死神、死神、私たちが遊んでみよう
Shin froze, his hand fisted in the collar of Yuu's kimono and one blade kissing his throat. A thin line of red trailed down from where the sharp edge of the katana pressed just hard enough into Yuu's neck to make him bleed. If she had been a second too late, Yuu would have died.
Yuu was barely conscious by this point. The tip of his tachi dragged on the ground as he stubbornly held on to it in his limp hand. Half of his face was covered in the blood dripping down from a gash on his temple, and what skin wasn't bloodied up was purple and blue with blossoming bruises and scrapes decorating his face, neck, and arms.
His eyes were half-closed, as if he had resigned himself to his face to die at the hands of Shin. When he heard her voice they widened, as his shocked gaze fell on her. They were red, but traces of his brown were fading in, as if his Makashi was dwindling away.
She couldn't believe Shin had managed to do this to him.
"Pai –" his voice croaked with pain she could almost feel herself. "What're you – "
He didn't get any further than that. Shin drew back his arm, twisting his wrist and bringing the hilt of his katana down on Yuu's neck. Pai yelped when it made contact with a sickening thud, her hands darting up to cover her mouth in an aborted attempt to keep the sound in.
Shin released him and Yuu slumped to the ground. Pai stared at him wide-eyed, every part of her frozen in fear that Shin had just outright killed him. But no – he was alive, barely, his chest rising and falling in breaths. He was just knocked out cold.
For a moment, Shin simply looked down at the unconscious figure of Yuu lying at his feet. Then he straightened his back, raised his head, and looked right at her.
In the silence within the Torimaku, she thought she could have heard a pin drop, if not for the blood rushing to her head, the thumping of her heart beating so hard in her chest, the rustle of her pyjamas as she took an involuntary step back. Pai lost her breath as she met the blaze of Shin's red eyes.
He was so angry – it was a punch to her stomach to know, to see so clearly, that that anger was directed solely at her now. Perhaps he already knew what she was planning to do now that she knew his true name. Maybe he was going to kill her, end it before she could do anything –
"You..." Shin's lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl.
She had to force herself to remember that this wasn't Shin, but Shinigami – his Makashi. It was hard. It was – it was his face, but it wasn't him there, right now, looking at her like he wanted to see her lying broken and bloody at his feet too.
He sheathed his katanas in the dual sheathes strapped to his back as he turned to her fully. His body was lithe, and strong, it was obvious just looking at him. She felt like she was facing a black panther more than the man whose darkest aspect had been given a body to roam free in.
"Where did you get that name?" he asked, voice a low growl that sent chills down her spine.
"Shin-san – "
He didn't give her a chance to say more. In a moment, his form blurred in front of her, and she was thrown back against the wall of the force-field with Shin's hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing. The Torimaku, so hot when she had passed through it minutes ago, was now a wall of ice at her back that burned in its frigid touch.
Her eyes flew open in startled shock at the freezing touch, and the deceptive warmth of the hand wrapped around her throat. A second later he pressed her back into the wall and lifted her, higher, her feet scrabbling clear off the ground. Her airways closed and her chest stung as she tried to breathe – and couldn't.
He was strangling her.
Shin's hand was big enough to easily wrap around her neck. It was warm as he pressed just that little bit tighter that black stars danced in her eyes. Her throat ached, screamed as she struggled to breathe, frantically scratching at Shin's hand with her short nails, trying to make him stop. Panic blossomed like a dark flower in the pit of her stomach, and she felt a low buzzing in the joints of her wrists as her hands began to shake.
She couldn't – she can't breathe I can't breathe I can't breathe –
"Not that name." He snarled, glowering at her. "My name."
He was so close that she could see a thin line of black circling the red irises, his pupils in slits, just like a cat's. Around them was a line of yellow that flared out before melding together with the red of his irises. His lips were pulled back over his teeth, canines pressing into his lower lip. She could feel the reverberation of a low growl coming from him through his hand. His body caging her in was a wall of heat nauseously opposing the ice at her back.
She had never seen Shin look like this, more like an animal than a human being. The aura surrounding Shin – no, Shinigami – was like a black cloud of hatred and fury. She couldn't imagine how Shin had managed to live with and control something as volatile as Shinigami inside him for all this time.
Was this what Hengen would look like if they didn't have their Masks to help control their true natures? Was this really what they were, at their core, with all the layers of humanity stripped away?
Was this what Shin was behind the civility he wore like thinly-donned armour? Nothing but anger, and hate?
Pai found herself a vessel to more fear, in that single moment, than she had ever before. Even facing down an Oni that was intent on eating her, with only a gun in aid whose bullets were just mere disturbances to it, didn't come close to how terrified she was now.
But, oddly enough, at the same time she knew that he wouldn't kill her.
Shinigami had his hand at her throat, thumb pressing into her jugular. All it would take was for him to press just a little harder to squeeze the life out of her, or snap her neck just as easily as one would snap the frail stalk of a flower. She knew he could do it. She could feel that strength in him.
But he hadn't done.
What if she wasn't be able to stop Shinigami from killing all of the Daitengu and Kouta? Why hadn't it worked the first time, when she said his name? She'd done what Kuniumi told her, she'd infused in it all her emotions. Did Kuniumi lie to her? Or was it something that required repetition, something she needed to say three times or something before it could work?
How was she supposed to know?
But she didn't have any other choice. She had to say his name again. She was in the Torimaku. Yuu was laying half-dead on the ground a few feet away. The other Daitengu together with Kouta were keeping the Torimaku up but they couldn't do it forever, she didn't think they could.
All she had left, all she could do, was try.
All these thoughts flew through her head in a confused flurry in seconds as her legs kicked out, trying to find purchase where there was none.
"Shin – Shin – " she gasped, struggling to draw in enough breath to say it. "Shin – let me – let me go – plea – can't breathe, Shinigami – "
His eyes widened, surprising filling them, and something else. His brow pulled down into a furious glower as he released her and took a step back.
She fell to the fluffy snow-covered ground at his feet, collapsing on her knees, coughing and gasping as the air returned in her lungs. Her chest burned from the blisteringly cold air she dragged in, and her arms shook as she fought to hold herself up and not crumble while she put a cold hand to the blistering heat of her throat, trying at once to soothe the burning ache and protect it from anyone else trying to fucking strangle her, again.
He knelt before her, snaking one finger under her chin and forcing her to look up at him. As her watery eyes moved up to his, she caught a glimpse of the tanto blade she always saw Shin carry around with him.
Pai could only blink tiredly at him, her throat still on fire. He no longer looked angry, ready to kill her at any given moment. He looked – was that curiosity in his eyes? Curiosity and something else.
She recognized what it was with a start of surprise. It was submission. She knew because she'd been forced to be that way, that compliant and obeying, before. She didn't know how she knew, but she just did.
It was working. Using his name like that was working.
The power she could see that she now had over him made her sick.
"No human has ever spoken the name of a Makashi. Did you know that?" He tilted his head to the side.
The move had her staring – it was so like Shin that she had to force herself to remember that this wasn't actually him. At least, not entirely. This was his Makashi, a dangerous man who had proven that he had no qualms against killing.
But then...was it him? Was he Shin? How did she know what Hengen were without their Mask? She didn't actually know if a Makashi really was like a separate being – or if it was more like a literal manifestation of what Hengen truly were, in the days before they began to wear Masks that controlled their inner natures.
Pai kept very still when he reached forward and lightly traced the blood that was still wet on her lips from her nosebleed. Her lips trembled under the warm touch of his fingers, her breath shivering out of her as she tried to keep utterly unmoving under his touch. Her blood was a stark red on his hand, and he rubbed his fingers together, as if he was testing what her blood felt like.
His eyes were on hers the whole time, and she kept hers glued to his. She couldn't have looked away from him even if she tried. It disturbed her, how fascinated she was by his every move, how she couldn't look away. She was like helpless prey, frozen in fear before its death in the form of some beautiful and lethal predator that never took its eyes from her, not even for a moment.
"He told me not to kill you. Begged me," he remarked quietly. "What makes you so different from any other human?"
Who? Shin?
She opened her mouth to speak, but it was like a red-hot poker plunged down her throat. She turned her face to the ground as she coughed again, leaning back so that she sat on the ground with her back resting against the cold wall of the Torimaku. She would have moved away from the coolness of the wall, but her bones were so brittle that she was half scared that if she moved, she would break.
He gave her no room to move away from him. From the curious tilt of his head, the red light in his eyes, she knew it was because he wanted to see what she would do. Shinigami allowed her to move further away from him, but he himself did not move an inch. He remained right where he was, kneeling on his haunches with his forearms resting along his thighs and watching her with those eyes that were Shin's and not Shin's all at once.
This is confusing, she thought hazily as black powder dusted her sight. He's Shin, he's Shinigami. They're different, they're the same. What are they supposed to be when the Mask keeps them separated?
Her eyes widened slightly. The Mask.
Her gaze drifted down, tilting her head forward as she massaged her aching neck and looked down to the white sash hidden beneath the hem of her dark blue pyjama sleeve. She could just see the edge of the sash, and desperately hoped that he hadn't noticed it.
He hadn't killed her yet. Maybe that was because he hadn't yet figured out that she was supposed to use his true name to get him to wear it. If he saw it now, she knew he wouldn't hesitate to snap her neck.
But why hadn't he killed her yet? Who told him not to? Why did he look at her like a curious cat watching what its prey would do next?
If we fail and Shin-kun proves stronger than the Torimaku, she will still have to use his true name from the get-go to immobilize him long enough for us to secure him so that she can give him his Mask back.
Kouta's plan had been decidedly different to what the outcome now was. He'd planned on closing Shinigami in the Torimaku, subduing him so that he wouldn't be able to attack her when she tied Shin's Mask back on. Now, Kouta and the men holding him down was out of the question. They were on the outside, and she was here, alone, with Shinigami.
She had to do this on her own.
He didn't look like he was going to kill her, or he would have done it already. But then again, Shinigami had proven to be of a flighty mind. One minute he would let her live, and the next he could just as easily kill her. He said that someone had told him that he shouldn't kill her, but she couldn't rely on that. He didn't strike her as someone who listened to what others said. And what if he was lying? What if she was a mouse to his cat, and he was just toying with her?
She needed to get the Mask on him, but – how?
She licked her dry lips, grimacing at the copper tang of her own blood on her tongue. Her mind sped ahead at a thousand miles, searching for something to stall him while she came up with a way to use the Mask on him. She knew his true name, she managed to divert him from killing Yuu with it and gotten him to stop strangling her, but it wasn't a given that it would work again. He was clearly able to fight through whatever compulsion she was able to use on him with his true name, at least to some degree.
Your job, Pai, the memory of Konohana's gentle voice drifted in, simultaneously calming and shaking up her nerves, and the paralysing fear when Konohana had stopped her from being able to move so much as an inch. Is to give Shin his Mask. Whatever else happens, you must get Shin and his Mask back together, before it's too late and we have to step in.
Her voice was hoarse and gruff when she spoke, and it hurt so much that she wished she could just shut up, curl up in some dark corner, and sleep.
"Clues," she managed throatily. "I – I had clues."
"What clues?" he asked bluntly.
"Your name. Shin's name," she said hesitantly. She felt like she was admitting to cheating in a test, somehow. She wondered if she would feel this way of she had really figured out his name on her own. "You share the kanji for death."
You're both, somehow, a death god waiting to happen.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "That is a stretch."
"I was desperate." She shot back, praying that he wouldn't get so quickly bored with her. Please just humour me. At least until she found a way to make him wear the Mask again. "You ki – why did you kill the Nue?"
One eyebrow lifted at her question. "That is what you want to know?"
She nodded, choosing not to speak if she absolutely did not need to. Her mind continued to think frantically about how to get the Mask on him.
Should I just attack him with it? But I'm not strong enough. He'll kill me before I can make a move, she thought, remembering the speed with which he'd moved when he attacked Yuu. He was so fast; he was almost an unseen blur. She was a fish on land compared to him.
"I wanted to."
She stared at him blankly, thoughts screeching to a halt. "You what?"
He smirked. "I," he enunciated, as if she were an imbecile. "Wanted. To."
"That – what – that's it?"
"Must there be a reason to everything?" he asked snidely.
"You had no other reason for killing them?" she asked him, disbelief colouring her gravelly voice. "You just – you killed five men. You ended their lives."
He cocked his head to the side, in that way that was so like Shin. He was entirely unaffected at the stunned accusation in her voice. "I kill because I want to."
She shook her head, refusing to believe that. Maybe killing came as easily to Shinigami as breathing did, but she didn't think that was the only reason why he killed the Nue. It couldn't be.
The way Kouta had questioned Haru after their fight – no, the questions Kouta asked – they were too specific. They made it obvious that Kouta, at least, thought that Shinigami killed those Nue for a reason. There was something beneath the want to kill that drove Shinigami to murder them.
And Shinigami wasn't Ayakashi Satsugai, either. Daichi told her that Ayakashi Satsugai killed indiscriminately, driven nearly mad with their unquenchable bloodlust. They didn't kill for any other reason than to kill, simply because they could.
Shinigami had done it for a reason. He was Kaosu no Ayakashi for a reason, and not Ayakashi Satsugai.
"That's not true."
He lifted a brow, amused by her stubborn refusal to believe him. "And why shouldn't it be, little bird?"
Ignoring the moniker, she said, "If you do it because you want to, why haven't you killed me?"
"Maybe you entertain me," he answered drily, studying her with those eyes. "Maybe I want to keep you."
"What?" the surprise had her speaking before she even realized it, and she snapped her mouth shut. Despite the silence, her eyes lit up with a flare of anger.
The hell do you mean keep me? I'm not a thing!
×
He smirked at the look in her eyes. He'd seen it through Shin sometimes, and he wanted to draw it out, to see how bright it burned, how much destruction it could bring. Even the beat of a small butterfly's wings could portend disasters to come.
Little bird. How fitting for her. So small, so easily breakable – and yet the truth of her, the reality of what lurked inside her forgotten memories, was so hard to catch.
Leave her alone, the tired, almost defeated whisper in his mind stirs something sharply irritated in him. The Torimaku was doing nothing to him, but it was hurting Shin. He was fading, and fast. Please, let her be. Leave her alone.
He smiled.
×
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asked instead of answering. He leaned forward, hands on either side of her as he caged her in. She could feel the heat from his body as he moved inch by inch closer. Her heart flickered with something. She wasn't sure it was fear. "I almost killed Haru. He escaped only by chance."
That's not true, she thought, remembering what Haru said – that he'd seen a bit of blue in the eyes of Shinigami. Hope – a valiant, treacherous little flickering thing – lit her from the inside out. Shin stopped you from doing it, didn't he? He's there, fighting you every step of the way.
Her attention snapped back to the present, eyes on his as she pressed herself back against the wall. His eyes were glowing again, fixed so intently on her that she felt it like gravity pressing down on her. He was close, too close, closing her in with his arms bracketing her on either side, the heat of his lean body warming her colder one. She could feel the stir of his breath on her face.
Shinigami lifted a hand, and she kept still as he trailed the tips of his fingers up from her knee, to her hip. It felt like a flame was lit at his fingertip, igniting, tracing up a trail of fire along her body.
"I killed the Nue. I ripped them apart with these hands." His hand went higher up to her shoulder before resting lightly on her pulse at the side of her neck. She could feel every thump, as if the beat of her heart was rising up to meet him. His hand wrapped loosely around her throat, the warmth flowing in together with the heat of the pain from being strangled twice in a single day. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"
Pity those who would think to stop him, and those who would think to cross him, Kuniumi whispered, her voice so quiet and coming from so far away that Pai could barely catch wind of her words through the burning haze Shinigami was lighting up in her. Do not let the fear of death paralyse you as it has before.
She didn't know how to answer. She didn't know why she wasn't more afraid. She was afraid, she was, but the fear was lukewarm compared to what she'd expected.
She'd been afraid of the Onihitokuchi. She'd been afraid of Konohana. Kuniumi was right – she froze when faced with death. She was certain that if she hadn't had the gun with her in the warehouse, allowed to feel ever so slightly braver because of it, she would have never made it for as long as she had. The Oni would have killed her long before Shin found her.
With Konohana, she hadn't even been able to move an inch. If Konohana wanted to kill her, there'd have been nothing Pai could have done to stop it. Nothing at all.
In the heartbeats of silence that stretched between them now, Pai knew why she was scared when she faced the Oni and Konohana, and why she wasn't now. Then, she was terrified that she would die. The idea of it had been more cemented in reality than anything else in those moments. She had been scared of these beings that could deliver her to death, so easily.
Shinigami was a Makashi, a Hengen, but at the same time he was part death god, in ways she didn't understand and didn't have the braincells to figure out right now. But if anything, she should have been petrified now. Shinigami was a manifestation of death, given a body to roam mortal land, Kuniumi had said.
But she wasn't afraid.
I'm not afraid, she realized. Because you aren't going to kill me.
"You tell me," she answered quietly, looking back right into his eyes unflinchingly, foolish bravery biting at her ankles on the heels of that realization. "Why should I be afraid of you?"
Shinigami frowned, not expecting that. He released her and sat back as he continued to watch her like she was a fascinating lab specimen. There was a begrudging look in his eye as he regarded her. "I can see why Shin likes you. You've got spark. You're not as weak as I thought."
Pai couldn't believe it when she felt a warm glow fill her chest at his words. Of all things to be thinking about, what Shin thought of her should have been the last thing on her mind right now. That Shinigami could see it and just said that, throwing it out there – how was she supposed to react to that?
"I – "
The fist of a stone giant squeezed her stomach in a sickeningly tight grip. The world tilted at a sickening angle. Large black holes flickered on and off in front of her and she closed her eyes tight as a wave of nauseous dizziness swept through her. Her stomach roiled sharply and she was sure she was going to vomit, gagging around nothing as she tipped forward, spine bending under the weight of a pain like a knife being plunged through her body ripped through her.
She doubled over, cradling her arms around her stomach, unable to stop the groan that trembled from her lips as her chin wobbled, tears pricking her eyes like a thousand tiny needles. She rode out the wave of pain, eyes shut tight against it as she struggled to remember how to breathe. As the wave crested and tapered off, she coughed, hand coming up to cover her mouth as she felt bile rising up from the back of her throat. When she drew it back she could only stare at the blood splattered over her trembling palm. It was the colour of dark roses at midnight. Pai looked up when she heard a low chuckle.
Shinigami was watching her. He was laughing at her.
"So surprised. You don't know, do you?" he asked, curiosity tingeing his words as a smirk played about his lips.
"Know what?" she asked. She sounded – like she was dying. Like her lungs were pierced through by the bones of her ribs.
"Kanou didn't tell you?"
She frowned, trying to simply stare through the black holes dotting the air in front of her. "Tell me what?"
The smile on his face widened to a grin, a shade of the manic Shinigami that fought Yuu returning and reminding her of just who exactly she faced. His every word was slow and punctuated in a way that made it clear he was mocking her. "You. Are. Dying."
She stared blankly at him, uncomprehending. She heard the words, but they didn't register. A mental block built itself up in her brain, stopping any comprehension of what they meant from getting through. Her lips parted at the blunt words that held no hint of trickery, no ulterior motive behind them.
"What?"
You're slow, you're slow, you're slow! Kuniumi burst in, and Pai winced at the level of it.
Her attention derailed from what Shinigami just said to Kuniumi's sudden violent reappearance again. His eyes sharpened on hers at the movement, and she dropped her eyes to the ground, staring at a blade of mud-speckled grass that was at the exact halfway point between the two of them.
Let us out, let us out, we'll stop him from killing you.
Kuniumi sounded insane. Pai didn't have any other words to describe it. She sounded like she was crazy, and not just because of how she kept talking like there were two of her and she spoke for them both. It was the cadence of her voice, the delight in it that was disturbing in all measures.
"You're lying," she said to distract Shinigami, eyes still on the ground as her mind whirled in pained confusion. "Kanou-san would have told me something like that."
What will you do? Pai said to Kuniumi, praying that her thought would reach Kuniumi. She didn't know how to speak to her without using her voice.
What do you want us to do? We'll do anything, oh...anything at all.
"I don't lie." Shinigami looked at her with his unsettling eyes. His voice was unflinchingly hard, like diamond hewn from the rock-face of a tall and imposing mountain.
"Kanou-san would have told me something like that." She repeated firmly. There was no way Kanou would have kept something like that from her. Her voice shook as the magnitude of what he was saying struck her. "He would have told me."
She didn't like where the turn of this strange conversation was going. She was dying? That wasn't possible. Her hands were shaking more frequently, and her nose sometimes bled a bit, but...but Kanou would have told her if there was something seriously wrong with her. He wouldn't have kept something so monumental from her. Kanou wouldn't look into her eyes and lie to her, tell her that she was fine if she wasn't.
"True. If he knew, if he could tell."
She looked up at Shinigami. He was watching her with that look in her eye that made her feel like he knew exactly what was going on in her mind, like he knew more about her than she did herself. It was dizzying, confused, to see someone else looking back at her with Shin's face – to know that it wasn't Shin she was looking at.
Hold him down long enough for me to get the Mask on him.
She said to him, "Then how do you know?"
"You know what I am. You know my name." He replied. Again, that familiar tilt of the head. "How do you think I know?"
It made sense, and still she couldn't accept it.
Kuniumi, please.
Hah, she sighed. The tension in her muscles ebbed as she felt a tingle of warmth start up in her stomach, a burn in her heart getting hotter by the second. We thought you'd never ask.
This time, it was different.
There was no icy calm to steal over Pai, to mute her emotions and dull the pain pulsing through her whole body. It didn't feel like she was overcoming her perpetual weakness and getting stronger, at least strong enough for her not to suddenly collapse from drained energy.
Pai knew that she would have to pay a price for so readily allowing Kuniumi to use in this way, but she was desperate enough to let it continue. She didn't have any other choice.
But this time, it was different.
It didn't feel like she was being liberated from being human and getting a taste of what it was like not to be weak and easy prey to those stronger than her. Now, now it was like a demon from the darkest pits of hell was taking over her body, breaking her bones and stretching her muscles until they bent and snapped, forcing and moulding her body to suit its own needs.
×
He'd been able to predict her every move.
It threw him off that she wasn't scared – no, she was, but not of him. That was what confused him. She spoke to him like he was anyone, as if he wasn't a killer she knew had taken lives. She looked him unflinchingly in the eye when she did, without the repulsion he was expecting to see when knowing what he was capable of, without the fear that he would do to her what he'd done to others before her.
She hadn't even moved when he had his hand around her pretty neck for a second time, after he'd almost strangled the life out of her. Instead, she'd kept those fearless eyes pinned on him – as if daring him to do more than that.
He knew that she was talking to someone, though he hadn't seen her wear any gadgets for it, nor had he sensed anything else amiss. But he knew that she wasn't talking to just him, and he wondered if that was what gave her the peculiar courage to stare him down like he couldn't snap her neck as easily as breaking a twig between his fingers.
But what he could sense was that she had Shin's Mask tied around her wrist. When he saw it peek out from the hem of her sleeve, he'd almost snapped and completely lost it. He'd just barely kept himself from breaking her neck. He would have, if the thought of toying with her a little longer hadn't so tempted him.
Did she really think he wouldn't realize she had it? That he wouldn't be able to sense it instantly, after being trapped under its magic for all their life?
This was the lynch-pin to Kouta's plan, he knew; get her to use his name to keep him down long enough for her to tie that fucking Mask around him again. He'd known there had to be something more to Kouta's plan of trapping him here, in the Torimaku. Kouta is an idiot, but he's not a fool.
He hadn't expected Kouta to gamble on the life of a young human girl, though. But considering they were desperate enough to go to this length in the first place, it wasn't surprising.
He knew she was trying to stall him from kill her before she could think of a way to get the Mask on him. He'd only been playing along, pretending he didn't know she had the Mask, acting like he hadn't realized why she was here. Despite the anger coursing through him at being so close to the Mask, he was – curious.
He wanted to see what she would do.
It stunned him, that this girl, this human, knew his true name – she even knew how to use it, as a human. When she first called it, it took all his strength not to drop to his knees before her. He knelt for no one, bowed down to no one, and lived only for himself.
Yet, when she called him not by Shin's name but by his, a strange elation overtook him for a split-second that made him want to kneel before her, made him think it wouldn't be so bad to if it was for her – made him want to protect her from the brief glimpse of insanity he'd seen in the shadows of her eyes, the exhaustion in the bruises beneath them.
That was what it meant for someone to use a Makashi's name the way she had, with so much hope and need fused into it. For the person saying it, it was nothing more than a name. They couldn't imagine what it was like for him, to hear someone say his name like that. It spelled instant submission. He'd just barely stopped himself from letting the force of it make him surrender.
The shock of her knowing his name and how to use it was nothing compared to being caught off guard like this after he spoke.
Pai's head snapped back as her body jerked forward, her mouth falling open in a silent scream, with only a quiet gasp of pain breaking through. Her pupils dilated to massive black holes before the irises of her incredible light brown eyes darkened to black, and she shut them tight. Her hands were clawed as she brought them up to her head, fingers curling and twitching as she pressed the heels of her palms into her temples, leaning forward until her forehead touched her knees. She keened, wailing as if she was grieving over a loss she could never get past.
"What the..."
A sudden seizure cut him off as it ripped through her slender body as if she'd just been electrocuted. She fell forward and he shifted quickly, catching her before she could knock her head on the cold hard ground. She writhed uncontrollably in his arms, her short fingernails scratching so hard at her arms that when he glanced down at them he saw long pink lines that were deepening to red.
He caught her both her wrists in one hand to keep her from injuring herself. She fought against him, her body bucking as the seizure reached its apex. She was going to tear her own skin off if he didn't figure out a way to snap her out of this seizure.
He blinked. What the fuck am I thinking?
He cared nothing for this girl. She was human, and she knew his name – he needed to kill her before she could speak it to anyone else, anyone who could use it against him. Shin was barely a flicker in his mind, the Torimaku suppressing him enough that Shinigami knew he had to get this done and over with quickly.
She needed to die. It was the only way he could guarantee that he would never again be forced under the leash of the Mask. Even if she wasn't the one to do it, clearly she didn't know just how to use his name to bring him under her command, but she could just as easily tell another his true name, and they would do it.
He would not let that happen.
His hand crept back to his boot, where he pulled out his tanto from where the hilt peeked out from. The blade gleamed with the reflection of colours from the force-field still working around and above him, and fractures of light glittered off of it from what it caught of the sun's weak rays.
Shinigami brought it forward, aiming at her quavering body, right over her heart. The seizure was lessening, her body stilling. He flinched when a sudden, riotous banging started up again, and fought to keep from growling.
No! Shin yelled, distraught. His voice was still weak, fragile from the force of whatever the Torimaku was managing to do to him that it wasn't to Shinigami – and still he was fucking fighting. Please, Shinigami please, she doesn't need to die!
She knows my name, he snarled. You think I'm going to let someone like that live? We have killed for less.
He lifted the blade, ready to plunge it through her heart and end her miserable life. But even as the thought crossed his mind, the intent of it tightening his hand around the hilt of the tanto – he knew he wasn't going to do it. Just the mere thought of killing her made something in his gut twist sharply.
He knew it wasn't Shin. No, this was all on him. Fucking hells, he couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to kill this one, insignificant human, even when she knew his name and could make him do anything she wanted with it.
Please, Shin begged – begged – him. Shinigami, she doesn't need to die. You know her. You've seen her through me. Please.
His hand shook as his lips pulled back over his teeth, struggling to get past this blockade of reluctance, to kill her – but he didn't want to. He needed to. He needed to, but he didn't want to kill her.
"Hah..." the white cloud of his breath puffed up in front of him as he sighed. "What is so different about you? You're human. What makes you so fucking special?"
He looked down again when she whimpered, voice thick as tears like shards of broken glass fell down the sides of her face. "Mi – Midori..."
She turned her face into his side, her hand tightening where she held on to the front of his shirt, as if she was unconsciously seeking solace in him. He froze, motionless as he stared down at her horribly vulnerable form. Did she just – not have a sense of self-preservation? At all?
She looked so fragile, like she was made more of some ethereal matter than skin and bone. The seizure had finally drained out of her, but the expression on her face was just as tortured as before, as if it was now her mind and soul silently screaming in pain, calling for help but going unheard.
Who's Midori?
Her sister, Shin answered, just as confused as Shinigami as they watched her body go still. Her breathing was shallow, her chest barely lifting as she drew in one clattering lung of breath after another.
Isn't her entire family missing?
Yes. Shin answered, almost absently. He could feel it, the way Shin's entire, tired focus was zeroed in solely on Pai. He could feel it in the way he couldn't tear his eyes away from her. They all went missing three years ago.
"He said he'd let you go..." blood began to seep into her tears as they leaked from the corners of her eyes, and he could see a thin stream leak from her ears. Shin's alarm was his own at the sight of it. It was never a good thing for anyone to bleed from their orifices. "I did what they wanted, I did it all, I did it so many times. Rikuto couldn't do it, so I did it for him, and I did it for you," her face was twisted in profound grief as her voice cracked. "He said he'd let you go, why are you – "
Her lips twisted into a sneer that he had never seen on her face before, not even through Shin's eyes. The voice that came from her was not Pai's, and it eerily echoed a sense of familiarity in him that he didn't understand.
A sharp bark of laugher, her head tilting back over his arm, her eyes still closed like she was entrenched in a deep dream. "Stupid, stupid. You believed him? You believed her? Any of them? How many times has your trust hurt you? You trusted Kazuki, he said he'd talk to Akira, but he only took you back to the Doctor to get fixed. You are broken."
Her head twisted to the side. It was Pai's voice again, but cruel. "Break? I did not break. They destroyed who I am and I never broke. You did. You couldn't handle your betrayal and now you hunt him to pay him back for what he did to you."
With a abrupt start, Shinigami realized what was happening.
He almost laughed. He was a fool for not realizing it quicker. Now he knew why Pai was able to get through the Torimaku, when even Shin was fading from the pressure of it, even as he stubbornly clung to lucidity.
Kouta wouldn't have simply allowed her in, not when Shinigami wasn't 'in control' yet. The man did everything he could to protect those under his care. He loved Shiori with a blinding faith and did everything to make sure she was safe and happy, and that went for those she cared for. He wouldn't have gone so blatantly against his own nature to protect and risked Pai's life like this.
Not, that wasn't it at all.
He smiled despite himself. He was right when he sensed that she wasn't talking to him alone.
Tsukimono, Shin realized in the same breath.
Hm, he hummed. She let an Ayakashi into her. She's desperate enough to 'save' you that she let one possess her.
He could feel that Shin was struck speechless at that.
He frowned. There was something wrong here, though, something wrong with this picture. The only possible, logical explanation for this was that she was possessed, but he knew what tsukimono looked like.
This wasn't it.
When Ayakashi possessed humans, they didn't even realize anything was amiss, and when the Ayakashi left them, all that remained of their time being possessed was a gaping hole in their memory.
A human body getting taken over by Ayakashi wasn't supposed to be this traumatizing, this obviously painful. It was supposed to be seamless, an effortless thing where one moment the human was just an ordinary being, and the next, the human was behaving differently only due to an Ayakashi influencing them, controlling them. Soon after, the Ayakashi left – usually out of boredom – and everything went back to normal for the human but for a few days missing from their memory.
So what the hell was this?
Her body twitched, and he looked down at her as her voice changed again. "Who are you lying to? You wouldn't have survived without us. You barely did. You don't even remember what they did."
Pai's eyes snapped open, but they didn't focus on him as he leaned over her, staring down at her. She looked straight past him to the curved ceiling of the Torimaku. Her eyes were dark, and flat. She looked like she was dead, if not for the small movements of her chest as she breathed, her body still as a statue.
Seizures, crying blood, black eyes, talking in double voices as if she was two different people – none of this was normal, in so far as that went with tsukimono.
Her lips parted, and she started to mumble something under her breath. She whispered so low that he had to bend down until his ear was right next to her moving lips before he could finally make out what she was saying.
"August the sixteenth, five twenty-nine past midday. Father. Same time. Green snake. Foot. End of total recall, six forty-six, house. Present, gone. August the sixteenth, five twenty-nine past midday..."
He leaned back, frowning as he watched her repeat herself. "What the fuck is this?"
Her voice pitched, growing louder until she spoke in normal tones but in a flat, robotic voice. She spoke so fast that her words melded together until he could hardly make sense of what she was saying.
"LetitbeginletitendforgetwhobecomedonttheyrecomingtheyrecomingletitendpleaseletitendweneveraskedforthisNaokihowcouldyoudothistomeItrustedyouallyouwantisfornaughtIamnotathingIdontbelongtoyouhelpmeIneedyoutotellmehowtokillanimmortalnoitsyouwhodoesntunderstandteachmeteachmeletitbeginletitendletitbeginletitendletitbeginletitendIloveyouKa – "
There was a small, choked whimper – and she screamed.
It was unlike anything Shinigami had heard before. This wasn't the scream of a human being, but of an animal being tortured. It was ripped from her throat, hoarse but so ear-shatteringly loud that he winced, wanting to bring his hands up to cover his ears in a reflexive move. Beneath that tortured sound, he thought he could hear the deeper, more mature tones of an older woman screaming alongside Pai.
Or rather, the second voice screaming through Pai.
Pai suddenly brought her legs up and kicked him, hard enough to knock the breath out of him. As if that wasn't enough, she shoved him away with her hands, fingers clawed like she wanted to tear through his skin. She rolled away from him onto the ground before halting a few feet away. He bounded to his feet instantly, warily watching Pai as she slowly stood.
Her movements were strange, robotic and disconnected. Her fingers stiffened and danced through the air, as if they were brokenly playing a violin with bleeding fingers. She sighed heavily, closing her eyes and letting her head fall to rest on her shoulder as she straightened her back. He heard a crack of stiff joints loosening.
She lifted a hand and stared at it through the white curtain of hair that partially covered her eyes, having long come undone from her braid. Her face was gaunt, cheeks hollowed as if she was starving. Drying tracks of red rivers ran down from her eyes, down the angled planes of her cheekbones to the collar of her blue pyjamas.
In mere minutes, she had become...something else.
He frowned when a flicker of electricity lit up, crackling over her hand as it made its way up to the tips of her fingers. The fizzing little ball of electricity looked to be struggling to get bigger, to grow, to become stronger. Black smoke curled in wispy tendrils from the flashing light of the spark before it finally fizzed out with a low, disappointed sputter.
"Weak and drained...you are so young, and already so tired...now what will you do? What can you do?" she mumbled, seemingly totally oblivious to his presence. It sounded like she was talking to someone only she could hear. "The Doctor stopped you from crossing over properly. It was inconvenient for him. The audacity of that spineless human." The vitriolic hatred gave voice to his own sentiments in how he felt about humans...but why would Pai be saying any of this?
Because it wasn't Pai at all. It was some Ayakashi that had complete control over Pai's body, because she was so stupid enough to let it use her like this.
All to save Shin.
Shin's guilty silence echoing in their mind said enough about what he thought of what Pai had done.
He watched her bring her hand up to her lips, eyes big in mock surprise yet still retaining a distant look in them, as if she wasn't entirely here. "Oh, but you don't remember, do you? You remember nothing."
She smiled, and from Shin's memories, they knew there was not a trace of Pai in there now.
Shinigami drew his katanas from their dual sheathes strapped to his back, swinging them in a circle at his side as his hold slid over the handles before shifting to a tight grip. His stance was loose, calm, but ready to make any move necessary at moment's notice. The blades whistled sweetly as they cut through the silent air.
Dark eyes – a stark contrast to the light honey brown he would deny he enjoyed looking at – snapped up to his, alert and with far more intelligence gleaming in that blackness than he's comfortable with.
What are you doing? Shin asks, instantly on guard. I thought you weren't going to kill her.
Does that thing look like the Pai you know, I wonder? He snarked. That's an Ayakashi in there. The fool allowed herself to be possessed.
She's scared of Ayakashi, Shin insisted, as if the obvious wasn't standing right in front of them, watching him closely. She wouldn't let something like that possess her.
He didn't answer, trusting that Shin was smart enough to piece the puzzle together on his own. Instead he focused on the girlAyakashi, who scowled at him, a twisted expression of utter disdain that was wholly unfamiliar to the memories of a smiling or serious Pai that he could recall seeing through Shin's eyes. It was her face, her hair, the gentle curve of her jaw, the little tilt at the corners of her lips...it was her, but it wasn't Pai.
He wondered if this was what it was like to look at him, wearing Shin's – their – body.
"Kill him? No...? What do you expect us to do with this weak body?" her head tilted to the side as if she was listening to someone say something. "What we did to them? What we did, oh what we did. You didn't like that. We thought you said you don't want us to do something like that. Hm..."
With a contemplative look on her face, she lifted an arm, drawing back the sleeve of her pyjamas and revealing the white sash. His muscles tensed as a growl began to build up deep in his chest, glowering at the Mask before snapping his eyes to Pai.
A small, sadistic smile touched her lips as she watched his reaction. She slowly unwound the Mask from her wrist and held it with the tips of her fingers, letting it hang limp in front of her. A strong enough gust of wind could tear it from her weak grip. His hands tightened around the hilts of his katanas, rage burning in his core.
She was taunting him, he knew it, but he didn't care. Seeing the Mask made him lose what rational thought he had. All he could think of, as a red haze tinged his sight, was how much he wanted to see that Mask ripped to shreds, marred with splatters of her blood on its pristine white cloth.
Don't kill her, Shinigami. Please Shinigami, don't kill her. Shin pleaded, warningly. Under the threatening tone of his voice, Shinigami could hear the hope in Shin's voice at the sight of the Mask.
It sickened him.
I was going to let her live. Not now. She signed her own death sentence when she found my name.
He shoved Shin's retaliating voice aside. His foot moved to the side as he bent low, ready to dart and slice her throat just as easily as he had done to the Nue. It would be easy. Even under tsukimono, she was still a human being. Her body was still weak. Her blood would flow like so much water. His body quavered with the need, the desire, to kill her before she could speak his name again.
He didn't want to kill her, but fuck it, he would if he had to – and he did. She had signed her own death warrant.
The smile on her face grew to a grin. Her voice bled with power. "Shi. Ni. Kami. Kneel."
His heart plunged to his feet. She hadn't even used his name right; she hadn't infused in it enough emotion – any emotion – yet he could feel the power of it. It was like a hand of steel was squeezing his insides tight, tight, tight, until he could barely breathe.
His muscles locked as he struggled against the sudden, consuming urge to do exactly as she had commanded; to kneel before her. His whole body shook with the effort to remain upright. A bead of sweat dripped down from his forehead, down the side of his face, plopping on his shoulder as it slid off his jaw.
He gritted his teeth as he growled at her, "Go to hell."
She was entirely unaffected. Pai tilted her head to the side, watching him with a faint glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "What did we say, dear Shinigami? Kneel."
His legs gave out beneath him, and he fell to the ground on his knees, breath shooting out of him in a shocked gasp. His hands released the katanas of their own volition. He stared down at them like they were not a part of his body as the blades clattered to the ground on either side of him.
There was a crunch of melted snow on dead leaves and flattened grass. He looked up to see Pai walk toward him. She caressed the Mask in her hands as if it were a child. The intensity of the hatred and rage when he saw it was enough to make him feel like he was about to explode.
Pai stopped, standing just in front of him, so that he had to tilt his head back to look into her eyes. She was blocking out most of the light from the Torimaku above them. He hated the fact that the first thing he thought of when he saw her white hair haloed by the colourful light was that she looked like a beautiful faerie, a queen reaching down to him.
She leaned down, her breath ice cold on his face as she spoke. Her eyes were completely black, pupil totally indiscernible from her iris. He was surprised to see that there was a strange mix of regret and sorrow in her eyes.
"If it were our choice, we would let you free. You were born for death. You do not hinder us by being what you are. You help us keep our promise to him, just as your brethren do. But it is not our choice. We depend on this body," she ran an idle hand down her side, almost sensually. "And she wants you to wear this again." She lifted the Mask to physically show him what 'this' was, like he didn't already know. "But it is not our choice. We need her. She is weak now, but she will be strong, when she remembers. We cannot lose her – we've been waiting too long for this."
He snarled at her. "Fuck off, Ayakashi."
Her lips tightened in irritation. Pai – or whatever Ayakashi was able to speak his true name through her lips – stood straight again, looking down at him with those flat black eyes. "Shinigami. Hold out your hand and be still."
He tried.
He fought against it with all he had, but he couldn't stop it as his arm lifted up like he was about to salute her. It was as though he was a marionette, a puppet incapable of its own will, and she the puppeteer, his unrivalled master. His hand was clenched into a tight fist, veins and tendons standing out in his arm as he tried his hardest to go against her order. He visibly shook with the effort of it.
"If it is worth anything, she is sorry," she added, voice taking on a surprisingly gentle quality. "We are sorry. We know what it is to be locked away, to be alone, to be forced to reject what we are. She doesn't remember, but she will. We are all sorry."
Then she wrapped the white sash around his wrist.
His skin was burning off, a scalding sensation that had his body jerking forward but still unable to take his hand away. When she tied the final knot, a vortex opened up in his chest as everything around him brightened to an immeasurably vast white world that reached its arms out to welcome him back under the barriers that kept him from being his own person.
×
She watched through Pai's eyes as the ones she looked into blinked. For a split second they seemed to darken to an almost identical black like hers. Then it faded away almost as quickly as it had appeared, and she was not sure if she had seen it or not. It wouldn't be the first time she had hallucinated seeing his eyes in those of Hengen, or Oni, or even humans. She searched for him, hunted for him, but she was never truly sure where he would appear.
When his eyes opened again, they were a piercing blue that glowed with an inner light of their own. She stepped back, hands falling to her sides as she fought to remain lucid for just a little while longer.
She wanted to look upon his face, this face, that so looked like the one his first life had worn. She wanted to see if there was yet any hint of the one she hunted in this poor Hengen.
Shin's face smoothed out as if he was finally at peace, brow unravelling from its hateful frown. The tension in his muscles ebbed as his arm dropped back to his side, Mask firmly secured back in its place. He sat back on the heels of his feet, head tipped back like he hadn't the strength to hold himself up anymore. A sigh breezed past his lips, his breath a white cloud hovering between them.
He smiled.
It was an upward tilt of his lips that broke her heart. It was so beautiful, so like the smile of her husband, her beloved that had sentenced her to an eternal, never-ending hell when he promised her they would be together forever. She still hurt whenever she remembered what he had done to her, even after all this time had passed. The loneliness of it all pained her so much so that all she felt capable of doing was crying until her eyes bled.
He smiled, and he said, "Thank you."
She watched the strength leave his body. His eyes rolled back in his head and Shin fell back to the cold ground, knocked unconscious. He wasn't dead. It would take a lot more than this to kill one such as Shin. Shin was a good enough fighter that, even as his Makashi, in all the time he'd been without his Mask he hadn't received any fatal wounds. Neither from the Nue he'd attacked and killed for their crime to him twelve years ago, nor from his battle with Yuu. Fighting as Shinigami would make him even more dangerous than he already was.
But – he was tired. Exhausted. She could see it in the fine lines around his eyes and the corners of his lips, the dark shadows under his eyes. This Torimaku, a deadly feat of the Daitengu, did nothing to Shinigami, but it drained on Shin, just as it was supposed to.
Just as it would have on Shinigami, if he weren't what he was.
A small, sad smile touched her lips. Continuing to look down on Shin's limp form at her feet, she lifted a hand and watched from her periphery as black smoke enveloped it. Short-lived electric sparks fizzed in the depths of the curling tendrils of smoke that swam over the back of her hand.
She gritted her teeth, eyes moving to focus on her hand as a wave of nausea roiled in her stomach and spots of unconsciousness flickered in her sight. In the corner of her mind her senses tingled, as if something was tickling the back of her mind.
She didn't have much time left. Kamigami, alerted by the sudden appearance of the Torimaku – and perhaps having been on their way already to begin their hunt for Shinigami – were coming. Probably they had already been on their way to inform Kouta that they were about to embark on their 'investigation' into what had happened with Shin and why he lost control of his Makashi, though that was just mere formality.
She could tell that these were not particularly strong ones. They were stooges for the more powerful Kamigami. They were likely here just to see and report the situation back. It would still be bothersome if she saw them. She wasn't sure she would be able to hold herself back from killing them if she did. It would be quite hard to stop herself.
It didn't matter if they were innocent of the crimes her children were responsible for.
Glaring at her hand again, the darkness responded to her iron will as the sparks of light flickered at an alarming rate. She curled her hand like she was holding something, her fingers twitching as if gripped in seizures as slowly, a form began to take shape in the black smoke, building itself out of nothing.
Weak...you're too weak. She thought irritably. You need to become stronger, Pai.
There was no reply. She'd have to give this body back soon, before Pai's soul was left without a tether to it for too long. Pai was weak, and being separated from her body for this long already wasn't good. If she lost the connection between Pai and her body, if it were to break, there would be no way for her to get her body back.
She was not in a mood to play pretend and act as Pai in front of all the people waiting for her while trying to figure out how to return the girl to her body.
A harsh, painful gasp broke out of her as she closed her hand firmly around the handle of the wicked blade that materialized in her palm. The sharp metal gleamed with a dark sheen as the meagre sunlight above hit its surface. She was breathing hard from the effort of keeping the weapon from splintering, breaking apart, as she dropped down to her knees by Shin's side. She lifted the tanto, deadly sharp blade aimed at the slow rise and fall of his chest. She lifted it higher, until the blade rested just perfectly at his throat.
"You are so close..." she whispered hoarsely.
Pressing her lips to a thin, near invisible line, she leaned over him as she traced the sharp edge of the blade along the side of Shin's face, down from his temple to his jaw, finally resting under his chin again. His skin was warm.
She struggled with herself, wanting to press the tanto just a little harder so that it would break skin and make him bleed. She wanted him to hurt, to feel the pain she'd been suffering from for so long, to bathe in the warmth of his blood.
But it wasn't the time to. It wouldn't even be him she would hurt. He was close, but hadn't woken up yet as she had. If she killed him now, it would be Shin dying, not him.
Shin had done nothing to merit her wrath. She needed him to stay alive; she would need him again, soon.
She sat back on her haunches and let go of the darkness. It dispersed almost immediately, evaporating into grey smoke before being blown away by the wind. Her heart ached as she watched it, even while the tight band of something akin to motion sickness eased its hold on her stomach.
She looked down again at Shin. She leaned over him again, tracing her finger lightly down the planes and angles of his face, hovering at his eyes, brushing over the long lashes as they quavered, like he could feel her cold touch. Her lips twitched as the memory of doing the same to another drifted past her mind, doing this with love and affection rather than with her heart heavy with sorrow and anger.
She closed her eyes, leaning in close and spoke against his lips in a quiet murmur. "We waited so long for this, but you are not close enough. Soon – soon you will know exactly what it is you condemned us to."
She stood. She tilted her head back, looking up at the curving wall of colour above her head. As she watched, it slowly started to dissipate. It was melting away as it broke down, the colours bleeding into each other like too much paint mixed in together.
The Daitengu were ending their Torimaku.
This time, the tears that fell down her face were clear, untainted with blood. They were salty when her tongue flicked out and swiped at them as they trickled down to her lips. She was used to tasting the copper tang of blood when she cried. It was a nice change. Her eyes grew heavy, whether from exhaustion or sorrow as she continued to watch the Torimaku breaking away, she did not know.
"Touka..." her voice was laden with remorse. "You put it so nicely. Let it begin, let it end. When this is over...we can rest then."
She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply as she allowed herself to sink back into temporarily peaceful oblivion that she knew would not remain so for very much longer, unable to keep herself held together to wait. But it didn't matter. What mattered was that everything was finally starting to move into motion.
It was all finally starting, again. Everything had fallen into place. The pieces were finally where they needed to be, after all this time, and she need only wait for just a little while longer. She'd already been waiting for so long that just a bit more wouldn't hurt.
All that was left now was for Pai to remember, and when she did, when the time was right, she would do what needed to be done, what should have been done all those years ago.
And when it was all over, she would rest.
When they opened again, it was brown eyes that looked up to the silver-grey sky that appeared as the walls of the Torimaku broke down on either side of her.
It was snowing again, very lightly. Snowflakes fell on her face, their cold touch managing to keep her awake for just a little bit longer as her heavy-lidded eyes watched the birds starting to fly about again. One flake landed on the tip of her nose.
She was remembered the last winter she'd experienced. She was walking home with Midori from the festival, sticking her tongue out and trying to catch a snowflake. Midori was laughing at her for it.
Midori...
It pained her so much, more than she could imagine, to think of her sister. But the memory of why it hurt to think of her was fading away, into smoke that she couldn't see.
Pai, her body finally returned to her, collapsed. Her legs buckled as her body finally gave in to the exhaustion pulsing through her, unable to keep standing any longer. She landed on her back, jarring her senses. Her clothes were dirtied beyond belief, and her hair was almost brown from the damp soil she'd rolled in, bits of pale grass sticking to the wet strands.
A dull, throbbing ache started up at the nape of her neck where the tail of the Onihitokuchi cut her, how all this had begun. She stared up unseeingly at the beautiful sky. She watched little dots of the birds flitting to and fro as they curiously investigated the space where the Torimaku had been only a few seconds before.
They...must be...wondering...what it was...
Kouta's face appeared above her, yellow eyes glowing with a fervour that she never saw. His mouth was moving, shaping her name. She couldn't hear him, not really. She didn't know what he was trying to say to her. It was like her ears had stopped working, only able to hear a faint trickle.
"Shit...Pai-chan? Haru-kun...what...hell did...Pai!"
Nothing else of what he said filtered in. It wasn't even loud inside her head, her mind so sluggish that her own thoughts didn't make noise. She wanted to speak, to say something, but she simply didn't have the strength to tell him that she'd done it. She'd been useful instead of a burden.
She thought he was shouting, eyes frantic with worry, but she couldn't bring herself to look away from the birds. His wings were still out, not quite as blinding as before but still just as achingly beautiful.
Strangely enough, they weren't gold anymore either. They were black. From her periphery she saw moving shadows, and in the back of her mind she guessed that they must have been the other Daitengu.
Kouta's arms went around her as he picked her up from the ground. His body was warm, and she instinctively felt like snuggling into him, but she only had the strength to continue breathing. Her body swayed as a rush of wind ruffled her dirty white hair, and a tugging sensation pulled at her stomach when they lifted into the air. She felt a change in the direction of the wind, and in a distant corner of her mind she was able to realize that they were heading back to Ayashi House.
She wished she had enough strength to properly look around, to see what it was like to fly like this. As it was, she was barely keeping her eyes open.
As her head lolled back over his arm, her eyes spied Shin in Shouta's arms in much the same fashion as Kouta was carrying her. Shouta had sheathed the katanas and strapped them to his waist, the blade of Shin's tanto clamped between his teeth as he flared his wings out and lifted into the air.
Shin was unconscious, but he didn't seem too badly hurt. He could have been asleep, if not for the light colouring of a bruise forming on his cheek and thin stream of red leaking down his temple, and how limp he was in Shouta's arms.
Her eyes were thick in their sockets as she moved them to look around to find Yuu. It was he, being carried by Jirou, who looked that much closer to death's doorstep. Yuu's skin was deathly pale, hair and face caked in blood. Jirou was looking down at him worriedly. When his pearl grey eyes lifted to Kouta's, they didn't look like he expected Yuu to be so easily fine.
The Daitengu were quickly becoming mere dots in the dirt-speckled white ground of the clearing in the forest as Kouta flew back to Ayashi House. One by one, they lifted into the air after him. Three remained in the clearing, moving around as if they were looking for something.
She sank into total unconsciousness as a blanket of darkness settled comfortingly over her, an old friend she'd missed terribly, welcoming her back with open arms.
☯
End of Season 1