i hope thing isn't too confusing here.>
Title: Route 666
Authors: Mizuki and Shizu
Bands: many, with original character
Pairings: Tetsu x Hyde, adds JxIno!
Genre: AU fantasy(in modern setting)
Note: the Shinya who had been mentioned here is LS’s Shinya! Furthermore, in J’s childhood memory, he referred Tetsu as Tetsuya or Tetsuya Ogawa…because it’s what Tetsu been known to him.^^;
Comment: this chapter is so full of Luna Sea characters(and original characters).*hides*
Thing is getting so complicated that even I forgot what is going on here…too bad. And I told Shizu what I’ve been writing in Route666 and she was pissed that I twisted up her idea and added so many plots in to mess the whole thing up, argh, poor me n’ poor her…^^;
What had happened?
“Tetsuya? What had you done?”
What had you done to Okaasan and Otousan!? why did you do it!? How could youyouooouuuuuuuuuuu!!!????
“Jun-chan…I had remembered.” Tetsuya was saying. “I’d remembered what I really am.”
He didn’t understand what the blonde was saying, and his brain was still too numb from the shock and fear for him to function normally.
“…what…how…” he squeezed the words from between his trembling lips. ”Tetsuya…why you…?”
“Why I …” Tetsuya lowered his sight to glace at the stilled bodies near his feet.” Why I did it to your parents?”
Then to the boy’s fear, the blonde let out a sudden, piercing laugher mockingly. “Not for any reason exactly, Jun-chan…it’s just my instinct. It’s what I truly am, it’s what I have to do, I should not, and never can be your friend, but someone had robbed this identity away from me and made me forgetful of my nature, my true self. The fact that I’m a demon, it’s a simple truth.”
Demon? What was Tetsuya talking about? Tetsuya…we were supposed to be friends! You’d promised we would stay friend forever! But why…?
Then Tetsuya laughed, an ugly piercing sound that ringing against the four walls, filling within the cage of his skull, tearing his sanity apart. He had to block his ears with his both hands, trying to block this madding noise away, but he couldn’t shut his eyes from the sight of his parents’ dead corpses, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the blood-soaked figure of Tetsuya before him, his flashing, crazy eyes fixed on him, mocking him his ignorance and blinked trust---
Then suddenly everything turned into a twisting whirl before him, and he could do nothing to stop his world from falling apart---
***
When he snapped his eyes open, with cold sweat soaking the back of the t-shirt he wore to bed, there was only darkness to greet him.
No Okaasan or Otousan covering in blood, lying lifelessly and still on the floor, no sea of crimson pooling around their pale maimed bodies, nor Tetsuya stood in the middle of the mess, smirking, staring at him with a strange inhuman golden flashes in his once innocent eyes...
Nothing.
So it was another dream. But kind of dream like this one never really went away.
How many years had passed since *that day*, the day his parents were murdered? God sometime he hated his own ability to memorize things, how he could recall every detail so vividly as if it were only happened in yesterday.
He turned on the light, and the action had also waked the other person who slept on the other bed nearby from his sleep.
“Not sleeping well again, J chan?” Sugizo asked with a sleepy voice, rubbing his tired eyes, but still the worry was clear in his tone.
He didn’t bother to look at his friend’s direction or answer his previous question seriously. “I’m fine.”
Upon speaking, his hand reached furiously for the bag placed beside his bed and found it, after shimming through random items within, he took out a small bottle of pills. He opened the bottle, put a few white pills to his palm and swallowed them quickly.
“Sleeping pill isn’t good for you, J-chan.” A frown formed between the pink head’s eyebrows.
“I said I’m fine.” He answered coldly. Lying back to the mattress tiredly and waited furiously for sleep, dreamless, mind-blinding kind of sleep to arrive.
The peacefulness that most of the people could find in their Dreamland was no longer his to enjoy. He could hardly sleep a natural healthy sleep without the help of sleeping pills for too long. The same nightmare that had been haunting him endlessly and will, he expected, continue for a long while…
For years he had been witnessing, again and again, his parents’ death in his nightmares. The scene never went away from his mind. Sometime the nightmare would leave him alone for a while only to strike him again with its full hideousness.
His parents were killed, cold bloodedly murdered by a demon. A demon that once hid beneath the harmlessness of a mortal’s façade, a demon who his family(including him) had once mistakenly trusted and befriended, but the only reward of their kindness was betray, blood and death.
Shortly after the slaughter, J came under the Guardian’s protection. Not only The Elders saw the potential which J possessed to become a holder of spiritual powers and special abilities his route as a Guardian in the future, they also knew his anger, fear and hatred toward demon race, and they had tried what thy could to reduce the hatred from him by teaching him facts and knowledge about demon races, the fact that not all of the demons were evil or brutal. Actually, despite the fact that demons were originally from another world, still many of the demon races had been living in human world since there were historical records. Most of the demons had lived among mortals peaceful for centuries. Only when we entered to the modern time, the existence of demons had slowly been forgotten and then been viewed as myths and folktales, as something unreal.
But all young J needed to know was, at least one of the demons was evil, cruel and brutal enough to kill innocents without any reason. And he swore that he’ll one day hurt down this particular one and take revenge from it.
That was all he needed to keep in mind.
He had been waiting so long, searching for so long for the killer of his parents in secret, for all of his years working and learning among the rest of Guardians, he had never stopped searching.
He would find this demon, and take revenge from him, for his parents’ sake if not his own.
Glancing at his friend lying back to his bed, Sugizo shook his head tiredly as he turned off the light again; tomorrow they will begin the journey to the town where abnormal demonic activities had been recently recorded for investigation. As they both knew that the upcoming task would be difficult for both of them, because there was report that a part of the seals that hold the Boundary together had been damaged under suspicious conditions. Therefore, teams of specialists like he and J-chan had been called in to this small town for back-up and to further investigation on the phenomenon. Before they left the Motherhouse of the Guardian, Sugizo had suggested his friend to go to the other specialists in the organization in hope to find a solution for his sleeping problem, but J didn’t listen to him. Goodness, this guy could be as stubborn as a bull when he made up his mind.
He hoped he could think of some ways to help his friend, Sugizo knew that he have to think of a method soon before J drove himself too far.
But how?
Sugizo sighed to himself, Shinya, the councilor whom both he and J answered to, had asked him to keep an eye on J before they left the keep of Guardian for their upcoming mission.
“Sugi-chan, I’m getting a little worry about J-chan, as you might notice he hasn’t been so well recently, in fact he hasn’t been well for a couple of months already. The mission which we had assigned to you two would be stressful no doubt, especially for J-chan. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that J isn’t strong or skillful enough to handle the task, it is his mental stability make me worry. I notice that he’s showing a little signs of nervousness. But the problem is he refuses to talk it over with any of us an he doesn’t give himself a break for goodness’ sake! “
“Then…why didn’t the Elders call up someone else to replace J when he isn’t…well? Shinya-sama?”
“We had tried to talk him out of it, but he refused and insist that everything is okay with him, and there’s no evident to proof him wrong. As we all know J-chan is one of the most suitable candidates we can find for the mission…”
What Shinya didn’t tell the pink hair young man was that another of the reason they failed to call J off was that one of the targets in questions, a mysterious but powerful demon whose true identity had yet been recognized, was closely related to J’s tragic past…
Of course, the Elders had informed everyone, including Sugizo, who was sent to for the mission, about the potential dangers of the upcoming task, because after hearing the other of their agent, Gackt’s report on what happened in the small town, the Elders had decided that it was important for them to send their best specialist teams out to close the broken hole that appeared on the Boundary before demons crossing over it and enter to the human world, also the teams were expected to carry out further investigation on the strange abnormal psychic phenomenon in the town.
“Oh…” Sugizo looked down at his shoes, trying to think of something to ask, huh, this mission in hand seemed to get a bit complicated when he would be the one to associate with the stubborn J during the time they work together…”Then what exactly do you want me to do with J-our bad boy? Babysitting him?”
The older man couldn’t help but giggle, the idea of anyone babysitting J amazed him. “Not like that Sugi, I think I best you can do for us is to keep a close eye on J-chan and make sure the he didn’t take action on his own without associating with his fellow partners in the team…”
ARGH!! *This*, is almost as good as to request me to babysitting him!! the pink head yelled inwardly to himself, but instead he nodded obediently to the older man and said. “I’ll see what I can do, Shinya-sama.”
“Good luck with your upcoming journey then, both you and J-chan.” Shinya smiled kindly to the pink head.
“I’ll tell J of your blessing, ja na,” Sugizo bowed slightly before he turned and left, closing the door behind him.
***
Once Sugizo was out of sight, Shinya sank back to his armchair and sighed deeply to himself, unable to decide whether it was correct not to inform Sugizo about J’s relationship with the mysterious case they had in hand. But well…although he knew his fellow Guardians would do anything to ensure the success of the mission, still it was important to respect J’s privacy, it was known among the Elders that J tended to hide his past from the others, even to the few of his close friend such as Sugizo, and always avoided mentioning anything about what his life had used to be before he joined the Guardian. Almost ten years had passed, but the youth still refused to let anyone else to step into this gloomy tragic part of his life.
Then Shinya recalled the night when he followed a few of his fellow companies to pay a visit to the house of the late Onose couple, half a year after the unsolved murder of the Onose family that left their son as the only survivor. The Elders had decided to send Lilith, one of the best and the most experienced psychic mediums in the organization, to the site of the murder, in hope to make contact with the ghosts of the Onose couple, J’s late parents. After the Guardian took Jun Onose under protection, the organization was aware of the fact that there were too many mysteries surrounded the case and it was highly likely that demonic force was involved. But the only witness, J was yet too traumatic to cooperate with specialists of any kind, so the Elders had decided to call upon the only possible eyewitness left for them: the spirits of the victims.
It was a night of experience that Shinya would never forget.
*Shinya’s flashback*
Three more members of the Guardian were assigned to accompany the medium, including two of his friends, Yoshiki and Ryuchi, both experts of the telepathic field. On the other hand, even Shinya himself was not all that brilliant on the art of telepathy, but due to the fact that he was the newly assigned mentor of Jun Onose, he was also included to the group. Their task was to guard Lilith through out the process of telepathic communication, for it was a common knowledge among specialist that spirits who had suffered violent death were more likely to be dangerous to the living ones who try to make contact with them. They might turned out to be violence with anger or hatred, the remaining part of their mind or consciousness they had once possessed in life, frozen at the horrifying abrupt last moment of their existence and tried to turn on the living one when they were being brought back to the world of living for some brief moments through telepathy. The possibility of being entered by a violent, confused spirit would also cause great harm to both the physical and the mental well being of the medium.
They entered the house together half an hour before middle night, all of them dressed in black in respect of the dead, a van and a chauffer were waiting outside the house in case of any emergency. The house had been left empty and uninhabited after the homicide took place, with the memory of the bloody slaughter still fresh among general pubic, no one dared to move in.
The rooms were dark and they had decided it would be best not to turn the light on, instead they placed dozen of candles all around the living room, where the murder took place. Although none of them were new to haunting sites but the abandoned house of Onose still caught them off guard. There was still an sinister, gloomy aura hovering heavily above the empty room, even after the bodies of the victims had long been removed, even after all the bloodstain was cleaned away and every single piece of furniture was stripped away, leaving no trail of the tragedy behind.
The four of them remained silence under the tensed atmosphere, quietly preparing for the telepathy process. First they drew spells of protection on the four posts of the floor by using white chalks; a camera and a tape-recorder were placed at the entrance of the living room for documental use. Then Ryuchi began to form a large magic circle on the center of the floor. One by one the members of Guardian stepped into the circle and seated themselves down on the slightly dusty floor, he was sitting at the left-hand side of Lilith, with Yoshiki on the right and Ryuchi opposite of him, all of them wore a gravely expression. when Yoshiki glanced at his watch and informed Lilith that it was now 12 o’ clock at mid-night, time to start the psychometry process, the red hair medium nodded and silently placed a piece of jewel bracelet on the center of the circle, it was one of the precious belonging of the late Mrs. Onose, next she placed a red tie near the bracelet, a tie that once belonged to Mr. Onose, following by few more personal belonging of the couple.
After everything was settled, the four of them held out their hands to each other and linked their arms together to form a circle.
Without a word the group began to concrete on the aura surrounding them, trying to catch the tension in the empty space…
And Lilith, being the most sensitive of them all, was the first to react to the call from The Otherside.
First she began to shiver slightly, then her upper torso was shaking back and forth as she panted under her breath, and suddenly Lilith’s head dropped forward as if all the strength in her body had just been drained away, seeing her strange movement, both he and Yoshiki tightened their grips on her hands.
“mmnnnn………”
She was whimpering in a soft, low, tortured female voice, nothing similar with the clear ringing melodic voice that the red haired woman usually used, her face hidden beneath the mass of her long curl hair.
“…Cold…so cold…”
The other three immediately realized that it wasn’t Lilith who was uttering those words.
“Where am I…?” these were the first clearly uttered sentences from the half-conscious woman.
“Please don’t worry, dear. You’re here with us, you have nothing to fear.” Ryuchi was the first to begin. He spoke to her in a soft, conforming voice. “And may I ask you a question?”
There was a long silence before the woman made a small nod as response.
“Thank you very much, dear. I want to ask, who are you?”
“Onose…” slowly, the same weak, sad voice came again, her shoulders shivering ever so lightly. “ Onose Reiko…”
The three of them gasped at the same time, things were getting serious, it seemed that they were contacting with the spirit of Jun’s dead mother, through the body of Lilith, they must be really careful of handling the situation now. Luckily they didn’t sense anger or hatred from the spirit, so far there was only a deep sense of sorrow, pain and confusion.
“Reiko-san? We are here to help, and we want to find out what happened to you…your husband and your son, do you remember anything? Anything important?”
“Jun…” the name of her son being mentioned sent a quiver all over her body. “…Jun…”
“Don’t worry; he’s safe and now in good hands. But we need to know what happened to you and your husband that day so we might about to help Jun out…”
“Jun…my dear little boy…” her voice trailed down into a sob. “ …he used to be so close with Tetsuya…”
“Excuse me, but who is Tetsuya?” they tensed upon hearing the strange unfamiliar name being mentioned.
Then he had sensed the change of the woman’s aura, now the color of her presence had changed from confusion and loss to a darker, murkier emotion…but it was too vague for him to tell what the emotion was.
“It is…” the soft voice suddenly hardened, turning into a cold deep tone. “Tetsuya…he did it to me…”
Within the next second, the woman throw back her head violently, the other three stared up at her in shock and alarm, unconsciously squeezed her hands even more tightly. Then they saw the wild, blank expression on her twisted face, the way her muscles tensed beneath her gravely pale skin. Her mouth wild open to unleash a dead scream that piercing the air.
“WHY IT HAD TO HAPPEN? I DIDN’T WANT TO DIE!NOOOOOOOO!!”
“Lilith! Listen to me, you have to come back here!” Yoshiki had to use all of his strength to pull Lilith down to her pervious position. “Can you hear me!???”
But more screams were tearing their ways out of Lilith’s throat, she sounded as though she was being straggled. “TETSUYA! YOU MUDERER!!! DEMON!!!MONSTERRRRR!!!”
“DAMN IT LILITH! COME BACK!”
Yoshiki was yelling at the top of his lung, while Shinya saw Ryuchi mouthing some spells quickly and in the next second---
Lilith’s body tensed up before she collapsed and fell to Yoshiki’s arms, the circle was broke instantly and none of them were sure whether Lilith would be alright. At least she was still breathing as Ryuchi took off his coat to cover her quivering body, but she still looked so gravely pale and exhausted.
Finally she opened her eyes slowly and looked around the fellow Guardians surrounding her, gave them a weak smile for apology. She knew that this time she had let herself go too far, went too deep inside the vision which the spirit had sent to her, that she might lost her mind and sanity.
Then Yoshiki broke the silence. “Lilith, are you still okay…?”
“Yes…” All of them were relieved to hear Lilith speaking in her own true voice again.
”I think I’m still in one piece after all.” The red haired lady smiled again, but it looked like she was having a hard time to keep her eyes focusing.
“Then what had you seen before you broke the contact?” Ryuchi asked, they all knew that mediums with strong telepathic power, apart from being the mere channel for spirits, were also able to *see* into the presence of a spirits and witness what they had experienced and felt the moments before they dead.
“I saw things…many things…mostly horrifying things…and I saw who killed them! It was a demon…a demon…I have never seen any type of demon like him before…for instant he was so much alike to a mortal youth! And oh god, Yoshiki the demon was…was their friend before the moment he attacked them!! And to her that demon was almost like a son during their time together…so when she saw the demon attacking her husband and then struck both of them down…the pain, horror and betray she had felt…oh it’s terrible to bear.”
“Friend? The demon made friends with the family?”
Lilith nodded tiredly. “Actually he...that creature even had been living with them for a while, like a friend…and he told the family his name was Tetsuya.”
Now they realized what had caused the death of the Onose, they had unsurprisingly made friends with a demon…being tricked by the latter’s manipulation…and Jun had befriended this demon once, no wonder the youth was so traumatic, to think that the person whom he considered as his friend betrayed him in such a cruel horrifying way. How this fact would haunt him in the future.
“So that demon was lying to them, hiding his true identity all along…but for what purpose? Why he chose Onose family as his victims? Why he suddenly freaked out and decided to slaughter them, and why left the child alive?”
The red haired woman shook her head.
“I don’t know the answers to your questions…all I could see was what Onose Reiko had experienced before she dead, and the emotions she felt, a lot of detail are hopelessly tangled up together due to her confusion and pain…but at leave one thing is clear.”
She looked up to eye the rest of them; her eyes were almost as clear and certain of herself as usual. “This demon who called himself Tetsuya…before he killed the Onose couple, he really didn’t aware of his true nature, it seems like he’d lost his memory and believed he’s human origin. but when his memory returned he went mad and killed the people around him, probably believed that they were his enemy, and now he’d want to find out who he really is…”
“What? You mean he didn’t know that he’s a demon?” Yoshiki looked puzzled. “how could this happened?”
“Maybe he had been wandering in human world for too long that he forgot and went out of his mind…such incidents had been recorded in the documents of Guardian’s database.” Ryuchi suggested. “ or someone…a magician maybe, wiped his memory clean that he wasn’t aware of his own true nature anymore…it’ll take long to find out…”
They shivered at the thought; the idea of magic being used on such mind-control purpose appeared to be almost immoral to them, it was totally against the teaching which they all had received. Any kind of bond or contact between mortal and demon had to be formed based on the willingness of the both parties.
Also they knew the possible danger of trying to control a demon against its will, once the magic worn thin or the bond was broken, the demon might went mad then turn on its keeper and slaughter him or her for revenge…
When they helped Lilith to her feet, she was still murmuring. “God I felt so much in through the telepathy…I even felt for this demon…I can sense him…through Onose Reiko’s vision.”
“ so what had you felt?”
“ it’ll be difficult to put what I’d sense from him into words…all I can say is, he is very dangerous and powerful, he’s a demon but also more than that. I didn’t think…he isn’t a completed and mere demon, I had never heard such demon had been reported in our organization before…there’s something really wrong with him but I can’t tell what it is. he’s too many different things mixed together, too many contradicting emotions whirling within his being, all terribly messed up. But he’s looking for something…or someone who he thinks is responsible for his misery. he’s seeking for revenge.”
“Okay, then what can we do next? ”
“Dangerous…it’s all I can say…we’re dealing with a very dangerous demon…my advice is…we’d have to destroy him as soon as possible, he posts a threat to the people around him…he is brutal, powerful as we all can see, but most of all he’s also lost, that makes him unstable and unpredictable, and I figured there won’t be anything we can do for him, but to end his miserable existence.”
*end of Shinya’s flashback*
So here they were, they had discovered trail which might lead them to find this Tetsuya, the mysterious demon again, the evidences they had in hand even showed that Tetsuya was somehow involved with the series of strange phenomenon took place in the town, highlighting the crisis surrounding the safety of the Boundary. And they had sent some of the best fellow Guardians to hunt him down, with J among them.
But whatever the case, the organization of Guardian existed in order to maintain the balance between the two worlds, the human world and the demon world, now that they were facing some fearsome enemy whom they still had not yet fully recognized…and the Boundary that had kept demons at bay for centuries must be protected at all cost. Shinya could only hope that he had made the right decision.
To be continued…
will try to explain the cause of Tetsu’s madness in the upcoming chapter…now I’m too tired.+_+
some comment plz if possble.u__u
Part 13 preview
Gasping, J snapped his eyes open again as he sat himself right up on his bed, darkness surrounding him from all side, just as usual. It took him a few more second to realize he had been dreaming again.
He turned his head to the watch he remembered himself had placed on the nightstand, 7:00 am, so it should be morning by now. He realized that the room was still in the dark because the heavy curtain was drawn and blocked the daylight away.
The tall blonde let out a groan, wiping his temple, the dream he had before he wake up suddenly came back to mind. Fuck, what sort of strange dream he had! It was probably worse than the old nightmares he had had, actually he was almost submit to the temptation, he actually almost being tricked into believing what the boy(who is he anyway? Projection from his deepest sub-consciousness?) in his dream told him, being tricked into taking trust on his words…
He couldn’t help feeling something tugged at his heart as he shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position to rest down so he could sleep again--
Damn! How could he fall for such lie again! He’d vowed that he would never fall for any sweet lies again; it made him feel so unsafe…
Shaking his head, J shifted slowly as he turned to where his friend was sleeping, but Sugizo’s bed was empty and he heard small noise came out from behind the bathroom’s closed door. Sugi must had waken earlier than I did, with that thought in his mind, J moved toward the window and drew the curtains aside. Soon enough the motel room he and Sugizo had shared was bathing in the soft daylight of the dawn, the sun had not come up yet but a new day had already begin.
Then, unexpectedly, he caught some movement, something moving across the floor abruptly, in the corner of his eyes. Something jumped to the shades of the few pieces of furniture at the other side of the motel room, as if trying to move away from the daylight.
Suspicious, J frowned and moved carefully forward as his eyes caught a small figure hidden behind those furnitures, approaching the unknown tiny figure, it looked a bit like a kitten, then he caught sight of a brown catlike eyes in the shades. It was alarming enough to have an unknown animal appearing in your supposedly locked room out of nowhere, must be careful about it now.
J didn’t go any closer; instead he focused his mind on the aura the creature was letting out. The years of training had made it easier for him to recognize demons-in-animal-form from those ordinary animals. He didn’t sense any malice from the creature and he really didn’t think it was a threat to his or Sugizo’s safety, but from the vague aura of energy that radiated from the animal’s tiny body, J could tell that it was a demon, no doubt. Innocent, small and fragile it might appear to be, but it was a creature that belonged to the demon race nonetheless. This one fact alone is enough to alarm him.
So the blonde decided to take action, one of J’s hand moved silently in the air, forming a pattern of spell, not a real defensive spell that meant to attack or cause damage, but only a bright, eye-blinding ball of energy that might fright the creature away. However, the little demon in the shade must captured the abnormal pattern of light that spreading out from his palm and guessed what did that mean, its body tensed up immediately at the sight, then it jumped away from the blonde and slipped to the other corner of the room, seemingly frightened.
Before J could decided what to do next, he heard the sound of a door clicking, Sugizo opened the bathroom door and stepped back in to the room, the latter caught sight of his friend standing in the middle of their motel room, with pattern of cold white color of light seeping from his palm.
“Oh what are you doing here causing magic spell first thing in the damn morning ne, J-chan!?” Sugizo asked puzzlingly, rubbing his eyes, still not sure what his friend was up to.
“Sugi, there’s a demon in our room!” he pointed a finger to the white creature, who was now clinging itself together like a fury ball.
“A demon? What the--” Sugizo quickly turned toward what J had pointed out for him, he stared at the catlike creature by the far corner of the room for a moment but to J ‘s surprise, he showed no astonishment at the sudden appearance of a demon in their room the same way he did.
“…What? J you almost frightened me! It’s only a Dowzee! That’s nothing to be so alarm!”
“What are you talking about?” J now looked a bit puzzled.
Sugizo sighed again, if J spend half of the time he’d spent to study demonology thoughtfully, he would know what Dowzee was.“ Inoran-san belongs to the Dowzee clans, the dream-eating specie that resident in hillside area, one of their inhabitation is located near our Motherhouse too.”
“That doesn’t explain why there is a Dowzee in thr room, Sugi.” The blonde pointed at the little Dowzee in animal-form again, who was shivering slightly, fearful large eyes fixing on him.
Sugizo frowned, waving his hands. “ Hey stop calling Inoran an “it”! His name is Inoran-san, and he is a cute, cute Dowzee. He is cute isn’t it, J?” then the pink head bent down a little to greet the little creature, smiled as it moved it way toward him and had hidden itself behind him. The creature came fully into J’s sight as it approaching the pink head, the demon shared the same size and shape of a ordinary pet-kitten, its fur soft and long like a fury ball of whiteness, but its ears was eerily long and floppy for an ordinary kitten. He noticed that the small sounds which the creature had made when Sugizo put an arm around it and running his fingers through its snowy fur playfully, was nothing like the meow that a kitten would used to make either.
“….”J decided not to make any comment to his friend question.
“ And you expect me to leave this poor thing in the car boot and let him all by himself throughout the cold, lonely winter night out there and not bringing him into this warm and conformable room with us? Where is your humanity huh, my friend?”
“……”J was speechless again, for goodness’s sake arguing with Sugizo was never something he was good at. So instead of answering he asked another question. “Skip the bullshit, Sugi. I only want to know why there is a demon in my room! And how come you know its name?!”
“Take it easy man, you’re overreacting!” The pink head sighed. “In fact, he’s been following us for a couple of days already, probably since we left the Motherhouse...”
“What?” J couldn’t believe what his friend was saying. Sugizo had allowed a demon to follow them around without telling him about its existence, when both of them were on a fucking mission? What did he think he was doing?
“Well, I swear I didn’t know this little thing had snaked his way to the car boot when we leave the Motherhouse! I only realized he has hidden in my car when I opened the car boot yesterday!“
“but why didn’t’ t you tell me by then?”
“Mmmmnnn…” Sugizo suddenly in at loss of word, his eyes wandered a bee-line to the Dowzee’s direction, eyeing it hesitatingly.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Would you please expect yourself, Sugi?”
”Errrrr…hughhh….huh, well……”the pink head continued to struggle inwardly, hoping to figure an excuse out of his numb mind, in order to save his ass. And finally he got the inspiration he needed. ”okay! Let’s make it all up, J-chan!”
“What the---”
but before J could finish, Sugizo was already in his train of speech. ”let’s face it J-chan! Now it’s too late to send him back to his inhabitation! And it’s certain against the rule of the Order to abandon a helpless, harmless little creature like Inoran in the middle of mortal inhabitation like it’s nothing, it’s too danger for him! Remember? We’ve the responsible to take care of special creatures until we can return it to its original inhabitation, if we encountered any of their race, who aren’t able to find their way home by themselves, demon or not!”
J’s eyes widened in disbelief, but he quickly recalled the guideline which the Guardian had gave them, according to the guideline, when encountering a peaceful-nature demon of any kind who had lost its way, they did had the responsible to keep the demon safe and sound before they could find another of their fellow Guardian to return it to its original inhabitation.. Sugizo was right.
“Alright then….” Eventually he gave in. “You’re right, pal. We should bring it with us, but it’s only for the few days before we reach our destination, we will have to hang the creature to other specialists for keeping and so we’ll be done with it, okay?”
“No problem!” the pink head giggled, but he stopped once noticing his friend’s expression. “Don’t look as if you are facing the end of the world, J-chan! I’m sure having a Dowzee around will do some good for you.” Sugizo winked at his friend. “They said Dowzee is bringers of good peaceful dreams at night ne.”
But J wasn’t going to buy it.
do some good for me? J stared at his friend as if he was out of his mind. He had enough issues to deal with already; he didn’t need a demon to mess up with his peace of mind.
“I don’t want any demon around me! You know I don’t like such…creatures!”
“But, Inoran-san is just a harmless, friendly cute creature ne. He means anyone no harm, not at all. Am I right, Inoran-san?”
The demon looked up to the pink head for a while, hesitating, and then nodded slightly in agreement.
J could take it no longer, but he also knew there was no disagreeing with Sugizo, beside, according to the rule of their Order, they did have responsible to protect demons away from harm when the situation requested then to do so.
harmless, friendly or not, a demon nonetheless. J thought darkly to himself. He wasn’t unreasonable enough to really hate all of the demons, or hold the whole demon race responsible for the crime that been done to his parents, only one singular demon was responsible for the murder. And the rational part in him knew what Sugizo said was correct; he had been overreacting over the issue. However, unlike some of the fellow Guardians who became intimate with the demons he or she had studied, or actually made friends with them, J really didn’t have the heart to do the same.
“ So it’s all settled now! Inoran-san will go with us until we reached our destination!” Sugizo yelled, more to the Dowzee then to his blonde hair friend. He picked Inoran up from the floor, ready to go picking his belonging; they still have a long way to go to reach their destination.
The pink head winked at the demon in his arms, a hint of cunningness in his eyes, as if saying. I’d done what I could, so Inoran-san ganbatee ne!
the Dowzee only blinked back innocently in response.
TBC...
PREVIEW 1-2
***
“Sugi-chan! Do you want some cookies?”
“Yes mom!”
All he could do was to stare at his child-self throwing away the chalk and rushed for his cookies, running past his older, grown-up self at the doorway and disappeared into another wooden door at the end of the corridor, a door which Sugizo knew by heart that leading to the kitchen.
It was strange, he knew everything around him, the bedroom, his old bedroom before him, the drawing papers on the floor, the corridor, the door that lead to the kitchen, even his own mother’s cheerful voice calling from the kitchen…it couldn’t be real, he knew he was standing at the corridor of his parents’ house, but this place now existed only in his memory, he and his family had moved out when he went to secondary school and he never saw the house again…nothing was making any sense now why he was here?! Oh god he must be dreaming---
“Strange to visit your own Dreamworld, right?” a soft voice pointed out to him, it came out from behind his back, not far away.
He turned around to find a boy standing by the window, it was a boy with a soft looking figure, locks of long black hair stroking his eyes, he wore a white shirt and long loose black pants, smiling shyly at him. Sugizo wondered briefly that how come he never noticed the boy’s presence, the latter seemed to just appear out of nowhere.
“Who are you…?” he didn’t know who or what the boy was, but he walked closer to him anyway, because the latter’s aura was friendly and he didn’t sense malice from the other, even though.
Even though he could tell that it wasn’t a human that he was facing.
Then the realization hit him.
“if I’m correct, then you must be Inoran-san? God I’d never seen you in human-form before, you see.”
“Call me Ino please.” The brown eyes boy replied. “this form is only an facade that created by shapeshift, but my kind don’t use to shapeshifting that often, unlike the other clans.”
“Then nice to see you here, Ino-san!” Sugizo greeted the boy cheerfully.” Then the pink head turned around, studying the landscape that surrounded them. “Ne, Ino-san where are we right now?”
“We’re in your dream world.”
“Really? I can’t believe it!” Sugizo looked around in curiosity. “I always think there’d be naked women and tits everywhere in my DREAMS!”
The boy laughed, his cheeks flushed. “Err…you know dreams aren’t always took shape according to their owner’s desires. even us, Dowzee couldn’t take complete control on mortal’s dream, even though dreams are our territory, still for most of the time we can only enter a dream and experience it alongside with the motral dreamer...and sometime…bad things happened in dreams as well.” Upon speaking the brown haired boy unconsciously tossing at his sleeve, pressing his palm against his own forearm, an discomforted look pressed through his once peaceful face.
“What happen?” noticing Ino’s uneasiness, Sugi reached out to take hold of Ino’s wrist, the boy shifted but didn’t drew away, then Sugi saw the dark-blue bruised marks hidden beneath the boy’s sleeve. And found cut wounds on his arm.
“Ino…what happened to you?”
“…nothing.”
“Nothing?” Sugizo frowned, pulling the sleeve of Ino’s shirt up, exposing more bruises and freshly formed scars underneath. He gasped at what he saw. “What happened to you?”
Then Sugizo recalled the incident that took place in the motel room this morning. he saw J causing some spell…did he accidentally hurt Ino-san? “ is it…J-chan?”
And Ino gave him a strange answer.
“Yes and no…” Ino said. “I got too close to him, when I try to use the dream-reading on him. I went to the place where I was not invited, so this,” he glanced at the scars on his forearm. “are the result.”
Sugizo remembered what his demonological textbook had taught him about Dowzee before. For a creature that feeding on mortal’s dream to survive, “Dream-reading” was a basic skill of their endurance, and Dowzee could experience what the mortal dreamer was experiencing in his or her dream. the only difference was, to mortals, what they experienced in dreams was not real, once they woke up, nothing would be left behind; but to Dowzee, what they had experienced in the dreamworld would directly affect their physical well-being if they forgot to protect themselves well enough; furthermore, if Dowzee were drew too deeply into a mortal’s dream, they might get lost in the dream. It was still unclear that how Dowzee performed the dream-reading process but it was known that Dowzee were very selective on choosing dreams to feed on and they generally avoided encountering with nightmare or bad, horrible dreams, because they got hurt easily when dealing with nightmares-
Sugizo’s train of thought stopped there. Nightmares, J-chan was suffering with troubled sleep and he always woke up from nightmare in the dead of the night, even the latter refused to tell him what he’d dreamed about that made him crying out at night and woke up with cold sweat soaking his back.
“So it was J-chan after all.” Sugizo said, voicing out his hypothesis. “he…the things he dreamt about last night had hurt you.”
Ino nodded tiredly.
So what Ino meant by saying “getting too close” was that he had tried to read J’s dream but he was hurt by what he experienced there.
“Jun…didn’t intend to hurt me or anyone else…” Ino explained.
***
The chibi-Sugizo greeted him. “Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon.” Ino replied gently.
“Uh-huh.” The child sat down next to him naturally. “Do you want some cookies?”
“I’ll love to. Thank you Sugi-san” he took one of the cookies from the child’s hand, taking a small mouthful and smiled.
“How would you know my name?” the child cocked his head, a question look on his face. “Do you know me?”
“ Well, I do know you, but you’d only come to know me as your friend many, many years ago.”
Chibi-Sugizo pouted. “duno what you’re talking about.” Finishing the last pieces of cookie he stood up and walked back to his unfinished drawing, then sat down and continued to draw.
Authors: Mizuki and Shizu
Bands: many, with original character
Pairings: Tetsu x Hyde, adds JxIno!
Genre: AU fantasy(in modern setting)
Note: the Shinya who had been mentioned here is LS’s Shinya! Furthermore, in J’s childhood memory, he referred Tetsu as Tetsuya or Tetsuya Ogawa…because it’s what Tetsu been known to him.^^;
Comment: this chapter is so full of Luna Sea characters(and original characters).*hides*
Thing is getting so complicated that even I forgot what is going on here…too bad. And I told Shizu what I’ve been writing in Route666 and she was pissed that I twisted up her idea and added so many plots in to mess the whole thing up, argh, poor me n’ poor her…^^;
What had happened?
“Tetsuya? What had you done?”
What had you done to Okaasan and Otousan!? why did you do it!? How could youyouooouuuuuuuuuuu!!!????
“Jun-chan…I had remembered.” Tetsuya was saying. “I’d remembered what I really am.”
He didn’t understand what the blonde was saying, and his brain was still too numb from the shock and fear for him to function normally.
“…what…how…” he squeezed the words from between his trembling lips. ”Tetsuya…why you…?”
“Why I …” Tetsuya lowered his sight to glace at the stilled bodies near his feet.” Why I did it to your parents?”
Then to the boy’s fear, the blonde let out a sudden, piercing laugher mockingly. “Not for any reason exactly, Jun-chan…it’s just my instinct. It’s what I truly am, it’s what I have to do, I should not, and never can be your friend, but someone had robbed this identity away from me and made me forgetful of my nature, my true self. The fact that I’m a demon, it’s a simple truth.”
Demon? What was Tetsuya talking about? Tetsuya…we were supposed to be friends! You’d promised we would stay friend forever! But why…?
Then Tetsuya laughed, an ugly piercing sound that ringing against the four walls, filling within the cage of his skull, tearing his sanity apart. He had to block his ears with his both hands, trying to block this madding noise away, but he couldn’t shut his eyes from the sight of his parents’ dead corpses, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the blood-soaked figure of Tetsuya before him, his flashing, crazy eyes fixed on him, mocking him his ignorance and blinked trust---
Then suddenly everything turned into a twisting whirl before him, and he could do nothing to stop his world from falling apart---
***
When he snapped his eyes open, with cold sweat soaking the back of the t-shirt he wore to bed, there was only darkness to greet him.
No Okaasan or Otousan covering in blood, lying lifelessly and still on the floor, no sea of crimson pooling around their pale maimed bodies, nor Tetsuya stood in the middle of the mess, smirking, staring at him with a strange inhuman golden flashes in his once innocent eyes...
Nothing.
So it was another dream. But kind of dream like this one never really went away.
How many years had passed since *that day*, the day his parents were murdered? God sometime he hated his own ability to memorize things, how he could recall every detail so vividly as if it were only happened in yesterday.
He turned on the light, and the action had also waked the other person who slept on the other bed nearby from his sleep.
“Not sleeping well again, J chan?” Sugizo asked with a sleepy voice, rubbing his tired eyes, but still the worry was clear in his tone.
He didn’t bother to look at his friend’s direction or answer his previous question seriously. “I’m fine.”
Upon speaking, his hand reached furiously for the bag placed beside his bed and found it, after shimming through random items within, he took out a small bottle of pills. He opened the bottle, put a few white pills to his palm and swallowed them quickly.
“Sleeping pill isn’t good for you, J-chan.” A frown formed between the pink head’s eyebrows.
“I said I’m fine.” He answered coldly. Lying back to the mattress tiredly and waited furiously for sleep, dreamless, mind-blinding kind of sleep to arrive.
The peacefulness that most of the people could find in their Dreamland was no longer his to enjoy. He could hardly sleep a natural healthy sleep without the help of sleeping pills for too long. The same nightmare that had been haunting him endlessly and will, he expected, continue for a long while…
For years he had been witnessing, again and again, his parents’ death in his nightmares. The scene never went away from his mind. Sometime the nightmare would leave him alone for a while only to strike him again with its full hideousness.
His parents were killed, cold bloodedly murdered by a demon. A demon that once hid beneath the harmlessness of a mortal’s façade, a demon who his family(including him) had once mistakenly trusted and befriended, but the only reward of their kindness was betray, blood and death.
Shortly after the slaughter, J came under the Guardian’s protection. Not only The Elders saw the potential which J possessed to become a holder of spiritual powers and special abilities his route as a Guardian in the future, they also knew his anger, fear and hatred toward demon race, and they had tried what thy could to reduce the hatred from him by teaching him facts and knowledge about demon races, the fact that not all of the demons were evil or brutal. Actually, despite the fact that demons were originally from another world, still many of the demon races had been living in human world since there were historical records. Most of the demons had lived among mortals peaceful for centuries. Only when we entered to the modern time, the existence of demons had slowly been forgotten and then been viewed as myths and folktales, as something unreal.
But all young J needed to know was, at least one of the demons was evil, cruel and brutal enough to kill innocents without any reason. And he swore that he’ll one day hurt down this particular one and take revenge from it.
That was all he needed to keep in mind.
He had been waiting so long, searching for so long for the killer of his parents in secret, for all of his years working and learning among the rest of Guardians, he had never stopped searching.
He would find this demon, and take revenge from him, for his parents’ sake if not his own.
Glancing at his friend lying back to his bed, Sugizo shook his head tiredly as he turned off the light again; tomorrow they will begin the journey to the town where abnormal demonic activities had been recently recorded for investigation. As they both knew that the upcoming task would be difficult for both of them, because there was report that a part of the seals that hold the Boundary together had been damaged under suspicious conditions. Therefore, teams of specialists like he and J-chan had been called in to this small town for back-up and to further investigation on the phenomenon. Before they left the Motherhouse of the Guardian, Sugizo had suggested his friend to go to the other specialists in the organization in hope to find a solution for his sleeping problem, but J didn’t listen to him. Goodness, this guy could be as stubborn as a bull when he made up his mind.
He hoped he could think of some ways to help his friend, Sugizo knew that he have to think of a method soon before J drove himself too far.
But how?
Sugizo sighed to himself, Shinya, the councilor whom both he and J answered to, had asked him to keep an eye on J before they left the keep of Guardian for their upcoming mission.
“Sugi-chan, I’m getting a little worry about J-chan, as you might notice he hasn’t been so well recently, in fact he hasn’t been well for a couple of months already. The mission which we had assigned to you two would be stressful no doubt, especially for J-chan. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that J isn’t strong or skillful enough to handle the task, it is his mental stability make me worry. I notice that he’s showing a little signs of nervousness. But the problem is he refuses to talk it over with any of us an he doesn’t give himself a break for goodness’ sake! “
“Then…why didn’t the Elders call up someone else to replace J when he isn’t…well? Shinya-sama?”
“We had tried to talk him out of it, but he refused and insist that everything is okay with him, and there’s no evident to proof him wrong. As we all know J-chan is one of the most suitable candidates we can find for the mission…”
What Shinya didn’t tell the pink hair young man was that another of the reason they failed to call J off was that one of the targets in questions, a mysterious but powerful demon whose true identity had yet been recognized, was closely related to J’s tragic past…
Of course, the Elders had informed everyone, including Sugizo, who was sent to for the mission, about the potential dangers of the upcoming task, because after hearing the other of their agent, Gackt’s report on what happened in the small town, the Elders had decided that it was important for them to send their best specialist teams out to close the broken hole that appeared on the Boundary before demons crossing over it and enter to the human world, also the teams were expected to carry out further investigation on the strange abnormal psychic phenomenon in the town.
“Oh…” Sugizo looked down at his shoes, trying to think of something to ask, huh, this mission in hand seemed to get a bit complicated when he would be the one to associate with the stubborn J during the time they work together…”Then what exactly do you want me to do with J-our bad boy? Babysitting him?”
The older man couldn’t help but giggle, the idea of anyone babysitting J amazed him. “Not like that Sugi, I think I best you can do for us is to keep a close eye on J-chan and make sure the he didn’t take action on his own without associating with his fellow partners in the team…”
ARGH!! *This*, is almost as good as to request me to babysitting him!! the pink head yelled inwardly to himself, but instead he nodded obediently to the older man and said. “I’ll see what I can do, Shinya-sama.”
“Good luck with your upcoming journey then, both you and J-chan.” Shinya smiled kindly to the pink head.
“I’ll tell J of your blessing, ja na,” Sugizo bowed slightly before he turned and left, closing the door behind him.
***
Once Sugizo was out of sight, Shinya sank back to his armchair and sighed deeply to himself, unable to decide whether it was correct not to inform Sugizo about J’s relationship with the mysterious case they had in hand. But well…although he knew his fellow Guardians would do anything to ensure the success of the mission, still it was important to respect J’s privacy, it was known among the Elders that J tended to hide his past from the others, even to the few of his close friend such as Sugizo, and always avoided mentioning anything about what his life had used to be before he joined the Guardian. Almost ten years had passed, but the youth still refused to let anyone else to step into this gloomy tragic part of his life.
Then Shinya recalled the night when he followed a few of his fellow companies to pay a visit to the house of the late Onose couple, half a year after the unsolved murder of the Onose family that left their son as the only survivor. The Elders had decided to send Lilith, one of the best and the most experienced psychic mediums in the organization, to the site of the murder, in hope to make contact with the ghosts of the Onose couple, J’s late parents. After the Guardian took Jun Onose under protection, the organization was aware of the fact that there were too many mysteries surrounded the case and it was highly likely that demonic force was involved. But the only witness, J was yet too traumatic to cooperate with specialists of any kind, so the Elders had decided to call upon the only possible eyewitness left for them: the spirits of the victims.
It was a night of experience that Shinya would never forget.
*Shinya’s flashback*
Three more members of the Guardian were assigned to accompany the medium, including two of his friends, Yoshiki and Ryuchi, both experts of the telepathic field. On the other hand, even Shinya himself was not all that brilliant on the art of telepathy, but due to the fact that he was the newly assigned mentor of Jun Onose, he was also included to the group. Their task was to guard Lilith through out the process of telepathic communication, for it was a common knowledge among specialist that spirits who had suffered violent death were more likely to be dangerous to the living ones who try to make contact with them. They might turned out to be violence with anger or hatred, the remaining part of their mind or consciousness they had once possessed in life, frozen at the horrifying abrupt last moment of their existence and tried to turn on the living one when they were being brought back to the world of living for some brief moments through telepathy. The possibility of being entered by a violent, confused spirit would also cause great harm to both the physical and the mental well being of the medium.
They entered the house together half an hour before middle night, all of them dressed in black in respect of the dead, a van and a chauffer were waiting outside the house in case of any emergency. The house had been left empty and uninhabited after the homicide took place, with the memory of the bloody slaughter still fresh among general pubic, no one dared to move in.
The rooms were dark and they had decided it would be best not to turn the light on, instead they placed dozen of candles all around the living room, where the murder took place. Although none of them were new to haunting sites but the abandoned house of Onose still caught them off guard. There was still an sinister, gloomy aura hovering heavily above the empty room, even after the bodies of the victims had long been removed, even after all the bloodstain was cleaned away and every single piece of furniture was stripped away, leaving no trail of the tragedy behind.
The four of them remained silence under the tensed atmosphere, quietly preparing for the telepathy process. First they drew spells of protection on the four posts of the floor by using white chalks; a camera and a tape-recorder were placed at the entrance of the living room for documental use. Then Ryuchi began to form a large magic circle on the center of the floor. One by one the members of Guardian stepped into the circle and seated themselves down on the slightly dusty floor, he was sitting at the left-hand side of Lilith, with Yoshiki on the right and Ryuchi opposite of him, all of them wore a gravely expression. when Yoshiki glanced at his watch and informed Lilith that it was now 12 o’ clock at mid-night, time to start the psychometry process, the red hair medium nodded and silently placed a piece of jewel bracelet on the center of the circle, it was one of the precious belonging of the late Mrs. Onose, next she placed a red tie near the bracelet, a tie that once belonged to Mr. Onose, following by few more personal belonging of the couple.
After everything was settled, the four of them held out their hands to each other and linked their arms together to form a circle.
Without a word the group began to concrete on the aura surrounding them, trying to catch the tension in the empty space…
And Lilith, being the most sensitive of them all, was the first to react to the call from The Otherside.
First she began to shiver slightly, then her upper torso was shaking back and forth as she panted under her breath, and suddenly Lilith’s head dropped forward as if all the strength in her body had just been drained away, seeing her strange movement, both he and Yoshiki tightened their grips on her hands.
“mmnnnn………”
She was whimpering in a soft, low, tortured female voice, nothing similar with the clear ringing melodic voice that the red haired woman usually used, her face hidden beneath the mass of her long curl hair.
“…Cold…so cold…”
The other three immediately realized that it wasn’t Lilith who was uttering those words.
“Where am I…?” these were the first clearly uttered sentences from the half-conscious woman.
“Please don’t worry, dear. You’re here with us, you have nothing to fear.” Ryuchi was the first to begin. He spoke to her in a soft, conforming voice. “And may I ask you a question?”
There was a long silence before the woman made a small nod as response.
“Thank you very much, dear. I want to ask, who are you?”
“Onose…” slowly, the same weak, sad voice came again, her shoulders shivering ever so lightly. “ Onose Reiko…”
The three of them gasped at the same time, things were getting serious, it seemed that they were contacting with the spirit of Jun’s dead mother, through the body of Lilith, they must be really careful of handling the situation now. Luckily they didn’t sense anger or hatred from the spirit, so far there was only a deep sense of sorrow, pain and confusion.
“Reiko-san? We are here to help, and we want to find out what happened to you…your husband and your son, do you remember anything? Anything important?”
“Jun…” the name of her son being mentioned sent a quiver all over her body. “…Jun…”
“Don’t worry; he’s safe and now in good hands. But we need to know what happened to you and your husband that day so we might about to help Jun out…”
“Jun…my dear little boy…” her voice trailed down into a sob. “ …he used to be so close with Tetsuya…”
“Excuse me, but who is Tetsuya?” they tensed upon hearing the strange unfamiliar name being mentioned.
Then he had sensed the change of the woman’s aura, now the color of her presence had changed from confusion and loss to a darker, murkier emotion…but it was too vague for him to tell what the emotion was.
“It is…” the soft voice suddenly hardened, turning into a cold deep tone. “Tetsuya…he did it to me…”
Within the next second, the woman throw back her head violently, the other three stared up at her in shock and alarm, unconsciously squeezed her hands even more tightly. Then they saw the wild, blank expression on her twisted face, the way her muscles tensed beneath her gravely pale skin. Her mouth wild open to unleash a dead scream that piercing the air.
“WHY IT HAD TO HAPPEN? I DIDN’T WANT TO DIE!NOOOOOOOO!!”
“Lilith! Listen to me, you have to come back here!” Yoshiki had to use all of his strength to pull Lilith down to her pervious position. “Can you hear me!???”
But more screams were tearing their ways out of Lilith’s throat, she sounded as though she was being straggled. “TETSUYA! YOU MUDERER!!! DEMON!!!MONSTERRRRR!!!”
“DAMN IT LILITH! COME BACK!”
Yoshiki was yelling at the top of his lung, while Shinya saw Ryuchi mouthing some spells quickly and in the next second---
Lilith’s body tensed up before she collapsed and fell to Yoshiki’s arms, the circle was broke instantly and none of them were sure whether Lilith would be alright. At least she was still breathing as Ryuchi took off his coat to cover her quivering body, but she still looked so gravely pale and exhausted.
Finally she opened her eyes slowly and looked around the fellow Guardians surrounding her, gave them a weak smile for apology. She knew that this time she had let herself go too far, went too deep inside the vision which the spirit had sent to her, that she might lost her mind and sanity.
Then Yoshiki broke the silence. “Lilith, are you still okay…?”
“Yes…” All of them were relieved to hear Lilith speaking in her own true voice again.
”I think I’m still in one piece after all.” The red haired lady smiled again, but it looked like she was having a hard time to keep her eyes focusing.
“Then what had you seen before you broke the contact?” Ryuchi asked, they all knew that mediums with strong telepathic power, apart from being the mere channel for spirits, were also able to *see* into the presence of a spirits and witness what they had experienced and felt the moments before they dead.
“I saw things…many things…mostly horrifying things…and I saw who killed them! It was a demon…a demon…I have never seen any type of demon like him before…for instant he was so much alike to a mortal youth! And oh god, Yoshiki the demon was…was their friend before the moment he attacked them!! And to her that demon was almost like a son during their time together…so when she saw the demon attacking her husband and then struck both of them down…the pain, horror and betray she had felt…oh it’s terrible to bear.”
“Friend? The demon made friends with the family?”
Lilith nodded tiredly. “Actually he...that creature even had been living with them for a while, like a friend…and he told the family his name was Tetsuya.”
Now they realized what had caused the death of the Onose, they had unsurprisingly made friends with a demon…being tricked by the latter’s manipulation…and Jun had befriended this demon once, no wonder the youth was so traumatic, to think that the person whom he considered as his friend betrayed him in such a cruel horrifying way. How this fact would haunt him in the future.
“So that demon was lying to them, hiding his true identity all along…but for what purpose? Why he chose Onose family as his victims? Why he suddenly freaked out and decided to slaughter them, and why left the child alive?”
The red haired woman shook her head.
“I don’t know the answers to your questions…all I could see was what Onose Reiko had experienced before she dead, and the emotions she felt, a lot of detail are hopelessly tangled up together due to her confusion and pain…but at leave one thing is clear.”
She looked up to eye the rest of them; her eyes were almost as clear and certain of herself as usual. “This demon who called himself Tetsuya…before he killed the Onose couple, he really didn’t aware of his true nature, it seems like he’d lost his memory and believed he’s human origin. but when his memory returned he went mad and killed the people around him, probably believed that they were his enemy, and now he’d want to find out who he really is…”
“What? You mean he didn’t know that he’s a demon?” Yoshiki looked puzzled. “how could this happened?”
“Maybe he had been wandering in human world for too long that he forgot and went out of his mind…such incidents had been recorded in the documents of Guardian’s database.” Ryuchi suggested. “ or someone…a magician maybe, wiped his memory clean that he wasn’t aware of his own true nature anymore…it’ll take long to find out…”
They shivered at the thought; the idea of magic being used on such mind-control purpose appeared to be almost immoral to them, it was totally against the teaching which they all had received. Any kind of bond or contact between mortal and demon had to be formed based on the willingness of the both parties.
Also they knew the possible danger of trying to control a demon against its will, once the magic worn thin or the bond was broken, the demon might went mad then turn on its keeper and slaughter him or her for revenge…
When they helped Lilith to her feet, she was still murmuring. “God I felt so much in through the telepathy…I even felt for this demon…I can sense him…through Onose Reiko’s vision.”
“ so what had you felt?”
“ it’ll be difficult to put what I’d sense from him into words…all I can say is, he is very dangerous and powerful, he’s a demon but also more than that. I didn’t think…he isn’t a completed and mere demon, I had never heard such demon had been reported in our organization before…there’s something really wrong with him but I can’t tell what it is. he’s too many different things mixed together, too many contradicting emotions whirling within his being, all terribly messed up. But he’s looking for something…or someone who he thinks is responsible for his misery. he’s seeking for revenge.”
“Okay, then what can we do next? ”
“Dangerous…it’s all I can say…we’re dealing with a very dangerous demon…my advice is…we’d have to destroy him as soon as possible, he posts a threat to the people around him…he is brutal, powerful as we all can see, but most of all he’s also lost, that makes him unstable and unpredictable, and I figured there won’t be anything we can do for him, but to end his miserable existence.”
*end of Shinya’s flashback*
So here they were, they had discovered trail which might lead them to find this Tetsuya, the mysterious demon again, the evidences they had in hand even showed that Tetsuya was somehow involved with the series of strange phenomenon took place in the town, highlighting the crisis surrounding the safety of the Boundary. And they had sent some of the best fellow Guardians to hunt him down, with J among them.
But whatever the case, the organization of Guardian existed in order to maintain the balance between the two worlds, the human world and the demon world, now that they were facing some fearsome enemy whom they still had not yet fully recognized…and the Boundary that had kept demons at bay for centuries must be protected at all cost. Shinya could only hope that he had made the right decision.
To be continued…
will try to explain the cause of Tetsu’s madness in the upcoming chapter…now I’m too tired.+_+
some comment plz if possble.u__u
Part 13 preview
Gasping, J snapped his eyes open again as he sat himself right up on his bed, darkness surrounding him from all side, just as usual. It took him a few more second to realize he had been dreaming again.
He turned his head to the watch he remembered himself had placed on the nightstand, 7:00 am, so it should be morning by now. He realized that the room was still in the dark because the heavy curtain was drawn and blocked the daylight away.
The tall blonde let out a groan, wiping his temple, the dream he had before he wake up suddenly came back to mind. Fuck, what sort of strange dream he had! It was probably worse than the old nightmares he had had, actually he was almost submit to the temptation, he actually almost being tricked into believing what the boy(who is he anyway? Projection from his deepest sub-consciousness?) in his dream told him, being tricked into taking trust on his words…
He couldn’t help feeling something tugged at his heart as he shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position to rest down so he could sleep again--
Damn! How could he fall for such lie again! He’d vowed that he would never fall for any sweet lies again; it made him feel so unsafe…
Shaking his head, J shifted slowly as he turned to where his friend was sleeping, but Sugizo’s bed was empty and he heard small noise came out from behind the bathroom’s closed door. Sugi must had waken earlier than I did, with that thought in his mind, J moved toward the window and drew the curtains aside. Soon enough the motel room he and Sugizo had shared was bathing in the soft daylight of the dawn, the sun had not come up yet but a new day had already begin.
Then, unexpectedly, he caught some movement, something moving across the floor abruptly, in the corner of his eyes. Something jumped to the shades of the few pieces of furniture at the other side of the motel room, as if trying to move away from the daylight.
Suspicious, J frowned and moved carefully forward as his eyes caught a small figure hidden behind those furnitures, approaching the unknown tiny figure, it looked a bit like a kitten, then he caught sight of a brown catlike eyes in the shades. It was alarming enough to have an unknown animal appearing in your supposedly locked room out of nowhere, must be careful about it now.
J didn’t go any closer; instead he focused his mind on the aura the creature was letting out. The years of training had made it easier for him to recognize demons-in-animal-form from those ordinary animals. He didn’t sense any malice from the creature and he really didn’t think it was a threat to his or Sugizo’s safety, but from the vague aura of energy that radiated from the animal’s tiny body, J could tell that it was a demon, no doubt. Innocent, small and fragile it might appear to be, but it was a creature that belonged to the demon race nonetheless. This one fact alone is enough to alarm him.
So the blonde decided to take action, one of J’s hand moved silently in the air, forming a pattern of spell, not a real defensive spell that meant to attack or cause damage, but only a bright, eye-blinding ball of energy that might fright the creature away. However, the little demon in the shade must captured the abnormal pattern of light that spreading out from his palm and guessed what did that mean, its body tensed up immediately at the sight, then it jumped away from the blonde and slipped to the other corner of the room, seemingly frightened.
Before J could decided what to do next, he heard the sound of a door clicking, Sugizo opened the bathroom door and stepped back in to the room, the latter caught sight of his friend standing in the middle of their motel room, with pattern of cold white color of light seeping from his palm.
“Oh what are you doing here causing magic spell first thing in the damn morning ne, J-chan!?” Sugizo asked puzzlingly, rubbing his eyes, still not sure what his friend was up to.
“Sugi, there’s a demon in our room!” he pointed a finger to the white creature, who was now clinging itself together like a fury ball.
“A demon? What the--” Sugizo quickly turned toward what J had pointed out for him, he stared at the catlike creature by the far corner of the room for a moment but to J ‘s surprise, he showed no astonishment at the sudden appearance of a demon in their room the same way he did.
“…What? J you almost frightened me! It’s only a Dowzee! That’s nothing to be so alarm!”
“What are you talking about?” J now looked a bit puzzled.
Sugizo sighed again, if J spend half of the time he’d spent to study demonology thoughtfully, he would know what Dowzee was.“ Inoran-san belongs to the Dowzee clans, the dream-eating specie that resident in hillside area, one of their inhabitation is located near our Motherhouse too.”
“That doesn’t explain why there is a Dowzee in thr room, Sugi.” The blonde pointed at the little Dowzee in animal-form again, who was shivering slightly, fearful large eyes fixing on him.
Sugizo frowned, waving his hands. “ Hey stop calling Inoran an “it”! His name is Inoran-san, and he is a cute, cute Dowzee. He is cute isn’t it, J?” then the pink head bent down a little to greet the little creature, smiled as it moved it way toward him and had hidden itself behind him. The creature came fully into J’s sight as it approaching the pink head, the demon shared the same size and shape of a ordinary pet-kitten, its fur soft and long like a fury ball of whiteness, but its ears was eerily long and floppy for an ordinary kitten. He noticed that the small sounds which the creature had made when Sugizo put an arm around it and running his fingers through its snowy fur playfully, was nothing like the meow that a kitten would used to make either.
“….”J decided not to make any comment to his friend question.
“ And you expect me to leave this poor thing in the car boot and let him all by himself throughout the cold, lonely winter night out there and not bringing him into this warm and conformable room with us? Where is your humanity huh, my friend?”
“……”J was speechless again, for goodness’s sake arguing with Sugizo was never something he was good at. So instead of answering he asked another question. “Skip the bullshit, Sugi. I only want to know why there is a demon in my room! And how come you know its name?!”
“Take it easy man, you’re overreacting!” The pink head sighed. “In fact, he’s been following us for a couple of days already, probably since we left the Motherhouse...”
“What?” J couldn’t believe what his friend was saying. Sugizo had allowed a demon to follow them around without telling him about its existence, when both of them were on a fucking mission? What did he think he was doing?
“Well, I swear I didn’t know this little thing had snaked his way to the car boot when we leave the Motherhouse! I only realized he has hidden in my car when I opened the car boot yesterday!“
“but why didn’t’ t you tell me by then?”
“Mmmmnnn…” Sugizo suddenly in at loss of word, his eyes wandered a bee-line to the Dowzee’s direction, eyeing it hesitatingly.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Would you please expect yourself, Sugi?”
”Errrrr…hughhh….huh, well……”the pink head continued to struggle inwardly, hoping to figure an excuse out of his numb mind, in order to save his ass. And finally he got the inspiration he needed. ”okay! Let’s make it all up, J-chan!”
“What the---”
but before J could finish, Sugizo was already in his train of speech. ”let’s face it J-chan! Now it’s too late to send him back to his inhabitation! And it’s certain against the rule of the Order to abandon a helpless, harmless little creature like Inoran in the middle of mortal inhabitation like it’s nothing, it’s too danger for him! Remember? We’ve the responsible to take care of special creatures until we can return it to its original inhabitation, if we encountered any of their race, who aren’t able to find their way home by themselves, demon or not!”
J’s eyes widened in disbelief, but he quickly recalled the guideline which the Guardian had gave them, according to the guideline, when encountering a peaceful-nature demon of any kind who had lost its way, they did had the responsible to keep the demon safe and sound before they could find another of their fellow Guardian to return it to its original inhabitation.. Sugizo was right.
“Alright then….” Eventually he gave in. “You’re right, pal. We should bring it with us, but it’s only for the few days before we reach our destination, we will have to hang the creature to other specialists for keeping and so we’ll be done with it, okay?”
“No problem!” the pink head giggled, but he stopped once noticing his friend’s expression. “Don’t look as if you are facing the end of the world, J-chan! I’m sure having a Dowzee around will do some good for you.” Sugizo winked at his friend. “They said Dowzee is bringers of good peaceful dreams at night ne.”
But J wasn’t going to buy it.
do some good for me? J stared at his friend as if he was out of his mind. He had enough issues to deal with already; he didn’t need a demon to mess up with his peace of mind.
“I don’t want any demon around me! You know I don’t like such…creatures!”
“But, Inoran-san is just a harmless, friendly cute creature ne. He means anyone no harm, not at all. Am I right, Inoran-san?”
The demon looked up to the pink head for a while, hesitating, and then nodded slightly in agreement.
J could take it no longer, but he also knew there was no disagreeing with Sugizo, beside, according to the rule of their Order, they did have responsible to protect demons away from harm when the situation requested then to do so.
harmless, friendly or not, a demon nonetheless. J thought darkly to himself. He wasn’t unreasonable enough to really hate all of the demons, or hold the whole demon race responsible for the crime that been done to his parents, only one singular demon was responsible for the murder. And the rational part in him knew what Sugizo said was correct; he had been overreacting over the issue. However, unlike some of the fellow Guardians who became intimate with the demons he or she had studied, or actually made friends with them, J really didn’t have the heart to do the same.
“ So it’s all settled now! Inoran-san will go with us until we reached our destination!” Sugizo yelled, more to the Dowzee then to his blonde hair friend. He picked Inoran up from the floor, ready to go picking his belonging; they still have a long way to go to reach their destination.
The pink head winked at the demon in his arms, a hint of cunningness in his eyes, as if saying. I’d done what I could, so Inoran-san ganbatee ne!
the Dowzee only blinked back innocently in response.
TBC...
PREVIEW 1-2
***
“Sugi-chan! Do you want some cookies?”
“Yes mom!”
All he could do was to stare at his child-self throwing away the chalk and rushed for his cookies, running past his older, grown-up self at the doorway and disappeared into another wooden door at the end of the corridor, a door which Sugizo knew by heart that leading to the kitchen.
It was strange, he knew everything around him, the bedroom, his old bedroom before him, the drawing papers on the floor, the corridor, the door that lead to the kitchen, even his own mother’s cheerful voice calling from the kitchen…it couldn’t be real, he knew he was standing at the corridor of his parents’ house, but this place now existed only in his memory, he and his family had moved out when he went to secondary school and he never saw the house again…nothing was making any sense now why he was here?! Oh god he must be dreaming---
“Strange to visit your own Dreamworld, right?” a soft voice pointed out to him, it came out from behind his back, not far away.
He turned around to find a boy standing by the window, it was a boy with a soft looking figure, locks of long black hair stroking his eyes, he wore a white shirt and long loose black pants, smiling shyly at him. Sugizo wondered briefly that how come he never noticed the boy’s presence, the latter seemed to just appear out of nowhere.
“Who are you…?” he didn’t know who or what the boy was, but he walked closer to him anyway, because the latter’s aura was friendly and he didn’t sense malice from the other, even though.
Even though he could tell that it wasn’t a human that he was facing.
Then the realization hit him.
“if I’m correct, then you must be Inoran-san? God I’d never seen you in human-form before, you see.”
“Call me Ino please.” The brown eyes boy replied. “this form is only an facade that created by shapeshift, but my kind don’t use to shapeshifting that often, unlike the other clans.”
“Then nice to see you here, Ino-san!” Sugizo greeted the boy cheerfully.” Then the pink head turned around, studying the landscape that surrounded them. “Ne, Ino-san where are we right now?”
“We’re in your dream world.”
“Really? I can’t believe it!” Sugizo looked around in curiosity. “I always think there’d be naked women and tits everywhere in my DREAMS!”
The boy laughed, his cheeks flushed. “Err…you know dreams aren’t always took shape according to their owner’s desires. even us, Dowzee couldn’t take complete control on mortal’s dream, even though dreams are our territory, still for most of the time we can only enter a dream and experience it alongside with the motral dreamer...and sometime…bad things happened in dreams as well.” Upon speaking the brown haired boy unconsciously tossing at his sleeve, pressing his palm against his own forearm, an discomforted look pressed through his once peaceful face.
“What happen?” noticing Ino’s uneasiness, Sugi reached out to take hold of Ino’s wrist, the boy shifted but didn’t drew away, then Sugi saw the dark-blue bruised marks hidden beneath the boy’s sleeve. And found cut wounds on his arm.
“Ino…what happened to you?”
“…nothing.”
“Nothing?” Sugizo frowned, pulling the sleeve of Ino’s shirt up, exposing more bruises and freshly formed scars underneath. He gasped at what he saw. “What happened to you?”
Then Sugizo recalled the incident that took place in the motel room this morning. he saw J causing some spell…did he accidentally hurt Ino-san? “ is it…J-chan?”
And Ino gave him a strange answer.
“Yes and no…” Ino said. “I got too close to him, when I try to use the dream-reading on him. I went to the place where I was not invited, so this,” he glanced at the scars on his forearm. “are the result.”
Sugizo remembered what his demonological textbook had taught him about Dowzee before. For a creature that feeding on mortal’s dream to survive, “Dream-reading” was a basic skill of their endurance, and Dowzee could experience what the mortal dreamer was experiencing in his or her dream. the only difference was, to mortals, what they experienced in dreams was not real, once they woke up, nothing would be left behind; but to Dowzee, what they had experienced in the dreamworld would directly affect their physical well-being if they forgot to protect themselves well enough; furthermore, if Dowzee were drew too deeply into a mortal’s dream, they might get lost in the dream. It was still unclear that how Dowzee performed the dream-reading process but it was known that Dowzee were very selective on choosing dreams to feed on and they generally avoided encountering with nightmare or bad, horrible dreams, because they got hurt easily when dealing with nightmares-
Sugizo’s train of thought stopped there. Nightmares, J-chan was suffering with troubled sleep and he always woke up from nightmare in the dead of the night, even the latter refused to tell him what he’d dreamed about that made him crying out at night and woke up with cold sweat soaking his back.
“So it was J-chan after all.” Sugizo said, voicing out his hypothesis. “he…the things he dreamt about last night had hurt you.”
Ino nodded tiredly.
So what Ino meant by saying “getting too close” was that he had tried to read J’s dream but he was hurt by what he experienced there.
“Jun…didn’t intend to hurt me or anyone else…” Ino explained.
***
The chibi-Sugizo greeted him. “Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon.” Ino replied gently.
“Uh-huh.” The child sat down next to him naturally. “Do you want some cookies?”
“I’ll love to. Thank you Sugi-san” he took one of the cookies from the child’s hand, taking a small mouthful and smiled.
“How would you know my name?” the child cocked his head, a question look on his face. “Do you know me?”
“ Well, I do know you, but you’d only come to know me as your friend many, many years ago.”
Chibi-Sugizo pouted. “duno what you’re talking about.” Finishing the last pieces of cookie he stood up and walked back to his unfinished drawing, then sat down and continued to draw.