Author's notes: Figured since I had this awesome AU dream, I'd share it. I filled in the in-between details purely from imagination. :D Enjoy~

He had overhead the nurses talking. They had stopped whispering months ago. He hadn't known if it was because he'd been there for years or because he had stopped making eye contact or muffled noise from the tubes stuffed down his nose and throat when the hospital staff or doctors talked to him. Why bother? They all lied to him.

They once had someone come in with a dog, but even then he looked blankly at the juncture between the ceiling and wall as the cheerful but careful creature licked his free hand. The volunteer attached to the dog had felt extreme sadness and pity for him, like most the strangers who volunteered in the pediatric ward. He hated that, but what he had heard from the nurses who emanated clinical objectivity infuriated him.

They said he wouldn't live out the week.

He would show them.

Dressed in mourning wear, Nagare Kurosaki entered the car held open for him. His wife had refused to join him to attend their son's funeral, but that hardly surprised him.

He took a seat, buckling up despite the short drive from the crematorium and the Kurosaki cemetery.

His fingers brushed a soft object. He turned his head to pay closer attention to it, and found a simple-looking rag doll with an overlarge head covered in scraggly yellow yarn, stubby limbs jutting out from a plain white kimono, and mismatched green button eyes staring up at the ceiling in the seat next to him.

He thought perhaps a servant's child had left it in there as he picked it up and sat it upright carefully in the seat, not thinking it odd that the kimono was crossed in front as if prepared for death.

Dr. Muraki murmured condolent platitudes towards the Kurosaki head of family at the loss of his only heir. It was the last business he would have to attend in this shanty backwater village before moving back to Tokyo permanently.

As the crowd dispersed, his assistant opened the door to the nondescript car for him. He settled inside, inwardly going over the plans, knowing he'd need more drastic measures to revive his sibling from the dead.

Behind his headrest, a button-eyed doll dressed for death stared up at the back window blankly.

"What the hell?" She muttered in shinigami form kneeling next to a man in a white suit who appeared to have collapsed suddenly.

Pulling his eyes reluctantly from the malevolent aura surrounding the smiling slumped doll, the black-haired man met his partner's eyes. "This isn't going to be an easy job."

"No shit. The kid put that doctor in a coma!" The tall, broad-shouldered woman's expression was severe and wary.

"Take him to the hospital. I'll handle this one." He pulled a fuda from his pocket, beginning a containment incantation.

She didn't argue the point about rules, phasing back to material form as she gathered the man up with some strain because of his size and trundled towards the door.

Something shot through her from behind and she felt herself convulse and drop the man, falling to the ground herself.

"Damn." Her partner had been completely helpless to stop the red-shock of lightning lick out from the possessed doll. He quickly pulled a crumpled folded crane from his pocket and blew on it. "Tokyo sector shinigami need help now recovering the rogue spirit, Hisoka Kurosaki. We're at-" The crane morphed into a dove with a long tail, squawking and disappearing as he suddenly went limp with unconsciousness.

A giggle filled the room as a protective dome settled over the residence hiding it from public eye.

"Tsuzuki! Get off your ass; we have an assignment!" The words tumbled out from the form of Kobayashi, his short, normally laid back trickster of a partner.

"Yeah, yeah." He yawned and stretched as the short man fussed about the time he was wasting during an emergency assignment.

Tsuzuki snapped his head up, pulling his jacket on and heading towards the door. "Tell me the specs."

The nice thing about Kobayashi is that he had his priorities straight. It was probably why he had lasted longer than the five partners before him.

"Simple soul collection gone sour. The Tokyo pair haven't been heard from since they sent a messenger out."

They stopped at the bottom of the stairs outside the massive Ministry building.

"Where?"

Kobayashi was unsurprised at the curt question. His partner knew serious once he was hit over the head with it. "Ritzy neighborhood in Tokyo based on the coordinates that their messenger came from."

A warm hand settled on his shoulder. "Take us there."

"Sure thing." They disappeared from the cherry tree-lined walkway.

The world was growing fuzzy around him as it seemed to narrow towards the person in front of him. In panicked hyperventilation, Kazutaka gripped his backpack in his sweaty palms as his brother smiled, the still-sharp tip of an antique katana in hand and waiting to skewer him. He had known, suspected with no proof, that his parents had both been poisoned by this... this monster.

Nobody was home, the butler having a previous appointment to attend that Kazutaka had granted as the legitimate heir of the Muraki estates.

Thanks to that he was utterly defenseless as his eyes drifted to his backpack, and he wondered if his insane half-brother knew how to use the katana.

A chilling chuckle, mesmerized by his fear, spilled from that sick person.

"You... need help. Why don't we call the hospital?"

"Kazutaka." The name rolled off his half-brother's tongue as if unfamiliar. "I want you to die. Over and over again."

"That's not a good idea." His voice jumped to a higher pitch as his throat tensed.

"Why not? I want to see you writhe in beautiful crimson pain. Don't you want to become my masterpiece?" He stepped forward, but Kazutaka stepped back despite being afraid that his knees would give out from how shaky they'd gotten, swallowing down the nausea of fear down.

"You'll look so wonderful covered in blood, and I'm sure your warm corpse would appreciate my affections then."

Kazutaka opened his mouth to respond, but only screamed as the sword surged forward.

He heard his brother giggling as pain flared in his mind, searing across his skin as if branded.

"Wow." Tsuzuki breathed out at the immense barrier towering over him. "Got anymore intel on the spirit?"

"Besides the fact that Hisoka Kurosaki may have died of a wasting curse, instead of the 'mysterious' disease listed on his autopsy report? He was in a hospital for three years before kicking the bucket at age sixteen. We're at the residence of his primary doctor." Kobayashi groaned at the determined look on Tsuzuki's face. "Knock the stupid thing down so we can retrieve the soul, please?"

Tsuzuki frowned pulling a fuda from his jacket. "Odd, isn't it?"

Kobayashi sighed, not complaining since Tsuzuki's fuda held before him began to glow and hum with power. "What's odd?"

Without taking eyes off of the barrier, Tsuzuki focused, not answering until the barrier cracked enough to give them passage. Once they had passed through, the hole inched to close as if healing. "The kid dies and he's suddenly taking revenge on his doctor? Sounds..." He trailed off as he figured out what had stopped Kobayashi in his tracks.

"We're still in Tokyo right?" Kobayashi's voice sounded uneasy, when he realized he couldn't see the barrier wall behind them.

"Yeah." Tsuzuki squinted up at the red full moon, his answer almost drowning under the noise of summer cicadas. He hadn't seen a soul this powerful for twenty years and hoped that Kinja and Maeda were still alive. "We're under the veil of a powerful imprint. This place is very important to the soul. Might be Hisoka's home."

"I'm glad you're unflappable as ever." His partner chuckled nervously.

"Head's up, Kobayashi."

A silver-haired stranger, wearing traditional robes and not-so traditional glasses, walked towards them, and both shinigami were on guard.

But the stranger's eyes were empty, unseeing, as he smiled in a charming, disarming manner like a man used to getting his way. "Strangers such as shinigami must come introduce themselves personally to the boy." He turned and began to walk back down the hill from where he came. From behind, he didn't have the stilted look of the possessed.

Kobayashi turned to look at Tsuzuki with an upraised eye. "It'd be best to not refuse the invitation, huh?"

Tsuzuki's jacket flared out as he suddenly turned towards his shorter partner. "I want you to make sure Maeda and Kinja get out. I've already charged these, so if you use them both at once it should give a big enough punch to break the barrier like before." He held the fuda out expectantly.

"You need to stop asking me to break the rules. I'm not the one in Enma's favor." But his partner took them anyway. "When we see them, I expect you to distract the spirit." He added sullenly.

Vibrant purple eyes matched his thankful smile. "Of course."

"What about that doctor? Usually you ask me..."

"I'll take care of them. That guy's entangled right now, so I doubt that Hisoka will let go and move on very easily..." Though why the kid would lay a grudge on his doctor so heavily escaped Tsuzuki at the moment.

"Got it."

And they headed down the hill like business associates taking a stroll in the middle of nowhere.

"Hello, Hisoka." The taller of the two new shinigami didn't bother showing respect, not that Hisoka expected it.

"You will address me as Kurosaki." The unusually blonde green-eyed boy hovered imperially in front of them, the two unconscious shinigami laying on their backs on the tatami mats next to the glowing form, while the doctor knelt on a pillow, facing the wall, rocking and muttering to himself. "I'm not interested in shinigami. Take them away." He waved a hand dismissively.

The shorter of the two waggled his fingers and suddenly those two were limply floating upright above the ground. "I'm outta here then." And he left, with those two leading ahead of them.

"I'm here to collect your soul for judgment." Tsuzuki began softly.

"I'm not going." This kid was more tight-lipped, more subdued than someone who had died so miserably.

"I don't like to force souls on, so maybe if you told me why you've got a grudge..." He continued carefully.

"This doctor!" The spirit spat out. "He's a liar and a killer and-and I won't forgive him!" Malevolent energy flowed around him venting the rage of this gifted soul. "I will kill him before he does it again! Never again!"

"He failed to cure you. Is that-"

The boy giggled and gave him a calculating look. "If it was that, I'd be haunting nearly a hundred people."

"Then why?"

His pale face darkened and then twisted in rage. "I don't have to explain myself to you!"

Tsuzuki was ready for the attack and held up his fuda, but was surprised when no attack was forthcoming.

The boy had froze frightfully at something behind him.

Tsuzuki jerked to look at the standing doctor who was calmly cleaning his glasses and then he put them back on, smiling languidly. "Boy, you've got to do better than that if you expect to give me lasting damage." Then he paused in surprise looking at the shinigami as if they were familiar with one another. "Have we met?"

"No." Tsuzuki's thoughts were racing.

"I'm Dr. Kazutaka Muraki. Don't believe a word this boy says; he's a paranoid schizophrenic."

"You're a liar!" The soul threw furious energy out, but the doctor merely adjusted his glasses as a cool blue energy sliced the angry red; Tsuzuki had to block with a fuda to avoid getting hit with the sudden play of energy.

"It's really rather sad. His parents abandoned him after his delusions, which were a symptom of his degenerative brain disease-"

"SHUT UP." A pocket of red lightning slammed into the doctor's icy blue shield. "They weren't phony! You killed that woman and then you-!"

"And then what did you imagine I did, Boy? Do share it with the shinigami sent to collect your poor soul."

The spirit screamed in fury and remembered pain, flying past Tsuzuki, hands outreached to strangle the doctor.

With a pleased smile, Dr. Muraki crooked a finger and suddenly the spirit stopped, convulsing, and then his back arched, red markings clear on his exposed arms as he screamed.

Tsuzuki did the only reasonable action. He called Daion, summoning the tall greasy jar around the doctor.

And the screaming stopped.

Tsuzuki entered the office tiredly.

His partner was on his feet immediately. "Hey, what happened? Did the soul move on?"

"Yeah. How's Kinja and Maeda?"

"They woke up about thirty minutes ago with headaches, but that's it."

He sat wordlessly at his desk. Sometimes he hated his job more than usual, especially when he saw a potential colleague in the face of such a young soul and had to let a serial killer go. He could only take care of those already dead, not living menaces to society.

"Tsuzuki?"

He looked up smiling, knowing he had nothing to smile about. "Mm?"

"Let's call it a day, buddy, and go out and get something to drink."

"Okay." He stood up, his heart and feet feeling heavy as they headed to their usual quiet, small bar for a drink.

~one year later~

Damn! Tsuzuki stopped scanning the crowd for any sign of that strange-looking woman, her bloody kiss drying on his collar.

He heard the sudden, very loud click of the safety removed and the round loaded into the barrel of a gun, and he raised his hands tentatively. "I think you've got the wrong guy."

He turned his head slightly seeing a sullen looking boy, glaring at him. "Hisoka?" he stammered out, hands dropping.

"Bang." The kid had the nerve to deadpan as he slipped the safety back into place.

"You're my partner?" He couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice.

"Yeah." Not a man of many words, was he? A flash of irritation flared over his new partner's face. "If you have a problem with me, you should retire, old man."

"Old... old man!"

The expressionless kid had the gall to walk away after that. "You're hungry right? We should get something to eat."

"After that 'old' comment, you're paying." He pouted.

"Sure."

The End.