This chapter is dedicated to TheNotSoNiceLibrarian for continuing to support me. We are almost 2/3 through Tangled Strings of Red. Please stay with me until the end :)


"Is he still not back yet?" Touya asked as he entered the living room.

Jin shook his head. "Think I should look for 'em?" he asked, eyeing at the window. "He mighta gotten lost."

Touya hesitated for a moment, before nodding in agreement. "That's a possibility."

Jin let out a breath as he stood, like he was holding himself back from getting up until then. "Shouldn't had let him out himself."

At those word, his mind flashed back to that morning when Yusuke announced his intention of searching the mountain.

"Explore?" Jin asked, blinking at Yusuke. Yusuke nodded in reply. "Why? There's nuthing here, ya know."

"You want to see if there is an immortal fruit," Touya stated, his tone borderline accusing to anyone who didn't know him well.

Yusuke grinned slightly at those words, sheepishly. "Not that I'm doubting your words," he said, looking from Jin to Touya, "but I did risk my life climbing up here. It would be kinda silly to leave without carrying my objective first, right?"

"You're wasting your time," Touya said, cool eyes remaining on Yusuke.

Yusuke shrugged. "Then let it be my time that is wasted," Yusuke said, nonchalant and uncaring.

Touya didn't know what to make of the urge to curl his hand into a fist. "You're taking an unnecessary risk here."

"Only to you," Yusuke corrected. "It's not unnecessary to me."

"Pointless," Touya continued as though Yusuke never spoke, "searching for something that's not there."

Jin's head turned from Yusuke to Touya and back again, watching the rally get more heated. He had rarely seen Touya get that involved.

A slight scowl made its way to Yusuke's face. "What are you, my ma? Let me do my thing, would you?"

Touya's eyes flashed, glimmering with anger. "Fine!" Touya exclaimed, sending Yusuke reeling back in surprise. "Go! I won't ask after you any longer!"

There was a pause in Yusuke's step now, hesitant since he had never seen Toya act that way. Yusuke did what he always did best: blunder through. "I don't know why you made such a big deal out of this in the first place," Yusuke said, making light of the situation as he turned away.

"Hey, Yusuke!" Jin called out as Yusuke headed to the door. He made a move to follow, but a look from Touya had him pinned in place.

He watched as Yusuke raised a hand in farewell. "I'll go by myself," he said, before the door closed, separating them and him.

"Do you think I was wrong?" Touya asked, tipped his head up to meet Jin's eyes. His eyes glimmered. "To intrude on his business?"

Jin paused in face of this expressive side of Touya, knowing before, Touya would have undoubtedly kept his concerns to himself. How things have changed. Jin smiled softly instead of voicing those thoughts aloud. "I think you were worried, Touya."

Touya's eyes widen slightly, appearing to not know how to react. Jin did what he always did and reached out with a hand. Touya gazed at it, but made no move to take it.

"C'mon," Jin said. "Let's look for 'em togeta."

Touya looked from Jin to his hand again, before slowly placing his hand in Jin's.

xxx

"The hell am I?" Yusuke said for the fifth time that day, slowly unwinding his protective arms around himself to stumble to a stand. Okay, so maybe he shouldn't have been so stubborn about going to find the immortal fruit by himself. But he could hardly tell Touya or Jin to go with him. It would have been like interrupting the honeymoon phase of a recently married pair or something.

So here he was, on Mount Illisen three hours later. One word would adequately describe his situation: lost.

Two hours ago, in attempt to rectify that, he trekked up the mountain in hope of gaining enough altitude to spot Touya/Jin's home. But such was not meant to be, since he could not spot anything other than trees, trees and more trees.

Recalling the empty field of land that he raced Jin on and the lake where he fish with Touya, he knew that either the trees were taller than he thought, enough to block even those obvious landmarks, or he somehow wandered off the side of the mountain that Touya and Jin usually stuck with.

Hoping to hell that it was the latter, since he obviously couldn't do anything about the tall trees, he tried to walk a spiral upward path to circle around to the other side of the mountain while gaining more altitude to spy a greater range of the mountain. Occasionally, he would look back down to see if he would spot his landmarks, but Genkai wasn't on his side that day. He didn't see anything.

Things only got worse for him when he came across a freaking tiger. Nice thing, really, except when it was trying to eat him.

Yusuke did the sensible thing for once and ran with his life on line. Except... when there were more important things to worry about such as life or death, people often didn't pay attention to anything else, and that was the exact mortal folly Yusuke made.

So down he went.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Yusuke didn't sit on a wall, but he sure had a great fall. All he could do was hope the last parts of the Humpty Dumpty nursery lines won't come true, before he free-fell into a hole he had not spotted. It was really becoming some kind of bad habit, really.

Upon his landing, Yusuke found himself once again oblivious to his surrounding, but at least he had only suffered some bruises.

Shaking his head, Yusuke slowly stood up and blinked several of times. And that was when he noticed a green glow on his left.

Instinctively turning, his eyes slowly widened when he registered what he was seeing.

It was a tree with a thick trunk and branches that reached for heaven, but fell short and curved back down towards the earth. Its branches were bare of leaves and by all means, it should be a dead tree, yet the mystical green it emitted at the core had Yusuke thinking otherwise.

Without being fully aware of it, Yusuke began moving in the direction of the tree. As he got closer, he saw droplets of swirling colors hanging off of the branches in place of leaves. Some droplets were the size of his fist while others were as small as acorns, and all of them gave off an ephemeral feeling like they would be gone if he even blinked once.

His eyes were riveted on the colorful droplets, yet when he had closed the distance to arm-length, it was the glowing core of the trunk that he had laid a hand on.

As his hand made contact with the truck, a breeze went through, rustling the wiry branches and sending the droplets of colors to dance with the motion. Yusuke blinked, head raised to gaze at the multiple colors that seemed to dance in midair and traced their shadows to the ground, where they moved with endless chaos.

"Wha...?"

Up above, it was beautiful and breathtaking. Yet it was the unpredictable crisscross, the sensual movement of the silhouettes that had his gaze locked.

"You understand, don't you?"

Yusuke tore his eyes away from the stilling shadows to trace the voice back to the source.

A pale figure emerged from the tree, translucent and gazing at Yusuke with striking, knowing eyes. A young girl, stark and bare without any clothing or any definite form.

Her hand rose, gently caressing one of the droplets that was about the size of a cherry. Yusuke wondered if it was his imagination that the whole branch seemed to have leaned towards her. "They come at a great price," she continued, bringing him out of his thoughts. Her eyes met his. "Immortality, that is."

Yusuke felt his breath caught as understanding dawned. Immortality. Then those on the tree were...

As though knowing what he was thinking, the girl nodded. "The immortal fruits."

"I- I thought they didn't exist," Yusuke stated, glancing at the girl questioningly. His eyes inevitable went back to the droplets of colors, the immortal fruits, and felt his breath get caught again. Fuck. There was so much here. How many immortals would there be if the rest of the world find them? His gaze dropped back to the girl as the thought occurred to him.

"They exist," the girl reaffirmed, "just at different places according to my will." Before Yusuke could say anything else, the girl looked at him. "What would you do now, Urameshi Yusuke? Would you take a fruit as you have planned, or would you pluck my tree bare for your people?"

"Your tree?" Yusuke said, because, honestly, that was the only thought he could latch on. What would he do? Hell, he never planned for this. He didn't expect anything out of this expedition, some part of him realized, much less than consider what he would do if there was more than one immortal fruit.

The girl's lips didn't twitch, but light amusement sparked in her eyes. "Who do you think I am, Urameshi Yusuke?"

"Erm, a ghost?" Yusuke tried, based on her incorporeal presence. At the slight shake of her head, he tried again. "Guardian of the tree?"

She appeared pensive at that and gently fluttered to a sit at the base of the tree. "I suppose you could say that," she mused herself.

Yusuke's veined twitched. "Can we stop with the twenty questions?"

The girl blinked, as though she never considered that she might be wasting Yusuke's time and eating at his patience. She smiled a little. "Alright." She stood and Yusuke wondered why she even sat down to begin with. "I'm Nature, although some people refer to me as Mother Earth as well."

"You're freaking young," Yusuke blurted. The girl paused for a moment, before giggling.

"I've lived far longer than you, Urameshi Yusuke," Nature said. He was so not calling her Mother Earth. "Don't let my appearance deceive you."

"Yadi yadi yada," Yusuke said, getting over his shock and regaining his wit. "So, what's this summon for?"

There she went with the innocent look like she had no idea what he was talking about, even going as far as tilting her head to the side. "What makes you think I summoned you, Urameshi Yusuke?"

Yusuke ignored her full use of his name. "Maybe how I don't usually fall into a hole and now said hole is no where to be found around here." He gestured around their enclosed space.

Nature smiled, even clapping her hand once. "You're not as idiotic as you seem, it appears." Yusuke spluttered, but she ignored him. "You are chosen and given the chance to become an immortal, Urameshi Yusuke. Should you decide to take this chance, you can choose a fruit among here and join the rank as a god." She looked at him seriously, ignoring her shock. "Urameshi Yusuke, do you accept?"

"I didn't come here to become an immortal myself," Yusuke finally settled with saying a full minute later.

The girl's eyes never wavered as she spoke in response. "Does this mean you refuse?"

"Um, do you do take out?" he asked. He would have laughed if the girl's gaze wasn't so unnerving.

"Who are you passing this once-in-a-lifetime chance for, Urameshi Yusuke? Is this person really worth it?"

It's not a person, Yusuke wanted to say. He didn't. It would sound even sappier aloud to say it was for peace.

"I hope it is," Yusuke said. And, despite his intentions, it slipped out anyway. "Peace."

Something in her gaze shifted, making wisdom that came with age surface in her eyes. Her voice was low, plaintive and foreboding all at once. "Would that really bring peace, I wonder?" she said, directing her gaze up to the colorful, swirling fruits.

'Of course,' Yusuke wanted to say with all certainty, except... He thought of mortal greed and all the fruits that were present here. If he brought one back, others would undoubtedly want too. Even if he lied and said there was only one, people wouldn't believe him. They didn't believe the Ehendalians when they said Mount Illisen didn't have any immortal fruit, after all. Even if it turned out to be true, twenty years ago when war broke out, it was over a tiny rumor of an immortal fruit, a rumor that was more likely to be a lie than to contain any truth.

Yusuke could see it all too clearly in his mind, the way people of Runisca and Ehendal and people all over the world would rush to Mount Illisen, wrecking havoc and turning over nature in search of the immortal fruit. They wouldn't be stopped, especially when they find out the rumor was completely true. And if these people found them... a shiver slithered down his spine as he thought of villainous people living forever, growing numerous and without a pause.

His gaze snapped to Nature's and he saw that Nature read the haunted understanding in his eyes. "You give immortals their immortality," Yusuke stated. Nature nodded. "Why?" he asked, and he hated how his voice was reduce to the softness of a child in face of Nature.

"Because the world needs governing," Nature said patiently. "I can hardly preside over everything and like a mother, I cannot watch over the creations forever. They must govern themselves."

"You bring people like this and hand pick all the immortals?" Yusuke asked, knowing the answer was 'no' even before he was done asking. Kurama was the creation of two immortals and Hiei, an ice maiden. They weren't mortals turned immortals.

"Yes and no," Nature said. "The first of the immortals were chosen by me, but some were procreated and others were mortals that immortals chose. Mortals who receive offerings, which also signifies approval, from immortals may turn into immortals themselves."

"Then why me?" he asked. "I have no used for immortality, ya know?"

"You were searching for the fruit and I heard your voice," Nature answered. "Not many people's voice could reach me, Urameshi Yusuke. You should be honored."

"You're giving me a fucking dilemma here," he snarled, panic bubbling within him. "What am I suppose to do?"

Nature remained calm despite it all. "That's for you to decide, Yusuke."