10. Final Meeting
--
Given that Hiei was a fire demon who had been rejected by an island of ice maidens, it wasn't too surprising that he hated snow and strongly disliked sleet.
He wasn't sure which of the two was pelting him right now; it seemed an odd mixture of extremely watery snow. Northern Alaric was famed for its miserable weather, but this was actually the region's first legitimate cause of complaint in months.
Hiei pulled his cloak over his face as a makeshift hood, and muttered, "This must be what happens when clouds have diarrhea."
The precipitation really did have that kind of consistency, with small chunks of gray ice dispersed in an intermediate mush. The stuff felt disgusting when it hit Hiei's face, never mind that it was only poorly frozen water.
Fortunately, Kurama's strawberries proved themselves as a hardy strain. They continued to produce enough fist–sized fruit to feed a small nation, and their growth was actually accelerating despite the adverse conditions.
Hiei took this as a sign that Kurama's powers were increasing.
"Hn. Maybe you'll become strong enough to take care of that bastard by yourself." Hiei smiled grimly; "that bastard" obviously referred to Karasu. Then he blinked. "On second thought, don't save me the trouble. I'll just be annoyed at the sight of blood that I haven't drawn from him myself."
The Jaganshi hastened on through the oppressive weather, cursing Kurama with a certain degree of fondness (and Karasu not so much) for forcing him to stoop to such a level that he was reduced to talking to himself.
Did Hiei love Kurama? He would have shied away from a direct avowal, even though there was no Kuwabara to taunt him, because the answer to that question was now much more strongly positive than before, and Hiei was no good with strong emotions. The next logical question—what had strengthened Hiei's attachment to Kurama?—could probably be answered by quoting the adage, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
In this case, absence was responsible, yes; but also pressing concern for Kurama's well-being, and even his life.
Hiei remembered distinctly how Kurama had nearly sacrificed his life to kill Karasu, and how even that had failed, gaining him only a hollow victory. And now he was at the crow youkai's mercy. Hiei snarled and tried to shut down this line of thought, because he didn't want to be weighed down by his fears (which were well-founded) of what Karasu might have done to Kurama.
He was not very successful in his endeavor.
--
The next few days blurred into an indistinguishable routine of traveling for hours in the carriage, getting out to set up camp at night, and endless bad weather. The watery gray light that greeted their eyes at eight in the morning was the same that shone down upon them at noon, and the same as that which faded away during unspectacular sunsets.
Karasu no longer shared a bed with Kurama at night, choosing instead to sleep in Bui's tent. Bui didn't sleep at night, at least not to Kurama's knowledge. The last that Kurama knew before he fell asleep, Bui was always sitting at the fire, as if acting guard.
Kurama slept well, now that Karasu left him alone. He wondered if Karasu was unable to face him, or if he was simply trying to give Kurama a sense of security.
One morning, however, Bui entered Kurama's tent to shake him awake.
"What is it?" Kurama demanded groggily, struggling to focus his eyes.
"Karasu wants to see you."
Kurama instantly snapped out of his drowsy haze.
"What for?"
"Don't worry," Bui said, his voice softening at the hard, suspicious look on Kurama's face. He looked like a cornered animal. "Just go."
Kurama stared at Bui for a while with an unfathomable expression before disengaging himself from his blankets. Bui left the tent, and Kurama followed him outside with a not insubstantial feeling of apprehension. Bui pointed at Karasu's tent, and Kurama entered hesitantly.
Karasu, who was seated, looked up from a mahogany chest, the contents of which he appeared to have been examining. To both their credits, Karasu and Kurama met each other's gaze levelly.
At last, Karasu spoke.
"Sit, please," he said, indicating the opposite side of the traveling rug which he occupied.
Kurama obeyed warily.
"I . . . that night," Karasu said, faltering despite the deliberate quality of his voice. "It was wrong of me to undo your hair as carelessly as I did. Let me redo it."
Kurama stared at him. Surely he didn't take this as a symbolic "undoing" of the violation he had committed. He saw the gleaming contents of the mahogany box, elegant pins and ribbons, and his face hardened.
"It's quite unnecessary now," he said frostily.
In response, Karasu's face tightened. "It's necessary now, because we're near our destination, and you must be presentable." He whipped out a hairbrush and advanced on Kurama, his jaw set rigidly beneath his mask.
As Kurama succumbed grudgingly to Karasu's ministrations, he wondered in the back of his mind whether Karasu had clumsily been trying to apologize. He also wondered, more spitefully, whether it even mattered.
--
During their course that day, they had nearly attained their destination. When Karasu halted the carriage and called for them to disembark, they were in a thicket at the edge of an immense, gray body of water almost indistinguishable from the overcast, washed-out evening sky. Tendrils of fog curled between the bare branches overhead; underfoot, the ground was soggy. Kurama had heard the wheels squelching nastily, and he had seen the sprays of mud thrown up in the horses' wake.
Overall, the moving portrait that had been framed in the carriage window created an effect so exceedingly dreary that Kurama thought it would have wreaked psychological genocide on people prone to Seasons Affective Disorder. He himself was feeling depressed, though he certainly had many other valid reasons behind that.
"Lake Mugen," muttered Bui, getting up noisily as his armor creaked.
Kurama exited closely behind him, grimacing as the cold, moist lake air condensed on his skin. His face contorted in further disgust when his heels sank deeply into the mud despite his light footfall.
"We're close," Bui said by way of a question.
Karasu nodded, and extended his arm to point at the lake's far shore. Kurama nearly expected to see an explosion at the other side. That simple gesture had irrevocably taken on unpleasant connotations in his mind.
"Nekura lives on the eastern bank. This lake is fairly large, so we must take a ferry over. When I planned this out, I made an appointment with the youkai who oversees Nekura's visitors. Nekura doesn't enjoy company very much—particularly when it is unexpected. We're ahead of schedule. I hadn't anticipated that the horses would bear us with such speed."
Kurama couldn't help glaring at the remarkably sturdy beasts (who hadn't even broken a sweat despite the day's journey), as if they were at fault.
"But we are a day early. The ferryman will carry us over tomorrow afternoon."
"What do we do today then?" Bui asked.
Karasu smiled. "We wait."
They set up camp again, and all three gathered around the fire to warm themselves. But while they were sitting together, their thoughts were wandering in very different quarters . . .
Kurama made his final decision about when to take action. By this point, he had regained enough youki to commune with plants, and he had learned from the strawberries that Hiei was very, very close. He decided to wait until Hiei had caught up (which, he estimated, would be around the time the next day when they saw Nekura) before unleashing his powers and fighting Karasu.
As he saw it, this was the wisest choice, because he certainly could not take on Karasu and Bui alone. With Hiei at his side, however, he was confident that they could dispatch Karasu, Bui, and even Nekura, if necessary. The fact that Hiei had single-handedly managed to finish off "anyone standing in his way" (Karasu's words) had impressed Kurama deeply.
The knowledge of Hiei's nearness had rendered Kurama breathless with anticipation once he'd received it. As he sat across from Bui and Karasu now, he was making a considerable effort to keep his joy from shining through his face.
But Bui and Karasu were too deeply engrossed in their own meditations to take much notice of Kurama's expression. Karasu, certainly, was shooting intent looks at Kurama's face every now and then, but something else entirely occupied his thoughts.
With the devotion of a lover, Karasu traced the curves of Kurama's cheekbones, and followed the fall of his adorned hair with a curiously tender gaze. Kurama, as always, was breathtaking for him to behold—and he did not question for a minute that everything had been worthwhile thus far. He could not, however, remember Hiroshi and his generosity, or Takara and her misguided affections, without sharp pangs of regret. Karasu tried to shake those feelings off, but he as he looked upon Kurama, he was forcibly reminded of a beautifully carven pagan idol at whose feet lay blood sacrifices—sacrifices needed to keep a capricious god happy.
Also, he worried vaguely in the back of his mind about whether his unplanned violation of Kurama would negatively affect his plans. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that Kurama's cooperation, unwilling or not, was crucial to the realization of his dreams.
Still, he was so close now to attaining his goal that he could not be other than deliriously happy. He kept his entire face a mask, though, in order not to panic Kurama—although, unbeknownst to Karasu, Kurama was also too excited for lesser emotions like panic.
Bui, like the other two, was deep in thought. He bowed his head and seemed to be staring fixedly at his knees—although no one could really tell where Bui was looking, with that visor. It would be difficult to guess what he was thinking, except that his mind was no less agitated than his companions'.
He rose abruptly, causing Kurama and Karasu to look up at him in surprise.
"Bui?" Karasu queried, the sound of the name sliding from his lips and into Bui's heart with the accuracy of a bullet.
Bui glanced at Karasu and Kurama briefly before muttering something about tending to the horses and turning away. He was the only one who could read the poorly veiled, eager expectancy on both of their faces, and it sickened him. Bui alone knew that one of them was bound to be horribly disappointed: neither's hopes could be realized without dashing those of the other. And Bui himself didn't know which one he wanted to prevail.
--
That night, as Kurama was lying alone in his tent, he woke suddenly. His eyes flew open, but he had no idea what had roused him. He heard ominous rustling noises outside, and turned to look at the wall of his tent. The flickering light of the fire cast dark shadows on the cloth wall, but Kurama thought he could see people's shadows moving as well. And if he listened more closely . . . he heard the pained grunts of two fighters locked in combat.
Kurama scrambled to the front of his tent and drew the flaps apart a hair's breadth to peek outside. What he saw made his breath catch audibly in his throat.
Matsuoka!
How could they have been so stupid as to forget him? The mistake might very well cost Bui his life, if Kurama didn't intervene.
It appeared that Matsuoka had crept up on Bui as he was holding his nightly vigil by the fire, and thrown a glowing lasso around his neck. Apparently, Matsuoka relied heavily on fancy weaponry rather than youki, like his brother. Bui was so tightly choked that he could not cry for help, and he seemed half-paralyzed.
Kurama weighed his options frantically. He could probably save Bui's life, but that would reveal the full extent to which he had regained his powers. And Karasu wouldn't be happy when he found out, which he inevitably would if Kurama chose to step in . . .
On the other hand, Bui had shown him too many small kindnesses for Kurama to be able to live with himself if he let Bui die. He could not forget that his powers had only been restored this far because of Bui's complicit silence.
Kurama gave a sigh, stepped out of the tent, and threaded his hand through his hair. He pulled out a rose, and shook it out silently into a whip. The feel of the stiff handle in his grasp was immensely reassuring after weeks of being defenseless and at Karasu's mercy. After approaching as near as he could while remaining unnoticed, Kurama gripped the rose whip as if it were the hand of a lover, and drew back his arm to lash it across Matsuoka's lasso.
Hissing, it sailed through the air and wound tightly around the glowing lasso several times; with grim satisfaction, Kurama jerked his arm backwards to snap the lasso. Bui stumbled backward in relief, massaging his neck with one hand, and forming an axe in the other.
But Kurama was determined to finish the job he had started, especially as he would have to pay a heavy price in any case.
Matsuoka, white with fury, cracked the glowing length still in his hand. He began snapping it at Kurama's rose whip, and they began dueling.
"Who are you to interfere?" he demanded. "Aren't you their prisoner?"
Kurama said nothing, just kept at attacking him.
Matsuoka's eyes widened a little. "Could it be . . . are you connected with that Hiei?"
Kurama stumbled a little in shock, but it wasn't enough to give Matsuoka a real advantage.
Through deft feinting and footwork, Kurama had lured Matsuoka in front of an ideal tree. At that moment, he sent a command for a jutting branch to shoot forth and stab Matsuoka in the back. The branch penetrated all the way through, bursting through his chest in a bloody spray, and lifting him several inches above the ground.
"Fuck . . ." he gasped, blood welling up in his mouth and dripping from his lips. His wild, confused eyes rolled madly in his head. He convulsed for a few seconds before going limp, and hanging like a piece of meat in a butcher's window. Bui closed in and hacked off Matsuoka's head in one clean motion with his axe. It rolled around and came to rest far from their campsite, though Kurama could still see the eerily vacant gaze from the half-open eyes.
He felt a slight twinge of regret about killing someone who shared his hatred of Karasu, and he was burning to know how Matsuoka knew Hiei.
Nevertheless, a wave of bizarrely mingled contentment and pleasure washed over Kurama, mixed with excitement at hearing Hiei's name. It had been so long since he'd felt empowered in the presence of adversity. But even that was going to be short-lived. Ominous, slow footsteps approached.
Kurama turned to see Karasu draw near, his eyes hooded and his hair swinging behind him sinisterly like clinging shadows. Kurama froze like a deer caught in headlights. Karasu had seen everything.
"Now that he's taken care of, what am I going to do with you?" Karasu's voice was soft and unnerved. He had just realized the danger he had been sitting on all this time. His nervousness at this discovery probably matched Kurama's at being found out.
Karasu's eyes traveled over the rose whip still in his hand, and the bloody branch protruding from Matsuoka's chest.
"It was only a matter of time before you attacked me, wasn't it?"
Without waiting for a reply, he flicked his fingers irritably, as if drying his hands. The small explosions that resulted decimated Kurama's left leg, sending him to the ground. With a twist of his wrist, he sent a bomb at Kurama's right arm, causing him to drop the rose whip.
Kurama groaned, bleeding profusely. He struggled to defend himself by retaliating with the defensive Fuka Enbujin. As he had during their match at the Dark Tournament, Karasu advanced past the rose petals unharmed, blowing them to bits.
"Even now, you won't be helpless."
Karasu raised his arm again to throw another bomb at Kurama, but a hand darted out and seized him by the elbow.
"Don't."
Karasu turned to look at Bui, curious despite his anger. "Why are you interfering?" he demanded.
"Remember the last time you lost control with him—and what that mistake might still cost you. Think of all you went through to attain him. Shouldn't you take more care with your prize?"
"I would think that your prize might become more useful, then, Bui," Karasu retorted. "It's been worthless so far."
Completely baffled despite his relief at having been saved by Bui's intervention, Kurama stared at them. Bui's prize, he remembered Karasu had told Takeo, was a necklace of some sort. How would it be useful in relation to himself?
Kurama's question would not be answered at that moment; Bui was already turning away from Karasu's hard expression and callous words. But Bui had made his point regarding Kurama, and Karasu was not going to injure him further.
Glaring at Kurama, he whirled about and ducked swiftly into his tent. Kurama didn't dare stir—even if he hadn't been effectively crippled, he was too frightened to make a break for it. For it was the first time Karasu had looked at Kurama with any emotion even resembling anger in his eyes, and Kurama was more fearful of him now than he had been during his ravishment.
Indeed, any advantage Kurama might have gained from his resilience against Karasu's rape seemed to have been lost, as Karasu had just deliberately and consciously hurt him. And this time, Karasu would probably not drop any hints of internal distress caused by harming Kurama—because he felt perfectly justified in his actions.
Karasu emerged from the tent in just as much of a hurry as he had disappeared into it, and he strode briskly to Kurama's side, grabbing his arm.
Before Kurama even had time to react, Karasu had shoved the billowing sleeve of his blood-spattered kimono out of the way, and plunged a familiar-looking syringe into the crook of his elbow.
"By this time tomorrow," he said savagely, "you will have submitted to me, sweet and docile as a lamb."
As Kurama lost consciousness, however, a feeble—but very real—hope rose within him. He had managed to discern that no matter how much Karasu believed he was predicting an imminent development, his voice had given him away. He should have spoken with absolute certitude, but his tone betrayed a nervous waver; as if instead of predicting something as certain as the sunrise, he was praying for a supernova.
--
The next day, Bui and Karasu packed up their traveling gear and made for the lakeshore, where a brown-uniformed youkai was waiting for them with a crude raft. Bui carried Kurama's unconscious body, as he had before.
"You look ill," Bui observed as they stepped onto the raft.
"Ill?" Karasu repeated, his voice trembling. "At this moment?"
"Maybe it's too much excitement," Bui remarked with some bitterness, noting how Karasu's limbs quivered.
"Yes," said Karasu, turning a ghastly smile on him. "And my dislike of water."
The waves, calm as the lake was, slopped up the edges of the raft and sprayed them both with a fine mist. It seemed that even this was too much for Karasu's delicate constitution on water.
But he looked forward eagerly as Nekura's house, an unassuming little cottage, came into view. The moment he had been waiting for was drawing near.
Kurama, headachy from the effects of the tranquilizer, came to just as they set foot on the shore. He glared at Karasu, who smirked triumphantly before looking away.
Kurama felt sick and weak, because of the sedative and his injuries. His arm and leg throbbed with pain, though the wounds had been cleaned and bandaged. Despite his physical condition, he retained enough presence of mind to think of Hiei, and the imminent salvation he represented. It was imperative that he use the Todakidare seed now, in order to be in his Youko form to help Hiei when he arrived. He feebly raised his arm to his chest, and under the pretense of loosening his collar to breathe more freely, opened the pouch containing his precious seed.
Once he was confident that neither Bui nor Karasu were looking, he took it out and dropped it onto the ground. And just in time too, for they had now reached Nekura's front door. He immediately poured his efforts into making the seed grow, and even as Karasu set foot on Nekura's front step, Kurama could feel the seed sending forth roots into the earth.
"Put Kurama down," Karasu directed Bui, who complied. "I'm sure he's regained his legs, ne?"
Kurama, conscious that he had just sown the seed of Karasu's downfall, contented himself with a glare at Karasu for that jibe. His leg didn't hurt too much, if he put all his weight on the other one. And, he would be eating Todakidare fruit soon to compensate for his injuries.
Visibly brimming with eagerness, Karasu shook back his luxurious hair before knocking at Nekura's door. The door opened almost immediately, as if the person inside had been waiting for his visitors for a while.
"Good afternoon, Nekura-sama," Karasu said politely, bowing from the waist. Bui dipped into an identical bow behind him.
Kurama could not tear his eyes from Nekura long enough to follow suit (besides which, his injuries prevented him from bending over). The youkai who menaced his very free will was terrible to behold. Nekura had too many piercings and scars to count, and all in strange places which distorted his facial structure. A bell dangled from a ring protruding above his right temple, and a chain with three links hung from another ring that entered beneath his chin, and emerged from the right corner of his mouth. Three consecutive hoops graced the left side of his jaw, and uneven stitches dotted his cheeks and forehead.
"Welcome. I know you have traveled far," said Nekura, smiling in greeting and motioning them inside.
It was disturbing how the ring through his mouth pressed against his lower lip as he smiled and how the stitches on his face contracted as he talked. Kurama managed to get into the house, however, and take in his surroundings.
Karasu led the way inside; Bui assisted Kurama. The room was crudely and sparsely furnished. The three youkai assembled themselves on the assorted, roughly hewn chairs gathered around a makeshift coffee table while Nekura rose to busy himself with a stove in the corner of the room.
"Would you like some tea?"
"Please," murmured Karasu. He was really very impatient to get it over and done with, but it was necessary to behave with utmost courtesy towards Nekura.
"All right." Nekura looked up serenely at the door. "I'll pour five cups then."
"Don't bother," said a hard voice from the doorway.
Kurama didn't say a word, but Karasu saw the way he turned and opened towards the intruder like a sunflower to the summer sky. He hated the earnest look of longing in Kurama's green eyes, which had never been directed at him.
Hiei, Karasu snarled mentally.
Hiei glanced at Kurama, and the ensuing spark that occurred when their eyes met sent an electric thrill down both of their spines. Hiei drank in the sight of Kurama alive (if not necessarily well), and Kurama actually felt light-headed at the manifestation of his prayers. But they weren't given much time to greet each other after their long time apart.
"Hello, Hiei," Nekura said, with the ease of greeting an old friend.
"Shigure." Hiei acknowledged him tersely, his hand at his katana. "What are you doing here?"
"Shigure?" Karasu repeated.
Nekura smiled slightly, a frightening sight that never truly lost its horror. "Of the four of you, Hiei alone knows my true identity. He knows me as Shigure, the surgeon. But even he does not know that I am now the leading general of Mukuro-sama of Alaric."
"What?" Hiei snapped.
Karasu's eyes darted back and forth. He was usually quick on the uptake, and this time he put two and two together before anyone else.
"It is curious that you seem to have taken an extended leave of the armed forces," Karasu observed shrewdly. "I know that you prepared the poison used on the Urameshi team at the Dark Tournament. But you have not only established yourself as an apothecary; you've also gained a reputation as a sealer."
Shigure smirked. "Mukuro-sama was very interested to hear that the Toguro brothers were entering the Dark Tournament this year. They had grown so powerful that several years back, they had ceased to participate. No one offered them a satisfactory challenge any more.
"Mukuro-sama was even more interested to learn that they had specifically invited a team of Reikai Tantei, half of whom were humans, with the ultimate purpose of meeting them in the semifinals. So she sent me off to ingratiate myself with the tournament officials, in order to give her detailed information. She'd known that with such a promising combination of elements, something worth her notice was bound to occur—though I doubt anyone suspected events would take such an extraordinary turn."
"Mukuro discharged her head general to investigate something that she wasn't even sure was going to turn up definite results?" Kurama demanded. "Nothing might have happened, and then she would have gone to a lot of trouble for nothing!"
"There's more," Shigure said mysteriously. "But I see that the Jaganshi is practically foaming at the mouth for a chance to finish off Karasu. I think for the time being, I will bow out to the inevitable fight, and finish what I have to say after you have worked everything out." He stepped back and raised his hands. "I am a neutral party."
The other four youkai needed no further urging, and leapt at each other.
In a corner of the room, Shigure allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he watched the struggle begin. So far things had worked out according to plan—perhaps even surpassing what he had expected.
--
A/N: Fuka Enbujin—the defensive attack Kurama employs that uses swirling, razor-sharp rose petals
I've been complaining and struggling over this chapter for a long time, and hopefully, you all understand why after reading it! I do like how it turned out.
Unfortunately, chapter 11 will probably take just as long for me to finish. XP
But now that we're nearing the climax, I was wondering how many of you readers are rooting for Kurama and Hiei against Karasu, or vice versa. Personally, Karasu is my favorite character (if it hasn't been obvious), but Funara, who this is written for, is a huge HxK fan. So I thought it would be interesting to know how many are you are on each side, so to speak.
Not that it would change anything, mind you, as I've had the ending planned out for months. Still, I'd like to know. ;)