Little Porcelain Doll

It's because porcelain dolls look so alive,
It seems like they have a soul of their own,
Simply trapped there,
For whatever reason...
Their eyes bore right through you,
They blink, they watch, they know...
Because...
Don't you know? Dolls have a life of their own.

Chapter 8:

Krad gave a yelp and stumbled backwards, falling onto his bottom before scooting backwards away from the body towards his friend. "Warn me the next time you stumble onto something like that!"

He furled his brows as he snapped sarcastically, "warn you? I thought I warned you with my yell of terror a moment ago! What part of that yell didn't scream 'I just found a dead body!'? Did it sound like an 'everything's alright' kind of scream? I suppose I'll try to incorporate some sort of warning into my yells next time! Why are we arguing in front of a corpse?" Despite his angry retort, he was clinging onto the other's shirt as tightly as his fists would allow him to.

Still too shocked by the sight before him to be fazed by his friend's reaction, he shrugged, "I was actually about to ask you that…anyways, if this is really that little girl's father, then all we need to do is find his spirit and have them meet up and everything will be fantastic again, right? Hopefully that'll all happen before our trip ends, I really want to take a dip in the hot springs as well."

Dark nodded in agreement, "that sounds fine and dandy, but the question now is how do we find his spirit? We don't even know if he's actually here. His body's here but the miscellaneous category's questionable. For all we know, he's gotten over this particularly traumatizing event and moved on." A pause, "Krad? Why are you looking at me like that? You're not proposing we try to summon him or something, are you? If you are, I can tell you right now that I'm not going to go along with it."

The blond shook his head and noted offhandedly, "of course not. Even if we wanted to, we don't know how to summon spirits, now do we? I was just thinking that since you've been possessed before, you might have a better chance at finding him…"

He let out a whine and shook his head, "No way! You're the one who had trippy dreams! You do it! Besides, you're a creep magnet! Think back to all the creeps that you've attracted! Not to mention the doll was sent to you and you're the one that saw the little girl! I refuse to be possessed by that doll, I doubt it'd do any good anyways. Stop looking at me like that! I don't want to get possessed by a doll-again! I'll probably just try to kill you again and-"

Krad cut him off with a smack on the head. Huffing at the other's panic, he rolled his eyes, "that's not what I was thinking at all…" He glanced up at the figure hanging in the closet and gulped. Tugging at his friend's shirt, he gestured towards the door, "let's discuss this outside…talking about all these things in front of a man's dead body seems really disrespectful. And it's making me really uncomfortable."

Grabbing the blonde's hand, he got up and headed for the door without wasting a second, "Agreed. Let's go."

Once outside, the two of them sat down and took a deep breath, inhaling the mountain air which was just that much more refreshing than their town's. Dark looked up at the sky and sighed, "Kraddy-kins…how did we wind up this stupid mess again?"

The blond shrugged, "A murderous doll was sent to me and we weren't bright enough to get rid of it in a conventional way. So we ended up getting the class to take a trip here instead. And now we're trying to reunite a spirit father-daughter duo in hopes of stopping the doll. Speaking of which, back to what I was saying. I wasn't saying that you should get possessed by the doll, that'd be counter-productive. I was going to say that you should get possessed by the father or something. I told you, that little girl mentioned that he had a lot of promises that he made to her one of which was to fix that doll, if he can complete them, then maybe they'll be able to meet up or something?"

He let out huff, "in theory, I suppose that sounds just peachy. But in practice, I can see a lot of problems with this idea. Let's start with number one: we don't know where his spirit's at right now. Number two: I can't really just get possessed on cue. Number three: we have no guarantee that this will work. I can't think of a number four right now, but I'm sure it'll come to me."

Krad looked up in thought before suggesting, "Maybe I can try to contact him? I managed to talk to the girl…but of course, there's no guarantee that it'd work..."

The violet haired boy perked up, "Oh, and I just thought of a fourth thing: the fact that if anything goes wrong, I could end up killing you-or if not me, then someone or something will. Krad, you know I love you and would give my life for you so please think this through. I'd hate to be the one to kill you, but if you're going to be this reckless; even if that doll doesn't possess me and kill you, I might just strangle you to death out of frustration. Besides, I forbid you from sleeping in that place ever again, I doubt you'd be able to sleep in there anyways…could you?"

Golden eyes studied him for a moment before turning away ambiguously, "who knows? Never know till you try, right? Besides, Dark, you know as well as I do that if we don't get rid of this thing, someone else is going to get hurt whether or not that person's me. And I also know for a fact that you'd never be able to kill me no matter how tempted you might get."

Though he had no intention of making it easy for the other, he knew that that was the argument in the end and that there was no way of winning despite whatever he may say. All Krad really had to do in the end was say 'fine, I'll do it alone then' and he knew he'd give in without another word. Realizing that he was losing at his own mental argument, he sighed and stood up and held up his hand to his friend, "come on then, let's see what we can do… You know, I really should try harder to stop you from doing stupid things."

Krad laughed and accepted the offered hand, "how strange, I'm being scolded by you of all people. You're normally the one who goes around being stupid."

Disgruntled, he retorted, "Yea, but my stupidity doesn't put me in life-threatening situations, now does it?"

The blond shrugged again and shot him a strangely cheery smile, "I suppose not. I don't even have a comeback for that…but that doesn't matter, let's get this over-" he stopped mid-sentenced when he looked at the house and found the doll staring back out through a window. Smile disappearing, he couldn't help but gape, "I don't think the doll's very pleased with our plan."

"Oh really? You don't say…" he muttered under his breath sarcastically. But when he saw the blond cradling his head, he frowned worriedly, "Krad? What's wrong?"

The other boy shook his head, "I don't know. My head's throbbing…Dark…" suddenly, his eyes rolled up and he fell limply to the ground.

"Krad!" Dark looked around frantically for a moment before deciding that it'd be a better idea for the blond to be under a roof rather that outside. Picking the other up and heading back into the house, he set the blond down in the hallway. He glanced over to the room where the doll was and decided to close the door and barricade it if only to make himself feel a little safer. Then heading back to his unconscious friend, he sat down protectively next to him and ran a hand through the other's golden locks, "Geeze, Krad…what happened to you? How am I supposed to keep you safe if you keep fainting on me like that?"

He opened his eyes groggily only to see his prone body next to Dark. Furling his brows, he waved his hand in front of the other boy's face only to realize that Dark couldn't see him. For some reason, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach about all this. Sure, he practically volunteered for this earlier, but hadn't expected it to happen so abruptly and so soon. Scratching his head, he paused for a moment to collect himself and to consider his course of action. "Okay…the goal is to contact the father whose body is strung up in the next room over there…how do I contact him?"

Before he could properly think everything through, there was an angry scratching and banging at the door Dark had barricaded. Head jerking upwards in shock, he gulped. There wasn't a trace of doubt in his mind that that was the doll, displeased with them and their objective. Looking over at his friend, he realized that the other boy was completely unaware of what was happening behind that door. He was pretty sure that if he didn't succeed, he'd get to watch Dark get possessed and kill him in his sleep. Admittedly, it wasn't very appealing to him.

Ignoring the angry thumping the best he could, he made his way over to the room where the man's corpse hung. Though reluctant, he managed to force his voice to work, "hello? Saitou-san? Please tell me you're still around or I might as well just strange myself to death now…" Then suddenly, feeling a presence behind him, he turned around to see a shadowy figure standing there. A little hesitantly, he took a step towards it, "…hello?"

A deep, sullen voice replied, "Leave this place. You have no business here."

Krad blinked, slightly taken aback by how tired the voice sounded. Taking a moment to figure out a more sensitive way to break the news to the man, he took a deep breath, "uhh…Saitou-san? Can you hear that thumping in the next room?" When he didn't receive a reply, he took it as a no and continued. "Well, this doll you created, Shikyou? It's actually in the other room right now, trying to get out. If she gets out, she'll probably take over my friend's body and kill me…she's also keeping your daughter hostage here…"

That last sentence caused the ghost to turn around and approached him at a startling pace, causing him to stumble backwards. With widened eyes, the man began firing questions at him one after another. "My daughter? Did you just say my daughter? Menou's still here? Why's she still here?"

The blond shook his head and held his hands in front of him to keep the ghost from getting too close, "I don't know, she was looking for you though. She said that you promised to fix her doll and other things. I don't think she'll be able to leave this place until she finally gets to see her father."

The shadow began clearing up and revealed a haggard looking middle-aged man, "but how can I see her when I haven't kept any of my promises…?"

Hearing the thumps getting harder and the frustrated shrieks getting louder, he pointed at Dark and gestured for the ghost to move frantically, "go use my friend's body to fulfill them! Hurry, before the doll gets it!"

Though uncertainty coloured the man's face, he nodded and made a dash for their bodies. At that very moment, the door burst open and standing there, was the doll, her face distorted with rage as she raced for Dark as well. "Menou's mine!"

Sitting up with a jolt, he looked around frantically before his eyes landed on his friend. Turning onto his knees, he reached over to place a hand on Dark's shoulder worriedly, "Dark? Dark? Are you alright?"

Suddenly, a hand shot up and grabbed his arm, darkened violet eyes staring back at him.

He gulped, "…Dark?"

Nya~

After years..an update! I'll also be going back to edit the previous chapters...soon. Thanks for the messages CripptedAngel! And sorry it took so long anyways! I guess we'll have to see how long it takes for me to update again XD; Hopefully not long..but that's what I say all the time so I should really just not say anything at all I suppose. Yukisaki-sensei needs to update soon! I want to see my Kraddy-kins! He's so unbelieveably pretty even when he's angsting...and every time he interacts with Dark I just want to go 'now embrace!' But enough of my ranting. Love you all! Enjoy!