Underneath the Shade

by Waiwa Ayas

What if Natsuno and Tohru survived the purge of Sotoba? Natsuno Yuuki is not pleased when he awakens in the middle of a burned wasteland to the discovery that he is still "alive." All he wants is to rest in peace; however, a drastic choice forced upon him may come to change the way he defines his future, along with life itself.

8. Resurgence

Hey guys! Don't look now, but it's...another update! Thank you to all the kind people who welcomed me back! I have been writing like the wind, so I hope you all enjoy this new chapter! Part one is aaaaaalmost done. Just a little bit more to go. Now that I'm writing again, life is super-creatively-busy! My friends from my hometown are currently threatening to attack me with sporks if I don't go back over to my other Fanfiction account and write a new chapter for their story, so I'm going to do that for a day or two and then get back to this one. I don't want to be attacked with sporks. :)

Salt-the-Catgirl: I'm glad you liked it! And yes, Tatsumi is the sneaky type.

La Vie Musicale: Thank you! *dances merrily* :3

Eternal Darkness 96: The chapters shall continue until morale improves! XD

ameranthus13: Oh gosh, don't cry! I swear, people always cry when they read my work. I think it's meant in a good way, but it's still kind of awkward when I'm with my writing group and people walking past us are eyeing me suspiciously because someone sitting near me just burst into tears. As my friend from the Philippines would say: Awkward turtle. ;)

Also, I just wanted to say that I cannot draw so much as a cloud on an overcast day, and I have no skill in editing video files. Therefore I cannot draw fanart or make AMVs. However, perusing online, I have come across some absolutely AMAZING Shiki fanart and AMVs. I love them! Therefore, if any of you are of that particular creative persuasion, I just wanted to say well done! Your work inspires me when I sit down to write new chapters.

Natsuno could feel the block of his jugular slowly being compressed under Tatsumi's hand. The younger jinrou choked, thrashing and flailing, his legs flying wildly through the air. Several moments of electric panic passed in a whirlwind of color and pain, before he remembered that he did not actually need to breathe. Natsuno stopped trying and instead focused on clawing at the hand wrapped vice-like around his neck. He could not pry it loose- tired and weakened by blood loss, Natsuno's head swam as he heard Tohru shriek and scramble off the bed. Tatsumi glared up at the other jinrou, his mouth curved somewhere between a feral snarl and a sadistic grin. "I knew I would find you here, you denigrate." His pale eyes flickered toward the inside of the room. "Although I had no idea anyone else had survived."

"Let go of him!" Tohru screamed, beginning to charge at Tatsumi. The taller jinrou merely shifted his weight and kicked a foot into the door. It swung open all the way, and Tohru howled and collapsed to the floor as he was suddenly bathed in early morning sunlight. Scrambling desperately, he pushed himself back into the shadows and lay there panting, his face stark and horrified. "Natsuno…."

"Now, where was I?" Tatsumi asked in a mockingly sing-song voice, turning his attention back to his fellow jinrou. "Ah, yes. Natsuno, Natsuno, Natsuno. You're a pathetic mess, as expected. You haven't fed on human blood at all since before our little sparring match, have you?"

Natsuno could feel his eyes beginning to redden and burn. Compounding the pressure in his chest, he strained and managed to force from his lips gargling imitations of words. "What….do you….want….?"

Tatsumi grinned again, as if someone had just told him an amusing joke. "What do I want? You think I've sought you out because I want something from you?" Without warning, he suddenly snapped his body forward and slammed Natsuno into the ground headfirst. He felt the floorboards shatter under the force of impact. The jinrou's vision pooled black and he heard a low, eerie ringing. He lay on the floor, dazed, until the ringing resolved into higher-pitched spasms of sound, which he eventually realized was Tohru's voice, screaming abuse at Tatsumi.

"You're delusional if you think you have anything that interests me," the other jinrou kept talking nonchalantly, as if he had not just cracked someone's skull at his feet. Natsuno gasped in excruciating pain as the shattered lines began to meld together again. His head was burning. He could not see anything. Tatsumi's rough voice poured down from above him as though it came from the sky. "I don't give a rat's ass about you or your little friend. It's Sunako I'm looking for. Haven't seen her, have you?" Natsuno felt a heavy boot press down upon his forehead.

"Please, stop!" Tohru's voice wailed, sounding near tears. "We haven't seen anyone! The only people we've seen are dead, and Sunako probably is too! We had nothing to do with-"

"You're an idiot," Tatsumi snarled, stomping down upon Natsuno's skull as Tohru howled in rage. "And you're wrong. Sunako is out there. I left her in the care of someone I can trust, someone I gave the power to protect her. She's definitely alive. And because of that, I thought I'd stop by and repeat her offer, you useless waste of space." Tatsumi's heel ground upon Natsuno's brow, and the jinrou sensed feeling surging back into his arms. He slammed Tatsumi's leg away and struggled to sit up while the older jinrou growled. "What do you say, Natsuno? Everybody's dead now. Sotoba is a lost cause. There's nobody left to fight for, and nobody to fight against. So why don't you join up with us? With time and experience, you might even quit being such a weakling and actually start to deserve this new life as a jinrou. Wouldn't that beat it all?" Tatsumi laughed cruelly, and Natsuno felt the anger inside him spike. He kicked out furiously toward the sound of the horrible voice. His vision was returning too slowly to give him accuracy, and he only succeeded in tearing a hole through the wall. Tatsumi laughed again, wrenching him to his feet and wrapping both hands around his neck. "Is that a no?"

"Get away from him, Tatsumi! I'll kill you!"

Tatsumi shifted toward the sound of the voice. Natsuno's sight had cleared enough that he could make out the blurry figure of Tohru bracing just behind the line of sunlight, a carved stake in one hand and a hammer in another. The jinrou sputtered and wheezed as he tried to move toward the figure. For a moment, Tatsumi seemed to be surprised into silence. Then he opened his mouth and positively howled in laughter, the razor points of his fangs angling down below his lips. "You're gonna kill me? The little okiagari is gonna shove a stake through my heart? Oh god, that's just too good! Coming here was worth it just for this!"

"I mean it, god dammit! I'll do it, even if it burns me! Let him go!"

"Fine," Tatsumi snarled. The next second, Natsuno found himself flying backward out the bedroom door. He hit the crumbling wall of the living room and slammed weakly into the floor, turning his head frantically to look for Tohru. He saw the blonde okiagari lunge forward, taking a fierce swing at the jinrou with the stake. Tatsumi's movements blurred as he sidestepped it and caught Tohru from behind in a chokehold, crushing him into the wall and knocking the weapons from his hands. The okiagari screeched and kicked and clawed at the stronger male as he was dragged to the border of the bedroom door. Head still burning and knees buckling, Natsuno desperately tried to heave himself to his feet as Tatsumi cast a derisive sneer between the two of them. "This is just sad, really. You're both such utter sops. I still think we'd be better off just killing you," he directed toward Natsuno. "I'd do it in a second if it were up to me. But one of the last orders Sunako gave me was to leave you alive so we could have more jinrou, and when I find her I don't want to have to report that I disobeyed. It's too much of a pain, you know?" The blue-haired jinrou shrugged and turned his gaze to Tohru, a sickening look in his eye. "You, however, are not needed. Creatures like you can be made anytime. I always said okiagari were just failed vampires, and you're even a failure in regards to that!" Tatsumi tightened his thick arm around Tohru's neck and stepped casually into the sunlight. "So why don't you just die?"

Tohru's eyes rolled back in his head and he howled in agony. He thrashed without reason, straining to cover his face as his skin blossomed and burned in peals of angry red. Tatsumi kept him locked in place as he watched the process, features twitching in sadistic glee at each one of Tohru's screams. The okiagari cringed as his skin flayed under the sun, and inside the cavern of his boiling face, Natsuno saw his eyes well up with helpless, bloody tears.

He did not know what happened; only that suddenly Tatsumi was much closer than before. Natsuno heard a head-splitting roar as jagged claws (whose? his own?) plunged into the other jinrou's flesh. A moment later, Tatsumi was much further away. Natsuno watched him spiral through the air is if sucked through a vortex, annihilating the living room wall like it was made of glass. He hit the ground and tumbled wildly for many yards, only stopping when he rammed face-first into a tree. Natsuno blinked in surprise at this unexpected turn of events before his attention was drawn to his feet by someone's pitiful wails. He gasped in horror, immediately throwing his arms over the smoking wraith and dragging him backward into the shadow of the other wall. Under a canopy of shuddering pain, the body of Tohru Mutou slowly re-formed before Natsuno's eyes. He patted the okiagari's shoulder to help ground him as his skin smoothed out and became bloodless once more. Blindly, Tohru reached up with quivering fingers and found Natsuno's hand. The jinrou did not question why he was letting him hold it.

A painful sputtering sound reminded him of Tatsumi's presence. Natsuno looked up, unwilling to leave Tohru's side as he glared brutally at their attacker. The older jinrou fumbled his way to his feet in a state of shock, turning and blinking dumbly as he looked around him. His eyes finally caught onto Natsuno, and there was no trace of a laugh in them. "You….how did….?"

The pair stared menacingly at one another for almost a full minute until Tatsumi moved his gaze down to Tohru, now beginning to stir behind the jinrou's protective body. His eyes narrowed and then lightened again, and he scoffed in incredulity. "Ah-ha. I see how it is. It seems you've got it in you to cause me more trouble than I need, after all." He took a few jaunty steps back. "All the more reason for me to hurry up and find Sunako. I'll withdraw for now, but remember what I told you." He turned away and ambled down the hill, seeming highly amused by something. "You'll never belong anywhere but with your own kind. And we are your kind now, Natsuno."

The jinrou crunched his teeth together and stood up. "Tatsumi!" he shouted after the retreating figure. "I want you to know this: I don't care how you survived that explosion in the fissure. I will never rest until I hunt you down and put you back into the ground, once and for all."

The blue-haired man turned back around with a snort. "You don't care how I survived? Don't you mean how we survived?" He stared up the hill for a moment, looking for confirmation in the other's eyes. "You really don't know anything, do you? You don't even know what makes us jinrou what we are."

Natsuno's eye twitched. "And what is that?"

Tatsumi chuckled. "Join us, and we'll let you know." He turned away again, and in a flash of blue had vanished into the charcoal forest.

Natsuno stood staring after him for several moments, his mind a whirling tornado of clashing thoughts. A choked whimper at his feet caused him to return to the present situation. "Tohru!" He took a look at the sun rising above the treeline and dashed into the bedroom, emerging a moment later with the blanket. He threw it over the shuddering okigari and tucked his arms underneath Tohru's legs and shoulders. Lifting him, Natsuno backed swiftly through the bedroom door, laid the other boy upon the bed, and rushed to shut the door against the sun. The interior of the cabin was swallowed in darkness.

"Ggghhhhh….naaaaahhh….Nat….suno?" Tohru's faint voice sounded like an echo from the bottom of a well. "Are you…."

"It's all right, Tohru. I'm fine. How are you?" the jinrou asked, lifting the blanket off the weakened okiagari. Tohru's skin had healed and his eyes were moving again, glazed and frightened.

"I'm….okay…." Tohru raised his hands to his eyes and inspected them closely. "That was….horrible…."

"I know. It'll be all right now, Tohru. Tatsumi is gone. He ran away."

"He did….?" The okiagari turned his head toward the other's voice. "Did you….make him leave? You're amazing, Natsuno…."

"I'm not sure what happened," the jinrou confessed, glancing down at his own clawed hands, which he just now noticed were covered in Tatsumi's blood. "But he didn't seem to have expected it, whatever it- Tohru? Tohru, here, try to sit up."

The okiagari leaned forward and wrestled blindly with the air before flopping back onto his side. His consciousness was clearly flagging with the rising of the sun. Although extreme states of stress could keep okiagari awake for short time periods during daylight hours, their bodies would eventually give way to the unnatural sleep forced upon them. Tohru moaned and tried to sit upright again. "No….not now, dammit….I….don't want to sleep…."

Natsuno watched as Tohru struggled, knowing the okiagari had no choice in the matter. He leaned forward and braced his body so Tohru would not fall out of bed. The blonde boy clutched at the jinrou's shirt and gritted his teeth, slowly sliding down as he lost the battle with his instinctual unconsciousness. His eyes closed and he murmured weakly, "Natsuno….I'm sorry….I wasn't much….help…."

The jinrou rubbed the other's shoulder reassuringly. "You did fine, Tohru. Get some rest." He was not sure if the okiagari heard him before his body finally stilled and gave way to silent slumber, leaving Natsuno mentally alone within the cabin.

He tucked the blanket around Tohru and stood up, slipping carefully out the door so as not to cast sunlight upon the bed. Outside, the jinrou strode to the edge of the kitchen wall and glared into the burnt forest as though challenging it to a battle. He let the smell of the air wash over him, and relaxed his shoulders by an inch. He no longer sensed the disruptive presence which had bothered him earlier. The woods felt truly clear, and he doubted Tatsumi would return if he had only come in the first place to bash them around and deliver his stupid message. All the same, it was now very apparent to Natsuno that they had to leave this place as soon as possible. If what Tatsumi had said about Sunako was correct, then he would likely come looking for them again as soon as he found her. And the way he had said it, it sounded like Sunako was not alone…. Tatsumi had spoken of leaving her with someone he could trust, someone he had given the power to protect her. Had he made another okiagari for that purpose? Or perhaps even another jinrou? Natsuno clamped his lower lip between his teeth and paced back and forth in anxiety. What to do? Where to go? He could not hesitate anymore. Whatever flaws there might be in his plan would simply have to be dealt with along the way. They needed to take the leap and strike out from this place. He had to make a move before Tatsumi made his. But Tohru….to carelessly bring Tohru into a new environment with no preparation, no place to stay, no plan to assure the safety of the people who might encounter him…. The jinrou knew he could not act so recklessly. It could cost them both everything. He would have to….

Turning his head in the direction of the oncoming wind, Natsuno stared toward the far horizon, knotting and unknotting his fingers, feeling the beat of memories jogging through the hallways of his mind. Then he turned abruptly and marched back into the bedroom. He knelt beside the gathering of supplies and fished his backpack out of the melee. The metal box full of money still rested at the bottom. Atop it Natsuno placed a change of clothes, a washcloth, a few cans of soup, a can opener, and several of the bottles of water they had found at Masao's family's rice shop. He strode to the other corner and pulled on his shoes. Glancing around uncertainly, he wandered over to the bedside table and opened its top drawer, withdrawing a blank notebook and pen. He started to tuck those into his backpack as well, then peered over at the messy blonde head poking out of the covers and bit his lip harshly. Flipping the notebook open, the jinrou scribbled quickly and tore the page out, placing it upon the bedside table beside Tohru's head. Then he stood still above the sleeping okiagari, listening to the breeze passing over, stirring up the worry in his mind. The part of his psyche which was still accustomed to the normal human life he had been leading for the past fifteen years wanted to reach down, take Tohru's shoulder, and shake him awake. The response was natural, visceral, ingrained into his flesh. Even so, his logical mind knew that the kind of sleep Tohru was trapped in was not natural, and would not be shaken off until the setting of the sun. He could not wait that long. Natsuno hovered over the prone body of the other, wishing for the first time since rising up that he knew of a way to connect to him. Eventually, he rubbed his hand softly over the other's golden curls, adjusting them out of his eyes. Then he pulled the blanket more securely around him and turned sharply away, striding across the cabin and heaving his backpack over his shoulder. He looked back once at the innocently sleeping figure before he ducked out the door and shut it behind him. He paused for a moment to gauge the forest, sensing it was still free of Tatsumi's ominous aura. Then Natsuno shrugged the backpack higher on his shoulder, stepped over the border of the crumpled wall, and let his body bear him swiftly into the distance.

/

Tohru woke with the intense feeling that something was wrong pressing down upon his chest. He tried to shrug it off for a moment before the memories came flooding back into his newly conscious mind. The okiagari uttered a sound between a gasp and a cry and flung himself upright, briefly struggling to untangle his body from the blanket tucked tightly around him. Dark red eyes leaped about the bedroom, searching for the person whose voice he remembered echoing above him just before the darkness came. He was not here. He must be outside. Tohru swung his bare feet onto the floor and hurried toward the door, cracking it open carefully in case the sun had not fully set. He saw nothing but shadows outside, and slowly crept into the silent dusk. His eyes darted about like an anxious deer, hoping to see Natsuno and desperately hoping not to see the other, far less friendly jinrou who had tried to kill him just because. Although he had been in a highly distressed state at the time, Tohru still remembered Tatsumi telling Natsuno that he was going to find Sunako, and inviting the younger jinrou to join him. And then Tatsumi had left…. Natsuno had made him go away somehow, and saved him from the burning sun…. But Natsuno had been injured too, he remembered, although he should have fully healed by now. Where….was Natsuno?

Tohru paced quickly around the empty kitchen and the living room. A new section of the living room wall seemed to have collapsed, he noted in confusion. How had that happened? Tohru called his former friend's name quietly, then more loudly, glancing all about him in a nervous search for movement. Nothing shifted. Even the breeze had died. Closing his eyes, Tohru tried to sense the location of the jinrou, and failed. Natsuno's presence, so constant and familiar to him, seemed to have been negated in the surrounding atmosphere. Could the dark-haired boy have left to go hunting again? Why would he do that when they already had food here? Or….perhaps they had run out? Frowning anxiously, Tohru retraced his steps into the bedroom. He stood in the corner, staring at the cluster of supplies. Suddenly his eyes widened and his motionless heart seemed to contract. He forced his hands into the unruly gathering of things and shifted them about, searching erratically for the backpack the jinrou had claimed as his own. It was not present. Tohru turned and strode over to Natsuno's bed, checking underneath it and around the makeshift table. The change of clothes he had laid out for himself were gone, and the bed had not been slept in. Clenching his teeth in sudden terror, the okiagari staggered backward and turned about aimlessly, searching for some sort of explanation other than the one cruelly piercing at the back of his mind. His eyes caught upon a piece of paper lying atop the bedside table.

Tohru seized it with shaking fingers and stared at the messy sprawl of his former friend's handwriting. There were only two words, written in large, capital letters: STAY HERE.

He whimpered softly. "Natsuno…." Under the thrall of sudden panic, he dropped the paper and raced across the room, nearly falling out the door. He seized the doorframe with his claws and peered desperately into the emptiness of the surrounding forest. "Natsuno! Natsuno!"

The only voice that replied was the wind's, picking up again and rolling lifeless ash over the lonely figure standing in the clearing.