("The Disclaimer") "Yu Yu Hakusho" and all known related characters do not belong to me. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters.
" . . . For I Have Sinned"
by DragonDancer5150
Chapter 2 – A More Merciful Punishment
(or "Silence for Reflection")
Step . . . step . . . step . . .
The stairs were many, the platform high. To fulfill the purpose for which it had been built, it had to be. Even still, he reached the top too soon.
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
Kurama woke slowly into a haze of pain, resisting the reflex to arch his back against the whipfire that seared him. He lay still for a long moment before opening his eyes and admitting that he was awake. He could hear voices and thought he might learn something if they thought him still unconscious. Then, shudders wracked him and he gasped with the shock as a bucket of chill water was thrown over him. "Time to wake up, sleeping beauty," a familiar voice coaxed roughly, speaking English.
Kurama suppressed a growl of anger as he shifted and rolled to face his assailant and found his hands bound behind his back. It took his mind a moment to recognize Kaito Yuu, whom he knew from school – or had known, should have known . . . Kurama saw that unconsciousness had not improved his situation. Well, that would seem to answer the question of whether or not I was dreaming. He lay in what looked for all the world like a medieval dungeon cell, musty straw offering a thin carpet over the flagstone floor and sticking in place where the stalks had shallowly embedded themselves in the flesh of his bare chest, shoulders, and cheek. Late morning light shone in from a small, barred window high on the wall.
Kaito let him orient himself a moment longer before stepping into the cell, flanked by two more guards wielding short swords. He passed off the empty bucket to the one on his left, then drew a wand of rosewood from his jacket. "Well, now. We can't have you meeting the magistrate looking like that, can we? Let's get you cleaned up a bit." He pulled a pocket watch from another pocket, noted the time, then pointed the wand at Kurama. Crackling energy slammed him, sending him sliding back into the wall, the straw behind him pressing into the whip wounds.
The two accompanying guards went to work immediately: unlocked the manacles that bound his wrists, pulled off the bloody, mud-soiled slacks, passed a quick sponge over his skin, and redressed him. As they worked, Kurama found that he was paralyzed and Kaito explained, "Relax. None of your muscles will work at the moment anyway. Even your heart is not pumping, nor your lungs breathing, so you might as well conserve yourself. Don't worry, though – it will wear off soon enough. Quickly, gentlemen, you have 45 seconds remaining." One of the guards pulled Kurama's hands back behind him after they had gotten a shirt and tabard in place, and locked the manacles back around his wrists. Just about then, Kurama felt his heart start beating again and his chest heaved with a desperate inhalation of breath.
Kaito smirked. "There, now. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Kurama looked down at himself, recognizing some of his own clothing – light gray pants, black loafers, white shirt under yellow tabard, belt . . .
"Everything should fit you well enough. They were confiscated from your own wardrobe. Goodman Hatanaka quite readily allowed us to search your room for anything we needed after you took off almost a month ago."
"Ah . . . perhaps you could refresh my memory," Kurama ventured. "What happened a month ago?" He did not honestly expect much, but any clue –
The question was met only with derisive laughter. "Heh, Sergeant Urameshi wasn't kidding."
"What? You think playin' dumb's gonna get you out of this? Your hide's already nailed to the wall, youko. You just don't know it yet."
"That's enough," Kaito murmured. "Bring him along."
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
"Are you even hearing any of this, youko?" the bailiff demanded in exasperation.
Upon having first laid eyes on the judge, Kurama had been forced to school his expression into neutrality before betraying any hint of amusement. Magistrate Calladon looked like he had been costumed to play a part in a theatrical production of some period piece of either Georgian England or the French nobility before the revolution, complete with powdered wig, white make-up and rouge (and even a beauty mark), thick red suit with too many ruffles – Kurama was almost positive he had even caught a glimpse of high-heeled boots beneath the judicial robe as the heavyset man waddled in from his side office to take his place at the judge's bench. Kurama had seen right away from the scowl on the man's face that, very likely, he could expect a less-than-fair trial. As it was, he had yet to have his charges actually stated. Apparently, it was not deemed necessary as there was not one person in attendance who did not already know of what the prisoner was being accused – not one person, that was, but the prisoner himself.
He had been questioned mostly on his past, on his deeds as a full-blooded youko, how he had managed to infuse his failing life energies into an unborn human, why he had chosen the particular one he did, why he had not chosen to leave the family sooner, what had possessed him to do what he did, where had he been hiding, what were his plans now. Kurama had kept his answers as brief and noncommittal as possible, but he could barely formulate an appropriate answer to one question when the next was flung at him or else the "bailiff" – who himself made Kurama think of a poorly-costumed Sheriff of Nottingham – went off on a new tirade against him in particular and sometimes against youkai in general. The man introduced to him as the bailiff seemed like this place or time's equivalent of a lawyer although, to listen to him, one might think he believed himself judge, jury and executioner as well. In his mind, Kurama was guilty, sentenced, and already condemned. It was just that no one else had acknowledged this obvious truth yet.
One fact Kurama did manage to deduce was that the existence of the Demon Realm was common knowledge and that there was some sort of on-going war between humans and youkai as the latter attempted to invade the Human Realm on a fairly regular basis, or so he had the impression.
"Enough of this. Shuichi Minamino, are you or are you not originally Youko Kurama?" the magistrate queried directly. "This is a simple, straight-forward, 'yes' or 'no' question."
Kurama had managed to keep from implicating himself clearly in whatever mess they believed him to have caused, but there was no getting around this one. If he could just get a word in edgewise . . . but he did not know if they would believe him. There was simply too much hostility and charged energy washing around this courtroom full of stern officials and angry onlookers. Still, he had to try. "I . . . yes, I am, but – !"
"There! There you are!" the bailiff fairly shrieked in victory. "He has admitted it with his own mouth. Everyone heard it. My Lord Magistrate, I ask you, what more needs to be stated? He's all but convicted himself!"
Magistrate Calladon nodded sagely. "I need hear no more." He turned steel-gray eyes on Kurama. "You are no longer ever to be called Shuichi Minamino. The Human Realm hereby strips you of that name. It should never have been to given you to begin with. It belongs to the innocent whose soul you usurped and have since paraded yourself in his body like a cheap suit." The man did not even try to keep from his voice the contempt he felt at the thought.
Kurama stared at him, deeply stricken by the accusation. He had been so very careful in his selection. Even as he had once been, he was never so heartless as that! The child would have been a stillborn if he had not – "Your Honor, there . . . was no soul. I-I would not have – "
"Silence!" Kaito, standing guard, backhanded him.
"For that crime alone I should have you flayed alive," Calladon continued in a low growl, disgusted to the core. "However, unlike your kind, we have laws and a justice system that must be followed for order to be maintained. When it was suspected that you escaped into our realm, our authorities were notified by the powers-that-be. I only wish we had been more diligent and pro-active in finding you sooner. Still, found you we have, if too late for a whole new batch of innocent souls."
His steel gaze went positively cold. "By the power vested in me as an officer of the law, I hereby pronounce that you are and forever will be Youko Kurama the Silver Fox. You stand here accused of countless crimes against your own kind back in Demon Realm. Quite frankly, those are none of our concern, and I would normally just hand you over to the Special Defense Squad. However, you have committed crimes here in our realm against our kind as well, and I will personally see you punished for those." Something in the way he said that sent icy shivers down Kurama's spine. "The survivors and the families of your victims stand among your witnesses today. I will not reopen their already raw wounds by making them listen to another account of your atrocities, so let me cut to the point.
"Youko Kurama, for your crimes against the human race, your sentence is death by hanging. In the town square, before the witness of our entire community, you will be hung by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your eternal soul." Kurama felt his knees go weak and he barely caught himself from falling, his legs wanting to buckle in protest. The sentence was pronounced with a certain air of formality, but the magistrate dropped the tone of protocol as he added, "Pray that your neck snaps with the initial drop. Personally, I pray that it does not. Anything so quick would be too humane for you. What I give you now is certainly more merciful than what you offered your dead. Bailiff, see that he is delivered to the executioner in ten minutes' time." At the look of added shock, the magistrate explained with a scowl, "Assembly of the gallows was begun at sunrise this morning. They were tightening the final fittings before we started this superfluous procedure."
"We don't want your sudden shift in weight to bring the whole construction down on top of you, do we?" Kaito asked as he unlocked the gate of the low "fence" of the defendant's stand.
"This way, youko." The bailiff took him forcefully by the arm, dragging him off the stand and out the side of the courtroom amid deafening jeers and hollers. Shaking, he was led down a long, dark corridor through to the back of the building. In spite of himself, he slowed, his feet leaden, as his sharp ears picked up the first sounds of the blood-thirsty crowd on the other side of the thick wooden door at the end of the hallway. He shook his head, in denial in spite of himself. This cannot be happening. What is going on!
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
He feared that and other questions might never be answered as his feet cleared the top step. Kurama stood on a platform seven or eight feet off the ground, staring in horror at the noose now inches from his nose. He swallowed hard on the lump in his throat, sweat trickling down his face, as his eyes focused past the noose down to the waiting horse-drawn carriage behind the platform, an open casket ready in the bed of the wagon. He thought he had seen something like this once in an American movie about that country's "Old West."
He was shaking freely, his mind numb, as the masked executioner standing next to him grasped him by the shoulders, turning him around to face the crowds. Kurama had managed to avoid eye contact on the way through, but now he could not escape them. Angry faces wavered across his vision, almost blurring together in a sea of derision. Hissing and catcalls threatened to deafen him before his mind locked onto one unexpected sound, the wailing of desperate sobs, and his eyes found its source. His human mother, Minamino Shiori – the one person he loved more than anything in this world or his native one – was present not too far away in the sea of hostility. Her back was to her son, her face buried in her husband's shoulder. Hatanaka stood drawn up to his full height, a pillar of strength for his beloved wife in her grief, his eyes meeting Kurama's with the full power of his own hurt and betrayed trust. On his other side, Shuichi-kun clutched his father's arm, staring openly in pain and mourning. When Kurama's eyes met his, he pulled back with a gasp and looked away, and Hatanaka pushed him protectively behind. Kurama feared his heart would wrench itself from his chest of its own accord. Dear gods, what is it that they think I have done to have hurt them so? The argument of yesterday's club meeting might have taken place in another lifetime for all that he felt connected to those memories now. Had something happened that he truly did not remember? Did he lose time somehow in that shift? Had his youko side subdued his human side briefly? But no, even the youko . . .
A small gasp escaped him, his heart skipping a beat, as the executioner slid the noose over his head, the rough hemp scratching lightly down the sides of his face. The unknown man even went so far as to pull Kurama's long hair free of the noose. He had closed his eyes instinctively as the rope brushed his eyelashes. He opened them again, his head bowed by his chin tucking down in reflex against the rope, and his eyes found Kuwabara – No, Captain Urameshi – standing front and center of the line of guards forming the border between the crowd and those permitted to approach the wooden structure. Yusuke stood on his right, Hiei on his left. All three glared at him as if he were a stranger to them. No, worse – a bitter enemy.
He felt a tear slip free of the corner of his eye. Whatever he stood accused of, convicted of, in that moment whether he had done it or not no longer mattered. He was abandoned. The few people he had ever truly cared for, the ones who had broken his hard shell and shown him kindness, love, affection, friendship, belonging . . . now knew only hurt, shame, anger, grief, and hatred for him. He supposed some of them could have been fooled, but others would have been able to tell if he had been impersonated and framed. Even if Yusuke and Kuwab- . . . Kazuma had been fooled, Hiei would know. His longest friend, his partner in crime, then as a Spirit Detective . . . Hiei would have known if it had not been him. Whatever had happened, Kurama supposed that he must have done it, whether he remembered or not. He still did not know what that power surge had been, and nothing had been the same since, except for him – only maybe he had changed as well, if only temporarily. Either way, he could not deny the charges of his past, and he had always feared that they would come back to haunt him. Now, he supposed, was the day to face that music.
The noose was tightened on his throat, and he closed his eyes, trembling harder than ever. "Pray that your neck snaps with the initial drop." He gasped deeply and his eyes flew back open as the magistrate's words rang in his mind. He looked down at the perfectly square seam in the platform under his feet, the trap door that would drop out from under him. Historically, most humans' necks did not snap . . . and I know that I am more resilient than a 'normal' human. With his biology knowledge, his only hope was that the rope cut off the circulation of the carotid arteries, so that he passed out fairly quickly rather than have to be painfully conscious as he desperately struggled and slowly strangled to death! Gods of mercy . . .
"Youko Kurama." Kurama flinched as the magistrate's words sounded clearly across the commons from a balcony on the second floor of the building from which the hapless convict had been dragged to this place. "Have you any last words before this sentence is carried out?"
Countless thoughts chased through his mind – questions, arguments, pleas . . . apologies. If he had the chance for only one of these, he knew which was the most important. Perhaps he could turn his pleas and questions later to Lord Koenma or Lord Batsukuno. Another tear slipped down his cheek as he raised his eyes to meet Calladon's, his gaze otherwise steady as fear, regret, resignation, and acceptance all settled in around his heart.
"Lord Magistrate, I do not deny my youko past. It is something I have regretted and striven to leave behind me for some time. Still, I knew that I might have to answer for it some day. But . . . " He shook his head. "I searched almost longer than I dared before I finally found an unborn human that had not yet gained a soul. The one I found would have died without intervention. There was no soul to subjugate. M-mom . . . " His voice broke as he turned his attention to his human mother to find her gazing back at him, her eyes red and swollen from her grief. His own teared up in earnest at the sight.
"I cannot ask you to believe me but . . . this I swear: I would never do anything to hurt you. As a youkai, I never had a mother before you, not one that I can remember. You gave me everything, and I will never forget. You were never supposed to know. It was for your own good. I-I only wanted . . . to protect you." He wished he could tell her these things more intimately, in private, but he would tell her any way he had left. Even if she never believed him, he had said what his heart needed for him to say.
He met Kazuma's quietly storming gaze and Hiei's eyes – oddly unreadable – before turning to a seething Yusuke. "Yusu – . . . S-sergeant Urameshi . . . I honestly do not know what horror it was that you witnessed . . . but I do know that something has happened to me recently, and it may be that I have done something I cannot recall. If I have indeed done such a thing as you say, then I . . . I must accept the consequences of those actions." A finality crushed at his chest with those words, tightened in his throat as even the noose could not do.
A silence settled over the crowd and, for a long moment, no one spoke. At length, the Lord Magistrate broke the quiet. "Is that all that you have to say, then, youko?"
" . . . It is."
"Very well. Then let it be done."
The executioner stepped back from Kurama, grasping a long lever that protruded up from under the platform. K-CHUNK! The trap door collapsed from under Kurama's feet and, with a sickening drop, he was falling.
Author's Notes: Please be sure to check my bio page for any updates, etc. Thanks!
Relax, folks. I'm not done yet and so neither is Kurama. ((wicked chuckling))