Side Effects

Back to You

The next morning, sleeping at the Reikai, you wake up and the first thought in your head is "Glurk". You roll out of your bed and catch yourself on legs that decide to only half support you, and you fall to the floor. Hiei, having heard you move from outside your window, ((You assume. That's how he got in, anyway.)) comes in and helps you upright.

"Sick," you explain, pointing to the door. He helps you get to the bathroom and, to your surprise, helps hold you up and holds your hair out of the way ((if necessary)) while you're sick. Afterwards, you feel a little better, but you'd kill for some gum. He helps you back to your room and sits you on the floor, and retreats to a corner and sits in it. You flop over onto your side and press your fingers into a cramp in the upper part of your abdomen, lower part of your chest.

Hiei leaves when Kurama comes in. He doesn't look at you, but he does show you the food he's made. The idea of eating makes you sick again, and you stand and try to stagger to the door. Hiei helps you again after you get out the door, and when you return, you see that Kurama has gone with the food.

Hours of this. Kurama will, occasionally come in with food, a little more mild than the last, until he finally resorts to nothing but crackers and chicken broth and sprite. You choke this down and hope that it will taste half as good on the way up.


At night fall, Hiei leaves and Yusuke comes in to take his place, but he's a lot less rough with you, doing this out of the kindness of his heart, rather than out of guilt. He helps you into your bed and sits on the side of it, and he pats your hand. "If you need anything, just ask me, okay?"

"Hnnngh..." you agree. He pats your hand again and tucks you in. You both sit in complete silence for a while, and, eventually, you realize that you're too hungry to sleep, and you reach up to touch Yusuke with one hand. He feels you touch him, looks at you, and a look of concern spreads out on his face. He touches lightly at your forehead, and he makes a face.

"Jeez, why didn't you say you were burning up like that? I'm going to go get Kurama or someone, okay? Just call if you need anything, I'll see if I can get back quick enough."

You lay in wait for a little while, and Kurama comes in, focusing hard on the floor as he walks up to you, and he puts his palm to your forehead, then quickly pulls it away.

"I'll go get her an ice pack," the red-head decides as he leaves the room.

"You want me to take off one of these covers?" Yusuke asks.

From behind him, Botan makes her appearance by sticking her head in. "Would you like to change clothes?"

You nod at both of them, but as you try to get out of the bed, you stagger and fall into Yusuke, who helps you stand upright and lets you lean on Botan and, after he gets the thickest cover off your bed and puts down a lighter one, leaves.

"Why...?" you ask Botan.

"Koenma's higher-ups told him to, there was nothing we could do to refuse it..." Botan sighs. "He would like to see you later..."

"I m... mean... You're... bein'... nice..."

"Well, according to Kurama, Hiei feels guilty for not stopping Koenma, Kurama himself feels bad for helping them, and Yusuke doesn't feel bad, but he just wants to help you, 'cos he knows you'd do the same thing if it were him. "

You sigh and pull some boxers on, and grab an old jester costume from Halloween last year that your mom made, and drag it on, then curl back into the bed. Botan sighs when she gets to the door.

"Kali, sweetheart, are you going to be okay? Should we take you to the medical hall? Do you want me to heal you?"

"Chemical damage, not energy. I'm sick... 'cause o' the drug 'r poison," you mumble, getting tangled into your quilt. "Fan," you add, pointing at the switch next to the door. She flips it as she leaves, and Yusuke comes back in, carrying the ice pack puts it on your forehead and sits back down next to you. You sigh quietly as he starts to scratch your head. Ender must have told him you like head scratches. Meh, screw like. Loooooove. ((Oh, GOD, head scratches are the greatest things. Man... drugs and head scratches. My heaven.))

Hiei comes in at one point, and you think it's funny when he freezes and makes a confused face. You giggle harshly.

"Detective, just what the hell are you doing?" he demands, glaring.

"Ender taught me. She relaxes a lot when you give her a head scratch. C'mere, I found this one spot, you can feel her relax."

Hiei crosses his arms and sits down in the corner.

"Koenma sent me to make sure she doesn't puke on herself when you go to sleep."

"Be careful and make sure she doesn't puke on you, either," he warns as your breath catches and you close your eyes.

"You really should try scratching her head, it's hilarious when she slumps like that," Yusuke says as he helps you sit up and leave the bed.

"What are you doing?" Hiei mumbles.

"She made that little sound in her throat, help me help her to the bathroom."

You stagger along by yourself while the others watch, until you slump into the wall, and they help you get to the bathroom, and you hurl again.

"Lemme alone, boys, I wanna take a bath," you finally sigh.

"Can you do it by yourself?" Yusuke asks, a little too hopefully. You slug him in the face with a fist of energy, though you can hardly stand to bother concentrating, and Hiei glares.

"Yes. Yes, I can, now OUT!" you demand, glaring at them harder and pushing them out of the room. You lock the door behind them, and you look at your reflection as you undress. You look dead. You look deeeeeaaaad. White as a sheet, sunken-in eyes, dark sags under the eyes. You start the water, not caring how hot or cold, and you undress and you climb in and rest for a little while. You feel better, after a while, then you drag yourself out and sit in the floor with a towel wrapped around you until you feel like getting dressed.


On your way out the door, Hiei helps you to your room, and Kurama brings more crackers and sprite, and you lay in the bed for a while and you close your eyes.

Just before you go to sleep, you swear you feel someone petting your hand gently, but you can't tell who, so you just curl onto your side and leave that hand where it is. They take their hand away for a while, then they put it back.

As you lay on your back, you think hard. This was wrong. Even if the boys are helping you recover, Koenma had no right to do that to you, trick you like that and hurt you like that for no reason beyond his own curiousity. Botan was lying. You can always tell when she's lying, she's a terrible liar.

You make the decision now that as soon as you can walk without help again, you're out of here.

As you wake up, you see Koenma's pained-looking face. You, feeling much better than you did yesterday because of the sudden boost of energy the rage has offered, grab his collar and sling him to the wall with a shriek of anger. He stands very still, but he doesn't look you in the eye. You start to punch him, but you're overcome with your illness, and you stagger back onto the bed, holding your head.

"Koenma... You mother fucking... I.. should... urrrgh..."

"I agree, Kali. You should. Yusuke and Kuwabara, and Hiei have helped you gain your revenge..." You look hard and see bandages on his arms where you can't see his sleeve, and there are bruises on his face. He also looks very solemn.

"Revenge is not what I want, what I want is to be able to trust you fuckers."

"You can trust us."

"You stabbed me in the back!" you shout. You punch him in the face with a wad of energy in his face. It already has a black eye, but it looks like he can still see through it, and you want to fix that.

"I'm sorry, Kali. We did it for your own good."

"No, we did it for YOUR own good, which, as it turns out, will only be necessary if you continue to do this to me! You hurt me!"

"Actually... Kali... I did it with the best of intentions aimed at you... Here..."

He holds out a small vial that looks like an insulin bottle. "These chemicals seem to help speed up the process without pain." He holds out a second vial in his other hand with a different-colored lid. "And these help speed up the process with pain."

"So you did that so I could make myself go berserk like that? But I need to control it, if I don't, bad shit happens."

"So I've noticed. We have more." He reaches into his pocket and draws out two more. "This helps numb your pain, and, in effect, will slow down that process, but this one is for us to hang onto."

The bottle he's mentioning now is a small black bottle with a red lid.

"This is what we can use to stop you when you go berserk."

"What'll it do?"

"You remember the effect of the poison Kurama slipped you?"

"How could I not? I'm still puking."

"Well... it's just like that... only it's made to be injected, so we don't worry about the effects on your stomach..."

You blink slowly and sigh. You get the feeling you're being used. You don't appreciate it much, either. You're nothing but a weapon, you don't even play as much of a role as Yusuke does, because you have yet to lose, or even chance losing. You win. Always.

"Koenma. Destroy those."

"What?"

"You heard me. I am not a weapon. I'm a person. Demon, human, prophecied mother of the gods of all worlds, I don't really care how you define 'person', but I am not a weapon."

He looks at you out of the corner of his eyes. You glare hard at him, then snatch the bottles out of his hand and throw them against the wall, and they smash and the liquid dribbles down the wall.

"You can keep that. Keep a dart gun handy," you growl. "You got any more of that shit?"

"No... You don't have to use them if you don't want to."

"No way you could make me, anyway," you growl, grabbing him by his hair and throwing him out the window, over your balcony.

"Kali, that was unnecessary," Kurama informs you.

"You wanna see unnecessary, you should talk to... urgh..." You run to the balcony and throw up over the side. You don't even look to see if you hit Koenma, but you go back to your bed and sit down next to Hiei. Kurama's in the doorway with his head hanging down, and Yusuke's against the wall next to the bed.

"Sleep."

"No, I've already been out a while."

"How can you tell?" Yusuke inquires, cocking his head to a side.

"I'm not nearly as sick as the last time I was conscious. And there's that smell of puke of course... Would be a stain in the floor, I'm sure, but my room doesn't stain." Kurama nods slowly.

Hiei stands up, and you settle back into the bed. "Thank you guys so much... you have no idea... Thanks. All of you. 'cept you, Kurama. Asshole."

Kurama turns as he goes out of the door, and you hear Kurama and Koenma talking quietly in the hall. Hiei listens, too.

"I'm sorry, Kurama..."

"Don't be sorry, it was my choice."

"I know, but it was wrong of me to do this..."

"You could have asked her permission... Are you going to destroy the other vials?"

At this point, Kuwabara screams something profane as a snake wraps around his ankle. You catch her as she flies through the air. You push each of them out of your room and curl into the sheets. You feel two people walk in, but you mock sleeping and wait for them to leave. But they don't. One sits by the window, the other sits in the window's vicinity. You roll and crack your eye. You see red and black, Kurama and Hiei. Probably sharing a telepathic conversation.

You hear a soft noise from one of them, Kurama, from what you can tell, and one shifts. You wish that you had telepathy so you could tap into their minds and see what they were talking about, but you don't say anything for a while. You just wait.

Then you hear Kurama say something out loud, very very quietly.

"Oh dear."