+++++

What do you fear? the wind sang, its voice high and keening. What do you fear, what do you fear?

Guren scowled as he scanned the area, one fist still wreathed in flame and ready. The spirit in question had showed itself briefly in the shape of a young woman before it vanished into the night, but her voice still carried on the breeze, accompanied by the sharp scattered notes of a shamisen.

Rumor placed the ghost as a favored concubine of some high-ranked nobleman, one who'd died under mysterious circumstances shortly after the empress' pregnancy had been announced. Nightly she appeared in the garden she'd frequented in life, playing her instrument and singing songs of misfortune: aaah, the winter will be hard, the crops will fail, the emperor's son will sicken and die before he comes of age. Others had tried to exorcise her and met with bad luck: the first onmyouji had fallen in pursuit of her and broken a leg; another had been attacked by bandits when returning home unsuccessful; a third had fallen ill and still wasn't recovered, weeks later.

What do you fear? What do you fear?

At his back, Masahiro tensed, then relaxed again fractionally. "It's a weird song, isn't it?" he asked, his voice strained. "It sort of gets stuck in your head--"

"Don't listen to her," Guren said sharply. "That's how her kind traps you."

"I know that," Masahiro protested. "Guren, can't you give me a bit more credit than that?"

"You're here representing your grandfather," Guren said. From the corner of one eye, he caught a flicker of movement; he glanced sidelong and saw the fluttering edge of the ghost's robes, transparent as mist. Very slowly he turned towards it. "You'd better not mess this up, grandson."

"Don't call me 'grandson'--!"

Do you fear? the ghost sang, and Guren hissed when she vanished again. In the dark parts of the night, when the only voice you can hear is yours?

"I'm getting tired of this," Guren muttered. Around him, flames twisted into life, casting an orange glow across the entire garden. He glanced over his shoulder at the boy. "Masahiro."

Masahiro nodded, pulling an ofuda from his sleeve. His expression was more one of regret than anything else -- even now, even still, he had more sympathy tempering his resolve than Seimei ever had. He turned to where the ghost had last disappeared, bracing his weight before launching into a purification sutra.

On the other side of the garden, light flared. Sickly green in color, it jerked and thrashed like a pinned beast, and in the heart of it hovered a woman. In life she had likely been beautiful, with the soft face and dark eyes currently popular at court, but rage and regret had twisted her expression into something animalistic, brows pulled together and lips pulled back from long sharp teeth. She cradled a shamisen to her chest, and her other hand hovered over the strings.

She looked at Guren and smiled. Her lips moved.

What do you fear?

He started and heard Masahiro cry out. Cursing, he whirled around in time to see --

Himself?

Guren turned, watching as he pinned Masahiro to the garden wall with a hand at the boy's throat. Masahiro struggled, fingers clawing at his other-self's arms, face turning red from the lack of air. The ofuda from before fluttered uselessly to the ground, the half-started prayer dissipating. Betrayal glittered in Masahiro's wide eyes, tears gathering in them, and his mouth moved silently without the breath to give his words any power.

"Masa--" Guren's voice choked in his throat; he tried to move and found himself rooted in place. "--hi ... ro ..."

Something brushed his shoulder; he couldn't turn his head, but he glanced aside as the ghost drifted beside him. Some of the rage had faded from her face, but it was still twisted in an oni's mask of smug hate when she looked first at him, and then at the him that was strangling Masahiro.

She ran her pic across the strings of her shamisen and began to sing -- without words proper, but it was an old, old song: trust betrayed, hopes dashed, and a regret that had turned into a grudge. And as she sang, Masahiro's struggles grew progressively weaker, until he was just clutching loosely at the imposter's arms, and then--

Guren stared as his double bent down to the white-faced boy. (I loved him, the ghost sang; I loved him and would have done anything for him, and see what he did to me!) Tear-tracks showed on Masahiro's face, his eyes dark and dull and unresponsive even when the double touched his wet cheek with a deceptively gentle hand. (I trusted him, the ghost sang; I thought he was genuine as well.)

And when Guren's double pressed his mouth to Masahiro's, the boy's hands fell away to hang loosely by his sides, unresponsive, and the ghost's voice rose to a triumphant pitch. (But as that person murdered me so will I have my revenge on him, as he killed me I will have him again.)

"--no," Guren protested, trying to talk around the pressure clamped around his throat like a physical thing. "No, no, no--"

I wouldn't, he tried to say; I would never, it's not for me, Masahiro trusts me--

What do you fear? the ghost asked again, still playing her shamisen at a fever-pitch. Her eyes burned as she stared at Guren, her mouth stretching into a wide, wide smile. What do you fear, and what would you do to run from it? She began to drift back and away, still smiling at him the whole time. Behind her, his double had Masahiro cradled in his arms, his hands moving as Masahiro struggled, without much success, to push him off. Hoarse little noises of pained protest came from the boy's throat, growing progressively softer as he was pressed down. One hand stretched up over the double's shoulder, reaching uselessly into the air.

"Masahiro," he whispered, and would have flinched at the sound of ripping cloth. "Masahiro --"

(Guren?)

"I wouldn't," he managed, the words tasting like dust in his mouth. "I'd never! Not to you--"

(Guren!)

The ghost stopped in place, looking around in sudden fierce anger. Her playing paused in her distraction, and the world around Guren wavered: for just a moment, he saw the wall through behind his double and Masahiro. And like a veil had fallen away from his eyes, he could immediately see over a dozen things wrong with the scenario: Masahiro looked more like the scrappy thirteen year old he'd once been and less of the seventeen year old he was now, his own hands were just hands, rather than clawed, and his face ...

As the ghost's illusion began to fade more, the two entwined figures looked less and less like himself and Masahiro and more like a courtier, crouched over the motionless figure of a woman. There was a terrified madness in the courtier's face as he stared at some point beyond Guren, like he himself were the unreal one. And then his soft face hardened and he turned, bunching his long sleeve and covering the girl's face, holding it down fiercely as she began to struggle again, limbs flailing, and a single hand reaching desperately for the sky, like for a salvation that wouldn't come--

"GUREN!"

The ghost shrieked as a barrier sprang to life around her, constricting around her, trapping her in place. The last tattered cobwebs of her illusion spun away on a breath of wind, and Guren found himself on his knees, with Masahiro's hands on his shoulders as the boy shook him.

"Guren! Come on! Snap out of it, Guren! Can you hear me? Guren--"

With some effort, he lifted a hand and caught one of Masahiro's wrists. "Careful," he rasped. His throat felt peculiarly dry, oddly strained. "Just because ... I let you call me that ... doesn't mean you can abuse it ... Seimei's grandson."

"Don't call me 'grandson'!" Masahiro snapped automatically, but relaxed immediately after. He smiled a little. "You're all right, then."

"I'm fine," Guren agreed. "What, were you worried?"

"Of course I was!" Masahiro scowled. "One moment you're fine, the next minute you just freeze up and it's like you can't move. It's not like you, getting scared like that."

"I wasn't scared," Guren said. "Give me more credit than that, Masahiro."

"I'll give you the credit when you earn it!" Masahiro squeezed his shoulders one last time, then turned back to the struggling ghost. His earlier sympathy had hardened into determination, and his voice didn't falter as he recited the lines of the sutra; the ghost thrashed and wailed, but was unable to break free as she began to fade herself.

At the last moment, though, her eyes opened and she looked straight at Guren.

He met her gaze evenly the whole time, even as her lips moved: What do you fear?

Then she was gone, leaving the faintest smell of jasmine perfume. In the distance, the sky was beginning to just barely fade into pink.

Masahiro sighed, rubbing his own shoulder as he rolled his arm. "Ahhh, that was harder than I thought it'd be," he mourned. "Her grudge was stronger than it looked. We should probably come back one more time later and pray for her, so she doesn't keep trying to come back." He stretched. "Right, Guren?"

Guren said nothing, looking hard at the place where the ghost's little fantasy had played out. Masahiro nudged him, scowling. "Hey, Guren! Guren, I said!"

Without a word, Guren walked over to the wall and bent down, running his fingers carefully through the dirt. After a moment, he pulled out a weather-beaten, bedraggled silk cord -- the same sort that women of the court used to decorate their hair. At the end dangled a small charm, and tangled around that was a single instrument string, like those of a shamisen. The end was frayed, as though it had been violently snapped.

After a moment, though, it began to steam against his palm, slowly dissolving like its master had.

"Guren?" Masahiro peered over his shoulder, with a hand on Guren's shoulder to brace himself. "Did you find something?"

Guren closed his hand. "No," he said, and stood. "We should go back, so you can get some sleep before you go into the Onmyou dorms today."

"Guren," Masahiro began, then scowled at the flash of red light that only left Mokkun behind. "You can't avoid the question forever, you know! I know where you sleep!"

"Home, Masahiro," said Mokkun. He looked towards the rising sun. "Let's go."

+++

When they returned to the estate, Mokkun waited around long enough to see Masahiro to bed, then slipped quietly down the hallways, to Seimei's room. The old man (as expected, really) was at his desk rather than sleeping, pouring over some old yellowing scroll. He didn't look up when Mokkun nosed his way inside, though he waited just long enough for Mokkun to settle before he said, "I understand you two ran into some trouble tonight."

"Nothing more than the usual," Mokkun said. "An angry ghost is nothing for Masahiro's current level."

"And even less for yours." Seimei still did not look up. "It's been a long time since you've been tricked by a mere ghost, Guren."

Mokkun ducked his head. "I was careless," he said. "Because of that, Masahiro almost--"

"Guren," Seimei said. "You may be surprised to realize this, but Masahiro is no longer as young as he once was. He's much more perceptive than you're allowing."

Mokkun's head lifted. "However, Seimei, he's still--"

"What, he became an adult long ago," Seimei said. "Guren, you may be the only one still holding onto that delusion." He chuckled. "That's fine in its own way. Masahiro is still very cute, even if he's become more aware of the world."

"Seimei ..." Mokkun hesitated. "What happened with the ghost earlier, the things I saw--"

"Guren." Seimei looked up finally, face crinkling as he smiled. "You might be surprised at the things Masahiro would permit from you."

Mokkun frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ah, it'd be too easy to just tell you." Seimei waved dismissively. "Go back to him, keep an eye on him. You'd rather do that then debate with an old man, wouldn't you?"

"Seimei--"

"Go, go." Seimei pointed this time, with a cryptic smile. Eventually, when long moments of hesitation didn't change anything Mokkun got to his feet and slunk his way to the door, glancing back once before pushing out and making his way down the hallway, back to Masahiro's room.

The boy was sprawled across his futon -- he'd already kicked off some of the blankets, limbs splayed in a graceless disarray. Even when Mokkun crawled onto him to lie sprawled across his stomach, he didn't stir, except to wriggle a little and mutter something incoherent under his breath. His throat, exposed from how his head was tilted, was an even white line, unbruised by grabbing hands. Mokkun folded his paws and laid his chin atop them, waiting until his own breathing fell in sync with Masahiro's before closing his eyes to sleep.