I hope that you all are looking forward to this chapter, I sure am. So much has happened already, I mean really, your going to have to recall alot of things to understand this chapter so I hope that you were all paying attention to the little details, they might play a big role in all of this. And what about Yutsuki being the youngest daughter of the very king that everyone hates, not to mention her older brothers. This chapter, though, is going to focus mainly on the part that I'm sure many of you are more interested in, Kurama and Hiei battling it out, trust me, there's going to be alot more to it than just these two duking it out, alot more. This chapter is really an enjoyable one, I hope you like it because there aren't many more left.
-
Kurama stares intensly at his opponent, knowing that if he has to, he must kill him. Hiei, returning the look begins to laugh cruely as he indicates, "Are we going to stand here all day or are we going to fight."
"I was hoping that you would wish to avoid fighting and that you would perhaps come to your senses. I suppose I was wrong."
"Dead wrong fox."
"What?"
"You think I don't know who you are? You are the lengendary thief from Demon World, cunning and quick. I hear you can figure out your opponent in a matter of minutes and always have a a backup plan or two. Well your tricks won't work on me, I am much too clever for childish games. I was suppose to make sure you stayed alive but, since you presented the challenge, I guess it would be rude to reject."
"How can you not remember who you are? Yet you can know me down to detail."
"I have been informed of you and your ways by my prince Hasakie. Youko Kurama."
"Your prince? Since when have you ever taken orders from anyone?"
"Shut your trap and let's get down to business. I didn't come here to be evaluated by a shrink from Demon World"
-
"How much farther is it?" yelled Shizuru.
"Not far now." answered Yutsuki.
"How are supposed to trust you after we found out that you are who you are?" asked Yusuke.
"Have I lied to you about anything else?"
"I don't know, was that story about your mother true? Or did you just make that up so we would feel sorry for you?" asked Koenma.
"Yeah, Kurama didn't seem to trust you from the begining, maybe he had the right idea." said Yusuke.
"Believe me, he didn't."
"Are we supposed to call you royal highness or something? Or do prefer Princess or just Yutsuki? What is your real name anyway?" asks Yusuke in his snobby way.
"Shitaro. I was the only one born in the royal family without a twin and my father hated me and my mother for it. One day we were in the village giving supplies to rebels when, well, you know the story. My father found a reason to finally be rid of my mother and I've hated him ever since. He took my closest family member besides my sister, Shotai. I think you can fill in the blanks from there."
"Alright then. Man and I thought I had it bad." says Yusuke sarcastically.
"You should consider yourself lucky to be blessed with such friends."
"I'll log that away for future use. Are we there yet?"
"Soon"
-
Keiko begins to gain conciousness again. She sits up and looks at her surroundings. There are elegant gold drapes on the windows, dresses of all sorts hung in the closet, and only one book sitting on the mantel of the fire.
"I wonder what that could be?"
As she walks over to it, she gets a chill down her back, almost like the book is trying to tell her something. She breaks out into a run.
"It means to be at peace."
Keiko jumps as Hasakie enters the room.
"Go on, open it" Hasakie enquires.
Keiko opens the book and cathes her breath.
"This is me, but I'm in a gown."
"Yes, that is merely a glimps of how our wedding is going to be."
"Our wedding? It will happen in two days right?"
"Of course. That is what you wished."
"Yes, at sunset. I wish to watch my company leave."
"Yes, everything has been arranged, they have been given provisions and they will be shown the way out. However, your other friends were lost to a battle against a monster. This is all we have."
Hasakie pulls out Yusuke's bloody green outfit followed by Kurama's, then Shizuru, Koenma, Kuwabara, and one she did not know.
"We knew these belonged to them because no one in the realm wears this type of material."
"Yusuke." Keiko says it almost as a whisper, so that Hasakie wouldn't hear.
"I really am sorry, this isn't what you wanted but I cannot change it, but I wish I could."
"Some how, I believe you and yet I don't. But thank you for apologizing and for being the one who told me."
"If that is all I can do than I will leave you alone. I will see you at dinner."
"I don't know if I could eat anything."
"If that is so, then so it is."
"Thank you"
-
"Genkai! Hold on a minute!" yells an exhausted Botan.
"No, we were shown the way out and now we have to find Yusuke and the others, they are probably on there way down the hall..."
They suddenly hear a very familiar voice yell off of a side path.
"Grandma?"
"Dimwhit?"
"Oh Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, & Sizuru? This is a pleasent surprise," sqeuals and excited Botan.
Yukina just smiles but then her smile diappears as she notices that Kurama is not with them.
"Where is Kurama? Did he not come with you?"
Kuwabara begins to get a little jealous that not all of Yukina's attention is on him and tries to get off the subject by saying, "Yukina, are you hurt? Did those bad men hurt you? I will destroy any who have hurt you."
"Will you please answer my question, Yusuke."
"Um... well, Kurama is fighting Hiei right now in a place called the hall of mirrors or somehting."
"They're fighting each other? Why would Hiei become the way he is?"
"How do you know about that?" asked Yusuke.
"Keiko told us, apparently Hiei was to torture her, but didn't, she couldn't tell us exactly why or how but..."
"Hiei tried to hurt her? That's it I'm goin back there and kickin his ass."
Botan and Genkai manage to grab him firmly and say even firmer, "NO."
"Why not?"
"Think dimwhit? Do you know what hallway they went down? You could end up in an entirely different area of the hall."
"She's right."
"Of course I am. Besides, I don't think that you will care much about Hiei after you hear whats happening in about a day and a half."
"What? Hey, how'ld you guys escape anyway, we saw them drag you away."
"I can't believe it took you that long to ask that question. If you really want to know then know this, you aren't going to like the sound of it and prepare to get angry."
"Been doin that my whole life."
"Dimwhit, we didn't escape, we were let go. On the condition that Keiko stay behind."
"WHAT? AND YOU JUST LET HER STAY BEHIND ALL BY HERSELF!"
"Believe me, we tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn't hear it. She said that if we can be let go then it was worth it, you're lives are to be spared as well. But, if we go back they will most certainly try to kill us."
"I DON'T CARE! I'M NOT LEAVING KEIKO TO DIE!"
"She isn't going to die dimwhit, think. They need the stone and if Keiko dies then they can't use the stone. No, she is to marry one of the princes of this realm at sunset the day after tomorrow. Tonight, her memory is going to be supressed. She won't remeber us or anything about the Human World. Do you get that?"
"Yeah, we go in, kill anyone who gets in our way and then stop them from surpressing Keiko's memory."
"I'm afraid it won't be that simple." Says Shitaroui.
"What do you mean."
"Genkai, you said that you left the palace about an hour ago right?"
"Yes."
"Then her memory is already being surpressed, if you want to try to stop it then you will have to trust me."
Genkai is just as skeptical as Kurama was when he met her but finally says, "Alright, we'll trust you."
"Thank you"
-
"Are you going to stand there gawking all day or are you going to move?"
"You push me to do something that I don't want to, please stop this before I do something that I might regret."
"Sorry fox boy. But I don't show mercy."
"I know. Then neither will I."
"Fine."
Hiei throws himself forward towards Kurama and Kurama gracefully dodges to the side.
"Damn coward. Fight me."
"You will have to catch me first."
Kurama races down a hallway careful to avoid the one that led to the castle. He races towards a door that he forces open and then closes rather easily. Hiei arrives seconds after the door shuts and he too forces it open.
"You can't hide from me."
"But I don't intend to hide."
Hiei looks behind him and sure enough, there is Kurama. Hiei takes one deadly slice with his Katan slicing Kurama in two.
"All too easy. What a fool for thinking that he could defeat me."
"You missed me."
Kurama appears infront of him, again Hiei slashes his blade at him.
"Sorry, not me."
"Damn it. Where are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding, I'm in plain sight, you just don't see me."
"Are you talking in riddles because you're scared of me? Or are you really so weak that you don't think you could slice my throat if you had to?"
"One thing you will remember very quickly is that I will do what I must, even if that means killing you."
"Then what are you waiting for? Me to tire out or something?"
"You can choose to believe that if you wish, but I know you Hiei, you have forgotten me."
"I never knew you."
"Yes, you did."
"Bull crap. You're making this up so that I won't try to kill you."
"If that were so than you wouldn't have figured it out, trust me."
"I have no reason to."
"But you also have no reason not to"
-
Yusuke can hear the girls behind him panting heavily as they have been going at quite a run for some time.
"How much farther. You said that we were almost there."
"We are, you just aren't looking behind you."
As Yusuke looks behind him he sees more guards after them. They were gaining too. If Yusuke didn't do anything Yukina would be the first to be taken. Yusuke suddenly stops and spins around.
"What do ya think you're doin?" yelled Kuwabara.
"What does it look like? I'm gonna blow away that army."
"Dimwhit! Just keep running! Yukina can take care of herself!"
"I son't care if she can or not, I won't risk it. You guys just keep going."
Yusuke lets a huge blast go and destroys the army. But almost as soon as he destroys them, he hears screaming from behind him as he gets hit on the back of the head hard and the last thing he saw before he passed out was Yukina, Botan, & Shizuru being carried off somewhere while Yutsuki or Shitaroui or whoever she was, was fighting them off with Kuwabara, Genkai and Koenma.
"NO!"
"Keep them off of Yusuke, without him our butts aren't gonna get very far"
-
"Come on out fox boy. I won't make it to painful."
Hiei's cloak is suddenly ripped off of him, as he slices at the angle from where the grabbing came he saw the seal on his back and he began to have flash backs of a young maiden with turquoise hair and fierce yet gentle red eyes again.
"Who is this girl I keep seeing? Why does she haunt me so?"
"That would be Yukina."
"Yukina? I've heard that name before."
"That's because she is your little sister. She is an Ice Apparition from Koorie and you were a forbidden child and were thrown off the edge of the floating island when you were a baby."
Hiei's mind begins to flash with memories. He saw a women yelling and trying to reach him and than he saw another who looked sad and then she got farther and farther away. Hiei was then looking at the floor of where he was now and he snapped his head up.
"You're trying to trick me. There isn't anyone named Yukina and you don't know me. You're just toying with my mind."
"I was hoping that you wouldn't have to see this for yourself but, you leave me no other choice."
Kurama suddenly falls down from his "hiding" spot and he is multipiled by 50.
"You're going to have to follow me but I doubt that you'll like what you'll see"
-
"Yusuke? Yusuke, can you hear me?"
Yusuke slowly opens his eyes to see Koenma standing over him looking very worried.
"What the hell happened?"
"We were attacked in front while you were trying to cover our rear."
"Where are the girls?"
"They aren't here obviously dimwhit. They were taken. I wish I knew where Kurama's friend disappeared to though. She wasn't with us when we were running I don't think because she most certainly didn't captured."
"Perhaps," said an uneasy Shitaroui, "She followed Kurama to help him."
"Hmm... that's what I was thinking. Obviously she feels she owes him a great deal. Now all we can do is wait."
"I'm not gonna wait, I have to save Keiko. They'll destroy her memory! You're with me right Kuwabara?"
"Yeah, I am. We can't just sit here while those girls are being tortured."
"I'm afraid that it's to late to stop them from being tortured. But we can still save them."
"Good enough. Where is this room that they're in anyway?"
"About a mile away, but I think that your friends will reach them frist. After all they are in the Hall of Mirrors. Come, we must hurry"
-
"You can't keep us here forever. We won't ever tell you anything, no matter what."
"Leave Yukina and Botan alone, you'll get about as much out of them as you will me, nothing."
"Don't be smart with me. Now you will tell us everything you know about this Yusuke and Kurama. They don't seem to be as carefree as your other companiones."
"Nope, sorry, can't help you. Hey, you got a cig? I'ld love a smoke right now."
"NO I DON'T! NOW TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!"
"Sure, reading, writing and arithmetic. Though, I never was really much good at arithmetic, that's my bro's area of expertise. Haha, I'm funny."
"FOOLISH GIRL! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
"Um, yeah. Big, stupid, ugly and in need of a serious breath mint and fashion advice."
"Hee hee."
"Do you find this funny Yukina? Your stupid friend shouldn't have said your names because now I know them."
"You already knew them though," stated Shizuru.
"SHUT UP!"
"Yes General sir. Sorry, I can't salute you because I'm kind of chained to a wall," says Shizuru sacastically.
"You wanna hear a laugh. Well, how about mine? I know a real good way to get me to laugh."
He quickly whips Shuzuru hard and fast as she lets out a scream of pain...
"Hmph, someone getting what they desereve no doubt."
"Wrong Hiei. You need to trust me. Or you are you going to keep chasing me?"
"I'll chase you as far as I need to. Nothing can stop me."
""I wouldn't be so sure.""
"You're going down fox boy."
Off in the distance someone screams, Kurama knows that it was Botan, although he feels sorry for her he had to hurry.
"I tried to help you as much as I could."
"Yeah right."
Kurama suddenly comes to a dead stop and whirls around to face his opponant. Hiei is somewhat taken aback by this sudden move and he too stops but only for a moment to laugh at Kurama's "stupidity."
"So after all that running, you decide to stop and face me at the end."
"I didn't want to do this, but it seems that I have no choice."
"You never did."
"I know."
Hiei draws his sword and charges for Kurama and again Kurama dodges it. Hiei's katana hit a hard surface. He looked up to see two very large, thick oak doors.
"Why have I never seen these doors before?"
"Because they were worried you would remember something."
"Where are you?"
"Right here."
Kurama jumps down in front of Hiei but this time Hiei was ready.
"I've got you now you pathetic demon!"
Hiei's blade pireced the flesh causing blood to flow all around the floor.
"Haha, I have you know fox boy."
"NO! Aiyka! Why would you do that for me?"
"Kurama, you are always so reckless. You've got to keep that brain working. I couldn't let him kill you. You mean so much to alot of people other than me. Save Hiei from his memory loss, I know you can."
"You didn't have to do it! I've taken a gut blow from him before, I could have taken another one!"
"Kurama..., I did what I could to help you. Don't look at this as your fault, I chose to do this, you have to promise me that you won't blame yourself. Just that one last promise will be enough for me. I did this because after all those years of plotting against you and the Human World, my true world, I found you again and I repay the debt that I owe you, even though I owe you more than just my life."
"No, you didn't."
"You have to let the past die and live on, my time is up now."
"You're strong though you can make it."
"Good-bye, never forget about me."
"I won't & I will keep your promise. But you'll be able to see me keep it, you can pull through this."
"Don't forget."
Slowly Aiyka's body becomes heavier and heavier and finally her chest stops moving as she dies with a smile on her face.
"Oh, how sad. The little princess died. Isn't that just wonderful. Looks like you've got nothing to lose anymore."
"Please, don't make me suffer more. Don't make the mistake of making me kill you too. I don't think that I could bre anymore heartache."
"I didn't think demons had a heart."
"Oh yes they do, just different from a human one, but still the same feelings, emotions, and they can still be weak."
"Like yours?"
"You don't know anything about that anymore. So quite acting like it!"
Kurama lunges forward and takes a swing at Hiei's head and knocking him to the side. Then he wheels around and shoves the doors wide open. Kurma slides through and Hiei staggers in after him.
"I'll get you, you damn fox."
Then, Hiei hears someone else scream.
"Ahhhh.."
"Someone else getting what they deserv..."
As Hiei looks right in front of him he sees the General with the whip hitting the girls, actually, when he was hitting Yukina. Suddenly all of Hiei's memories came back in a rush and Kurama examined the seal on his back noticing begin to fade and finally disappear.
"It is done."
Hiei's head shoots up from the ground as Yukina begins to cry, the precious jewels following from her watery eyes.
"You damn fools, I'll kill you!"
Hiei runs forward and kills the General with on slice. The girls look at him in shock as he looks at all of them.
Hiei turns to Kurama with horror on his face as he had seen the girls and couldn't remember how they got there and the fact that Kurama had blood all over him and he looked at the door splattered with blood also.
"Kurama, what did I do?"
"Many things. Some that I'm just not ready to say, and may never be able to."
""I had to hurt more than one person, first Botan, Shizuru, & Yukina. Then Aiyka, and then Hiei just to make him remember. I don't think that I can keep this up much longer, all I seem to be doing is hurting the ones I care for most. Yusuke, I think, is the only one who can understand this pain the same as I. How much longer must I do this"
-
Hasakie stands at the door watching the sun set in front of him as he takes in a deep breath and smiles at his overwhelming accomplishment.
""Not only do I have the Jewel Carrier, but she thinks that her "true love" is dead. But soon she will come to love me the way that I love her. I know that there is such a thing as true love but to think that I would find it in this girl is amazing. Just a few more minutes and her old memories will be complety surpressed, and there won't be any objection to our marriage.""
"Did you send for me brother?" Naserui enters the room almost as cheerful as Hasakie.
"Yes, I did, is she finished yet?"
"Not quite, just a little longer, she put up a fight at first but eventually all the sad memories over came her and she wished to be freed from them."
"Excellent, to be honest I did not think that she would put up a fight at all, now that she believes that this Yusuke boy is dead. Even if he did come, he's to late. Keiko is mine and no one else's. Besides, what harm could a little boy do, it's not like he could destory this whole palace. For that to be true, he would need more help than he could find. Yusuke is no longer a threat, if he ever was, he really did seem like a simpleton who would run the first chance he got."
"Of course. I will have Keiko brought up to you as soon as she is ready."
"No, no, that's alright, I don't want to overwhelm her, I will see her at dinner tonight."
"Alright. And brother..."
"Yes?"
"You're right, Yusuke did seem like a simple child."
"Yes, he did"
-
Umm.. can you say idiots? I can! IDIOTS! Wow, bad idea tyring to do that to Keiko and thinking that about Yusuke. These guys are practically signing off on their own death sentences. What about Kurama? How much more of this can he take? He loses his childhood friend and then he has to hurt so many others just to save Hiei. Truly the weight of his decisions are beoming an opstical in his own mind. Perhaps you can now understand why I called this story Kurama's Heartache, but there is still so much left.
Will Kurma have to endure more? Will Yusuke lose Keiko to Hasakie? Will Hiei be able to forgive himself for killing Kurama's childhood friend? Not to mention that Aiyka was also someone he had known well too? What secret does Yukina carry with her? And how will they be able to save Keiko before sunset tomorrow? You'll just have to keep reading to find out.
I hope that you liked this chapter, I enjoyed writing it except for a few parts, but no good thing can be without one bad thing to balance it out.