Title:  Mercy of the Fallen
Fandom:  Yami no Matsuei
Pairing:  Tsuzuki/Hisoka
Categories:  action, angst, drama, romance, post-canon, established relationship
Length:  Epic [63,000 words, plus the prequels]
Warnings:  violence; discussion of rape, torture & past character death/suicide (and of babies, too)


Author on LJ:  gaudior
Website:  n/a

Author's Summary:  There are some things Tsuzuki just can’t live with.  (Like his job.  His memories.  His part in the death of innocents.  Himself.)  There are some things Hisoka just can’t live without.  (Like Tsuzuki.)  Something’s got to give...

Review:  Yami no Matsuei, while a beautiful story, ended its anime with no firm closure - and let's not even discuss the cliff-hanger manga.  For fanfic writers, it's a delicate balance between clearing up too many plotpoints and making a hash of it, and explaining too few and lacking a purpose to your story.  Mercy of the Fallen strikes just the right note.  It may be impossible for a fic, even an epic length one, to adequately a) get Tsuzuki and Hisoka together, b) nurture the relationship until it's healthy, c) figure out what to do about Muraki, the perennial Big Bad, and d) make the afterlife worthwhile for our characters.  Gaudior's decision to leave the getting-together step for prequel fics was absolutely the right one.  Most authors choose to keep their fic to a) and b), and while that can be satisfying, losing the opportunity to fix c) and d) begins to grate.  While you have the option to read the prequels and see a) in action, it's not really necessary to do before reading Mercy.

Furthermore, Gaudior's grasp of his/her plot is astounding, and so effortlessly done.  The shinigami are drawn back to Earth for what they think will be a routine murder investigation, and they aren't ready to find out that the serial baby-killer is Muraki - or what else Muraki is.  The surprise revelation about Muraki's true identity, about halfway through Mercy, was both a stroke of genius and absolutely necessary to keep the plot spinning towards Tsuzuki and Hisoka's salvation.  Indeed, the behavior of all the characters doesn't seem forced or out of place with what we've seen in canon, and so our heroes' eventual success is so much more uplifting for appearing to be what could really happen, post-canon.

Mercy of the Fallen (the next chapter is linked at the end of each chapter)
The Prequels, a.k.a. how the Tsuzuki/Hisoka relationship started:
Exorcism
Surpassing