6
Chapter Three
Warning - Those with weak stomachs and or intororence towards blood and gore please be weary of this chapter. It containes vile description and upseen violence. Please skip if unable to handle. For those intending to continue, you have been warned.
Yusuke sat up cursing himself for underestimating that girl and then got up to run after her. He met up with Kurama who was trying his best to help Kuwabara walk. His right arm was bleeding from where Kori had slashed him and Kuwabara was bruised and bleeding from head to toe.
"Holly shit! What the hell happened to you guys?", exclaimed Yusuke.
Kuwabara just gave him a dirty look, but Kurama replied, "It seems that we have underestimated her. She is no ordinary spy, but considering how long it took us to locate her, it is not all that surprising".
He set Kuwabara down and leaned him up against a tree, before running off in the direction that Kori took off in.
"Hey! Where are you going!", yelled Yusuke.
Kurama stopped and said, "It would be wise to at least follow her trail to see where she goes".
Yusuke stood there stupidly for a moment and then ran after him.
"Hey! Your not leaving me here are you!", called Kuwabara.
Yusuke turned and yelled back with a laugh, "We'll try to remember to come back for you!".
Kuwabara got up and yelled back, "The hell with that!", and hobbled off in his companion's direction.
Kurama emerged from the tree line to see Hiei standing over the young girl's unconscious body while sheathing his sword and concealing it beneath his cloak.
"Hiei", said Kurama, shocked. "I never expected you to come to our aid", he continued with a slightly amused tone in his voice.
Hiei gave him a cold glare and retorted very annoyed, "I was in the area. It seems that it was a good thing I was or else this girl would have completely humiliated you all".
Just then Yusuke entered the clearing almost entirely out of breath. "Oh...hey...Hiei", he said breathlessly. "I see you have met our little friend here...".
At that moment Kuwabara fell face down into the clearing grumbling in pain.
"Hn...Hardly. I can see how a fighter of her caliber defeated the Idiot, but not you detective or least of all you Kurama. You'd think you all had gone soft just because she's a girl".
Kuwabara lifted his head and yelled, "You jerk! Your not suppose to hit girls!".
Hiei crossed his arms and replied teasingly, "Oh...I see how well that has worked for you".
Kuwabara scoffed and said, "You can keep them from hitting you, but you can't hit back. It's just wrong".
Hiei just turned away saying, "Ch...Whatever", and just disappeared in his quiet way.
As she began to blackout, strange voices surrounded and cavorted in her thoughts in a confusing array of words and images. They swam elegantly through the waves of her mind as if they, themselves, created the endless liquid that immersed her, penetrating every part of her senses. She closed her eyes reveling in the serenity of her own intelligence, but just as she began to slip into the quiet blissfulness of her own psyche, the darkness that secretly resided in her soul consumed her spiritual essence in complete blackness.
It felt as if she was being pulled by an unknown force deep into the ebony in her own quintessence. She landed softly on the most despondent, indecipherable level of her subconscious, which lies deep within the forgotten portion of her soul. Sitting alone in the dark, glimpses of different memories began to flash erratically in her mind, like a broken movie reel that skipped along its projector. Only one reminiscent of her past lingered in her thoughts as she passed into the oblivion of the lost vicinity of her own memory and it was the last thing she wanted to think about. It was the worst memory from her past; her family's death.
It seemed so long ago, but it was still fresh in her mind, like a bad dream that she would never wake up from. It would be years before she truly understood what happened to her family, but even then there would be many questions left unanswered. Not wanting to relive the horror again, she tried to push it out of her mind, but the images escaped her will.
As a young girl Kori loved to sit by the pond next to her village at dusk, to watch the fireflies fly elegantly through the reads and tall grass. It always seemed so soothing and comforting to her just to sit and watch. One particular night would be forever cemented in her memory. Her older sister would come and get her when dinner was ready, but that day she was late. The sun began to sink behind the mountains as the night creped out of the shadows. Kori decided to go back to her family's house on the assumption that they just forgot where she was. The wind picked up suddenly as she made her way through the forest by her house, a harsh wind came blowing with the scent of fire and blood. With that she suddenly heard rustling in the bushes behind her. As she turned around something hit her hard on the back of the head.
She came to a while later only to see herself standing over the tattered and ragged body of her older sister as a flood of her own blood pooled around her. Kori fell to the floor unable to breath and heard a clink as she hit the ground. Looking over towards the sound she saw a knife that seemed to be made of dark, dripping entrails attached to her hand. Screaming she threw it across the room and ran out calling to her mother. Bursting into her mother's room she saw a sight that would haunt her deepest nightmares and soul.
Her mother was slain; lying in pools of her own blood with blades and throwing stars imbedded into her flesh. Her limp body looked unreal to her young eyes, lying there cold and dead. She reached down to touch her mother as tears began to fill her eyes, but quickly pulled away when she saw her eyes glazed over lifelessly. She fell to the floor unable to take her eyes off of her dear mother. The image was so remembered that she gave no notice to the fact that her eyes finally began to drift away form the horror of her kind mother's torn body.
She gradually began to wonder where she was and why the room smelled of blood and death. Getting up from the floor she slowly made her way down the blood painted hall to the broken and burnt front door. Sliding it out of the way and stepping on to the charred lawn, she almost immediately tripped over something wet and solid. She opened her eyes only to be faced with a man whose eyes were fixed on the stars and whose mouth dripped with dark liquid. His face stirred a memory of some kind within her, but not a good one she decided as she crawled over his corps only to come upon a second and a third and a hundred after that. Some had missing arms, some missing heads, but nothing phased her numbed and lost mind.
It seemed to her that she kept passing the same stiff and wet thing, but in reality the memory of each corps she crawled over was lost as soon as she moved over it. The only thing that seemed to bother her senses was the continual smell of rot and blood. After being sick many times because of the smell she finally came to a place with enough light to see her surroundings. The only thing that came to her attention besides the uneven carpet that lied between her and her beloved wood with the pond was a man laughing on what seemed to be a hill of lifeless eyes, dark liquid and arms and legs.
Kori's eyes were dripping with sour water as these images faded back in to the crevices of her soul. Her whole body was shaking in disbelief and fear. It felt as if she sat there reveling in her lost mind for ages. After a while she convinced herself that they were lies and that they never happened. 'How could it?', she told herself with a laugh. 'I don't even know who those people were, let alone could have done any of that'. But somewhere deep within her, she knew that she was lying to herself and that she needed to for a while longer. Laying down she closed her eyes and just let everything go as if they were a clump of leaves that a strong wind blew away to be forgotten.
She woke with a start to find her face, as well as her pillow, soaked from crying in her sleep. She reached up to wipe her face, but her wrists were shackled to a wall by long, thick chains. Looking around, she found herself alone. She was in an oddly familiar room with cemented walls and bars across the large windows that hung high above her head. The moon glistened through the window enlightening everything in the room in a misty blue.
She was sitting on an old creaking bed with a hard mattress made of overused foam rubber. On the opposite wall of the bed was a gray steel door with bars across a small window close to the top of the frame. Remembering her encounter with the detectives she grunted to herself irritably, 'Ch...Can't say I haven't been here before. I can't believe I let them catch me. Damn them!', she thought to herself as she looked around the dungeon like room he usually kept her in for interrogation. 'Seems Koenma stepped up security since the last time I was here', she thought as she noticed the energy of the invisible force field imbedded in the walls. 'I don't think I can escape so easily this time. Might as well see what he wants'.
Not wanting to spend her time chained to the wall she used a little bit of her strength to pull and snap the chains that acted as props for her confinement. Then she broke off the shackles from her wrists and rubbed them till the soreness dissipated. She sighed wiping her face free of the drying tears that plagued it. It wasn't all too unusual for her to wake up from a trying sleep with her face wet with tears, but it bothered her that she never remembered what she dreamed about to cause it.
Forgetting about the whole thing she jumped up onto the large window above her and there she sat for a while absorbing the quietness of the night. The wind swayed the trees, the clouds glided across the sky, and the moon traveled in its silent way through the night. Just when she was completely relaxed, her mind began to drift back to when the detectives caught her. That blur of black that caused her to fall from the tree and something hard and round hitting her on the back of the head.
'Who was that?', she asked herself, 'The detectives couldn't have gotten there so fast, I made sure of that. That hit was obviously given by someone who was right handed. It couldn't have been Youko because he wouldn't have been able to use his right arm after I slashed him the way I did. The stupid one had to have been unconscious for at least a few minutes and even then he wouldn't have been able to walk, let alone move that fast. The other one seems too rash to come up with a clean move like that. But if they were so occupied, who hit me?'.
Just as her head started to ach from the inflow of visions from her capture, someone started to fiddle around with the door and unlocking what seemed like a hundred or so locks. She sighed and waited for the door to open, which, ironically, took ages to accomplish. Finally the door flung open and a familiar figure stood in the mists of it, but she couldn't tell exactly who because the shadows hid his face. He shut the door and walked slowly forward into the moonlight, causing the beams to reveal his frame inch by inch. She could tell that he was wearing traditionally styled clothing, obviously from the human world. He had white baggy pants, a loose fitting white shirt that had a yellow robe of some kind, with slits up the sides, that came down to his knees and a blue sash that tied around his waist. When the light shined on his face she sat back in slight shock, but was careful not to make a sound. It was Kurama again. His hair was as red as blood and his deep green eyes gleamed as they tried to hide his anger.
Feeling his eyes on her, she looked at him with hard eyes. "How's the arm, Kitsune?", she added teasingly hoping to get a rise out of him, which worked to her amusement. His eyes narrowed in anger and laughing silently to herself, she turned back to the window. After a short silence he finally spoke.
"Koenma wants to see you", he said plainly. He was obviously still trying to hide his real feelings.
But his efforts didn't go unnoticed by her keen sense of empathy. As to why he was angry with her, she could not say. A fighter of his caliber certainly wouldn't take a little cut on the arm personally, would he? Her gut told her it was something very different; as to what was beyond her.
She complied with a nod and jumped down from the window to follow him saying, "He usually does".
After going into the immensely bright hallway, he led her down various passageways that seemed endless in their distance as well as their doors. Finally they came to an all too familiar double door entrance that led to Koenma's office. Upon entering the enormous doors she was met with the same mob scene of ogres running and papers flying in every direction that she remembered from the many times she was brought here. She sighed in annoyance and presided to follow Kurama through the disorganized mass of fumbling ogres and other various demons until finally arriving at the double doors that led to Koenma's office.
She could hear the little squirt shouting at yet another ogre through the door, who apparently messed up on some 'important' papers or something. Kurama gently pushed open one of the double doors as the both of them entered his office. Koenma was in his usual spot behind his desk, which was stacked high with a mountain of papers and other things regarded as 'important'.
She growled in frustration thinking about other things she could be doing right now, rather then be standing here idly in Koenma's office while he busied himself with other matters. Sensing her impulsiveness, Kurama cleared his throat loudly so as to get Koenma's attention, which luckily worked. Koenma peered around the mountain of paperwork to look at the two new comers into his office.
Kurama stepped forward and said, "I have brought Miss Kori as you requested".
Koenma blinked several times before saying, "Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, Kurama. Now you may go. I need to talk to Kori alone".
With that, Kurama nodded and left the room while giving Kori one last cold glare.
