chapter 10: in which someone dies

"Ow," Kurama whispered as he opened his eyes and found himself sprawled on the ground and buried in rubble. He shifted, then bit back a scream from the glass embedded in his skin. Chewing on his lower lip to keep from screaming again over the condition of his hands and feet, he instead managed to shoulder some of the rubble off and emerge into fresh air, if fresh air also happened to smell like the undead.

Looking around, he realized that he had fetched up against the next building over from the hotel on a carpet of glass and covered in pieces of cement. All things considered, it could have been worse. It had been a blast about equal to one levied at him in the Dark Tournament, and he was still walking around and thinking fairly clearly. He was bleeding heavily nevertheless, and there were probably a few bones broken, but he was alive, and that was the important part. At least, he thought he was alive.

Kurama looked at his arms hastily. It looked like he had been skinned and blood was everywhere, but he couldn't tell if he was bleeding or if the blood was just running because he had only died a short while ago.

His fingers still worked, after a fashion, so he gingerly felt for the pulse on his neck. The blinding pain from his hands indicated that if the pulse was there, he would feel it. After a few terrifying seconds where he shifted his fingers around in search of the faint pressure, he finally located his pulse – it was racing – and slumped back against the building in relief. Relief quickly gave way to pain as Kurama's lacerated skin had glass pressed even more firmly into it. "Damn," Kurama muttered, stepping away from the building and swiping his hair from his face. "Oh my," he added, finally comprehending the full destruction that was before him. "What was in that bomb he threw at me?"

"It wasn't the bomb he threw at you," Botan said dryly from behind him. Kurama jumped and whirled to see her floating on her oar, looking only slightly dishevelled in contrast to the pieces of building littered around her. "I think he probably threw something at Hiei."

Kurama blinked. "I did tell him to make Karasu angry."

"He's good at making people angry," Botan agreed. "Anyway, whatever it was, the whole place went up in flames, lightning, and hellfire. I got everyone out, so no one was killed. Here, we need to talk, and you look like you could be patched up."

"I can fix it," Kurama replied, reaching for his hair stiffly and wincing.

"Yes, but you're going to need everything you have," Botan replied severely. "I won't."

Kurama brushed the nail marks on his neck with bleeding fingers. "Let me do these at least."

"If you insist," Botan said with a sigh. "I've never patched you up, have I?"

"It's never been necessary," Kurama told her.

"It is now," Botan told him, picking up one bloody hand and inspecting it. "So much for safety glass. Koenma-sama wanted me to tell you that...that this is exactly what he wanted to avoid. You know what lengths Karasu goes to, and we know what lengths you would go to in return. And I think we can take a wild guess at what the others would do if they were caught in the crossfire," she added with a quick glance at the remains of the hotel. "Unless you can somehow manage to get away from bystanders, especially human ones, Koenma-sama basically wants you to keep running in circles until the necromancer at the head of this is killed." Bits of glass showered to the ground from Kurama's skin as she spoke.

"That's understandable," Kurama said slowly, watching his skin expand and cover his fingers. "You're very good at this."

"And you're a mess," Botan replied tightly, obviously struggling to keep her attention equally split. "So you'll do as Koenma-sama asks? You'd be the first out of everyone I've spoken to who would take it quietly."

Kurama's eyes slid sideways to meet hers. "I have no argument with not involving other people. I don't have an argument with staying on the move. But if you tell me not to kill him in any way I can, I'm not even going to bother to argue with you."

"Good boy," Botan said. "I would do one of those manly smacks, but I think that might be a bad idea."

Kurama stared at her in what looked like growing concern. "Maybe you should just concentrate on one thing at a time," he finally suggested kindly.

Botan nodded and continued working in silence. "There. The rest is for you."

"I suppose that Minamino Shuuichi can handle such things after all," Kurama mused, flexing his fingers. "I warned him. I wonder if he thinks he killed me."

"That's the second part of the deal I'm supposed to present to you," Botan interrupted. "You should stay in this form."

"I can't promise you that," Kurama replied. "I can't promise anyone that. Not even myself. I've not gotten to that level of skill with it. You know I try, but you know that I sometimes...need to feel like myself again. And that the need I have is more powerful than my wanting to be able to assert myself in this body. I'm a demon, and I think you all forget that from time to time. I'm a demon, and every so often, I want out."

Botan looked at him suspiciously. "You scare me sometimes," she said truthfully.

"Sorry," said Kurama. He looked like he meant it. Sort of.

"Argh," Botan complained. "Just...be careful. You almost diedlast time. Don't you dare get yourself killed now."

"I like staying alive," Kurama pointed out.

"Yes, but you aren't immune from doing stupid things. You just do them less often than the others," Botan reminded him.

Kurama brushed his hair out of his face again. "Yusuke really is rubbing off on me."

"You're still bleeding," Botan announced, pointing at his neck. "Weren't you going to fix that yourself?"

"Oh," Kurama realized, touching the wound and looking at the blood which came away on his fingers. "Yes, I was. Thank you."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Botan decided. "I would like to remind you not to get killed, however."

"It's not like it would stop me," Kurama pointed out, with a slow smile that made Botan's hair stand on end. "I did once say that I'd become whatever I had to in order to kill him."

Several blocks away, Karasu finished using duct tape to affix his head back in place for the time being, made a face, and headed warily for the nearest pay phone. Unfortunately for him, no one had as yet explained the monetary part of the pay phone to him.

"Unless you call collect, you need to pay."

Karasu carefully looked around for the person making the suggestion, then started when he realized who it was. They felt and sounded wrong to him, but the physical similarity was striking.

"How much?" he asked.

"Here." The speaker approached and dropped three coins into his palm. "I can spare it."

"How kind," said Karasu. "Thank you."

The speaker shrugged. "Later. Ah!" he added as Karasu grabbed his hair. "Okay, man, let me go right now!"

"Bleached and dyed," Karasu realized, sifting the young man's long red hair through his fingers. "But well kept nonetheless."

The red-haired boy yanked free and glared at him with hostile green eyes. "The fetish stuff is always extra. Just because I stay around when weird shit happens does not mean I don't charge extra for the weird shit to come to me. And, no offence, mister, but you don't look like you've got a ton of money. And what's with the duct tape?"

"It keeps my head on," Karasu explained, smiling behind his mask. "The one who took it off was very precise. I didn't lose much of my hair."

The red-haired boy nodded with the expression of humouring a lunatic. "Sure, mister. Look, did you want anything more than a phone call? 'Cause if so, we're going to be talking in much higher figures."

Karasu looked the boy over. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, was rail-thin, and his hair was almost too red. "You'll do. You see, there's a message I want to give to someone," he began, "and you are precisely the person to help me."

"How far do you want me to go?" the boy asked wearily, picking at a thread on his vinyl shorts.

"I'll worry about the transportation," Karasu said.

The boy's eyes narrowed. "You will, will you? Hey!" he squeaked when Karasu's hands fastened on his throat. "Get off me before I cut you!"

"I could kill you from a distance," Karasu told him. "It would be painful and messy. I would like your features intact. But if you insist, I will sever the arteries in your arms and legs and let you bleed to death. What I am proposing for you now is quick."

"Fuck you!" said the red-haired boy, swiping a flick knife out of one boot and driving it into the side of Karasu's neck, straight through the duct tape.

"Ah," said Karasu, reaching up to pull the knife from his neck. "Not bad, for a human. I wasn't expecting you to do such a thing. If you have another weapon, however, rest assured that I will be expecting that."

The boy made a strangled noise and started thrashing around. "You're not alive! You're not human! Hey! Somebody help me! This guy's going to kill me! Hey!" There was a loud bang, followed by a scream. "Oh God, he shot me! He's killing me! God, isn't anyone listening to me? Help me!"

There was one more wordless scream, a crack, and then silence.

It was anything but quiet at the border. "Yusuke! What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Yukina. Kuwabara, too. It's gotten busy lately," Yusuke said tiredly, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "Human zombies walking into the demon world, demon zombies walking into the human world, and half the border guards are zombified as well. If it's dead, I'm making sure it doesn't get back up, that's all."

"Yusuke," Yukina said with a small smile, "I'd like to talk to you about some exorcism techniques, if that's all right. You studied under Genkai, and..."

Kuwabara watched, perplexed, as Yukina managed to deftly draw Yusuke out of hearing. "What the hell?"

"No shit," said a voice next to him. Kuwabara turned and beheld a zombie. "What kind of mass murder happened here?"

"I'm not sure," Kuwabara realized, noting the zombies scattered around the area in a whole new way. "Damn."

"You see, my dear, this is what I send against those who will not treat with me," the zombie continued with El Zorromancer's voice. "These ones were just passing through. Soon, I will send an army. You have seen that I have the best of everything. I will send the best against the border, against the spirit world, and against anyone else who defies me. And you, my dear, you are one of the best."

Kuwabara beamed, then remembered who was praising him. "And who else is the best?"

"If I told you that, it wouldn't be as much fun," El Zorromancer reprimanded him gently. "Have you any more questions?"

Kuwabara extended his aura sword. "I know that this approach is frowned on, but I've found that in this line of work, it's easier to kill first and ask questions later." With that, he swung.

Yukina eyed her boyfriend warily as he did a victory dance, then insisted, "This must sound very awkward, but I need you to find an excuse for me to talk to Hiei by myself!"

Yusuke also looked at Kuwabara, assessed him to be otherwise occupied when another zombie showed up from the demon world side, then said, "Does this needed excuse have anything to do with the fact that you share genetic material?"

"Wh-what?" Yukina stammered. "Wait! You know! Who else knows? How do you know?"

Yusuke sighed. "When Koenma asked me to rescue you, Kuwabara was there. He only paid attention to the video long enough to fall in love with you and find out where you were. While he was gone, I found out that you were Hiei's sister. So Kuwabara, as you seem to have guessed, still has no idea. I respected Hiei's wishes to not tell anyone, even you. You seem to have figured it out, so the point is moot now. So I know, Hiei knows, and..." Yusuke grimaced in thought. "Kurama knows and takes his mocking of Hiei on the subject very seriously. Botan probably knows. Koenma obviously knows, too. Why?"

"The necromancer knows," Yukina said. "I don't think anyone told him, so he must have another way of finding such things out. If he can know something as secret as that, what else can he know?"

"Oh," said Yusuke. "Oh, I see. Oi, Kuwabara, it's dead already!"

"It was dead before I started!" Kuwabara yelled back. "Urameshi, the necromancer is doing this deliberately. He's sending a message."

Yukina nodded. "Yes, he's trying to tell you that he doesn't like it when people don't let him do what he wants."

"He plans on recruiting the best fighters from among the dead and using them as his personal army," Kuwabara warned. "He said I was one of 'the best' that he wanted."

"I feel so much better now," Yusuke said disgustedly. "Listen, I'm going to go argue with Mukuro." He paused and looked pleadingly at Yukina and Kuwabara.

"Come," said Yukina to Kuwabara. "He seems to need moral support."

Yusuke tried not to look relieved but failed miserably. "Werble."

There was a mutter from Kuwabara's direction that might have been interpreted as "No wonder Hiei stays here", but could also have been a hesitant "Oh look, zombie stargazers."

You decide.

Hiei was totally unaware of Yusuke's plight and was instead busily setting the last of his broken bones, the severed ends knitting together obediently once they were properly arranged.

"You." Hiei looked up sharply and beheld Karasu standing on the roof opposite of his own perch, a red-haired, slender figure sprawled limply at the other demon's feet. "You I have a message for."

"I interest you now?" Hiei asked, standing as well. His eyes fixed on the clothes the boy at Karasu's feet wore. "How fickle."

Karasu looked like he might be smiling from behind the mask. "I have the potential to be quite fixed on one thing," he said, picking up the body at his feet. The head lolled at an unnatural angle. "But you seem to be aware of this."

"I'd noticed," Hiei answered.

The body fell from Karasu's outstretched arms, bounced off an awning, then slipped the last meter and a half to the ground. "This is my message," Karasu explained. "Look at it to your heart's desire." He looked at the red-haired body with an elated glow in his eyes. "I do so like to kill beautiful things," he added softly before he flitted away.

Hiei warily watched him go, then dropped from the roof and looked at the corpse in the road. "It's refreshing to see a dead body that's actually dead for once," he muttered, looking at the broken neck and severed artery in the leg. The eyes were not yet glazed and the body still felt warm. "Shit," said Hiei when he noted the colour of the eyes in conjunction with the hair. "Shit!"

"There you are!" Kurama skidded to a halt behind Hiei, then froze.

"I did what you asked," Hiei said quietly, standing. "I think I may have done too well. This was a message for me."

Kurama took his own look at the open eyes. "He died too quickly. If his neck wasn't snapped first, he would have bled out. This won't have satisfied him. He'll have liked it, but it won't last. He'll be back. He may even be back for the body."

"If the body stays around," Hiei pointed out.

Kurama looked emptily at the corpse on the ground, then turned and walked back the way he'd come. When Hiei caught up with him, Kurama closed his eyes and asked, "I'm not going to like this, but what did you do?"

"No, probably not," Hiei agreed. "I told him something literal. He interpreted it...as I meant him to."

Kurama put one hand over his eyes. "No wonder that there was nothing left of that hotel. I said to make him angry, not bait him into a murderous rage!"

"I missed that fine distinction. Does this mean he has other reactions?" Hiei inquired.

Kurama smiled, opening his eyes again. "All right, you have me there. It worked, I'll admit, but what he's done has worked as well."

"You know him better than I do, obviously," Hiei started. "What exactly was the message?"

"He knows what you were doing," Kurama explained slowly. "You chose to anger him, so he chose to show you what form his anger takes. And he's probably casting a few aspersions on me while he's at it, considering the way the corpse was dressed."

"Ah." Hiei's eyes darkened. "What do you want to do now?"

"Same principle as last time," Kurama said, "but with fewer people around. And much less being shot at."

"How about with no people around? I hate people," Hiei retorted.

Kurama bit back a grin. "I can try."

Back in the street behind them, the corpse's hand twitched convulsively. The boy rolled over, moaned, then choked when his head rolled the wrong way.

"You're back," said an unwelcome voice. Cold hands straightened his head again. "I should have kept that roll of duct tape."

"Don't touch me!" the boy screamed, flailing. "Don't touch me! You already tried to kill me!"

"I did kill you," Karasu said, picking the boy up and cradling his head carefully. "And now, at long last, I can make that phone call."

"Nn," the boy complained as his head turned awkwardly. "What...what are you?"

"I am a Quest Class demon," Karasu said. "An undead Quest Class demon. Ah, here is a phone." He put the boy down on a park bench and went to the pay phone, rolling the coins the boy had given him together in his fingers.

The red-haired boy eyed him as he put the change into the machine, then started to get up off the bench.

"Don't do that," said Karasu. There was a quiet explosion which knocked the boy against the back of the bench and sent pain flaring up in his abdomen. As the boy curled protectively around the injury, Karasu added, "Remember, I did kill you."

"I remember," the red-haired boy said through gritted teeth. "I remember."

Karasu nodded. "Good. Hello," he addressed the phone. "My name is Karasu, and I should like to make an appointment for myself and for someone else. What is your name?" he asked as an aside to the boy.

"Toshi," the red-haired boy said obediently.

"Toshi, he says," Karasu reported. "You will? Thank you. Good afternoon, Julian West. Yes, a double appointment." There was a pause. "No, it won't have been the name he was expecting. This is but a step for me. Yes. I thank you. Good day."

"What are you doing?" Toshi asked, not daring to move.

Karasu picked him back up. "Finishing something I started."

Several miles away, Kurama finished picking the lock on an empty house and opened the door. "No people, no demons, no fees, and no psychotic stalkers. Yet. I'm guessing that the owners took their things and fled, as the door was locked. Looters wouldn't care."

"You know, if this doesn't stop any time soon, the dead are probably going to start taking up where the living left off," Hiei mused, stepping away from the door so Kurama could re-lock it. "That more than anything else would serve to establish the necromancer as a power."

"Mm," Kurama said absently, rubbing his neck where he had healed the nail marks. "And if he can have the control of such demons as Karasu, he'll have more than enough in the way of physical force."

"Or if he has the control of us," Hiei continued with the line of thought. "That would not only break down Koenma's ability to strike back physically, but strengthen his own empire as well. We talked about that."

"It's a nasty thought," Kurama said. "But only one of many. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Hiei ignored the question, reaching out and turning Kurama's chin to look at the nail marks on his neck. "I'm guessing you didn't incur these as shrapnel scars."

"No," Kurama answered. "Why? What about them?"

"There is a word written here," Hiei said. "A word or...a name."

Kurama jerked out of Hiei's grip. "What?" he asked, his fingers rising to cover the marks.

"Ka...ra...su." Hiei spelled out, though he could no longer see the characters.

"Karasu wrote his name on me," Kurama said, sounding as though he were testing the words. "He wrote his name on me."

"Yes."

Kurama nodded, then walked out of the room.

Hiei looked hopefully at the wall for guidance, and upon finding none, subsided into a wary sulk. He had never been comfortable with such scenes. They left him feeling perplexed and useless, both of which annoyed him greatly.

Apparently, there were a few downsides to being a heartless bastard.

Pity.

Aithril the Elf-Maiden: You actually don't have as long to wait as I thought. Sorry for scaring you.

KyoHana: What can I say? Hiei is fun.

A lilmatchgirl: Botan rocks. Honestly.

Evene: Now, if it were simple and clear-cut, it would be...um, the real thing.

sukiminamino: Cute name. My grammar and I are tight. (/stupidity)

Oya: Oh good.

Crescent Venus: Kuwabara, frankly, is the hardest one to write.

shadow priestess: Aww, thanks.

Capella Alpha Aurigae: I think Kurama is secretly fond of the disappearing trick. He does it rather a lot.

Bluespark: Someone has to do the paperwork.

Nyte Kit: It wasn't so much disappearing as...forced non-appearing.

MikaSamu: But are colleges smart? That is the question.

Kooriya Yui: They're a large bureaucracy. They have to be good at loopholes.

RehdFawx: It's already finished, but...um, I'll post on time. Or something. My school is sort of sucking my soul dry for the moment. We're having a rough patch.

Peekaboo -- I see you -- leave Simon a review.