So Far Away, Yet So Near
By: Cece Williams
((Disclaimer: Don't own, can't sue, and boo hoo….))
Cece: Okay, another chapter coming up!
Kurama: You sound like a pizza delivery boy.
Cece: Watch it, kitsune.
(Kori laughs)
Hiei: R&R at the end.
Kori: Hiei-kun! (hugs him)
Hiei: Help!
Cece: Kori helped me with the title… and she also tries to keep two certain youkais under control… (looks at Kurama and Hiei)
Kurama: ;;;; I have no idea what you're implying, Cece.
Cece: Sure I do… remember that episode where you tore your shirt open…
Kurama: (covers her mouth) Heh heh… let's just start the chapter…
"Kurama, now I understand…" Running as fast as her legs could carry her, Andrea ran from her seat in the stands down a hallway. "I understand what you meant…" Her mind flashed back to a particular moment in time…
/ Start Flashback /
Kurama knelt down next to Andrea and held her shoulders gently. "You mustn't blame yourself, Andrea," he answered her. He lowered his head, letting his long red bangs cover his eyes. "Even if you hadn't gotten involved, Karasu would still have come after you. All it would take was one glance at the way I acted with you to see that my feelings for you are different than what I feel towards my other friends."
"I know that..." Andrea answered, but stopped when she heard his last statement. "How different?"
Kurama looked up at her, and then looked away. "I don't know, but it's different," he answered her.
/ End Flashback /
Andrea literally stopped in her tracks. "'It's different'," she said to herself. She took off running again, this time a purpose was in her steps. /Hang in there, Kurama,/ she thought to herself. /I'm coming./
Back in the stands, Yukina looked at her side and noticed that the seat that Andrea sat in was still vacant. "She's been gone a long time…"
"Don't worry," Shizuru said to her. "She's a tough girl; she can take care of herself."
"Still, I'm worried about her," Keiko answered. "The arena's not the safest place to be."
In all actuality, Shizuru wasn't all too concerned about her. "Remember, she invented the 'kick the demon between the legs' routine."
"I know. I wish she wasn't so…"
"Smart?"
"Spontaneous," Keiko answered. "She's doing things without thinking."
"Well, she sounds like a certain guy in your life, huh, Keiko?"
Keiko only blushed.
Shizuru smirked. "So, you do love Yusuke."
"Shizuru!" Keiko's blush deepened.
"Well…"
"Let's just watch the fight, okay?" Keiko asked her, desperately trying to hide the blush.
"All right," Shizuru answered. Still, the notion in her mind wasn't going away. The love bug had bitten two girls, and both of them didn't even know it.
One of the love bug-bitten girls, however, was heading straight for the action. Andrea was tired of sitting on the sidelines, watching Kurama get hurt for possibly no reason at all. "I just hope I'm not too late," she said to herself, stopping at the entrance to the ringside area. The vision of a certain redhead brought her legs back into action again. "Kurama…" She started to run up to the ring again.
Koenma heard footsteps heading in his direction and ran to stop the running girl in her tracks. "Andrea, you can't go in there!" he told her, desperate to keep her back.
Andrea was now struggling in his hold. "Koenma, let me go!" she said to him, trying to break free so she could reach the ring.
Koenma now had a hold on her, and he wasn't letting her go. "Andrea, if you go in there, we'll be disqualified!" He tried to reason with the worried girl.
"And let Kurama die?" Andrea turned to face the Reikai Prince, tears filling her blue eyes and falling down her cheeks. She looked at the ring, feeling several tears falling from her eyes but not brushing them away. "I've lost too many people I've ever loved in my life; I'm not losing Kurama now, either!"
At those words, Yusuke and Kuwabara turned and looked at Andrea. "Think she finally admitted it?" Kuwabara asked Yusuke.
Yusuke shrugged. "Probably; I just hope fox-boy heard that."
Hiei only said nothing and turned his gaze back to the ring.
"Kurama will be fine!" Koenma protested, trying to reason with her. In truth, it wasn't as easy as it looked. "Please, Andrea!"
"Are you sure about that?!" Andrea looked at Koenma, an extremely upset look on her young face. "Because I don't see fruit boy on the floor, do you?"
Koenma was definitely having a hard time with Andrea, who was still adamant about what she was about to do. "You're not being reasonable!"
Andrea brought her hands to her face and started breathing, trying to calm herself down as she turned away from him. "There's not a damn thing I can do, is there?" she asked. She looked up at Koenma, the tears continuing to fall. "There's got to be something."
"I'm really sorry, Andrea, but there's nothing I can do."
In her mind, Andrea relayed the fight thus far into her thoughts. /Kurama, please tell me… this place isn't real…/ She shook her head. /No, we're really at school, where you once told me I wasn't as helpless as I thought. You still beat me on the test scores, which isn't really a surprise to me. Why you bothered to tutor me, I'll never know./ She remembered when the Mad Bomb exploded on his leg, then the first wave of bombs that exploded around him. /Kurama… please take me from this nightmare…/
Koenma noticed that Andrea hadn't answered him, so he turned her head away from the fight. "I'm sorry, Andrea; I'm sorry that I can't do anything to put a stop to this. But if I could, you know I would."
"Kurama's getting hurt out there…" Andrea started but stopped when she was about to go into a catatonic state.
The second thing that Koenma noticed was that Andrea's voice had now gotten too soft. He looked at her as her voice dropped. "Andrea?" he asked her, shaking her shoulder, only to get no response. "Andrea! Snap out of it!"
Andrea remained not answering as her blue eyes showed signs of cloudiness. Her vision was getting rather blurry. The voices she heard were warbled and distorted as if aliens abducted her.
"I hope she's not going to hate me for this afterwards," Koenma answered before raising his hand and smacking Andrea in the face.
The force caused her to gasp in shock more than disbelief and her head to jerk in one direction, her long hair following the force. Andrea blinked and looked up, only to have her hand on her face. "What was that for?"
"To snap you back to reality!" Koenma answered, almost as concerning as Kurama would've answered. "Kurama's smarter than what Karasu believes. He'll pull through."
Andrea looked at the ring again thinking, /I'm here now, Kurama, and I'm not leaving./
Back in the ring, Karasu looked at the kitsune, who literally growled at him. "I might not always get to keep you, but I'll have the look of your face to give me comfort."
Kurama stood back to his feet, shakily at first, but even though he was injured, he managed to keep his calm look. Inwardly, however, was a different matter. /You couldn't have been more wrong about my so-called 'lack of tact', Karasu, thinking that mark on your chest is only a harmless scratch. The smell of your wound so close to your heart should be more than enough for a bloodthirsty plant. You may not think I can summon another plant, but you will soon find that you are wrong there as well. I can summon once more, in exchange for my life./ At that, his emerald eyes narrowed.
From the sidelines, Andrea held a hand to her heart. /Are you out of your mind?/ she asked him mentally.
Back inside the ring, Karasu directed the bombs to hit Kurama, whom with every bomb hitting him, it felt like a thousand daggers tearing at his flesh, ripping into him. Kurama cried out in pain again, this time as it hurt more as some of the bombs hit him in previously injured places. Finally, the standing kitsune fell, closed his emerald colored eyes, and hit the ring.
As Kurama hit the ring, a stunned look filled the team's features. The only difference was that Andrea was more than stunned; she was scared. Her eyes grew wide. "Come on, Kurama! Get up!" she screamed to the down kitsune. As Juri started the ten count, Andrea's plea grew more desperate. "Kurama! Please, get up! You can't lose now!"
At the eight count, Kurama pushed himself up to his hands and knees, blood still permeating from his injuries.
"You should have stayed down, Kurama," Karasu said, giving a smirk over at Andrea before looking back at Kurama. "But I guess that's not your style." A blast of green energy shot out towards Kurama.
As the energy blast came closer to Kurama, the kitsune looked at Karasu, thinking only one thing: /I may die, but at least I can call it a draw./ The blood-sucking plant that was formed out of Kurama's own energy flew at Karasu… and attached itself to him.
Andrea, from the sidelines, screamed at him mentally. /Kurama! Please, don't do this!/
/I'm sorry, Andrea; it's the only way to keep you safe…/ With that, Kurama fell and hit the ring again… and didn't get back up.
At this point, Andrea kept her eyes on the kitsune on the ring floor and felt as if her whole world had shattered, like a rock hitting a stained-glass window of a church and rendering it unable to be repaired. "No… he can't be…" The tears, once again, fell from her eyes, but they fell as if she were filling a river. "No, not Kurama… How can God be so cruel?" Her body started shaking as she screamed only one word… "KURAMA!"
((Is Kurama really dead? Will Andrea try to save him? And what's the ruling on the fight? All in the next chapter of "Anything, Anytime, Anywhere!"))
Kurama: One more chapter?
Cece: Yeah, but I can't really call it that.
Kurama: Why?
Cece: It's a surprise.
Yusuke: You mean that Kurama… (gets FWAPed)
Cece: You moron! It's called "surprise" for a reason!
Kori: R&R, you guys!
