When Hisoka woke up, he found himself walking through an empty street.
It was like a dream. Steam came up through the grates, wreathing the street in smoke. Neon signs melted, lights swimming in the dark like deep sea fish. And then his sneakered foot splashed through a puddle, and the cold water soaking through his sock snapped him awake.
He didn't know why he was out here. It had been a long time since he had last sleep-walked.
And that was when he was still alive.
It wasn't a voice. But it was definitely a call, an unbreakable chain. A siren's song that pulled him forward even when he tried to make his feet stop.
He could feel it resonating inside him. A pulsing that ran along his entire body, a shiver of pain that crept into his bones.
By the time he realized what it was, it was too late.
Muraki.
On the back stoop of a free clinic, smoking a slightly crushed cigarette. His hair was disheveled, shorn close to his scalp, verging on spikiness. A pair of crumpled surgical gloves lay at his feet.
His sleeves were rolled up, splattered with tiny droplets of blood. Blood stained his arms up to his elbows, past where the gloves would have covered them.
Sweat had soaked through his button-up shirt, and he was shivering just a little.
"It's all right, doctor." An older woman, a matronly nurse in bloody scrubs came by to check on him, patting his shoulder.
"I'm fine."
Hisoka startled, hearing that familiar voice. But it sounded tired, defeated. Nothing like the monster he knew.
"You did all you could. He shouldn't have come here. He should have gone to a hospital. We're not equipped for emergency surgeries. Any reasonable person should know that…"
"Still, had someone called 119 when they saw him hit by a car. Perhaps he could have been saved." His eyes were flat and expressionless, lost in some internal reverie.
"It's nothing we can do. It's in god's hands, Dr. Muraki." The nurse patted his shoulder again, as if that would fix everything. "I'll go make you some coffee."
"Thank you. I'll take my break now, then." Still managing to sound calm and professional. It made Hisoka want to laugh.
After the nurse left, Muraki finished the cigarette slowly before dropping the butt, crushing it methodically with the toe of his shoe. He stood leaning against the railing of the stoop, as though something pained him.
Hisoka stared for a long moment, until Muraki's head turned and he craned his neck to see what Muraki was looking at.
A covered gurney was being rolled into an emergency vehicle. The lights didn't flash as it drove off.
Hisoka could feel the rage bubbling inside him. How…how dare Muraki stand around smoking, pretending to care. Pretending a person's death was the worst thing to happen to him today.
How dare he continue practicing medicine, after all he had done? After all the people he had killed. Hisoka had stopped counting years ago.
The black ribbon on his wrist began to smoke, its edges unraveling, crumbling into motes of energy as his anger mounted.
He could feel Kurikara, writhing to get out. Kurikara's anger fed his, and his fed Kurikara's. Like a serpent eating its own tail, he could feel everything grow sharper, more intense. A positive feedback loop that was quickly pushing him to the edge of his control.
He'd let his shikigami loose on Muraki. Let him get a taste of a fraction of the horror that he visited on everyone else.
He'd make Muraki scream. Scream until his throat was raw, scream until every drop of life was crushed out of his pathetic, human shell…
As if on cue, Muraki looked up, eyes scanning the shadows.
"Who's there?"
"Remember me?" Hisoka stepped forward into the weak security light of a nearby building, blond hair catching in the faint light.
A little spark in Muraki's eye, a flicker of interest. "Ah, boy. Or should I say…young man. If you're here for that homeless man, you'll have to go to the city morgue."
"I'm not here for him."
"Then you're certainly far too early. I know my fate." Muraki's hand pressed against his side. "Not everyone can boast that they've seen their death. But…it's not quite time for me."
"Then you're wrong."
"Fine. You have as much right…no, more. You have the most right, if I recall." Muraki smiled a little, a bitter twist of his lips. "Though I suppose the only people who have even more of right than you are certainly dead."
"I am dead." Hisoka shook all over, and he could feel Kurikara detaching himself.
The ribbon snapped and burst into particles of magic that dissipated into the air as though they never existed.
Muraki's pale eyes filled with fear. Flames reflected in them; Kurikara's cold flames.
The door behind him clicked open.
And Hisoka could feel a lurch of fear in his stomach, realizing that if Kurikara moved forward, it would kill whoever was behind him.
Eaten up. Burned up. Whatever the case.
"Do it, do it…they deserve it. Anyone who he knows. Anyone who helps him. Everyone who gets in your way…" Kurikara's breath whispered into the shell of his ear, and for a brief moment, less than the time it takes for the heart to contract, Hisoka believed him.
"No!" His hand moved in a convulsive gesture, and his fist tightened.
Sudden silence. The dripping of a drain pipe. The smooth whoosh of a car's tires as it passed somewhere nearby. The creak of the door as it opened all the way.
"Here, doctor." The nurse was back, and she offered him a chipped mug. "I made it the way you liked it, with two sugars and cream."
"Thank you, Enchi-san." But Muraki's eyes were fixed on Hisoka.
"Young man?" The nurse shook her head. "You had better not be bothering our doctor. He's had a tough night." She paused, looking him over. "A good boy like you should be home in bed."
"Yeah. Guess…I should."
"It's all right." Muraki's voice sounded hollow. Hisoka hadn't noticed it before, but wrinkles were beginning to etch on his face. Around his eyes, the side of his mouth. "Thank you for the coffee, Enchi-san. I'll drink it out here."
"Should I call the police?" She whispered sharply to him.
"No, it's quite all right. We…are old friends." Muraki's lips moved in the memory of a smile.
But when the nurse looked over to Hisoka again, he was gone.
*****
From the shadows, Hisoka watched Muraki drink his coffee. Saw the dark circles under the man's eyes. The stiff way he moved when knelt to tie his shoe, as if suffering from an old wound.
So here was the monster that had made his life a living hell. And the first years of his afterlife not much better. An aging man, tired and broken, stealing a brief moment of pleasure in coffee and cigarettes.
Hisoka tried to remember how many years it had been since he had last seen Muraki.
Once he had been a beautiful psychopath. A cunning strategist. A powerful sorcerer. A man who made them all dance to his tune for three years.
And he had burned out to a shell.
He looked at Muraki's face in the cold florescent light of the clinic, and tried to find a hint of the man he hated.
It was lost in weary eyes. The shape was still there, but the life behind it…
Hisoka reached out with his senses, careful, hesitant. He just wanted to know.
Muraki's mind was following the flow of his waiting patients, parents with sickly children, a stone-faced old woman who was white with pain. Cold coffee congealing on stained counters, the antiseptic stink of scrubbed linoleum.
The little worries of a little clinic in the bad part of town.
Sometime before the psychopath, there had been a doctor inside. And when the madness had burned away, only the doctor was left.
The malice was gone. The old charm, the old madness, ground down, the edges gone. The purpose lost. Not even a hint of its previous shape was left.
A sad stranger looked out from behind Muraki's mismatched eyes.
Hisoka sighed, pulling his senses away.
"I don't…need you anymore." He mouthed it to himself. "I don't…need…"
He pulled his jean jacket tight around his shoulders. It was almost dawn, and he should go home and face the consequences.
Hugging himself, Hisoka disappeared, the tug of reality around him warping for a moment before snapping straight again.
Author's Notes: Thanks to RubyD and Greekhoop for beta-ing.