There were sounds in the darkness outside, sounds other than the ever-present bubbling of test-tubes in Watari's lab, or the soft whisper of night winds in the perpetual cherry blossom of Meifu.
003 hooted thoughtfully, perched on his master's shoulder, wings ready to backfan and propel him to safety at a moment's notice if Watari should decide that the current experiment's results mandated an outburst of joy or despair. He was accustomed to the sudden wild bouncings of success, the droop and sway of failure, and the tossing masses of hair which generally went with perplexity. It was, the little owl considered, a natural hazard of the laboratory.
On earth, night lay like a silk sheet over half the world. An amethyst-eyed shinigami dreamed of chocolate cakes. A thin emerald-eyed boy looked at his hands and considered washing them again, just to be sure that all the blood was gone. A girl's body, long since left behind by any spirit which had once inhabited the flesh, lay in a metal coffin that had been a proud ship, and shifted gently in the deep slow currents of the sea.
Watari thought that he heard a footstep outside the door.
It seemed a scientifically unlikely event. At this time of night, his most frequent visitors - such as Tsuzuki - would be at home and fast asleep, curled up snugly in their beds. Ah, but the patient scientist, the alchemist, the miracle worker such as himself didn't bother about sleep! He slaved night after night, seeking the deepest secrets of the universe! Such as a reliable sex-change potion. For a start. Enlightenment could not remain hidden long from his probing researches. Assuming that he could wheedle another research grant out of Tatsumi, that was.
Watari considered seizing the moment and bursting in on Tatsumi to demand more money. After all, success couldn't be far off at this rate. He'd had two reactions already tonight which had worked rather than failing dismally. Possibly - his eyes glazed over - he'd even be able to test them tomorrow. He began to ponder what chocolates might best serve to disguise the concoctions while administering them to Tsuzuki. He leaned forward till he was practically nose to nose with an alembic of bubbling green fluid, estimating the rate of evaporation.
There was a creak as the door opened behind him. 003 rose from his shoulder, winging to greet the visitor with a soft hoot.
"Who . . ." he started to say.
Watari had once been to a baseball game. He had found the whole experience marvellously energizing, and full of charm and fun, although Tatsumi, sitting next to him, had developed a serious headache, for no particularly obvious reason. (The tickets had been won in a free raffle by Tsuzuki, confiscated by Tatsumi to repay a few outstanding debts, and used as an office trip. The best sort of holiday, Tatsumi pointed out several times, as it was totally free.) He remembered the sound of bat on ball, the firm authority of the crack of wood against leather, the thorough solidity of the noise.
The sound he heard was a little like that.
003 went flying across the room in a blur of feathers, too fast to even spin lazily in the air as a normal thrown ball would, and hit the wall with a firm splat. The tiny owl fell to the floor, and did not move.
Watari was already turning, crying out in outrage, when a hand caught him squarely on the back of the neck, throwing him forward onto the laboratory table. Testtubes splintered and jars of chemicals went flying. He sagged down to his knees, unable to keep his balance or stay upright, trying to regain focus, stand up, defend himself, do something. He hadn't been involved in brawls for years now. His field was research. A piece of broken glass had slashed his forehead, and it was bleeding freely; he tried to raise one hand to wipe the blood out of his eyes, but his body didn't seem to want to coordinate itself properly.
A hand grabbed his right shoulder, pulling him upright, and he almost muttered something stupid in thanks. However, instinct and common sense took over, and he tried to swivel round, to push the man away (it was a man's hand, his senses reported, too large on his shoulder to be a woman's hand) and to see who it was.
It was so quiet, except for the noise of fizzing chemicals and the hiss of a bunsen burner. The whole room seemed to be muffled in silence. His own breathing was hoarse, rough, too loud. The other man's was controlled, barely audible.
The hand pulled him up and backwards, dragging him against the man's chest. The other arm came around to pin his arms against his body, hold him there struggling weakly. (He shouldn't be thinking in terms of separate arms and hands like this, but he couldn't see the man, couldn't turn his head to see him, jammed as it was against the man's shoulder, couldn't shake the mass of bloodied golden hair out of his eyes, couldn't even seem to focus clearly in a laboratory that seemed to be getting darker by the second.)
Watari did manage to cry out when the intruder's right hand moved up to his throat, a slow gliding passage of fingers from the shoulder and onto the neck, pausing for a moment to stroke the hollow at the base of the throat before fastening firmly and beginning to squeeze. He kicked backwards and struggled, but the man holding him was taller than he was, and he still couldn't seem to coordinate his body properly.
He couldn't breathe.
He was sure that the intruder was laughing.
He was a scientist, he knew all the proper terms for the process of suffocation. It wasn't helping.
He couldn't breathe.
Could even a shinigami survive this, some part of his mind queried. The world was dissolving into gold streaks of matted hair in front of his eyes and reddish haze. He was conscious of the other man's firm body behind him, could even feel the lines of the suit and the buttons of the jacket that he was being held against, and as his vision slowly faded into nothing but darkness, touch and sound was the last thing that remained; the ragged edges of his own gasping, the warm hand on his throat.
He couldn't breathe.
The intruder held Watari for a few moments after the struggling stopped, then dropped the body to the ground. It landed limply, as boneless as the tattered owl, and lay there, the mass of curling hair covering the shinigami's face as if in some vestige of modesty.
Briskly, as though working to a schedule, he threw the lab computer from the desk where it rested, and then picked up the bottle labelled SULPHURIC ACID, DO NOT TOUCH, AND DO NOT DRINK - THIS MEANS YOU, TSUZUKI and poured it into the casing until the bottle was empty. Shelves were smashed and books were ripped apart. One in particular was destroyed with particular care, crumpled and torn into shreds.
On the ground, Watari twitched slightly. His hair fluttered near his mouth, then fell back as his first desperate gasp gave way to a more regular unconscious breathing. The brief noise was lost in the more general destruction.
The intruder turned, and walked across to where the body lay on the floor. He prodded it idly with the toe of one well-polished shoe. Watari rolled over bonelessly, tangled hair still covering most of his face. He looked as dead as anyone could reasonably expect.
The intruder smiled pleasantly, and swept Watari's lab desk free of bottles and experiments, cascading them over the body at his feet. With a casual, satisfied step he left the room, turning out the lights behind him, and closed the door.
He laid a red rose on the threshold on the other side.
Just so they'd know.
Now he could really start enjoying himself.
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