Elsewhere, Terazuma was assessing the situation while his partner carried out negotiations. Well, one of the boys may look like a young Muraki, but he eats like Tsuzuki. And the general vibes around here are peaceful enough. Of course, things would be going faster if Wakaba didn't keep on stopping to coo over how kawaii the girl's costume is, and if I wasn't being held tight by the branches from that blasted Woody card . . .
----
The elderly woman led Tsuzuki and a shaky Watari down an elegantly austere corridor and into a pleasant lounge, lightly decorated in white and grey, with pale silver accents, and with the morning light streaming in through the large windows. It reminded Tsuzuki vaguely of some half-remembered dream.
Muraki was sitting at the table, dark grey yukata tied neatly, white hair falling over his right eye. Just as always. Just as if his being here, as if their arrival, were perfectly ordinary things. The table had the relics of a half-finished breakfast on it - omelettes and toast, apparently, next to a half-full jug of grapefruit juice and a small expresso-sized coffee cup. Next to Muraki's chair was a large wooden crate, the top unfastened but left lying loosely on top. An odd bumping noise came from it.
Muraki looked up from his coffee as though the two shinigami were casual friends, welcome at any hour in his house, and hardly unexpected visitors with a potentially lethal grudge against him. "Tsuzuki-san!" he exclaimed. "How pleasant to see you. And . . ." His eyes wandered to Watari, and he considered her with a polite if perplexed frown. "This lady is your, ah, cousin?"
The bumping noises from the crate grew more violent.
"No, this is Watari. I'm sure you've heard about Watari. You seem to know about everything else," Tsuzuki replied absently, looking around for any sign of Hisoka. "Wait. What are you doing here?"
Muraki blinked. "I live here. And to the best of my knowledge, the famous scientist Watari of the JuOhCho district is male. Am I misinformed?" He politely rose from his seat, and drew out a chair so that the obviously swaying Watari could sit down.
"I, ah, am Watari," the blonde shinigami muttered. "Thank you very much, by the way. I've enjoyed reading some of your articles in the Lancet . . ."
Tsuzuki threw up his hands. "Watari-san, this is Muraki. We aren't here to discuss scientific advances?"
"Oh," Muraki murmured, "don't be so aggressive, Tsuzuki-san. I have no objection to your friends visiting as well as you."
"We aren't here to visit you!" Tsuzuki snapped, then backed away several paces hastily, retreating behind Watari's chair. Where is Hisoka? he wondered frantically. Could the boy be a prisoner of the sadistic doctor, chained in some silk-hung bedroom, lying naked and helpless . . . He swallowed. "What do you know about the attacks in JuOhCho?" he demanded.
Muraki frowned. "As I said before . . ."
"When before?" Watari interrupted.
"Tsuzuki-san was in my dreams." Muraki smiled reminiscently. Strange thumps started to come from the crate near his chair again. "But truly, I know nothing about any strange goings-on in JuOhCho for the moment. I know you may find this hard to believe. Seriously, though, what motive would I have for trying to turn Watari-san here into a woman?"
"Actually," Watari pointed out, "it was someone trying to strangle me. But I don't think it was you, Muraki-sensei."
Muraki adjusted his glasses with his left hand. "It is good to see that someone has some faith in me."
"Besides," Watari continued logically, "if it had been you, I'm fairly sure you'd have checked to make certain that I was dead."
The silver-haired doctor smiled pleasantly. "Only an amateur would neglect that sort of detail." He turned to Tsuzuki. "So what can I do for you, Tsuzuki-san? If you are having problems, I'd be delighted to put you up for a few days - or, rather, for a few nights . . ."
Tsuzuki swallowed nervously. "Oh, I have absolutely no intention of trespassing on your hospitality." You've got twelve shikigamis backing you up, he reminded himself, and a pocketful of ofudas. Stay in control. Stop looking at the line of his throat. "I'm looking for Hisoka."
Again there came a volley of thumps from the crate.
"What's in there?" Watari inquired curiously.
"An early birthday present," Muraki said blandly. "Tsuzuki-san, you are growing somewhat obsessive about the boy. If I promised you that I had nothing to do with his disappearance, and helped you to find him, would you take that as proof of my bona fides and consider staying here a while? Clearly JuOhCho is not safe."
Tsuzuki looked to Watari, then back to Muraki again, then back to Watari. "Watari, are you absolutely sure that Muraki-sensei had nothing to do with what's currently going on?"
"Unfortunately," Watari sighed, "yes."
Tsuzuki frowned, amethyst eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Assuming that Hisoka confirms that you had nothing to do with his kidnapping . . . all right. A temporary truce."
Muraki's mouth curled in a dreadful, slow, caressing smile. "A very wise decision."
Tsuzuki plucked nervously at his collar, which felt rather too tight. "Now can you help us find Hisoka?"
Muraki sighed, and sat back down again. "Always this preoccupation with the boy. Very well. Before we go any further, I wish to make it quite clear that I had nothing whatsoever to do with his kidnapping. As he can and will testify, I hope."
Tsuzuki didn't like the sound of this. "And?"
Muraki shrugged, an elegant lift of one shoulder. "He's in the crate here. Such a noisy boy."
Tsuzuki was across the room in the blink of an eyelid, grabbing Muraki by the collar of his yukata and hauling him out of his chair. "He's what?"
"In the crate." Muraki was still smiling, and he raised one long-fingered hand to stroke Tsuzuki's wrist. "You don't play poker very well, do you, Tsuzuki-san? He turned up in that crate on my doorstep about an hour or so. I was -- well, let's not go into that."
"Didn't your housekeeper comment on it at all?" Watari asked curiously.
"Oh, I enchanted her a while ago," Muraki explained casually.
"You what!" Tsuzuki exclaimed in disgust. Really, it was only what one might expect from a twisted mastermind like Muraki, but even so . . .
"Asato." Muraki seemed to be tasting the word. "Asato, how can you possibly object to me doing such a thing? It's for her own peace of mind. And I really don't want to have to get a new housekeeper. She makes omelettes just the way that I like them."
"The name is Tsuzuki," the shinigami growled, dropping Muraki back in his chair and turning to the crate. He tugged the lid off with a single brisk jerk.
Inside was Hisoka. He was naked, trussed like a chicken, and had an apple wedged in his mouth. He stared up at Tsuzuki with a gaze that combined a furious entreaty to be released with a bitter embarrassment.
Several minutes later, once a yukata had been brought down from Muraki's wardrobe for Hisoka (Hisoka would have refused it, but Watari made it quite clear that she wasn't going to hand over Tsuzuki's trenchcoat and sit there in a hospital gown, and Tsuzuki's jacket simply didn't cover enough) and immediate questions of homicide had been set aside, the shinigamis and the doctor settled down to coffee and cakes. The housekeeper had brought both, still not seeming to notice anything out of the ordinary.
Tsuzuki looked across to Hisoka. The boy still seemed uncomfortable, even in the sakura-decorated yukata which Muraki had helpfully offered. Perhaps, a flag of memory suggested, a different pattern might have induced less stress. "So, Hisoka," he began cheerfully, "what happened?"
Hisoka didn't look at any of the others at the table as he took a deep breath. "I was working," he said flatly. "As Tatsumi had suggested. Then I looked around and the windows were covered with darkness. And then a wave of shadow hit me and I don't remember anything else."
He looked up, perhaps startled by the total silence his words provoked, and saw very curious expressions on the faces of the others. Watari's expression was thin with tension, Muraki's thoughtful but vaguely amused and disturbed at the same time, and Tsuzuki . . . Tsuzuki looked like a man hearing his own death sentence. "Tsuzuki-san?" he asked, moved by a sudden impulse of concern. "What is it?"
Tsuzuki looked down at the smears of cream on his empty plate. Slowly, he said, "There's only one kagetsukai, one master of shadows, in JuOhCho."
Muraki nodded. "That's what I heard. His master . . . operates elsewhere."
Hisoka's hands balled into fists. Slowly he forced them open and made his breathing slow, using the control which he had learned in long years of illness and isolation. "But who?"
Watari closed her eyes. "Tatsumi-san."
---