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Beep. Beep. Beep. Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
"Quick! Get check to make sure the heart rate machine isn't malfunctioning! I can feel her pulse, but the machine says she's dead. Get her blood pressure, stat!"
The room was full of nurses scrambling to get what the doctor demanded.
"The device says she's dead?" I asked in horror. "Is she going to be okay?"
The doctor rolled his hazel eyes in frustrated sarcasm. "Of course she's going to be fine. She caught an unknown disease with no cure. Sure. She'll be healed by tomorrow."
"How can you joke about this?!" I demanded.
"I'm not joking, boy! This is more serious than a teenager like you could know. After she caught it, everyone in the hospital got it. It's amazing that the patients with burns haven't got this yet. Maybe they're suffering too much to notice. Now, get out before you catch it too."
"I'm not going to catch this," I said firmly. I had a very strong immune system. Having a demon spirit sharing a human one allowed me to live through various illnesses and wounds. I suppose suicide was one of these things.
"Fine. Suit yourself. Don't come crawling to this hospital when you get this disease."
I continued to look at him, seeing how feeble his spirit was. He looked away from my gaze. "Might I speak to my mother alone? Since there isn't a cure to this, isn't it a futile attempt to save her?" I doubted that the human doctor was going to be able to do very much to help my mother. None of them managed to save my mother. I had to sit by her bedside, using my Reiki in small amounts to heal her slowly so the doctors wouldn't be amazed and try to dissect her to find out what the miracle was.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "Don't use that tone with me. I know what I'm doing. You don't have the slightest bit of say in this."
I was becoming frustrated with the human. "Yes, I do." I felt Youko push to the surface as my anger grew. "Leave me with her alone for a moment if you don't want to die a dismal and torturous death." Youko had pushed through, threatening to kill the human in a way that he would enjoy.
The weak spirited human cowered under my gaze, or more accurately, or more accurately Youko's gaze, and nodded quickly. "Y-yes. Everyone, clear this room until further notice. We need to contact the other hospitals anyway."
He threw the last sentence as if in my face. He left quickly with the young nurses after him. They studied me as they left. I was already used to females staring at me.
I mentally pushed Youko back down before he went on a killing rampage after having to stay under wraps for so long. I moved by my human mother's side and grimaced as I felt how weak her aura was. The scent of her suffering was strong in the air.
"Mother. I'm sorry I wasn't here for you," I said sadly, taking her hand. "I didn't want you to be able to see the pain I feel, but this isn't the way I wanted you to not be able to notice."
Her eyes fluttered open at the touch of my hand. "Suichi?"
"Yes, Mother, It's me." Her voice was so weak and frail. She was strong enough to give birth to me and raise me on her own as well as being able to handle my constant absence due to my job as being Yusuke's teammate, but here she was. She was dying. I could smell it. Even Youko knew it. I felt the excitement rise up in me. I knew that it wasn't an emotion I personally felt.
"I was so worried. I know it was wrong of me to want you to visit a boring old woman like me everyday. You're a teenager and I knew that you would want freedom away from me," she said.
"No, Mother. I was ill in the past few days."
"Please don't try and make me feel better . . ."
"But it's the truth!"
"No. I know how your mind works."
"It is the truth! What is this to you?" In desperation I thrust my bandaged wrists into her view. "This is a joke, is it?"
"Yes. It's an excuse! That's all you are nowadays! Excuses, excuses, excuses! Tell me the truth! I hate you for lying!"
Tsk tsk tsk, Youko muttered in my mind. Interesting to see that your very own mother hates you now. The human mind is easily corrupted.
I pushed him away with enough forced to give me a headache. "Mother, I'm sorry, but it was for your own good!"
"It's good for me to know that my son is a liar? Thank you for lying to me. You scare me out of my wits when you appear with your clothes torn and bloody and here you are, thanking me by lying to me? Feh. I see how much you care about me. My son indeed. Feh."
"M-mother . . ."
A faint flash of light lit the dim hospital room for a brief moment. My mother's eyes closed and her head slumped against her pillow. I blinked in the momentary bright light.
"It isn't her fault. It's the illness. Don't get worked up over it. I'm sorry you had to see her like this. Don't worry about the light. It's a sleeping Reiki technique Yukina taught me. She's a genius about these things!"
I nearly jumped when a hand touched my shoulder. I looked up and saw Botan. Her face was pale instead of the perfect milky color of her smooth skin. "What illness would make my mother act like this?" I demanded in disbelief. Tears chose to spring to my eyes at that precise moment, forcing myself to embarrass myself in front of the girl I practically worshiped.
I brushed my sleeve across my eyes, ashamed of the tears that flowed down my cheeks. I shook my head and gazed back at my mother's still form.
"It's some sort of sickness that escaped from Reikai." Her voice was full of sympathy for my shameful performance of tears. I felt the warmth of her body as she put her arms around my shoulders. I froze, almost afraid to breathe. It felt as if that a single intake or outtake of oxygen would scare my deity away from me. "I forgot to warn you, but you got me worked up over you telling me that I was the reason that you tried to kill yourself. It's okay to cry, though."
"This escaped from Reikai? It would seem like it would come from Makai. Makai seems to be the cause of everything like this," I murmured, managing to control my tears as well as Youko's teasing laughter.
"Yes. It's from the spirits that mourn their loved ones. Some of them become angry because their loved ones eventually forget about the family members that died. This is an illness that penetrates the living spirit. Only sick humans are able to catch this. It's strange, but people who are already in too much pain won't catch this. They're immune to it. Unfortunately, your mother was still weak from her illness before this one. It's sort of a bad thing that she isn't in terrible pain now. This illness is supposedly worse than having burned skin."
"Is there a name to this?" I asked.
"Not a specific name, but Lord Koenma calls this the Living Death. If we don't get all the ingredients soon, I'm going to be pretty busy in the next couple of months taking the wandering spirits across the Sanzu River. I came to tell you because your mother isn't supposed to die of this. She's going to live to be an old hag," Botan said, trying to cheer me up.
"So, so there's a cure for this?"
"Of course, silly! If we didn't, there would be a lot less humans in the world today and a lot more half-breeds out there. We keep careful watch on this thing, but the ogre doing the research caught a cold. Isn't it ironic?! So, are you going to help me find the ingredients, or are you just going to sit there and feel bad over what your mother didn't mean?"
"You want me to help? What about Hiei? He can help do things faster than me," I said, a tone of bitterness leaked into my words.
Botan blushed and let go of my shoulders. "The problem is that he doesn't want to. I asked him. I'll even quote him!" She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms to mimic Hiei's harsh, nonchalant personality. "Who gives a damn about the human race? All it means for me is less stupidity in the world. I doubt he'll help us," she continued, slipping out of her version of Hiei.
She smiled. "It seems like you're my only choice. I can't get everything by myself! Some of these things are found in Makai, you know."
"Is the cure complex?"
"Yes. Want to see the list?" She took magically took a long scroll out and unrolled it. There was a long list of ingredients and instructions.
I raised an eyebrow. "No joke?"
"Yup! This is the real thing! We have to get these things by the next full moon; otherwise your mother's soul will depart to the underworld! Well, her and all the other humans."
"You sound too cheerful for the possibility to an entire race being wiped out by a spirit disease."
"Yes, I'm very excited!" She seemed to read the questioning look on my face. "I'm not excited about death, silly. It just means more work for me if we can't do this on time, but this will be an adventure without Yusuke's childish jabbering and Kuwabara's nonsense!"
I wondered whether her words were an insult or a complement to my own strange personality and jumbled thoughts. She took my arm and hauled me as well as she could to my feet.
"C'mon, Kurama! It's just one big adventure with just you and me! No arguing, insults at anyone, nothing. Just an intelligent conversation and thoughts," she said, still in a cheerful tone.
Just you and me . . . Her words repeated in my thoughts. Yes. That sounded nice.
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For those of you that thought the last chapter was boring, I'm sorry, but I sort of got in a writer's block. It didn't last long, though. A new idea occurred to me to have my ending worked out the right way.
I never got 109 reviews on anything on fanfiction before! I'm so happy! Cookies and plushies for everyone! It's nice to know that I'm loved. If anyone else reads the authoress notes (Yes, Miyako14, I know you read these things and more cookies for you!) then you get more thanks!