Somewhere beyond the hills, the sun was coming up. Hisoka shivered as he stood outside the little cabin, wondering where the dark sea that he saw yesterday went, lost in a distance blurred by fog.
He touched a branch; it snapped, brittle and dry under his fingers. This was an arid place. The hills seemed to stretch on forever, baked yellow and brown like loaves of hot bread.
Hisoka stopped by the well, drawing water. Averting his eyes from his reflection in the water, he scooped some out with his bare hand, drinking as chill water seeped through his fingers.
"It won't go away just because you want it to." Kurikara leaned against the well, a perfect mirror to Hisoka. Even his hand was curled before him, as if cupping a handful of water.
"You've got a lot of nerve. Maybe I should just dump you back into Gensoukai. You can go sleep in the desert for another thousand years, for all I care." Hisoka shook his hand dry, and Kurikara mimicked it, in a motion so perfect that it seemed to Hisoka that he really was looking into a mirror.
"I'm a part of you now, just as much as you're a part of me. And I know you wouldn't do that. Not after how hard you had to fight to get to where you are. Am I right? All those years…wasted years of being weak, and now you're the strong one. You're the one with the power. What do you say? I've been looking in your memories. Why don't we go back to Japan and show that man a lesson?"
"What man?" Hisoka felt a sickening shudder go through his stomach, knowing who Kurikara meant.
"That man. You know who I'm talking about." Kurikara leaned forward, and for a moment, all Hisoka saw was his own reflection, in the poisoned green pool of a single eye. "Muraki."
"Don't say it…"
"I'll find him. Rip out his eyes. Rip out his guts. Make him watch himself die. All for you. I could eat him, slowly, like a wasting disease…" Kurikara seemed to coil, his form shimmering as if smoke, half-way between dragon and boy. "I can make every minute of his death seem like a thousand years of torment. What do you think? Why don't we do it? It'll be great fun. I'll digest him so slowly that even after he's dead he'll be in pain. I'll dissolve his soul in my stomach, a slow death in a pit of acid. It'll be like he never even existed. And then you'll be happy."
"No." Hisoka shivered. "No, no…no!"
"Why not?" Kurikara looked at him gravely. "You hate him. So I hate him. And if you want him to die…then I want him to die too. He's caused you enough suffering. He's caused everyone suffering. Everyone you care about. Why don't I cause him some too?"
And he could feel the temptation, burning away like a hunger in his stomach, like a hollow place inside of him. Muraki groveling. Muraki screaming in pain as he did so many years ago…
"No. No. It's not right." Hisoka gasped, clutching his stomach. "It's not right…he doesn't deserve it."
"Of course it's right. He's hurt so many people. Why shouldn't you hurt him a little? Make him stop. Not just for your own sake…" Kurikara's arm closed around Hisoka's, drawing him close. Hisoka could feel the hunger now, as if the previous sensation was only a shadow of the real desire. Ravenous, throbbing…it was as if he had never known real hunger before.
Hisoka stumbled, knees slamming into the cracked dirt. Tears crept into his eyes; memory, pain, the urge for revenge…all of it spiraling into the shards of a mirror before him, showing him a face that he had never wanted to see again. That disgusting smirk he wanted to destroy, the one he wished he could erase from his memories. The flutter of a white coat that he wanted to rip, to stain and shred. And the sickening memories he was scarred with, a bullet through the heart of a beautiful girl, a fire that raged in his nightmares and took Tsuzuki with it…
And if he just let Kurikara, everything would be taken care of…
"Because…because…" Hisoka's mind reeled with it, wanting the revenge so much he could taste it, a bitter metallic taste in his mouth. He bent over, falling back on his heels, and the iron sky rolled up in his eyes. In the distance a white speck of a bird rose and rose until it seemed to touch the ground again.
The clouds broke. A breath; all he could see was white as the sun blazed through him, heating the core of desire inside of him, an inferno of torture.
But somewhere far away it seemed that footsteps approached, crunching through the dry leaves and grasses. Like a dream intruding on reality; little rhythmic snaps that slowly brought him back…back to-
"Because no one deserves that," said a familiar voice.
He knew it like he knew his own soul. And the crushing heat disappeared, replaced by a familiar warmth.
And suddenly Kurikara was gone and Hisoka felt his leaving like the audible crack of a whip.
"Tsuzuki?" Hisoka tottered up onto his feet.
"Yeah, it's me." Tsuzuki smiled gently, awkwardly, hands held out in a gesture of reconcilement. "I brought Tatsumi too. We thought…if it's okay…" He opened his arms. "If it's okay…We'd like you to come home. I…I'd like you to come home."
It was so rehearsed that it seemed like a set piece. Hisoka laughed wildly, leaning heavily against the rough stone of the well to catch his breath. "You two…you two are so ridiculous." As he caught his breath, he could feel himself shaking. They were in his way. They'd stop him. Tsuzuki knew about his conversation with Kurikara…Tsuzuki knew his next stop would be somewhere in Tokyo, watching Muraki's blood staining the grass…
Staining the pale pink petals.
Blood.
A crimson moon bloated in the empty indigo sky.
Hisoka teetered, threatening to tip over. He saw himself, first from a distance, a lonely figure on the crest of the hill before suddenly coming to himself, staring at his hands. Blood-splattered to the elbows, and in the wavering mirror of a pool of blood, a self-satisfied smirk across his lips as he watched it trickle over ivory skin, soaking into delicate strands of pale hair…
"No!" And the ground lurched with a sickening rumble, throwing Hisoka to his feet.
"Earthquake! Holy Earth Snake!" James scrambled out of the cabin, his hand clapped over the top of his head as though the tremors would knock the hat off his head, his other hand outstretched over the ground.
Trees shuddered, branches snapping as birds flew up in great clouds, as if the earth was shaking them loose from their hiding places.
"Earth Snake! Earth Snake!" Around them, faint cries in the distance grew clearer, as people began to run toward the commotion from over the hills. The ones that could walk had their arms stretched out to the ground, others pressed their hands into the dust.
"It's not natural…" Tatsumi stumbled, trying to keep his feet. "It's…"
The hills undulated like the back of a great serpent, the ground cracking open to reveal the faintest glimmer of brown-black scales edged with crimson, glowing like molten rock.
Hisoka could feel the little snap, like a joint cracking inside his chest, and suddenly things felt very far away.
His mouth opened, and blankly, lost of his own will, he felt himself speaking, his hands moving. By the time he realized what he was doing, he couldn't stop it anymore. As much as he tried, he couldn't take it back. The last words flew out of him in a torrent.
"Kurikara!" It was as much a denial as a summons.
The serpent hung in the air for a brief instant, before diving toward the earth.
A gleaming lidless eye, immense, ancient beyond the measure of man, peered through the cracks in the broken earth.
The sky turned black as the serpent neared the ground, whirlwinds of dust knocking people to the ground like tiny seeds caught in a downdraft.
Jaws, wider than a canyon. It seemed to phase through the hills, up onto the surface. Teeth glowed red with the fires of the earth.
"Kurikara!" Tsuzuki screamed. "No!"
-----
Braced for the impact that never came, James ventured a peek out from under the protective shade of his hat.
There, a stranger, eyes blue-cold with determination. His pale hand, ice carved, clamped onto Hisoka's shoulder, straightening his arm, pulling Hisoka's sleeve back to expose his wrist.
James could feel his magic sense burning; the glyph carved over his heart trembled with tension. Something was terribly wrong with the black ribbon he was tying around Hisoka's wrist. It pulsed with power, more power than he had seen concentrated in an object in his life. Something was terribly wrong about the way Hisoka didn't move, as if frozen into time, a scared, wild-eyed statue struggling to move his lips.
James didn't like what he saw, so he did what came natural.
Sato's eyes widened as the bullet flew at him, heavy with magic. Magic that he couldn't turn; magic that cast no tangible shadow.
His hand flew up; a pebble, that was his, and then suddenly a boulder came crashing ahead of him, exploding into fragments as the bullet tore through it. It missed him by a breath, clipping the sleeve of his haori. The threads exploded, catching fire and Sato tore it off, slicing through the sleeve with a shadow stolen from a strand of hair. The magic scorched its way through the rest of the sleeve as it fluttered down to the ground, before dying into a cold fire that disappeared into the air without leaving a trace.
A strange blue-black mark seared his forearm where the bullet had passed by it, fading slowly as he twisted around to where the bullet came from, hand outstretched. The man was not far; not far at all, and there were many things he could be stopped with. Splinters of wood of the house; a tin can of rusted nails, the shadow from a clump or grasses…
The gun came up again, ready to fire.
Sudden sucking blackness, and immediately he knew where he was.
"Tatsumi." Sato bowed, courtly and graceful, an acknowledgement and thanks all wrapped into one. It made no difference in the dark; but he thought Tatsumi would appreciate the gesture if he could see it. He had always been one for meaningless formalities.
"You're welcome." Tatsumi dusted himself off as if nothing was the matter.
"You know…that you can't keep me in here. Not forever. Not even for an hour." Sato was already probing the edges of the shadow dimension, trying to find his way back. It was just beyond his reach, but he could if he pushed. After all, he had found his way in once before.
"I know. I just want to talk for a minute. Is that all right?" But Tatsumi could feel the tiny strands of Sato's power probing, searching. He clenched his fist, tightening the shadows around them.
"Fine. Five minutes." His shadows kept moving, searching for a weak spot, and then suddenly stopped. "Tell me what you want."
"Kurosaki-kun isn't a danger anymore. You can release him now."
Sato reached out his hand, trying to find Tatsumi in the swallowing darkness. "You know I can't. This isn't a matter for you to decide, no matter what your standing is."
Tatsumi reached out, catching Sato's hand easily, feeling the swirl and eddy of Sato's shadow standing out in the dark. "I'm not asking as the department secretary, Sato. I'm asking as your friend."
"He's a danger to himself and others. If I hadn't been there…" Sato's hand gripped him firmly, fingers smooth, so unlike the samurai he was supposed to at least appear to be.
"We would have had an international incident. I know. As it stands, we're already looking at months, maybe years of negotiations with the Americans. But I don't want you to kill him."
"Do you think this is what I do, Tatsumi?" Sato suddenly sounded older, weary. "I wasn't going to kill him. I don't kill runaways. I only…I just hunt them and bring them home."
"Then what about the others? I saw…saw the parts of Kunieda-san that came home. So many years ago…And I heard-"
"You don't know." Sato's voice died to a low murmur, hand falling lax. "No one other than Enma…it's my own fault for not saying. But I never knew you would think that of me. I really thought you'd understand…"
"Saying what? Understand what?" Tatsumi frowned, annoyed at Sato's cryptic remarks.
"That it's their own powers that tear them apart. It's…what happens with a Shinigami can't control his shikigami. Or more rarely…when a shikigami has a piece of the Shinigami. A finger. An eye. A foot. Sometimes even an entire body. You don't know what they wanted me to do to Terazuma." Sato's voice sounded hollow, expressionless. "Before they realized the girl could control him, they wanted me to tie him down with shadows until they found a way to remove it from his body."
"Something like that could take years. A lifetime." Tatsumi shuddered, imagining being trapped inside of himself while Enma's creatures experimented with ways to pry the living shikigami out of him.
"I know." Sato sighed. His fingers tightened. "I have to take him back. The ribbon doesn't last forever. It can block his tie to the shikigami for only so long. And a strong one like this…I don't know if it'll last a day."
"If Kurosaki-kun could be persuaded to give up the shikigami…do you think he would return to normal?"
"Tatsumi." Sato's thumb stroked his wrist lightly. "Be reasonable. Would you give up your own powers?"
"That's different."
"Is it?" Thoughtfully, Sato drew closer, free hand dropping to rest on Tatsumi's shoulder. "Without power, a Shinigami doesn't last. Shinigami that can't fight aren't likely to stay. They pass on within five, ten years. It's only the powerful that survive. That rule hasn't changed in the centuries I've seen."
"It's not a rule. I've never heard of it." Tatsumi argued. "Even if it did, it was the ancient way, maybe hundreds of years ago, but certainly not now."
"Maybe not written or spoken. But it hasn't changed over the centuries. Just think about it-"
Sato stumbled back, blinded by harsh daylight. He blinked, eyes watering, hands pressed to shade his face. By the time his eyesight returned to normal, they were gone.
The boy, the two Shinigami…
All that was left was the strange pale-haired foreign Shinigami.
Sato rubbed his bare wrist, feeling the lingering ache. It was as though a weight had lifted from him, knowing that the boy was alive and out of his hands. Yet at the same time, a tremor of anxiety gnawed at his stomach. Tatsumi could be hurt. People in Meifu or Chijou might be harmed. To be safe, he had less than a day to track them down again.
A coughing, clearing of the throat. Sato blinked, thoughts clearing.
The foreign Shinigami shrugged and tipped his hat to Sato. He patted his gun, shrugged some more, and chattered strangely. A lot of shrugging and awkward gestures rounded out the one-sided conversation.
Some distant part of Sato's brain put the movements together in context and knew it for an apology. He bowed, slow and careful, to let the man know there was no bad blood between them; it was an accident.
After all, there was nothing to be angry about. No one was seriously killed.
Turning his gaze to the south, Sato reached out with his powers, and he could feel Tatsumi's shadow, blurred but steady, somewhere in the far distance. But before he could even take a step, it blinked away and then reappeared far away, so far he could barely feel it. Just as far as the boy's shadow had felt from Meifu.
So they were home already. He frowned, feeling the shadows one more time to be sure.
Home, but in Chijou.
Sato felt himself lift up, into the air, hurrying to catch them.
-----
Thanks to RubyD for the beta. Without her this story would make a lot less sense and be a lot more dull. Sorry I haven't been updating, but I'm planning to put out the next chapter soon (cross fingers). This story should be done in another chapter or two, hopefully.
If you're wondering how they got home so fast, Tenkuu was waiting to take them home. He's considerate like that. One casting = round trip airfare.