Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho, I'm just a poor college student with a stupid head on too-broad shoulders….
Chapter 3: Time for Trouble
…Bri…
After my Watercolor class, I walked toward the one class that Kurama and I had in common: Mathematics. I really didn't like math. Especially after having my freshman math teacher after my blood. It didn't make a great impression on the subject. Everyone else's greatest nightmare was my past reality.
We sat together near the front of the room. Our teacher always smiled and sighed when she saw the two of us together. She said to me once that she'd never seen a more "adorable" couple. I knew she was right about Kurama, but was I so adorable too? I shook my head at the thought. Kurama toyed around with his mechanical pencil, waiting for class to start. I was doodling him. Again.
I remember having a notebook after our time in the Chronodom, one that I'd filled with sketches and doodles of Kurama. I still had it, buried under a mass of last year's papers and notebooks. I never asked then if I could draw him. I still hadn't asked him. It seemed almost natural to him now that I wouldn't.
At least, that's what I hoped.
It was only on the very rare occasion that I even raised my Dream energy enough to sense what people were feeling anymore. I hadn't ever had the occasion come to mind to raise myself enough to listen in on their thoughts. It just wasn't something I wanted to do. We sat through the boring class, taking notes.
"I'll see you at home," I said, giving Kurama a quick kiss on the cheek. "See if I can't get any farther on my Education project. Okay?"
"All right," Kurama said. He captured my lips in a chaste kiss before turning away to go to biology.
I caught a bullet train back to Nemoi. The sleepy little town was still sleepy. It hadn't changed at all in the three years I'd been there. I took the trolley at a gentle jog and rode it all the way to the little green house. The cherry tree in the front yard was fruiting, just like Kurama's on the edge of the Makai.
Kaasan was supposed to be home, so I found it rather unusual that I didn't hear her singing softly about the kitchen. She almost always had something ready for me to eat when I got back. I snorted. Like Tsuki had ever done that for me. My real mother was never a very kind person toward me, even after I met her again. Even my adoptive mom was a little weird around me. I guess because I was always cold toward her.
I decided to send her a letter. Maybe she'd see that I'd changed. A smile touched my lips as I descended the stairs. It faded away very quickly.
"Hello, Bridget. It's been a long time."
My eyes narrowed at the slight woman before me. I knew her well. Koko had been wrong about her leaving. I waited for her to say something. I didn't know what was happening until everything went black.
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…Kurama…
"Class, today we will look at exploitation," said the soft-spoken professor. She had this thing for birds that I never could quite understand. I'd told Bri that she had better get used to bird-watching if she was going to take this class. It was a requirement to have a science course, after all.
"There are several types of exploitation," she explained. "First, let's look at the word itself. In the human realm, what does it usually mean?"
"That someone's takin' advantage of you," said one of the girls, sneaking a glance at a guy at the opposite end of the room. It was common knowledge that said boy had cheated on the girl. I sighed inwardly.
"Yes, exactly," said the teacher. "Now, in the animal world, this exploitation is very similar. There are types, as I said before. Predatory, herbivory, pathogenic, and parasitic are some examples. What do you think I mean when I say predatory exploitation?"
"That the exploited are the prey of the predators who exploit them, eat them, basically," I said, recalling from my reading before class.
"Precisely, thank you, Shuichi. Now, we'll look into some examples here."
She moved a transparency of a black bird with speckles onto the screen, with arrows pointing out a cycle between the bird and some sort of insect. The bird was a European Starling, who had a parasite called a spiny-backed isopod eggs in its stomach lining.
From its feces came the eggs. Some hatch, but others are eaten by the cannibalistic isopod adults, which therefore are eaten by starlings.
I smirked inwardly as she moved on to foxes and their diet. I'd ace this test if she used this example. Of course, I usually aced it anyway, but that was beside the point…
"Foxes usually exploit fish as their main food source. Can anyone tell me a favorite of some fox species?"
"Rainbow trout," I said, among some calls of "herrings". I was reminded of one of Bri's favorite movies, something about a grail and attempting to chop down rather large trees with herrings…
The class soon ended with a high note about ten minutes early. I smirked mentally, knowing that Bri had finally figured out that Kaasan had gone out of town. It was a slim chance, but maybe we could get some of the wedding plans done without maternal interference. Kaasan was wonderful, but sometimes she just didn't understand that Bri and I wanted a small wedding. She seemed to want to invite everyone and their second cousins twice removed…
Kaasan had been asked out of town by her boyfriend, whom she'd put off marrying for quite a while longer than I expected. I had expected her to marry him four years ago, in the fall. But she hadn't done so. I wondered sometimes why that was, but I just brushed it off. I needed to get my own wedding done before worrying about Kaasan's second marriage to him. I barely knew the man.
I arrived home to find the door open, which was strange. Bri never left the door open. It was just something she didn't do. With a sinking feeling, I wondered if Kaasan had decided to come back to town early. I closed the door behind me.
"Bri?" I called. "Kaasan, are you home?"
When no one answered, I blinked in alarm. Neither of them wouldn't answer me and Bri most certainly would not leave for anywhere without me. Not unless it was an emergency. I knew she didn't have any more classes today, she wouldn't have left campus if she had.
"Bri!" I called again. No answer. I peeked into the kitchen. No Bri. No Kaasan. I looked into the other upper-level rooms, including my mother's. Empty. I descended the steps to the rooms that Koko, Bri, and I slept in. Bri's bedroom door was left ajar, something that alarmed me even more.
I stepped into the room. No one was there, but I knew someone had been. I sniffed at the air, trying to summon up Youko's powerful nose. Bri had been here, but so had someone else. Someone who smelled just like Koko and Bri put together, and some foreign odors mixed in with that. I smelled cat demon more strongly than ever. I smelled something else, though, something that filled my chest with dread.
I searched the room for something, anything that could tell me what had happened to my Bri. I found it in the form of a note, written hastily and with a crude hand. As soon as my eyes fell on the name, I opened a portal and raced to Koenma's office.
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"She sent her back in time? But to where? To when?"
"I don't know, Yusuke," I sighed, trying to bring together my thoughts. "That's just what the note says."
"Well, read it, already!" Koko snapped. She turned out to be much different from the Keiko Sawaguchi that Bri had spoken so fondly of, and had insisted on coming when Keiko Yukimura told her where I was.
Koenma sighed and picked up the note once again in his tiny, toddler hands. He handed it to me, a pleading in his large brown eyes.
I read aloud.
She's gone at last. I don't care where, I don't care when. I opened up a portal and shoved her through it. You want her back? Find me and make me tell you how to find her again.
Tsuki Sawaguchi
"That's it? How do you know she went back through time and Tsuki didn't just send her to the Makai or Spirit World somewhere?" Koko asked, glaring at me.
"You don't understand the powers of a cat demon if you don't know," Hiei said coldly, stepping out of the shadows for once. "Stupid girl."
"Shut it, Snowball, I'm not in the mood for your imbecilic attitude! I am quarter cat demon, if you don't recall." Koko snapped. When it came to Bri, Koko was perhaps more protective and worrisome than I was.
"It's simple," Koenma said. "Cats guard time. Being half-demon, I've no doubt her mother taught her how to open a time portal."
"That doesn't explain why you know it's a time portal and not something else!" Koko shouted again.
"Baka onna," Hiei smirked.
"Shut it!" Koko snapped, but without some of her previous venom.
"That will be enough," I said. "I know it was a time portal because I know what they smell like. The Chronodom smells exactly like it. I was in it for a year, remember?"
Koko pressed her lips into a thin line, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. "Then how are we supposed to find Bri?"
"First, we've got to find Tsuki. Which will prove difficult, because she left by time portal herself soon after. She could be anywhere in the past."
Koko rolled her eyes. "Then take me home, baka. I'll find her."
"You know how?" I asked.
"Duh. I'm quarter cat myself! I know my own mother's signature! I can find her."
"Then lead the way, onna," Hiei said. She turned and glared at him.
"There's no way you're coming with me, Snowball!"
His eyes narrowed substantially at her chosen nickname for him. It was a widely known fact that Hiei could not resist the charms of sweet snow, or ice cream, as it is more commonly called.
"I'm afraid we all must follow, Koko," I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "I sensed the residual spirit power that Tsuki left behind. She has found herself into the lower A class." Koko sighed and nodded.
"Fine. But if Snowball gets in my way, I'm kicking his ass back here again."
I chuckled softly. Bri had never mentioned what a sharp tongue Koko had. I wasn't too worried about Bri, just so long as she was still on Earth somewhere. She had enough strength in her to defeat a Tyrannosaur if she needed to, and human weapons were no match for her. If anything, she'd probably cause an outbreak of peace.
I just hoped that she didn't alter time.
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Not much for me to say here… Does anyone think Koko is a little harsh on Snowball (Hiei)?
Suntiger: Time to get reorganized and back on track! Get Varia's story going!
Kuramafan: Will do!
