The Gate, part 1
Aug. 13th, 2010 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hound_boundUgh. Been ages since I tried writing something. Sorry if this is really terrible
Title: The Gate (subject to change)
Series: Yami no Matsuei
Characters: Hajime Terazuma, Wakaba Kannuki
Rating: PG for mild swearingness
Summary: Terazuma's feeling a little useless, but a new case for he and Wakaba could prove disastrous if he can't come to terms with his abilities and limits
Disclaimers: All aspects of Yami no Matsuei belong to Yoko Matsushita. :)
It was dark out, well after midnight, but there were enough stars out that, combined with a sliver of moon, they could at least see where they were going. Side-by-side, they moved slowly, carefully, listening and watching for anything out of the ordinary.
Terazuma knew where they were – he’d never done much visiting of Itsukushima when he was alive, had no use for mystical sites or powerful sites or whatever, but now that he was here and paying attention, there was a certain FEEL to the place he didn’t think he’d forget.
Which, he tried to tell himself, was completely stupid. Places didn’t have feels, they had sounds and smells and sights, people and animals and plants. They had history that could act on people’s imaginations (not his, he prided himself on keeping imagination as much out of his life as possible) and that led weaker-willed people to say places felt comforting or frightening or deathly. He tried to tell himself, but it didn’t stop his uneasiness.
“You know this place is sacred?” Kannuki asked suddenly, her voice low and quiet so it seemed her words would just reach his ears and then stop. “It’s forbidden for people to die here.”
He snorted. “Yeah? What’ll they do about it if someone just drops, tell ‘em no?”
Kannuki shushed him, looking amused and cross at the same time, he thought – though it was hard to tell. Her hair and the dim light left most of her face shrouded in shadow. “That’s disrespectful,” she said. “It might be a thought like that that got us sent here. Visitors keep dying after visiting a place like this. We have to find out what’s going on.”
That struck him as… off, as wrong somehow. If people were being struck down after visiting here, it made more sense to him to investigate when people were here, to question the families of the deceased, to get some idea what to do. So why, then, were they just sneaking around here at night?
He wasn’t even sure what they were looking for.
Kannuki seemed to know where she was going though, so he stuck as close as he dared, letting her look for whatever she was seeking while he kept an eye out for anything that might be coming for them. It wasn’t unheard of, people attacking shinigami. Hell, Kurosaki and that idiot Tsuzuki seemed to always be getting caught out, a trend for which he pitied the kid and blamed the idiot.
“Wait! Look there.”
They were coming to the end of the path, and through the thinning trees he could see the moonlit water glittering, hear it washing on the beach. To the right, he could see the torii arch, the ground around it glimmering wetly. With the tide ebbing, it stood on a bed of mud instead of the water’s surface.
Terazuma halted. The breeze over the water pushed its way around the final thin strand of trees, bringing with it a sprinkling of mist. “Kannuki, hang on a second-“
“Come ON,” she insisted, smiling at him and holding out her hand. “I think I just found what we’re looking for. The tide’s going down, it’ll be okay if we’re careful.”
For a long moment he stared at her outstretched hand. Someone observing the situation might have likened his posture and expression to those of a terrified teenager being asked to dance for the first time at his prom, but Terazuma had never been to a prom, hated dancing and didn’t like to admit he’d ever been a teenager, so the comparison would have been lost on him.
“Hajime?”
At the use of his given name, Terazuma was brought back to the real world. He shoved his hands into his pockets so hard he felt one seam give a little, then stepped around his partner and out of the trees ahead of her. If there WAS something out there, it was going to deal with HIM first, not her.
The shoreline, with the receding water, offered a myriad of unusual shapes and shadows. Already jumpy, Terazuma was expecting to find something malevolent in each one, but Wakaba brushed past him without a concern, perfectly happy to stand without protection or care on the rocks. She took up a position on an outcropping that, at high tide, would have been surrounded on three sides by water.
“What did you see?” he growled, not trusting the quiet and peace of the night.
She turned to face him, hands clasped behind her back, and while she was still smiling there was something different about it. He couldn’t quite place it, but his unease increased. Despite the smile, she didn’t really look happy.
“Hajime… I’m sorry. You need to know I’m transferring. I should have said something sooner, but…” she trailed off and watched him.
He just stared at first, waiting for the smile to return, for it to be some sort of prank the others had put her up to. The water in the air was heavier out here, and he had to mentally stamp down on that parasite hiding inside him. He could not afford that distraction, much less what would happen if he lost control, not NOW.
“Why?” he managed to ask, voice gruff. He wasn’t going to beg, but if she was going to spring this on him like this, he felt he at least deserved that much of an answer. There were plenty of possibilities – if nothing else, having the added responsibilities as a gate guardian, not to mention being able to control his shiki better than he could might be stressful. But shouldn’t she have discussed it with him first?
She wouldn’t look directly at him now, first gazing down, then out across the water. “I just can’t do this anymore. The sixth district is quieter, and I’ll be working with Watari, who-“
“Watari?” He couldn’t help shouting it, incredulous, confused. That addle-brained, preening scientist didn’t have enough to do on that beat to keep HIMSELF out of trouble, and Kannuki could probably manage it in her down time, though he didn’t say any of that out loud. What were they thinking?
But she was still talking, having given his outburst only a brief pause. “-who knows a lot more about… about a lot of things, Hajime. And I’m sure you’ll be just fine working this beat with someone else.” She chanced a look at him again, this one earnest, honest, asking him to not be mad. “I think it’ll really give you a chance to shine.”
More like a chance to accidentally kill mortals, but he didn’t say THAT out loud either. Instead he struggled with several things he could say, things that he should say, and settled finally on-
“Fine.”
There was an edge of a snarl to the word that he didn’t bother to hide. But as soon as the word, the tone had escaped him, he felt himself turning red, his face growing hot, and he turned abruptly to keep her from seeing it. She might have sprung this on him, but she was free to make her own decisions about things and it was none of his business. She didn’t deserve that sort of attitude. But… damn it all!
He started stalking toward the forest again, one hand flexing and clenching against his side, but an unusual noise behind him stopped him. It had sounded like… like a cracking, like a tree branch snapping off under the weight of too much ice, but louder, and everything shook violently as though the entire world were breaking.
He turned back and saw exactly that.
The water, the sky and the muddy expanse of shore revealed by the dropping tide had both completely dropped away, leaving everything beyond the shore a black void. Kannuki stood on a rocky outcropping, arms windmilling as she teetered on the brink of that endless nothingness.
“Shit!” It probably should have been a warning sign that he didn’t find the world breaking in half odd, but all he could focus on was his partner. Scrambling forward over the uneven ground, he fought to get there before she fell, he HAD to. Hand outstretched, he shouted, “Kannuki!”
She didn’t say anything at all as she started to fall backward into space, but it was okay, he was going to make it, he was-
He didn’t feel the change, not like usual, but abruptly the hand he was reaching out to Wakaba became a paw, oversized, clawed. One bound and he was there by her side, the paw reaching for her.
And smacking hard into her torso, finishing the job that the shaking and gravity had begun.
No! he thought, grappling for control, but at this point he was all but passenger, and he could feel a feral sort of glee in the back of his mind as he watched her fall away. There was no anger, not even surprise, but just a sort of confusion in her face as she looked back up at him. No, no, this can’t be happening. But it was, and his body was betraying him, forcing him to sit and watch until she was gone.
Gone.
Dammit!
The world shook again, but it wasn’t until a shadow fell over him, deepening the darkness around him, that he stopped searching for some sign that this was all a mistake. He looked up to see something looming over him, as large to him as he in his shiki’s form had been to Wakaba. It took a few seconds for his mind to register what he was even seeing, it had been so long since he’d seen it from the outside.
Terazuma’s form had gone back to his normal human shape, and now, somehow, Kagan Kuroshuki stood over him, larger than he ever remembered. You… I’ll never get this chance again. Grabbing the gun he still carried out of habit more than anything, he aimed for the thing’s face and fired, shot after shot, spaced so closely the individual cracks of the gun firing ran into one another and the bullets punctured the dark face in close formation.
It had no effect. He’d known it wouldn’t – knew that better than anyone – but it was a bitter pill to swallow just before the creature opened its own mouth and-
_______________________
Terazuma startled into consciousness, half-sitting-up in his bed. His eyes scanned the room for the shiki, for the void, but there were only the austere walls of his room and he could feel his… the other one stirring angrily inside him. If there was one thing the pair of them agreed on, it was that neither particularly cared for this arrangement.
Satisfied that the visions of moments before had just been part of a bad dream, he climbed out of bed and got moving, only half aware that it was hours earlier than he usually started his day. He felt tense, keyed up from the dream, and if he didn’t do something productive, he was just going to pace around anyway.
Doing his best to put the dream out of his mind, he prowled across the room and started getting ready to face the day.
Title: The Gate (subject to change)
Series: Yami no Matsuei
Characters: Hajime Terazuma, Wakaba Kannuki
Rating: PG for mild swearingness
Summary: Terazuma's feeling a little useless, but a new case for he and Wakaba could prove disastrous if he can't come to terms with his abilities and limits
Disclaimers: All aspects of Yami no Matsuei belong to Yoko Matsushita. :)
It was dark out, well after midnight, but there were enough stars out that, combined with a sliver of moon, they could at least see where they were going. Side-by-side, they moved slowly, carefully, listening and watching for anything out of the ordinary.
Terazuma knew where they were – he’d never done much visiting of Itsukushima when he was alive, had no use for mystical sites or powerful sites or whatever, but now that he was here and paying attention, there was a certain FEEL to the place he didn’t think he’d forget.
Which, he tried to tell himself, was completely stupid. Places didn’t have feels, they had sounds and smells and sights, people and animals and plants. They had history that could act on people’s imaginations (not his, he prided himself on keeping imagination as much out of his life as possible) and that led weaker-willed people to say places felt comforting or frightening or deathly. He tried to tell himself, but it didn’t stop his uneasiness.
“You know this place is sacred?” Kannuki asked suddenly, her voice low and quiet so it seemed her words would just reach his ears and then stop. “It’s forbidden for people to die here.”
He snorted. “Yeah? What’ll they do about it if someone just drops, tell ‘em no?”
Kannuki shushed him, looking amused and cross at the same time, he thought – though it was hard to tell. Her hair and the dim light left most of her face shrouded in shadow. “That’s disrespectful,” she said. “It might be a thought like that that got us sent here. Visitors keep dying after visiting a place like this. We have to find out what’s going on.”
That struck him as… off, as wrong somehow. If people were being struck down after visiting here, it made more sense to him to investigate when people were here, to question the families of the deceased, to get some idea what to do. So why, then, were they just sneaking around here at night?
He wasn’t even sure what they were looking for.
Kannuki seemed to know where she was going though, so he stuck as close as he dared, letting her look for whatever she was seeking while he kept an eye out for anything that might be coming for them. It wasn’t unheard of, people attacking shinigami. Hell, Kurosaki and that idiot Tsuzuki seemed to always be getting caught out, a trend for which he pitied the kid and blamed the idiot.
“Wait! Look there.”
They were coming to the end of the path, and through the thinning trees he could see the moonlit water glittering, hear it washing on the beach. To the right, he could see the torii arch, the ground around it glimmering wetly. With the tide ebbing, it stood on a bed of mud instead of the water’s surface.
Terazuma halted. The breeze over the water pushed its way around the final thin strand of trees, bringing with it a sprinkling of mist. “Kannuki, hang on a second-“
“Come ON,” she insisted, smiling at him and holding out her hand. “I think I just found what we’re looking for. The tide’s going down, it’ll be okay if we’re careful.”
For a long moment he stared at her outstretched hand. Someone observing the situation might have likened his posture and expression to those of a terrified teenager being asked to dance for the first time at his prom, but Terazuma had never been to a prom, hated dancing and didn’t like to admit he’d ever been a teenager, so the comparison would have been lost on him.
“Hajime?”
At the use of his given name, Terazuma was brought back to the real world. He shoved his hands into his pockets so hard he felt one seam give a little, then stepped around his partner and out of the trees ahead of her. If there WAS something out there, it was going to deal with HIM first, not her.
The shoreline, with the receding water, offered a myriad of unusual shapes and shadows. Already jumpy, Terazuma was expecting to find something malevolent in each one, but Wakaba brushed past him without a concern, perfectly happy to stand without protection or care on the rocks. She took up a position on an outcropping that, at high tide, would have been surrounded on three sides by water.
“What did you see?” he growled, not trusting the quiet and peace of the night.
She turned to face him, hands clasped behind her back, and while she was still smiling there was something different about it. He couldn’t quite place it, but his unease increased. Despite the smile, she didn’t really look happy.
“Hajime… I’m sorry. You need to know I’m transferring. I should have said something sooner, but…” she trailed off and watched him.
He just stared at first, waiting for the smile to return, for it to be some sort of prank the others had put her up to. The water in the air was heavier out here, and he had to mentally stamp down on that parasite hiding inside him. He could not afford that distraction, much less what would happen if he lost control, not NOW.
“Why?” he managed to ask, voice gruff. He wasn’t going to beg, but if she was going to spring this on him like this, he felt he at least deserved that much of an answer. There were plenty of possibilities – if nothing else, having the added responsibilities as a gate guardian, not to mention being able to control his shiki better than he could might be stressful. But shouldn’t she have discussed it with him first?
She wouldn’t look directly at him now, first gazing down, then out across the water. “I just can’t do this anymore. The sixth district is quieter, and I’ll be working with Watari, who-“
“Watari?” He couldn’t help shouting it, incredulous, confused. That addle-brained, preening scientist didn’t have enough to do on that beat to keep HIMSELF out of trouble, and Kannuki could probably manage it in her down time, though he didn’t say any of that out loud. What were they thinking?
But she was still talking, having given his outburst only a brief pause. “-who knows a lot more about… about a lot of things, Hajime. And I’m sure you’ll be just fine working this beat with someone else.” She chanced a look at him again, this one earnest, honest, asking him to not be mad. “I think it’ll really give you a chance to shine.”
More like a chance to accidentally kill mortals, but he didn’t say THAT out loud either. Instead he struggled with several things he could say, things that he should say, and settled finally on-
“Fine.”
There was an edge of a snarl to the word that he didn’t bother to hide. But as soon as the word, the tone had escaped him, he felt himself turning red, his face growing hot, and he turned abruptly to keep her from seeing it. She might have sprung this on him, but she was free to make her own decisions about things and it was none of his business. She didn’t deserve that sort of attitude. But… damn it all!
He started stalking toward the forest again, one hand flexing and clenching against his side, but an unusual noise behind him stopped him. It had sounded like… like a cracking, like a tree branch snapping off under the weight of too much ice, but louder, and everything shook violently as though the entire world were breaking.
He turned back and saw exactly that.
The water, the sky and the muddy expanse of shore revealed by the dropping tide had both completely dropped away, leaving everything beyond the shore a black void. Kannuki stood on a rocky outcropping, arms windmilling as she teetered on the brink of that endless nothingness.
“Shit!” It probably should have been a warning sign that he didn’t find the world breaking in half odd, but all he could focus on was his partner. Scrambling forward over the uneven ground, he fought to get there before she fell, he HAD to. Hand outstretched, he shouted, “Kannuki!”
She didn’t say anything at all as she started to fall backward into space, but it was okay, he was going to make it, he was-
He didn’t feel the change, not like usual, but abruptly the hand he was reaching out to Wakaba became a paw, oversized, clawed. One bound and he was there by her side, the paw reaching for her.
And smacking hard into her torso, finishing the job that the shaking and gravity had begun.
No! he thought, grappling for control, but at this point he was all but passenger, and he could feel a feral sort of glee in the back of his mind as he watched her fall away. There was no anger, not even surprise, but just a sort of confusion in her face as she looked back up at him. No, no, this can’t be happening. But it was, and his body was betraying him, forcing him to sit and watch until she was gone.
Gone.
Dammit!
The world shook again, but it wasn’t until a shadow fell over him, deepening the darkness around him, that he stopped searching for some sign that this was all a mistake. He looked up to see something looming over him, as large to him as he in his shiki’s form had been to Wakaba. It took a few seconds for his mind to register what he was even seeing, it had been so long since he’d seen it from the outside.
Terazuma’s form had gone back to his normal human shape, and now, somehow, Kagan Kuroshuki stood over him, larger than he ever remembered. You… I’ll never get this chance again. Grabbing the gun he still carried out of habit more than anything, he aimed for the thing’s face and fired, shot after shot, spaced so closely the individual cracks of the gun firing ran into one another and the bullets punctured the dark face in close formation.
It had no effect. He’d known it wouldn’t – knew that better than anyone – but it was a bitter pill to swallow just before the creature opened its own mouth and-
_______________________
Terazuma startled into consciousness, half-sitting-up in his bed. His eyes scanned the room for the shiki, for the void, but there were only the austere walls of his room and he could feel his… the other one stirring angrily inside him. If there was one thing the pair of them agreed on, it was that neither particularly cared for this arrangement.
Satisfied that the visions of moments before had just been part of a bad dream, he climbed out of bed and got moving, only half aware that it was hours earlier than he usually started his day. He felt tense, keyed up from the dream, and if he didn’t do something productive, he was just going to pace around anyway.
Doing his best to put the dream out of his mind, he prowled across the room and started getting ready to face the day.