Hotaru

Two Years Ago

"Oh come on," Hotaru began, taking a long drag of her cigarette before exhaling dramatically. "Must you always shit on my plans?"

"I wouldn't 'shit' on them if they weren't all so ill-conceived," Inari's voice replied, heavily mixed with static and emerging in a soft reverberation from the mirror Hotaru held in her hands.

He had given the compact mirror to her over a hundred years ago, as a sort of two-way communication device, and it was beginning to show its age. Still, even with its fading quality and tarnished silver film, Inari's disappointed stare came through clear as crystal.

"I really don't understand why you couldn't have just used traditional methods," Inari chided lightly. "You're a professional informant, Hotaru. Why not use some of those skills and just track Hiei down the old fashioned way?"

"Because this is way more efficient," she replied, taking another long drag and allowing her gaze to venture downwards. She was perched in the branch of a tree- it was uncomfortably high and crawling with insects, but it allowed her the best vantage point of the abandoned factory- a small window of dirty glass looked directly into the chamber in which a low-level demon had made his home.

The low-level demon in question was Yatsude- a sad, messy excuse for a tsuchigumo, who had apparently decided that Makai just wasn't for him and that he'd rather live in some old doll factory. He- like many demons in that time- had come to her to request her help; her matatabi ability, which allowed her to transport easily between the two realms either alone or with others in tow, had opened up wonderful new business opportunities in illegal relocation and smuggling. Like many others before him, Yatsude had paid her a small sum to carry him across the realm into Ningenkai so he could start up a new life- in a disgusting old warehouse, apparently. Whatever had brought the demon to such a ridiculous conclusion was beyond Hotaru, but she figured it wasn't worth her time. If he wanted to spend the rest of his days living in squalor and stirring up unnecessary trouble, he was more than welcome to do so.

Regardless of why he had chosen to relocate, the fact was that his new living arrangement, plus his penchant for stirring up trouble and gorging himself on living flesh, was about to come quite in handy.

"You're going to get yourself killed, you know. Or beaten, at the very least," Inari continued prattling on, though Hotaru kept her eyes fixed on Yatsude in the factory below. "Once Hiei finds out it was you that started the rumor-"

"Oh he won't find out," she laughed back. "Hiei's not that great at playing detective."

The rumor in question actually consisted of two- the first she had began a month ago among some bandit circles in Makai. The rumor was that a beautiful koorime girl- name unknown- had relocated to Ningenkai to search for her brother. The rumor itself had focused more on the idea that the girl was now living in the lap of luxury with a plethora of human slaves to attend to her- no one would give half a mind to a story about some girl they didn't know, but demons did love to rant and rave about the successes of those who had made it to the human realm and would eagerly tell anyone who would listen.

Whether or not the Yukina actually was in Ningenkai, Hotaru didn't know- try as she might she had been unable to locate the girl thus far, but that didn't really matter. She just needed to ensure the rumor spread, and that a certain height-challenged fire demon heard about it.

And, sure enough, he did- Hiei was spotted wandering about the human realm not but three weeks after.

Which, in turn, led to part two of her master plan- she began spreading rumors about a demon located in Meiou City who had become so successful in trapping and devouring the local humans that he had even managed to trap a koorime- one of the rarest of Makai beings- and was now considering devouring her as well. And, just as before, the Makai-bred populace of Ningenkai quickly latched on to the story of their comrade's imagined success, and the rumor spread like wild fire. This time, it only took Hiei a few days to find the man in question.

And now, tonight, he would be coming to the factory to rescue his beloved sister.

Why should Hotaru waste her valuable time and energy searching for Hiei when she could engineer a situation in which he came to her? It seemed simple, at least from her perspective.

Inari, however, seemed wholly against it.

"Even if you do confront him,he'll undoubtedly be in a foul mood after discovering that the rumors were false," Inari continued droning on. "Do you really think that is the best time to confront him?"

"I don't give a shit what his mood is," Hotaru quipped back. "That little weasel owes me, and I'm going to make sure he pays up! It's already been a full year- this shit has to stop eventually."

"I still don't believe confronting him is the proper way to go about this- if anything you need him to sign a new contract, and a surprise-attack isn't going to persuade him to do that," Inari pointed out astutely, and Hotaru's jaw clamped shut.

"For the thousandth time, there was nothing wrong with the original contract," she ground out through clenched teeth. "It had all the normal clauses just like any of the others did- there's no feasible reason he should be able to get out of it without the punishment clause going into effect."

"And that punishment clause was death, correct?" Inari asked, though he already knew the answer. "Which is why I'm saying, Hotaru, that something must have been wrong with it- clearly he's not fulfilling the terms, but he's also quite plainly alive. Your contracts are magically binding, so unless there is a hidden loophole then he shouldn't be able to-"

"- It's a glitch, alright?" she snapped, and Inari let out a irritated sigh.

"I keep telling you that there's no such thing as a 'glitch'. These things either work or they don't- there isn't a being alive that's immune to the effects of one of your contracts once their name is signed to it. Either the contract works as expected, or there's a problem with the wording- there are no other options. That's just a fact and- Hotaru? … Hotaru, are you even listening to me?"

Hotaru was, in fact, not listening. The massive doors into the factory had been opened, and she knew the confrontation she was waiting for was only minutes away. Inari continued on through the mirror, trying to get her attention and draw her back into his chastisement of her methodology, but instead she kept her gaze fixed through the windows into the chamber below.

And, finally, Hiei came into view- cloaked in black and carrying a katana, just as he had been the last time she saw him.

"He's here," Hotaru whispered, snuffing out her cigarette on a nearby branch just as Inari launched into another tirade of warnings and admonishments. Before she could respond, however, she noticed something else. "He's not alone..."

"… Pardon?"

"He's with someone."

"I know what you meant- who is he with?"

"I dunno. Some..." Her voice trailed off and she regarded the unforeseen visitor below- he was around her height, or a bit taller, with short cut hair the color of rosewood. He looked young, and she recognized a moment later that he was dressed in the customary uniform of a middle school student. "He's with some boy..."

"A child?" Inari repeated back. "Hiei has a son?"

"No, no, not like that-" Hotaru started, before falling into stunned silence as the two launched an attack at Yatsude. Hiei's fighting style was the same as Hotaru had ever seen it, but the new kid...

He had drawn something extremely small from his uniform pocket, and with a flick of the wrist the small item had transformed itself into a blade not unlike a scimitar.

A scimitar made from a blade of grass.

"I've gotta go," Hotaru said suddenly, snapping the mirror shut before Inari could protest and slipping it into the pocket of her coat. Then, she leaned forward, watching the red-haired boy intently as he worked in tandem with Hiei to take down Yatsude with swift precision.

Clearly he was more experienced than he looked, but Hotaru could not bring herself to understand how. Yes, there were humans within the realm that possessed supernatural abilities and it wasn't unheard of for some humans to have traces for demonic blood running through their veins, but to manipulate plant physiology was a purely animal-spirit characteristic- and to be able to do so to such a degree must have meant spirit fox, or a demonic variant of the badger at the very least.

However, if the boy below were an animal spirit in disguise, Hotaru was relatively certain that she'd be able to see an ears and a tail. Though standard shape-shifting was used to hide these qualities, they still remained in a sort of extra-physical 'ether', and would be visible to certain individuals- gods, for one thing (as Hotaru had learned first hand), or individuals with a greater capacity to alter their form. The fact that Hotaru was undoubtedly highly skilled at changing her own form meant she was fairly certain in saying that those fox-like features didn't exist.

And, if they didn't exist, then there was only one possibility: the boy down below was soundly human.

She watched the fight from start to finish, only realizing when the boys began to search about the factory that she only had a few moments to get down from her perch and make her way around the building back towards the road if she hoped to catch Hiei upon his exit. So, she forced all questions about the red-headed boy out of her mind and began the dangerous climb downwards.

Stumbling through the underbrush, Hotaru began to review all she meant to say to Hiei once she caught him. Inari hadn't been entirely wrong- confronting him angrily with a 'surprise attack' would likely only result in either Hiei running away or hacking her head off. She needed to be delicate.

As she neared the road, she could hear quiet talking between Hiei and the strange boy and she slowed her pace so as to remain undetected. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be quite enough.

"It's probably just a cat," remarked an unfamiliar voice- judging by the adolescent waver, it likely belonged to the boy.

And, with just as much brazenness as he had ever held, Hiei's voice flowed out threateningly from the darkness. "Then it'll be a dead cat."

Same as ever, I see, Hotaru thought to herself with a laugh, before deciding to put an end to her sneaking about and striding out of the woods. "You can't just kill everything you see, Hiei."

His gaze narrowed- obviously he was just as happy to see her as she had been expecting. "What are you doing here?"

"The real question is, what are you doing here?" she quipped in return, letting a touch of her long-running frustration with the demon leak into her tone. Really, what kind of question was that? I'm looking for you, you cheating ass.

Hiei let out a sharp laugh- the kind that was void of amusement and meant only to mock. "Did you really think I would come crawling to you?"

"Uh, yea. Basically," she replied. "You agreed to the deal. You signed the contract."

"It doesn't mean I have to comply."

"Actually, it does," she corrected, and Hiei laughed again.

"Well, if you're here to kill me then go ahead," Hiei offered lightly, obviously plainly aware that Hotaru was incapable of doing anything of the sort. "I have no intention of becoming your lap dog."

"I never said you'd be my 'lap dog'," Hotaru snapped back defensively, before swallowing her irritation in favor of poorly-masked civility. It had been over a year that she had been trying to get in contact with him again- hearing rumors of his whereabouts only to arrive days or even minutes after he had already left- chasing him around wildly throughout both of the realms. She wasn't about to fuck all of this up now just because she couldn't keep her temper in check, but Hiei was just so difficult. Still, she persisted on. "You agreed that you'd serve as my guardian for seven years and so far, one of those I've spent having to look for your ass."

"Pity," was Hiei's only response- the nonchalant little fuck. And, even worse, before Hotaru could voice her reply- some other vague attempt to reason with the stubborn twat- Hiei vanished from her sight; the only sign he hadn't disappeared entirely was the soft wind through the underbrush that signaled which way he had bounded off in.

"Oh god damn it! Not again!" Hotaru shouted, caught off guard momentarily by the abruptness of his departure before she turned in the direction of his escape to call after him. "Fuck you, Hiei! Are you fucking kidding me!?"

Unable to keep her frustration in check any longer, she unleashed a wild series of kicks at the bushes lining the street. It was just so unbelievable- truly, actually unbelievable. It was like Inari had said- these contracts were fucking magic- they were unbreakable, and in all her years of devising them she had never had anyone weasel their way out. It was, factually, impossible.

She had even for a brief time considered Inari's theory that she had miss-worded the initial contract and Hiei had gotten off on some sort of loophole, but she had reviewed the agreement practically a hundred times over and still couldn't find anyway that he could have gotten out of it. He should either be serving his time working at her side, or he should be fucking dead. There was no special Hiei-only third option.

"Fucking! Bullshit!" she shouted, her obscenities punctuated by singular swift kicks to the foliage, which crunched satisfyingly beneath her foot, sending stray leaves up and into the air. "Fuck! You! Son of a-"

A stray glance then stopped her in her tracks.

Oh. Right... Forgot about him.

That kid from before- the weird one with the weird powers and the even weirder hair. She noted then that he was carrying a small girl on his back who was dressed in the same uniform- presumably she had been what he was looking for back at the factory. However, any questions she may have held about the girl were far in-a-way less important than those she held about him.

If she had thought he seemed strange from a distance he was even stranger up close- perfectly poised unlike a boy of his age should be, with emerald eyes that met her own from beneath long black lashes. Those eyes seemed just as unnatural as the rest of him- oddly erudite, and ill-fitting. Still, Hotaru could neither sense nor see any sign that the boy was anything more than human and that fact, combined with his gaze, was highly unsettling.

Even worse, those peculiar eyes were staring at her. The boy looked almost amused.

"What?"she snapped, noting as those eyes went momentarily wide, before settling once more- as if he hadn't realized he was staring.

"You know," he began, oddly calm in the face of all that had just transpired. "Plants have a similar response to wounds as animals do. They release hormones that alert the rest of the plant to an injury and activate a repair response. One could almost say they feel pain."

Who the fuck is this kid? Hotaru thought scornfully, purposefully leveling another kick at the bush to her left in defiance of the perplexing boy.

He let out a sigh in response- as if disappointed somehow. "I don't know what your conflict is with Hiei, but if you would be so kind as to take care of it somewhere outside of Meiou, I would be grateful."

"Yea, well, looks like now I'll have to, doesn't it?" she scoffed back, wondering briefly if that was supposed to be some sort of threat. She looked him over again- despite the perplexing demeanor, he seemed far from threatening. "How do you know him?"

"I suppose you could say we're friends."

"Yea right. Like that asshole has any friends."

"I don't think he's quite that bad."

"Yea well I've known him a lot longer than you have, so save it."

The boy paused for a moment, before asking innocently: "You said you hired him to protect you?"

"Basically," Hotaru replied with a sigh. "But the little bitch skipped out."

"It would seem he has other things on his mind," the boy offered back, looking contemplative, though Hotaru would have none of it.

"Do I look like I give a shit about that?" she questioned. "We had a deal."

"Yes, well," the boy momentarily agreed. "It's unwise to take someone at their word."

Yea, that's why I had him sign the contract in the first place, Hotaru thought scornfully to herself, instead just replying simply:"Trust me, I know."

Feeling her wits coming to an end, she reached into her back pocket, retrieving her pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. She offered one to the boy, which he turned down- kids didn't smoke these days, apparently.

Once the cigarette had been lit, she took a deep inhale, feeling the tension in her shoulders relax almost instantaneously. "What's with the girl?" she asked on her exhale, pointing to the unconscious girl hanging off the boy's back.

"Ah, a classmate," the boy answered- far too casually, considering the circumstances. "She ran into a bit of trouble and Hiei and I came to her aid."

Hotaru took another puff, nodding along. "So, you some kinda demon then?"

"I wouldn't necessarily say that," he replied. He seemed uncomfortable. "What would make you think I am?"

Hotaru shrugged- did he think she was an idiot?- and exhaled a large breath of smoke. "Not many humans can make swords out of grass."

Then, she saw it.

Panic.

It was just a moment- just a split second when the tell-tale signs of alarm crossed the boy's features, but she knew it was there. Of course, there were plenty of humans that had supernatural powers, and many of them would have similarly panicked upon being discovered- fears of isolation, of exclusion, were rife within those sorts.

However, it was the second micro-expression of his that really caught her attention- a peculiar sort of look that Hotaru had become quite well acquainted with over the years. She liked to call it a look of 'adjudication'- the 'will I or won't I' look- as in, 'will I kill this girl now, or will I let her go?'.

Now, that was certainly odd.

That kind of lightning fast kill-switch was uncommon even in mid-level demonic beings, but to see it in a human was extremely rare and only really occurred with well-seasoned veterans of war, or high powered CEOs. It certainly never presented in fourteen year old boys or-

Wait..

… Fourteen?

It was a long shot- it was a long, long shot, but still, it was possible- the time frame seemed to add up, or at least it could so long as he actually was fourteen, and not a year older or younger. And, the theory did account for the powers he had displayed and the ears and tail he seemed to be wholly without.

She had only heard of the technique in myths and folktales- stories about animal spirits that had escaped the confines of death by reattaching their souls to other beings when their own forms had been destroyed. It wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility- after all, animal spirits possessed a rather well defined tamashi, which could- theoretically- be removed from the body and remain removed without decaying. Of course, even with that particular characteristic of animal spirits, the actual act of transferring a spirit from one body to the next had never happened in all of recorded history. And yet still...

"What's your name?" she asked, doing her absolute best to contain her wild excitement.

And, in a glorious moment of absolute bathos, the boy responded with a polite smile. "Shuuichi."

Hotaru just stared, before realizing it was silly of her to assume anything more- of course this little boy wasn't Youko Kurama. He was just some dumb kid with an equally dumb kid perched on his back, on his way home to... play jump-rope, or whatever it was kids did these days.

"Dumb name," she scoffed quietly, eliciting an obvious frown from the boy.

"What's yours?" he asked, sounding as if he meant to turn this into a competition- as if she would say 'Balthazar' or something equally ridiculous, and he'd gain his own chance to cut her down.

But Hotaru was far beyond caring at that moment- he had just proven himself entirely useless, and she was thoroughly done with the conversation.

"None of your business," she remarked, turning on her heel and heading in the opposite direction. It wasn't until she had gotten a few steps away that it occurred to her however- why in the ever-loving-fuck would he tell her his real name?

If this really was the famous Youko Kurama- the one who had robbed a thousand places blind, had almost murdered Inari Daimyoujin, and had been tracked down and murdered by the Reikai SD-fucking-F, then of course he wouldn't want anyone to know he had actually survived! If this really was him, then he would be in hiding, and he'd never give his real name to a random stranger.

There was only one way to find out for sure- even then, it wouldn't be hard evidence, but it would be enough. So, steeling herself against further disappointment, she turned to look at the boy again, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Hey..." she began slowly, regaining the boy's full attention. "You ever heard of a youko named Kurama?"

And there it was.

Adjudication.

"No, I'm afraid not," the boy- 'Shuuichi'- replied, apparently making a split second decision to go with the latter of 'will I or won't I kill her?'. His lie was smooth- no other signs of anxiety or falseness- but that one micro-expression was all Hotaru needed to realize just who she was speaking to.

It took every ounce of self control she could muster to not start screaming from the rooftops- she could feel her heart beat triple in pace, and now the little boy in front of her seemed far more impressive. This wasn't just some middle school kid, it was a safe house- an unassuming package that held the greatest thief any realm had ever known- a seamlessly created alibi to escape his damning fate- and even though she vehemently hated Youko Kurama for all he had done, she couldn't help but be impressed.

"Huh," she replied simply, turning to leave again before the fox-in-disguise changed his mind about killing her. "Imagine that."

She tried to keep her pace even as she left, and studiously avoided turning back to look and see if she were being pursued. Undoubtedly the fox would seek to learn more information about her- likely from Hiei, or maybe even old contacts of his own- and she figured she could let him. After all, the only two people that really knew anything about her were Enma and Inari, and she doubted he'd be so brazen as to confront either of them, even if he did have a new body to hide out in.

It wasn't until she was a few blocks down the road, well away from her newest discovery, that she took out a small slip of paper with Inari's address and lit it aflame.

As soon as she landed in his entry way, she found him waiting for her, a look of plain worry across his face.

When he saw her wide smile, however, his look fell into one of bewilderment.

"Don't tell me..." he began slowly. "Your plan actually worked?"

"What? No, it didn't- Hiei ran off somewhere or something, but don't worry about that," Hotaru explained quickly, and before Inari could go off on another tangent about her ineptitude she grabbed him by both shoulders, speaking in an urgent whisper. "You will never believe who I just ran into."

Hotaru

The Present

"It'll be fine," Hotaru repeated for about the hundredth time that afternoon as she followed Yusuke to his door, trailed closely by Kurama. With Hiei now likely as far away as his parole space would allow him, the remaining four had been able to review all pertinent information regarding the tournament relatively quickly: save your strength, work together, try not to piss anyone off... It was practically common sense, but considering how obviously disturbed Yusuke was Hotaru felt it was best to ensure everything was stated plainly.

Kuwabara, on the other hand, had been surprisingly courageous about the whole ordeal, shuffling off just a bit ago to check on his sister (despite the fact that Hotaru had assured him no harm could have come to her yet). Kurama had offered to train the boy, which had put him further at ease as well- putting him in a striking contrast with the actual leader of their team, one Yusuke Urameshi.

Hotaru had stayed behind after Kuwabara left in order to try and reassure the boy, only realizing a bit afterwards that she was wholly unequipped to deal with the amount of turmoil the boy was going through. And, after spewing simple platitudes for the better part of fifteen minutes, she decided to leave and allow the boy to reason with his new challenge at his own pace. He was only a young boy after all- and human at that- and though Hotaru was painfully aware of that fact in most every aspect (including how severely it affected their chances of victory), it had required her actually seeing the fear in his eyes for her to remember that not everyone she dealt with was a hardened criminal or a seasoned sociopath.

Speaking of sociopaths, Kurama seemed to have stayed around for a similar purpose, only moving to leave when Hotaru had. Of course, she wasn't so naive as to think that was the only reason he had stuck around. Naturally upon their tandem departure he would have a few choice words for her- he always seemed to have something to say, and after this latest revelation she imagined his quick mind was already rife with suspicions and theories.

"You'll call Genkai tonight, yes?" the fox inquired at the door, sounding more like a nagging mother than a concerned friend.

Yusuke gave a shallow nod. "I don't know if she'll be too happy to hear from me, but she'll probably let me start training soon, right? I mean... she wouldn't let me... I mean..."

He trailed off, his expression souring once again into preemptive hopelessness. 'She wouldn't let me face this on my own,' he quite obviously meant to say, and though Hotaru wished she could say the old lady wouldn't, it was still hard to tell. This tournament was a tough subject for Genkai- a fact Hotaru was intimately aware of- and truthfully the girl was a bit worried how the old master would take the news. Getting almost choked to death by Hiei would be akin to a tickle compared to whatever the old woman could concoct as retribution for enrolling her one student in the event the woman hated most.

She kept these fears to herself, however, instead just giving Yusuke a wide smile. "She'll help you out- I'm sure of it."

He seemed to brighten somewhat at that, and the three finished their polite goodbyes. Whether the old lady really would agree to help- or how she would choose to do it- was still unforeseen, but at least the idea had put the boy somewhat at ease.

Small victories.

Heading out into the hall, Kurama at her side, Hotaru steeled herself for the next unpleasant conversation. She had covered for the fox back there- taking the blame on herself for their awful situation- and she knew he had to be suspicious. After all, that's how he operated- he fucked up, she saved his ass, and he resented her for it. At least, that's how it seemed to be, from her perspective.

Perhaps he would theorize that this entire situation had just been engineered by her as a petty form of revenge for him embarrassing her in front of Koenma a week back. Or perhaps he would assume that she had some money on the line in some underhanded bet. Or perhaps he would just claim she messed all this up on purpose just because she wanted to be cruel.

It could be any number of situations, really. There was only one thing she knew for certain would be true- Kurama would find some way to turn this back against her. He would find some way to make this her fault. And, she was prepared for just that.

Once they reached the street, Kurama strode out in front, stopping momentarily and turning towards her. "Well then..." he began, and she braced herself.

She straightened her shoulders, giving him a hard, defiant stare. "Well then," she repeated, and waited for the bomb to drop. He returned her stare for a quiet moment.

And then, he turned to leave.

"See you in a two months."

"... Wait, what?"

Her entire demeanor- her entire sense of balance and reality and truth was thrown off by the absurdity of the statement. See you in a few months? She repeated within her head, dumbfounded. That couldn't be right- that couldn't really be all he had to say.

Kurama seemed equally baffled, though likely in response to her reaction rather than his own words. "I'll be seeing you at the tournament. It begins in two months..." the fox repeated slowly, as if she were some sort of idiot.

Coming back into balance and realizing this was actually happening, Hotaru's brows dropped into an angry sort of incredulity. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Yes?" the fox replied with a nonplussed glance about the street. "That is what it said on the invitation-"

"- You're not even going to ask about it?" she cut in, not bothering to state what 'it' was since there was absolutely no way he wasn't aware. The very fact that he was pretending as if it wasn't on his mind was irksome, but that coupled with his long pause and purposely slow recollection was enough to drive her up a wall.

"You mean the lie you just fed them?" the fox posed eventually, seemingly the picture of innocence with one finger to his lips in contemplation. "You taking the blame for Yusuke's failed mission, rather than telling them it was my fault?"

"Fucking obviously," she snapped back- as if that needed clarification at all. "Are you honestly not curious as to why I did that?"

Kurama quietly regarded her, before he let out a shallow sigh: "Would you like me to be?"

The bored tone in the fox's voice made her reel- was this supposed to be some sort of joke? She had seen him in there- seen the dangerous glint in his eyes when she took the blame for everything, and again later when she implied this was all his fault anyway. She knew how to read him- she definitely knew how to read him- and yet here he was pretending as if none of it had ever happened.

'He was the one you left to meet with. You made a deal.'

'I made a deal.'

Accusation, imputation, enmity.

'And if you hadn't interfered? If you hadn't met with Sakyou, then...?'

'Then things would have turned out very differently.'

Compunction, contrition, guilt.

'Why us, if you knew we couldn't do it?'

'I made a bad call.'

Mistrust, skepticism, doubt.

It was all there- it was all obvious, perhaps not to everyone in the room, or even anyone but Hotaru, but she had gotten well acquainted with such looks from the fox. She knew his ticks by now- muscle tension around the jawline, pupil dilation, a persistent twitch in the index finger of his left hand- and whether he was aware of these or not, that didn't change the fact that they were uncontrollable and ever present. It didn't change the fact that he had shown all the signs of Adjudication.

'Will I or won't I kill her?'

'Will I or won't I let her get away with this?'

'Will I or won't I trust her?'

And regardless of whatever side of that debate the fox had ended up on, this was not the proper reaction for either. If he mistrusted her, he would attempt to prove it. If he trusted her, he would attempt to show it. This however... it was as if he didn't care.

And that was truly discomfiting.

"It's not a matter of what I'd like you to do," Hotaru finally snapped, pulling her head together just long enough to come up with a response, though she sounded far more accusatory than she intended to. "I don't give a shit whether your curious or not."

"You certainly seem to," the fox laughed back drolly, further solidifying the girl into a deep, seething rage.

Her jaw clenched, grinding forward and back, as she struggled to put her vexation to words. "It's suspicious."

"What about it is suspicious?"

"You're not suspicious."

"It's suspicious that I'm not suspicious?"

"No, not you- me!"

"... Pardon?"

"You aren't suspicious of me- you're always suspicious of me," she finally clarified, eliciting a bemused smile from Kurama.

"I... see..."

"You really don't wanna know why I did it?" she repeated, sounding almost desperate even to her own ears. "You're really just going to say 'bye see ya' and leave it at that?"

"That was my intention," the fox replied calmly, before his mouth dropped into a solicitous frown and one brow went cocked. "Would you like to tell me why?"

"No," Hotaru insisted with much undue force, deeply offended at his implication of charity. It wasn't that she wanted to talk about it- it was that he wanted to talk about it, or he should want to, or he would have wanted to, if not for some unforeseen reason. He was the one that should have had something to say- he just didn't know it yet, apparently.

"Well then," Kurama finally announced after a tortuously long pause, turning once again to leave. He only made it a step though before Hotaru stormed up to stop him in his path.

"Hold on! Hold on!" she reprimanded, circling around to face him and pointing an accusatory finger up at his maddeningly placid visage. "You're being really fucked up, you know that?"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't have any theories or anything? You don't have any idea why I would have done something like that?!" she demanded, no longer willing to take no for an answer. And, with some notable reluctance, the fox finally acquiesced.

"Well I do have a theory, yes-"

"- Aha! I knew it! I fucking knew it!" she shouted triumphantly, so caught up in the fact that there was a secret theory that she hardly even cared what it was. "Let me just say right away that whatever you're thinking I did, I didn't do, and you're wrong."

"Really?" the fox questioned back, seeming honestly surprised and- infuriatingly- a little amused. "I was assuming you lied in order to preserve whatever faith Yusuke has in me- if he knew this predicament was my fault, he would trust me less, which would make it more difficult to fight on the same team."

She was about to retort- something or other about how he was so obviously wrong around her and her character- when the words finally registered, and she was choked into silence, crestfallen and disappointed by his surprisingly apt answer.

"Was there another reason?" he inquired innocently, quite obviously pleased that he had so thoroughly undercut Hotaru's 'grand reveal'. She had thought it wouldn't be quite so obvious- or, even if it was obvious that that had been her intent, she never imagined the fox would actually assume it to be true. He had a habit of always thinking the worst of her- she had only assumed he would do it again.

He seemed to be waiting for a response- pretending with only minor effort that he was unaware he had guessed correctly. And, finally, Hotaru replied No in a meek tone.

Kurama smiled at her.

"Then I suppose that's settled," he concluded succinctly with a nod. "I'll see you in-"

"- No, hold on just a minute!"

That couldn't be it- that couldn't possibly been it. She had been- dare she admit it- proud of the fact that she had been so altruistic and thrown herself under the bus for the good of the team. And now, facing a fox that seemed wholly expectant and unimpressed, she was beginning to realize that half of the satisfaction she had gleaned from her selflessness was drawn from an imagined scenario in which Kurama was proven summarily wrong about her character- eyes blown wide in astonishment, jaw slack in thunderous gratitude, and I Was Wrong And You Are Better Than Expected plastered firmly across his stupid face.

She was getting none of those things, and now so thoroughly entrenched in the idea that she needed to get at least something from the fox, she blurted out almost in a triumphant cry:

"Inari is the tournament sponsor!"

Kurama stilled, and Hotaru inhaled deeply.

He stared at her warily, and finally she felt herself begin to come down from the heights of rage- he wasn't expecting that! Hotaru had left that detail out of the story when she had explained the situation to the boys- she hadn't been intending to tell them so soon, so as to avoid any unnecessary trouble with the fox. Now, however, she was so eager to simply shock the enigma before her that she hardly even cared about the danger. And she had shocked him- he seemed utterly silenced by the admission- the admission he had been trying hopelessly to wring out of her for months- and Hotaru reveled in it.

That was, of course, until he ruined it.

"Is something bothering you, Hotaru?" Kurama asked plainly, his apparent 'shock' re-registering in her mind as something wholly different- concern. "You seem awfully combative..."

"You! You are bothering me," she fumed, riled up again at a moments notice. "Inari- your nemesis- the reason we're in this shit in the first place- is going to be at the tournament! I know him! I've known him for a long fucking time and you had no idea and you should be fucking surprised and-"

"- Hotaru," he interrupted, drawing her out of her fevered rant. "... It states Inari is the sponsor on the tournament invitation."

"..."

"Have you never seen the invitations you send out?"

"I've seen them!" she barked back, hyper defensive and thoroughly abashed at her own forgetting of that key detail."Just wasn't sure if you had seen them!"

"Well, I have."

"Well, good!"

He blinked once, twice, and then once again shifted to move past her. "Anything else...?"

"This is all your fault, you know," she snapped- shifting blame in a last ditch effort to elicit at least something.

And, once more, the fox's equanimity did not falter. "I am aware."

She went silent, and she stared- it was all she could reasonably do. She could feel it now- the humiliation, the shame- her losing her grip on the conversation. Her losing in general. She may have won the last round- this all may have indeed been the fox's fault, and he may have indeed been the one facing certain death because of his own actions, and yet still in the face of his utter lack of response she felt that somehow she were the loser.

I need to get out of here, she realized suddenly, feeling that if she didn't get away from this aggravating new paradigm shift of Kurama's she might end up actually, literally, exploding in a fiery rage.

She blazed past him, and Kurama watched her go with no hint of dissent. His persistent gaze expressly ignored, her foot steps were heavy and her gait was determined and precise. It wasn't until she had reached the staircase back into Yusuke's apartment building that she was forced to stop in her tracks, a swell of panic rising up in her chest as the fox spoke behind her:

"Where are you going?"

She whipped around, noting that now the fox actually seemed interested in finding out something from her. Unfortunately, this was the one topic she was not at all interested in talking about.

"Nowhere," she stammered, silently cursing for allowing herself to become so caught up in her fury that she had done something as utterly careless as to walk back to the building she had purposely exited only moments before.

Kurama's hands were buried in his pockets, but she noticed the twitch from afar and the tightening of the muscles in his jawline. Suspicion.

"I-"

"- I believe you should leave those him alone," Kurama stated firmly— practically commanded- before glancing up in the direction of Yusuke's balcony on the 8th floor. "You may not be able to sense it, but the reiki he is emitting is a touch intense. He's upset, and will need time to process."

"I know that," she began, before Kurama's gaze shot back towards her- sharp and probing.

"Then you're returning for another reason?"

"I forgot something."

"What did you forget?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Something," she insisted, a furtive waver in her voice. "Something you don't need to worry about!"

"I see..."

Heaving a deep breath, she reached into her pockets to retrieve a slip of paper, a pen, and her lighter, and began scribbling an address furiously, using an upraised knee as a backdrop. She could feel Kurama's gaze on her as she wrote, but she ignored it just as before. It wasn't until she was finished writing and went to light the paper aflame that she was forced to acknowledge his presence.

"You're just going to leave it behind?"

She glared at him from beneath her black bangs. "Leave what behind?"

"The item you forgot."

Shit, she cursed inside her head, momentarily running through any possible come-back that wouldn't just make the situation worse. Eventually, she decided just to keep it simple. "Fuck you."

The fox smiled at her then- self-possessed and pompous and just oh-so fucking condescending- and Hotaru lit the paper aflame and rushed away on a whorl of smoke.

Moments later, her boots landed on hardwood floors, and the stale, bleached scent of a home barely lived in invaded her nose. It was her new apartment- a place she had spent little to no time in since she had been so gracelessly cast out of Inari's far more comfortable Ginza loft.

Her new place lacked most- if not all- of the comforts previously afforded to her. Of course, this place came with no servants or maids or in-house chefs, but that wasn't too jarring- Hotaru had only lived with Inari for the past few years or so, and she had never quite adjusted to having people wait on her within her own home. What was more arresting, however, was that it had taken moving out of Inari's place for her to remember that upon initially moving in, she had scraped nearly all of her possessions. Though those had been few even at the time, now it was just sad: within the 2-bedroom apartment (rather grand for its downtown location) she had only a single mattress on the floor, a cotton blanket, and a bottle of cheap whiskey in the corner.

Pathetic.

At least Inari had offered to pay for it- if she was too broke to buy herself reasonable furniture then first-and-last was certainly out of the question.

She hadn't even touched the two bedrooms, instead laying her single mattress out in the living room and placing the rest of her possessions on the floor surrounding her- most of those possessions happened to be books, which teetered precariously on top of one another in disorganized piles. She had quite a lot of them- a couple hundred or so at least- though she had hardly had the time to touch a single one in the past few months.

Now the tournament was her only project, but she was well acquainted with how much time it would require to prepare- conferences, private meetings, site tours and inventory checks. Her schedule- normally quite free form- was packed for the next two months and she new she'd have even less time to expend any effort on relaxation.

And on top of that, plainly in the center of her living room floor, her other massive time-appropriator lay in waiting: a thick red book, 2,356 pages long, filled to the brim with purposely convoluted legal-speak; The New 27th Edition of The Ankoku Tournament Rules & Regulations.

She hadn't said anything to the boys- she didn't want to get their hopes up- but she knew that somewhere within that text lay a clause that could allow her to disqualify Team Toguro. There had to be- the book was positively monstrous, and intentionally vague so as to be manipulated as one saw fit. The only problem was deciphering it or even reading it in the first place was a massively difficult undertaking. And since she was attempting to hide her pro-Urameshi bias she couldn't risk asking the tournament's legal team for help.

She was on her own- but she had to do it. For the team, and for herself.

So, studiously putting her previous confrontations and chokings and conflicts aside, she settled down onto the plain mattress, picked up the book, and started at the beginning.

And, only a moment later, she heard a plate smash and the undeniable sound of muffled sobbing murmuring up through her floorboards from the apartment below.

The shame- the absolute and utter shame she could have felt had Kurama not spoken up seemed to boil in her then. Had he allowed her to climb the stairs without saying anything, she would have unwittingly exposed her new predicament to him plainly and opened herself up to what would undoubtedly be never-ending mockery and derision, and just the thought of it alone was enough to put her in the throws of humiliation.

You're just so clever, aren't you, Inari? She seethed inside her own head as the shouting below intensified, and she began to feel the tell-tale signs of dangerously uncontrolled reiki flux. 'A touch intense' indeed...

She dropped the book down, reaching instead for the bottle of whiskey to her left and drinking it straight from the bottle, Inari's last words to her ringing through her head like an incessant bell.

'Since you're just so intent on staying on-top of your detective problem...' the god had cooed contemptuously as he led her through her new apartment, 'I figured there would be no better place for you to be.'

She could picture perfectly in her mind's eye the god seeming oh-so delighted at his rather contrived and over-the-top play-on-words. In fact, even now she could clearly remember the sound of him laughing at her expense. And that, coupled with the actual and very real sound of an adolescent boy throwing a tantrum in the apartment beneath hers, was enough to sink her deep into a well of self-pity.

In apartment 815, Yusuke was coming to grips with his newest challenge by lashing out irrationally.

And in apartment 915, Hotaru was hating every singular aspect of her life.

Just so fucking clever...

A/N: Reviews and feedback are always welcome! :3