Chapter 11: Rain Games
Player: Urameshi Yusuke
Squad: Urameshi, Hibana
1 Kill
72 Alive
The rain was still pouring down when Hibana emerged from the second floor twenty minutes after Yusuke had taken up vigil in the living room.
She stopped at the foot of the steps for a moment, a statue in the corner of Yusuke's vision, one hand still trailing down the wall as if using it for balance. Then, with a voice dry enough to absorb the entirety of the downpour pummeling the dirt beyond the shattered windows, she asked, "Is this what you call keeping watch?"
From his spot sprawled on the floor, his arms and legs flung wide like a starfish, Yusuke managed the world's least graceful shrug. "I was soaked from that dumb storm." He flipped a wrist in a gesture meant to encompass his spread-eagled form. "I'm air drying."
"If someone entered the house—"
"I'd have heard them. Take a peek around. Where do you think they're getting in without making enough noise to wake the dead?"
Hibana surveyed the room, her frown slowly melting into an exasperated sigh. "You still look like an idiot."
Yusuke grinned. "Why deny my true nature?"
She shook her head but padded over on silent feet and settled beside him, sitting cross-legged in the awkward triangle of space on his left, right between his extended arm and leg. Leaning past him, she picked through the supplies he'd gathered. Her hair swung, sweeping over her shoulders in wet strands, and he realized with a quickening of his pulse that she was still without her jacket, clad in only her damp shirt. The cotton clung to her sides in a way that drew his eye no matter how hard he fought to look away, especially as she rifled through the baggies of food above his head, her position aligning her chest a little too precisely over his eyes.
Grimacing, Yusuke jimmied his eyelids shut and welcomed the darkness, listening as Hibana snagged his backpack and started slotting gear inside it. "You should take some of the bandages," he said. "Pills, too. Doesn't make sense for me to carry them all."
"Nah, you keep them. Better they're in one place."
Yusuke cracked an eye back open. Putting all their supplies in his hands was stupid. If they got separated, she'd be down shit creek and he'd have all the paddles. "That's some impressively crappy logic. I don't want it all. Too much responsibility. Take—"
"No, Urameshi," Hibana said, and when he sucked in a breath so he could properly rant about how moronic she was being, she silenced him with a hand cupped over his mouth and a thumb leveraging his jaw closed. "Just be quiet, would you?"
She wasn't even looking at him, her free hand still carefully slotting bandages into his bag, but with her skin pressed to his lips, Yusuke found his tongue as uncooperative as if it had been turned to stone. An impulse he refused to obey urged him to nip at the soft flesh of her palm—or to… kiss it, maybe—but that was a special kind of absurd, and with a gargantuan effort, he rolled sideways, away from her, freeing himself from her touch and breaking his sightline with that clingy t-shirt of hers.
It was way, way more distracting than plain cotton should ever be.
Silence stretched, spilling out to fill the cobwebbed corners of the room, awkward and heavy, broken only by the rustle of Hibana's packing. Just as he became certain he couldn't take it any longer, Hibana asked, "Figured out your second dog tag?"
Yusuke got the distinct sense the torture of the quiet hadn't even registered for her, and as he sat up and twisted to face her, he was careful to keep distance between them. He needed no more of her casual touches, no more of her offhand closeness.
He stuck out his arm and drew on the dog tag's power, watching a shimmering force field take shape across his skin. It glimmered in the poor lighting, highlighting the hairs pricking along his forearm. "A shield. That's is. Nothing exciting." With a sigh, he dissipated the barrier and let his arm flop back to his side.
"Actually, I'd say that's precisely what you—"
Rolling his eyes, Yusuke kicked out a foot, catching his toes against her elbow and shoving until she toppled askew. "I knew you'd say that. I freaking knew it." Grumbling, he waved a hand at the food supplies she'd pulled from his bag. "Give me one of those."
"Such exquisite manners you've got."
"Oh, sorry. Didn't realize Hell required ladylike etiquette." Thrusting out a pinky on his extended hand, he flapped his arm again. "Pretty please."
Her eyes dancing with laughter that did truly obnoxious things to Yusuke's stomach, Hibana pushed the food his way, then turned to her own pack and withdrew the map she'd shown him the night prior. While he ripped into packages of dried fruit and jerky, she spread the parchment across the floor, studying the markings in the dim light. Chewing through a combined bite of apricot and beef, Yusuke held out his palm and summoned electricity.
He'd hoped it might brighten the room enough for Hibana to read by, but the sparks only jumped and sputtered, coursing across his skin in cords of blue-white heat, too unsteady to provide proper illumination. The crackle drew Hibana's attention, and she looked up, a smile playing at her lips. "Whether you approve of your shield or not, you can't be unhappy with that."
Irritated that his trick hadn't conjured the light she needed, Yusuke squelched the sparks and collapsed back to the floor. "I mean, I'm not complaining. Would kill for my Spirit Gun instead, though."
She arced an inky brow. "Is that your signature move?"
"Oh, don't act like 'Spirit Gun' is a dumb name when you're running around calling your weird explosive thing an 'X-KAIROS.'" He leveled the finger gun in question at her and mimed firing off a shot. "I could kick your ass if I had my actual powers."
"Mhmm."
"I could. For real."
She paused a moment, her gaze on his, and there was something in her expression, something in the faint upturn of her lips, that gave him pause—but then she bent over her map once more, and the feeling slithered away before he could grasp it. "I don't doubt that for a second, Urameshi."
"I'm actually a damn good fighter, you know."
"I do."
This time, it was Yusuke who hesitated. She did? She'd never acted as though she recognized him. Never once had she addressed him as Yusuke. But… maybe it had just taken her a bit to put the pieces together. Maybe she did know. "You do?"
"Didn't require more than a second in the field today to see how talented you are."
Oh.
Duh.
"Right." Shoving a hand through his rain-slicked hair, he stoutly ignored the whiny little voice inside him that wondered who Hibana could possibly be to not have heard of Urameshi Yusuke. Despite his pride's complaints, whether he was a stranger to her or not was irrelevant. His name hadn't saved him from the Grounds, and if he died here, it wouldn't matter if he was a former Spirit Detective or the ancestral son of Raizen or some kid off the street or Koenma himself. He'd still just be dead.
Who he was wouldn't be worth a damn at that point.
If Hibana noticed his turmoil, she gave no sign, and before long, she reached out a dirty hand to nudge his shoulder. "We'll stay here, at least through midnight—when the Circle will form—then make our plan for tomorrow."
Seizing the distraction she offered, Yusuke ran a thumb along the twin chains around his neck. "I've got two powers now—even if one is cruddy—so we don't need the military outpost anymore, huh?" As soon as he said it, the truth of struck him like a bolt, and before Hibana could even answer, he was grinning, rolling onto his side to face her and propping himself up on his left elbow. "We can chase drops all day. Get our hands on an adrenaline shot."
"It's not that easy. And the outpost—"
"We were only headed to the island so I could get armed and survive this place." He tapped his second tag. "A shield covers that. You were going to say so yourself. So forget the military whatever. Let's collect drops instead. Trust me. It'll be worth it."
She hesitated, gaze on her map, teeth worrying her chapped bottom lip.
He snagged a hand around her ankle and squeezed. "Come on, Hibana. Trust me on this."
Her teeth bit down so hard the color bled from her lip, pink fleeing before white, but after a beat, she nodded, the gesture rough and robotic. "Alright. We'll try. But it might not be that simple, Urameshi. There's no telling where drops will fall. We may not find many."
"We don't need 'many.' We just need the right one."
She blew an exhale out through her nose, but folded the map and tucked it away, safe in an inner pouch of her bag. Then she tipped her chin up, angling it toward the window. "Rain's really coming down, huh?"
He snorted. "Is that where we're at? Discussing the weather like a pair of stogies in an old folks' home?"
"I'm just saying, it's pretty torrential. Could drown a person."
He shoved his brows up to his hairline.
The rain was loud, sure, and the air was clammy with moisture, and it might've been Yusuke's imagination or some trick of his dog tag, but he could've sworn he could feel the charge of lightning in the air. Yet even still, this wasn't the worst rainstorm he'd ever been in. Not by a long shot. So why did Hibana's chin remain tilted toward the window, her eyes locked on something beyond the shattered pane? Flopping onto his back yet again, Yusuke followed the line of her gaze—and that's when he saw it.
Floating in the window's right corner, framed by jagged glass and chipped wood, loitered a compact silver body with a red light at its center, the tiny bulb blinking like the indicator of a recording camera
Yokai.
"Dunno about that," Yusuke said, forcing his eyes to glide past the observer as if he hadn't noticed it at all. "See, a few years back, my buddy Kuwabara almost got his ass handed to him by an actual water monster. That would've been real drowning. A bunch of raindrops aren't so bad."
It was a shitty transition.
Yusuke knew it. Judging by the downward tilt of Hibana's lips, she knew it. Hell, even Yokai probably knew it. But it had been all Yusuke could come up with, his only way of signaling he understood the game they now needed to play.
Though hell if he couldn't have at least drawn on a fight he remembered properly. Kuwabara's original tussle with Seaman wasn't exactly a crystal-clear memory for Yusuke. He hadn't been there to see it, after all. Had Kuwabara come close to losing? Had he even been the one stuck inside Mitarai's territory? Who fucking knew. Certainly not Yusuke.
Worse, Kuwabara had gotten himself out of that mess with his Dimension Sword, and that was a piece of the tale Yusuke would not—could not—share. Not if that same sword was to be their escape from the Grounds. The Gamerunner couldn't know why Yusuke wanted an adrenaline shot so badly.
Which meant it was time to backpedal.
"But that's a boring story," Yusuke said. "I've got a better one."
"Oh?"
"You bet." Lacing his hands behind his neck, Yusuke tilted his head just enough to bring Hibana clearly into view. "See, I met the guys all a bit separately, and it was only later that we all worked together. On this mission to defeat the Saint Beasts of Maze Castle."
"In the City of Ghosts and Apparitions," Hibana interrupted.
"You know it?"
"Nah, just made that name up."
Yusuke managed to choke down a laugh, but only just barely. "I should keep a tally of how often you're a raging bitch."
Her grin flashed, wicked and fleeting. "On with the story, you prick."
"Right so, it was a pretty straightforward mission. Enter the castle. Find the beasts. Fuck their shit up. But like I said, we'd never worked together before, and after the shit show we were, I'm shocked we ever teamed up again."
Hibana drew her knees to her chest and cradled her chin in the valley between them, her hair falling in inky waves over one shoulder. She said nothing as he continued, listening with a crinkle about her eyes that spoke of amusement. Reveling in the warmth of her undivided attention, Yusuke plowed into his retelling, losing himself in the memories, narrating the gory details with descriptions so spirited they would've left a regular girl retching.
Unsurprisingly, Hibana was unfazed.
He lingered over the bits that were most centered on his team—on the first laid stones in what would become the foundation of their brotherhood. The initial bickering squabbles between Kuwabara and Hiei. Their plight at the Gate of Betrayal. The perilous jaunt through the castle, slaying each beast in turn.
By the end, as he puttered into silence, half-lost in his own head, Hibana's smile had faded, her eyes oddly sober.
"What?" he demanded. "Did I bore you?"
The answering shake of her head tangled the waterfall of her hair, and she dragged her grimy nails through the locks, thrusting them behind her shoulder. "Nah. Just… well, you love them, huh? These friends of yours."
A knee-jerk denial sputtered to his lips. "No way. I love—"
The retort died as quick as it came, Yusuke nearly biting his tongue in his rush to shut up.
He'd been about to say Keiko, that he loved Keiko. And it wouldn't have been a lie. He did love Keiko. He'd always love Keiko. But he wasn't in love with Keiko. He hadn't been for a long, long time.
Which was exactly what Hibana meant.
Yusuke wasn't in love with his team. But he did love them. Mostly. He loved Kuwabara's laughter and inability to control his volume level. He loved Kurama's dry wit and affinity for pranks so cunning his victim didn't even realize they'd been tricked. He loved Hiei's steadfast loyalty and dogged insistence on telling shit like it was, no matter how crappy his timing.
They were his family. The one constant in his weird freakstorm of a life. So what if he loved them? Was that such a big fucking deal?
"What's your point?"
"It was just an observation, Urameshi. Nothing to get defensive about."
Normally, he'd call that bullshit, declare a spade a spade and insist she own up to the truth, but her voice was so quiet, so earnest and unguarded, that his usual bite wouldn't come. Outside, a fork of lightning zigged across the horizon, and a boom of thunder followed, cracking across the fields. In the lull after, as the rain's drumming settled into the quiet aftermath of the thunderclap, he cleared his throat. "What about you? Got friends waiting for you to get out of here?"
It was as if he'd shot her.
The life went from her expression, her eyes darkening to shards of black ice, the final traces of her smile evaporating. She didn't frown, didn't glare, but he saw nothing of the girl he was beginning to know in the stony mask staring back at him. Not a shred of her remained.
Cutting her gaze to the window, she ignored his question and announced, "Yokai's gone," then grabbed a fistful of her bag and shoved upright, hauling the backpack onto her shoulder. "Let's go upstairs. You take watch until midnight and wake me so we can see where the Circle manifests. Then we'll switch." As if that was all it took to end their conversation, she turned on her heel, fluid as a prowling cat, and strode for the stairs.
What the hell had he done wrong?
Yusuke couldn't figure it out. Couldn't make sense of why asking about friends would turn her into a ghost of herself. All he knew was that he wasn't ready for her to go. He didn't want to be done here. Not yet. Not when he'd so clearly screwed up.
Thoughtlessly, he lunged after her, scrambling on his hands and knees to swipe at her wrist. "Hibana, wait."
Under his touch, she froze, so still he wasn't even sure she drew breath, but now that he had her, he had no idea what to say, and before he could fumble up something to break the taut silence, she puttered back into motion. With firm, calloused fingers, she pried her wrist free of his grip and then, without a word more—without even a look back at him—disappeared up the steps.
Yusuke stood still a moment longer, his hand flexing in and out of a fist. Eventually, he forced his feet to part from the floor, one trudging stride after another drawing him up the staircase after her, leaving the barricaded first story to protect them.
Hibana had ducked not left, into the room where she'd mourned her kills, but right, into the poorly furnished bedroom opposite it. Inside its musty depths, she set her bag against the wall and smoothed out the canvas, then lay down and slid up to use the backpack like a pillow. Her jacket remained absent, probably still drying in the room across the landing, and as Yusuke settled a few feet away, propping himself against the chipped plaster, he grew distinctly aware of a draft blowing across the room.
It carried rain inside, splattering droplets over the scuffed floor, and tendrils of the breeze blew stray hair across his forehead. In minutes, the cold had wormed beneath the thin layer of his shirt, chilling his still clammy skin, and though the room was dark, illuminated only by the weak light filtered through the storm clouds, he didn't miss the telltale shake of a shiver as one wracked through Hibana. At first, he ignored it, reminding himself that she'd pushed him away downstairs, bricking up a wall between them she clearly didn't want broken down, but after the third tremor rattled through her, he couldn't feign ignorance any longer.
"Hibana," he whispered.
She cracked open an eye. "What, Urameshi?"
Yusuke, he wanted to say. Call me Yusuke.
Instead, he lifted an arm, beckoning her with one hand. "Come here. Stupid for us to spend the night freezing."
She made no effort to move.
"Two people means twice as much body heat," he said and patted his thigh. "It's basic science or something. Point is: I'm cold. You're cold. And I don't bite. So come on." Another pat of his leg. "Let's not be complete idiots."
For a second, he thought she was going to blow him off, leave him sitting there alone, both of them freezing in the dark—but then she pushed her bag toward him and scooted after it. Wordlessly, she lay her head atop his thigh, one hand sliding beneath his quad. She pressed her back to the wall, her pack tucked into the curve of her stomach as she drew up her knees.
He said nothing as she settled, but his traitorous hand took on a life of its own. Without his permission, it swept over her hair, tucking strands out of her eyes before gliding along the curve of her shoulder. It traced lower, rubbing circles into her back and massaging down her spine. Warming her.
Supposedly.
Once it started, he found he couldn't stop it. Didn't want to, really. Not as Hibana's breath grew steady. Nor as the tension slid from her back. By the time sleep claimed her in full, he thought he might know every inch of her left shoulder by touch alone, every ridge of her upper spine by nothing more than feel. But as one silent minute bled into the next, Yusuke willed his muscles to stone, then let his hand fall lifeless to the floor.
He canted his head back against the wall and stared up at the distant ceiling, trying to make out shapes through the darkness. His pulse thrummed unsteadily in his temples, the long hours of the day tearing away pieces of him until all that remained was his ragged, busted up heart.
But his exhaustion could stuff it, for all Yusuke cared. He'd promised to take watch. So take watch he would.
In a few hours, the first Circle would appear. Hibana needed rest before then. He did, too. Because he already knew—once the Circle began to close, the Grounds would only get worse.
Player: Youko Kurama
Squad: Youko, Kuwabara
6 Kills
72 Alive
Kurama returned to himself in a shifting of flesh and morphing of muscle that left his body aching for phantom limbs, for the wings that had retracted into his spine and the talons that had shrunk down to measly human nails. Even after the metamorphosis finished, his nerve endings still whispered of wind rustling through his feathers, and his jaw felt too tight, too compressed, a mere specter of the formidable might that had been his beak.
Blood pooled at his feet, gathering in pockets of churned mud, rainwater turning it mauve in the darkness. The rain slicked every inch of him, dripping along the curve of his ear and sluicing off the bridge of his nose, trailing cold fingers down his spine and squelching between his toes.
Dully, Kurama's thoughts took shape, coalescing into meaningful understanding, deciphering the sensory input that had overwhelmed him. Changing into the griffin hadn't been like shifting into Youko or returning to Shuichi. During those transformations—even during that first unplanned manipulation under the sway of the Idunn Box—his mind remained his own. He was still Kurama, still the blended soul he'd been for the last quarter century. But as the griffin… He had been something else. Something other. Something animal and wild and raging, flooded with the territorial need to protect a member of his pack. To protect Kuwabara.
Kuwabara.
The human stood before Kurama now, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, soaked to the bone, a bruise already spreading like blue-black oil across his cheek. But slowly, as if it had snuck up on him, a grin broke across Kuwabara's lips, and in a bounding step, he closed the gap between them.
Massive arms wrapped around Kurama, crushing him to a broad chest as Kuwabara clenched a fist in the stretch of shirt between Kurama's shoulder blades, his other forearm hooking tight around his ribs. Pants burst within Kuwabara's lungs, his terrified flight from the building catching up to him, and his every breath rattled through Kurama, as urgent as the flustered pounding of Kurama's heart.
Kurama couldn't be sure how long they stood there, the rain falling in sheets, thunder booming in the distance. Seconds? Minutes? Perhaps it was weak-willed human fancy that kept him stationary or perhaps the vestiges of his transformation still cobwebbing his mind—or maybe it was simply relief, profound and staggering.
Despite the terrible odds, he'd tracked Kuwabara. Reached him in time to save his life.
If not for Kurama, Kuwabara would have died here, torn apart under cruel hands. Instead, Kurama had claimed four additional victims—four more lives to stack upon his tally. More lifeblood to slick his hands.
It was a price he'd pay a million times over. And a million times more if that's what it took to reunite with Hiei and Yusuke as well.
No death score could outweigh the value of his team. No eventual residence in Spirit World's worst depths could sway him. Not from this. Not from his allies. His friends.
Arms still locked tight, his breath blowing hot against Kurama's ear, Kuwabara said, "Color me crazy, but last I knew, your shapeshifting was only of the foxy variety. What the hell was that just now?"
Huffing out a soft laugh, Kurama eased back. His hand rose to his throat, pulling the dog tag's chain free of his soaked shirt. "Powers on this island appear to come from these tags."
Kuwabara's brow scrunched. "How'd you work that out?"
"Happenstance and an overly large shake of dumb luck."
"Yeah right." Kuwabara rocked back on his heels, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. Rainwater gathered along the heavy line of his brow and streamed downward at the corners of his eyes as if his face possessed its own gutter system. "You haven't done a dumb thing in your life."
"While the vote of confidence is appreciated," Kurama said, "it was my poor decision making that split us up in the lab. Shortly thereafter, I was captured, as were you and presumably Hiei and Yusuke. If that doesn't qualify as unwise, you may want to recalibrate your meter."
"Whatever," Kuwabara said, flapping a hand to dismiss Kurama's logic. "Point is: you can turn into a fucking griffin, and you saved my ass, and now we're together—one half of the team." He thrust a finger solidly into Kurama chest. "So if that was all dumb luck, then hell yes, bring it on. We need more, more, more."
It took a beat for Kurama to comprehend the absurdity of the moment unfolding around him. The rain pouring down. The bodies cooling at their feet. The exposure of this open field. The 6 emblazoned on his vision. The continued relief in his system. The utter and complete lack of alarm.
Kuwabara had that effect on him. An odd, disarming ability to strip away the gravity of a moment and hone in on hope and possibility.
So when a smile curled at the corner of Kurama's lips, he didn't resist it. "Dumb luck guided me to a tag," he said, allowing the seeds of that smile to blossom into a grin, "but it was the red strings of fate that saved your life. Or rather—red scraps of cloth."
For a second, Kuwabara said nothing, seemingly struck silent by the success of his breadcrumb trail, but then he threw back his head, a laugh rising up from his belly that could be classified as nothing less than a guffaw. It shook through him, spilling raindrops from his shoulders in a cascade. "You're kidding," he crowed. "Tell me you're kidding."
"No word of a lie."
With a whoop, Kuwabara punched a fist toward the sky. "You're telling that to Hiei and Yusuke when we find them, you hear me? Yusuke, especially. That punk's been mocking me for years, but look where the red string got me now!"
Yes, look, indeed.
Here. In this bloody battleground. Five minutes removed from a brush with death that, while perhaps not the closest of Kuwabara's life, certainly ranked in the top five. Had he not lived a life so inhumanly dangerous, it would've far and away beaten any risk he could've faced in Sarayashiki.
That was the path fate had put him on. If one were to believe in fate, that is. And Kurama… He had never been much of a believer.
But he said none of that now. "I'll tell them. Swear it."
"Good." A flash of lightning preceded a fresh boom of thunder, and as Kuwabara straightened up, his expression sobered. "Though we have to find them first, huh?"
"So it seems."
Kuwabara patted his shoulder, apparently confirming the presence of his bag, its straps still snug over his arms. "I was leaving before…" His gaze flitted to the bodies lying in the muck, then jerked away. "Figure we might as well stick that. Keep heading west, maybe."
"Perhaps we camp here a few hours longer," Kurama said. Kuwabara strategy was as sound as any, but fatigue weighed like stones upon Kurama's limbs. He needed rest—a bout of sleep in which he need not keep one eye open. But before that, one task remained at hand. "Though first—one of the women was using energy attacks. She must've had a dog tag."
Kurama could tell when his implication sunk home by the gradual draining of color from Kuwabara's cheeks. "Look, I know they're not buried, so it's not properly grave digging, but looting a bunch of corpses—"
"Will save our lives," Kurama finished for him. He turned to survey the women, trying to discern which of the muddy, bloodstained bodies was the one they needed. "Now, let's be quick. The storm provides good cover. We may not hear foes approaching."
Kuwabara remained rooted in place a breath longer, his face still bloodless—still sick at the sacrilege of Kurama's suggestion—but when Kurama stooped to roll the nearest corpse onto its back, he lurched into action. His legs took him stumbling away, up onto the slight rise of a hill, his boots squelching through the mud. With a wretched groan, he bent over, hands on his knees, body heaving as it expunged its horror into the sodden grass.
Kurama did him the service of pretending not to notice. He kept his eyes averted, kept his hands picking over the dead.
Until he found it. The tag.
It was worth the mud beneath his nails and the blood in the creases of his fingers. It was worth Kuwabara retching in the bushes. It was worth a mark against his soul.
A bettered shot at survival was worth anything.
A million times over.
Player: Urameshi Yusuke
Squad: Urameshi, Hibana
1 Kill
70 Alive
It had to be nearing midnight when Hibana shifted in her sleep, her head sliding off Yusuke's thigh as she curled up tighter, hugging her bag to her chest. He held still for a heartbeat, waiting until her breath evened out again, then stretched his legs, wincing as blood rushed back in a flood of pins and needles. Careful not to disturb her, he found his feet, wobbly at first on his half-numb limbs. He needed to move, needed to loosen up muscles that had gone stiff after so many hours of stillness, but he wouldn't go far—no further, even, than the room across the landing.
The rain had stopped a while back, and the moon had finally broken through the clouds. Its watery light guided Yusuke's steps across the rotting floorboards, keeping his feet steady as he ducked into the opposite bedroom as quietly as any powerless human could ever manage.
Without thinking, he scanned for the numbers Hibana had carved into the wall, hoping to find 051—the identifier of the woman whose throat he'd slit. But there was nothing to see. No numbers. No digits etched in the plaster.
Confused, he stepped closer, dodging around a discarded mattress as he went. Even inches from the wall, he found nothing. Only dirty, featureless paint and a lone headboard, the rest of its frame scattered in pieces across the room.
It made no sense. He'd seen the carvings for himself.
They had to be here.
Burying a hand in his hair, he paced. His foot caught on a discarded shirt, and he looked down, spotting a trail tracked through the dust, highlighted in the moon's glow.
Someone—Hibana, obviously—had moved the headboard, shoving it three feet down the wall.
Frowning, Yusuke grabbed hold of the wood and hefted it upright with more difficulty than a stupid slab of cheap plywood should've required. Even in his weakened state, he managed to lay it down without commotion, and as he straightened up, dusting off his palms, he discovered those painstakingly carved numbers, right where he'd last seen them.
017
051
068
And then, beside them, a number he hadn't seen before. One he couldn't make sense of. One that consisted of only two digits, not three.
48
Another of Hibana's secrets. Another mystery. Another riddle.
Would her puzzles ever cease?
AN: I'M BACK!
Endless heaps of apologies for how long this story was put on hold—and with as little warning as I provided. To make a very long story short, I spent the last few months putting a wrap on BBL and completing a massive round of revision on a novel, but at long, long last, TUG has my focus again! And thank goodness, too, because I missed this story heaps.
I hope this was a compelling return chapter. I know it wasn't the most action packed, but after the upheaval of the last few chapters, the boys were in need of some downtime. I'm incredibly excited for material to come in the next five or so chapters (as in, that material is what compelled me to write this whole story), so have no fear—TUG isn't going back on hiatus any time soon (or at all, if I have anything to say about it).
Heaps of thanks to you wonderful souls who reviewed in the time since my last post: Laina Inverse, MissIdeophobia, roseeyes, Guest, KyoHana, starsxwonder, Shell1331, Kara Evans, and FireDancerNix.
(P.S. Note that the kill count dropped in Yusuke's last scene without being explicitly mentioned. As the boys grow more used to deaths happening, I won't address every single kill as it happens.)