どいてください

Pai dropped her phone, turned on her heel, and ran as fast as she could.

She was at the door, yanking it open when she heard her phone land on the ground, cracking and splintering into a dozen pieces. She didn't care. Nothing mattered more than stopping Kouta and the Daitengu from starting what would get them all killed.

She bolted out of her room and turned left, running down the corridor to the entrance of Ayashi House, white braid thumping on her back, an odd sort of comfort, centring amidst the blind panic crashing through her. Nothing else was on her mind except to get to where Kouta and the others were, and to get there before Shin found them first.

She blew past a uniform line of Burabura floating overhead, one attached to each light bulb on the ceiling. She ducked under them and weaved to the side, just managing to avoid trampling over a group of four or five bakezori straw sandals. She heard the sound of their soles slapping at the floor as they scattered, frightened away by how suddenly she appeared and almost crushed them.

Reaching the front double-doors of Ayashi House, she tugged them open roughly as she leaped over the stairs and ran for the gates. She felt as though she were running on air. Despite the end of the heavy snowing, it was blisteringly cold. The wind bit at her face as she ran, making for the gates.

By the time she got there her fingers were numb and the tips of her ears burned with cold. She darted into the security outhouse, pressed the same button she had before, and ran back out to wait impatiently for the gates to swing open.

From her periphery, she saw Yukiji kneeling in the snow by the tree close to the boundary wall. She must have come out to check on the roots of the trees after the heavy snowing, to make sure they were all right. Yukiji wore a dark red kimono with a black obi tied around her waist. The colour made Pai's lips tighten when she remembered the brightness of the uchikake Kuniumi wore. She saw Yukiji standing up when she came out of the outhouse.

"Pai-chan?" Yukiji called, worried. "What's wrong?" She didn't answer as the gates finally opened just enough for her to dart through. She didn't look back when Yukiji yelled out, "Where are you going!"

She didn't stop.

But she had to when she ran out of the gate and almost collided into Karasatengu, who dropped down from the tree branch hanging over the gates of Ayashi House like an arch. She hadn't noticed him up there. The trees all around her were stripped of their leaves a little over a week ago in preparation for the coming bitter winter, but despite that there were still always crows perched on the bare tree branches, always on a look-out for anything that approached Ayashi House.

In the span of time it took for him to jump off the branch and land on the ground, he transformed to his human form, arms crossed over his thick chest with his hands in the opposite sleeves and a deep frown nestled in between his thick eyebrows.

Pai halted and just managed not to run into him. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving as she drew in the cold air. Her hands were clammy, and the bones in her knees were turning to jelly. She looked up at Karasatengu, but in her frantic state she barely took notice of the disapproving frown he aimed at her.

"Pai-san," he said, low and dark. "Where do you think you are going?"

"I need to get to Kouta-sama and the others," she said, hoping that he would see she was serious, that she wasn't fooling around. "Please Karasatengu-san, please let me through."

Karasatengu shook his head. "You know I can't do that. Kouta-san and the others are running the simulation Torimaku on Jirou-san right now. It's too dangerous for you to be anywhere near them right now."

On Jirou, Kuniumi echoed snidely. Oh, but Shin's already there. He's out hunting.

"Karasatengu-san, please!" she shouted. "I have to go!"

He blinked in surprise. She never raised her voice, not to anyone, not even to the kids when they were being too much to handle, or if they did something wrong. But he shook his head firmly again. Pai had already been hurt once because he was lax and hadn't thought to go down the mountain to wait for them. If he had, she wouldn't have been kidnapped by the Onihitokuchi. He'd have been there to stop it from taking her. Karasatengu wasn't about to let her get hurt again.

"I am sorry," He said apologetically, keeping his tone gruff so she'd see he meant what he said. "I can't let you through. It's too dangerous. Go back inside, where it's safe."

Safe for who!

She wanted to scream and tear her hair out from frustration. She almost did, lifting her hands – shaking from the violence of her emotions – up to her head as if she really were really about to pull out her hair right from the roots. The wind picked up again, howling as it blew into her clothes and ruffled up the stray strands of white trailing down her neck.

Her teeth chattered from the cold, and a headache was building up at the base of her skull. The two points at her throat that Kuniumi had somehow squeezed to nearly choke the breath out of her burned, as if they were open wounds touched by the freezing cold of the snowflakes that swirled gently from above.

Damn it, she screamed in her mind. I don't have time for this!

A fizz of electricity snapped by her ear. An icy calm stole over her. Her shaking nerves abruptly settled, and she wasn't quite so frantic anymore. Her breathing went back to normal in an instant, and her legs didn't feel like they would give out beneath her at any given moment. Her eyes closed to half-lidded, and her lips flattened out to a thin line. Her head twitched to the side when a torrent of something invaded her senses.

That something was hundreds of different sensations. She could hear the clamouring of each individual bird screaming and twittering at each other – somewhere far, far away. The rustle of crumpled and dead leaves crunched against snow as little animals still active in the beginning of winter ran to and fro across the ground as they searched for the little burrows they'd dug for themselves to weather out the blistering cold of Hokkaido winter.

The morning light, leaking through the cover of heavy grey clouds that promised stormier weather, intensified until it stung the back of her eyes. She had to close them when a lancing pain shot through her head. Her skin burned from the ice-cold touches of the few snowflakes that landed on her exposed neck and hands. She worked against herself to keep from tucking her hands under her armpits and lifting her shoulders to hide her neck.

[focus]

The voice was no longer like Midori's. It was different – lower, delicate yet hoarse at the same time, the sound of a wind instrument that could play hard and soft tunes.

It sounded a lot like her own voice, in a way she had never heard it sound like before.

[see doesn't hurt think one no pain]

Her breath fogged as she blew it out from her mouth in a slow exhale. Her eyes flicked up to Karasatengu. They were no longer the brown everyone was used to seeing, but darkened to black, her pupil indiscernible from the iris. When she spoke, her voice doubled, speaking in two warped into one.

"Get out of the way."

A glazed look stole across Karasatengu's eyes. The tense muscles relaxed, jaw slackening, arms dropping from where he'd kept them crossed over his chest. He wasn't looking at her when he stepped to the side, so obediently and so totally unlike him. She only gave him a bleak passing glance as she lifted up the too-long ends of her pyjama trousers and sprinted, leaving Karasatengu to stand blinking in confusion at the open gate of Ayashi House.

Pai jerked to a halt a ways later when the sky lit up with a brilliant flash of colours, so intense that she had to close her eyes and look away, unable to tell what they were. She was certain she'd seen orange, green, and purple. The colours made her think of Daichi with his amber eyes, Kaede's mint green, and Shouta with indigo eyes.

A thunder with no sound reverberated through the air, jarring her senses and raising the hairs on her arms. Then it ended. Her stomach settled itself after worryingly squeezing in on itself hard enough that she thought she might vomit. She blinked in confusion, wondering how she was already so far from the gate. She remembered how she got past Karasatengu, and looked up at the sky again in horrific realization when the colours faded away.

"Did you just – "

No.

"But –"

He was not going to let us leave. Do you want those you care for to die because you were late?

"Don't you ever – "

Pai was caught off as she stumbled to the ground when the land shook violently. Lumps of snow caught in the branches of the naked trees dropped to the ground as the tremor ripped through the ground. Birds took to the air in sudden flight, flapping their wings hurriedly as they flew around in shrieking circles around their homes before turning and flying away.

She dropped to her knees, hands slapping down and burying in the snow. She could feel the ground shaking as if there were an earthquake rumbling through the land. Just as abruptly as it came, it stopped.

Yet it was not over.

She stared, agape, when drops of water seemed to materialize out of nowhere. They were all kinds of sizes, floating up, higher and higher until they reached over the treetops. She looked down and realized the water wasn't forming from nothing, but from the snow covering the ground. Even as she watched, the snow seemed to lose density, turning into puddles of wet grass and mud right before her eyes.

She looked up and gasped aloud when she saw a massive, floating ball of water right above the trees. Bits of the sun reflected off the surface in fractures of light, setting off sparks of rainbow colours as the ball seemed to condense itself into a huge, tight sphere. It started moving off to the west, to her right. She followed its surprisingly quick movement with her eyes wide as saucers, her mouth open in amazement. Large drops fell from the bottom of the sphere of water, as if it were leaking.

You should hurry. Kuniumi's voice was surprisingly austere, a contrast to the biting humour and amusement that had so far coloured her words.

Pai stood, legs shaking, as she looked off in the direction the water had floated away to.

It's begun, and it is not Jirou they fight.

Heedless of the snow and dirt that clung to her clothes, she ran as if her life depended on it. It was true, though it wasn't her life that depended on how fast she could get there – it was the Daitengu's lives, Kouta's life, and Shin's. She wasn't entirely sure where she was supposed to go, but all she could do was follow the wind.

So she did.

×

Things were getting irritating.

He was angry at himself for being so foolish enough to walk right into the Torimaku, but perhaps it was better this way. It would save him the trouble of running around the forest as the Daitengu chased him. At least he'd managed to injure one of them – Ryosuke. He'd given him a taste of what was to come.

The annoyance pricked at him, like needles scratching at his skin, and he was glaring as he looked up and saw the sphere of water hanging just above his head. A gale of wind whipped a storm around him, sending his hair flying, as it split around the ball of water and moaned through the skies.

They thought they were trapping him. It was true that, for the moment, he wouldn't be able to escape the circle of Tengu who had immediately surrounded him when he stepped into the clearing only moments ago. But they were the ones in the wrong.

Standing at even distances between each other were Shin's friends – the Daitengu. All had their black wings outstretched behind them. Daichi stood to his left, arms stretched out on either side of him. Flowing from his hands was a seemingly never-ending stream of bright orange energy that collided with matching but emerald green energy of Kaede, standing fifty paces to the left.

The green met the white of his brother, Ryosuke, blood dripping down from the gaping wound in his shoulder, and the blinding white of his energy flowed into the red of Haru. He grinned at the glimpse of a white linen bandaging he caught beneath the collar of Haru's kimono.

To Haru's left stood Yuu, his energy a blue the colour of the night sky. The last two vital points of the Torimaku were filled by Shouta, with his torrent of amethyst energy, and Jirou, grey like smoke born from his hands.

They were all chanting an old prayer that he remembered Shin having to learn once he'd mastered his Daitengu Ability. The whole thing required intense concentration, something all the Daitengu accomplished by meditating at for an hour each day since they became the guardians of their people and ruler.

Standing by Yuu's side was Kouta, ready to take his place in the circle as soon as Yuu moved. He was the only one not chanting. Torimaku required every Daitengu that was a part of its creation to hit the target at the centre at least once before they would all join their Abilities together to deal one final, striking blow. As their leader, Kouta filled in the gaps that the Daitengu left behind when they made their individual moves.

The Heir wasn't necessary in the creation of the Torimaku, but he was essential when it came to ending it with the death blow. He was the one who carried the weight of killing those whom the Torimaku was intended for.

Kouta stared at him, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. It made him smile, to see how shocked Kouta was at finding one of his oldest friends in such a maddened state.

He should have known better, though. Kouta shouldn't have been surprised to see him again, instead of Shin. It wasn't like this was the first time the two were meeting on a battlefield. It wasn't like he didn't know what Shin was like when he didn't have the noose of a leash that Kouta kept on him. Though, he knew that even though they'd all fought together nine years ago, Shin had been fighting a distance away from them, so perhaps they couldn't be blamed for not knowing what Shin was like even when he wasn't influencing Shin.

They didn't know Shin was more like his True Ayakashi than anyone was likely to admit.

He wondered if he should have killed Kouta all those years ago, when they'd first really seen each other while fighting to protect their people. If he'd killed Kouta then, the other Daitengu wouldn't need to die for his folly in the here and now. He didn't particularly care for them; whether they lived or died, it wasn't his business.

But then again, he thought, if he had killed Kouta then, he wouldn't have been able to fulfil his debt with the Nue. They were on the mountain in the first place to find Kouta, to speak with him. About what, he didn't care. If Kouta had died when he had first met him on that field bloody with their people, the Nue wouldn't have come to the mountain, and he would have had to go through the bother of finding another way to kill the Nue.

He was vaguely amused as he watched them continue chanting for a moment longer, multi-coloured energy flowing from their hands into each other. They thought they were trapping him. He would soon show them how erroneous a thought that was.

He smirked even as a spike of pain shot through his head, Shin battering at the mental barriers that kept the two of them from completely merging, with far more force and desperation than he had ever felt from Shin.

It made him smile.

Give me back my body. A growl, another slam to the barrier. LET ME OUT!

Guess you know how I felt all these years now, huh?

You can't do this. There was incredulity in Shin's tone. To some extent, he felt the same disbelief coursing through his body, momentarily locking his muscles before he shook his head and dragged his attention away from it.

Yes I can, he growled. And I will. Nothing can stop me.

What the hell do you think you're going to achieve by killing them? There's no sense in this!

You, of anyone else, know they should have known better than to try capture us in a Torimaku, he retorted. I'm just teaching them a lesson.

By killing them!?

Yes. He replied without hesitation.

That isn't an excuse. There's no purpose in killing them – it isn't teaching them anything if they die. They're still Tengu, no matter how weak you think they are. Why do you want to kill them?

Because I want to.

He was a little surprised that Shin hadn't figured it out yet by now, why he was so willing to kill these foolish Daitengu. Yes, he wanted to pay them back for thinking to try capturing him and put him back under the suffocating leash of the Mask. But, there was a much simpler need beneath that.

He wanted to kill them, because he could.

He shut himself off from listening to Shin's enraged shouting and battering at the wall, as his glowering red eyes dropped from looking at the water steadily lowering itself to drape over the encircling boundary of colours that didn't look at all ethereal. They looked as solid as the circle of trees just outside the Torimaku.

He glared at the one with brown-gold hair and brown eyes, a scowl set on his dark eyebrows as he closed his eyes, black wings flaring out behind him. Shizuku Yuu, Daitengu with the Ability to create vivid hallucinations. That was how they planned to keep him trapped within the circle of their Torimaku while they figured out how to keep him down long enough to get Shin's Mask back on his wrist. The hallucinations would keep him occupied, distract him for long enough. He knew it.

Yuu would be the first one to die.

It was a simple matter to decide. He couldn't let himself be trapped with those hallucinations. There was no way he was going to let such a thing happen, not if there was anything he could do to stop it – and there was plenty he would do.

Haru would be next, to finish off what he started when Haru had found the bodies of the Nue. He would have gotten rid of Haru then, if Shin hadn't come up with a random burst of energy that had momentarily stunned him enough so that Haru took his chance to get away.

The Heir would die last, so he could see the blood of his men running through the snow in this clearing. He couldn't wait to see the look on Kouta's face when he realized that he had gotten his men, his friends, killed.

Yuu stepped forward and Kouta immediately took his place, yellow energy pouring from his hands like he was the sun and unable to contain it all any longer. His lips moved as he began to shape the ancient words of the prayer, and the energy releasing from him intensified.

Yuu looked at him with eyes he could see struggling to see him as an enemy, and not as Shin his friend and mentor. If he wasn't careful, his hesitation would end up killing him, just as much as his katana driven through his chest would.

He would see that it did.

"Shin," Yuu called, raising his voice so that it carried on the wind over to him. "I don't want to do this. Please, just take your Mask back so we don't have to. None of us want this."

His eyes did not move from the dark brown ones of Yuu, brown eyes that were slowly melting into red as Yuu allowed his own True Ayakashi close to the surface to boost the strength of the Ability he was going to let loose on him.

A sharp, manic grin. "Who's Shin?"

Regret crossed Yuu's face as he dropped his eyes to the ground. When he spoke again, he could hear the faint traces of Yuu's True Ayakashi under his voice. Just from hearing it he could tell that Yuu's was Ayakashi Satsugai.

Things could get very interesting if Yuu's True Ayakashi were to ever be released.

"Very well. We warned you. I'm sorry it's come to this."

I'm not.

He drew his katanas from where the scabbards rested on either side of his shoulders, stretching his left leg back and bending his right. He could hear Shin yelling, screaming at him, banging on the barrier that kept the two of them separated. The sound was muted just enough so that he could enjoy killing these men unencumbered by Shin.

He gripped the hilts tight in his hands, anticipation for the coming shower of blood and the sweet song of the screams of men blooming in his chest as he grinned, canines pressing into his bottom lip, so sharp they could almost cut.

Yuu drew his own weapon, a tachi whose blade gleamed wickedly as the colours of the energy force-field over their heads reflected off its surface, from the belted scabbard at his waist. His hands tightened around long hilt tight in his palms. He bent his knees in preparation for the coming fight while murmuring something under his breath. He couldn't hear what Yuu was saying, but he knew that he was starting to weave the web of a hallucination.

He wasn't going to let that happen.

Don't interfere, Shin. Don't ruin my fun.

Fuck you, Shin snarled, the vehemence in his voice almost enough to startle him. Almost. You're crazy if you think I'm going to shut up and let you kill my family.

He paused. What about me, Shin? I'm your family. I'm more to you than they are. Why do I have to suffer while you get to enjoy everything?

There was no answer. He wasn't expecting one. Much as it often seemed to be the case, he didn't actually hate Shin. Not entirely. Not nearly as much as he wanted to. And that was the unfairness of it all – that they were stuck like this, together, separated and forever unable to truly live in tandem with one another without having to steal that time.

He smirked, burying any sentimentality he felt deep, deep where no one could ever bring it out into the light. Tell you what. If you're strong enough, take this body back.

He could feel Shin's scowl almost as if it was him who was glowering. Then he realized he was frowning as he watched Yuu grip his tachi tight in his hand, saw the hesitation locking his body in place as Yuu waited for him to make the first move, still mumbling under his breath.

He wiped the frown from his face, and his grin grew wide.

This will be fun, don't you think? You're like me, Shin. You are me; you enjoy the chaos as much as I do.

×

Her envisioning of what a Torimaku would look like was grossly simplified.

She hadn't known exactly what the Torimaku was supposed to be. She hadn't really thought too much about it, knowing that every image she thought of would probably be wrong either way. She thought that perhaps, at the basis, it would be an actual circle with Shin in the middle, somehow unable to leave it.

That part was accurate, at the very least. But it wasn't anywhere near as plain and simple as that.

She'd already fallen three times over raised tree roots and knotted patches of long grass that had been exposed when the snow evaporated and turned to water, lifting up in the air to join the ball of water that had been floating overhead. Her clothes were dirty, stained with wet soil and pieces of pale grass sticking to her pyjama trousers. The palms of her hands stung from scratches when she fell, and little snowflakes that were still twirling madly as they fell from the grey sky stuck to her hair and clung to her eyelashes as she ran.

The first thing that struck her now, drawing closer to the Torimaku, was how she felt as she stumbled over a fallen tree log she hadn't seen and landed painfully on her knees in the snow. For as long as she lived, she didn't think she would ever feel this kind of power again, this raw energy that filled the air like lightning and hit her in waves that had her rooted to the ground for fear that if she stood, she would immediately collapse from the sheer weight of it. It was like a tangible scent in the air, something she could taste on the tip of her tongue. The air fizzed with bright sparks of electricity that danced through the trees as the gale blew everything in the clearing up into a wild frenzy.

Rising up in front of her, stretching so tall into the sky that she couldn't see where it ended, was a force-field of energy, a myriad torrent of vibrant colours melding into each other. It stood over two dark figures she couldn't make out through the bright colours. A wall of water seemed to cover the sphere of energy, fortifying it so it wouldn't collapse. Electricity shot out from the wall in random bursts of lightning, leaping up into the sky rather than shooting out into the forest and starting a fire.

She looked down from the awesome sight before her and saw that the energy was pouring out from the Daitengu themselves. Each stood a distance from the other, and she thought she could hear the faintest murmur of them saying something. Over the howling wind and crackling of the electricity running up and down the curving length of the wall of energy, she couldn't hear what it was they chanted.

The colours of the energy that came forth matched their eyes, she realized with a start. It came together in a clash of colour halfway from each other before flowing up, solidifying the higher it went. The wind tore through the sky, whipping her hair around her as it battered against the wall as if it were stone.

This is it, she thought, awed. This was a Torimaku. There was an unnameable sense of awesome power permeating from it, unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was so dreadfully beautiful.

Her heart was heavy as she looked at it. She blamed the tears streaming down her face on the cold wind stinging her eyes, or maybe from the intensity of the vivid colours before her, rather than the confused, conflicted feelings clamouring for space in her chest.

She managed to snap out of her dazed reverie when Kuniumi spoke again.

Better hurry, better hurry.

She frowned at the tone of her voice. It was – different. No longer like Midori's, but still wrong, somehow. She sounded unhinged, as if she were insane with some kind of gleeful energy that made her oh so happy.

He is inside with the one who creates illusions of the past, and Shin's Makashi doesn't want to be trapped in his past. No, no he doesn't want that at all.

"Why?" who?

He kills, and he loves chaos, but he doesn't want to face the many eyes and hairs and noses and mouths and bodies and fingers and arms and legs that he has ended. That is the tragedy of one such as him – living for death, yet dreading the consequences of it.

"Pai!?"

She blinked when she heard Haru's yell, a voice that was Haru's yet at the same time distinctly different. It was a double voice speaking from the mouth of one person. It sent a sliver of unease coiling up tight in her stomach.

She looked up and realized she was kneeling on the ground right behind Haru. His wings flared out behind him, a huge pair of black as midnight wings with curling tendrils of fire – real fire, flickering red and blue flames – licking up the feathers yet not burning them. She could only see him in side-profile, but his eyes were focused intently ahead of him. It almost could have been like he hadn't noticed her behind him at all.

Kouta stood to his left. Her eyes widened when she saw his wings. All the other Daitengu she'd seen had black wings, but Kouta's wings were golden streaked with silver. The feathers looked to be soft as down, yet at the same time spun from molten gold. They were quivering as they flapped gently, his yellow eyes glowing to match the beautiful gold of his wings.

He was completely oblivious to everything except what was happening inside the force-field he and his men had created. A bolt of lightning shot up from the wall of water, for a moment illuminating what she had not noticed before while gawking at his wings – a silver track of tears running down his cheeks.

This is what this is doing to him, she thought, her heart aching with sorrow for how tortured Kouta looked to be doing something like this to his best friend, something meant only for their enemies. She wondered if he saw doing this as akin to declaring Shin their enemy, too.

"Pai, what the hell are you doing here!?"

She looked at the back of Haru, at his wings as they fought against the wind whipping up around him. "I know his name!" she shouted, hoping he had heard her over the deafening roar of the wind.

She glanced at Kouta to see if he had heard her, but he was totally oblivious to everything outside of the task at hand – ensuring the Torimaku remained strong and unbroken as Yuu fought Shin within.

It was like Haru hadn't heard her at all. "You can't be here. Go back to Ayashi House, right now. When we're done here, that's when you come in.

"No, Haru-san, I need to get in there – "

"Pai, no!" The force of his yell was so loud that she winced as her headache spiked angrily. She had no idea how the others hadn't noticed anything amiss yet. "Shin's out of control! It's not even him in there! It's too dangerous for you."

"For you too!" she yelled back. "He's going to use the Torimaku to kill all of you!"

A stunned pause. "What?"

"His Makashi isn't complete," she answered rapid-fire as she quickly repeated to him everything Kuniumi had told her on the run here. It still shocked her, but she had used her ability to quickly adapt to her advantage and accepted it. She knew Kuniumi wasn't lying to her, either. Shin's true name lined up with what Kuniumi told her. "Kaosu no Ayakashi – there's only ever twelve of them in existence at any given time. That's why they're so rare. When one dies, another is born to take its place."

Just like Kamigami. When one reincarnation of the Kamigami dies, another is born soon afterwards to take their place.

"What does that matter?"

"That's because they're part god – they're part death gods! I don't know how, but that's just how it is. You're using a Torimaku, something meant to kill, to save instead. That's in his domain. He can manipulate something like that, easily!"

An incredulous pause, and even though he hadn't turned to look at her once, she could tell he was listening, from the way his entire body froze up and the energy leaking out of him sputtered for a moment before resuming its flow.

"You can't be serious."

"This isn't a joke!" she yelled. "You think you're in control of the Torimaku, but you're not, he is. He's toying with you!"

A sudden scream of steel on steel ripped through the air. She tore her gaze from the back of Haru's head. She peered through the water and the force-field and saw two black shapes darting back and forth, so quick in that she could hardly catch their movements.

One of the figures leaped up into the air. She thought she saw two thin lines of swords crashing down on the head of the second figure. The second lifted up its hands and there was the sound of steel being knocked aside. Crazed laughter rang out, and something twisted in her chest when she recognized Shin's voice in it.

Words, barely audible, drifted through to her. "...not bad...Yuu...father...die!"

She looked back at Haru, eyes wild, desperate. "You have to let me through!"

He shook his head. "I can't, Pai – he'll kill you. That isn't Shin in there, it's his True Ayakashi. He won't recognize you, and even if he does, he'll still try to kill you."

"Please, Haru-san," she begged. "I know his name, I can stop him!"

"It's different now – he'll kill you before you can say a word."

"I have to try!"

He shook his head again, and she knew that no matter how hard she tried, he wasn't going to budge. He was Daitengu; his job was to protect. He wouldn't just let her walk headlong into so dangerous a situation. It went against everything he was trained to do.

Her nerves were getting frazzled again. Impatience wore her down. She had to do something, now, but she didn't know how she was supposed to get through the water and the energy field without being killed herself. She was pretty sure that that force-field was just as effective in keeping things out as keeping things in. It looked beautiful, but in nature, lovely things killed.

A scream of pain tore through the air. She recognized the sound of his voice under that horrible, heart-rending pain.

That was Yuu.

Her heart was in her throat when she heard another yell ring out from inside the force-field. She did not have time for this. Yuu could be dying in there.

Pai closed her eyes, digging the heels of her palms in them. She drew in a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, rocking herself back and forth as she knelt in the snow and tried not to scream from the pent-up frustration reaching boiling point in her.

An idea struck her.

She opened her eyes and stared through her knotted fingers at the muddy snow beneath her, almost unable to believe that she was desperate enough to ask for this. But she didn't – she didn't have any other choice. She couldn't force her way through that force-field, she was too scared to try. This was her only option left.

"Make him listen to me, Kuniumi," she begged under her breath. "Please. What you did with Karasatengu – please help me again."

She hummed thoughtfully. No.

Pai blinked rapidly in shock. "What?"

You can do it yourself.

"How?" she was human – she didn't have any power to influence someone the way Kuniumi did, the way she had with Karasatengu.

Your emotions. Kill them. Then you cane use us to make him let you through.

"Kill my emotions...?" she flinched as she repeated the words. She had heard that before, somewhere. Someone had said that to her, once.

I've heard that before.

A man's voice called out in her mind, and she lifted a hand to her nose when a thin trickle of blood trailed down to drip into her mouth.

Kiku is at the front of the classroom, hip leaning on the edge of the large white table with his ankles and his arms folded over his chest. The look on his face is more bland than usual, as if he's even more disappointed or tired at the prospect of having to be here than usual.

He is dressed simply, wearing civilian clothes. A pair of faded blue jeans and a black short-sleeved t-shirt. She can see a thin slice of the top of his cell phone peeking out from his jean's pocket. It is the standard black issue type given to all Agents. His dyed blond hair is swept back over his forehead. A piercing glints on his left eyebrow under the harsh fluorescent light he stands beneath, a bar of metal that pushes through the crook of his eyebrow.

Beside him stands his sister, Chiasa. Mad Chiasa is her nickname. She is always grinning in a way that makes her look crazy. She speaks in a voice that always sounds like she is happily torturing someone in her mind. Pai isn't convinced that that isn't what Chiasa daydreams about.

She wears the uniform befitting of her status as Agent. A pair of tight black leather pants with straps holding sharpened knives of varying lengths, a sleeveless turtleneck that clings to the curves of her body, and that Pai is sure is made from snake skin. Black combat boots are laced to the top on her feet, the slight heels of the shoes giving her more height than she actually has. She wears no make-up save for a line of black eyeliner around her dark brown eyes, and some pale pink lipstick. Her dark hair is pulled up in a tight, stick-straight ponytail secured by a white hair tie.

Most of the working Agents wear something of similar like, though their uniforms are made from normal, easy-to-attain leather. Rumour is that Chiasa is obsessed with hunting and killing Hebi, something no other Agent has done before. It is to the point where she actually wears snake skin as part of most of her wardrobe. It is a fixation with the reclusive Hengen that wholly consumes Chiasa. It if isn't a shirt made from it, it is shoes. If not shoes, then her jacket. Pai sometimes wonders how many snakes have been killed to fulfil Chiasa's insatiable need to wear their skin on her body.

Not that she cares. With every passing day, it gets harder to care about what the sanctity of life means. That's what they are taught; care less for life, take it easier. She tries to tell herself that it's true, that that is the only way to make taking lives easier.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not.

Despite both looking outwardly human, there is something vaguely different about them. Something that will easily make them stand out if they are to be seen amongst a crowd, however large, in any city. It is not that Chiasa wears snake skin, or that Kiku's hair is dyed blond, or his pierced brow. No, it is a single physical aspect that leads up to the air of inhumanness that clings to them like a thin second skin.

For Chiasa, it is the tufts of dark brown fur-like hair that cover the pointed angle of her ears. With Kiku, it is his too-sharp nails that are appear more like claws than normal human nails. It is possible for them to hide these physical abnormalities that mark them out from the rest of humanity, but they never do. Not unless they are out in the general public.

Pai has grown so used to such unusual things around here that she no longer so much as blinks when she sees them.

"What stops one person from being able to step on an ant, yet allows another to burn that same insect held beneath a glass under the light of the sun? What allows a criminal to pull the trigger of his gun, repeatedly, emptying all his bullets into the body of another human being, and yet prevents another person exposed to just as much violence during upbringing but with a different disposition from doing the same?"

Kiku looks at every person in the eye, sitting in the white steel chairs in front of him. He settles on Rikuto, sitting beside Pai with his arm lazily thrown back over the chair. The boy's black hair curls messily over his forehead when he sits up slightly, long and fit body draped over the chair and his light brown eyes half-closed.

Pai knows that though he is paying attention to what Kiku is saying, he is also napping without being overtly obvious. He's perfected such a thing to a skill. It's impressive.

Pai nudges his outstretched foot with her own. His eyes open fully. Kiku does not need to speak further for Rikuto to know that he was the one chosen to answer his question.

"Emotions." He responds, voice lilting with an accent she has only been able to guess at originating from Eastern Europe. He glances at her and shoots her a grateful smile.

She turns away from it and focuses on Kiku again.

During Language Studies, he speaks flawless Russian. From that, she assumes that though he is Japanese and fluent, he has spent the majority of his life either in Russia, or in one of the countries of former Soviet Union. People are curious about him because he is the best sniper So Fu has ever seen since it was formed. Naturally, they wonder where he could have honed his skills, being too young to have ever entered the army of any country.

People's pasts don't matter in So Fu, though. The past is the past. The future is what needs to be fought for. That is what every Agent in So Fu has ever said to her.

She knows, though, that if they pay any attention, people will notice that though Rikuto is an excellent marksman on his own, he uses his [ability] so that he never misses. It is [accuracy enhancement], an [ability] that is incredibly rare...and incredibly useful for survival here.

The better you kill, the more use you are to So Fu.

"Elaborate on that, Hiratsuka-san."

From the corner of her eye she sees Rikuto looking at her with a puzzled frown on his face. Then he turns to Kiku as he answers, "A hardened criminal knows when to stop thinking with his emotions when he pulls the trigger. With his life on the line, it is a logical step to save his own rather than risk it to keep another alive."

"Can just anyone kill? Momozono-san."

"Yes, Kiku-san." She replies, the answer ingrained in her so that she may respond to any question of the sort right off the bat. "Every living being is capable of killing."

Kiku nods, liking her answer. "Very true. 'Every living being is capable of killing', good one. It is just a matter of whether or not they are willing to, and if they have the fortitude to carry it out, regardless of any future grief that may arise as a consequence of the action. Does that apply to children, Momozono-san?"

She winces as she shifts in her seat, putting too much pressure on her injured foot. The rough linen bandaging rubs wrong on the open cut despite the antiseptic cream she put on it. It still hasn't healed after the Doctor finished with her yesterday.

"Especially children." She replies, her voice crystal clear and without any indication of the stinging pain in her foot. She's gotten good at hiding her pain.

So Fu has taught her how to conceal the one weakness every living creature is susceptible to; pain. They have done it by breaking her bones until she no longer has the strength to scream, pumping her full of narcotics so that she falls under the haze of drugs and doesn't notice when the Doctor cuts her open to see what makes her tick, and training her so hard, every day, that by the end of it she is unable to move.

"They rarely instinctively know the difference of the concept 'right and wrong'," she continues in a flat voice that holds not an ounce of emotion in it. "And are usually only concerned with satisfying their own curiosities. If that is at the cost of another living creature, they do not know it to be wrong unless taught otherwise."

"Right you are, Pai-me, Rikuto-me." Chiasa says, speaking up where she has been silent for most of the lesson. Chiasa's voice is a loud rap to Pai's aching head. "What you need to do is kill your emotions before they kill you, and you will be able to control that part of you that you have never been able to before."

"Control your emotions," Kiku breaks in, sending his sister a glare that almost matches the one she regularly gives her trainees. His eyes darken considerably when Chiasa sticks her tongue out at him petulantly. "And you will be able to terminate your assignments with few disturbances to your psyches. Control your emotions, and you can do anything."

Chiasa winks at them, slipping into a fake Kansai accent that rubs at Pai in the wrong way. It reminds her too much of an old friend's grandmother. An old friend she tries to forget with everything she has – and often does.

"Within the jurisdiction of So Fu, of course. Y'all know what happens if you disobey their orders, don't 'cha?"

Almost instantly, as if the words from the broken fragment of memory had locked away something inside her, her jangled nerves calmed. Her breathing slowed, her hands stopped shaking, and her teeth ceased their incessant chattering.

She was doing it, automatically, like she had just needed a little reminder of it, that she could do it. She dulled her emotions, shoving them to a distant corner of her mind where she could deal with them later. She pushed herself up from the ground, dusting off the muddy snow from her knees and hands. Her movements were smooth yet mechanical.

Yes... her voice was a gentle murmur in Pai's mind, easily catching on to the change. It was like the memory had been a key. Now the lock was broken wide open and letting loose a part of her that she had never realized existed. Now, now we will help you.

"Do it." She said aloud, mechanical with a bleak tone to her voice.

She didn't realize that her eyes had darkened again as she focused them at the back of Haru's head, nor that blood leaked out of her nose again, as she coolly watched the flickers of fire lighting up all over his body.

Her lips parted, and she was no longer sure who was speaking. Kuniumi was so close, so disturbingly there, like an itch right beneath her skin. She could feel something strange, dark and twisted and hateful, churning inside her. Pai wasn't entirely sure that the sensation didn't belong to her.

She didn't care, so long as it got her through to where she needed to be.

"Let me through, Haru. Now."

Haru's response was instantaneous. He twitched, a spasm of his muscles, as if an electric current had just run through his body. She was fleetingly overcome with guilt for forcing him to do something he clearly hadn't wanted to. She immediately squashed it down. Now was not the time to wallow in her emotions.

Her gaze snapped down when she saw his fingers splay out, opening up breaks in the red energy that continued to flow from the tips of his fingers. As she watched, a small gap melted open in the watery wall, and through that another crack opened up in the force-field.

She could see through to the other side, but only just a bit of it. The ground beyond it was still pristinely white with a thick blanket of snow from the storm that had passed, a direct contrast to the state of the ground outside the force-field, the mud-speckled grass of the clearing dotted with solitary snowflakes that quickly melted after touching the ground.

Pai wasted no time, darting under Haru's outstretched hand and running through the opening before it could shut. Her heart thudded in her chest despite her best effort to calm it, and her palms were clammy as she tightened them to fists at her side.

She glanced to the left where Kouta stood, and she saw his eyes, crimson, flick down to hers. They were marred with specks of yellow. His eyes widened in surprise and disbelief when he saw her.

She mouthed to him, Sorry, before turning and forging on ahead, hoping he would realize that she needed to do this.

Passing through the opening was like walking through a waterfall of lava spewing from the mouth of a raging volcano. Heat washed over her body, so hot that a sweat immediately broke up on her body, coating her in a thin line of perspiration, before the heat vanished just as quickly.

Silence engulfed her as soon as she was through, and a surprisingly cool touch of wind stroked her heated skin. She glanced back to see the hole Haru had opened to let her in already closing up behind her, and with it, the noise of the wind and the crackling energy faded away.

She paused in walking to survey the scene that was before her when she looked in front of her again. Her emotions were dampened, and she almost felt like she was only taking everything in from the back of her head, like she wasn't consciously aware of what it was she was looking at. Even then, she was still taken aback as her eyes fell upon two people engaged in a twisting, vicious dance, moving with lightning speed and attacking each other with superhuman strength.

Neither noticed that she was in the Torimaku with them. It was like, despite being in the same impenetrable bubble that the force-field had created around them, they were in their own world inside of it, fighting with their lives on the line.

Yuu was injured, heavily favouring his right side, keeping the left away from who he fought with. A gash was leaking blood on his forehead just above his eyebrow, dripping into his eyes, and when he spun away after sweeping his tachi up to block a vicious attack she saw him quickly swipe at the blood on his brow. His irises were red where she was used to seeing them as brown, and wholly intent on the battle he was engaged in.

The one he was fighting was Shin, but at the same time she could tell it wasn't him.

It was his body, clad in fitting black pants and a tight short-sleeved t-shirt that showed off the strong, lean muscles in his body. It was his black hair, too long for the usual style worn by most men but much shorter than Kouta's, that fell over his forehead as he knelt low on the ground, gripping his katana blades tight in his fingerless-gloved hands. It was his lips that tilted up in a maddening smirk.

But that wasn't the way Shin smiled. His canines weren't that sharp, the corners of his lips were tucked in too much, and the look in his glowing red eyes was never that manically joyed.

This was Shin, but it was not Shin.

This was his Makashi, the half of him split from the whole.

Shin leapt forward, so incredibly fast. Yuu almost didn't make it in time to bring his tachi up and stop Shin's blades from taking off his head. Yuu pressed his hand against the flat edge of his tachi, his arms shaking with the strain of keeping Shin from almost piercing his eye.

Yuu looked like he'd been fighting for hours. Sweat dripped off his body, bruises flowered on his face, and he stumbled at times. Shin had only broken a light sheen of sweat on his forehead – he didn't even seem that short of breath.

At this rate, Yuu was going to be killed.

Just at that moment, she felt a stab of nervousness prick her heart when she felt Kuniumi's presence retreating from her mind.

"Where are you going?" her voice trembled. She hated it.

The rest is up to you, Kuniumi replied. Speaking his true name long enough to stop him from killing you before you put his Mask back on requires you to feel.

"But I don't want to!" She whispered urgently.

She was starting to feel that disgusting helplessness again the further away she could feel Kuniumi getting. She couldn't understand how it was that she hadn't wanted anything to do with Kuniumi not too long ago, but was now terrified of her disappearing.

There was a curious pause. Why? Why, oh why, do you not want to feel again?

"Because – because – I don't like how helpless I feel, how helpless I am."

Her own inability to protect herself against the Onihitokuchi, to figure out Shin's true name on her own, had her loathing herself. For the first time in her life, she hated that she was human. She hated that she wasn't strong enough to protect those that mattered to her because of her weakness as a human being. She couldn't even protect herself from Yori Chiisai.

What hope did she have against someone like Shin, someone like his Makashi, who lived for chaos and death?

A sharp laugh startled her. She flinched when she saw Yuu swipe his tachi at Shin's shoulder. It was a fast, surprise move that caught Shin off-guard. Still, he was quick to doge the attack. The tip of Yuu's blade caught Shin's shoulder just enough for the material of the shirt he wore to rip. Blood seeped up like tears from the cut.

"Nice one, Yuu." Shin looked at Yuu with a begrudging grin. "That was lucky."

Yuu lifted his tachi to eye-level, both hands gripped the hilt, panting. "Luck has nothing to do with it."

"You're right. You are an inexperienced fighter. You were not forged in blood and steel the way Shin and the others were."

"I can fight." Yuu retorted haughtily. Pai got the feeling that Shin had touched on a sore spot for Yuu, and even she knew it was a mistake for him to get emotional about it.

"Can you really, now," Shin replied lazily, swinging the katana in his left hand in a perfect arc at his side.

"If I was inexperienced, I wouldn't have lasted this long against you." Yuu snapped. He sneered. "Or are you going easy on me? Afraid I'll use my Ability and make you see the faces of all those you've killed?"

Shin tilted his head to the side. His brows pulled down to a fierce glower as his blazing red eyes glared at Yuu with such malice, such hate, she was a little surprised Yuu didn't burst up in flames.

"Who I've killed?" he repeated. The barely hidden pain in Shin's voice stunned her.

Until now, he had only sounded manic to kill, laughing and taunting Yuu. Now, he sounded like he carried with him a tremendous weight, a guilt, maybe, a walking wound that festered and ached and never healed.

She would know what that felt like.

He spoke like a thick knot of emotion clogged his throat. "What about who you didn't kill, Yuu? Where were you when our people were being slaughtered by the Kitsune? Where were you when the other Daitengu, nothing more than kids back then, were fighting with the Previous Heads to protect the Clan, when Shin was desperate enough to let me out to win the battle? Where were you?"

With an enraged yell, Shin lashed out so ferociously that Yuu was knocked down. He landed on his back hard, but rolled away just in time when Shin brought his katanas crashing down. The steel squealed as they caught on the stray rocks scattered over the ground.

Yuu bounded up to his feet, tachi at the ready. Shin landed blow after blow on him, and Yuu was always almost a second too late to block them. He wasn't fast enough anymore, not enough to get in another jab of his own.

He was exhausted. He was losing.

Shin punctuated every swipe of his blade with words that had her heart throbbing with what they could mean. She didn't know what happened, exactly, no one ever spoke of it, but she knew that something horrible had happened nine years ago, from little hints thoughtlessly dropped here and there.

Now, watching Shin's Makashi lash out at Yuu with an anger borne of the grief from whatever happened all those years ago, she realized that Shin and his Makashi...maybe they were more alike than she'd thought. Enough to share that grief.

"Daichi's sister, Kaede's brothers, Shouta's entire family," a twist of his feet, a swing of his blades, and Shin brought them crashing down over Yuu's head hard enough to make both blades scream. Shin ducked and swiped his other blade at Yuu's momentarily unprotected abdomen. Yuu leaped back, but not before she saw fresh blood stain his front. "All of them, murdered. Our parents died because of you! We can never get them back because of you."

"That's not on me," Yuu yelled back. "The Kitsune made my father do it. I had nothing to do with that!"

Shin twisted on the balls of his feet and brought down the twin katanas so hard that Yuu's tachi rang and screeched as the blades met. "You're his son. You're that bastard traitor's son, and you deserve to die with him!"

Better hurry, better hurry, Kuniumi's voice echoed hollowly. Yuu is not going to last. Shin's Makashi is close to snapping. The Torimaku will be destroyed. Oh, what a sight that will be.

"No," she said, frantic. "Please don't go – "

Let your emotions rage through you. Let them control you instead of the other way round. Get lost in your guilt, in your sorrow, in your memories of the Shin you know, in the pain and anger of remembering nothing you should. That is how you'll save him from himself.

"But what if I – "

You could speak his name now, with us, but without the intent of sentiment, it will be useless. For now. She felt a smile twitch at her own lips that had her skin crawling. We will not hold your hand through everything you must go through.

And then she was gone.

Just like that, Pai was left alone and bereft as she watched with wide eyes at the fight that was slowly deteriorating to Yuu's loss. Shin was simply too fast for him, and had already landed too many blows on him whose wounds were only slowing him down.

If she didn't do something now, not only would Shin die when the Kamigami finally caught up to him, but so would Yuu, and Haru, and Kouta and Daichi and all the Daitengu who were unwittingly laying down their lives for their friend and comrade.

Intent of sentiment. What – what did that even mean?

Let your emotions rage through you. Let them control you.

Pai closed her eyes, and tried to see what it meant. Intent of sentiment.

She gave herself over and fell into Kuniumi's last words, let her emotions swirl unhinged around in her mind, in her heart, as she brought to mind the kanji character of Shin's name. She remembered the strange elation she'd felt when everything had fallen in place once she saw it and realized what Shin's true name was.

She let the loneliness she'd felt when looking back at Shin standing under the kami fruit fill her. She let the pleasant surprise she always felt and usually tried to smother when he would pop out of nowhere and help her for no apparent reason envelope her.

She remembered the odd sense of pride, of accomplishment, that she had felt whenever she managed to make Shin smile, no matter how small it was, on so rare an occasion. Especially the first time, when all she'd done was stumble over her own words and ended up saying something so stupid that even Shin had looked surprised when he smiled at it.

She tried to imagine Shin gone. She tried to imagine what it would be like to keep walking through the halls of home and know it was her fault an integral piece of it was never going to come back.

She tried to imagine Shin dying, and it was like a shard of solid ice stabbed her heart.

She drew in a deep, deep breath, opened her eyes, and let his Makashi's name out in a scream that was filled with pain, hope, joy and sorrow. It was so raw and primal, she wasn't entirely sure it came from her alone.

"SHINIGAMI!"