Inspired by EggDropSoup's "Dans l'Obscurité"; set as an alternate story arc or inserted story arc between Kyoto and the GenSoKai Arc (since the manga is still unfinished). This chapter's title, Mejirushi, means "A Sign".

Mejirushi

Black; everything is black …

Who is that …?

I walk toward something stark white against this blackness; I can't make out the fact that it is someone's body standing there, and yet somehow I know that it's a person … So white against all of this darkness…

"Oi!" I call out to them, trying to get them to turn towards me – to acknowledge me. There is no answer at first; but as I get closer, I feel something is wrong …

"… Are you alright …?" I hear myself ask, and I am close enough now to touch this person. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she turns, and I see that there are countless needles stabbed into her eyes and tongue, blood running down her face and out of her mouth.

The world turns red as she opens her bloodstained lips and screams …

Kurosaki Hiskoka – age sixteen, occupation Guardian of Death … And currently going completely stir-crazy. It had been several months since he had been confined to desk work; it was a "reprieve" from case work, or so Konoe-kachou had explained. The blond in question didn't see it like that though – he saw it as a punishment. During the Kyoto case, which had been his last job in the field, they hadn't accomplished anything except intense injury to his partner and himself, as well as property damage and all-around turmoil. Muraki was still at large, and they had no idea where he was hiding, or what that mad serial killer would try next.

More often than not, when he was doing paperwork, his mind wandered to all sorts of places; his job, his life, Muraki, the other Shinigami in his division, his partner … But that last one was something he tried to avoid if at all possible, because that train of thought usually lead to confusing results …

"Nee! Kurosaki-ku—n!" he was startled out of his musings by a very chipper voice that was very close to his head – he hadn't realized he had actually gotten to work, or the fact that Wakaba was attempting to get his attention. Judging by her proximity as he jumped back a step to put some distance between them, she had been calling him for quite a bit.

"Aa … Sorry Wakaba-chan – what is it?" he asked, shaking his head a little, disoriented. He hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights; honestly, he wasn't sure why. As far as he could tell, he hadn't been having nightmares – or at least if he was, he couldn't remember them. Wakaba put her hands to her sides, leaning forward a little and puffing her cheeks out a little bit; it was honestly pretty cute, considering how old she looked and her current stature.

"You didn't hear a word I said?" she asked this indignantly before leaning a little closer to Hisoka, and the blond could feel a flicker of concern underneath her light hearted indignation. "Are you feeling alright, Kurosaki-kun …?" He nodded faintly before he responded,

"Yes; it's just early." The answer was a little short, but then, he was known for having that kind of attitude around the office, so it wasn't out of the ordinary. Wakaba scrutinized him for another moment or two, her brow curls bouncing slightly as she straightened up when she seemed satisfied that he was telling the truth.

"Tatsumi-san was looking for you," she said, taking her hands off of her sides, "I think he has a case for you and Tsuzuki." Green eyes widened slightly when he heard what she had to say – a case! He hoped she wasn't mistaken as he turned and hurried off without so much as another word to her. Wakaba pouted at his retreating back, but smiled a little after he had turned the corner and was gone before she turned to head back to her desk.

"Kurosaki-kun," Tatsumi greeted as he saw the blond round the corner quickly. He was seated with Tsuzuki at his desk; there was a case file sitting in front of him, though it had yet to be opened – they had obviously been waiting for the teenager to arrive.

"Tatsumi-san," Hisoka said in return, nodding towards him before pulling out the chair to his desk and sitting down at it. "Wakaba-chan said you were looking for me?" The secretary nodded, and as he moved to open the file on the desk so he could show the two of them, it was Tsuzuki's turn to interrupt.

"Hisokaaaaa," he whined, "you didn't say good morning to meee!" Hisoka rolled his eyes, setting a hand on the brunet's head and shoving him away as he tried to nudge up against the blond. He didn't even justify the statement with a response – he wanted to jump up and get away from him; Tsuzuki's feelings of playfulness were leaking into him, but underneath that was worry. And Hisoka hated feeling that from anyone – it didn't help that this was the second time today. There wasn't even a reason; sure he had nightmares now and again, but he always managed to get the sleep his body required to function, and that was enough. He was fine; especially today – he had slept soundly the night before, for the first time in weeks.

Tatsumi cleared his throat loudly and the two partners paused, annoyed expression on the blond's face turning into a more neutral, if not questioning one, while he couldn't see what Tsuzuki had done to his puppy-like face. The secretary was holding up the manila case file, looking stoic if a little impatient, but Hisoka could feel the tiniest flicker of amusement coming from him.

"If you don't mind … I'd like to go over this case with you, now that you're both here," he said when he had their attentions, getting up from the chair he was seated in. "Come; Konoe-kachou is waiting." Tsuzuki finally got off of the blond at that statement, and Hisoka glanced at him, green eyes meeting violet – if the Chief was interested in the briefing, then this had just become a slightly more important case …

The briefing room was dark when they entered, and Konoe-kachou was already there, looking at some paperwork while waiting for the two shinigami to arrive. If Kanoe-kachou is waiting here for us, it must be important … it occurred to Hisoka as he nodded at the chief, who did the same in return to he and his partner. After everyone else sat down, the blond took up a seat at the end of the table, at least two chairs away from anyone else in the room – which included Watari, one of the Gushoshin next to a very large stack of books that he clearly just brought in and set down, as well as Tatsumi, the Chief, and Tsuzuki.

"The area you two will be travelling to is Unzen," Tatsumi said, clicking the button on the slide projector to show the first slide to the room. It was of the volcanic mountain this time of year – for all the danger of the relatively recent eruption, during the springtime the azaleas were beautiful, Hisoka thought to himself. "There have been several cases of people living when their names were on the register, and several cases of people dying prematurely that seem to nearly coincide in this area. And the ones that have died haven't been from natural causes…"

"What do you mean, haven't been natural …?" Tsuzuki asked, expression for once serious and attentive as Tatsumi clicked the shutter and the next slide came across the screen.

"All of the victims have been found like this," he said, gesturing to the screen. The girl laying on the ground had her face frozen in a scream, and there were probably fifty or sixty needles sticking out of what were once her eyes and tongue, the latter of which was bloated and lolling out of her mouth to one side. Hisoka flinched slightly and his partner looked away from the screen for a moment; even the Chief shifted in his seat at the sight. Another click of the shutter and another girl, this one with curly blond hair, seemed to have suffered the same fate. Click. Shoulder length black hair. Click. Short business cut. Click. Hisoka was more disturbed that the only way he could tell these people apart was by their hairstyles – they were all women, and because of the needles in their mouths and eyes, they were almost indiscernible from each other.

"There are seven cases altogether of people living, and someone dying in their place like this," Tatsumi said, eventually getting through pictures of all seven women. "All of them women, though there seems to be no correlation between age or social status. And, in the middle of this is this woman." Another click, and there was a picture of a young lady, probably in her late twenties or so, partially obscured by the curtain of the window she was looking out of. She was pretty, if a little fragile looking, with long dark hair and a thin face. "Her name is Ikeda Aneko, and she was the first to have lived when she was supposed to have passed on. She claims to have seen an angel, and it was that that protected her from her timely demise."

"How was she supposed to have died?" Hisoka asked after a moment; he was staring at the young, almost sickly looking woman in the picture – for some reason, all of this seemed strangely familiar to him, but he couldn't put a finger on why that was.

"She has a fatal disease called," Tatsumi answered, though clearly the information wasn't something he thought was worth mentioning, because he had to open the file on the table and flip a few pages before he answered. "sFI. It's progress was slowed almost to a stop, to the point that the disease has started to reverse through some stages. This started happening when these strange occurrences started about two months ago." The blond nodded, making no further comment on it; just, something seemed strange about these women.

"Anyway," the secretary continued, "she claims that an angel is healing her – however, this is a sort of special case; her husband, Ikeda Muchiro, has forbidden her from leaving the house, due to her fragile condition, and he won't allow her to see any visitors. But, you two need to talk to her." Tsuzuki and Hisoka both nodded, waiting for Tatsumi's explanation on how they were supposed to accomplish this. It seemed to Hisoka that they could just go when the husband wasn't home to see Aneko, but for some reason that likely wasn't an option. Click. Another picture on screen – this one of an old, traditional house that looked pretty solid, though the outside maintenance looked to have been lax for a while.

"Recently Muchiro was promoted in his job, and they moved into this house; however, as you can see, while the house is still well intact, the yard work to be done is extensive," Tatsumi explained. Click. Another picture of the side of the house – in places the grass was tall enough to reach the bottom of the window. Click. The back yard it looked like there had been a stone path and a small pond, but it was overgrown with weeds and the water in the pond looked green and thick with scum. "In this case, we've hired you two out as part of a landscaping business."

Hisoka nearly fell out of his chair; Tsuzuki, on the other hand, clapped his paws together, tail wagging happily. "Really, Tatsumi! I love gardening!" Of course that would be your response … The blonde thought sourly; he knew that Tsuzuki had a small garden he tended where he lived, and that was fine, but … This was much bigger job than tending to a small plot of land – and Hisoka had never done yard work in his life.

"I've had the Gushoshin take out a number of books for you on the subject," the secretary continued, putting his hand on the stack of books that Hisoka had noticed earlier, "so you should be prepared to at least feign doing whatever they want done to the yard."

"Ne – Tatsumi; are you sure it's a good idea for the kid to do so much physical labor?" Watari asked with a small frown, looking over at the blond in question, who glared slightly and looked away. Just because he had never done this sort of work before didn't mean he couldn't – and just because he wasn't large or particularly muscular didn't mean he was weak and unable to do that sort of work!

"I'm sure it will be fine," he said in an aloof tone, though he could tell that the red head in question was not impressed by the answer. He felt Watari's eyes on him, and that obnoxious feeling of concern that Hisoka was loathe to become accustomed to. Tatsumi, however, continued on, answering the question as if Hisoka hadn't responded at all.

"I am sure Kurosaski-kun will rest when he needs to; and besides, the yard work is trivial – the main reason you will be doing this on the assignment is so that you can be there when Ikeda Muchiro leaves; he keeps odd hours, and so, it is hard to tell when he'll be at home and when he'll be out to the office. So rather than have you stake out the residence and wait until he's gone, it would be easier to get him and his wife to trust you and become used to you so that they will be more likely to give you information."

"I'm sure it also helps that whatever you two earn during this job goes straight to the division …" Watari said boredly, tracing the wood grain on the table before shooting the secretary a look. Said brunet froze in the front of the room, glasses gleaming so that it was difficult to make out his eyes before he put one first on top of the open palm of his other hand without nodding – but that was basically confirmation.

"Stingy secretary …" Hisoka heard Tsuzuki mutter under his breath, and all he could do was sigh; it was true, Tatsumi was a penny pincher when he could be, but this was going a little far. He didn't know how much people usually made completely landscaping a property, but he was ready to guess that it wasn't pennies … However, a job was a job, and the work wasn't the reason they were there anyway; if they didn't get any work done, they wouldn't send any money to the division; and if they did, whatever. It didn't bother the blond. He just wanted to get out of this office as soon as possible.

"Anyway – that's everything for this case; take the file and the books and get a head start on reading them – you are to report to the Ikeda residence tomorrow morning," Tatsumi added as the Gushoshin flicked the lights on and the slide show ended. Tomorrow Morning! Hisoka was ... actually not at all surprised about the time constraint for learning anything about gardens and the like; after all, people were dying that were supposed to be living, and visa-versa. It was just a bit of a shock to him, was all. "Here is the address of your hotel, and remember - ¥3000 per day for food; and not a penny over that. Understand Tsuzuki …?" he gave the purple eyed Shinigami a pointed look as he handed over the envelope that apparently had their food budget inside, and Tsuzuki laughed awkwardly before nodding and looking morose.

"Oh – Tsuzuki?" The Chief addressed the chastised shinigami, who turned to look at him with a questioning expression. In his hand was a crisp bill, which he was apparently offering to the purple eyed 70-year shinigami.

"A Senbetsu!(1)" he asked, eyes getting huge and excitement filling the room so suddenly that Hisoka nearly choked, and he was several feet away from the idiot.

"Unzen is home to the Dagashiya-san Museum; (2) bring me back something from their gift shop." Tsuzuki's face nearly hit the floor it fell so suddenly and so hard. Hisoka just snorted; when was his partner going to learn that Konoe never gave away money for free out of the goodness of his heart …? But that was beside the point. Standing from the chair he was seated in, he pushed his hands into his pockets after taking the case file and putting it under his arm. Then, he turned and started to leave the room.

"Ah; oi – Hisoka," Tsuzuki called when he noticed that the blond was leaving the room, "did you forget the books we have to read …?" Pausing at the door, the green eyed boy turned back slightly towards the room and said simply,

"You carry them." Before leaving, the whine of 'hidooooi' accompanying his exit. (3)

Tsu zu ku …

(To Be Continued)

1 – "Senbetsu" is a sort of sending off gift you give to someone who's going on some kind of a trip.

2 – Dagashiya-san Museum is a museum dedicated to the history of toys and sweets from 1940-80, and you can purchase some delicious sweets in their gift shop … My my Konoe-kachou; such a sweet tooth xD

3 – He's basically saying, "How meeeeaaaaan!" to Hisoka for making him carry all of the books himself.