Author's Note:
Okay, let's try this again and hopefully it will work correctly this time...
I am going to take this moment to remind people that while I have endevored to keep this PG-13, it is verrrrry PG-13, more on the R side than on the PG side, if you know what I mean. It's written like a ghost story for the sake of all that's holy! So if you don't like it, please don't tell me and move on.
Oh, and if you want to read the "uncut" R rated version of this it can be found at adultfanfiction(dot net). My pen-name there is FlowerofBlackFire as well, so just serch for that and you'll find it easily. What is posted here is the cut version, if you will, of the story there... still spooky just not rated R (but it's close).
On the Scale of Osiris
Chapter Two: It's special song to sing...
Karasu didn't sleep that night. He just didn't feel like it, and sleeping was needless most of the time anyway. So he had watched the inhabitants of his "home" for the entire night, occasionally drinking a glass of vodka or some other fermented beverage. Karasu's "home" was not one a human would call home in any form of the word. The idea of "home is where the heart is" had never been thought of or shared with Karasu, and if it had he wouldn't have cared enough to do anything about it. No, Karasu's place of residence was a club. It was nameless and its location was only circulated around the underground of the city. There were no bouncers because if one was... daring enough to get the location of the club from someone else, or smart enough to find it on their own, they were allowed in. Karasu was rather surprised at how clean the place was when he had first found it, since it attracted many unruly denizens and no one batted an eye if the person next to them dropped dead from poison in his drink (most probably because they had been the one to slip said poison into the drink). Karasu had pictured more of a club which he had been known to frequent in the Makai, one with blood painting the walls and obscene acts in every corner. Well, he had gotten the obscene acts right, but not the blood. It was the one downside of the club, Karasu had decided, the lack of blood.
The club never slept really. There was about an hour during the day when there were only two or three customers (two in the afternoon) and then the place livened up again. Karasu had watched how the management of the club worked for a few days before approaching the manager of the place about a permanent room for a few months or so. Like the Dean of Students, the human had fallen to the sin of greed easily, not even bothering to ask where Karasu had gotten the gold. That had been fine with Karasu, the museum wouldn't miss the gold anyway.
So Karasu had come to an... understanding of sorts with the manager. He did what he felt like and had the only key to his room, and in return the manager got to keep his life and all the gold (which would, if sold on the black market,be enough to set him on easy street for the rest of his and his grandchildren's lives). It was because of this understanding that when Karasu was approached by slightly intoxicated customers and dispatched them whatever manner he chose, no one cared.
Karasu looked down at the mess of flesh and bone and blood that was the reason he had gotten on this trail of thought anyway, when he should have been analyzing exactly how tomorrow would work. Karasu sneered at the corpse and glanced at the drink which he had tainted with the victim's blood. He swirled the mixture for a few seconds before taking a sip, wincing internally at the blandness of it all. Demon blood tasted so much better than human.
"How's it taste hon?"
Karasu looked up to see another denizen of the bar, one that he recognized as a frequent customer, a redhead. She was dressed all in leather... well what parts of her were clothed were covered in leather, and at one side of her hip was a coiled bull whip.
"Why don't you tell me?" Karasu spoke, tipping half of the contents of his drink into her empty glass and then moving off to another secluded spot of the bar. His former one was getting to crowded.
Kurama had succeeded in forgetting all about the supposed new student that night, finishing what homework he had left and then, surprisingly, pouring over the note. That night, his dreams had been full of flashbacks to the Dark Tournament, of that fight. But they never seemed to end the way the fight had in real life, no always he was the one on the ground at the end, and not the demon who stood watching his blood seep into the stone of the arena with an insane look akin to joy.
But the arrival of the new student came flooding back as he entered the school yard. The demon part of him groaned. Was all this really necessary? It was just another student after all. There was no need for all the girls to wear more makeup than usual, and even some of the teachers were more on edge. Kurama concentrated on making his way to his seat without hearing the excited murmurs. They didn't know anything factual yet after all.
The teacher had a hard time controlling everyone, he noticed, but what silenced everyone in the end was not the teacher's doing, it was the arrival of the "new" student.
The room got very quiet, almost painfully quiet from the bustle before, as everyone seemed to freeze in their seats. Kurama himself almost yelped. It was as if Karasu's ghost had decided to haunt him for the rest of his life. Or at least, that's what it looked like. But then Kurama began to see slight differences between the human at the front of the room and the demon who's life he had ended. Karasu had been much taller, and more imposing than the almost frail looking creature standing there. But the resemblance between the two was uncanny, the same hair, eyes, even demeanor.
"Class I would like to introduce to you a new student. This is Karric Corvus."
Definitely not Karasu's reincarnation then, Kurama thought, forgetting the logic that if Karasu had been reborn as a human he would be less than one year old right now. No, had Karasu somehow fused into a human body, his name would tie somehow to "crow", Kurama was sure of it. Kurama even entertained the thought that Karasu would not change his name at all, just to push the point that Kurama hadn't gotten rid of him. No, this Corvus, whoever he was, was named after the raven, not the crow. And at this point Kurama realized that the whole thought process he had just gone through was completely irrelevant because Koenma would have told him the minute Karasu's spirit wasn't where it was supposed to be. Of course Kurama ignored the chagrin that he was feeling at having to rationalize that Karasu was dead and was going to remain dead. He was just on edge, that's all. He was just making coincidences out to be more than they were.
The teacher meanwhile was now looking for someone to show Karasu, or to her Karric, around the school. Ignoring the volunteers from most of the female population, and even a few males, her eyes settled on the so called prize student of the school.
"I think Minamino could show you around for today." she said warmly. "You can sit in the empty desk next to him."
Kurama at one time had praised the idea of a seating chart, which had given him space from the female population of the school which had almost declared World War III to decide who would sit in the desk next to him on the first day of school that year, but now he suddenly wished that a ditzy prep had been given that spot.
Karasu pointedly did not engage Kurama very much during the day. It seemed that his appearance had startled the kitsune enough for today. Not that Kurama noticed this small blessing very much, because of how startled he had been.
No, Kurama spent the day coming up with reasons why his chief nightmare could not be happening, and then started coming up with reasons for why he should be coming up with reasons to begin with. If the teachers noticed that their normal star student was a bit out of it, they didn't say anything, yet another small blessing that Kurama hadn't noticed.
It wasn't until the end of the school day that Kurama was again brought headlong back to thoughts of Karasu. After dropping his books in his locker and closing it he turned to leave, only to be interrupted by Karasu's look-a-like whose locker was only three lockers away from his.
"Minamino, this fell out of your locker." Karric said simply, handing Kurama a small white card that had indeed fluttered to the floor.
"Thank you." Kurama said softly, trying not to look at the crow's image, a black disfiguration of the white of the paper.
Karasu noticed the fox turn a few shades whiter as he saw the note. Good, at least the fox's subconscious was beginning to work out what was going on.
After Karric had left, Kurama turned the card over quickly.
The nightingale takes wing,
its special song to sing...
Kurama now sat looking at the note late that night. It was yet again, incomplete and, as of now, Kurama had no clue as to what the sender was trying to imply with these notes. He was so engrossed in the unknown that he barely looked up when a small black blur entered his window and landed gracefully on the floor.
"You should be sleeping Kurama, its after midnight." Hiei said shortly.
"How was your meeting with Koenma?" Kurama asked, putting the note on the desk, next to the first one, and turning to look at Hiei.
Hiei didn't answer for a while. "Koenma's on edge." he said at last.
"There's something going on?" Kurama asked. "Why wasn't I informed?"
Hiei bit his lip. "I can't tell you Kurama. You're not the only one who doesn't know, but I can't tell you."
Karasu sat looking at what he was sure was the stupidest thing humans had come up with yet. Dissection. Now, Karasu wasn't against dissection, no he was fine with splitting someone in half and taking out their heart while it was still beating, but the dissection of frogs? What was the point of that? Groaning internally at the pointlesness of it all, Karasu picked up the biology book with one hand and walked out to the back rooms of club, passing the bar on his way and ordering a glass of rum. One couldn't concentrate on frivolous human things if one was sober, now could you?
Karasu maneuvered his way into his room and laid the book on the small desk inside. He placed the glass down next to the book and removed from its inconspicuous place in the room a dager which he had aquired earlier that afternoon. Calmly Karasu slit open his finger letting the blood drip into the rum, turning the liquid a muddy blood color. Karasu idly licked the blood off his hand his eyes wandering down the page to the questions that the biology teacher expected him to have answered for the next day.
"Question 1. What is the purpose of dissection?" Karasu chuckled at these words, he doubted the teacher expected students to answer in the way he would. Karasu opened the desk drawer which was protected by another key, and removed a gray mask that was identical to the one he had worn in the Dark Tournament. He placed this in its proper position, covering his nose and mouth, and sighed in relief as he let go of the spell that cloaked him in a human form. His hair switched from bright blond to dark black, his form growing in height, the prominent demonic features replacing the subtle human ones. The human clothes that had been loose on him in a human form now hugged his body in the way that most of his normal clothing was designed to do. But the best part was the control. Karasu hated the fact that as a human he felt all the power running through him as it did whenever he did not wear his mask, and yet he was powerless to do anything with it. Oh, well, the ends justified the means, right? Karasu thought the human phrase was appropriate for this occasion.
It was only after Hiei left that Kurama could fully analyze the words that the fire demon had spoken. And when he did, he came to a horrible conclusion. If he was not informed that something was going to happen to someone else, then obviously that something was going to happen to him. It was unsettling to say the least, but what was even worse for him was that if he followed the path his brain seemed to be trying to take, the entire thing began to make some twisted sense. But he didn't like where he came out when following that logic. Because inevitably it came out to the same thing every time, symbolized perfectly by the black image on white paper, the image of a crow.
Author's Note:
Thank you so much for reviewing, all those who did. The same deal with this chapter you know... 7-9 reviews and you get another chapter within two days. See you then!
Oh and a special note to Ish - no there will not be any Hiei/Kurama, because if I started with that the story would not end up Karasu/Kurama and that is my goal. ^.^ So no worries!
