A/N: Yeah, another one-shot from me. I swear where do these things come from? I really shouldn't be typing this right now… I have a personal narrative to be writing right now. And typing is aggravating my wrist… again. DDDD: But yeah, reading through my English book, looking for narrative ideas sort of inspired this.
DISCLAIMER: SD27 doesn't own Yami no Matsuei.
It was a simple retrieval mission. Really, that was all it was. Someone's name had appeared on the Kiseki, the soul had some attachment to the mortal realm, and a shinigami was dispatched to bring it back with him. Easy case, providing the soul was cooperative.
Tatsumi didn't understand why he, of all people had to do it, though. It wasn't even his sector, and the shinigami in charge of said sector was capable of doing the job with no problems.
But Enma's orders were Enma's orders, and who was Tatsumi to defy the Lord of Hades?
Teleporting in a side alley a few blocks from the hospital where he had been sent, the brunette calmly walked into the white building and through the myriad of sick people waiting in the lobby. All in spiritual form, of course. No need to get apprehended by security, after all.
Locating the room was a harder task, however, for the Secretary of the Shokan Division. After twenty minutes of searching for the patient's room, and getting himself lost in the process, Tatsumi quickly sidled off to a small corridor, transferred into corporeal form, and went in search of a nurse or doctor. He was thankful though, that none of the other shinigami was there with him; it wasn't like Tatsumi to get lost, let alone in a single building, and it would have been rather embarrassing.
'Especially if it were Tsuzuki or Watari here with me… they would probably never let me live it down.'
"Excuse me, Sir. Do you need some help?"
The voice came out of nowhere, and it startled Tatsumi, seeing as the hallway was otherwise dead silent. Turning around, Tatsumi stiffened as he noted that the doctor that had approached him had platinum-blond hair and glasses. The shadows flared up suddenly, but then quickly died down as Tatsumi realized that the man in front of him was not Muraki. This doctor had brown eyes, both of which were normal, and he looked much younger than the psychopath doctor Tatsumi and the rest of the Shokan Division would love to get their hands on and strangle.
"…Sir?" the doctor asked, oblivious of what had just happened.
Tatsumi reached up to adjust his glasses, before giving a polite smile to the doctor, "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost. Could you please tell me where the terminal ward would be?" he asked.
The man nodded somberly, pointing down the hall where Tatsumi had come from, "You're looking for the terminal ward, eh? Actually, if you continue to the end of this hallway, there will be a flight of stairs to your left. Go up them, and it will be one of the first few doors on your right."
Thanking the doctor, Tatsumi headed off in that direction. He shifted back into spiritual form once he rounded the corner; the soul he was being sent to guide would be able to see him, but there was no need for anyone else in the hospital to.
Opening the door to Room 849, Tatsumi was met with the sight of a frail old woman, possibly in her mid-eighties or early nineties. She seemed to be sleeping, and Tatsumi hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not he should wake her or wait.
Frowning, the blue-eyed shinigami felt as if she was familiar to him in someway, but he couldn't place it. There was a medical chart at the foot of the bed, and Tatsumi walked over to see just whom he was supposed to take to Meifu with him. Konoe-kachou had never received a name or the fax that came in, after all.
The patient's name startled Tatsumi, before igniting a hot blaze of anger within him.
It was clear now, why he had been sent. Enma was a scheming bastard, that much was sure. If the shinigami in charge of this sector had been sent, then Enma would possibly lose the trump card he held over him.
The monitor attached to the woman beeped slightly, and she took a deep breath as she woke up. She looked a bit confused when her eyes settled on Tatsumi at the foot of her bed. "You're not a doctor," she whispered, her voice a bit raspy.
Tatsumi's anger he had to work to keep in check, he wasn't angry with the woman, but rather Enma, "No. I'm not."
"You're here to take me, aren't you?" she asked, her eyes studying him shrewdly from the bed.
He was startled at the fact she knew who he was, but considering the circumstances, he should have guessed that she would figure it out quickly.
"Yes. You're to come back to Meifu for judgement with me."
"…So it's time then, is it?" the question was more as if she was speaking to herself, rather than to the shinigami, "Well… it sounds a bit morbid, but it's about time. I was… was getting sick of being alone."
He shouldn't be the one to do this; it shouldn't be him here with this woman, taking her to what awaited her on the other side. This whole thing was wrong…
"But, now I'll get to see him again. My darling son…" she looked at Tatsumi, her eyes seeming to pierce right through Tatsumi's own, even though her life was flickering out as she spoke.
'Son? I was expecting… but, she's…'Tatsumi knew there was a relation between the woman and one of his co-workers, but not that close of one.
The secretary might have been aloof, and remarked as being uncaring and cold at times, but not even he had the heart to break the truth to the dying woman in front of him. She wouldn't be able to see her son, not until he ascended, if it ever happened.
Enma's hold was strong, and if this case meant anything, the god still had use for him; still needed his mind.
Tatsumi tried to summon up a reassuring smile for the woman, but fell flat in his attempt. He wasn't used to smiling, anyways. "I'm sure you will. Now, come with me, it's time for you to go."
She nodded, a smile lighting up her wearied face, so reminiscent of her son's. Tatsumi felt a pain in his chest as he took the woman's hand, a soft glow encompassing her body. The machines hooked up to her physical body went haywire as she gave her last breath and Tatsumi released her soul. A team of nurses and the same platinum-haired doctor from before rushed in, the doctor giving orders as they tried to save the woman. It was too late; the soul of the woman was currently standing off to the side with Tatsumi, watching the events unfolding around her with calculating eyes, taking in everything.
Tatsumi knew that look well. He had seen it many a time before.
"I looked like crap, didn't I," she stated with a raised eyebrow, gazing at her body now lying on the bed in front of her.
As a soul, whatever had been plaguing the woman had been lifted off of her shoulders, and so did about ten years off of her face. Tatsumi supposed this was what the woman had looked like before she had become ill. Warm honey-brown eyes peered out from a kind, slightly wrinkled face. Long, wavy hair that the secretary could easily see as being a tawny shade earlier in her life was pulled back into a bun, with a few strands falling out of it to frame her face.
"I never did catch your name," she said, as Tatsumi took her hand and the two teleported out of the hospital. "You're not exactly what I imagined a shinigami to be, you know," she told him, chuckling a bit.
"Tatsumi Seiichirou."
"Hmmm? Oh," she smiled, "You've a good heart, Tatsumi Seiichirou, being so kind to this old woman. Just like my dear Yutaka."
And as he left her to her judgement with Enma, Tatsumi wondered exactly what he was going to tell Watari, who was sitting in his laboratory at that moment, holding a letter from Enma telling him that his mother had passed on and, at the unwritten risk of regaining his memories, wasn't allowed to guide her.