing in my field of vision, I saw Watari's eyes widen. I felt my heart palpitate as his voice commanded me as though coming from far away, "Move Tsuzuki!"

I dove quickly to the side as something came lunging down through the branches of the oak tree and irregularly long iridescent fingers made two errant swipes at my face and chest. From the corner of my vision I saw tendrils of hair lash around the gleaming specter, its' features poised in perpetual grimace as a pained shriek sounded through the night, terminating into an almost girlish moan. The long dead apparition rotated in mid air, torn clothing trailing through the air as though drawn by a watery undertow. It faced us, mouth awning wide to show never terminating blackness at the depths of her throat. Ice cold shivers raced up my spine, sending trembles down to the very tips of my fingers and toes.

"AGH!" I screamed inarticulately. "A ghost! It's a ghost, a ghost!" I dove behind Watari and grasped his arms between my hands, using him as an in-human meat shield. Hades finest, people.

"That's what we were looking for remember?" He said patiently, as though explaining the simplest of facts to an irrational child. My canine form rose to the surface and I huddled deeper against the curve of Watari's back, furry ears flattened against the sides of my head and tail slinking down between my legs.

"It doesn't make it any less scary!" I sobbed, only daring to examine the specter over Watari's shoulder.

It wasn't the prettiest phantom I had ever seen. A female spirit, or yurei, identified as such by its' long black hair and pale garments. The upper half of it's face appeared to have dissolved into the air above it, only a mouth and chin visible, with lips drawn back to reveal impeccably white teeth, clenched together like two strings of pearls. The arms looked as though they had been ripped out of joint and then torn off at the elbow, allowing the lower arms to float beside them in midair. The lower half of the torso had been ripped entirely away, leaving the waistline hanging in bloodied tatters.

The yurei hovered before us, clawing distractedly at what existed of its' face and speaking as though its' voice filtered from down the line of a long, vacant tunnel. "Where… is the… other half… of me?"

I swallowed back a thick lump that had been forming at the base of my throat. "Jesus, what's wrong with her? Why does she look like that?"

"Soul division." Watari explained. He looked calm but I could feel him straining against me as he attempted to step backwards and put some distance between himself and the tortured specter. "When a spirit is used as a seal, their soul is split in two. One half is bonded directly into the object to which the seal is required, whilst the other half is torn away and rejected to wander. They remain connected by the minimalist thread so that the metaphysical pull is sustained but the spirit cannot go to its' rest whilst its' soul is divided."

"…What's… happening…?" The yurei moaned. She jerked back, disconnected arms flailing. "I need… the other half… of me…"

I swallowed again, deciding to make use of myself. Though not to the effect that I would move any closer, of course. "Um…" I cleared my throat. "M-Miss? Please… don't be afraid. We're here to help you."

"Help me…?" The yurei suddenly curled upward like a snake rising from a wicker basket to the serenading call of the charmers' flute, before cracking downwards so that her face was now only a hairs breadth from my own. Watari gave up all pretences of trying to be brave and fell sideways with an audible squeak. I too, might have done the same thing had I not been veritably frozen in fear. "Who are… you?"

"We are Shinigami, madam." Watari said, climbing back onto his feet. His face looked even more pale than usual and there was a definite waver to his voice. "From the Hades realm."

The yurei glanced back and forth between us. Well… I supposed that she did. As I might have previously mentioned, she did not in fact possess any discernible eyes. "Shini… gami?"

"Guardians of Death." I established, as better means to accommodate her level of understanding. "We came here to investigate the disturbance within the library."

The yurei raised her disjointed arms and gingerly felt about in the void for the absent half of her face. "I am… dead." She eventually established.

I felt a pang of sympathy stir in my heart. To think that this poor girls life was over just like that… there was still so much she could have done… And the people that would miss her and grieve for her. Sometimes it was too much to bear, this job. "Miss… I'm so dreadfully sorry. And I wish that there was more time to explain to you what needs to be explained but as it is, we're in something of a pinch. You see; your soul has been used to seal off the library. There may still be people inside who are trapped and require assistance. We need you to come with us if you please and –"

The yurei interrupted my speech by spearing its' fingers straight down towards my chest. Fortunately, Watari's reflexes were not quite so compromised as my own at that moment and he reacted quickly by kicking my legs out from underneath me just in time to avoid the attack. The yurei hissed aggressively as she steered herself into reverse and flung her disjointed body up into the branches of the overhanging tree once more.

"I will not go… to the land of the dead. I will not... I am free... Dead men walking… will not take me to the land of the dead!"

Watari grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sitting position. "Stall her." He hissed, eyes blazing.

I leapt back onto my feet and whipped a rectangular piece of paper from my pocket, using my finger to hastily ascribe spell scripture to the parchment surface. Holding the fuda between my index and middle finger, I nodded to Watari and we dispersed in separate directions, preparing to bear down upon the yurei in a pinch attack. I felt the ground turf up behind me as I ran and saw that the specter was distributing molecular energy through the earth. I steadied myself just as soon as I felt the spell energy dissipate, holding both the fuda and my spare hand out in order to cast the spell.

"By order of Hades, this summons shall break the evil spell that has been placed upon thee and shall banish the omen!" I concentrated upon the mana within my body, spelling out the complex spell signature and seeing the residue appear before me in the form of kanji. "The brilliant sun comes from the East – Malevolence Obliteration!"

A golden stream of arrows composed of positive mana expanded from the aura of my own body and stole forward into the intangible form of the yurei. She reeled backwards as though born on a gust of wind, howling as my own energy started to take effect against her.

From the other end of the yard, Watari readied himself to cast the containment spell. It was quite complex, involving a good half-minute concentrative chanting and he was only now winding up. I dodged another of the yurei's attacks, severely weakened from use of the Malevolence Obliteration hex though considerable enough to turf up the roots of the camellia plant behind me and send the flowering bush hurtling through the air. Pale pink petals floated down around my feet as I stationed my weight, throwing up a protective shield between myself and the yurei's next attack, which was, as a result, refracted into the surrounding wall, leaving a long, thick burn mark.

"Anytime you're ready Watari." I called, cart wheeling sideways as the yurei swooped towards me in the style of a swinging scythe, shrieking like a tea kettle as her long fingered hands raked the place where my neck had been precisely five seconds earlier. I landed bodily beside Watari, who turned to bring the yurei into his field of vision, clasping his hands, pinky fingers and index fingers pressed together and raised apart from the rest.

"In accordance to the resistance of all souls of the spectral world," He called in a loud voice, having concluded the initial segments of the containment enchantment. "By thine authority we shall exact that which curbs the erstwhile actions of the spirits." Watari's aura beamed brightly as his mana extended to occupy more space than the restrictions of his physical form. I stepped behind him, so that he would have a clear line of fire towards the yurei. As I previously mentioned, Watari has a bad habit of becoming flustered and as a result, missing his target completely."Soul Truss!"

Two transparent metaphysical hands appeared on either side of the yurei and clasped together, holding her erstwhile. The strain of maintaining the spell was causing sweat to bead across Watari's forehead but he held tight to the screaming, struggling yurei, drawing his fingers down and then bringing his palms in tight together. "Suppression!"

The metaphysical hands squeezed together, losing detail and with one final scream from the yurei, she become a glowing spherical orb, which shrank down until it could then fit into the palm of Watari's hand.

"And that's all she wrote." He said breathlessly, placing one hand upon his hip and hefting the soul into the air as though it were a trophy. I tried to breathe a very subtle sigh of relief, not wanting to make it too obvious.

"Hey Watari, nice job" I patted his shoulder, eyeing the ebbing light of the contained soul with a careful eye. "I didn't think you'd actually be able to do it!"

Watari's smile became rather fixed and frozen. "The lack of confidence you seem to have in me never surprises."

I checked my body over for any injuries I might have sustained during my brief scruffle and was cheered to find that I hadn't received so much as a scrape. My legs ached a little from the exertion I had put them under, so I raised each of them one at a time and rubbed the calf muscle. "That was pretty touch and go for a moment there. Thanks."

Watari offered me a sincere smile over his shoulder, his chin trembling a little. He still wasn't as accustomed to this as I was. "No sweat. There ain't never much point in reasoning with a yurei." He gazed at the soul with a regretful expression. "The more traumatic and violent the death of the body, the more unreasonable and volatile the spirit."

"Judging from what we've just seen, I can only imagine what terrible thing might have occurred inside." I glanced up at the library window, biting my lip thoughtfully. "How many people have died, I wonder?"

Watari sighed, tossing the soul up and down in his hand casually. I winced, preparing to dive to the ground if it should slip free of his fingers. "Well, now we have this part of the soul, we have a key to the building. We should be able to get inside now." To my great relief, he tossed the soul to me and I slipped it into my jacket pocket, out of the way of harm. "Here. You carry it. I can't stand the feel of the thing."

We both returned to the front of the building, subject to the questioning stares of the milling officers, who seemed to have nary a clue as to why we would have needed to adjourn to the backyard in the first place. Ignoring them, we moved to the front entranceway, where it seemed they'd had no success during our absence.

"We're back!" I called, chuckling as several of the officers immediately cleared a path for us. Watari beamed around at them, innocent as you please. "How goes progress?"

Sergeant Tatsuo tilted back the hinging cover of his protective mask as he moved away from the sparking spray of the cutting iron. "The pressure seems to have alleviated some but the damn door still refuses to give." He sighed with palpable aggravation, shooting the door a very disconcerted look. "It's no ones favorite option but at this late point we're considering plastic explosives to blow out the hinges."

"If you must." Watari said pleasantly, his eyes twinkling with good humor. "But before you make that call, mind if we take one last look?"

I saw a number of the officers roll their eyes to the side, seeming to find us nothing short of a nuisance. Tatsuo even looked as if he was hesitant about granting us any further liberties. "If you want." He finally said, with an air of reluctance I couldn't pretend to miss. "Can't see you getting any further than us, though."

We bowed briefly, squeezing between the officers and waiting for them to remove the cluttering cutting equipment.

"Just press the soul into the door and it should reattach itself to its' other half." Watari whispered in my ear as I knelt down.

"Yes, I know that much, thankyou." I said tartly, removing the soul from my pocket and under cover of my body, pressed the glowing orb into the keyhole area, where it dissolved with a soft hiss of blue steam.

Watari put on a bit of a show for the benefit of the watching officers. "Now… let's see here…" He caressed his chin thoughtfully. "If we tap here…" He tapped a random spot on the door. "And then here, here and…here." He continued tapping some more random points. "Yep! That should do it! Agent Hotaru, if you please?"

I made a big show of pulling up my sleeves, flexing my arms and cracking my neck before opening the door both easily and casually, the crystallized substance cracking loudly as the hinges broke through the places in which it had set. The officers all exclaimed comically as one, their jaws falling slack.

"Great work partner!" Watari enthused, trying without much success to hide an amused smile behind the line of his arm. He finally managed to compose himself and spun about to face the still speculative expressions of the surrounding officers, striking one of his trademark poses with one finger in the air. He very much resembled a vivacious cartoon character. "Officers, Agent Hotaru and I will now enter the building and conduct ourinitial investigation. The handsome officer by the police line will happily inform you that we are to be left in peace whilst doing so. If we require assistance, we shall call for it. Until such time as we emerge, no one is to enter the building under any circumstances. Understood?" He said, wagging his finger to and fro in the officers' faces. Still perplexed over our apparently simple infiltration, all they seemed able to do was nod in a blank, obedient manner. Watari smiled, apparently satisfied.

"Chinatsu?" I called, holding up the Carbon rifle pistol in a defensive position. He nodded in adherence.

"Let's go." He said in a mock macho voice, un-holstering the Beretta's and moving to stand beside me. We exchanged a glance briefly, trying to bolster one another's nerves and with a deep breath, I led the way into the building, sliding the door shut behind us and drawing the deadbolt just in case the officers outside got it into their heads to disobey us. As soon as the door had clicked into place, Watari and I looked at one another and burst into barely suppressed laughter.

"Man, did you see the looks on their faces?" I said, once I was able to speak. "They couldn't get their heads around it!"

"Poor buggers." Watari chuckled, gently dabbing the tears at the corners of his eyes in order to prevent the contacts from slipping. "Maybe we shouldn't tease them so much."

I shrugged. "With so few perks in this job, what more can we do," I adopted a teasing tone to my voice as I balanced my free elbow on Watari's shoulder and bent my mouth close to his ear. "Agent Chinatsu?"

"All right, all right." Watari said, flicking at my shoulder in order to get me to straighten up. We both glanced around. "Power's still on. Suppose we should be grateful for that."

The library entrance ran for a distance of approximately twenty-five feet and was dimly lit by old-fashioned lanterns that lent to it a sort of medieval air. The left hand side of the hall was lined with a glass casing, housing a number of ancient looking books, artifacts from various stages of Japanese history, paintings and sculptures. The upper half of the left wall was floor to ceiling glass windows, showing the building next door and the road leading way from the Tachiagari. The carpet was woven navy blue material that felt vaguely spongy beneath my feet. It was eerily quiet. Not a sound filtered down from the central library area other than the quiet purring of the air conditioning system. One of the blades must have been out of place because it clicked occasionally.

"Look at all these old knickknacks." I said, indicating the assortment of intellectual paraphernalia on the left hand wall. "All of this sort of stuff makes my head hurt."

Watari struck a campy pose, one hip jutting at an extreme angle. "And that would be why you are the brawn of this operation, my friend." He indicated a point on the glass casing some five feet or so from the entrance. I had missed it on my first initial inspection but now I could see there was a line of bloody fingerprints leading down from the sliding entrance doors of the library center. Patches of the floor were also marked, from where she had stumbled onto her hands and knees. "Look here." He tapped at the glass above the first smudged handprint, still quite wet from what I could tell. "I think there's a fairly good chance this was from when our friend Kohaku made her exit."

I surveyed the line of bloodied smears, curling my lip with distaste as I followed them along to the far end of the hall. "This whole atmosphere… it's so creepy." I took a moment to load up the cartridge of the rifle. "Well, let's get started. We have to look for any souls that haven't crossed over. And then, we'll try and nail the son of a bitch that did all this."

Watari winked as he slid the loaded cartridges into the handles of each of the Beretta 93R's respectively. "It might be worth looking through the security room, see if there isn't some recording of what happened inside of here." He gestured to a security camera in the upper corner of the entrance hall with one of the Beretta's. Looking closer, I saw that the red light beside the camera lens was still flashing.

"Good thinking." I hefted up the rifle in my left hand, balancing the barrel grip with my right. "Let's get cracking."

We both held our weapons at the ready as we made our way down the long entrance hall. My eyes were drawn towards the window on the right hand side as we passed by. I could still hear sirens blaring from the street outside. People were actually peering in from the building next door. Something crackled beneath my feet and I twisted my foot sideways in order to see what I had stepped on. It was a flyer, recently affixed to the wall by several globs of adhesive tape, which had since lost their stickiness. "Oi, Watari." I held it up for his inspection. "Seems as though there was a book signing tonight."

Watari took a look at the flyer, narrowing his eyes and making a strange plucking noise with his tongue. This was one of his frequent habits that rose to the surface when he was examining something. "This author is pretty popular. I've read some of his work." He sighed, raking his hand back through his hair. "He was due to arrive at seven o'clock, so I don't think he would have been in there when the disturbance occurred. For what it's worth."

I placed the flyer on a nearby side table. "Still, if he was that popular, a lot of people would have turned up early, just to listen to his talk and get his signature." I groaned at the implication. "Explains why there was so many people in the library tonight… the casualty list must be pretty high." I felt my lower lip sag, quite outside of my control.

"Let's not count our chickens just yet." Watari urged, giving me a supportive smile. I tried to return it but felt that it was rather a weak effort. Taking a deep breath, I bolstered myself and approached the glass sliding doors on the left hand wall. Watari and I positioned ourselves on either side of it. We looked at one another and nodded.

"I'll go in first, to the right." I whispered, balancing the carbon rifle, quite uncomfortable with it as always. "You follow and take the left."

"Gotcha." Watari said, looking so unusually serious I almost wanted to giggle. "On three."

I bent my knees in order to keep my weight stationed, feeling almost every muscle in my trained body tighten accordingly. Nothing moved beyond the sliding doors, though since they were misted it was quite impossible to tell what we might have been walking in upon. It was best to be prepared, even if it meant going in a little tightly wound.

It was so quiet I actually heard Watari swallow as he too readied himself for the first initial sweep. When he spoke, his voice sounded strangely croaky. "One… two… three!"

I took the weight off of my leading foot and burst forward into the receiving range of the monitor controlling the sliding doors. They broke apart with a soft mechanical hiss. Tensing, I leapt through the swinging barrier beyond, going in low and swiveling sideways, aiming my weapon to the right. Watari followed suit, spinning in a complete clumsy circle, putting his back first to the outer entrance area before twisting about to cover the left with a very audible curse. I smiled appreciatively to myself as my eyes panned across my assigned area.

There were low set tables and chairs in the alcove to the right, obviously a reading area and surrounding bookshelves, packed both tightly and neatly. The staff were obviously meticulous. The ceilings were tall, I observed and the room was lit with the very same dim lanterns I had seen in the entrance hall. Apart from a number of computer workstations the entire library appeared old fashioned to me and as such, sort of charming in its' way. I moved my eye line about to examine between the bookshelves but gave only the most perfunctory glance to ensure that nothing was preparing to leap out and attack us. Nothing moved, apart from a small gray moth that persistently circled one of the lanterns, casting ghostly shadows against the wall onto which it was mounted.

"Clear!" I announced, lowering my weapon. Watari echoed me, having Okayed the enclosed study space to the entrances left. And we turned as one to face the space directly in front of us, which was the reception area and my mouth swung open as though on a hinge.

"Oh…" I breathed.

"… my god." Watari finished, his expression matching mine to a par.

The ground floor open reception area was clearly where the book signing was due to commence. I estimated that twenty or so bodies lay upon the floor or else had been thrown haphazardly across the surrounding tables. They were spread-eagled across each other, as if they had fallen whilst moving as a panicked crown. Most of the victims were emaciated, their milky white eyes wide and glaring, skin puckered against the bones as if all nourishment has been sapped from the body. Those that hadn't been subjected to this lay like slaughtered beasts, their blood soaking the dark red carpet in even darker stains. A dripping noise reached my eyes and I looked up in mounting disgust to find that a body was even hanging from the chandelier above our heads, blood dripping down onto the face of a deceased man lying directly below it. How it had managed to get up there in the first place is still as big a mystery to me today as it was then.

Watari's face was stricken with repulsion and for the first time he seemed quite incapable of finding something humorous to say. "It's worse than I thought…"

I cupped my fingers across my mouth, unable to wrench my eyes off of the dried shrunken face of the woman closest to me. Her skin looked like old leather, furrowed against the bones as though she had been mummified. The only smell that hung in the air was the usual coppery scent of blood, no such stench of rotten flesh as I had come to associate with this degree of degeneration. "You couldn't possibly imagine this… It's a freakin' nightmare!"

Watari' hand closed gently about my upper arm, awakening me to reality again. I met his eyes. "Stay with me, mate." He urged, using one of his Beretta's to lift the barrel of the rifle back into alignment. "Whoever did this is probably still hanging about. We need to keep our guard up."

I scowled a little, feeling my temper start to reassert itself, which was a good sign I was still in control. "I'm not that stupid, you know." I took the lead, walking forward to examine the row of bookshelves behind the reception area when the lights suddenly flashed so glaringly bright that I was temporarily blinded. White dots danced before my eyes as I blinked dazedly, realizing as my vision cleared that we had been thrown completely into darkness. I backed up two hasty steps, reaching around for Watari and feeling his hair beneath my hand, which I gripped tightly.

"That you?" He said, in a slightly squeaky voice.

"Yeah…" I replied, staying completely still lest we stumble over the surrounding bodies in the dark. "Did the power go ou-"

The lights flashed again but this time, the entire scenery changed with it. I twirled about, putting my back against Watari's, taking in the altered surroundings with a horrified gasp. We had emerged into what appeared to be a large warehouse, tightly packed with row after row of flayed bodies, hanging from the distant ceiling by chains that had been tightly bound about their bruised and withered ankles. My body jolted with painful surprise as one by one, the long dead faces turned to take us in, their lips hitching upward and high-pitched voices joining a macabre chorus as the cadavers started to laugh at us. Their upper torso's quaked and rocked, whilst others shook and screamed and quivered as though still enduring their torturous predicament. The walls and floors were coated in blood and buckets were set beneath each body, overflowing with small fingers reaching out through the congealed vitae, searching us out-

And with a flash it was gone and we returned to the library. Dimly lit, the emaciated dead at our feet but otherwise the rational, reasonable reality I had knowingly entered into. My heart pounded wildly against my chest as Watari and I exchanged a horrified glance, distressed by what we had collectively experienced.

"What the Hell was that?!" I whimpered, panning the carbon rifle about just to ensure that nothing had snuck up on us in the meantime. Watari had to clear his throat before he was able to answer.

"Guess we just got a first hand introduction to those hallucinations Kohaku-san was talking about…"

The event description in the fax came rushing back to me but it still didn't make a great deal of sense. "Since when do people share the same hallucination?" I questioned irritably. "Come on Watari… it must be some kind of spell." I shuddered though it wasn't the least bit cold. "No wonder she was traumatized… what was that place you suppose?"

"Beats me kid." I noticed that he'd moved a little closer to me and I found that I really didn't mind. Especially when one second later, the lights flashed into darkness again. "Here we go again!" Watari narrated quite unnecessarily. I abandoned all pretences and grabbed for his arm, allowing the barrel of the carbon rifle to drop towards the ground as a result.

"Stay with me!" I whimpered, my heart beating so wildly I could feel the pulse echoing up at the base of my Adam's apple.

"Where the Hell do you suppose I'd be going in this mess?!" Watari growled back, nonetheless looping his arm about my waist to keep us together. The lights came back on, now revealing what appeared to be the sterile corridor of a hospital. I heard a squeaking noise behind me and spun around just in time to see six nurses with faces as blank as an eggs surface, come rushing towards me with a gurney balanced between them. I pushed myself back against the wall to the left, Watari flattening himself to the right to avoid being struck. The concrete fortification felt hard and cold and very real beneath the back of my shirt. I stared in horror as the nurses rushed by, almost scraping up against me as they passed. A twitching, veiled thing was lying beneath a white sheet on top of the gurney, mumbling incoherently as blood bloomed from where the chest area might have been like a vivid red flower blossoming out of a snowy hillock.

"Jesus." Watari cursed, pulling himself away from the wall like a decal coming loose from a window in the heat. I followed suit, grabbing a hold of his arm again, feeling my pulse race. I had always hated hospitals. The last years of my life had been spent in one and I now avoided them if I could. Being forced back into one wasn't suiting me at all.

"What's going on?!" I whispered, eyes straying to an open doorway behind Watari where I could hear what sounded like raspy breathing. There were white curtained partitions, beyond which various, sinister silhouettes moved in a slope backed fashion, clutching objects that looked suspiciously like syringes. A high pitched child's scream cut through the air, sharper than a knife and I whimpered, tears coming to the corners of my eyes, frustrated by my lack of understanding.

"I don't like this Watari…"

"It's okay." He said, his hand tenderly caressing the small of my back. Though he too looked greatly unnerved by the veiled figures moving about in the neighboring room. "Close your eyes until it ends if that helps." No sooner had these words left his mouth then everything flashed again and we were plunged into darkness. When nothing new took its' place, Watari turned on his torch and shone the beam about, attempting to make heads or tales of our new surroundings. A sudden, drastic intake of breath told me that something about this particular place struck a nerve with him that the others, horrifying though they were, had not. "NO! No, we can't be here! NOT THIS PLACE!!"

Not much was visible by the light of the torch but what I was able to make out did not strike me as being particularly disquieting. The surrounding walls were composed of frayed wooden paneling, mildewed by age and succulence, giving off a particularly pungent, moldy odor. A door frame with no door wreathed in wooden vines stood straight and tall to my immediate left and an antique grandfather clock leaned haphazardly against the wall opposite me, the glass casing cracked directly down the center and missing a long jagged shard.

"Watari…" I murmured, not failing to notice how his arm shook beneath my mine. The torch beam trembled betrayingly.

"It doesn't make any sense…" He hissed, sounding quite undecided as to whether or not the scenery frightened or pissed him off. "Are they taking images directly from our mind or what?"

There was another flash of light and a veiled individual with a wide brimmed hat appeared briefly in the corner of the room. Watari shrieked and backed away, stepping on my foot in the process.

"OW!" I exclaimed, hopping about, holding my throbbing toe. "Watch where you're going!"

"It can't be… not you!" Watari moaned, the torch beam now shaking so badly I couldn't get a good look at whom we had been confronted with.

Another flash of light and the person appeared again, only this time they were much closer. I saw straight, square teeth shining in the refracting beam.

"NO!" Watari screamed. He dropped the torch and instead aimed both Beretta's at the figures chest, though I couldn't imagine how he could have made a clear shot with both hands shaking so violently. His eyes looked quite mad in the shadows. "Stay back, go away!"

He fired two rounds into the specters midriff to no effect. It smiled through the darkness, reaching out with fingers slicked deep dark black from what appeared to be blood. Watari whimpered with disbelief, stumbling over his feet as he attempted to back away.

"STOP IT!" I screamed, aiming my own torch beam up towards the ceiling, slicing it about as though it were in fact a sword and could cause physical damage to the one whom presided over these horrific hallucinations. "Whoever you are, stop this right now!" I cried out in alarm as something icy cold clutched about my ankle. Feeling as though I might regret it, I looked down to see a dark haired girl, mutilated by knife wounds holding onto my leg. She slowly looked up, revealing a heavily slashed face, a wet gaping hole where her eye once was. One of her cheeks hang limply, like a slap of meat, flapping from side to side as her neck violently contracted. I could almost feel my mind sliding sideways as familiarity tugged at my senses and my sanity fought with all it had to push that recognition aside.

"Asato… why did you… deserve to live…"

I slapped my hands over my face refusing to hear her, to even look at her. I felt if I did I might never awaken from the darkness.

"NO! STOP IT! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!"

Quite to my surprise, the lights flashed again and everything returned to normal. I registered the change in luminosity through my closed eyelids and with deliberate caution, eased them open, sliding my hands away from my cheeks as I did. Watari and I both stood panting, faces pinpricked by drops of sweat, eyes equally wide with trauma bleeding outward from our minds.

Watari holstered both weapons, indolently tucking an erstwhile strand of hair behind his ear in an effort to convey calmness. His fingers still trembled quite badly however. "They're… taking those images from our minds… those things that most frighten us… and using them to waylay us."

"More like terrify us." I suggested bitterly, pressing my hands to my knees, panting for breath. "Are we going to have to go on like this the whole time we're in here?"

"Let's try casting Soul Shelter." Watari said, wringing his hands together, in an attempt to soothe the tremors I supposed. Soul shelter was a spell that in theory was intended to prevent outside influence from mana invasion; such as mind reading, possession, essentially anything that interfered with the mental or internal structure of a Shinigami. "It may stop the 'spell' from infiltrating our minds."

I nodded and straightened up, chanting along with Watari in order to cast the soul shelter. I hoped it would be enough to disable the unknown psychic attack that was being leveled against us.

"That oughta do it." Watari looked about sadly, eyes settling on the wall behind the reception desk. The two bullets he had previously fired were lodged deep into the plaster. "No wonder this turned into a bloodbath. Why I wouldn't be surprised if half of these people killed one another, what with all the confusion." He put his hand on my lower back, having noticed my similarly dismayed expression. "Hey… you okay?"

I told myself I had to be stronger than this. It was hard, yeah. It was always hard. But we were here to do a job and by doing it, we would hopefully be aiding the souls of those that had been lost in this bloodbath and also preventing further lives from being taken. Personal feelings and blubbering theatrics would simply have to take a backseat until later. It was time to be professional.

"Of course I am." I said, straightening up and getting my carbon rifle back into position. "We gonna do this, or what?"

Watari smiled, satisfied by my resolve. "Well all right then." He retrieved his torch and stored it back inside his holster, tying the thin jacket about his waist to allow for great maneuverability. I did the same. "Gird yer loins mate, it's open season on all demon's. I'm gonna head to the security room." He passed into my possession something that looked like a pamphlet. "Here. Library map. Found 'em by the front entrance. Might be a good idea to keep it handy."

"Thanks." I said, giving the map a brief looking over before stowing it in my pants pocket. "I'll do a sweep of the area."

"When you're done with the ground floor, meet me on the 1st floor by the security room." Watari stated, gesturing towards the staircase on the right hand side of the room. "'Rotsa ruck." He murmured over his shoulder as he headed for them.

"Watch your tail." I called after him, to which he offered a jaunty swish of his backside in response.

My heart still pounding in my ears, I took a moment to examine the map I had been given, using this as an excuse to allow my nerves to settle. The pamphlet's title was bold, bright and cheerful; seemingly out of place for such an old fashioned library.

Welcome to the Tokyo Metropolitan Tachiagari Library!

Opening Hours

Mon – Fri: 10:00a.m -9:00p.m.

Sat-Sunday/Holidays: 10:00a.m – 5:30 p.m.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Tachiagari Library was built in 1967 as one of the main Metropolitan Libraries in the Tokyo bay area.
The Library is open to the public for study and research.
We welcome your use of our Library.

Library services

The Tachiagari has four subject rooms: the General Reference Room on the first floor, the Social Science Room on the second, the Humanities Room in the eastern annex of the third floor, and the Tokyo Collection in the Special Collections Room in the expansive basement area. It contains around 21,000 volumes of local historical materials on Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures.

In the basement area, there can also be found the Periodicals Room, where newspaper and magazine articles may be viewed from the closed stacks on request. The second floor contains extensive storage areas, where specialized texts, recent volume additions and rare tomes are stored. Access to these areas, as well as certain annexes of the basement area are restricted and may be perused only with permission from the Library director.

Located on the third floor is atrium space, where astrological texts are kept in open shelves and the glass ceiling allows users to survey the night sky. Telescopic equipment can be found here for this purpose.

We hope you enjoy your time with us!

~ X ~

Now that I had a better understanding of where to go, I stowed the pamphlet in my pants pocket and with a deep breath, forced myself to follow slowly in Watari's wake. I moved into the reading area, wending my way carefully through the shelves. The crowd must have been almost entirely gathered in the receptionist area when the hallucinations began because I came across only two bodies in my search. The first, a bearded male, was splayed between neighboring shelves in the psychology section, his face pressed bizarrely against the lowest rung of books. The second I assumed had been an elderly woman. She was slumped in a chintz armchair, the novel Nijushi no hitomi (2) open on her lap, her wizened fingers preventing the pages from folding back upon themselves. I moved closer, noting the unnatural angle of the poor woman's neck, the result of which had caused her dentures to drop down against her shriveled tongue. She seemed to have died more peacefully than the other bodies I had passed. I wasn't at all surprised to find that this was hardly a comfort to me.

Nothing moved and I found no trace of either a spirit or the supposed demon responsible. The silence disturbed me. Ironic when you consider my surroundings. Weren't libraries idyllically supposed to be quiet? But still, even on an average day you would hear whispers pass between people, computer keyboards clicking, someone trying to quietly sneak a crisp without a great deal of success. In the distance sirens continued to sound but they were a poor consolation to my quavering nerves.

It was just when I thought I might go mad from the isolation of it all that a sudden high pitched buzzing came very close to making me to wet my pants. I looked down to seek out the disturbance and came across a gadget I was not yet familiar with, strapped to the holster belt. About the size of a standard cell phone, the front covering flipped open sideways, revealing two interface screens where I supposed you were able to address the person with whom you were communicating. Sure enough, as soon as I had opened this strange little piece of machinery, Chikawa's boyish features were grinning up at me from the left hand screen. My own face, a little whiter than I remembered it, had appeared on the right, wearing a very unappreciative expression.

"Hey, hey, hey! S'up, baby?" Chikawa crowed, bearing every one of his teeth at me. He was wearing a headset I noticed, whether to improve communication or simply because he thought it appropriate I'm not sure. "How ya like the new toys?"

"Chikawa-chan, what is this?" I asked, failing to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Fortunately, Chikawa wasn't intuitive enough to notice.

"The future, Tsuzuki-san! A way to improve field-agent communications! Course, it only works short distance… sort of like walkie-talkies, see? Designed 'em myself." He seemed as proud as a father showing off his first-born. "This way we can map your progress, deliver information and the like! Neat, huh?"

"Yeah… neat…" I half-heartedly agreed, keeping a prudent eye on my surroundings lest our conversation alert the perpetrator to my presence.

"So, how are things going?" The boy asked, fiddling with the microphone antenna, causing a slight rush of static through the receiving end. "What's to report?"

I pressed my back against the shelf behind me, trying to shield myself off from potential attacks, allowing my nerves to remain on edge in case I needed to react quickly. "Civilian casualties are high. I've counted at this stage twenty-five bodies on the ground floor. Watari has since moved onto the 1st floor."

"I'm on the line too." Chikawa's screen suddenly split into two and Watari's face appeared in the bottom half of the screen. I could see the windows of the security booth behind him, his pale features glowing red from the console lights. "Far as I can tell, no one survived up here either. Casualty toll is smaller. Looks like most folks had graduated downstairs. There are twelve victims, eleven are emaciated, only one suffered a violent death."

"Any luck with the security tapes?" I asked.

Watari bit his inside cheek, upper lip curling a little as evidence to his frustration. "Zilch. All the system screens are displaying static and the terminals keep bugging me for a password before they'll let me play around with them." With the arm he wasn't using to hold the telecom, he reached down to apparently fiddle with the screen in front of him. "I'm trying to hack in but it's taking me a little longer than I expected."

"Sounds wild." Chikawa said in a bland, contradictory tone of voice. "You encountered any hostiles yet?"

I was starting to get annoyed with him. Surely he hadn't integrated this system simply for the purpose of having a nice tête-à-tête while we were trying to work? We didn't have the luxury of stuffing about like this. "Chikawa, if you don't have anything relevant to say, would you please get off the line?"

Chikawa's expression soured. "Hey, there's no need to take that attitude. I was calling to tell you that the agent outside finished a scan of the building and he's reported a high level of mana based radiation." Watari's eyes sashayed from one side to the other as he absorbed this information. I understood that mana emissions affected large groups of individuals in precisely the same manner as run of the mill radiation. Of course, the effects as such were of the spiritual nature but they could be damaging and long lasting, neither of which was welcome news to us, the first agents on the scene. "I know this is going to sound completely irrelevant and unnecessary but you need to exercise caution. With that amount of mana about, any of those bodies could be reanimated."

"Reanimated?" I asked, though I didn't actually require an answer. Watari looked entirely delighted.

"We're talking bone-fide zombies, here? Man, I haven't seen a rot-walker in years!" He just about danced with glee at the very idea that one of these corpses might at any moment come dribbling through the bookshelves after him. "This is totally Biohazard!(3)"

I rolled my eyes. "Watari, you know your video game references go right over my head." I directed my attention back towards Chikawa's portion of the screen. "Thanks Chikawa-chan. But I don't think that's going to be a prob-"

"Tsuzuki behind you!" The boy screamed and Watari was yelling out a similar warning, their faces conveying matching expressions of panic. I didn't give myself time to question their reactions. I logged off of the system and bounded back from the shelf, swiveling around to see the male corpse I had stumbled upon in the Psychology section, swinging a chair down towards me. A second before it would have disintegrated over my head, I dove out of the way and steadied the small rifle, holding up one hand as an insistence that the emaciated individual desist in his attack.

"Stop!" I ordered, dropping my hand back to steady the rifle barrel. Much to my great disconcertion, the bearded man moved closer. His skin seemed to swell as he walked, taking on more life-like qualities, so that he appeared less wasted by the moment. His eyes however continued to glow with a red, hateful hue, almost seeming to burn through me.

"Don't move!"

The corpse leered, its' dried tongue lashing out over its' lips and hurled a tangled, aggressive barb of speech at me. I couldn't understand what he was saying but it was vaguely familiar in context.

"What the-" I mumbled as I attempted to focus my thoughts. "… Sounds like the demonic lingo…"

The corpse wasn't prepared to wait for my eventual epiphany because it suddenly lunged toward me, hissing and moaning. Caught by surprise, I fired a shot at its' knee and missed by an embarrassingly wide margin. The second bullet caught it in the thigh and caused it to momentarily stumble. It quickly regained its' footing however and was now close enough to grab me around the neck, hoisting me up into the air, with more strength than I would have expected its' withered muscles to have. I gagged at the constriction to my throat, managing to kick the assaulting cadaver in the head and flip backwards out of its' grasp. As it writhed upon the floor, I stamped down upon its' head, causing part of its' scalp to slide free in the process. I scanned the body for any sign of the soul that previously inhabited it but there was nothing there that suggested its' original owner remained. Not even in part. I was looking only at a remnant. A dangerous remnant. And I absolved myself of this nuisance by sending a bolt of mana directly into its' head. With a gurgling moan, the bearded man slumped backwards, reflexively twitching once or twice before his movements finally stilled. I checked his pulse, his chest to ensure that he was not breathing and then conducted a secondary scan of his body for any remaining trace of life. Satisfied that he was dead beyond rising, I allowed myself to exhale the breath I must have been holding since his surprise attack. I leaned back, wiping off my forehead and massaging the healing bruises that now adorned my neck like a grisly red necklace.

"That's a relief… talk about bad timing." I remarked to myself. The communications device peeped urgently from where I'd dropped it and I hurried over to retrieve it.

"Tsuzuki! Yoo-hoo Tsuzuki, pick up! … I have chocolate, over." Watari said once I'd re-opened the lines. "I heard gunshots. You okay? Fuck man, was that some scary shit seeing that thing creeping up on you from behind!"

I saw my face on the right hand screen display a very tart expression. "Think it was scary for you? Hey and thanks again Chikawa for your plot initiating narrative. I just encountered a hostile."

"One of the corpses?" Chikawa questioned unnecessarily. We had only just discussed the possibility.

I decided not to be rude about it. "Yeah. It attacked me. I had to neutralize it."

"Didn't bite you did it?" The boy questioned, leaning offensively close to the screen as though trying to examine every possible inch of me. He bared his teeth and widened his eyes as though wincing from a sharp and sudden pain. "Watch out or you'll be a zombie yourself before long."

"How will we tell?" Watari asked, batting his eyelashes at me. I used my middle finger to rub the corner of my eye, gaining a laugh from him in response.

"Shinigami already are a breed of zombie, kid." Zombies are of course the reanimated corpses of the deceased and Shinigami are precisely that, only our spirit and consciousness are fully restored and our body remains in stasis, so that we do not decompose, age or suffer the ill effects of injuries and terminal illness. The average run of the mill zombie is a dead person whose reanimation is incomplete. Hence, we are at base level, cut from the same cloth. A zombie is what you might call a failed Shinigami. "Anyway, I'm fine. A little bruised here and there but nothing major. Anything else to report?"

Chikawa nodded, suddenly all business. "I sent out a bunch of security droves to watch over the library." Security droves were low-level tracker demons in the form of birds, which could be instructed to find places or watch over particular areas and alert the summoner to any discrepancies. Chikawa was wise to have thought of it. " If anything busts out, I'll let you guys know right away. As of yet, nothing has left. So the big bad that did all this should still be in there somewhere with you. I suggest you go upstairs and regroup with Watari-sempai. Stay together." He reiterated with a stern, motherly expression.

Watari laughed. "That's sweet. You worried about me, kid?"

The boy groaned in a long-suffering sort of way. "If you were more competent I wouldn't feel the need to worry so much." He leaned closer to the screen. "Keep an eye on him for me would ya, Tsuzuki-san? You know he's next to useless."

"Stop, you're making me blush."

I chuckled softly, giving Chikawa a reassuring thumbs up. "Got it. I'm heading upstairs now. Keep us informed of any new developments."

The boy grinned, winking back at me. "Roger that. Over and out."

"See ya soon." Watari contributed and both of them logged off, neighboring screens shrinking into blackness.

- EC -

(1) Fake Identities: No great significance here. Tsuzuki's fake ID Hotaru means 'firefly' or 'lightening bug' and is a premature reference to Tatsumi's thoughts on fireflies in the Gensoukai arc. 'Same things are more beautiful when left in darkness'. Watari's ID Chinatsu means 'a thousand summers' and is simply a reference to his over the top personality.

(2) Nijushi no hitomi: "Twenty-four Eyes." A well-known and extremely touching novel written in the early 1920's by the author Sakae Tsuboi. It is a semi autobiographical novel that tells the story of a young woman who moves to the town of Tanoura to teach in a small rural school. Has since been made into a movie!

(3) Biohazard: Japan's name for 'Resident Evil', a well-known video game series where people who are infected by a pharmaceutically engineered virus turn into zombies. Trust Watari to come through with the video game references!

A/N: I've never been much of a zombie person myself but they are terribly hard to resist in the horror genre! The next chapter is rather more extreme than this, so an early warning to you lovely readers won't go astray I should think. Only four more parts to go and then back into Dark Adaptation proper! Please review if you enjoyed, it helps with the old self-esteem and encourages me to keep on doing what I truly enjoy doing. Catch ya next time!

- EC -