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issenlloTitle: In which Harry is confused
Series: Dresden Files/Kyou Kara Maou crossover
Summary: Harry runs into strange people.
Notes: Nothing actually happens in this fic. It's basically talking heads. It just sort of came to me while I was trying to write![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
31_days fic (theme: when you leave, it will be hard again), and then realising that it isn't 17 July any more.
----------
We managed to get through before the portal to Nevernever closed on us. I was panting from the exertion of blasting the upsized spiders away, but I leant on my staff and took a quick headcount. Something eased in my gut when I saw that they were all accounted for: the blond kid, the two black-haired kids who looked Asian, and a brown-haired man that had been using a sword like it was an extension of his arm. I was about to ask if any of them were hurt when I realised they were already dusting themselves off, and the blond kid was berating one of the Asian kids in a language I didn't understand.
It didn't sound like a human language, either. I gripped my staff more tightly as the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
"Shibuya usually brings people to much more interesting places than that."
I looked down and stepped back before I could help myself. How the hell had this kid got so close that I didn't even sense his presence until he spoke?
He didn't seemed the least perturbed by my reaction. He only smiled--deliberately guileless, and believe me, after my last few years of dealing with faerie, the White Court, the White Council and all-round two-faced (some literally) bastards, you know when someone's faking it--and raised a hand to push his glasses up his nose. I blinked when the sunlight glinted off the lenses. "Thank you very much for helping us to deal with those creatures," he said, then bowed to me.
Was he Japanese? But what I heard just now hadn't sounded like Japanese. "Who are you?" I asked. "And your friends?"
The corners of his mouth turned up a little more, as though he was amused by my suspicious tone. "I am Murata Ken." His glasses flashed a little more as he gave a smaller bow, and went on. "Or Ken Murata, as you-" he glanced around, "Americans would put it."
"We are in America?" The other Japanese kid now spoke: Shibuya, I presumed. He looked around with interest.
"In Chicago, if I'm not wrong," Ken said, looking around.
"It looks a bit different from what I remembered," the brown-haired man said. He looked about as harmless as a tourist, but I had seen him slice through a dozen of those spiders with deadly precision. His sword, though, had been lost in the fight; I'd seen it skitter past the trees when I opened the portal.
They were certainly the strangest visitors I had ever met to have got themselves lost in Nevernever. For starters, they were still drenched from head to toe, though no longer dripping water everywhere the way I had seen them while walking through Nevernever from Edinburgh to Chicago.
"Oh!" Shibuya exclaimed, as though suddenly thinking of something. "You've been here before, Conrad?"
"Yes, your-" Conrad glanced at me, then smiled to Shibuya as though to a favourite younger brother. "I visited briefly, when I came to... America years ago." Then he seemed to collect himself. "But we shouldn't talk out here. Let's find a place to rest, first. Wolfram, are you hurt?"
"I'm all right," Wolfram said. He looked around, as though expecting more spiders to appear out of nowhere. "Is this more of your world, Yuuri?"
Murata pressed a hand to his forehead.
"'Your world'?" I asked.
***
We ended up in a hotel room.
Don't look at me like that. It certainly wasn't my idea.
The Murata kid was the one who said we needed a place to talk, and I wasn't about to bring them to my place. A hotel was a reasonable option; it was neutral ground, the kid said, it was private, and it had--here he gave Shibuya a meaningful look--a bathroom.
Once Shibuya agreed, there was surprisingly little argument from the other two, though I half-expected Wolfram to object. I sat down in an armchair, studying them as they made themselves comfortable on the bed (Wolfram dragged Shibuya to one) and the couch. They looked human, and so far they hadn't tried to hurt me, but I knew from long experience that there were creatures--not to mention monsters--who could take on human appearance--and demons that could possess actual humans.
I reached out with my Sight.
A wizard's sight, also called the inner sight or Third Eye, shows you the world as it really is. It can show you beauty beyond compare and horrors that can drive the human mind insane. And you never, ever forget it. Since we live in a none too pleasant world, any wizard that uses the Sight carelessly will shortly find himself in a padded jacket.
The brilliance nearly blinded me.
I found myself sitting back, rubbing my eyes while turning my Sight off, unable to believe what I had just seen.
"Are you all right?" Someone--it sounded like Shibuya--asked.
I shook my head. "I'm fine," I said, barely able to get the words out. What I had just seen-
Shibuya had been glowing, with a blinding blue light that almost hurt, to look at. His hair was longer, and he stood straighter, a more confident set to his shoulders. His face was thinner, almost as though he were older, and he was dressed entirely in black. There was a nimbus set high on his head, like a halo. No, I corrected myself. A crown. And power--cold, old and of a strength I had never encountered before in my life--flowing out of him from every pore.
I opened my eyes to see Murata standing before me, a look of concern in his eyes. I tensed again. There was no way a kid could just sneak up on-
But he hadn't been a kid, when I used the Sight. A hundred reflections seemed to surround him--all of different people wearing clothes of various historical periods. There was power from him too, just not as strong, and there was the impression of an immense wisdom through the ages.
"Who are you?" I asked, then shook my head. Better to deal with the immediate danger here. "What are you?" I asked Shibuya. They were not human--at least, not entirely. "And you?" I said to Conrad.
In some ways, he had been the most puzzling of all. He didn't feel human, but there was none of the power that had been coming from the other three.
"You shouldn't have used your Sight, wizard," Murata said. He had retreated, and was now leaning against a wall.
I managed to straighten in my armchair, managing to hide the fact that I was still seeing afterimages of what I had Seen behind my eyelids. "And how would you know about the Sight?"
"I know what wizards can do," Murata said, "and I have no wish to tangle with the White Council."
That was nearly the last thing I expected the kid to say, even though I had met him in Nevernever. Not many people knew of the White Council. "White- And how do you know that?"
"White Council? What's that?" Shibuya asked. "Murata?"
Murata was smiling at me. I was starting to hate that knowing look in his eyes. "The White Council, Shibuya, is a group of wizards from around the world. They hide the fact that magic is real from the rest of the world, and occasionally fight some evil." His smile widened, as though he felt what he was saying to be very amusing.
He was trying to annoy me, I could tell. And he was succeeding. "And why does he glow?" I nodded at Shibuya.
"I glow?" Shibuya said, looking down at himself.
Wolfram looked torn between puzzlement and disgust, and he gave Shibuya a not-so-gentle punch on the shoulder. "Stop that! You're acting like a wimp."
"You do glow when you dispense justice, Shibuya," Murata said, sounding as though he were hiding a smile.
Surprisingly, both Wolfram and Conrad gave an "Ah" of understanding at that.
"I want some answers," I said. I stood up and raised my staff when Conrad crossed the hotel room, as though he hadn't heard me. "Where are you going?"
"The hotel staff's going to be bringing up some clothes," he said. "I thought I'd run a bath so we can clean up." He raised an eyebrow at me, as though wondering what I was objecting to, and then continued to the bathroom. He left the door open, though, and I could hear the taps running.
I thought I heard a snicker from Murata's direction, but when I looked, he was still standing there with a politely amused look on his face.
"And why were you in Nevernever?" I asked, trying not to feel like a mafia head in a bad movie.
Shibuya looked from Murata to Wolfram, then gave an embarrassed laugh. "Oh, that. I took the wrong turn. You see, Murata has been trying to teach me..."
"Shibuya." Murata gave him a look.
"Ah! I'll go and help Conrad with the bath," Shibuya said, standing up.
"I'll come with you," Wolfram said immediately.
And they both entered the bathroom before I could stop them, and I figured I would look pretty silly if I tried to stop someone from running a bath. There was just me and Murata left in the room.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
Murata shook his head. "It's nothing that concerns you, wizard. We mean no harm to anyone, please believe that."
"That kid has enough power to blow up a building, and you say that?" In my experience, anyone--anything--with that kind of juice was unlikely to be benign.
"Shibuya most of all," Murata said. "Thank you for your help with the spiders," he went on, "but I think we can take it from here."
"What are you talking about?" I walked over to him and tried to resist the temptation to shake him. I was getting past frustrated and heading right into swearing.
Murata cocked his head as though listening to something. He suddenly gave me a bow, and said, "Farewell, Harry Dresden," he said. He took off at a run into the bathroom.
I was only a step behind, but all I saw was him and the others disappearing into a swirl of rising bathwater.
/end
Uh... I just finished reading Turn Coat, in case you were wondering.
Series: Dresden Files/Kyou Kara Maou crossover
Summary: Harry runs into strange people.
Notes: Nothing actually happens in this fic. It's basically talking heads. It just sort of came to me while I was trying to write
31_days fic (theme: when you leave, it will be hard again), and then realising that it isn't 17 July any more.----------
We managed to get through before the portal to Nevernever closed on us. I was panting from the exertion of blasting the upsized spiders away, but I leant on my staff and took a quick headcount. Something eased in my gut when I saw that they were all accounted for: the blond kid, the two black-haired kids who looked Asian, and a brown-haired man that had been using a sword like it was an extension of his arm. I was about to ask if any of them were hurt when I realised they were already dusting themselves off, and the blond kid was berating one of the Asian kids in a language I didn't understand.
It didn't sound like a human language, either. I gripped my staff more tightly as the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
"Shibuya usually brings people to much more interesting places than that."
I looked down and stepped back before I could help myself. How the hell had this kid got so close that I didn't even sense his presence until he spoke?
He didn't seemed the least perturbed by my reaction. He only smiled--deliberately guileless, and believe me, after my last few years of dealing with faerie, the White Court, the White Council and all-round two-faced (some literally) bastards, you know when someone's faking it--and raised a hand to push his glasses up his nose. I blinked when the sunlight glinted off the lenses. "Thank you very much for helping us to deal with those creatures," he said, then bowed to me.
Was he Japanese? But what I heard just now hadn't sounded like Japanese. "Who are you?" I asked. "And your friends?"
The corners of his mouth turned up a little more, as though he was amused by my suspicious tone. "I am Murata Ken." His glasses flashed a little more as he gave a smaller bow, and went on. "Or Ken Murata, as you-" he glanced around, "Americans would put it."
"We are in America?" The other Japanese kid now spoke: Shibuya, I presumed. He looked around with interest.
"In Chicago, if I'm not wrong," Ken said, looking around.
"It looks a bit different from what I remembered," the brown-haired man said. He looked about as harmless as a tourist, but I had seen him slice through a dozen of those spiders with deadly precision. His sword, though, had been lost in the fight; I'd seen it skitter past the trees when I opened the portal.
They were certainly the strangest visitors I had ever met to have got themselves lost in Nevernever. For starters, they were still drenched from head to toe, though no longer dripping water everywhere the way I had seen them while walking through Nevernever from Edinburgh to Chicago.
"Oh!" Shibuya exclaimed, as though suddenly thinking of something. "You've been here before, Conrad?"
"Yes, your-" Conrad glanced at me, then smiled to Shibuya as though to a favourite younger brother. "I visited briefly, when I came to... America years ago." Then he seemed to collect himself. "But we shouldn't talk out here. Let's find a place to rest, first. Wolfram, are you hurt?"
"I'm all right," Wolfram said. He looked around, as though expecting more spiders to appear out of nowhere. "Is this more of your world, Yuuri?"
Murata pressed a hand to his forehead.
"'Your world'?" I asked.
***
We ended up in a hotel room.
Don't look at me like that. It certainly wasn't my idea.
The Murata kid was the one who said we needed a place to talk, and I wasn't about to bring them to my place. A hotel was a reasonable option; it was neutral ground, the kid said, it was private, and it had--here he gave Shibuya a meaningful look--a bathroom.
Once Shibuya agreed, there was surprisingly little argument from the other two, though I half-expected Wolfram to object. I sat down in an armchair, studying them as they made themselves comfortable on the bed (Wolfram dragged Shibuya to one) and the couch. They looked human, and so far they hadn't tried to hurt me, but I knew from long experience that there were creatures--not to mention monsters--who could take on human appearance--and demons that could possess actual humans.
I reached out with my Sight.
A wizard's sight, also called the inner sight or Third Eye, shows you the world as it really is. It can show you beauty beyond compare and horrors that can drive the human mind insane. And you never, ever forget it. Since we live in a none too pleasant world, any wizard that uses the Sight carelessly will shortly find himself in a padded jacket.
The brilliance nearly blinded me.
I found myself sitting back, rubbing my eyes while turning my Sight off, unable to believe what I had just seen.
"Are you all right?" Someone--it sounded like Shibuya--asked.
I shook my head. "I'm fine," I said, barely able to get the words out. What I had just seen-
Shibuya had been glowing, with a blinding blue light that almost hurt, to look at. His hair was longer, and he stood straighter, a more confident set to his shoulders. His face was thinner, almost as though he were older, and he was dressed entirely in black. There was a nimbus set high on his head, like a halo. No, I corrected myself. A crown. And power--cold, old and of a strength I had never encountered before in my life--flowing out of him from every pore.
I opened my eyes to see Murata standing before me, a look of concern in his eyes. I tensed again. There was no way a kid could just sneak up on-
But he hadn't been a kid, when I used the Sight. A hundred reflections seemed to surround him--all of different people wearing clothes of various historical periods. There was power from him too, just not as strong, and there was the impression of an immense wisdom through the ages.
"Who are you?" I asked, then shook my head. Better to deal with the immediate danger here. "What are you?" I asked Shibuya. They were not human--at least, not entirely. "And you?" I said to Conrad.
In some ways, he had been the most puzzling of all. He didn't feel human, but there was none of the power that had been coming from the other three.
"You shouldn't have used your Sight, wizard," Murata said. He had retreated, and was now leaning against a wall.
I managed to straighten in my armchair, managing to hide the fact that I was still seeing afterimages of what I had Seen behind my eyelids. "And how would you know about the Sight?"
"I know what wizards can do," Murata said, "and I have no wish to tangle with the White Council."
That was nearly the last thing I expected the kid to say, even though I had met him in Nevernever. Not many people knew of the White Council. "White- And how do you know that?"
"White Council? What's that?" Shibuya asked. "Murata?"
Murata was smiling at me. I was starting to hate that knowing look in his eyes. "The White Council, Shibuya, is a group of wizards from around the world. They hide the fact that magic is real from the rest of the world, and occasionally fight some evil." His smile widened, as though he felt what he was saying to be very amusing.
He was trying to annoy me, I could tell. And he was succeeding. "And why does he glow?" I nodded at Shibuya.
"I glow?" Shibuya said, looking down at himself.
Wolfram looked torn between puzzlement and disgust, and he gave Shibuya a not-so-gentle punch on the shoulder. "Stop that! You're acting like a wimp."
"You do glow when you dispense justice, Shibuya," Murata said, sounding as though he were hiding a smile.
Surprisingly, both Wolfram and Conrad gave an "Ah" of understanding at that.
"I want some answers," I said. I stood up and raised my staff when Conrad crossed the hotel room, as though he hadn't heard me. "Where are you going?"
"The hotel staff's going to be bringing up some clothes," he said. "I thought I'd run a bath so we can clean up." He raised an eyebrow at me, as though wondering what I was objecting to, and then continued to the bathroom. He left the door open, though, and I could hear the taps running.
I thought I heard a snicker from Murata's direction, but when I looked, he was still standing there with a politely amused look on his face.
"And why were you in Nevernever?" I asked, trying not to feel like a mafia head in a bad movie.
Shibuya looked from Murata to Wolfram, then gave an embarrassed laugh. "Oh, that. I took the wrong turn. You see, Murata has been trying to teach me..."
"Shibuya." Murata gave him a look.
"Ah! I'll go and help Conrad with the bath," Shibuya said, standing up.
"I'll come with you," Wolfram said immediately.
And they both entered the bathroom before I could stop them, and I figured I would look pretty silly if I tried to stop someone from running a bath. There was just me and Murata left in the room.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
Murata shook his head. "It's nothing that concerns you, wizard. We mean no harm to anyone, please believe that."
"That kid has enough power to blow up a building, and you say that?" In my experience, anyone--anything--with that kind of juice was unlikely to be benign.
"Shibuya most of all," Murata said. "Thank you for your help with the spiders," he went on, "but I think we can take it from here."
"What are you talking about?" I walked over to him and tried to resist the temptation to shake him. I was getting past frustrated and heading right into swearing.
Murata cocked his head as though listening to something. He suddenly gave me a bow, and said, "Farewell, Harry Dresden," he said. He took off at a run into the bathroom.
I was only a step behind, but all I saw was him and the others disappearing into a swirl of rising bathwater.
/end
Uh... I just finished reading Turn Coat, in case you were wondering.
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Date: 2009-07-18 09:41 pm (UTC)Gotta tell you: I love you for this. :D
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Date: 2009-07-20 10:10 am (UTC)