Disclaimer: PoT is not mine. I'm merely playing with the characters.

Thank you everybody for the wonderful reviews! They make writing twice as much fun, and it makes me very happy to know there are other people in the world who enjoy the ideas my mind comes up with!

Yoshikochan: Thank you very much for your review. Fuji and Tezuka are going to have some time to try and figure out what actually is happening around them. Though if they're going to reach an conclusive answer is another question…

Koshi Sekisen: Thank you very much for reading and reviewing. Fuji had quite a close call there, and Tezuka is beyond stressed. For now they'll get a break to try and figure out what is going on. Your observation of the spirit's behavior is quite astute – though Fuji and Tezuka will need some time to learn the truth.

Tennis-player: Thank you very much for your review. You complement me too much – the story isn't yet complete. And I hope you'll enjoy reading future chapters as well.

Also a very big thank you to Viri9ian FuraMashi, Scarlette Shizuru and Mesonoxian.

Eleven

As the adrenaline drained from his body, Tezuka sighed. He'd spent the last hours in a state of paralyzed horror, incapable of realising the events occurring in front of his eyes. And while he'd dealt with everything the best he could, he was unable to help the exhaustion assaulting his body.

He dropped down beside the tub and rested his head against the rim, letting the hot steam caress his stiff muscles. Slowly Tezuka turned his head and glanced over to Fuji, who was staring at the far wall, lost in contemplation. His cheeks finally had regained colour and he no longer looked like the living dead.

Tezuka took a deep breath. His body longed to relax, but he was afraid to give in.

If the spirit was to reappear, they'd be completely helpless. If anything should befall them … yet Fuji appeared calm and Tezuka would trust Fuji's judgement concerning their situation.

His mind felt as if a hurricane had raged through it, left his logic crumbling, and strange, disconnected thoughts floating in his head like leaves in the wind. A small part kept wondering whether everything hadn't just been one big illusion, and he was going to wake up to the sound of his alarm clock in a few minutes.

If he ever got a second chance, he'd never go to this house.

Then he'd never have to see the mutilated cat in Fuji's locker, he'd never have his arm cut by somebody he once had considered family, and he'd never have to witness Fuji disappearing under a thick layer of ice.

His hands trembled when he recalled how close it had been. Something had frozen inside of him then, when he'd stared helplessly at the smooth surface of the lake, the creature's words echoing in his ears and it had felt like an eternity until he could move his feet.

Even now the warm, humid bathroom, that part of his soul would not thaw.

"You need to give them a call." Fuji's voice broke through his thoughts; even, but lacking his usual cheer.

Tezuka blinked and raised his head. He hadn't noticed his eyes closing.

"They'll probably be able to figure out things quickly," Fuji continued, an unfamiliar frown crossing his face, "But we ought to warn the Nakayamas. I don't know how quickly the spirit will reach them and…"

He stopped abruptly and Tezuka turned over to see Fuji stifling a cough.

Something deep in his chest clenched painfully. "And you need to get out of the bath before you catch a cold," he sternly replied.

Fuji's lips twitched upwards in a dry smile. "It might be a little late for me not to catch one right now. But I'll get out when you go and call them."

Tezuka eyed his friend critically. While Fuji certainly did not pass for healthy, he didn't seem in immediate danger of fainting either. The smile on his lips was weak, a shadow of his usual expression, but restored a small, precious bit of normality to their situation.

"Don't worry," Fuji reassured him and Tezuka's heart warmed a little. Then he tilted his head thoughtfully. "What are you going to tell them?"

Tezuka remained silent and Fuji raised an eyebrow.

"The truth won't work; I guess," Fuji chuckled. He gazed toward the ceiling. "They do know we were here a few days ago, don't they? How about you tell them we returned because I lost my student ID? It's not a lie, it just didn't happen today. And when we arrived we found the door open and the library upstairs a mess."

Tezuka felt numb. The way Fuji was constructing the story appeared well-practiced; a routine gesture like preparing his school materials every night.

Did Fuji have to do this a lot?

The implications sent a cold shudder down Tezuka's spine.

"You can tell them that as far as you can see nothing has been stolen," Fuji continued, unaware of Tezuka's thoughts. "But one box – and you should describe it en detail so they'll know what box it is – has been destroyed."

Tezuka swallowed, setting his contemplations aside for another time.

He'd have to lie with the same nonchalant attitude Fuji had just displayed. There was no other option.

Fuji's eyes met his. "If they recognise the box from your description, they'll know what is happening."

With a heavy heart Tezuka left the bathroom, walked down the corridor and shivered when icy air greeted him the moment he stepped into the living room.

The door to the garden stood wide open, just as they'd left it. As he closed it, he recalled once again their opponent's mysterious disappearance – where had that spirit gone, what would it do next and how on earth were they supposed to protect themselves?

Outside snow glittered in the bright sunlight. It had to be past midday by now, judging by the slightly lengthened shadows.

A humourless smile crept on Tezuka's face when he found his and Fuji's footprints in the snow. No trace of the spirits presence – just like the cat. Mori-san had appeared real, had been able to touch Fuji and him, and yet, according to the ground, she had never been there.

No matter how much nature's laws claimed the opposite – this being had been corporal and not at the same time. Utterly impossible.

A throb running through his arm reminded him that he had a job to do. Chances were, he wouldn't be able to make sense of the situation on his own, and even if he didn't like the tale he would have to tell, it was far more constructive than looking out of the window.

One deep breath, then he dialled the number and something inside him went onto autopilot. The voice uttering those words was his own, but he didn't feel as if he was speaking and when he placed down the receiver he was astonished at himself.

He had done exactly as Fuji had instructed and unless he had misread the situation, Nakayama Kenta had understood the message. This left him wonder, deep down, why two persons who obviously both knew that they were lying, did not simply speak the truth.

With a shake of his head, he pressed the call button once again.

A part of his mind hoped nobody would pick up and he wouldn't have to tell anymore lies, but the rational side of his brain reminded him that this would be rather unfortunate. With Fuji's condition and his blood-stained shirt, getting home on public transport would be a nightmare.

Furthermore Fuji's clothes were soaked and his were wet. The fathomless blue sky outside mocked them; bright and sunny but the air was as cold as ice. He did not want to imagine what a three-hour train ride might do to Fuji's health.

After two rings, somebody picked up.

"Hello?" his father's cheerful voice greeted him.

"Hello." Tezuka replied evenly, steeling himself for the conversation.

"Kunimitsu?" His father asked, surprise colouring his voice. "Aren't you at school? Did something happen?"

"No, I'm not at school. It's, well…" Tezuka hesitated for a second. He did not want to lie to his parents on top of everything – but they'd think him mad if he would tell the truth. "Remember when I went to the Nakayamas' house? Fuji came with me and he lost his student ID, so we went back to look for it."

"Ah, okay." Trust his father not to question why they had skipped school in order to do this. For once Tezuka felt grateful for his father's laissez-faire attitude.

"There was a small accident; Fuji fell into the pond," Tezuka's unconsciously gripped the phone tighter. "So I was wondering if you could come and pick us up."

He held his breath. His mother or grandfather would have immediately recognized his words for what they were – a poorly constructed cover-up, and they would have demanded him to fill the gaps until he had provided them with a full explanation.

All his father said was: "Must have been one hell of a snowball fight, then. Is Fuji-kun okay?"

"Yes." Tezuka uttered. His eyes fell on the bloodied sleeve of his shirt and he wondered how he would explain that to his mother.

"I see." His father said after a moment. "I'll have to wait until your mother gets back and then we'll drive out to pick you up. Can you wait that long?"

"I think so." Tezuka answered. He'd have preferred getting out of the house as soon as possible, but there wasn't much of a choice.

"Then we'll be along soon."

Tezuka placed the phone back and flexed his fingers. The drive from Tokyo to here already took almost three hours under normal circumstances. Taking the condition of the roads into consideration meant they'd have to wait four hours at least.

He still wasn't certain if not calling an ambulance was the right thing to do, but Fuji had appeared better. Unless his condition took an abrupt turn for the worse, the situation started to look a little better for the first time today.

Maybe, Tezuka dared to hope, things would be alright.

It felt impossible after everything that had occurred. When he'd gotten that phone call back in school, reality had collapsed and he'd found himself in a nightmare. First he'd thought he had lost Fuji due to his own stupidity; next what once had been a nice old lady was pointing a kitchen knife at him.

How they had made it through all this alive… it still was hard to fathom.

When Tezuka had trudged back to bathroom, he found Fuji out of the bathtub, wrapped in a larger towel and kneeling in front of the drier. His face was flushed, yet Tezuka could make out that underneath he was still too pale. Fuji turned to greet him with a sheepish smile.

"I hope you don't mind. I thought I'd try to get my clothes dry."

Ten minutes later found them seated in the living room, Fuji wrapped in three layers of blankets. Tezuka was watching him from the corner of his eye as he sat down two cups of tea on the table in front of them.

"So," Fuji conversationally asked over his steaming mug, "Did the Nakayamas understand what you told them?"

Tezuka sat down beside Fuji. "I think so. When I described the box, Nakayama-san just said yes, that he understood. He hung up shortly after…"

"I'll let you be the judge of that," Fuji replied with a shrug, "Though I really wonder what was supposed to have been in there. You don't have any idea, do you?"

A shake of the head was the only answer to this.

"But," Tezuka started after he had carefully taken a sip of his tea. "Just how did the spirit enter the house? I thought the wards ought to have kept it out."

Fuji let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped.

"I was wrong," He admitted and put his teacup back on the table. "I thought the spirit would need your blood to pass the wards, but the blood of anybody in legal possession of the key did the job."

Tezuka raised an eyebrow, and with a humourless smile Fuji added: "I completely forgot to consider that you had given me the keys when the cat attacked."

"So it was your blood?" Tezuka asked and received a confirming nod. In his head, he tried to fit the pieces together. "But why … it had to get us here to open that box, didn't it?"

"Yes, that's about it." Fuji said and coughed. "The box must have been protected by something resembling the wards around the house. It still remains a mystery why your blood made the box open or how the spirit knew that, but well…"

He trailed off, gazing outside thoughtfully. The tranquil landscape made a stark contrast to the bizarre events it had been witness too.

Tezuka straightened up. He might not have liked the subject of their conversation, especially when it still felt like a too-realistic nightmare, but a small part of mind reminded him that it could always happen again. That peaceful scenery of snow-covered trees under a clear sky was nothing but a front; attempting to fool him into letting his guard down.

"Let me try to get a clearer picture," He heard himself say. Deep inside he wasn't certain he even wanted to know the truth. If he was honest with himself, he'd have preferred going home and never mentioning anything again; if the world would let him.

However with the spirits ominous parting words weighting heavily on his mind, Tezuka suddenly found it necessary to make sense of concepts he'd otherwise have disregarded as fiction.

"There is a mysterious spirit apparently after something that has once been kept inside that box," Tezuka summarized, "And for some reason this spirit knew where the box was being kept – could it sense the box in any way?"

Fuji gently shook his head. "Under any other circumstances that would have been a possibility, but given the protections heaped on this place, I doubt it. The spirit must have found out another way."

Tezuka blinked.

A dark smile crossed Fuji's lips. "You, too, must have wondered why it took the shape of Mori-san."

Ice flooded Tezuka's veins. With baited breath he waited for Fuji to continue.

"Perhaps I'm wrong," Fuji pulled the blankets a little higher up. "Though I don't believe that the spirit chose Mori-san by chance alone. You said she died of natural causes – which I think might be true. But just think about what encountering such a spirit would do to somebody not too healthy."

Mori had had a weak heart, Tezuka recalled his grandfather mentioning. An encounter with this spirit… He swallowed.

"Though that does still not explain how that spirit, or whatever it is, knew that something was being kept here," Fuji added with knitted eyebrows. His voice started to sound scratchy. "Do you know if Mori-san liked to travel?"

Tezuka took another sip of the tea. By now the liquid had reached a comfortable temperature and he could feel dearly missed warmth spreading through his body.

"She did, though not as much as the Nakayamas," he replied. Then he nodded toward the pictures collected on a shelf on the other side of the room. "They travelled together sometimes."

Fuji glanced over. "You wouldn't happen to know where she went last, would you?"

"I don't," Tezuka answered, a little taken aback at Fuji's interest in a seemingly unrelated issue. "Why?"

A grimace crossed Fuji's face and he turned aside to cough. Had Tezuka been more prone to displaying emotions, he would have flinched at the sound. When the coughing did not abate after a moment, he grew concerned.

There was little he could do but press a teacup into Fuji's hands once the coughing fit was over.

Eventually Fuji continued; paler than before. "It's possible that Mori-san encountered that spirit during a journey. And if we knew where that happened, we might be able to discern just what kind of a creature we're dealing with."

Tezuka's eyebrows rose until they almost met his hairline.

Fuji chuckled. "There are different kinds of, well, creatures, spirit, whatever you want to call them, out there. I can't name them all, but I'm certain my sister has a book with names as well as pretty good explanations somewhere."

Tezuka nodded, and hazarded a guess. "Knowing what creature we're facing could give us a clue on how to handle the situation, I'd think."

"True," Fuji agreed. "And it might also tell us what kind of object it is after."

"But how about what we've already seen," Tezuka contemplated, and he gazed through the room, trying to sort out his recollections. "If we look at its abilities… when we first came here, you fainted."

"I probably accidentally ran into the spirit trying to take down the wards. It failed and I got knocked out," Fuji explained, sounding a little sheepish.

"Then the cat," Tezuka added, while Fuji replaced his empty teacup on the table.

With a sigh Fuji dropped back against the pillows. "Maybe the spirit had hoped the cat, as a familiar, could enter the house. When that failed, it used an illusion to gain an invitation from us and when that was refused, it drew blood."

"And that eventually allowed it to enter," Tezuka finished the tale, nodding. It made sense, would even have been logical, if the entire premise was not made up of things that had no place in his well-ordered world. He frowned. "But why that corpse in your locker?"

"A warning, maybe," Fuji shrugged. "Or a message. Telling me it had already entered and would be back for more blood. It's difficult to tell."

Tezuka turned that piece of information over in his head. There were still too many gaping holes to understand the complete story, but the picture was starting to shape. Though unbidden another idea rose to his mind.

"Fuji…" he began, however Fuji abruptly started coughing.

Tezuka bit his lower lip as Fuji hunched over, pressed his hands in front of his mouth and tried to breathe. The coughs echoed grotesquely in the silent room, and when it was over, Fuji exhaustedly leaned back. His entire body was shaking.

Carefully Tezuka reached out and rested his hand against Fuji's forehead.

"I think you're running a fever," He gently said, "Maybe you should sleep a while. I'll go and see if I find anything for that cough."

Fuji did not protest, and Tezuka's worry rose. A quick glance at the clock revealed, that his parents would arrive in two hours at best.

"What did you want to ask?" Fuji's question interrupted his thoughts, while he was trying to stretch out on the couch.

"Nothing important," Tezuka immediately replied, and then cursed himself for that automatic response. Fuji merely waited in silence for him to voice his idea.

"You said when we encountered the cat, it was an illusion built on the animal's corpse," Tezuka finally ventured, firmly suppressing the nausea that assaulted him when he thought of the mess of intestines and blood he'd seen.

"With Mori-san… was it the same?"

Fuji blanched. "I… don't think so. But to be honest…"

He swallowed and Tezuka found his own trepidation mirrored in his friend's eyes.

"It is possible."

Tezuka turned away. His eyes once again were drawn to the undisturbed scenery outside, but the mere idea he had walked out there with a corpse made his stomach turn. He felt dizzy, too, though that could have been caused by a lack of food as well as the excitement.

"There is one other thing I noticed," Fuji eventually said from his cocoon of blankets, his voice barely above a whisper. "That spirit is taking care not to endanger your life – it cut your right arm and nowhere near your wrist."

Tezuka pressed his lips together as cold dread settled in his heart.

"I, on the other hand, am currently serving as the spirit's tool to make you do its bidding."

tbc

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