Disclaimer: Don't own YYH and all invented characters are pure fiction. The storyline is mine.
Chapter 45: Strange
God, now I'm really starting to get cold. I think since the Spirit World is such a screwed up place is the reason that when it should be summer, it's starting to get really, really cold. Almost like one of those biting breezes you get in the upper part of the U.S.
Anyway, I think the rest of the team is finally starting to feel it too. All are shivering in their robes, and Jin has loudly voiced his thoughts that Botan and Genkai are in no immediate trouble, and that we should really look for Yusuke and Kuwabara, who are definitely in danger. Since no one else answered, I guess they also agree, but don't want to say it aloud.
Though Botan and Genkai are important to me, I still agree with Jin that they are probably fine, and that we should storm the castle in the search for those buffoons on the menu. Truth is, we checked the news already today, and no sign of anyone having caught them yet. And Touya said that all imported "food" is checked first, so we would know even if one of the villagers caught them. This is getting so tiresome though! I'm frozen in my boots and it isn't even snowing. I am like a double frosted snow cone, and damn, to make things worse, now I'm hungry!
"G-guys, we've be-been wa-walking for-forever." I can hear Jin's teeth chattering.
"Well, what would yousay we should do?" Snaps Hiei.
"Go home and have a nice pot of coffee." He mutters, so only I can hear him.
"You know, this is starting to get cold. The wind is too powerful. Jin and I can't hold it off for long." Says Mie desperately.
It's true. The wind would be even worse if both of them hadn't pitched in. But both of their powers are fast giving way. Their wall of wind is weakening after two hours of solid walking.
"I wonder how Botan and Genkai are faring in this weather," I say, thinking aloud.
"Can't be doing well," mutters Kurama. "If we don't find them soon, their chances for survival are slim to none, and this is Genkai we're talking about. The hardiest person I ever knew."
"Well, we certainly can't think about their untimely deaths," I growl. "Anyway, it's not too late. Everyone packed food for at least a month, plus warm clothing, and they've almost been missing for two weeks. They're not dead."
Kurama shrugs, which doesn't do a good job of improving my spirits. Suppose Kurama had a point. Was it too much to assume that they are still alive? What if something had found them, and eaten them rather than turn them in? What if…?
Ugh. There goes the appetite I just worked up. Gross. Why do I always think like this? Is it my personality? Or is it just that I'm a masochist?
I think I'll go with personality.
As the rest of us fall behind due to sluggishness from the cold, Touya takes the lead. I envy his power. He grew up cold, to live. No wonder this just feels like a light summer breeze to him.
"ACK! What is that on my foot!"
I answer Mie's cry, and roll my eyes when I get to her. What a baby.I talk to her slowly and carefully. "It is some muck, Mie. It is not here to suck out your brains. Just peel it off."
With a look of utmost revulsion, she obliges. When she thinks I have my back turned, she glares at me with pure hatred.
"I saw that."
Mie stamps her foot angrily and stares at the ground. Why is she acting like a child?
And I guess she really does hate me now. I just wish I really knew why.
Jin and Mie have now both given way to the merciless wind, and seriously, it is literally knocking me off my feet. Like that U.S. tornado hurricane Floyd. I was on vacation in the Carolinas, and it hit really hard. Mom just said that we were lucky the rental home didn't collapse on us, as we didn't have a basement.
What am I doing, flashing back to extinct times? There's at least two more months spent in this dump, and it's really driving me crazy. I have to look for the Unaccounted Two, but it's getting increasingly hard. I'm trying, I really am! But I guess sometimes I need to escape and go into these trances. I've heard of soldiers doing just that, called Nostalgia Syndrome or something of the sort. But I've heard it can be really dangerous in combat, so that's why I try not to go through it too often. But sometimes, while falling asleep at night, I'll remember my mom, or my house, or friends, or American school, and it calms me down as well as it makes me hurt for the life I led before I met Kurama. I mean, even if he is my brother, I wish I had never met him. The good friend and bro that he is, I still wish he would leave me to do ordinary stuff, like play soccer, or make other friends, or swim, or anything else.
I realized something today, and I can't knock it out.
I'm not brave.
I'm not the one to play the hero.
I don't like the attention. I don't need the responsibility. I don't need it.
Don't need it.
Don't need it.
I want to go home.
Back where I was just Kat Kon, that pretty black-haired girl who had a dead dad and a nice mom and was really sweet, smartand pretty. I was everyone's envy. The perfect Mary Sue, I was. Whathappened to that peaceful life?
"Guys, I think we've searched everywhere. They are not here." Says Touya calmly, still not affected one bit. "Man, the wind is starting to pick up, eh?"
"YOU FREAK! YOU FINALLY NOTICED?" I yell, fighting not to give away the tears on my cheeks in my voice.
"Anyone else think we should continue?"
Touya yells, "I do!"
"But you're not freezing your ass off, you ice pop." I growl at him.
"Okay, anyone else wanna stay?" Yells Kurama again.
No one else speaks.
"We head home, then. We have to assume the worst has happened, because we've been around here countless times. Guys, you just gotta know when to give up."
"You're one to talk," says Hiei with an amused edge to his voice. "I seem to recall you driving us like cattle this whole route. You and the Ice Pop," he laughs, using my name for Touya. "Ice pop." He repeats happily. Recently, Kurama told me Hiei has this thing for ice cream, or 'sweet snow' as he calls it. He would like the term Ice Pop. That's gonna be his birthday present. Five whole boxes of Ice Pop and other ice creams.
Touya rolls his eyes. He seems to be a lot more tolerant with Hiei than with me. I get the picture that somehow; Touya and Hiei are best friends. It makes sense; they're both mean to almost everyone, they're both killer fighters…
Thirty minutes later...
We are at home. Or the alley we call a home, anyway. I just hope I don't find a gun anywhere, or I might find I have an irresistible urge to shoot myself. Or maybe just Touya, who's essence would probably shoot me back anyway. In the end, there would be nothing left, because when we killed each other, our very dust particles would destroy each other. What an amusing thought. Little mites fighting each other…
Though I probably wouldn't die anyway, being in the Spirit World.
My god, I am talking to myself nonstop. SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP! With no one to really talk to, I get really, really, really bored and think to myself, question life and death, why I am here, and why I suddenly hate myself so much.
"Ah, here we are. Again." Says Kurama with a bored edge to his voice.
"That was surprisingly quick."
"I know. Let's just walk by the guards casually, just like all of the other times." My brother really is a little genius. I hate him!
As soon as he speaks those words, it becomes much harder to do for all of us. We end up swaggering slowly past the guards, trying not to laugh. Even Kurama. What was that I said about him being a genius again?
So naturally, we get busted by the uglier of the two guards. "What're you doing here?"
"Returning to the demon city, officer," hisses Kurama convincingly.
"All right, you go on through. And you and you and you…" He has just let me and everyone else through besides Mie when he stops and sniffs loudly. "I smell HUMAN!"
"You do? I don't smell---"
I cover his mouth quickly. "Officer, we have had a huge lunch of the human girls mentioned on the broadcast earlier. Zey were delicious." I rub my stomach area. The others, catching wind, do the same.
The guard looks immensely disappointed. "Oh well, I thought---well, I'm just hungry. I should go back to my shed now. You wanna come?"
He must be indicating us, as the other guard is not moving. Jin the big mouth agrees immediately, and I cover up his mouth too late.
The guard, of course, is delighted, and invites us to a crummy shack a quarter mile walk away, and ushers us in. For a demon, this one's remarkably social.
"Come in, come in, all ye!"
"Certainly," says Hiei in a strained sort of voice. The rest of them all mutter similar replies.
The guard has us sit down in his dingy living room. The whole place is dank, dark, disgusting, and infested with everything, so I (and everyone else) make a quick oath to leave very, very early.
Then he starts to talk. "Well, I'm so glad you could come. Right happy, in fact. This may be personal but I wanted to know…would ye all be loyal to Sensu?"
Uh-oh. If we answer the wrong way, we could end up in a dungeon. "Are you?"
There's a tense silence. "No."
"Good. Neither are we."
"Good. Now I'll just arrest ye."
A/N I just reread this. This episode is entirely off-topic. Excuse the randomness. I'm changing the ending though, so thank god it's not quite so corny...review!