FicWad

This area of the shinigami realm was dry and barren, and a hot wind continuously blasted down on it. This wind had carved the rocks into jagged peaks, and they erupted from the landscape like quills covering a massive porcupine. Not many shinigami visited this inhospitable corner of the realm, so not many knew that there was a network of tunnels running underneath the red sandstone rocks that sprouted from the ground. It was in one of these tunnels that Justin, having temporarily left his throne, was sitting with Ryuk and Rem.
“…And then we left through a really big window, right about here,” said Ryuk, using a stick to point to the middle section of a tower drawn crudely in the sand.
“I see,” said Justin. “Rem? What about you?”
“I didn’t see nearly as much of the tower as Ryuk did,” she said as she took the stick from Ryuk. “Entering the top of the tower from the side next to the viewing holes, we went down this staircase, the one in the middle. That led to a small room, full of many weapons, chains, wing plates, and other devices that looked to be made of tzargantium…after that, I was knocked unconscious, and I didn’t see any more of the tower other than the room Ryuk already told you about. However, the King did mention a room within the tower from which he can control all of the viewing holes, and see what’s displayed on them at the moment.”
“That’s very interesting…I’ll have to keep that in mind. Viewing hole control room, in an unknown location…,” Justin he said as he drew a question mark on the map they were developing.
“There’s also a great golden hall on the ground floor, right at the front of the tower,” an ethereal voice floated down from above them.
All three shinigami sprang to their feet, searching wildly for the intruder. Justin spotted her first.
“Nu!” he said, quietly, suppressing his urge to yell so he wouldn’t scare away the black rock perched on the ledge of red rock near the ceiling. “How did you get here!?”
“I flew,” she said, as though it should’ve been obvious.
“That’s not what I meant! How did you find us? If it’s that easy, we need to move right away…”
“Any attempts to hide Ryuk and Rem will be futile from now on. I watched and learned as long as I could before it would be too late to warn you if I didn’t leave…the hunters are coming for them.”
“The hunters? What…” Ryuk started to say, until Justin shushed him.
“She won’t finish if you interrupt her,” he cautioned.
“The King has taken Kinddara Guivelostain, Daril Ghiroza, and Sidoh, and turned them into his hunters. He selected Daril for her intelligence, Kinddara for her aggressiveness, and Sidoh for his incredible sense of sight-strong enough to see shinigami footprints. All three posses incredible speed, and due to the King’s training, they’ve become skilled fighters as well. You can’t hide any longer. You must run immediately.”
So that had been what the King had wanted…this wasn’t good, and Justin had a feeling it was about to get worse.
“Sidoh told the King everything, didn’t he?” he asked.
“Sidoh has never possessed great emotional strength. Keeping so many secrets was too much of a strain for him, and he readily told them when the King regained his trust with a well-crafted lie. The King’s official stance is no longer that Rem is dead-now, she’s killed a shinigami named Gelus, and the King justly and humanely imprisoned her for this reason. Leave now, before it is too late.”
Ryuk was dumbfounded. “How can he buy that?! Did he forget how Rem looked when we found her?”
“The King has convinced him that Rem is so depraved, she gave herself all those injuries. You must run.”
All three shinigami were shocked silent for a moment, but Nu didn’t let the moment last long.
“You must run. The hunters are coming.”
“Exactly how did you find this out, Nu?” Justin asked.
“I don’t need a cave in order to hide. I watched the entire thing from the rafters. The King was giving Daril Ghiroza one final piece of instruction before I left. The hunters are swift, and they’re certainly on their way by now. They are well equipped to capture you, and they will bring you to the King to be executed. You have wasted much time asking me questions. It may be too late, even if you start running now.”
Ryuk and Rem looked at each other with panic in their eyes. Flying would have made them more visible over a wider area, so Justin had led them all the way here on foot instead, staying under the cover of trees or rocks when possible. It had seemed like the best idea at the time, but Justin had had no way of anticipating that the King would suddenly have a team of trackers that could follow their invisible footprints. Ryuk and Rem stood frozen, their brains stalled with panic…
“What are you waiting for? Do as she says! Run! RUN!” Justin yelled.
Ryuk and Rem shot out of the cave, flapping for their lives.

Sidoh had spotted Rem’s prints after only a partial circle around the general area where Justin’s throne was, as well as Justin’s and Ryuk’s. He kept his head down as he ran and kept his eyes trained on the prints; Daril and Kinddara had taken to the air in order to keep up to him. Sidoh was completely absorbed in his task of chasing the footprints; to his surprise, this was actually kind of fun. At least, it would have been fun if he didn’t keep having these tiny little pulses of guilt-the King’s orders had been to capture both Rem and her rescuer, Ryuk. He didn’t know Rem all that well, so he couldn’t really feel too badly about bringing her in while there was a chance that the King was telling the truth about her. Ryuk, however…Sidoh was reluctant to track him down and drag him to his possible doom. Other than that one time Ryuk “borrowed” his notebook without asking, he’d actually been half-decent to Sidoh most of the time. Heck, he’d occasionally told the other guys to lay off when Sidoh couldn’t take any more mockery from them. Sidoh hoped Ryuk would understand. He was in too deep; he had no choice but to do what the King told him. He focused his mind back on the prints, on chasing them to their end…

“Where are we going?” Rem called desperately, lagging behind Ryuk due to her only semi-healed injuries.
“I dunno! Just away!”
Being a shinigami, Ryuk had never truly feared for his life before…sure, he’d been reasonably concerned about the King ever since he’d found Rem, but that was nothing compared to the sheer blind terror that was screaming through him now. He was being hunted down like a helpless prey animal, and he had nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide…

Sidoh stopped when he hit the edge of the porcupine-quill rocks.
“No more prints, Daril. They went into this rocky place.”
“No problem. If they came back out of here, we’ll find traces of them around the edges.”
“Do we get to use the knives if we find them?” Kinddara asked eagerly.
“No, Kinddara,” Daril said firmly. “The King specifically demanded that we bring them back alive, if at all possible. He gave us the knives for self defence only, not killing. We only use them if our lives are in danger, understand? It’s the King’s job to kill them, if need be.”
“What if I can’t see any prints?” Sidoh asked nervously.
“Then they’re still in there somewhere. If you can’t see any prints, there aren’t any prints, Sidoh. You won’t miss them. Go.”
Sidoh took off, eyes to the ground, his feet a blur, while Daril and Kinddara flapped behind him. It didn’t take long before he stopped.
“What is it, Sidoh? Prints?” Daril asked.
“No…but you said to point out anything unusual. Can you see them?”
Daril looked at where Sidoh was pointing; little swirling marks in the sand led off into the distance…
“Aha,” said Daril. “Two shinigami, flying just above the sand, low enough for their wing beats to disturb it…seems to me like they were trying to stay low, but avoid walking…it would have been clever, it they hadn’t been so scared they didn’t notice they were leaving obvious traces…”
“So you think it’s them?” Kinddara asked eagerly.
“Only one way to find out.”

“Hold it, Ryuk! Stop for a second! We need to think of a plan!” Rem gasped, their desperate sprint beginning to take its toll on her.
Every neuron of Ryuk’s brain screamed at him to keep running, but his body wasn’t listening…he needed to take a break too, before he collapsed. The two shinigami flopped gracelessly onto the ground, their muscles trembling with fear and aching from flying several miles at quintuple-speed.
“So…where…” Ryuk gasped. He wasn’t breathing hard due to oxygen deprivation; shinigami didn’t need to breathe. However, they did need to take in air in order to talk, and he was so sapped he barely had enough energy to move his lungs. Rem didn’t bother trying to talk. They lay there resting for a few minutes, then heaved themselves back onto their feet.
“So where do we go…” Ryuk began, and then stopped as he saw what was standing behind Rem off in the distance.
Sidoh. He stood there staring at Ryuk for a good long time, and Ryuk stared back. Eventually, Sidoh looked down at his feet, then back up at Ryuk, his face full of regret. He shrugged apologetically. It was clear to Ryuk what he meant- he could almost hear Sidoh’s voice in his head, saying “Sorry about this, but...”
“FOUND THEM!” Sidoh bellowed.
Daril and Kinddara flew up over the horizon, looking for all the world like a pair of demons Sidoh had summoned. The unseen threat had become real. Ryuk and Rem launched themselves into the sky, all tiredness forgotten in a jolt of pure animalistic terror.
They flapped their wings harder than they’d ever flapped them in their centuries of life, but Ryuk and Rem could hear the wing beats of the hunters steadily getting louder- Nu hadn’t exaggerated when she said they were fast. The hunters were bearing down on them; their wing beats were echoing in Ryuk’s ears; death was just yards away…a shinigami hit Ryuk from the side, knocking him out of the sky, and they both plummeted downward. Ryuk turned to his attacker, preparing to fight while he braced for impact with the ground…Rem? Rem had knocked him out of the sky? And now they were falling, but they hadn’t hit…there were flashes of light, cracks of thunder, a staircase whizzed by, and suddenly they were falling under a starlit sky, with rain pouring down on them…

The three trackers skidded to a halt, the air a steel wall on their wings, pushing hard as they tried to stop their tremendous forward momentum. Daril cursed; Rem had made a clever move, knocking herself and Ryuk out of the sky and straight down the entrance to the human world…
“Down! Down!” she commanded, and they shot back and downward through the barrier between realms, steadily gaining speed. The bright flashes nearly blinded them, and they saw nothing but bright spots as they emerged into the inky black human world night. They paused for a few moments until they could start to see clearly again, and even then, the rain was obstructing their vision even more…
“There!” said Sidoh, pointing at a white winged object and the dark winged object beside it that were getting further and further ahead. The trackers started after them, but Ryuk and Rem had kept going steadily instead of having to stop twice, and inertia had given them both a head start and a heck of a speed to try and catch up to…
Kinddara started to see red; they were getting away, they were getting away… No! They were not going to get away! They were not getting away from her, and if they did, she’d kill them! They were making her so angry…stop trying to get away… stop…stop…
“STOP!” Kinddara shrieked in rage, throwing her knife at the objects in fury.

Rem watched in horror as a cloud of sand suddenly burst from Ryuk, and with a cry of surprise and pain, he dropped out of the sky like a rock.