京都市、6日目
She was ripped out of herself when Shin collapsed, falling on his side to the floor with a quiet groan that almost escaped her ears.
At first she didn't know what was happening. Utter exhaustion rolled through her, coming out of nowhere, catching her completely unaware.
She lurched forward, hands slapping on the tatami mat as she gasped from the sharp pain of her hands shaking against the ground. The buzzing in her wrists was so intense that it was like her bones were shaking apart, disintegrating into sand that rubbed her skin the wrong way. Kuniumi wasn't there to take the pain away, or to keep her from experiencing the full strength of it.
Woozy, her eyes glazed over as she struggled desperately to reacquaint herself with the present, to remind her of where she was. Her stomach revolted at the jump between then and now, there and here, tightening painfully like her intestines were twisting to knots. Bile was an acidic aftertaste coating the back of her throat. She sat back on her haunches and clamped her hand over her mouth, afraid she was about to heave. She squeezed her eyes shut as she fought to get a hold of herself.
All concern of her own well-being vanished in an instant like shadows chased away by a burst of light as she spun around on her knees. Her moves were too fast and jittery. She slipped and scraped her elbows on the rough tatami mat, but she managed to keep her head from knocking on the ground as she gaped at what was behind her.
Shin lay flat on his back, sweat beading his forehead, lips parted as his breath shot out harshly. A furious scowl was drawn on his brows, and his skin was paler than she had ever seen. Tiny spasms rocked his frame, long limbs shivering with a cold that racked his whole body. He was unconscious, and that in itself was enough to blanch her skin as the blood drained from her face.
She wasn't sure she was seeing things right. Her sight was still hazy; her eyes watered and burned like she'd just been staring at the glare of the sun for far too long. When she closed her eyes, it still hurt. When she opened them, the pain remained.
It took blinking rapidly for a few seconds before the burning lessened just enough that she could keep her eyes open long enough for her brain to sluggishly register that Shin had collapsed. Her body moved on its own as she crawled on all fours to him, wincing when a hurt like splintering bones threatened to snap her wrists in half.
What...what happened? Her lower lip trembled as she knelt beside him. Why are your eyes closed?
Shin never, ever let his guard down if he could help it. Kouta once said that Shin barely slept because he hated that time when he wasn't aware of what was happening around him. He napped more than actually slept, oftentimes in the trees around Ayashi House. Kouta had never seen Shin asleep for longer than four hours, he'd once said.
"Shin," she wavered over him uncertainly. She pushed away the damp hair that fell over his forehead. Her hands fluttered uselessly, gently slapping at his cheeks as she tried to wake him.
Open your eyes.
He didn't.
"Shin?"
He didn't stir. His breath was laboured, as if there was a heavy weight crushing his chest. Alarmed at his total lack of response, she tapped his cheek harder, nudging him with her knuckles. No response. She laid the back of her hand over his cheek. His skin was ice cold. He was paler than she had ever seen him, his skin a seedy white.
He's cold.
He was never cold.
The alarm blossomed to full-blown panic in her chest, an iron hand clamped around her neck. She could hardly breathe around it. Her hands went down to his shoulders and she shook him, rough enough that if he'd been asleep, he would've woken up.
His head only lolled to the side, away from her as long strands of his hair fell over his closed eyes. His shivering ceased, and his body was still.
"Shin, wake up!"
A red dot stained his angled cheekbone.
Her stomach clenched tight as she sat back and lifted a trembling hand to her nose, wiping away the warmth of the blood dribbling down from her nose to her lip. She stared at the shaking smear of red on the back of her hand, turning the pale skin a dark crimson that was all too familiar to her.
More trickled down her nose. She scrubbed both hands against her mouth to wipe it off, knowing she was making herself look worse off than it actually was.
Your body is cold, but the blood that fuels it is so, so...hot.
Shoving aside Kuniumi's mocking voice, she wiped her palm against the dark blue fabric of her homongi and scrubbed the sleeve under her nose and around her cheeks and mouth. It came away with only a patch of the material darker than the rest. She leaned back over Shin, nervously tapping at his cheek in a futile attempt to rouse him.
He didn't move.
Nothing was supposed to happen to him. He warned her that this would be risky, but not for him. It was supposed to be her, not him. He wasn't supposed to be in any danger. This – there was no way he could be hurt. She never would have insisted that they go through with this if she'd thought that this could happen.
He wasn't supposed – he wasn't allowed to get hurt. He was Ayakashi, he was Daitengu, he was strong. She refused to believe anything bad could happen to him.
But he wasn't waking up.
"Shin? Shin," another shake, another gentle slap of the cheeks, and still...nothing. Her eyes burned and she didn't care that tears streaked her cheeks as fear clenched its iron fist around her heart and squeezed so tight that all she felt was pain.
What's happening? Why won't he wake up?
Maybe he doesn't want to?
"Shin, wake up. Shin please, wake up!"
She reached over to put the back of her hand over his clammy forehead, checking for a fever. His skin was too cold. How stupid of her to think he could have a fever when it was like he'd turned into an ice sculpture.
She touched the side of his neck, searching for a pulse, but her hand was shaking too much. Doing that was useless. She lowered her head to lay it over his chest, closing her eyes tight as she concentrated on trying to hear his heartbeat.
Then, there, she could just make out the riotous drumming. It was too fast.
She pulled back, her palm on top of his chest. She could feel his heart beating, even just through her hand. Was it supposed to be that fast, that hard? Was that normal?
She didn't know what to do. She needed to get someone, to call for help, but she didn't know who she was supposed to go to. Kanou wasn't here, and he was the only healer she knew. She didn't know who the Palace court physician was if there even was one, or how to find them.
She thought about Kobayashi Health, owned by Daichi's family, but it was too far away, outside the walls of the Palace that was already so big. Even if she went there, she'd have to leave Shin on his own. She didn't want to leave him alone. What if she did and something happened? He could stop breathing and – and she wouldn't be able to do anything, wouldn't be able to – to –
But then what could she do if something did happen? She knew nothing about how to treat someone when they needed it. She wasn't Kanou's apprentice, Yukiji was, and she was in the village with her family.
Please, please, she silently begged, her lower lip trembling as she beat the panic clawing at her away with a stick. Please, please Shin, she lined her hand up against his cheek, shaking him as she said, "Shin, please wake – "
A cold steel grip snapped up to her wrist, Shin's hand clamping down so painfully tight she thought that her bones would snap. She jumped, a squeak of surprise shooting out of her as she instinctively tried to pull herself back. He didn't let her go, and she could only gape in shock as Shin's eyes flashed open.
They were blood red.
"Sh – Shin?"
His pupils were largely dilated black holes, almost swallowing the blazing red that stole her breath away. His eyes darted around in a craze, but at the sound of her voice his gaze fastened on her, sharpening as clarity bled in. The strength of an emotion so strong burned in his eyes for a split second.
Before she could so much as breathe another word she was flung back, the world narrowed and zoomed in a blurring wave. She had no idea what was happening as a rush of wind blew her hair...in front of her?
Her back hit the wall behind her, and her head snapped back on it painfully, skull knocking hard enough that her vision flickered for a moment. She yelped in pain, her bones rattling under her skin. Her stomach jumped, and she thought she was going to puke.
The bitter tang of copper dripped on the tip of her tongue as she gasped, blood leaking from her nose again. Black stars danced merrily in her vision, blotting everything out for a second before they winked out of existence again. She blinked rapidly as she tried to adjust her bleary sight.
Shin stood before her, one hand gripping her hair at her nape so that she couldn't move her head, the other at her shoulder, pushing her firmly back against the wall and holding her so tight that she thought he could break her collarbone with just one hand, without even trying to.
He was pinning her to the wall, the sheer strength of him too much for her to try pushing away. His lips were pulled back in a snarl, a look she had never seen on him before. She could only stare, transfixed in a stupor, at the angry glare of his red eyes fixed on hers.
She knew this wasn't Shin she was looking at. It was his face, his hair brushing his shoulders, his eyelashes that curled very slightly at the ends. But it was the tightly lowered set of his eyebrows, the sharpened canines, and the wild smirk tipping the corner of his lips up, that told her the man who stood before her wasn't Shin.
Or at least, not the Shin she was familiar with.
"Shi – Shinigami..." she whispered.
He winced when she breathed his name and his hold on her tightened. She held her breath and tried to press back into the wall, to make herself smaller. She knew that if he moved aggressively again, he would cut off her airways. She wouldn't be able to breathe.
"You..." he snarled, resonating with a rage that scalded her with its heat. He shifted so that his forearm was in front of her throat. He pressed in enough that she knew if she tried to move, even just a bit, he'd choke her. He stopped just before he would have. His lips pulled back in a frightening smirk. "We meet again, Pai."
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 neck, 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?"
Her mind blanked out in blind panic.
Shinigami had strangled her before. She remembered – she could remember it all. He'd threatened to kill her, laughed that it would be too easy to hurt her. She was the one who put him back under the Mask when he fought and almost killed Yuu to stop it from happening. Shinigami was willing to kill all the others because they were helping her to do it.
What the hell could she do to stop him if he tried it again? She was just a human, and not even strong to begin with.
I hate it. I hate this weakness.
In this moment, she loathed her fragile humanity more than she ever had before. It scared her to find herself thinking like that. It scared her because it was exactly what Kuniumi had told her so many times she needed to lose if she wanted to become strong.
Her humanity was what that Pai gave up in order to be strong enough to survive So Fu. She gave up her humanity – her weakness – so that she wouldn't be driven to blinding insanity by the things she was forced to do for an entity whose threat she still couldn't fully comprehend.
And it was all for one primal instinct that drove even the most primitive of beings in this world; survival.
She inhaled sharply when he started to say something again, the canines of his teeth pressing into his bottom lip. Then he flinched, and she watched as his left eye darkened to complete black. His face contorted, changed for a split second, turning into something – someone – else. It wasn't anyone she recognized.
In this moment, the man before her wasn't Shin or Shinigami, but somehow a strange meld of the two of them together. A different man, yet still the same.
A stirring anticipation twisted her guts to knots. Kuniumi returned with a slippery, wrathful vengeance, dulling the pain in Pai's buzzing wrists, the thumping over her head. Her presence writhed inside Pai, setting her blood on fire, every part of Kuniumi screaming for release.
It's him, he's here...let him out, Kuniumi breathed. Let him out, Shinigami, give him to us, give us what we want, what we have craved and slaughtered for...let him out, let him out, LET HIM OUT!
It was only through sheer strength of will that Pai kept herself from slipping away into oblivion and letting Kuniumi take over. She was visibly shaking as she fought off the cloudy black tendrils Kuniumi latched on to every weak spot in the wall she built up between herself and Kuniumi in an attempt to keep the two of them separated from each other. Kuniumi prodded and shoved at the weak spots, searching for anything that could give way.
A bead of vermillion rolled to her upper lip, sliding along the curve of her lip to dribble down and dangle off her chin before slipping and landing on her homongi. She felt another warm, wet line of blood trickle down from her left ear.
Shinigami's eyes – one still the darkest black, the other crimson – dropped down to watch the beaded red dot of her blood quiver on her bottom lip. His face smoothed out, the sneer melting away, brows unknotting from the furious glower that spoke to Shinigami's hatred for Pai. Even as she watched, struggling to keep Kuniumi from overtaking her body, she knew that the man she was looking at wasn't Shinigami or Shin, but the reason for the insane hatred that raged in Kuniumi like an endless inferno.
She gritted her teeth, jaw clenching tight and her hands fisting at her sides as she pressed herself back, her shoulder blades digging into the wall and her palms flattening against the smooth surface.
See what you did to us, Kuniumi whispered, her voice cracking with a grief Pai had only ever been able to feel the barest hint of.
Kuniumi wasn't speaking to her, but to the strange man clothed in Shin's body who stood before her. The man gazed impassively down at her as the final slivers of red in his right eye were swallowed by black. Shin – Shinigami – both were gone, consumed by this strange presence with eyes the black of Kuniumi.
Look at what blood is spilled for what you did. Look upon what your broken promise has wrought on the undeserving innocent, my lovely death.
Just as quickly as it came, the overwhelming pressure to keep Kuniumi out vanished. As did the sudden, twisted appearance of someone else's black eyes looking at her through Shinigami's angry face. In an instant, the black was engulfed in red again, between one blink and the next.
Shinigami yanked himself away from her as he shut his eyes then, lifting his hands to press against his head. He groaned in pain, and she twisted around and darted away from his reach, stumbling, running straight for the door, panic still in her driving her shaking limbs from near-paralysis to fear-born energy.
Her hands closed around the door handle to pull it open, but then she heard a thud behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him go to his knees on the floor again, before tipping and falling on his side. He didn't move, remaining immobile, entirely too still on the floor.
Her gaze darted down to his wrist. The Mask was securely tied around his arm, the white of its fabric a startling contrast to the black of his t-shirt.
How did he get out? she asked, voice too loud in her head as she sought answers from the one person who knew everything. Who was that? How did Shinigami get out?!
Kuniumi ignored her, watching with hawk-like attention through Pai's eyes, waiting for something – someone. She didn't know, and she was scared to find out.
She froze when he stirred, groaning as he pushed up shakily to a sitting position. His right hand was braced behind him as support while he lifted his other hand to press it over his eyes, as if the meek light filtering in from the dozens of lamps lit outside the Palace was too much for him to handle. His lips pulled back over his teeth in a silent growl she could hear rumble lowly in his chest.
She gaped soundlessly as she watched Shin wrestling back control. The sharpened edges of his teeth were retracting, growing blunt. She never thought that the changes of one side of Hengen taking over the other could result in such physically visible ways. She watched, startled, when she saw a distinct red tint to the ends of his hair fading away, a sign of Shinigami she'd barely noticed before.
She pressed herself further into the wall, knowing that the smart thing to do was run while she still could – yet she couldn't bring herself to. How could she? This was still Shin, even if it was a part of him that she knew she should fear. But she couldn't bring herself to run from him.
A part of her wondered if this strange feeling of being tied to Shin would end up getting her killed one day.
He shook his head roughly and looked up, blinking dazedly at her. Her breath halted in her chest. His eyes were blue.
"Pai?" his voice came out hoarse, eyes confused. They widened as he stared at her, realization bringing a horrified light to their depths. Shin scrambled to his feet, swaying unsteadily as he took a step towards her. "Pai, please, I didn't – "
She quailed when he raised a hand to touch her. He went preternaturally still. He dropped his hand, a fierce scowl darkening his face that made him look too much like Shinigami again, if not for his normal blue eyes.
She was immediately sorry for flinching away from him, but she couldn't help it. She was scared. Shin still had his Mask on, but there was no denying that Shinigami had broken through it. Shin didn't want it, but that didn't change the fact that his Makashi wanted her dead for forcing him under the Mask, and he'd broken through the Mask.
"You're bleeding." He said, burning midnight gaze on the blood drying above her lips. He lifted his eyes and met hers, such sorrow mired in them that her gut twisted with guilt.
Remembering, she lifted her hand to wipe away at the still wet smudge of red. "I..."
"Tell me I didn't hurt you," she looked up at him again, stunned to hear the plea in his words as he said, "Please, tell me he – I didn't hurt you."
She opened her mouth to speak, but she had to clear her throat twice before she could, the memory of being strangled twice in one day acting as an almost physical chokehold. Her head inched to the right, and then she shook her head firmly as she scrubbed at the blood on her face.
"Th – this is...it wasn't you. You didn't hurt me."
Shin sagged in relief against the wall at his side. He blanched and lifted his hand to press the heel of his palm to his temple. She could see without him saying it that he had a headache. He turned so his back was to the wall and slid down, coming to sit on the ground with his elbows on his raised knees.
She watched him drop his head in his hands, running fingers that shook faintly through the hair falling over his hands. She blinked when she thought she saw a flash of red again at the ends of his hair that caught a stray sparkle of light from the lanterns outside. The strange sight was gone in an instant.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled. He sounded so drained, so tired. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen."
And it did. What does it mean that it did?
Deeming it safe enough to now that he looked to be in control again, she walked to him until she was a foot away and knelt on her haunches in front of him. She leaned forward warily, watching him closely. Her loose hair fell over her shoulders like a curtain of dyed black ink, and she shoved it behind her ears impatiently.
"What was that?" she asked, her voice a quavering breath as she stared at him. "What happened?"
Do you know? Do you know there's someone in there with you, like she is with me?
Kuniumi had called that someone 'my lovely death'. Somehow the two were related. Kuniumi was in her mind, and now someone who Kuniumi knew enough to hold such rage for was in Shin's. There was something to it, some sort of connection between it all, but she didn't think she'd figure it out now.
Shin didn't move for a second. Then he exhaled, his shoulders lifting and falling. "I'm sorry."
He sounded defeated. Sad, and frustrated.
She shuffled closer until she was kneeling beside him, within touching distance. She tried to peer under his arm to see his face, but he made no move to make it easier for her.
She sat back. "You said that the risk was only to me. Why did you pass out? You said that only I – "
"This isn't about your memories," he mumbled, remaining just as he was. Irritant anger bled into his voice, staining his words dark and vexed. "It isn't about them. The bastard won't even let me see what in them made him strong enough to break out."
Does that mean he doesn't know what happened? He didn't see?
He didn't see.
She tried not to visibly show her surprise when Kuniumi answered her. Shinigami's not letting him?
Shinigami's not letting him.
Is what he said true? Am I dying?
Kuniumi didn't reply. In the hesitation was her answer.
Pushing aside any thoughts of that, she asked, "Then what is it about?"
He didn't say anything.
Something inside her cracked at his silence. "Tell me what happened. Sh –Shin, you fainted, and Shinigami came out and he was you and – "
"My Mask isn't working anymore."
She cut herself off at his blunt, abrupt words. "What?"
"My Mask," he ground out through clenched teeth. Shin lifted his head, and she was astounded to see the utter hopelessness mingled in with anger completely uncloaked on his face. "My fucking Mask isn't keeping him in."
He reached over and untied the knot that kept his Mask on, unwound the long white fabric, scrunched it up into a ball and threw it roughly aside. She could see the tendons in his arms stand out in the faint light from outside his window, knew that he wanted to throw something heavier than a piece of cloth that merely fluttered fairy-like in the gentle breeze that wafted in from the open window.
She stared dumbfounded at the Mask as it wavered in the air and sank down to coil like a white snake on the floor. She blinked stupidly at Shin. His eyes were still blue, but even as she watched, she could make out thin slivers of red weaving in, like blood leaking into the deep azure of unfathomable ocean waters.
"Wh – " she shook her head. She couldn't believe she was hearing right. She must've been mistaken. "What do you mean it's not working? How can that be? I thought Masks are supposed to keep Maka – True Ayakashi in. How can it 'not work'?"
"They are. They do." Shin closed his eyes and tipped his head forward to massage his temples with his fingers. He looked run-through. "I took mine off too many times."
"What does that mean?" she pressed, needing answers.
"Every time a Mask is taken off for too long, it loses its strength to keep True Ayakashi in." He lifted them from staring in absolute dejection at the floor. "Every time I took it off, it grew weaker. After the Amanojaku stole it, it's been easier for him to break through whenever he wants to. I have to consciously keep him down, when normally the Mask does it without aid."
Her mind scrambled to understand what he was talking about. She was like a headless chicken running about, frantically trying to gather up her scattered wits about her. "You mean after the Kitsune's attack?"
He nodded. "That was the first time I let him out. That's when my Mask began to weaken."
"And then what happened three months ago?" at his nod, something clicked. "Your headaches...and you've been so tired lately." She recalled the exhaustion that etched its tired lines under his eyes that day on the school roof, the shadows that never seemed to leave him. "You've been leaving the house more often. Is this why? Because you're keeping him in without the Mask?"
He avoided looking at her as he nodded, instead focusing his frustrated glower on the discarded Mask off to their left. "After I removed my Mask to fight in the attack, I had to let him out every once in a while or I'd get headaches that only stopped when I released him. It used to be only once every three or four months."
She was afraid to ask, but she had to. She needed to know. "And now?"
He paused, hesitating, but she was looking at him so earnestly that he went on. "The headaches are more frequent. Worse. I have to let him out every few weeks now. I go to abandoned islands and let him wreak what havoc he wants there before I put him back under."
She sat back on her heels, clasping her shaking hands tight in her lap. She wanted to reach out to him because she didn't know what words she could possibly say to him, but she didn't. She was the one who had pushed him away not more than a little while ago. She didn't have the right to reach for him even if she so badly wanted to.
Oh, she so wanted to, so much that the need sat like an ache in her chest.
What was more, the trouble he was having now with his Mask was her fault. The Amanojaku never would have had even the slightest chance to steal his Mask if he hadn't come for her after she was so easily taken by the Onihitokuchi. Shin wouldn't be fighting this battle against himself, against Shinigami, if not for her.
She didn't say it out loud. She knew he would only try to reassure her that it wasn't her fault, but she knew the truth. She wasn't blind to it. Her shoulders sagged as she dropped her eyes to her hands fisted loosely among the folds of her blood stained homongi.
"Shin-san..." she gulped. She was afraid to ask it, but she needed to know. "There must be a way to stop this. A way to make your Mask work properly again."
"If there is, I don't know it."
She glanced at him, her mind struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the hopelessness in his voice.
"Then..." she started slowly. "What are you going to do?"
He didn't say anything for a long time. Her heart sank further into a pool of black guilt for every second of silence that yawned between them like a cavern.
Finally, Shin looked at her. She hated that look on his face, the look that had such little hope in it that it made her want to dig a hole and bury herself in it. Shin always, always had the perfect poker face on.
Now he was stripped bare.
"I don't know," he mumbled. The plain, unadulterated truth struck harder than any physical blow could have. "I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do now."