Escort duty for sugar-craving children, Akira thought moodily, following Xander into the shop corner that held the cheaper costume odds and ends. Not the most dangerous thing I've ever done. I think. Though I suppose it's more useful than anything else I've managed lately.
He'd tried, the past few weeks. He and Willow had mended some tears, encouraged a few kokuchi to head back across the boundary, and helped watch Buffy's back while she put down the latest crop of vampires in the cemeteries. But the Incan mummy, the demon-summoning frat boys... he'd been less help than Xander. His fellow teen might grump about only being good for bringing research snacks, but Xander wouldn't keel over dead if he were possessed by a kokuchi. Ampata's seal and the frathouse had been swarming with the vicious parasites. Akira hadn't dared get within a block of either of them. Which had at least warned them all there was a problem.
I hate being helpless!
He'd never wanted to get caught up in anyone's war. Now he'd been dragged into two - and the wounds he'd taken in the first had crippled him for the second. It ate at him.
If only I had-
No. No, he shouldn't go there. So he could only do the small things of a crippled adept, not the wild combat of a shin. At least he could take some of the pressure off Buffy, so she could fight without having to constantly look over her shoulder.
Still. Knowing Buffy and Cordelia had almost been eaten by a snake demon, while he'd been dodging kokuchi drawn to the area like flies...
Stop thinking about it. You're not a shin. Live with it.
...Besides. Xander's talking.
"I just don't get it," Xander was complaining, shoving aside a black longcoat missing one sleeve as he dug through the bargain bin for a toy gun that didn't have obvious missing pieces. "She was one of the cool kids at Hemery, Buffy should know about the guy code-"
Aha. "Buffy may know," Akira interrupted. "The Slayer may not."
Mid-scrabble, Xander paused. "Okay, here we come to the not making sense part of the conversation. Buffy is the Slayer."
"Buffy is a Slayer," Akira corrected him; on firmer ground, he'd poked through Shirogane's notes and no few tomes of Giles' to piece this together. "Before she was Called, she was an ordinary girl. After - the Slayer is a hunter. And too many supernatural creatures can look like ordinary humans. Especially in Sunnydale."
"Whoa, whoa," Xander glanced around, and lowered his voice. "Are you saying she seriously thought a jock trying to get his Neanderthal on was something going bump in the night?"
Akira arched a brow, and he was not going to think how that was like Shirogane. "Witch cheerleaders. Praying mantis teachers. Brain-eating demons at the talent show." Just a few of the many, many supernatural incidents that had been associated with the school before he'd arrived; the Scoobies had given him a long list, so they could check every area for tears. They'd found too many for anyone's comfort. "What are the odds that she'd be wrong?"
Xander winced.
"But she may not have thought about it, before she moved." Akira swallowed. Damn it, he did not want to talk about this. But they knew most of it, and arguments between friends were asking for parasite kokuchi to drop into the mix. "Xander. When I was," a shin, "possessed, there were... instincts, that were very hard to fight. Even now, when I see someone acting on their darker emotions, the first thing I look for is a shadow inside them. Now, I think about it. Then, it was instinct. And if I didn't have time to look - I hit them with everything I had. Because if they were possessed, I couldn't risk holding back. Which meant I couldn't afford to take the chance that they weren't." Keep going. Just say it. "You've never seen a full possession. You've never seen an inversion. The world goes red. The boundary between this world and the shadows turns liquid as water, and any normal human who falls through will die. And it spreads so fast. If someone's possessed by a kokuchi and you can't get it loose - the only answer may be to kill them."
For a frozen moment Xander stood there, toy rifle dangling from one hand. "...Whoof."
Akira shrugged. "I don't know if the Slayer is like that. Ask Giles. If he knows."
"Did you- no. Bad question. Shutting up now," Xander said firmly.
Akira shook his head. "I got lucky." If you could call it luck, racing to beat the clock and break possessions before Shirogane cut the unlucky victims down. "But I always knew next time, I might not be."
"Possessed-you is scary," Xander muttered.
"Heh. I wish the kokuchi had thought that." Akira pushed the coat aside again, wondering if there was anything in this bin that might be worthwhile, he saw a decent whip but he'd never wanted to be Indiana Jones-
Wait a minute.
One sleeve already detached. And it wouldn't take much to get rid of the other.
Oh, why the hell not.
Xander gripped his rifle, bringing it up to his shoulder in what might be an attempt at present arms. "You look like a guy with a plan."
Coat, think I've got boots, have a shirt that'll do at home thanks to Hamlet. Should look for pants, hair dye, and- "I need a cross pin," Akira said decisively.
"No vamps out tonight, Giles says," Xander pointed out.
"There's more to the undead than vampires," Akira said wryly. Which was why he had no intention of looking for red contacts. He didn't plan on fighting tonight, but the local monsters didn't stick to plans. Things in his eyes? Bad idea. "This way Snyder won't know what I am. It'll drive him crazy."
Xander perked up at that, and started hunting.
It took a little time, and added up to more allowance money than Akira had intended to spend. But it was worth it, to put together the image of what he did miss about those frantic nights at Shirogane's side.
Freedom. Running with the wind, because I could. Knowing that so long as my resolve was strong, I could cut through anything.
No one else would get the outfit. But that was all right, he wasn't going to run into anyone who'd laugh at what he was pretending to be-
"Ack!"
Ruffles. Lace. A low-cut bosom.
It was red and black, not Lulu's black-and-shadowlace, but the resemblance was close enough he already had a blade in hand.
"Ack?" The proprietor, Ethan if the shop sign wasn't lying, gave him an arch look that almost measured up to Shirogane's. "Young man, I assure you the proper response of a gentleman to a princess is not 'ack'."
Please let him not have seen. Akira made the knife vanish, straightening. "Where I'm from, a proper hime wears clothing a lot more-"
Uh-oh. That was killing intent. He hadn't felt a battle-aura that utterly ticked off since Lulu had called Aya a small-breasted gorilla.
"Formal, and stiff," Akira said cautiously, praying it would be enough. "Definitely not as graceful to the figure." Where was the source of that lethal intent? It seemed to be behind Ethan, if only the man weren't so tall-
"Graceful?" Xander snorted. "I prefer my ladies in spandex. That looks like something Buffy would snatch to wave under Deadboy's nose... ah. Buffy. Wills. Hi..."
"Die heroically," Akira advised, and bolted for the cash register.
Some perils, even a shin might not hope to survive.
"Buffy! My Duchess of Buffonia. I totally renounce spandex."
Okay, that was almost enough to let the Deadboy comment slide, Buffy decided. "Why thank you, good sir modern knight," she curtsied, catching her mother's amused smile out of the corner of her eye. Great; now her mom would be dropping hints about proper high-class manners for a week.
Oh well. It might be worth it, if Xander took a second look at the redheaded hottie in his life. Not to mention Xander was pulling off the fatigues in a really good way. Which... might not be of the good, if some other girl took a second look and arrowed in on the nicest guy in school.
Lucky for Willow, Akira was going to be the edible distraction. Loose white shirt, hair dyed black as his sleeveless coat, dark red pants with an odd white strip of cloth haphazardly wrapped around his right leg, and dark boots made for stomping. Wow. And somehow, weird.
"Okay, Akira, I give up," Joyce said, amused. "A vampire?"
Cross on his collar would fry him, Buffy almost blurted out. "Oh, they're - so Victorian throwback, these days," she got out instead. "Nobody at Sunnydale High would be that uncool." She hoped. Oh boy.
"Were I to suffer such a fate, I should hope to meet the sunrise," Akira declared. Curved his arm and bowed, in a graceful way Buffy had only seen in old Sherlock Holmes movies. "Akira Nikaidou, Childe of the Silver Lord of the Land of Shadows."
He rose, and Buffy thought she caught a wistful flicker in gray eyes, almost hidden by the wry smile. "It's a pretty obscure legend, Mrs. Summers. Even in Japan. But it's a fun look."
A legend. Right. "Well, sir knights of steel and shadow," Buffy improvised, "if you find my garb not unattractive, pray but wait until you lay eyes upon..."
A white sheet descended the stairs.
"Casper," Buffy tried not to sigh.
Her mother had offered to drive all of them, but they'd elected to walk over to school while it was still daylight. Halloween was supposed to be dead for the monsters, and Buffy had wanted a chance to see the town she protected without having to worry about the latest slavering horror breathing down her neck.
Maybe we should have taken the car anyway, Buffy thought ruefully, watching how stiffly Willow walked under her ghost-sheet. Hacker-girl was serious when she said she didn't do sexy. Maybe she should have tried to get Willow to wear something a little less showy and more grownup professional. Like - ooo. Diana Prince, in her secret identity, without the Wonder Woman costume. They could have asked Joyce to help them find a suit and everything.
Well, I guess there's next year- "Xander?"
Their Special Forces Xander had stopped for a second, pulling something out of his trick-or-treat bag that uncoiled to be long and lithe and leather.
Grinning, Xander offered her the whip. "Figured you could tell people it's for chasing off impudent cut-purses."
"Ooo." Buffy hefted it, getting a feel for the weight and flexibility, then counted on the Slayer as she lifted and snapped-
One leaf fluttered off a nearby rosebush, slashed through. Akira flinched.
"Like you said," Xander shrugged at their legend-dressed buddy. "Just because the vampires stay in, doesn't mean everything will. And I always feel better when the Buffster's armed and ready for things that go bump."
Okay, that was definitely worth letting some teasing slide. "Thanks," Buffy grinned.
"S-so," Willow cleared her throat as they moved on again. "What are you going as, Akira?"
"A Childe of the Lord of Shadow." Akira fell into pace with them, gray eyes searching their surroundings. "The Children are the most powerful shin and rei, outside of the Kings themselves; every Childe is bound by contract to one of the Kings in particular. Think of it as something between an adoption and becoming a feudal thane to a king."
Huh. Fit in with some of the stuff on shadows, light, and their respective adepts that Giles had been filling them in on since Parent-Teacher Night. So okay, not a vampire, but still a weird pick. "What, you think if you dress like them, the kokuchi will leave you alone tonight?" Buffy quipped.
"I live in hope." His gaze never stopped searching the area for shadows where none should be. "Halloween's supposed to be a bad time for tears. I thought I felt a kokuchi following us toward Ethan's, but it disappeared before we got inside."
And Akira's feelings about hakua and kokuchi were at least as reliable as her knack of picking out vampires by the serious fashion fails. So if there had been a kokuchi near the costume shop, where had it gone?
Stick on the to-worry-about list, and tell Giles when we see him, Buffy told herself firmly. Shook out the whip's coils again, making sure her hands knew the weight of it. And caught Akira's wince. "What, whips bad?"
"Not exactly." Akira gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm not the only one who could pass for a shin tonight."
"Seriously?" Willow blurted out. "Giles has records of one who uses a whip?"
"Records, hell. Lulu went after me." Akira shrugged, as if it weren't any bigger deal than staking a newly-risen fledgling. "Don't worry about it. You're as frilly as she was, but your hair's not bubble-gum-pink-"
"Frilly?" Buffy said grimly.
"-you're not burbling like a J-pop fan about how you want the King's kiss all over you, and you're not exploding out of that dress with every bounce..." One hand still shaping an exaggerated curve in front of his chest, Akira finally glanced at her face.
He did not just call me tiny. Fists curling on her whip, Buffy struggled to count to ten. Ooo, when I get in reach-!
"Die heroically?" Xander suggested.
"Ch'. Like I'd go down that easily!"
Buffy was expecting him to bolt. Heck, in a way she was counting on it; the job tonight was escorting candy-robbers, which meant lots of walking, which meant while her shoes might look dressy she'd picked a pair she could run in. And when it came to pure running, Slayer beat human every time.
She was not expecting the dash, grab, and jump as Akira used his head start and a few extra inches of height to pull off a perfect acrobatic flip up on top of a neighbor's elegant stone wall.
"You'll have to catch me, first!"
Still grinning, he ran for it.
Rip my skirts if I tried that, darn it.
Buffy took off after him, running down the sidewalk for the pure giggles of racing because she wanted to. No lives on the line. No monster behind her if she slipped. Just Akira's taunting dash in front of her, using agility and sharp wits to carry him over and across obstacles she had to dodge.
Why doesn't he try out for track or something? He says his endurance sucks, but he's been getting better with every spar.
Only it wasn't endurance that kept Akira away from the jocks, and she knew it. Track was a boring run on a boring ring of a course and Akira would hate it with the heat of a thousand fiery suns. Track wasn't anything like this; using the whole world as your obstacle course, knowing how to shift weight and balance to skim over stone and chain-link and wobbly boards.
But even if track hadn't been boring, Akira wouldn't be doing it. Any more than she'd kept up cheerleading, after they'd dealt with Amy's witch of a mother.
He's a shadow adept. I'm the Slayer.
They had responsibilities. Damn it. And Akira might kick himself for not being able to do more than seal tears, but that was helping. People were sticking closer to the street lights at night, and the number of new fledglings popping up seemed to be going down. Not a lot, maybe one or two less a week - but that was one more person whose dusted face didn't play in her nightmares.
Not to mention an hour or two more of sleep here and there, plus - oh man - actual doing of homework. If this kept up, her mom might stop giving her worried looks all the time, and why hadn't the Watchers ever gotten adepts to help before?
"No idea, though I'm beginning to suspect some sort of territorial dispute," Giles had said a few days ago, when she'd asked. "Oddly enough, the origins of shin and rei have many things in common with that of the Slayer." The Watcher was pretending to study his texts, just as she and Akira were trying not to watch too closely as Willow tried using some of Master Wagatsuma's light techniques to heal Xander's paper-cut. "The records of both are fragmentary, and mostly myth, but the little we do know implies a voluntary sacrifice on both occasions. In the Slayer's case, one girl stepped forward to become a guardian against demons. For the light and shadowfolk, giving up their existence as humans, for the power to keep the balance between both sides of reality." He tapped a pen beside a tome. "I wonder if it might not be the success of the Slayer that required light and shadows to need balance. While the Elder Gods made this world a hell, reality would have been torn and remade at their whims. Sustaining a more gentle ecosystem of light and shadow might have needed active human interference. A bit like setting up a greenhouse, one might say; only in humanity's case the delicate flower would be civilization..." He trailed off at Buffy and Akira's mutual sour looks.
"Not exactly a volunteer," Buffy said wryly.
"And most shin and rei I met didn't care about humans," Akira added. "A few would rather not kill people. But if someone threatens the balance-" He'd shrugged.
"Quite so," Giles had inclined his head. "One of the reasons modern magic is so deucedly difficult is because of the limitations built into it. The spells I know last for a day, or an hour, or even a moment; and that specificity takes a considerable amount of the energy that might otherwise fuel the spell itself. The enchantment that created the Slayer line was meant to continue indefinitely; and so it has, no matter what those who might currently host its magic might wish."
Which might have been just something to mope and gripe about, if Buffy hadn't seen the worry and longing on Akira's face as Willow squeaked in triumph, and Xander grinned as the paper-cut faded away.
If Willow can heal, even just a little, it'll help us.
Except Akira was allergic to light magic. If he got hurt, the best thing Willow could do was stay away.
Back in Japan, if the kokuchi got lucky, Wagatsuma could help him, Buffy thought now, watching their shadow adept hesitate just one moment before altering his route to bounce down to the ground and back up to the next fence, instead of trying to take a jump only a Slayer could manage. Now - he's got to be careful. He can't fight the way he did then. He'd get killed.
Like she would, if the Slayer magic ever left her high and dry and she tried to tackle vamps one on one anyway. A normal person couldn't take vampires hand to hand. She'd have to find another way. And it would suck.
But sucky or not, she'd still do it. Xander, Willow, Giles, even Cordelia - they did what they could, magic or no magic. Because the monsters were out there, and they all knew it.
Like Akira knows it.
He knew the odds, and he could still run through Sunnydale like a kid scrambling over a jungle gym. Buffy grinned at that, and kept running.
Snyder-trolling or not, Halloween was going to be fun.
"Those two are insane," Xander muttered under his breath, doing his best to keep the racing pair in sight.
"Kind of - fun though," Willow huffed alongside him. Which made him wonder what was under the Boo. Willow's usual skirts would have slowed her down, and it didn't sound like pants legs slapping against the sheet-
And he was trying to deduce what his bestest bud ever was wearing underneath her Boo. Bad Xander. No Twinkie.
It was kind of fun watching that pair race, though. How the heck had Akira learned to flip like that? And was there anywhere he could go to sign up? "Guys," Xander called out, "we're getting close to the school!"
Akira never slowed. He cartwheeled past an SUV heading into the school parking lot to drop off munchkins, flung himself up and over the wall by the open gate-
Buffy, Xander knew, could clear the school wall in one leap from a standing start, do a hands-free spin, and land on the other side. The Slayer was awesome that way.
Akira had to hurl himself up and over, with a grip on the top of the fence for an extra yank once he'd grabbed it. But he cleared the wall, spun, and thumped onto a van roof and then a Cadillac's hood, touching down in front of Buffy and a bunch of costumed trick-or-treaters in the best flamboyant style Xander had seen since Carmen Sandiego made off with the Sphinx.
"Mommy! I wanna do that!"
"So do I, kid," Xander muttered ruefully. And Akira said he didn't know how to deal with people. The adept probably wasn't going to have any trouble from the munchkins for the rest of the night.
"Nikaidou!" came an all too familiar snarl.
Trouble from the kids, however, was probably the least of their worries. Xander kept a good grip on Willow's sheet-clad shoulder as they snuck into the parking lot, praying they wouldn't be noticed. Snyder was almost purple.
"Principal Snyder." Akira inclined his head. "Good evening."
"And Summers," the troll growled. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Are we sure he's human?" Xander whispered, as he and Willow took advantage of Snyder's distraction to get themselves mixed into the rest of the student volunteers.
"Uh-huh," Willow sighed regretfully. "Though there's some weird stuff in his emails to Police Chief Monroe. Why does a principal even need to email the chief of police? And the ones I've opened so far all seem like they're talking around something, you know? Like we do when... we're discussing library research."
"You're reading Snyder's email? Willow, you electric rebel." What she'd said caught up with his brain, and Xander blanched. "Wait. You mean - the cops know?"
"Death by falling onto barbecue forks?" The way the sheet shook was somehow sad. "Cops see the... the bodies, right? They have to see that something's wrong."
Oh, joy. Life in Sunnydale just kept getting better.
"Don't talk to them," Snyder was ordering as Akira and Buffy were each handed over to their individual tiny hordes. "The last thing they need is to pick up any of your bad habits."
"But it's okay if someone talks to us, right?" Buffy was doing her best to look princess-sweet and bubbly. "Kids, did you know they don't even have trick-or-treating in Japan? You have to tell Akira all about it!"
Xander couldn't make out what Akira might have said through the sudden excited-kid babble, but it looked like it might have been traitor.
"It's kind of weird," Willow said, half to herself. "The way they get each other. It's like he stole her crayons when they were little."
"Maybe it's just the interest in mutual thumping," Xander said wryly.
"Oh." The ghost-head straightened a little. "That's what's different. I thought it was just the costume. But it's like he's sparring. Except Akira's never like that unless he's sparring."
Or fighting for real, Xander almost said. But didn't, as Pirate Larry got mixed in between them and Snyder waded in to parcel off kids to reluctant teenagers.
But Willow was right. The way Akira had raced Buffy to school; the way he moved, even now, not the angry teenage hooligan but loose and light as if Snyder were the least of his problems...
He looks ready for a fight. Xander swallowed. He looks happy.
Halloween was supposed to be quiet. Giles said so. And the G-man wouldn't lie about that.
Xander straightened his shoulders, and gathered up his troops. "All right, men. On sleazing extra candy: tears are key..."
Restless spirits. Moroi, some of them, if I'm not mistaken. Ethan Rayne eyed the half-seen forms hovering outside his wards, held at bay by spells he'd used for years to keep intangible threats off his precious neck. The Hellmouth is even more interesting than I thought.
Interesting, and potentially profitable. The aftermath of Halloween should leave the good citizens of Sunnydale dazed and scattered enough for him to collect any youngsters with untrained power. And there would be a few of those, without a doubt. That redhead who'd walked in with the Slayer, for one; the mystical scan linked to his register drawer had shown definite traces of light magic. She'd fetch a good price from demon sorcerers who wanted a piece of that.
Though for a moment he'd thought the Slayer had dragged two potential mages in with her. The dangerous look in gray eyes, when the Japanese youngster had made what must have been a mundane knife vanish up his sleeve...
For one instant, not even a blink, Ethan could have sworn that knife wasn't honest steel, but silvery and transparent.
But his register scan hadn't picked up more than the faintest vibration of dark magic. No more than you'd expect from a violent punk on the Hellmouth; not nearly enough to indicate a human carrying an arcane blade. Certainly not worth snatching on his way out of town, no matter how well demons paid. Pity.
Ah well. Profit came second tonight. First and foremost, Halloween was for Janus.
Anointing himself, Ethan nodded to the two-faced bust in sober respect. Showtime!
It hit like drowning.
One minute Akira was shepherding an assortment of fairies, Jedi, warriors and princesses around, making a note to see if they could catch up to the Boo a few houses over. The next-
Darkness flooded in like water, as he gasped out a last breath of the lighted world. Every cell in his body vibrated; his eyes burned, gray blazing to ruby-red by the kiss of shadows...
He stood on the sidewalk, panting, eyes wide as he saw that damn spooky-ugly Doppler doll where his shadow had lain.
Grab it!
Scoop, pocket, turn; if he couldn't remember why he'd shifted to shin form something must have hit him hard. Meaning Aya and Kengo were probably in worse... trouble...
Different houses. Different streetlights.
Sunnydale. Not Japan.
Yet he could feel the shadows flowing through him as fiercely as if he'd never given that dark power back to Shirogane. What on earth was going on?
And how am I going to hide my eyes from the children?
"Sith!"
"Jedi!"
"In the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"
Akira leapt up and left as the blaze of golden magic swept past, taking down one dark-cloaked child with a red lightsaber, a few random demonic-looking little ones, and one hapless mini-Mountie in red.
Perching on a roofline, Akira looked down and shook his head. The fairies and the X-Babies seemed to have made common cause to protect those few kids who were still just in costume, and the stray tiny grim warriors who might have tried to put a blade through fallen demons were getting a blistering lecture about friendship from a pint-sized Sailor Moon...
And Akira had to close his eyes a moment and just breathe in the night, because he'd only meant to dodge. To step out of the path of the blow, like any canny human street fighter would.
But shadows were singing in his blood, light magic was dangerous, and reflex had kicked in before he could think. He'd jumped.
Sidewalk to roof ridge in one leap. Easy as breathing.
I missed this.
But Shirogane's rose was hot under his shirt, like it was burning against the dark. And it wouldn't do that... if this were really Shirogane's shadow magic sealed onto his soul.
Pale hands clenched into fists. It wasn't fair.
But he'd been charged with looking after innocent brats for the night. He couldn't set that responsibility aside just for what he wanted.
Something - someone - did this. We have to find out who. And stop them.
First things first. Not everyone down there seemed to be affected. He had to find his friends, get the kids to safety, find Giles-
Oh gods.
He moved with the speed of pure panic, racing roof to roof and leaping down to where he'd seen the ghost-sheet heading. The kids would just have to look after themselves for a minute. If what he feared about the costumes was true-
"Buffy!" Willow had lost her sheet, wearing a tight blouse and short skirt that made Akira want to grin in honest appreciation. "Xander! Akira!"
"Here." Akira touched down on the sidewalk, relieved. "Are you alright?"
"I think I kind of... passed out. My body's got a heartbeat, but I can't get back in-" Willow flinched. "Your eyes!"
"They'll be fine," Akira said impatiently. "Hopefully you will, too-"
Something rattled the air, harsh and explosive, in a way he'd only heard on TV before. Was that gunfire?
"Xander!" Willow took off toward the noise.
"Of course," Akira sighed, and followed her. Guns were real, too? The night was definitely going downhill fast.
How many kids went as cowboys and Indians? Or cops and yakuza? Or worse?
The bullets hadn't been real minutes ago, and they probably wouldn't be real as soon as Giles could tell them how to end this mess. But right now, they were real. Based on his past experience with magic, that would be enough.
Willow should be okay as long as she stays away from magic weapons. Sounds like she's an ikiryou, all we have to do is get her spirit back in her body when this is over. But anyone who dies now - odds are, they die for real. What kind of sick creature does something like this?
"Xander! Oh, thank goodness-" Willow's hand slipped through the young soldier's shoulder, as if he were the ghost.
Xander shivered, and turned toward her, gaze skipping over Akira entirely. "Ma'am! I don't know what the situation is here, but there are multiple hostiles. You need to find some cover."
"They're not hostiles, they're kids!" Willow tried to reach for him again, but gave up when she almost fell through a mailbox.
Xander jumped back, rifle aimed but finger off the trigger. "What the hell?"
"It's Halloween!" Willow tried to steady herself on her feet, looking dubiously at surroundings that weren't solid. "I went as a ghost, and now I'm a real ghost!"
"Living ghost, hopefully," Akira put in.
"Oh right, those were neat... never mind. Xander, you went as a soldier, and now I guess you're a real soldier-"
"Who are you talking to?" Xander demanded, eyes darting over and across where Willow had glanced at a shin. "Are you a hologram? Is this some kind of really FUBAR training exercise? Because if it is, I need to talk to whoever's in charge about issuing live ammo and no explosives!"
"I'm... talking to Akira." Willow gulped. "Explosives?"
Xander frowned. "Must be pretty tiny comms. Who's Akira?"
And the night just kept getting better. "Most humans can't see shin," Akira reminded Willow.
"But you're not a- oh. Costume. Right." Willow swallowed. "We've got to find Buffy!"
"Buffy?" Xander sighed. "Spooks, huh? Must be CIA, only the Virginia farmboys would think that works as a code name."
"It's not a code name!" Willow stamped an intangible foot.
"We do have to find her," Akira said grimly. "Fast. If this just hit her costume she's some kind of fainting Victorian princess and she's in trouble. If it hit the whip," he shuddered, "then we're in trouble."
"Because of a whip?" Willow shook her head, confused.
"Whip?" Xander scanned their surroundings, picking out the nearest screams. "What whip?"
A giggle drifted down from the sky.
I was right.
Damn it.
Pink, Willow thought, staring up as her friend floated in the sky. Pink hair, pink lips, a translucent pink glow surrounding skin, whip, and a now black-and-shadows lacy dress.
The face was Buffy. But the eyes... those gray eyes were scary.
Willow flinched back as Buffy giggled again; thumped against Akira's supporting hand, and forced her shaking knees to hold steady. If Akira wasn't running, maybe it was more dangerous to look afraid-
Wait. He's solid?
Oh. Right. Light and shadow creatures were... kind of tangible, kind of not. Giles' books had had a bunch of arguments and conflicting stories; Akira had confirmed that he'd seen kokuchi vary just how solid they were, along with a couple of snarky observations about a shin who could walk through doors yet always be tangible enough to eat cake. Which was one reason kokuchi were sometimes mistaken for ghosts, because if you could only half-see them then they were only half-solid-
"Aww... where's the fight? I was having so much fun!" Not-Buffy pouted, coiling her whip. "Even though Shirogane-sama wasn't there yet. He's so pretty when he's mad!"
Shirogane? Willow tensed, and tried to keep her voice to a whisper. "Is she talking about your friend?"
"Yes." Akira's voice wasn't any louder. "Willow. Don't let her hit you."
Xander stepped cautiously back, gaze sweeping roughly where pink and black hovered. "Okay, what am I not seeing?"
"Trouble," Willow admitted. "Something I don't think you can shoot. Maybe I can hit her-"
"No!" Akira hissed. "Don't try! Just run!"
"Akira!" Not-Buffy clapped her hands together and wriggled in pure glee. "Ooo, that gorilla-girl is so mean! She wouldn't tell Lulu where you went. But you're right here!" She was bouncing in midair, smile bright as a kindergartener with a double-dip cone of chocolate marshmallow. "Yay, yay, Akira came out to play..."
"Back up slowly," Akira said under his breath. "Get to Giles. Fix this." He swallowed dryly, face as grim as Buffy's had been going after the Master. "I'll keep her busy."
"But where's Shirogane-sama?" Lulu was tapping a finger against pouting lips. "If Akira's out to play, then he must be here somewhere... Ooo! He's so dreamy." She hugged herself, gleeful as a teenage girl with backstage tickets to her favorite boy band. "Where's Shirogane-sama, Akira?"
"Ch'. Like I'd tell you." Akira took a long stride forward, grin as casually confident as Willow had ever seen it.
"Oh-kaaaay," Lulu sing-songed, raising one hand, fingers spread and glowing even more fiercely. "Then I'll just beat you until he comes out!"
Dark tore the air above her glowing fingers. A rift in the night, opening to a sea of red-glowing eyes.
Kokuchi. All those are... oh god!
Knives blazed into Akira's grip, translucent silver. "Run."
Turkmenistan all over again, Operative Harris thought ruefully, double-timing it after the fleeing specter. Hopefully he could find some kind of chaplain or local traveling spirit-healer to break the news to her very gently. Until then - well, he'd learned his lesson about trying to convince ghosts they weren't actually corporeal anymore. Hopefully a California party girl would be a little less dangerous than a Kazakh who'd been tortured to death for the unforgivable fault of not being Turkmen. But he wasn't about to count on that.
A glance behind showed no red eyes, though he could still hear something fighting up in the sky back where they'd been. "Think we lost them for now." Calm and level, that was the way to talk; frightened spooks were dangerous spooks. "Whoa, whoa; walk, don't just stop. Helps you breathe better." Not that spooks had to breathe; the supernatural kind, anyway. But it might make her more coherent. "Did you see who opened that rift? I couldn't locate the source."
The redheaded ghost jerked around, mingled hope and bewilderment on her face. "You saw the tear? The kokuchi?"
A California Valley-girl ghost knew the Japanese term for the shadow-monsters. Oh joy. This situation was even more screwed than it looked. "Yes, Ma'am," Harris said plainly. "I did see the swarm of nasty killer monsters." Though the knife-hands were actually the easier ones to deal with. The centipede types possessed civilians, and that was all kinds of messy. He brushed a hand over his rifle, checking it was in decent condition. "Bullets can hit them, you know. But you have to target the right spot. And even if you get it, they don't slow the lead down much. Urban area like this, that makes for a high risk of collateral damage." Make that suburban, Harris thought, slinging the rifle and drawing his combat knife from his boot sheath. He hated to let monsters get that close, but without some high-grade salt or enchanted slingshot pellets, it was the only way to get a decent hit in on creatures that weren't quite solid. American town. How the hell did I get here? If I was on leave I'd have concealed weapons; if this were an assignment, I ought to have the nice stuff that goes boom. What's going on?
When in doubt, ask a local. "Fill me in," Harris said plainly. "I get the feeling I only saw half of what was going on." Maybe less. Miss Ghost Willow had been talking to someone, but the way she'd tensed and whispered, that someone had been almost totally focused on someone else. That he couldn't see.
Oh, I hate invisible targets. Where's the kosher salt when you need it?
"Oh... boy." The redhead took an intangible breath; he could hear it, but it didn't so much as ruffle his hair. "Um, Buffy - she's our friend, really, only - her costume turned her into some kind of bad guy who controls kokuchi."
Possession by way of costume? Hell, why not; he'd had the usual rundown on cursed objects taking people over, even if none of them had ever been a kid's costume. Really not good; if it's just a surface mind-warper we've got time, but if it's a soul-jar, we need to find a counter or a way to zap it before the person inside's gone for good.
"But it's going to be okay!" Willow babbled on. "Akira is... he turned into someone like that too, but he knows who he is and who we are and what's going on. He's going to - to keep things under control, until we can find Giles and figure out how to break the spell."
Damn. We need to move fast.
Because on the one hand, good, her friend Akira remembered he wasn't really a shadow-controlling monster. On the other - Akira knew Buffy wasn't a shadow-controlling monster. Which meant he'd hesitate. Pull his punches. Not go in for the killing blow.
She'll kill him. And then she'll come after the rest of us.
She didn't even have to come after them personally. Not if she was opening rifts for the shadow-monsters to swarm through.
Kokuchi. Willow knows the Japanese name. Odds are Akira's her source. If he knows that much, maybe we shouldn't write him off just yet.
If Akira lived through the night, Harris had to get his name and contact info. The Nightstalkers could always use another source on the things that went screech in the night.
"Okay, running from the kokuchi who want to shred us," Harris stated. "Where should we be running to? You said you know somebody who might be able to fix this?"
"Giles!" Hope lit her face. "He's our librarian."
Harris wanted to facepalm. A librarian?
Then again, if some of the Old Scotland Yard Brits were right, a librarian had been key to bringing down the last major mummy rampage in Egypt. So go book-guys.
"But we were supposed to be looking after trick-or-treaters." Pale, Willow glanced back towards the sounds of kokuchi screeching and being dispersed, and around at chaos and bedlam. Cackling witches sailed above on broomsticks. Metal was shinging against metal in a way that said there was a swordfight going on down the nearest alley. A block away, a mini-lightning bolt crashed down.
"Can you tell for sure which are the kids, and which are the monsters?" Harris said pointedly. "Even if you can - if you asked them to come into safe cover, how many do you think would listen? The best way we can keep them safe is to stop this."
For a moment Harris thought he wasn't going to make any headway. The ghost of a civilian was still a civilian. They weren't used to making hard choices.
"You're right." The redhead's shoulders hunched, and there was a sad glimmer in her eye. But she looked around the streets again, obviously shutting out what was happening to focus on where they were, and where they had to be. "We can use the phone at Buffy's house. This way!"
A civilian who could turn off the tears, because more people would die if she didn't. Harris winced. Damn it, he'd joined up to keep people safe from messes like this.
Ask the Padre to put a few extra prayers in for her when we get back to base, Harris decided. Might help her get where she's going.
And if it didn't, and she took the whole not alive anymore situation okay - heck. Sometimes what ghosts needed was a chance to help, before they moved on. To do the things they wished somebody had done for them, before the Grim Reaper came calling.
Harris smiled as he ran, even if it was a little sad. Hard way to join up, but he'd give her the pitch.
Every Nightstalker team can use a friendly spook.
Ah, card catalogs. Giles sighed in happy relaxation, shuffling small manila cards back into their proper order where careless teenage hands had disarranged them. Thank goodness for the paranormal world's hush on Halloween. For this night, he could simply be a librarian, with no more pressing concerns than whether or not a student had failed to renew a copy of Watership Down-
The phone rang.
Blast. "Hello?"
"Mr. Giles?"
The Watcher raised a surprised brow. "Xander? Is something amiss?"
"You could say that." The young man's voice was oddly wary. "I'm calling for a Miss Willow Rosenberg? Apparently living ghosts can't pick up phones."
...And some uncanny creature had just decided to pour ice down his spine, apparently. "Living what?"
"She said Akira called it an ikiryou?"
Ah. The Japanese term for what most so-called paranormal researchers in the West called an out of body experience. Oh dear. That would be perilous enough at the best of times. On the Hellmouth... well, that couldn't be good. "Can she speak over the phone? Where is Akira? And Buffy?"
"She's trying but evidently you can't hear her," Xander said briskly. "Summing up, sir - Willow says people turned into their costumes. We've got monsters and mutants roaming the streets. Willow went as a ghost and was lucky enough to remember who she is. But she says Akira and Buffy went as something she calls shin-"
"Oh, dear lord," Giles breathed.
"Sorry, sir, it gets worse," the young man sighed. "Willow says Akira knows who he is. Buffy doesn't. She thinks she's somebody called Lulu. And she's summoning kokuchi. And apparently chasing Akira. I think he's in trouble, sir."A pause. "Any ideas what caused this, or how we break it?"
For a moment the Watcher had no words. Whomever Xander had gone as for Halloween was obviously expecting a calm, professional response. And for that instant, he didn't have one.
Buffy thinks she's Lulu. Bloody hell.
"Despite what Shirogane might think," Shuichi had told him on the phone that night, after the shin king had vanished and Giles had snared another cup of tea, "the shin Akira really needs protection from is Homurabi. Akira and Ryuuko wounded him gravely, and a Shadow King never suffers affronts lightly. But Homurabi isn't stupid. He'll send his Children to strike at Akira first. Nanaya is dead; weapons enchanted with light are a nasty way for shin to die. That leaves Homurabi with four Children, unless he creates new ones..."
Hiryu, a woman whose hair and eyes were as blue as the ice that obeyed her commands. Sawaki, pale blond and sharply dressed, whom Shuichi said had murdered Ryuuko with the blade of his hand. Shiki, a short-haired punk who could shape shadow matter into deadly archery and razor disks. And Lulu, whose dark whip could steal the breath and strength from a foe... if she bothered to use it, when she could summon and control kokuchi, leaving the wrecks of possessed people in her wake.
If Akira's a shin he may have an even chance against her, Giles thought, trying for calm.
Or he would, except that Lulu was Homurabi's Childe. One of the strongest shin. To stand a chance against her, Akira would have to be one of Shirogane's...
Oh. Oh lord, it made sense.
Akira's affinity for shadow, to the point hakua seemed to recognize him on sight as an ally against the tears. Shirogane's intense interest in the young man's continued well-being, going so far as to play messenger with arcane weapons and a reference work on some supernatural creatures even Giles had never heard of before. That odd slip of tongue Shuichi had almost made when they'd been speaking of what should and shouldn't be affected by enchanted salt, Akira's offhand comment that Ryuuko couldn't bring his full power to bear, the near-lethal damage the Rei King's spirit had done leaving Akira's body...
Not to mention that somehow Akira had been turned into a shin, yet he remembered who he was.
The Watcher took a deep breath, and made himself let it out slowly. Shirogane is going to kill whoever did this.
Which meant he'd best determine who, exactly, had done this. Giles shoved his glasses up, thinking fast. "I don't have enough information to accurately identify the cause at this time, Mr. Harris. But I do have some ideas where I should start researching. Is there any way you could bring some of the affected individuals to the library? There are some tests I can only do in person."
"Huh. Risky, but doable," Xander said thoughtfully. "Let me check with Miss Rosenberg, see if we can work out a fastest route-"
Over the line, something roared.
A/N: ikiryou - living ghost, spirit wandering outside the body.
"A fastest route" - I know the grammar is weird, but I've run into this used in military parlance, where "fastest route" may be defined in multiple ways. For example, the fastest way to get to spot X if you're using cover, versus fastest with a specific mode of transport that can't go off-road, versus fastest if you just don't care who sees or shoots at you.