Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Yu Yu Hakusho characters.
Thanks to those who reviewed chapter 6 – SakuraAngel04, I updated as you requested, and I hope I didn't make you wait too long, I know that last chapter ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. YavieAelinel, I know, I'm mean to end the last chapter that way, but at least I updated quickly! RaikoGotal, I'm glad you liked it, but I do have a question. Who is "Sheadrin"? For anyone who wanted to know more about Wind Slasher, this chapter's for you!
CHAPTER 7: THE SECRET OF THE WIND SLASHER
In the corridor of the airport terminal, Team Urameshi and the girl known only as the Wind Slasher, faced off against the man with the gun.
"Get out of my way." Said the man, in English, pointing the gun at Yusuke, the obvious leader of the group.
"He's speaking English. He's the one we want, alright." Commented Botan. "But he must be crazy bringing a gun to the airport with all the metal detectors they have around here."
"The gun's made of hardened plastic, I believe." Kurama told her.
Yusuke glared at the man, addressing him in Japanese. "Think that scares me?" He lifted his finger, and pointed it at the man, grinning. "I've got one of my own."
The man took a step sideways out of the bathroom doorway. "You'll just step aside and let me pass if you know what's good for you." He continued to speak in English.
Yusuke just grinned more and the tip of his finger started glowing. "So what'd he say?" He asked Botan, his eyes never leaving his opponent, who started at the sight of spirit energy coming from the boy's fingertip.
"Don't they teach English at Sarayashiki Junior High?" Asked Kurama interestedly.
"Well sure," Yusuke answered. "But who listens?"
"He said to let him go." Kuwabara translated roughly. Hiei, Kurama, Botan, and even Yusuke glanced at him in shock.
"What? I like English class. The teacher's real pretty." Kuwabara defended himself.
While their attention was momentarily on Kuwabara, the man kicked over the ash can, sending sand all over the floor, and when the team looked back, distracted, he dropped the brief case, leapt over the can, grabbed Wind Stalker by the hair and pulled her to his chest facing front, placing his gun at her temple.
She grimaced as he pulled harder on her hair and ground the gun barrel into her skin.
"Now, here's how it's going to work." He said in English, eyes narrowed to slits. "I'm walking down this corridor, with this briefcase." Keeping the gun at the girl's head, he bent and picked it up by the handle, "When I get to the end, I throw her back. I'll be waiting outside the corridor 10 minutes. If any of you pokes your nose out, I'll blow it off."
Yusuke grimaced. "I don't know what he said, but I don't like it." He let his hand drop.
Hiei tensed, but subsided when Kurama, eyes on the hostage, whispered, "Wait."
The man began edging his way along the wall, briefcase in front of Wind Slasher's chest, restraining her. She went placidly, motionless save for one finger, held down at her side, moving in a circular motion. As he moved, little eddies of sand began revolving on the floor at his feet. Not noticing, he continued.
Suddenly, the sand on the floor flew up. The girl closed her eyes, but the man caught the blast full in his face and eyes. Swearing, he dropped the briefcase, which flew open, scattering papers and the opal, which crashed to the floor.
As he lifted his hands to his eyes, Wind Slasher slipped out of his grip and dropped to the floor. Yusuke stepped forward, catching the man under the chin with a right hook, then pivoted and kicked the gun out of his hand.
Roaring with pain and anger, the man put his head down and tried to charge into Yusuke's stomach, but the boy easily stepped aside, and brought his fists down on the man's back right on his kidneys, felling him.
Used to watching Yusuke make short work of his opponents, the rest of the team merely stepped back and waited until he was done with the man, who lay groaning face down on the floor. As soon as the fight was finished, Botan stepped over the prone body and knelt among the open briefcase and scattered papers by Wind Slasher who had stayed in her crouched position to watch the fight.
"Ah, here it is." Botan pushed aside some papers and held the opal aloft, then brought it closer to her face, inspecting it. "Oh dear."
"What?" Asked Kuwabara, eyes raptly on the opal.
"It's been broken." She turned it around to show where a wedge shaped portion was missing. "Koenma is not going to be pleased."
"Hey, he's getting his opal back, so he's got nothing to complain about." Said Yusuke, eyeing the downed man complacently.
Wind Slasher, staring down at the papers from the briefcase, reached out tentatively and began picking them up one at a time and stacking them.
Noticing, Kurama touched her shoulder so she'd look at him, and when he had her attention, offered her his hand to help her get up.
She looked back at the papers in her hands that she'd been sorting through.
"Leave them, they're not important." He told her in demonish.
Reluctantly, she let them drop, and placed her hand in his, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
Yusuke was also pulling someone to his feet, and shoving him against the wall. The blonde man sagged, glaring. "You kids have no idea what you're dealing with here." He said in English.
Yusuke looked pointedly at Kurama, who patiently translated.
"Yeah, well, you're gonna tell us exactly what we're dealing with." He told the man. Kurama once again translated.
"Perhaps it would be better if Kurama led the interrogation this time, Yusuke." Botan suggested.
"What, so you don't want the shrimp to do it this time?" Asked Kuwabara, jealous that he wasn't being asked.
"I don't do English." Hiei sniffed. "Learning one human language is bad enough."
Kurama smiled. "I'd be happy to."
He was just coming forward when an odd "pop" sound rang out. The blonde man clutched his chest, whispered something in English, and fell to the ground, blood oozing between his fingers.
"What the...?" Yusuke stepped aside to avoid being squashed by the man.
Kurama pivoted, brushed past Wind Slasher, who was staring at the open end of the corridor, and ran to the entrance, shoving the janitor's cart aside. Hiei joined him immediately as he stopped, gazing into the crowd in the terminal.
"Did you see him?"
"No." Answered Hiei succinctly.
Yusuke was quick to arrive. "Hey, who shot that guy?"
"Presumably the companion the hotel clerk mentioned." Kurama said. "However, we didn't get a description of him, and no one looks particularly guilty."
"What's one human among many?" Harumphed Hiei. "This is a waste of time."
Abandoning the investigation, they trooped back to where Botan, Kuwabara, and the girl were standing over the body.
"Let's get out of here." Kuwabara said, eyeing the spreading blood pool in disgust. Wind Slasher ignored him, staring down at the paper-strewn floor.
"I agree." Botan was clutching the damaged opal to her chest. "There's no sense in you boys getting involved with a murder investigation. I'll take the opal to Koenma, and we'll meet at Yusuke's house tomorrow after school."
The team split up, taking buses, taxis, or in the perennially broke Yusuke's case, walking home.
The next day Kurama opened the door to his apartment and noticed immediately the empty feel to it. A quick check of the houseplants informed him that the girl was missing, and had been gone some time. On the table lay a letter, addressed to him. It was written in English.
Dear Kurama,
When things have been bad for a very long time, and something good happens, you can't believe it. You don't dare react to it in case it disappears.
When you rescued me from the demon realm, I didn't know why. I didn't trust it. I didn't trust you, even when I was sure you wouldn't hurt me. I'm sorry for that. I know now that I was wrong not to tell you everything you wanted to know.
The truth is, I didn't want you to know about my past, because it isn't pretty.
My real name is Sara Carmody. I was born in England and lived there most of my life. My father was hired right out of university by a multinational corporation called Sen-dex. You've probably never heard of it, but it has offices all over Europe, and some in China. Dad was killed in a car accident while on a business trip to China when I was ten years old. He'd worked his way up and was a Senior Manager with lots of stock options when he died. My mother was very sad and lonely. Within a year she married my dad's boss.
I never liked him. We tolerated each other and I concentrated on doing well in school and staying out of his way. Then mom got cancer when I was thirteen. She went to hospital and fell into a coma. That's when things went really wrong. My Grandfather, my dad's father, had always told me I was special, even more so than my dad. I should probably tell you that Grandfather was a geneticist who'd left England to do experiments in China. I think that's why my Grandmother divorced him and moved back to England with my dad. I only saw Grandfather once or twice a year, before he died, but I remembered what he told me, even though I didn't understand it, at least not then.
One night, my stepfather came into my room. Mother had been in a coma for three months. He was drunk. He tried to force himself on me. That's when I realized what Grandfather meant, because I used the air around me to pick up a lamp and smash it against his head.
It didn't kill him, but he stopped. It made him angry though. Angry enough to tell me he'd arranged the accident that killed my father, just so he could get to me. I knew I'd had more doctor visits than usual since he'd married my mum, but I'd just thought stepfather was a health nut. Actually, the checkups were to see if the genetic alterations done to my father by my Grandfather had passed on to me.
Sen-dex learned that my Grandfather had done experiments on his own pregnant wife to try to make her baby a superior human. They wanted his secrets, but knew my father would never allow it. So they killed him.
Stepfather took me to the corporate headquarters that night, and that's when he and his colleague decided to sell me to a team of demon fighters, to "hone my skills." Stepfather told me that if I came back from the Spirit Realm, or tried to run away, that he'd make sure my mother never came out of her coma.
I felt like my life was over. I was thirteen. I became the Mist Master's battle slave. He trained me to cut opponents using shards of glass or steel, and if I didn't learn fast enough, he'd beat me, or starve me. I learned to do without food, keep my head down, and try to not be noticed. Being noticed meant being hit, if not by Mist Master, then by one of the others. If any of my team-mates failed in battle, Mist Master would cut them, and if he was really angry, he'd kill them. I spent five years in the Spirit Realm, until you saved me.
I pretended I didn't know English when you asked, because I knew you'd send me back home, and if that happened, Stepfather would kill my mother. It was stupid to think that she'd survive five years in a coma. When you were out at school one day, I took the spare change I found under the couch, went to a hotel, and asked the clerk to ring up the English embassy on the phone for me.
I told them I'd run away to Japan on a ship years ago, and that I wanted to come home, but would they find out if my family was still alive? The next day I went to the embassy and filled out the forms I needed to get a passport. My mother is dead. Ironically, so is my stepfather. He died a week after he sent me to the Spirit Realm, and evidently he never bothered to change his will, so I inherited his stock in Sen-dex, and my mothers' which she inherited from father.
The reason why I'm telling you all this, is that I recognized the logo on the papers that fell out of that man's briefcase at the airport. They were papers from Sen-dex. Some were from the German office, but others were in English. I didn't have time to read much, but I read enough to know that Sen-dex is up to something involving demons and that opal. I'm going home to investigate. With the amount of stock I own, and now that I'm 18, I shouldn't have much trouble getting a job with the company. Only my stepfather and one other vice president were involved in selling me to the demons, and judging by the way they spoke, it doesn't seem likely they'll have told anyone else at the company what they did.
It may take a long time for me to find out anything, but if I do, I will write to you. I took an envelope your mother threw away that has your address on it. Since Sen-dex doesn't have the opal anymore, and isn't likely to get it back again, they may give up on whatever plan they had. I may never see you again, or have anything to write to you about. I...Thank you for your kindness.
Sincerely,
Sara
Kurama set the letter down on the table. Before she'd thanked him, she'd started to write something and had changed her mind, and crossed it out. There were also uneven spots on the paper, as though she'd let water drops, or tears fall on it. Kurama folded the paper carefully, and went to his room to hide it behind the picture of his human father. Then he went to the meeting to tell the others about Sara.
On his way out, the plants queried him about her. 'She's not coming back' he communicated to them. They rustled disappointedly and subsided. Their disappointment oddly resonating within him, Kurama walked out of the empty apartment and shut the door behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED...?
The story could very easily end here. The opal is back in the spirit realm, the mystery of Sara (a. k. a. Wind Slasher)'s origins has been solved, and the case of the missing opal is closed. I have an idea for a sort of epilogue chapter, a continuation of the adventure, but I'd like to know if I should bother. Any opinions? Please let me know by reviewing!
Thanks to those who reviewed chapter 6 – SakuraAngel04, I updated as you requested, and I hope I didn't make you wait too long, I know that last chapter ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. YavieAelinel, I know, I'm mean to end the last chapter that way, but at least I updated quickly! RaikoGotal, I'm glad you liked it, but I do have a question. Who is "Sheadrin"? For anyone who wanted to know more about Wind Slasher, this chapter's for you!
CHAPTER 7: THE SECRET OF THE WIND SLASHER
In the corridor of the airport terminal, Team Urameshi and the girl known only as the Wind Slasher, faced off against the man with the gun.
"Get out of my way." Said the man, in English, pointing the gun at Yusuke, the obvious leader of the group.
"He's speaking English. He's the one we want, alright." Commented Botan. "But he must be crazy bringing a gun to the airport with all the metal detectors they have around here."
"The gun's made of hardened plastic, I believe." Kurama told her.
Yusuke glared at the man, addressing him in Japanese. "Think that scares me?" He lifted his finger, and pointed it at the man, grinning. "I've got one of my own."
The man took a step sideways out of the bathroom doorway. "You'll just step aside and let me pass if you know what's good for you." He continued to speak in English.
Yusuke just grinned more and the tip of his finger started glowing. "So what'd he say?" He asked Botan, his eyes never leaving his opponent, who started at the sight of spirit energy coming from the boy's fingertip.
"Don't they teach English at Sarayashiki Junior High?" Asked Kurama interestedly.
"Well sure," Yusuke answered. "But who listens?"
"He said to let him go." Kuwabara translated roughly. Hiei, Kurama, Botan, and even Yusuke glanced at him in shock.
"What? I like English class. The teacher's real pretty." Kuwabara defended himself.
While their attention was momentarily on Kuwabara, the man kicked over the ash can, sending sand all over the floor, and when the team looked back, distracted, he dropped the brief case, leapt over the can, grabbed Wind Stalker by the hair and pulled her to his chest facing front, placing his gun at her temple.
She grimaced as he pulled harder on her hair and ground the gun barrel into her skin.
"Now, here's how it's going to work." He said in English, eyes narrowed to slits. "I'm walking down this corridor, with this briefcase." Keeping the gun at the girl's head, he bent and picked it up by the handle, "When I get to the end, I throw her back. I'll be waiting outside the corridor 10 minutes. If any of you pokes your nose out, I'll blow it off."
Yusuke grimaced. "I don't know what he said, but I don't like it." He let his hand drop.
Hiei tensed, but subsided when Kurama, eyes on the hostage, whispered, "Wait."
The man began edging his way along the wall, briefcase in front of Wind Slasher's chest, restraining her. She went placidly, motionless save for one finger, held down at her side, moving in a circular motion. As he moved, little eddies of sand began revolving on the floor at his feet. Not noticing, he continued.
Suddenly, the sand on the floor flew up. The girl closed her eyes, but the man caught the blast full in his face and eyes. Swearing, he dropped the briefcase, which flew open, scattering papers and the opal, which crashed to the floor.
As he lifted his hands to his eyes, Wind Slasher slipped out of his grip and dropped to the floor. Yusuke stepped forward, catching the man under the chin with a right hook, then pivoted and kicked the gun out of his hand.
Roaring with pain and anger, the man put his head down and tried to charge into Yusuke's stomach, but the boy easily stepped aside, and brought his fists down on the man's back right on his kidneys, felling him.
Used to watching Yusuke make short work of his opponents, the rest of the team merely stepped back and waited until he was done with the man, who lay groaning face down on the floor. As soon as the fight was finished, Botan stepped over the prone body and knelt among the open briefcase and scattered papers by Wind Slasher who had stayed in her crouched position to watch the fight.
"Ah, here it is." Botan pushed aside some papers and held the opal aloft, then brought it closer to her face, inspecting it. "Oh dear."
"What?" Asked Kuwabara, eyes raptly on the opal.
"It's been broken." She turned it around to show where a wedge shaped portion was missing. "Koenma is not going to be pleased."
"Hey, he's getting his opal back, so he's got nothing to complain about." Said Yusuke, eyeing the downed man complacently.
Wind Slasher, staring down at the papers from the briefcase, reached out tentatively and began picking them up one at a time and stacking them.
Noticing, Kurama touched her shoulder so she'd look at him, and when he had her attention, offered her his hand to help her get up.
She looked back at the papers in her hands that she'd been sorting through.
"Leave them, they're not important." He told her in demonish.
Reluctantly, she let them drop, and placed her hand in his, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
Yusuke was also pulling someone to his feet, and shoving him against the wall. The blonde man sagged, glaring. "You kids have no idea what you're dealing with here." He said in English.
Yusuke looked pointedly at Kurama, who patiently translated.
"Yeah, well, you're gonna tell us exactly what we're dealing with." He told the man. Kurama once again translated.
"Perhaps it would be better if Kurama led the interrogation this time, Yusuke." Botan suggested.
"What, so you don't want the shrimp to do it this time?" Asked Kuwabara, jealous that he wasn't being asked.
"I don't do English." Hiei sniffed. "Learning one human language is bad enough."
Kurama smiled. "I'd be happy to."
He was just coming forward when an odd "pop" sound rang out. The blonde man clutched his chest, whispered something in English, and fell to the ground, blood oozing between his fingers.
"What the...?" Yusuke stepped aside to avoid being squashed by the man.
Kurama pivoted, brushed past Wind Slasher, who was staring at the open end of the corridor, and ran to the entrance, shoving the janitor's cart aside. Hiei joined him immediately as he stopped, gazing into the crowd in the terminal.
"Did you see him?"
"No." Answered Hiei succinctly.
Yusuke was quick to arrive. "Hey, who shot that guy?"
"Presumably the companion the hotel clerk mentioned." Kurama said. "However, we didn't get a description of him, and no one looks particularly guilty."
"What's one human among many?" Harumphed Hiei. "This is a waste of time."
Abandoning the investigation, they trooped back to where Botan, Kuwabara, and the girl were standing over the body.
"Let's get out of here." Kuwabara said, eyeing the spreading blood pool in disgust. Wind Slasher ignored him, staring down at the paper-strewn floor.
"I agree." Botan was clutching the damaged opal to her chest. "There's no sense in you boys getting involved with a murder investigation. I'll take the opal to Koenma, and we'll meet at Yusuke's house tomorrow after school."
The team split up, taking buses, taxis, or in the perennially broke Yusuke's case, walking home.
The next day Kurama opened the door to his apartment and noticed immediately the empty feel to it. A quick check of the houseplants informed him that the girl was missing, and had been gone some time. On the table lay a letter, addressed to him. It was written in English.
Dear Kurama,
When things have been bad for a very long time, and something good happens, you can't believe it. You don't dare react to it in case it disappears.
When you rescued me from the demon realm, I didn't know why. I didn't trust it. I didn't trust you, even when I was sure you wouldn't hurt me. I'm sorry for that. I know now that I was wrong not to tell you everything you wanted to know.
The truth is, I didn't want you to know about my past, because it isn't pretty.
My real name is Sara Carmody. I was born in England and lived there most of my life. My father was hired right out of university by a multinational corporation called Sen-dex. You've probably never heard of it, but it has offices all over Europe, and some in China. Dad was killed in a car accident while on a business trip to China when I was ten years old. He'd worked his way up and was a Senior Manager with lots of stock options when he died. My mother was very sad and lonely. Within a year she married my dad's boss.
I never liked him. We tolerated each other and I concentrated on doing well in school and staying out of his way. Then mom got cancer when I was thirteen. She went to hospital and fell into a coma. That's when things went really wrong. My Grandfather, my dad's father, had always told me I was special, even more so than my dad. I should probably tell you that Grandfather was a geneticist who'd left England to do experiments in China. I think that's why my Grandmother divorced him and moved back to England with my dad. I only saw Grandfather once or twice a year, before he died, but I remembered what he told me, even though I didn't understand it, at least not then.
One night, my stepfather came into my room. Mother had been in a coma for three months. He was drunk. He tried to force himself on me. That's when I realized what Grandfather meant, because I used the air around me to pick up a lamp and smash it against his head.
It didn't kill him, but he stopped. It made him angry though. Angry enough to tell me he'd arranged the accident that killed my father, just so he could get to me. I knew I'd had more doctor visits than usual since he'd married my mum, but I'd just thought stepfather was a health nut. Actually, the checkups were to see if the genetic alterations done to my father by my Grandfather had passed on to me.
Sen-dex learned that my Grandfather had done experiments on his own pregnant wife to try to make her baby a superior human. They wanted his secrets, but knew my father would never allow it. So they killed him.
Stepfather took me to the corporate headquarters that night, and that's when he and his colleague decided to sell me to a team of demon fighters, to "hone my skills." Stepfather told me that if I came back from the Spirit Realm, or tried to run away, that he'd make sure my mother never came out of her coma.
I felt like my life was over. I was thirteen. I became the Mist Master's battle slave. He trained me to cut opponents using shards of glass or steel, and if I didn't learn fast enough, he'd beat me, or starve me. I learned to do without food, keep my head down, and try to not be noticed. Being noticed meant being hit, if not by Mist Master, then by one of the others. If any of my team-mates failed in battle, Mist Master would cut them, and if he was really angry, he'd kill them. I spent five years in the Spirit Realm, until you saved me.
I pretended I didn't know English when you asked, because I knew you'd send me back home, and if that happened, Stepfather would kill my mother. It was stupid to think that she'd survive five years in a coma. When you were out at school one day, I took the spare change I found under the couch, went to a hotel, and asked the clerk to ring up the English embassy on the phone for me.
I told them I'd run away to Japan on a ship years ago, and that I wanted to come home, but would they find out if my family was still alive? The next day I went to the embassy and filled out the forms I needed to get a passport. My mother is dead. Ironically, so is my stepfather. He died a week after he sent me to the Spirit Realm, and evidently he never bothered to change his will, so I inherited his stock in Sen-dex, and my mothers' which she inherited from father.
The reason why I'm telling you all this, is that I recognized the logo on the papers that fell out of that man's briefcase at the airport. They were papers from Sen-dex. Some were from the German office, but others were in English. I didn't have time to read much, but I read enough to know that Sen-dex is up to something involving demons and that opal. I'm going home to investigate. With the amount of stock I own, and now that I'm 18, I shouldn't have much trouble getting a job with the company. Only my stepfather and one other vice president were involved in selling me to the demons, and judging by the way they spoke, it doesn't seem likely they'll have told anyone else at the company what they did.
It may take a long time for me to find out anything, but if I do, I will write to you. I took an envelope your mother threw away that has your address on it. Since Sen-dex doesn't have the opal anymore, and isn't likely to get it back again, they may give up on whatever plan they had. I may never see you again, or have anything to write to you about. I...Thank you for your kindness.
Sincerely,
Sara
Kurama set the letter down on the table. Before she'd thanked him, she'd started to write something and had changed her mind, and crossed it out. There were also uneven spots on the paper, as though she'd let water drops, or tears fall on it. Kurama folded the paper carefully, and went to his room to hide it behind the picture of his human father. Then he went to the meeting to tell the others about Sara.
On his way out, the plants queried him about her. 'She's not coming back' he communicated to them. They rustled disappointedly and subsided. Their disappointment oddly resonating within him, Kurama walked out of the empty apartment and shut the door behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED...?
The story could very easily end here. The opal is back in the spirit realm, the mystery of Sara (a. k. a. Wind Slasher)'s origins has been solved, and the case of the missing opal is closed. I have an idea for a sort of epilogue chapter, a continuation of the adventure, but I'd like to know if I should bother. Any opinions? Please let me know by reviewing!