In the End
Kuramagal
Genre: Angst/Drama
Rating: T (for now, though as the story progresses it might go up)
Summary: We've played the game of running and hiding, but how long will it be until we can no longer continue?
Warnings: It's angst/drama for a reason, meaning that it's not going to be a happy story, so if your looking for an uplifting and soulful story, you've come to the wrong place.
Prologue:
It started with a bang, and then the whole world was thrown into chaos. Dust and debris were thrown into the air, only to settle down a moment later; like ash from a volcano blanketing what remained. With it came the cries of those trapped in the ruble, and slowly but surely those cries died down, as their owners passed from this world.
The newscaster that day was a fool. He had contributed the disaster to an atomic bombing of some kind. But as my friends and I watched the television set in horror, we realized that the inevitable disaster had happened; Demons had finally overthrown the spirit world, and now had their main target in sight, the human world. Botan had been with us that day, she and the girls had decided to go on a 'little shopping spree,' and had left us with Megumi, Keiko and my five year old and Yuki, Kuwabara and Yukina's four year old. When they returned home Botan was sobbing supported by a pale Shizuru, with Yukina and Keiko trailing behind like lost sheep.
Keiko made a beeline for me. "What…What's going on?" Keiko had asked her large eyes wide with terror as she clutched Megumi to her. For some reason I was reminded of when we were kids. We had been out of the edge of town when she had spotted a small rabbit lying dead in the grass, its little ears limp. Keiko had been so sad and confused, she looked like that again but this time it was different; we weren't little kids anymore. "Yusuke? Please tell me what's going on?" she pleaded, tears running down her cheeks and into the hair of the silent Megumi. My little daughter looked so confused, her brown eyes asked me, why is mommy crying? Oblivious to her child's concern, Keiko continued to cry and I could only shake my head wordlessly at the pair of them. Even I didn't know.
"Koenma!" a wail came from the sobbing ferry girl, who was being comforted by both Shizuru and Kurama. "Koenma!" she cried again, and then with speed I had not given her credit for; she grabbed me by the shirt. "Find him Yusuke!" she shouted, her normally spirited eyes, crazed. "The spirit world!" she wept again. It was after she said that that she caught another glimpse of the television and fell back against Kurama who was trying to guide her away from me.
I looked at my three best friends, all of whom looked as drained and afraid as I felt. No words were spoken between us, they weren't needed. We knew what had to happen, we just didn't want to do it. And so we all stood there, still in my living room making a semicircle around the television.
Then like a spark shot through all of us, we moved for the doorway. I stopped before my hand clasped the handle, I knew what had to happen, so I spoke to the door rather than my best friends. "Someone has to stay with them," I said, my mind supplying me with images of the helpless girls. I heard no movement behind me, no one wanted to stay behind; we wanted to suffer as one. I sighed and making up my mind I turned towards my friend. After all, I was the leader; I had to make this choice.
"Kurama, Kuwabara, Hiei I want all three of you to stay here," at my words they began to protest. "No," I said shortly cutting through their arguments my voice harsher and sharper than I intended. "Kuwabara," I turned to my best friend and meeting his deep eyes "I want you take the girls and get them to Genkai's; she has enough wards around it to protect us for a time." Without giving him a chance to protest I turned my eyes to the wizen green eyes of Kurama.
"Kurama, get your mother and bring her to Genkai's temple, then I need you to find Touya and Jin and have them find the rest of the old gang. We're going to have to create some kind of force to stop them. Hiei," I turned to our final and least predictable friend. "I realize you have no ties to this world, but I'm asking for your help. I need you to join the demons attacking us," I breathed heavily, "I need you to be our spy." Hiei looked shocked by my request.
"Are you trying to create an army, detective?" he asked sharply. Although his voice was sharp, I could hear the shock in it. Clearly he had not been expecting this.
I smiled dryly. "Yeah, you want to enlist?" I asked. My voice was sarcastic enough.
Hiei's response was his traditional 'hn' and then he disappeared. Typical, my mind supplied and noted with some satistfaction that he hadn't said no outright. "See you two at Genkai's," I said to my two remaining friends. Kuwabara and Kurama both nodded curtly to me and set off. And then with a heavy heart I followed suit.
It only took me an hour to reach the spirit world, but what I saw there I had not prepared for. The great looming buildings that once rose above the clouds now were dust at my feet. There was nothing left, and what I could find in the mass of wreckage, left me with little hope that any survived.
As I walked among the wreckage that had once been Rekei, I found something that stopped my heart. In the mess of fire and darkness, I found the one thing that convinced me of their evitable end. They were so small that had I not been looking for something, I wouldn't have even noticed them. But as things were, I could have never missed the two broken pieces of a pacifier that lay in the dirt, destroyed completely.
It was those two pieces that I brought back and showed only to my three closest friends. When I did, not even Hiei could hide his shock and sorrow. For a long time, we sat in silence, no of us able to think of a single positive or uplifting thing to say. Finally, after what seemed like a decade, we all stood and left. I knew I should have said or done something, but sometimes, especially for times like this, there wasn't anything I could say.
To this day, I never told any one what I saw in Rekei. The broken pieces of the pacifier were enough for Kuwabara, if not for the other two. But Kurama and Hiei respected that I refused to speak of it. I knew they still possess great curiosity, for I saw it in their eyes. But it was never breeched again. In fact, the only thing we did say was what I felt they; we needed to come to terms with. That was that, we were alone, with only each other to survive by. But we would survive.
And so we've continued. We've played the game of hide and seek well, we've hidden for nearly a year now, yet it seems that everytime we hide we are found, and everytime we run we are pursued. It's the none ending game of hide and seek, only unlike the childhood game of my youth, this one has severe repercussion if we're found.
It happened once, and I won't ever let it happen again. It will not let them find us. I won't let them kill another, never again. They look to me as their leader and no matter how poor of leader I was in the past, I will be one now.
I took me many lessons to learn what a leader truly was. How he should act. What he needed to do, to remember for others. Unfortunately, my lessons were hard ones. And then ended up costing me greatly. This is my story, our story. The story of what I will say is our fight for survival. Our fight together as friends, it's the story of our lessons together.
But first, let me start with my first lesson, which was one of leadership and intellect. Two things, up until then I had left to Kurama.