Fat pigeons cooed in the town square while Tsubaki waited near the wishing fountain for Kurama, as directed by his rose-scented note. Not used to waiting, due to her infamy for tardiness, she noticed every twitch and squirm of the vine skeleton beneath her skin. Wasn't it just on the other side of the square, along Main street, that Güzel warned that her arrogance would get her cornered?
The tables had flipped since meeting Güzel; wasn't it only yesterday?
With an elbow plagued with rotten bad Goz and a death plant entangled around her bones, even Tsubaki could agree (not that Güzel would ever hear her say it) she was caught in a dire pinch. Not beyond her abilities to wriggle out, but Gunah and his spirit world allies were formidable opponents, she could admit.
Now even her good arm tired of the heavy glass jar. She set it on the stone bollard seat and she decided to read the info card Riya had scribbled for her.
Species: Drosera Intermedia aka Spoonleaf Sundew
Feed bimonthly. Suggestions: fruit flies, blood worms, or ants (dead, please). Can catch its own food. Do NOT give it municipal water or you'll kill it. Only rain water or distilled. Needs 6-8 hours of indirect sunlight per day. Use sunlamp in winter if necessary. Safe temperatures 10-35 degrees. Congratulations on your new insectivorous baby :D xoxo ~Riya
She looked inside at the spoon leaves, sprinkled with sticky dew.
What the hell was I thinking when I decided to take this thing? Riya was super passionate about her plants and a walking encyclopedia; her interest was infectious. Maybe Tsubaki envied her mother's new spider plant and thought it could use some green company. Or maybe because she had a carnivorous plant (an unspecified type) under her skin and she was experiencing a branch of Stockholm syndrome.
Is this another procrastination scheme? Another way to set roots in this world when I'm supposed to be finding ways to get out of it? She shook her head to muddle the anxious voices. Not sleeping was not helping nor was the excitement from sensing Kara helping.
We didn't part on good terms. What would he say if he saw me now?
Something else she sensed in the bustling square filled with commuters and party-goers getting an early start on their evening. She tried to focus, but instead of rendering a clear image, the familiar presence buzzed like a mosquito spinning around her in circles. Instead of her sensual sight, her literal sight spotted Urameshi and Kuwabara, sauntering with two students from Sarayashiki high. The brunette with pigtails and honey large eyes—memory is fuzzy, where have I seen her before? Firefly kanji, K-something. But the girl beside her, a wispy girl, wispy in her sugar spun hair and in her delicate slender, limbs.
Within the four, she was the slightest physically and spiritually among them, yet Tsubaki could glide to her, guided by her magnetic presence. Oh my, she is very interesting.
"Something wrong Yusuke?" asked Keiko when he suddenly rubbed his face in his hands. "Is your head hurting?"
He forced a smile but it didn't fool her. "Nah, just was hit with some…" He trailed off and Keiko followed the direction of his eyes. "Deja-vu."
A group of salarymen blocked their view, but the teenager's gaze locked with theirs as if no one around them existed.
With a second look, at her face, hair, uniform. "That girl…"
"Oh yeah, Keiko, I know who that is," said her friend, turning away from what Kuwabara just said.
"Yeah, now I recognize her, by her uniform," said Keiko.
"Yeah, we know her too," said Kuwabara, scratching without thinking at the bandage on his cheek.
Yusuke took Keiko by the shoulders and twisted her away so they could continue in a different direction.
"Urameshi? Do you have a moment?" said Tsubaki. Yusuke sighed and steeled himself and his thoughts. Kurama had said her mind-reading powers should be weaker than usual, not that did much to ease his worries when she was the last person they wanted to run into. Kurama made it sound so easy—stop it Yusuke. Repressing his thoughts felt like holding his breath—
A pair of school kids scampered behind them and threw coins into the fountain basin. The rush of the water, loud and steady enough that Yusuke listened and it cleansed his anxious mind.
"Ah!" Keiko interjected. "Tsubaki Yabi from Aojo, right?"
Tsubaki nodded. Yusuke didn't like the mixed expression on her face, one would look at someone they thought they remembered but couldn't quite place.
"Your name is mentioned a lot by the science kids at our school."
"Nerd stuff," Yusuke muttered.
"This is random." Keiko turned to Yusuke. "Why would you know Tsubaki Yabu of all people—" Yusuke saw the realization flash on her face, the light bulbing switching on. Shorter than Tsubaki, Keiko leaned in close to read her, looking for clues. "By any chance…is she…are you…"
Different? He heard her voice, omnipresent around them.
Keiko sank back down on her heels, the gears turning in her head. She wiped her forehead, half for the beading sweat, half trying to flick away the tickle at the front of her mind. She turned to her friend who had just opened her mouth to utter something to Kuwabara. "Say, Nagisa, let's go ahead. These two will meet us at the intersection."
The two girls left, the blonde a pace slower than Keiko.
"Sah, Kuwabara. How was school?" asked Tsubaki. "Did you have any surprise visitors today?"
Kuwabara squeaked and sucked in his lips to hold back his words. Yusuke saw the narrowing of her eyes and damn it, just knew he remembered what they weren't supposed to think about. Yusuke fought the imagery in his own head, glimpses of blue threads skated on the edges of his mind, and the pressure of Tsubaki's mind eye creeping inside. Do something! She's gonna see it!
"Karagoz," Yusuke blurted out. The pressure of her encroaching mind eye released and Tsubaki backpedaled by one pace, widening the berth between them, pale in her face.
"So…you did see Kara," she said. Yusuke waited for her to dig into his mind, but when she didn't, he exhaled and nodded. Maybe that was all she wanted to confirm.
"What's with the plant?" asked Kuwabara, peering into the jar at first then over to the bracelet on her wrist.
So that's the power aid Hiei was talking about.
Tsubaki closed her hand around the bracelet. "You don't want me to use this on you."
Kuwabara hopped back. "Wasn't asking for it."
"You saw Güzel too, I'm guessing. If you know about this piece," she said.
"What would happen if you used it? Would you turn into a frost monster like the other one?" Yusuke asked.
"I'd get my full Illusion powers back. Not sure of what form. Turn incorporeal or become superhuman—it will be a surprise."
For a moment, they listened to the fountain.
"Kuwabara, go on ahead. Urameshi will join you in a moment," said Tsubaki.
His friend glanced over with a stern expression, ready like the loyal dolt he was to immediately back him up. "I've got this, do what she says." Kuwabara, with one serious, warning look to Tsubaki, threw his bag over his shoulder and left.
She pointed to her eyes then at Kuwabara. "Watch him."
They could hear Kuwabara's stiff laugh as he met with Keiko and her friend.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" He turned to her, seeing a thin smile on her face, her irises suddenly darker.
"The sun might have been in your eyes, so you might have missed it."
"Missed what? Kuwabara's dumb laugh? Keiko?"
"Nagisa Amemiya."
He couldn't help but glance over to the blonde, so slight against Kuwabara's giant height. "Huh, you mean Keiko's friend? What about her?"
Tsubaki waved a note-card in front of her nose to clear the air.
"I wish you could smell what I smell—or be glad you don't. Love and jealousy twisting together by far smells the most rancid. Even as weak as I am, blondie reeks. She's in love and she's jealous of you and Keiko."
Expecting a winding, vague stream of words, Yusuke missed a whole beat before reacting. "Really? Her?"
Tsubaki nodded.
"Never pegged her as being in love with me. Not that I could blame her. Guess I still got it." Yusuke scratched his chin, beaming with vanity.
"Well actually..."
Kuwabara's laugh, more sincere now, bounced over and Nagisa blushed, the source of his amusement from her quip.
"Wait...you mean...?" He hooked his thumb at his orange-haired friend.
She nodded.
Nagisa Amemiya and Kuwabara, eh?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Psychic Spyglass. At first, he used Tsubaki as a point of reference (he saw Kurama's plant under her skin and dark energy blurring her elbow) before turning to Nagisa. He saw Keiko's slight energy, dwarfed by Kuwabara's spirit energy but even his immense strength looked faint compared to the emotional waves smoldering from Nagisa. In the same way he couldn't stare at Güzel for long, he had to avert his eyes. He squeezed the corners of his eyes, shedding soothing tears, before taking in the scene again without the strange infra-Illusion filter.
Keiko stood in between them, filling the space Nagisa naturally left between her and Kuwabara. Did Keiko even know?
"Hate to be an asshole, she's a nice girl but Kuwabara is already in love with someone else."
"Match-making is the least of our problems. Hmmm, how do I put this sensitively? You remember our frost monster friend?"
"Are you…telling me…" His voice dipped as low as a whisper even with the others so far out of earshot. "That she's the next Illusion-monster?"
"Without a doubt."
"Is this some kind of joke to you? A frost monster thing made out of spirit and snow I can handle, but messing with Keiko's friends is where I draw the line. Kara told us all about you. Jealousy is your thing, right? So you can stop it. Cut it out and let her go!" Yusuke pointed a finger to her face to empower his command.
She swatted his hand away with crossed eyes. "Get a grip. I didn't start that fire. That jealousy has been plugging away at her for ages, and has nothing to do with me."
"You can't say that you aren't throwing more fuel into it. Like that corrupted illusion that became the frost monster. I saw how you looked at her and know you must have dumped all sorts of—"
"Still blaming me for what was always there," she said. "Fine, this conversation is over. Go on and stop making your friends wait."
He gritted his teeth. Once again, the loud and steady rush of the fountain calmed his mind and soothed his anger. He exhaled a deep breath and remembered Kurama's word: play by her rules and beat her at her game. "Fine, Illusion. What should I expect?"
"Hard to say before it's done cooking. The ingredients are still mixing in the bowl. I can say, that unlike a frost monster, with emotions like jealousy, you can draw on your experience. For example, have you ever noticed how jealousy…eats at you?"
Haunting images brewed in his mind, an angry and spiteful hunger that dug inside one's body, spiraling deeper and deeper. "So…I should expect a horror movie. What do I do about it?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Don't get too close or it might suck you in too."
"But she's Keiko's friend."
"Yeah, bad, right? She has really cute curly hair, perfect little spirals." She twirled a stubbornly straight green lock around her finger. "Mine can't hold a curl for crap."
"Nothing more than a shrug from you." After seeing the other two Illusions, he wasn't surprised anymore in how little they seemed to care about the consequences. Her and Kara at least, Güzel at least seemed to give a damn.
Again, that offended look Tsubaki gave whenever they accused her of something. "I've been honest—"
"Yes, I get it. Illusions hate lying."
Tsubaki sighed. "I can monitor the situation. If you would like?"
Yusuke crossed his arms. "No need. If it's not done cooking, then maybe there's a chance we can stop it. If it's some pesky jealousy thing, it has to clear up because there's no way in hell I'm gonna fight Nagisa."
"Pesky?" In that moment she smiled, but it reminded him of Kara's anticipation before he revealed the card Grim Reaper's Breath. "If you say so."
Fat chance that luck would be on their side when they had the green-eyed monster beside them repelling all their good fortune. "Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this. All I need to do is ask Kuwabara to take one for the team. He could fake it for a while—"
Tsubaki's groan carried with it so much disgust he thought she could puke. "I knew should have reached out to Keiko about this situation."
"You keep Keiko out of this mess." He said calmly, but with a warning edge. "If any of you Illusions so much as glance in her direction—"
He pictured Kurama's plant blooming, inky red splattering into the air, turning the Illusion into a bed of exquisite demon flowers. It was her impetus to peek into his head to see the gory image, but judging by her backward step, she got the picture.
Tsubaki showed her empty palms. "I know I'm outmatched at the moment. Regardless of what Güzel told you, I'm not that stupid. She was one of the faces you saw in the alley. I grasp how important she is to you. I only was speaking in terms of empathy. She might know how to soothe her friend and talk her down. You don't know the first thing about women or the first thing about Kuwabara if you think he'll go along with your half-ass plan."
She's met him a few times and thinks she knows him?
Well, that was the thing about Kuwabara. People mistook him for simple but actually, he was straightforward and loud about his values that even a person who met him four times could read him like an open book. And in Tsubaki's case, everyone was an open book.
"Faking it would conflict with too many of his principles. I could twist his arm until it broke off and he still wouldn't go for that. I could beat it into his thick skull that it's for the good of the world but he's stubborn as a mule—" He dragged his hand down his face. "No way he knows so if I told him he would act weird."
"Not even Keiko knows," Tsubaki added. "Everyone knows Kuwabara is smitten with another girl."
Keiko stood in between them so Nagisa hung on the periphery. Far enough to not seem forward but close enough to enjoy a closeness with Kuwabara. With Tsubaki's giant spotlight on it, Yusuke wondered how he had missed it before. Cheery smiles on the surface barely hid her looks of longing, how she hung onto his every word. It was almost hard to watch. Yusuke didn't know her too well, but even shy as she seemed she acted less scared of him than Keiko's other friends.
"So she knows she has no shot and never plans on saying anything? Not to Kuwabara or her friends?"
"A martyr's existence." Tsubaki nodded, watching them with Yusuke. "A slightly insincere one I must add. She's not exactly waiting for his relationship to break up or for his heart to get broken but if in the future…if the circumstances were open." Tsubaki winked. "Another reason she's hanging around, she's waiting for information. Jealousy obsesses over information."
"Never been good with that whole jealousy thing."
"Fitting that you have a front row seat. You'll get to watch it either dissipate like a puff of smoke, or spiral out of control." She twirled a lock of green hair around her finger.
He may have had the front seat, meanwhile, Tsubaki pulled the marionette wires, twisting and spinning them until she inspired the reaction she wanted from her audience.
But why? Her mission is to help Illusions, right? She knows she's not winning sympathy for Illusions by showing how terrible they can be. Kurama, who's visiting Spirit World at the moment, promised he'd find the answer to the question. Until then…even if it meant getting Keiko involved…
That thought filled him with more anger but he heaved a deep breath, following the mind clearing exercises Kurama armed him with and listened to the fountain. Once again, the rushing water soothed and cleared his mind, and with that, the answer became clear.
"I'll find a way to help Nagisa."
AN: Tsubaki and the four are starting to feel the pressure. A short one after the previous long ones. I cut this chapter in half to give more emphasis on Nagisa Amemiya. Had to give Kuwabara some love. You can't convince me that he didn't have some people pining over him ^_^;
As always, thank you for the follows and favs, and for your support Yileen. I'm pretty bad with name and face recognition when I first read/watch something new and it was tough trying to figure out how to introduce multiple characters (with multiple names) without confusing readers. Confused characters good, confused readers bad. I'll slow down and let the information sink in before info-dumping more. Trying to learn more about this writing thing and I definitely take what is said on board :)
