It was like a wind passing over the ocean. One moment he was Operative Harris, hell-bent on making sure the chaos mage who was their target put everything back the way it was supposed to be-
Then he was Xander again, cradling a toy rifle in sheer disbelief. Giles had... his friendly neighborhood G-man had actually beaten somebody bloody-?
Willow!
No longer ghostly. No longer here, from what he could see, and man, he hoped that was a good sign-
Sticky gray dropped over him like a weighted net, full of eyes.
Spiders... spiders... gah!
"You jerk!" Cordelia shrieked, somewhere in the cobwebs nearby. "Do you have any idea what it's going to take to repair this hairstyle after I get this gunk out?"
"Oh, feisty," Ethan said gleefully. "Too bad you're a bit tied up at the moment, eh?"
"Ethan," Giles growled, "if you hurt them-"
"As if I'd have to." Ethan wriggled free of the webs with a satisfied sneer. "Oh come now, Ripper, didn't you see this coming? Janus is duality. Make the false real; make the real, fake. Until the spell is broken. And all your little helpers went back to being frightened little brats again. While mine... well, I won't insult you with the obvious."
The obvious being the swarms of hungry silver-black spiders the size of dinner plates, chelicerae chomping in anticipation. Xander gulped.
Wait, chelicerae? How do I know - oh, right, Harris was in that Mayan temple after those ugly Teotihuacan artifacts. Spider-worshippers. They went in prepared... man, what I'd give for a web-dissolver and a flamethrower!
He didn't have either. What he did have was an overwhelming desire to panic. "Giles... these things are gonna eat us!"
"I doubt we'll be that lucky," Giles said grimly. "Hypaepan demon-spiders. Adult females. They'd rather paralyze us and... er. Well."
Yeah. Panic time.
The time you want to panic, is the time you absolutely cannot, soldier!
Old advice, from a drill sergeant who'd... probably never existed. But that didn't mean it wasn't real. So he didn't have weapons? He had a brain, the most dangerous weapon issued to any soldier, and he knew spiderwebs. Struggling just got you more tangled. What you had to do was calm down, and pull.
"I swear I'll bite you to death!" Cordelia was yelling, twisting her head back and forth to face the scuttling swarm. "Every last hairy one of you! Don't you dare put those fangs on me, buster!"
Good girl, Xander thought fondly, as the first strands started to pull away... and the first legs neared his arm. Cover the Watcher whispering Latin- wait, what?
A puff of foul smoke, and Giles dropped free to the floor, stomping on spiders. "Ethan! You milksop, addle-pated bar sinister offspring of a diseased mule and a desperate incubus! Kill me if you will, but help me get them out!"
"Ha!" Grinning, Ethan turned to saunter out the open door. "Ta ta-"
Windows shattered.
"Ta," said a silver-haired man suddenly there, tipping a black-brimmed hat over the coldest smile in the world.
Falling out of the sky hurt.
"Owowow!" Buffy winced, glad her body was hers again. Except- "Why does gravity have to work?"
Rubbing an ankle, she flicked her gaze around the wrecked cemetery. It looked like the kokuchi had mostly headed back across the boundary when Lulu had opened the rift to drag Akira off-
"Akira!"
Oh no. He was so still.
Still breathing, Buffy told herself fiercely, feeling the pulse in the left side of his neck. Carefully avoiding the black, broken-off fangs buried to the root; even a Slayer might be taken down by that much pure poison.
Akira's been risking this every time the kokuchi break loose. We have got to get on top of sealing tears...
She was not going to cry in frustration. "Don't you die on me!" CPR - no, he's breathing, has a heartbeat, what next? "Giles will rub his glasses to death. Xander won't know where to keep up with the whole learn how to fight gig. And Willow will look sad. There's nothing sadder than a sad Wills. She'd even be sad about that demon-lady... and I really, really hope that lady doesn't eat people because my god, I messed up her night with bubbles and hot cocoa, I am the worst person ever-"
"You need to get him to help."
Ack. Lion-haired demon-lady in a bathrobe, twelve o'clock. And... that awful green wasn't skin, it was a facial, and oh boy could she feel any lower? "Can you help him?" Buffy blurted out. "I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry, there was some kind of spell or something, we were all possessed-"
"I could help one of the Shadowfolk. But he's human now." Slit pupils narrowed at her. "And you... are the Slayer."
Which wasn't quite you are Jack the Ripper, but there were definite tones there. Ow. "I don't slay anything that's not gnawing on humans." Buffy clenched her fists; made herself relax, knuckle by knuckle. "If you're not eating people, turning them into monsters, or forcing everybody to watch Smurfs reruns, we're good. Okay?"
"You actually mean that." Lioness demon lady straightened a bit. "Well, then. After tonight, ask your Watcher about rakshasa. For now... I've heard the more decent Watchers stock supplies for demonic injury. Does yours?"
"Right, Giles, first aid kit," Buffy said, trying not to panic now that she had something she could do. "The library!" She reached for his shoulder... and froze. "Damn it, he's not that heavy, but - there's so much blood already. If I jar the fangs-"
"He tried to save my life," the rakshasa mused. "I'll help you carry him."
No answer at her house, hope she came back here, Giles worried, heading into the library with three tattered children, a tense vampire, and one still very incensed shin.
Still, three of his charges were safe. Willow had run into them almost as they'd come to the school entrance, clutching onto Xander as if he were the last hold against a whirlwind. Xander had held her just as fiercely, eyes wide any time he glanced back to where Shirogane trailed them. What the King of Shadow had done, searing webs and demonic spiders with leaping flames, then turning on Ethan with that same cold smile...
At least it was quick.
Angel had been fast enough to get through the wards after Shirogane had shattered them... but had apparently been wary enough to pull up short, hands raised and empty, when the shin had turned a cool look on him.
"Where is Akira?"
Bloody good question, that. Giles hoped the library would be a good place to find an answer-
"Giles!" Buffy all but ran for him as they opened the doors; whip in hand, hair decked with bits of leaves, one side of her face powdered with what long experience told the Watcher was likely bits of shattered granite. "I've got your kit out but I don't know what to do, this isn't CPR, help!"
"Buffy!" Angel pushed in, face even paler than usual with relief. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Buffy dropped the bloodied whip on the floor with a shudder of disgust. "Akira's not."
Oh, dear lord.
The young man was laid face-down on one of the library's sturdier tables; coat dropped over a chair, shirt torn open at the shoulder, and the Watcher's first-aid kit open on another chair beside him. Under his California tan he was almost gray, a trickle of blood still seeping from around the shadow-black fangs embedded in his left shoulder.
Rubbing alcohol's out, she cleaned the area, that's a fair start, Giles thought.
Shirogane took off one glove, feeling the pulse under the teenager's jaw. "You need to remove the fangs. Now."
"You!" Buffy paled, then flushed, stepping away from Angel's comforting hands to glare up into blue eyes. "Where were you half an hour ago, when he needed you?"
The shin held his ground, one brow arched as only a king could. "Dodging Homurabi's snares. Or would you wish him to find his way to your Hellmouth?"
"Damn. No. No way. We're not ready for him." Buffy swallowed, even as Angel glanced between them, frowning. "If we pull them out, the shock could kill him."
"If we do not, the venom will kill him," Shirogane stated, unflinching. "Vampire. Make yourself useful and hold him down. He will scream."
"The vampire has a name," Angel said bluntly.
"I'm certain you do." Shirogane's smile was sweet as a candy scythe. "Do you want it to be Dust?"
"You two can play who's the badder supernatural later." Cordelia walked fearlessly between them, even if her face was white. "Right now, we've got to... to fix him." She shot a wide-eyed look at Giles. "You can fix him. Right?"
"If he's lasted this long, I hope so," Giles said soberly. "Right, then. Angel, if you would - the more firmly you hold him, the less damage we'll do withdrawing the fangs. Lord Shirogane, you're more experienced with these sorts of injuries than the rest of us, perhaps you should demonstrate the proper means of removal? Ah, and Willow," he added, seeing the redhead pale even more than Cordelia, "please look behind my reading desk for the red box with the rattlesnake icon."
"Right!"
"Cordelia, stand by the kit in case we need something else. Xander, Buffy - be ready with dressings, I'm not certain how much he'll bleed..." Giles eyed Shirogane.
"Not enough to wash the venom out," Shirogane said plainly. Straightened his shoulders, and stepped in. "Hold him."
Cold. Dark. Weak; Lulu's damn whip drained the strength out of anything it touched, and he was the weakest shin that bouncing pink menace had ever seen.
Not a shin. Have to fight this. Can't let her take me back to Homurabi. He'll use me to get Shirogane, and that idiot will probably fall for it even though he knows it's a stupid idea-!
From the murmur of angry voices somewhere beyond the dark and cold, Shirogane had already fallen for it. The crazy fool.
When he got out of this, he was going to kick Shirogane's ass. Because damn it, Kou and Shuichi were right. The balance of the world was more important than any one human life. Akira couldn't live with himself if the whole world - if his friends - slid into shadow. The last sane Shadow King had no right to risk himself on crazy rescue missions-
"Oooowwww!"
Something was holding him down. Something had to die.
But he couldn't - quite - reach his knives.
Which didn't make sense... but it didn't matter. Something was going to die, as soon as he got his hands on a hard object-
Fingers gripped his reaching hand, clasping it.
Shirogane?
...He recognized the touch of the shin's hand. Enough not to try killing whatever had just caused that blinding bolt of pain. There was something terribly wrong about that.
"Easy, Akira. You're among allies." The shin laid his hand on something hard and flat to grip, voice cool and kind and merciless. "One more."
Oh fu-
Something broke under his fingers. It felt like wood.
"You might want to let go now that the fangs are removed, Angel," Shirogane said mildly. "And hope that Akira truly believes he is among friends." A deliberate, gleeful pause. "My, that's a big splinter."
Angel was holding him? That explained the unnatural strength. "If I stab anyone," Akira gritted out, "it's going to be a flaming idiot of a shin."
"You're awake." Shirogane bent to look him in the eye, and smiled. "You missed me!"
"I'll... aim better next time," Akira got out, testing the solidity of the surface under him before he dared to move. Everything hurt.
"We need to get the poison out." Shirogane's smile wasn't quite as brilliant. "I'll just-"
"If you put those lips on me," Akira gritted out, "I will die. I will die and then I will kill you."
"Aww, Akira-kun..."
"Before we resort to potential homicide or suicide," Giles stepped into view; a bit battered, but obviously relieved. "Perhaps you'd allow me to try the snakebite kit, first."
Akira blinked. Even his eyelids felt heavy. "Snakebite?" Wait. "Willow, Xander... Buffy..."
"What am I," Cordelia muttered in the background, "chopped liver?"
Akira had to snicker, even if it hurt. "I knew you'd make it. You're as tenacious as kudzu."
"I'm the vine that ate the South? Ooo, mister, if you weren't bleeding-!"
"We're okay," Buffy said, voice a little shaky. "A lot better than you... oh, ick."
Fair description. Akira winced as Giles applied suction to one of the aching wounds. He hadn't forgotten how his stomach had turned seeing kokuchi poison in his own flesh; or worse, seeing it in Shirogane's, the first time he'd ever seen the shin wounded. Bad enough that the venom spread in black veins under your skin; what truly made it horrible was how it glittered, getting brighter as it dissolved flesh and blood...
Think about something else. "You shouldn't be here." Akira tried not to gasp. "Hellmouth's... not safe."
"Oh, and Japan is?" Shirogane straightened the amulet's chain where it'd caught along his neck. "Stay calm. Your shadow is thinner than it should be. You need rest."
"Thinner?" Didn't make sense. "Picked up the Doppler when I saw it..."
"Fortunately," Shirogane stated. "Ethan Rayne's spell tampered with what no mortal should touch. Rest."
"Not likely." Akira rolled his eyes. "School tomorrow."
Shirogane chuckled. "As if that's ever a problem."
"It is, here," Akira sighed. "Call in sick, Mom has to know about it. Skip class, Snyder will make sure she knows about it." Oh Buddha, just thinking about it hurt. "Can't tell her what happened. Tomorrow's not going to be fun..."
"Hmm." The Shadow King smiled. "Well, in the interests of not disturbing your mother's hard-won peace... shall we try an experiment?"
Willow approached the table reluctantly, deliberately not looking at the trashcan full of fangs and venom-stained dressings. "D-do you really think this will work?"
Do not frighten the humans, Shirogane reminded himself. Panicked magic is unpredictable magic. "I admit I'm not highly skilled at healing magic, but Master Wagatsuma believes this strategy will work. If it does not - I assure you, I can prevent your light from injuring him." He smiled at the redhead, doing his best to suppress the extra edge he'd use for the vampire. "Akira's much more sturdy than he looks."
...Hmm. Of all the people in this room, Willow might be the only one he was fooling.
Giles knows what I am. The vampire - he doesn't know, but his demon fears me. Cordelia - ah, such an interesting aura under the cloak of a petty child. I'll have to find her an appropriate present.
Xander was the truly intriguing one, though. No magic in him, beyond the traces anyone inevitably picked up near practicing adepts. But his eyes... his eyes were watchful.
He's not afraid. Cautious, but not afraid. He knows enough to know that he does not know what I am. And so he watches.
It was a relief, in a way. Akira might be cut off from easy aid from his friends and allies, but these youngsters had at least survived long enough to end Ethan's spell. Not an inconsiderable feat.
"Just move slowly, and use a light touch with your energy," Shirogane said confidently. "Everything will be fine."
Willow gulped. But the redhead straightened her shoulders, and made her face resolved. "Okay, here we go."
Good. She does believe in what she's doing.
Willow plucked at the light energies in the air as a pillow-maker might pluck down, gathering it in her hands and arms as she molded it to her will.
And now my part. Shirogane called shadow's power to his hands, a cool shield against bright magic. He slid it under Willow's fragile web of power, letting dark magic sink into injured flesh; just as Willow would do with light, if she dared.
Gently. Not too much at once. A human isn't as resilient as a shin.
And currently, Akira was not a shin. Though for a brief time this evening Shirogane had felt the bond between them thrum into renewed life, as if Akira had never been forced to leave his side...
Focus. Keep him alive, first.
Under his fingertips, Akira's human tan paled, flesh and bone knitting back together with gratifying speed.
Gently. Carefully. Push lightly on the exhaustion, let the mind know it can rest.
Eyelids drooping, Akira slept.
Shirogane smiled, and let a bit more power seep into pale skin. A shadow adept might not need as much dark energy as a shin, but it wouldn't hurt to refill Akira's reserves. Just in case.
"So." Xander kept the word low and quiet, obviously eyeing Akira. "He going to be out for a while? Because it looked like that hurt."
"It does, and he will," Shirogane answered honestly. "I can take him home from here." This promised to be interesting.
"Oh yeah?" Xander's fingers fidgeted, as if searching for a weapons belt that wasn't there. "Because maybe we didn't hear this right, but it sounds like he's been hurt in kokuchi messes before. What'd you do about it then?"
"I took him to Master Wagatsuma," Shirogane said truthfully. "And then he would go home."
"And skip school if he had to." Xander didn't glance at the girls on either side, even as Buffy winced under Angel's comforting hand and Willow edged closer to Giles. Standing slightly away from all of them, Cordelia just fumed quietly. "And nobody noticed."
Shirogane inclined his head. "Have you met Ms. Nikaidou?"
"Briefly, yeah, but - wait a minute." Xander's eyes narrowed. "Okay, parental units can miss a lot, I give you all of Sunnydale. But what about his friends? His teachers? Heck, the school janitor? Didn't anybody notice?"
"I believe I may have frightened the school janitor into early retirement," Shirogane said judiciously. Not that he'd ever done anything. The man had never come close to seeing him. But after the third time Shirogane had had a vacuum go through him, he'd been a bit... vexed.
Humans tended to be sensitive to such things. At least, if they didn't live on a Hellmouth.
"The teachers were resigned to the fact that Akira generally only showed up when he had nothing better to do. And his friend was Kengo." Shirogane paused, trying to describe Kengo. "It takes an incredibly dense personality to even survive infestation by three kokuchi at once. Kengo's only injuries afterwards were from the brawl."
That had them all silent a moment. As well it should. Pity the world if they ever met Kengo. A half-trained dark adept with all the subtlety of a flamethrower on a Hellmouth? The town would be doomed.
"He said Aya was his friend?" Willow ventured.
"She was part of the school disciplinary committee, and thus responsible for attempting to make sure Akira showed up to some classes," Shirogane nodded. "So yes. She noticed that he would disappear when the windows blew out. After some of Homurabi's shin attacked her, she joined our forces. She still fights the kokuchi today." He glanced at Xander. "Does that answer your question?"
"Well, one of them." Xander casually scratched behind his head, gaze almost innocent. "Kind of have a more important one in mind. Why's Akira think he needs to go into school tomorrow? It's Saturday." He shot a swift glance at Giles. "It is still Saturday, right? We didn't lose a day somewhere, what with all the magic and superheroes and potential TARDISes loose out there, right?"
"So far as I can determine, all the local chronometers indicate it is still Friday night," Giles said dryly, waving toward one of the library computers. "Including that infernal device." He cleared his throat. "Although I can understand the confusion. In Japan, it's customary for school to have a half-day on Saturday, as well."
Utter silence.
"That poor guy," Cordelia got out, stunned. "Hey! Didn't we fight a war with Japan to stop them from doing horrible stuff already? What went wrong?"
Giles looked... well, Shirogane wasn't quite certain how the Watcher looked. Rather like a man caught between facepalming and a certain unholy glee.
"What went wrong, indeed." All but rubbing his hands, the librarian headed over to the shelves, pulling out at least three volumes. "I suggest you read these, then submit a three-page report on what you believe went wrong."
"Ah- but-" Cordelia stammered.
"I've spoken with the English and History teachers about ways to handle some of our... students with possible test anxiety," Giles said, almost casually. "They're open to the idea of extra-credit projects as a possible substitute for up to three quiz grades."
Buffy and Xander looked at each other. Braced themselves, and held out their hands.
Heaving a put-upon sigh, Cordelia reluctantly accepted her books.
Giles smiled. "I do so love volunteers." He waved a hand toward the next table over. "And you can get started right now, whilst I as the responsible adult can see who's coordinating what efforts there are to ensure all the youngsters get home."
Four heads popped back up at that. "But we should," Buffy began.
"Sit, and study," Giles directed. "Your desire to help is admirable, and under other circumstances I'd send you all back out there in a heartbeat. But at the moment what we have to deal with is potentially large numbers of lost children, who are unlikely to come out for strangers. Especially strangers they may have last seen become something terrifying." He frowned. "More crucially, we will have to deal with their parents. Who will not be amenable to anything less than official authorities becoming involved." He rubbed at a headache. "I know it goes against the grain, but this is a case in which we truly should let the police handle it. Unless..."
Shirogane hid a smile, amused. Oh, well played.
Giles turned toward him. "I know you would prefer to stay and watch over Akira. But I understand that Lulu was opening a fair number of tears... well, Buffy under Lulu's possession was..."
"It may have actually been Lulu, in a way," Shirogane admitted. "Before I came here, she'd been causing quite a stir in Japan - and then suddenly vanished."
"I see." Giles didn't look happy to hear that.
Fair enough. I wasn't happy to hear it, either, Shirogane reflected. If Lulu was here - what did she learn? There's no trace of her in Buffy's magic; what happened once Ethan's spell was over?
But he was the King of Shadow, and such dark thoughts would have to wait. "Sunnydale is in a precarious enough state without active tears," Shirogane acknowledged, taking out a slim ledger from his coat. "You and Akira are both correct; I shouldn't stay too long. I'll do what I can, while I am here. Including herding lost human children back toward lighted streets." He offered the book, knowing from the way Giles's eyes narrowed as he took it that the Watcher had already noted Ethan's stark script on the label. "Akira will probably sleep a few more hours, unless someone disturbs him. Look after him for me?"
With a polite bow, Shirogane stepped into shadows.
Now you can relax, Watcher. And tell your charges what dangers truly await them, besides me.
Book reports. Bleah. Cordelia perched with her assigned books as close to Akira as she could, just watching him breathe. Maybe Shadow-guy had fixed him, and maybe Akira was tough enough to bounce back from ugly fangy stuff that would put even Buffy in the ambulance.
And maybe not. In case it was not, she planned to be right here. Because she was no fighter or Watcher or crazy idiot willing to jump in on demons just because they were there, but she could damn sure dial 911 with the best of them.
Besides. From right here she could overhear everything. And this promised to be good.
"Okay." Angel kept his voice low as he stared at the shadows where Shirogane had been, cautious as a new freshman dumped into the football locker room. "Who - and what - was that guy?"
"That depends," Buffy said wryly. "Promise you're not going to do anything like run screaming, or try to break into Akira's house to get more info? Because I know he's booby-trapped the place." She almost whistled. "And even if he hadn't, I'd bet anything Shirogane's putting some nasty stuff up right now."
"Why?" Angel frowned; Cordelia wondered if vampires could get wrinkles. "Why's that kid so important? So he's a Hunter. Shouldn't - whatever that guy is - be heading the other way?"
"Oh man." Buffy rubbed off some rock dust. "Where do I even start?"
Giles paused in consulting his list of phone numbers. "Buffy. Are you alright?" He glanced at Xander. "And you? I've no personal knowledge of the special forces, but I have dealt with some people trained by the Council. Being suddenly plunged into that mindset could only be - well. Unsettling."
"That's... a pretty fair way of putting it, yeah," Xander admitted, rubbing the side of his head as if he were trying to erase the past few hours. "Not all bad, though. Things seem to make a little more sense. At least they did in the grr argh things trying to eat you messes, anyway. Parasitic spiders. Ethan was a... something I can't really say around the ladies, sorry."
Giles arched a skeptical brow.
"Fire's not a good way to go, but he was asking for it," Xander shrugged.
"Indeed he was," the librarian sighed, flipping through that weird little book of Shirogane's again. "In rather more ways than I would have imagined. Buffy?"
"I remember some weird things," the Slayer nodded, eyeing the pages. "Stuff Lulu knew. Why Akira's so good at shadows... Why did Shirogane give you a book with a bunch of adepts in it?" She pounced, flipping to one of the last ink-marred pages. "With Willow in it? Ooo, he better be glad he's dead!"
"It was Ethan's," Giles said grimly. "I'll have to do some cross-checking to be sure. But I do recognize a few of these names. Some of them are missing. More of them are dead." He took a deliberate breath, and sighed. "I never wanted you to have to deal with this. The Slayer should deal with supernatural evil, not human malice. But if Ethan found Willow - others may come looking."
Willow gulped. Angel grimaced.
"You know about this?" Buffy stood to her full mini-height, trying to look determined when even Cordelia could see she was afraid. "What do you know? Who'd be after Willow? Why?"
The vampire winced. "Some people... aren't very good people."
Oh great, they were all going to dance around the obvious and get nowhere, Cordelia thought. She didn't have time for this. "Does the word duh mean anything to you? Hello, they put up with me. I think they can handle knowing their fellow man can be mean and nasty and even lacking in personal hygiene. Which, now that I think about it - you go down into those sewers on purpose? What, were you raised under a freeway?"
"If you'd ever helped Buffy out down there, you'd know they're pretty clean in the upper levels," Angel said, just a little stiff. "You can get across most of town without dealing with much more than running water."
"Yeah, I bet you can," Xander said under his breath. Caught their looks, and smirked a little. "Just thought of an essay idea. Sunnydale history and development. That's a really... well designed drainage system."
Cordelia kept her expression blithely annoyed, with all the skill she'd developed at her parents' cocktail parties. Somehow, Xander had pegged the sewers as important. Eww. But then again, this was Sunnydale. Full of ghoulies, ghosties, and un-manicured beasties. Eww was practically a job requirement.
"What I believe Angel meant to say is, there is a rather sordid and thriving black market, in the demon world, in human trafficking," Giles said bluntly. "Sometimes for the mere purposes of food. Other times, for more esoteric nourishment or ability. And one of the most valuable commodities, to certain buyers, are humans with some amount of magical power, but not enough to be lethal to would-be captors."
Willow went white. Cordelia swallowed hard, and hoped she wasn't tasting supper on its way back up.
"Adepts." Buffy was almost as pale as the redhead. Shivering a little in place, like she wanted to hit something. "Ethan was... was selling adepts."
"A spell like this, everyone confused and crazy, all kinds of people could go missing," Angel sighed. "No one would even know where to start looking." He shrugged, doing nice things to the lines of that jacket. "I've heard about a few incidents that sound a little like this. Camden, Hackney; London, Ontario; even a weird kind of riot in Berkeley. Adepts went missing after all of them."
"Oh. Peachy." Xander crossed his arms, looking chilled and ticked off. "If Shirogane didn't get him, we should have."
"Shirogane would have gotten him," Buffy said grimly. "Ethan had no idea what he was messing with. Heck, Homurabi would have gotten him eventually. The Kings need Children, they have to have adepts around..." She blinked at Giles' frown. "What?"
"If Ethan was searching for adepts..." The Watcher eyed Akira where he'd huddled on himself on the table. "Willow, you and a few other local names are listed. Akira is not."
"But - he's an adept," Willow protested.
"He's a really powerful adept." Buffy grimaced. "I think Shirogane did something to hide him."
"Ah. I suppose that would make sense," Giles nodded. "He had to balance a rei king, after all. That would naturally incline him toward being as close to a shin as a shadow adept could manage. And that would certainly stand out to mystical eyes, were it not concealed."
"Rei king?" Angel said under his breath.
Cordelia quirked her brows up. Seriously, he was supposed to be a how-many-centuries-old vampire, and he hadn't figured out the value of strategic eavesdropping?
Apparently not, because Angel gave Giles a very pointed stare. "What's a shin?"
Buffy gave him an odd second look, like he'd just confessed to sometimes wearing underwear on his head. "You know about adepts, but you don't know about shin and rei?"
"Everybody who deals with serious magic knows about adepts." Angel dusted off his hands. "They're humans with a little inborn magic. Most of them are harmless. Some of them are crazy. Every once in a while one of them gets enough of a handle on their knacks to be dangerous. I've never heard of an adept turning Hunter before. And I've never heard of anybody like Shirogane. What the heck is he?"
"Hmm." Giles glanced over his books. "You are in part correct. Adepts are human... more or less. But some of them descend from people who were a bit other. Shin. And rei. Shadowfolk and Lightfolk, in some of the lore."
Angel tensed, as if he were trying to decide between doing something very unpleasant to Akira or diving back into the stacks. "Are you saying we had an Unseelie Sidhe in here?"
"There are some similarities in power, but I doubt cold iron would do more than make a shin laugh at you," Giles said dryly. "Consider yourself fortunate our guest restrained himself to insults. Shirogane is no less than the King of Shadow. If he wished, he could bring through a swarm of moroi that could destroy California in a single night." He nudged his glasses. "Fortunately, he does not wish to do so."
Buffy was nodding. "No kidding. Ethan got off easy. If Akira had been in that book... whoof. Shirogane is not going to be happy if something else nabs Akira before he gets a chance to ask him to be his Childe."
Erk. Cordelia felt a weird prickle on the back of her neck. She'd read a little Anne Rice, before too many Sunnydale encounters proved those stories were horrible lies, so she'd run across that term before. Akira as something that went bump in the night? That couldn't be good.
Buffy shrugged at them all, looking a little sheepish. "It worked out before."
Erk.
"I don't know what Lulu was thinking. But I got some of what she was feeling, when she was trying to pound Akira through the pavement," Buffy admitted. "And I remember... some things she knew." She glanced at the sleeping huddle on the table. "She was looking forward to a good chase. She knew Akira was a weak shin, but he always fought smart. She thought she'd get a lot of... fun... before she dragged him off to Homurabi."
Angel glanced that way, and drew a little closer to Buffy. "People don't come back from being dragged into the supernatural. Trust me on that. Maybe he was human before, but-"
"He's an adept, not a shin," Buffy said firmly. "Don't ask me how that works. Akira said Ryuuko burned him out. I'm guessing - badness. Lots of." She gave the librarian a suspicious look. "And why are you not surprised that he was a shin?"
"I was, a bit, when I put the pieces together." Giles nudged his glasses up, though Cordelia didn't think they'd moved a fraction of an inch. "Willow mentioned that Akira transformed with his costume, yet hadn't forgotten who he was. And given I have met Shirogane before this night - yes, it explains rather a lot."
"Um, stupid question time," Xander waved a finger. "Lulu's a shin. How did she not know Akira left the realm of the shadowy?"
"Maybe she just missed it?" Willow rubbed her arms. "The spell turned you into what you went as, right? So, Akira went as... who he was, and Lulu said she hadn't seen him in a while, so..."
"Or they scammed her," Cordelia shrugged.
Eyes. From every direction. Ack. Damn it, why had she broken her own rules about strategic eavesdropping?
Oh well. In for a penny, in for a gold charge card. "What? You think they couldn't?" Cordelia waved a hand at Akira's necklace. Because seriously, did nobody else think that went with nothing the guy was wearing? Even if he'd somehow managed to keep the chain from sliding under the collar, ouch. "They hid him from people who mess with magic, why not shin, too? He was like Buffy in Japan. Only a guy. Right? What do you think would happen to her if the monsters knew she couldn't bench-press whole vending machines anymore? It would be ugly and R-rated and..." Too many bloody memories writhed in the back of her mind. She swallowed. "It would be bad."
"Actually... that could have worked." Buffy had a fierce look of concentration, like a not-quite-redhead trying to find a match in the coloring aisle. "She wasn't at the big fight where Ryuuko showed up. And she likes to use kokuchi to possess people and throw them at anybody trying to seal the tears. I doubt they were big on the sharing with her. If he just acted like he wasn't going to bother dropping his Doppler, and just fight human, and the rest of them got in her way before she got close..." She whistled. "Then he got dragged here. And Homurabi's still poking at Fujiyama, even though Shirogane sealed that spot but good. Lulu wouldn't have left Japan to find out otherwise."
"She makes kokuchi possess people?" Willow was paper-pale.
"Not just people," Buffy stated. "Possessed vamps? Ugly."
The redhead gulped. "That's - that's why he told us to run, isn't it. If Lulu had - if she could..."
"He'd have been fighting us instead of just her," Xander said heavily. "Hard enough taking one person down without killing them. Three, with no backup? He'd have been dead."
"No, don't think so. He's done it before," Buffy said thoughtfully. "There was this time she got the boxing and tennis clubs possessed-"
"The one time she ever did anything nice," Akira mumbled. Blinked at them, moving very slowly and carefully as he tried to sit up. "Aya wanted me in one, Kengo wanted me in the other, both of them were trying blackmail... getting them de-possessed was one of the best afternoons ever."
She'd seen grins like that before, Cordelia realized. Usually on sharks. Or Buffy in a pound-the-monsters mood. "What'd they have on you?"
Gray eyes fixed her with a level look. "No one. Will ever. Know."
...Ooo, Cordelia wished she'd been there for that fight. With popcorn.
Giles had moved in to support the teen; Akira was still a little gray under his tan. "Shirogane thought you'd be out for some hours yet."
"Shirogane's a shin." Akira looked like if he could pry his eyelids open a smidge farther, he'd be smirking. "Most of what he is, is magic. Kokuchi venom goes after body and magic. My magic may be lousy but my body's still in one piece. I'll live." He winced. "Willow. Lulu... likes watching people hurt themselves. If you stayed, she would have hurt you. If you ran - you could get help. We needed that."
Buffy shivered a little, and couldn't seem to meet anybody's eyes. "You wouldn't have, if I hadn't been messing around with that whip-"
"Enough. Over," Xander declared, hands pronouncing a time-out. "I brought the whip. You played with it. Akira brought up Lulu. Ethan's the guy whose spell made that into one unholy mess. Not your fault." He paused. "That said, next Halloween? Indiana Jones."
"Conversant with history, mythology, improvisation, and succeeding with all the odds against him?" Giles raised both brows. "Excellent choice, Xander. That said - I do hope this spell died with Ethan. Quite literally."
"I've had worse nights." Akira was definitely smirking at Buffy. "We got to see Spike run like a little girl."
A giggle escaped before the Slayer could stifle it. "Yes, we did."