Tomura is a demon of the crossroads, bound to haunt it until the end of time - and to haunt it alone. The last thing he expects is for his crossroads to trap a human spirit with him.
This is a leftover from a Halloween prompt I eventually filled with something else. Fairly dark AU, gender neutral reader, warnings for existential horror and violence. Tomura and the reader get worse before they get better. 10.5k, complete. Dividers by @/ saradika-graphics
change over time
In Tomuraβs opinion, you picked a really shitty place to die.
The road is dry. Thereβs nothing for the lights on the police cars to reflect off of but the puddles of gas and antifreeze and oil, oozing from your wrecked car onto the concrete. You were thrown clear in the wreck, and now youβre sprawled out, your limbs askew, your chest rising in short, shallow gasps as blood bubbles at the corners of your mouth. Your eyes are open, but the concrete around your head is stained red and grey. When they try to move your body, the back of your head is going to come off.
Tomuraβs seen it all before. Heβs seen every kind of car accident, every kind of injury, every kind of suicide that starts with a human body and ends with a bloody smear on the road. This is his crossroads. Heβs haunted it forever. But in all of the forever leading up to right now, no oneβs died dead center, in the middle of the vortex where the four roads meet. And if something doesnβt change in the next few seconds, youβll be the first.
The human body is strange to Tomura. Heβs never had one, and heβs oddly fascinated at just how hard it fights to live. Your heart is still beating, even though your brainβs splattered across the road. Your eyelids are still opening and closing weakly, even as your pupils cloud over, and your chest still rises and falls, even though your ribs have punctured through your lungs and your skin. Fighting the inevitable is a waste of time. Itβs such a human thing to do. And yet, Tomura watches.
You die at the center of the crossroads, and no one comes to save you. When the paramedics load you into a body bag, your corpse slumps, spilling sideways and expelling blood and tissue and brain matter and bone. Thereβs so much of you left that a second team of people come back to clean up before they reopen the road. But no matter how much cleaning the humans do, thereβs one piece of you left behind.
No matter where a human dies or how they die, the result is the same β a soul, sprawled out in the same position it was in when it took its last breath. You look like you must have before you were thrown through the windshield of your car, your body unbroken, your eyes closed. When Tomura reaches out to shake you awake, you donβt stir. Thatβs not new, either. If you do what other souls do, youβll lie here for a year, unmoving, unknowing β and when you wake up, one year to the second since you died, youβll get to your feet and walk away.
Tomuraβs seen it before. Still, he makes sure he remembers your face, remembers where you lie amidst the other souls waiting to rise and leave. Heβll check back in a year.
Tomura doesnβt know how time passes for humans when theyβre alive, but he knows how it passes for you because of how you wake up. Most of the souls at Tomuraβs crossroads were dead before they knew what hit them, and they wake up slowly, peacefully. They seem to know theyβre dead already. They get up fast and walk faster, dissolving into nothingness past the edge of the crossroads before they even realize that Tomuraβs there. But you knew what hit you. You know something went wrong. Tomura knows, because when you wake up, you lurch upright, clawing at your chest and struggling to breathe.
Youβre dead. You donβt need to breathe. You donβt need to shiver, either, but your spiritβs shaking all over as you press your hands against your chest, touch along your arms and legs, reach up to the back of your head and press down hard. Tomura remembers what your body looked like on the road, and you must remember, too, because with every injury you canβt find, your panic increases. Your hands keep returning to your chest, the back of your head, like youβre trying to hold your body together.
You donβt have a body anymore. Thereβs nothing there, and Tomura doesnβt like the way watching you makes him feel. βHey,β he says, and you freeze in place. βPull it together. Youβre dead.β
βDead?β
Tomura hates the way you say it β like youβre shocked, like youβre hurt, like youβre scared, when youβve known the truth since you opened your eyes. βDead,β he says, and you curl in on yourself, hiding your face. βHey. Over here.β
You wonβt look at first. Tomuraβs not used to talking to dead people, and heβs not used to repeating himself, and although thereβs a faint voice in the back of his mind telling him to be nicer, itβs easily drowned out. He keeps telling you to look, and finally, you do. Tomura gets his first look at you β not you, dying, but you how you must have looked before you went through the windshield, when you were really alive. You get a good look at him, too. You start screaming, and you donβt stop.
You spend the first year after you wake up trying to hide from Tomura, after you finally stop screaming and figure out that running away wonβt work. Tomura was hoping that running away would work, too, but it hasnβt. The fact that youβve stopped screaming is good, but the hiding isnβt, mostly because itβs useless. Youβre at a crossroads. Thereβs nothing to hide behind. No matter where you go, Tomura can always see you.
Youβre always hiding from him, but thatβs not all youβre doing. Sometimes Tomura will pretend not to see you, just so he can watch what you do when you think youβre alone. You pace the edges of the crossroads, finding out where the borders lie, and your expression shifts with discomfort when you realize just how small it really is. You stay out of the road, like youβre still alive, like you could be hurt. You spend a lot of time staring at a new street sign, one with flowers growing at its base and a picture propped beneath it. Thereβs writing on the sign. Tomura canβt read it.
When itβs dark, you try to make yourself sleep, but it never works, and eventually you give up. Instead you start investigating the other souls. You donβt touch them, but you get up close and stare β only at night, only when the roads are nearly empty and a car coming from any direction would give plenty of warning. Tomura wonders what youβre looking for. Why youβre so confused by something thatβs so easy to understand. Theyβre dead, and so are you. Theyβve left, you havenβt. Easy enough.
Itβs not until one wakes up that Tomura gets what youβre really doing. The soul sits up, stretches, and as soon as its eyes are open, youβre in front of it, trying to talk to it. It can hear you and see you, just like it could hear and see Tomura if he wandered over, but while youβre frantic, itβs calm. It gets to its feet, turns from you, and walks towards the edge of the crossroads. You grab hold of its hand and follow it along.
Youβve tried to escape before, but this time it might work. Tomura comes closer to watch. The soul youβre following steps out through the bounds of the crossroads, passing smoothly through the boundaries. Not as smoothly as usual, though. The hand you grabbed is still on the other side of the barrier, still in the crossroads with you.
The soul on the other side doesnβt look worried. Nothing worries them once theyβve risen. It just pulls gently, trying to free its hand from yours, and you hold on. Tomura turns his attention away from the soul β nothing special, heβs seen a million of them β and watches you, watches the desperation on your face turn into despair. Tomura watches, almost unsettled but not quite. He thought you were confused, but you arenβt. He thought you didnβt realize you were dead, but you do. All this time, youβve been thinking about something else. About the fact that thereβs somewhere humans go, and you canβt get there.
Tomuraβs a demon of the crossroads for a reason. If he was in your place, locked out of whateverβs next with forever to burn, he might hang on for centuries, just to force someone else to suffer with him, just because he can. But thereβs no such thing as suffering for a soul on its way out. Theyβre endlessly patient, infuriatingly calm, secure in their belief that theyβll get where theyβre going sooner or later. Itβs not possible to torture something thatβs at peace.
You arenβt at peace, but youβre no demon like Tomura. You let the other soul go. Then you turn away, your eyes sliding past Tomura like heβs not there, and throw yourself into the road.
It catches Tomura by surprise, given how carefully youβve avoided the road before. An eighteen-wheeler plows through your spirit with absolutely no effect, followed by a bus full of kids and a red car with no roof. You lay down in the road instead, letting them roll over you, hidden from view by a mountain of metal and rubber as car after car collides with you. If you were still alive, your body would be a bloody paste on the road.
And suddenly Tomura figures it out β why youβre doing this in the first place, why you wonβt stop even though itβs not working. He crouches beside you on the road, his presence strong enough to divert the cars around him, and peers down at you. βYou canβt die again. Get up.β
Your eyes are shut. Youβre sprawled out in a rough approximation of the pose you were in when you died, and youβre in the right spot, too β dead center of the vortex. Tomura doesnβt like the way it looks. He repeats himself. βYou canβt die twice. You can lay here getting hit by cars until the end of time and it wonβt change anything.β
βWhy not?β
Tomura wasnβt expecting you to talk. Or to open your eyes, and although you flinch when you see him, you donβt scream again. βWhy not?β you ask him. βIβm dead just like the rest of them. Why do they get to leave?β
βLook at where you died,β Tomura says. You turn your head to the left, then to the right, and Tomura feels a surge of frustration. He seizes your spirit by the front of its shirt and hauls it up into midair, higher than heβs gone in millennia. βYou know where you died. Look at it.β
Youβre looking. βThe middle.β
βThe center. If you die in the center, you canβt leave,β Tomura says. He wasnβt sure before, but heβs sure now. βWherever humans go, youβre not going there. This is where youβll stay.β
You were never really struggling against Tomuraβs hold, but now your spirit slumps. βForever.β
βForever.β Whatever that means to a dead human. It means next to nothing to Tomura. But while heβs got you here, not hiding and not screaming, he might as well make a few things clear. βThis is my place. You canβt get out. No matter where you go, I can see you, so you can stop hiding. Do whatever you want, but none of it will make a difference. And donβt scream when you look at me. Itβs annoying.β
You donβt answer. Tomura gives you a sharp shake to make you focus, but youβve gone limp, and your spirit jerks, head thrown back in a way that would snap your neck if you still had a body to die in. Tomura recoils, revulsion swamping him, and he drops you straight back down into the center of the crossroads. You donβt get up. You let yourself get hit by car after car after car, day and night, sun or rain, wind or snow, until a year and another year and another have passed.
Youβre following Tomuraβs rules. No hiding, no screaming. Tomura should be pleased, but he isnβt. His crossroads sees the usual set of accidents and hit-and-runs and suicides, the usual number of souls lying down to sleep for the last time, and you stay sprawled among them, like them on the surface and nothing like them underneath. Time passes in a human blink for Tomura. The ten years between when you lay down in the road and when you speak again are the longest blink heβs ever felt.
Even amidst the chaos of the crossroads and the hum of so many sleeping souls, your voice is easy for Tomura to hear. βIs this Hell?β
Hell. Hell is something humans made up. When they wake up from their last sleep and walk out of the crossroads, they all dissolve the same way, no difference between the drunk drivers and the people they killed, no difference between the person who was run over and the person who fell asleep at the wheel. But things are different for you. Tomura shrugs. βCall it what you want.β
After that, itβs quiet between the two of you for a long, long time.
There have been dying people and sleeping souls at Tomuraβs crossroads since before there were cars. Heβs used to it, almost bored with it, but you arenβt. There was a while where you tried to warn the living when you sensed there was an accident coming, but it never worked, and you learned your lesson eventually. Now you sit and wait, watching the crossroads with an interest Tomuraβs never felt. Itβs been decades now since you died, and even though youβve long since accepted your death, you still feel some kind of attachment to what you used to be.
You let the accidents happen, but once theyβve happened, you step into the road. Tomura canβt figure out what youβre trying to do as you brush past the already-dead and crouch down beside the injured. At first Tomura thinks youβre trying to save them. Then he thinks youβre trying to kill them faster. But thereβs no pattern to who dies and who doesnβt. It doesnβt mean anything, whatever youβre trying to do. Nothing does.
One day, an accident leaves a human thrown through the windshield like you were, now crushed between their car and the wreck of another. There are other injured people, but you pass them by, going instead to the trapped human. Tomura canβt read the expression on your face. Youβre speaking too quietly to hear. But he can see what youβre doing β crouched on the wreckage, one hand grasping the humanβs, the other stroking the humanβs hair.
It makes Tomura angry β furious β and he doesnβt know why. βYouβre dead,β he snaps at you. βShe canβt hear you.β
You donβt look up. βI know.β
βShe canβt feel you touching her,β Tomura says. βIt wonβt change anything. She doesnβt even know youβre there.β
βI know,β you say. βI know. Thatβs what matters.β
No, it doesnβt. None of it matters. Tomura reaches for you, grasps your shoulder, tries to yank you away β but you yank back hard, so hard that Tomura loses his grip. You look up at last, and Tomura sees his own anger written across your face, harsh and almost terrifying. βIt matters to me,β you say. βYou donβt.β
Tomura doesnβt matter to you? Youβre lying. He knows you are. You think this is Hell, and heβs a demon, so shouldnβt he matter to you? Shouldnβt he be the only important thing in your world β the one who frightens you, who tortures you, who haunts every second of your death? Fuck you. Tomura makes another grab for you, and you slap his hand aside, so hard that you knock him through an ambulance and halfway across the intersection. Then you turn back to the human. Talking again. Touching again, until the medics finally figure out how to pull the human free. Tomuraβs expecting the human to die, but it doesnβt. Itβs still alive when itβs loaded into the ambulance, and the sirens keep wailing all the way out of earshot.
Tomura didnβt try to touch you again while you were with the human, but now youβre moving the newly sleeping souls around, and thatβs so stupid that Tomura canβt watch it for a second longer. He waits until youβve set the soul down, finished arranging its arms in some stupid way that only makes sense to you, and straightened up. Then he grabs your arm and shoulder, shakes you to disorient you, and hurls you as hard as he can into the barrier between his crossroads and everything else.
You lie there for a moment, stunned, but it doesnβt last long. Youβre up on your feet again long before Tomura expected you to be, and this time, you attack first. You seize him by his shoulders and throw him down against the ground, your hand smashing into his face before he catches your wrist and swings you down against the ground yourself. That gives him the upper hand, if only for a second or so. When he tries to wrap his hands around your throat, you duck your chin and sink your teeth into his fingers. Tomura recoils for a split second, and youβre on him again.
Why are you fighting him? Where did you get this kind of strength? Tomura knows exactly where you got the rage from, but the rest of it is a mystery. One miserable human soul shouldnβt hold a candle to him, and yet youβre holding your own, matching Tomura strike for strike. He feels the shock of each blow, the impact when one of you falls. He wonders if your head is ringing like his is. If the heart you used to have is racing, like Tomuraβs would be, if he'd ever had one.
You canβt truly hurt him, just like he canβt actually injure you. All the two of you can do is fight β and you keep fighting, day and night, sun and rain, wind or snow, until the next accident sprays blood and bodies over the crossroads.
You unlock your teeth from around Tomuraβs collarbone and kick out at him to keep him away as you scramble to the site of the accident. Like always, you leave the dead. Like always, you gravitate to the living, and the same anger Tomuraβs spent months or years hammering into you wells up anew. Or maybe itβs not the same. Thereβs something awful about the way you handle the humans you speak to, the way you grasp their hands or stroke their hair or lie down beside them in the wreckage. Something that makes Tomura more than angry. Something that makes him sick, too.
This time, the human dies, and once the others take its body away, you focus your attention on its soul. Youβre strong enough to fight Tomura without ceasing, but carrying another human soul is hard for you. You donβt move it far. Just a few more meters towards the edge of the crossroads, where two other souls are already asleep. The two souls are small. You set the third soul down with them, arranging it so itβs curled around them, and that sick feeling wells up in Tomura again, worse than before.
He throws the challenge across the intersection to you. βIf you think that matters, youβre wrong.β
You turn back to face him, and like Tomuraβs anger is spliced with sickness, yours is cut with misery. βIt matters to me,β you say, and you lunge for Tomura with closed fists.
Youβre fighting again β youβre always fighting β and the accident that interrupts you this time is big enough to rattle Tomuraβs crossroads down to the bones. It does something to you, too. You had Tomura pinned, but now you topple sideways, your soul contorting, your features screwed up in agony. Tomuraβs never seen you look like that before, at least not in death. This is how you looked the first time he saw you. The last time you were alive.
He reaches out to you, but you cringe from his hands. Youβre crawling away, dragging yourself along the road, headed straight for center. You died there. Tomura watched it happen, remembers thinking it was a shitty place to die β and then he understands what youβre doing, enough to get there ahead of you. Thereβs someone else sprawled in the center of the crossroads, their broken body fitting perfectly into the vortex. A year from now, someone else might wake up in Tomuraβs crossroads, never to leave.
Maybe that wouldnβt be the worst thing. Fighting you feels different than it used to, and Tomura could use something else to look at. You reach the center moments later, but unlike Tomura, you donβt sit back and watch. You grasp the body with your useless, insubstantial hands, trying to drag it away.
Itβs the most pointless thing Tomuraβs seen you do in a while. He watches, bemused, and you turn on him in fury. βDonβt just stand there. Help me!ββ
βWith what?β Tomura doesnβt like the way youβre looking at him, like heβs the stupidest thing youβve ever seen. Heβs not the one trying to rescue someone who canβt be saved. βThat humanβs alive. You canβt move it.β
βI have to. We have to.β Youβre pulling with all your strength, and doing absolutely nothing. βThis is a kid. Do you want a little kid to be trapped here forever?β
Tomura wonders how good a little kid would be at fighting. Probably not very good. He couldnβt fight with them like he fights with you. βYou donβt want me here. You hate me,β you say to Tomura. What? βWhy would you want someone else to hate?β
βI donβt hate you,β Tomura says. βYou think I hate you?β
βYes,β you say. On the ground in the center of the vortex, the human β the little kid β is taking strange, lopsided breaths. βIf you donβt hate me, help me move him.β
Tomuraβs used to you saying and doing weird things, but heβs not usually doing them with you. And if youβre doing this, youβre doing it wrong. βDonβt pull the whole thing. Use its hand,β Tomura says. βItβll only get stuck if its whole body is inside when it dies.β
Your expression shifts, and you grab the humanβs hand. Tomura grabs it too, thinking to himself that it wonβt work, itβll never work β only to feel heat against his hand, the frail beat of a pulse under his fingers, the texture of concrete and asphalt brushing his fingertips. Itβs the worst thing Tomuraβs felt in his existence. He thinks. Maybe.
You must feel it too, but youβre a human. You know what the living world is supposed to feel like. βCome on,β you plead with Tomura, desperate. βDo something. I donβt want anyone else to end up like me.β
Tomura thinks of how miserable youβve been. How much time you spent screaming and hiding and lying in the street getting hit by cars. How much time youβve spent fighting with Tomura, how many times heβs told you that what youβre doing doesnβt matter, and how many times youβve clawed a hole in his face and told him that it mattering to you is enough. It isnβt enough, and Tomura knows it, and so do you. Of course you donβt want this for anyone else. Tomura doesnβt want it, either.
The thought rips a hole in Tomura as surely as your nails have done, and unlike those, it doesnβt heal. Tomura yanks on the kidβs hand with all his strength while you pull with all of yours, your fingers wrapped over his so youβre pulling him and the kid at once. The humanβs pulse is faint, fading. Tomura canβt tell if its heart is still beating by the time the two of you move the tips of its fingers out of the center. βDid we get it?β
You look more miserable than Tomuraβs ever seen you. βI donβt know.β
You sit down on the road, and Tomura sits down next to you, and you donβt fight. You donβt speak, either. You wait side by side for a year, frozen until the moment the childβs soul wakes up from its final sleep. It wakes slowly, unlike you. Thereβs no panic or fear in its face, and it doesnβt search itself for the wounds that killed it. It gets to its feet easily, walks past the barrier, and vanishes into the beyond.
Tomura feels an odd sense of relief. Beside him, you start to cry.
Thereβs only one soul from the accident this time, and the person it belonged to was planning to die. It doesnβt make a difference to you. Tomura watches you extract the soul from the wreckage of the car, so crumpled around a lightpost that itβll take the firefighters hours to pull it apart, and carry it off to one side of the crossroads. You arrange the soulβs limbs like always, in a posture Tomura recognized as sleeping a long time ago, and then you settle down beside it. Other souls you leave alone, but the humans who took their own lives rate your company for the entire year they spend asleep.
It bothers Tomura that they get so much of your attention. You wonβt fight him while youβre sitting vigil for one of them, and even though the two of you are more likely to talk than to fight these days, itβs worth a try. He skulks at the edges of the crossroads. βAre you done yet?β
βIt wonβt be long,β you say, like you always say, because thereβs no amount of mortal time that counts as long to either of you. βYou can sit with me if you want.β
Youβve never said that before. Tomuraβs never wanted to, either. He settles down next to you, but canβt resist pointing out the obvious. βYou know ββ
βI know it doesnβt matter to them,β you recite, rolling your eyes. βSave it for someone whoβs going to listen.β
Thereβs nobody to listen. There never has been, until you, and Tomuraβs not done with you. βIf you know it doesnβt matter, then why do you do it?β
You let out a startled laugh. βYou know youβve never asked me that before right now?β
βI have. Donβt make things up.β
βNo, you havenβt. You tell me it doesnβt matter, and I say it matters to me, and then you say Iβm stupid and I tell you to shut up and then we fight until somebody else dies in a car crash.β You glance up at Tomura. βYouβve never asked me that question. Donβt lie.β
βSo what? Iβm asking now,β Tomura says. Youβre right, but heβs not going to admit it. You already spend too much time with the upper hand when you fight him. βIf it doesnβt matter and you know it, why do you keep doing it?β
Youβre quiet for a while, and Tomuraβs crossroads is quiet with you. It seems like there are fewer cars these years. βAre you really asking? Do you really want to know?β
βI donβt ask questions if I donβt want to know the answer.β
βOkay.β You close your eyes for a moment, then open them again. βI know it was just chance. All of it. I was in a car accident. I landed in the center of the vortex when I went through the windshield, and because I died inside it, my soul was trapped here forever. It didnβt happen for a reason. Thereβs no purpose to how I died. It just β is. Or was.β
So you do get it. Tomuraβs not sure why you thought about it any further than that. βAnd thinking about that,β you continue, then stop for a moment. βThinking about that feels worse than dying did. Itβll feel worse than dying every day until forever, and I donβt want to feel that way. The only way not to feel that way is to find a way for it to mean something. To make it mean something, even if itβs only to me.β
Tomura doesnβt like thinking about that. Something about that hurts β not the distant echoes of pain he feels sometimes when you fight, but the way it hurts when he thinks about what it really means to be stuck here forever. βSo what does it mean, then?β
βIt means ββ You trail off for a moment. βThe people who die here die suddenly. They die hurting and scared, and they donβt have a chance to say goodbye. They donβt really have a chance to think, even. I didnβt.β
You never talk about how it felt to die. A shiver runs through you, and because Tomuraβs sitting close, it passes to him, too. βAnd I thought that maybe if there was someone there. Someone to talk to them, even if they canβt hear it. Someone whoβs with them, even if it doesnβt help. So they donβt have to do it alone.β
βLike the Grim Reaper?β
βThe Grim Reaper takes the souls himself. Not quite.β The soul in front of you stirs in its sleep, and you go silent for a moment to watch. βI think the word is β psychopomp. Somebody who helps the dead get where theyβre going. I could have used one.β
You had one, or could have. Tomura was right there, watching you die, and he did nothing. Like he always does nothing. Like heβd always done nothing, until the day he helped you save someone else from ending up like you. Heβs so busy squirming away from that thought that he misses the question you asked, and you have to repeat it. βStill think itβs pointless? I wonβt be mad if you say yes.β
βWhy not?β
βBecause you listened,β you say. You smile slightly, but itβs sad. All your smiles are sad. βThatβs all I can ask for.β
It shouldnβt be. Tomuraβs starting to think he owes you something. You go quiet after that, focusing back in on the sleeping soul. Tomura shakes your shoulder, not hard enough to start a fight but hard enough to catch your attention. βHey. Arenβt you going to ask me?β
βAsk you what?β you say. βWhat it means to you?β
βI belong here,β Tomura says. βThatβs what it means. Being here means Iβm doing what Iβm supposed to do.β
It sounds empty even to Tomura. It shouldnβt. Heβs a demon. Demons haunt things, haunt people, take places that should be neutral and turn them bad. That should be enough. But heβs sitting next to you β you, with your made-up purpose and whatever comfort it brings you β and he feels the way you must have, every time he told you nothing mattered. Nothing matters, him included. Tomura knows that. Itβs just never felt wrong before.
βIt could mean something else,β you say to him. βIf you wanted it to.β
He should tell you itβs stupid. Remind you that nothing matters β not the living, not the dead, not you, not him. Force it through your spirit that the world outside his crossroads is just as pointless and uncaring, that the only difference is that itβs bigger, until thereβs nothing you can do but admit what Tomuraβs known since forever.
But you did admit it. You admitted it, and you donβt care. Tomura thinks about how gentle you are with the injured, even though they canβt see or hear you. How careful you are with souls who will never even know you were there. Tomura doesnβt have that in him. The fact that youβre both trapped here is the only thing youβll ever have in common.
βWhat is this thing?β Tomura asks, and you drop down from where youβre sitting atop a streetlight to come investigate. βDo you know?β
He thinks you must know, because of how much time you used to spend staring at it, but itβs been a long time since you came anywhere close. You study it for a little while. βItβs a memorial,β you say finally. βThis whole sign is, technically β you can see the names of the people whoβve died here on it β but down here, this part, itβs just for one person.β
βFor who?β Tomura asks, and then he looks closer. Thereβs a photograph in a frame set into the smaller stone, dusty and faded by the sun. The face inside it looks familiar, and it should. Tomuraβs seen it every day for untold counts of time. βItβs yours.β
You nod. βDo I still look like that? What do you think?β
βYouβre dead. What else are you going to look like?β
βI donβt know. You changed, so I thought I might, too,β you say. Huh? βAnd you didnβt answer. Is that still what I look like?β
βOf course it is. What do you mean, I changed what I looked like?β
You give Tomura a puzzled look, like you think heβs messing with you β but then your expression clears. βThereβs not a mirror around,β you say. βAnd it wouldnβt matter even if there was, because youβre a ghost. I guess you wouldnβt know.β
βIβm a demon,β Tomura says. βWhat did I used to look like?β
You want to draw something to show him, but thereβs nothing to draw with, and neither you nor Tomura is planning to exert the massive amount of force it takes to influence the living world just to draw a portrait in the sand. You describe Tomura instead, and the longer Tomura listens, the more convinced he is that youβre making fun of him. βI didnβt. Stop lying.β
βYou did,β you say earnestly. βYou had so many hands. All of you was hands. I couldnβt even see your face, because these two huge hands were wrapped around it. The only part of your face I could see was your eyes.β
βYouβre making that up,β Tomura says. βDonβt you think Iβd have noticed if my whole body was made of hands?β
βNo, because it would just be your body. And there wasnβt anybody here to tell you,β you say. βThe first time I saw you, you looked like a monster. I thought you were going to eat me.β
βYou were already dead,β Tomura snaps. βWhat was I supposed to do, eat your soul?β
βIsnβt that what demons do?β you counter. βIf youβd looked like this the first time, I wouldnβt have screamed that much.β
If you wouldnβt have screamed looking at him, Tomura must look a lot different now. βWhat do I look like? Tell me.β
βYou still have some hands. But they arenβt your hands,β you say. Tomura gestures for you to keep talking, but instead you raise your hands, close them around your throat. βTheyβre here, and on your shoulders β and thereβs one on your face, still. I donβt know how you can see around it.β
βI donβt have a hand on my face.β Tomura raises his hand up to his face to test, and his hand bumps against something. He runs his fingers over it, hoping youβre wrong, but instead he finds the outline of knuckles, five fingers, fingertips. An ugly, uncontrollable shiver runs through him and he makes eye contact with you. Eye contact through a set of fingers that arenβt his. βThe other hands. You could take them off?β
You shake your head. βThey never fell off, not even when we were fighting. One day they were just β gone.β
Tomura doesnβt like that. He doesnβt like the hands, doesnβt like that he didnβt know they were there, doesnβt like that there used to be more, doesnβt like that he doesnβt know where they came from or where they went. He doesnβt want to think about it any longer. βSo I still looked like that when we started fighting,β he says, and you nod. βAttacking me when I looked like that β you must be crazy.β
βI was angry.β
βWe donβt fight anymore,β Tomura says. It feels weird to point it out β almost the same as wanting it does. βAre you not angry anymore?β
Your mouth turns down slightly at the corners, and you look away from Tomura. βIβm still angry,β you say. βNot with you.β
Tomura doesnβt need to ask what you have to be angry about. He knows already that you donβt like to waste time being angry, even when you have endless time to waste. βFight me anyway.β
You wonβt, so he shoves you, sending you sprawling into the road β and right into the path of one of the few cars that still travels this way. You freeze in place, then go limp. Tomura hates seeing you like that, with your limbs splayed and your head falling to one side. It looks too much like you did when you died. He steps into the road after you, crouches down to shake your shoulder. βHey ββ
You come to life beneath his hand, and he realizes that you were faking to lure him in. It would piss him off if he didnβt know it meant you want to fight after all. Tomura lets you pull him down, roll over to pin him, and waits a few seconds to let you think youβve got the upper hand before he throws you off. He hasnβt been counting the years since the last time the two of you fought, but itβs been too long. Fighting with you is the most fun he ever has. Or at least it used to be.
Tomura canβt figure out whatβs wrong. Not in this fight, and not in any of the ones he picks with you over the months, years, decades that follow. All he knows is that itβs missing something, and even when Tomura makes you angry enough that you attack first, it doesnβt come back. Not when he grabs you so tightly that youβd break out in bruises if you still had a body. Not when you hit him hard enough to stun him for seconds, minutes. Not when he tears at your skin or when you sink your teeth into his neck, his shoulder, his jaw. He wants things to be the way they were before. And itβs not coming back.
Maybe thatβs why youβre angry. Losing something, knowing he canβt have it back, wanting it anyway β itβs enough to drive even a demon like Tomura crazy.
βItβs quieter than it used to be,β Tomura says. βIsnβt it?β
You nod without looking his way. The two of you are watching as a solitary set of headlights approach from the north, and youβve been watching since the lights appeared on the horizon. It used to be that Tomura couldnβt pick out a single set of headlights if his damnation depended on it; now, itβs rare to see more than a handful of cars. Sometimes you and Tomura pass the time by trying to guess how many cars will pass through the crossroads on a given day. Itβs been a long time since there was a soul asleep in the road.
You donβt say anything, so Tomura prompts you. βWhy?β
βThey could have built a new road, or a train,β you say. βOr maybe they can teleport now. But if you ask me ββ
You trail off. βIβm asking,β Tomura says, and you smile slightly. βWhy?β
βI donβt think theyβre here anymore,β you say. βI think they left.β
βWhat do you mean, left?β
βThe planet,β you say. βLook up at the sky for a second. Does it look different to you?β
Tomura looks up. Itβs dark, like it is about half the time, and the sky is filled with thousands of tiny points of light. Some of them are bigger than others, brighter than others, and thereβs a faint ribbon of something that looks like cloud weaving between them. Tomura would say it looked pretty, if pretty meant anything when it comes to dots in the sky. Thereβs only one kind of pretty that matters.
βItβs clearer than it was when I was alive,β you say. βA lot clearer. Thereβs not as much pollution β from light, or anything else. And there arenβt as many cars, and itβs been so long β we didnβt go extinct, so weβve probably got the technology. I think we left. I bet we left.β
You still know more about humans than Tomura does, even though itβs been thousands of years since you died. βAnd went where?β
βUp there. Out there.β You point up to the sky. βThere are millions and millions of stars. With the right kind of technology we could travel between them. Some of them have planets around them, and some of those planets are enough like ours that we could live on them. I bet we left Earth and found somewhere new, all of us.β
Tomura canβt picture that. The sky, the stars, the space between them. βTheyβll have crossroads out there,β he says. βTheyβll have demons like me.β
βMaybe,β you say. You glance at him. βOr maybe every road out there takes you exactly where you need to go.β
Before Tomura can say anything, the car the two of you have been watching comes to a stop at the crossroads. Tomura thought the headlights were too high to be a car, and heβs right β itβs a bus, the kind of bus humans drove in the era you died in, even though that was eras ago. Thereβs writing on the side of it, but Tomuraβs never been able to read. You read it aloud for him. βOld Earth Ultra Tours. Letβs go closer. I want to hear what they say.β
Tomura follows you closer. The two of you sprawl on top of the bus and watch as the humans pile out to explore. Theyβre dressed strangely, doing strange things, but theyβre still more like the souls who used to sleep here than they are like Tomura, or like you. Most of them avoid the vortex like they know itβs there. Every so often, one will wander through, pause in the middle of it, and every time one does, a shiver travels through your spirit. Tomura hates watching it. After the first few dozen times, he reaches to touch your shoulder.
In all the thousands of years since the first time Tomura laid a hand on you, heβs never touched you when heβs not in the middle of a fight, or trying to start one. Heβs thought about it. Sometimes thereβs not much else to think about, with no cars to watch or souls to stand guard over and nothing to fill the silence with but the questions he wants to ask but doesnβt want answered β or maybe he does. Heβs always thought youβd flinch, or hit back. Instead you let him, and the next time a human walks through the vortex, you stay still.
Eventually one human summons all the others to stand by the sign with your memorial stone at the base. βWeβve spent the last few days traveling by road, as our ancestors did in ancient times,β the human says. Itβs wearing a button, one you tell Tomura says βtour guideβ on it. βThis network of roads was in use long before our ancestors developed motor vehicles, but once they did, this particular intersection was known as the Devilβs Crossing, due to the high number of fatalities that occurred here.β
So they didnβt stop here for no reason. Theyβre here about Tomuraβs crossroads. One of the humans raises its hand, then talks without waiting for the tour guide to call on it. βArenβt there legends about crossroads?β
βYes! Most ancient cultures had a network of superstitions surrounding crossroads. Some of them include ββ
This human, whoever they are, thinks they know a lot about crossroads. They get the part about demons like Tomura right, at least, even if theyβre wrong about summoning and making deals with them. Tomura canβt grant wishes or deal curses. Heβs just here. The humanβs right about crossroads lying between the living world and whatever happens to the dead. The only thing Tomura hears thatβs completely wrong isnβt about demons or the dead at all.
βIn the very ancient past, there was a tradition of conducting executions at crossroads, and burying the bodies where they fell,β the tour guide is saying. Something tangles in the depths of Tomuraβs spirit, tangles and pulls uncomfortably tight. βThose who died by suicide were also buried at crossroads. Itβs believed that this tradition came about as a result of ββ
βHeβs wrong,β Tomura says to you. You look up at him, puzzled. βThey didnβt do that. I was here. Heβs wrong.β
You donβt argue with him, which is a relief. You reach up and cover Tomuraβs hand on your shoulder, still listening to the tour guide. βAll of that being said,β the tour guide continues, βthis particular crossroads comes with a different kind of legend. Many motor vehicle accidents and fatalities occurred here, but there were also survivors β and more than a few survivors reported an encounter with a much more benevolent spirit.β
Your grip on Tomuraβs hand tightens. βThis spirit appeared to them while they waited to be rescued, and spoke to them. Some said that the spirit reassured them that death was not to be feared, or that the spirit distracted them from their pain, or simply that the spirit kept them company. A very benevolent figure indeed!β
βPeople who are hurt and dying see things that arenβt there,β one of the humans on the tour says. Tomura would climb down from the top of the bus and walk through it if he wasnβt busy with you. βAnd our primitive ancestors believed all kinds of things. You sound like you believe it. Why?β
βIt does strain the imagination,β the tour guide says. βHereβs the thing: All of the survivors who reported seeing the spirit described the spirit as looking the exact same way. In fact, they described them as looking like this.β
The guide beckons the humans forward, and they all crouch down to peer at your memorial stone, at the picture of you. The tour guide says a name that must be your name, from when you were alive, and next to Tomura your spirit contorts, frays at the edges. Tomuraβs never seen that before. He seizes you, holds you close, as the guide continues to talk β not about the accidents or the deaths, but about you.
About who you were when you were alive, about everything that happened to lead you to Tomuraβs crossroads. Tomura learns more about you than heβs learned in thousands of years in the span of a few sentences, and all the while, you shiver and crumble in his arms. βWhether itβs true or not, itβs a nice thought, isnβt it? For those who survived this place, there was someone whoβd seen it before to help them through. And for those who died, there was someone to guide their way.β
It mattered. You were right and Tomura was wrong, and what you did here mattered β to the living as well as the dead, enough that youβre remembered, thousands of years after your death. Enough that people came back here from somewhere else, some other world, to see the place you haunt. Or haunted, because youβre fading out of Tomuraβs grip, beginning to dissolve like every soul whoβs ever passed through this place. It wonβt last much longer. Youβll be gone. And Tomura will be alone again, trapped here again, until time itself comes to an end.
He canβt make you stay. He canβt stop you. All he can do is hang on, sick and angry and hopeless and scared, as your soul fades and solidifies, fades and solidifies, over and over until the humans are long gone and the two of you are sprawled out in the empty road. Your eyes are blank and empty, far from here, and even when Tomura says your name, your gaze doesnβt refocus. He says it again, and again. And then, in desperation: βDonβt leave. Donβt leave me here alone.β
You donβt respond, but the next time you fade, you donβt go quite as far. You come back a little stronger, and as the cycle repeats over and over, you settle back into the form Tomuraβs familiar with. Until finally youβre lying still beneath Tomura, your eyes closed, the way you were for the year before you woke. Tomuraβs seized suddenly with the urge to run.
But then you open your eyes, and itβs too late. βYou stayed,β Tomura says, like an idiot.
βI couldnβt leave,β you say. You reach up to Tomura, wrap your arms around his neck, and pull him down to you.
The two of you have never been this close together, not even when youβve fought hard enough to tear each other apart, and your spirits sink into each other, meld together, until Tomura can barely tell where he ends and you begin. Some instinct he canβt remember drives him to get even closer, but he canβt figure out what that would mean. Maybe you know, but you couldnβt answer even if Tomura asked β your mouth is buried in the side of his neck, just over his pulse if he had one. And for a single awestruck second that stretches into eternity, he does.
You untangle from each other sometimes, but never for long. Tomura spends eons locked into you and never misses the time. Sometimes you talk through it. Other times not, and Tomuraβs alone with his thoughts as the world falls silent around him and your spirit molded to the shape of his becomes the only thing thatβs real. If you ask him, heβll tell you what he thinks about. You tell him, when he asks you.
βIβm thinking about where we go,β you say, once. βWhen this is over.β
βWhen itβs over?β Tomura repeats. βIt doesnβt do that.β
βEverything does,β you say. Tomuraβs head is on your chest, and your hands are in his hair. Tomura can remember when you used to yank his hair mid-fight, how he could feel the hopeless rage that drove you both in every part of your soul. Now your hands are gentle, and Tomura relaxes into your touch. βSomething will happen. The crossroads will be destroyed or the planet will fall apart, and then there wonβt be anything keeping us here.β
Tomura doesnβt like thinking about that. βNothing keeping you. Iβm a demon. I stay.β
βNo,β you say after a moment, βI donβt think you are.β
βDonβt be stupid.β
βIβm not,β you say. βYou know the rift?β
There was an earthquake a while ago, strong enough to rupture the crossroads almost straight through. Even if cars came back, even if people came back, they couldnβt travel this way, and now thereβs a crack in the center of it, deep and jagged. βWhat about it?β
βHave you ever gone into it?β
βNo,β Tomura says. βWhy? Have you?β
βYouβd know,β you say dryly. βI think we should.β
Tomura recoils from the thought, so strongly that his spirit rattles. βWhy?β
βI donβt know.β You try to sit up, and Tomura wonβt let you β but you keep trying, and he gives in so you wonβt let him go completely. βItβs just a feeling. And itβs somewhere new, Tomura. When was the last time either of us went somewhere new?β
Never. Tomuraβs never gone anywhere. Heβs always been here, and he always will be. But you wonβt. The crossroads will be destroyed one day, and youβll be gone. βFine,β Tomura says. βLetβs go.β
Youβre hand in hand as you descend into the rift, and Tomura keeps stopping along the way. He canβt say why he keeps stopping, why he keeps turning inwards towards you, but you never push him away. You always melt into him, holding him close for endless lengths of time, until he draws back, and the two of you can walk another few steps further.
βIt feels old in here,β you say. βOlder than us.β
βOlder than you.β Tomura keeps expecting the rift to end, for them to reach the bottom of it, so they can climb back out into the world heβs familiar with. Thereβs things on the walls down here, writing he canβt read, drawings faded with time. βWhat is this stuff?β
βI donβt know,β you say. Your foot descends through something without disturbing it, but you still recoil. βTomura ββ
Tomura hasnβt seen you get scared yet. He pulls you back towards him and investigates. βThose are just bones,β he says. Theyβve gone black and shiny with age, but thereβs nothing else they could be. βItβs a hand.β
You donβt look any less disturbed. Tomura looks further down the path. βThereβs another one,β he says. βCome on.β
Now youβre dragging your feet, but Tomura pulls you along, past hand after hand, and the bottom of the rift rushes up to meet you. Itβs flat here, a plane of ancient stone, and there are more bones here, too. More hands, in a circle, around a hunched, withered form in the center. Youβre pulling at Tomuraβs hand now, trying to drag him back, but he canβt stop himself. Heβs drawn forward, past the boundaries of the circle, until heβs staring down at the ancient thing in the middle.
Itβs a body, or it was. A human body, curled up in death, and itβs old, but not old enough. Not old enough to have been here as long as Tomura should have been, as long as Tomura thought he was. He crouches down beside it, mimics its strange curled pose, and something rocks through him β heat, cold, anger, fear, in a mess that almost rips his spirit in two. He tries to scramble back, but he canβt move. The hands. There are so many hands, fingers pointed accusingly. Hands around the corpseβs arms, around its throat. And one skeletal hand secured down over Tomuraβs face.
βNo,β Tomura says, but his voice doesnβt sound like his any longer. βNo, please ββ
He said that before, too. The memories flood back through Tomura, piercing his eyes, burrowing into his ears, pouring into his mouth when he opens it to scream.
Heβs not a demon. He was here, buried here β killed here. Left to die here, buried alive in a circle of hands, hands bound all over him, sacrificed or punished and left here, forgotten forever. His life comes back to him in shards, the same way you must remember yours, but his are tearing him apart. Theyβre awful. Nothing like the stories the humans told about your life before you came here. Tomuraβs not a demon. Heβs a person, and his bodyβs trapped at the center of the vortex, the same as yours was.
No, not the same. Tomuraβs body made the vortex. Youβve been stuck here all this time because of him.
βTomura.β Youβre pulling him away, hanging onto him so tightly. βTomura, itβs okay. Everythingβs okay.β
Tomura canβt breathe. He couldnβt breathe before, either. His spirit heaves with the memory of dust filling his lungs, and he twists in your grip, clawing at you like when you used to fight. βLook at me,β you say. βTomura, please look.β
He looks. You arenβt angry. Your eyes are soft. βIβm going to do something, and I want you to let me,β you say. Tomura nods, and you reach forward like youβre going to touch his face. But you donβt. You grab something and lift it painlessly away, Tomura barely registering its pressure until itβs gone. βNow look.β
Tomura looks down, and finally he sees what you must have been seeing all along. Thereβs a hand in yours. Heβs had it on his face since before he died, and as he watches, it dissolves into nothingness from between your fingers. Your hands come up and catch the sides of Tomuraβs face. βThatβs the last one,β you say. βWhen I met you, you were covered in them. Theyβre all gone now.β
Is that supposed to mean something? Tomura shakes his head. βIβll explain,β you say. βLetβs not do it here. Letβs go back.β
Tomura can agree to that. He nods, but when you help him up, something yanks his attention back. He glances back at the body. His body. βI have to,β he starts. βI donβt know how.β
You nod. βIβll show you.β
Influencing the living world is hard, but itβs faster with two. You help Tomura unfold his body from its tortured pose, and pull the hands away from whatβs left of it, arranging it into the same position Tomuraβs watched you place so many thousands of souls. Youβre gentle, and some part of Tomura feels it, the way all the others must have when you tended to them. Something about it makes him feel sick.
βWhat do you think?β you ask, once the two of you have laid whatβs left of him to rest. βIs this right?β
Tomura nods. Influencing the living world is hard, and heβs tired, more tired than heβs ever felt in all the eons since his death. He sways on his feet, and you catch him β and then, like he did when he showed you the crossroads, you lift him into your arms and ascend. Tomura remembers dragging you, hauling you up and dropping you from a height. But youβre carrying him. Even once the two of you are clear of the rift, you donβt put him down.
Tomura wonders if youβve realized it yet. He waits for you to say something, but youβre tangling yourself into him like always, and Tomura canβt let you. Not when you donβt know. βItβs my fault.β
βNo.β
βI made the crossroads. I made the vortex. Itβs my fault youβre stuck.β
βYou didnβt make the crossroads or the vortex. The people who put you there did,β you say. βYou didnβt make this place, and itβs not your fault Iβm here. It just β is.β
βWhat I was when you got here ββ Tomura chokes on the words. βI was a monster.β
βI donβt think so,β you say. Your mouth is against Tomuraβs throat again, gentle this time, and Tomura knows what to call it now. He never felt one while he was alive, but he knows what a kiss is. βYou were here alone for a long time. I think you just forgot who you are. If I was in your spot, Iβd have forgotten, too.β
βYou didnβt forget.β
You kiss his neck again. βI had you.β
Itβs been so long. Decades where the two of you didnβt speak, centuries where you did nothing but fight, an intractable length of time where youβve been one, but not whole. Tomura feels awful. He feels sick and hollowed out and guilty and scared. What he was before, heβs not any longer. He never was a demon of the crossroads, never a monster meant to torment you. He was always just Tomura. Just the person heβs been with you.
βYou stayed for me,β he says, and you nod. βWhy?β
βI love you,β you say. Your grip on Tomura tightens, your spirit blurring the edges of his. βYou donβt have to say it back.β
βI wouldnβt,β Tomura says, βexcept I do.β
You look up at that, startled, and Tomura kisses you. In all the thousands of years heβs wanted this, he couldnβt have made it happen before today. The hand was always blocking him, the hand he didnβt notice until you pointed it out, the hand whose weight he didnβt understand until it was gone. Tomuraβs not a demon. It was safer to be a demon. Easier to be a demon than to survive the way you did β knowing what happened to you, knowing what you lost, knowing there was no reason and finding a way to make it matter anyway. He doesnβt want to be a demon anymore.
Tomuraβs lost time with you before. He could lose the rest of time with you, and it wouldnβt be enough.
Tomura knows itβs the last day when it comes, just like you do. You sit together at the edge of the crossroads as the planet begins to collapse inward, falling away beneath your feet. Itβll be over soon. The crossroads will be gone, and you and Tomura will be free to go. Wherever youβre going.
βI saw it, a little bit,β you say, when he asks you. βWhen I was fading. I saw enough to know I didnβt want to see the rest without you.β
βSo itβs β good.β
You nod. Youβre shimmering at the edges, and when Tomura lifts his free hand to look, he realizes that he is, too. That didnβt happen to the souls who used to get up and walk away from the crossroads. They always looked peaceful. Tomura doesnβt know if he can call the way he feels peaceful. Itβs more like heβs ready. Whatever it is thatβs next, heβs ready for it, and even if he wasnβt, it would be fine. Heβs got you.
And thereβs something heβs been thinking about, something heβs held onto for a while because heβs not sure how youβll react. But the worldβs ending. If heβs going to say it, he might as well. βRemember when we used to fight about the reason?β
You laugh faintly and lean in against him. Tomura wraps his arms around you. βI think it happened for a reason,β he says. βMaybe not you dying, but you dying in the place you did.β
βYeah?β The world shakes, but you and Tomura are so insubstantial now that it doesnβt disrupt your spirits even slightly. βTell me.β
This is the part Tomura feels stupid about. He says it anyway. βItβs me,β he says. βYou died in the vortex so you could save me.β
Itβs quiet for a second. The horizon Tomuraβs stared at for millions of years is vanishing and moving closer in the same moment, coming on faster and faster with every moment that passes. A surge of nerves hits him. βIβd be mad, if I were you.β
βIβm not,β you say. βI read somewhere, forever ago β a person who saves one life saves the whole world. I bet it goes for souls, too. And ββ
The horizonβs so close now. After so much time, youβve got seconds left. βAnd I love you,β you say. Youβre looking away from it, at Tomura, and Tomura holds your gaze. βYouβre a good enough reason all on your own.β
βSo are you,β Tomura says, and you smile β and the groundβs torn away beneath you both in a single sudden motion. Tomuraβs heart lurches. βDonβt let go ββ
βNever,β you say, and as whateverβs been waiting for you all this time catches you both and pulls you in, your eyes never leave Tomuraβs face. Not until youβre there. Not until you both can see it. Not until you can take your first steps out of the crossroads together, hand in hand.
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