Ink Stained

11: shiori and the dream*

詩織と夢

"Pai is dying."

Kanou, Kouta, and Shin stood outside the hospital room Pai had been checked into for the last week. Shiori was inside, asleep on the couch pushed up to the wall. Ryu was sleeping in the armchair by the sofa his sister lay on, his unruly red-brown hair ruffled at the front of his forehead.

He had come straight from school to the hospital, as he and Shiori had been doing since Shin brought Pai back from the warehouse and everyone quickly realized that her injuries were far worse than what they could realistically deal with at home – proven when she started seizing, and Kanou couldn't stop it.

Kouta entertained the brief thought of waking Shiori so that she could be here to hear what Kanou had to say. He paused, however, when he took note of the beaten-down, grey look to the healer's face.

Kanou was approaching his hundred and ninety-third year, by no means a young man anymore. His once dark hair was now stark white, just a few shades greyer than Pai's own more silver-tinged hair, and he had many wrinkles, though not as many as a human would expect of someone that age. Any normal human would put him in his seventies, rather than well over a century.

But never before had he so looked his age as he did now. He had always had a gentle, kind smile at the ready for anyone and everyone. His patience seemed never-ending. The lines around his eyes didn't speak to wrinkles of age, but rather those of a long time laughing.

Now, as Kouta and Shin took in Kanou's words, he was glad he hadn't woken Shiori for this. She was already close enough to breaking point; she didn't need to be led down the last step to the point where Kouta wasn't sure Shiori would recover from. She had already lost both her parents in the accident that could have taken Ryu's life as well, and Pai once before. Would she have to lose Pai again, this time for good? This time with the knowledge that she would never come back?

The three men stood in the corridor outside of Pai's room, on the third floor of the hospital. Haru, Daichi, and Ryosuke were stationed at different points of the hospital, guarding should anything of supernatural – or even unknown human – origin try to come anywhere near room thirty-seven of Dokokai Hospital.

The Shimo Oni was dealt with thanks to Shin, but they couldn't be sure that one of the Okina Oni wouldn't come knocking to see what was so special about a human girl that a Daitengu would kill an Oni to protect. None of the Oni had yet contacted Kouta for an explanation, but after what happened...

It was better safe than sorry.

Jirou and Yuu already flew back to Mount Kurama to report what happened to the Sojobo, the current clan King of the Tengu, should the Oni go to his father instead. Kouta hoped they wouldn't; it would only prove right what his father had warned him of, when he told his father of his decision to let Pai remain with them.

Around them, nurses in their neat uniforms bustle to and fro, carefully guiding patients to rooms or away from them. Some men and women clad in pristine white doctor's coats had stethoscopes around their necks as they ushed in or out patients to or from their rooms.

The hospital wasn't particulalry loud, but still, Kouta could hear the conversation of every person in the hospital. It was easy enough for him to focus his attention away from it, but it was one of the reasons he told Kaede to remain at Ayashi House.

While most of the Daitengu could control their Abilities enough to turn them on and off at will, Kaede couldn't – not for want of trying. Kaede had done everything he could to dull his superb sense of hearing, but nothing worked. He didn't suffer from splitting headaches from the pressure of hearing almost everything and anything only because he usually stayed up on their little mountain home, away from the loud hustle and bustle of humanity.