Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction ❯ Yami no Kenzoku ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

Notes: I have Watari call Hisoka 'bouya' in this chapter. Which is pretty much boy, of course. He always sounded like he was saying 'bon' when he referred to Hisoka, but since I'm not really sure on what that means, I've just got it as bouya here.

Yami no Kenzoku

Chapter Three

A third death in such a short span of time at the same school caused an immediate media scandal. Tsuzuki was forced to be questioned repeatedly by the police and school officials about the nature of Yuanyi's death, but as she had died without a blemish on her body or even the slightest hint that she was in ill health, nothing could be held against him, much less anyone else. Hisoka would have been questioned as well, but Tsuzuki was able to convince the police to leave him alone for the time being, at least until he was ready to talk. The school was closed early, and according to the principal, would remain that way for at least another week.

It was well into the evening now. Once the questioning was done, Tsuzuki had taken Hisoka out for dinner in the hopes of perking him up some, but Hisoka had only poked at his food and eaten maybe two or three bites at the most. When it was obvious that he would not be feeling better anytime soon, Tsuzuki had taken him back to the hotel. He had already made his report to EnmaCho, and he suspected that they would soon send one of the Gushoshin their way to research this demon they were dealing with.

He glanced over at his young partner. Hisoka was stretched out on one of the beds, hands tucked behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. He had said nothing throughout the duration of the day, and Tsuzuki had stopped attempting to make small talk over two hours ago. Still, he could not stand to see Hisoka like this.

He knew, that had it been anyone else, that Hisoka would not be taking this as badly as he was. If it had not been Yuanyi that had died, he would be fine. But it /was/ Yuanyi, and that was what was hurting him. His friend, one of the few friends he had ever had, was dead. Tsuzuki did not know how to comfort him.

He did realize, however, that it was probably for the best to allow Hisoka to sort through this on his own, whether he liked it or not. When a person was in pain, there was very little that could be done to alleviate it, Tsuzuki was sorry to admit.

It was not that a person did not want help. People /did/ want comfort when they were upset, no matter what they attempted to say, and it /could/ make them feel marginally better to know that someone cared. But the fact remained that when it came to pain and depression, a person had to suffer through it on their own, and it was up to them whether or not they would heal.

There came a knock at the hotel room door. Tsuzuki frowned and hopped up; he didn't remember calling for room service.

"I'll get it," he said, but he doubted that Hisoka would make a leap to answer it in any case. He only gave a slight shrug of his shoulders to acknowledge that he had heard Tsuzuki, then continued to stare vacantly up at the ceiling.

Tsuzuki began to open the door, and did not even have the chance to pull it open fully before a head had poked in.

"Yo!"

"W-Watari?!"

Watari stepped fully into the room, gave a bright smile, and a wave of his hand. "Tatsumi sent me to help you two find out just what demon you're dealing with," he explained. "So here I am. Hiya, bouya."

Hisoka lifted his hand and waved vaguely, not seeming overly surprised that it was Watari that they had sent as opposed to one of the Gushoshin. Watari gave Tsuzuki a rather confused look, but Tsuzuki only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't explain Hisoka's behavior to him either, and he didn't particularly want to try while Hisoka was within hearing range and might be offended by their words.

"Well," Watari began, "might as well get to work, shall we?"

Tsuzuki shook his head. "It's late and Hisoka's had a long day. Tomorrow would be better."

"Tonight is fine," Hisoka interrupted irritably.

Tsuzuki flinched slightly as the harshness of his voice, but gave a slight nod and gestured for Watari to set up his work station. The other shinigami spared another nervous glance at Hisoka, but with a shrug went over to the table to set up his computer. Tsuzuki sighed and sat down across from him.

"This would be easier if I could narrow down the search a bit," Watari said. He had hooked up his computer and was flipping through the various archives he had on the subject of Makai and demons. "You saw it, right, Tsuzuki?"

"Yeah. It looked like a dragon. Bat-wings, dragon face, four legs, tail."

"It said its name was Satsujinsha," Hisoka put in quietly.

"Well, /that/ certainly helps," Watari said with a grin.

He typed rapidly at his computer for another moment or two before coming up with exactly what he was looking for. He smiled proudly and pointed to the screen.

"Is this your demon?"

Tsuzuki leaned over the table and looked at the image there. It was in fact the demon he had seen earlier today, and it was a particularly gruesome thing, he could tell. Far worse than it had been when he had first seen it, but then he supposed that he had been too distracted by his worry for Hisoka to actually pay attention to what he was up against.

"That's it," he confirmed. "Ne, Hisoka?"

Hisoka shrugged.

"Let's see here . . ." Watari was typing a mile a minute at his computer again. "Satsujinsha isn't even considered to be one of the most powerful demons of Makai. Apparently he did something to upset the Lord of Makai, and so he was cursed to never his own form completely. He has to body hop from person to person in order to survive. He eats away at the mitochondria in a person's body and that's what gives him the energy to live."

"Eats the whatta?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Mitochondria. A spherical or elongated organelle in the cytoplasm of nearly all eukaryotic cells, containing genetic material and many enzymes important for cell metabolism, including those responsible for the conversion of food to usable energy," Watari said, reciting directly from the definition he had brought up on his computer screen. Tsuzuki only continued to stare at him blankly.

"What that /means/ is that mitochondria is what is responsible for giving people energy," Watari confirmed. "Without it, food can't be broken down and the nutrients taken to be dispersed to the body, so basically if you don't have any mitochondria, you don't really have any energy. That explains why those kids died without any blemish or anything really wrong with their organs. How many autopsies bother to take a mitochondria count?"

"So it eats energy," Hisoka said. "And without it, it dies."

"Yup," Watari replied, leaning back in his chair. "It feeds on people and once its taken all of what they can give them, it hops to another body and drains them of their energy. Your main problem would be that Satsujinsha apparently can't stay out of a body for very long in his true form, and only hops out when a person dies. You'll have to catch him right as he's hopping out of a body to find another and kill him then. That's when it will be weakened. I'm sure it'll be no trouble for Tsuzuki."

Tsuzuki paled. "Oh, no trouble. No trouble at all."

"You're saying we have to let another person die," Hisoka said.

Tsuzuki glanced over at him. He was sitting up, looking at both Tsuzuki and Watari, with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Well . . ." Watari began.

"That's exactly what you're saying," Hisoka interrupted. "We can't catch the demon unless it's body-hopping out of someone else, like you said, and when it does that, the person it was in dies. So we have to let another person die."

"Sometimes lives have to be sacrificed to save others," Watari replied vaguely. "There's nothing we can do about that."

"That's not fair!"

"Life never really is, is it?"

"It's late," Tsuzuki put in, attempting to be a peacemaker. "We should all get some sleep . . ."

Watari smiled and agreed to that suggestion. Tsuzuki glanced at Hisoka, finding his younger partner looking at him with a furious expression on his face. But there was nothing he could say that would make Hisoka feel better, and he could not apologize for what they had to do.

"It's just the duty of a shinigami, Hisoka," he murmured softly.

Hisoka did not answer him. The furious look became one of pain, as though he had honestly expected for Tsuzuki to take his side on this matter, but just as quickly as it had come it was replaced with a hardened expression. Hisoka turned his back on him and said nothing.

Tsuzuki sighed aloud. First week back on the job, and they gave him /this/ case . . . life was not fair at all.

When he opened his eyes, Tsuzuki thought for a moment that it was already morning. But on a look around the room, he saw the curtains drawn and a very thin thread of moonlight streaming into the room, which meant that it could not be very early at all. He sat up with a sigh, running his hands through his hair. He wasn't sure what had woken him up. It could have been a nightmare, but if it was, he did not remember what it was about or why it had woken him.

Watari was seated in one of the chairs at the table, a pillow propped up behind him, and a blanket from one of the beds wrapped around him. His glasses were hanging off the tip of his nose. He had said that while he wanted to have a room of his own, Tatsumi was too cheap to offer any money for him to spend, and had suggested that he just sleep on the floor of Tsuzuki and Hisoka's hotel room. Tatsumi was not going to waste money when they could already make do with what they had.

Tsuzuki glanced to his side, to the opposite full size bed where Hisoka slept. But his eyes did not find Hisoka nestled beneath the covers. They were bunched up at the end of the bed, and there was no trace of Hisoka. The bathroom light was not on, which meant that he was not there, and on a look around the room, Tsuzuki saw that his shoes were missing.

He immediately threw his own covers off and climbed out of bed. Somehow he located his clothes in the darkness and even more remarkable, he was able to dress quickly and efficiently without banging into something or waking up Watari. Careful not to make a sound, he slipped outside of the room, into the well-lit hotel room. He hurried down the stairs and outside of the building; he had a feeling that wherever Hisoka had gone, it had not been for a late night run to the vending machines.

There were not many places he could go, Tsuzuki reminded himself as he started down the street. Everywhere that was open this time of night were all after hours clubs, and Hisoka could not get into one of those no matter how much he tried. A few convenience stores might still be open, but Tsuzuki somehow doubted that he would have gone there.

There was a small park across the street of the hotel. Tsuzuki headed in that direction. While it was not likely for Hisoka to go to a night club or a convenience store this late at night, it /was/ likely for him to take a midnight stroll through the park. And if he was not there, Tsuzuki had no idea where else he /could/ look.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked along, surprised that it was so cold this time of night. He supposed it had to be very late, somewhere around three in the morning, or he might have seen a few pairs of people walking through the park and enjoying the tranquility of night. But since he did not, he imagined they were all home and in bed, like rational human beings. Like he could have been, he thought with a wide yawn.

It was an hour later that he gave up in his search for Hisoka. He plopped down on one of the many park benches, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. Even though Hisoka was stupid enough to go out alone in the city this late at night, he doubted that he was stupid enough to stay out all evening. He'd probably already gone back to the hotel by now, Tsuzuki imagined, and like the poor shmuck he was, he was /still/ looking for him. Life really wasn't that fair.

"Tsuzuki?"

A voice startled him from his dozing. Tsuzuki looked up and found Hisoka standing a distance from him, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised. The older shinigami let out a sigh or relief and ran a hand through his hair.

"I was worried about you."

Hisoka gave a shrug of his shoulders and looked away. "I'm fine. I just needed some fresh air."

"Oh. Well . . ."

"You didn't have to come after me."

Tsuzuki glanced up at him. Hisoka sighed slightly and came forward, settling down beside Tsuzuki on the bench.

"I really am okay," he said quietly. "Watari is right. If we want to save anymore lives, we have to let this last one go."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I thought you agreed with him."

Tsuzuki shrugged his shoulders in an almost nonchalant manner. He had not wanted to be involved in the argument, and for that reason he had said nothing. In a way, he agreed with both of them. It was not fair that someone else had to die for the sake of saving dozens more lives, but on the one hand, one life was nothing compared to ten or fifty more that could die because of this demon.

"I do, in a way," he admitted. "I think we have to let this person go, whoever it is, so no one else dies. But I wonder what I would do if I were that person. I could sacrifice my life to save so many others, but what about me? I'd be dead. That's why it's hard."

Hisoka nodded slightly, to acknowledge that he understood. "I just wish there was an easier way. And that we'd figure it out before she had to die."

"You really liked her, didn't you?"

"I . . ." Hisoka faltered a moment and felt a blush rising up on his cheeks. "I guess so, yeah. She was just . . . I don't know. Really nice. She didn't know me at all but she talked to me anyway, and was kind to me, and she tried to get me involved . . . even when she didn't have to. I thought we could be friends."

He felt his blush intensify as he said those words. He was acting like a lovesick teenager; he knew that was exactly how he must sound to Tsuzuki.

It was also uncomfortable to talk this openly with Tsuzuki. He was not about to admit that what he was most upset about concerning Yuanyi's death was the fact that she /had/ been his friend, and one of the very few in his life. It made him seem as though he were searching for pity when he admitted that he had never been close to anyone growing up, and even now. The last thing he wanted was pity, especially from Tsuzuki.

"I understand what you mean," was all that Tsuzuki said, however, and Hisoka nearly breathed a sigh of relief that he was accepting his odd behavior so well.

"Well," Tsuzuki said, giving a wide yawn and stretching out his arms behind his back, "are you ready to get back to the hotel?"

"We can go if you're tired."

"You want to stay?"

Hisoka shrugged his shoulders, feeling embarrassed all over again. There was something about sitting here with Tsuzuki that was calming to him. He didn't want that feeling to go away.

"Okay," Tsuzuki said suddenly, smiling. "We'll stay. Just poke me a bit if I start to fall asleep."

A faint smile appeared on Hisoka's face. "Yeah, okay."

"Oh, and here."

Hisoka glanced at him, wondering what he meant, and did not even catch a glimpse of Tsuzuki's face before the older shinigami had flipped off his jacket and settled it around Hisoka's shoulders. The collar caught on the top of his head, providing a hood for him. He stared out at Tsuzuki, blinking wide, confused green eyes.

"You'll catch a cold, you know," Tsuzuki said in his very best Tatsumi voice.

"What about you?" Hisoka demanded. Beneath his jacket, Tsuzuki was dressed only in a white dress shirt and a pair of dark slacks.

"I don't get colds. /I'm/ the adult."

"So /act/ like one."

"I act like an adult!"

"You act like an overgrown three-year-old."

"Well at least I'm not an anti-social bratty teenager."

"Hey!"

Tsuzuki only smiled and laughed.

Two deaths were accepted at the school by the parents and faculty members as a terrible coincidence and tragedy, but nothing that called for suspicious. Two deaths were spread around as rumors of foul play amongst students, who made up tales that it was some terrible curse that would claim someone as its victim when they walked beneath the moon at midnight. But it was three deaths that caused anyone to take matters seriously.

The entire feeling of the school and its occupants had changed to Hisoka, now that it had opened again a week after Yuanyi's death. All after school activities were canceled, for as long as it took for the police to investigate the deaths and discover whether or not it was the work of a murderer that these children were dying. A great deal of students were taken out of school for the time being by their parents. The staff was more on edge, and classes were rarely taught. Most teachers gave their students self-study periods, which gave Hisoka quite a bit of time to spend with Tsuzuki.

Hijiri spent the majority of his time in the infirmary with Tsuzuki and Hisoka as well. His mother could not afford to take him out of school for any amount of time, and as it was, he had no fear that he was the one that would be the next victim.

Hisoka did not mind that Hijiri spent time with them, as long as Tsuzuki did not mind. And of course, the older shinigami did not mind at all. Hisoka, like everyday, continued to watch them as Hijiri soaked up all of the attention Tsuzuki showered on him, while Tsuzuki, quite unaware of what he was doing, kept unknowingly causing Hijiri to like him more and more. Hisoka wondered what would happen, if Hijiri were to say something or possible make a move on Tsuzuki.

Hisoka thought if anything happened, it would be his fist colliding into Hijiri's jaw.

He shook his head and looked away from the pair in favor of the book in his lap. He knew nothing would happen. Even if Hijiri were to do something, Tsuzuki was far too dense to realize that Hijiri liked him on a level far more than a friend. And if Hijiri did something extremely outrageous, like kissing Tsuzuki, Hisoka knew that his older partner was still too dense to react, much less return the gesture.

Whether or not he was jealous, he was at least assured that there would be no time in the near future that Hijiri would take off with Tsuzuki. It just wasn't going to happen.

"So, Hijiri," Tsuzuki began around a mouthful of the apple pie he was stashing in the infirmary refrigerator, "any signs yet of who's the next one?"

"I haven't noticed anything," Hijiri replied. He too was sharing with Tsuzuki the apple pie. Hisoka had been offered a piece, but he didn't like sweets very much and had declined.

"It might be another week yet before we've got a good idea," Tsuzuki said regrettably. "I was hoping we could get this over and done with soon, too."

Hijiri looked up at him, his eyes wide. "You're going to leave soon?"

"Well, once the case is solved, yeah." Tsuzuki blinked. "It's not like we can stay."

"I know that," Hijiri said, his eyes falling back to his plate. Suddenly the pie did not appeal to him nearly as much as it had before. He poked at it for a few times before pushing it away from him.

"Yuanyi died within two weeks of being possessed by the demon," Hisoka spoke up from his position on the bed. "Maybe this one will be even shorter. It's already been a week, after all."

Tsuzuki smiled slightly in his direction. "Yeah, maybe so." He stood up, taking his coat along with him. "Well, I'm going to go find Watari and see if he's found out a way we can find out where the demon is. I'll be back in an hour!"

He gave a wave and abandoned the two boys to their own devices. Hisoka did not say anything to Hijiri; only to continued to flip slowly through the book in his lap. It took him several moments to realize that Hijiri's eyes were on him.

"What?" he asked with a sigh, looking up.

"Don't sound too enthusiastic," Hijiri said dryly.

"You want I should hop up and down for joy?" Hisoka returned with the same amount of blandness.

Hijiri glared at him, but broke away from the stare down only after a moment or two. Hisoka shook his head slightly to himself, devoting his attention once again to the book in his lap. He had the peace of reading all of three lines before he realized again that Hijiri was looking at him.

"You think I'm going to steal him, don't you?" Hijiri demanded.

Hisoka blinked. A wave of jealousy washed over him, all of it coming from Hijiri.

So that was it. Just as much as he was jealous of Hijiri and Tsuzuki, Hijiri was in return jealous of he and Tsuzuki. Both of them had created some kind of rivalry between them in their minds, all for the sake of Tsuzuki. It was almost laughable, really.

"No, I don't think you're going to steal him," Hisoka replied, smiling slightly.

"Then why are you always glaring at me when I'm with him?" Hijiri demanded.

Hisoka gave a sigh, one of those patient sighs a parent gave their child when the child was acting completely irrational. "Even if you and Tsuzuki /did/ have something between you, it would never work. He's a shinigami. You're a human."

"So?"

"So," Hisoka said with the same patience, "a relationship between a shinigami and a mortal is forbidden by JuOhCho."

Hijiri looked as though he wanted to retaliate with something equally nasty in return, but he was not given the chance. There came a very light knocking at the door, and a moment later a person stepped into the room. Hisoka was surprised to see that it was Shinori Kaiki, the boy that Yuanyi and Kensou had pointed out to him.

"Excuse me . . . is the doctor in?"

"He went out," Hijiri answered. "What's wrong?"

Kai stepped completely into the room. Hisoka noticed that he held a hand to his forehead, as though he were nauseous, and he was walking very slowly. Dots of perspiration covered his brow.

"I'm just feeling really weak right now," he explained quietly, "so I thought I could come lie down for awhile . . ."

"The doctor only stepped out for a little while," Hisoka said, slipping off the bed. "You can go ahead and rest for awhile."

Kai smiled faintly, gratefully. Hisoka made sure that he made it to the bed without overexerting himself, and once he was resting comfortably, he drew the curtain around the bed to give him some privacy. Hijiri was staring at Hisoka, mouth open, finger pointing toward Kaiki.

"He . . . he's the one that . . ."

"Be quiet," Hisoka hissed. "Yeah, you're probably right, but don't go yelling it before you freak him out or something."

"Sorry," Hijiri mumbled.

Hisoka settled down in a chair opposite of Hijiri, eyes locked on the closed curtain.

"Maybe you should go," he said slowly.

He was recalling to mind what had happened when it was Yuanyi that was possessed, and what Satsujinsha had said to him. The demon had wanted /his/ body, the body of a shinigami, an immortal body that would last him until the end of time. If he was able to leap out of a body when he pleased, then he could do the same at any moment. Hisoka did not want Hijiri to be there if that happened.

"Why?" Hijiri demanded. "What do you know?"

"A lot more than you," Hisoka retorted.

There was the sound of faint movement behind the curtain. Hisoka stood up cautiously.

"Go," he commanded softly. "Find Tsuzuki."

Hijiri seemed to realize that he was serious. He gave a slight nod of his head and hurried out of the infirmary, leaving Hisoka alone to deal with the demon.

He waited, tensely, all of the muscles in his body tight and his hands clasped as fists at his sides.

The curtain moved once again. He could see a shadow behind it, the shape of an enormous creature stepping out of a freshly discarded skin. His muscles, if it were at all possible, seemed to tighten even more than they already were.

The shadow moved slowly forward. Hisoka took a step back just as the curtain began to sway. The draconian head of the demon appeared, and with it, a cruel smiled curved onto its terrible features. Kaiki lie on the bed, dead.

"I was hoping I would find you. This time I /will/ have what I want."

"You've got to try and catch me first," Hisoka replied, and with that, he turned and took off running. The demon let out an outraged scream and followed.

He had no idea where he was going or what he was doing, Hisoka realized as he wheeled around another corner. He could keep running forever and the demon would keep following him, but there had to be a point that both of them had to stop. He only hopped that it was the demon that had to stop long before he did.

Hisoka knew that whatever he did, he could not endanger the school or any of the people inside. With that thought in mind, he took a turn around another corner, nearly slipping on the tile floor as he did so, and sprinted forward toward the back exit of the school. Behind him he could hear the four claws of the demon on the ground as it came after him, but he refused to spare a look over his shoulder to see how close it was. He only continued running, knowing that it was his life on the line this time.

He burst out of the school and into the settling dawn outside. He continued to run for several yards before he dared to stop and turn around. The moment he did, the demon appeared at the double doors, and he realized that it was much too large to fit. Hisoka almost breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived. The demon burst through, breaking down the doors and surrounding wall with it as it came through.

"I'm going to die," Hisoka moaned to no one in particular, as he struggled to breathe.

The demon roared in what sounded to be a triumphant voice. Hisoka turned and began running again. It came after him, he knew it did, but he did not hear the sound of its clawed feet against the ground. What he heard was the sound of wings beating. Wings. It was flying after him. It was going to catch him.

A claw lashed out at him. Hisoka cried in pain as he felt three talons tearing into his back. He attempted to keep running, but the demon had succeeded in what it had been intending to do. The pain was so much that he collapsed to his knees, struggling to breathe and cope with the back-searing pain racing through him.

He could hear the feather-light sound of four claws settling on the ground. Satsujinsha advanced forward on him. Hisoka could almost see the wicked smile on the demon's face as it neared closer and closer to him.

The moment that he thought it was over and he had begun to close his eyes to accept his fate, he saw a blur of white, and then suddenly something was standing over him. Soft hair, the velvet soft hair a cat possessed, brushed over his now bare back. He opened his eyes and saw an enormous paw directly beside his face. Turning slightly, careful not to lie completely on his back, he saw the complete form of Byakko, standing over him protectively. And at the shikigami's side was Tsuzuki.

"Tsu . . . Tsuzuki . . ."

Hisoka did not see what had happened. Even before Tsuzuki and Byakko had made a move, unconsciousness had swept over and taken him.

"Oh, hey, he's coming out of it!"

It seemed more difficult than any other time in his life for Hisoka to fully open his eyes. He was almost immediately blinded by bright, artificial lights beaming down on him. It took him several moments to realize that he was in bed, shirtless, and that his torso was almost completely wrapped up in gauze. Tsuzuki was seated at his side, looking at him anxiously. Hijiri was standing at the end of the bed. Watari was at his other side.

"Wha . . . what happened?"

"You passed out, bouya," Watari said, smiling at him. "But no worries, you're fine. Must have been because of all that running you were doing. The cut really wasn't that bad. And I searched you, just in case that thing could possess just by touching, but you're fine. Apparently Satsujinsha doesn't have that ability."

Hisoka glanced around, blinking several times to clear his vision. "Have I been out of it long?" he asked slowly.

"I'd say maybe two hours," Watari estimated.

"Tsuzuki?" Hisoka looked to his side. Tsuzuki smiled at him.

"Everything's fine. Byakko and I were able to take care of the demon. It's dead. No one else will die."

Hisoka nodded slightly and settled back more comfortably against the pillows. He was glad that everything had worked out, despite the fact he had not actually done anything to help the case in the long run, he didn't think. Tsuzuki was the one that had destroyed the demon and prevented it from possessing and killing anyone else.

"We should let him get some rest," Tsuzuki suggested.

Watari and Hijiri nodded, gave their wishes for a quick recovery to Hisoka, and slipped out of the room. Tsuzuki stood up to join them.

"You get some sleep," he said. "I'll take care of all the loose ends."

Hisoka smiled, a very faint smile. "Thanks, Tsuzuki."

The older shinigami returned the smile and reached out to brush a few stray strands from Hisoka's face. "Hey, that's what partners are for, right? Sleep well."

Hisoka nodded and nestled more deeply beneath the covers, feeling for once in his life undeniably secure and happy.