AN: Hey this is a part one of a story I got inspiration overload on.(there are two parts) I worked on it for four days strait. I don't like the beginning as much, but the rest I had fun writing. By the way the voltage (75,000 volts) is the estimated amount that runs in local telephone poles electrical lines.
stuff written in italics means its thoughts
/stuff written in italics is the voice in her head./
I hope you don't get confused, because Shiori and the voice talk out loud sometimes and in her head others.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of its characters.
PART I
Shirori thought she would die for sure when the red truck behind her didn't stop at the red light. There were very few cars on the intersection at this time of the night, and the rainy weather kept many home. This one car however was sharing the same stretch of road, and when it didn't sop it sent her smaller car crashing into a near by telephone pole.
The metal of her car groaned with the pressure and crunched around the wooden structure. Reflexes brought her hands in front of her to shield her face just in time as a cascade of broken glass from the windshield flew back.
Too shocked to scream, her body stiffened anticipating the impending pain of being mutilated by sharp metal, and broken glass. Maybe there would be a few broken bones at best, but death was looking more likely. Her car continued to cave in around her...but then stopped.
A sharp peel of metal from the split roof came within inches of her face, and the steering column was almost trapping her legs. Besides all these potential dangers she remained untouched. No cuts. No bruises.
How...
Her head spun trying to understand. The vehicle around her was contorted beyond repair, but she was unharmed. After expecting at least a broken arm her psyche was doubting that this reality was being truthful with her. How could she not even have a scratch? The windshield had just shattered and her hands were unscathed.
How...
Shiori managed to kick the door off its broken hinges, and stumbled out of the wreckage once know as her car. Her legs wobbled under her, and her hands shook with the fright of the situation thrust at her.
"Mam are you alright?!" A man stepped out of the truck that had just rear ended her. The front was bashed in, but not anything compared to what she just got out of. His bald, round head was beading with sweat. Perspiration also dampened his flannel shirt. He eyed her for injuries and seemed to sigh when he found none. Still he was on the opposite side of the street, and her car stood between them, so she wasn't sure.
"Y-yes I'm fine..." She stammered. Her faith in people was increased. At least he didn't do a hit and run she reasoned.
"I'm sorry mam, but my brakes just wouldn't work, and I just got them done! I tried to stop honest!"
Shirori ran one of her shaking hands through her tousled hair. The rain was coming down harder drenching her cloths. A shiver ran up her spine. Partially from the cold, and also because she felt like something was off. She ignored it.
Walking to the side of the road a path was clear of scrap metal on the other side of the same pole she just hit. Stepping quickly so she could reach the man's truck she didn't even notice the danger hidden by the dark blanket of night.
"Like I said I'm sorry I'll call a tow truck, and a drive home. My insurance should pay for all this."
"Its alright, at least I didn't get hurt," she called back.
Shuichi will flip when he finds out I totaled the car when he's gone on one of his school trips.
Shiori frowned when she felt the familiar pang of sadness of his absence. She dearly missed him when he was gone. He never did talk about his trips much...
Her head shot up when she stepped on something that sent a jolt of liquid fire snaking up her leg. She shrieked in pain, and her body wouldn't move. It was frozen, her muscles made useless by the overload of voltage, 75,000 volts, singing her every cell. Her whole body flew back with the serge. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she instantly blacked out...
It was dark here. Silent too...Things started to come back. Blurred colors. They came together like puzzle pieces becoming more vibrant. Even as they did she was aware that this was not reality.
Shiori was standing in the bathroom of her house. Her anxiety was palpable in the air. It was so quiet, and the constant dripping of the shower made the waiting almost unbearable. She wrung her hands and glanced at the mirror over the tiled sink. Her cheeks were flushed. few wrinkles lined her face, and her lip was sore from biting it.
Why is it taking so long!
She checked her watch, and took a deep breath.
It was time...
A white stick lay lonely on the counter. Her fingers trembled as their digits closed around the plastic deposable. She picked it up and looked at the small window at one end.
...A plus...
It was positive! Her mind cheered as tears sprung from her eyes. The pregnancy test was positive.
She looked down at her currently flat stomach, and tried to imagine the little life growing inside. Gently almost lovingly she rested her hands on her belly.
As soon as her soft finger tips met her stomach she was slammed into a dense forest.
Shiori was confused...before was a memory, but this was a place she was sure she'd never been. Was it a dream?
This must be a dream...
The logical thought did nothing to ease the feeling of lucidness she was experiencing. some part of her said this was real. Every plant, every smell, and every sound...just like the one that made her whip around.
Before her was the most magnificent creature she'd ever laid her eyes on. The eloquent simplicity with which he stood as if the forest belonged to him was amazing. Standing at about seven feet tall he towered over her, but his slender build made him less threatening. She could tell by just looking at him that he could run fast and gracefully.
Silver tresses framed his face, and the two golden orbs set there. It was like charming tributes to the sun and moon. As if these weren't strange enough something else about this man made him glow with a fantasy like quality. Ears and a tail. They perfectly matched his hair and pristine white tunic. He was the epitome of lethal beauty. A killer in disguise...
A fox man...?
/A kitsune...a fox demon./
Shiori was surprised to hear the wispy voice answer the question in her head. It was like a ghostly narrator presenting her a story. Here was something she did not know, but he would inform her.
Who is he? she asked the voice not fazed by its presence.
Youko Kurama, famous thief of the Maikai.
A thief of where..?
No answer. Ok so she wasn't to know yet. Fine by her she was to preoccupied with his image to care much. He was fascinating like a creature out of the story books she was read as a child. utterly transfixed she noticed that he seemed familiar in a way...she just couldn't place it. The feeling made her unsettled.
"Hello?" She called.
A white fluffy ear twitched, and swiveled but not in her direction. Like a phantom she was merely an observer unseen by the kitsune. Straining her hearing in the apparent direction it was several minutes before she could make out the soft foot steps approaching. His hearing must have been very good.
Youko Sniffed the air and narrowed his eyes. A slender hand reached into his hair and withdrew. At first she thought he held nothing, but then a rose grew in his palm, and expanded into a deadly, thorny, whip. Her brain jumped. A plant as a weapon was impossible wasn't it? This must be a dream she repeated like a mantra.
He prepared for a fight, and looked dignified yet scheming at the same time.
"Come out hunter and fight for your bounty!" He called in a deep voice.
"Over one-thousand years old and still you have no sense. Their are many who would cheer at your demise." The voice was cold like ice water. Shiori shivered and was overwhelmed by the need to protect the plant manipulator.
"Run Kurama!" She tried to shout.
Would he really be killed? A bounty hunter would surely not be strong enough to take down the man she'd already taken a liking to...or were there other...demons who were stronger? The thought frightened her.
Will he live? she asked hoping for the voice's wisdom.
Ever changer her dream cast her in a different place. A different time. This was however a memory. One she knew very well. It often replayed in her head.
She was standing in the kitchen when her son came home. His hair was still short, and his face had a little extra baby fat.
He was so young then. Its amazing to see what he has grown into...
It was nerve racking to know what would happen next, yet she was powerless to stop it. Why did she stand idle when her son was unknowingly putting himself in danger?!
An image of herself a bit younger was there to do the greeting.
"How was school Shuichi?"
"Okay. I need a large can for arts and crafts."
"I'll get you one off the top cabinet."
She hurriedly finished the dishes not knowing her independent youngster was attempting to get the can himself.
When dishes crashed to the floor her whole body spun around to watch in horror as her child fell off a wobbly stool towards the ground where the sharp fragments of china lay.
"No!"
"Shuichi!"
Whether from motherly instinct, pure adrenalin, or both she flung herself forward to save her boy. She cringed when pieces of porcelain pierced deep into the skin of her hands and arms.
"Mom?!"
She forced a smile. Her baby was safe...
"A...are you all right Shuichi...?"
Funny she always used that smile when she was hiding her pain from Shuichi. Lately that had been getting harder. Her boyfriend was away on business trips often, and Shuichi on his school trips. She was left all alone. The worst part was the ever growing gap between Shuichi and her. It was like he was constantly keeping something from her. It hurt to not only be left physically but emotionally as well.
After that day Shuichi had changed. Something he did without warning. Before he always seemed arrogant like he was above others. His restless spirit put her through a lot of unneeded trouble, but after 'the incident' as she called it he'd softened. He was more loving and affectionate, and learned to abide by the rules. He grew into a model citizen.
Then he had retrogressed lately. Not in his manors, but his truthfulness. What made her angry was how natural his lies were. They were near to impossible to detect. In fact...she was never sure they were lies. No proof. Call it mother's intuition. He was hiding something.
Pulled out of her painful contemplation she realized she was no longer in her kitchen but a roof of a large building. She turned around when she heard her son's voice again, but this time deepened with matured age.
"It's complicated to her I'm Shuichi...and she did give birth to me sort of." The location was identified in her mind as the hospital she was staying at the previous year during her sickness. The young man also there that was in conversation his the red-head was his friend who she never did find out the name of...
"How could she 'sort of' d that?" the teen asked.
Confused and disoriented Shiori tried to find a reasonable explanation for the words exchanged. This wasn't real. It just didn't make sense for him to say that...but then why was her stomach turning with fear?
"By a deception that's lasted for fifteen years. I'm actually a yo-ko-- an enchanted fox. My specialty was undoing seals and codes and stealing the ancient treasures and weapons they secured. But my luck ran out and I ran afoul of a powerful bounty hunter. Badly injured, I assumed should form and escaped into the human world.
I was too weak to shift into human form or posses a body, so there was only one option: enter an embryo before it acquired a proper soul.
In ten years or so my powers would return and my body become fully inhuman, at which point I'd leave the family. That at least was the plan..."
"It didn't work out?"
"..."
Shuichi took on a remorseful look.
"You saw the scars on her arms?"
"Yeah...they looked old."
"Six years old...that day everything changes..."
Shirori listened as the events were told to the dark-haired boy. It was the same memory Shirori had just revisited. The scary thing was, was this a dream? Her logic said no...but her heart...
"The scars remained. I tried to leave many times, but my father had died long before and she would have been all alone...I kept seeing those scars, that smile...I couldn't bring myself to do it."
No, he would never be a thief...and if he was a f-fox demon he would have told me...right?
Don't blind yourself from the truth...your soul requested happiness...the truth. the bodiless voice haunted her.
"It shouldn't have been possible for a creature with a demon heart, but when she became gravely ill all doubt vanished-I was a son who loved his mother.
Now she has maybe a month to live. I can save her with this mirror, Yusuke. That's all that matters to me."
Shirori now saw the small mirror in his hands. The boy now identified as Yusuke was looking at him with understanding. Perhaps he'd been in the situation where he had to make an important decision to help a loved one.
"Once that's done, I'll return it and surrender myself."
Surrender...as in he stole the mirror? He could go to prison?
"But...that will really leave her alone."
"Not quite. She's been seeing someone. He's the president of a small company where she worked part-time. Once she's well...she'll actually be better off without me."
"Don't say that Shu-chan!" Shiroi tried to yell but it fell on deaf ears.
"...why are you telling me this?"
"Maybe I needed to bare my soul to someone...who was willing to trust me."
Then the scene flashed ahead. She knew this was when her conditioned worsened, and everyone was sure she would die. Her body was laying limply in her hospital bed, but back on the roof was where her son, and his friend were.
Night had taken hold, and a full moon was bright in the sky illuminating the whole situation.
"That's it. I have to do this." Shuichi spoke definitely.
"You'll use the mirror?! I've heard that to grant your wish, it requires something in return. Do you know what that is?"
"Yes...your life."
The words cut Shirori right through the heart. No...she wasn't worth that, if tears could she was sure she would have started crying.
"This demonic device takes your life at the very moment you wish is granted. That's why it's called the mirror of darkness. Obviously, no one ever posses it for long."
Shuichi knelt down and set the mirror on the cold cement so it reflected the round moon. An ominous air hung about the two figures making the gentle breeze feel like a fierce wind.
"Mirror of Darkness, awaken in the moonlight. Let you face show my desire, that I may invoke your power."
The mirror's surfaced shimmered and rippled. An image of Shirori happy and no longer bedridden smoothed out its metallic surface.
"This woman's health and happiness...is that what you ask me to grant?" asked the magical mirror in a voice that Shirori recognized.
"Yes."
"Hey, maybe you'd better think about this! I mean, your life for hers? Is that the best deal available?" Yusuke asked.
"It is believe me."
The mirror spoke once again giving him one last chance to turn back. "You are sure? You would sacrifice your life for this woman's happiness?"
"If that would make any amends for my sins...and for deceiving her for these pas fifteen years..."
"Then your wish is my command!" The mirror blazed to life leaching odd the should of the red-head.
"No Shuichi! Don't!" Trying to calm herself down Shirori repeated that is was only a dream. Only a dream. Just worried as her Yusuke moved down by her son and shouted at the mirror.
"Mirror! Listen up! Take some of my life!! That way you won't have to take all of his right!?"
"What are you insane?!" Shuichi yelled worried about his new friends life being taken.
"You ever see a mother despairing over her lost child? No woman should suffer such agony..."
"..."
Suddenly a blinding light exploded making starbursts in her retinas.
"But he lived..." She said to herself.
"I took half of the spirit detectives life. They were both allowed to live...and you too lived." The voice she now recognized as the mirror's echoed.
"Why show me this?" She asked.
"I grant a single wish in exchange for ones life. You son requested you good health and happiness. Now I am keeping that bond. As long as you live we are interconnected. I must protect you body from harm...and your heart from hurting."
"That was all real? Everything Shuichi said and did?"
"Yes...right now your body is in the hospital healing form a usually fatal electrocution But there is something that I must up hold. Your happiness has been wavering lately..."
"My happiness? I guess...I have been feeling down since Shuichi left on another school trip. And my boyfriend is away on business. Shuichi...I've been feeling like we are drifting apart. He doesn't tell me things anymore."
The passed year in fact was when things had become that way. Understanding flooded her mind. A year ago was when he stole the mirror...what if something had happened? Could there be more to this than she thought?
"His absence and lies have been affecting you and it is my job to fix that. Ironic he wishes to hide his true self from you, yet his own wish is the one that forces me to reveal him."
"I don't understand...Shuichi used a magical mirror to save my life? He is a..." He mind thought back to the silver haired man and to what her own son had said. "Fox demon? A thief? Why does this sound unbelievable?"
"You need to see more to understand?"
More visions that spanned over the years time flashed before her. Her son being stabbed...his trial...their many missions...her son's talents with plant manipulation...his excuses for leaving on another mission...the many wounds he acquired without her knowledge... She found it hard to cope with it all. Some of the herder questions she chose not to voice.
He is a fox demon.
He used to be a thief.
He's killed before.
He's been intimate before.
He's not innocent at all...
He's lied to me...
As a mother she berated herself for not being understanding...after all his fear of hurting her by knowing the truth was why he never told her in the first place! He was still her son. The one who she loved more than anything. The same one who would have sacrificed his own life to save hers.
"When he went on his last 'school trip' where did he really go?"
"Koemna sent his and the others on a mission to retrieve a magical scroll form a contraband of demons who could used it to kill thousands."
He's sort of like a hero...
I can accept this...
Shirori smiled and headed off to the hospital closest to where she crashed. It just so happened to be the same one she was in before. In the sterile hospital her body lay in a room on a metal bed. She looked like she was merely taking a nap.
A doctor was talking to a nurse by her bedside.
"A miracle!" he exclaimed as she told him his patients progress. In just a day's time more than 80 of the burns had healed.
"Have you gotten a hold of her family?" asked the nurse.
"Her husband in out of the country on business, but we finallymanaged to reach her son. He is on his way here right now.
Shirori watched herself sleep for fifteen minutes of so before she heard her doctor talking to someone out in the hall.
"You are her son?"
"Yes."
"You can come in, but I'm afraid that your friends will have to wait out here. Family only."
"Alright. I'll be back."
"Wait K-Shuichi are you sure you want to be alone?" Yusuke's voice asked.
"I'll be fine."
The door opened and Shiori watched her son walk remorsefully to her bed.
"What happened? They didn't tell me over the phone."
The doctor frowned. He wasn't one who liked to be the barer of bad news.
"She was in a car accident and suffered some severe electrical burns for some downed power lines."
Shuichi remained calm, but still winced at the words spoken to him. He did notice that she didn't look all the bad however.
"How is her condition?" he asked, hopeful for a full recovery.
"When she first came in things were pretty bad. Third degree burns, and extensive heart damage. She was hit with about 75,000 volts. I would have said that she wouldn't make it through the night-" He paused, "Do you believe in miracles Mr. Minamino?"
Shuichi paused before simply nodding his head. It was hard to tell if he was saying yes or just asking the doctor to continue.
"Well, just this morning your mother was in critical condition, but now she's almost completely healed. A miracle indeed!"
Shuichi pulled up a chair next to the bed and placed his hand on her's. The doctor left the room ready to check on other patients.
The door creaked open and Yusuke, Kuwabara, and even Hiei walked in. Hiei walked to nearest corner and closed his eyes in the shadows. Yusuke and Kuwa pulled up chairs by their kitsune friend.
"Is it alright if we hang out in here until the doctor comes and yells for us to get out because we aren't family?" Yusuke asked with a wink.
"I don't mind...Thanks."
"Hn. It is the mirror isn't it?" Hiei still in the corner picked up quickly on what his best friends was thinking about.
"What are you talking about shorty?" Kuwabara asked.
"When I first met Yusuke I...borrowed a mirror that granted the user a wish in exchange for a life. My wish was save my mother who was dieing in this exact hospital at the time."
"Yeah, good thing I was there! The baka was going to sacrifice himself!" Yusuke interrupted.
"Yes, Yusuke sacrificed part of himself so we could both live. The wish was successful. She has been immune to even the common cold since then."
"Am I the only one not getting this?" Kuwabara asked.
"Yes idiot!"
"Shut up Uremeshi!"
"Hn. He wasn't finished."
"..."
Kurama smiled in thanks and continued to explain. "Well her car crashed into a telephone pole. She survived the car crash even though it was totaled, but after was electrocuted by the power lines that were knocked down."
"ouch." Yusuke grimaced.
"The doctor said that when the ambulance brought her in she was close to death, but as you can see the wish I made must be speeding up the healing process because she is almost back to normal."
"so she got fried and still survived?! Wow you sure made your mom one hec of a deal." Kuwabara said.
"She's waking up." Hiei stated.
Shuichi looked at his mother's face looking for clues that she was regaining consciousness.
Shirori who's spirit was watching the whole time felt a sucking sensation at her navel, and was suddenly jerked back into her body. Her vision was cut down to the soft glow of the lit room through her eyelids.
She could feel her body again and knew she was awake, but felt drowsy from all the pain killers in her system.
"Do you want us to leave Kurama?" Yusuke asked.
"You can if you wish, but I won't mind if you stay."
"Hn." Hiei left with a blur of black. Yusuke and Kuwabara however decide to stay.
Shiori forced her eyes open. Was it real? Even as she saw the two boys from her 'dream' there in the room she already knew it was very much real.
When she looked up at her son's eyes she knew he was worried about her. So close she could finally picture his scarlet locks a smooth silver, or his wide friendly eyes an eerie gold. She knew he didn't want to hurt her with the truth now. It was perfectly clear.
She wanted to ask so many questions. They buzzed in her head. What could she say. How could she word what she wanted to know.
"Mother?"
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Finally only on word slipped past her lips. It encompassed all she just saw and wanted to still learn.
"Kurama..?"