Future Talk

Chapter 21:

"Deep"

Hearts are fun. They beat no matter how you're feeling—if you feel like quitting, like dying, your heart just plods along, reminding you that life does indeed go on through bad times as well as good. It doesn't let feelings of inadequacy or fear stop it from doing it's job (because that's what cholesterol is for). True to that old country song, hearts 'just keep rolling along.'

But my heart, when Yukina knocked on the door, stopped just like it wasn't supposed to. I'm still not sure if I mean that metaphorically. I don't think I've ever been that scared before in my life, and as I dove back under the covers of my futon and pulled them over my face I yelled: "I'm not feeling well, Yukina-san!"

The door opened with a squeak. She must have seen me in my bed before speaking her next line, because otherwise her words did not make much sense. "Oh, I'm sorry Dani-san, I didn't know you were napping..." She paused. "Why are you napping with the lights on?"

I blinked furiously into the darkness beneath the covers. My eyes felt much too large, like they were closer to my temples than normal, and that was not a good thing. "Oh, I fell asleep with them on," I said, trying not to sound nervous when I chuckled and investigated my face's changes with my fingers. "Could you turn them off for me?"

I heard her take a step closer. "Dani-san, you're acting strange," she said. "Are you hurt?"

"Nope, just a bit tired." I forced out a sound that I hoped seemed like a yawn. "Well, goodnight."

"You aren't hungry?" she asked, and I heard her kneel at my side. A feather-light touch on my shoulder let me know how close she really was. "Genkai said you probably would be when you woke up, and it's dinner time right now."

I laughed again. "Oh, um, I'm fine, really. I just need a nap, that's all. "

She hesitated. My heart start beating like I'd run a marathon. "If you're sure," she said at last, and I gave her my thanks as she left the room and shut the door behind her.

I sat up as soon as she was gone, throwing the covers aside as I found myself in total darkness. I hadn't heard her turn off the light, but as I crawled across the room and flipped it back on I tried not to dwell on that inconsistency. "Gotta change back," I whispered to myself as I settled back down on the futon. Picking up the mirror, I studied my reflection and refused to think about how incredibly weird I looked with Hiei's eye set in my pale face. Even though my eyes normally posed as my face's dominant set of features, now they looked as large as those alien masks littering costume stores around Halloween. The eyes bled too much onto my forehead and cheeks, bugging out in a way that Hiei's most certainly did not.

So I managed to change my face but I didn't even do it right, I thought to myself. Sure, I got the color down pretty well, but the shape is way off.

Looking at the eyes creeped me out, so I closed them, cleared my head, and conjured up an image of my normal features.

You can do this, I told myself as I inhaled. It'll be just like changing in the first place.

Many moments of deep breathing and concentration later, I felt the beginnings of a wave of needle-pricks trickle across my skin. But the pain of it threw me off balance, and I had to start anew a few more times before I was able to push past the discomfort and willingly subject myself to the pain of a transformation. I again found myself on fire, but I stifled any cries of discomfort as I clawed at my face in an attempt to quiet the sensations. I bumped my broken nose a little bit too hard, however, and couldn't keep my reaction to the combined sensations bottled up inside.

"Fuck!" I half-screamed into my hands, and suddenly my bedroom door flew open.

"Dani-san, I thought you were napping!" came the sound of Yukina's voice, and I froze. "Why did you turn the lights back on? And why is your face covered?" Her voice echoed with innocent accusations.

I started to lower my hands to talk to her, but then I stopped. Are my eyes back to normal? I asked myself, blinking rapidly behind the shield of my fingers. I couldn't feel anything wrong with them (the burning had already gone away) but still, with me being so new to this I was not going to trust myself to lower those hands and show a potential disaster to one of my biggest allies.

"Dani-san?" Yukina asked, and then she was next to me. She grabbed my wrists in her cool fingers and tried to pull my hands away, but I tensed my muscles as hard as I could and would not budge.

Leave to go get someone, I silently willed her. Go so I can check my face in the mirror. Go!

"Speak to me, Dani-san, please!" Yukina urged, tugging again, and she proved strong enough to move me just enough for her to catch sight of my face. My blood went cold as I squeezed my eyes shut, but it was too late: Yukina gasped and scooted away.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" she asked, voice frantic.

Crap, I guess they didn't go back to normal, I thought, mind racing. I decided to play the clueless-and-pitiable card, so my response ran along the lines of: "They're burning, Yukina-san! I don't know why but they're burning so bad!" I tried to make my voice break on a few of the syllables, and I succeeded fairly well (it wasn't too hard considering my still-smarting nose). She reached out to touch me again, laying her fingers against my sweaty brow. I hoped that she perceived the sweat to be a product of pain and not nerves, which is what it really should have been attributed to.

"I'll heal you," she said in a firm voice, and then she paused. "May I see your face?"

I let my fingers slide hesitantly apart so she could see my features peeking out between them. When I caught sight of her I realized that her face had paled considerably, and I quickly closed my fingers.

"On second thought, I will go find Genkai," Yukina said, and she took her hand away as she stood up and went to the door. She moved quickly but did not quite run, and her jaw was set in such a way that I knew she was resolute on helping me.

But I didn't need help, not from her, and the second she disappeared around the corner I pulled the mirror onto my lap. The cause of Yukina's consternation was apparent in a millisecond. Somehow I had managed to correct the shape of my eyes that second time around, but I had gotten the color of them completely wrong. Red eyes—red like cherries or candied apples or Hiei's eyes—without the white of a schlera surrounding them or a pupil occupying the middle glared back, and I felt revulsion make my stomach turn. Still, I tried not to dwell on the horrible sight as I took a deep breath and called up an image of the family portrait on Mom's dresser back home. She had had me pose for the picture the summer before I went off to my second year of college. I could see my eyes very well using that image as a base, and I envisioned the green flecks around my pupils and the brown sea those flecks swam in as I concentrated, banishing thoughts of other faces from my head...

A thunderstorm of footsteps poured into my room just as the burning took over again, and when I cried out in intense discomfort I heard Yukina say: "Her eyes were red everywhere, with no white in them and no pupil, and she said she was in pain before I left."

"She's still in pain, by the looks of things," I heard Genkai intone with her scratchy voice as I gasped a little for air. Footsteps echoed across the floor. "Let me look, Dani." Cloth rustled as the psychic knelt at my side.

I didn't move, unsure as the pain faded if I was ready to be seen.

"Dani. Let me look," came Genkai's commanding voice.

Still, I hesitated.

She sighed. "Jin. Come here."

"Righty, then," said the wind apparition, and my hair moved as a slight breeze caressed my skin. "Dani-san," Jin said in a low, sweet voice from right in front of me, strong hands with such long fingers easily encircling my wrists all the way around, and then some. I jumped at the sudden contact and words, not having heard him move. "Dani-san, you gotta let us take a look at ya, t' make sure you're not hurtin' anywhere." He tugged on my arms, but gently. "Don't make me force ya t' give us a peek. I don't wanna hurt ya."

"No, it's..." I said, and with one last-ditch effort I cleared my head, screwed my eyes shut, and let memories of looking at myself in a mirror, in the reflection of a pond, in photographs and Facebook snapshots, wash me over.

"Dani," Jin said, dropping the honorific as he gave me a light shake. I snapped out of my haze. "Dani, drop your hands n' let us look!" He applied light pressure on my wrists and slowly lowered them, but my eyes were screwed up tight. "Open up," Jin said, and after taking a deep, calming breath I slowly cracked my eyes.

Jin's face was only a few inches from mine since he was sitting on the futon in front of me, and I tried not to blush as we looked at one another. I could see all of his pores, his wide blue eyes with their silvery center and deep blue edges, and the way his red hair played those eyes up and made them sparkle. He stared me straight in the face and his mouth drifted open slowly, so slowly, and the fangirl in me gave a little squeal of surprised delight when I caught sight of his pointed eyeteeth.

The delight disappeared when he whispered: "What the hell is that?"

I didn't make it, I told myself, and I felt my throat swell with tears of embarrassment, shame, and aimed-at-my-failure rage. I didn't make it. I couldn't change back.

Jin let me lower my hands to my lap, but he did not let me go. The others crowded in close behind him, and I cast my eyes to the side so I would not have to look at the faces of Yusuke, Yukina, Genkai, Keiko, and Kenichi. Yusuke bore the horrified yet bewitched expression suited to someone watching a car accident in slow motion.

"Why are her eyes like that?" Kenichi whispered, tugging on Yusuke's sleeve.

"Shut up, squirt," Yusuke hissed, plopping down next to Jin so he could see better. Kenichi leaned on the detective's back, eyes wide and fascinated. Yukina and Keiko stood behind them, huddled together as they watched me through frightened eyes.

"What's happening to me?" I choked out, pleased to note that I sounded just as scared as one should when undergoing an unknown physical mutation.

"Your eyes are red," Yukina said, trying to sound soothing.

Time to play dumb again. "Like I'm drunk or something?"

"No, they're red... everywhere," she said. "Your iris, in the whites, the pupils..."

"Why does it hurt so much?" I murmured, trying to look bamboozled as well as petrified, and then Keiko spoke. I could have kissed her, I was so happy to hear the news she delivered.

"Look, they're getting better!" Keiko said, putting one hand on Jin's shoulder and the other on Yusuke's so she could lean in close between the pair. I got quite the peek down her blouse, as did Jin if his resulting blush was any indication of Keiko's close proximity. Yusuke just grinned, pleased with this development.

"Good eyes, Keiko!" he said, smiling up at his girlfriend while he looked mostly at her breasts. Keiko cuffed him on the head as she pushed away, and when he said 'Hey!' in protest she just said: "I wouldn't push it, Yusuke."

"The red is fading in splotches," Yukina said, sounding excited. "I can see some white again! Oh, and a little iris, too!"

"Can you see?" Genkai said.

"Yes," I said, blinking rapidly. I couldn't feel anything abnormal going on with my eyes, but I decided to take everyone else's word for it.

"When did this start, and what happened?" Genkai asked. The others went very quiet, and I jumped a bit when Jin reached out and took one of my hands into his own. I looked at him in surprise as he gave my fingers a squeeze and then set our joined hands lightly atop my knee. He did not pull away.

"Your eyes are clearin' up," he said, smiling at me with his own eyes that seemed slightly too melancholy. "It's like someone's dabbin' up some spilled paint with a sponge, little by little. You'll be back t' normal soon, that ya will."

I smiled back at him, a little uncomfortable with the attention but pleased all the same. "I woke up when Yukina came in," I said, addressing Genkai but hardly able to look away from Jin. My mind had a bit of trouble concocting a story on the fly, but one spilled out just the same. "I tried opening my eyes, but they started hurting. I thought it would go away, but when it didn't I turned on the light and got the mirror to see what was wrong." I gestured at the object lying on the futon with the hand Jin had no usurped.

"Were the eyes red when you looked the first time?" Genkai asked.

I shook my head. "They just started hurting even worse. Then the pain got bad and Yukina heard me and came back in."

Genkai turned her head sharply, addressing the ice apparition in question. "And were they red then?"

Yukina nodded. "It was a very vibrant color; not something I could miss."

"And was your vision interrupted at any time?" Genkai asked me.

I shook my head. "I could see just fine."

"They're back t'normal now, by the way," Jin said, and he leaned in closer to my face. "Your pupils are cloudy, though." He looked and Genkai. "What could have caused this, do ya think?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "Yukina?"

"I am an experienced healer, but I am not familiar with many diseases or their causes," she said, and I think I caught a bit of regret dancing in her delicate features. "Physical wounds are more my forte."

Genkai seemed pensive. "Kurama is versed in healing sickness," the psychic said, more to herself than the rest of us, I think. "I'll have Botan contact him tomorrow."

"Aye, we should do that," Jin said, squeezing my hand again. My smaller limb looked lost, covered as it was by his palm. He looked at me with a happy expression. "The clouds are gone. Are ya hungry?"

"A bit," I said, confused by his sudden switch to nonchalance. I looked to Yukina. "I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. I was just confused with what happened, and everything..."

She smiled. "I understand. There is food waiting for you in the kitchen if you would like to eat something."

Jin's grin got wider as he picked up my cane. It had been lying on the floor next to the futon; with a little bounce of happiness he took my hand and wrapped it around the wooden stick. "Let's get some food into ya," he said, ears twitching once or twice, and he tugged me to my feet as everyone stood up and/or got ready to leave my room behind (Kenichi tugged on Keiko's skirt and said something about icecream, to which she smiled and nodded).

It was only after Jin, who hovered at my elbow and chatter happily in my ear all the while, lead me from the room and almost all the way to the kitchen that I realized who we had left behind.

Genkai and Yusuke were nowhere to be seen.

"But there isn't any chocolate!" Kenichi whined as Keiko set a bowl full of off-white icecream down before him.

"All we have is vanilla," the human girl explained as she pulled a chair up next to the pouting child. "You'll have to make do."

"But I like chocolate better!"

"There isn't any." Her denial was as neat as her ironed skirt and blouse. "Maybe next time."

"Phooey." Kenichi picked up his nearby spoon and shoveled a large bite into his mouth. "Vanilla. Phooey."

"Better than nothing," said Keiko, but she ruffled the boy's hair with affection regardless.

I watched the exchange over a bowl of stir-fried vegetables and rice, peppered here and there with pale pink shrimp dyed dark by soy sauce. Yukina had made it earlier so now it was a bit cold, and yet despite this the meal was absolutely delicious.

I bet Keiko comes out here a lot, I thought as I swallowed a bite. She and Kenichi act like siblings. Come to think of it, Kenichi and Yusuke act like brothers. Do they train together often? That thought brought me to a new line of thinking, and it was not a line as fun as the former. Are Yusuke and Genkai talking about me? Probably. I mean, I just had strawberry eyes a few minutes ago. They're probably reporting all of this to Koenma as we speak.

"Somethin' on your mind, Dani-san?"

I jumped, startled, but Jin only grinned as he sat down next to me at the table. Yukina hovered by the sink, washing dishes as she hummed a tune I did not recognize, so rather than admit my real thoughts I gesture at the ice apparition and asked: "Do you know what she's singing?"

He cocked his head to the side, red hair falling over his face as he did, and listened. "Oh, I know that one. Famous Demon World ditty called 'Fallin' Rain.'"

"Are there lyrics?" I asked, interested. I had had no idea that demons made music.

"Aye, o' course there're lyrics," he said. "Although I don't rightly know 'em. But it's about wanting rain t' come n' wash the bad away, let plants grow, end wars, that sort o' thing. It's one o' the few Demon World songs about peace n' light." He scratched his head, eyes screwed up in thought. "Now that I think about it, it might be th' only song not about death and fightin' all th' time."

"That's a pity," I asked, listening to Yukina again. 'Falling Rain' was a very pretty song written in minor key but with parts of it that bled into the hopeful major scale. My spirits felt brighter listening to it. "I'll have to ask Yukina to teach it to me soon."

"Aye, that you will." He sat facing me, elbows leaning on knees, head and shoulders stooped so that his eyes were only slightly below mine. The stance made me very aware of his height: sitting straight, he far overreached me. "Do ya know any songs about rain?"

I thought about it. "One," I said after a while. "Well, more than one, but I only know one well enough to play. I'll sing it to you tomorrow, if you want."

His face lit up. "I'd like that!" he said, ears doing a small up-and-down dance.

I smiled around a bite of stir-fry but was kept from further comment. Yusuke and Genkai chose that moment to come back to the kitchen. I turned to tell them hello, but when I saw how drawn their faces were I held myself back. Yusuke seemed especially tense with his hands jammed into his pockets, darting eyes, and line-thin mouth.

"Hey, don't give the kid sugar this late!" he snapped upon seeing Kenichi with his icecream. The boy had the stuff smeared across his mouth, and with hurt eyes he wiped it off on his shirtsleeve. Yusuke marched across the room and snatched up the bowl, almost seething beneath his skin.

"Yusuke!" Keiko said, standing up. She only reached his nose, but nonetheless she got right up in his face. "Give that back to him this instant!"

"He won't fall asleep and then he'll complain all day tomorrow during training," Yusuke snapped, holding the bowl over Kenichi's head with one hand so Keiko couldn't grab it. Kenichi, however, made to take it himself, so Yusuke dodged out from between the two of them to join Yukina at the sink. The ice apparition backed off a few feet, confused, as Yusuke held the bowl of icecream over the sink filled with dishes and dirty, soapy water.

Keiko advanced on him with murder in her eyes. "You give that here or so help me, Yusuke, I'll—"

"You'll what? Break up with me? Like you haven't been threatening me with that all day," he said, no, snarled.

Yukina gasped at how brash his words were, and Kenichi's eyes went very, very wide. He started to say something, probably to try and diffuse the situation, but Yusuke glared at him and he fell silent.

He looks like a kid whose parents are fighting, and he's blaming himself, I observed as I glanced at the boy. So I guess Keiko and Yusuke aren't like his siblings—he thinks of them as his mom and dad.

That immediately made me wonder what the seemingly happy Kenichi's home life was like. Yusuke and Keiko weren't exactly model parents.

"I have not been threatening you," Keiko said.

Yusuke adopted a high-pitched voice, one that simpered and grated on my nerves. "Don't push it, Yusuke," he said, mocking what Keiko had said to him back in my room. "Don't mess with me, Yusuke. So help me, Yusuke."

"Just give Kenichi back his icecream!" Keiko snapped.

"It's OK," the boy said, voice desperate. "I don't need it, Keiko-nee-san, really I don't—"

"Oh yes you do," said Keiko.

"Oh no you don't," said Yusuke, and his arm jerked. With a splash the bowl of icecream hit the dishwater and disappeared, splattering Yukina and Yusuke both with brown liquid. Keiko gaped at him, thunderstruck by this open display of rebellion, and then her mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth against teeth.

"If I wanted to get nagged by a woman," said Yusuke, "I'd still be living at home!"

"Well, don't worry about being nagged any more, Yusuke," Keiko said, eyes ablaze and fists clenched. "We're through." She turned on her heel a left, paying Kenichi's protests no heed, and with a cry of her name Yukina chased after the spirit detective's angry ex-girlfriend. Kenichi stared down at his hands, eyes shut tight, and when Yusuke cursed and left, too, the boy looked as if he were about to cry. The tension in the room lingered long after Yusuke left. Kenichi, Genkai, Jin and I all did our best not to look at one another.

"I'm gonna go find Yusuke," Jin said at last, and he stood up to stretch. He gazed down at me for a second, smiling with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Yukina'll calm Keiko down, so I gotta do the same for Yusuke. We'll probably fight a bit. That tends to zap the tension out of 'im well enough."

My lips quirked. "Try not to wreck the temple."

"Aye, I will," he said, and he touched my shoulder before leaving me alone with Kenichi and Genkai. I felt the warmth of his hand against my skin long after he left.

"Kenichi-kun," I said after a moment of silence. The boy didn't look at me. "Kenichi-kun, will you dry the dishes if I wash them?"

He didn't respond for a second, and then he nodded. He got up and pushed his chair over to the sink and grabbed a towel from a peg, waiting for me as I went to join him and submerged my hands in sudsy water. I cleaned a small plate first and handed it to him, catching his eye with a smile that he tried and failed to return.

"Don't look like that," I told him, and I skimmed a wad of foam off the surface of the water. I puffed it onto the tip of my nose and crossed my eyes, but still he did not smile. I frowned, got some more foam, and tapped it off onto his nose. That at last garnered a reaction, even it was only a forced laugh.

"It was my fault," he said as he dried another plate. "If I hadn't wanted icecream..."

"Yusuke was in a bad mood and would have found something to get mad at no matter who was around," I said.

"But I..."

"But nothing." I pulled the sponge along a particularly stubborn grease stain on a large serving platter. "It wasn't your fault."

He didn't say anything as he wiped the water off of a plate.

"Now, I don't know Yusuke very well, and I don't know Keiko that well, either," I said, "but I know a little bit about relationships. Yusuke and Keiko fight, but they care about each other. This probably isn't the first time they fought, and this fight was only over icecream. It's just a silly squabble, really. They'll pull through."

He stopped drying to look at me with an agonized expression and my heart went out to him. No kid deserves to feel like a fighting couple is their express fault.

"Do you really believe that?" he whispered, and when I nodded I saw a small tear escape from one of his large brown eyes and go rolling down his cheek. He wiped it away a heartbeat later, covering up his emotional state with an exaggerated frown. "If they break up for good I'll never forgive you."

I laughed at his misplaced anger, but I didn't correct him. "Heaven forbid," I said, and Kenichi grinned a little before hopping off his chair and pushing the piece of furniture back under the kitchen table.

"I'm off to bed," he said to both me and Genkai, and then he left us alone. I kept washing dishes, aware of her ominous silence, and when the silence became too much for me to bear I set my sponge down, dried my hands on a dishtowel, and turned around so I could lean against the counter. I crossed my arms over my chest as I stared at Genkai, who in turn stared down at her hands, clasped atop the table as if she were praying.

"So am I allowed to ask what the hell it was you and Yusuke were talking about to make him so damn mad?" I asked, feeling both angry and indignant.

"No, you're not," Genkai said.

"The fact that you're in here when you could be somewhere else makes me think you're gonna tell me about it anyway," I said.

She looked at me, and her eyes were tired. The bags beneath them spoke less of age than they did exhaustion. "We were talking about Keiko," she said.

"What about her?"

"Yusuke wants her to stay at the cabin with us while the others go for Seishou. Koenma says he can't be responsible for her. Yusuke got angry over it."

I thought about that. "You told Yusuke about that after seeing me with my eye-thing?" I asked. "Call me self-centered, but that's a rather random conversation under the given circumstances, don't you think?"

She looked away. "We may have discussed other things, too, but that is no concern of yours."

I wanted to tell her that that was bullshit and she knew it, but I held my tongue. "Well, let me know if it becomes my concern," I said, picking up my cane. I knew I sounded sarcastic but I couldn't help but sound that way. I'm not good at covering up being pissed.

"Where are you going?" she asked as I went for the door.

"Back to my room. I'll call you if it happens again."

She didn't stop me as I left.

On the way to my room I passed the door to the outside, and I couldn't help but notice that it had been left open. With a sigh I went to go close it (bugs could get in!), but then I heard the noises. I stopped to stand still in the shadows of the doorway, and with hesitance I peered outdoors. A few torches (tiki-looking ones, I would say if not for the fact that I was in a Buddhist temple) lit the courtyard outside, but I didn't see anything in their pool of flickering light until a few seconds later. Two shadows darted across the light too fast for me to follow, and then those shadows coalesced into the forms of Jin and Yusuke. I shrank back, unsure if they would react to seeing me watching them, but I could not tear my eyes away as Yusuke lunged at Jin with a raised fist. The windmaster jumped into the air with a twist, but Yusuke grabbed onto one of the redhead's trailing feet and yanked him back to earth, hard.

Jin was not that easily defeated, however. Using the momentum of Yusuke's yank, he readied his own fist and let it fly straight for Yusuke's face. The two objects connected with a crushing sound, and Yusuke skittered backward. Jin did not follow him, choosing instead to stand on his own two feet a few yards away.

"did that knock some sense into your skull?" the wind apparition asked, but he did not smile.

Yusuke raised a hand to wipe at the trail of blood leaking from his split lip. "Hardly," he snarled, but he did not attack.

"Could ya apologize t' Keiko now?" Jin asked, and the detective's shoulders slumped. I could practically see the fighting urge drain out of him right there.

"I didn't mean to snap at her!" Yusuke said.

"So tell 'er that," Jin said.

He pulled his fingers through his hair. "It's more complicated than that," Yusuke said.

"How?"

Yusuke gave a low growl of frustration and rubbed at his eyes. "I told her about what's going on," he said. "I probably shouldn't have, but I did, and I don't feel safe leaving her in the city during the raid, but Koenma won't let me take her to the safehouse."

Jin blinked. "Why the hell not? Are there rocks in that head o' his or somethin'?!"

"No," said Yusuke, taking a deep breath to calm himself. "He's afraid of letting any human stay in the house with..." He stopped.

"With who?" Jin said, face showing that he was just as confused as I felt.

Yusuke's next words made the bottom drop out of my stomach. "Dani," he said, jaw tightening.

Jin's eyes went wide, and then he exploded. "Dani-san wouldn't hurt a fly if it buzzed right in 'er face!" he said, and a wind strong enough to rattle the door I hid behind picked up.

"You saw her face tonight," Yusuke said. "That wasn't a human face!"

"Doesn't mean she's gonna attack someone!" Jin snapped.

"Genkai agrees with Koenma on this one!" Yusuke snapped back. That revelation made my eyes widen in hurt and shock. "The likelihood of Dani being on Seishou's side grew tonight. We have to watch her, Jin, not get caught off guard by her looks and—"

"Ya barely even know 'er!" Jin said, and the wind blasted so hard that Yusuke got pushed back a step. I felt cold, and with a shudder I wrapped my arms around my body.

"She's dangerous, Jin!" Yusuke said, and this time it was Jin who went on the offensive. In a mere blink's worth of time he had summoned a funnel of twisted air and debris around his arm and attacked Yusuke with it, a cry of rage making him seem feral and unreal. Yusuke barely had time to dodge, but he took advantage of Jin's sloppy attack to try and fight back. With a spin he aimed a high kick at Jin's head, and since the windmaster had not been anticipating a counter in his unfocused state he was unable to get away. Yusuke hit him square across the temple and sent him flying not into the sky, but right into the ground.

"You're too focused on liking her to think straight!" Yusuke said as Jin picked himself up with a growl. "Don't think I can't see it! You go out of your way to talk to her, to do things for her!"

"Doesn't mean I like her!" Jin said.

A glare made Jin look away with a blush. "You held her hand when she freaked out tonight, Jin!" Yusuke said, holding up his own hand to punctuate his point. My own hand tingled in response, reliving the memory.

"That was t' comfort her!" Jin said back. "She was scared n' in pain; wouldn't ya do the same?"

"Not for a dangerous demon with all this coincidence surrounding her," said Yusuke.

"She's not dangerous!"

"But she is a demon," said Yusuke. "Check out her energy once in a while. Her soul's human but her body is a demon's, through and through."

Jin, however, still managed to deny this irrefutable fact. "No demon could have a leg like that," he said stubbornly. "It's the law o' the jungle in Demon World. The strong kill the weak. Hell, Yusuke, most mothers kill off the weaklings at birth. There's no way a powerless little thing like Dani-san could've survived!"

"Maybe she's not as powerless as she lets on," Yusuke said. "Hiei says she was raised by humans, but there are memory gaps that could mean she experimented with demon powers or something. Maybe she even met Seishou during those times. There's just so much about her we don't know!"

"So maybe get t' know 'er a bit and you'll find out!"

Yusuke scoffed. "Are you really so desperate for an excuse to stay in Human World that you would latch on to the first girl without a boyfriend you came across?"

"I'm not latching!" Jin said. "And I'm not interested in her like that! You take that back!"

"Yeah, right," said Yusuke. "Take a step back and look at this rationally, Jin. You want to stay here to fly, so instead of winning a tournament you're now trying to get a girlfriend and a reason to stay here. And you know what, that could actually work if it weren't for the fact that you're trying to date a potential monster."

"Dani-san is not a monster!" Jin growled.

Yusuke's eye hardened into twin slits of protective malice. "Tell me that after Keiko dies by Dani's hand. I'm not letting Keiko's life on your hunch about your little girlfriend." The detective breezed past Jin and headed for the porch, leaving the windmaster standing alone in the center of the courtyard. I froze, shrinking into the shadows of the hallway, and when Yusuke came in he stopped dead in his tracks.

"So how much of that did you hear?" he asked without turning to me. His face was in shadow, leaving his expression a mystery.

"All of it," I said once I found my voice. "And I agree with all of it, too."

He nodded. "At least you're a reasonable enemy."

"I'd try telling you that I'm not an enemy if I thought you'd buy it. But you won't, so I won't."

His eyes glittered as they found me in the dark. "Then I'm glad we understand each other," he said, and he left me alone in the mire of my own confusions.

"He's right, you know."

Jin, still standing in the courtyard with a look of utmost concentration plastered across his face, glanced up at me. Our eyes met for only a moment before he had to look away.

"I am dangerous," I said, limping down the porch stairs one at a time. "I don't know how, but I know I am. Yusuke and Genkai and Koenma are all right. I am too much of a coincidence to be trusted."

"I trust ya."

"Maybe you shouldn't."

"I do, though."

I walked until I stood only a few feet away. The sky overhead burned with stars. "Something happened to me tonight that I can't explain," I said. "You saw it. Everyone saw it. Maybe if I had my memories I could tell you what that something was, but I can't. For all I know I could be bent on killing every single one of you."

"You wouldn't do that."

"Wouldn't I?"

He looked up at me at last, and we stared at each other for a long time. Silence didn't feel right.

"When my memory gaps get filled in, they could be filled with horrible things," I said.

"Or nothing at all," Jin argued.

"True," I said. "But I could still be a different person once they're put back in place. And you might not like that Dani quite so much."

"I might, though."

We stared at one another again. Hair blew into his eyes, coaxed out of place by a wind he did not create.

"For the good of your relationship with the others," I said slowly, "it might be a good idea to keep away from me. Until things cool off, at least."

"And after things 'cool off?'"

The question gave me pause. "We'll see," I told him at last, and I turned to walk away. I crossed the courtyard, climbed the steps, and was about to go inside when I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. Those wide eyes made me ache.

"I'll still sing you that rain song, though," I told him, and then I went indoors with welling eyes.

I mediated as I fell asleep. I guess that's why I trusted the figment of my dreams that night.

"You've changed the past already," Koenma said. We floated across from one another in a white void that lacked everything besides the two of us. He seemed older than the last time we spoke, with more lines on his face and longer, scragglier hair.

"How?" I asked.

"Jin wasn't in it."

"Oh."

"There wasn't a party, either." He smiled, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "Beware, though. I can give you no guidance past this point."

I snorted. "Like you've given me any already?"

His smile faded. "I came to you on your first night," he said, eyes going distant.

The memory hit me like a freighter. "Botan!" I gasped.

He nodded. "Grisly, wasn't it?"

"That was the Beasts, right?" I asked, remembering the horrendous nature of her death. "Not Seishou or his goons?"

"It was the Beasts."

I let out a breath of relief. "Thank goodness. Psychics I can deal with. Skin-takers, no way."

"And if you do this right, you'll never have to deal with them," said Koenma. "Not outside of your dreams, at least."

"Ha, I knew it!" I said, snapping my fingers in triumph. I had suspected the Beasts were behind my dreams, but I had no way to be certain without someone to back my opinion up. "Is that why you've only influenced my dreams once? Because the Beasts took over all the other times?"

He nodded. "I am weak, Dani. The longer you stay in the past, the weaker I become and the most distant our connection grows." Suddenly he was next to me and cupping my face in his hands. His thumbs stroked the crest of my cheekbones in slow circles. "I will try to see you again. I can guarantee nothing."

"I'm trying to make everything right," I breathed.

He nodded. "Master the feats your body is capable of. Learn to use them to your advantage. Keep your eyes and ears open."

"But they stopped trusting me," I said. "I don't know if they'll let me in anymore. How am I supposed to help them when they won't even let me in?"

"You'll just have to gain that trust back," he told me.

"But—"

"But nothing." Hie eyes were hard, as compromising as a rock. "Earn their trust. Do not let the Book out of your sight."

"I haven't even seen it yet!" I protested.

"But you've felt it," he said. "You can taste it on the air and feel it in the fabric of your dreams." With a smile he leaned forward and touched his lips to my forehead.

"I feel like I've gone nowhere," I said thickly.

"I have faith in you," he whispered against my skin. "I chose you because I believe you will succeed. You aren't the type to give up."

"It's just so hard, though."

"And you're letting a little adversity get to you now?" he said, pulling away from me. "The Beasts feed off of your emotions, Dani. Do not allow yourself to become weak. You will be easy prey for them, then." He paused, eyes trained on something in the distance. "I must go," he said, and he turned away.

"Wait!" I jumped after him, twisting my hands into the back of his shirt. "Don't leave me! You're the only one I can talk to, Koenma!"

"Dani..."

"I'm alone except for you. Don't leave."

He turned around and pulled me to him, and for a second I felt like I would cry. But the urge passed and all I did was wrap my arms around his waist, breathing deep of his scent. He smelled like shattered concrete and faded cologne, and I tried to memorize him with a few deep breaths.

"I'm always with you if you look deep enough," he said, and then he pushed me away. "I must go. They'll find me soon."

"Wait!" I cried, and I reached out to touch him again. All I touched, however, was air, and with a cry I sat up, suddenly awake, and the world of white went away. I found myself alone in my bed, gasping for air and reaching forlornly into the dark for a person who did not exist in this world.

Struck with the despair of this, I wept.

NOTES:

This chapter almost did not get written. For some reason I had trouble just getting the words out—mounds of it, heaps of it, mountains of it. But write it I did, and while I cannot say I am particularly fond of the results, I was able to move the plot forward and take care of everything I wanted nonetheless. In that much I am satisfied.

On a lighter note, we now know that the first dream was a good thing (relatively speaking) and that the Beasts are indeed responsible for the dreams. Some of you saw that coming, so keep those keen eyes peeled!

I have done a brief estimate of this story's length, and I'm thinking that it'll end up being roughly forty (40) or so chapters long. So we're halfway done. Sorry this thing is dragging out so long!

Also, I'm sorry this chapter was so depressing! I don't know how that happened. But I updated my KuwabraxOC fic, "Scratch," last night, and it's a mostly-humor fic that could lighten your mood if you desire a little Graphospasm humor. (And yes, this is a shameless advertisement. GO READ! =P)

Hiei is winning the poll by 56%, so those of you who ship otherwise need to submit votes! Surprisingly, a few people voted for the "bring in another character" option—who are you holding out for? Just curious, so let me know!

Thanks to those who reviewed! Y'all rock! Thanks to the Under-Cover Fangirl, 0nfateswings, Dragon of Twilight, kurochanwithwings, WickedLovelyDream, White Rose Fox, AkaMizu-chan, chocolateluvr13, Wolf-Cry-Night, Kaiya's Watergarden, ilovemusicrox12, Reclun, Talye Kendrin, RedbudInTheSky, rain chant, ichixichigo, Out-Of-Control-Authoress, Panda-chan31, heve-chan, DoilyRox, Anon18, Masuyo Shun, Dyani91, and ShadowFireFox13.