A Life of Our Own
Chapter four
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How is it that we are so numb-?
So uncaring so cold-
To the suffering around us,
But when we experience it,
We show great amount of grief?
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The second Kuwabara heard the girls' shrieks he was gone from the room- so torn and bloodied- with Genkai resting in his arms lifelessly. At that moment in time, adrenaline had pumped through his veins and he could have easily put the fastest human alive- or dead- to shame."Yukina! Keiko, Botan!" he cried out his voice tight and strained. Without a thought towards the beauty or age of the temple, he kicked down the front door as easily as one would through tissue, and rushed through towards the trio of girls.
His blood ran cold as he saw Keiko fall to the ground in a bloodied heap and a strange man raise his sword to strike a trembling Yukina. Botan, only a few paces away, noticed Kuwabara first and gave a shrill shriek of anguish when she noticed Genkai held tightly against the gentle giant's chest. The Ferry Girl's sudden out cry distracted the man briefly, but his hesitation was long enough for Yukina to scurry closer to Kuwabara and out of striking range of the crimson-stained sword glowing menacingly in the silvery light of the waning moon.
The owner of the blade was tall, thin and pale. His long ebony-black hair fell down to his waist in a thick braid, almost completely blending in with his elegant black and silver robe. The most noticeable feature was his bi-colored eyes, one was a deep, hellish crimson and the other was a piercing, ice blue—he was, ironically, Jigoku, the man Koenma wanted Yuusuke and the others to deal with.
Kuwabara rushed the last few feet separating him from his fiancée and stood protectively in front of her, Botan was not far behind him, her wide violet eyes watching the demon nervously, who only turned to face the three figures. His lips were curved in a smirk, and his bi-colored eyes shown with a light of superiority that no human should ever be able to muster, but he was no human, he was a youkai of the highest level- and he had murder in his eyes.
"Botan," Kuwabara hissed out quickly turning briefly to face the said girl, "Go get Urameshi and the others, I'll try and hold him off until you get back."
"But Kuwabara—"
"Please Botan, just go, I can't protect two people at once!" Botan gave Kuwabara a look of pure fear, and what one would define as the highest class of love for a friend. She nodded, and gave Yukina a similar look before summoning her oar and zooming off.
"You know she won't get to the Detective on time," The man scoffed his smug smirk still placed firmly on his beautiful face. He took a graceful step forward and Kuwabara and Yukina took a step backwards; they did this several times, playing a fatal game of distance stealing where if the follower didn't stay far enough away from the leader, he would surely suffer death.
"Come now! Why back away from the inevitable? You can't beat me, you are only one man."
"I may not be able to beat you, but I am not willing to try so long as I am needed as a protector!" Kuwabara growled, not noticing his mistake until it was too late.
"Okay then, if you won't fight so long as that girl is here…" Jigoku let his words hang as he disappeared in a blur of black and silver and reappeared behind a surprised and terrified Yukina. Kuwabara snapped around just in time to see the silver blade enter and exit the tiny Koorime in a one fluent movement, and watched in horror as she fell to the ground just like Keiko had so recently.
"No, Yukina!" He cried out in anguish, he would have fallen to his knees to cradle her head, but Jigoku was only two or three paces away, and that would have been like asking for death. "How could you? She… she didn't deserve to go that way!"
"Oh? I believe if I hadn't killed her we would have been playing that stupid little game all day long and never have gotten anywhere." He shrugged nonchalantly before lifting his sword in an offensive gesture, "Now, I believe we have enjoyed idle chatter a little too long for my tastes, so let's us begin shall we?"
"Feh, I'll make you wish you were never born Jigoku!"
"I doubt that, boy, I truly doubt that."
Kuwabara Shizuru woke with a start, her chest moved up and down almost feverishly, and tears made hot trails down her cheeks. It had been a long time since a dream like the one that had awoken her so suddenly had plagued her light slumber, and the last time they had been unwanted premonitions.
Please Kuwabara, be all right. She thought as the last part of the dream played back in her mind:
Only two figures stood locked in a fatal embrace, of physical and spiritual swords. There was a flurry of movement as each figure pushed away from each other drawing their swords free of the other's chest. A moment of tense silence followed before they both collapsed to ground almost at exactly the same moment.
"NOO! KUWABARA!" Yuusuke cried running over to the sprawled out form of his best friend. Hiei could be seen with his katana unsheathed standing above the demon responsible for the carnage so brutally dealt, and with one smooth movement slit his throat insuring that he never would stand again.
"Urameshi…" Kuwabara croaked. "I'm sorry I couldn't… save Keiko, and Hiei I'm sorry… I couldn't save your sister and… my love Yukina. Please… forgive me. Good… bye…" his voice trailed off and he smiled sadly at the two forms crouched beside him before closing his eyes one last time and completely fading away.
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Minamino Shiori wrestled with the light sheets of her bed, moaning in her sleep and every once and a while she would cry out. "My Baby, my poor baby!"
Kurama ran up the old, steep stairs leading to Genkai's temple as quickly as he could, while making sure not to jar the trembling Botan in his arms too horribly. By the Spirit Guide's frantic gibberish he knew that something terrible must have happen, and the sudden appearance of Kuwabara's sister's frantic aura making its way up the same staircase did nothing to ease his already troubled mind.
"Kurama! Hey fox, hold up a moment!" She called rushing up the last set of stairs in between him and herself.
"Shizuru, what are you doing here?"
"I had a bad feeling, a premonition of sorts- is that Botan?" Shizuru's voice grew tight when she took in the rambling girl curled up against Kurama's chest.
"I'm afraid so, something has happened, and by what you have just told me, I now worry it might have something to do with your vision."
Her son, Minamino Shuuichi had been gone for the last few days, and though he did tend to disappear for short, to even long periods of time, she had a feeling that this time, she wouldn't be seeing him again. Streams of fresh tears pushed their way through her closed eyes and made twin streams of heated, crystalline liquid that poured down her cheeks and onto her cushiony pillows.
Unknown to her, a cloaked figure stood by her side, smirking devilishly and grasped in his hand was a gleaming dagger that was posed promisingly above the sleeping woman's neck.
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"…Please… forgive me. Good… bye…" Kuwabara's voice trailed off and he smiled sadly at the two forms crouched beside him before closing his eyes one last time and completely fading away.
Everything around Yuusuke went blank, totally and absolutely disappearing in a shock of reality. It was too much- too overwhelming for his mind to completely take in causing a complete wave of emotionless ness to wash over him. He didn't even notice when Kurama arrived up the stairs carry a shivering Botan bridal style with him; he didn't notice when someone's hands rested themselves on his shoulder, or even when two sets of strong arms lifted him up from his crouched position next to Kuwabara's corpse, and carry him away.
Finally he noticed he was no longer at Genkai's shrine, but instead he was being led into someone's house. He was vaguely aware of two pairs of hands around his arms and he was just barely taking in his surroundings. By the orderly look of everything around him, the only place he could be was at Kurama's apartment- and after several minutes of contemplation the events of the day struck home and he completely and literally broke down, carrying his support down with him.
"Yuusuke-kun, please just a few more steps," Shizuru's deep voice choked out, her own voice trembling, and she sounded as if she would love nothing more than to join the sobbing Yuusuke.
"Where…am I," Yuusuke managed to ask in between uncharacteristic sobs. "Where are… Keiko and Kuwabara?"
"You're at my house," Kurama explained as calmly as he could. "I'll explain everything else once you have calmed down a little."
The raven-haired man looked up at Kurama through pitiful, chocolate eyes, and nodded a little unsurely. It was moments like these that made Kurama just want to take the hanyou in his arms and comfort him, but he couldn't, not so long as he and Hiei were together. But it wasn't that he didn't care for the petit fire youkai, oh no, he truly loved him, but sometimes he wondered if they truly belonged together.
Suddenly the front door opened and Hiei entered followed by Botan currently dressed in her pink kimono that she only wore after guiding souls across the River Styx, both of them looked completely drained, both emotionally and physically. Kurama greeted them with a nod of his head, and then he and Shizuru helped hoist Yuusuke up off the floor once again and into the small living room.
Botan and Hiei followed after a few moments of silence hoping to regain what little sanity they had left, before facing a scene that would surely set them over the edge.
The living room was small, only holding a green, plush love seat, a matching, three-person couch, an ebony wood coffee table, and a grey Sony TV. Sitting with his head buried in his hands and hot tears spilling out through the spaced and shaking fingers, was Yuusuke; Shizuru sat beside him with one of her arms wrapped around his shoulder in a feeble attempt to comfort him- feeble because she too was sobbing, her free hand wiping away her tears as they fell involuntarily. Over to the side Kurama sat slouched in the love seat with his hands tangled through his shock of red hair. His emerald green eyes shimmered with tears that he just couldn't shed; so far he was the only one who hadn't suffered a direct blow from the events that had just transpired.
His logic behind this was that, though he was very close to everyone that had just recently perished, he didn't have bonds as close as the others in the room did- Hiei lost Yukina, his only sibling; Shizuru had lost Kuwabara, her only sibling. And Yuusuke, oh Yuusuke, had lost the most: Keiko, his wife and the child she bore; Kuwabara, his best and oldest friend beside Keiko; and Genkai, his beloved sensei and grandmother type figure. But now that the redhead had run that list through his head, he realized he wasn't the only one who had only suffered an indirect blow, Botan did as well. Even though she was extremely close to everyone, it wasn't as if she had lost a lover of sibling; no, she had lost several friends that could never be replaced, just as Kurama.
A bitter feeling embedded itself deeply into Kurama's stomach suddenly with a warning that said something was wrong his human mother, and he needed to go check on her. No longer did he live with the kind-hearted woman, but she temporarily lived with him as she waited out the renovation being done to her own home
He knew she was probably just taking a nap, and everything that had just recently happened was causing him to be a little paranoid, but he was in no state of mind to ignore any feeling that crept up on him.
The door to the guest room she was staying in was closed tight, so before Kurama entered he rapped his knuckles against the cool wood of the door and called out quietly, but loud enough to be heard through the door: "Mother?"
When no one answered, he gentle pushed the door open. Just as the door was halfway open Kurama stopped and literally fell back into the wall using it as support for his suddenly week knees. As if the door had a life of its own, it opened all the way completely revealing the horrible scene that had Kurama teetering on the edge of sanity and insanity.
His mother lay in bed peacefully enough, or so one would think on a quick passing glance, but at a slower pace one would have seen the hideous blood stains that tainted the snow-white sheets and the floor below in dark crimson splotches, and they would have noticed that the sheets only bulged where the neck was and the rest of the bed showed no sign of having a body in it, but that was because there wasn't a body occupying it, instead the corpse of Minamino-san lay propped up against the far wall completely stripped of her clothing. Written in blood across her chest were the words:
Nous observons vous et le repos, ainsi ne pensons pas que c'est le bout du sang à renverser!
Les Frères d'Immortalité
Kurama immediately recognized the strange wording to be French, and cursed himself for never taking that particular language in college.
Vaguely he heard hurried footsteps approach, and a muffled gasp from his left, where he guessed Botan stood. He felt an arm weave its way around his waist and gently pull him away from the wall and fully on his feet.
"Kurama?" it was Hiei who held him, he could tell by his deep and soothing voice. "Can you walk?"
"Mother." It was a pitiful lament, but it was all he could get out before a wave of darkness over took him, and he fell heavily into Hiei.
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Well, I might as well tell you this now instead of later- the next chapter will take place ten years after all the events that have just taken place in the text above. See that is why it's all in italics (this is just everything that has happened after Yuusuke and the rest got their mission).
Oh, I guess you want to know what the above in French meant right?
Well here is the translation!
We are watching you and the rest, so don't think this is the last of the blood to be spilt!
The Immortalité Brothers
So you see, these little jerks have already made their way into the story.
Oh I must thank my regulars:
KyoHana, kit-kit, and SnakeDude100
So I guess I'll see you next week!
Catie-brie
P.S. This is the earliest I have ever gotten a chapter out!