Recap:
"Don't get out." Izaya repeated those words over and over again, like a mantra trying to conceal a demon, like a tamer trying to control a wild beast. Something wasn't right. Something had been lost. Something was about to happen.
Suddenly the words stopped, and Izaya slowly removed his hands from his face.
Izaya glanced at them with boredom. Shizuo and Kadota's hearts skipped a beat; their bodies felt hot and their breathing quickened.
They could only stare at Izaya with utter ecstasy.
Fire spread through floors and walls, crimson flames danced their way through the space.
Hued red eyes were glowing in golden light.
"Kishishi…"
•Etched nightmares•
As the presence of those we love is as a double life, so absence, in its anxious longing and sense of vacancy, is as a foretaste of death. –Anna Brownell Jameson.
•••••
This is the start of his dreams.
It is the start of his nightmares.
Izaya was learning how to control his new abilities. He wanted to be able to control them as quick as possible. He believed that the faster he knew how to use them, the faster he could be back to his old life. He wanted to be able to fool himself with that thought.
But he knew better; the time that passed couldn't be replaced or brought back.
He was changing; he wasn't the same Izaya. Bit by bit, everything distorted. However, he was trying to adapt, to survive, and to remain like he once was.
On the third day of his training, in the night, he dreamed a lonely, deep dream.
The place he was in wasn't like other times. He could feel it. It was different. As if the place belonged to him. As if the place was a part of him. He could feel that the place was himself.
But he was standing in darkness. No form, no ground, no light. He stood in nothingness for a long time, just waiting. The next thing he knew, he was awake and standing in a crumbling building.
Izaya managed to escape from the place. But, with utter confusion, he noticed where he was.
Izaya was in Saitama, in a foreign place in the middle of the night, standing in front of a building engulfed in flames.
Izaya was aware that the most likely conclusion was that he was the cause of the fire.
He left the place with quick steps. How could he be? He was asleep. He didn't remember anything. Why did he immediately guess that he himself was the culprit? How could he be so sure about it?
Why could he feel that someone was whispering into his ear?
•••••
Four times.
Four inexplicable fires have been set around the metropolitan area in the past weeks.
Four times he has awoken in the middle of the night without recollection of his memories.
Four times he felt that someone was breathing on his neck.
Four times he has felt his heart submerged into cold ice.
"Why aren't you doing anything?" Izaya growled.
Tsugaru smiled, "As long as you're fine…" It was a cold smile. "I don't care about anyone else." Tsugaru tilted his head to the side. "You're smart. You should know how much antipathy I bear against the things I don't have interest in."
Izaya was shaking in ire.
"Hoho~," Tsugaru smiled broadly, "That's the spirit! Pull it out, sweetie. Erase unnecessary thoughts, clean your soul, and only resurrect your most basics instincts…"
Crack! Snap! Snap!
Like a lightning strike slicing through a tree, the windows of Izaya's apartment cracked open.
"Cute! You're so cute! You tried to cut my head!" Tsugaru cheered happily. "But, it's still too soon for you to try that technique… Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie. You want me to hug you?"
"Stay away." Izaya hissed darkly.
"You are cute, seriously." Tsugaru sighed, amused, "Well, concerning the experiences you had these past weeks I can tell that it's partially my fault. I never considered that he would wake up, as well as your abilities. Psyche had it under control. I…
"I never thought that you would be this powerful…"
•••••
Slowly, the sounds became louder, awakening his senses from lethargy. Like a wave resounding in the distance, the noise charged at him. The rain fell over him like a backdrop in a theater. Standing still, he opened his eyes; gazing ahead, he saw a river. The surface was filled with moss and grayish plants. A tank, a school bus, a semaphore, junk and so, filled the water. He turned to his left.
He was standing in the middle of a bridge that connected to a thick forest. The dark green trees stretched upwards, seeking the sky. He couldn't see beyond that point, but he knew that something was there. Something was gazing at him. The street's post further to his left flickered and its light died down, and with that he couldn't distinguish anything anymore. It was brief, but he saw a red dot shining through the dense forest and mist. He moved his gaze from the forest to his right, there was light provided by two posts.
CAUTION
NO TRESPASSING
KEEP OUT
His sight caught the broken, but still recognizable, signals at the sides of the guardrails of the bridge. In addition, there were several orange cones located on the way. The end of the bridge on his right was connected to one staircase of concrete; the stairs went up. At the sides of the path, trees were growing up. On the highest point of the stairs, there was a light shining like a fake sunrise.
Something was happening on the other side. A buzzing sound was echoing in his ears.
Don't. No. Don't go. No. Don't.
Curious, he thought about walking to the place. He thought that he wanted to know about it. He walked, passing the warnings, and went up to the stair.
It was a gigantic garden surrounded by fire and trees. Through the smoke, he could distinguish a silhouette. A man stood in the middle of the garden with his arms raised to the sky; his hands were burning, the flames dancing on the palms of his hands. He was laughing. The rain was falling, but the fire didn't die down. It kept burning.
"Kishishi... we are alive! We are alive! And it's all thanks to you! Orihara Izaya!"
The man turned and grinned. "You're a good man! Yes, you are! You have set us free!" The man approached Izaya, who was just watching the flames at the man's sides; they were moving out of the way when the man walked. The flames were obeying his will.
"You didn't lock us, like Psyche did." He looked straight to Izaya, both of his eyes crimson red. "You won't lock us, will you?" He didn't wait for Izaya's reply. "We apologize for our manners. We haven't given you our name, have we?"
Izaya could barely stand the pressure in his heart as he came closer and closer.
"You can call us Roppi…"
•••••
When Izaya woke up, the tops of the trees in the central park in Shinjuku were burning. Izaya left the place immediately. He was near his apartment; he could even see it from his window.
Tsugaru wasn't there. Izaya was mortified about everything. He couldn't bear it anymore. That person Roppi was the one starting those fires. He wasn't the one! And that time in the train too! What was he playing at?
What could he do?
He wanted a solution.
Or at least, he wanted to feel better.
The only thing he could think of in that moment was that he wanted to see his beloved monster. He looked outside and saw the rain falling heavily. He didn't care. Without much of a thought, he walked to Ikebukuro.
•••••
It's been like three weeks. So Izaya thought that an offering to the beast was the best. He picked up fast food and walked to Shizuo's. Izaya was standing at the front door of the place, but his brain told him that it was better to show up in a different way to redirect Shizuo's anger. After all, something was telling him that Shizuo might not be so happy if he showed up nonchalantly at his door after three weeks of absence without a call or msg whatsoever.
The window was the best solution, and it ended in him almost falling… twice.
But the moment he felt Shizuo's hands grip his arms, everything else disappeared. A breath of relief left his lips. And for some reason, he felt at ease enough to even make a serious joke about what was happening to him with the theory of the memory slipping, which in some sense, had some relation with what was happening to him.
But he never thought that Shizuo would act like that. More relief flowed as he thought that at least Shizuo hadn't changed in that aspect.
They ate the food he brought, and Izaya had completely forgotten about Roppi and Tsugaru, until the News and the reporters talked about the incident of the Central Park in Shinjuku.
He was thinking about Roppi and that he didn't know what his plans were. He really didn't want to know, though. And that was when Shizuo turned off the TV, telling him that he was making weird faces. Izaya knew he was making them, but wasn't going to admit it.
And the spell… The pseudo-magical-spell broke when Izaya noticed Shizuo's trail of thought.
He wanted to talk about that.
He wasn't going to confront or discuss those things, not until the most important issues were settled… Or those things that Shizuo wanted to discuss were never going to be discussed by them; most likely, never.
And then, Shizuo saw it.
Shizuo saw the tattoo, the key, or medium, to his powers and began to annoy him about it. He really didn't understand why he was so angry about a tattoo (just ink) on his (Orihara Izaya's property) body!
But Izaya couldn't control his own emotions in front of that man; he felt very excited and angry. And he used a small portion of his abilities to get away from Shizuo.
When Izaya was walking back to his house, he couldn't help but to feel his heart warm and a smile play on his lips.
•••••
"You just don't get it, do you? We are not stuck here with you, you are stuck here with us," Roppi said.
Izaya had noted that he talked in plural sometimes, as if there was someone else with him. But he really didn't give damn about his speech. He had to ask.
"What do you want?" Izaya asked, not noting his location.
"What do we want?" Roppi said. "We want to become one with you, of course! We want you to become ours alone! We want your potential! We want to erase disgusting parasites from the universe! Like humankind! Those living pests!" Roppi moved closer to Izaya. "But, above all, we want to engrave our real name in you: 'Pulvis et umbra sumus.'" Roppi was sliding his arms around Izaya's back, nuzzling his face into his neck. "We want your love…" Roppi grinned against Izaya's skin.
Izaya was aghast. He couldn't move from where he was standing.
He could only think:
I'm going to… die...
•••••
Pulvis et umbra sumus
We are but dust and shadow.
•••••
Every time Izaya dreamed with Roppi, his heart ached with cold, as if it'd been pierced with a stack of ice. This time was the worst. His head was going to explode and he wasn't near his apartment, but somehow he managed to get out of his dream without any incident. But he couldn't be sure. He needed to find Tsugaru. This time was different.
Luckily… or not, Izaya was found by Kadota, who innocently had thought that Izaya was drunk and hung-over. Little did he know about the problem he was getting into. Izaya was fighting a silent war inside his mind, fighting for dominance of his own body. It was something delicate, but neither Kadota nor Shizuo knew it. Until it was too late… Until Izaya lost control−
"Kishishi…" Roppi laughed evilly with mirth. He was going to have fun!
−and the chaos engulfed the city.
•••••
−The battle hasn't ended.−
Go away. Go away. Go away!
There's no one we fear but ourselves.
Your existence itself is terror!
We'll turn to ashes anything that makes us suffer.
Leave me alone!
Humans are so horrible… truly the worst!
I'm going to kill you…
•••••
A cave, a weird cave… why did he think it was weird? Everything was weird, he shouldn't be surprised. Heck, he even knew he himself was weird. Sand. There was sand everywhere; in the ground, falling from the ceiling like waterfalls and on the walls. Under the surface of the ground, a marbled floor appeared. Curiously, it had the same pattern as his game of Chess. There was no light, but he could see everything.
"Hey, why don't you love us back?" Roppi asked. "We love you, very deeply."
"How could I love something that wants me to disappear?" Izaya spat, getting away from Roppi.
"We don't want you to disappear, we just want you to sleep for a bit."
"You're disgusting, how can you not love humans?" Izaya said, gaining time. If he didn't find a way to get out… it was over.
"Humans are humans. Humans are despicable, humans are the only beings who would kill without a reason or for unreasonable reasons."
"Thus, you're human, doing unreasonable things like mass-killing."
"I'm not a parasite, I'm just making a solution. Their deaths would be a breath of relief for your planet, don't you think?"
"I don't care about the earth, I only care about my wellbeing and I think I'm not ready to go to prison because of your stupid acts," Izaya muttered. "Or to die by your hands."
"Silly, silly, we won't let anything bad to happen to you! We love you very much! When we get your love, everything will be alright!"
A spark snapped at Izaya's side and seconds after, a wall of fire was surrounding him.
"Worry not! You'll be with us forever!"
Izaya began to cough from the smoke of the flames. His vision was beginning to get blurry, and his mind was getting dizzy.
For a brief moment, he saw a red dot. That wasn't there before.
The flames were moving closer and closer. Izaya fell onto his knees, covering his mouth and nose. Roppi was smiling on the other side. Izaya was losing consciousness, but in a flash, a second flame cut over a part of the flaming-wall, successfully vanishing the flames. Izaya didn't know how, but he was out of Roppi's wall and in the hold of a stranger.
"Who are you? How did you get here?" Roppi snapped, glaring daggers at the man holding Izaya. "This is an enclosed place for us. Leave!"
The man was tall and the hold around Izaya's chest only tightened. With his free hand, he removed his dark mask. It fell to the ground and out of nowhere, a machine gun was pointed at Roppi.
"Orihara Izaya… I'm taking him with me."
•••••
Izaya's internal battle was unfolding in the same instants that Shizuo and Kadota were about to debate between life and death.
Fortunately, they weren't alone in the middle of despair and confusion.
A pair of eyes was gazing at the beginning of Roppi's uproar, waiting for the moment to make the right decision for that desperate moment.
There was still hope.
•To Be Continued•
…
Too many favorites.
Just a few reviews.
Please stop stomping on my self-esteem.
And give a damn comment.