THE WRITING ON THE WALL

CHAPTER TWO

TIME AND TIME AGAIN

Blue was already about a mile down the street when she heard Yusuke and Kuwabara exiting the school. She quickly jumped up into a tree and watched as they passed below her, calling her name. She watched them go, not in the mood for their company.

"Boo." She heard someone whisper quietly in her ear and reacted without thinking. She swung around and aimed a punch for her assailant's face, but the attacker caught her arm and pushed it away, still holding onto her wrist. "Too slow." Hiei watched as she relaxed, knowing it was him. Her shaken grey eyes went from big and round with tiny pupils to the narrow slits of calm apathy that he was used to. She loosened her muscles and let her arm lay limp in his hand.

"Here's five bucks; go buy yourself an ice cream." She dug a couple dollars and change out of her pocket with her free hand and held her open palm towards him. "Take it and go." She put heavy emphasis on the go before shoving the money at him, forcing him to let go of her to grab the money and keep it from falling. She took his awkward moment to jump out of the tree and race into an alley. When he had caught all the money, he growled at her, even if she wasn't there to hear his complaint. He jumped down and began running to where he expected her to be.

He came to a small alley with walls on both sides and a seemingly dead end. He walked into it. The alley was decorated with different symbols and pictures with words and names or phrases, all written in graffiti, all written by Blue. Directly in front of him at the end was the most prominent picture. It was a picture of a wolf with blue fur running across one of the brick lines which was supposed to be the ground, like the Alaskan horizon. All it was missing was an Aurora Borealis, the northern lights. Above it was a particularly detailed version of the word 'blU', Blue's not-so-anonymous name, in blue with a silver outline.

He walked up to it and faced the wall to where the wolf's nose was pointing to his right. It looked like a normal clay brick wall with cement pasted between the bricks for someone who didn't know, but he knew. He pushed the bricks in front of him forward and they slid open like a door. He walked in and shut the door behind him.

He was standing on nothing but thin air laced with deep feelings of sorrow and hate. The lightness it should usually carry was weighed down by angst and pain. Everything was dark but Hiei could see due to the full moon in the sky above him that was slightly covered by a thin grey cloud. Water ran eerily silently below him in small waves and ripples. It was black water that one could easily mistake for ink. Hiei stared off to his left and located the beach. It was difficult to make out since there weren't any people, buildings, or vegetation but only sand stained black to match the water.

He let his sight travel a few hundred miles offshore where he spotted a smooth, black stone sticking out of the surface. The rolling waves crashed against the stone and small black splashes wet it. Hiei began to float over the black water and approached the form that was sitting cross-legged and floating a couple feet above the rock, just out of the reach of the splashes.

As he got closer, he was able to make out Blue's spiky hair and closed eyes. Her long black lashes contrasted greatly with her paper white skin. It was the one thing he could clearly identify and know that she was actually there, the paleness of her skin. She wasn't wearing any clothes; her black attire had disappeared, including her gloves. If they had still been on, Hiei would have never been able to find her. He concentrated on her face as he neared her until he was sitting with his legs crossed right in front of her. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

'Blue? Blue? Come back to me Blue. Talk to me. Blue?' Hiei entered her mind and searched through it with some difficulty. Normally when he went into someone's mind, he found different places where every thought was neatly organized and one place where a couple thoughts were misplaced. When he entered her mind, there were few organized areas, but not more than three. Some were thrown into total chaos and those that were thrown together contained memories she had marked as highly confidential, memories that Hiei preferred not to enter, not to enter because he was afraid of what he would see; but also because he respected her privacy, most of it.

Hiei also knew that she had one spot where she had all her memories of her childhood, memories she had been trying desperately to get back ever since she lost them when she was six, and now she's seventeen, but even those retentions where scattered from random events and missing pieces, sometimes entire spans of months at a time. At six, she lost her memory and ever since, for the past eleven years, she had been trying to find them again. Kuwabara and Yusuke had known her since the day after she had forgotten everything and was starting over again. For what she knew, she could have been their friend forever. Yusuke met her right after the incident, what ever it was, and welcomed her into his home.

Flashback

A young boy with soft black hair and big brown eyes was kicking a rock down the side walk and looking down at his feet when he bumped into a little girl about his age. She had spiky, blue hair and big grey eyes that were looking around distantly, as if she had just woken up to a loud noise. He was going to tell her off for being a clumsy girl and for standing in his way, but was curious when he saw the look of confusion painted strangely on her face. He shut his mouth and blinked twice.

"Hi, I'm Yusuke Urameshi, toughest punk at Sarayashiki elementary." She gazed up at him and studied him carefully as if remembering every curve and color of his face.

"Who am I?" The look of hope on her face diminished when Yusuke told her he had no clue of who she was. She looked sadly at the ground and began to walk away but Yusuke stopped her.

"Hey wait a second, why don't you know who you are? Where do you live? I'll walk you home." She seemed sad again and bit her lip, chewing it and making it bleed. Yusuke saw a pair of sharp fangs in her mouth but didn't say anything. He also noticed her slightly pointed ears poking out of her blue hair. "Are you a fairy? Or a pixie? Where are your wings?"

"Why would I be a pixie?" She cast him an odd glance, wondering about what he was talking about. He shrugged and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You have pointy ears, blue hair, and sharp teeth. All pixies and fairy folk have pointy ears," he grabbed the tip of each of her ears in one hand and tugged them forward, "weird or unnatural hair colors," he ran a hand through her hair and pointed to his black hair which was common for people in Tokyo, "and other cool stuff like fangs, grr, but where are your wings? Every fairy, even angels, has wings. Are you an angel? I don't think so. If you were, you would glow and you're not glowing." She looked a little dejected so he quickly added that maybe she was an angel from heaven that had come down to earth like a guardian angel.

"Sorry, but I'm a vampire. Is that okay?" Yusuke approved of it but still wondered in the back of his mind. A car whizzed by and brought them back to the present. "I'm sorry, but I don't know why I don't know who I am. I don't have a home either, so you can't walk me there."

"Don't be sorry, you can stay in my home until you want. C'mon, I can walk you there at least. I was on my way back anyway." They began to walk down the path. "You know, maybe you could be a vampire. Vampires have weird hair colors and pointy fangs. Besides, who ever heard of a pixie with fangs? That would explain your ears too, and your eyes. I never saw anyone with that color of grey eyes before." She walked a little slower until she stopped. He stopped and looked back at her.

"Am I ugly?" She looked worried, but Yusuke just laughed and grabbed her hand to pull her back into a walk with him.

"No, I never said that." It was getting dark and he wanted to get home. "You're pretty." She looked at his face, inspecting it for deceit or lies, but found only the truth. She blushed and her milk white cheeks turned rosy pink. They had been walking for a few minutes when Yusuke spoke up. "I'm going to call you Blue since you have blue hair. I think it fits you well." He smiled proudly and they kept walking.

End Flashback

That's how Blue and Yusuke had said it happened. Hiei and Kurama had met her five years ago when they became a part of the spirit detectives. They knew about her secret and were comfortable with it. That was the first memory she had that Hiei had trod through carefully. He continued searching through the clutter, calling out to her with no answer. He began to worry that she was in one of her hidden memory files, the ones Hiei never went into. He began to panic, knowing that she could stay in those files for days at a time. He also knew she could fatally injure herself in them by reliving them over and over again until she actually believed what was happening and forgot that she had lived through and experience, only to have it kill her.

'For a change, I was not reminiscing Hiei, but meditating. Come back to Mors.' Hiei calmed down when he understood her. The ocean with the black sand and water and the rock in the middle was the place that she called Mors, the place just beyond the brick wall. Blue, of course, was able to access Mors just by thinking about it. The brick wall was the only way in for the people who she allowed in. Some strangers on the street could bulldozer the wall open and find nothing but the other side of the building, while all Hiei had to do was push a little.

Hiei left her mind and opened his eyes to find her grey ones staring back at him unmoving. "What am I thinking Hiei? I don't know what is reality and what is a dream anymore. They're all just blended together and I can't tell them apart. I need to sort them out, but I don't know where to start. I might be here for a week or so. Tell the others where I am please." Hiei's eyes widened and he reached out his hand to grab her arm, trying to stop her.

"No don't!" But she had already closed her eyes and was in her own world. Hiei went back into her mind and did his best to find her before she disappeared, but she already escaped to a nightmare in one of her concealed places. Hiei growled but, once again, she wasn't there to hear him. He left her mind and entered Mors, opening his eyes to find her ghostly figure in the exact same position it had been in earlier when he arrived, only his body had been pushed all the way back to the door and he couldn't get any closer to her. She had pushed him away both mentally and physically.

Hiei was irked but only 'hn'-ed and pushed on seemingly nothing, but it pushed open like cutting butter. He left Mors, slamming the door shut, and ran to find the other two who were probably still searching for her. He found them in the park and explained the situation to them before running off to be by himself. Yusuke and Kuwabara were so dumbfounded, they didn't even feel like going to the arcade, but walked back to Kuwabara's house instead.

"Why do you think she's so upset over that stupid Akashi? It's not like she can't kick his ass if she wanted to. I mean, sure, she would be suspended or maybe expelled for harming a teacher, but what if he started it by physically hurting her? Couldn't that be called self-defense against an abusive teacher?" Kuwabara was speaking loudly since there was no one else on the street or anywhere near. They were all still in school.

"I don't think she's pissed off at Akashi, but I do think Akashi didn't help anything anywhere along the line. He probably brought back some bad memory. You know how she is. You have to remember Kuwabara; that pissed-off, blue-haired, contortionist, short tempered, pointy-toothed, devilish, half-pint, female vampire-for-a-friend is an amnesiac. She doesn't remember anything about her past." Yusuke looked glumly ahead of them on the sidewalk where he first met the strange lost girl. Kuwabara smirked at the names Yusuke had called Blue.

"Man Yusuke, if she had heard you call her short-tempered, devilish, and a half-pint, she would have gutted you right here on the side of the street." They reached Kuwabara's house and Yusuke left him there with Shizoru, waving half-heartedly as he walked away. Once again, he passed the spot next to the tree where they had first met.

He stopped to remember was it was like for him, trying to understand how it would feel like not to have known what happened to you the first six years of your life. She didn't even know her name. He wondered how she happened to get to Tokyo, maybe she had already lived there. Maybe she did have a family somewhere that was looking for her. Maybe she did have a home with a mom, a dad, siblings and pets that loved her and friends that were worried about her. Or maybe she had been abandoned. Maybe she didn't have a family because they were all killed off and someone found her, tried to help her, but left her there by herself when they realized her memory loss.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he walked on by. He wasn't worried about her for the time being. He knew Hiei wouldn't let her do anything too drastic. Yusuke reminisced on how close the two were even if they denied it, neither admitted to being close to anyone. Everyone was only an acquaintance and nothing more. Friendships were for the decrepit, needing someone to lean on and support them, and tears were a thing of the weak, requiring some way of release because they were not strong enough to hold it in. That's why they clicked so fast, like yin and yang, they were inseparable, but would never admit they had feelings for each other besides hate.

Sunset came quickly just as Yusuke reached his doorstep. Kurama had slipped a note under his door crack while he was gone. School had let out long ago. He read it slowly and sighed again as he shut the door and walked upstairs to his bedroom. His mother was out at some pub with her drinking buddies. He flopped down on his bed and read the note again.

Hello Yusuke. When you saw Mr. Akashi mistreat Blue, I am sure you felt feelings of animosity and concern for our teacher and friend, respectively. I request that you not worry about Blue, since it is often that she is troubled and likely that she will keep to herself for more than I know you see fit. Do not stress, she will be fine as always. Also, our homework is exercise thirty-six in the workbook on page twenty-four. Get to sleep early and be well-rested for school tomorrow; please remember to come. –Kurama

Yusuke crumpled the paper up and tossed it in the trash bin. Kurama worried about everything too much. For him, everything was all way overrated. Yusuke took his socks off and balled one up, stuffing it inside the other. He tossed it across the room and hit the light switch, successfully turning it off.