Living Once Again

By: Sorano

Introduction: Directly after the Dark Tournament, Yusuke goes back to his somewhat deceptively normal life… or so he thought. A memory of his childhood comes back to haunt him, literally. He's loosing sleep, doesn't want to eat, he's tired of the world. Just so tired. Then with a flash of pure light, his past illuminates his dark world… and sends him sprawling to literally land on his ass.

Sorano's Note: Shifted actual timeline up a bit and scheduled it to where the Dark Tournament took place during the summer after Yusuke graduates Junior High. The third Saga is non-existent.

Version: 2.0 Major plot and scene changes.

Disclaimer: Ishikoaru Sorano does not own any material copyrighted by Yoshihiro Tagashi. Original characters and original ideas are property of Ishikoaru Sorano.

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Chapter One

"What do you want for breakfast" A small girl, with shoulder length black hair falling out of its braid, opened the floor cabinet and looked at the boxes of cereal.

Feeling warm and good, happy and innocent, he sat on the kitchen floor in his yellow pajamas looking at the colorful boxes. "I wan' bran" It was his favorite. It was so yummy!

"Bran flakes? Okay." She tugged out the purple box and gave it to him. "There, all yours, Yuyu"

Yusuke pulled open the top of the box and stuck his hand in, grabbing a handful of cereal and shoving it into his mouth. The girl pulled out the red box and opened it as well, getting a handful of the colorful pebble cereal and eating it. She looked up when a woman came through the front door, bringing the smell of stale beer with her.

Her clothes were barely hanging onto her skin. In one hand, she held a dead cigarette and a heavy roll of cash in the other. "Hey kids."

"Mommy" Yusuke got up quickly, spilling the cereal box he had been holding. Rushing over to his mother, he threw his small arms around her leg to hug her. He was so glad she was home! He hadn't seen her in three days.

She patted him on the head and pried him off. "Take care of him." She said to the girl who just stared. His Mommy then went off to sleep in front of the TV.

There was a confused frown on the young girl's face"When don't I watch him"

Then there was a pounding at the door—

Yusuke Urameshi sat up abruptly in bed and held his head as his pounding heart raged blood in his ears. It hadn't been a bad dream, but it had worried him. Something about the pounding of the door had him feeling something terrible had been about to happen. It shook him, sending chills down to his bones.

He was sweating enough to soak his nightshirt.

There was no going back to sleep, as much as he wished to fall back into his warm bedcovers. Instead, he found himself getting up and trudging to the single bathroom in the apartment. He washed his face, using the cold water to cleanse away whatever the heck that dream had been.

It was four in the morning. Way too early for any sane human. And while he lived in a pretty crazy parallel world from most mortals, he was certainly sane.

At least, that's what he told himself.

He went back into his room, trying to figure the reason he had woken up in the first place. It seemed he had already forgotten. Outside his window, he could see twilight approaching so that it grayed the sky and dimmed the faint stars. There were clouds on the horizon, just like the troubles on the edge of his mind.

His room was sparse and pretty clean considering he hadn't technically lived in it long. This was a basically new apartment, one his mother had acquired after their first place had burned down. Since then, he had been training or on missions, too busy to even leave clothes on the floor.

Taking steps toward his low bed, he sat heavily and ran his hands through his hair. Now he was facing the full-length mirror nailed to the inside of his door. He could see his tired, withdrawn image reflected back at him. There were bruise-colored circles under his glazed coffee brown eyes showing against lightly tanned skin. His short black hair was disorderly, out of place and hanging around his brow. His shoulders slumped as he leaned on his elbows against his knees, his hands held back most of his hair as he held the sides of his head. Would someone looking at him see a powerful young man who had pretty much saved the world by facing one of the highest levels of demons in the one on one match of the century? No, most likely not. As he had observed before, not many other humans knew that demons and ghosts really existed.

But he did. Oh Kami did he ever.

Warm light hit his back as time flew by. The sun was rising, silhouetting his frame, clothed in a baggy white shirt and blue and white pinstriped boxers. Yusuke yawned, felt a sick satisfaction in the popping sound his jaw made, and stretched his arms over his head as if he could touch the ceiling.

Then the door opened to allow his mother to pop into his room. Seeing him awake surprised her, "What are you doing up already?" It wasn't usual for him to be up before five minutes until he had to go to school.

"Hey, what're you doing up at all? Shouldn't you be knocked out in front of the TV" Yusuke asked her sarcasm coating his response.

"You shouldn't talk to me like that, you know."

"Whatever." Yusuke rubbed at his eyes, frustrated.

Atsuko, all long light brown hair, hard alcohol hazed eyes, and lithe underfed figure, stood in the doorway still holding onto the handle. She shook her head and stepped out again. "School today, get dressed. I'll have breakfast ready."

Yusuke doubted that his mother even knew what breakfast was let alone how to cook it.

This was the part he dreaded every morning since becoming a reluctant freshman at Meiou Senior High School. There was a pink and gold uniform waiting for him in his closet, which he would have to wear unless he wanted to dress in his old green uniform, and look equally stupid with short sleeves and pants because he had outgrown it. Sacrifice dignity and wear pink, or forgo an equal amount of pride and look like a pocket protector toting geek. Choices, choices.

Okay, technically the Meiou uniform was fuchsia and gold, but pink was still pink no matter what shade, unless it was red. Damn Kurama for correcting him and putting the insignificant detail into his head.

Yusuke had avoided school the first week of starting term, one to recover from the rigors of the tournament, and two because he didn't want to go to the preppy high school his mother had put him in, insisting that he go there. How he had managed to pass the entrance exam was unexplained and better left so.

This would officially be his first day at school. Did he really want to wear pink? What would that do to his image? He could just go to school in sweats and a sleeveless t-shirt, then get kicked out, then spend the whole day doing… what?

Unconsciously, he found himself sliding on the fuchsia slacks and tucking the white undershirt into the hem. He shrugged into the gold trimmed naval-style jacket with the same detached methodology and slid on the shiny black shoes that completed the outfit. By the time his hands reached for the buttons to close up the jacket, he froze and looked at himself in the mirror.

"Great. Just great. I'll be the laughing stock of Tokyo. Tough guy Urameshi wearing pansy pink." He snarled at his reflection.

And he thought, somehow the cold stare he gave to the mirror counteracted the stupidity of the uniform color. He looked… colder, meaner somehow. Maybe the achieved appearance was the same as the look Kurama got when he instinctively knew he was superior to his opponent. Cool and calm, by every means calculating. Yusuke was pretty sure if he went to school with the same snarl then no one would dare mention it.

It would also give him an excuse to pound loud-mouthed punks into the ground if they so much as curled their lip in his direction.

Satisfied with that line of reasoning, he left the jacket unbuttoned, determined to keep some of his punk image, grabbed his empty book bag, and stepped out of his room.

He had forgotten about his hair gel.

"What the hell?" He had gotten as far as the living room when his nose caught a whiff of something burning. "Shit." Dropping the book bag, his enhanced speed had him in the kitchen in half the time it took to flutter an eyelash.

Eggs left on the stove unattended were burning a sickening brown to black. One smooth motion had the pan sliding into the sink, water gushing from the tap, and steam rising from the metal as heat and liquid clashed. With another move, he turned off the electric stove just when his mother walked back in.

"What happened to the eggs" Atsuko looked in the sink, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, and turned off the faucet.

"You let them burn." He turned away and grabbed his book bag from where he had dropped it. "Leave breakfast to the restaurants Mom. I'm out." He caught his mother puffing at her cigarette out of the corner of his eye as he closed the apartment door. 'And so starts another day in hell.'

To his surprise, he saw Kurama waiting for him on the corner of the street, leaning against a lamppost. Mentally, Yusuke reminded himself that in public, Kurama was supposed to be known as Shuichi. "Hey" was his only greeting.

Kurama smiled in return. "Hey yourself. It's about time you tried out school." His bright green eyes scanned Yusuke's attire. "And in almost proper uniform, no less."

Yusuke shrugged and tried not to feel uncomfortable under the other boy's gaze. Only sixteen, Kurama held the knowledge of a three hundred year old demon fox. The fox's spirit was locked inside the human vessel Shuichi, and the result was a confident human with incredibly intense and knowledgeable eyes. It made Yusuke nervous at the same time as comforted.

He initiated the process of walking to the senior high school where they would now be attending together where Kurama would be a year ahead of Yusuke as a sophomore.

The kitsune-human fell in step beside Yusuke as easily as if the matter of them meeting and walking together were routine. "Kuwabara chose not to attend senior high." Kurama kept his eyes focused ahead of him. He was aware of Yusuke's detached mood even if the detective wasn't aware of it himself.

"He wouldn't have the brains to get into a senior high anyway." He mumbled, swinging his book bag and using his other hand to finger comb his gel-less hair.

"Keiko was very surprised when you managed to pass Meiou's entrance exam. She told me that you usually get grades below thirty points."

Yusuke darted a glance to his redhead companion. Kurama's voice hadn't snide or disbelieving, just innocently curious.

"Seems I misjudged you then, right Yusuke? I once said that your dumb luck had looked like brilliant strategy to me. Maybe it really was strategy. Latent, at least." He paused to consider the idea seriously. Yusuke really was more of a physical person. Supposing he was of above average intelligence, he wouldn't be so inclined to show it. Using fists, instead his brain, was more the detective's way.

They entered the Meiou Senior High School grounds. Kurama felt Yusuke tense up beside him. The detective shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to notice the frightened stares, whispered rumors, squinty-eyed cringes, and all around goggling. It seemed the presence of the infamous punk Yusuke Urameshi in the prestigious school had spread like wildfire.

"Really scared of you, aren't they"

Yusuke stopped in the middle of the courtyard and stared blankly into space.

Yusuke looked up to the girl who walked beside him down the water channel. It was a balmy day and the water in the channel was going by them lazily. He stumbled a few times, unable to get his small legs to keep up with the girl's steps.

They walked that way to avoid the bigger boys who wanted to hurt them if they saw them. She held her favorite book in her free hand. It was a thick leather bound book and though she couldn't read it well, she still cherished it. She looked down at him and smiled"Almost to the house, Yuyu."

"You aren't going anywhere." Three boys with their backs to the sun pounded their fists into their palms. Each had bangs that covered their eyes or shadowed them.

The girl shoved Yusuke behind her and looked threateningly at the big kids"You leave us alone, you big bullies"

"Oh, really scary ain't ya" The biggest boy who stood in the middle pounded his fist again and stepped towards them—

'What is that?' but already the daydream slipped away from him. Yusuke tried grabbing for the tendrils of the dream, but came up with nil.

Kurama shook his arm gently "Yusuke, snap out of it. Yusuke?"

"I'm fine Kura—I mean, Shuichi." He brushed the concerned spirit vessel away and shook himself into the present. On a change of subject, "Do you think Keiko is here yet?"

Yes, she had enrolled to the school as well. Her presence was most of the reason why Atsuko had pushed Yusuke to attend the senior high. If Keiko was around then it was mostly assured that he would get at least some work done.

"I would believe so seeing as how she's coming our way now. Brace yourself Detective. She looks in the mood to improvise you as a punching bag." For his safety as well as amusement, Kurama stepped away from Yusuke far enough to remain out of line of fire and still watch the soap opera unfold.

"Yusuke! I can't believe you. How could you miss the first week of school? Do you want to get expelled?"

"I was planning on it." He grumbled.

Keiko, short tawny hair getting a little messy as she lashed out, stepped on Yusuke's poor unsuspecting foot. "You manage to get into this high class school and you're telling me you want to get kicked out? Button up your jacket and run a real comb through your hair Yusuke, you're a mess."

"Keiko…" His sigh was in desperation to escape the motherly hooting of Keiko Yukimura. "I swear you're a million times worse than my mother." Yusuke neatly sidestepped and walked with as much dignity as he could muster, book bag under one arm, back straight, into his new school.

This left Kurama to rationalize with Keiko until she dashed away to class when the bell rang.

Luckily, Yusuke didn't have the same home classroom as Keiko. That would have been the deal breaker. He liked Keiko, she was his first friend and one of the few people he could trust, but she really was annoying if she hung around too much.

But when he stepped into the room, five minutes late though he had been on time for school, he wished Keiko were with him. It was stupid to want support on the first day of school, but the blatant stares, the flinching, shrinking away, the hushed murmurs, were enough to make him turn around and walk away from school altogether.

He would have too, but the perky blonde teacher for first period got up from her desk and met him at the doorway. "Yusuke Urameshi?" She smiled, ignoring his unbuttoned jacket that was strictly against the dress code.

He immediately tensed up "Yeah, that's me."

She took his hand, pulling it from its safe haven in his pocket, shook it and patted him on the shoulder with her other hand. "It's very nice to see you. My name is Ms. Hirotada. I heard that you got one of the highest scores on the entrance exams. I believe you'll do fine here at Meiou." Gesticulating towards a seat on the first row closest to the windows, she brought his attention to a seat in the middle of the row. "Please sit down and we'll begin class."

Off balance from the teacher's unashamed consideration, he took his seat with a shrug.

Miss Hirotada taught English for his first subject. She was fluent in it. She was also as sprightly as a sunbeam on a coffee high. Yusuke thought he should find it annoying after the first five minutes, but she taught well, and even though he hadn't been paying attention, he had been able to pick up a few English words.

His eyelids drooped low as he gazed out the window at the sky beyond and the blossoming peach trees along the edges of the courtyard. He felt warm, easy, and safe. It wasn't often that he felt safe… ever.

Giggling laughter sang in his ears and he looked up. She was looking down at him with warm brown eyes, the spring sun putting peach blossom color to her cheeks. The color was in perfect tandem with the pale pink flowers growing from the branches surrounding her.

"Up." Yusuke told her.

She shook her head. "Uhuh Yusuke. You're not big enough to climb."

"Up." He folded his arms across his young chest and pouted. "Up." He argued again. He wanted to be up in the tree too. He didn't like it when he couldn't reach her.

Her eyes became dreamy and she looked away, to the side, her vision filled with the pale spring delicacies. "Spring, so much of it around. It's pretty, isn't it?"

He stared up, helpless. The area felt too open. He wanted her to come down and hold his hand. Yusuke was only four years old, he wasn't safe on his own.

Yusuke sniffed audibly and with speed only a young child would admire, she jumped down from the tree. The tree hadn't been very tall, but it was big to him, and his eyes widened in wonder as she landed without getting hurt.

Then she was there, her arms around him, pulling him down to sit with her under the small tree. "I love you Yuyu. Always remember."

"Urameshi? Wake up, class has ended. You can get up and stretch before your next teacher comes in." Miss Hirotada shook his shoulder.

He had his head resting in the fold of his arms on the desk. Yusuke hadn't even realized he had slumped forward to go to sleep. "Huh? Oh, yeah."

While she walked away and prepared to go to her next class, Yusuke worked the kink out of his shoulder and tried to recall why he was thinking of peach blossoms. He could almost smell the flowers.

Probably just the window open or some girl's perfume.

After school found him at the soccer field watching Keiko kick butt at practice. She looked good in a those tiny shorts.

He was sitting on one of the metal bleachers and leaning back on another with his elbows, his feet propped on the bleacher below him. His white undershirt was untucked, his jacket discarded behind him.

"It's four o'clock Yusuke, I thought you would be gone." Kurama came out of nowhere, in his usual style, and sat down on the bleachers with Yusuke.

"Yeah well, Keiko asked me to walk her home later and she has the stupid soccer thing. Why do people want to join clubs anyway?"

"Yes, why do people want to socialize?" The redhead asked humorously.

"Ha ha. What clubs do you have?" Yusuke pulled his eyes away from the field and glanced at the other boy.

Kurama shrugged, "Painting sometimes. When I feel like it." He brushed back some of his hair. The gesture meant he was either going to pull out that rose of his or that he was about to dig around in personal business.

Yusuke braced himself.

"Don't be like that, Detective. You've been spacing out ever since we got back from the tournament. Something's bothering you."

He refused to meet the fox's eyes. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong. Leave me alone."

"Well, you know the saying, 'Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.'"

"What?" What did denial have to do with Egypt? It must be one of those smart kid things. "Speak so that I can understand." Stressed, he patted around his pockets for his cigarettes, finding the pack he slid out one health hazard and then dug around his pockets for a lighter.

Genkai had restricted his tobacco intake during training, and he hadn't been able to find a vending machine on Hanging Neck Island. Now that his life was back to some kind of normalcy, he had also gone back to smoking.

By the time he had the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, he had thought his situation through. Who better to talk to then someone with three hundred years of experience? "I've been… I don't know. I wake up startled like I'm about to be attacked. This morning in class I fell asleep and… there were peach trees." Okay, now he just sounded stupid. So he shut up.

"Dreams."

"Get out of my head." Yusuke glared at the second year student next to him.

Kurama laughed softly and shook his head slowly. "Dreams can haunt anybody. You shouldn't let them get to you." He wasn't looking at Yusuke; he was staring off into space as if speaking from experience. "About a memory or a premonition"

"Like I said, I don't know. They come and go pretty quick." He shrugged and tried to settle down. "Must not have been important."

The coach blew the whistle signaling the end of practice. Telling the players to go to the locker room and then get some rest at home. Keiko immediately started towards the bleachers.

Kurama got up to let Yusuke go. Before he went, Yusuke barely caught the words he left behind. "If it isn't important, then you wouldn't stress over it."

"Uh…" Yusuke couldn't reply because Kurama was already out of sight.

Talking to Kurama had always been disconcerting, but why it should shake him more so now was even more rattling. The fox-human had a point though. If the dreams he had been trying to remember weren't important, then he wouldn't and shouldn't worry.

But he was worried, so didn't that mean the dreams were important?

The pounding at the door came again. Atsuko was knocked out in front of the TV so the girl went to see who it was through the window.

A man, burly sort of, with dark blonde hair and a shadowed face stood on the welcome mat outside. He was dressed like all the other Black Suits that would come to their home to see Atsuko. But, they were usually the same Black Suits and not one yet had dark blonde hair.

The girl hissed between her teeth as she pushed Yusuke a little towards the living room. "Go wake Atsuko. Tell her someone's at the door."

Yusuke sat up quickly after breaking from the dream. He was once again sweating profusely and his heart pounded furiously. He tumbled out of bed and stood on shaking legs as he tried to get his thoughts in order and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The realization that he was a mess when he got up in the morning after only two hours of sleep wasn't particularly comforting. The bags under his eyes were deeper, darker. His skin was pasty and he was a little thinner. The dreams had been taking their toll.

It had gotten to the point where he was doing everything to avoid going to sleep. Even homework and studying. That was how low he had sunk.

Sometimes he would prowl the less civilized streets at night, just daring anyone to try to make a move to take him. He had put three yakuza leaders in the hospital and had enjoyed making a few street punks wet their pants from the scare he put into them.

In the past week, he had also taken down two low class demons and survived a date with Keiko.

The date had been the worst thing. Shopping, a chic lunch at an uptown restaurant, lattes at a café… Yusuke had to dress up for the whole thing, wear suitable clothes, and what not. He had been uncomfortable with the date from start to finish. But she was his friend, and he liked to see her happy. Seeing her happy with him was the only thing that kept him from ditching the suit jacket and bolting.

He decided he wasn't going to school today. So he dressed in what street clothes would fit him and stepped out of the house intending to take a walk.

But Kurama was waiting for him. In street clothes; a light brown ankle length duster, white shirt, and blue jeans with tennis shoes. He was leaning against the lamppost as always and gave a flicker of a smile when Yusuke walked over.

"I'm skipping school, but what are you doing out of uniform?"

"It's Sunday, Yusuke."

"Shit, it is?" He flinched. Now he was losing track of the days. Just great.

Kurama, with his hair pulled gently back in a low tail, straightened and started walking down the street. Yusuke followed out of habit and they walked in silence for a few blocks until they crossed a busy street and headed south. Kurama eventually stopped at a water channel and sat on the grassy slope.

To Yusuke's uneasy surprise, he realized that the water channel was the same one from his dream.

"Tell me about it. It helps to talk." Kurama picked at a blade of grass and waited for Yusuke to sit down.

He did, reluctantly at first, then tiredly. Kami, he was so tired. "Her name is Maori, I think." What possessed him to tell the human/spirit about his memories, Yusuke would never know. To calm himself he took out a cigarette and lit it. Puffed on it a bit.

"Maori? Lovely name."

The wind picked up and tried to hush Yusuke's next words"It was the only nice thing my mother ever gave her." He looked over to Kurama to gauge his reaction, but his face was impassive and still. The cigarette was half gone with Yusuke's next intake.

"The dreams are about her. She's someone you didn't remember until now"

He didn't even nod"She was six the last time I saw her, I was four. I can't remember any further than that."

"What brought this on" Kurama picked at another piece of grass and watched the shallow water of the channel run its course.

"I'm glad you're the only kid I got Yusuke. Another would be a big hassle if they had your attitude and manners! Or lack thereof." Atsuko flung her dead cigarette at Yusuke as he walked through the door.

He had just come back from the Dark Tournament.

"You didn't even know it was the dreams disturbing you until last week." Kurama finally looked at him.

"And I couldn't remember details until two days ago." He let the wind push him back to lie on the grass. He closed his eyes as if to see the memories and dreams play like movies on the back of his eyelids. The small raven-haired girl named Maori with brown eyes, telling him she loved him. To remember that, always.

"I don't have a clue what happened after that guy came to our door."

Sorano's Note: Wow, major mondo revision. Did you like it? I hope you did. This chapter goes by a little quick paced, but it will probably slow down in the next two or three chapters to allow more of the storyline to show itself. Stay tuned!