Flora, Fauna, and Kites

by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's note: Woo, long chapter. I was feeling very tearjerky today, so I decided to write the next chapter. It took me two days (Mostly during any tiny bits of spare time in class, heh-heh-heh...) but I finally pulled it off. It's a pretty long chapter, almost six pages handwritten. It's the final chapter, but worry not, there'll be more sad insights from Kurama in the future. (And as long as I feel like writing, you can expect plenty of total crap!) As always, review if you like it, and if you hate it...review anyway!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, or Kurama. But I do own Fujita, Anna, Kuri and Kurama's other sisters, and Kurama's ever-hating birth mother. So dun take 'em.

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It was that time when I came back that the words of my sister rang in my mind. I cried alone, cradling the bloodstained kite. And what had my sister told me that was so important? Well, I suppose I'll need to tell you the story of the aftermath, not only to explain what my sister said, but to explain precisely what it was that turned me to theivery.

I cried over Fujita's body until I could no longer find it possible to cry anymore. But as I walked home, my tear ducts seemed to get their second wind. My aunt, Anna, had been looking for us. When she heard me sobbing on the way back to the den, she found me.

"What is it Kurama, what's wrong? ...Where's Fujita?" I sniffled.

"He's dead!" She stared at me in disbelief.

"Don't play with me like that, Kurama. You don't joke about things like--"

"I'm not joking! Come see for yourself!" And so, that led me back to the clearing with Aunt Anna, back to the place where my brother had fallen. Upon seeing his lifeless, bloodied body, and that blank stare, she inhaled sharply and her hand flew to her mouth in horror. "See? A lizard killed him." I was crying like a baby once again. "So now I'm just gonna be alone and Ma's gonna hate me more than anybody and...and...." I buried my face in Aunt Anna's chest. She remained calm.

"I'll help you bring his body back to the den." So Aunt Anna and I brought him back. I did most of the work, being stronger than her, but I quite appreciated her help. Bringing your brother and best friend's body home is not an easy task. I remember the nasty shock it gave my sisters. Chihiro became very confused and kept telling Fujita to wake up. Midori ran to her sleeping burrow and didn't come out for a week. Kuri, like myself, threw up. My mother was at another part of the den when we came home. I decided that it was my duty to seek her out and tell her that her son was dead. In retrospect, that was a lousy idea.

"Ma..." I said, walking up to her, "I have some bad news. She looked at me with utmost disdain. All I could think was, Don't look at me that way. Not after my brother just died. "It's Fujita. He's...he'd dead, Ma." She looked away from me and said what proved to me that the den was the last place I should be spending my life.

"Just as well." My mouth fell open.

"But Ma, it's your son! He's dead!" I swallowed the tiny bit of moisture in my mouth in an attempt to gain more confidence. That attempt failed, by the way. "It's not like when he ran away to stay with that girl for a few days! He's never coming back!" She glared at me.

"Good." I was sure that her eyes would burn a hole right if her thick pearly hair wasn't in front of one of them. "One less thing for me to worry about. One less male to break some poor girl's heart!"

"Ma!" Ma was apparently sick of my talking. At least, that was the message I got when she struck me across the head and knocked me down. I stood up, shook my head, and ran off. And that was when I met up with my sister, Kuri, again. I could tell from her red eyes, wet cheeks, and runny nose that she had been crying too.

"Kurama...." She put her arm around me. "You were there, right?" I nodded. "What was it like? I mean, did he go all valiant-like, or was he running away with his tails between his legs?" I shook my head again.

"He told me to run, and the lizard got him. He used kitsune-bi on the lizard and they both died." I paused. "It was very bloody."

"I could tell." She sighed. "So, Ma's been giving you a hard time?"

"As always."

"She hit you agan?" I nodded.

"She says it doesn't matter. She even says it's good." Kuri sighed.

"Ma says a lot of things. If she said you were a girl, would you agree?" I thought about the irony in what she had just said. I would never be good enough to be compared to any girl as far as my mother was concerned.

"I just kinda feel like it's my fault. I mean, if he wasn't worried about me, he could've gotten away." I looked at the ground. "He wouldn't even have been there if he'd left when he came of age like he should've." At this point, I should explain, I was roughly the equivalent of fourteen. Fujita died at what would have been about eighteen for humans. Coming of age, for Youkos, was at the parallel to age fifteen.

"Well, if he had left then, he'd prob'ly have done some'um stupid and got killed earlier. You know him, always a thrillseeker. Your being so important to him probably kept him alive so long." I looked around for no real reason.

"So you're saying I kept him alive for a couple years." Kuri smiled at me and uttered the words that I remembered clearly when cradling the kite years later.

"Not only did you keep Fujita alive for many years, little man, but you gave him a reason to live. He loved you so much he refused to leave, even with Ma treating him the way she did." I smiled.

"I guess you're right." I began to think about what Fujita would miss out on in life. "When I come of age, I'm leaving. I'll live for Fujita. And I'll be famous, too. That'll show Ma." Kuri laughed.

"Fair enough. That's probably what he wanted anyway." She grinned. "I bet you really wanna get away from Ma, too."

"Well, yeah." We smiled at each other.

"Aunt Anna said that I should use my kitsune-bi for the cremation 'cause I'm the oldest now. You wanna go find something nice to put him in?"

"Sure." I paused again. "Do you think we could bury the urn?" Kuri appeared confused.

"I guess, but why?"

"I know the perfect place for him." It was then that I performed my first act of larceny: I stole one of my mother's wedding gifts. It wasn't much, just a nice laquered water jug with a cork in it. That was what we put Fujita's ashes in. I decided that, since I had no money, Fujita would want me to use something of Ma's. That would teach her to respect the dead. I buried the urn/jug at the base of the well in the clearing. Since Kireihana's death, I try to visit once every hundred years or so, when I grow a new tail in fox form.

Long after Fujita's death, I too was mortally wounded. I, however, was able to take refuge in a human womb. And it was the experiences that this led to that made me realize that all I've ever wanted was approval. If my real mother couldn't be bothered to care when her son died, would she care if the other son killed? I wanted fame so that she would notcie me. I wanted her to look at "Wanted" posters, and be forced to at least think, "That's my boy." Every partner who was put in danger, who was captured or killed, I've always had that feeling Fujita's death gave me: Is this my fault? Someone I cared for is gone, and I feel responsible. Why do you think I try so hard in school these days? I'm trying to make my mother believe that I'm worthy of her love, so she won't leave me, like all the others have. Even though I know I don't need to, I do. I've never been loved unconditionally before. When you've spent centuries earning love, it's a hard habit to break.

I remember when her husband died. I (and by "I," I mean "Shuichi") was still very young. I instantly knew I had seen this before. Her lover had left her, and his seed would suffer for it. The way she cried and cried for days, it scared me. I wondered if, perhaps, humans could cry themselves to death? I wondered if, perhaps, she would do just that and leave little Shuichi an orphan? It would be better than the treatment I was sure I'd receive. As she cried her final official tears at the sight of her husband being lowered into the ground, I looked at her. She sobbed and hiccupped, and then she stopped. She turned her eyes directly at me. I did my best "cute terrified child in anguish" and braced for the blow to the head my birth mother would have given me. She sniffled and leaned in toward me. And then, she amazed me. She wrapped her arms around me and held me in the same warm, firm way that Fujita used to. She picked me up, looked me in the face, and tried to smile.

"We'll move on, right? You'll be my world now, Shuichi-chan." She kissed me on the head, quite a new experience, and carried me away. That was when I decided to let this woman, Shiori, live. She loved me. She was my mother. I was no longer the brat, the burden, that little annoyance. I was her baby, the love of her life. I wasn't treated like a rash, I was treated like a treasure. So maybe I would never have Fujita, or anyone else who had cared for me ever again. Maybe I would never get Ma's approval. But I had a mother who loved me. And I supposed, when all is said and done, that was all I ever really wanted.