Dachi Part 4- My soul is signed, WOW, as I follow my fighting
Friday proved to be very uneventful for Yusuke and Kuwabara which could have been a good thing considering what they had to do that weekend. For Yusuke and Keiko, however, things seemed to be heating up faster than anyone had anticipated. All day Keiko would sneak Yusuke off into a convenient corner or storage closet or wherever else private and most could guess what they were doing. Every moment of free time the two had seemed to be consumed by expressing their feelings for each other in a physical way. In fact, whenever Yusuke would try to approach Kuwabara while changing classes or during breaks Keiko was always there to drag him off somewhere. An unfortunate coincidence if anything.
When the afternoon finally came around Kuwabara was by himself waiting near the school gate. Yusuke had yet to show up though he'd made an appearance during P.E. minutes earlier. Hiei was most likely being Hiei and was nearby but not quite ready to reveal himself. Kurama probably had something to attend to before he'd be able to walk over and meet the others. So that left Kuwabara to stand and wait.
He sighed to himself feeling listless with nothing to do and no one to talk to. 'Waiting sucks,' he thought to himself. 'I feel like I should have brought a GameGirl or something.' His eyes scanned the school grounds hoping to spot some sign of life so as not to feel so alone. Seeing no sign of anyone he sighed again.
'I understand what's taking Hiei and Kurama so long, but where the hell is Yusuke?' He crossed his arms across his chest. 'Bet he stopped for food or something. The idiot's always hungry!' Kuwabara smirked to himself. That was just like Yusuke to make him wait for the sake of food, but he didn't mind in the least. It was a part of his charm.
His smirk widened as he heard the telltale signs of his best friend and idiot coming over. 'There's the little bastard and I'll bet he's got an ass-load of fo..' His thoughts were cut short when he fully took in his friend's appearance. Yusuke was walking towards him, not a hint of food in sight, and grinning. The only thing more uncanny then the lack of snacks was the addition of a gleeful Keiko, hanging on his arm.
The smirk that the orange haired boy had once worn evaporated as he waved in greeting. Yusuke saluted back to him and Keiko merely looked in his direction.
"Hey Kuwa, sorry I'm late." He didn't appear all that apologetic. Normally that wouldn't have been a big deal, but today it just rubbed Kuwabara the wrong way. Maybe it was the fact that every few moments the pair would burst out into a stream of giggles at some secret joke.
'Maybe it's because suddenly I don't mean anything to him at all.' He blinked at that thought. Why on earth would he think that? 'It's true! He completely ignores me when she's around especially since they started snogging all the time!' He tried his best to restrain these caustic thoughts, but somehow he couldn't find them to be totally untrue. 'He is paying less attention then normal, but wouldn't he be acting the same if it were me in her place?' He reddened slightly as he realized just what being her place would mean. 'No, I told him myself that he wouldn't have any time for me now. I should spend less time whining and more time enjoying his company.' That thought sounded vaguely familiar...
"Kuwabara! Yo!"
Kuwabara blinked his eyes several times to refocus on the pair before him. "Uh, what?"
"I've been calling you for a while now," Yusuke explained smirking.
Kuwabara scratched at the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh. Sorry 'bout that."
Yusuke snorted. "Don't worry 'bout it. Even you daydream, right?"
He was about to reply when he heard something that made his mouth snap shut.
"Probably not about a girl, the fag." He barely heard it, but he knew for a fact that it was said and who said it. Keiko wasn't looking at him and her mouth was hidden in her hand as though she was about to sneeze, but he knew she'd said it. Now he was stuck between replying and keeping his mouth shut. Under normal circumstances he would've immediately said something to either counter the accusation or put the person in their place. However, this wasn't just any person. It was Yusuke's girl friend and an all around beloved person to boot. If he were to speak now it might cause him to see less of his friend then he did now. What's worse is that he doubted anyone would believe him with her being such an upstanding person after all.
The boy was saved the trouble of having to think more when Kurama ran up to the gates looking slightly flushed.
"Hello everyone. Sorry I'm late." As soon as he'd spoken Hiei seemingly popped out of nowhere and planted himself next to the red haired boy. He said nothing but looked at each person or demon present as his greeting.
Once all manner of greetings were exchanged between all those present and the couple had shared their 'farewell snog', the four boys were on their way to demon world. Yusuke had made sure to brief them all on what they'd be up against, it being a pesky group of demon thieves. Koenma had said that they weren't the smartest thieves around, but what they lacked in intelligence they made up for in strength. Therefore he'd needed his best agents on this case. It helped that his spirit detectives weren't a bunch of idiots. Or at least Kurama and Hiei weren't idiots. The other two were just crazy good at fighting.
The toddler god had collected all the intelligence that they'd need for the mission and pinpointed the location of the band of thieves. Once they'd arrived in demon world the mission shouldn't take longer than a few hours. It all depended on how tough the demons were, which with most of them being B and C class, it wouldn't take long. Simply put, the mission should be a piece of cake, but 'shoulds' often turn into 'won'ts' which makes life in general much more difficult.
The group of young men had been trekking through demon world for a good 3 hours. In circles. Just because Koenma had given them the proper directions did not mean that they could follow them. As far as they knew, they'd followed the directions to a T, but found themselves wandering aimlessly. Kurama had even been so wise as to attempt to ask for clarification of said directions, but for some reason every demon seemed to clear out of their path as they walked past.
"Hn," Yusuke snorted. "The fucking cowards," he spat out. "Are we that fucking menacing that an innocent dumbass of a demon won't give us directions?"
"Um, Yusuke-"
Kurama's attempt to interject was broken off by Hiei. "It appears then that these so called 'innocent' demons are not quite the dumbasses you assume they are. If I were them I would've fleed as well whether it be because of our strength or your abundance of stupidity."
"Hiei-" Kurama was interrupted mid-scold by Yusuke.
"Watch it shorty! Stupid or not, there are some innocent demons out there." Hiei raised an eyebrow, obviously skeptical. Yusuke hummed to himself for a moment not quite sure how to back up his side of the argument. Sometimes his mouth just went off and his brain didn't have time to catch up with it. "Well, what about you? You're...good..." Hiei gave him a look and he heard a snicker from behind him that sounded very much like Kuwabara.
He placed his hands behind his head as he thought more, all of them still walking without direction. "Uhhh... what about... Kurama!" Kurama coughed and reminded him that he'd only been reborn as a human and that his youko side was quite vicious. "Ok... uh...I know!" He whipped around to face Hiei who was walking a few feet behind the rest of the group. Yusuke clapped his hands as he said the name. "Yukina." He grinned, sure that victory would be his.
Kurama sighed to himself. He just had to say it. He stepped out of the way anticipating the fight that was about to ensue. Kuwabara also had a feeling that he should step out of the way, but as with Yusuke he often did things before his mind was able to catch up. So it was a surprise to everyone when a few seconds later, instead of Yusuke keeled over grabbing at his stomach, it was Kuwabara.
It took only a second for the shock to wear off and for Yusuke to take the defensive. "What the fuck was that for?" Hiei wouldn't meet his eyes, the only sign of his guilt. Kuwabara meanwhile was curled up on the ground, holding his stomach, small, sharp gasp emitting from his hunched form. "Look, man, I know you've got this whole thing against humans and teamwork and shit, but there'd better be a damned good explanation for this." Yusuke had his hands balled into fist and poised before him in his natural fighting stance. When Hiei still neglected to answer, Yusuke lunged forward and grabbed him by the front of his tunic.
"Yusuke, I don't think-"
"Shut up Kurama. I know he doesn't like Kuwabara, but this is too fucking far." Yusuke's grip tightened. "Kuwa isn't part demon like the rest of us. Not even his pinky finger or something. Hiei fucking knows that."
Hiei snorted at that. "And did it ever occur to you that Kuwabara wasn't my target?" Yusuke growled the grip on Hiei's tunic turning his knuckles white.
It seemed as if one of the two was going to kill the other before long, the tension more than thick. A gasped 'stop' made them pause in leveling glares at one another. Yusuke looked down to see his best friend on all fours and trying to steady his breathing. He let the rumpled fabric in his hands go in favor of assisting his friend. He kneeled down next to Kuwabara, wrapping his arms around the tall boy's upper torso. He failed to notice that the boy was trying to push away from him.
Standing, though still short of breath, Kuwabara managed to finally push his friend away. "Urameshi," he started, taking a deep slow breath. "Hiei's right." Another breath. "He wasn't out to get me, it was you." His breaths, though still a bit short, were finally evening out into their normal rhythm. "Besides, you don't even know what the hell you said to get him so pissed in the first place." He leveled a glare at the black haired boy. "Honestly, you deserved to get hit." With that Kuwabara turned and started walking again without any idea as to where he was going. Kurama looked at Yusuke and Hiei before taking off after Kuwabara.
"I wonder," Hiei began, "How does your 'best friend' feel about you calling him too weak to withstand a hit from me?" It was now Yusuke who wouldn't meet eyes. "As I thought." Hiei followed after Kurama leaving Yusuke to stand by himself, guilt-ridden expression firmly in place.
'Awesome job Urameshi. You just fucked up, big time.'
After an afternoon's worth of travel the group wasn't any closer to reaching their destination and two of their members weren't speaking to one another. All in all a waste of a day. Night began to fall on demon world leaving any unsuspecting traveler as easy prey for the average bloodthirsty demon. It was almost unanimously decided that they find a place to rest for the night and restart their journey in the morning. Hiei had thought it best to keep going and attack their targets in the night when they least expected it. On the other side of that argument was Kuwabara who'd been up late the whole last week working on a school project and needed his sleep to get his energy up. Yusuke seconded that notion though whether it was because he truly agreed or because the guilt from the afternoon was running over, one couldn't be sure. Kurama had just felt it better to sleep and be energized for their fight now matter how weak their opponents were said to have been.
Feeling restless and a tad bit impatient Hiei elected himself watch of their 'camp'. While the others slept, he scanned the forest area around them sending a swift glare and wave of energy to any who dared near them.
The next morning, the group awoke and immediately started where the left off. They managed to find a willingly helpful demon in the early hours of the day that clarified a few of the directions they'd been given. After Hiei had unsheathed his sword from the demon's leg they continued on, in the right direction for a change.
It didn't take them more than an hour to reach the hideaway of their targets once they knew for sure where they were going. They stood at the edge of the property, looking around for any guards and, unsurprisingly, finding none. Security for the thieves was nearly non-existent as Kurama pointed out being very skilled with traps and the like. They didn't even have a guard pigeon. Finding no other reasons not to, Yusuke gave them the signal and they walked out onto the large patch of dry, cracked ground that lay before the thieves' hideaway.
Becoming increasingly aggravated with how long the mission was taking, Yusuke charged up his finger and blew a hole in their building to gain the demons' attention. Sure enough a few moments later the demons had all piled out and stood before the spirit detectives looking both pissed and apprehensive. If demon common folk feared the 4 why would the known thieves act any different?
Very quickly, the demon thieves realized that they had little left that they could do besides run or fight, the better of the two being fight. If they were to run it would have probably taken less time for the rekai to take them down and they would have looked like cowards to boot. Resigning himself to his fate, the leader of the thieves gave a shout, signaling that his partners in crime should attack. It wasn't quite a fair fight with 5 demons to the 4 detectives, but there were no worries amongst the rekai.
Each member of each side had taken on one of the other, except for Hiei who took on two of the demons easily dispatching one in mere seconds. Realizing that it took little to nothing to take them out, he focused on being gentler with his next opponent, though not too gentle. Koenma had asked that these demons be captured, alive, for judgment and interrogation. Despite his softer approach it still only took him a few moments more to take care of the second, leaving him greatly dissatisfied.
Kurama had to work a bit at his opponent finding their small bit of knowledge in demon plant care to be a minor setback. The demon wasn't a genius, but he knew enough to raise the fight's difficulty level. But after a few lashings with his rose whip and an unfortunate meeting with a sleep inducing plant, he too had defeated his opponent.
That left Yusuke and Kuwabara to finish up the mission. It was obvious that Yusuke didn't have to struggle to defeat the so-called leader of the thieves, but as all teenage boys were, he was cocky and decided to play with his opponent. Besides his testosterone induced urges to drag out the fight as long as possible, fighting tended to give him time to think. Time to think about how he was going to apologize to his best friend.
Said best friend was having a harder time trying to defeat his opponent. For whatever reason his reflexes weren't as quick as usual and he had taken a minor hit to the face. He was making headway, but it was just taking much longer than normal. Still he managed to deliver the final blow to his demon before Yusuke and he stood above his opponent panting slightly.
Yusuke blocked an attack, his eyes shifting over to where Kuwabara was looking a lot more worse for wear then he'd expected. 'Damn, what's up with him today?", he wondered, worry nipping at the back of his thoughts.
Kuwabara, meanwhile, was thinking the same as he watched Yusuke fight. 'Great. This just proves that I'm not strong enough. Fucking great.' He touched at the mark on his face, wincing. 'If I were darker, he probably wouldn't even notice this. Dammit.'
The demon noticed the lag in attacks from the detective and followed his gaze over to where Kuwabara stood. An evil grin spread across his face. He gathered a bit of his spirit energy and sent it at the orange haired human in the shape of a spear. The mortal barely had time to move as the energy spear flew at him. He heard Yusuke scream out his name in both warning and shock. Kurama gasped and Hiei paused in tying up his two captives to look at what was taking place.
The black haired demon boy glared at the demon in front of him. "I didn't know you could do that," he growled out. "Not that it'll help you any." Over the next few minutes Yusuke delivered a continuous stream of punches, kicks, and jabs, no longer caring about drawing the fight out. He finished the sorry excuse for a demon with a spirit gun blast to both of the demons kneecaps, the demon passing out from the sheer pain. The fool didn't know how much worse it would have been had Koenma not instructed them to keep them alive. His fight complete and the mission officially over, he raced over to his friend.
"Kuwabara!" He grimaced as he noticed the bruise on his face. "Fuck man, you okay?" He placed a hand on his shoulder. As he was busy looking over his friend for any injuries that couldn't be seen so easily he missed the look of pain that flashed over the boy's face.
Kuwabara shrugged it off replying that he was fine. "The thing didn't even nick me, I'm fine." Still Yusuke looked up at him, worried as ever though he hid it behind a look of anger.
"Fuck what Koenma said! I should've killed the bastard!" Yusuke's hands were balled into angry fists.
Kuwabara threw him a snide look. "Right, so you can save the poor little human?"
"Kuwa, I didn't mean-"
"Shut up Urameshi." Yusuke's mouth snapped shut, his words drying up faster than a drop of water in a desert. Kurama tried his best to be inconspicuous and busied himself with securing the other captives. Hiei was openly staring at the two an almost hopeful look in his eyes. He found it terribly amusing when they fought. 'This is much more serious than normal,' he thought. 'Never before has Yusuke insulted the human quite this severely.'
Kurama, who was still trying his best not to interfere, looked up when he heard Yusuke gasp. His eyes widened in mild shock as he took in the scene before him. Kuwabara had taken the shorter boy into his arms and was hugging him tight to his body. Hiei had an eyebrow raised at the strange sight. 'I thought these idiots only hugged when one of them nearly died.'
"I know you didn't mean it, idiot," Kuwabara said into his friend's hair. "Doesn't make you any less of an idiot though." He released Yusuke before he could reply. "I know I'm not as strong as you, or Hiei, or Kurama, but I just can't help but fight. It's a good feeling to fight besides you, my friends, for a greater good. You couldn't keep me away from this feeling for anything."
Yusuke looked at his friend as though actually looking at him for the first time. The boy was standing tall and proud as always, his head turned slightly to the side, eyes looking off at some unknown point in the distance. His hands were jammed into his pockets as they so often were when he spoke like this. Yusuke continued to take in the sight of his friend. His clothes worn from frequent use making the tall individual look rugged and manly. But what lay beneath those clothes? Strong shoulders leading down to a solid and toned frame. Yusuke blinked. 'The hell was that?'
Before he could dwell more on his strange thoughts, Kuwabara spoke again. "Ever since I met you, I wanted to be stronger like you. So I fought you. And when I couldn't beat you, I joined you. I've never regretted that decision. You've turned out to be the best friend a guy could have, even if you are stupid." Yusuke sucked in a breath as blue eyes focused on him. "I never want to leave your side and I won't unless greater powers force me to do so. You're my best friend and I... I want it to stay that way." He gave a shaky smile as he finished his speech.
Yusuke grinned back. "Didn't know you liked me so damned much," he half-teased. Kuwabara nodded, very seriously, back.
Hiei cleared his throat. "If you two idiots are finished, then maybe we can leave this forsaken place. I have other more important things to do." Kurama nodded in agreement.
"I have some school work to finish up and I'm sure my parents are wondering just how long I plan on sleeping over at my friend's house." He smiled bemusedly.
Yusuke turned to Kuwabara. "Ready to go, buddy?"
Kuwabara saluted saying, "Lead the way oh dumbass leader!"
"Hey, I resent that!"
"Like you even know what resent means!"
"I know it means I'm going to fucking kill you when we get back!"
"What it means is that you need to get yourself a fucking dictionary when we get back. And a clue. You couldn't possibly kill me."
"Oh yeah?"
"Like to see you try, bitch!"
Kurama smiled to himself as the two bickering boys grabbed two of the demons and began dragging them off. He snatched up his as well and began to follow the two. "Looks like their friendship could get them through anything," he said to Hiei who walked beside him.
"Hn. Maybe."
doesn't it all look delightfully hopeful? XD mwahahahaha! mwahaha! i'm honeslty surprised u guys didn't kill me for last chapter. well Kazi-chan's going to, but she wants me to finish reading chapter 3 of 'Beast' first.
thanx to: anonymous(blushes these chapters aren't that good...), JovianShe-Wolf(oh Kurama helps alrigh, but in like part 6), VincentLover001(lol u sound just like Kazi-chan, she actually has plushies tho), AlibisDragon(bows i'm glad u like it, tho it ain't that gr8), Zelia Theb(as u can see the mission didn't bring 'em 2gether, sorri), Kazi-chan(don't kill me dear, or u'll never read the rest), Little Sadako(kyute name), ultimateanime-fans25(w00t u make me feel special), and Saferia(ur too young to be reading anything of mine... sweatdrops). and of course thank u to anyone who's been reading but doesn't review. i wish u would, but i can't force u to.
ooo, the author wants a pic of chibi Yusuke and Kuwa bickering. thas all for 2day. gryns next chapter is due out this Sunday, the 17th. adios muchachos!