Disclaimer: I do NOT own Yu Yu Hakusho, nor do I own its characters.

Warning: Please consider the genre of this story, thank you.


IN THE MULBERRY FIELD
CHAPTER ONE: "FECKLESS"

The hours on the mechanical face ticked…ticked…ticked…ticked…ticked…ticked on by, day became night and darkness into light, and this was flaunted when the world peered in through the gossamer besmirched windows. Those days rolled on by into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Time was king and it showed when ol' neglect settled in, creating a comfortably numb hidey-hole for those barred; for surely this place no longer served its purpose as a home.

More than two years had flown by since despair's homecoming, those years gone in a blink of an eye. The memories were nothing more than mere shadows, ink on life's pages, and those were the only traces that were left as the sands washed away all other likely certainties by every night's end. Everything was gone, everything but this place and the broken soul it harbored, and all he had were his fragments.

The color had faded from those avocado green walls, the fancy wallpaper stained by arcane splotches of yellow plasma. The dusky wood floors were sheltered in dust. The chambers were cluttered, papers and objects scattered all over the place. The trash nearly overflowed the bins, though not stacked all the way up to the ceiling.

A lone figure sat there upon the bed's edge, his jaw slacked, eyes glassy and his stare jaded. He gazed off into the gloom, at nothing in particular. His white overcoat, though immaculate or sterile, was wizened, while the knees of his trousers were dingy. And though his face was clean save for the stroke of stubble upon his chin, his ginger locks were long, pulled back, and had far outgrown that style he donned during the years up to his maturity.

MATURITY: the years before it made it seem promising, but now he could see well that it wasn't at all what it was cracked up to be. Nothing ever truly was what he thought, his hoary fantasies proven to be mere self-delusions. Happiness, he realized, was always feigned. And as for himself, he was painstakingly feckless.

When having snapped out of his dreary daze, he regained his composure and regarded his surroundings. He stood up, the soles of his boots knocking against the wood as he departed from the bedroom.

After having made it downstairs, he wandered almost aimlessly until having noticed the condition in the wastebasket. He collected the trash by having hauled it up by the straps and then tied the bag closed with a knot, and all afore he lugged it outside with him when going out to retrieve the mail. Outside, he disposed of the dreadful bag into its proper container by the curve, putting the lid on it prior to fishing a hand into the letterbox. He pulled out seven pieces and retreated back indoors.

He flipped through the posts, two of which were nothing more than spam, four of which were bills, and…a mysterious letter.

Staring at the envelope, the man noted how it was addressed to him but with no return dispatch, the sender seemed anonymous thus far. Upon further study, he discerned the paper casing to be worn, the ink on the outside fade as though the letter dated years back and, yet, somehow it was singed, the edges burnt, bounded and smudged in soot. There was something awfully eerie about this, even if it was clearly nothing more than inanimate thing. It was not like the letter was going to bite him any time soon, and the idea of such seemed far too illogical and asinine to be considered a possibility. Before he could open it, however, he consciously glanced up at the time and understood well that it would have to wait.

The redhead thoroughly washed and sanitized his hands while at the sink, numbly cleansing them up past his wrists, his sleeves rolled up ahead of time. As soon as he dried his hands with a disposable towel, he grabbed his belongings and marched to the garage.

He unlocked and slid into his compact SUV (sports utility vehicle), jumped the engine and stalled there briefly to allow the motor to warm up. With the engine humming, he shifted the gears into reverse and gently pressed his foot on the gas. The sensors on the garage door went off then, detecting vehicular movement before hoisting up to allow him passage to back out into the driveway. And once there, he yielded briefly and steered out into the road, shifted the gears into drive and drove off, adhering to the speed limit.

Peering down the thoroughfare, he narrowed his eyes at his settings. The conditions were perilous, the land itself insipid, and the atmosphere behaved as a white, vaporous veil.

"Shit! This miasma is as thick as…blood on a knife."

He leaned forward in his seat some, while he tightly gripped the steering wheel, and to the point his knuckles turned a bone white; his fingers were thin, almost meatless. To his bewilderment, he saw how vacant the streets were.

"…Kazuma…"

A voice, as faint as can be, sobbed from a close distance.

"…Kazuma…"

"…Kazuma…"

"...Kuwabara."

"Doctor…"

"Doctor… Doctor Kuwabara!"

His eyes widened in response to having been addressed so abruptly, having heard an all too familiar voice beforehand, and one of which withdrew his attention until he came crashing back from Neptune. When his sight came into focus, he recovered himself from gawking down at his latex secured hands, the rest of himself clothed in scrubs. In his right hand he held a scalpel.

He drew his attention upward, a blood bag being the very next thing he saw. The blood oozed, dripping down a long, transparent tube that lead down into a needle, a needle inserted and secure by surgical to the inner elbow of an arm.

"The patient is under, stable and ready for your next move."

He turned to the voice that emerged from his left, and to which then he stared into a pair mahogany pools both individually encompassed by almond-shaped offish white.

The nurse furrowed her brow in concern. "Are you alright, doctor?"

Shifting his eyes from her, his gaze swept around the room, and recognized the awkward stares he was receiving and from whom. There were at least six of them, and they were all gathered, standing around the operation table. His assistant shook his head, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him over to have a word with him.

"Are you sure you can do this? You look out of it, been so since…" The man drawled off into Kuwabara's ear, then slid before him, having pulled down his mask to speak more clearly. "We could call in someone else?"

Kazuma paused for a moment, and mauled over the option as the heart monitor beeped monotonously from behind. He shook his head a moment later, perhaps having dug his grave rather than coming to a decision.

His assistant inhaled profoundly. "Listen, you need to get your head straight…" He threw in a cautionary response. "…or else you'll botch this up."

In defense, Kazuma scowled at him. "Since when have I ever messed up?" His dark eyes flashed as he leered. "What am I? …Doctor Death?"

He hated being doubted, all the more despised being undermined, and loathed being berated by those who held themselves to be far greater than he. Incensed, he wanted to bite this cocky bastard's face, and tear it clean off with his teeth and rip the flesh into tiny pieces so that not even the best surgeons could assist the little shit in looking normal ever again.

Why so much animosity? Simple, because for awhile that sycophant has had his eyes set on his career since day one.

The Ph. A. rolled his eyes, finding no hilarity in the situation, failing to identify the threat. "One mistake is all it takes." He reminded him. "Mess up and there will be serious hell to pay. No one will forgive you for that, you know it."

'Mess up and... No one will forgive you for that.'

Those words echoed through Kazuma's mind…

…And within a blinding flash, he slammed on the breaks.

The wheels on his SUV screamed, and then only wailed and sputtered when the vehicle nearly spun out of control.

Since when did he have such a lead foot, or a need for speed? He almost ran a red light on his way to…

Say, where was he going anyway? When he thought about it, his mind drew to a blank. All he knew was that he needed to be somewhere…somewhere important. It was clear to him that he was needed, gravely so, but as to where he was needed and what for—that itself eluded him.

He was not needed at the hospital was he? From what he could recall, he was currently on temporary leave.

Kazuma turned off the motor, unfastened his seatbelt, opened the door and slid out of the driver's seat to inspect for any possible damages.

…TO BE CONTINUED…


More to come in the future, so please be patience. This story was inspired by various sources, especially (inspirited to) by a friend of your's truly. :)