Chapter Text
Hanamaki is woken from his nightmare by his own screams. He bolts up from the bed, heaving breaths and shaking. Matsukawa is stirring next to him and Iwaizumi is sitting across the room with a map laid out in front of him. He looks up when Hanamaki wakes.
It’s still night but there’s a grey tint to the room, as if the sun is thinking about coming up soon. Matsukawa sits up and puts his arm around his waist gently, so not to spook him. His eyes are heavily lidded, not fully awake, and he buries his face in Hanamaki’s neck.
Iwaizumi’s face is dark. “You’ve been tossing and turning for a while, but I thought you probably needed the sleep more than you needed to escape the nightmares.”
“It’s fine.” Hanamaki turns his hand and plants his face in Matsukawa’s hair, taking a deep breath.
Matsukawa’s voice drifts out from his shoulder.
“If these are the kind of dreams you people have on the bed, I want my spot on the floor back.”
Iwaizumi smiles a little. “Too late, you called dibs.”
After a moment buried in comfort, Hanamaki decides it’s probably best to return to the real world, and turns to look at Iwaizumi again. Matsukawa stays where he is.
“How long have you been up?”
Iwaizumi grimaces. “I never really went to sleep. Tried it, didn’t agree with me.”
Hanamaki frowns. “We’re not the only ones who need it.” Matsukawa raises his head so just his mouth and chin are on Hanamaki’s shoulder, to give Iwaizumi what Hanamaki assumes is a look.
Iwaizumi sighs, looking back down at his map. “I know.”
Hanamaki grabs Matsukawa’s hand where he’s pressed it against his arm. “What are you looking at there, then?”
Making a frustrated noise, Iwaizumi gestures sharply at the map. “I’m trying to figure out how we got to the place we’re headed to the first time, but Oikawa was in charge of the map when we were searching and–as usual–he was being a shit so I don’t know where we need to go.”
Hanamaki mulls this over.
Matsukawa snorts in his shoulder and mutters, “As usual, didn’t think it through, just trusted whatever Oikawa said.”
“Eh, we’ve come out of tighter scraps than this.”
“We actually knew what was going on in those situations.”
“True.”
Iwaizumi narrows his eyes at their quiet back-and-forth.
Louder, Hanamaki says, “So, we’ll just ask someone.”
Iwaizumi’s eyes widen, like the idea literally never occurred to him. He’s speechless for a minute, expression fighting between a scowl and outright surprise.
“But–” he sputters, “no one can know we’re doing this. We can’t go around telling people what we’re doing!”
Matsukawa emerges, exasperation in his voice. “Listen, we get that you’re afraid this isn’t gonna work and you don’t want anyone to try to stop you and yadda yadda but you gotta chill dude. We’re not going to try to stop you, we’re your best friends. A random person in Nekoma that we ask isn’t going to try to stop you from going to a person? Place? Fucking hell Iwaizumi, we don’t even know shit. They don’t know you’re trying to rise someone from the dead so we’ll just ask and be on our way.”
With that, he buries his face back in Hanamaki’s shoulder.
“Sounds like that’s what we’re doing.” Hanamaki turns to put his nose back in Matsukawa’s hair.
Iwaizumi lets out a huge aggrieved sigh that one can only get from years spent putting up with the absolute bullshit that is your best friend thinking they’re being clever, when in actuality they’re just going to land face first in a pile of the castle’s waste.
“If we’re going to ask someone,” Iwaizumi sounds resigned to the idea but not against it at least, “we should probably wait until it’s a more reasonable hour.”
“Yeah, now that we’ve solved this, get some sleep yourself.” Hanamaki looks at him and tilts his head up. He attempts to copy the looking-down-your-pout of disappointment that Oikawa would do to get Iwaizumi to do what he wants.
It must be similar at least because it gets Iwaizumi to laugh, if sadly. “Yeah, okay.”
“It worked?” Hanamaki cannot actually believe it.
“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m just tired.”
“No, I was just afraid that anything I did like Oikawa would need to change immediately.”
“Fuck off.”
They wake up later in the morning similarly to how they woke before, though Hanamaki doesn’t scream this time, just grumbles about dreams and how they need to fuck off. Matsukawa and Iwaizumi murmur their agreement. The sounds coming from outside the inn aren’t unlike the ones he would usually hear in the castle, just dulled.
There’s shouting, but not as much. There’s the clank of a smith, but further away. There’s the barking of a dog, but only one.
They gather their stuff without words, familiar with how to pack around each other.
It’s when they’re leaving the room that Hanamaki spots the bowls they’d left by the door the night before and is struck with an idea. Picking them up, he considers.
“Hey,” he says, grabbing their attention in the hallway. “We could ask the guy at the stall. Kill two birds with one stone?”
Matsukawa, seeing Hanamaki waving the bowls, says, “Oh fuck, don’t let the innkeeper see those.”
“What? Why?”
“Apparently he doesn’t like the competition.”
Hanamaki frowns, the innkeeper had seemed nice when they’d spoken to him yesterday, but then you never knew with people who wore their hair in a mohawk. Iwaizumi gives Matsukawa a doubtful look as well.
Matsukawa just shrugs.
Hanamaki hides the bowls under his arm and heads outside with Matsukawa while Iwaizumi provides a distraction and tells the innkeeper they won’t be staying another night.
Well… they all hope they won’t be staying another night.
They head across to the stand where Matsukawa had gotten food the previous night. The man there takes the bowls from them as they look at the food he has this morning.
Hanamaki decides on a egg mix with cheese and rice, and Matsukawa gets a huge bowl of chopped fried potatoes.
They hear quiet footsteps on the dirt street and turn to see Iwaizumi approaching. He surveys the food set out and gestures at one of the bananas hanging from the wood of the stand. “That will be fine.”
He hands over some coin and takes the banana, but doesn’t eat it. Hanamaki shoves more of his eggs into his mouth and waits for Iwaizumi to fortify himself. Matsukawa takes a smaller bite and does the same.
Iwaizumi glares at the man in the stand long enough that stand owner puts his hands on his hips and glares back. “Yes?”
Iwaizumi’s lips turn down from their flat line. “Do you happen to know where I might find someone who goes by Kozume Kenma?”
“Kenma-san! ” A tall, tall man pops up from where he must have been lying down on the ground behind the stand. He’s so tall that he had to have been lying down or they’d have still seen the top of his head.
The shorter man elbows him in the side and, if the yelp is anything to go by, it wasn’t gentle. “Lev! Learn to think before you speak!”
“Yaku-san….” This Lev person sounds extremely wounded, more so than is possible by a simple elbow to the side. Hanamaki thinks he sounds like he’d be a lot of fun if they had the time to spare.
The Yaku guy glares at them twice as hard as he had at Lev. “What do you want with Kenma?”
Only those who know him as well as Matsukawa and Hanamaki do would be able to see the hope return to the glare on Iwaizumi’s face. “I have to find him.”
Interrupting and getting in Yaku’s face, Lev whines again. “Whyyyyy Yaku-saaaan.”
“Yeah, I got that.” He absentmindedly shoves Lev out of his space, completely ignoring him, though he does have to use two hands to do it. “Why? What do you want?”
Lev pouts and sits down in the back of the stand, so he can still see what’s happening.
Iwaizumi grits his teeth. “We’re… acquaintances– sort of. He told me to come back when I’d done what he said. I don’t remember how we got to his house.”
Yaku looks the three of them over. Hanamaki smiles wide and dopey. Matsukawa takes another bite of his potatoes.
“You say, ‘we’ went to his house, but then you say, ‘he told me to come back.’”
None of them are able hold back their guilty shifting. Hanamaki spills some of the rice down his front and he looks at Matsukawa in dismay.
Iwaizumi confirms this slowly. “That is what I said.”
Nodding, Yaku continues, “I suppose it makes sense.”
Hanamaki heavily disagrees.
“Lev.”
Lev shoots up from the ground. “Yes, Yaku-san!” He even salutes Yaku.
Hanamaki grins. Adorable. He checks and Matsukawa’s eyes are sparkling with mirth as well.
“Take these guys to Kenma.” Yaku jabs a thumb at them even as he turns away, unconcerned now that he’s cast judgement. Iwaizumi visibly relaxes and takes a step back.
“Okay!” Lev hops and slides across the counter of the stand, barely missing hitting his head on the overhang. “Let’s go!”
He starts off down the road the same direction that they came from, Iwaizumi following closely behind. Hanamaki shoves down the rest of his eggs and sets the bowl on the counter. Matsukawa’s still got several bites left, so he shoves it all in his mouth at once. He sets his bowl down too, cheeks stuffed, and they both trot to catch up to the tall man’s quick pace.
Matsukawa’s still chewing the last of his potatoes when they reach the edge of town and head into the trees. There’s no path and Hanamaki has to assume that Lev knows where he’s going and hope that it’s not some kind of trap. The guy looks a little too innocent and guileless for that sort of thing though.
“My name is Lev! What are your names?” He asks, eyes wide and hopeful.
“Iwaizumi.”
“Matsukawa.”
“Hanamaki.” The second his name is out of his mouth, Hanamki realizes they sounded much more like they were doing a roll call than introducing themselves. That’s what happens when you spend your whole life training to be the Prince’s Guard.
Traveling through the trees is uneventful, notwithstanding the couple of times Matsukawa tries to hit Hanamaki with branches previously held back, face as straight as ever. Hanamaki gets him back by attempting to trip him into a small creek they step over.
Iwaizumi walks in front next to Lev, who does not shut up once the entire walk. He talks about how he’s an expert at finding the best spices and herbs for their foods and Yaku-san has praised him many times for it! Yaku-san is apparently very strict about what he uses and has no problem with rapping Lev over the head with a large spoon or kicking his shins or elbowing him in various places.
At one point, Matsukawa frowns at them and Hanamaki thinks he might butt in, but then Iwaizumi surprises them both by asking Lev, “How do you know how to find the best spices?”
This question has two effects.
One, Hanamaki sees the look Iwaizumi has when he asks the question and it’s the same dumbass look he has when Oikawa talks about the stars and how they move in the sky. It’s the same look he gives when Kyoutani starts talking about training hunting dogs, or when Kindaichi talks about the past tournaments they’ve held.
Two, it causes the first break in Lev's talking since they left Nekoma.
It’s not a long break, but just long enough for them to notice.
Lev stops and stands tall. He peers into the trees in all directions, searching. Hanamaki looks around too, on edge. Do the trees look more foreboding suddenly?
Finding nothing, Lev leans down to Iwaizumi conspiratorially. “You have to promise not to tell.” He’s not even bothering to whisper; Hanamaki rolls his eyes.
Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow and nods.
“No! You have to mean it!” Lev’s voice raises, and Matsukawa snorts incredulously. “You can’t tell anyone!”
Fighting a smile, Iwaizumi says, “I won’t. Promise.”
Beaming, Lev walks again and Hanamaki is convinced that he must be the worst secret-keeper he knows–worse than Kindaichi even.
“Kenma-san taught me!” Lev gestures excitedly with his whole arms. They’re so long it looks ridiculous. “He didn’t want to, but I really wanted to impress Yaku-san. And even though Kenma-san shuts himself away in the forest, he never says no to helping people when they really need it.” Lev’s eyes brighten considerably. “So I just convinced him that I really needed the help!”
Hanamaki finds himself smiling at Lev’s obvious pleasure.
A while later, Hanamaki is just about to ask if they’re there yet, when he catches sight of the outline of a small house through the trees. Early afternoon sunlight lights up half of the house and makes it look mysterious.
“We’re here!” Lev breaks into a jog to run up to the house. They follow at a regular pace while Lev bangs on the door. “Kenma-san! Kuroo! I’m here!” He says it like they should be expecting him, as if the group hadn’t convinced him to lead them here just this morning.
“Kuroo?” Matsukawa asks. Hanamaki frowns.
Iwaizumi grimaces but doesn’t say any more. Hanamaki fights down the rising irritation at not knowing what the hell is going on.
There’s no response so Lev bangs on it again. “Kenma-san! I brought a friend who’s asking about you!”
There’s a loud thump from inside the house. They wait.
The door is ripped open with a whoosh and a short man with a pinched face answers it. “What do you want, Lev.”
It takes a moment, but then the air from inside the house hits Hanamaki’s nose and it smells heavily of sex. It’s then that he notices the man’s long hair is flung up in the kind of way that it might if their hair had been grabbed or rubbed roughly against some sheets. His clothes are rumpled and his face is probably flushed from more than irritation.
Hanamaki coughs to hide his laugh and looks at Matsukawa. He’s looking at the man with no small amount of amusement, and Iwaizumi is blushing through his frown. The man glares at him, not fooled by the cough, so Hanamaki grins back.
Innocent as Hanamaki expected, Lev doesn’t seem to notice anything. “Kenma-san! Why didn’t you answer the door the first time?”
Kenma glares. “Your stupidity never ceases to amaze.” Lev growl-yelps a “Hey!” but Kenma must actually look at the rest of them then because his face relaxes to impassive and he says, “Oh, Iwaizumi. I was wondering when you’d be back.”
Polite to a fault, Iwaizumi responds, “Sorry to intrude.”
“It’s alright, though forgive me if I won’t invite you in quite yet.” Kenma steps out onto the dirt ring around the doorway and closes the door most of the way. “Kuro needs a moment.”
“Why?” Lev’s confusion is evident in the tilt of his head and Hanamaki tries not to laugh again.
Kenma glares at him again. “Why are you still here? You did your job; they’re here. Get lost.”
“But Kenma-saaaa–”
“Lev.” Iwaizumi places a hand on his arm. “Thank you for helping us out. We can take it from here.”
Showing his teeth, Lev bounces. “You’re welcome Iwaizumi!” He heads back the way they came, happy as a clam.
They watch him disappear into the trees and Iwaizumi says to Kenma, “He just wants some recognition.”
Kenma huffs. “I know, but he doesn’t deserve praise for doing something anyone could have done.”
“Apparently not everyone.” Matsukawa raises his eyebrows. “We had to ask for help.”
Ignoring that, Kenma turns back to the door. “It should be fine now.”
The house seems bigger on the inside with only two rooms, the main room and what Hanamaki assumes is a bedroom as there are none that he can see when he walks in. On the far side of the room, there’s a desk with papers and books strewn all over it and some on the floor. Almost the entire back wall is filled with shelves of books. Closer to the front of the house, there’s a table and four chairs across from the cupboards and basin that must be a kitchen of sorts. There’s a stack of books on the table as well and a… is that a Latrones board?
Seated at the table is a man, head slumped sideways on his arms on the table top and a taunting grin on his face. Seeing who it is, he sits up a little. “Iwaizumi! Yo!”
Kenma slides around behind the man and pulls on his hair, forcing his head up and back. His clothes look crumpled, like maybe they’d been recently piled on the floor for an extended period of time.
Iwaizumi nods and takes a place at the table. “Kuroo, Kenma, good to see you.”
“Yeah, you too.” Kuroo’s eyes trace closely over Hanamaki and Matsukawa as they join them in sitting.
Iwaizumi gestures at them. “This Hanamaki and Matsukawa. We grew up together.”
“Soldier stuff?” Iwaizumi nods, and Kuroo shakes his head. “Brutal. Wouldn’t catch me doing it. The name’s Kuroo.”
Kenma says, “People who know me call me Kenma.”
“Nice to meet you,” they chorus, long used to being introduced together.
Kuroo leans back into Kenma’s hands, apparently done with his assessment. “If the fun one isn’t with you, then I guess there’s only one reason you’re here.”
Iwaizumi glares, but says nothing.
“I’m sorry dude, but hey! At least there’s still a chance to get him back.”
“I will get him back.”
“That’s the spirit!” Kuroo grins lazily, and Hanamaki wants to smash his face a little for acting so relaxed when they’re all sitting on the edge of their chairs. “Ow! Kenma!!”
Kenma’s got his fingers well tangled into Kuroo’s hair and he’s pulling enough that Hanamaki can see the muscles stretch in his neck. “Stop being an asshole.”
Kuroo pouts up at Kenma. “But it–”
Kenma tugs roughly. “There’re still grieving even if there’s hope, leave them alone.”
Kenma lets go and Kuroo slumps forward, but he looks over them again. Hanamaki doesn’t bother to hide the immediate dislike that’s sure to be in the scrunch of his nose. Matsukawa’s face appears impassive and Hanamaki wonders if Kuroo’ll catch the slight narrowing of his eyes.
“Kenma.” Iwaizumi’s voice is meant to set them on track, but Hanamaki can clearly hear the plea in it.
“Yes. I’ll grab my notes.” He steps away and releases Kuroo’s hair, now even worse than when they’d walked in.
“Kenmaaaa, if you’re gonna mess it up, at least fix it.” Kuroo drags his hands through his hair, tugging forcefully downward. His efforts accomplish nothing.
“Sooooo, is this the part where we find out what’s going on?” Hanamaki faces his head toward the desk where Kenma’s stopped, but his eyes watch Kuroo’s futile struggles.
Across the dim room, Kenma’s eyes flash when he looks up. “You don’t know yet?”
Iwaizumi shuffles in his chair. “I haven’t told them, no.”
Kenma finds what he’s looking for and comes back to the table with several pages of notes, a potted plant and his face turned down in a frown. “You asked them to go without telling them the risks?”
“No.” Iwaizumi glares at him. “I didn’t want them to come at all.”
Kenma looks at them, still frowning.
“Ah, see we know this guy.” Hanamaki gives Kenma a look that he hopes says, Look at this fool. “And we know that he’s going to get himself into more trouble than he can handle, so we did our usual ‘stubborn friend who cares about you’ bit and decided to come along.”
Matsukawa gives Iwaizumi a pitying look. “He’s bound to get hurt.”
Iwaizumi growls.
Hanamaki says, “Or worse, he could hurt someone else.”
Standing, Iwaizumi grabs Hanamaki by the collar.
Matsukawa’s eyes are wide and grave. “Or worse.”
Hanamaki grins at the prospect of getting decked. “He could eat a tomato.”
“I’m not in the mood to deal with your bullshit,” Iwaizumi snarls, and his hand shakes in Hanamaki’s shirt.
Abruptly, Hanamaki remembers where they are, what they’re supposedly doing, and the grin drops from his face. Shame mixes with the saliva in his mouth and he says, “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
Iwaizumi glares at Matsukawa, but he’s already echoing, “I’m sorry, too,” with pinched brows.
Seeing their consternation, Iwaizumi takes a deep breath and releases Hanamaki to sit back down. It’s quiet in the small house.
“Well,” Kenma breaks the silence quietly. His eyes flick between them but his face is set more thoughtful than frowning. “I’ll put it as simply as possible.” He sets down his notes and the plant in his hands with a clunk .
Now that the plant is the center of attention, Hanamaki sees that it’s actually only part of a plant–a plant that looks very, very dead. It looks like the top half has been sawed off as well as several branches, and anything still attached looks dry and brittle.
Kenma gestures at the plant. “This was a tree that’s native to the forests of the Fukurodani kingdom, the Owl Oak. It’s a tree that mixes well with many types of magic, but it’s extremely hard to grow here because of one thing.” He points at the base where several buds are peeking out of what appears to be solid trunk. “Reaper’s Stemsucker.”
Hanamaki nods along and is glad to see that Matsukawa looks bewildered as he is to where this is going.
“Reaper’s Stemsucker is a parasitic plant that burrows into the stem and leaves of plants and is completely undetectable until it’s too late to save the host plant.” Kenma points to one of the sawed off branches. “As you can see I’ve tried cutting off the infected areas to stop the progress of it without much success. I don’t know yet if that was just because it was all infected already or because it had some kind of defense mechanism where it sent more spores through the plant when I started sawing it off. Either way, the stemsucker infected the whole plant until it took all of its nutrients and it died. For some reason the Owl Oak seems to be particularly susceptible to catching the stemsucker and smaller plants are easier for it to kill.”
Now something is ringing in the back of Hanamaki’s brain, like he should be making a connection but hasn’t quite got there yet.
“I’m not sure how much you understand magic, as you don’t use it yourselves, but it’s all based on intent. The purer the want or the intention, the stronger the magic.” Hanamaki nods more firmly at that, he’s understood that much at least from what he’s heard from Oikawa. Kenma seems relieved that they understand easily. “Now.. there are people who have been using magic for a long time, that might be able to force out the magic, even if their thoughts aren’t completely set on what they’re trying to do. They might force themselves to use magic when they don’t think it’s a good idea to do so, and this creates a fracture between a person and their magic.
“In this case Oikawa is the Owl Oak, and his magic becomes the Reaper’s Stemsucker,” Kenma says. “The fracture festers and feeds off any doubt he feels toward using his magic; it turns against him and lashes out toward things and people that try to help him. If the fracture is little and weak, it can be mended and soothed. If it’s ignored, it will grow into a mass that lives on doubt and fear and encourages envy and hate. It becomes a demon.”
“And then Demon Law comes into play,” Matsukawa murmurs, eyes distant. Hanamaki feels similarly, the sound of the earth opening up echoing in his ears, darkness encroaching on his vision…
“Yes,” Kenma says. “The demons come to claim one of their own.”
Hanamaki can feel the memories of the battle rise up and try to choke him. Iwaizumi is pale and his gaze distant.
Kuroo interjects, “Well, luckily, there’s hope.”
Kenma clears his throat. “Yes, as I explained, the demon is something that grows inside the host because of the magic, and the demon is what they came to claim.”
“So…” Matsukawa ventures, “if Oikawa wasn’t attached to the demon, they wouldn’t have taken him?”
“Hypothetically,” Kenma confirms. “Unfortunately the only way I know to separate them is in death.”
Hanamaki’s eyes widen, looking at Iwaizumi. “That’s why you knew you probably had to kill him.”
Iwaizumi looks like he’s going to be sick and it strikes Hanamaki that maybe the reason he waited for Kenma to explain was because he didn’t think he could.
“But that doesn’t explain how death fixes everything. How did they separate when he died?” Matsukawa asks.
“Oh,” Kenma says and he looks contrite with his chin pointed down. “That part is a little tricky and a little bit of a secret.” He holds up a hand to stop their interruption. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
He purses his lips like he doesn’t think they’re going to believe what he’s saying but Hanamaki thinks it’s a little late for that. Nothing he’s said has been very believable.
Kenma says, “To separate the soul from the demon, you have to use an enchanted weapon.”
….okay, Hanamaki was wrong.
“That’s impossible,” Matsukawa beats him to the punch. “Enchanted weapons only exist in legends. You can’t put your magic on other objects to work later, even we know that.”
“I know someone who can make them,” Kenma says.
“Who? ” Hanamaki asks, not really bothering to hide his disbelief. Oikawa’s face pops up in his head.
You can’t put magic into things, stupid, you can only put it on them. Everyone knows that.
Hanamaki almost wrinkles his nose at the memory of the hair flip that accompanies it.
“That’s the part I can’t tell you. The mage who can do it doesn’t want to be found. I only found him by mistake and he gives me enchanted objects in exchange for his privacy.” Kenma waves off their questions. “I’m not going to tell you. That part of it is over with anyway, you don’t need enchanted things for the next part.”
Hanamaki turns to ask how Iwaizumi could possibly use an enchanted weapon on Oikawa, to ask how he could be okay with doing that when he’d never even met the mage, to ask how he could do any of this. But across the table, Iwaizumi’s eyes are far away. He doesn’t even look present, and Hanamaki gets the answer to his questions. He’s not okay.
He’s desperate.
Matsukawa presses his leg against his under the table and Hanamaki looks at him. They share a look they’ve done time and again.
We’ll help him. We’ll do whatever we have to.
Resolve set, Hanamaki asks, “What’s the next part?”