D101-...sorry... Didn't mean to be cruel

Everyone- I'm not so sure I like this chapter, it feels a little disjointed to me, but I figured it was time to stop worrying about perfecting and move the story along :)


"Never again…!" Kazuki ranted, still very tempted to fall to his knees and hug the ground for being solid, "We're finding another way back. I'll swim home before I get back in that… deathtrap."

"Considering it was only my second landing I think I did very well." Sayuri answered, tipping her chin up defiantly as she walked next to him, doing her best to keep from kicking the backpack trailing from his hand.

"Give me a break! You were less than an inch from that tree."

"It was at least a foot and you know it. Stop exaggerating." She moved to walk on the other side of him to avoid the now bouncing bag and the pebbles it was kicking up along the rocky path they were following up from where she'd landed, fairly successfully on a patch of rock. "The building at the top should be a hotel…"

"How do you know?" He threw her a sidelong glance.

"I read the sign while we were landing."

Kazuki stopped to glare at her, waiting until she'd noticed and turned back to shout, "See! I knew you weren't paying attention." The slow look of dawning realization that crept across his face made Sayuri smile to herself almost as much as the expression of bliss it left in its wake. "Wait hotel… that means no camping doesn't it?" He asked quietly, hopefully. Not trusting herself not to laugh Sayuri only nodded and was unable to suppress a chuckle at the whoop of victory that escaped him as he hefted his backpack and rushed up the path passed her. "Sayuri, I could kiss you!" He called back before vanishing around the corner of a cliff face.

"You could…" She whispered, frowning after him. A second later she shook her head, pushing the silly thought firmly away and went after him.

She caught up at the base of a large square building that looked so out of place she half expected it to melt away like some sort of mirage as they approached. Leaving Kazuki to examine the looming steel and glass cube she stepped onto the brick between tow square pillars and approached the glass door. A rug that had been mostly protected from the elements by the building's overhanging upper floors squished beneath her feet and sent up little plumes of dust around her ankles with each step. Stooping a bit Sayuri examined the brass keyhole in the door's almost nonexistent gold plated frame. From the grime coating the door itself no one had cleaned it in a long time. Her initial assumption of the island being unpopulated was looking more correct all the time. It was a wonder the glass hadn't already been broken really. Dropping to one knee she reached into the inside pocket of her father's old orange jacket. Truthfully she wore it more than he did but she still considered it his.

"Now what are you doing?" It actually surprised her how close he'd come without her noticing. When had that happened? When had she gotten so comfortable with him being near that her self-preservation instincts were no longer alerted by his presence? Not that she expected Kazuki to attack her, but anyone within a few feet was normally worth noting.

"Picking the lock." She answered simply, redirecting her attention to the tumblers.

"You can crack safes and pick locks." He examined the objects in her hands, what looked like part of a bobby pin and an unbent paperclip to him, over crossed arms before he shook his head. "What would your father think?"

"That it was terribly disappointing…" She twitched one of the picks and the lock sprang happily open, "that it took me so long." She finished, tucking the delicate instruments back into her pocket as she stood.

"There's no way he would say that." Kazuki challenged over crossed arms. There was no way Mr. do your homework, go to school would be okay with his daughter breaking and entering.

"You asked me what he'd think." She reminded him, "And there is a big difference between what he'd think and what he'd say."

XXX

"You're cheating…"That the electricity worked was a miracle Kazuki had absolutely no intention of questioning. Sayuri had saved him from breaking down one of the doors by locating some little keypad thing behind the front desk that had reactivated and coded the keycards. She had also found the lost and found box and the deck of cards in it.

"I assure you I'm not."

"Yeah right…" Kazuki snapped, throwing the cards down, "You've won every damn hand!"

Sayuri blinked at him through a look of feigned innocence, "I don't need to cheat Kazuki because you're very bad at poker." She informed him. Stretching she climbed out of the deep cream colored cushion of the "L" shaped sectional, "Well, goodnight."

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" He demanded collection the cards she'd placed on the table. "We aren't done here fox-girl."

"Kazuki…" She didn't bother turning back to face him as she strolled toward one of the suite's two bedrooms, "You have nothing left to wager."

"Sure I do!" Desperate as he surveyed his empty side of the coffee table Kazuki practically dove into the backpack sitting beside him, "Just sit down…"

She watched him then heaved a heavy sigh. "You just don't know when to quit do you?" Dropping back onto the couch she leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and folded her hands over her knee. "If you plan on keeping me up all night you had better have something worth my time."

"Yeah yeah, don't get your tail in a knot."

"I don't have a tail."

"Here!" He proclaimed emerging from the bag and slamming a handful of objects on the table, "You told me this stuff is valuable right? It should more than cover it…"

"You want to bet your dad's old detective tools?"

"Why not…? It's not like anyone's using them." Kazuki brushed the broken items, a shattered toy gun; glasses snapped in two, aside and held up one of the circles that reminded him of an iron on patch, "What's this thing?"

"You're lucky you're so lousy at this or I wouldn't tell you how much these things are really worth."

Normally he would have argued with her but this time he let it go, glad she was acting like herself again after the long flight and a lot of uncharacteristic silence. He'd had about all the quiet staring he could handle. Sayuri must have noticed he wasn't paying attention because she leaned across the table, taking the patch from his hand and stuck it to his shirt.

"Okay… how do I get this thing off?" he demanded a minute later when he was worried he might rip his shirt trying to pull it free.

"Mejiru Seal… and if you'd been listening you'd know."

XXX

"Wow… I didn't think it'd be so… trashed." He murmured, staring at the pile of dark rock and rusted steel stretching across the rock and dirt clearing in front of him. "There's no way there's anything left…"

"Here, try this." He barely caught the little green framed disc she flicked at him. Frowning he examined it silently. "It's a psychic Spyglass. Think X-ray vision. I can't use it but you should be able to. You can see if there's anything worth digging for."

"How do you know that?" He asked, holding the lens up to his eye and closing the other. It was a second before the dusty upper layer started to vanish and was replaced by the dark shapes of more debris underneath.

"One of my dad's friends had one. She told me about it when I was little." Sayuri answered with a shrug, starting to circle the ruin.

"Yeah… you aren't going to believe this, but I think there's a room down there still…" he told her nearly a minute later.

"Where…?" He pointed and she made her way quickly toward it, examining the flat patch of dirt she was standing on for a long moment before kneeling and digging her fingers into the dirt. The sandy consistency gave way easily, allowing her to find the cracks that revealed the ends of a piece of rock. "Help me lift this…" She ordered, digging out a handhold. Without question Kazuki did as she asked, pushing an uneven chunk of cement up on its end and then over onto the other side.

Looking down Sayuri examined the open space beneath inhaling the stale dusty air. Quickly she shifted and dipped her feet into the opening, "Stay up here, I'll be right back." Without waiting for a response she dropped into the shadows and wished she'd brought a flashlight. Reaching up into her hair she retrieved one of the seeds stored there and collected a handful of the dirt that had leaked onto the floor. Thin roots sprang out of the little pile of earth in her palm followed quickly by three leaves and a delicately curved step weighed down at the end by a rounded luminous bud. The warm yellow light surrounded her and Sayuri looked around carefully. In the dim glow the thick cracks in the floor, ceiling and crumbling walls looked like deep shadows. The dark color of the concrete tried to swallow the light but her little plant fought valiantly against it, giving her enough illumination to make out the fractured plastic casings and wires that announced they had once been electronics around her. The whole room was inclined toward the far wall, where an empty frame that had probably once been a window was filled with pieces of rubble jutting in over a control panel that had been flattened. The slivers of glass glinted wickedly in the shadows.

She spun toward the sudden thump, half frightened that the roof might have been falling in on her only to frown as a dark shape picked himself up off the ground, "I told you not to follow me down here." He said quietly, eyeing the unstable walls carefully. The slightest of vibrations would probably bring the whole place down.

"Yeah, but since when are you my boss?" Kazuki asked and she shushed him as dust rained down from the split ceiling. "What's that thing?" He added far more softly.

"Lamp-weed," She answered quietly turning back to the broken panel, "It's the first plant I learned to grow. You shouldn't be down here."

"But it's alright for you?" Before she could answer the sarcastic question he added "I won't touch anything."

"Try not to; you could bring it down around our ears."

"Jeez you're cheery. I'm starting to regret coming."

"I did try to warn you." The rubble shifted overhead and they both froze, wondering if the half buckled walls would finally collapse under the weight of the steel and stone piled above the lower portion of the slanted room. Considering the devastation that had been wrought on the rest of what the map they'd found said had been a stadium it was remarkable that anything might have survived, let alone an entire mostly intact room. Turning she examined a tall metal cabinet balanced over the cracked portion of the floor where the rest of the room had started to slide. The door had swung open, revealing the shredded papers littering the bottom corners. The scent of rats was faint so even them must have abandoned the place years ago, meaning the stadium had been demolished and just left for quite a while. If it had been intentional why wouldn't someone have cleaned it up?

Turning back to the front of the room her gaze landed on something glinting in the low lighting that she'd missed the first time around. She slipped carefully closer, shuffling inch by inch to keep from shaking the disjointed floor enough to make it slip. It took her several long seconds to reach the shattered window and find what appeared to be the bottom of another metal storage cabinet pinned between two large pieces of precariously balanced wall. "Do you still have the spyglass?" She asked, inching slowly back toward the small entrance they'd made where Kazuki was hovering in the solitary beam of daylight streaming in.

"Sure…" He pulled it out of a pocket and held it out toward her.

"I can't use it remember? Demon energy…" She joined him, pointing, "See if there's anything in the cabinet."

"What am I your portable X-Ray machine?"

"Just look."

"Fine." Holding the lens up to one eye he closed the other and focused on the warped square she'd pointed out. It was still a little disconcerting to have things right in front of him vanish. Used to sweeping the large sections of ground from above it took him a second to focus on the single item he was looking at "Looks like boxes."

"And in the boxes?"

"Well how the hell should I know?" he had the grace to look sheepish at the look she gave him, "Right X-Ray Monocle…" He whispered. If looking through the cabinet had been difficult looking through the thin cardboard without seeing through the contents was almost impossible, but eventually he managed it. "Looks like videos; they're all stuffed with 'em." Dropping the spyglass back into his pocket to look at her he instantly decided that he did not like the look on her face. It was back, that borderline manic glint that he'd come to associate with her making a potentially dangerous plan.

"Kazuki… get back… this isn't a safe place to be right now." She was moving down the slope toward the broken window where the cabinet was trapped again, leaning closer to observe it carefully.

"What the hell are you about to do?" He'd learned to recognize that peculiar little tickle that shivered through him as her energy level rising or falling. It would probably work with other people too, but being with Sayuri almost constantly he'd been practicing by trying to follow the natural fluctuation of hers and right then it was building.

"Box of videos buried in a ruined stadium, don't you want to see what's on them?"

"What?" Several pebbles dropped free of the ceiling and Kazuki instantly dropped his volume, "You know you could bring down the whole place trying that." What was it about this girl that made him the sensible one? Normally he was all for the reckless choice, but Sayuri's level of reckless took some getting used to. He frowned. "I'll do it."

"What?" She stopped and spun to him, "Don't be stupid."

"Come on it's me; you should be used to it by now."

Sayuri turned away from him again. It would take some quick and precise work to collect even one of the boxes before the cabinet was crushed once the rubble started moving, especially if the person doing the job didn't want to get crushed as well. "Just pulling it free won't work… let's get out of here and come up with another way."

"Now you're talking sense." He murmured looking up at the opening as she moved back to him, "Ladies first…"

"It's too high, you'll have to climb out and pull me up."

"Sure, just a sec…" Jumping up he hooked his fingers over the stone and dirt above them and pulled himself up. He was nearly out of the hole and back on his feet when it hit him.

Sayuri always made it onto the raised portion of the school roof by herself and had to pull him up. If he could make the jump then…

It felt like an earthquake, at least the first warning rumble did. The ground trembled under his feet as he righted himself instantly Kazuki was forced to jump back from the hole as the ground fractured and the sand started spilling down into it. The world in front of him tipped and shifted like draining water. Bits of steel groaned and the sharp crack of colliding and splintering rock became a constant screech. It last forever. It was over in a heartbeat.

Dropping to his knees he stared at the plume of dust rising into the air. "Damn it Sayuri…" He hissed. She'd probably been crushed in the commotion, "What the hell were you thinking? Why would you do something that freaking stupid?!"

"I thought you wanted to see what was on the tapes…" A dust coated cardboard box was lifted through the hole moments before a scarlet red head emerged.

Sitting back against his heels Kazuki breathed a sigh of relief as she began pulling herself up, "Damn Kazuki…" He muttered to himself, "And that speech was getting so dramatic…"

XXX

"I could only save one box… and some of them were still crushed." She murmured, kneeling over the box of cassettes.

"Great… all that trouble for some useless hunks of plastic."

"I said some. There are plenty that should work." Sitting back on her heels she looked up at Kazuki who had claimed the only chair in the hotel's dusty security room, the only place in the hotel where they had finally been able to find a VCR and anything that resembled a television screen. "There are still hours of footage… and it's all dated not long after the other recording we found."

"Alright. Where do we start?"

"Well according to the diagram you found Team Urameshi was in the first round so I guess…" reaching into the box she retrieved the undamaged tape that happened to have the earliest date, "At the beginning."

The VCR clicked several times after she slid the already rewound tape into it and she waited to press play until Kazuki had located the button and turned on the monitors before turning back to watch him.

The cameras must have been for replays from the stationary way it had been centered on the stone circle that must have been the ring. A cheering crowd could be heard in the background but wasn't visible from the slightly downward angle the zoomed in camera had been placed at. The cheers only grew louder as a thin woman in yellow and pink vaulted into the center of the ring, tall ears stood up in her short auburn hair and a matching bushy tail with a white tip trailed after her.

"That looks like a fox demon." Kazuki teased, watching her from the corner of his eye.

"Shut up Kazuki." The cold edge in her voice actually sent a shiver down his spine. Apparently the fox heritage was a sore spot he should stay away from. He took the warning he could see in her eyes even without meeting them directly as a serious one. That glare was bad enough from the periphery he didn't want to get caught in the full blown version.

On the screen the woman had pulled out a microphone and lifted one hand to get the crowd's attention. It was still at least thirty seconds before she started speaking, "Ladies and gentlemen my name is Koto. I'll be your cute host for this year's tournament and it's gonna be a messy one. For those in the first few rows rain coats are available."

As the announcer paused Kazuki leaned back and over in his chair reaching for the fast forward button only to have his hand snatched away by Sayuri who was still staring intently at the monitors with an odd almost dazed look. Before he could say anything the announcer was continuing, "Now here's the introduction you boys have been waiting for. Team Rokuyukai." The stationary camera remained that way so they weren't treated to an image of the team until they'd appeared at the edge of the stone circle. Five people Kazuki wasn't that interested in seeing until he noticed there was a kid with them. "And now for this year's guests: Team Urameshi." She pointed and the crowd went wild, but still couldn't be seen. Holding his breath Kazuki waited. "Both teams to the arena…" His eyes zeroed in on the familiar face immediately. With his hair down, Kazuki had to admit, there really wasn't much difference between him and Yusuke. They even had the same haircut. He'd never realized since the only pictured he'd seen of Yusuke his hair had been slicked back.

He blinked as he realized his father's eyes were closed and that he wasn't actually walking but being carried. How could he have already been knocked out when the tournament hadn't even started yet? What a wimp. He turned his eyes to the person dragging the lump around and frowned just in time to hear Sayuri whisper something off to the side of him.

"Dad… Kuwabara… Hiei…"

He'd known it the second he'd seen that distinctive cone of copper hair. The man on the street may have been older now but he hadn't changed enough to be unrecognizable from his younger self. "Kuwabara… the guy on the street…" And there was something unmistakable about the red hair belonging to the figure in white a step behind. It was the same shade as the girl standing next to him. The third figure was a bit harder to see, but visible all the same. "And the guy from the tower…" He was on his feet before thoughts had managed to register in his brain, throwing the chair back against the wall with a clatter that made the redhead jump and spin back to him, "So you knew the whole damn time didn't you?"

"What?" She looked surprised but he wasn't buying it.

"Save the act Sayuri. What was this? Just some big freaking joke to you? Ha ha let's see how long I can lead Kazuki around by the nose without him realizing it's me." He ranted turning away from her to pace. He could just see that smug little smirk that would be on her face at pulling some kind of prank on him, at tricking him so well into thinking she was on his side, that she was helping him through all of this when she was just trying to make an idiot out of him. "You knew the whole time exactly who he was…"

"No I didn't." She cut across coolly, "If I had why wouldn't I have just told you?"

"I don't know. Maybe making people suffer is just how you damned demons get your kicks." She recoiled from his words and he rushed on, "That's it isn't it? How long have you been setting this up? Since the day we met?" She'd had him running around like a dumb dog chasing his tail this whole time, laughing behind his back whenever he made a supposedly miraculous discovery. "Well good job Sayuri, you made me look like a real idiot." She had to have known, if she knew all of those people she'd just been playing him. Getting a laugh out of seeing him try to catch up with what she already knew.

"Why should I have bothered? You're doing an excellent job of it all on your own. Now why don't you try using your brain for a second and tell my why if I was trying to hide this from you I would have gone to such trouble to get the tapes?" Even reinforcing the back of the room with thick tree roots she'd nearly been dropped into the abyss of crumbling rock. "Why would I have put myself through all this trouble and run away from my family just to come along if it was all just a joke? If I'd known why put myself in danger?" There was something dangerous in the depths of her eyes that should have stopped or at least startled him, "What would I have gotten out of it?"

Too angry by the perceived betrayal of someone he had dared to trust Kazuki rushed on, not wanting to believe that she might have been learning these things at the same time he was. Too hurt that she would keep such a big secret from him to bother forming complete thoughts before they left him. "Oh yeah, you were in real danger. I didn't see any of those things trying to eat you. You probably put them there trying to feed me to your little demon buddies. I bet the truck was a set up too so you wouldn't have to come this far. Even if it had hit you, you're a demon; your body's different so you would have been fi…"

SMACK.

The sharp echo of the initial contact echoed through the small room several times in the second it took him to hit the floor. Holding his cheek Kazuki sat up and watched her lower her open hand back to her side.

"I don't appreciate being falsely accused, particularly of something as nonsensical and half baked as this theory of yours. If you think I got some kind of perverse thrill out of all of this then…" She paused to take a long slow breath, "You aren't worth it." Sayuri finished and calmly left the room.

X

Was he really that stupid? Couldn't he see the holes in his own argument? How could he even start to think she might have been behind this whole thing? She'd suspected days ago that someone might have been trying to lead them somewhere, she'd even brought up the idea and he'd dismissed it. And how could he dare to think she might have been endangering him on purpose? She'd nearly died trying to find the information he'd been after. Didn't the fact that she'd waited until he was out of the ruined stadium before triggering the collapse to retrieve the tapes prove she was unwilling to risk his life? Why would she try to feed him to some demon?

The whole trip had been his idea.

Tired of walking at last Sayuri sank onto a fallen tree resting in the grass several feet from the forest she'd come out of and even further from the one that started on the other side of the field. That Kazuki could suspect her of using this as some kind of game… hurt. Staring down at her trembling hands she took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She'd really thought she was going to die when that truck had been coming at her, how could he not have noticed that? Have thought she'd willing throw herself in front of one or that Kuwabara would have allowed her to? Would she have survived if it had hit her? Certainly her father or his friends would have, they might have been hurt but they would have lived. She probably wouldn't have been that lucky.

"You really didn't know… did you?" His voice was hesitant but he sat beside her without pause. Once again he'd appeared without her noticing. How long had he been following her?

"No." She said shortly, not looking at him. "I started to think something was off when Kuwabara knew your name, but I had no idea they knew him. I didn't even know they fought in the tournament how could I have known they were on the same team?" She added finally after several long seconds of silence.

"You don't seem that upset about it?" He was staring at the tree line purposely avoiding her eyes.

"I'm not." She was getting tired of explaining things to him. He didn't need to know that her father had all kinds of secrets; Kazuki probably wouldn't have understood that she'd stopped expecting him to tell her everything a long time ago. If it was something she needed to know her father would have told her.

"Look…" He shifted onto his knees to turn to her, "I was stupid and I let my mouth get away with me…" She was still looking away from him and Kazuki sighed and hung his head, knowing from the almost vacant expression on her face that she was lost in her own thoughts and not listening to him. "Hello… Earth to Sayuri…"

"I'm listening Kazuki." She caught the hand waving in front of her face and returned it to his lap without looking at him. Sayuri was seriously considering ignoring him, but she was listening.

"You know it's freaky as hell when you do that…" It wasn't the first time he'd thought she was zoning out and she'd caught him off guard by being completely conscious of her surroundings, "Like you're sleeping with your eyes open or something…"

"I was thinking." She answered.

"Don't you ever take a break? All that work can't be good for your brain. You're gonna wear it out and turn into a zombie…" he stood and holding his arms out in front of him gave his best impression of a moaning shuffling brain hungry fiend. She didn't smile. "Come on Sayuri, I know I was jerk, so just get it over with already. Hit me or yell at me or whatever it's gonna take. Just stop being mad at me."

Looking at that pleading look she got a stab of guilt over the vibrant red handprint still on his cheek. "I'm not mad." She answered, and really she wasn't. That was the closest thing she'd ever heard to a serious apology come from Kazuki and she must have been a sucker for brown eyes because the resentment she'd been building up was deflated as well. "And I already hit you…" She added looking away again.

"Yeah, and pretty damn hard, guess I'm lucky you decided not to deck me, I'd probably be seeing stars…"

They were quiet for a long time, sitting a few feet apart staring in opposite directions. "Smells like rain." Sayuri whispered finally, breaking the silence.

He glanced up at the blue sky and doubted her prediction, but didn't argue. "Want to go watch some more of the tape?"

"No." She saw his shoulders slump from the corner of her eye and decided to explain, knowing he thought she was still angry, "The people on that tape are my family… and even if I know they survived I don't think I could take seeing them hurt…"

He pushed himself to his feet, "What are you going to do then? Stay here?" When she nodded he started into the tree, "I guess I'll catch up with you later then." She turned to smile at him and he was careful to see if it reached her eyes, which he was glad to see it did. At least he hadn't permanently pissed off the one person willing to put up with him most of the time.

He guessed he was about half way back to the hotel when the rain started. The sort of pleasant rain that landed softly and wasn't cold or hard enough to sting, that seemed to make more noise tapping on the trees than there was actually rain to make. It made the glistening leaves and grass glow almost the same shade of green as her eyes. Maybe green wasn't such a bad color after all.

The sudden whooshing report of an explosion echoing through the trees froze him in the middle of a step. He stood listening to the lingering echoes stiffly until a second boom hit him like a shockwave directly to the chest. It had come from behind him, where Sayuri had stayed.

The trees and underbrush lost all definition as he passed them, becoming blurs in the corners of his eyes as he focused only on running, leaping tree roots and dodging low hanging branches. His pulse raced and the sudden feeling of dread twisted his stomach. The horrible irregular chorus of explosions continued rushing to try overtaking his heart rate. It was worse when everything suddenly went silent.

Breaking through the tree line at top speed his nearly fell several times as he skidded to a halt, tearing up clumps of scorched grass he attempted to slow himself and keep from falling into the blanket of still warm ash coating the ground. Staring he watched the little flakes fall like too dark snow, settling with a disturbing hush all across the clearing. Instantly his eyes went to the crater where the fallen tree had been but there was no trace of the wood or the redhead that had been perched on it. Drawing in a breath he coughed as the warm particle filled air clogged in his lungs. Gasping he started forward, ignoring the paper thin flakes hitting him and the pattering of the suddenly frigid rain streaking the dark gray soot down his face and arms, soaking it into his clothes and his hair. How had this happened so quickly?

"Sayuri…!" He managed at last, struggling forward through the ankle deep layer of ash. There were no footsteps except his, was it possible she'd been trapped in it? If not then where was she? "Sayuri…!" His voice was shrill from the sheer volume he screamed the name with.

The wind shifted, dragging what of the ash that hadn't been soaked up into the air again. The first flash of bright green turned his blood cold. Rushing forward he snatched up the torn chunk of rose whip with shaking hands, examining the singed uneven edges and broken thorns. "What the hell…" He breathed looking around again. If this had happened to the whip, what might have happened to her? "Sayuri…!" He screamed again and again silence rang back to him. "Oh no…" He breathed letting the whip fall from his fingertips. Why had he left her out here alone? Why had he just believed there was nothing else on the island with them?

"Give the girl some credit. She isn't finished yet."