Chapter 87: The Song of Orpheus
[Scene: Hen Tie Hospital. Chief Midori is at his son's bedside. Zoi is in the acute care unit, on life support.]
[Kunzite appears in a dark flash. He walks up to Zoi's body and looks at the numbers on the digital display of his vitals. Chief Midori treats his appearance with anger.]
Chienf Midori: You told me you would save him!
Kunzite: I will save him.
[If anything Chief Midori has gotten angrier]
Chief Midori: I watched them pull my only child's body from a burning building and you were nowhere to be found! He didn't have a heartbeat when they found him! They've put him in a medically induced coma so they can lower his body temperature, because they don't know how long it had been since he stopped breathing!
[Kunzite lifts one of Zoi's eyelids. He places his hand on his forehead as if trying to see if he has a fever. Then taps at the pressure points at his wrists, trying without success to invoke a reflex]
Chief Midori: They've scheduled a CT-Scan of his brain! They say this is perfect routine in cases like this! They forget I'm a cop! I know it's routine, whenever there's a strong possibility of brain damage!
Kunzite: That's not something you need to worry about.
Chief Midori: No, that's not something YOU need to worry about! I'm his father! You're just his boyfriend. Everyone will understand when you take off and find someone else!
[Kunzite gives him a murderous look]
Kunzite: I need to leave.
Chief Midori: Where are you going!
Kunzite: I need to create the spell to bring your son back I've never attempted anything of this nature before, so it may be hours or even days before I return. In the meantime, I'll need you to guard him with your life.
[Kunzite gives Chief Midori a stern look]
Kunzite: Whatever you do, don't let them cremate him.
Chief Midori: [Shaken] Why would they want to cremate my son?
Kunzite: When the results from the CT-Scan come back the doctors are going to say some very frightening things. They are going to tell you that your son is braindead. That there is no hope. That there is zero chance he will ever wake up again, much less lead a normal life. They will try to convince you that he wouldn't want to go on like this, and the important thing to think about right now is his dignity.
Chief Midori: Why would they want to tell me those things?
Kunzite: Because it's the truth.
[Chief Midori sinks into a chair, horrorstruck as Kunzite's words sink in]
Kunzite: Do whatever you feel you must but don't let them cremate him. Keep him on life support for as long as you can, just so I know where to find him. If they cremate him, it will be a lot harder for me to bring him back.
Chief Midori: You…you could bring him back… even if he is cremated?
[Chief Midori's expression is filled with hopeful desperation, Kunzite's is not]
Kunzite: Let's not find out.
[In a dark flash, Kunzite is gone]
[Scene: The O'Sama mansion. Kunzite's siblings are lounging around in the study. Neffy and Jeddy are play darts while Beryl is pursuing a European fashion magazine.
[Kunzite walks over to the bookshelf that holds the books on necromancy.]
[Jadeite shouts in protest as Kunzite grabs books off the shelf and starts throwing them on the floor]
[Kunzite pays no attention to Jadeite's cries and scan other shelves for books on mysticism, voodoo, black magic, soul transference, healing, embalming, golem and youma creation, etc… and tosses those to the floor as well. Once he is done, the books float off the floor and form a neat pile on the desk.]
[Kunzite walks over to the desk, sits down, and starts studying an ancient Egyptian book on Necromancy.]
[Jeddy walks over with his arms crossed and a stern expression on his face.]
Jeddy: What do you think you're doing? Those books are thousands of years old! They are irreplaceable! You can't just—
[Jeddy screeches as Kunzite tears a page out of the book]
[Kunzite ignores him and tears out a few more pages before closing the book and tearing pages out of another. Jeddy flees in tears as Kunzite desecrates a few more]
[After a while, curiosity gets the best of Neffy, so he drifts over to see what Kunzite is doing.]
[Neffy tries to pick up the stack of pages Kunzite has ripped out, but Kunzite slaps his hand down over them. Undeterred, Neffy leafs through the pages anyway and burst into laughter.]
Neffy: Oh, that is SO wrong!
Jeddy: What is?
Neffy: I see what he's doing. He's trying to cheat death.
Beryl: Yes, we know. He's trying to heal the damage to Zoi's brain and bring him back to life. [glances up from her magazine] Kunzite, there is no spell in those books that reverses brain damage. I've already looked a thousand times.
Neffy: No, that's not what he's doing at all. He's doing just the opposite. He's going to turn Zoi into a lich!
Beryl: [looks up from her fashion magazine] He's what?
Neffy: He's studying spells to create not one, but two completely different types of undead! He's going to summon Zoi's ghost from the afterworld, then then force it to haunt his own body.
[Neffy is laughing so hard he has to catch his breath]
Jeddy: Why is it funny?
Neffy: It's funny because it's probably going to work!
Kunzite: [without looking away from his research] Of course it's going to work.
[Jeddy and Beryl rush over to examine Kunzite's research]
Neffy: Normally…[has to catch his breath] …normally…the biggest problem would be that Zoi's body will contain to rot and putrefy, even after Kunzite has reanimated it…except…except… except he tricked Mother into making it incorruptible! [cracking up] Oh you sneaky bastard! No wonder you were so keen to bust her chops like that. She is going to be FURIOUS when she realizes what she's done, but there not a damn thing she can do about it without making herself look stupid.
[Neffy holds out his hand to Kunzite and waits until he shakes it]
Neffy: My hat is off to you, sir. It is no wonder you are First Among Kings. This is some heavy-duty diabolical shit right here.