Korū was wandering the halls and being absolutely tired. Who wouldn't, though, if they had a total of five hours of sleep the entire week?
"Damn, how long has he been doing this?" Alina muttered to herself, immediately zoning in on the freshest scent trail. "There you are!" she exclaimed as Korū came into sight.
"What?" Korū muttered. He had a cup of coffee in his hand. Who knew where he got that from? Was Alina always that blurry? He didn't think so.
"I'm having another annoy-my-friends-as-much-as-I-can-and-see-if-they-still-like-me day because Cayne hasn't sat through one. Also, it gives me a reason to wake him up at 4am to wish him a happy birthday." She told him.
"It's his birthday?" He took a sip from his coffee. Ah, Alina wasn't unfocused anymore.
"I think. He said, 'late October' and it's the last day of it."
"Last day? Damn, so I've survived a month with a total of 30 hours of sleep."
"You mean thirty-five hours, seven minutes and forty-three seconds." Alina quipped.
"Nope. Thirty."
Alina grinned, "If you say so. Cayne gave me the numbers, though."
"He sleeps before me, how the hell would he know?"
Alina hummed in response, before saying, "Come on, let's go. I've already woken Hikari and Linda up. Ichika too, but I skipped directly to the ice water for that, and she didn't get the invite to wake Cayne up."
Korū's mood darkened slightly at the mention of Ichika's name, but he kept his face passive. Okay, slightly grumpy.
Alina grabbed him and started dragging him towards the guest rooms, before she suddenly stiffened as she heard the whooshing of air.
"The fuck?" he grumbled.
"Shush." She said quietly, her nose twitching, the rest of her body stock still. Nothing. She smelt nothing.
He scented the air as well, but didn't pick anything up either.
Korū turned to glance at Alina, who was still a statue. She whipped her head to the side as an almost silent, rustling sound reached her ears, just in time to catch a flash of red brown.
Without any other word, Alina started to run in the direction of the flash. "Shifting will be too noisy." She mindlinked Korū.
"Tch, as if I don't know that," he responded, following her.
"That's something I would seriously question." She shot back. She bit back a snarl as a scent met her nose. "Okay, fuck it." She shifted, ripping through her clothes which she had long since learnt not to care too much about, and chased the smell.
Korū remained human, disappearing into the shadows as silently as Akui did the night before. He went after Alina, a hand on the hilt of his katana.
Alina frowned wolfishly as she zoomed past the hallways. Where the hell did Korū go? She'll be damned if any of them got intercepted and murdered. She could only hope that Linda was sticking close enough to Hikari.
She curled her lip as she entered the living room. She was too late.
***
Breathing. Akui's eyes gleamed. In a minute, the room would be silent. The wizard had given away too much, and there was not much time left until someone woke up.
He reached out, a hand on the handle of the door, when a small voice -quiet, soft, but there nonetheless- spoke in his head, kindly. "You don't really want to kill him, do you?"
He froze.
"I have to," he whispered. "I have to live." He tried to push away that irritating squeak of a voice which sounded suspiciously like he used to, sixty years ago, but it refused to leave. It just clung on, sticking itself there like an annoying burr.
"You're going to die anyway, what's the difference if you die now?" The voice morphed into another -a voice that played in his head, over and over again, even after decades had passed. "Only the weak are afraid to die," his mother spat.
"Only the weak will make others die for their sake," his father sneered.
"You killed me!" Kazumi shrieked. "You should just die!"
"See those hands, Takara, Ryota?" Kaida snarled. "Those are the hands of a murderer who is not worthy of being called your father."
The voices swirled together, twisting and spinning him in a tornado of howls and vengeful screams, throwing him into a whirlpool of grief and chaos and pain and terror and so much more. He saw the ghostly forms of Takara and Ryota, lunging at him with swords drawn, slicing and tearing him apart, blood that was his but not his dripping from his hands, screams that he couldn't tell apart echoing down the corridor, hands from people long past pulling at him, dragging him closer towards the gates of Hell.
"Shut up!" he hissed. "Shut up!" He shoved the door open, his frenzied purple-blue eyes meeting the shocked, slightly sleepy, gray of Tsukiyama's.
"Akui-s-?" Tsukiyama was cut off as Akui stuck his katana under his chin, pressing against his throat. The wizard's eyes widened. Akui's gaze was cold, colder than the ice of Antarctica, yet somehow so full of conflict.
"I'm sorry," tumbled out of his mouth, though he didn't know why. A flick of his wrist, and Tsukiyama would be bleeding out on the floor. "Now you don't have to suffer if I die." Something was wrong with him. All those words, all that sappy shit that he never thought he'd say were just spilling from his lips, as though the mental barrier had broken like an old beaver dam, and everything just came pouring out.
Tsukiyama stared at him with accusing eyes as Akui's left hand moved to a pocket, bringing out a syringe.
It pierced through Tsukiyama's skin. Just a small prick.
All Akui had to do now was press his thumb down.
But it refused to move, seizing up. Shivering.
Tsukiyama's lips parted, as if to speak. Akui could let that happen.
A small squeak as the liquid was ejected, the plunger compressed.
He turned to leave, but looked back when he was at the door to see Tsukiyama staring at him with what looked like anguish in his gaze, before those brilliant gray eyes closed for the last time.
Akui gritted his teeth, spinning around and racing out of the door, catching a glimpse of Alina and what was possibly Korū. He sped up, racing to the sitting room which he'd first appeared in, then out of the balcony next to it. With a quiet growl, he shifted, wings stretching out, and soared away. The weaklings were too slow to get him.
Five minutes later, and he was home. That is, if he could even call it home anymore. Pulling on a change of clothes, he made his way to the sink. He scrubbed the blood from his hands, the blood that never disappeared. The syringe was meant to be clean, painless. Why was there blood on his hands? Just as he turned, giving up, a flash of black caught his eye. He stiffened.
Takara and Ryota stood there, their swords in their hands. His eyes widened as they met with steady gray eyes from behind his children. Then they dropped their weapons as he sank to his knees, ghostly hands reaching out, two pairs of arms, curving around him, pulling him into an embrace. Or was it him pulling them? He wasn't sure. He'd never felt so warm before, or if he did, it was a long time ago.