Happenstance
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"Feel deep pity for the man who is condemned to the loneliness of being remarkable."
Cry, the Beloved Country
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Chapter 1:
Stars Collapse
Kurama watched the sky bleed. The Makai hadn't changed much since he last stepped foot here.
The place still had the same archaic stench, the same red sky, and the same constant crackle of a lightning storm overhead. Kurama couldn't say he missed it all too much, but he would be lying if he didn't at least admit that he felt nostalgic.
If it weren't for his longing to return to the human world to see his mother, he might've even considered an educational sabbatical here for a year or two.
From high up in the black oak tree he sat in, he stared far down the horizon.
Agreeing to be Yomi's right hand man wouldn't be the kind of arrangement that would last long. Kurama knew Yomi still harbored ill intentions against him; and there were only so many times they could act agreeable until one of them snapped.
Yoko stirred each time they were forced to see one another. The number of their encounters would be indefinite from here on out and Kurama's exploration of the Makai was but a mere excuse to get out from the suffocating confines of Yomi's territory.
What was that stupid cliché to keep your friends close, and enemies closer?
But he wasn't strong enough right now. After all this training, he taught himself how to change into Yoko on a whim, but Yomi was far more powerful. A high S-class demon, even with his blindness.
In the end, clichés and trite sayings only made sense when Kurama had the upper hand. He would have to depend on his wits for the time being.
He breathed deep and tugged off a single withered black leaf from the trunk of the tree he was leaning on. He crushed it in his palm and blew away the black specks from the palm of his hands.
On a whim, he spared a glance down below.
A girl.
She had short, red hair barely reaching her shoulders, and eyes blacker than black.
Had it not been for her strange oriental garb—a traditional qipao painted black with the sleeves sown in gold with a crosshatch insignia of a snake on her shoulder, he surely would've mistaken her for an average human girl.
He recognized her garb; and he knew it wasn't the kind of dress any human would ever wear. It was something symbolic. The snake. He knew it must've meant something; he'd seen it once before. He wracked his mind but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.
She looked alarmed—her brows were wrinkled and she stared intently at him with wide eyes.
Kurama was shocked he hadn't sensed her, but he supposed that it was generally the small, unremarkable apparitions that were ultimately the most dangerous.
Although he had to say, he did notice a distinct smell in the air but before he could fixate on her scent properly, he noticed a black smudge on her forehead.
It was from the black leaf he had just crumpled up in his hand earlier before.
It must've fallen on her head.
But she didn't seem to mind as she opened her mouth to say, "You're…" and her mouth closed while her sentence trailed off slowly into silence.
Before Kurama had to chance to answer, she vanished.
He arched a brow and leaned back against the trunk of the tree, feeling her energy disappear into the distance. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared off ahead at the horizon.
She was probably some apparition who recognized his demon energy. Yoko is here, they cry. A
nd somewhere deep inside him, he felt his stomach churn from the excitement. His reputation preceded him in almost every way.
Maybe it was the ego thing he had going on. The Makai certainly had a tendency of bringing out his untamable side.
Suddenly, she reappeared. She was crouched in front of him, eyes opened wide with a look of the perpetually curious.
Kurama blinked. She wasn't particularly fast; in fact, she was more hesitant and less intuitive than he would've counted on. Her scent had been departing the area when she vanished, but she had turned back and returned in almost an instant.
From this, he could surmise that her ability to be decisive wasn't particularly powerful. He knew he should've been more cautious around an unknown apparition but he didn't sense any particular hostility from her.
"You smell like a human," she stated all-knowingly, scratching the side of her cheek where her dimple was.
Kurama didn't mean to be prompt, but he had to ask, "Who are you?"
"My name's Kira," she replied, furrowing her brows in slight agitation, "but from that dumb look on your face, I'm guessing you don't know who I am."
"If we're being honest here, I don't," he told her.
But he couldn't shake the familiarity of her scent—a cataclysm of rain dew and a thin layer of sweat.
On paper, the combination sounded pretty undesirable but it fused in a way that made sense for Kurama.
But he couldn't remove his gaze from the insignia on her shoulder. His thoughts were shrouded in nostalgia but there was nothing concrete coming to mind, just a wave of familiarity shadowed in darkness.
"Well, that's okay. I suppose my reputation doesn't stretch as far as yours," she admitted halfheartedly, "Yoko. Do you mind if I call you that?"
"Actually, it's Kurama," he corrected her with a hint of indifference; and out of curiosity, he went on, "but if you don't mind me asking—have we met?"
"Kurama? That's won't do you any good. It's not the kind of name that carries much weight by itself, if we're being honest here," she said, and he couldn't miss the particular note of disdain in her tone as she stole his words from earlier on, "but maybe. I couldn't really tell you. My memory isn't much better than yours," and here, she knocked on her noggin with her knuckles, sticking out her tongue, "but I was a fan of yours, a long time ago. Me and probably half of the population in the Makai."
"And the other half?" Kurama asked, slightly amused.
"Wanted you dead," she said, with a big smile on her face.
"I guess that makes me lucky," Kurama tried to suppress the smile on his face.
"Guess it does," she told him, "but I'm not here just to champion your return."
Kira winked, "To be honest, I didn't really recognize you up in that tree; but the thing about an aura is it doesn't really change no matter what kind of vessel you're in—even it's a vessel that belongs to a human," and—there was a pause before she continued, "you've gotten a lot weaker, from what I can see. To be honest, I think I would be able to take you in a match right now. No contest. So tell me—what ever happened to the big, bad Yoko Kurama?"
"Your big talk doesn't intimidate me. It's unwise underestimate someone you've hardly gotten to know," Kurama replied apathetically, and it was here where he decided to finally expose his energy and let it seep slowly into the surrounding air.
The action was completely uncharacteristic of him, but there was just something about being in the Makai that really upped the ante when it came to bragging. Besides, he couldn't let this girl take all the credit. Pride and self-esteem meant more in the Demon World than the Human World—and he couldn't let Yoko down.
She looked relatively unimpressed and didn't even flinch; but she still wore a half-smile on her face like he was doing this to amuse her or something, "Oh. Wow. Your demon energy feels really weird."
A brief moment of silence passed between them. Yoko stirred deep inside him and Kurama knew she was attempting to instigate some kind of fight but he knew he was even worse off by rewarding her for her mockery by responding and pulling out his proverbial guns.
The more he understood Yoko, the more he would have to hide him away in the Human World.
Kira smiled sadly, "From what I can feel, you must be really lonely, huh?"
She was hitting too close to home.
More than anyone else, Kurama had a tendency to distance himself from people, even the people closest to him—(his mother, and a long time ago, Maya).
It wasn't so much his nature for solitude but more of a deep obligation he felt to carry on with his human characteristics by burying his demon features. If he wanted to reside outside the Makai, then he had to mask himself.
Yoko was, in some way, his true form, and his soul melded with Shuichi's long ago—so Yoko had to respect Shuichi's decision. He owed Shuichi this much.
Their relationship was give and take—but more often than not, Shuichi felt as if he were taking more than he could bargain for. Compromising to remain in the human realm only increased the insurmountable loneliness he felt.
When Yoko was truly alive, once upon a time, he had his group of loyal apparitions and demons working to the bone for him. He had his right hand man—Yomi. He had a constant haze of company and unbending loyalty, and there was ultimately no need for him to hide away.
They were all working under the same ideal. They wanted power. And they all operated under the same mantra—to steal, to loot, and to desecrate. They were the kind of company who would die for him on a whim.
But even then, they didn't truly understand him; they only respected him, trusted him, and believed in him. They couldn't see into the depths of his despair. They could only see the strong front he put on.
They only saw whatever Yoko wanted them to see.
The wind swept through and her hair lifted slightly in the breeze. Kira brushed a lock behind her ear and smiled. Her energy was seeping deep into the air, overshadowing the indigo blues of his own aura.
Her energy was warm and nurturing—shades of reds and deep oranges. It resembled the kind of aura a mother would have. He wouldn't have guessed from the way Kira looked; after all, she took on a youthful appearance—the kind of girl who lived nimbly on her toes.
But if she were being honest, and if she did truly was a fan, then she must've been old. In the Makai, and Kurama should've known this better than anyone, the physical features apparitions carried were usually the most deceiving features.
A mid-S-class demon, Yoko stirred somewhere deep inside him. She was powerful, but not in the traditional sense. She didn't carry the weight of strength like Yusuke or the agility of Hiei; rather, her aura was lithe and airy.
She was playful. It was the kind of aura that resembled Jin's carefreeness. If Kurama became Yoko, he knew he could more than overpower her.
She could put on a strong front, but he knew better than anyone else that her conceitedness would get the best of her in the long run. That was the truth with most demons.
Even Yoko had his pride, but he knew how to wean it.
"Well," she said, after the silence stretched too long to be comfortable, "I have to get going. But maybe we'll see each other again some time."
"Yes, well," Kurama couldn't quite find the right words, "perhaps we will."
Kira stood up and he could hear her joints crack. She didn't seem too fazed, as she stretched her arms into the air, "I promise you I mean well. I just think it's strange because you're able to gauge your own strength but you can't see how lonely your own aura is. That means your strength will have limits in the long run."
"How presumptive," he replied, "your observations are duly noted."
She rolled her eyes, "I'm just pointing something out that might save your life some day."
Point. Kurama understood, but told her, "You may think you understand me, but strength is not my ultimate ambition."
"It's never anybody's real ambition," she half-laughed, "but because you're a demon, it's always going to be a part of you. So you should learn to understand and feed your energy before it eats you from the inside out."
She saluted him with two fingers and flashed him a smile before she vanished completely.
Kurama could see her in the distance, hopping from tree to tree until she became a black speck near the horizon.
"Kira—the orphan girl?" Hiei arched a brow, "What business do you have with her?"
The forest stood unnervingly still. Kurama was treading deep within Mukuro's territory, but he had to admit that it was reassuring to see a familiar face. The last he'd seen Hiei was after he'd received a message from Yomi in the Human World.
"No business really," Kurama replied, "we had a brief encounter yesterday. She's an orphan, you say?"
"Was," Hiei said, "she operates under Raizen. She's his errand girl."
Such irony. She certainly never struck Kurama as a simple errand girl with her big talk.
"They say she was indebted to him," Hiei continued, "apparently, she does his dirty work, and has been doing it for a while. I couldn't possibly tell you what kind of debt she owed him, but she policed Yomi's territory as reconnaissance, and killed many demons. There are rumors that at some point, she was killing thousands a day. To be frank I couldn't possibly give a shit. Numbers don't mean anything to me. She's known in the Makai as an idiot who cares only about status."
"Some don't subsist on the desire for power alone," Kurama pointed out. Although, it was ironic that someone who cared so much about "status" was working as an errand girl. But he decided not to point this out.
Hiei sneered, "That may suit a human chump—but this is the Makai. That kind of thinking will get you killed. One day she'll wind up with a knife in her back and by the time she sees it, she'll already have bled out on the floor."
"How scathing," Kurama noted with a touch of disdain, "I'm assuming you've met her before."
Hiei didn't answer, but Kurama already knew. There was something to be said about being someone else's indentured servant. She had an ugly, sad reputation, and it would be the kind of reputation that only grew uglier and sadder over time.
He thought about what she had said earlier about his own loneliness and wondered if she was, perhaps, just as lonely as he was. Like most demons in the Makai, she was an orphan. Was she working for Raizen as a means to escape her own isolation?
Some learned to live on their own as orphans, and those were usually the demons driven to madness in their despair.
It was difficult for Hiei to grasp his concept because he was an exception in the Makai. He was born with both talent and ambition. He thrived in solitude. And despair was the only thing that drove his ambition ablaze.
"She's an idiot," Hiei concluded, "but she's an idiot working for Raizen so that means she's a powerful idiot that much closer to getting what she wants."
"And that is?" Kurama asked.
Hiei narrowed his gaze, "She wants to be Queen of the Makai."
I think I might've known you—once upon a time.
You were a thief, and I was a fool. And after all this time, I still can't seem to shake your name. Maybe it was the benefit of your rank, or maybe it was the legacy you left behind when you departed the Makai.
Sublimity of power was your only truth. The more you had, the more you wanted.
The noble road to getting power was paved with death and sacrifice. But shortcuts and scheming were, after all, your forte, so you understood that wealth would be the quickest and easiest way to achieve it.
Maybe, and in the end, it's probably my fault for not seeing this sooner—when you think you have almost everything you need, you have a tendency to take a little bit more.
Your real truth lied in darkness and despair; and you couldn't have truly known. You were wise and understood many things, but you didn't understand yourself.
And to be honest, you wouldn't have known back then either when you were in the Makai—and, really—there were only so many times you could chase your stars before they collapsed inside you and bled you out.
But the truth is, although I've never met you, I know you're alive. Yoko is here, they'll cry.
And after all this time, I never stopped searching for you.