Monochrome

Word count: 2,424

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"Such beautiful eyes..." A figure whispered.

"Such sad eyes..." Another continued.

"Those eyes..." The first said.

"We will break them." The second finished.

"You will break what?"

The figure turned to the voice, their faces cloaked in blackness.

Another man stood atop the buildings of the city, chin resting in his fingers. He smirked in an over-confident, cocky way, lowering his hand to his hip where an ivory revolver rested. White tailcoats floated in the darkness, turning the man's hair a silvery moon color.

"Ore-sama hopes you aren't speaking about my Syusuke-kun. Because, you realize..."

The gun was cocked.

Atobe Keigo smiled cruelly.

"That would make Ore-sama very unhappy."

The dark men bent their knees, lowering their center of gravity.

Atobe continued smiling, with his gun extended towards the figures. His gaze did not move from the men, but he began to speak, "Should I kill them, Syusuke?"

Syusuke leaned against Atobe's leg, moonlight glinting off his eyes. They were cold and unamused as he stared his assasins down. They fidgeted uncomfortably against the boy's unblinking gaze.

After a while, Syusuke gave a dismissive grunt and stood.

"Get rid of them."

Atobe grinned ferally. "Acknowledged."

--

Tezuka watched the slight slump in Fuji's shoulders as they saw each other in the front of the hotel the next morning. The boy his hid fatigue well, Tezuka granted him that much. But it was obvious that Fuji Syusuke had been up to something last night.

"Are we heading back to the forest, Tezuka?" Syusuke asked.

"Hn." Tezuka responded.

"My choice, you say?" Syusuke chuckled, looking at Tezuka from out of the corner of his eye. "Well, all right. If Tezuka insists."

Syusuke then made a show of trying to seem as if he were seriously considering his options.

Tezuka knew he wasn't, because they didn't have any options. The only road they could take now would be to complete their job and excercise the ghost and collect the money. Whoever this deceased bandit woman, Tess, was, it would be far easier for her to just pass on instead of continuing to live and feel sorry for herself because she was betrayed.

Tezuka's gaze shifted over to Syusuke, who was still mumbling to himself cheerily.

He wasn't interested in the boy's past...he wasn't at all. It was just...bothering him.

This child he was now going to be traveling with couldn't be more than fifteen years old.

Normal children his age didn't have the well-shaped body of an athlete, a mind as mature as the devil himself, and eyes that Tezuka had never seen a parallel to.

It was odd and disturbing at the same time. It made Tezuka wonder just what kinds of things had this boy gone through?

"Tezuka, are you coming?"

Tezuka looked up. Syusuke had gone several yards ahead in the direction of the forest, waving to him wildly.

As he began to head after Syusuke, Tezuka made a failed attempt at holding the boy's gaze. Syusuke's eyes were constantly watching his surroundings, making him appear flighty. Syusuke, however, was the last person Tezuka would expect to be a flighty kind of person. As little as Tezuka knew him, 'flighty' was not one of the boy's traits.

The way Syusuke walked--no. It wasn't even a walk, Tezuka realized. The way Syusuke moved made it appear as if he were a cat--quick and agile.

Tezuka's frown intensified as he walked with the boy. Everything that Syusuke did seemed to provide Tezuka a reason to be suspicious.

What had happened in the past of the boy known as Fuji Syusuke?

The weight of Tezuka's gun reassured him. He followed Syusuke, maping out the fatal areas he could be shot if the boy was determined to be a threat to himself or his goal.

"Good evening, Tezuka-kun. I have something I need to talk to you about."

Tezuka couldn't see them, but he knew that under Syusuke's eyelids were a pair of blue eyes, the same hue that haunted his memory.

"Tezuka-kun, I have some business I need to attend to. I will be gone for a while."

Eyes with the same hue as the woman who destroyed his family, his life, and himself. A woman named--

"Goodbye, Tezuka-kun."

Fuji Yoshiko. Presumably, Fuji Syusuke's mother.

--

When Tezuka and Syusuke reached the forest, they found the ghost bandit woman, Tess, waiting for them. She did not seem surprised to see them, as if she were expecting them to show up.

Syusuke smiled amiably as he began to speak. "Good afternoon, Tess-san."

The woman nodded, her hair floating on some invisible breeze.

"Have you thought over what I told you yesterday, my lady?" Syusuke asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Tess stared at the ground quietly, and silently. "I have." She replied.

It was dark, and the only sound that could be heard was the shifting of cloth.

A young man and woman lay in each other's embrace, quiet and intimate.

The woman looked up to her lover's face, with the moon making her bare breasts milky white. "Oujo, what are we going to do? You know our families don't approve of this. My parents are planning on taking me far away from here very soon."

The man held her closer. "I know."

"Oujo..." The woman cried. "I don't want to leave you."

Oujo nodded and rested his chin upon her head of ebony hair. "I know, Tessla. I don't want you to leave either."

Tessla pressed herself to her lover in a desperate attempt to become even closer to him. "Hiromaru Oujo...I love you."

Hiromaru Oujo stroked her hair. Hesitating just barely before replying. "I know."

"What are we to do?"

Oujo was quiet for a moment, and then he grasped Tessla's shoulders, pulling her back to meet her gaze.

"Listen to me, Tessla--Tess. You must meet me just an hour before dawn arrives tomorrow morning. Meet me outside the forest to the west. I will be waiting there where we can go and be at peace with one another."

Tears rolled down Tess's face. She smiled. "Yes, Oujo. I understand. I will meet you there tomorrow."

"Fuji Syusuke...you told me that Oujo...did not really love me." Tess whispered.

"I did."

"And it was because of him that I was attacked and killed by bandits?"

"It was."

"And...you told me that someone who would treat another human being in such a way deserves to die. Am I correct?"

"You are." Syusuke's eyes were icy cold.

"Then..." Tess looked up and met Syusuke's gaze. "Tell me what I must do."

Syusuke paused before smiling a terribly cruel smile.

"How stupid. If that had been me, I'd have killed him."

And he had not been lying. Anyone who would dare do such a thing to another person deserved to die. It was just as well that this bandit woman had finally seen the truth.

"I was hoping you would say that." Syusuke said. "Tezuka, you know what to do."

His words floated on empty air.

Tezuka had already gone.

--

Syusuke led Tessa down into the center of the village for the first time in twenty years.

Hiromaru's mansion loomed over the pair.

The moonlight that shone through Tess's transparent body was distorted, and the light bent in her thin image.

Syusuke stood outside the mansion calmly. There were no guards or butlers around to chase them off and attempt another assassination attempt. Atobe had seen to that. There was no longer anyone to disturb Tess when she went to finish what had begun twenty years ago.

He turned to said ghost woman. "Are you ready?"

She swallowed, even though there was no longer any need to wet her throat. She still did it because it was the only thing human to her.

Syusuke could see her nervousness and fear.

Part of him wished he could help. He understood her pain. The pain of loving someone. The pain of wanting someone. The pain of being left alone to die.

He understood her agony...which was why he could not offer his help. If she could not overcome this herself, there would be no point.

Without a word of confirmation, Tess floated off silently, ghost feet brushing the ground.

"You have ten minutes." Syusuke called after her.

When she was out of sight, he leaned against a pole, waiting.

"Preparations are complete."

"Well done, Tezuka." Syusuke praised, turning to Tezuka with a smile.

Tezuka just gave Syusuke a nod of confirmation and settled on the other side of the pole, content to wait for further instruction.

Minutes began to pass. And the two continued to wait for the signal from their spectral companion.

Below them, the town was quiet in the dead of the night. Streetlights gave off a steady glow and illuminated windows. There was one light, however, that flickered. It was the only type of movement in the otherwise sleepy town.

On, off, on, off.

"Tezuka." Syusuke's voice was quiet and was barely commanding.

Wordlessly, Tezuka reached into his pocket. A button was pressed, and the sky exploded.

Fireworks lit the night sky in combustions of purple, red, green, and blue. Sounds and colors filled the air, and Tezuka could see lights in the townhouses flicker on. People looked outside, perplexed and awed at the interruption of their sleep.

Soon enough, Tess appeared from the doorway, looking quite pleased. Tezuka stood upright and watched an exchange between Syusuke and the ghost woman.

"All is well then?" asked the mastermind.

The corners of Tess' lips pulled upwards in a smile. "Yes. It is."

"Will you be going now?"

Tess looked back to the house one last time. The lights were on, and they could hear someone screaming in terror. Tess smiled to herself.

"Yes. I think I'm quite done here. It would be nice to have some rest after all this time."

Tezuka watched as a wry smile appeared on Syusuke's face. "You could have been having a very nice rest if you were able to just let him go." The boy commented offhandedly.

Tess' eyes narrowed dangerously, but she still managed a very small grin.

"...I suppose that's true."

Tezuka blinked, and Tess was gone, no more than a whisper on the wind.

Syusuke continued to smile dryly at the spot where Tess had been. Finally, he closed his eyes and turned around. Tezuka could have sworn he saw envy in the boy's cerulean irises.

But when Syusuke turned back to him, he was his normal self. All smiles and sweetness.

"Shall we go now?" he asked.

Tezuka looked to the house. "Our pay?"

Syusuke looked like a very naughty fox as he turned to face Tezuka. A sliver of his eyes could been seen from under his lids. He reached into his pocket and tossed a wad of cash at Tezuka.

He waved his own in the air, as if it were a victory flag. "Already collected."

Tezuka nodded and pocketed his money. How and when Syusuke had found the time to steal the money from the old man, Tezuka did not care to find out.

"Where are we going now?" he asked quietly.

Syusuke did not answer, and looked in the direction of the rising sun. An unfathomable expression that had placed itself on his face. He stared East for quite some time until he turned tail and began walking West, with his back to the light.

Tezuka followed him, becoming his silent shadow once more. But before disappearing down the hill, he turned once more.

Something lay in that direction that Fuji Syusuke wanted to avoid with all his being. Every fiber of Syusuke strained to go in that direction, Tezuka had noticed. But something else repelled the boy so much that he had turned and was now fleeing in the opposite way.

Tezuka turned, feeling the rising sun warm his back.

Further down the hill, a silver-haired man dressed in all white was walking beside Syusuke, speaking with him quite amiably. One arm was around Syusuke's shoulders.

A twinge lanced through Tezuka's chest. It was uncomfortable, and Tezuka confirmed that he was not familiar with this particular emotion. Dismissively, he passed it off as alarm at a potential threat and nothing more.

A potential threat?

No.

Nothing more?

Certainly not.

--

(A/N:)

I'm sorry for having the second chapter be so late. As for the next chapter, I will try and have it come out sooner. Also, please forgive the rating. I had meant for it to be rated T, and not M. Please excuse my blunder.

Sincerely,

-PurificationArrow