Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Chapter Summary: "Whatever grief you feel...it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won't bring anyone back."
Keiko kicked her feet as she sat at the stool and pretended she was ten, and everything was simpler. Her parents' noodle shop was a warm, bright haven around her, and the cold and dark outside made it all that much warmer and brighter.
She stirred her ramen with her chopsticks idly and listened to her parents squabble in the supply room, which was located through a doorway behind the cooking area. She expected Yuusuke would be back soon. Or, at the very least, in contact with her--if he knew what was good for him.
At least, that's what she kept telling herself.
Keiko put her chopsticks down and stared into her cold noodles, as if hoping she could divine through them. A persistent, uneasy feeling had dogged her all day. However, time and experience had taught her that such feelings were best ignored. In most cases, there was nothing to be done for it, and Yuusuke always came back.
And yet...there could be a time when he did not. And what would she do, then?
Keiko pushed her bowl to one side and stood up, suddenly incapable of sitting still any longer. She took the broom out of a corner and began to sweep the floor. The shop was near closing time, and all the customers were gone. A few muddy footprints marking their presence had dried enough that she could brush them away.
There was familiarity and rhythm in sweeping. There was a feeling of comfort and family in the room. There was a large black crow sitting expectantly outside the glass-front door.
Keiko paused, and frowned at the creature. For all it seemed innocuous, there was something intrusive about its presence, as if someone had interrupted a conversation with a friend by shouting at her from across the street.
And just because that was the first analogy that sprang to mind, her eyes flicked to the other side of the street, and caught a flicker of movement in the alleyway. Then she remembered when she'd last seen a crow, which wasn't a very common bird in Tokyo, and who'd she'd seen with it.
Impossible.
Still, there were so many things in her life that would seem quite impossible to someone else.
Keiko put the broom back in the corner, and grabbed her brown winter coat. She put her hand in her pockets, and felt the cylindrical, solid stick that fit just into her palm--to make her fist stronger, Yuusuke had said when he'd shown her how to throw a proper punch.
Opening the door to the winter night, she looked down at the bird expectantly. It cawed at her as if asking what the hell took her so long, and took to wing, feathertips brushing the ground as it arrowed its way to the alley.
Putting her hood up to ward against the wind, Keiko crossed the street, following the path of the crow. She kept her strides quick and easy, but eyed the dark corners of the street. She knew how easy it could be to confuse friend and foe sometimes, and kept alert.
Kurama smiled slightly as he stepped into the light, tentative, stance open and non-threatening. Until the moment she saw him, she realized that she hadn't really expected to find him there. Not really. Not when he'd been gone for years.
Years! she wanted to shout at him, but pulled in a breath, held it, and managed not to do anything more than stare.
He stepped back into the darkness of the alley, and Keiko had a brief, somewhat hysterical thought of old spy films--conspiracies in the shadows. She followed him and managed not to giggle.
"So," she began, and then couldn't find anything else to say.
For a moment, they stood with bare inches between them, their frosted breath mingling. She looked him over, some small part of her mind still expecting him to vanish, as ghosts were supposed to do.
He was silent, waiting with a polite air, as if knowing she needed to collect her thoughts. And that, more than anything else, confirmed who he was. Kurama, always courteous, even in bizarre situations.
"It is you." There was a strange quiver in her voice. She was almost embarrassed to hear it, and surprised when her sight blurred around the edges, dampness freezing on her lashes.
"Don't cry," he said, sounding startled, eyes widening slightly.
She sniffed and gave him a reproachful look, controlling the knee-jerk grief before it could develop. "I'm not going to. I've cried enough for you already."
"I'm sorry," he said with genuine regret.
She gave a short laugh. "You are the only one I know who would apologize for dying. Even Yuusuke... All he ever said was 'Hey Keiko. Long time no see.'"
"Keiko..."
She gave him a warm but impatient smile. "What do you want, Kurama? I'm sure you're not just here for my health."
He gave her a look caught somewhere between guilt and relief, and cut to the business at hand. "I'm looking for Yuusuke."
She thought for a moment. "They're not at Kuwabara's?"
Kurama shook his head. Keiko felt the beginnings of worry tighten her chest, but staved it off with determination. "Have you checked Genkai's shrine?"
Kurama blinked. "No."
"Well, that's my first guess," she said, and added silently to herself, And if they're not there, then I'll worry.
He nodded and turned to leave. "Thanks, Keiko."
Left behind again. Keiko couldn't really blame him, didn't really want to be involved in the nitty-gritty of what Yuusuke did, and yet, she couldn't stop a moment's resentment. "Kurama." Don't leave me here.
He stopped short and looked back at her. For an acutely embarrassing moment, she feared he'd somehow caught her stray thought. Then she steeled herself. She had the right to know some of the details.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked.
He turned and faced her squarely, the hesitation in his expression clearing into honesty. "I don't know yet, Keiko."
Which, she supposed, was the strictest of truth. "Keep me informed," she said, tucking her hands into her armpits and hunching her shoulders against the wind.
"I will," he promised.
She smiled slightly and then, impulsively, reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. "Don't be a stranger."
He smelled of winter wind and leather, and something else sweeter--roses, maybe. And even though he hugged her back, and was solid and warm in the cold night, she could almost feel him slipping through her fingers like a handful of fog.
"I'll try not to," he said, and it sounded like, "Goodbye."
She let him go, stepping back and tugging her hood lower as she turned toward the noodle shop. "Okay, then. I'll see you around."
"All right."
She didn't turn for that last glimpse as she walked across the street, just kept her eyes on the lights shining through the windows and door of the noodle shop. Beacons back to her warm and comfortable complacency, where only the edges of the strangeness that ruled her husband's life touched her.
For a moment, she imagined Yuusuke would be waiting for her when she stepped through the door, cheerily picking a fight with Kuwabara. She'd yelled at both of them and her parents would shake their heads indulgently behind the counter. Perhaps one of them could coax Kurama in from the cold. He was always so strangely hesitant around the three of them--Yuusuke, Kuwabara and Keiko--as if he feared intruding on something sacred.
But that was a ghost desire, stirred up from old memories, haunting the uneasy feeling that had only grown stronger in Keiko's chest. She took a deep breath of freezing air and let the discomfort of it overshadow her restless thoughts. She would go back inside and ignore the pressing quiet, the sense of missing vital information. There was nothing else to do.
Kurama felt the darkness hit him long before he got to Genkai's shrine. It curled around his ankles and slowed his steps, alive and hungry. He pushed on, regardless, worry tightening around him until it was nearly painful. Whatever was waiting for him at Genkai's shrine was not what he'd been hoping to find there.
The palpable darkness made the journey up the steps seem longer. The cold air had an acidic quality, as if he were breathing in smoke. Memories touched him, sliding over his skin like oil.
--pretty bitch I like it when he squirms don't cry--
He shook free of them, trying to hurry, knowing that the longer he lingered, the more likely he was to be buried alive here, in a nightmare. The power was familiar, now. Twisted with someone else, just as familiar, as hated. The crow was awake and hunting, but it couldn't see, he couldn't see.
--someone humming the first refrain of a lullaby, over and over again, and the rhythm sank into his bones, jarring him forward with every thrust and tearing pain he wouldn't cry--
He fought his way free, running up endless steps, and the shadows became obscene things, tongues, flicking against his flesh as he fled.
Don't panic.
But his heart was beating too fast, and his breathing just wouldn't slow down, and the memories poured into his mind, unclean, cold.
--Hush little baby don't say a word and he wanted to scream, but couldn't, wouldn't make a sound--
The top of the stairs almost took him by surprise. He sprang over the wooden plank entry and skidded to a stop in the gravel.
--Hush don't cry--
He hadn't.
"But you did."
Kurama whirled toward the voice, lashing out with the edge of a hand, aiming for a killing blow. Darkness and nothing met his strike. He let the momentum spin him back toward the shrine and looked around, tense, waiting.
Rolled up prayers tied to the branches of a skeletal tree whispered like dead leaves, but everything else was still.
After a few suspended moments, Kurama straightened, and took a cautious step forward. The shrine was dark, abandoned. A cursory glance did not reveal any signs of battle, nor was there any sign of Yuusuke and the others.
The crow called sharply as it cut out of the dark like a knife with wings, banked, and perched neatly on a branch above a thin man leaning on the shrine well.
Kurama dropped back into his stance, sure that the man had not been there before. Though he stood half-concealed, and the shadows seemed to cling to him, Kurama knew immediately who he was. Between one moment and the next, lingering fear evaporated and his grass-blade sword settled into his hand. The figure's name flared to life in his mind.
Mayonaka Tama.
And the dulcet, repetitive notes of a children's song crystallized between them like frost. Kurama shivered, but the crow's focus wouldn't let him waver as he took a step forward, and then another.
White slice of teeth as Mayonaka smiled and the song stopped abruptly, mid-verse. "Come to kill me?" There wasn't anything of fear in his voice or stance.
"Yes," Kurama answered, taking another step forward.
"What if I said you had to choose?"
"Choose?" Kurama tilted his sword into a ready position. He wasn't particularly interested in conversations with dead men, but that wouldn't stop him from being polite.
"Kill me or save him." Mayonaka turned to look behind him, toward the main building of the shrine.
Shadows evaporated, and moonlight fell like something solid on a form in the doorway, bound upside-down, arms dangling, fingertips brushing the floor. Kurama stopped, attention split, the vengeance-bound rage momentarily suspended by cold dread.
"Shuichi..." he whispered.
A pale, long-fingered hand closed around Shuichi's ankle, and slid slowly down his leg, to rest on his hip. Kurama felt his feral focus shifting toward whatever dared lay hands on his family.
Hatanaka eased into view, the sheen of his glasses hiding his eyes.
"So nice of you to join us, Kurama."
Cold anger lit in the pit of Kurama's stomach. "Hatanaka," he growled softly against the wind.
Hatanaka nodded unneeded confirmation. "Good evening."
The man stepped forward until the moonlight illuminated mad purple eyes, set in a face far too bland and normal. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, slightly rumpled, which made him look like just another salary man coming home from a long day at the office.
Kurama gritted his teeth, trying to see past the illusion. "Hatanaka, you..."
Hatanaka chuckled, and stroked Shuichi's hip in an absent, almost loving gesture. "You know that isn't my name. Why do you insist on using it?"
Kurama's throat constricted for a moment. To speak the devil's true name seemed to make it more real, but maybe, if he agreed to play this game, whatever it was, he could draw attention away from Shuichi.
Steeling himself, he looked into twisted purple eyes. "Karasu."
"That's better," the demon answered, in a sickly sweet tone that made Kurama's skin crawl. Karasu walked forward, and between one shadow and the next switched into demon form. Long black hair framed a mad smile. "We're really past formalities by this point, aren't we?"
One moment he was across the yard, and the next his warm breath touched the back of Kurama's neck as he lifted the redhead's locks and let them slide through his fingers. Kurama froze, startled by both the touch and the evidence of demonic speed. For a moment, his mind emptied of every thought but one: he could not beat Karasu.
Kurama had met and defeated Karasu once in battle, because Kurama had been dying and therefore Karasu had been arrogantly stupid. Karasu would not make the same mistake twice. So Kurama stood, indecisive and frightened beneath the caress of his adversary's sharp nails.
"I knew it would be you," Karasu whispered in the dark, his hands settling on Kurama's shoulders, loosely around his neck. "I knew you would be the one to make it back." Karasu took Kurama's chin in hand and turned him around, eyes skimming over Kurama's features with a hunger that made the kitsune cold. "My beautiful Kurama."
Kurama drowned in purple laughter, and the sound of Karasu's victims screaming in his ears. Karasu's touch was searing, cloying, hooks in his skin, pulling him forward. Kurama gasped, but could not seem to get enough air.
His heartbeat sounded like the thundering of wings.
Wings...and the whisper of dead prayers...
Kurama, snap out of it!
Kurama jerked back, out of Karasu's grip. The freezing air, the here and now, slammed into him.
"No," he said, and his sword flashed as it cut through the demon.
Karasu shrieked, a high-pitched metallic sound, and his body smeared into a black smudge as it hit the gravel and faded, leaving a fluttering ribbon of paper in its wake. Looking at it, Kurama realized he'd miscalculated.
Five more Karasus resolved out of the shadows, circling Kurama. The kitsune cut his way through them, trying to find the source, the end. But no matter how many he killed, more rose, indefinitely. A sea of pale faces, black hair and black clothes blending with the night.
Kurama staggered as one flung itself at him and wrapped both arms around his waist, pinning his left arm to his side. He twisted, flipped his sword so it pointed down, and stabbed it through the top of the head. It crumpled, but the delay had been long enough to give the others an opening.
A blow to his temple made him stumble to his knees. The sword spun out of his hand, and was lost as he rolled desperately, lashing out at anything vulnerable in a mad scramble to get back to his feet.
One of the creatures grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked back. Kurama looked up into Karasu's twisted visage and stabbed him in the temple with a crystallized lily leaf.
The creature dissolved. Overbalanced, Kurama fell, rolled as soon as he hit the ground, palms flat to push himself back to his feet, and something shifted under his hand with the sound of gritting dust.
Kurama looked down and recognized the curl of paper with carefully scripted kanji on one side.
It was a prayer leaf.
The rest of the imposters died in a spectacular spiraling growth of bamboo trees that shot up from the ground and impaled the remaining shadow-Karasus before arcing up into the sky. Kurama stood up as black leaves rained down and struck the ground like brittle glass. With the paper clenched in one hand, he summoned another sword.
The crow flew overhead, a dark shape among the black-crystal forest, and Kurama followed.
The shadows were writhing, but Kurama plunged through them before they could solidify into more imposter-Karasus. He slid to a stop in front of the prayer tree.
He put his entire weight behind the thrust that slammed through flesh and bone and sank several inches into the tree trunk.
Mayonaka Tama reappeared, the moon out from the clouds, as his illusions dissolved around him. His hands scrabbled ineffectually at the sword that pierced the center of his chest, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
He looked at Kurama with hate-filled eyes, and grinned, pink-tinged teeth against the smooth lines of his face.
Kurama stepped back, feeling power slipping through him like sand. His tie to the world would only last as long as Mayonaka remained alive, and that wasn't going to be much longer.
The sword broke when he let it go. Mayonaka hit the ground as Kurama turned and stepped toward the shrine. He had enough time to cut Shuichi free. Once in the Reikai, he could speak to Koenma about finding the others, he hoped.
Shuichi was unconscious, which was a small mercy, he supposed. Studying the wires holding Shuichi up only long enough to discern that what was left of his reiki was stronger than whatever created them, Kurama reached out to break them.
Someone grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pressed him up against the wall of the shrine.
Hatanaka smiled, mad eyes hidden by his glasses, though Kurama could still sense them. For a moment, his mind froze, unable to believe that Mayonaka had the power to keep one of his illusions functioning.
"Hello, Kurama," he purred.
Then Kurama knew. "Karasu."
Not an illusion, but the real demon hidden in his stepfather's body, leaned forward with a smirk and kissed him.
Churning, boiling hate hit Kurama first, then lust twisted tightly in pain and followed closely by rage. He didn't want the images that poured into his mind, hot and poisonous, didn't want to know or see the things he was being forced to see and know. But he couldn't stop it, didn't have the strength, and the cacophony, the agony, was nearly enough to overshadow that sharp pain of
Karasu
stabbing him in the lung.
Time stopped, for just a moment, when Kurama realized that there wasn't enough crow magic left to heal a wound so viciously deep.
The next breath he drew bubbled.
Karasu leaned forward and drank Kurama's blood from his mouth with death's stained smile.
"So beautiful," Karasu whispered, lips tracing over the whorls of Kurama's ear.
Kurama jerked, still trying to get away. His body shuddered, fighting the death it felt coming. His legs buckled, and Karasu sank with him, controlling their descent.
"This is how I have always wanted to see you," the demon continued in spider-silk tones as he knelt on the wooden slats of the shrine's floor. "We are never so alive as at the moment of death." He stroked Kurama's hair back from opaque green eyes. "And I will hold you in my arms, savoring your last breath."
Hands fisted in Karasu's suit jacket, ineffectual, residual strength trying to push him away. "No," Kurama whispered.
When Karasu kissed him again, he shut his eyes and desperately thought of the one thing that might save him.
Hiei.
Karasu lowered him to the ground gently. Kurama opened his eyes to watch him pace over to Shuichi, still strung up like a fly in a web.
"And this," Karasu said, grabbing a handful of Shuichi's hair and pulling his head back to bare his throat, "is my last gift to you." The claws on his free hand gleamed as he drew them back.
No!
Kurama lurched forward, breath caught in his throat, every part of him screaming denial. His sight tunneled, but he rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward Karasu.
"To watch this precious thing of yours," Karasu continued tenderly, "die before you do."
No!
The claws flashed down, opening Shuichi's throat in a long, clean cut just under his chin, like a grotesque smile. Shuichi's blood hit the shrine floor, as hot and slick as Kurama's own blood, soaking into ancient wood.
Karasu's face was upturned, rapturous, his human façade unable to hide the demon smile that burned into Kurama's mind.
I will not die.
It had been that simple before. It could be that simple again.
Kurama's hands clawed on rough wood, splinters breaking under his fingernails. He willed his heart to keep beating. He willed hate to become like blood.
I will not die.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, his connection to the crow reopened. And Kuronue, halfway to wherever guides went when the journey ended, turned, and winged back.
I will destroy you.
Kurama dragged one leg up, and then the other, gathering them under him, finding his balance to stand. He pressed his hand to the wound between his ribs, still bleeding. It was still getting harder to breathe. Still mortal. Kuronue wouldn't arrive in time.
Kurama stood up, anyway.
He ignored the shaking, dizziness, nausea, the freezing, stiffening, heavy cold of his limbs, and several instincts that screamed he shouldn't move, much less pick a fight, and took a step forward.
Shuichi's blood poured down his chin and face, into his hair, dripping to the floor. Karasu let Shuichi's head go and lifted his hand to lick his fingers. Then he turned and smiled at Kurama, his expression open and alight, his eyes shining.
The air changed color, light refracting differently, going inky purple with radiance burning up from the ground. Lazy, glowing lines spread out from Shuichi's blood, sliding restlessly over the wood floor, down the steps, over the gravel. Kurama placed a hand against a wall to catch his balance, and felt the night pulse, once, as if someone had plucked a very deep base cord attached to his sternum.
The lines brightened--dark purple into red, and took sharp turns, and fantastical curves, weaving into more defined designs.
The crow cried out defiantly as it broke through the light, and flew toward Kurama, who knew as he saw it that calling it back had been a mistake.
The next pulse, and gravity seemed to strengthen. Kurama collapsed against the wall, panting and shaky, vision blurring. The crow landed hard, skidded, stumbled back to its feet.
Karasu laughed very softly, sliding his hands through the puddle beneath Shuichi and smearing his fingers down his cheeks as he meandered down the steps. Kurama straightened, and made to follow.
When Karasu placed his bloodied hands palm down on gravel, the ground beneath his feet screamed and ripped open, and Kurama knew--could see--that the lines had been tracing out a shape of a crow.
Flicker of black by the prayer tree. In the sudden light of the burning lines, Kurama noticed it, a moment of purposefully moving darkness where there should only be flickering shadows.
Hiei's sword was so fast, that it was nothing more than a flash of light. It cut through the air around Mayonaka, and the man, so nearly dead, fell into four separate pieces.
It took Kurama a moment to notice a difference, to realize that he wasn't dying any longer. He didn't pause to wonder why. He straightened and leapt down the steps and toward Karasu, and was nearly blinded as the lines flared into walls of fire.
Then everything was gone, and Kurama was left, standing stunned, in a silent shrine, the smell of blood and scorched earth slowly blown away by the damp-icy smell of late winter.
He looked around wildly, casting with all his senses for any sign of Karasu, but there was nothing. He turned and looked at Hiei, who stood cleaning his sword by the tree, then back at the door, where Shuichi's corpse still hung, bleeding out slowly.
His could feel his mind stall, then empty of all but four thoughts: there was no Karasu; the crow was gone; he had nothing coherent to say to Hiei; he didn't know what he was going to do with his brother.
He looked at his feet, at the white stones with bits that caught faint moonlight and sparkled. Then the ground was coming closer. He didn't realize what had happened until his knees hit the hard rocks, and then he felt it best just to continue in the same direction.
He fell sideways, curled loosely, head on the stones. One arm crooked so his hand lay in the direct line of his sight, and he stared hard until he could see all the tiny lines in his skin. For a long moment, there was no sound at all, just Kurama following the fine paths in his hand and letting himself think of nothing.
Footsteps broke the silence, not as intrusive as they might have been, because they were quick and light and sure, and stopped just next to Kurama's head.
"Kurama, what are you doing?" Hiei asked, somewhere above Kurama's prone body.
Kurama's first, gut response was a vicious, Get away from me. I'll kill you. Because, at that moment, if he'd had the ability, he would have stood up and gutted Hiei on the spot, if only to keep from having to do anything ever again.
Somewhere, he realized that this wasn't a very rational response, and waited for his brain to turn over something better. Rocks ground together as Hiei shifted his weight on the gravel and crouched down.
"Kurama?"
Light fingertips skimmed over Kurama's bangs, and he shivered as the touch sent a scattering of Hiei's surface thoughts through him.
Kurama closed his eyes, absorbing exasperation, worry, and something gentler.
"Whatever grief you feel," Hiei said, voice deep and soft and undeniable, "it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won't bring anyone back."
Kurama wanted to laugh, a laugh with hard edges, like the kind he could feel jostling about just under his skin, vying for space--all the hollowness filled with pain. Just as quickly it flipped into a desire to cry, to curl up and let the tears fall and forget he had any other responsibilities.
Both responses required more effort than he could dredge up, so he did neither.
Numbness and cold blended together into a loud nothing that drowned the world. Somewhere, he could feel Hiei standing just outside his self-imposed wall, waiting with a kind of patience Kurama had only felt once before--in very old trees that had survived a great fire. The suffering was over, and they had simply been waiting for life to start again.
Time was passing. Kurama could feel it in the way the wind shifted direction. But it didn't disturb him. It didn't exist with him inside his walls.
Then Hiei's hand slipped easily through his solitude and settled on his head.
"I will help you with your brother," Hiei said.
Kurama closed his eyes. He felt there should be tears, but there were none. He turned toward Hiei and sat up and the fire demon's touch shifted until Hiei was gripping his chin, the light pressure of his fingertips tipping Kurama's chin up, telling Kurama to open his eyes. Kurama looked at Hiei.
"It's time to get up."
So Kurama stood up, walked through cold air, in the lessening darkness, and cut Shuichi down from the doorway. He didn't look too closely at the body, because there was no time to clean away the blood. He had better memories of Shuichi and didn't want to mar them with a last look.
He kept his eyes averted, and felt the flare of heat from Hiei's demon fire, grateful, in some distant way, for the lack smell or sound--the fire and everything it burned was in Hiei's tight control. There was silence, and when the heat faded away, Kurama turned back around.
Immediately, he searched for Shuichi, and then for signs of Shuichi's remains, suddenly upset by his own cowardice, and suddenly desperate for a chance to say "goodbye."
The night was lightening into a gray dawn and the air was damp with a promise of snow. Kurama stared out over the shrine's gravel lawn and listened to the soft sounds of Hiei's coat flapping in the breeze.
"The others?" Kurama asked.
"Gone," Hiei answered.
Something horrible tightened in Kurama's throat. "Dead?"
"No," Hiei said with a steady confidence that allowed Kurama to breathe again. "Just...missing."
"Not..." Kurama tried to interpret that. "Not in the human world any longer? They're in the Makai?"
Hiei said nothing, which was confirmation enough.
Kurama looked up at the flat sky. "Then there's no way to reach them."
"Unless we ask for help."
Kurama blinked, meandering thoughts focusing. He looked at Hiei and the fire demon looked back.
"Let's go talk to Koenma."
In the dusty recesses of his library, the King of Hell (Junior) sneezed. The force of it nearly sent him tumbling backwards off the ladder.
"Bless you," said a voice beneath him.
Koenma sniffled. "Thank you--Kurama!"
Standing at the base of the ladder, looking up with identical impassive expressions, were Kurama and Hiei. Koenma made a mental note to kick George in the shin next time he saw the ogre, for not giving him warning.
"Er. Hello," Koenma said in his most neutral-yet-friendly tone. "Nice to see the two of you--"
"Come down here, please," Kurama said in a tone that brooked no argument. "We need to talk."
For a moment, Koenma actually found himself mulling over the inclination to stay right where he was, and call for the guards. There was something about the two oldest members of the Urameshi Team that said they were on a warpath, which meant there would be heartache and pain and more paperwork than his office could hold. Instead, he heaved a sigh, grabbed the book he'd climbed the ladder to reach, and made his way to the ground.
"What do you want to talk about?" Koenma asked, pushing between them and making his way toward a small study nook with a desk and chair.
"I think you know," Kurama said.
Koenma stood on tiptoe to put the book on the desk, and hopped up into the chair. He didn't look at either of them until he was comfortable. Then he pointed to the book. "That's for you."
Kurama reached out and touched the cover, frowning slightly. A stylized crow gleamed in gold from the leather.
"It's everything the Reikai has recorded on Crow activity," the junior god of the spirit world continued.
"It's not much," Kurama said, picking the book up and flipping through it.
"The pages often go blank after they're written. I don't think...whatever controls the crows...likes being visible, except in enigmatic moments."
"Sounds like someone else we know," Hiei said, glaring at Koenma.
Kurama snapped the book shut and tucked it away. "I need passage to the Makai."
"Hiei can allow you to enter through a portal in his kingdom."
"Hiei hasn't the ability to dictate the comings and goings of the dead. It has to be you."
Koenma stared up at Kurama, and the kitsune regarded him steadily. "You know I'm not authorized to grant passage to the Makai."
"I know you're not supposed to."
"Same difference," Koenma said, slipping off the chair and walking toward the exit. Slowly, so he could convince himself that he was not fleeing.
"We're running out of time." Kurama was pursuing, not quite anxious enough to actually block Koenma's way, but pacing just slightly ahead of him. "And we're out of options. I'm sorry to ask this of you, but it has to be done. Yusuke, Kuwabara, and the others--you know where they are, don't you? You can send me to them. I can, I have to save them. Koenma."
Then the kitsune did move to stand in his way, green eyes beseeching. Koenma looked away, and might have turned in a different direction and continued on, but he sensed in Hiei's tension that the fire demon would stop him.
He took a breath, and spoke quietly. "This is where it becomes complicated."
Kurama answered, neutral. "Does it?"
"You should be done, over." Koenma gave Kurama a near-accusatory look, then slid his gaze to Hiei. "But it was technically Hiei's hand that struck down the last of your intended victims, not you. And you have declared this second vendetta... Which the crow has answered for reasons inexplicable."
"How does this make things difficult?"
"You know I can't interfere. It's still a matter for higher powers. You are still under the jurisdiction of the crow."
Kurama looked at him.
"I want to help you, Kurama."
"Then help me."
Memories like a cold sea. Yuusuke was floundering in high tide, the waters sucking him down into a void and he plunged--
"Come to the funeral."
"No."
It was a beautiful day. The sunlight shimmered over snow. Kuwabara looked worn out and solemn, out of place and awkward in black. Everything was wrong-- all the pieces of Yuusuke's life jarring together.
"Fuck you," Kuwabara snarled.
You're not doing much better than I am. So how…
The wind was piercing, edged. It snapped at their clothing as they stood with so much space between them it was difficult to see Kuwabara, though he was close enough that Yuusuke could count the stitches on the hem of his coat.
"Fuck you for being such a coward, Urameshi." There was so much vehement hostility in Kuwabara's voice, surprising Yuusuke so much he failed to flare at being called a coward. "Kurama deserves better than your bellyaching."
How can you find these words? How can you say anything more than NO over and over again? How…?
"Come to the funeral, Urameshi."
Kuwabara's voice was steady, the edge had gone softer, anger turning to unswerving determination.
"Come and say goodbye."
"No."
How can you be so eager to let go?
"Because that's being human, you fuckhead!"
And that's when he remembered Kuwabara could read minds.
Anger radiated from Kuwabara, and fear turning into anger because it was Kuwabara, and Kuwabara the Great was never afraid. The emotions broke free, shoving up against Yusuke like belligerent hands.
"Maybe you have it in with death, maybe you get to be immortal, but the rest of us are just--this. Just this life, Urameshi."
Kuwabara stood, fists clenched, leaning against the wind as if it were capable of knocking him over.
"And like it or not, funerals are something you're going to attend more than this once."
Head above water, struggling at the edge of awareness. There were voices around him and the air was dry.
"Keep that one under until we're ready."
Someone he didn't know, referring to him with a casual menace that raised his hackles, before his center of consciousness wrenched and he was falling--
Mortality blindsided him. Not his own, but the frailty of everyone around him, and suddenly he was afraid to touch anything, to even move, the world turned to thin glass.
I can't stay.
Fear was an opponent like any other. Hit it hard enough and it would fall down. But Yuusuke couldn't fight this without breaking things, people. He wanted to hurt something. He wanted to kill something.
But not here.
Acidic purple lightning against a sickly sky--The Makai, as far as he could get from normal, human.
Breaking through waves. Yuusuke could feel ropes digging into his wrists, and hear high, thin laughter. Someone was tugging at him--not physically, but at the edges of his mind, and as he sunk, they grabbed on and came with him.
Genkai said, "It's time to stop."
Yuusuke stood, panting the harsh air, his knuckles bleeding, everything hurting, especially his jaw where Genkai's foot had connected just moments before.
Her voice was a jumble of sound. Language was difficult to process because he hadn't spoken to anyone in....
Suddenly aware of time, it stretched out behind him like a wasteland, which he had crossed in a delirium, and he realized that he'd been gone for much longer than it had seemed.
That he hadn't heard anything but the screaming in his own head, and from the demons who'd gotten in the way of his rage for...years.
"It's time to stop," she said, and he realized she'd been repeating herself for several minutes, in the same calm, unmovable voice. That no matter how long he fought her, her words would remain like a wall.
She shifted her stance, realizing she had his attention. "It's time to come back."
"No."
He barely recognized his own voice, though the only word left to him was a familiar comfort.
Genkai was unmoved and unmoving. The lines of her face seemed deeper than the last time he'd seen her, her dark eyes unreadable but for the grim hardness. He needed to make her understand.
"I can't...go back." It was so difficult to form sentences, to argue against her unwavering gaze. "I... don't want to see..."
Kurama's grave.
"Yuusuke!"
Yuusuke woke up to the ringing echo of Kurama's voice. He sat up quickly and looked around. There wasn't much to see but shifting fog, white-bright from some everpresent light source.
"Kurama...?" He looked around and didn't see anything. Shifting to stand, he noticed the ground beneath him was pale yellow sand and gravel.
For a moment, he was caught in memories, and it was years ago when death was still a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He stumbled to his feet.
"Kurama!" His own voice sounded hollow in the fog.
"Yuusuke..."
Kurama's voice was so close, Yuusuke turned quickly, expecting to see the redhead standing behind him. But there was nothing but featureless gray-white, stirring in the wake of his movement.
"Yuusuke," Kurama's voice was urgent. "Wake.... Kuwabara is...."
The fog was a solid thing. Yuusuke shoved his way through it angrily. "Kurama, dammit...where are you?"
"Yuusuke, get up. You have to..."
"I'm up!" He moved in the direction of Kurama's voice, but it just continued to get further away.
"You have to listen to me," Kurama's disembodied voice insisted. "You have to..."
"I'm up, I'm listening, I'm--"
Yuusuke stopped, staring at the figure that had resolved abruptly out of the mist. A large man in a trench coat, hunched over something on the ground.
"Kuwabara...?"
The larger man straightened and turned to look at him. A faintly glowing opalescence moved restlessly across Kuwabara's eyes like the stirring fog and caught the glow of the solid yellow-bright sword clenched in his hand.
It was possible, Yuusuke realized with a certain amount of disbelief, that his day was getting worse.
Then he noticed the person at Kuwabara's feet, and all other thoughts flew from his mind.
"Keiko!" He rushed over and knelt beside her. She was bloodied and pale, and far too still. "No." He reached out for her. "No...Keiko, hang on!" He gathered her up, looking at Kuwabara. "What the hell happ--"
Kuwabara kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling. He rolled into a crouch, Keiko still held protectively in his arms. The pain of the blow already fading into nothing worth noticing, Yuusuke focused on Keiko's wounds--long slash marks, clean cuts. Sword wounds.
He raised his eyes, fixing them on the man standing across from him. "What's going on?" he asked quietly.
Kuwabara said nothing, just began to walk toward him, sword held low and ready, murderous intent in clouded eyes. There were patches of blood on his trench coat, but he didn't move as if he were wounded.
"Who are you?" Yuusuke asked.
Kuwabara smiled. "Why do you think I'm anyone other than who I appear to be?"
Yuusuke put Keiko down carefully and stood, weight balanced, concentration narrowing into the rhythm of his heartbeat, the tension of his muscles, and the opponent across from him.
"Because Kuwabara wouldn't have said 'why do you think I'm anyone other than blah blah blah,'" Yuusuke mimicked in a higher pitched voice, stepping forward deliberately, away from Keiko, keeping perfectly balanced. "He would've said something like, 'Are you stupid? I'm me!'"
He took another step forward, and then set his stance, facing the other man, hands loose at his sides.
When the other man rushed him, Yuusuke sidestepped easily, caught the wrist of his leading arm, and twisted toward the ground. The next moment, Yuusuke had pinned him face down, knee in his tricep, hand on the back of his head and he squeezed. He could feel the bones of the skull grinding together.
Ki power flared beneath Yuusuke's hands, orange-bright and Yuusuke jerked away as he recognized the signature.
The reiken swung for his head and he leaped away, landing lightly out of sword's reach. His opponent stood up, Kuwabara's ki signature flared bright around him.
"Are you certain I'm not who I appear to be?" the thing wearing Kuwabara's face asked, coolly amused smile curling his lips.
"Yeah," Yuusuke said. Though the ki might be Kuwabara's the person talking to him was not. "I'm sure. Now get the fuck out of my friend."
He sprang, and aimed a kick for the thing's head, trying to wipe the smile from the thing's face, but it dodged in a movement so graceful that if Yuusuke hadn't been certain it wasn't Kuwabara before, he was now.
Yuusuke's next strike was hard and fast, to the knees. He was trying to judge speed and stamina without killing Kuwabara--which was difficult. He was rusty at fighting without deadly intent.
And it was even trickier, because he kept having this overwhelming urge to sit down. He wouldn't have to fight at all if he just sat down. He could take care of Keiko. He could think about how to get out of here. There were so many other things to do besides kick Kuwabara's ass.
Not Kuwabara, he reminded himself with a growl, shaking free of the pressing suggestions. Something inside Kuwabara, that needed to have its ass kicked in the worst possible way.
Yuusuke wrenched his focus back on task with just enough time to leap out of the way as Kuwabara's reiken swung at him, hard enough to take off a limb.
"Yuusuke!" Kurama shouted in his ear, and Yuusuke flinched in surprise, turning, half-expecting to see the redhead standing next to him with a look of worried exasperation to match his tone.
A flicker of light out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, blocking the reiken with his arm--not smart--but, fortunately, ki to ki, he was still stronger than Kuwabara, and his power flared, acting as a shield. There were sparks where blue and orange collided.
"Dammit, Kurama!" he shouted at the unseen kitsune. "I'm in the middle of something! So either help me or stop distracting me!"
Kurama might have said something else, but Yuusuke turned back to his opponent and tuned out everything but the battle. Rage was a metallic taste in the back of his throat. White moved like fog over Kuwabara's eyes, and the smirk, so unlike Kuwabara, deepened.
"All right, asshole."
It wasn't at all like his fight with Kurama had been. Whatever was controlling Kuwabara kept the fighting style intact--somewhat haphazard, a combination of street brawling and sword fighting and martial arts.
That made it easier, because he knew all of Kuwabara's tricks, and wherever the real Kuwabara was, he wasn't letting the thing know all of Yuusuke's.
It should have been a simple thing, then. Yuusuke was the stronger, faster fighter with all the advantages, except it put something of a crimp in his style to not kill or maim his opponent. Still, it should have been an easy fight, at the end of things.
So the problem was, it wasn't. Something was wrong. Even Yuusuke, who admitted, down in the deepest part of his mind, that he wasn't the brightest person in the world, realized it.
It didn't matter how hard he tried. Yuusuke couldn't touch Kuwabara, and it wasn't because the taller man had gained speed from somewhere, but because Yuusuke was getting slower.
Yuusuke didn't realize he was growling until he ran out of breath and was forced to stop. The silence startled him. Kuwabara was never silent, but the thing in Kuwabara's body didn't make a sound, just kept smiling. Even the soft flick and ruffle of his clothes and trench coat seemed stifled.
It was wrong. Kuwabara's silence was strange and Yuusuke snarled, trying to make it right, trying to hit Kuwabara hard enough to knock the whatever clean out of him.
But he couldn't. He couldn't get close to Kuwabara, now. Weighed down by the air, by--something.
You need a plan, an inner voice told him, his inner Kurama, bespectacled and calm. And Yuusuke didn't know why he pictured Kurama in glasses, but there he was. You need to figure out how he's beating you.
That was not Yuusuke's style. He thought Kurama would've known that, by now. He just hit things, and they fell down. And if they didn't, he hit them harder. It had always worked before.
Only he couldn't hit Kuwabara, felt like he was moving through sticky, clingy webbing, and he was so tired.
Yuusuke, his inner Kurama berated sternly. Get up.
But he couldn't, he just couldn't.... He sat down on the ground and watched as the thing in Kuwabara got closer. He was so angry he could feel the demon in him tearing just under the skin. But the angrier he was, the more tired he felt. That didn't make sense, but Yuusuke's mind, not the quickest at the best of times, was slowing down.
Yuusuke, Kurama's voice, urgent.
Little boy resentment, tired of being scolded, bubbled to the surface. "Not...helping..." he told inner Kurama petulantly.
The kitsune responded with desperation, and suddenly, inner Kurama was outside, shaking him, as Kuwabara's sword swung down.
"Yuusuke!"
And Yuusuke woke up.
The first thing he noticed was Kuwabara, still above him, swinging the reiken for the deathblow. Yuusuke flexed muscles to roll away, and the rope tying him down shredded. Now he could move. He side-kicked Kuwabara in the stomach, hard enough to knock him on his ass.
"Ha!" Yuusuke gloated, springing to his feet. He reveled in how easy it was to move. The fog was gone, and Yuusuke was standing on pale yellow sand and loose gravel, the dry air tugging at his clothes and hair, and whispering among the ruins that looked very familiar. Ruins and dust, the perpetually overcast Makai sky...
He took a step and fell down again. It was tricky to be dangerously cool, Yuusuke grumbled to himself, when unexpected things insisted on tripping you. There seemed to be something wrapped around his ankle, holding it in place. It was only when he reached down to wrench it off that he realized it was a skeletal hand.
"EW!"
Yuusuke's manly strength went right out the window when faced with bones and rotting flesh. He jerked his hand back and then tried to yank his ankle free, but the fingers of the corpse-hand tightened, and that was even freakier.
He rolled onto his stomach so he had better leverage, and noticed the Kuwabara-imposter was back on his feet. Yuusuke had finally knocked the smile from its face, he noticed, and now it looked pissed. It was stalking toward him, deadly intent in its white-hazed eyes.
"Goddammit!" Yuusuke cursed the gods and the world in general for never cutting him a fucking break when he needed it.
He pulled his trapped leg as hard as he could and the hand gave. Yuusuke got his legs back under him and turned to smirk triumphantly at the undead hand.
This was when he realized that, instead of pulling free, he'd managed to pull out the body attached to the hand--well, half the body. The torso lay on its side, face down in the dirt, filthy and decaying, lank, long jet hair and the remains of black clothes hanging from its frame.
It raised its head--Yuusuke glimpsed dead-jelly eyes, a hole where its nose should have been--and opened its mouth, full of rotten teeth. Then it exhaled.
The swarm of black, buzzing bugs that shot out of its mouth hit Yuusuke full force and knocked him back into the not-Kuwabara, interrupting its attack.
"Yuusuke!"
For a moment, Yuusuke was convinced he was back in the dream, and he wasn't really swatting desperately at hell-flies, or hearing Kurama yell his name.
"JOU ENSATSU KEN!!"
Heat was like a physical blow, followed by the percussive sound of several large explosions that had enough force to knock him down.
When the dust settled and he could hear again, he discovered someone was laying on top of him, their breath against his ear loud in the quiet aftershocks.
Kurama, Yuusuke realized when he turned his head and spotted bright red hair.
"I didn't know dead men needed to breathe," he said conversationally.
The breathing paused for a moment, and then released again in a soft, huffed sigh. "Yuusuke." Fond exasperation.
Yes, definitely Kurama, who'd knocked him down to protect him from Hiei's demon fire attack.
"Are they exploding bugs or something?" he asked incredulously as Kurama stood and helped him to his feet.
He looked to Kurama for an answer, but the kitsune's focus was elsewhere. Yuusuke followed his gazed and saw the corpse was standing, now, staring intently at Kurama with dead-jelly eyes.
"Kurama," it whispered, in a voice that made the ground vibrate.
Yuusuke might not have always been the swiftest on the uptake, but he knew that when a rotting corpse that breathed exploding bugs knew you by name, it was probably a bad sign. He bristled, ready for another round, but Kurama broke his focus with a quiet voice.
"Yuusuke," he said, never looking away from the undead, "go save Kuwabara."
And then, with a casual strength that would annoy Yuusuke when he thought about it later, Kurama shoved him backward. He tumbled through a dimensional rip and fell on his ass.
"Huh?"
Disgruntled, he stood up and rubbed his sore butt. He was really tired of falling down. Looking around, he realized where he was in an instant: the space between worlds, the dark plane of not-reality between the Makai and the Ningenkai. It was an empty blackness without difinition, but for what Yuusuke's mind forced into it, the only light source Yuusuke's own ki aura and...
In the distance---the blue glow of the barrier, like a chain link fence of energy, separating the two worlds.
And, near the barrier, a gleam of yellow-orange light.
Yuusuke took off, running toward it.
Yuusuke's internal Kurama was back, and reviewing the function of the Barrier, which was, internal Kurama reported dutifully, to keep upper level demons from getting into the human world. The only thing Yuusuke knew of that could break it--was Kuwabara's reiken.
Kuwabara--who was currently smiling as if kicking puppies, flaying people alive, and releasing demons from the Makai was everything he needed to do to make it a good day.
"Hey you!" Yuusuke yelled at him. "Stop!"
Not exactly wit at its finest, but he was having a bad day, and it accomplished what Yuusuke'd been hoping for. Kuwabara looked at him, the cool illumination of the barrier casting his face into strange shadows.
Things, Yuusuke reflected, were bad.
Then, as almost always happened next, they got worse.
In his moment of hesitation, the not-Kuwabara grinned at him, turned, and sliced a person-length hole in the Barrier.
"Son of a bitch!" And the last word he emphasized by decking Kuwabara as hard as he could.
Kuwabara, who gave him such a startled look that Yuusuke almost felt guilty.
Kuwabara, whose eyes were back to normal, Yuusuke noticed, just before they rolled back into his head, and the taller boy passed out.
"Er...oops."
Kuwabara woke up rather surprised his jaw was still attached to his face. Concerned green eyes swam into focus first.
"Kuwabara-kun?" Kurama questioned softly, sounding not-quite-certain that a) Kuwabara could hear him and b) that he was really speaking to Kuwabara at all.
Kuwabara knew from experience that if he didn't prove he was himself rather soon, he would have to deal with the business end of a rose whip. Or...whatever it was Kurama fought with, these days.
"Who are you calling 'kun'?" he demanded in a voice that would have been much more threatening if he'd had the energy to put any "oomf" behind it. Then he realized how much it hurt to talk, and shut up with a wince.
Kurama smiled at him, a bright, warm smile that belayed the fact that Kuwabara knew he'd been ready to gut him just a moment before.
"Are you in pain?" he asked in a sweet, worried voice.
Kuwabara glared as hard as he could. If it had been anyone but Kurama, he might have decked him for asking such a stupid question.
"Not as much as Urameshi's going to hurt when I get my hands on him," he mumbled acidly.
Kurama's smile turned a little wry. A nervous chuckle brought Kuwabara's eyes to Yuusuke, who knelt just behind Kurama, and had the decency to look abashed. Kuwabara was in no mood to be forgiving, but he also wasn't in any shape for retaliation, so he ignored Yuusuke and tried sitting up.
When sitting up worked, he felt his jaw.
"Why isn't my jaw broken?" he asked Kurama conversationally.
"Your ki automatically deflected most of the attack," the redhead told him, sounding like a proud mother.
Kuwabara boggled. "It...deflected most of it?" He turned a dangerous look on Yuusuke who was a bit shamefaced. "What the hell were you trying to do, Urameshi? Take my fucking head off?"
"No," Yuusuke bristled. "I was trying to save your fucking life! What the hell is wrong with you? You couldn't even resist a fucking possession?"
"Fuck you!" Kuwabara flared. "Have you ever tried to resist a possession?"
"Well...no. But--!"
"Shut up," Hiei growled, sounding both irritated and bored.
Which, of course, made Kuwabara angrier. "Butt out, you...you..." Kuwabara floundered. "Tiny annoying guy!"
The blow to the head must have addled him more than he'd first thought, at least that's what he told himself.
"Idiot," Hiei muttered.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT YOU--"
"I'm pretty sure he's calling you an idiot, Possession Boy," Yuusuke piped in gleefully.
"That's enough," Kurama said, soft and decisive.
Kuwabara found himself shutting up immediately, and was only slightly mollified to see Yuusuke and Hiei do the same. He took the moment of silence to look around.
They were in an alleyway, again. Paved streets, glass-and-steel straight-lined buildings, and the muted sound of traffic--they were back in Japan. He guessed Tokyo, although they could really be in the business district of just about any city. It felt like very early morning, or nearly night--the sun was either just rising or already set, but the light was lingering.
"Where are we?" Kuwabara asked, getting to his feet, trying not to wince at the bruises that immediately made themselves known. He looked around and made a count: Yuusuke, the Shrimp, and Kurama. "Where are the others?"
"We're in the Marunouchi District. We're working on finding the others," Yuusuke told him. "Kurama used his bird-sense to bring us out of the between-space and then we decided to wait for you to come around." Yuusuke smirked, but the look Kuwabara gave him must have been impressively homicidal, because Yuusuke suppressed it quickly. "Anyway. That's what's going on."
There weren't many people out on the main street, but still, Kuwabara was glad they'd popped out of a dimensional portal into someplace inconspicuous. He'd never figured out how a tall guy with orange hair, a loudmouth punk, and a small man in what was, essentially, a dress, could draw as little attention as they did, but they seemed to have gone unnoticed while Kuwabara recovered.
"Kurama's bird sense?" Kuwabara said, finally, looking at the redhead. Kurama was wearing black-and-white makeup again, which would do nothing to help them blend.
"Yeah."
Kuwabara would've been happy to beat an elaboration out of Yuusuke, despite the fact that every muscle in his body hurt, but he was interrupted by his cop-instincts.
"Hey, lady, come and party with us," an aggressively cheerful male voice slurred somewhere out in the street, close enough to the alleyway that Kuwabara picked it up.
"Not even if you were actually my age and much prettier, kiddo. Get out of my way."
The voice of the woman who answered made him blink.
"Aw, come on, sweetheart. Don't be like that."
"What--sober?" The woman sounded as if she were sneering.
Kuwabara began moving toward the alley's opening.
"Man, you've got some tongue on you. Wanna put it to better use?"
The woman's amusement was sharp enough to castrate. "Oh, sweetie, you need to update your porn if you think that line's original in any way."
Tekko was standing in the street, looking roughed-up and mud-splattered-hair wilder than usual, split lip, blood darkening her jeans at the knee and on one thigh, shirt torn. She looked cold and annoyed. She was facing off against three young men in leather-punk gear-80's style. All of them rather drunk.
Then she spotted Kuwabara and her eyes went wide, caught somewhere between shock and incredulity. She stepped impatiently around the boys and toward him, the surprise warping into irritation.
"I can't believe that crazy old bitch was right," she said in way of greeting.
"Genkai?" Yuusuke asked, stepping out of the alley after Kuwabara. "Yeah. Ain't that a kick in the ass?"
The small "gang," noticing Tekko suddenly had backup, slunk away.
"How the hell did you get here?" Kuwabara exploded. "And what the hell happened to you?"
Tekko scowled. "She threw me out of a moving van."
"Genkai?" Yuusuke guessed again, sounding fond. "Yeah. She does that."
Tekko ignored Yuusuke, though the anger drained from her eyes and stance just a little, leaving her with a tired, slightly bewildered expression. "She said I was the only one they wouldn't go after. Something about--power. And my lacking any." Tekko ran a hand through her hair, which only served to muss it further. "She said to find you. No, she said I would find you."
"Can you tell us where they were taking you?" Kurama asked politely, still hanging back, mostly in shadow. Kuwabara guessed he didn't want to be out in the open with Crow makeup.
Hiei was nowhere to be seen, which was good enough for Kuwabara.
"We were heading toward the Palace," Tekko said, frowning. "But I don't think that's their destination. They kept talking about 'rituals' and 'wards' and 'ceremonial daggers.' You know…things that require a lot of space and lack of twitchy guards and their darned habits of interrupting suspicious activity."
"Kokyo Gaien and Higashi Gyoen," Kuwabara guessed, naming the large garden-parks bordering the Imperial Palace.
"Kitanomaru Park and Hibiya Park, too," Yuusuke pointed out. "Kurama?" Yuusuke looked over his shoulder toward the redhead. "Think you can narrow it down?"
"The...crow sense is...muddled. I could probably narrow it down if we could get closer."
"We'll need a car, then," Tekko spoke up. "Because I'm not walking."
"We could take the subway," Kuwabara suggested.
"Does anyone have money for passes?" Yuusuke asked, turning out empty pockets.
There was a moment of silence.
"All right," Kuwabara agreed. "We'll need a car. First thing's first, though."
It was both satisfying and unbelievably painful to crack his fist across Yuusuke's face, and even if the dark haired boy barely staggered, he at least looked very shocked.
"What the FUCK was that for?"
"You couldn't have knocked me out before I cut open the dimensional barrier?" Kuwabara bellowed, peripherally aware of the stares he was getting from the other pedestrians.
Yuusuke considered this as he rubbed his jaw and gave Kuwabara a disgruntled look. "I deserved that."
It wasn't quite a question, but Kuwabara confirmed it anyway. "Yeah."
"...okay."
Kurama paused as he came out of the alleyway and glanced between them. After deciding it was safe to proceed, he walked up to them and said, "Where are we going to find a car?"
"How about this one?" Yuusuke pointed to a car parked in the street next to them.
"The Mini?" Tekko sounded incredulous. She took a look around as if taking a head count, and then caught sight of Kurama-in full Crow makeup-and blinked.
"Is it yours?" Kuwabara demanded, knowing the answer.
Yuusuke frowned with a vaguely confused look. "No."
"We can't take some random person's car!" Kuwabara asserted.
"Why not?"
"Why not?"
The dark-haired boy shrugged. "Yeah."
It was difficult to argue against Yuusuke's earnest expression, but Kuwabara made an effort anyway. "Besides being against the law, we don't have keys and I bet it's locked."
"Not any more." Kurama tucked his lock pick back into his hair and opened the door.
Kuwabara was scandalized. "Kurama!"
"I can hotwire it." Yuusuke glanced at Tekko and backtracked. "Er, not that I've done stuff like this before or anything..."
"Urameshi...!"
Tekko stepped forward, expression menacing. "One side, rookie."
And then she slipped into the driver's seat and popped opening the key side of the steering wheel with practiced ease, taking a penknife out of her pocket to cut the plastic casing off the wires.
Kuwabara stared. "Te-Tekko-san? You're hotwiring a car?"
She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Hey, it's for a good cause."
"I am going straight to hell..."
The friendly cuff Yuusuke gave to Kuwabara's shoulder was, perhaps, a little harder than it needed to be. His grin was demon-sharp. "I don't see how that's different from what we do on a regular basis."
"...When did I become the straight man?" Kuwabara lamented.