**Warning: Manga/anime spoilers**

Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matsuei.
Beta: Eria

Non Riescono A Ricordare
By EggDropSoup

Chapter One: To Forget

It had started out with just an increased number of nightmares. Hisoka said he could handle it- that he was fine- and Tsuzuki believed him because he was still foolishly thinking about their mutual love confession the day before. He was confident that they could beat this- that their relationship could withstand all odds and Hisoka shared his optimism.

Little did they know how wrong they were...

Hisoka was thinner, frailer. He no longer had much of an appetite and when he did, he could never keep it down. Watari would have him go through several checkups-all of them ending with a few IV injections and a stern lecture to not over-exert himself. The nightmares were happening all the time now and sometimes Hisoka would get visions even when he was awake.

They had been restricted to work in the office for the last week and a half, filing paperwork and doing miscellaneous stuff that wasn't overly stressful on Hisoka's health. Hisoka wasn't happy and -in his sleep-deprived state- would complain, letting everyone know just how disgruntled he was at being taken off assignment.

When he got to that point, Tsuzuki would reach over and squeeze his hand. Hisoka, would at first be startled, Tsuzuki's emotions a vibrant difference to his fuzzy mind. But after the initial shock wore off, he would give a small, tired smile and squeeze Tsuzuki's hand back.

That night, Hisoka's condition had gotten worse. Tsuzuki had rushed him to infirmary and Watari was scrambling to stabilize him, even as Hisoka flailed on the hospital bed in pain. The room was full of activity and noise as Watari's assistants were rushing around, busy finding equipment or some medicine that would relieve the boy's pain. Nothing they tried worked, and it was all Tsuzuki could do to hold Hisoka's hand as the curse marks crackled on the younger shinigami's skin-burning-deep to the bones. The smell of charred flesh filling the room.

Hisoka was screaming, begging for relief each time the curse marks pulsed, eating away at his soul. Tsuzuki didn't say anything as he struggled to be strong for his partner- willing calming thoughts to Hisoka- full of care and love- through the connection of their intertwined hands.

But Hisoka was fading away and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Tsuzuki burst through the doors of Enma's finely adorned golden chambers, ignoring the objections of the white-robed servants attempting to hold him down. They were no match for his strength as he threw them off, falling to the wayside like life-less rag dolls, and advanced upon the golden throne.

Unlike his servants, Lord Enma didn't seem shocked by his disrespectful intrusion to the throne room. Nor did he object to the treatment Tsuzuki had shown to his servants-who were cowering, kneeling several feet away in high reverence. In fact, the God looked pleased to see him, dressed in elaborate golden robes with pearl beadings of peacocks sewn on the fabric and his long hair pulled back. "What brings you here, Tsuzuki?"

Tsuzuki stopped right in front of him, not bothering to kneel as the servants had. "Hisoka is dying."

Enma stared at him indifferently for a second before looking away, not seeming the least surprised. He snapped his fingers, signaling two servant girls to approach him with long feathered fans. "Oh, is that so? I guess you'll be needing a new partner soon, won't you?"

"You can stop it."

Enma still didn't seem concerned about his situation, choosing to shift his body away as the girls fanned him, causing his robes and hair to stir slightly. "Can and will are entirely different things, Tsuzuki. I have no reason to act on behalf of some mortal." He waved a hand, dismissing him completely.

Tsuzuki's face hardened, but inside he was panicking. Time was running out. He couldn't let Hisoka die. In desperation, he racked his mind for something, anything, that could appeal to the God before him. "What if I gave you a reason?"

Enma stiffened before slowly turning to look at him with dark eyes full of interest. "...I'm listening."

"Erase my existence. Make it seem like I was never born so that Hisoka will never have to undergo being cursed by Muraki."

Enma smirked at him, crossed his legs and leaned forward, propping up an elbow on one of the throne's armrests. "And what will I get out of this act of good will?"

It was then that Tsuzuki took a breath and kneel-ed at the foot of Enma's throne. His voice broken and weary as he said, "I'll become your slave."

Hisoka had just left the meeting with the village elders. His father had fallen ill several weeks ago and because he was incapable of going, Hisoka had to go in his father's place. The elders seemed alarmed that the Kurosaki head wasn't accounted for, especially the Mayor, but Hisoka assured them that his father's ailment was only temporary.

At least he hoped so.

Hisoka had been living with his empathic abilities since he could remember, his parents having discovered them when he was a child. They had locked him away in his early childhood, afraid of his peculiar powers. But as he grew older, his father had begun subjecting him to training as the next in line.

He supposed he should be grateful for his necessity to the family. His mother and father no longer treated him like some deranged monster, but it was still a far cry from the love one would expect to find in a family.

The walk back from the meeting was hot as the sun beat down on his back. And he thanked the powers that be that he decided to wear his light blue summer yukata -the cotton and unlined fabric making it more breathable and easier to traipse around in.

His father frowned upon his overuse of the yukata, calling it servant wear, but at this point he no longer cared. His legs ached as he walked down the road, his sandals making a clip-clopping noise against the stray stones of the dirt road as he went.

As he neared the gate of his family's estate, he saw a man hovering just outside. The man was standing in front of the light brown, traditional japanese wood gate and fence, the layout of gate's overhang casting a shadow over the man's tall figure. The man's back was to the road and he didn't seem to have noticed that there was someone behind him.

At first, Hisoka thought the man very strange. He was dressed all in black and with heavy, long layered clothing that should have left him sweating in the intense heat. What's more was that the man seemed to be zoned out. Hisoka couldn't pick out what the man was thinking, especially. His thoughts were all discombobulated and out of order-a complete contrast to the man's calm expression.

He straightened his stance and decided that whatever the man was doing -standing outside like an idiot- had nothing to do with him. Hisoka pressed forward, walking to the gate with confidence but stopped when he brushed past the older man. In the brief moment that they had been side by side he caught a trace of something, and it caused his heart to ache so fiercely that it startled him. He didn't understand. As much as he tried to recall the images that had flashed before his mind, he couldn't identify them. It was like his brain was being forcefully stopped. He regarded the tall stranger with suspicion, feeling uncomfortable as their eyes met-and when they did he started. The man's eyes looked purple.

Hisoka had never seen eyes that color before and he wondered if it was the light that caused them to look that way. 'Maybe they're a really dark blue.'

As if sensing the boy's apprehension, the gentleman spoke in a soft timber voice that Hisoka decided suited him, "Oh, don't worry. I'm only passing through."

Still cautious, and wondering what exactly the man was doing out in the middle of nowhere- wearing a dark rumpled suit and trench coat- the boy relaxed a bit, balancing his weight on the heels of his geta sandals. "Are you a tourist? Did you get lost from the main road?"

"No, I'm fine," the man told him, giving him a bright smile as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "I was looking for someone but I don't think I'll be able to find him here."

"If that's the case then shouldn't you contact the authorities?"

"No," the man replied, and Hisoka couldn't see it, but he could sense the melancholy and longing the man must have felt for that person. "No, I'm sure he's somewhere I can no longer reach." The way the stranger said it with such finality and such morose emotion was enough for Hisoka to drop the topic.

"You said you were 'fine' earlier, but you don't look it." Hisoka alleged instead, eyeing the man carefully and wondering why he was guarding those poignant emotions under such a cheerful expression. Hisoka didn't know why it bothered him, but it did. "In fact, you look sad."

The man stared at him, surprised and from what Hisoka could tell-the man wasn't expecting that comment in the least. The stranger opened his mouth to say something, looking lost and-

"Hisoka-sama!" A female voice called out and Hisoka swiveled his body around at the waist, inclining toward the direction it came from-just on the other side of the gate. "Miya-san…" He blinked. "I'm sorry, but I have to-" When he turned to address the man again there was no one there.

"Hisoka-sama," A servant girl with ribbons in her hair and freckles on her face opened the gate, sliding the door open, and panting slightly as she leaned against the frame for support. "You're finally back! I've been looking for you. I heard voices -but you're here all by yourself?"

Hisoka frowned at her. "Miya, did you hear someone else with me just now?"

"I only heard your voice, Hisoka-sama," she said earnestly, looking at him strangely before shutting the gate behind her. "If there was someone else here then how did they vanish so quickly? The only way they could have gone was either through the gate or onto the road. I or another servant would have run into him."

Hisoka's frown deepened, his eyebrows drawn together as he tried to make sense of his encounter with that strange man. He had no reason to believe that Miya would lie to him and her arguments on the possibility of a stranger being able to just vanish were valid. There was no way a normal person could just disappear like that. But that would have to mean that the man he had talked to wasn't just some random tourist who had gotten lost. No, Hisoka knew there had to be more to it than that.

'Or the man could have been a demon,' he thought, 'or a spirit.' He had grown up subjected to ghost stories his whole life. His village's very foundation was based on a legend so he didn't find it impossible or shocking to come across something similar.

But why was this nagging him so much. He didn't understand why he felt truly bothered about the man. That sense of déjà vu from earlier unnerved him greatly. Hisoka felt like he should know him. Almost like the name of the man was dancing on his tongue, willing to be professed aloud but something was holding it back.

Who was that man? And why did his heart feel like it had just lost something important?

Tsuzuki had just returned to Enma's chambers after seeing Hisoka one last time. Enma had kept his part of the deal, even going so far as to change the events of time around. Because Tsuzuki's existence was erased, that meant that Muraki had never found Tsuzuki's picture in his grandfather's old files. So the crazed doctor that they had all known and feared had lost his motivation for revenge against his dead step brother. Not having some outlet to act out his desires, Muraki truly went insane and was put in a mental institution on the outskirts of Tokyo, far away from Hisoka's village. This change of events and rewritten history meant that Hisoka was still alive. Alive and un-cursed and no longer an immortal soul, tied down in limbo.

Enma's chambers were exactly how he remembered -decorated impressively- and constructed to be fit for a God. But the room he was in was now dark and dimly lit, the shadows of the flickering candle glimmering along the wall. He had been chained as soon as he'd entered Enma's throne room, the servants making quick work of his clothing and stripping him bare as they placed shackles around his wrists and ankles -binding him to the throne.

He was cold and he shivered, huddling against the throne, bringing his arms and legs as close to his stomach as he could in an attempt to conserve what little body heat he had.

He had tried to get away from the bindings, but the chains were encrypted with an incantation that wouldn't allow him to teleport away. He was stuck there, naked and cold and completely at Enma's mercy.

He heard the throne doors open and he perked up as the servants from before rushed in, quickly looking over the throne room for anything misplaced before Enma returned. Two of the servants approached him, one grabbing onto his head -to keep him from struggling- while the other slipped a blindfold over his eyes, covering his vision.

They left him there without a word, blind and immobile. The only thing he could make sense of were the sounds of their footsteps as they and the other servants finished their tasks and made their way out the door, leaving him to the cold and the silence.

It wasn't long before the door opened a second time, but unlike before, there was only one set of footsteps that slowly approached him. The unknown person stopped right in front of him, not saying anything for a few moments. The tense atmosphere caused Tsuzuki to shift uncomfortably; the only sounds now in the throne room were his heavy breathing and the light clinking of the metal chains.

Without warning, a strong hand grabbed at his hair and pulled him up -causing him to cry out. "Hello, Tsuzuki," Enma's voice greeted him before pulling him up higher. Tsuzuki was scrambling with his legs as he tried to fully stand up-anything to release the pressure on his scalp. But Enma was taller than he was and Tsuzuki was on tip-toe to compensate for their difference in height.

"I've kept my part of the deal, Tsuzuki. I even gave that Kurosaki a new chance at life." Enma's mouth pressed against his ear, the warm breath hitting against his skin as those lips moved to speak. "Now, it's your turn."

To be continued.

Author's Notes:

The title for the story: Non Riescono a Ricordare is Italian for "They Cannot Remember."

Eria was a big help to me in this chapter. I was struggling at first on how to incorporate Hisoka's surprise at seeing Tsuzuki's eyes and comparing it to something else. She suggested the dark blue example so I used it. :) It was much better than my lame example of light brown. XD

Thanks for reading. Please Review to let me know what you think!