Warnings: Senseless Hisoka torture (can you see a
trend?). Don’t know what the hell is going on? Don’t worry, I don’t understand
either.
Chapter Seven
Hisoka sank to the ground in exhaustion. He didn’t how long he had been fumbling blindly in the dark; it seemed like hours, but it might very well have been only minutes.
In his current state, he didn’t know if he could believe anything that his mind told him.
He pulled whatever that was left of his clothes around him tightly. His scars were still burning, but the night air itself was cold enough to pierce the bone. He wondered dully if a person could actually feel as if his skin were ablaze, yet be freezing to death within. That was exactly what he was going through right now.
He was laughing again. Or maybe he was crying, since he could feel the tears running down his cheeks. He was crying and laughing all at once, a soft choking sound that grated on his own hearing.
So this is what being crazy feels like.
So…alone. Abandoned and unwanted. That was what he had always been. Why had he thought that he would ever be anything more?
Tsuzuki wouldn’t leave him. He believed that he wouldn’t.
He wanted to believe that he wouldn’t.
But why hadn’t Tsuzuki come? Why wasn’t he here now?
Hugging his knees to himself, Hisoka started sobbing. This time, there was no laughter in his tears.
He heard footsteps walking towards him. It wasn’t Tsuzuki. Not Muraki, either.
He didn’t know these people.
They stopped in front of him; he could feel their curious gazes.
He just wanted them to go away, to leave him alone.
They didn’t leave.
He didn’t stop crying either.
Their emotions, their thoughts…
:: Lust desire craving need ::
// Oh gods. //
Not again…not again.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
Stumbling to his feet, he tried to run.
But he already knew that it was all
in vain.
***
He was so tired. Tired of fighting,
of struggling to cling onto the last of his sanity.
Tsuzuki wasn’t here. Nobody would
ever come.
He just wanted the pain to go away.
Why should he make himself go on
when there was nothing left for him in the end?
Closing his eyes, he formed a void in
his mind. Every emotion, every memory, every feeling, every touch that he had
known in his life was drained into the boundless emptiness.
His empathy screamed in protest at
the lost of its fuel, the lost of the never-ending emotions that fed it, but he
persisted.
A flame--that was what his memories
were now, a single flame dancing in the middle of that infinite darkness.
He had nothing left.
Reaching out with his mind, he
wrapped the darkness around the flame, the flame that was his soul.
The last part of him died away as
the flame flickered out of existence.
Nothing left.
***
Alleys swept past him in a blur as
he ran, still searching blindly and without direction.
Another two hours, and Watari still
hadn’t found anything.
Pausing for breath, Tsuzuki’s eyes
were blank and unseeing. It was useless. He would never find Hisoka this way.
But he couldn’t do anything else.
It was raining. Tiny droplets fell
onto the ground, flowing in thin trickles down the uneven surface, slowly gathering
to form tiny rivulets.
Tsuzuki wiped away the beads of
rainwater that mingled with his tears.
The tiny drizzle gradually grew into
a torrential downpour. The rainwater clouded his vision, and unjustified fear
started to take its place. What if he walked right past where Hisoka was
without seeing him? There was only the smallest possibility of that happening,
but it was enough to make Tsuzuki panic.
Run. Run and search blindly. That
was all he could do.
Through the haze that covered his eyes
and mind, he dimly saw a figure lying on the ground.
It could have been anybody else—a
drunkard, somebody who got the worse of a fight, anybody else.
He dared not hope. It would be too
dangerous to ask for it.
But he knew…somehow he knew, that it
wasn’t just anybody else.
Running towards the person on the
ground, his moment of elation was cruelly dashed.
The tears were flowing freely now.
Reaching down to cradle the boy in
his arms, he desperately tried to warm the body that was even colder than ice
itself.
The flowing rainwater was stained
with a dark, murky red.
Hisoka himself was tainted with
blood and sex.
Tsuzuki lifted the younger Shinigami
into his arms. Hisoka was so cold…please tell him that he made it in time,
don’t make him lose Hisoka, however selfish that he was to want to keep Hisoka
with him.
They faded away, leaving behind only
the falling rain that was already washing away the traces of crimson blood.
***
Tatsumi nudged Tsuzuki gently. “Tsuzuki-san,
you must eat.”
Tsuzuki shook his head. “I’m not
hungry.”
Tatsumi didn’t press him. He didn’t
know if he should say anything to comfort the other. Tsuzuki was probably only
half-aware of his presence.
His eyes fell onto the focus of Tsuzuki’s
attention.
Hisoka had always been fair, but
now…his skin was almost the pale hue of death. Wheat-coloured hair fell across
the shut eyelids haphazardly, only partially covering the long scars that ran
down his cheeks. He was breathing almost slowly and painfully, and at a casual
glance, he would have seemed anything but alive.
The return of Tsuzuki with Hisoka in
his arms had certainly caused an upheaval. Tsuzuki was frantic; the only thing
that kept him from having an emotional breakdown was his desperation to save
his partner’s life.
It had taken all of Watari’s skills
to accomplish that. Hisoka still lived, if only barely.
Tatsumi watched as Tsuzuki took one
of the boy’s hands in his own. Tsuzuki’s eyes were distressingly vacant as he
stared at Hisoka’s unconscious form.
To Tatsumi, the sight was almost too
painful to watch.
The door opened after a slight
knock, first revealing a mop of golden hair which was followed by the rest of a
terribly disheveled and messy Watari.
Tsuzuki didn’t even notice.
Watari beckoned to Tatsumi. After
one last look at Tsuzuki and the still boy on the bed, he followed Watari out
of the room.
The scientist didn’t say anything
until he reached his lab and firmly shut the door behind him.
“How’s Bon?”
Tatsumi cleared the apparatus from
one of the office chairs and took a seat. “The same.”
Watari started studying the floor
intently, obviously pondering how to continue the conversation. Tatsumi waited.
He did have some patience when needed.
“I think I’ve found out one of the
things that Muraki did to Bon.”
That got Tatsumi’s immediate
attention.
“He…” Watari paused, unsure of how
to proceed, “I think he enhanced the power of Bon’s empathy.”
Tatsumi was lost. “I don’t
understand. The enhancement of one’s powers would hardly be a form of torture.”
Watari’s eyebrows furrowed. “We all
know that Bon sometimes faces problems with his empathy. He collapses if he
senses emotions that are too intense, especially negative ones. He also
experiences headaches, nightmares…the like.”
Tatsumi nodded. It still didn’t
relate to…Sudden realization dawned upon him.
“His powers are increased to that
beyond the capacity of his mind and body, which means…”
Watari’s eyes and tone were
uncharacteristically serious. “…he has probably lost control of his mind.”
It took all of Tatsumi’s iron
control to keep himself in check.
“Is Kurosaki-kun…is he…” He couldn’t
bring himself to ask if Hisoka had already gone mad. But then, Watari seemed to
make that pretty obvious.
“No…” Watari sounded hesitant, “I
don’t…I don’t think so. Dangerously close, perhaps…but…”
Watari fumbled at the folds of his
coat agitatedly.
“He did something as bad…I think he
closed up his mind.”
Once again, Tatsumi couldn’t grasp the
implication of that statement.
This time, Watari didn’t notice his
incomprehension.
“In fact, he did more than
that…Bon…he…he…”
Tatsumi was beginning to feel the
first signs of dread.
“I think Bon buried his soul,”
Watari finished lamely.
***
Both of them were standing at the
door of the room where Hisoka was. No one seemed to relish the idea of
entering.
They didn’t know how they were
supposed to break the news to Tsuzuki.
Naturally, Watari had instantly
wheedled his way out of the task.
That left only Tatsumi. To his
credit, Tatsumi sighed only once before turning the handle.
“Tsuzuki-san…” Tsuzuki ignored him.
“I need to speak with you about
Kurosaki-kun.” Tsuzuki looked up wearily.
“But…”
“I’ll stay with Bon,” Watari
offered.
Tsuzuki reluctantly let go of
Hisoka’s hand and left the room with Tatsumi.
Turning to face the other man,
Tatsumi decided to get straight to the point. The faster this is the better.
He also hoped that it would be less
painful.
The expression on Tsuzuki’s face
right now was already enough to bring back memories that Tatsumi would have
preferred to leave untouched.
But he had to stand there and watch
the look on Tsuzuki’s face when he told him of what happened to Hisoka. The
grief, the guilt, the anger…
“Tsuzuki,” he said gently, leaving
out the honorific in the wake of his own trepidation, “Kurosaki-kun…I fear that
his soul is lost.”
That was the last blow. Still he
pushed on…it was killing him inside to do so, but still he went on.
“A Shinigami is basically a soul. A
soul is the essence of our immortality.”
Tatsumi fought to keep his voice
from breaking at the sight of tears streaming down Tsuzuki’s face.
“We think…that Kurosaki-kun’s soul
is still within his body, but it no longer lives.”
“In his condition, his body could at
most last for two days without the strength of his spirit, Tsuzuki-san…”
Tatsumi stepped back in shock as
Tsuzuki’s eyes burned with denial and resolution.
“No…” The words weren’t screamed, or
even particularly loud, yet they held the utmost force and conviction behind
them.
“Tsuzuki-san…” He knew that nothing
he could say would help, yet he tried futilely to console the man before him,
to save him from falling back into that incurable grief and misery.
“No,” Tsuzuki repeated, “I won’t
accept it.”
He staved off any protests that
Tatsumi might make.
“His soul still exists. That alone
is enough.”
“It no longer lives…”
“Then I will bring it back to life.”
Always, Tsuzuki had always been the
one who was fragile emotionally, liable to collapse at the reminder of the many
lives he was forced to seize.
This time, it was Tsuzuki who gave
him the courage to hope.
He gave Tatsumi the courage to hope
for the other’s happiness.
Because Tsuzuki was making the
effort to build his own world, a world where he could be happy.
He didn’t know that the boy could
bring such a change to a man who had lived for a century, a man that had longed
since tired of living before Hisoka was even born.
“Then I will bring it back to life.”
Tsuzuki actually offered him a reassuring smile through his tears.
Tatsumi felt hope flare within him
as Tsuzuki left him.
He envied Hisoka. Hisoka had
succeeded in doing what he could not.
Because
Hisoka managed to give Tsuzuki a reason to exist.
***
Tsuzuki ran his fingers through the
pale blonde strands while studying the silent figure before him.
The smooth, silky feel of Hisoka’s
hair felt the same, but the touch of his skin wasn’t.
Hisoka’s hands, once so warm to
touch, now felt icy-cold in his own.
Tatsumi said that Hisoka’s soul
wasn’t alive anymore.
Tsuzuki knew that Hisoka’s soul was
buried somewhere so deep that nobody could reach it. It still remained in his
partner…
…he only had to bring it back.
He pulled the seemingly lifeless
body into his arms, trying to at least give it a semblance of warmth. Hisoka
wouldn’t die; he could never accept it.
So he simply chose not to.
He had been running away for almost
his entire life.
This time, he wanted to make sure
that he didn’t, that he would be here when Hisoka woke up.
He was sure that Hisoka would wake
up eventually.
Because Hisoka made him a promise.
Hisoka promised to let him stay with him.
Hisoka would come back to keep that
promise. Tsuzuki believed that.
He had two days, two days to bring
Hisoka back.
He was going to make sure that
Hisoka kept his promise, and he was going to make sure that he
kept his promise to Hisoka.
A promise that he had broken many
times, but did not want to break again.
The promise to protect Hisoka.
***
Minutes passed by, then hours, and
finally a day.
The day he had left changed into
hours, and finally only one single hour was left.
One hour. And Hisoka still showed no
sign of waking.
Could Hisoka hear him?
// Hisoka…wake up. Please wake up. //
No amount of begging or crying on his part had help.
He mustn’t give up. He mustn’t. If
he did, Hisoka would die.
Was he imagining it or did Hisoka
really feel colder than before?
Warming Hisoka’s hands in his own,
Tsuzuki focused his mind and continued calling, trying to reach out to wherever
Hisoka’s soul was.
Hisoka saved his life. Now he would
save Hisoka’s.
Why wouldn’t Hisoka answer him? Did
he hear him?
// Please…let me be there for you. Don’t leave… //
Minutes ticked by. There were only twenty minutes left.
Hisoka was really leaving him.
The iciness of Hisoka’s skin was
seeping into him.
Would Hisoka really leave him?
Tsuzuki grasped Hisoka’s hand in his
firmly. If he couldn’t reach Hisoka this way, maybe, just maybe…
Slowly, little by little, Tsuzuki
lowered his mental shields. Inch by inch, level by level, he tore the last of
his own mental defenses away.
After training himself to shielding
his mind around Hisoka, Tsuzuki had gotten used to having his shields at least
partially up all the time.
Tearing them away completely this
way left him feeling defenseless and vulnerable.
Pulling Hisoka’s lifeless form to
him, he reached out tentatively.
In his mind, he could picture the
void of Hisoka’s soul, he imagined himself filling that void with his own life
force; see himself pouring his memories into the emptiness…memories that he
shared with Hisoka.
He held nothing back. He gave
everything he had. Everything including the pain, the condemnation of his
childhood, the shame….the fear. Everything.
Anything less might
fail in bringing Hisoka back.
He was crying. He would do anything
to save Hisoka, why wouldn’t Hisoka answer him?
Everybody had left him. Hisoka
promised to stay, yet now he was slowly slipping away.
// Hisoka…don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. //
He had given everything he had.
All he could do now was hope. Hope
and cry for Hisoka to return to him.
***
He was floating in a never-ending
emptiness. There was nothing here to hurt him, nothing that could hurt him.
He could already feel himself fading
away; the end was coming. And when it came, he could finally be free from his
pain.
All he had to do was close his eyes
and wait. Wait for his death.
Hisoka…don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
//…Tsuzuki? //
Memories started flooding back. Memories of all those little things
that he treasured so much, the many things that reminded him of Tsuzuki.
But…he couldn’t remember everything
anymore. He gave up his soul…so why…?
These weren’t his memories.
Don’t leave me…
They were Tsuzuki’s memories.
He was completely unprepared for the
next wave that Tsuzuki sent him. These weren’t memories as much as emotions.
There was Tsuzuki’s past. The pain,
guilt, grief…
Layer by layer he went through the
multitude of emotions. Deeper and deeper…was this what a person’s mind would
become if they lived as long as Tsuzuki? He had always known that Tsuzuki hid
most of himself from others, but to think that the depth of his emotions could
be so complicated, so profound… Could he ever understand the pain that Tsuzuki
was feeling?
He didn’t need to, because he was
experiencing it now.
Tsuzuki was showing him everything.
Deeper and deeper he went, until he
came to the one emotion that he thought he would never be able to understand.
First there came friendship, than a
deeper concern between family members, after that a need to be with the other…
He delved deeper.
He had sensed this emotion from
Tsuzuki before. He couldn’t understand it back then, because he had never truly
experienced it.
But comprehension had come along
with Tsuzuki’s emotions and memories. Because Tsuzuki understood that emotion,
Hisoka now did as well.
As that emotion touched him, it was
the first time that Hisoka felt that his empathy was truly a gift instead of a
curse.
:: Love ::
Was he really loved? Did Tsuzuki
really care?
Come back, Hisoka. Please come back. Come home.
Home…his home was by Tsuzuki’s side. He wanted to go home.
But…could he?
The pain…he couldn’t take it
anymore.
But if it was for to be with
Tsuzuki…
It was only then that he realized
that the pain was gone.
What remained was only the warmth
and familiarity of Tsuzuki’s mind.
Tsuzuki would never hurt him. Even
the pain of Tsuzuki’s memories was familiar; he wasn’t afraid of it.
Tsuzuki can make the pain and fear
go away. Tsuzuki would give him the strength he needed. Tsuzuki would never
leave him.
He had never needed anybody that
badly before. It used to scare him once, but he wasn’t afraid anymore.
Reaching up, Hisoka chose to accept
the warmth that Tsuzuki offered.
He could feel their life forces
synchronizing, moving in perfect harmonization, as if it had never been
anything but one.
Dual forces melded within him as a
bond formed between them, a bond that ran deeper than even that of a mother and
her child, a bond that would be impossible to break.
It created a bridge between them; it
gave him something to hold on to while he made his slow ascent.
Light flooded his vision. It stung
his eyes but he welcomed it. It proved that he was alive.
Large amethyst eyes that were filled
with tears came into view. He had always felt that Tsuzuki’s eyes were
beautiful.
Tsuzuki was smiling at him, and
through their newfound bond, he knew that those were tears of joy.
Tsuzuki hugged him tightly, and this
time, Hisoka wanted him to never let go.
“Welcome home…Hisoka.”
Home. He was finally home.
“Welcome home.”
***
-- So? Like it? Hate
it? Tell me, please…
-- As for the way
Tsuzuki brought Hisoka back, the idea of just having Tsuzuki say “come back”
and ‘poof!’ everything’s all right didn’t sit very well with me. Call me
melodramatic, if you will, but I’m touchy about such things…so I had Tsuzuki
give up his soul to replace the life that Hisoka’s soul lacked. Ha very ha.