The Nogitsune took a look at the people running away from him. The Redhead and the Host, scrambling to make their escape. The sight of them pleased it, gave it a rush that it hadn’t felt in a while. Years were a curious thing for a creature as old as the Nogitsune, they passed and moved around it in a rush, nothing was too permanent to deem its attention for long enough. However, it felt the years it spent dormant deep in its host’s bones —years of being kept in a jar will do that to any creature— and the body will not hold it for long if the host does not cooperate. The Nogitsune will make him cooperate.
The Host clutched the Redhead’s arm, glancing back every couple of steps to make sure it was still on their tracks.
“Divine move,” it said, reaching deep into the body for the Host’s voice. “Divine move. You think you have any moves at all?”
They were running now, but the Host was too tired, he couldn't keep the pace and the Redhead was holding him up.
“You can kill the Oni. But me?” Their eyes got bigger as they heard it get closer. Maybe they really thought they had a chance. It amused the Nogitsune how arrogant these humans could be. “Me? I'm a thousand years old. You can't kill me!”
The Nogitsune reached them faster than they could respond. Its hand closed around the biggest threat at the moment, the Redhead. The host couldn’t go anywhere without her. It wrapped its hand around the Redhead’s throat, picking her up, cutting the air flow to her lungs. The Host cried out for her, tried to reach her but the Nogitsune was faster and threw her out of the way against the lockers that lined the hallway.
The Host made a move to run, but seemed to think better of it when the Nogitsune came closer.
“You will accept me inside you. You will cooperate or she dies.”
“Fuck you!” he spat.
“Wrong answer.”
The Redhead was sitting up with a hand against her throat. She screamed a banshee wail when the Nogitsune came closer to her. She knew then; this was it for her.
Unbothered by the sound, it marched towards her and put its hand around the girl’s throat. She wailed and thrashed against it but the Nogitsune didn’t let go. Instead, it squeezed the life out of her, every breath shorter than the last. A frantic voice called behind it but the Nogitsune didn’t turn, it said to the Host, pressing down on the girl’s trachea, “say yes. Say you will cooperate and she lives.”
It heard more than it saw the Host move, gathering courage from inside himself.
“What happens if I say no?” his voice shook, but the Nogitsune could hear hints of challenge in it.
Tired of the waiting game, the Nogitsune brought its second hand to the girl’s neck and twisted, then let go of her body without glancing down.
“Lydia!” the Host cried out, running towards her. The Nogitsune watched him as he cradled her body in his arms, rocking back and forth. “No, no, no, no, no, no, Lydia, wake up!”
“Say yes or your father will be next.”
Instead of replying, the boy kept babbling in the girl’s hair, sobbing uncontrollably. The Nogitsune felt steps approaching the corridor. It saw the Fox, brandishing a katana out of her tails. She was fire and fury and she looked like she could take the creature down. But the Nogitsune was older, wiser and knew that teenage foxes are just like teenage humans: reckless, predictable.
The Fox rushed to the Host and the dead girl, shaking the Host until she had his attention.
“Stiles. Let me see.” She struggled with the boy’s hold over the body but Stiles was still only human, no opponent for a Fox. She swore and urged the boy on, “Stiles, you need to go. Leave. Now!”
But the Host wasn’t listening to the urgency in her voice nor was he paying attention to the Nogitsune. He was consumed by a sorrow so big, so delicious, it trickled down their previous bond, strengthening the creature. This was what the Nogitsune enjoyed the most: chaos, strife, pain. The Host was full of it and the Nogitsune would make good use of it soon.
In his distress, the Host didn’t see it come up behind the Fox, so he didn’t even try to warn her. It grabbed her by the throat with a swift movement. The Fox kicked and thrashed in a pathetic attempt to set herself free, but she was light as a feather and easy to subdue.
“Stiles.” She wasn’t strong enough and the Host wasn’t listening. He was still wrapped around the Redhead’s body with a wild look in his eyes.
The Fox was struggling for air and the Nogitsune knew it wouldn’t be long before she passed out. For the Nogitsune, killing came easy; it didn’t have to think about it because it knew what to do to truly harm a human body. No matter how fit or how well trained, it was a useless fight against a thousand-year-old entity. The Fox choked and she kicked with ferocity one last time, then her body went limp in its hand as she lost consciousness. It should’ve kept going, but the Host finally looked at it then.
“Did you kill her too?” his voice was void of all emotion, however the pain bubbled from under his skin.
“I could.”
“But you need me. You need me. Let her go and I’ll let you have whatever you want.”
The Nogitsune smiled. With a final squeeze, it threw the Fox’s body to the ground and walked to the Host.
“What do I have to do?” the Host asked.
“Let me in, Stiles. All you need to do is let go.”
The Host stood up and squared his shoulders. He took a deep breath and said, “yes. Do it. Take me.”
The Nogitsune didn’t have to do anything else. It already knew what being inside of this body was like. If the Host opened a door, it had a way in. He had done it before, to find the Nemeton. Now, all Stiles needed to do was see that door again and let the Nogitsune back in.
It didn’t take long.
The Nogitsune settled back inside Stiles’ bones and took a deep breath, the air filled its host’s lungs and it felt alive again. Completely, resolutely alive.
Stiles’ thoughts swirled around his mind, a feedback loop of what he had just witnessed and images of the Redhead at other moments of her life. The sentimentality sickened the Nogitsune, but it was useful. This gave it leverage and it knew exactly who to go to next to keep Stiles in a tight leash.
“Let’s pay a visit to the Hale heir, shall we?”
No. You said you would leave them alone if I let you in. You said-
“Stiles. You need to learn to never trust a fox.”
Finding the Hale heir wasn’t difficult because the man was a beacon of supernatural energy. The Nogitsune had a feeling that this wolf had the makings of something else, something stranger. It stored the information for a later time.
Maybe it’s because he was an Alpha before? Stiles suggested, paying attention to the Nogitsune’s line of thought. It didn’t like it, Stiles resisting in a corner of its new body, but the Nogitsune was nothing if not patient. It had waited over 70 years for an opportunity to get back into the world. It would wait however long it took Stiles to vanish under the weight of the Fox.
“No. This is something else.”
It didn’t give Stiles time to think of anything else as it pounded the door to the loft in a panic. It yelled the heir’s name with the same rehearsed anguish it had convinced Stiles’ friend to set it free before.
The man who opened the door was not the Hale heir.
“Stiles, what a pleasant surprise! I thought you were dead,” the man’s fake cheer was evident. He knew Stiles was not Stiles, therefore he had to be eliminated.
“Where’s Derek?” it asked.
“It’s always my dearest nephew with you, isn’t it?”
Peter, shut the fuck up or I will kill you.
The Nogitsune repeated the words out loud with the same fervor Stiles said them in its mind. The man laughed.
“Get in line.”
“Derek!” Stiles’ voice was convincing enough that it made Peter take a step back.
“It- It can’t be.” His hesitation was enough for the Nogitsune, who took the opportunity to slip inside the loft with a slight shove to get Peter out of the way.
“Derek! Come on, I need your help.”
“He’s out. Looking for you presumably. He’s just as predictable as you are, darling.” Peter leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. His posture couldn’t fool the Nogitsune, one didn’t live to be a thousand years old without knowing when a werewolf was getting ready to fight. Luckily, it had information on Peter from Stiles’ mind. The man was not to be left unsupervised.
The Nogitsune sat on the couch, faking Stiles’ restlessness as well as it could. It didn’t need to try too hard, as Stiles’ continued hold on its body made the action easily executable.
He knows. He knows you’re inside and he’s going to kill us.
He can’t, the Nogitsune reassured. He’s nothing.
You don’t know him. He came back from the dead! He’s a persistent bastard. He’ll find a way.
Ah, I see. He’s rotting.
Rotting? What-? How do you know?
The Nogitsune focused its attention on the Peter. It barely took a moment to decide what to do next.
Stiles, I am going to teach you to enjoy this part.
Stiles fought against his mind prison, rattling the bars of the cage he was in. I don’t want to. Do whatever you want to Peter but I don’t want to be here.
Unfortunately, the Nogitsune didn’t give him a choice. When Stiles tried to retreat to a corner of his mind, the Nogitsune pulled him back in, enough for him to get the feeling back in his hands. The Nogitsune stared at them for a moment, memorizing Stiles’ movements before it had to repeat them itself.
“What’s wrong?” Peter asked.
“I think. I-,” the Nogitsune didn’t have to fake a tremble in its voice. This was Stiles’ doing. The Nogitsune pushed back against him, sending him back into whatever space it occupied inside its head. “Get out of my head!”
Those were not the Nogitsune’s words.
The Nogitsune wrestled the control back from Stiles with as much force as Stiles pulled. It was messy and loud inside Stiles’ brain; it did not make for an easy fight. Stiles fought the only way he knew how: brute force trying to break through the wall between the creature and the host.
However, the Nogitsune was stronger, it had experience with unruly hosts and this was not the exception. Stiles’ hands were still Stiles’ though and he dug his nails in his palms furiously, angry enough to break the skin.
“Stiles?”
The Nogitsune stood up. This man should not —could not— be allowed to interfere. It watched the man with such an intensity, it could have sunk inside his body and wrapped around his soul. Understanding dawned on Peter’s eyes and he took a step back.
“Why are you looking for Derek?”
The Nogitsune didn’t reply; there was no need. Stiles thrashed around his mind, screaming loud enough to be an annoying reminder that the Host was still alive. It would teach Stiles later today what happened when he didn’t cooperate. Right now, its sole focus was on the rotting man in front of it.
Peter didn’t move further back, he seemed to realize only so much time could be stolen from the fates.
“I never found out which memories Talia stole,” the man said. He didn’t sound scared, only regretful. “A daughter. What for? Why was she so important that she kept her away?”
The Nogitsune cocked its head. “I don’t care.”
Please. Please, I don’t wanna see this.
It thought Stiles’ humanity was a funny thing, he didn't truly care about this man but he could not stand the idea of seeing his hands do the dirty work. The Nogitsune made sure to make this memorable. The only way to keep Stiles under control was showing him how powerful it was. It raised its hand towards the man’s throat with a slight tremble. Stiles was trying to get his body back.
The Nogitsune didn’t hesitate for a second. Its grip around the man’s throat was strong and it dug its fingers in until the skin broke, then it ripped the skin from the wolf’s neck. Peter tried to shift but the pain oozing off him only made the Nogitsune stronger and it sank its fingers deeper, bursting veins, tearing through tendons and muscle until the man’s body couldn’t stay upright and dropped to the floor. He twitched for a moment, then went still.
Stiles stopped screaming inside his mind, watching in silent horror how the blood spilled off the man’s body. The Nogitsune kneeled, savoring the dying moments of the wolf. A wave of nausea came over Stiles, but it pushed it back into the corner of Stiles’ brain where Stiles laid. Amused with how uncomfortable Stiles was at the scene, the Nogitsune used its newfound strength to punch down on the dead man’s ribcage and grab his heart, squeezing hard, letting the blood flow between its fingers.
“We make a good pair, Stiles.”
Stiles was no longer listening, curled in a corner of his own mind repeating the same mantra over and over again. This isn’t real, I’m dreaming. Wake up, Stiles. Wake up, Stiles. Wake up, S—
The door to the loft opened wide and the Hale heir stood still, impassively taking the scene in.
“Stiles?”
The sound of the man’s voice caught Stiles’ attention. He didn’t make a move to regain control of his own body, but he kept his eyes focused on the Hale heir.
The Nogitsune took his hands out of the dead man’s chest, ripping the heart out. Warm blood flowed down its arm, dripping into the floor with a delightful tap-tap-tap. It took one last look at Peter’s battered body, then glanced at the Hale heir with a mischievous smirk.
“I’ve been meaning to get a hold of you. We’re going to have so much fun.”
If you touch him, I will kill you. Stiles’ mind was far braver than he was in real life.
I’d like to see you try.