The Demon Queen

Shared Cells

"Sakura?"

"What?"

"This is your fault."

Kokushibou and I were in the basement, polishing skulls per Douma's orders. We had gotten far too rowdy while training and accidentally broke a prayer shrine he had outside. To say that Douma was furious was an understatement. He even dared to freeze us into ice and yank our ears before deciding to order us into the basement.

"How is it my fault?" I asked.

"You --" He pointed to me. "Don't control your movements enough."

"And you do? All the time?"

Kokushibou's lip stiffened. "I am always the master of my own body." Out of nowhere, he sneezed from the dust in the air. The skull he was holding fell out of his hands.

I sent out a tentacle from my body. It effortlessly caught the skull before it hit the stone floor.

Kokushibou sniffled. "Thank you," he said and took the skull. He immediately put it back on its shelf.

I sucked the tentacle back to my body.

Kokushibou sneezed again.

"You really have to take care of that," I said.

"I am completely fine."

"Mhm." I finished on the skull I was polishing and put it back on the shelf. I reached into my pocket to take out a tissue. I handed it to Kokushibou.

Kokushibou stared at the tissue for a moment, as if he didn't know what to do with it. "I -- I don't need this," he said and took it from my hand. He turned away from me.

"Sure. Okay." I took another skull and started to polish it.

Kokushibou blew his nose.

"Doesn't need it ..." I mumbled to myself.

The sniffling and blowing that followed quickly got on my nerves.

"Can't you be quieter with that?" I asked.

Still poking the tissue in his nose, Kokushibou turned around to face me. He sniffled again and put the tissue into his kimono sleeve. "I'm glad for you that you aren't prone to such irritations, Sakura --"

"Is this going to go into the story of how you used to get nosebleeds as a kid?" I asked with a bored voice.

Embarrassed, he stared at me. I kept my attention to polishing the skull I had.

"Hm," Kokushibou hummed and picked up a dusty skull from the shelf. He stepped over to me. "I am glad for you," he said before he lightly blew the dust from the skull into my face.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath. I heard another long, drawn-out puff followed by a snicker.

"This is quite the effective way to clean these things," Kokushibou said, followed by another light snicker.

I felt a sneeze tickling my nose. I gripped the skull I was holding tighter and sneezed, facing away from Kokushibou.

Kokushibou chuckled and started to work on the skull he was holding.

I waved my hand in front of my face. "You do know that Douma's gonna get really, really angry if we mess around down there, right?"

"Why are we even following orders from Douma?"

I looked at him seriously. "Because he's letting us stay here. Where else are we going to go, Michikatsu?"

He paused for a moment, his eyes blinking as he looked at me. He then took a deep breath, accepting the circumstances to be true, and responded with a "Mm" before returning to polishing the skull.

It was quiet. Neither of us spoke as we continued with the work, though Kokushibou occasionally grunted out of disgust for what he was doing or sniffled from the dust in the air.

As time went on, I started to get an unsettling feeling in my nerves. It was like some troublesome energy was dancing on my skin, laughing at me as it did. When I looked to my arms, I had goosebumps.

That's weird. It's not even that cold down here.

I looked at the walls upon walls of skulls all staring and smiling at me.

And I know it's not haunted down here. That was always just a joke.

I looked to the half-polished skull in my hands and then to Kokushibou. "Michikatsu?"

"Mm?"

"Do you feel anything strange down here?"

He turned to look at me with a dull expression on his face.

"I mean, really strange and not right." I looked to my arms. The places where I had gotten goosebumps started to turn red. Slowly but surely, they also began to burn.

Kokushibou's eyes opened wide. He could see the burning spots form on my face and neck. He dropped the skull he was working on and rushed over to me. "What's happening?" He started to feel his hands all over my skin.

"I don't know, but it feels like the top of my skin is on fire!"

"Forget this!" He pushed the skull out of my hand, leaving it to smash on the floor. Before I could say anything, he hoisted me over his shoulder and ran out of the basement.