Chapter 3. Identities

A Baku was a type of ayakashi, a yokai that fed off of dreams. They fed on nightmares and other bad dreams to be exact. In that, they had natural born resistance against corruption.

  So one being corrupted was a rare thing and was usually handled by more experienced exorcists. And while he had been an exorcist for 2 years, Shuuji himself was an odd case. 

  His reiki alignment was Soft. It was more suitable for healing than fighting. Which meant Shuuji was more suited to be a priest than an exorcist. It was situations like this one that made him curse his career choice. 

  He jumped back, avoiding the swipe of the long trunk. It hit and completely blew off the side of the building. 'That was dangerous.' he thought. 

  Anyway, his point was that he was not capable of killing the baku(because purifying would take too long! They didn't have enough time! The other way was to kill it and he wouldn't be able to do that!) and his only choice was to grab Rikuo and run.  

  That was another problem entirely because Shuuji wasn't sure where the blonde was. One moment he was there and then he was not. Most likely transported to the nest. 

  Most onryo preferred to eat their prey on the spot. But a rare few would transport their prey to their nest in the sub dimension-

  Shuuji rolled to the side, barely missing another attack. He gritted his teeth and focused back on the onryo. Now wasn't the time to monologue. Because as stupid as it was, that had been what the holy servant of God had been doing. 

 Taking a deep breath, the teen surveyed his surroundings. They were in the hospital hallway, likely a sub dimension seeing as it was where he 'woke up'. The sky was dark with the only source of light coming from the blood moon hovering above. 

    He hoped some of the rooms in the hallway were accessible. It would make hiding and setting traps far easier. Shuuji managed to dodge  the swarm of hands made of black goo coming his way. But several of them grabbed onto his legs and sent him flying towards the far wall. 

  He crashed against the cold concrete wall with his back. 'AGH!!!!' the young exorcist choked down a moan. Shuuji cracked his eyes open to stare at the onryo slowly approaching. His head hurt and his ears rang. The thing had thrown him with so much force that he stumbled to get back on his knees. 

  He hoped Rikuo was doing better than him. Because it seemed like it'd be a while before Shuuji could come for him. Standing back up, the teen hunched down, ready to fight. 

  "May God  bless me, cause I'm not sure I'll survive otherwise." he muttered and with that the raven haired teen dashed forward. 

 It was gonna be a long night. 

…. 

   When Rikuo woke up, all he could see was total darkness. At first, he had been scared because the damn illness had already taken his legs! So had it finally decided to take his eyes as well!? But after a while he calmed down enough to realize that the lights were off. 

      He huffed in annoyance and wheeled towards the windows he knew were there. Since his eyes finally got used to the darkness, he could vaguely make out the shape of various items. One of them being the curtains, obviously. 

  Frowning, Rikuo pushed the curtains open and the room instantly lit up. It took a minute or so for his eyes to adjust to the red hue illuminating the sky. 

  'Wait, red?...' 

 His eyes flew open to stare at the bright red moon in the sky. Yes, there was truly a blood moon up there and it wasn't his eyes playing tricks on him. Now that he thought about it, hadn't he been with Shuuji on the rooftop? So why did he wake up here? 

 Here, it is one of the old rooms that the staff used as storage. He was in his wheelchair too and it didn't seem like Shuuji was the type of person to just leave him there. Something was definitely off. 

   Warily, Rikuo turned and wheeled towards the door. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open. The corridor in front of him was empty, eerily so. It left Rikuo shivering from unexplainable fear. Swallowing back his fear, Rikuo left the storage room. He wheeled past rooms, not daring to peer into them. He had a feeling, he wouldn't like whatever he'd see if he did that. 

  He wasn't sure which floor he was in and peering down the window turned out to be futile. Doing so only made him light headed as well as nauseous. Rikuo shivered once again, wheeling past the empty corridors to find an exit. 

 Where was everyone anyway? Even during the night there are at least several nurses and doctors in the night shift patrolling around the corridors. A sick feeling grew inside his gut as Rikuo considered the situation more. Something was definitely wrong. He just didn't know what!

 His hands itched as something primal in him cried out with wrongness the longer he spent in the twice cursed corridor. Unable to stand the feeling any longer, the blond boy wheeled towards the nearest door as quickly as he could.

 As soon as Rikuo threw the door open a blur shot past him. It quickly grabbed the handle and jammed it shut. Trembling slightly, the blonde turned to see Shuuji, covered in blood as well as dust, looking like he had been fighting.

 "Shuuji? What-" before he could finish his question the ravenette grabbed him by the wrist and was pulling.

"Come on get up! We need to move!!" He sounded hurried, anxious even, to get away from whatever was now hitting against the locked door. But 'Get Up?' How was Riku supposed to do that? He was- He was disabled.

 "Shuuji I can't!! You know that! I can't feel my legs!!" 

"Yes you can! Look, I don't have time to explain!" Shuuji shouted, stopping Rikuo's half formed protest. "So just trust me and stand up!" With that he gave one last powerful tug that pulled the blonde off of his wheelchair.

 Rikuo closed his eyes, waiting for the impact of falling but paused when it never came. Slowly, he opened his eyes to see himself standing all by himself. 'What…' before the blonde could marvel more the ravenette was already pulling him back down the corridor.

  They ran (He was running! Him! Rikuo!) through the halls to who knows where. Behind them the creature chasing them roared as it finally broke through the door. 

Shuuji quickly pulled Rikuo into another room, it took the blonde a minute to gather his bearings enough to notice their surroundings. They were back in the storage room Rikuo had first woken up in.

  He turned to question Shuuji about what was going on but the boy was already kneeling on the floor, drawing a circle with the chalk he had gotten from somewhere.

"So what's going on? Why did I wake up here? What is that creature? How am I walking!?"

"Answer to the second question is Baku. To put it more correctly, a corrupted Baku that has been feeding on human souls and you my dear friend is it's next meal." Shuuji answered easily without looking up.

"As for your first and third question. You are dreaming, Riku. You and I are both dreaming. Our physical bodies are probably still on that rooftop, asleep. But our minds? We are in the sub dimension created by the Baku to eat us.'' Alongside his answer, the ravenette finished the circle. 

 He grabbed Rikuo then placed him in the middle of the circle. Rikuo watched the other boy do all that, with a deep breath he asked his final question.

"Who are you?"

Blue eyes twinkling with pride met determined turquoise.

"Me? I am an exorcist."