SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER! SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER! (I wish).
Now that summer's started, I can spend more time on my fics. I might even finish one!
I DO own Yu Yu Hakusho. A pixie fluttered into my room and gave me all the papers. Oh, and that's sarcasm, so don't sue me.
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'I am never going to get any sleep tonight,' thought Kido as some asshole pounded on his motel room door.
"Kido! Wake the hell up you lazy bastard!" shouted a woman's voice.
"Who the hell is she?" Kido muttered to himself. With some effort, he climbed out of bed and threw open the door. "Mrs. Yanagisawa?" he said in surprise.
"It's me, Asato," said Mrs. Yanagisawa. She looked scared enough to wet her pants. In fact, she had.
"I know who you are, Mrs. Yanagisawa. What are doing here?"
Mrs. Yanagisawa's face screwed up in anger. "I'm Mitsunari, you man!"
Kido stared at the woman. "You've discovered your power, huh?" Yana nodded.
Kido let out an exasperated sigh as he let his friend in. He was right; no sleeping tonight.
Yana sat on a bed while Kido took a chair. After long moments of silence, Yana in Naoko form related what had happened at his house.
"My father panicked and ran to get his rifle," said Yana. "I'm lucky I got out without being hurt."
"What were these things that only your mother could see?"
"Frightening things. Evil creatures that want to destroy humans more than anything," said Yana. "At least, that's what my mom believes."
"How do you know?"
Yana put a hand to his forehead. "When I transformed into my mother, I didn't just get her body. I got her memories, too. But they're all jumbled up and chaotic."
"Try and get some rest," said Kido. "But can you change back into your regular body?"
"I'll try." Yana shut his eyes and grunted, trying to recapture the grinding, shifting feeling he had felt when he first transformed. He thought of his mother's face twisting into the face of a young boy with tall purple hair and lazy eyes. Nothing happened. Yana sighed in resignation. He was stuck in his mother's body.
"I'm tired," he said. "Let's try and sleep."
"You're right," said Kido. "We'll get Kaitou over here and figure this out in the morning."
Yana slumped down in a bed, Kido taking the one next to him.
The blond boy tried to lighten the mood. "Your mother and I alone in a motel room. I often thought about this."
"Shut up, Kido."
XXXXX
Yana reluctantly stirred from his sleep. After a few seconds of lying there, he felt, with a great sense of relief, the familiar push of his tall, cylindrical hair against the headboard of the bed.
"…human soul," Yana heard Kido whisper into the phone. Kaitou, who Yana figured was on the other end of the line, said something. "I don't care if it's a school day!" said Kido. "What do you think is more important, these powers or your perfect attendance record? All right, see you later."
Kido turned to his purple-haired friend. "You're back to normal," he said with a small smile.
"I guess the transformation wears off when I go to sleep. You told Kaitou about Seichi's soul?"
"Yeah. He didn't seem too upset about it. He must've really hated that guy."
"Not as much as he hates that Shuichi guy." Both boys chuckled.
Kaitou soon arrived by bus. "You'd better have a good reason for calling me here. I was feeling quite confident about the test today and I'm almost certain I could have beaten Minamino."
"Forget it, Kaitou," said Kido. "Have you learned anything about your power?"
"Yes," said Kaitou. "In fact, I've been experimenting. On a stray cat," Kaitou amended quickly, seeing the surprise on his friends' faces.
"You see, I quickly realized that I couldn't strip souls from bodies whenever I desired," said Kaitou, "so I considered the differences between a normal situation and the situation with Seichi. I first hypothesized that my ability only worked on fighters, but if that were true, I would have stripped away Kido's soul as well. So I realized that there was something unique about Seichi himself, something in relation to me. This led me to my second hypothesis, that my powers only worked against my personal enemies. But that couldn't be true as Jiro and Kenji didn't lose their souls."
"Then what was the reason?" Yana asked impatiently.
"I remembered that Seichi was the only one speaking to me when it happened. He lost his soul right when he said 'glasses', the very word that I was hoping he wouldn't say. I realized that he lost his soul because he said a word I didn't want him to say. I caught a stray cat and forbid the 'meow' sound. Sure enough, it lost its soul." Kaitou saw the disapproving looks from his friends. "I returned its soul, don't worry. In fact, I performed the test several times without harming it."
"You know how to return a soul?" asked Kido.
"When you strip out a soul," said Kaitou, "it's easy to put it back in. I don't know how to explain it (a phrase Kaitou had never said before). It's like playing a video game and finding a key. You intuitively know that this key fits that lock. That's how it feels.
"What's more," Kaitou continued, "I'm starting to sense that this rule about taboo words only affects people within a certain area of space that I create around me." His face took on a wicked smile. "It's a world where one needs intelligence to survive, one where those relying on brute force are weeded out."
"Does that mean that you're also bound by your own rule?" asked Kido. Kaitou only shrugged.
"Well," said Kido. "What are we going to do? What I want to know is how we got these powers. They could be dangerous."
"There is someone who can help us," Yana spoke up suddenly. "An old psychic named Genkai. She's very powerful."
"How do you know about her?" asked Kido.
"My mother's memories," said Yana. "I can't make much sense out of it, but my mom trained with Genkai for a while but left before she was supposed to. The memories are too fucked up to make much sense."
"You think you could find this Genkai?"
"I think so, if she's still living in the same place."
"Good, we'll go find her tomorrow."
Kaitou only listened to his friends half-heartedly. His mind was still pondering Kido's question. What would happen if he broke his own rule?