Disclaimer: All fandom-based and real-life entities, including other art and literary works mentioned in this piece do not belong to the author with the exception of original characters, plot, and subplots. The views and opinions of the characters do not necessarily reflect that of the author.

Zwischenzug

by four-eyed 0-0

Part III

"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred."

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

o-o

Distrust

Kurama's eyes opened to the sight of his dark room, and he reached up to push the curtains away and let the mid-summer sunlight stream in. He sat up, blinking at the light, shirt slightly doused in sweat. It was exceptionally humid this morning, and he hadn't the mind to turn the air conditioner on before he fell asleep while reading the manuals Aoshi had lent to him.

One of the said manuals was lying face down on the floor, its pages touching the wood, and Kurama rose from his bed, stretching his arms, letting a yawn escape him. He picked up the manual and smoothened out—to his horror—the crinkled pages before gingerly placing it atop the stack on his table, and made his way to make his bed.

He would have to apologize to the professor for the damage later. Hopefully, she wouldn't strangle him.

It was eight in the morning, he read from the alarm clock through his eyes encrusted with the remnants of sleep. Kurama was to meet the professor in two hours at the diner.

With breakfast in front of him, Kurama used the time to use his Eyevines as he sat alone at the dining table. A single toggle leaf was held by his left hand while the other wielded the chopsticks he used to feed himself.

The professor's apartment flickered to view, a dark, empty hallway seen from the Eyevine flower he'd placed by the front door. Kurama tapped at another button, and the view switched to the living room. The curtains were drawn so that little light touched the interior, and if it weren't for his enhanced senses, Kurama would have been mortified not to validate if anything was amiss. Finding nothing remotely suspicious, he switched to the flower across from Aoshi's bedroom door.

The chopsticks froze halfway to his mouth, and he put his meal aside as he toggled the view to zoom in on a blue note stuck on the wooden door:

Rendezvous at 11 A.M., Kabukicho 3-chome 5-ban-7-go. I'll be waiting outside. You don't have to wear your disguise. Bring a change of clothes, toothbrush, and the essentials. We're pulling an all-nighter.

- Aoshi

…was all that it said in the professor's familiar flowing handwriting.

Kurama racked his memory. Kabukicho? It wasn't the safest place in Tokyo, with its being a red-light district. Just the other day, another riot between drunks and the police was aired in the late night news. Why did she want to meet him in such a place?

What is she honestly thinking?

Kurama was almost convinced that this was a ruse, that the professor had gotten herself into some trouble. For one nervous moment, he was ready to run to her rescue, but he remembered his defensive plants. None of them had been activated, and the apartment looked the kind of empty when someone had headed out for the day. Neat with nothing amiss.

He would have taken this singular act of authority over him as suspicious if not for the fact that he hadn't given her any other way of contacting him. A guilty tingle crept on his stomach as he realized the repercussions of an overlook as such, and the lengths she had to go through to let him know.

But she was clever—or rightfully aware and suspicious—enough to think that he would utilize the Eyevines. He would give her that.

Two hours later, Kurama had made another transfer, and he was two stations away from the odd venue Aoshi had chosen. A duffel bag was slung on his shoulder, something that he hadn't carried around in a long while. Adult human life meant suits and briefcases, not sneakers and a blue polo shirt over jeans.

When he finally got off the nearest station with only a few other people who dared or had to go to this part of town, he started his twenty-minute walk. The neighborhood wasn't exactly unfamiliar—he'd been here with Yusuke and the others during a mission some years ago, the air about it still the same as before.

The buildings seemed harmless in the daylight, with none too many people scattered in the streets. Even in the day, he could see a few drinking through the glass windows of pubs, and in one particular corner, a man in a suit was sprawled on the ground, snoring and apparently robbed off of his other belongings. Kurama bypassed the street.

It would soon get rowdy in the afternoon, and even though Kurama would be able to handle himself, he couldn't shake the feeling that he shouldn't be in such a place.

He passed by two more blocks lined with love hotels and pubs, and when he ended up turning to a particularly dark alley that would lead him to the block Aoshi had indicated, he thought better than to make another detour, lest he wanted to be late.

When he burst into another street that was undeniably less sketchy, he found the professor with the eternal bun leaning on the stone fence, smoking and bored, unmindful of the few people walking down the stone path and shooting her flippant glances.

She lifted her sunglasses off her eyes as he walked towards her. Her eyes looked puffy and droopy, and Kurama wondered if she had slept at all.

"Glad you made it just fine," she said without taking the cigarette off her lips.

Kurama tilted his head at her. "I'm more relieved that you did."

"Idiot, I know this place fairly well," she said, pushing the metal gate that led to an old and gray two-story building. Despite the building's eerie front, the small lawn seemed to be well-maintained.

Aoshi's motorbike was resting on the fence, repaired and the dented license plate already replaced. He took another look at the professor who was now sliding open the front door of the building that reminded Kurama of a grocer's. She was wearing a sleeveless top, her boots rapping against the stone path.

"Did your attire and motorbike help?" he asked, following her inside and closing the door behind him, locking it for good measure.

"You can say that. The place isn't very safe, but if I blended in, they shouldn't know I'm from someplace else."

Kurama bit his lip. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You could take care of yourself."

"I mean, why didn't you tell me that you could be in danger?"

"I promised I'll sneak you in somewhere, somehow. This is the perfect place, but I can't risk you coming with me without anyone knowing. I had to make sure it was safe for me to bring someone else before I could tell you."

She opened another door not a yard away from the genkan, and Kurama was greeted with cold air and a plethora of foreign smells. His nose started itching, and without meaning to, he sneezed.

Aoshi flicked the lights on, and Kurama opened his eyes to a large, white room brimming with laboratory equipment he had and hadn't handled his entire life.

And that was saying something.

"What is this place?" he asked Aoshi who was rummaging through a cabinet by a wall.

"Yamamoto's lair. He used to conduct private experiments here when he couldn't at Stella-Bio," she said, extracting two laboratory gowns. She tossed the larger one to him, and she beckoned for his duffel bag, which he handed to her absently as he surveyed the entirety of the room.

Two workbenches complete with fume hoods occupied the center of the room, the overhead fluorescent lights providing a stark contrast to the building's outward appearance. One wall was lined with three deep sinks, and several shelves were mounted on the opposite wall. Every single space was almost loaded with a different array of instruments and bottles of reagents, except for one workbench that seemed to have been cleared only recently. He headed to another door, and Aoshi spoke before he could close his fingers on the handle.

"Don't get too excited, you're forgetting something important."

He twisted to see her waving for him to stand next to her on the sink. "How did you get in here?"

Aoshi put on her gown. Kurama copied her. "I was his apprentice. He used to bring me here all the time when he needed another pair of hands and an extended thread of patience. He's an obsessive freak, but he trusted me."

A small smile crept up her features as she said this, and Kurama was dimly reminded of Yusuke and Genkai. Master and student. Teacher and apprentice.

It looked like Aoshi had so much more to do with this case than they had initially thought.

"No one knows about this place aside from Yamamoto and me," she said, rolling the sleeves of her gown to her elbows. She turned to him. "And now, there's you. Don't tell anyone, do you understand, my dear student?"

Kurama smiled at her attempt at sounding as though she had complete reign over him. "Yes, Professor."

"Good," she said, dipping her hand in the pocket of her coat and handing to him a hair elastic. "First things first. Get your hair out of the way."

Kurama took the hair elastic and moved to tie his hair in a ponytail. "And then?"

"Antisepsis." She moved closer to the sink and he rolled his sleeves the way she did, turning on the tap. "Get some liquid soap and copy me."

He did as she wished, and Kurama wasn't able to pry anymore as he'd wanted to. Aoshi seemed to slip in the void of being part of the academic and scientific community in that instant, like the lecturer that he'd heard a day prior.

She would open up to him when she had to.

No, if she had to.

o-o

"Dammit, Kurama! That's the fourth plate!" said Chiaki, baffled at how the demon could seriously suck at this. He'd put too much pressure on the agar again, and now there were several craters on the gel.

She had prepared fifty agar plates when she had managed to clean the place this morning, but even with that sheer number earmarked for later use, she was growing impatient.

The redhead hung his head in defeat. "I'm sorry. This is all new to me."

Chiaki released a steadying breath, gnawing at her lip. "Well, I'm not giving up on you. Do it again."

He took another Petri plate with solid nutrient agar from the middle of the workbench. He took the inoculating loop and held it against the blue flame of the Bunsen burner before taking the tube with the yellowish nutrient broth from the rack. Swiftly, he clinched the cotton plug between his little and ring fingers, running the mouth along the flame before taking an inoculum of the bacterial culture. He heated the test tube's mouth once more before replacing the cotton plug and putting it away.

"Go on, you can do it."

Kurama took the Petri plate and held it with his left hand, heating the other side away from his hand and lifting the cover with his thumb and forefinger, the others supporting the base. The end of the inoculating loop made contact with one point on the agar near the edge of the plate, and Kurama dragged the inoculum across the Petri plate in a zigzag motion. Successfully.

Chiaki clapped her hands at this, slightly jumping out of sheer satisfaction. "Finally!"

Before Kurama could express his relief in some form, a sharp, beeping sound alerted her that the sterilization process had finished, and she yanked Kurama by the sleeve to come with her. They walked to the white autoclave in the other end of the room, and she pointed at the digital display.

"What you heard meant the cycle is complete. See the temperature? It's going down. Same with the pressure," she said, pointing to the chamber pressure meter by a set of control buttons. The white needle was still moving slowly. "We'll have to wait for the temperature to fall below a hundred degrees Celsius and for the pressure to be zero before we open the door."

"How long does that usually take?"

"Depends on the machine. This baby takes five minutes. Some models have automated locks that wouldn't let you turn the door wheel until the jacket reaches a certain temperature or pressure. It's the kind found in the IMCB."

Kurama nodded in understanding. "Are we going to wait it out?"

Chiaki turned to the wall clock. "No, you're going to do nine more plates. For all we know, that streak plating you did could only be beginner's luck. I'll be heading out since it's way past lunchtime and you're probably hungry. What would you like to eat?"

He gave it a moment of thought. "Anything should be fine."

"Are you sure?" She'd put him under stress too early into the day, and even delayed his lunch. Surely he would want something specific.

"Yes, Professor."

Well, she wasn't one to argue. "Okay, then. Don't open the autoclave until I come back. And don't touch anything except for what you're currently handling. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good."

She left him on the workbench as he lifted another Petri plate to inoculate on. The moment she stepped out of the laboratory, she felt clammy from the stifling heat outside. The rows of buildings didn't help. Even with the added shade, the trapped heat sent her sweat glands to Partyland. Not to mention the sun that was beating down on the path, making her eyes hurt without her sunglasses.

She brought her bike with her, happy enough with the momentary relief it had with the wind blowing past her, her helmet done away with in the meantime. She drove to the nearest restaurant she and Yamamoto used to get food from at odd hours when they had the conscious effort to look up from their work and realize that it had been way past their mealtime.

"It's you again," said the short, gangly cook, smiling crookedly at her as she entered the dim-lit restaurant. "Where's your teacher?"

Chiaki was surprised he didn't hear the news. Maybe he did and was only pretending for old time's sake. "He's gone elsewhere to never come back."

"I see," said the cook after a pause during which she managed to sit herself on the counter. He didn't sound or look like he understood her. Must be his pretense. "What are you getting today?"

"The usual. For two, please."

The cook raised his eyebrows at her. "You're with someone? Is it a student?"

He had no idea. "Yes, you can say that."

"Ah, as fitting. Give me ten minutes, lady."

Chiaki sat silently, surveying the establishment. It was just as she remembered a month ago, the last time she'd sat with the old professor on this counter, eating. A few tables were occupied by people who were different degrees of drunk and sober. She'd been a wreck of nerves the first time Yamamoto had brought her here, but since then she'd realized a person's violent streak can only go so far when served with good food.

Indeed, it was one of the safer places in this district. Too bad they closed early into the night to stay out of trouble.

That said… "Sir, could you double my order?"

"Staying the night again?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling a bit. Like old times.

Wow, Chiaki, you're getting really soppy.

With one bag of hot meal on each arm, Chiaki exited the restaurant. It was already proving to be a better day than she'd expected, until her eyes landed on her bike.

She'd seen bikes and trucks get vandalized on and broken into pieces by some drunks and stoned thugs in these streets before, but even with her bike whole, the person straddling it felt worse than any damage it could concur.

"Yo, Chiaki, fancy seeing you here," said Urawa, grinning up at her.

Even with the beads of sweat stuck on his eyebrows, he looked amazing.

Quit that, she thought. He's a sweating schmuck and sweat on your bike isn't attractive.

She strode to her bike and pushed him off of it. "What do you think you're doing?" she snarled at him. And more importantly, why was he here?

"I was wandering around town and I saw your bike. How can I forget how it looks like?"

Even when she found it suspicious, she wasn't surprised he'd be in such a place at this hour. He was the biggest prick of all time, after all.

"You're not allowed to be near it, not even three feet from it. To hell with you," she said, slinging the bags of food on the handlebars as she got on the bike, revving it.

A hand settled on the headlight and Chiaki glared up at the towering man in front of her.

"Didn't I tell you—"

"Why are you here, Chiaki? Don't tell me you're checked in somewhere with someone."

She silently thanked him for providing the excuse she wasn't ready to give. "What if I tell you that I am?" she said.

Urawa scoffed, chortling obnoxiously at her. "You're kidding me. With whom? That Matsuda?"

"So what if I'm with him?" she said, growling, playing along like she was offended.

He was smirking, unamused. She knew him too well, and even if he looked like he was jealous or something else entirely ludicrous, she wasn't going to fall for it. He was a bastard, point blank.

"You came here to celebrate your re-employment with him."

It wasn't a question. "Yeah, I did. So let me be in my merry way. Your girlfriend should be waiting for you, too."

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Bullshit," she said through gritted teeth. "Did you hear that? My ass just said you're loaded with bull."

"I can see that you're still very eloquent."

Overwhelmed with the urge to harm him, she inched the bike forward, taking him aback so that he stumbled slightly and let go of her headlight.

"Cut the sentimental crap. My boyfriend's starving."

He straightened up and put his hands in his pockets, stepping to the side. Chiaki turned the handlebars, not giving him a second glance as she sped away.

But she couldn't help it. She looked at him through the side mirror. He was standing still, watching her as she put more distance between the two of them.

Even after two years, she was still unable to increase that distance.

Screw you, Urawa.

o-o

"Professor?"

Aoshi was slightly startled from her frozen stance in front of the polymerase chain reaction machine, the PCR tube she was holding almost slipping from her grip as she absently stared off into space, waiting for the demonstration cycle to finish.

"Yeah?" she said, blinking up at him and taking the ice bucket he was holding.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Since she'd come back from purchasing their food, the professor adopted a stoic mood. He was expecting her to yell at him for wasting another five plates before he met his quota for the streak plating exercise, but she only ordered him to fix the meal in the kitchenette opposite the laboratory while she put away the now useless culture medium plates.

Even when they were having their lunch, she was awfully quiet.

"Nothing," she quickly lied, the machine cutting further talk as it beeped, signaling the completion of the reaction. She deftly opened the cover and took the PCR tubes from the machine, shooting them to the ice bucket. "We're going to run these in the gel later after you finish with yours."

"All right," he said, taking the other ice bucket she had used to store the reagents and enzymes. "Shall I begin?"

"Yeah, I'll be in the other room if you need me. Don't blow up anything."

She didn't wait for him to answer, lumbering away, and Kurama took the micropipette from the rack.

It had been five hours since they'd begun working on his practical skills, and even though he enjoyed this new atmosphere and knowledge, he was suddenly overwhelmed with regret. That he settled for less.

Yusuke and Kuwabara were happy with their lives, and even though it was difficult to see Hiei's satisfaction with his, he knew it was there.

Kurama's hands moved quickly as he transferred liquid after liquid. It almost felt easy, something he could do in a while. Like he did in high school. Quick, passing, temporary.

Like what he was doing with his entire human life, actually.

He sighed. The quiet and cold in the laboratory made him lethargic even as he was fully into what he was currently doing.

Yusuke was with Keiko, and Kuwabara had always adored Yukina, planning to marry her when she finally accepted his feelings. Yusuke's reservations in settling down, being aware of the consequences of his demonic ancestry, and Kuwabara's simplistic view of the future, a typical life to a grown Japanese man, made him think of his own.

Among the four of them, Kuwabara could be considered as the most accomplished, at least human standard-wise. He graduated from college with a degree in engineering and was now the owner of a private contractor firm.

Kurama somehow managed to graduate from high school and get into his father's company, while Yusuke ran the Yukimura diner jointly with Keiko who was now a middle school teacher. Hiei was still on border patrol, occasionally dropping by whenever he liked or when he was needed.

After everything they'd gone through during the first years of their friendship, one would think they were all doing well, but truthfully, it was only Kuwabara who was able to reach his dreams and secure a decent status in the realm he had chosen to live in.

Not that Kurama minded; he was perfectly satisfied with how things had turned out for the four of them. But the satisfaction that came with persistence and unwavering dedication? It was only Kuwabara who truly achieved that. Until now, the other three of them were floating about, just going with the flow without much of a struggle, without direction.

Kurama inserted the tubes into the holder, locking the cover of the machine and setting the cycle.

He had undergone many infiltrations to the call of duty in the past years, and most of them had provided him options. He was once a teacher, a business tycoon, a police officer. But he was never exactly someone he could be and wanted to be.

Deciding to settle on a sedentary human life without any concrete plan for the rest of it, he felt lost most of the time.

He sighed. Again.

"Oi, Kurama, give me a hand in here," Aoshi's voice echoed from his left, her head momentarily sticking out of the door before disappearing behind it.

"What is it, Professor?" he asked, walking up to her and through the door.

She was crouched on a cabinet next to the biosafety cabinet in the room, jiggling a rusted lock that she'd managed to get the key stuck through. "Blasted lock. Yamamoto used to keep some of his notes in here."

"What do you need them for?"

She shrugged. "Possible evidence, clues, answers… Might as well get hold of everything that can help while I'm here."

Fair enough. The professor was more invested in this than he had given her credit for. Crouching beside her, he took the key and examined the damage. It was no use, the key didn't even move from his quick tug.

"It's definitely stuck. We can break either the lock or the door."

"The lock would do."

"All right," he said, taking off the rubber glove from his right hand before reaching for a seed in his hair.

"A pea?" said Aoshi, disbelieving.

Kurama didn't answer her as he released a small amount of energy for the seed to germinate and produce one of his most valuable plants. It grew to no longer than three inches, leaves minute and pea-green, and a single flower bloomed, its yellow teeth bared.

Aoshi gasped, eyes widening at this new plant. "What the heck is that?"

She never failed to ask. "Pea Pruner."

To his surprise, she snorted and started laughing. "A plant for pruning?" she said, incredulous.

The plant twisted in his palm without his bidding, the flower baring its teeth and wide mouth at her so that she keeled over and landed on her backside on the cold, tiled floor.

Kurama was the one laughing now. "It seems you've offended it, Professor."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I can't believe it just snarled at me. Silently."

"You can't underestimate the power of plants," Kurama said, turning to the lock. He let the flower sink its teeth on the shank, effectively cutting the metal ring in half, the lock's pieces falling to the floor with two low clinks. He turned to Aoshi who hadn't moved from her position. "I've used this plant for several hundreds of years. It never failed me."

He let it shrink back to its seed form and tucked it in his hair once more.

Of course, the professor had to voice out her observation. "You're some hundreds of years old?"

"Around three thousand years, to be precise."

Her jaw fell open. "What? Are you for real?"

"Yes," he said, opening the cabinet. Stacks of notebooks were stashed inside, and Aoshi let herself be distracted from marveling at his longevity as she surveyed the contents.

"I can't believe I'm speaking to someone your age. Yamamoto was only forty-eight and I could hardly tolerate him," she said, taking out one notebook after another, flitting through the pages.

"You can think of a three-thousand-year-old demon as a human in their mid-twenties," he offered.

She looked up at him. "At least in physique? Like you?"

"Maybe."

"Well, that makes it simpler to think about. But you haven't told me your real name."

"It's Kurama."

Her knitted eyebrows made her look more upset than curious. "You're bluffing."

"No, it is. My human name is Minamino Shuichi."

"Two identities, then? Did you possess Minamino?"

Kurama decided to copy her, sitting himself on the floor as his muscles had grown tired from his crouch. Perhaps it was time that he shared something else to prove that he trusted her. In turn, she might open up to him soon.

"You can't say it's a possession. It's more like merging with the fetus before it acquired a soul."

"What?"

"To put it simply, I escaped from the Makai in my spiritual body years ago after a bounty hunter almost killed me. My human mother was pregnant by then, and I found the vessel I needed to heal from my injuries."

Aoshi turned away, blinking as she considered his statement. "That's an odd way of putting it… Why would they want you killed?"

"I was a thief, renowned and feared. A big sum had been put up for my head."

Even as she cringed at either the thought of his thieving or the grievousness of his actions, she didn't fail to piece the details she'd only learned a few days ago.

"You were really Youko Kurama." It wasn't a question.

"Exactly."

She looked like she was about to say something else but another beeping sound came from the main room, and they rose to their feet, the professor stashing the notebooks inside and closing the cabinet doors.

"Let's run that electrophoresis. We have a lot to cover today."

"I'm ready."

Aoshi shook her head, not even bothering to make fun of his projected confidence. He followed her outside, and Kurama hadn't braced himself for when she suddenly stopped in her tracks and whirled to face him, scowling.

"I just came to a conclusion, you little shit," she said all of a sudden, face sour, teeth gritted.

Kurama took a step back, genuinely confused. "What—"

She advanced towards him, flailing her arms about. "You little ass you had to make it harder for me to understand why the creatures had no souls you should've told me sooner that you possessed a fetus without a soul YOU KNEW ALL ALONG THAT AN UNDERDEVELOPED BRAIN WOULDN'T ALLOW FOR HIGHER THOUGHT AND HAVING A SOUL WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TALK SHIT TO ME WHILE I WORRIED MYSELF BALD BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO PLAY GAMES DO YOU KNOW HOW FREAKING DIFFICULT THAT WAS?"

He had backed down to a wall, and the professor looked livid, her nostrils flaring as she paused from the longest tirade he'd heard in a long time. "Look, Professor, I was merely—"

"SHITTING WITH ME, THAT'S WHAT!" she yelled, twisting around to lean on the workbench, crossing her arms as she glared at him, stomping her feet in frustrated vengeance. "Dammit, Kurama!"

Kurama was thankful she didn't act on her anger. He hadn't a clue how he would stop her from doing anything that could result to physical harm. He kept his eyes trained on her, letting her see that he hadn't done that without reason.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that, Professor," he said slowly, nodding his head in apology, "but I wanted to hear raw inferences from someone who doesn't know about me. Our enemies are most likely unaware just as you are. I had to make sure someone of your qualities could infer as much even without glaring proof. But trust me, I honestly didn't know how creatures, as developed as the half-demons, could lack souls. That's why I needed to hear from you."

She didn't say anything for a while, breathing deeply, deliberately, and Kurama didn't dare look up until she accepted his explanation.

A heavy sigh shattered the silence only punctuated by the drone of the machines inside the room, and she was saying, "Right, okay. I think I'm calm and I think I understand. I'm sorry if I lashed out on you without hearing you out."

"No, it's my fault." He was glad that she recognized her mistake, but it had always been a bad habit of his to skirt around topics he'd rather have his way with. Yusuke and Kuwabara thought it was extremely insensitive of him, even if it reflected his natural tendencies as a kitsune—a prankster.

"I'm partly to blame."

He let his head rise a few inches and saw that she was bowing to him as well, making him feel more confused. One moment, she looked like she could castrate him, and the next, she was as calm as the wind.

He was unable to comprehend her.

They both straightened and stared at each other before she jerked her head to the PCR machine.

"Get the tubes out. We'll do the gel in a jiff," she said, turning on her heels to prepare the necessary equipment as if nothing had happened.

With another burden off his shoulders, Kurama proceeded to retrieve the tubes. The two of them worked quietly as she demonstrated the use of the electrophoresis setup, and when the results came in, he was devastated.

His DNA bands turned out heavier, while hers, as expected, were accurate replicons of the lacZ gene of Escherichia coli.

While he puzzled on the reason why this could happen when he had followed everything she told him to do, Aoshi burst out laughing.

He turned to her. "Oh, I know why that is," she said, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her gown as she dissolved into a hysterical fit of giggles.

Kurama paused to think of the possible source of this error and her amusement.

Aoshi was clapping her hands as she doubled over in laughter, stomping her feet. "Oh my god, I really got you!"

Then Kurama drew a sharp breath, allowing his mouth to fall open. She stalled him before he could take out the tubes!

"Ice, ice baby!" Aoshi started singing, confirming his thoughts, still cheering herself on for the brilliance of her exacted revenge. "An eye for an eye, Kurama! Now, do it all over again and run the gel while you're at it!"

She continued cackling, smirking at him as she disappeared behind the room containing Yamamoto's notebooks.

Indeed, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

o-o

One more can of coffee and she was going to be a quivering mess. Her blood ran cold, head throbbing from the caffeine as she examined the notebooks in front of her. There were about a hundred, and she hadn't gone through a quarter of them.

This was probably being disrespectful to her late mentor, but somehow she felt she was rightfully responsible with what he had left her in this place they'd shared for so long a time.

Her chest tightened as she read another passage:

Chiaki made a breakthrough. She has devised a new protocol to extract RNA. By accident. Serendipity runs in the scientific community, it seems. We're going to publish this. Below is the rough account of what happened.

For reference and information.

Each notebook contained a passage or two about her and her escapades in this private sanctuary, some about her greatest mistakes, some about her discoveries. It was the same pattern, and it became clear to her that Yamamoto had only lived a life separate from the outside world, only associating with people who had the same drive that he did.

It suddenly occurred to her that she was probably the only family he had in all those years of knowing him.

She looked up from her reading and fixed her eyes on the sole picture frame on his table.

In the dim light only punctured by the lamp, she could very well see the two of them in the picture, smiling as they held their plaques of recognition.

It was the first time she'd ever been inside his study, as Yamamoto was adamant that she couldn't be in here when he was alive, insisting that she could do her paperwork in the separate room Kurama was currently occupying.

It wasn't entitlement that made her take up this room on her own while passing down her old room to the demon. She felt like she had to guard it, that she and Yamamoto were the only ones privy to the secrets of this room.

The first time she saw the picture, she wept silently, almost jeopardizing the effects of the coffee she had downed when she and Kurama had said goodnight.

Thinking about it now, right as the clock read three in the morning, she realized just how much she missed the capricious, obsessive, and sometimes caring Yamamoto. He was the closest to a father that she had when she needed one, and she was probably the closest figure to a daughter when he had none.

She allowed herself to feel lonely and to mourn; she hadn't given his death proper thought. The recent occurrences had rendered her unable to, but it looked like only in this place would she feel more deeply his permanent absence.

She missed the guy, even as he was as disagreeable as she was. Half the time she couldn't fault him. It was the way he dealt with his passion—explosive and fiery.

She had learned things from him. He'd made her feel more satisfied with the career she had chosen, and even when not everyone would understand the beauty of being secluded in a laboratory with nothing else but a whole array of minute organisms, molecules, and other things to be dealt with, she was very happy.

She was making a difference. She was always learning, she was always bettering.

Yamamoto had been oftentimes harsh, but he was the perfect mentor that any student could ask for. That she could ask for.

Deciding to take a breather before she could be a weeping mess, she went inside the cooling chamber, checking for the culture she and Yamamoto had prepared a month ago. She would be letting Kurama use them in the next few days, and she opened the refrigerator to examine for fungal growth and possible death.

She was probably making a lot of noise with the glassware and as she transferred the microbes to fresh culture media, for when a door squeaked, disturbing the silence as it opened and she turned to take a look, Kurama was standing in a crisp white shirt and sweatpants, almost out of his room, his hair sticking up at even odder angles than it normally did.

"Why are you still up, Professor?" he asked, voice thick with interrupted sleep. His eyes were slightly squinted as he moved to get inside.

"Don't move, Kurama. You're not in a gown," she said before he could get a single step in the laboratory proper. "Was I too loud? I'm sorry I woke you."

He shook his head. "You weren't. The smell of bacterial metabolites woke me."

Of course that would wake anybody. "Is it that bad?" she said, tugging the mask from her nose to see—or smell—for herself.

There was the slight malodorous mix of old media and bacteria reminiscent of sewage, but she didn't find it gag-worthy. Maybe it was experience talking.

"Sensitive sense of smell," he said, tapping at the bridge of his nose. "Are you not going to bed? You still have lectures in the morning—I mean, later."

Chiaki inoculated another tube with Staphylococcus aureus after pushing the mask back on her mouth and nose. "I'm preparing new cultures and leaving the old ones for you to use in the exercises I have for you later."

Kurama nodded in understanding. "I see." Then, as if remember something, he started. "Ah, Professor, I have to let you know that I have a family dinner scheduled this evening."

"Then you can finish what you can today and clean up before you go," she said, making another transfer. "I'll be coming back after my last period to check for damages you'll have to pay for."

His lips twitched. "I'm not going to break anything."

Chiaki shrugged. "Whatever. Go back to sleep."

"You should sleep, too. Otherwise, Honda will make fun of you."

She smothered a laugh with a cough. "Although that was a perfect rhyme, I'd know better than to prove your point. I'll always have the last word with imbeciles disguised as students."

"Have you prepared a farewell speech?"

She smirked despite the mask. "No, I'm planning to leave them with a heavy reading assignment in anticipation for a graded recitation. They'll flip me when Tuesday comes and you come in as the new teacher."

"Are you always this nasty to students?"

"I'd like to think it's not the case," she said, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Hey, you keep on stalling me. Go back to sleep."

He didn't move from the doorframe he'd leant on for the past five minutes that they had been talking. "Professor, I have a question."

"After which you're going back to bed?"

"Yes."

Chiaki crossed her arms as she rid herself of the equipment. She walked back to the chamber after giving him an, "I'll be quick" sign, and replaced the old culture in the fridge before she walked to the adjacent incinerating and incubation chamber to place the new culture in the incubator.

She had ridden herself of her gloves and mask when she went back to lean on the workbench across his door.

"Shoot."

He didn't dally. "Did you encounter someone earlier when you went outside?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly nervous. Was she obviously upset? Did she have Urawa's scent on her? Was he really this sensitive?

Lying wouldn't get her anywhere. "I did."

"Who?"

"Urawa Isamu."

He looked wary. "I thought only three people knew about this place. Does he usually go here?"

Chiaki didn't understand where he was coming from. "I met him at the restaurant. He doesn't know about this lab. And I don't really care if he goes here. He'd known better than to come bugging me or Yamamoto."

"Is that why he followed you all the way here?" Kurama said, unconvinced with her flippant attitude.

"You're being silly. He didn't come to Kabukicho for me, and he doesn't know where I could be. I lied to him when he asked."

He was the picture of a saint. "And what did you tell him?"

"That I've checked in somewhere with someone."

"Excuse me?" he asked, surprised.

She suddenly found the button of the gown she wore very interesting. "Well…" she said, suddenly embarrassed, "he asked me if I was and I said I am, and he asked if it was with Matsuda and I said yes."

Kurama's eyes widened for the first time, before he hid his face in one hand. "Why did you tell him that, Professor?" he asked, voice muffled but the exasperation clearly heard.

"I had to play along! I was more surprised to see him here than I was angry that he was casually sitting on my bike!" Chiaki said in defense of her actions.

He looked at her between his fingers. "Please don't tell me he now thinks we're a couple."

Chiaki was suddenly uncomfortable, the heat rising up her cheeks. An incomprehensible sound—squeak, squeal, squawk—escaped her throat as she was unable to think of a less harmful response, her thoughts shrouded with the repercussions of what she just did.

She should've lied.

He didn't let her say anything else. "So he does."

Chiaki was hurrying to control the damage. "Look, I just said that to get him off my back. He's obnoxious but he'd know that I was lying."

"That makes it all the more complicated, Professor. If he knew you were lying, then he'd be suspicious of why you would be here when you could be anywhere."

Oh. I have seriously screwed this up, haven't I?

"We might as well follow through with it, then," he said rubbing his temple with the palm of his hand. "I should've known he would hear of it sooner."

Even as Chiaki had wanted to lament the fact that she'd been careless, she didn't fail to pick up on the hidden meaning of his statement.

"What do you mean?"

Kurama looked at her, releasing a breath. "He's more involved with you than you think, Professor."

Chiaki's nostrils flared. "What are you talking about?" she said, even if she knew.

"He's an old flame, isn't he?"

Her mouth fell open and her teeth grazed her lip as she shut it quickly. "How did you know?"

He was shaking his head. "Believe me, I've seen a fair share of men in love. And now that I've had my suspicions cleared, I think you should heed some warning."

"A warning?"

"Don't trust anybody with what we know, Professor. Not even him. You know him more than us and more than we know him, but believe me when I say that it wouldn't be wise to do so."

He was deathly serious, but Chiaki wasn't the least happy with what he had just insinuated. Her whole body trembled in pent-up rage, and perhaps it was the lack of release from the stress and the things Urawa had made her feel in two consecutive days that she finally snapped.

"Excuse me?" she said, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. "Do you honestly think that I'm going to sell you out just because of an ex? What do you think of me? Lovesick and a hopeless romantic? That man is the biggest douche in the entire cosmos and I will never make the same mistake of trusting him again! Hearing from him the shittiest lie I'd heard my entire life the first time was enough!"

She crossed her arms, breathing rapidly.

"You men are all the same. You're all full of yourselves. Do you honestly think women would bend their backs for you? You make me sick."

She was suddenly stalking away from the redhead who'd made a move to reach her. She had bolted to close the door to Yamamoto's study before he could cover the distance between the two of them. Her hands desperately clutched at the door handle, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from collapsing on a heap on the cold floor.

She hadn't planned to say that, but she did anyway.

Now he knew more than he should have.

She should've known this would happen. Who was she kidding?

o-o

Kurama decided to stay rooted by the door even before she could reach her room. He had instinctively reached out, but the damage had been done.

He had to follow through with it, to ascertain that she wouldn't betray them for anyone involved in this mess. Urawa was incredibly suspicious and Kurama couldn't help but feel that he would milk information from her if he had the chance.

Urawa was an ex-lover. As narrow-minded as thinking it, Kurama was fairly certain he had a certain effect on the professor. He'd seen it twice already, and he wasn't going to let it pass. Right now everyone in Todai was a suspect, and he couldn't afford to have the professor falter in their progress because Urawa desired to distract her.

Aoshi could deny it, but he knew there was something there. If there wasn't, she wouldn't have jumped for Urawa's bait and humored his suggestive statements.

He had to get rid of it. He had to draw the line. It wasn't a very good opening, but it was one nonetheless.

Somehow he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd done it partly out of vengeance for her senselessly involving him with her—even if only to get Urawa off her back.

He didn't know what time he'd fallen asleep again, he didn't even remember going back to the bed with its freshly-laundered sheets. But when he woke to the sound of feet shuffling outside, in the laboratory, he didn't move.

The lily-of-the-valley shampoo was apparent. It was only the professor.

She had probably stayed in there for twenty minutes more or less, for when Kurama opened his eyes again, a heightened sense of consciousness enveloped him, one that was different from when he first woke, and one alike from that gained from a power nap.

This state of alertness made him realize that she was no longer in the facility. Her scent lingered, but there was no movement, nothing. Kurama strained to see the wall clock. It was only seven in the morning. She had probably gone to the university.

He rose, blinking at the light that had streamed into the small window at the opposite wall, illuminating the bookshelf next to the table recently cleared.

When he stepped behind the door, a small piece of paper touched his toes. He bent down to pick the yellow paper, and read the professor's flowing hand:

You can leave as soon as you wake or you can do the exercises I have set aside for you, but make sure to be here tonight after your dinner. We have a lot to cover. I'll be waiting.

- Aoshi

Something about the careful, deliberate strain in the kanji symbols alerted him that she was still upset. But that didn't mean she was going to turn back on their agreement.

A gnawing guilt settled in the pit of his stomach.

He had underestimated her, but it was a necessary evil.

A/N:

* On the matter of Kurama's age, I'm following the theory from a site I forgot about. In the anime, Kurama was illustrated to have four tails. If I'm not mistaken, the legends say kitsune grow one tail every one hundred years; if we follow this, it means Kurama must be only 300 years old (as mentioned in episode 47 of the anime's English dub) but this isn't consistent with Yomi's rise to power that was mentioned to be 500 years prior to the present setting of the storyline in canon then. They were allies, after all, so Kurama should then be older than 300. Hence, I'm following the theory that kitsune grow a tail every one thousand years. Kurama would then be 3000 years old if he had four tails before he was hunted.

* PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is a technique used to replicate DNA. Why did Kurama fail the PCR? Well, he wasn't able to cool the tubes as soon as the cycle stopped, and so the enzymes continued acting on the DNA substrate and just jeopardized everything. Thanks to Chiaki.

* Culture media are used to grow microorganisms as well as plant tissues. Nutrient agar is a type of agar that is considered general since almost every microbe can be grown in it. Nutrient broth is merely the liquid form of nutrient agar.

* lacZ gene is the gene responsible for Escherichia coli's ability to metabolize lactic acid.

* Agarose gel electrophoresis is used to separate different fragments of genetic material based on density and electronegativity. In this chapter, it was used to screen successful replicates of the lacZ gene. Kurama found his replicons were heavier or more dense, meaning he failed with using the PCR.

* Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium typically found in the respiratory tract and skin. It can cause serious diseases and infections when the population reaches high numbers. Its specific epithet, aureus, is by virtue of its golden appearance when grown in blood agar, a selective culture medium.

So that's the new chapter! I hope you've enjoyed it! Don't forget to leave a review! :)

Thanks to everyone who added this story to their faves and alerts, and to everyone who reviewed last chapter!

See you around!