Chapter 3: Konoe-kacho: Next in Line
I watched you leave the building and walk to the Sakura orchard. You are not the first nor will you be the last that I will lead through this path… yet I wonder if DiaOh-sama could have chosen someone else. Had it been anyone else very little complications would likely arise, but it is you and, that being the case, and you are a very special case, makes everything so problematical.
At first glace you would look so ordinary, just another
uptight salaryman down at Chijou, everything impeccable and sharp, as squeaky
clean as anything could ever be. So commonplace to any busy street until that is
one looked at your face and the shadows at your feet. A face more often than not
seen looking stern and cold, sometimes even cruel, with eyes the color of the
cornflowers was the most obvious that will be seen. After years and years of
working with you though, I have glimpsed moments when the mask would crack. It
could look comforting and kind when the owner needed it to be. Sometimes it
softens into a smile and for a few seconds it would be able to make the most
powerful shinigami forget everything else in the world exists. At your feet,
shadows gather and maybe unknowingly you play with them. You are a Kagetsukai.
That is enough reason for many to fear you.
What has life to offer me when I grow old?
Since I have taken the position of the Chief of the ShoKan division few has ever made my life and position as interesting as you. True Tsuzuki gives me a lot of grief every now and then, terrifying moments at times even, but not the persistent fear that you give off. DiaOh sama followed the adage ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. That was the reason why DiaOh sama kept Tsuzuki as a Shinigami. That was the reason why I kept a Kagetsukai as my secretary/accountant. Though you are not truly an enemy you held power and influence in the office that can and do rival my own. You never tried to usurp my control of the division but you never had to. Even the Peace Preservation division would have nothing to do with you, in fear of you taking over.
It was funny really. Here was a man who did not have great
spiritual power or even have a shikigami to call as his own, yet others who do
have the ability and the shikigami won’t dare to go head on with him. He did not
have any training in martial arts and can only cast a few spell yet tens of
thousands he has killed. He was as bathed in blood as Tsuzuki and had he not
stopped and taken a desk job he would be Tsuzuki’s rival for the position as the
best agent.
When I had decided that I would most likely spend the rest of my eternity, my
old age, in peace I had not expected to have two of the deadliest shinigami’s
working for me. I think someone put a curse on me, a Chinese curse, a curse to
live in interesting times…
What is there to look forward to beyond the biting cold?
You look at the reflection of the moon in the sky and I know
that you have come to an impasse and you do not like it but like you are wont
you make the best of it. You will never let Tsuzuki make this choice and you
made sure that he would never know. You are a cruel man and yet how could I
fault you when it is all for him. Enma DaiOh knew you enough that he knew which
strings to pull to get you to decide to become a willing sacrifice in the
crucible of Enma Oh’s plan.
Why could you not be kind even just to yourself if you cannot
with the others? Can you not see anything other than winter for your future?
After this though there might not be a happy ending.
I see Tsuzuki walking towards you as you smile up at the moon
in your rare sad smile. If Tsuzuki ever finds out before the act what will
happen to you he will shake Meifu’s very foundation. He will never agree to
this. He will not be happy being the only one happy, if there are others who
would be unhappy. Much like the Shitsuji in the Earls book, this was a sacrifice
that he would never ask of you. He will never know though. DaiOh sama will never
tell him, I am bound to never tell anyone, and Tatsumi will be long gone…
They say it’s difficult, yes tell ya it’s typical.
Tsuzuki will not have his chance to learn what is planned for tonight. I will not give him the chance. This is too important a mission to be compromised by any external force.
I’m sorry Tsuzuki.
He turns to me as he hears my approach. Eyes resigned to its
fate stare back at me. This has never been easy for me. Always, always of all of
my duties as the chief of a division this is the least liked obligation that I
knew no one else can carry out.
Unlike all the others that I have already lead through this
path he did not turn away from me as I approached. No fear shines in his eyes.
Stern and composed in everything, I cannot help but wonder if my division will
survive the loss of such a capable man.
“Good evening. DaiOh sama awaits”
Forgive me Tatsumi. Even as I lead you to the path that will
ultimately destroy you I find no acceptable excuse for you to forgive me this
betrayal. You cannot know that Enma DaiOh will never let Tsuzuki escape and so
will never take the path that you now choose. This time around the blood will be
on my hands.
We reach a small door in the middle of an open field at the
sixth step of our walk. The door was an unobtrusive fixture, one that no one
would ever just stumble upon or easily find.
“I will ask you for the last time. The moment you step
through these doors, there will be no turning back. You will be subject to Enma
DaiOh’s judgment.” I say, as if I was actually giving him a choice in the
matter, even if there was actually no turning back the moment we started our
first step to this door. “Do you wish to continue and face the judgment of Enma
DaiOh?”
“Yes.”
I walked up to the door and opened it to let him pass through. Once he stepped in I closed it shut and sealed his fate. I can almost hear the screams of pain that I knew he would utter, like all the other shinigami that have come before him many years passed.
Sometimes I really hated my job.
What’s there beyond sleepy work and the school life?
I opened the door to my office and watch the whole office come to life as one by
one the shinigami under my division come in. Each one stuck in this stasis
state, forever servants, chained to this life of never ending missions.
There was nothing to look forward to unless one wished to move on or be unmade.
Here they were living a semblance of normal life, in truth though they are
simply in that moment where so much is unresolved in them; trapped until finally
all unsettled accounts are paid in full or forgotten.
Yet already I see, another disruption of the tedium. Tsuzuki has returned to an
almost happy office, yet I could see his sudden disappointment on seeing the
empty room that was once Tatsumi’s. A room he cleaned out last night before he
went away. No matter. He will forget… they all do.
Ain’t got nothing else round here but you in strife.
I didn’t expect Tsuzuki to come to his apartment, not immediately after work,
not before I was able to clear all of Tatsumi’s things from his apartment. I
looked at him as he stared bewildered at all the boxes. Now the difficult part
of this path starts. As the most senior shinigami it usually falls to me to
remember those who had been unmade. This time though I think everything has
become more complicated.
“Tsuzuki.”
He looked at me in surprise and it was all I could do to reassure him. Nothing
in the books ever covered what to do with subordinate shinigamis more powerful
than you and closer than you to the one unmade. Technicalities and other
interesting clauses must be at work since by the end of the day most if not all
has forgotten.
“Kachou. Where’s Tatsumi?” he asked in such a small voice that I wonder if in
the daze he is in he even heard my answer.
“Gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“Gone.”
“Why?”
‘Why?’ what reason would satisfy you Tsuzuki? No reason will be enough. Not even
the reason, the real reason that he no longer lived here.
“He was called away for a job.”
“When will he be back?”
“Never.” Never again as Tatsumi. Maybe in the future as the new being that was
made out of the substance that was once him but not the same, never the same
again.
I watched him shake his head in denial. I almost screamed at him to not look at
the albums as he opened them. I watched his face turn from denial to horror.
Even someone like Tsuzuki, who never bothers to learn too much about procedures
and technical aspects of being a shinigami, would know of this little other path
other than moving on.
He fell to his knees and traced the outline of Tatsumi on one of the pictures in
the album. Or more the place where before he once stood. When someone is unmade,
and everyone is made to forget, everything that would remind everyone of that
person is destroyed. All physical evidences, if possible, would be destroyed.
All memories would be shrouded in a mist. Everything that would indicate his
passing through Meifu was to be erased, even if it were just an image in a
picture.
“He met with Enma-DiaOh.” he whispered.
I pick him up from the floor and lead him out as I took out the first box that I
would dispose for the night. This was not how I envisioned my night to be…
They say it’s difficult. Yes tell ya it’s typical.
The days pass slowly at first and I found out that unlike everyone else Tsuzuki
didn’t forget our stern secretary. It hurt him the most that no one remembered
Tatsumi now even if only a week has passed. Tsuzuki is learning of everything
the hard way. He will never forget now. He will carry this memory now till the
very end. He will remember a person who no one else will recall.
I can see him now building that wall, he will never let Tatsumi die and be
forgotten. He will carry the pain of this loss. Even now he tries to dissuade
Kurosaki from his worry. This will be another thing, one of the many, that he
will keep from everyone else. He is as cruel as Tatsumi in this aspect. He will
not let anyone help him carry this burden, not that anyone can though.
Gotta be conventional, you can’t be too radical.
Everything eventually went back to its old hum drum ways. True once in a while a
case would come and send many into panic. The case with Kurosaki’s family and
when he got his first shikigami both really made memorable impressions but
nothing that really would shake Tsuzuki. It was as if after what happened he
returned into the ditzy personality he kept. The darkness that he kept inside
though scares me now.
Property damage remain the same and the division is now constantly in the red
but no one cares too much about it anymore. Like any other day we all simply
take it in stride. I’m no longer sure I like this situation now. It has become
quite a feat to keep everything together; maybe an anal-retentive
obsessive-compulsive personality wasn’t so bad.
So I sing this song to all of my age
For these are the questions we gotta face.
And so it begins again. I loose another shinigami and another and another and
another… a never ending chain of watching. Now though I have someone else to
worry about.
It’s almost that time of the year again, when one upon a time a mean, scheming,
miser looked up to the sky for the last time and left this world for something
more important than money. It was time again for me to watch the most powerful
shinigami be swallowed by the darkness of his own misery. I could almost see him
curled up beneath that same sakura tree where the other was last seen. It was
none of my business but there was nothing that could be done. Everyone copes
with mourning in their own way… this was how Tsuzuki coped with this loss.
For in this cycle that we call life, we are the ones who are next in line
I stare at a pair of mismatched eyes and wonder if DaiOh sama had it in for me. If I had thought a few years without my not so pleasant but efficient secretary was a punishment… maybe adding an insane, hopefully saner now dead, doctor would definitely clinch that I had somehow offended my boss.
“Good morning! Welcome to Meifu Muraki-sensei!”
Did I forget to say that I hated my job?
-End-
July 4,2004
Disclaimer:
No shinigami was hurt during the creation of this fanfiction. I do not own the
characters in either worlds. Wei? Kreuz was created by Koyasu Takehito and Yami
no Matsuei was created by Yoko Matsushita. The characters and associated
materials of these works are used WITHOUT permission. I'm not getting any money
out of this. Song Next in Line sung by After Image Original portion of the
fiction included here is considered to be the sole property and copyrighted of
the author.
Thank you for the reviews!!!
Ghost Whisper: thanks!! Tats will return after this chapter... or at least I plan to bring him back... sorta...
Sadistic Dragon of Doom: Err... too angsty you think?
hmmm: maybe...
Star Dragonsong: Yes a lot of things
really bugs me about how I wrote it but I haven't found anyone to beta my fics
at all. he he I'm trying, honest I'm trying. Hmmm? Omi or Aya?
Thanks for the suggestion!!<scratches head> I really have no real idea
yet. Scratch that I have an idea but I have three separate people who can
fill up the slot sooooo...lol.