A/N: Hi, everyone. (dodges projectiles) I know, it's inexcusable. But I started college this year, which was a major upheaval in my life and unfortunately doesn't leave me much free time. But I finally found time at the computer, and this chapter flew out of my fingers. (grins) So enjoy—this chapter contains a Big Moment.
Review Responses:
Yami no Kokoro: Thanks! I liked the supermarket scene, too. You'll hopefully find out what has the kid so upset in this chapter, but you'll have to wait on Hiei's part in it. (grins) Hope you like it.
Lady-Videl: Sorry for the wait, lol. This one took me a while, too. Hiei is a loner, but hopefully he'll be OK in the end. Thanks for reviewing!
Hanzo Hattori: Thanks, that means a lot. I really am trying not to fall into too many Hiei-Kurama cliché pits with this story. I'm glad you think it's working. I hope you enjoy this one.
SkyFireDragon13: It was a bit of a wait, wasn't it? But I told you over and over that I wouldn't just abandon it…so there. I hope you like this one; we didn't discuss it at all before I just sat down and started writing, so…surprise! Lol.
RainyDayz et al: (bows with pleas for forgiveness) Thank you for reminding me I needed to move my butt. I think it's been like half a year since I worked on this story. I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Maybe you'll find out if your predictions were right—and thanks for not telling the other reviewers, lol, (grins) Enjoy; you've waited long enough!
Cracks in the Mask
Ch. 5—someone who should have been born is gone
Youko sat on a moss-covered rock, his face resting in his hands. The stars were cold that night, and although he hardly considered it a necessity, he appreciated the crackling warmth of the fire Elani had insisted upon making.
Elani herself, along with Kazu and Kuronue, was asleep in the fortuitously-placed cave in the side of the cliff whose wall they had followed all day. In fact, finding the cave had been what convinced them to stop and make camp; although there was no wind, the cold had bitten into them mercilessly since sunset, and no one looked forward to leaving the protection of the cave for his watch shift that night.
Youko had taken first watch, although Kuronue had offered. It would have been a lie to say that the cold didn't bother him, but he was more than capable of withstanding such a small-scale discomfort. He leaned back, splaying his hands behind him, and looked up idly at the treetops.
A soft rustle of grass made him freeze, instantly alert, but he relaxed as his eyes focused on the dark shape a few feet away who was apparently shifting to a more comfortable position. Youko knew for a fact that Hiei's claims that he didn't mind the cold were absolute bull (look at his genetic makeup; Hiei himself was the one who always said, often self-deprecatingly, that you couldn't argue with biology), but the fire demon's dislike of enclosed spaces seemed to outweigh his disdain for chill weather, and he had chosen to sleep outside next to the fire, silent company for whoever was standing guard. Like hell I'm going to stand, Youko added to himself, now absently poking the fire with a stick.
The sound of approaching footsteps, real this time, jerked Youko out of his thoughts, and he tensed for an attack with an involuntary warning growl.
"Oh, shut up," Elani said moodily as she made her way up from the cave. She swerved at the last minute to avoid stepping on Hiei, and a rock caught her heel, causing her to stumble and curse loudly. She kicked the rock irritably, and it clattered down the stone path to the cave's opening.
"The echo is rather strong here," Youko remarked. "Are you finished, or did you want to make a bit more noise?"
Elani suggested that he go do something unpleasant to himself, then sat down beside him on the rock, grimacing when the wet moss soaked the seat of her pants. "Go to bed. I'll take the next couple of hours."
Sleep sounded good, but Youko somehow couldn't muster the desire to move, and Elani didn't ask again. They sat in silence until Hiei moved in his sleep again.
"He must be dreaming," Elani remarked. "If I'd stepped on him, he might have torched me to a crisp in his sleep." She paused. "Although that actually doesn't sound too unattractive right now. I wonder if he's capable."
Youko reacted to this with a slightly troubled expression, and glanced down at the fire. When he looked back up, it was to find Elani's eyes squarely meeting his.
"He's been with us for a few years now," she said, not accusatorially, but with a firmness that told him this conversation was not going to just go away. He nodded and found himself gazing into the fire again.
"How much longer, do you think?" she asked mildly.
He looked at her sharply, then dropped his gaze stubbornly to his hands. "I need more time."
She nodded slowly, still looking at him. "More time."
"Yes," he growled, getting defensive. "I seem to remember telling you that it would take time."
She said nothing in reply to this, but merely turned her head to look into the fire along with him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to Youko that he was sitting downwind of the flame, allowing the smell of woodsmoke to seep into his clothes and hair. He made a vague mental note to remember to wash before the next raid. "You think he's a liability?" he asked suddenly. "His presence endangers the group, is that what you're trying to tell me?"
Elani waved a hand impatiently. "You know I like him well enough, and Kazu took to him the second he saw him. Kuronue…well, I don't really think he cares one way or the other, but you know how he is. He's not a liability; we'd all probably be just as happy if he stayed longer. That wasn't my point. It's you I'm wondering about."
Youko bristled. "And what do you mean by that?"
Elani was silent for a moment, then said, simply, "I'm worried."
Youko laughed harshly.
Elani's eyes narrowed slightly in irritation. "I'm worried that you're going—"
Youko stood furiously. "Going soft?" he hissed, his eyes glinting dangerously.
"Going to end up hurting yourself," Elani finished calmly.
This statement was so uncharacteristic of the woman sitting before him that Youko almost could not think how to respond. He looked down at her blankly for several seconds as she poked the fire, trying unsuccessfully to raise the flames.
"Curse it, Elani," a new voice complained from just outside the cave, "You've let it burn down to embers and it's still hours till sunup—" Kazu stopped when he saw Youko. "What are you still doing out here?"
Elani stood, abandoning the fire, and walked over to meet Kazu. "Where's Kuronue? Didn't he want to go first?"
Kazu rolled his eyes. "Said he'd cut my head off with that gods-cursed sickle if I bothered him again. Lazy bastard."
"You should feel honored, that's the most he's said in about two days."
The others' conversation faded into meaningless background noise as Youko stood, still staring into the last, rather pathetic embers of their fire. A few feet away, Hiei stirred and raised himself up onto his elbow, blinking sleep from his eyes.
"And why can't he take a watch?" Kazu demanded, pointing at him.
"Oh, but then we'd miss finding out if Kuronue really does slice you in two when you wake him for his shift," Elani answered.
"Hold on a—"
Hiei looked blankly at Youko. "What's going on?"
Youko tore his gaze from the fire and looked Hiei in the face for a few seconds. Then he sighed. "I'm going to sleep," he said bluntly, and strode back toward the cave.
…………………………
Kurama opened his eyes a slit and closed them again. It was just as well he had woken up when he did; the uneasiness brought about by his and Elani's conversation that night had left him tense, and back in the cave he and Kuronue had gotten into quite a nasty argument over a triviality that Kurama now only vaguely remembered. He thought, with a certain slight pang he hadn't felt in a long time, that he would rather not relive that.
He rolled onto his stomach and growled into his pillow. He was doing the boy's work for him now. The dream had come naturally, requiring no outside interference, and he had already found a way to torture himself about it. Two ways, he thought with a flinch, thinking about Hiei's still form by the fire.
He kicked his blankets, suddenly very angry. Hiei, Shiori, Kuronue…everything hurt to touch. He almost wished the boy were here, so that he could snarl at him that what he was doing was completely pointless. As if he needed these reminders that he'd royally screwed up every relationship he'd ever had. And what was that incessant tapping noise?
Kurama jerked his head out of the blankets irritably and saw Botan hovering outside his window, knocking determinedly on the glass. When she saw him look at her, she smiled in apparent relief and beckoned to him enthusiastically. Kurama sighed and pulled himself out of bed.
He opened the window after a few seconds of fiddling with the latch, and she zoomed inside and hopped off her oar to stand in front of him. "Thank goodness, you weren't moving; I was getting a little worried. Where were you all yesterday; none of us could find you…"
She leaned in anxiously, and he felt his irritation flare up again.
"I split my head open at the supermarket," he replied shortly, feeling a sort of spiteful satisfaction at the way she recoiled at his tone.
"…Oh," she said, clearly at a loss. "Well…where's Hiei? I can't find him either…"
The mention of Hiei, inexplicably, made him angrier. "I'd guess he's in that damned tree, right where he always is, Botan," he snapped. "Sorry if I can't be sure, but we're not actually fused at the hip like you all seem to think."
He watched her blink in surprise and hurt, and immediately felt ashamed of himself. "Sorry," he said, as gently as he could with his hands still shaking from frustration. "I didn't sleep well. Is Hiei in the tree?"
"No," she said, still a little defensive. "I looked in all of them to make sure, but he's nowhere near the house."
"He may have gone to get food," Kurama suggested. "He refuses to eat with me, so…"
"I suppose," she said doubtfully, then shook her head. "There's no time; we'll just have to talk without him. The reason I came was to tell you that we're all meeting up at Yusuke's house to discuss what Koenma calls a dimensional anomaly and Yusuke calls 'that stupid flower kid.' We had better hurry; I got on to Yusuke yesterday about always being late…"
She jumped back onto her oar and flew back outside, hovering over the house to wait for him. Kurama dressed hurriedly and ran down the stairs, his mind racing. "Flower kid?" "Dimensional anomaly?" His heart pounded. Did they know what he was? Did they know why he was doing all this?
His last thought as he closed the screen door behind him and chased Botan's shadow at a run, was that some part of him hoped not.
……………………………
"They'll all be here by now," Botan said as she and Kurama made their way up the Urameshis' front walk. She knocked, and was rewarded with a slightly slurred shout of "It's open!" She looked at Kurama, who shrugged, and they stepped through the door to find Yusuke's mother sprawled out on a couch in front of the television, loosely clutching a glass of some ambiguous alcoholic beverage.
Atsuko smiled blearily at them. "More of you? I've seen you before," she added to Botan, who beamed back. "You're here to see Yusuke, right? The rest are all upstairs. Never knew he was so popular, I'm starting to think he's joined a gang or something…only the two of you don't exactly look like street muscle, so…what, then? Embezzlement?"
Sensing that Botan might start babbling in an effort to reassure Atsuko, Kurama smiled politely at the woman. "Thank you, we'll show ourselves up."
Atsuko sent them off with a wave and returned to her soap opera. Kurama and Botan started up the stairs to Yusuke's room. Kurama noticed the complete lack of wall decoration and wondered if Atsuko even had any school pictures of Yusuke. Just as it dawned on him that "school pictures" implied "school attendance"—
Wumph. "DAMMIT!"
Kurama blinked, attempting to process this. Botan said, "Guess this is the place," and opened the door, which was rather difficult as Kuwabara's unconscious form was slumped against the other side. Kurama stepped over him into the room and glanced at Yusuke, who was crouching on the bed with an expression of mingled surprise and alarm.
"Uh. Guess no more rocket launcher games," he said blankly, looking up at Kurama. "We were wondering when you'd get here."
"Sorry it took so long, Kurama's a heavy slee—what on earth?" Botan exclaimed as she stepped into the room and nearly fell flat on her face tripping over Kuwabara, who moaned and twitched.
"Looks like he's regaining consciousness," commented Koenma, who was sitting against the far wall, well out of the way of any stray human projectiles.
"I thought for sure he'd go right through the door…" Yusuke mused. "Hey, Botan! I just realized! You're late! I wasn't late!"
"It's your own house, Yusuke. You never left in the first place."
"Yeah, so technically I was here first. Bunch of slackers."
"Where's Hiei?" Koenma asked Kurama as Botan attempted to revive Kuwabara.
Kurama shrugged. "We couldn't find him this morning. You know Hiei; there's no telling where he went."
Koenma rolled his eyes in agreement. "Well, sit down. We should probably go ahead and get started."
"In case the kid explodes today and a black hole sucks up the world," Yusuke added. "You guys want some nachos? I never got to finish dinner last night."
"In case…what?" Kurama asked, completely bewildered. Explodes? What on earth did they talk about without me? "The boy…you mean…do you know who he is?"
"It's more like what we think he is, actually," Koenma said.
"There's a dimensional anomaly—sort of a vortex spot—somewhere in the city, constantly on the move," said Botan.
"And you think that the boy…is this…anomaly?" said Kurama, his mind racing. The boy flickering as he touched the cherry blossom tree, seeming to blink in and out of reality…like a fuzzy television screen…
"That's the conclusion we came to last night," Koenma said. "I've modified the theory a little since then."
"How do you mean?" Botan asked as Kuwabara finally opened his eyes and looked blearily around the room, his mouth slightly open.
Koenma was silent for a few moments. Then he said, to Kurama, "Are you familiar with the branch of magic known as necromancy?"
Kurama looked at him quickly, taken by surprise. "Well…yes, I know what it is. I don't know how to do it, if that's what you're asking."
"Necro…" Yusuke said slowly. "Isn't that like where you screw around with dead people?"
"Or at least their spirits," Koenma answered. "If I'm right, and I think I am, it's what's happening with your acquaintance, Kurama. His spirit was called back from Reikai to perform a service to the one who called him."
"So he's just a slave?" asked Kurama, a bit unsettled by this thought. "He has no choice but to do what he's told?"
"It's more complicated than that," Koenma replied. "To an extent, the necromancer has control over the summoned spirit. But the ghost of a sentient creature, such as a human, is hard to control against its will and will resist an order it finds disagreeable. You should know that," he added dryly, looking over at Yusuke, who grinned.
"It takes much less energy on the part of the necromancer to direct a spirit who shares his goals," Koenma continued. "From what I've been told about this boy, Kurama, he seems pretty passionate about carrying out his orders. Know of any humans who want you dead?"
"I don't know this boy," Kurama said emphatically. "I have no idea how he knows me. And even though every demon in Makai would probably cut off his hand to see me dead, I can't think of any human who would want to kill me."
There were a few moments of perplexed silence.
"You know," said Kuwabara, who had been listening quietly, "if Koenma's right about this necro thing, it seems like maybe we should stop looking for the kid for a while and start worrying about who summoned him."
Koenma looked at Kuwabara in surprise and then nodded. "He's got a point."
"Must be the concussion," Yusuke commented.
"Unfortunately, we can't ignore the kid completely." Koenma looked around at them. "If he's a displaced spirit, he's still quite an unstable dimensional imbalance. Summonings, especially complex ones like humans, don't last forever—it takes a powerful necromancer to keep them grounded in the human world for over a week. When that's over, or when the spirit's task has been completed, the dimension will right itself, crushing the spirit out of existence and taking any soul touching it along for the ride."
Kurama tried to take all this in. "Does he know he's going to…well, die? No matter what?"
Koenma nodded. "Most likely. He'll know he has nothing to lose."
Yusuke looked around the room, nonplussed. "So what exactly have we learned here? Don't touch ghosts?"
"We've learned that he…well, that he doesn't have much time left," said Botan, a little uncomfortably. "So…maybe if we just avoid him for the next week or two…"
"Yeah," said Kuwabara darkly. "Except if he doesn't find us before his number comes up he might take some random person with him to oblivion just to spite us."
"The one thing we know for sure," said Koenma, "is that it's not a random person he wants to take. It's Kurama. If we keep an eye on Kurama, the boy will come to us. It will involve some figuring out, but one of us needs to be with him at all times in case the spirit shows up again. That way, Kurama can keep him talking while the scout sounds the alarm to the rest of us. Yusuke, I think you should take the first—"
"No."
Everyone looked around, surprised. Kurama sat on Yusuke's desk chair with his fists clenched in his lap.
"No, what?" Kuwabara asked.
"I don't want you following me around." Kurama's tone was even.
"Why on earth not?" Botan asked. "We're only trying to help."
Kurama tensed in anger. "One of you could get hurt," he muttered.
"Oh…" Botan said uncertainly, then brightened. "You don't need to worry about that. It's our job, isn't it? Getting hurt is part of the risk. It's not a problem."
Yusuke had been looking at Kurama shrewdly since he'd first spoken. "Except that's not the real problem in the first place, is it?"
Kurama narrowed his eyes at him.
Kuwabara said, "I bet he wants to fight by himself. I'd want to if it were me. Maybe he feels like we're babysitting him or something."
Koenma looked disparagingly at Kurama. "What part of 'sound the alarm' didn't you understand?"
"Maybe," said Yusuke. "But I think the real reason you don't want us there is that you don't want the kid talking to us. He's been screwing around in your head, right? I'd bet money he knows something you don't want us to find out."
Kurama stood, kicking over the chair. "If we're done," he said coldly.
"This is not exactly negotiable, Kurama," Koenma said, with the air of someone who knows he's being a bastard but is under too much pressure to care. "You're our only lead here. I can't just let you walk out. I'll arrest you if I have to."
Kurama stared coolly at Koenma, who suddenly wondered with a chill how many generations of his ancestors had said the same thing, and walked out the door, shutting it behind him.
Kuwabara and Botan stared after him with their mouths slightly open. Koenma glanced at Yusuke.
"Man…" Yusuke said uncomfortably, answering what Koenma had asked with his eyes. "Arrest Kurama?"
They looked at each other for a few more seconds, then Koenma deflated. "I know," he said wearily. "Never mind. Damn it. What are we going to do?"
Botan stood wordlessly and left the room.
The others stared after her. "What was that about?" Kuwabara said blankly, rubbing the bruise on his forehead.
………………….
Botan strode purposefully down the street, keeping a good distance between herself and Kurama. She was sure he knew he was being followed; she saw him glance several times at narrow alleyways and large crowds where he might hide himself.
Let him try to lose me, she thought grimly. I don't give a flip if he's the Thief Lord. He can't fly.
They passed Kurama's house, and Botan noted with satisfaction that he seemed to have decided to simply let her be. If he thought he could convince her to let him go off and get himself killed just by being a bi—a rear end, she corrected herself—he had another think coming.
They were walking through a field of flowers. Botan wasn't sure she had ever been here. Leave it to Kurama to find a meadow in the middle of a subdivision, she thought. He halted suddenly, and Botan quickly ducked behind a bush on the meadow's edge.
Botan's eyes widened. A boy with rust-red hair and piercing green eyes was walking through the flowers toward the center of the meadow, where Kurama waited, motionless…
………………………
The boy stopped a few feet away from Kurama and regarded him with his usual disdain. "You're here again? Are you going to ask the flowers to comfort you?"
Kurama was past his usual calm analysis of the enemy. He strode up to the boy and bent his head slightly to look him in the face. "You are going to die," he said in a low, cold voice. "You can decide if it's going to be in a few days or right now. I am going to ask you this once. Who. The hell. Are you?"
The boy glared up at Kurama. "You can't kill me and you know it," he said, his fists shaking. "And you know exactly who I am."
Kurama shook his head wildly in disbelief. He couldn't take this any more. He looked murderously at the boy. "You invaded my dreams. You made me afraid for my mother's life. You damn near drove me insane in the middle of a supermarket. I have never seen you before in my life."
The boy's hands fell limply to his sides, and his eyes became blank green pools. "Your mother," he said emotionlessly. "Not your mother."
Kurama stared at the boy, suddenly uncertain. A cold horror that he couldn't quite explain was growing inside him.
"You tricked her," the boy said, still seemingly detached. "You tricked her your whole life. You stole her. You stole her, Shuichi. You stole me. You stole Shuichi."
The boy's head dropped, as if he might faint, and he flickered twice, three times, and Kurama looked at him and knew.
"Shuichi?" he breathed.
………………………..
For Botan, the world stopped.
She felt as though the earth had simply decided not to spin any longer, and had halted on its axis so suddenly that now she was the one who was spinning. She clutched her head in her hands, to stop it, and sank to her knees in the flowers.
Please, no… Oh, God, please…
…………………………
Shuichi looked up at him with green eyes, his green eyes, and then turned slowly and walked away from him toward the edge of the field. For what must have been five full minutes, Kurama stood motionless, his face still.
He then knelt in the flowers and threw up.
When the nausea passed, he stood again and quietly made his way home.
……………………………..
Botan sat behind the bush with her face buried in her knees, rocking slightly and crying, not noticing or caring when the sun finally disappeared completely, and night fell.
……………………………….
A/N: I hope you liked it! Did I handle that last scene all right? Review with comments/suggestions!