Yin Yang

Chapter Ten: Kai's Anguish

Yusuke and Kuwabara parked the bikes in an alleyway to the right, a rather battered Akashi-sensei in their wake. They crept back discreetly into the line of zombie-like males, once more exposed to the danger of the music in the air. Earplugs firmly in place, they began to march hypnotically. Yusuke shivered as the sky darkened and lightning flashed menacingly.

Eventually, the line stopped their march. They were in front of a battered parking structure, rather like the one that the Younger Toguro had destroyed so long ago. The large group strode as one into the ground floor; the two boys barely had room to breathe. By fives, the hypnotized population entered a nearby elevator. Yusuke and Kuwabara traded confused and apprehensive glances, shrugged, and followed the group's example.

The elevator rose to the first floor. Three more floors passed, until the group that the vigilantes were in had reached fifth floor. When the doors opened with a clink the teenagers bit back shocked gasps.

The area that they entered, although packed almost to capacity, was entirely unlike what a usual parking lot would be. Indeed, it was no longer a parking area; it was more like a palace. Pink shag carpeting had replaced concrete; sporadically placed fancy furniture suggestive of wealth replaced parking spaces. The stairway to the roof level had been left in its place, but had been tampered with; carpeting and pinkish-white ribbon were most becoming on the formerly concrete steps. Rather than signs directing vehicles, there were crystalline chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, which was no longer a stormy gray but a cotton candy-like marble concoction.

The boys looked about the room, in awe, but were soon stopped. Soft footsteps echoed through the room. All eyes turned toward the approaching girl, a girl who could not have been taller than five feet, two inches. The exact height of a certain fire demon's half sister.

She entered through a glare in the chandelier, giving the impression that she glowed divinely. Long turquoise locks were pulled behind a black headband, and some of her hair was separated from the rest, throwing her youthful face into relief. Crimson irises sparkled with hurt. Her small neck bore an iron collar and in her shackled hands she held a long chain, to avoid damaging the carpet. However, it was not the chain which drew Kuwabara's attention.

It was the girl's clothing. She wore a cobalt tank top with a dangerously low neckline. More than just a sliver of pale stomach could be seen. She was also clad in a short black skirt which looked at though it had been made by ripping a thin piece of cloth. Her flat-soled black boots shuffled on the covered ground.

"Yukina-chan..." Kuwabara's whisper was faint, and Yusuke could sense rather than hear the horrified shock in his friend's voice. Yukina looked up, and her eyes scanned the crowd efficiently. She lingered for a few seconds on Yusuke, and for more than a few seconds on Kuwabara, and then continued her cold, indifferent scan of the trapped crowd.

"Come with me," She ordered flatly and proceeded back up the stairs without waiting for her crowd. They followed and Yusuke had to stop Kuwabara from yelling out. Not ten seconds later the vigilantes and the victims emerged on the roof level, which had been transformed into a stage, minus the curtains. There were many folding chairs positioned in front of it but by the time all of the people had gotten themselves seated many, Yusuke and Kuwabara included, were left standing.

"Ladies... er, I mean gentlemen and older gentlemen, boys and... er... more boys, human males of all ages, I now present to you the future queen of Ningenkai's impending matriarch, Cruesa Kuzi," The ice demon announced nervously. She indicated stage left and a towering, curvaceous figure entered from stage right as though on cue. The woman tapped Yukina on the shoulder and the girl looked up, blushing. Cruesa rolled her eyes and sent Yukina away with a wave of her hand. The girl did so gratefully.

The demoness turned to face her crowd and surveyed them coolly through emerald green eyes. Yusuke shuddered when he saw her eyes; they had no pupils. Instantly, he was reminded of Kai's eyes, eyes that he had seen long ago, and suspicions arose in his mind. Suspicions not entirely untrue.

The woman's reddish-brown hair fell to her unadorned shoulders in elaborate curls, wrapping around her chocolate face, highlighting her sensual lips and enhanced features. A black tube top reached her stomach and showed a sliver of toned muscles. Tight black jeans hugged her curvy hips and made her skinny legs look even skinnier. A white studded belt wrapped around her waist and black converse adorned her small feet. A silky black tail poked out from her pants and pointed ears covered in black fur and many a piercing protruded from her perfectly styled hair. She wore a puzzled smile which looked rather attractive on her.

"Why, hello, my future people! I hope we'll be friends. I know Yukina -- bless her heart -- introduced me all formal and stuff, but y'all can just call me Cruesa. Mm-hm, Cruesa is just fine." Yusuke traded glances with Kuwabara, puzzled. Cruesa continued, still wearing her smile. "I was just wondering... Why are some of you sitting? I had hoped to enter to a SRO." Her smile widened, and Yusuke began to harbour serious doubts to her being the one who had lured all these people. With her next sentence, however, all doubts vanished.

"Phase three has begun!"

Then, suddenly, the former spirit detective found himself falling through the floor along with the rest of the group.

"... So here we are, with a soulless ferrygirl, a Tantei gone missing, and an invasion in its final stages on our hands," Kurama finished his retelling of recent events with a sigh and slumped on the bed beside the soulless Botan, who lay with her cotton candy eyes wide open in shock.

Well, don't just sit there. Do something," Genkai suggested calmly as though that was the obvious course. She stood opposite Botan, leaning beside a wall. Kurama sat up and stared at her, wide-eyed.

"What can we do? She ran away of her own accord, we can't force her to come peacefully."

"Why not?"

"We can't do that, grandmother," Kai interjected quietly, forcefulness in her voice that was not normally there. She looked up at the elderly woman and made eye contact. Genkai was not frightened. "We simply can't. She ran away for a reason." Memories of Yukina's screamed refusal went through her mind, replying over and over, like a broken record. You're just as bad as them… Kai paused, looked down, and added quietly, so quietly that none save Hiei could hear, "Because of me…"

"We'll see about that! I'll force her if I must. Children these days…," The old woman returned, revoking Kai and Kurama. "And you don't scare me, Kai. Honestly, what is it with teenagers? Think they're so tragic, when really they're just afraid of facing their problems… But it'll catch up with them in the end…" As Genkai shook her head in a disbelieving manner, anger crossed Kai's face; all in the room were visibly startled, and a bit afraid, due to the intimidating aura radiating from Kai's scrawny form and what had happened last time she lost her temper.

"You're one to talk, grandmother…" Kai's voice was quiet, but her manner was the very antithesis of it. Her eyes were now shining with inner aggression, suppressed anger of years past; she seemed to be burning from the inside out. "You also ran away."

Genkai shot her a confused look; however, try as she might to hide it, fear began to show in her eyes. "What are you talking about?" A somewhat evil smile rose on Kai's pale face.

"What, forgotten already? Don't you remember Ayame?" The fire in Kai's pupil-less eyes festered, and Hiei felt a sense of impending doom as he remembered one of the memories Kai had unwillingly shared with him. Ayame… He though, then realized who it was. He started toward the girl, but she was already on a roll, inching closer to Genkai.

"Because you forgot about her, your own adopted daughter, the one you never had time for, she held all her anger inside. And when I was left to her, she treated me just as you had treated her…" Kai was angry, no doubt arose as to that; yet her eyes threatened tears.

"She didn't care, Aph doesn't care, you don't care! No one ever cared! No one ever will! And now, here you are, making yourself out to some sort of wonderful, wise woman, when in reality you don't know a thing! You-"

Genkai slapped the girl forcibly, causing her to stop. Her faded pink eyes too held a fire: a fire of indignation.

"Stop it right now. Stop it," The elderly woman ordered sternly, staring down her granddaughter. Kai seemed to be frozen for a moment, staring at her grandmother in shock. She then averted her gaze.

She walked to the wall farthest from the group, banged her head against the wall once (a dent was created) and suddenly began laughing insanely, alight with a golden aura. Seeming suddenly to realize something, she strode toward Genkai, who took a step back for Kai's every step forward. She stopped as she reached the wall, Kai closing in on her, still laughing.

"You know, you're right. So," The demoness said, and she looked truly malevolent for the first time. "I think I'll face my problem, grandmother. What do you think?"

Kai angrily struck the nearest bed with a powerful kick and it collapsed immediately. She laughed. "Funny, though; my problem is staring me in the face. It's your fault I'm like this, you know." Kai laughed once more, and held out her arm, underside facing up.

She pulled back her sleeve, and upon her pale skin were dozens upon dozens of crisscrossing pink and white lines. Some looked relatively new. She smiled masochistically, and all in the room were silent, in shock.

Suddenly, she slumped to the ground, not angry, but extremely anguished, and began to cry silently.

Hiei reached out and touched her shoulder against Kurama's frantic telepathic advice. The girl turned sharply. "What? Are you going to tell me I'm crazy, that I'm insane?" She snarled, seeming just that; fire seemed to jump from deep wells within her eyes. Hiei, although scared, did not back down. He needed to calm the girl, he needed to make her pain vanish; he knew that much, but he wasn't sure how to go about it of why he was the one who had to help her. Maybe, he thought curiously, though he was not entirely convinced of his logic, it's because she's just like you – rejected.

"What are you doing? This isn't like you. Stop. It's not Genkai's fault. We can get you help, I can get you help. You may be angry, bu-" Kai did not let him finish.

Gold energy hit him in the stomach, and he was instantly blasted against the wall behind him. Covered in his own blood, he slumped to the ground, unconscious and looking for all the world dead.

"You don't know anything, shorty!" The girl yelled angrily, tears falling freely, hitting the ground, her clothes, and anyone in a two centimeter radius. She turned back to the ground once more. The room suddenly shuddered with an evil, ominous aura; bolts of golden energy flew randomly about, destroying nearly everything in the room. An upset of power seemed to have taken place within Kai, and it endangered all in her presence. The two who remained were too shocked to do anything, not to mention afraid of being gravely injured.

Genkai, however, seemed to muster her courage. She glowed with energy. Kai turned, eyes wide, and narrowly avoided being shot by a powerful burst of reiki. Kurama, meanwhile, had backed into a reclusive corner and was petrified with fear.

"Why are you doing this…?" Kai said in a distant voice to her grandmother, still crying. Kurama's fear did not go unnoticed by her, and it made her more unstable. Her tears came more heavily now; knocking Hiei unconscious seemed to have affected more than she let on, though she indeed had not hidden much. The lightning ricocheting throughout the room struck Kurama in the temple and he fell to the ground, unconscious and bleeding, like a Hiei with red hair.

"Calm down, Kai! You're dangerous right now, okay? So just calm down, and we can handle this." Genkai sounded calm and rational, but Kai could see through the ruse.

"By doing what?" The demon queried through her now-messy locks of ebony and ivory. "Killing me? That'll solve everything alright, 'cuz I won't be around to burden you." She suddenly stood, as though possessed by a vengeful spirit.

She spread her arms and stood still, rather like a target. "Go on," she whispered quietly, "Kill me. Please, just do it." Genkai stood still as well, stunned by Kai's frank request. When she did not do as Kai asked, anger crossed the girl's tear-stained, blue-striped face.

A loud yell, a flash of gold, and then silence.

Genkai was in the hall outside. Golden bolts of crackling electricity surrounded her and she was frozen in mid-scream. She looked rather like she was dead.

Kai again fell to her knees, seeming to have gotten ahold of her mind once more.

"Oh my God," She whispered, horrorstruck as she stared at her still smoking hands. "Oh my fucking God." Through her mind, many things flashed, things which no one else could see, things which no one else had ever wanted to see, things which no one, if Kai could help it, would ever see.

A seven-year-old girl, standing over a young boy's fresh corpse, blood all over herself.

Flash.

That same girl, looking at a young woman's corpse, surrounded by gun-toting gangsters, a clever-looking man identical to the woman on the ground, save for his gender, holding a still smoking gun. He turned it toward the girl.

Flash.

Now the girl was surrounded by the corpses of her would-be assassins, and she was again caked in blood.

Flash.

The girl was older, a teenager, and she now stood in the rubble of a house, underneath which a man was buried, judging by the bloody hand sticking out from the mess.

Flash.

The girl was not much older, and was closer to the modern-day Kai; she looked to be about fourteen, as opposed to Kai's current fifteen. She was cutting meatloaf, sneering at it, mouthing complaints about murder of animals. She was yelled at, and then slapped by Aph, and then the woman left. She, Kai, looked at the cutting knife, ran her finger over its edge. She raised it and slashed her arm.

"This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening..." She chanted fearfully. She remembered running, always running, escaping her bad deeds.

She remembered attempting to attend church those few times, and not finding the answers she needed.

She grasped the chain around her neck and extracted it from underneath her shirt. It was a heart-shaped locket. She gripped it tightly, and then ripped it off of her neck. It fell to the floor with a chink.

A tear hit the floor as she ran as far as she could, running away from the temple and into who-knows-where, running as though she could outrun her actions, her past, and her present.

Maybe she could even stop her future.

A/N: Interesting, no? I just wish more people would review. Well, I'd say there's at least five more chapters left to this story, so enjoy. You've got plenty of time, 'cause I don't update too regularly.