[A/N: What up, ya'll! Unfortunately, I can't stay that I'm back from hiatus. I'm trying to get everything in order for when I finally start school at the end of the month and I have been working insane hours at my job which has left me wiped with not much time to do anything other than sleep. But my hours have let up at work a little and I had some exciting stuff happen today, so despite still not having a surplus of back logged chapters, I decided to pop my head in and say hello with this chapter! Don't forget to review and enjoy!]

Chapter Twelve: Had I Known How to Save a Life

I was worried. As time passed, I grew more and more anxious, especially since Yukina and Keiko hadn't arrived yet. Thirty minutes later, and the others were starting to worry too.

"Keiko's not answering her phone," Yusuke dialing her number again. "What the hell is going on?"

"Kuwabara isn't answering either," Kurama said putting his phone into his pocket.

"I don't like this," I said.

"I'll walk to the school and make sure the girls are okay," Kurama said. "I'm sure they're fine."

"I'm not," I said as Kurama went over to the door.

"I know and that's why I'm going," he said. 'I'll be in touch. See if you can get a hold of Kuwabara and find out if things are strange on his end."

Kurama walked out of the door and I let out a sigh. "I don't like this one bit."

"Neither do I. I knew I shouldn't have let Keiko walk there all by herself," Yusuke said.

"Nothing we can do about it now," Hiei said.

I tried calling Kuwabara—no answer.

Then I tried calling Goten—again, no answer.

Even Ichigo failed to answer his phone.

This was getting to be very worrisome.

Ten minutes passed and we figured Kurama should have been at the school by now and my stomach turned into knots when his phone went straight to voicemail.

"He said he'd be in touch," I said as Yusuke tried calling Keiko again. "So why is his phone off?"

"I don't know but something's definitely up," Yusuke said. "Keiko's just went to voicemail too."

Then my phone rang. I answered it quickly, thankful for contact with anyone at this point.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Kairi," Keiko said in a whisper.

"Keiko! Why haven't you been answering your phone?" I asked. "Where the hell are you?"

"We're at your school," she said, still whispering. "Yukina forgot something in her locker so we turned back really fast to get it, but. . ."

Keiko stopped talking.

"Keiko?" I asked.

"We're not alone," she said in a whisper.

My throat went dry and my heart started pounding in my chest.

"What do you mean you're not alone?" I asked.

"Yukina said she sensed something inside of the school with us. More than one of something," Keiko said. "So we hid in this storage closet and we can hear them moving out in the hall every once in a while."

"Did you see what they look like?" I asked.

"No," Keiko said. "But Yukina said there's something outside of the school, much more powerful than whatever's in here with us," Keiko said.

"Kurama should be there and we're on our way right now," I said. I knew something was wrong.

"They're coming again," I heard Yukina say.

There was a loud banging on the door.

"Keiko what's happening?" I asked.

"They're trying to get inside," she said.

"Just stay put we're coming. Don't-."

Before I could get my sentence out both of the girls let out a scream and then there was silence.

"Keiko. . . Keiko answer me!"

"It's Kurama!" she said. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Kurama's there," I said to the boys.

"Kairi," Kurama said taking the phone, "were you able to reach anyone?"

"No. No one," I said.

"I suspected as much. There are Saibamen crawling all over the school," he said.

"What?" I asked. "How is that even possible?"

"I don't know, but it's imperative that you get here immediately. I'm not going to be able to get these two out on my own. I get the feeling there's a much more powerful force at work here," Kurama said.

"We're on our way," I said hanging up the phone.

"What's going on?" Hiei asked.

"The school is crawling with Saibamen," I said. "They're these tiny monsters Vegeta and Nappa were growing to attack everybody when they first got to Earth. They're not very powerful, but they can blow up and there's a lot of them so it could be problematic. Kurama can't get them out on his own."

"Guys, I think you'd better see this," Yusuke said pointing to the TV. We looked over to the TV and on the screen saw that Sariyaski High School had been leveled almost completely.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Do you think these attacks are targeted?"

"Definitely," Yusuke said. "Question is who are they looking for? We left school forever ago."

"Probably just covering all their bases," Hiei said.

". . . That means they'll have gone to Capsule Corp. too," I said. "Which is why Goten isn't answering. You don't think-."

"I think we need to handle this one problem at a time," Yusuke said. "Whatever's going on on the other side of town, they're all with your family so they're fine, but right now Keiko, Yukina and Kurama are alone."

888

It didn't take long for us to get to Karakura High, but when arrived it was evident that something bad had taken place there. I could hear the fire alarms going off inside the school and there was barely a window that hadn't been blown out.

"Where do you think they are?" Yusuke asked.

"They came to get something from Yukina's locker so they probably hid somewhere up on the second floor," I said.

Inside the school it was a war zone. The Saibamen had clearly been hard at work terrorizing the school. The lockers had been ripped from the walls, the light fixtures were dangling, and the ground was littered with chunks of concrete and glass.

I ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped dead in my tracks. This was definitely where they were hidden. I could see where Kurama's rose whip had ripped out chunks of the ceiling and the locker. It was all over the place.

"We'll check this end," Yusuke said pointing down the hall. I nodded and went the other way alone. I had that horribly sick feeling in my stomach again and I knew that something awful was coming our way. As I passed up my own locker, which had been ripped open and its contents strewn about the floor, I heard shuffling from behind a pile debris where I knew there was a janitor's closet.

"Keiko?" I called out.

"We're in here!" I heard her call back, her voice muffled by the door and the concrete.

"I found them!" I shouted down to the boys and I quickly moved the debris out of the way to get them. I quickly pulled the door open and saw that Keiko and Yukina were alone inside. Both of them looked injured, but it was apparent as Keiko held her in her arms that Yukina was in a bad way.

"What happened?" I asked going to their side.

"After you hung up a bunch of those things attacked us and we had to leave the other closet," Keiko explained, tears in her eyes. "We were running and they blew out part of the wall. It hit all three of us, but Yukina took the brunt of the impact. By the time we got her down here they had blocked off the other end of the hallway and they were all coming at us. Kurama shoved us in here and I went to pull him inside with us but they all started jumping on him and grabbing him and he pushed the door closed and he never came back."

Keiko started crying again.

Hiei and Yusuke finally joined us.

"What happened?" Yusuke asked.

"Kurama's missing, and from what she just told me he's probably hurt," I said.

Yukina started to stir, letting out a groan as she sat up.

"Yukina, you're awake," Keiko said. "The others are here."

She looked around at all of us and then down to her feet.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"My arm hurts," she said pointing to her left one. I moved to her other side and examined her arm. Nothing appeared to be broken despite a few gashes here or there from the explosion. I gently placed my hand on her back and she winced, and rightly so because her shoulder was clearly not where it was supposed to be.

I looked at Hiei and Yusuke.

"Your shoulder's dislocated," I said.

Yukina chuckled. "Could be worse, I guess."

"I can fix it, but-."

"But it'll hurt a lot, right?" she asked. "I'll be fine."

Then I sensed it—a group of small power levels headed toward us.

"Saibamen," I said.

"Hurry and get her up," Hiei said drawing his sword.

Keiko took hold of Yukina's hand in an attempt to comfort her as I took her other arm.

"You ready?" I asked. She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. It took me two or three tries, but Yukina didn't make a noise or even a whimper as I put her shoulder into place. When she opened her eyes she looked slightly pale and tired, obviously drained from the experience, but she was a trooped. I took off my cloth belt and made a makeshift sling for her arm. It would have to do for now.

We got her to her feet and walked out of the closet.

"Now we've gotta find Kurama and get him out of here," I said.

"I can't sense his Spirit Energy anywhere," Yusuke said. "Where's that stupid Kuwabara when you need him?"

"Guys," Keiko said pointing down the hall.

We looked to see several saibamen headed our way.

"Kurama got taken down by a couple of these? They're not even that strong," Yusuke said.

"But, Yusuke they blow up," Yukina said pointing to her crippled arm.

"Oh, right," Yusuke said. "You guys go find Kurama. I'll handle these guys."

"Be careful," Keiko said.

"Careful's my middle name," Yusuke said charging up his spirit energy.

I took Keiko's hand and started to pull her down the hallway. Yusuke unleashed his shotgun just as we reached the stairs. There was a layer of dust covering everything in the stairway was covered in a layer of dust, which worked out to our advantage because we could see exactly where Kurama had gone. However, there was something else that was obvious too.

In addition to the trail of foot prints he left going down the stairs, there was a considerable amount of blood leaving a trail as well. I let go of Keiko's hand and started down the stairs alone following the trail.

"Kurama!" I called out. I could see his hand prints smeared on the railing, where he was clearly struggling to hold himself up.

"Kurama!" I called out again.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and he was leaning against the wall, catching his breath.

"Geez, don't you know how to answer?" I asked walking up to him. "What happened?"

"Too many Saibamen," he said. "I thought that'd be obvious. Is Yukina okay?"

"She's fine. So is Keiko," I said ushering him to sit down. "They're with Hiei. We can't get out the other way. There's a bunch of Saibamen that way."

"I assume that's Yusuke up there getting rid of them," Kurama chuckled.

"Stop laughing or you're going to bleed to death you moron," I said, not wasting another moment trying to heal him.

"You shouldn't waste your energy trying to heal me here," Kurama said.

"Two of my friends are here and they're usually defenseless in these kinds of situations, but they're both also hurt, and you cannot be hurt and defenseless right now," I said. "There's something else out there."

"Well, on a more serious note, if you're wondering why I'm going to bleed to death I had to get this door closed off which meant that I had to use myself as bait to get a few Saibamen to sacrifice their lives," Kurama said.

"So we're stuck here then." Hiei was coming down the stairs with Yukina and Keiko.

"Looks that way," I said.

"They're going to get through this door eventually," Kurama said. "They're been trying since I closed it off. And if they can't get through the door they're going to make a new door which they also seem to be very efficient at."

"So what do we do?" Keiko asked.

There was an explosion at the top of the stairs and Yusuke came tumbling down.

"Are you okay?" Keiko exclaimed.

"Yeah. Those little fuckers just keep multiplying. And they're fast," Yusuke said. "At least they're stuck up there now. Can we get out this way?"

"Afraid not," Kurama said. "It seems we're trapped for the moment. Anyone have a plan?"

"Well we either wait them out or blow the door back open and try to blow them all up," I said.

"Neither of those is going to work," Hiei said.

"No shit they're not because they're gonna break through one of the doors if we try to wait them out and it's too dangerous for us to try and blast our way out," I said.

"Guys calm down. I'm sure you've been in worse situations than this," Keiko said.

We all collectively took a deep breath and looked around to each other.

"Okay, any ideas, again?" Kurama asked, getting to his feet.

"We could shift some of those rocks around, see how many of them are out there. There'll be more coming, but if we at least get the first chunk we might have a chance to fight our way out," Yusuke said.

"And what about these two?" Hiei asked.

"I can shield them with my force field. It'll slow us down, but they'll be safe," I said. "How much energy have you got, Kurama?"

"I'll be able to help a bit if necessary," Kurama said.

"Good. Yusuke, you can take point on this then. Hiei can take up the back. Kurama stays with me," I said. I turned to Keiko and Yukina, "And you two stay with me."

"You planning on taking the first of them out?" Hiei asked.

"Yeah," I said. Climbed to the top of the rubble pile in front of the door and started pulling rocks aside until I could see into the hallway. ". . . Guys."

"How many?" Yusuke asked.

"None," I said hopping down. "It's completely deserted."

"But I can still sense them around," Yukina said.

"Me too," I said.

"We should still go with our original plan," Yusuke said.

"I'm going to unblock the door. Everyone back up," I said.

The others gathered behind me as I charged an energy blast in my hand. A second later I'd reopened the doorway, sending a majority of the debris into the hallway. It was, as I'd observed, empty.

I started forward.

"Kairi, be careful," Kurama warned. I nodded, as I walked forward into the empty hallway. It was a disaster area, like the rest of the school, but it wasn't swarming with Saibamen. Something didn't feel right. Red flags started going up in my head. Slowly my head turned up.

"Crap baskets," I said. There they were.

One jumped down onto my shoulder and promptly exploded followed by another on my back. My ears started ringing. Then I got knocked to the ground, not by a saibaman, but by a very firm hand on my back. I slid a few feet down the hallway. Behind me I could hear screaming. I rolled over in time to see a bright flash of light as a dozen Saibamen exploded.

There was nothing left where they had been. I could see through to the stairway. Yukina's hand covered her mouth in horror. Keiko was shielding herself behind Yusuke who, like Hiei had looks of shock on their faces. I didn't see Kurama.

Slowly the hand on my back pushing me to the ground and the looks on my friends' faces started to make sense and I froze. I could feel blood running down my arm and my back. The pain was starting to set in. I had to get up. I had to move. I knew I couldn't sit there. I was going to either bleed to death or get killed by the next wave of Saibamen that were sure to come. But I couldn't move.

"Can you get up?" I looked up and saw Hiei standing over me. "Detective."

"Kurama. . . He. . . He's dead," I said.

Hiei nodded. "Yeah, he is."

". . . I was afraid you might say that," I said.

"We've got to keep moving," Hiei said. He held his hand out to me and helped me to my feet. "Are you okay?"

"No," I said. "Kurama's dead."

"Dammit," I heard Yusuke as he punched a locker behind us. I turned and looked back at him. "What the hell is going on here?"

"I'd like to know that myself," I said. "I don't think we're going to get any answers in here."

We started down to the hall to the front entrance of the school. And that's when I sensed it. A huge wave of ki headed straight for us from outside.

"Get down!" I shouted.

We all dropped to the ground as the ball of energy impacted the side of the school, spraying us with glass and cement.

"Was that one of those plant things?" Yusuke asked.

"No. That was way too powerful," I said. "We've got to get out of here and get somewhere safe."

"But where?" Keiko asked.

"Kisuke's shop isn't far from here," Yukina said.

"Good idea," I said. I was willing to bet that if anyone was going to be able to know what was going on and be able to help us it was a retired Soul Reaper captain. "We'll head for the gym and go out the back way."

We made a run through the school, thankfully avoiding any attacks as we went. When we got to the gym door, I pushed it open slowly and peaked outside.

"Do you sense anything?" Yusuke asked.

I shook my head. "No, but be careful. If there are still Saibamen around we won't sense them until it's too late."

We cautiously stepped outside and stayed close to the wall of the school as we developed a plan.

"Keiko, Yukina, stay with Hiei and no matter what happens keep running until you get to Kisuke," Yusuke said. "Whatever attacked the school has got to know we're out here by now, so Kairi and I will stop it if we can."

"But what if you don't come back?" Keiko asked. I understood her concern. Kurama, the most resilient member of our team, barring Kuwabara, was dead. Yusuke and I had a bad track record when it came to avoiding death.

"Don't worry," Yusuke started.

He never got to finish his sentence. A beam of purple energy flew past my head, just barely missing me. I watched as it instead went straight through Keiko's chest. Her mouth went to form some unknown word or sound that never came. She dropped down to her knees and her body slumped over, lifeless.

Yusuke instantly dropped to his knees beside her. Her eyes were still open, but they were blank and lifeless.

"Oops. My aim is off. I was aiming for the monkey."

We looked up to the sky and floating there, staring down at us was a creature with a long tail, completely white except for patches of purple on his chest, his shins, his shoulder, his forearms, and the top of his head. And in the center of his abdomen there was a hole. He was one of the hybrids.

"Who the hell are you?" Yusuke asked, getting to his feet, completely enraged, as he should've been.

"Frieza. . . You're Frieza aren't you?" I asked.

"Congratulations. You're already proving to be more intelligent than that father of yours," he said.

"But you said that Frieza guy was dead," Yusuke said.

"He was," I said. "Trunks killed him—the future version I mean."

"Yes. Vegeta's little brat may have gotten the better of me, but this time I think it is I who will have the upper hand. And what a joy it'll be to kill that filthy monkey's daughter," Frieza said.

"The hell you are," Yusuke said preparing to fire off a Spirit Gun.

"Wait," I said. "He's one of those hybrids. We're not gonna be able to stop him without-."

"One of your Shinigami friends, yes," Frieza said. "And at the moment I think they're all a bit occupied, if not dead already."

I had to stall. The six of us weren't going to go missing without someone getting concerned, especially since Karakura High School was in shambles. There were too many Soul Reapers here for them to abandon us.

"What are you doing here? Why are you here?" I asked.

"For the first time in my life it seems I'm taking orders from someone else and my orders to kill everyone, especially you," he said.

"Us? Why?" Yusuke asked.

"Not just you. Anyone that may be viewed as a threat," Frieza said. "Our reasoning is under need to know basis."

"Who do you work for?" I asked.

"Confidential. So you can make this easy or we can do this the hard way," Frieza said.

"You can kiss my ass. I don't care if I have to wait for some stupid Soul Reaper to get here to put you away, I'm going to pound the shit out of you until they get here and put you out of your misery," Yusuke said.

A giant crack appeared in the sky and it opened up into a black void.

"Oh, darn. Looks like I only get two of you for now," Frieza said. "Don't worry. I'll be back. You can foolishly pretend to be able to defeat me—and then I'll put you out of your misery."

Frieza retreated into the black void of the sky and it sealed itself up. Everything was silent now. It was all starting to sink in. Keiko was dead. Kurama was dead. No telling who else had been injured or killed in West City.

Yuuke dropped back down next to Keiko. "It isn't fair. . ."