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"Kill me... I need you to kill me..."
One strike with a purified katana through the chest of a Kotoro kotoro, the yokai goes limp and motionless. Kudou Shinichi wipes the blood on the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he grits his teeth. "Disgusting..." He curses with a face of disgust as he watches the yokai disappear into dust. As an exorcist who hunts yokai and the son of the famous Kudou family, he is under intense pressure to purify this world of all impurities. There is nothing he can do about the heavy responsibilities he must carry in this position; he must go through it alone.
There are always eyes behind his back; he can practically feel the expectations and greed from different members of the clan, old and young. They want to tear him apart and eat him alive. "Absolutely ridiculous..." He mutters as he grits his teeth, growling a little. He can't complain. He won't be able to. This is his job, his responsibility, his existence. He was born to stand on the edge of this cliff, fighting for his right to continue living in this family. All eyes are on him. All eyes stare at him. All calculating eyes stare at the heir who will become the competent leader.
Bloodlust is boiling inside him.
It doesn't matter how loving his parents can be. His skills matter more than his ties. He had nightmares of going on a rampage, just killing every yokai he sees, and then...
"... Then... You'll be-"
He forgot the ending of those nightmares. It's strange.
"Meitantei~!"
Shinichi snaps out of it. A call he's familiar with. He turns and sees the young man he has seen most of his life. "Get off the tree, Kaito."
"Jeez, so cold!" Kaito leaps off the tree branch and lands on the ground. The Kuroba family is a branch of the Kudou family, whose skills focus more on trapping and luring yokai. From what Shinichi knows, Kaito's not even a blood-related member of the Kuroba family, but they took this kid in for his cleverness and adaptability.
"You should know better than behaving like this." Shinichi looks away, sighing a little.
"A little fun sleeping in trees won't do any harm!" Kaito clicks his teeth, pouting a little, "You're just too stubborn and think you can do everything on your own. You didn't even give me work to do when I can totally scout the area for the yokai!"
"I don't need your input." The heir glares at the adopted.
"Oi oi, I'm still gonna praise you, because you're skilled, alright?" Kaito rolls his eyes, "You didn't even let me finish!" He sighs before continuing where he left off, "You deduced where the yokai was rather quickly before I even got the chance to look around. So, let me say this once again, even though you've surely heard this a million times from those boot-licking exorcists and people outside, as expected from the famous detective Kudou Shinichi!"
"... You talk too much." Shinichi turns to look at Kaito, hiding a little smile.
"You totally smiled just now," Kaito smirks, teasing Shinichi a little.
"No, I did not!" Shinichi snaps back.
"You're angry because I'm right! Haha!!" Kaito laughs as he runs away, getting chased by Shinichi from behind.
"Kuroba Kaito...!!" Furiously chasing behind, Shinichi starts running his frustration and pressure away.
Kaito was different from the rest of the family members. He's the cheerful and almost unserious person out of everyone in the family. Ever since they were young, they have known each other. Even when things got rough in the household and the training was harsh, Kaito was always there to support him, right by his side.
He has no one else but Kaito by his side.
He has no one else to trust but Kaito.
You can never show your weakness. You are the heir to this family. Eyes will always look for anything to use against you.
Don't ever show your weakness. Ever.
His head pounds as Shinichi sits up, cold sweat drenching his back as he awakes from another nightmare. It must be the humid summer heat that is making him imagine these terrible nightmares; the endings never seem to be remembered. His chest aches every time he gets scared awake by his own dreams. He hates this.
"Shin-chan?"
A voice from a guy he doesn't want to face right now.
"You should be asleep somewhere else. Why are you here?" He glances at the shadow against the shoji, the moonlight making the silhouette clear. "You're breaking a clan rule."
"I don't care about clan rules. You groan really loudly in your sleep, you know?" Kaito chuckles softly, "Like you're dying in your sleep."
"I am not." Shinichi retorts dryly. He knows this is a weak response.
"You're dying while awake and asleep; no wonder you're always exhausted on missions!" Kaito sighs as he leans on the shoji, "If you can't sleep, open the door and look outside! Tonight looks splendid."
He doesn't know why, but his hands move to Kaito's voice. Hesitantly, he slides the shoji open and sees Kaito sitting on the wooden porch, looking to the sky. Shinichi looks up. He hasn't looked up for quite some time, now that he lifts his head to look.
The nighttime sky is the most fascinating scenery there ever was. Perhaps this is what heaven looks like when the Sun decides to rest. The moon, rounded to its perfect shape, looks like a ceramic plate, glowing in the sky, the stars blinking and shimmering in the corners of this black-blue fabric known as the night. He can hear crickets in the grass below, singing and partying to the sound of the night, filling the silence of loneliness with something to entertain him. The trees' shadows look like void creatures, clawing in the dark, but for a moment, he sees flowers of colour forming accents against the pitch-blackness of the harsh shadows. He can smell the fragrance from the flowers of the night and the freshness of summer grass, and even the humidity in the hot air. Then there are the glowing spots scattered across the place, moving and shifting. They are fireflies. He's almost intoxicated by the scenery in front of him, or perhaps, the summer heat.
"Beautiful, isn't it? The moon, the trees, the flowers, the grass and the fireflies..." Kaito smiles as he takes in the scenery with his eyes, "But fireflies have a lifespan of a year, you know? Very short-lived."
"Didn't know you're an expert in bugs, too." Shinichi takes in a deep breath. He feels strangely relaxed.
"C'mon, who doesn't go hunt for a bug or two when you're a kid?"
"Me."
"You're different."
"Yeah, yeah."
There is a long pause before Kaito starts to snicker. Then both teens laugh.
"What are you laughing about?" Kaito clutches his stomach.
"I don't know... You started laughing, so I started, too..." Shinichi coughs a little.
Kaito looks at Shinichi for a long second.
"Let's do this next summer, too."
Shinichi's face drops a little.
"Promise?"
"Promise, of course!" Kaito grins widely.
As Kaito skips across the streets of the town close to the Kudou family residence, he sees a familiar face.
"Oi, Akako!" He waves, calling out to his friend. Before he was adopted, Akako used to be his friend, and she said she could see some parts of the future when she looked into the water in tea cups.
"What do you want, Kuroba Kaito!" Akako clicks her tongue, "Don't tell me it's another reading!"
"Hehe, sorry, Akako~! I just want another read, alright?" Kaito giggles awkwardly, "There's an important mission coming up soon, and I wanted to know if the mission was successful."
"Ugh, suit yourself." Akako snaps her head away and rolls her eyes before pouring a cup of tea. She looks down as the tea leaves gather at the bottom. Her face drops. There is fear.
She snaps her head back up, "DON'T GO." She yells.
"Why? Were the results that bad?"
"The mission is successful... It doesn't matter! Just DON'T GO!!" Akako shakes her head before grabbing Kaito's shoulders tightly.
"I can't just not go! This mission is crucial for Meitantei to prove himself to the family that he's the heir!"
"You can't... You just can't go!" Her eyes are begging. Something in these eyes makes Kaito understand something. He looks away a little before smiling, though different from his usual smile.
"I'll have to go, then." He softly replies, patting Akako on her head, "Take care."
Akako watches as the young man flutters away like a flock of doves. He's always like this, free-spirited and confident, almost cocky, but that arrogance was just masking his fear and love, the most vulnerable emotions he has. "Idiot..." She curses before burying her face in her hands, sobbing quietly.
The mission that was passed to the Kudou family was to exorcise a vicious fish monster roaming in the seas that killed off numerous fishermen in boats. From the description of terrified citizens, the clan members conclude it must be an Akuru. Having to travel to the Seto Inland Sea to fight this vicious yokai, this is a journey that must be planned thoroughly, and Shinichi is the person in charge of this mission. Due to the mission's large scale and danger level, many have joined this campaign to exorcise this yokai, removing a threat in the sea and restoring peace and purity to the land and waters.
By the time they are there, it is nightfall. They camp beside the Seto Inland Sea as the leaders of different squads in this mission plan for the next step.
"We must strike at night." An exorcist responds, already frustrated that a teenager is commanding this mission and purposefully pushing the buttons so that this young exorcist will fail, "There's no time to waste; it's just a big fish."
"Daytime usually makes yokai weaker." Shinichi calmly rebutts. He wants to strike as fast as he can, too, but it's too risky.
"We can send the branch family scouts out to scope out the size of the Akuru first." Another elder suggests, while hiding a tiny smirk that Shinichi doesn't catch onto.
Shinichi looks at the elder, "If the scouting team moves, we'll have to be on standby for any potential danger."
The rest of the exorcists nod. The plan is set in motion.
Before Kaito gets on the boat like the others of the Kuroba family, a young lady from the main branch passes a small protection charm to Kaito's hand, saying that this will protect him from getting harmed by the Akuru. Kaito happily attaches the charm to his clothes, unaware of the dangerous scent it emits, which is masked by the pungent odour of the campfire smoke.
They set their boats and set off for the centre of this large body of water.
The scent from the protection charm drifts into the water. This is, in fact, a lure to attract yokai. Slowly, it reaches the Akuru.
The water shifts up and down, swish and swash, eerily calm. The water looks black without the moon, and it only glimmers red and yellow from the flames near the shore. Shinichi and the other exorcists are waiting to attack whenever the threat shows itself.
They were not ready.
Something launches Kaito's boat into the air. Kaito can feel the sudden push, going upwards into the sky. He must think fast. He quickly searches for a talisman that can temporarily stun the beast that's about to swallow him whole. Getting a hold of it, he swiftly avoids the mouth, sticking the talisman to the belly of the fish, creating electricity that shocks the fish yokai for a second. That didn't do much; if anything, that enraged the beast. Dropping into the water, Kaito tries to swim as quickly away from the shore as possible. He knows he's the bait now.
Shinichi decides to go forward, setting off to chase after the Akuru. He doesn't want Kaito to get hurt. He can see that he's closing the distance; the yokai is just close enough as Kaito starts to slow down.
Kaito knows there's not much time. He doesn't have working talismans now; they're all soaked. He needs to keep swimming, but he's losing stamina. He knows he won't make it.
He saw Akako's face, her eyes... He won't make it.
It's okay. His mother once said, before he was given away to the Kuroba family, You must try your best no matter what happens. Go out with a bang.
Kaito smiles. I guess... This is the end.
Sorry, Meitantei... The show must go on.
Kaito is within reach. Shinichi can see it. He can see Kaito swimming. He just needs to get hold of his-
Crunch.
Blood is black in the dark. So is the water.
It's hard to tell which is which when they look the same.
In the glittering waters of red and yellow and black, Shinichi grabs onto Kaito. He's much lighter now. It hurts to look.
Kaito's breathing hard, coughing up black. He's smiling.
"Kill me..."
"Kaito, I-"
"... I need you to kill me..."
"Kaito, no, stop talking... I can... I can fix this..."
"... Then... You'll be..."
"Stop it! Just-"
"You'll be... free..." Kaito's mouthing words after that. He's losing his voice. Shinichi can't tell what he's saying because the rest of the men are too busy shouting and attacking the Akuru.
"Kaito! Kaito, stop speaking... I can fix this... Stay with me, please... I-"
Kaito tightens his grip on Shinichi's hand. It's wet. He doesn't want to check where the wetness is coming from.
"Kaito... Please..."
Shinichi is holding his purified katana, the sword named "Shinjitsu". He has to do this, or the infection of impurities would turn an exorcist into a deadly spirit.
He stabs through the young man's chest.
His hand slips away. Light fading from his eyes. He's leaving.
"No... Nononono... Please... Please!"
Shinichi grasps Kaito's hand again. No response.
"Wake up! WAKE UP!" He's slapping Kaito's cheeks. No response. He grabs onto the collar of his clothes. No response.
He hugs him tight.
No response.
Kaito's getting cold.
He shouldn't have stabbed him. He should've just watched him die and turn into something deadly and then wipe everyone out. That would be great.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
Shinichi looks at the Akuru, still toying around with the rest of the exorcists. He grabs onto the protection charm that was on Kaito and puts it in his pocket. He's never seen this before; now he's suspicious. He takes in a deep breath, ignoring the metallic smell, and picks up his blade.
A clean slash. The yokai is halved, starting to dispel. Shinichi sheathes Shinjitsu.
His eyes look hollow.
The contents of the protection charm, though covered in blood, are still visible. These are herbs used to lure yokai. Kaito wouldn't be wearing this on himself.
When you eliminate all the impossible, the only possible, however absurd, has to be the truth. Someone killed Kaito.
He's not an idiot. It had to be a scheme planned by the elder exorcists.
You exposed your weakness. Now, you're ruined.
He looks through the open shoji into the garden beyond the porch. It's still in the afternoons, but the Sun is starting to set. The sky is turning a slight orange, and the clouds lazily pass by. Not a drop of rain. It was the humid, rainy summer when the mission was passed to him. It was already approaching winter when they were at the site. The leaves are falling. Lives wither, preparing for the final blow from the winter cold.
There's nothing left.
Night. The winter night is silent, except for the wind whistling mercilessly, haunting tunes.
Shinichi finds himself standing on inky black water, looking into the distance. There, Kaito stands, wearing all white.
Kaito is staring directly at him. He's smiling, not saying a word, just a few steps away from him.
"… Why are you smiling?" Shinichi grinds his teeth. "Why are you smiling!"
Kaito opens his mouth, as if to say something, before turning into laughter.
"What is so funny!" Fear turns to rage, "What is there to laugh about! KAITO! ANSWER ME!"
Nothing.
"… You'll be free…"
"What?"
"Kill me…"
"No… Nonononono!!"
"… Then… You'll be…"
"NO!"
Blood on his hands. He's shaking. The katana floats in the void below, dripping in blood.
Blood is black, so is water. The smell lingers.
Shinichi wakes up in the middle of the night, panting, his heart fighting the ribcage encasing it. Does he even need to find the killer? He doesn't care anymore.
"Lonely?"
Shinichi flinches immediately, grabbing Shinjitsu as he backs away.
A young man with messy hair, dressed in white, rolls his eyes as he clicks his tongue, "Jeez, so cold! You're this scared of me when you're a deduction artist?"
"... Kaito?"
This voice, this look, he can't be mistaken. It has to be Kaito.
"But... But you're dead."
"Did you miss me?"
"You're dead!" He pulls out the blade. It's glistening cold white.
"Yeah, you stabbed me!" 'Kaito' giggles as he points to his chest, "Right... here."
Shinichi flinches, his blade wavering.
"Oh? Scared?" 'Kaito' laughs as he walks closer, "You didn't hesitate when you pushed that blade through me."
"I didn't want to!"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm... I'm sorry..."
"Don't be... isn't this what you have to do?" Haunting laughter taunts the teenager as 'Kaito' continues, "To set yourself free?"
"... What?"
"What do you want?"
"I..." Shinichi looks at the blade, "I wanted to be the head of my clan-"
"Wrong~!" 'Kaito' advances a step closer to Shinichi's blade, forcing Shinichi to take a step back.
"How would you know?!"
The same contemptuous laughter, "Hahahah! You think a friend of ten years won't know what you want? Don't be an idiot!"
"You-!" Shinichi grits his teeth, "... I don't want to be the clan leader."
"Yes, and~...?"
"... I wanted to be a normal kid."
"And...~?"
"There's more?"
"Oh, don't be oblivious! Don't tell me you can't even understand your own poor little feelings, huh? No wonder people call you pathetic behind your back!"
"Kaito never speaks like that!" Shinichi points the sword's tip back at 'Kaito'.
"And I never thought I'd die like this!" 'Kaito rolls his eyes as he retorts, "What do you want the most?"
Shinichi grinds his teeth. This doesn't make sense. All he wanted was a life as an ordinary kid, and that's it.
"You're taking so long, it's getting boring, you know?" 'Kaito' taunts as he sighs, "Do you want me to tell you the answer?"
"As if you know the answer..." Shinichi snaps bitterly with a very timid mutter.
What does he want? He isn't sure anymore, so there's no way that Kaito can-
"You want to be with me forever. Only with me. You love me."
What?
What does he mean by that?
They're only friends. They're merely just friends. There's no way that he'd like Kaito! That's-
"Here!" Messy hair, blue eyes, a boy passing a daisy into the hands of another boy, "A flower I found in the meadows! It looks beautiful, just like you~!"
"... Shut up, Kaito." Holding the flower, the boy hides a blush on his cheek.
"Hahaha! You're blushing!"
"I said shut up!"
The flower in his hands sways in the wind. It's everywhere in that meadow. Daisies.
He buried this memory to become the proper heir to the Kudou family. He thought he didn't need a lover. He felt that pushing all this away was the right choice.
"Do you remember now?" 'Kaito' bitterly snickers, "With this kind of memory, you're unforgivable. I can't believe I'm into someone like you."
Shinichi backs away, while 'Kaito' takes another step forward.
"Just accept it, Meitantei... You cursed me."
Shinichi sheathes the katana before reaching for 'Kaito'. He almost managed to grab him, but before he could do so, 'Kaito' disappeared. As Shinichi looks around again, he finds that 'Kaito' was, once again, a few steps away.
"You can't catch me, Meitantei~..." Another haunting taunt. This is starting to make Shinichi feel sick to the stomach.
Days turned to months. Same pattern.
Wake up in cold sweat, don't sleep through the entire night, a ghost clings around his neck, talking to him about the past he forced himself to bury. The ghost wouldn't stop taunting him, belittling him, telling him how useless and idiotic he was to become the clan leader and kill him. He never shuts up.
He can't read scriptures. He can't focus. The ghost clinging onto him won't let go when he tries to push him away.
When he searches for comfort, the ghost will always be a few steps away, almost within reach, but never able to be reached. He's alone, isolated, withering away like the winter snow.
Winter was passing. Soon comes spring. And then spring passes.
It's about to hit summer.
He's about to break.
"Kuroba Kaito's death is solely your responsibility as the mission's leader, Kudou Shinichi." One of the elders starts babbling about the incident once again as he debates on Shinichi's legitimacy to be the clan leader, "If you can't make sure a perfect exorcism act with no casualties, you should've launched the attack during daytime!"
The rest of those disgusting idiots nod. Shinichi looks at all of them with dead eyes. He pulls out the protection charm and slams it on the desk in front of him.
"Does anyone want to take the blame for the murder of Kuroba Kaito?"
Silence.
"No one?" Shinichi scoffs bitterly, "Then I'll start taking turns cutting heads."
His tone isn't angry. There was no anger to those words, nor any form of intense emotion. It was as though he was talking about how many fish were sold in the market.
"No offers?"
"You can't kill us! You're not even the clan leader yet! This is a violation of the family's rulebook-"
Swish. Splat. Thud.
An exorcist's voice was cut off midway. So was his neck.
"Any takers?"
Still silence. Shinichi sighs softly with disappointment.
"You guys were awfully talkative just a few seconds ago... Why so shy?" He smiles, even chuckling a little. He's grown accustomed to the coldness around his neck, the arms of a deceased man he loved before he had to kill him.
"Well... I don't want to be the head of any family, nor was I ever interested in being in this family in the first place..." Shinichi starts walking around, the blood dripping from Shinjitsu, "... but you all wanted to take something away from me, don't you? Greedy, jealous, old geezers..." He laughs, hollow with a hint of mania inside, "And then you decided it's alright to take the only person I trusted, and throw him like fish bait..."
He looks at a shivering exorcist kneeling in the corner, and walks towards her, staring down like a predator with a big smile before grabbing her collar, "Who made you plant the bait?"
"I-i-it was him!" She points at the elder who was speaking just a while ago about Kaito's death. Shinichi drops her and approaches the elder, who is shaking pathetically with his head lowered.
"... Any last words?" He presses the cold blade on the elder's neck, his words oozing like venom.
"... You'll never be the future of our cl-"
Thud. Pitter patter.
Another head.
Shinichi turns around, looking at the pale faces of all the exorcists in the room. He starts with a soft chuckle, then a giggle, then explodes into manic laughter.
"Cowards... All cowards..." He continues to laugh, "You stand behind those old geezers, and now all cower in fear when they die." Pointing his katana at all of them as he turns a full circle, "... There was never any future for this family."
Drenched in the pool of blood of his blood relatives, he looks up to see Kaito looking down on him, smiling.
It was quiet. Nothing is there anymore.
"… I'm free."
"Happy?" The 'Kaito' in front of him is now a child, grinning widely.
"… Haha…"
If there is happiness, then the blade he holds wouldn't be cold.
"… I just want to see you. One last time."
Silence.
Kaito is a few steps away again, waving.
"… Wait for me… will you?"
"Kill me…"
"I'm coming…"
"Kill me now…"
"… I'll be there soon…"
"Then… You'll be free."
Silence remains in the stuffy summer night. A smile spreads on the ghastly face of a haunted man. Red drips around the corners of his mouth.
It has been a year since the fall of the Kudou and Kuroba families. The Hattori family receives a request to clear up a vicious onryou that is on the loose at the site of the Kudou family's former residence. Heiji volunteers to venture into the ruins of the once glorious exorcist family.
The forest consumed everything. The summer heat makes Heiji sweat as he hikes towards the last place the onryou was seen. As he gets close, he can immediately smell the stench of death. Something was rotting.
Deaths of animals. Any moving and breathing creature that was there lay dead on the floor as Heiji walked up. Something is not right. His senses heighten immediately as his muscles tense. He unsheaths his katana.
And then he sees it. A man with hollow eyes, staring down at him, but not moving.
The onryou is listening to the crickets chirping.
Heiji slowly approaches the passive onryou as the sky turns orange-red.
As night falls, the onryou just sits there, looking up at the sky, as if searching for the moon.
Heiji gets close within striking range.
One strike with a purified katana through the chest of the onryou, the yuurei goes limp and motionless.
Silence remains the night.