Author's Notes:
I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title; "Connections" is its working title, so I am soliciting suggestions from any interested parties.
I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot and the occasional, brief OC are mine.
Connections
Chapter One
Somehow he was back at the dump site again. "Reclamation Center", some fragment of his daylight mind corrected, but in his dreams it was still the old industrial dump. And there were the SD again. All around Weiss were the heaps of concrete and steel, the mounds of rubble that were their only allies. The rush of wind in his face. The bite of the cigarette Yohji had passed him, the damage it was doing his lungs hardly mattering now.
While he was down at the bottom of that little valley again, holding a wounded Omi, it suddenly occurred to him to be uncertain if he was grateful for dodging death twice, living beyond the car accident and the fire; or pissed off about dying on a garbage heap. Reflecting that either way a lot of effort had been wasted on him since he was six if it ended here.
And then; there was Aya, with the machine gun out the roof of Persia's car. Coming over the mound of debris they huddled before, mowing down SD forces left and right and. . .. The car stopped and Ken got a good look - for just a second. The car was gone and the figure wasn't Aya -it was someone else. Someone with wild slick dark hair and smirking eyes and a devil-may-care grin with the sun rising behind him. Someone Ken didn't know, but recognized all the same. The figure raised its arms and the rising sun burst into white fire along the horizon. It cleared the area of everything but itself and Weiss and Ken found himself clinging to his three brothers-in-arms as the world dissolved into white. And the smirking figure was swallowed up in the morning light and the buzzing of his alarm.
Ken rolled over and slapped the alarm off. He had early shift this morning and if he wanted a jog or a shower he couldn't snooze. He felt the need of something to clear the fuzziness out of his head. Every time he had that dream his head felt funny for a while afterward, as if it were too full. Too full of things he couldn't quite place. Ken shuddered, it was a sensation that reminded him all to much of the museum. And who *was* that stranger in this dream?
He threw the sheet off, climbed out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He turned the sink on cold and splashed till he was sure his eyes were open. Too bad he couldn't splash out the lingering sense of unease. It would have to be a run. Just a shower wasn't going to get it this time, and maybe he'd get lucky and catch some kids in the park before school with a ball. Yeah, that was what he needed; a good kick round with a ball. He finished dressing by jamming his feet into too-old sneakers and hopping a bit in them to settle them on his feet. It was mornings like this he was so grateful for the kids -with them he could pretend he was six again and had never had anything more important in his life than his soccer ball.
He shrugged into his jacket just in case the shiver was the from the cold and not from the dream or the thought of tonight, (and that thought was another reason for a good kick-round, fuzziness later would just not do). Then Ken walked out the door, shut it behind him and tossed his keys in the air, catching and pocketing them on his way down the stairs.
---|---
Ken paused at the open partition door -he was sure he'd heard something. A dozen feet to his right and near the other door into the space ahead Aya stopped, waiting for Ken. Ken pointed to his ear, indicating he'd heard something and gestured for Aya to go through his door first. Hopefully Aya could come around behind the unseen something while Ken engaged it head on. Aya nodded, his lips moving as he relayed the plan through their sub vocal mics to Yohji and Omi. Then he slipped into the next room -a silent crimson shadow in a forest of night pieces.
Ken waited a few seconds for Aya to get in to position then dived and rolled through the doorway with a yell. He came to his feet just in time to slip aside as a suckered tentacle hit the ground with a meaty wet thwak, right where he'd come to his feet. The tentacle was one of a pair that burst from the abdomen of a man-shaped thing. It had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head and there the resemblance to human kind ceased. All three eyes bulged and the mouth was fringed with smaller tentacles and every visible surface on the thing was covered with suckers that gleamed wetly in the faint light. Ken could also see that he wouldn't be getting any help from Aya soon. Aya was fencing with something, again humanoid, at least eight feet tall and horned on the head, great scythes of horn that grew out from the forearm screeching against the edge of Aya's katana as they dueled. Ken just had time to see Yohji drop from the second story, wrapping his wire around the horned thing's head and setting his foot in the small of it's back before instinct warned him and he ducked another tentacle . Then it was simply duck and block for a while and occasionally cut at those tremendous whips of flesh as Ken struggled to survive stalling for the time his team mates needed to deal with their own goliath.
Unfortunately Ken was tiring. Suddenly he heard the wet thwak, but instead of seeing it chip cement he felt the tentacle wrap around a leg. The thing tumbled him from his feet and dumped him unceremoniously on his hip. It turned and began dragging him across the warehouse floor toward the waterfront dock. Ken twisted around searching for something to grab. Finally he had nothing left but digging his bugnuks ineffectually into the concrete floor trying to get a grip to fight the thing's drag. If it got him to the water. . .. Then Aya's katana was there and the drag was gone. Ken squirmed backwards cutting and ripping the suckers off his legs, very glad for his thick jeans.
Shrieking, the thing swung at Aya three handed; the irregular rhythm giving it enough advantage force Aya onto the defensive. Aya switched to blocking desperately as he backpedaled. The thing seemed to be completely unaffected by losing a body part.
Ken rolled into a crouch and was about to leap at the thing claws first when "stay down!" in Omi's voice kept him on the cement and under the path of the two crossbow bolts that suddenly appeared in the thing's right and central eyes. Aya had been forced around halfway to Ken which had left the monster in the perfect position for Omi to target as he came through the door. The arrow's force drove it away from Aya and knocked it ponderously off it's feet. It fell with a muffled crash. It didn't rise.
Ken finally got to stand up and walked over to stare down at the motionless form - or he thought it was motionless. Abruptly it wavered in his vision like a heat mirage and a vague, sparkling pink mist seemed to rise from the body and hover a moment before dissipating. He was very disturbed that it seemed to dissipate in the direction of himself, Aya, Omi behind them, and Yohji standing by the other corpse.
.
"Shit!" Ken exclaimed -did you see that?!" He looked at his team mates, Yohji and Omi wore matching confused looks but Aya was grim, "I didn't see anything really unusual", volunteered Yohji, "Omi?, Aya?"
Omi shook his head as Aya nodded, catching Ken's eyes "That- red fog?" Ken nodded and Aya continued "Did you see it -- move too?"
"Yeah", Ken replied, "I wonder why Yohji and Omi didn't?."
"Maybe we just weren't close enough?" Omi volunteered
"Or you could both just be nuts" Yohji added, "all things considered.. for any of us to go 'off' would hardly be a surprise."
"But not to be expected," responded Omi, "and not simultaneously having an identical hallucination, which seems to have been the case? You both saw the same thing?"
Ken and Aya nodded.
Ken knelt down poking curiously at the body "I don't think we were just seeing things guys -this one's even weirder than anything Masafumi Takatori came up with.
"All things considered", Aya added, "the four of us ruling out the supernatural would be naive at best."
"Supernatural!" exclaimed Yohji, "does it have to be supernatural? Couldn't it just have been just well- chemical? The fog stuff..."
Ken and Aya shook their heads together,
"Na," said Ken, "no I don't think that stuff was 'chemical' it felt.. well..."
"-it felt." interrupted Aya "chemical mists don't have a 'feel'. I couldn't really say what it felt like but chemical mists don't have a feel unless they hit you."
Ken rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably "which it did actually. Though I agree Aya, it made my skin crawl long before it touched any of us."
"Did anyone feel anything when it hit us?" Omi asked looking at Aya and Ken.
Ken and Aya exchanged glances before Ken spoke, "Not really -a little wired from the adrenaline and surprised at what I saw -but I don't think I felt anything unusual..."
Aya looked a bit more uncertain. "I'm,... not sure. But, no, nothing unusual."
Omi nodded. "Then I think the best we can do is to do some research on our own. We should still tell Kriticker about it in our report, but in some way that-"
"-doesn't make me and Aya sound nuts?" cut in Ken.
"Exactly." Yohji answered. "Kritiker is worried enough about us without adding fuel to the fire. Besides, they're really not set up to research the supernatural." He shrugged, " Not that we're that much better, but I think that after the museum we'd at least recognize a real working ritual if we tripped across one?" He got a chorus of reluctant nods in answer. "Which is something Kritiker hasn't shown any particular skill in doing. Let alone belief in..
I'm still not sure Burman hasn't convinced herself that the whole Esset thing wasn't a case of mass hallucination.."
Omi shrugged, "Well she wasn't there. Unlike us she didn't have the reality of the supernatural shoved down her throat.." He shook the memory off, "So we're agreed then? Report it, but not all the details, and do our own investigation?"
"Which assumes we will be any better at it." Aya remarked. "But yes, as you say Omi."
"Then let's get out of here and have Kritiker come clean up before some poor cop stumbles on this." Ken sniffed, holding his nose at the growing smell.
With a round of unspoken agreement Weiss faded into the shadows like the felines they were named for and the White rode the dark back to its den, to sleep awhile again.
---|---
Yuusuke flipped his favorite chopper into the air and with a carefully measured spurt of youki tipped the spinning blade point down into the chopping block to wait for tomorrow. With a small smirk he hung his apron on the hook that had held the owner's aprons since Yukimura - san's days and was reaching to flip off the light as the applause broke out.
"Bravo Yuusuke!" Botan cheered "It's good to see you haven't lost your touch!"
Yuusuke glared warily over his shoulder. "What touch Botan? You know I'm retired now. Keiko and I are going to raise a family. Add his father's opinion of me and I'm not taking missions for Junior anymore". His eyes narrowed. "You better not be here about one".
"Well... Haa haa eumm... ." Botan hedged, "actually-"
"-NO. N.O., no, Botan. If you want to come home and see Keiko she'd love a visit. Otherwise go back and remind Koenma about his father again". His features settled into a mildly irritated snarl. "It's been better than a decade Botan, Koenma must have someone else to hand these jobs to".
Botan slid off her oar and folded her hands in the sleeves of her kimono, her features settling into seriousness. "No, Yuusuke , there hasn't been anyone to replace you. Your level of performance, dedication and compassion is hard to find. . .."
Yuusuke snorted at that.
Botan shook her head and raised a hand for silence. "I'm not flattering you. Death speaks only the truth, you know that. Besides," she continued before he could interrupt. "This is less an assignment than- an offer."
"What is that supposed to mean Botan?"
Wordlessly she drew an folder from her sleeve and handed it to him. He broke the red seal, opened it and began to read. She said, "Koenma-sama felt you deserved first shot at this case, even if you are retired. If you pass he will find someone else, but, if you want it he felt it should be yours."
Slowly Yuusuke nodded, shutting the folder. "He was right. This was my case the first time and it's still my case." He locked eyes with Botan, "I assume I'll be allowed my team?"
She nodded. "Koenma-sama had to do some fast negotiation with his father and King Enma instructs you are to remember his ban on Youkai killing humans but Kurama and Hiei will be allowed to help."
"Good. Botan, let them all know and we'll meet up at Genkai's." He gave her a wry grin, "Just like old times." She smiled thinly back, gave a determined nod, summoned her oar and was gone.
"Yep," Yuusuke mused, rubbing his chin and wincing reflexively as he thought of his wife's reaction. "just like old times."