Nightmarish Reality
By: Cece Williams
((Disclaimer: I don't own YYH, and you can't sue me.))
Cece: Hey again! I hope you enjoyed the last chapter.
Yusuke: This one's better.
Cece: I was listening to Megumi Ogata's "Nightmare" while writing this, so R&R.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
(Last Chapter)
Andrea started to breathe easier. That is, until she saw a transparent image in front of her. An item glittered around its mouth and long midnight black hair blended into the shadows. Andrea covered her mouth, almost ready to scream.
Kurama had come back in just in time to see Andrea pull her hands over her mouth. "Andrea?"
(And now, on to Chapter 7)
Andrea turned her head to see Kurama heading back to her. She saw an almost worried look in his eyes and took a breath. "Oh, I thought I saw something," she answered him.
Kurama blinked. She saw something? he thought to himself. Out aloud, he voiced his question. "Where?"
Andrea shrugged her shoulders, looking at him from the counter. "I don't know, but it went away as fast as it came."
Kurama went to the window, opened it and looked around, trying to find any sight of the figure that she had seen.
As much as she wanted to get the image out of her head, she couldn't; it frightened her too much to even think of forgetting about what she saw. "I've got to be seeing things."
"Perhaps you might have assumed to have seen it," Kurama answered her, looking in every direction out of the window.
Andrea blinked, more or less surprised by Kurama's answer. "But it looked real, though... real enough to freak me out."
Kurama continued to look out the window, his suspicions almost coming to a close. "I see no one, but I shall contact Koenma and Hiei if you wish to see if any has escaped."
Still, the look in Andrea's eyes wasn't any calmer, and the same could be said about her face as well. "It wasn't anything physical, though... more like a ghost or something."
"It was merely your imagination," Kurama answered her, closing the window, realizing his suspicions. "Nothing is out there."
Andrea shook her head, defiant as always. She was about as defiant as Yusuke, when he was using common sense. "No, I swear on my last name I saw something."
Whatever Andrea had seen had made her spooked, although Kurama kept an option open. "If you want, I can contact Koenma right now and he'll try to find Hiei. We'll see if any have gotten through the barrier."
Andrea took another deep breath. She had to tell Kurama what she saw, whether he thought she was crazy or not. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I can tell you that what I saw was black hair and something else."
Kurama raised an inquiring eyebrow at her. Karasu? he thought. But I thought I killed him a year ago. He looked at Andrea's more or less still spooked look. "I'll ask Koenma. It may take a while."
Andrea nodded her head in agreement. In truth, it was all he could do at the moment. "Okay."
"I shall return when I can." With that, Kurama walked out, off to Reikai.
Andrea took a deep breath. "Well, better start cleaning." She found a shopping bag with Pine Sol, cleaning gloves and a sponge. Whistling a tune, she started cleaning her apartment. "Oh, well, maybe Kurama's right and I was just seeing things," she said to herself.
Meanwhile, in Reikai, Koenma was busy stamping papers when the door opened. He looked up and saw Kurama walk in. "Kurama, what brings you here?" he asked the redhead.
Kurama approached Koenma's overflowing desk. Seeing how many papers Koenma had to deal with made Kurama relieved he didn't have that job. "Andrea's come back to Japan," Kurama answered him.
Koenma nodded. "Yes, I remember her," he replied. "She was one tough girl before she left." He especially liked her no-nonsense attitude, although after she met Kurama it died a little.
"Well, she said she saw something."
This got Koenma's full attention; he put down his stamp and looked at Kurama closely. "What did it look like?"
Kurama explained what Andrea had seen. He had a feeling something was going to happen. "I need you to ask Hiei to keep an eye out for anything suspicious."
Koenma nodded, slightly worried for one of the Tanteis. "Will do, Kurama. Be careful."
Kurama nodded and walked out, a worried look on his calm features. He had a pang in his heart to head back to Andrea's apartment, that something was going to happen there.
Back in her apartment, despite boxes being on almost every corner of the apartment, it was clean enough. Andrea was in the bathroom, scrubbing until she heard a bottle fall in the tub. She looked up. "Huh?" she said, looking in the bathtub. "Oh, great, that was the last of that Pine-Sol, too." Shrugging, she kept cleaning until she heard the door shut, at which she looked up again. "Kurama?" As the silence kept lingering, she went back to cleaning.
A dark figure appeared for only a second, looking at the young girl. "What Kurama sees in you, I'll never know." With that, the figure left, shutting the door and making it stuck.
When Andrea heard the door shut, she looked up again, this time seeing a grayish colored steam. Andrea dropped her sponge and started coughing. "What's going on?" she said as fear rose into her body. Why was she this afraid over a little smoke when she had stood up against demons tougher than smoke? What was wrong with her? She continued to cough into her sleeve. "What's happening?" She raced to the door to try and open it, but it was either stuck or locked; she couldn't really tell. "Kurama! Someone hurry!" she screamed as she took off her cleaning gloves and dropped them as well before hitting the floor and coughing again.
Kurama had arrived back at her apartment and started to turn the knob when he had gotten a very disturbing thought. Shoving it into the back of his mind, he walked inside. "Andrea? I'm back." He heard a familiar scream and an unfamiliar thudding noise, which came from the bathroom and raced over to it. "Andrea? Are you in there?"
Andrea heard a familiar voice. "Kurama?" she shouted, trying to unlock the door again before she coughed faintly and knocked on the door with a scared look in her eyes. She had been almost killed several times, but this was seriously scaring her. She heard Kurama trying to open the door, but it sounded locked. "I think it's locked," she said, coughing again, her voice getting strained.
"Are you okay in there? Why are you coughing?" Kurama was starting to get concerned. Why was she coughing?
"I don't know really," Andrea answered him, still coughing. "I was cleaning in here and all of a sudden, the door got stuck, and this weird steam came out of nowhere... " She stopped to cough again.
The longer he heard her coughing, the more concerned he was. "Steam? Does it have a color or an odor?"
Andrea struggled to keep her eyes open. "I think it's gray, and it's like something exploded in here." She suddenly fell down on the floor, not moving much at all.
Kurama's emerald eyes widened in worry; perhaps fear was more like it. Gray smoke? Explosion? He was about to ask her what she meant when he heard nothing from the other side. "Andrea?" With every word out of his mouth, he grew even more concerned about her. "Are you still there?" And when she still didn't answer, fear crept up and down his spine. "Andrea?!" When he finally heard her slightly coughing, he started ramming the door with his shoulder. Oddly enough, Kurama really didn't know why he was ramming the door, him being a fox demon with a Rose Whip that could cut the door open in seconds. But he was now and he wasn't stopping until it opened. "Hang on, I'll get you out."
Andrea kept struggling to stay awake as he kept ramming the door. That is, until he heard Kurama stop suddenly, which made Andrea grow a little worried, thinking he maybe hurt himself. "Are you okay?" she asked him, worry and strain on her voice.
Kurama felt an energy presence nearby, which made him stop ramming the door. He heard Andrea's worried question and only gave her a small answer. "Andrea, keep quiet."
And at those somewhat reassuring words, she nodded and closed her mouth, only to cough a little.
The dark figure appeared behind Kurama. "Poor Kurama… what to do, what to do…"
The voice Kurama heard sounded familiar, but with everything going on, he wasn't so sure. "Who's there?"
"Let me see if I can refresh your memory, Kurama." The dark figure slowly revealed himself... as a tall man with a mask over his nose and mouth, with long midnight black hair down his back with matching clothes. "I've always liked your hair."
Kurama's eyes widen with a stunned surprise. It couldn't be…
"And your girlfriend, for that matter."
Kurama looked in the direction of the voice, his composure regained. Yet he really couldn't believe what he saw… or who, really. "Karasu. But...you're..."
"Dead?" Karasu finished his thought. Shaking his head, he continued. "I was only weakened by your last ditch effort in the Dark Tournament."
Kurama was still in disbelief. How could such a strong attack and one that almost killed him as well just weaken him? "But I felt your Life Energy deplete. How...?"
"...Did I survive?" Once again, Karasu finished his thought. "It's quite simple, actually. I faked my own death."
Kurama's disbelieving look was overpowered by one of anger as he glared at him. His shocked emerald green eyes burned with immense anger and his fists were clenched. "You conniving snake in the grass!" he growled.
Beneath Karasu's mask, he had a look of feign shock, along with a light smile. "My, such name-calling, and with your girlfriend close by."
"Can I help it if I am telling the truth?" While Karasu chuckled behind the mask, Kurama looked even more threatening. "Leave."
"All right. But the next time we meet, I'll find you." With that, Karasu left in a puff of smoke.
After Karasu left, he regained his composure yet again and tugged on the door, trying to get Andrea's attention. "Andrea? Are you still there?"
Andrea still lay on the floor and was about asleep from the fumes when she heard Kurama tugging on the door, which made cough again. "Huh?"
"I'm opening the door, Andrea." Hearing her strained voice tell him to literally hurry, he opened the door, the gray-colored steam shooting out in front of him all of a sudden, making him cough. He looked down and saw Andrea, who was still on the floor and coughing, picked her up into his arms and carried her coughing form out of the bathroom. Then he started opening windows to let steam out after he set her down in a chair away from the steam.
Andrea kept coughing, but after she took a deep breath, her coughing came back at her twice as hard.
Kurama came back and sat next to her. "Just take slow breaths, Andrea. Slow breaths."
Andrea nodded, listening to his advice and taking slower breaths. "I thought I was going to die in there."
Kurama felt relieved to hear her voice, though rough sounding from her ordeal. "You'll be fine now."
Andrea nodded her head slightly. "I don't know what went wrong."
"Bad chemical mix?"
Andrea blinked, trying to think of an answer. "I thought everything was okay, and then the door was shut...."
Kurama knew she probably would have been killed if she stayed in that room a moment longer. He was relieved, though, that she was breathing and that she was okay… physically, anyway. "It's okay now."
"Whom were you talking to?"
Kurama didn't want to worry Andrea more than she was. "Only a bad memory."
Andrea tried to register the voice she was hearing. Maybe it was the fumes that made her hear it, but she wasn't sure. "I thought it sounded familiar."
"That often happens."
Andrea took a breath and shook her head. "No, I mean, really sound familiar. Like it was..."
"A bad memory?"
She held her head after she shook it again. "No, it was a voice. It sounded really calm, though."
Kurama knew that she was probably tired. "Perhaps you should rest."
"Okay." With that, she stood up and wobbly headed for her room.
Meanwhile in Reikai, Koenma was busy stamping a lot of papers as Hiei walked in and leaned against the wall. Feeling this, Koenma looked up from his stamping. "Hiei, what brings you by?"
Hiei only looked at him with his garnet eyes and said one word. "Trouble."
Before Koenma could ask what he meant, George ran in. "Koenma, sir!"
Koenma gave him a blank stare. "Ogre, what is it?"
"Something happened in the Human World."
Koenma rolled his eyes; usually Ogre stated the obvious. "Something always happens there. Anything important?"
"Andrea was almost killed."
Inwardly, Hiei was surprised, but he didn't show it outwardly. "Andrea? The blue-eyed human Kurama was interested in last year?"
"I thought that was his girlfriend," George said to him.
Koenma hit George in the head with a balled-up fist. "Moron! They're only good friends, you blue-covered ninny!"
George rubbed his head. "That's what Yusuke said they were, Koenma sir."
"As much as I like him, I think he's clueless."
Hiei looked at them, mainly George. "Describe the attack oni (Ogre)."
George tried to remember. "Well, I couldn't see much because of the steam. But I can you it wasn't from the shower." He saw Hiei raise his eyebrow and continued. "Kurama told me, from Andrea, that it was like something exploded. And she was going to get out, only the door was shut."
Hiei continued to look at him. "Did he collect a sample?"
"You know Kurama; he usually does."
Hiei held out his hand as George placed a small vial in his hand. He uncorked it, sniffed, and scowled, popping the cork back on the vial. "It's not steam. It's smoke. Sulfur to be exact."
George scratched his head. "No wonder Andrea was coughing."
"Only a Quest Class can make sulfur."
At those words, Koenma dropped his stamp, which clattered to the floor. He looked at Hiei, a look of combined shock and horror on his face. "Don't tell me he's still alive?"
Hiei only looked at Koenma. "I don't know, but I have come to report some suspicious activities in Makai."
"How suspicious are we talking?"
"The barrier that has been keeping the demons out is shifting. Portals are being created at random and demons are flocking into Ningenkai. It's all I can do to just keep them a quarter of a mile away, but the next portal opening is unknown. And also........." Hiei stopped.
Koenma looked at him. "Also?" he echoed.
Hiei continued. "Youkai have been warming to one place, the Detective's Northern regions. Yusuke is away at the moment and his regiments are too thick headed to notice."
Koenma looked slightly worried. "Very suspicious."
Hiei continued to keep his composure. "I need your permission to go to Ningenkai."
Koenma nodded, taking out a yellow slip of paper. "All right. Where exactly will you he going, why, and when are you coming back?"
"Tokyo, Japan. To see Urameshi Yusuke, and hopefully be back within a day."
Koenma nodded his head. "Very well." He handed Hiei the slip, which he took and ran out of the palace.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
((Is it really Karasu, or is it really a cruel joke? If he is alive, how will they react? Find this out in the next chapter of "The Trials of Life!"))
Cece: Wow, another chapter done! Thank you to all the people who have reviewed this thus far.
Yusuke: Uh, why?
Cece: Because they took the time to read it, you idiot.
Kurama: Please continue to read and review.
Cece: And please send chocolate!
