Footsteps.

I don't know when I became aware of the imperfect rhythm keeping pace with my own. There was no youki to trigger my attention, so I dare say it wasn't soon enough. It slowed when I slowed, paused when I stopped before an appropriate lighted shop window to admire the leather jackets on display. Without turning my head I estimated my follower to be about a city block away, and a little to my right. Out of the radii of the streetlamps, then.

A clever one.

After a thousand or so years of life I still can't say I've run every gauntlet there is. One can never discount the power of imagination. But this was... a frequent game.

I considered my options for two blocks. The night streets were quiet, but not deserted. Other pedestrians passed me from time to time, night-shift workers and young couples and (like me) students heading home after an evening class. But requesting the help of a stranger was not an option. A human stalker I could handle, and if my not-yet-assailant were youkai strong enough to shield themselves, involving an innocent bystander would be inadvisable -- not to mention useless.

But since there was no ki...

When I rounded the next corner I vaulted up the fire escape I knew ran up the side of the apartment building. In ten seconds I was on a different roof two stories up and a block and a half away. With the aid of strategically placed balconies and clothslines, I circled almost halfway around my apartment before re-descending into the street. Pride was a risk factor for thieves, and I'd been a thief for much longer than I'd been a mild-mannered student. Only confrontation brought problems. If I could lose whomever it was --

Within five paces the footsteps began again.

So -- not a serial rapist after all.

I allowed myself the moment of amusement, brushing my hand against my hair in a very, very casual gesture. It was better than panic.

Then I turned.

I saw nothing, of course. The street was deserted.

"It's been entertaining," I said aloud. "I'm sure you've found so as well. After all, you never really needed to let me hear you, did you?"

No answer.

"But you should come out. This evening would be a futile exercise otherwise."

Still no answer. And then, as I readied the rose whip --

The sound of footsteps approaching.

My gaze danced from one sidewalk to another. Nothing. I could see nothing, and yet I could hear clearly.

Unconsciously, I took a step back.

And sank into the asphalt to my knees.

Ingrained training made me raise my arms immediately, but black tendrils shot up and pinned them away from each other. It was only then that I felt the youki; foreign, strange-textured, unlike anything I'd ever encountered. I kicked, but it was like trying to run through molasses. The -- something -- writhed around me, keening hungrily against my sixth sense. Pain lanced through me as ki was pulled out of my body through brute force, the lines of energy tightening impossibly like wires buried in my sinews.

I fought for control of my powers and hit a wall.

K'so --

All around me the surface of the street was rippling, not quite solid and not quite fluid, sucking me down into itself. A putrid scent filled my nostrils.

I'd allowed myself to be herded --

I had just enough time for a flash of self-hatred before the softness closed upon my windpipe. I flailed, struggling desperately for air -- all else was secondary if I could only breathe -- but the putrid mass was crushing me in its grip. Too late. My sight was darkening. Dimly I heard voices -- a voice -- spinning off into the void, and then scalding heat. But it was all too late, and too far away.

What heat...?

In retrospect I don't think I could have passed out for more than thirty seconds.

I came to on the sidewalk, lying in a fair approximation of the first-aid recovery position. It took me a few moments to identify the silhouette standing backlit by the yellow sodium of the streetlamps.

I wasn't used to looking at him from that angle.

"Hiei," I rasped. "What--" I glanced around at the patches of black flame still licking at the asphalt in spots around me -- "are you doing here?"

He didn't turn. "I should ask you that."

"Oh?" Talking hurt, and so did sitting up. I struggled to a semi-erect position nevertheless. He made no move to help me.

"I've been tracking this thing for two weeks now. From the Inner Makai."

Which would explain the bizarre texture of the youki. I frowned. "Mukuro?"

"No." He did turn then, unreadable crimson eyes meeting mine. "Ever heard of the Mukage, Kurama?"

It sounded a proper name. "No. Should I have?"

He didn't answer. After a moment, as I remained seated in the middle of the sidewalk, he walked over and hauled me up bodily, half-slinging me over his shoulder to compensate for our disparate heights.

"I'm taking you to Yukina," he said. "I have to find Yuusuke."

"You'll be falling over yourself in a few minutes," I reminded him. "After that --"

"It wasn't the full Kokoryuuha." His eyes flickered back to the dying flames. Apart from some heat distortion, the road surface was perfectly smooth and undamaged. "That was... stupid. Kitsune."

"I know," I said drily. "Thank you."

Hiei only grunted in response.

***

She was walking along a busy street. To either side street stalls and graceful willows rising from behind garden walls, green against the red molded-wood facades of teahouses and shops. Around her carts clattered over cobblestone and other pedestrians streamed, laughter of running children mixing with bargaining and fighting and the hollering of vendors and litter-bearers --

"Make way! Make way for Lady Meilin of the Wei family --"

"...And I told her, told her she was only to buy two bales but the idiot girl --"

"Dumb Piggy Li, can't catch me --"

"Peaches only five coppers a dozen, sweet ripe peaches right off the tree, five coppers missy you're never-a-gonna find another deal like this --"

"Knives! Bring your knives and scissors we sharpen --"

"Make waaaaay!"

One of the vendors smiled at her from under the shade of his stall's cloth canopy.

"Longan, m'lady?"

"Oh, yes please!" She took the bunch of brown, nut-like fruit, but when she dropped the coin into his hand his face became someone different, someone she should know forever. "Beware, priestess mine," he whispered, "beware." She retreated a step, confused, and in a moment lost him in the crowd.

She walked. Later (how much later...?) the crowd had thinned -- disappeared, and in the lengthening shadows she made her way toward home. Home... the Palace it must be, only she hadn't left by any gate. She hadn't left. She was coming back. The passage she'd come through loomed before her, a tunnel into the darkness, walls to either side the color of blood in the lowering sun. Home.

She took a step under the overhanging arch, then another -- and suddenly the roar of the oncoming train was in her ears wind like a lash and the light blinding her and she screamed.

"Miaka! Mou, Miaka, wake up already!"

"Ara?" Miaka opened her eyes and winced immediately at the sunlight streaming in from the window. "Yu...Yui-chan?"

The sigh was exasperated, but fond. "Honestly, Miaka -- it's almost ten. How long were you planning to sleep? I had you stay over last night 'cause we've got serious planning to do, you know."

"Aa, gomen ne, Yui-chan!" Kya -- what a funny dream. The train, and the fruit (she could almost taste it), and that man.

He'd looked like Chichiri for a moment, hadn't he?

"I made breakfast, too."

"WAI!" Miaka jumped out of bed. She was so --

She fell over.

"Eh?!"

She hadn't been in bed. She was lying on the floor, the sheets wound around her legs like a baby's swaddling clothes. She could not, in fact, move.

"Yui-chan..." O_o ;;

Yui appeared in the doorway. "Oh," she said, catching sight of Miaka. "Oh. One of those days, I see."

***

Chichiri dropped his hands to his lap, exhaling. Tasuki peered at him anxiously.

"So did it work?"

"I think so no da."

"So now what?"

"So now we wait... no da." Chichiri rose, rolled up his prayer mat, made a cursory inclination toward the column of blue smoke rising from the incense burner and exited Suzaku's domain. Tasuki trailed after him.

"What do I do with this?"

Chichiri regarded the bundle Tasuki held out for his inspection. Silk cordlets held together thin strips of a gleaming brown substance that could have been either ivory or bone, weathered dark by time and human handling. Chichiri knew it was bone -- of what species, he did not like to consider. The characters scratched in minute profusion upon its surface bore only a passing resemblance to the current script of the Four Kingdoms. Most literate folk would have found it impossible to understand.

But some could.

"Do you have it memorized?" he asked. Tasuki nodded.

"Everything you read out to me, anyway."

"Then burn it." Chichiri leant back against a hall pillar, suddenly tired: the recoil of the spell was making itself felt. "No use in causing a panic. If it comes, it'll come for us. Supposing it's the power it wants."

"We can handle it." Tasuki stiffened suddenly, his eyes unfocussing. "Fuck..."

Chichiri watched him raise one hand to his temple -- the one which didn't have his shinen in a white-knuckle grip -- with a very good idea of what he was seeing: he'd experienced the same himself. But Tasuki worried him. His headaches were intense, localized, and they were coming more and more often. Knowledge of one's enemy might be of help, but it was no guarantee of victory.

"Tasuki --"

"I'm okay." The bandit grinned at him defiantly, showing his fangs. "Shit won't get the best of me, shadow or no shadow." He winced then, and Chichiri almost put out a hand to steady him -- except Tasuki's stance didn't waver. "Only... only Miaka has to know, that's all. Before it all goes to hell."

Chichiri nodded grimly. "We'll try again. In a few hours."

***

Mrs. Hasegawa was a reasonable woman.

Saitoh felt more thankful for the fact than he bothered to show. No matter how he delegated, he had still been obliged to meet with the families. Too many families. He cared nothing for their anger, their recriminations against him, or indeed for their grief -- though he understood the impulse. A scapegoat must be identified when the innocent die. Through experience, however, he'd found it easier to coax out the information he needed if he refrained from mentioning that he was not in the least concerned with the victim.

Only with the killer.

"It's hard to say with Rena," Mrs. Hasegawa was saying in a quiet voice. "Though she's.. though she was my daughter. She was always quiet..." She stopped abruptly, her head lowered, and Saitoh waited.

"Rena never had many friends," Mrs. Hasegawa said finally. "Not in school, and not at work either, afterwards. She spent a lot of time in the garden... just talking to the plants even. She used to say they'd answer her sometimes. She'd see things too."

"Things."

"Shadows, people who weren't there. That sort of thing. I... I just thought of her as special, that's all. We never asked. Her father doesn't believe it, so it was never anything she made much of." Another pause. "It's been happening to her a lot in the past couple of months, though. I... could tell when she got her flashes of whatever it was."

Saitoh leant forward.

"It always upset her, what she saw. I think she even cried over it a few times. But it used to be once every couple of years, and all of a sudden it became once every few days. She started buying a lot of magazines about psychics and such then. She didn't want to tell me, so I thought I would wait and... you must think I'm crazy, inspector --"

"No, of course not --"

"But it was the only thing I could think of. The only change... was it... very painful?"

Saitoh drew on his cigarette before answering.

"It would have happened very quickly." At least, unconsciousness did. The actual death probably took much longer. The killer knew how to pace himself, and the knife cuts were professional.

He should know.

Mrs. Hasegawa nodded. She reached into the shopping bag by her feet and brought out a packet of magazines.

"These are all the ones Rena collected in the past couple of months. I thought -- maybe you'd be able to find out more -- I don't know a thing about it, really."

She turned at the door.

"You'll see that they're punished for this, won't you, inspector?" she said. "The people who did this to Rena."

Her face was set. It made her harder to look at than if she'd gone into hysterics. Saitoh met her eyes evenly.

"I promise to do everything in my power."

She nodded silently and bowed before leaving. Saitoh smoked for a few moments, his eyes on the closed door. Eventually he flicked the ash away and turned to the pile of periodicals on his desk.

Two magazines in, a name in a circled ad caught his eye.

Dr. Akaishi.

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