Ch.4: Half and Half
I didn't need the IQ of Kuwabara to figure out that Yuusuke (and Koenma) would be angry at my decision.
The leader of the Urameshi Team paced and prowled in front of me like a unwilling tiger in a cage. After a moment he stopped, looked up at me - no, downright GLARED at me - and said for the umpteenth time, "You just CAN'T! It's not POSSIBLE that you would leave Shiori here for some high- and-holy revenge trip to Makai that could take god-knows-how-long and before you know it, your mom's dead and you'll be regretting you went to Makai in the first place. Plus", here he pinned me with a very true statement, "if Mukuro doesn't want you to see Hiei, then she'll damn well do anything in her power to keep you away from him. Cunning isn't going to hide you from her, Kurama. You know very well how her information network runs."
And I did. Mukuro had the most extensive network of informants that I'd ever seen in all of my thousand-or-so years of experience. Usually a demon couldn't get information just by asking; he also needed a hefty sum of money. Not only had Mukuro somehow recruited all of those people who were willing to be informants, but they were informants that went by only a little pay. In a strange way, either by fear or perhaps just respect, she had gained the loyalty of those who answered up to her. That was her greatest power: persuasion. She understood how demon minds worked, all those little accountant minds that added and subtracted money just as surely as they would decide to kill someone in an instant. Even I hadn't been able to prevent corruption in the ranks of Yomi's hierarchy, all those years ago.
Yomi. I supposed that he was someone I could turn to when I went to Makai. But all the same, I could build up my name again alone, as I had done before. There was no need to go bothering where I didn't need to poke into. And it wasn't like I wanted to go whining anywhere to beg for instant status and money. I could build that up again. I had my caches, and not all of them could have been broken into in these last fifteen years, even if I hadn't checked them for some time.
And, the human side of me now knew the story of how I had blinded him, so I felt more guilty than I ever had as Youko Kurama. It wasn't as if he had forgiven me, though - it was just that I would have made a better heir than the average demon off of the street.
[You say it doesn't matter
Then tell me what does]
I stared Yuusuke straight in the eye. "It doesn't matter after this. My place was never in Ningenkai anyway."
"Like hell!", he exclaimed in return. "Maybe you are a demon through and through, but haven't you wanted to be a full human sometimes? You see them all from a third person perspective, right? You always have. You watch them like they're biological specimens to be studied or something. But through all of your analysis, you can't possibly tell me straight without lying that you never wanted to stay her forever. Maybe human lives are short - but you can see, can't you? Their lives are so much fuller. And now - I know you feel this - you're going to leave your mother? The one that's stayed by your side and you said you'd protect? I thought this was the one thing that you couldn't POSSIBLY give up! I thought you'd wait until she'd died, at least."
There came a red pain in the region where my human heart resided. Absently I placed my hand over it and scrunched the starched uniform over it. It HURT, hurt more than any physical pain that I had ever experienced. And somehow, the youko inside of me was surprised - perhaps humans did not have the ability to run and to hide and fight like a demon could, but certainly their raw willpower, their foolish loyalty and their emotions lent them more dependable strength than any massive army. Constantly, I was surprised at the amount of feelings I felt for those people around me, and constantly I was asking the question: When did they get so close? When did they start to matter? Those changes, so insignificant at first glance, had turned me into something completely un-demon.
And it wasn't just fun and games for the youko anymore, either. The youko didn't want to go back to Makai, to that hit-and-run lifestyle. I wanted to stay here, because somehow I had found something that Makai never had, something that was only 'human', in all senses of the word - kindness, compassion, forgiveness. Never had these feelings risen so strongly - before, it had simply been 'mercy' on those who challenged me. Opponents now I almost viewed as friends, seeing their own strong wills and their tenacity to live and to survive to become the best - much like me, so much that I wonder in different circumstances, could we have been friends?
"It doesn't matter anymore", I whispered softly more to myself than to Yuusuke, completely contrary to what I was feeling inside of my heart and thinking in my mind. It was almost as if I were doing this against my will, doing it because my past told me I still had a reputation to keep as the Youko Kurama. And as my hesitation grew, I wondered just how much of me had already become human.
[And why that isn't what
You've been thinking of]
"Protection. You've saved Shiori from at least ten different people who came to sabotage you in the last, what, three years? What's going to happen when you leave? DON'T YOU CARE?"
"I do!", I blurted, very human-like and very un-Youko-Kurama. "I care, because I know she showed me compassion, a lesson I learned most reluctantly and came to value the most. What she has taught me as the human Shuiichi Minamino has replaced the core of Youko Kurama's cruel ways. . ." And here I found no more to say.
". . .and so you're afraid that if you go back to Makai, those cruel tendencies will return." He gave a snort. "Simple answer to that: don't go back, then, if you're so scared. Frankly, I think you should go back, have a nice little vacation there, and then come back after a few months or so. Do it during the summer or something. Rediscover your Youko side and how it's changed over the years or something. Doesn't do you any good to be cooped up in Ningenkai all the time."
"That's not the problem", I protested lightly. "The problem is Hiei -"
"- the problem was never about revenge against Hiei. It's always been you, Kurama, torn between Makai and Ningenkai like that. I, on the other hand, have been in Ningenkai so long it won't hurt to stay a little longer and see the rest of those people out of their skins and into holes six feet under, I don't feel the pull of returning to Makai as strong as you or Hiei do because I've never felt as if I've belonged there. Hiei is just an excuse, Kurama, face it. Even before this you were thinking of returning to Makai."
My face burned in a very human-like way. I had been shamed, shamed in the face of myself! All that he had said was true, that I had wanted to return to Makai, to my native world, even as I fought for Shiori. As Yuusuke went on to dissect how I should keep that nationalism away from my mind for another ten years or so just so that I could see Shiori safely out of this world, I could feel that trembling fear that I could never keep this at bay any longer. It wasn't that I missed the landscape of Makai - those forests, those deserts, those mountains I saw every time I went on a mission with the Urameshi Team - it was the heart of Makai that I missed, that recklessness of a demon with a lifespan to spare. I knew now that if I went back there now, I would bring my own human sympathies along with me. That would not be beneficial in a fight if I was trying to avoid killing civilians - but it would assuage the guilt within me that I had always had as Youko Kurama before the human incarnation. I wanted to see for myself how I had changed.
How in the world had I come to harbor so many fears? Humanity had made me extremely cautious. How much of me could I claim was demon, and how many parts human? I was frightened, most of all, that I would be treated as an abomination in both worlds, belonging to no one but myself. And it was also here that I hoped that Hiei would come back to me, because if this ever happened I would need him.
What did I want, what did I want? All of those things that others expected of me had seemed to come on hold - now it was only me that mattered. But which 'me'? I knew that before long, the human side of me would sympathize once again with Hiei, and so I had to make a decisive decision before that time. The spotlight was on my wishes, but it seemed all the time in the world would never make the right choice pop up before my eyes - but of course it never would. This was my choice.
I bent my head into my hands and felt the merging of all the world's voices clambering in my head, and felt more uncertain than I had ever been in my entire life. In my mind, I began to see there was no more truth or falsity inside of me, it was all inside of my head, and all inside of my heart.
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's note:
Well, another chapter cranked out. I'm pretty sure where this is going now. . .but my muses could change at any time. Glad to say it won't be the regular fic, it'll be something sprung from this noggin *taps head*. . .but I've frequently found that my ideas can be a bit bizarre. So, whatever. Hope you enjoyed.
Andrea Weiling
I didn't need the IQ of Kuwabara to figure out that Yuusuke (and Koenma) would be angry at my decision.
The leader of the Urameshi Team paced and prowled in front of me like a unwilling tiger in a cage. After a moment he stopped, looked up at me - no, downright GLARED at me - and said for the umpteenth time, "You just CAN'T! It's not POSSIBLE that you would leave Shiori here for some high- and-holy revenge trip to Makai that could take god-knows-how-long and before you know it, your mom's dead and you'll be regretting you went to Makai in the first place. Plus", here he pinned me with a very true statement, "if Mukuro doesn't want you to see Hiei, then she'll damn well do anything in her power to keep you away from him. Cunning isn't going to hide you from her, Kurama. You know very well how her information network runs."
And I did. Mukuro had the most extensive network of informants that I'd ever seen in all of my thousand-or-so years of experience. Usually a demon couldn't get information just by asking; he also needed a hefty sum of money. Not only had Mukuro somehow recruited all of those people who were willing to be informants, but they were informants that went by only a little pay. In a strange way, either by fear or perhaps just respect, she had gained the loyalty of those who answered up to her. That was her greatest power: persuasion. She understood how demon minds worked, all those little accountant minds that added and subtracted money just as surely as they would decide to kill someone in an instant. Even I hadn't been able to prevent corruption in the ranks of Yomi's hierarchy, all those years ago.
Yomi. I supposed that he was someone I could turn to when I went to Makai. But all the same, I could build up my name again alone, as I had done before. There was no need to go bothering where I didn't need to poke into. And it wasn't like I wanted to go whining anywhere to beg for instant status and money. I could build that up again. I had my caches, and not all of them could have been broken into in these last fifteen years, even if I hadn't checked them for some time.
And, the human side of me now knew the story of how I had blinded him, so I felt more guilty than I ever had as Youko Kurama. It wasn't as if he had forgiven me, though - it was just that I would have made a better heir than the average demon off of the street.
[You say it doesn't matter
Then tell me what does]
I stared Yuusuke straight in the eye. "It doesn't matter after this. My place was never in Ningenkai anyway."
"Like hell!", he exclaimed in return. "Maybe you are a demon through and through, but haven't you wanted to be a full human sometimes? You see them all from a third person perspective, right? You always have. You watch them like they're biological specimens to be studied or something. But through all of your analysis, you can't possibly tell me straight without lying that you never wanted to stay her forever. Maybe human lives are short - but you can see, can't you? Their lives are so much fuller. And now - I know you feel this - you're going to leave your mother? The one that's stayed by your side and you said you'd protect? I thought this was the one thing that you couldn't POSSIBLY give up! I thought you'd wait until she'd died, at least."
There came a red pain in the region where my human heart resided. Absently I placed my hand over it and scrunched the starched uniform over it. It HURT, hurt more than any physical pain that I had ever experienced. And somehow, the youko inside of me was surprised - perhaps humans did not have the ability to run and to hide and fight like a demon could, but certainly their raw willpower, their foolish loyalty and their emotions lent them more dependable strength than any massive army. Constantly, I was surprised at the amount of feelings I felt for those people around me, and constantly I was asking the question: When did they get so close? When did they start to matter? Those changes, so insignificant at first glance, had turned me into something completely un-demon.
And it wasn't just fun and games for the youko anymore, either. The youko didn't want to go back to Makai, to that hit-and-run lifestyle. I wanted to stay here, because somehow I had found something that Makai never had, something that was only 'human', in all senses of the word - kindness, compassion, forgiveness. Never had these feelings risen so strongly - before, it had simply been 'mercy' on those who challenged me. Opponents now I almost viewed as friends, seeing their own strong wills and their tenacity to live and to survive to become the best - much like me, so much that I wonder in different circumstances, could we have been friends?
"It doesn't matter anymore", I whispered softly more to myself than to Yuusuke, completely contrary to what I was feeling inside of my heart and thinking in my mind. It was almost as if I were doing this against my will, doing it because my past told me I still had a reputation to keep as the Youko Kurama. And as my hesitation grew, I wondered just how much of me had already become human.
[And why that isn't what
You've been thinking of]
"Protection. You've saved Shiori from at least ten different people who came to sabotage you in the last, what, three years? What's going to happen when you leave? DON'T YOU CARE?"
"I do!", I blurted, very human-like and very un-Youko-Kurama. "I care, because I know she showed me compassion, a lesson I learned most reluctantly and came to value the most. What she has taught me as the human Shuiichi Minamino has replaced the core of Youko Kurama's cruel ways. . ." And here I found no more to say.
". . .and so you're afraid that if you go back to Makai, those cruel tendencies will return." He gave a snort. "Simple answer to that: don't go back, then, if you're so scared. Frankly, I think you should go back, have a nice little vacation there, and then come back after a few months or so. Do it during the summer or something. Rediscover your Youko side and how it's changed over the years or something. Doesn't do you any good to be cooped up in Ningenkai all the time."
"That's not the problem", I protested lightly. "The problem is Hiei -"
"- the problem was never about revenge against Hiei. It's always been you, Kurama, torn between Makai and Ningenkai like that. I, on the other hand, have been in Ningenkai so long it won't hurt to stay a little longer and see the rest of those people out of their skins and into holes six feet under, I don't feel the pull of returning to Makai as strong as you or Hiei do because I've never felt as if I've belonged there. Hiei is just an excuse, Kurama, face it. Even before this you were thinking of returning to Makai."
My face burned in a very human-like way. I had been shamed, shamed in the face of myself! All that he had said was true, that I had wanted to return to Makai, to my native world, even as I fought for Shiori. As Yuusuke went on to dissect how I should keep that nationalism away from my mind for another ten years or so just so that I could see Shiori safely out of this world, I could feel that trembling fear that I could never keep this at bay any longer. It wasn't that I missed the landscape of Makai - those forests, those deserts, those mountains I saw every time I went on a mission with the Urameshi Team - it was the heart of Makai that I missed, that recklessness of a demon with a lifespan to spare. I knew now that if I went back there now, I would bring my own human sympathies along with me. That would not be beneficial in a fight if I was trying to avoid killing civilians - but it would assuage the guilt within me that I had always had as Youko Kurama before the human incarnation. I wanted to see for myself how I had changed.
How in the world had I come to harbor so many fears? Humanity had made me extremely cautious. How much of me could I claim was demon, and how many parts human? I was frightened, most of all, that I would be treated as an abomination in both worlds, belonging to no one but myself. And it was also here that I hoped that Hiei would come back to me, because if this ever happened I would need him.
What did I want, what did I want? All of those things that others expected of me had seemed to come on hold - now it was only me that mattered. But which 'me'? I knew that before long, the human side of me would sympathize once again with Hiei, and so I had to make a decisive decision before that time. The spotlight was on my wishes, but it seemed all the time in the world would never make the right choice pop up before my eyes - but of course it never would. This was my choice.
I bent my head into my hands and felt the merging of all the world's voices clambering in my head, and felt more uncertain than I had ever been in my entire life. In my mind, I began to see there was no more truth or falsity inside of me, it was all inside of my head, and all inside of my heart.
/ / / / / / / / / / / Author's note:
Well, another chapter cranked out. I'm pretty sure where this is going now. . .but my muses could change at any time. Glad to say it won't be the regular fic, it'll be something sprung from this noggin *taps head*. . .but I've frequently found that my ideas can be a bit bizarre. So, whatever. Hope you enjoyed.
Andrea Weiling