Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and enjoyed this story so far! This should be wrapped up in six chapters, so if you're also following my other story Dusk and Dawn, I'll start updating it as soon as this one is finished. If you aren't following Dusk and Dawn... Why not! Go read it :) This is a short chapter, but the rest should be a bit longer.
I can't believe I was originally going to try to make this story a one shot!
Please review!
The Second Room
The boys lay there a moment, coughing up water and gasping for air. Any water that had rushed in with them seemed to trickle away and disappear until there were only a few puddles around them.
"Everybody all right?" Yusuke asked, pulling handfuls of sticky mush he could only assume were bits of cupcake from his head and body. His once-gelled hair hung limp and dripped onto his shoulders. Everyone nodded or answered more or less "yes" pushing themselves into sitting positions.
"Damn, Touya, looks like you need a haircut," Jin called out to the Ice Master; Touya suffered a similar fate as Yusuke, his usually slicked back hair now clinging to his face and neck. He gave a short laugh and, running a hand through his longish hair, replied, "I could say the same about you."
They were in a room similar to the first; the floor was blue with yellow polka dots while the walls seemed to be a decoupage of images cut out from magazines; celebrities and teen models grinned down at them with unnatural smiles. There was no second door in this room, though there was a ladder at the far corner that led up into a square opening. Rin was not present, but they knew she could hear them. They could feel her presence more than before; it was oppressing.
"Rin," Kurama called out, knowing they weren't alone. They could hear the girl's quickened breath, as if she were some omnipresent god. "Are you alright?"
The walls spoke for her. "You want to leave," she accused, all traces of tears gone. She sounded flat out mad now.
"We want to know you're not hurt, Rin," the fox tried again, hoping to soothe the girl before anything drastic could happen again. It was obvious the house responded to her emotions as well as her actions.
"What do you care!" Her voice was bitter beyond it's years. "You all hate me."
"We don't hate you, Rin, we just don't want to be your dolls," Kuwabara tried to explain but she was not listening.
"Liar! You hate me! You can't stand to be around me so you want to leave me just like he did!"
"Are you talking about your father, Rin," Yusuke called but he did not get an answer. "I know what it's like not to have a dad be there for you," he continued, hoping he could make her sympathize with him. "Mine never was; it sucks but you'll be okay. Look at me! You don't need to trick people into being your friends."
"Daddy was always there before!" Rin yelled defensively. "And I'm not tricking anyone to be my friend! You're my toys and you're supposed to play with me!"
Yusuke was getting frustrated. "Dammit, we don't want to play with you! Your idea of playing sucks!"
Kurama winced at Yusuke's words but Hiei smirked, agreeing with the ex-Spirit Detective. It was made apparent in the next few moments that Yusuke really should have watched his tongue: the walls were beginning to move.
The edges of the room began to shift and morph. Rin's anger seemed to swell until it was a dark, tangible power that crackled as the paper figures Mod-Podged to the walls were beginning to move on their own. The boys formed a circle, backs facing each other so they could keep an eye on the walls, unsure of what was going to happen.
"You don't want to play with me. Then I'll give you someone else to play with!"
The guys balked at the change in Rin's voice; she no longer sounded like an angry, hurt little girl. True, while her voice was still there, there was a deeper, more demonic voice speaking alongside it, full of malice.
"Something tells me our assumption about Rin being a psychic was a little off," Yusuke murmured to his friends as he watched the walls bulge and bend. Off in the darkness, there was a peal of creepy laughter that was taken up by more and more of the shape-shifting paper figures.
"I can sense a faint hint of demon energy," Touya supplied, watching the walls with narrow eyes. The first of the shifting figures began to step away from the walls and toward the gathered team of humans and demons.
"Someone's gotta be behind all this! No little kid would do this to people!" Kuwabara was angry now, but he was more freaked out by the approaching paper figures; each one had an other-worldly grin plastered to its face. The eerie laughter was becoming stifling. They moved with jerky motions, arms out.
"Whoever it is sure is an idiot then! There's no way a bunch of paper can take us down," Yusuke shouted with a grin. He raised his hands and shot into the approaching crowd of paper minions with a cry of "Spirit Gun!" A hole was blasted through the paper men…. But they just morphed themselves back together, healed.
"Hm… Shoulda seen that coming," Yusuked shrugged. No matter what you threw at them, the paper people were not daunted and continued their swarm, eerie grins plastered to their faces. The first one reached Kuwabara and a paper arm quickly lashed out, wrapping itself around the man's arm.
"Auuugggh!" The paper person somehow sapped his energy, painfully. There was no use trying to ward them off, so the group decided to scatter, running through the growing crowd of possessed paper puppets.
"Yusuke! That voice," Kurama shouted to Yusuke as they ran.
"I know, Kurama. It sounded familiar, didn't it?"
Despite no longer being a Spirit Detective, Yusuke was occasionally roped into dealing with some minor threat in the Human World. He had the feeling he'd encountered that voice in the last year or so, but he could not place who it was.
"Where did you get the dollhouse, Rin!" Yusuke shouted into the air, knocking back the paper men that tried to wrap themselves around his torso.
"I didn't steal it!" Rin's voice was her own again, and sounding defensive. "I found it!"
Kurama and Yusuke exchanged a nod; there was no telling who could have placed a fake dollhouse in the girl's midst but they knew whoever had done it must have intended it to be a trap for them. Sadly, they'd walked right into that trap, literally.
"What did you mean when you said your dad was always there before?" Touya asked, attempting to freeze the paper men in their tracks. Their attackers seemed to pause when Rin was distracted, so the plan was to keep her talking.
Rin sniffed. "He died," she admittedly sadly. "Earlier this year."
"What happened?"
"Car wreck…"
The paper men had stopped moving completely, but now they began to shift again; the boys went on the defensive, but they did not need to. The paper creatures were coming together to form a series of images that flashed by: a woman crying, an empty hospital bed, an obviously distraught man, the wreckage of a car that had careened into the side of a bridge. The boys winced, knowing they were seeing Rin's memories. When the images faded away, Rin was once again standing among them.
"The woman… she was your mother?"
Rin nodded at Kurama's question.
"Where is she now?"
"She died a long time ago," Rin whispered. "She was sick."
They all recalled the glimpse of the hospital bed. Rin had apparently had to suffer a lot in her short life.
"I'm sorry, Rin," Kuwabara started, but Rin's head snapped up, anger returning.
"No! Don't say that! I'm sick of people feeling sorry for me!"
"I-er,sorry-I mean," Kuwabara stammered, unsure how to apologize for apologizing. "I didn't mean…"
"That's all people do now! They look at me, but they don't see me anymore! They just see some sorry little kid to be pitied."
"We don't pity you, Rin-"
"Yes, you do!" Rin was yelling again. "You all do! No one thinks I can do anything by myself anymore!"
The dark power they had sensed earlier was growing with Rin's rage; the room darkened and the paper creatures started moving again, their eerie laughter once again filling the room. The aura around Rin was darkening, and an unnatural spindly shadow appeared around her. The shadow appeared to have several arms and legs; this had to be the true master of the dollhouse.
"Rin! Look out!" Yusuke was fighting his way through the sea of creatures, but they continued to darken and shift until they were no longer recognizable as magazine cutouts, now something far more demonic. Two of the arms of the shadow creature wrapped possessively around Rin's small body and then she disappeared, leaving the group alone with the horde of power-sapping monsters.
O-o-o-o-O
Rin's head swam and her eyes fluttered. She was sure she was in the attic still, but it was like she was living in a dream world. The area surrounding her and the dollhouse was dark and fuzzy. She caught a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Spiders. Lots of spiders. They were crawling out of their hiding spots, surrounding the dollhouse and making new webs all around her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rin felt like this should bother her, but it didn't. Her head felt like cotton and she could not quite react right.
As the spiders continued swarming in, the dark shadow reappeared behind Rin, a tall creature with four arms and four legs. A grin split its dark face and it spoke with a voice like a hiss.
"Rinnn," It whispered, almost sing-songly, "Theyyy don't like you."
The creature placed two of its hands on Rin's tiny shoulders. She shuddered but remained silent, eyes focused on the doll house.
"They're bad dollsss. Bad friendsss. You should just get rid of them," The shadow leaned in whisper in the girl's ear. After a moment, Rin shooker her head no.
"No?" The voice sounded shocked.
"I…I like them. I don't want to get rid of them. They're my friends," Rin whispered timidly.
"Fine," snapped the voice of the shadow. "Then we'll just give them some more friends to play with."
A large black spider began its slow descent from its intricately spun web, and then climbed up and inside the dollhouse. Soon, more and more spiders were leaving their webs and following the leader into the bright pink doll house. Rin frowned, and the shadow laughed.
O-o-o-o-O
"I don't know how much more of this I can take!" Kuwabara yelled as he hacked through one after another of the creepy paper demons. They were everywhere, corralling the men together. This dollhouse really had it out for them.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting out of here!" Yusuke announced, then, breaking through the swarm of creatures, made a dash for the ladder to the next room.
"Yusuke, wait!" Kurama called after him. "We don't know what's in the next room! Surely, it's trapped similarly to this one."
"Well, we aren't faring too well here, are we, Kurama!' Yusuke, head strong as ever, was already on the third rung of the ladder.
Kurama sighed, knowing Yusuke was right. He used his whip to break a path through the creatures and they all made a break for the ladder. One by one, they followed Yusuke into the black depths of the unknown room above them. Hiei paused halfway up the ladder, inspecting his hand; a thin, sticky film seemed to stick to it.
"Move it, shorty! We don't want to be here all day," Kuwabara called up to the fire demon. Hiei just grunted, wiped his hand on his cloak and continued climbing, soon followed by Kuwabara and Kurama. Touya had paused at the bottom of the ladder, but Jin quickly pushed him up it.
"C'mon, what could be worse than creepy, smiling, paper thingies," Jin asked as he ascended the ladder into the next room.
They quickly discovered what could be worse
