This chapter isn't nearly as strange as the last one... They don't meet any more talking lizards... The talking lizard they did meet is only a small part of this chapter, but I get around to everybody in this chapter, so it's quite eventful... I think. Kinda long... Oh well, have fun.
=========================================================================
CHAPTER FIVE
Everything is Going Wrong, Oh Pity Us.
Kurama paced the room he was imprisoned in. Karasu was gone, for the time being. Thank God. Now that he was alone, Kurama had managed to calm down a bit, and was working on an escape plan. That damned Karasu had picked through his hair and stolen all his seeds, so he had no weapons besides his own fists. Just the thought of this brought a string of curses from the redhead.
"That guy has got some nerve... He should be shot. About six times. Yeah..." Kurama amused himself with violent revenge plans. Then he mentally slapped himself and went back to his escape plans. After he'd figured out escape, then he'd worry about revenge. And yes, there would be revenge.
Muwahahahaaa... Sweet, sweet revenge. Sigh... *mental slap* ESCAPE! SWEET, SWEET ESCAPE, GOD DAMN YOU, GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT! Ah. Right. Sorry 'bout that!
Ignore that. That was slightly abnormal. Just talking to myself.
Kurama heard the click of shoes on concrete outside his door. His escape plans had gotten this far: Find a way out of the room.
The door slid open.
"Kurama?"
WHACK!
That, my friends, is called being impulsive.
Karasu wheeled from the punch. Kurama waited for the man to hit the ground before stepping over Karasu's unconscious form and into the hallway. Since there was only one direction for him to go, Kurama took off as fast as he could. After about 25 feet, the hall split. Once again, Kurama acted on impulse and took off down the left hall without any great reason.
'Woo! So far so good. And I didn't even plan this! Maybe acting on impulse sometimes isn't so bad after all,' Kurama thought. Just as this thought formed in his head, four demons stepped out of a side door into the hallway in front of him. He stopped so fast he nearly fell over.
"Hey... Aren't you Karasu-sama's prisoner?" one of the demons said, squinting down at Kurama.
"Karasu-sama? Never heard of him. Now, I believe I actually intended on going this way," Kurama said, pointing over his shoulder, "so I'll just be going now. Nice talking and all... Bye!" He spun and ran down the hall.
"Yes you are, boy! I helped him bring you in!" the demon yelled, following Kurama down the hall.
'Damned impulsive behavior! Impulse sucks! I'm not like Kuwabara! I don't live off pure luck! I actually use my BRAIN to survive!' Kurama thought desperately, trying not to look over his shoulder as the four demons thundered down the hall behind him.
"Come back here, prisoner!"
"In your #*&^ing dreams, baka!" Kurama yelled over his shoulder.
"What did you say?! You'll be sorry!"
"I'm sure I can't get much more sorry than I already am!"
"What?!"
"Never mind! Don't decay your brain by trying to figure out my highly intelligent way of speaking!"
"Okay! Thank you! Now we don't have to worry about what you say, and we can focus all our energy into catching up with you!"
"DAMN!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"She's still asleep?" Hiei asked, glancing over his shoulder at Yusuke. The boy was still hauling Mai around like it would be a sin to wake her up and make her walk.
"Shhh! Yeah, don't wake her up. She needs her r---"
"MAI YOUJO, YOU LOUSY LITTLE GIRL, YOU'D BEST WAKE UP NOW, OR I'M GONNA THROW YOU OVER THAT CLIFF RIGHT THERE AND HOPE I NEVER SEE YOUR LEECHING LITTLE FACE AGAIN!" Hiei screamed, cutting Yusuke off mid-sentence. The girl was instantly awake, bawling her eyes out.
"Hiei Jaganshi, you ass!" Yusuke snapped.
"Hiei, I can't help but wonder, why are you like that to her?" Kei (the talking lizard, remember...) asked.
"Cuz she needs it."
Meanwhile, Shadow has suddenly realized something, though it took her about two hours. She spun around with her eyes narrowed.
"WAIT A SECOND!"
Everybody froze and stared at her.
"Isn't Karasu dead?" she asked. Everybody relaxed.
"Yes, but resurrection and reincarnation are possibilities, you know that, Shadow," Hiei said. "Get yourself a brain, duh."
"Ah. Okay! Thank you for clearing that up. Let's go, all right?"
"Shadow, you need a life, are you aware of that?" Eclipse asked.
"Yes, quite. Got a problem with it?"
"Uh... I dunno."
"Okee day. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to continue with my wonderful fantasies of what I am going to do to the crybaby girl back there... Hm... Ice pick up the nose...? Yech! Shudder! Gross, no way. Hnnn... Quick-dry wet cement? Heh... That's better than an ice pick up the nose..." Shadow continued with her rambling while Eclipse got continually farther and farther away from her, looking scared out of her mind.
"Hiei, Shadow is scaring me," she said, eventually backing clear up to where Hiei was.
"She scares us all. Don't feel left out."
"Eh-heh..." Eclipse laughed nervously. ^_^;;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kuwabara sat in his room staring out the window. He was trying to remember something that had happened a couple days ago. But he couldn't remember. It had something to do with... somebody. Oh yeah! Hiei! He'd gotten so freaked when Yusuke had said...
What had Yusuke said?
Well, it had been about Yukina. Kuwabara thought back to the many, many times Hiei had gotten pale and nervous-looking at the tiniest mention of Yukina's name.
What's up with that, anyway? Why does he do that? Hiei can't have any feelings for her, can he? He's that stupid 'cold, heartless' type. He can't have any connections with such a wonderful girl!
Kuwabara thought back to all the times Botan had slipped up and almost said something about Yukina and Hiei.
And Yusuke...
And even Kurama had teased Hiei...
"Oh, that's it! That shrimp is going to tell me what is going on here, or I'm gonna kick his ass into next week!" Kuwabara exclaimed, jumping up and pulling on his jacket. He walked outside, putting on his shoes as he went, and headed down the street towards Shadow and Hiei's house.
He was quite clueless to the fact that everybody but him had gone looking for Kurama.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Come back here, prisoner! You are Karasu-sama's prisoner, and you are not to leave your cell without his explicit permission!"
Kurama had been running down an endless maze of hallways for at least half an hour. He was sure Karasu had come to his senses by now. One punch in the face can't knock a guy like that out for half an hour. It was just a matter of time before---
"Hold it."
Karasu suddenly appeared in front of Kurama, facing away from him. The boy skidded to a stop, nearly running into the demon in front of him. The four behind Kurama stopped and went down on one knee so fast it was almost funny.
"Karasu-sama," they said in unison, almost like he was their God. Yeah, worship the friggin' gay man...
"Kurama," Karasu said, turning around. Kurama arched one eyebrow. The man had a black eye. It would have been funny under different circumstances, but right now, Kurama had more sense than to laugh at him. But in this situation, all it meant was that Kurama had just lost any chance of escape for about... the next ten years, unless somebody showed up and rescued him.
"Heh heh..." Kurama sweatdropped and smiled nervously, looking around for any possible way out. Karasu grabbed his arm. He felt a strange tingle where the demon's hand touched his skin.
"Some of my energy is now inside you. Try anything else, and you'll lose an appendage or three," Karasu threatened. Kurama's legs turned into jelly (not literally, though that would be an amusing thing to see, wouldn't it?).
"Damn you," he muttered. "Can't you just let me go?"
"After what you just did you expect me to just let you GO?! YOU'RE DELUSIONAL!" Karasu shouted. "I'm tempted to just kill you right here and now!"
"Oh, God, don't do that. Yeah, it might spare me the misery of putting up with you!" Kurama retorted sarcastically.
"Shut up!"
"You can't make me!"
"You wanna see me try?"
"Not particularly."
"Damn."
Kurama snorted.
"Look, can you just get on with whatever you're going to do so I can wallow in self-pity in private?" he asked. This time it was Karasu's turn to snort.
"Yeah right. Wallow in self-pity? That doesn't sound like you, Kurama."
"Yeah, well in situations like these, I'm quite out of character."
"Oh. Boo-hoo. Well, I'm still quite pissed about the black eye. I can't... quite... see out of it... It's... swollen shut. Damn," Karasu muttered, desperately trying to open the eye wider.
"Yeah, that's just great. Can I leave now?"
"NO! SHUT UP AND STOP ASKING, BOY!" Karasu screamed.
"You know, jabbing at the eye like that isn't going to make it any better. If anything, it's going to make it worse."
"Shut up! What do you know?"
"Obviously a hell of a lot more than you do."
"Shut up! Guards! Take this insolent piece of crud back to his cell!" Karasu ordered.
"It's about #^&*ing time!" Kurama cried triumphantly. The guards who had chased him through countless hallways quickly bowed to Karasu (Yes, Karasu who was still trying to pry his swollen-shut eye back open). One of them grabbed Kurama and threw him over his shoulder, running down the hallway with him.
"Hey, this is NOT my preferred method of travel!" Kurama shouted.
"Shut up, you insolent piece of crud!"
"Monkey see, monkey do, is that how it is? Actually... 'Monkey hear, monkey say' is more like it..."
"What?"
"Oh, never mind. You wouldn't get it anyway. You probably don't even know what a monkey is... Come to think of it... You kinda look like a monkey..." Kurama muttered, more to himself than to the demon guard.
"We're here," the guard said, stopping and letting Kurama slide off his shoulder. The boy landed on his feet. No sooner had he landed then the guard shoved him through the door into the room he had been in for the past two or three days. Kurama went off balance and fell over. The guards laughed.
"Good luck, little man," one said, slamming the door.
"Owies..." Kurama whimpered, standing up and rubbing his back where he'd hit the floor. "Damn stupid impulsive behavior. You got me into this, you know..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"WOOOOHOOO!!!" Shadow screamed. They had finally reached the top of the cliff. Before them stretched a forest. "This is cool, we're finally at the top! Oh yeah, in your face, suckers!"
"Shadow? You're scaring us again," Eclipse warned. Shadow was doing the moonwalk and various other dances at the top of the cliff.
"Good. Now we can finally get around to looking for Kurama..." Hiei muttered as he pulled himself over the ledge and onto the top of the cliff. He stopped dead and stared at Shadow.
"God, that girl's got some problems," Kei muttered, also staring.
"No, ya think?" Hiei asked.
"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU DOLTS?! GET A MOVE ON!" Yusuke screamed from beneath them. Hiei glared down at the baka.
"Dolts? First, 'dolts' is plural. I am one person. Second, I suggest you shut up, before I am forced to throw a brick at your head."
"A brick? Yeah, and where are you gonna get one of those?"
"Right here!" Hiei grabbed a rock that was roughly the same size and shape of a brick, but weighed about 20 pounds more, and dropped it on Yusuke's head.
"Damn! That hurt! Baka youkai... Ow... I hate you sometimes, Hiei, I really do," Yusuke muttered, lapsing into a state of oblivion where all he could do was mutter random curses under his breath.
"Thank you; I work hard at it," Hiei said, smiling innocently. Shadow had stopped her dancing and was now having a feast of jerky and water (Woo, fancy).
"Okay, children, we're not wasting any time! Let's go!" Hiei said. Shadow raised one eyebrow slowly, her eyes slowly getting ten times their normal size, and then slowly her other eyebrow followed the first one's example and arched up as well. Slowly, Shadow's mouth fell open and the piece of jerky that had been hanging out slowly fell to the ground.
Slowly.
"Well? What are we waiting for?" Hiei asked.
Eclipse slowly fell over, dying of heat exhaustion since they had been out in bright sunlight since about 9 o'clock that morning, and it was now 6 PM.
"Hiei Jaganshi," Shadow said slowly, giving each word time to sink in. "It is going to be dark soon. Now, does it not make sense to get a good sleep in before we go mangling out our brains, searching for clues and trails?"
"Hm... Yes, I do suppose that makes sense. Good girl, always keeping a head on your shoulders!" Kei replied in a very good imitation of a British accent.
"Shutup, lizard!" Hiei retorted. "Yes, Shadow, I suppose that's smarter than just rushing off and getting Yusuke and Mai lost in the forest because they're clueless dolts, though that would be nice if we managed to get rid of them..."
"I HEARD THAT!" Yusuke shouted.
"Boo hoo. Okay everyone! Set up camp!" Hiei shouted.
"Woooo hooo!" Shadow shouted, suddenly going into slow[ly] motion mode. She turned around slowly and slowly ran towards the forest. Picking a nice spot under a tree, she slowly swung her pack off her shoulder and dropped it to the ground. it fell ever-so-slowly and hit with a dull 'fump' noise. With that, Shadow settled herself under the tree and slowly fell asleep.
Hiei was the first one to break the sweatdrop-flooded silence of people staring at the girl.
"Well, that was... strange..." he muttered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kuwabara pounded on the door of Shadow's house.
"HIEI JAGANSHI YOU'D BEST GET YOUR LIL' HINEY OUT HERE BEFORE I COME IN THERE! I GOT SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU, YOU LIL' SHRIMP! YOU BETTER ANSWER THEM, TOO, BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T, I'M GOING TO MANGLE YOUR PUNY LITTLE BRAIN! HEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME!?"
"Kuwabara, what are you doing? Nobody's home. Isn't that obvious?" somebody said from behind the human. He spun around and came face to face with a blue-haired girl in a pink kimono.
"Botan!" he said happily.
"Bingo!" she said cheerfully.
"Maybe you can help me!" Kuwabara said hopefully.
"It depends on what you need help with."
"Where's Hiei?"
"Hm... He's about... oh... Way over there somewhere." Botan gestured widely to include just about the entire country. Kuwabara narrowed his eyes.
"Botan, I'm serious. I need to talk to that little punk."
"What about? He's on quite an important mission right now, looking for his best friend," Botan replied.
"What? Well, I need to ask him something. Have you ever noticed how he gets all pale and nervous-looking whenever anybody mentions Yukina?" Kuwabara asked. Botan sweatdropped.
"No, Kuwabara, I never noticed that." ^_^;
"Well he does. I think he's got some connection to her, or he loves her or something, because why else would he be like that?"
"I don't know, Kuwabara." ^_^;;
"Do you have any idea why he might be like that?"
"No, Kuwabara." ^_^;;;
"Well, I think he secretly has a crush on her, which is definitely not good for my sweet Yukina, because he's an evil, bad influence on anybody he's around for too long, and how dare he try to pollute the sweet innocence of my dear sweet Yukina?" Kuwabara asked.
"Kuwabara! Hiei wouldn't do any such thing to his sister! Oops." O_O;;;;
"SISTER?! HIEI'S SISTER?! THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL THAT YUKINA IS HIEI'S SISTER! NO WAY! SHE'S AN ICE APPARITION! SHE'S SWEET AND INNOCENT AND SHE'S BEAUTIFUL AND INNOCENT! I said that twice. AND HIEI IS A FIRE DEMON! HE'S MOST DEFINITELY NOT SWEET OR INNOCENT OR BEAUTIFUL OR INNOCENT, WHICH I ONCE AGAIN SAID TWICE! HE'S EVIL! EVIL AND CRUEL AND MURDEROUS AND EVIL! I said that one again twice too. Wait. That made no sense. And I actually said it three times. BUT THERE IS NO WAY THAT HIEI AND YUKINA ARE IN ANY WAY RELATED! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT!" Kuwabara screamed.
"Oh, good. Then I'm safe," Botan sighed. "Just don't bring this up around Hiei, or he'll have my head on a stick right over there by Shadow's garden." Botan pointed to a rather violent-looking flower garden, with all sorts of snapping, drooling, bloodthirsty plants.
"Oh wait. That's Youko's garden. Heh. Woo, I'm staying clear from this place for about four thousand years..." Botan muttered. She looked around and spotted a rather friendly looking garden, complete with marigolds and sunflowers and pretty, pretty roses.
"That one must be Sha-- Never mind."
Just as she started to say that, a butterfly flew over one of the plants and promptly got eaten. By the plants.
"I guess Shadow hasn't got a flower garden. If she did, it most certainly would not eat butterflies. Anyway, Kuwabara, the point is, don't say anything about Yukina to Hiei, especially about my little slip-up, or he will scalp us, behead us, and feed our corpses to the butterfly-eating flower gardens. Get the point?" Botan asked.
"Yeah," Kuwabara said, looking at the flower gardens nervously.
"Good, I'm glad. Now, I suggest you go on home. Hiei and Shadow won't be home for a few more days, maybe not even a week. Bye!"
"Right." Kuwabara headed down the street towards his own house, muttering about Yukina and Hiei being related, but not forgetting to make an extra large detour around the evil bloodthirsty flower gardens of doom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kurama made a point of sitting directly across the room from the door, so that if Karasu opened the little slide-open window before he came into the room, he would know Kurama wasn't going to attempt to inflict any more 'deadly' injuries (oh yeah, black eye... Real deadly), and he wouldn't accidentally[-on-purpose] blow off Kurama's arm or leg and claim it as self-defense.
Kurama had given great thought to his newest escape plan. He'd finally come up with 'Survive as long as you can and hope Hiei shows up soon enough to keep you from killing or being killed.'
He was quite pleased with this new, unimplusive plan. He was sure it would work much better than Plan B. 'Punch Karasu in the face when he open the door again and get an appendage or three blown off two seconds later.'
Or Plan C. 'Beg and plead with Karasu to let you go, and when he eventually suggests something disgusting, gay, and/or perverted, punch him in the face and get your appendages blown off two seconds later.'
Both Plan B and Plan C were guaranteed to produce... ahem... less-than-desirable results.
Suddenly, a thought struck Kurama.
'Youko!' he thought, snapping his fingers. 'Yeah. I could transform, and since Karasu's energy isn't in Youko's body (is it?)... then he shouldn't be able to blow off any arms or legs, right?'
Kurama liked his newest plan better and made it Plan A, bumping everything else down a notch. He decided that when Karasu came, in he would wait for him to try something, anything, violent or perverted, before transforming and kicking the sorry loser's butt. For some reason, Karasu didn't show up for a long time.
Kurama hadn't slept at all since he'd been kidnapped... or whatever Karasu wanted to call it. That had been at least three days. At least. Maybe more. Having no windows, no clock, and no other way to tell time, he had no clue how long he'd been there.
[I have no clue either.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kuwabara was paying so little attention to where he was going, still trying to figure out how Yukina could be Hiei's sister, that he ran straight into Yukina. (What a coincidence, don't you think?) They both fell flat over. Kuwabara was about to yell at whomever he had just run into until he realized who it was.
"YUKINA BABY I'M SO SORRY!!!" he screamed, helping her to her feet. "Are you all right?"
"I think so," she said, dusting herself off.
Kuwabara examined her closely. She was oblivious to this, as she was still dusting herself off (I guess she got a lot of dust on her?).
"I am now ten times more positive that there is no way Hiei is your brother," Kuwabara muttered.
"Kazuma? Who said anything about Hiei being my brother?" Yukina asked.
"Botan did, but she's got to be wrong. The only thing you have in common with Hiei is that both of you have red eyes, but your eyes are a much more beautiful shade of red than his," Kuwabara said.
"Hiei... I always felt that there was something about him... Why would Botan lie about something like that?"
"I don't know, but she must have been, because there's no way... Except it is true that Hiei always acts kinda strange when you're around... And whenever anybody mentions your name to him, he gets this look... And everybody always teases him about... something... They never let me in on it, though... Come to think of it, maybe he is your brother! THAT'S HORRIBLE!" Kuwabara said, looking terrified. "NO WONDER HIEI ALWAYS SEEMED SO MAD WHEN I SAID ANYTHING ABOUT YOU! HOW CAN HIEI BE YOUR BROTHER?! THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE! YOU'RE TOO INNOCENT AND SWEET! HE'S EVIL AND MURDEROUS AND I THINK HE'S THE EVILEST GOOD GUY I KNOW! But... Hiei can't really care about you, can he? He's probably ashamed to have an ice apparition as a sister... An innocent little girl like you. But then again... he did save you at the Dark Tournament..."
"Having a bit of a brain overload, little brother?"
Kuwabara spun around. Shizuru was standing behind him with a smirk on her face.
"Oh, hey sis! Did you know that Hiei is Yukina's long-lost older twin brother?"
"Yes. But it's impossible for somebody to have an older twin."
"What? Oh."
"Anyway, yes, I've known about Yukina's brother ever since... hm. Ever since she got kidnapped by that loser and you all had to go rescue her. You're just a wee bit behind on the news there," Shizuru informed him.
"So it's true?! He really is!?"
"Yup. I heard it from Koenma's own mouth."
"Wow. This is so not cool..."
==========================================================================
Nooo! Hiei's secret is out. Kuwabara knows! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Sorry, this chapter was a bit long, don't you think? I was sick for 2 days and couldn't get on the computer, so when I finally got on the computer yesterday... I wrote a lot. Yeah. I was writing from like... midnight until 3:00 AM. No I am not insane, I'm on Thanksgiving break! I was sick on Thanksgiving. That sucked.
Oh, and the verdict on the Hiei/Shadow romance is No. There was nobody seeming overly enthusiastic about me writing it. There was nobody begging me to write one, but the people who said not to were practically begging ("No H/S PLEASE!"), so I'm gonna save myself a bit of my poor brain... I've got three other stories I'm working on as it is... Bye!
~SJ