[fic] In Umbra

[fleur-de-liz.livejournal.com]

Title:In Umbra
Author:PhoenixFire Lia
Rating: R for strong language, violence, sensuality, and mental rape. Yes, mental rape.
Pairings: Tatsumi/Watari, Muraki/Tatsumi (non-con!) and Tsuzuki/Hisoka
Chapter:0/18
Summary: After stewing for years over his failures in Kyoto, Muraki decides to finally enact his vengeance, and on the man he believes undermined all his brilliant work. Tatsumi may be the Master of Shadows, but the darkness he is subjected to is far more dangerous than the shade he wields and he becomes swallowed up in night. That is, of course, unless Watari has anything to say about it.

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In Umbra: Latin for “In Shadow”

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Kazutaka Muraki was the kind of man who could bear a grudge for a very long time. After all, it had been decades since his
half-brother’s death and he still carried in the black expanse some would call a heart all of the bitterness and hatred that he bore
towards Saki. He still longed to bring that wretched, despicable being back from the dead just so he could have the perverse
pleasure of killing him all over again, slowly, painfully, smiling as his blood streamed from his limp and broken corpse in such pretty
little patterns on the floor. He almost could have, too. If it hadn’t been for those damned Shinigami.

No, if it hadn’t been for that damned Shinigami, one in particular. The Kagetsukai, the master of shadows, the only one who
had truly been able to stand up to him. The boy? He was hardly a threat, still traumatized from being wholly raped and under the
sway of the curse carved into his pretty pale flesh. And that ridiculous, effeminate, half-man of a scientist with his stupid little owl
barely even constituted as a threat. More of a nuisance, an obnoxious little creature in the background, there to be ignored. It had all
been the fault of that damned Kagetsukai. If he hadn’t interfered, he, Muraki, could have had his beautiful Tsuzuki and his precious
doll and his longed-for vengeance against Saki. But he did interfere and spoil it all.

So he’d waited, laid low for seven or eight years, licked his wounds, took some time off to travel the world and learn all sorts
of ways to torture a man who’d died at least a century ago, a man whose very whisper beckoned writhing shades of night. He bided
his time, all the while watching, waiting, calculating his next moves, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

“I don’t want to know what you’re up to, Kazutaka, just as long as you keep me out of it. I would rather not have to face
another one of those Shinigami again. My soul’s already black enough as it is, I’m sure interfering a second time will damn me
absolutely,” Oriya sighed, exhaling a plume of smoke from his pipe as he and the doctor sat on the porch of the swordsman’s
brothel one hazy dawn.

“Then I suppose asking to borrow your basement is out of the question, then,” Muraki replied, a cold smile on his pale lips.

“Definitely. Torture whoever you’re going to torture somewhere else, I’m not going to be any part of this. And I certainly don’t
want to have to clean up bloodstains from your victims either.”

Muraki shrugged him off, busily organizing his thoughts. “Mm.”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing probably won’t work anyways. Those things are undead, you can’t kill what’s already
been killed, you know,” Oriya pointed out, waving his pipe for emphasis.

“Oh, but Oriya, there are so many ways one can be killed. And all of the ways I’m considering are just so…deliciously
agonizing.” He licked his lips.

Oriya shuddered. “Sometimes I don’t know why I stick by you, Kazutaka.”

“Misery loves company?”

The dark-haired man frowned. “Just…promise me you won’t do anything that’s going to get you killed. All right?”

“Oriya,” Muraki said, his tone wry, “merely sitting with you right now still has the potential of my getting killed. Anything and
everything a human does, he does with the underlying threat that his death could very well come in the next instant. Well, on that
note, I must be off. Don’t expect me to return any time soon, these things tend to take quite a while, but if you could keep my room
available for me…”

He trailed off as he rose, stretching, cracking knuckles, and picking up his long white coat. Oriya watched him walk towards
the front gate, looking for all the world like an angel in the pale dawn light.

“An angel of death…”
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