Chapter Twenty-Five

Manipulative

(Part 2 of 3)

Nekohiko was dressed up to his ears. It was still early spring, and the temperature was chilly. He didn't want to fall sick again and bear guilt that Abihiko had to spend almost an entire week next to him, whining and moaning and finally catching a cold himself from being so close to him.

He would not owe anything to this person.

"Cover yourself, please!" Abihiko cried if he noticed that Nekohiko's flimsy scarf had gotten untied. Sometimes, he would even reach out to knot it himself because he didn't trust Nekohiko's tying skills, apparently. "I swear I'll strangle you with my own hands if you fall sick again."

By now, Nekohiko knew well how to distract him. "Sea bream candy!"

"...where?"

A rich boy, spoiled by two whole families -- his own and his Lord's -- Abihiko had too much money to spare. And so, whether because he was indeed such a generous soul, or because he wanted to buy Nekohiko's favor with it and thus succeed in dispelling The Thread -- he bought tons of candy for each of them. But since Nekohiko usually politely refused, most of it went into Abihiko's stomach anyway.

How had his teeth yet not rotted throughout? It was a mystery.

"Are you cold? You are cold. You will catch some sickness again," Abihiko told him after they'd amassed their usual share of candy and were ready to go back to the Shrine School. Izumo town wasn't big but walking through the packed streets from the farthest districts still took a lot of time, especially when they had to guard the Thread that nobody but they could see. Abihiko surveyed the alley they were in and pointed. "We go to the tavern and you drink something hot in there first, or I'm not going anywhere with you."

"I'm fine. Let's just go home."

"Hot drinks first."

Sometimes, arguing about what to do and how they would do it was incredibly tolling. After only a few times, Nekohiko had learned to surrender before the argument broke out because once it did, both he and Abihiko became too stubborn to retreat, and The Thread shortened.

Simply not worth it.

"All right, but you are paying," Nekohiko conceded.

Abihiko looped his hand through Nekohiko's arm so it was easier to pull. As long as they weren't touching skins, Nekohiko didn't mind linking hands since this was a decent way to protect The Thread from accidental tightening. But lately, he thought that Abihiko's grabbing and pulling was getting a bit too fraternizing for his taste.

They weren't buddies. Why did Abihiko behave like they were?

The afternoon was overcast and dusky in the lucid soap-bubble windows but inside the tavern, it was mellow and warm. The two of them sat by the blue-flame fireplace and drank hot rosehip tea, listening to a tune the flutists were playing down the street. The owner of the tavern was kind enough to pour a second serving for Abihiko when he asked and was very chatty -- he didn't even want payment in the end. Nekohiko wondered about it long afterward as the two of them strode on through the streets, browsing the vendor stalls that sold baubles and trinkets. How come Abihiko was so beloved by anyone he met, even by complete strangers?

Was it really only Nekohiko who was the problem between them and the Thread?

But then Abihiko started to annoy him with pulling on his elbow as they walked, and Nekohiko decided: nope. Abihiko was aggravating as hell. Not Nekohiko's fault at all that he couldn't make himself to like him.

"Can you not? You're heavy," Nekohiko told him.

"I'm tired," Abihiko said, dragging his feet. "Can we go faster? I feel like I've fallen sick myself..."

"Oh, so who's the fragile one now?" Nekohiko replied, finally feeling in the right. But since hauling him wasn't in Nekohiko's plans, he did swerve into the side alleys to shortcut through the streets to Izumo Shrine grounds.

One could access the Shrine and the School through the forest, too, although strangers couldn't walk in. But since they were Izumo pupils, of course it wasn't a big difference where they entered.

The afternoon was already darkening into the periwinkle twilight, so the longer they walked and the further away they were from the boisterous central streets -- the more hushed and desolate the landscape became. The thin veil of last snow over the rooftops of the houses at the edge of the town and over the blackening ground looked drab and dirty. The windows of the dilapidated nearby houses seemed empty and dark as though waiting for something.

An odd chill of trepidation rose up Nekohiko's spine. He waited for Abihiko to say something as he usually did -- to dispel the unsettling mood, but Abihiko was silent.

Was he falling sick for real?

"Do you have any candy left?" Nekohiko asked to lift his moods.

Instead of answering, Abihiko tried to put his hand into his pocket only to fail several times. "No, probably not. Did you want some?" he slurred.

And this was when Nekohiko realized.

Was he... drunk? He wasn't simply tired, and neither was he sick! Abihiko was swaying, his color with a greenish tint. His expression very miserable.

"Hey, how could you?!" Nekohiko cried, then stopped himself.

How could he what? He had been with Abihiko every step of the way like he had been for weeks. The boy hadn't been drinking alcohol.

Abihiko cracked a smile when he saw Nekohiko's stunned face. "You look veeeery intense. But I'm unsure what you mean by such a face," he mumbled, leaning in as though for a hug. "All your expressions look the same, honestly."

"Something's not right," Nekohiko told him, grabbing him by the shoulders to make him pay attention. "I think you got... drugged or... worse -- poisoned!"

But where? Candy? Rosehip tea? But Nekohiko had eaten candy and drunk the tea, too, so... Did it mean Nekohiko would also start feeling woozy soon?

Shit!

"Come on hurry up," he decided, pulling Abihiko's arm over his shoulder. "We need to get you to the healer."

"Where are we...?"

The moment Nekohiko glanced around to determine the fastest route to the Shrine, he noticed something even more unnerving.

His scalp tingled with inevitable suspicion and the reasoning behind Abihiko's odd state.

On the empty street off the main roads, the sudden appearance of several people dressed in hooded clothes who walked toward him and Abihiko in such a decisive manner was like a jolt to his head.

Did they come here for them? Or perhaps they didn't, and Nekohiko was only being paranoid?

But what if... yes?

No matter. Run first, think second!

He threw helpless looks at the nearest houses with their closed-off sinister atmosphere. A flash of deciding -- and he rejected them for the tree line that began a bit aways. From there, it would take no time to get to the Shrine, and he was good at running because of how often he had to escape his bullies at School.

His blood pumped up as he rushed to the trees.

But then, a snap.

His right hand was still tied to Abihiko! Damn it, he forgot! Not thinking even a blink, he caught Abihiko's arm and yanked it to follow. The boy went after him but much, much slower than Nekohiko could run.

"Run, you stupid!" Nekohiko hissed at him, pulling.

He didn't care whether they were followed or not as long as they were away from others as soon as possible. It didn't take them long to slip under the fences and into the tree line. Fir and spruce boughs along the upward slope leading to the Shrine restricted his view even worse than the encroaching dusk. Leaves crunched underfoot at every step, reverberating through the eerie woods. But worse than all this dreary scenery was that --

-- branches were snapping in the distance behind them as though stepped on.

Nekohiko swerved to peer that way. His heart sank.

They were being followed. By four huge adults, too! Why?

Abihiko's step was only becoming slower and more confused the more time passed. Even dragging him on didn't exactly help because Abihiko's head was starting to droop and his eyes slid shut as he tripped and stumbled.

Nekohiko caught him in his arms. "Hey, are you dying? Please stay awake! Abihiko!" He swallowed in terror, then glanced down the slope. He yelled at the oncoming strangers. "What do you want!"

"Nothing from you, honey," one of the men answered, then waved Nekohiko off. "Turn around and leave. Nothing to do with you."

Turn around and leave?

Gladly but...

First of all, he couldn't even if these scums couldn't see the Thread between them. And second of all... he hated the idea of leaving Abihiko here all alone when he was so vulnerable.

They weren't buddies, true. But he wasn't heartless either.

"What do you want!" he repeated louder, voice trembling.

"Where are we?" Abihiko smiled, peering at Nekohiko from beneath his eyelashes. "I like it here."

"Grab them both, then leave the girl," a rough old lady's voice told the others, then the four adults finally came into the clearing from the beyond the trees.

They didn't look too menacing. In fact, he would rather forget people like these if he saw them on a street -- average, nondescript, passerby. Yet they weren't. They had come here with something vile in mind.

Nekohiko staggered, holding Abihiko tighter to himself. "So you drugged him, didn't you! You... monsters! You kidnappers! Do you want his money or a ransom for him? Or what!?"

"Nah. Just the highest bounty that kid has over his head, for some reason." The old lady shrugged, beckoning Nekohiko with her knobby finger as she counted down the fingers on her other hand. "Ten-year-old, check. Boy, check. The most powerful novice Binder in Izumo? Check. Tracked him down for such a long time, too. But that's definitely him."

What a weird description. If they truly hunted Abihiko, they would have doubtlessly known who he was, with how popular and prominent his name was in Izumo. So why was the bounty description so vague?

A ten-year-old boy in Izumo...

Were they... actually talking about Nekohiko?

The only thing that didn't fit the description was the "most powerful novice Binder" because... Nekohiko couldn't Bind to save his life, let alone be considered powerful.

More than that -- these people weren't like the assassin who had been sent for Nekohiko before with her ghouls and dark magic. He could sense it -- these people were mere mortals. Not Binders.

Did the Usurper stoop so low he now hired random civilians to capture him because Binders were too obvious for such a job?

Nekohiko stiffened, hugging Abihiko to himself. The boy snorted because he was ticklish in Nekohiko's arms and tried to tickle him back.

The old lady gave Nekohiko a commiserating nod as she slowly advanced, arms spread out. "Sorry, girl. You'd better leave. Nothing personal, but this boy is very important to someone."

"And you -- are not," one of the men replied. "Do you know what happens to non-important boys and girls if they persist when they shouldn't?"

Nowhere to run. And nobody to call for help.

Nekohiko pushed Abihiko against a tree and pressed on him so that he didn't fall. He freed his hands as though for a Binding attack. "I warn you -- I'll strike you with my Binding--" he began saying in an attempt to threaten.

"Girl, we've researched all the kids at your school. You can hardly even Bind," the old lady told him.

Desperation made Nekohiko pant. He clung to Abihiko again. "Bind! Bind something quick!" Nekohiko cried at him, jerking his hands in the direction of the bounty hunters. Only after another rough shake, did Abihiko assemble his hands into a bizarre mockery of a Nagare finger formation but it was wrong, all wrong. He didn't know what he was supposed to be attacking with it and his sight was obviously too unfocused to aim. Such a Nagare spell would blow up in his hands instead of harming anyone around them.

Oh, that had been a genius plan, Nekohiko recognized. It wasn't only that these creeps had drugged Abihiko to make him slow and unresponsive. They were mere mortals. Of course even a young Binder could devastate them with his spells -- let alone one that was known as the most powerful in his class. The only way a normal person could fight with a Binder was to make the Binder's powers useless.

Like they were now.

"Last chance, little girl. Walk away before you still can." The closest man had a rope in his hands.

Another held up a small vial with a blue fluid inside. "Rope or perhaps the drug your friend over there ingested? The latter one feels real nice, just so you know. You feel like you're floating, so you won't even notice him gone."

Nekohiko wanted to cry.

Obviously, the law of this land stated that Spirit-Binding children could not be killed or harmed before their sixteenth birthday. These people wouldn't kill him, of course, however inconvenient they found him. But once they realized that he was tied to Abihiko and thus would have to kidnap both of them, Nekohiko would be as good as dead anyway.

That the children could not be killed didn't stop them from being held prisoner somewhere far away until they became sixteen. And only then murdered. A miserable, lightless life, was this?

He would prefer to die now if so.

"Nagare technique blast!" Nekohiko growled at Abihiko's face. "Do it!"

"Mmm...?" Abihiko murmured.

"Trust me! Do it!"

Even exploding the two of them was preferable to being imprisoned for five years until his death.

"You little bitch," the man roared as he threw himself at Nekohiko. The others behind him also sprang into action.

But it was too late.

In Abihiko's hands, a powerful ball of confused energy swirled -- stormy black with blue and violet lightnings. So strong it created a small galvanized forcefield around them. Yet Nekohiko saw how unstable it was, how crooked and spilling outward to start hurting Abihiko's fingers with their zapping. Abihiko grimaced -- he would let go of it any moment, Nekohiko knew it!

So he reached out and hugged Abihiko from the back, cradling the Nagare blast with his palms from outside Abihiko's. And as his hands held it, it was as though...

...as though he could Bind, after all. He knew all the moves, didn't he? Abihiko had taught him, and he had always copied everything real Binders did even if he couldn't manage a real spell on his own. Perhaps though the energy came from Abihiko, he still could... direct it?

His hands shot to his chest, fingers twisted in the Nagare technique Nekohiko had emulated countless times.

The closest man had been repulsed by Abihiko's forcefield a moment before. But now that the forcefield had condensed into a blast in Nekohiko's hands, he and the others had nothing to hold them back any longer.

Half a year of martial arts had paid off, too. Nekohiko rammed himself into Abihiko to make them both duck from the attackers. Then he smashed his fist into the nearest tree trunk. The destructive Nagare aspect merged with the tree in a whoosh of strained humming. Through the tree's bark, deep into its core. And once it settled within, a crackling boom resounded up the tree like pent-up lightning from so much alien energy Bound to it. An explosion, waiting to be unleashed.

Gods, it felt exhilarating, to command so much power. A euphoria of emotion that Nekohiko finally got to experience and immediately wanted to have more of it.

Was this how all Binders felt to be able to manipulate Spirits so magnificently? How wasn't Abihiko abusing his abilities all the time?

Hard and fast, Nekohiko lashed his hand outward. Like a whip, wrecking the tree where he wanted it to.

The two closest men realized they were in the damage line too late to dash out of the way. Wood chip, splinters, crushed lumber shards exploded in a wave -- into the men and through them as the broken tree let out a terrible groan, snapping in half.

Did those shards fly into their eyes and throat, lodging inside? Probably. Too hard to tell once the rest of the trunk smashed onto him from the above. The thunderous noise of it. The quaking ground...

As the tree fell, it splashed snow, dirt, and tree roots in all the directions. All Nekohiko could do was cower out of the way and push Abihiko down as well. Reflexively, Abihiko summoned another small Nagare spell to create a jagged, inconsistent forcefield around himself. Luckily, Nekohiko was included in that forcefield even if he hadn't expected Abihiko to remember about him, with how dazed the boy was. 

"What is going on?" Abihiko asked him when Nekohiko rushed to steal this second Nagare aspect from inside Abihiko's hands. "You're so silly..."

Nekohiko held the stolen Nagare aspect, swinging his head left and right to see where he needed to fling it next. There were still two adults left! They would attack them any second now!

Yet as he worried, his emotions spiraled out of control. And, with a pathetic sizzle, the dark Nagare energy ball in his hands dissipated. Not because he was so lame that he couldn't get his emotions right -- but simply because the old woman's voice from before was now sounding so much further away, raspy and pained.

"Call more! Call everyone -- surround them! Circle them! There they are!"

Call... more?

Circle them? Call everyone? Even with the Nagare bolts, Nekohiko wasn't sure he could do much against so many people! No, no -- this wasn't going to end up favorably for him or Abihiko. They had to run!

But before they could...

Nekohiko crawled forward on all his fours, heaving up Abihiko after himself. He reached the kidnapper man who had shown him the vial of the drug before. Cringing at the high smell of blood in the air and at the man's trampled upper half of his body, Nekohiko gagged yet still went through his pockets to find the vial.

Here it was, crushed and spilled over Nekohiko's fingers. But it was still the same substance that now ran in Abihiko's blood.

"Quick, fuse the elements back to their origins!" he yelled into Abihiko's numb face. "Do the signature invocation! Now!"

He didn't need him to even understand what was going on, only for him to summon the Binding Spirits of the technique they needed. Which Abihiko did, albeit clumsily.

Only after the third or fourth try could Nekohiko steal his summoned Binding energy into his own hands. He held up his fingers smeared with the drug liquid up to Abihiko's face. He quickly separated the aspects of his fingers and the alchemic potion that covered them and focused his Binding on the potion only.

Ah, the most classic version of the healer's Binding. Pulling all the poisonous or infectious elements back to their source.

"Recover," Nekohiko whispered to the fluid as though ordering it.

Deep inside his body, Abihiko must have felt slight burning when Nekohiko began drawing it out. The boy let out a snort and squirmed from the sensation. But as he did, and as Nekohiko kept drawing the drug out, Abihiko's gaze stopped being so blank and misty and slowly came back to lucidity. Whatever poison or drug this was -- this simple Binding skill seemed to be working.

And yet...

Animated whispers. A flurry of them, and drawing so close, too.

"Over there. Surround them..."

"I saw, I saw -- they're hiding by the fallen tree."

Nekohiko's stomach plummeted with dread. The sheer amount of footsteps crunching the leaves on the ground plunged his frail concentration into distress.

The barely-controlled fusion spell died out in Nekohiko's hands. He nearly recoiled when his eyes met Abihiko's glare full of grim suspicion.

Slowly, Abihiko sized him up and down. "Did you just steal my Binding from me?" he asked, shaken.

Then...

"What the hell is this," Abihiko blurted once he took in the blood, the splinters, the fallen tree trunks around them.

His speech still slurred subtly and his movements were still sluggish as he fought to stand. But at least he was aware where they were and that they were in danger. With Abihiko's fully-conscious Binding, they could survive! They had a chance to fight and win!

"Kidnappers! Want to... take us!" Nekohiko grabbed hold of Abihiko like a lifeline. "Please do something!"

"What do you mean -- do something!" Abihiko's eyes grew wide with horror.

The two of them snapped their heads toward the cracking footsteps coming in from several directions at once. Abihiko audibly gulped.

"Run," he whispered.

Huh?

Nekohiko felt breathless. "But why?! Just get rid of them -- I know you can!"

"Are you insane? How much mindpower do you think I have to make several Nagare blasts as powerful as these?!"

Nekohiko had not expected this to happen...

The other boy was as terrified of the people coming after them as Nekohiko had been before. The two of them fumbled, running. Abihiko was still pretty weak and disoriented, so after only a few steps, he abandoned the idea of running. Instead, Abihiko paused to give the nearby trees a purposeful scan. He found a tree he liked soon -- a thick, gnarly pine as wide as a grown-man's full embrace -- and pelted toward it.

The branches strewn across the small clearing were snapping under the feet of the kidnappers as they came out from beyond the firs. But only a heartbeat before that, Abihiko and Nekohiko had slid behind the pine trunk they chose, and hid there.

Yes, they hid behind the biggest tree in the vicinity. From the kidnappers and potential murderers. Like the dumbest children on a playground during hide-and-seek.

Nekohiko traded his breaths with great caution, afraid to make a single sound and be noticed. After all, the kidnappers -- five, six of them? -- were only a few steps away.

Even so, he knew that sooner or later, they would find them. And judging by Abihiko's panicked reaction, this wouldn't be a fight they could win.

A hoarse, gruff voice of a man was rumbling across the clearing. Twigs and dead leaves crackled under his feet in listless pacing.

"Damn it," he spat. "Look at this mess. What are they? Binding Masters? Aren't they like... ten? Eleven?"

"Space out. They're very close."

Abihiko wasn't moving. Not at all. In fact, when Nekohiko opened his mouth to plead him to run -- Abihiko shifted to stand behind him, clutching Nekohiko with his arms from both sides. His hand lay across Nekohiko's torso, fully trapping him within the ring made of his tied wrist and The Thread between them. And as Nekohiko lurched to push him away and to mouth at him to move -- Abihiko's free right hand landed secure and snug -- across Nekohiko's mouth. Clamping it down hard.

"Shut up," Abihiko exhaled into his ears and pressed his back against himself.

Skin on skin contact. Nekohiko's lips squished and splayed under Abihiko's sweaty, chilly palm.

The revulsion and ache it filled Nekohiko with was incomparable to any person's touch he'd ever experienced. He shuddered, then tried to fight him but all in vain.

Abihiko was pulling him backward with no regard for Nekohiko's wishes, the vile strangers were shuffling footsteps closer and closer around them -- and Nekohiko could do next to nothing to stave any of these things off!

Wrought with dismay, he did the only thing he was still capable of. He opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into the fleshy part of Abihiko's palm, right through.

Blood trickled only in a drop or two from where the skin broke under his canines, but the metallic smell and taste permeated Nekohiko's mouth fast.

A shudder of pain ran through Abihiko's chest. The boy sucked in air through his teeth, then his forehead hit Nekohiko's shoulder in enraged yet silent response. And hit it again, and again as though begging to let go. Yet Abihiko didn't lift his hand off Nekohiko's lips. He only dragged him backward harder.

And once it became clear that Nekohiko wouldn't squeeze his jaws open even a little, Abihiko retaliated in exactly the same manner. A lightning-sharp bite of teeth latched onto Nekohiko's shoulder from the back and never let go -- even as Nekohiko's eyesight dimmed and even when Nekohiko tried to wriggle out of Abihiko's hold.

With how loud his boots were in the crunchy leaves, he could swear the vile scum that looked for them would find them, but...

Inexplicably, they didn't.

Two men passed right in front of Nekohiko's eyes -- a couple of short steps away -- yet neither of them flicked eyes to Nekohiko's and Abihiko's hugging bodies. The men passed by as though two boys were nothing but furniture. Landscape elements. Trees -- for the lack of a better word.

At last, Abihiko slowly released his jaws from over Nekohiko's shoulder. His breath scalded him into Nekohiko's ear. "We're inside the tree."

Inside... where?!

Nekohiko's eyes shot up and down the dim, somehow blurry world around him. He had been wrong earlier when he thought his eyesight darkened from pain. It wasn't pain. It was the inside of the pine tree into which he and Abihiko had dived, half-fusing into it.

The thing about fusing two elements together was that before the Binding was complete, the fusion was malleable, pliant, impermanent. Anything could move against the fused part as freely as a swimmer within a pool of clear water. It was only after the Binding ritual was complete that the fused parts could no longer be broken apart and were considered to be one and the same from that moment on.

So now he and Abihiko were such impermanent elements inside the pine tree. Only dipping inside. Only temporary.

"There is a finite amount of air for us to breathe, so ration it," Abihiko mumbled through teeth, watching the kidnapper bastards pass by the tree, one by one, even if they desperately swiveled their heads left and right to spot a flicker of movement in the swaying sea of trees.

Yet all of their attempts to find them would be moot. To the outsiders, this looked nothing more and nothing less than any average tree.

The idea was ingenious. Nekohiko pondered if anyone had ever used Binding in this way -- not to trap people inside to disarm them as some executioners and guards did to criminals. But Binding to hide within another element and then reemerge from it once the need for hiding was over.

From the inside, the world was tinted brownish and streaked. Seeing outside was difficult -- mere silhouettes and outlines drifting in blurry darkness -- but not impossible.

The only downside was waiting. Waiting for those bastards to pass, all while the limited amount of air in his lungs was running very, very low.

In fact... too low, too quickly-depleting...

"Don't inhale with your mouth," Abihiko kept telling him as he closely watched how Nekohiko struggled. "It'd be useless anyway. There's no real air here. Just... seep the fused essence as a Binder! The tree has some air bubbles in its grain -- sap those with your mouth."

Are you dumb or too forgetful, Abihiko?

As a Binder? Sap the fused essence!? With his mouth? He had scarcely managed to cast Abihiko's stolen Binding with his hands -- now he had to do it with his mouth! Aaaaaargh!

Never before had Nekohiko tried so hard and so futilely to Bind. His literal life was on the line if he failed to do it.

How fortunate that they were still pressed to each other by the circling Thread -- otherwise, with a beat away from blacking out, Nekohiko would have fallen to the ground -- and out of the tree trunk. His lungs and throat burned in strained, empty heaves. His vision reddened. Nekohiko was swaying on his feet. Losing the last of his strength, he slid down against Abihiko, too weak to tell him he couldn't Bind the air into his lungs and too stubborn to ask Abihiko to Bind for him.

Because... Ask Abihiko Bind anything in his mouth?

Even thinking of such a phrase sickened him.

"Hey, wait! Are you-- are you seriously unable to do even that?!"

The slow, fading darkness swallowed him.

Yet the last thing Nekohiko distinctly felt was something much more disturbing than that.

A touch of something soft, and chilly, and trembling, pressed tight against his mouth. Then a slick, wet thing worming its way through his clenched lips and teeth. Inside. Pushing his jaws just wide enough to allow --

-- a breath, forcefully rushing through and into his starved lungs.

And all that Nekohiko thought about it, hazily falling into a dreamless sleep:

Was, "ugh."

Queenfisher

I had trouble with RL readers who were confused by my description with A and N hugging while they fused into the tree. The description was more complex originally to explain how their short Thread allowed them to even do it but I simplified it now because... well, I can just draw it as an explanation for anyone who thinks it's too hard to maneuver around ^^.

So here's the drawing. And no, they are not vampires and not dinosaurs. Their teeth are so big because... I wanted to highlight how stupid the whole situation actually was. And that Nekohiko is really a bitey boy (as in -- first to begin, last to let go. Just how he is).

Spoiler

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