[A⁄N: And we're back to Kairi's POV. Thankie mucho! 10 brownie points if you can spot the Tombstone reference.]
Damn, that had hurt a lot more than I had expected to, but I was alive.
To my dismay, Yusuke was down and Toguro was still standing.
I didn't have much energy left, but I knew with absolute certainty that even in this state I could take Toguro down. It might kill me, but hell, I'd been gambling all day. I'd gone all in on a shitty hand once before. Who was to say I couldn't do it again.
I rolled over onto my stomach. The ground hurt, a lot. This wasn't going to be easy. I should've thought about how badly the Kaio-ken was going to affect me after this.
"Kairi?" Kuwabara exclaimed as I managed to push myself up with one hand.
"Whatever you do, don't touch me," I said.
"But. . . but. . . but," he stammered.
"Yeah, I know," I said. I got up to my knees. The wound in my chest was, literally, killing me. I grasped at it with my hand and managed to get myself up onto my feet. "I just gotta go do this thing."
I struggled forward toward my fallen friend, behind Toguro. Then I stopped walking. I didn't have the energy for this. I just needed finish him off here.
"You damn rookie," I said. Everything was still fuzzy and I was lightheaded. Things kept going in and out of focus, but I was alive.
Toguro turned around and Yusuke raised his head to look at me.
"You'd think after all of this I wouldn't have to clean up after you anymore, but clearly you're still just a rookie Spirit Detective," I said.
"I just can't believe it! Yusuke goes down and up comes Kairi! She's bleeding all over the place but somehow after being killed by Toguro she's managed to come back from the dead! It looks like no one on Team Urameshi can stay dead for very long!" Koto announced.
"I killed you," Toguro said.
"Yeah, not staying dead is a problem we have in my family," I said. "But, it's like I keep telling people. I'm Spirit Detective for a reason. In other news, I told you something before and you've really pissed me off because you don't fucking listen."
"And what was that?" he asked.
I held up my bloody and showed him. "I said if you make me bleed again you had better make damn sure you killed me. . . And you did not. So now I have to kill you."
He laughed. "Arrogant. Stupid and arrogant. That's what you are Kairi Son. How can you expect to kill me when you can barely keep yourself alive? You've lost so much blood I bet you're seeing double."
I chuckled. "You're right, but it's okay. Because I've got two guns." I held up both of my hands and started charging up for two final Spirit Guns, but instead of using Spirit Energy, I used my ki instead. "One for each of you."
Toguro prepared for my attack, but I knew it was futile. He'd used up everything on Yusuke. I could finish him off no problem.
"Have fun wrestling greased up German guys in hell," I said. I fired the Spirit guns and they made direct contact with Toguro bursting into little bits of nothingness as the smacked against him.
But then he started towards me, moving slowly but there was something nonthreatening about him.
He stopped just short of me.
"And now that surviving beast can at lat rest in peace," he said. Suddenly cracks began to appear all over his skin like he was made of stone and in a flash it shattered, showing Toguro, a human Toguro beneath it. An emptiness filled his eyes and he fell over onto the ground. Then he seemed to turn into a large white stone.
I dropped down to my knees, grabbing at the gaping hole in my chest as Yusuke climbed to his feet.
Juri and Koto ran out onto the field as Yusuke stared at me from across the way.
"Winners of The Dark Tournament, Team Urameshi!" they declared.
The few people remaining the audience cheered. Yusuke smiled at me and I smiled back. Then I fell over.
The rest of my team was by my side in an instant.
"What the hell happened? You were dead! Your Spirit Energy was gone. You stopped breathing!" Yusuke said.
"Yes, I think we're all curious to see you explain this," Kurama said, sitting me up.
"It's really a great story," I chuckled. "I'm sorry I had to fool you guys like that."
"What did you do?" Kuwabara asked.
"I realized a couple of things after I talked to Genkai. The first being that I was right about not training to become a Super Saiyan, it would've been over kill. The second thing I realized was just what I told you guys, that the walls needed to come down for Yusuke to win. Then I realized that I needed to get stronger to make sure this never happened again, but I needed to prove my point to Toguro and make sure that when I went down Yusuke could finish him," I said. "And then I came up with my plan. I'd take a near fatal injury from Toguro, fake my own death, give Yusuke the strength to take out Toguro and, to quote the Elder Toguro, emerge triumphantly at the end of it all."
"Yes, but how did you do it?" Hiei asked.
"Don't you remember? I said I took out an insurance policy," I said.
They all stared at each other for a moment.
"Of course! The Senzu bean!" Kurama said.
"What? That thing your brother gave you?" Yusuke asked.
"Yeah. Senzu beans are nifty when you're out of energy and in a bind. It basically replenishes all of the energy in your body to a certain extent. While it doesn't work very well for Spirit Energy, if you happen to be using you ki," I said.
"Yes, yes, yes. It all makes sense," Kurama said.
"Only to you apparently," Hiei said.
"As Kairi has pointed out many times she is more inclined to using her ki, energy that she draws from her physical strength, than she is to using Spirit Energy. Because she's half Saiyan she's able to accumulate a great surplus of this, but it's also why she isn't as skilled with sensing energy as the rest of us," Kurama said. "But the other advantage she has to her ability to use ki is that she has a back up supply of energy. Obviously she drained both of her stores, the first time when she used the Kamehameha Wave and the second time when she used the Spirit Gun to stage her alleged death."
"All right, so after Toguro attacked you ate the Senzu bean and you managed to stay alive," Yusuke said.
"Yeah, but how come we didn't know she was alive afterward? I mean, we would've sensed her energy even if she was barely alive," Kuwbara said.
"But you wouldn't have. I am fresh out of Spirit Energy, but thanks to the Senzu bean, my ki started coming back and to my advantage you're not so great at sensing it. You can feel my dad and Vegeta's because they have so much of it, but I'm half dead. I wouldn't even pop up on your radar," I said. "Didn't you think it was weird that my family just stayed in their seats while I was dying?"
"Right, they must've been able to sense that you were still alive and therefore not concerned," Kurama replied.
"Damn right," Goten said landing on the ground next to me. "Besides, Kairi's not stupid enough to get herself killed. Mom would not be happy."
"Right, I'd be dead and she'd still find a way to haunt me," I said.
"Here," Goten said wrapping his jacket around me. "After Toguro went full power, he ripped a hole in your bra and now everyone can see your side boob. This is why dad always says-."
"'Wear a t-shirt if you're going to take off your weighted clothes so you don't make your mother cry.' I know," I said.
Goten lifted me up from the ground and slung me onto his back as Sakyo approached.
"That was quite a show you put on, Detectives," he said.
"Well, you know us, we aim to entertain," I said.
"Unfortunately we can't really say that this tournament is over," Sakyo said.
I sighed. "All right, who wants to fight Sakyo?"
He chuckled. "You misunderstand. The winner of the last round earned two points. And Toguro may be a large man, I wouldn't say he was worth two points. No, my life is forfeit as well.
"Hey, man, don't even worry about that. You just go home and count all of your money like a good little rich boy," I said.
"No," Sakyo said, pulling a remote control from his pocket. "I don't think I will." He pushed a button and the whole stadium began to rumble.
"What did you do?" Yusuke asked.
"Stadium detonation in 20 minutes."
"Farewell," Sakyo said casually lighting a cigarette and walking away.
". . . What hell just happened?" I asked.
"I think it's time for us to leave," Kurama said.
"Kazuma!" we heard Yukina calling out from the stands. "Kazuma!"
"Don't worry baby, I'm coming!" Kuwabara exclaimed making a beeline for Yukina through the crowd of demons that were trying to escape the soon to be exploding stadium.
"Weird guy that Kuwabara," Goten said.
"He's an imbecile," Hiei said.
"I guess we should follow his lead," Kurama said.
We walked up the stairs to the top floor of the arena where Yukina was waving to us urgently. The stadium shook violently and above her head a large chunk of the stadium started to topple down.
We blinked and the place where she had been standing was now occupied by the boulder, just off to the side, Hiei had pulled Yukina away.
"Wow, you're really fast even considering that you just single handedly leveled half the stadium not too long ago," Dad said.
"Thank you, Hiei," Yukina said as the pair got to their feet. "Yusuke, there's something wrong with Kayko."
"Kayko?" Yusuke asked. He seemed to develop enough strength to stop using Kurama as a crutch and followed Yukina hastily down to where the rest of our party was.
Kayko was sitting on the ground staring out ahead, completely catatonic.
"She's been like this for a while. We didn't notice until the fight was over but she hasn't be responding to anything," Botan said.
Yusuke dropped down to his knees in front of Kayko and placed both hands on her shoulders.
"Kayko! Hey, Kayko!" he shouted at her. Then he started shaking her. "Kayko! Wake up! This whole time you've been bitching and moaning about how much you want to go home and now you're the one holding up progress! So just wake your ass up so we can go!" He was shaking her and screaming at her but to no avail. That's when he resorted to desperate measure. He started to slap her across the face repeatedly while continuing to shout at her.
A knot formed in my stomach.
"Yusuke," I warned, but he ignored me. By her side, Kayko formed a fist and then raised her hand backhanding Yusuke into a wall.
"Yusuke, you jerk!" she shouted. She started to come out of a daze and the first thing she saw was Yusuke lying on the ground. "Oh, my god! Yusuke!"
Kuwabara poked him. "Yeah, I think he's dead."
Yusuke sat up and looked over to her.
"Jeez, Kayko, even Toguro doesn't hit that hard," he said.
The stadium shook violently again.
"I don't mean to interrupt your happy feel good moment, but I think that you all should start making you way out of the stadium unless you'd like to be blown up," Vegeta suggested.
I'd almost forgotten about it. I thought how easy it would be for us to fly out, but considering the current situation that was not a plausible idea.
We ran through the corridors of the stadium to the lower level towards the exit, but when we reached it there was a giant boulder blocking our way.
"Now what? We haven't got time to find another way out," Botan said.
"Back up, I can get us through here," Trunks said.
But just as he said the boulder turned to gravel before our eyes and on the other side stood Chu, Rinku, Touya, and Jin.
"Looked like you guys could use a hand," Chu said.
We followed them from the stadium and through the concrete walls that had gone up. Once outside the stadium started to explode and crumble to pieces just as Shizuru and Koenma came running up to us.
"Talk about an action movie ending," Kuwabara said.
I nodded in silent agreement. Fighting for our lives and finally having to escape from an exploding was very action movie cliché.
"Oh, shoot," Botan said. "The tournament committee was supposed to give you whatever you wanted for winning."
"It doesn't matter," Yusuke said. "They couldn't have given us what we wanted anyway."
Yusuke was right. When it was all said and done, all we really wanted for all of us to go home back to our normal lives like before. But Genkai had been taken from us. Even the committee couldn't give her back to us and we'd never be able to get what we wanted.
We just wanted Genkai back.