Chapter Nine
It’s late -- very late, probably almost three in the morning -- when a demon opens my cell door. He doesn’t say anything, just grabs me by the arm and pulls me up. I don’t ask where we’re going. What the hell do I care, anyway?
The room he shoves me into is easily as posh as the throne room, and decorated in a similar style, but it’s obviously a bedroom. Maybe I’m guessing that from the huge bed in the middle of the room. Covered with blood red sheets. Tsuzuki is lounging in the middle, in that painfully familiar pose where he’s lying on his stomach with his knees bent so his legs are up the air, his chin leaning against his hands. Deceptively cute. Well, deceptively in this case anyway.
“Leave us,” he says to the guard demon with a wave of his hand and a cruel smile. The guard nods, gives a slight bow, and leaves the room.
“What do you want?” I ask shortly. “I was trying to sleep.”
He stands up and walks briskly over to me, cupping my face in his hands. And there’s . . . there’s something . . .
The link with him reopens and I’m nearly knocked over by the tidal wave of emotion that washes over me. All that love and desperate guilt . . .
No. No. I let him fool me once and I won’t do it again.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I shove him backwards, nearly making him go sprawling. There’s a horrible wounded look in his eyes, and it makes me feel even worse. “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
“Hisoka, I’m sorry,” he says, trying to meet my gaze. I won’t let him. I won’t look at him, I won’t believe him, I won’t! “I’m sorry I had to do that, I had to so Ryuushi wouldn’t kill you, I . . .”
“No!” I shove him again as he tries to come over to me. “I won’t let you just trick me again! What, is he waiting behind the curtain to laugh at me again? You can manipulate my empathy, I know that now! Just leave me alone!”
“Hisoka, that isn’t it!” Tsuzuki reaches out and grabs my hand. “If you don’t believe me, then look!”
He drops his shields to me, leaving every corner of his mind open for my exploration. I dig into it without even a thought for how much pain it might cause him, going deeper and deeper, looking at everything to make sure there’s nothing that he’s hiding from me. Only when it’s all spread out before me can I manage to believe him.
“Tsu . . . Tsuzuki . . .”
He wraps me in an embrace and pours love into me, love and reassurance and comfort. I can only cling to him, sobbing with the sheer force of my relief. He pulls me over to the bed and sits down on it, pulling me up next to him and cradling me in his arms.
“I thought . . .” Great, now I’m babbling. Fortunately, I have enough sense to snap an empathic shield up around us so random passersby won’t feel this. I can feel the pain seeping through the bond and I know that I must have hurt him with what I just did. “God, I thought that . . .”
“Shhhh.” He just hugs me tighter. “I know.”
It takes a long time, but I finally manage to pull myself together and rest my head on his shoulder, sniffling. He keeps hugging me, keeps reassuring me through the bond. The pain is fading now. “I’m sorry,” he finally chokes out, and now he’s crying. “I had to. I didn’t want to. God, the look in your eyes nearly killed me . . .”
Now that I’m thinking a little clearer, I realize how hard this must have been on him. Maybe even harder than it was on me. But I still have to know. “Why?”
He lies down slowly, pulling me with him so I’m held safely against his chest. “You want the long version or the short version?”
“I already got the short version. I’d prefer the long, but how long do we have?”
“A couple hours, at least,” he says, his breath stirring my hair. “I told Ryuushi that I was going to . . .” His voice cracks slightly. “Going to discipline you, to show you who was in charge. And not to let anyone bother me.”
“Oh.” I snuggle closer. “Okay. Long version, then?”
“I’ve only just remembered a lot of it in the past few days,” he says. “Like first meeting Ryuushi.” Interesting to note that when he’s not nearby, he doesn’t call him ‘tousan anymore. “That was . . . that was awful. It was an accident. I-I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
I frown. “I know that you were lying in the throne room now, but how do you explain that? If Ryuushi was teaching you . . .”
“He was.” Tsuzuki’s voice is faint. “When I first met him, I had a rather similar reaction to what happened when I met him this time. I was too shocked to react. And he . . . he took over my mind, forced the information on me. I suppose it was sort of like teaching. But I couldn’t handle it. All the power leaked out and . . . well . . . you know the rest, I guess.”
“So this?” I ask quietly. “What happened after you left?”
“I let Ryuushi tow me along for a bit. I was so . . . in so much shock that I couldn’t react.” His hands stroke through my hair and down my back as he talks, sending little shivers through me. “But after a while, I started thinking again. By then, we were in Hell.”
I shudder slightly, thinking of what it would be like to wake up in this place. “Did he bring you down to the last level?”
“No,” Tsuzuki says. “That’s the trick. Since I’m only half-demon, I had to descend through the levels like you did. I was all right until the fourth . . . Ryuushi was explaining to me how to get through them. The problem is that Ryuushi explained to me that the only way to get from four to five was to accept that there was no way to do it. It’s quite a trick.”
“Mental acrobatics,” I say with a smile, and wiggle up a little so my head is resting in the crook of his shoulder. Funny how now that I’m with him again, I feel like I could conquer the world.
“Exactly,” Tsuzuki says with a slight smile. “While we were stuck there, he started explaining his whole plan to me. Somewhere around there, I realized that I didn’t know how to get out of Hell. I figured that in order to get him to tell me, I would play along. So I started being enthusiastic about his plans, telling him about . . . about what EnmaDaiOh had done to me and stuff like that.”
There’s a slight pause. My body rises and falls with his breathing. I forgot how much I love to lie and listen to him breathe. “He liked that,” Tsuzuki continues, softly. “He got really happy. He started talking about how great it would be when we ruled everything, and how he would let me have the Meifu and anything else I wanted.”
“So what about me?” I ask, reaching out for his hand and twining my fingers through his.
“That was when he asked about you,” Tsuzuki confirms with a nod. “He said he hoped I could offer an explanation, because he didn’t want to think I was in love or anything. Then I just . . . I just came up with what I told you the other day. I told him that, and he thought it was hilarious.
“But then I realized that you were going to be here soon,” he says. “Because I knew you’d come for me.” I feel a wave of love and something that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt from him. Confidence. “I knew you’d come,” he repeats, and hugs me tighter. “Part of me wishes that you hadn’t, but still . . . I’m glad you’re with me.”
I smile. “I’m glad I’m with you too.”
“When I realized that . . . that I would have to put on a show for you like that, I nearly . . . nearly couldn’t do it. But I knew I had to. If we can just fool him for a few more days, we can get out of here.”
“And what’s your plan after that?” I ask skeptically.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “But getting out of Hell is kind of my top priority at the moment.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Tell me what happened to you?” he requests gently.
So I tell him about talking to Tatsumi and Akimiya and what they said, tell him about my (in retrospect totally rash) decision to come to Hell and what immediately followed.
He bursts into laughter. “You brought Muraki with you?”
I nod.
He sobers up instantly. “That will cause a problem when he gets here, though . . . how am I going to explain that? Well . . . I’ll think of something. Go on. Why isn’t he here now?”
The story of the first and second levels is pretty easy to tell. Tsuzuki seems to find my hasty partnership with Muraki pretty amusing. The third level isn’t bad, but I leave out the twenty-second room. Someday I’ll tell him . . . but not today. All the horror that has happened is bad enough.
He listens to the tale of the fourth level and Saki in interest, especially my conclusions about Muraki. Apparently he’s not up for a philosophical debate, though, because he sits in silence while I finish the story.
“I’m so sorry,” he says when it’s over. “So sorry that you had to go through all this . . . for me. I don’t deserve this much . . . I’m . . .”
“Shh,” I say. “Don’t talk like that. You know that I’d do anything for you.”
“I know.” His fingers comb through my hair. “I missed you so much.”
“All I could think about was you.” Who cares if I’m being sappy. I certainly don’t, and it’s making Tsuzuki glow with pleasure. “That’s what kept me going. Thinking of finding you.”
He puts his hands on my arms and lifts me upwards a little, enough so we can be face to face. “I love you. I swear I do.”
“Tell me again.” It’s not that I don’t believe him. I just want to hear it again.
“I love you. I love you so much.”
“I know.” I lower my lips to his. He kisses me back, deeply, and little waves of euphoria wash over me. All that love flooding into my mind, it’s an unbelievable rush.
There’s a sudden spike of cold, just outside the realm of my senses.
Tsuzuki pulls away. “I swear, we’ll get out of this somehow, and . . .”
I press my finger over his lips. He sees the look in my eyes and stops talking immediately.
I’m so tightly bound with him at the moment that I can talk to him, and it won’t be heard outside the empathic shield I have stretched around us. Better to keep it simple. Ryuushi. Coming.
Tsuzuki’s eyes widen fractionally. He doesn’t move.
Here. I can feel the coldness outside the door. Listening.
Tsuzuki blinks at me, then sick resignation appears in his eyes as he realizes what we’re going to have to do. Then the blank mask returns to his face, and the coldness returns to the link. I slowly -- very slowly, so Ryuushi won’t notice -- melt the empathic shield around us.
Then I close my eyes and gather what little acting skills I have, letting out a pain-filled cry that I hope is at least somewhat authentic. Tsuzuki is just staring at me, not knowing how to pull this off. I pull my shirt over my head and toss it onto the floor, then squirm over him so I’m lying on my back on the bed.
I gesture to him and he climbs on top of me, positioning himself so one of his knees is between my legs. He’s still wearing the kimono, so I don’t have to worry about doing anything with his clothes. I reach down and, for good measure, unbutton my pants. Tsuzuki makes a pained face, but doesn’t object. Then I cry out again. “No, please don’t . . .”
Ryuushi knocks on the door. Tsuzuki doesn’t answer, leaning down to kiss me gently. Without the link between us, it feels strange. I’m so used to it by now. There’s another knock, then the door opens and Ryuushi walks in.
Tsuzuki looks up from where he’s draped on top of me, and I try to assume an appropriately terrified expression. “I’m busy,” he says coldly.
Ryuushi smirks. “So I see.”
“What do you want?” Tsuzuki asks, and gives my arm where he’s holding it a tight squeeze. I can’t hold back a yelp. “I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Just letting you know that your friend Muraki got here,” Ryuushi says. “I had him shown to a room and told him that you’d see him in the morning. Since it is rather late, you know.”
“I know,” Tsuzuki says with a shrug. “That’s fine. I’ll see him then.”
I wish he could go see him now, but that would be too suspicious. I know that Ryuushi is baiting him, still trying to catch him slipping up. He doesn’t quite trust him.
He just smiles. “See you tomorrow, then.”
Tsuzuki nods. There’s silence while Ryuushi leaves and the door shuts, and I let out another yell right after he’s gone, letting him believe that Tsuzuki got back to business. The coldness fades out of my senses slowly, until it’s finally gone.
“He’s gone,” I whisper, and Tsuzuki practically collapses on top of me in relief.
“We’ll have to hope that Muraki has enough sense to play along tomorrow,” he murmurs.
I nod. “You know what Ryuushi is going to do, right?” Tsuzuki gives me a blank look. “He’s trying to catch you in your lie, Tsuzuki.” Pause, deep breath. “He’s going to hurt me. And he’s going to make you watch. He might even make you hurt me yourself.”
“But -- ” Tsuzuki starts to protest.
“No, Tsuzuki.” I give him a brief kiss. “This is the only chance we’ve got. We have to make him believe. Do whatever it takes to make this real. Do you hear me? Whatever it takes.”
“You can say that now,” he says shakily. “What about tomorrow?”
“I’ll have to say it tomorrow, too.”
He meets my eyes, and holds my gaze for a long second. Then he slowly nods. “All right.”
“How long until we leave?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” he says. “A few days maybe. I don’t think more than that. We’ll be okay. I swear, somehow we’ll be okay.”
I nod. Then smile up at him. “Now, from the looks of where you are, we were in the middle of something . . .”
He manages a smile back. “We weren’t.”
“We could be.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “I missed you.”
He presses his forehead against mine. “I missed you too.”
~~~~
Tsuzuki shakes me awake, which is pretty bad for him because I swat at him before I manage to wake up. “What time is it?” I finally ask sleepily.
He shrugs. “There’s no real time here,” he said. “But we’ve been here long enough. If I don’t return you to . . . to . . .”
“My cell?” I prompt.
He pales slightly, then nods. “Aa . . . if I don’t, Ryuushi might get suspicious. So we’d better get going before everyone’s up and about.”
I nod and crawl out from underneath the covers. It only takes a few moments to locate my clothes and pull them back on. Tsuzuki already got dressed; he must have wanted to let me sleep as long as possible. “One last thing,” Tsuzuki says, and holds his left hand up. I hadn’t noticed, but he’s wearing the wedding ring again. “When I’m wearing this, it means I’m me, and it’s okay to act normal. If I’m not, I’m . . . that other me.”
I nod. “That’s a good idea, to have a signal like that.” Pause. “What are we going to do about Muraki?”
“I’m not sure,” he says wearily. “You’ll probably be with me in the court room today -- Ryuushi seems to be rather amused by that. Let’s just hope that Muraki will have enough sense to play along with the way we’re acting.”
I can only manage a nod. Tsuzuki takes the ring off his finger and drags me back to my cell.
~~~~
You know, I’m glad I didn’t live back in the ages when royalty determined everything. I think I would’ve gone crazy. All the fawning and the subservience is starting to get to me. Watching demon after demon come up to make their requests of Ryuushi. Maybe it’s worse just because I hate him so much.
After the first hour, I’m frozen over anyway. It doesn’t matter quite as much anymore. It’s right around then that Muraki finally makes his appearance. Someone, probably Ryuushi, gave him one of the kimonos with red trim. It’s very odd to see Muraki in something besides his everpresent suit. He doesn’t look too comfortable with it either.
I can see him looking around, taking in the surroundings the same way that I did. Adding it all up to come to a conclusion -- some conclusion. Ryuushi is sitting on his throne, and Tsuzuki has a seat at his right side. I’m cringing at Tsuzuki’s feet, looking appropriately terrified.
“Good of you to make it,” Tsuzuki says to Muraki, standing up and greeting the man with a smile that looks genuine. “I told ‘tousan that you would.”
There’s a split second of confusion in Muraki’s visible eye, but it’s gone before anyone besides me notices. “I would hate to let you down, Tsuzuki-san,” he says. I wish he’d get the irony out of his voice. His eyes dart to me quickly and I give him a pleading look. Please, please, have enough sense to play along.
Fortunately, Muraki doesn’t like me. His smile widens slightly and he says, “I see you’re finally giving the boy the attention he deserves.”
Tsuzuki’s smile goes thin for an instant before he laughs. I snarl silently at Muraki, now annoyed. He just laughs at me. “Everything’s gone perfectly,” Tsuzuki says, now sounding excited. “I’ll have to fill you in on all the details later.”
I see a glint of understanding in Muraki’s eye, and he nods complacently.
“Want to help me destroy the world?” Tsuzuki asks, his eyes wide with innocence.
“I couldn’t imagine a more worthwhile pasttime,” Muraki says dryly.
Tsuzuki coughs slightly and turns to Ryuushi. “You get used to his sarcasm after a while,” he murmurs. Ryuushi snorts, amused.
So, disaster averted for the moment. Now what? Now we sit here for a little while longer. I’m practically falling asleep. After a while, one of the demons drags me back to my cells. I see Tsuzuki going off with Muraki. Presumably he’ll explain what’s going on to him.
It isn’t long at all before Ryuushi shows up at my door again. Tsuzuki is behind him, looking displeased with the situation. I suppose they’ve come to torture me. One would think, given everything I’ve been through, I’ll be able to take whatever they do to me. Yeah, right. It probably gets a lot worse when it’s someone you care about doing the actual torture.
Tsuzuki walks into the cell. “Hello, Hisoka,” he said, with a little smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. He reaches up with one hand and caresses my cheek. I can’t help but flinch away. “Do you know why we’re here?”
“So you and this bastard can get an afternoon’s entertainment, or so I would presume,” I snap. I can feel my heart beating wildly in my chest, wondering what they’re going to do to me. What they can do to me. Physical wounds hurt, yes, but only for a few seconds. They heal instantly.
“Can I go first?” Ryuushi asks, an innocent look in his eyes. “I’m hungry . . .”
I shudder. Tsuzuki just shrugs, looking bored and indifferent, and takes a few steps backwards. Ryuushi walks up to me and extends his hand. One of his fingers trails down my neck, leaving a bleeding welt in its path. That pain from earlier returns, enough to take my breath away --
I don’t know how long it goes on, but I know I’m screaming by the time it’s over.
When Ryuushi finally backs away, I’m left breathless and exhausted, slumped on the floor of the cell. I can barely keep the world in focus, I’m so dizzy. Tsuzuki is just leaning against the wall, still not looking as if he gives a damn. I’ve never seen anyone look so bored about someone else being tortured.
“Your turn, Tsuzuki,” Ryuushi says.
“I’m thinking,” Tsuzuki replies coldly.
Thinking about what he can bring himself to do to me, I bet. Try not to think about it. Really really trying not to think about this. Really scared out of my mind right about now.
“’Tousan,” Tsuzuki says reflectively, “since I’m half blood demon, would I be able to do that too?”
Ryuushi shrugs. “Not much for originality, are you?”
“I was just curious,” Tsuzuki replies, sounding sullen.
“Yes, you would be able to do it,” Ryuushi says. “But a lot of the energy would be lost in the transfer. It isn’t really worth it unless you’re extremely weak and need the energy badly. And I’m not sure how that would interact with you being a Shinigami, either.”
“Good to know,” Tsuzuki says, and steps up to me. He carefully places five ofuda on the floor around me, in the shape of a pentagram.
It feels like the air around me is squeezing me inwards. Like I’m being compressed into the smallest amount of space possible. It’s the weirdest sensation I’ve ever felt. It doesn’t hurt, not at first -- and then suddenly it does, as I’m compressed too much. I can hear myself screaming, but my voice sounds funny. High-pitched and squeaking. Ryuushi is laughing his ass off. I have to hand it to Tsuzuki; he thought of something perfect. If Ryuushi finds it amusing, it won’t matter that it’s not the most painful thing in the world.
When everything is finally over, all I can do is lie there on the floor. I’m disoriented and dizzy. I can’t tell where my body stops anymore. It’s so weird.
“We’ll be back later,” Ryuushi assures me. Then he turns and leaves the room.
Tsuzuki leans down and briefly squeezes my hand. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” he whispers, and then he also leaves.
~~~~
Something’s tugging at the back of my brain. Something important that I can barely see or hear. Straining towards it, but it feels so far away. Important. Have I forgotten something? No, I don’t think that’s it. But it has to be something.
“Hisoka?”
Shake myself awake. No, not awake. The voice is Akimiya’s.
“I can barely hear you,” I tell him.
“I know, I can’t even see you at all,” he replies. His image wavers in and out for a second, and then is gone completely. “Has anything happened?”
“Not really,” I say. “But Tsuzuki told me that we leave tomorrow. To, you know, take over or conquer or whatever.”
“So you’re still going?” Akimiya asks, and he sounds confused.
“Yeah,” I say, and hasten to explain this. “We don’t know how to get out, so we’re playing along until we know where the exit is. I think Tsuzuki’s going to try to stop Ryuushi once we get out, but all the same, you guys had better be ready.”
“Oh, we will be,” Akimiya says.
“Are you scared?” I ask him.
“Yeah, a little. You?”
“Terrified,” I admit. “Tsuzuki’s had to do some weird stuff to get his father to believe that he’s on his side. It’s been a really rough few days.”
“I can imagine,” Akimiya says. I want to tell him that he can’t, that he only thinks he can, but refrain. It’s the thought that counts after all. “But you’ll be home soon, won’t you?”
“Home?” I asked, and I’m sure I sound a bit snappish. “What home? We’ll get out of Hell, maybe, if we’re damned lucky. And then what? Then we go back to living on the run, being hunted down. Maybe we’ll just turn ourselves in and go to Heaven. It’s what Tsuzuki deserves after all this.”
“I’d miss you,” Akimiya says softly.
“I know, but . . .” I rub my eyes. “But what’s the point? I’m tired of all this! Now I understood what Tsuzuki said in Kyoto. I wanted him to live and all he said was that he didn’t belong here anymore . . . that he was . . . so tired . . .”
“Stop it!” Akimiya yells, and for a minute he flares into vision. I get the feeling he would be slapping me across the face if we were in the same dimension.
“You don’t understand!”
“YES I DO!” The image of him stays this time and he looks furious. “Don’t you think I was ready to just give up and die when Muraki took Rika-chan? I did, but I couldn’t! Yes, some really awful things have happened to you! To both of you! But you’ve never just laid down and taken it before and there’s no damn reason that you should now!”
I want to cry, but instead I’m just blinking. “Oh,” I finally manage.
“Thank you,” he snaps.
“But what are we going to do?” I finally asked. “When it’s done? When we’re out of Hell?”
“Whatever you have to,” he replies.
And after a minute, I nod.
~~~~
Chapter Ten
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