Credits:
The characters in this fanfic are from Yu Yu Hakusho.
Guest appearance by Hasunuma from Eerie Queerie. Aya (Remember the girl that the duo rescued in" Two Shots"?). Shindou Shuuichi from Gravitation. Tee-hee! All Star Cast! They're just here coz I'm too lazy to imagine new characters…
"Hands to Heaven" from the album "Christian Bautista (2004)"
Chapter 2: Makai
Even without opening her eyes, she knew he has returned. The Portal's energy wavered and shimmered like the surface of a lake. Of all Makai, he was the only one who was strong enough and willing to go to Ningenkai.
"You're late." She chided, welcoming him with a blow to the stomach. He grinned and parried, leaving him open to a blow on the neck. But he was used to her jokes and parried that as easily as the first. Her heart swelled with the closest 'motherly love' she could muster. Hiei was learning at a fast pace while Yusuke and Shura has tapered on their skills. Soon her protégé will be the one to rule Makai.
"I was delayed. I'm here now. So, what have you been doing?"
She purred and stretched on the bed. She knew he found her sexy, and would have acted on it if only he wasn't too engrossed with the youko, but win some, lose some.
"Nothing much… the usual… there's no much use for S-class youkais like us in Enki's reign of peace," she picked up a dart and threw this to a disturbingly humanoid-looking plant.
"Your skills will rust if you don't get off your butt."
"Do you think my skills are rusty?"
"You're getting old, but I don't think you're getting – "
She sent him crashing through the wall and a couple of mountains to boot.
"Never say a lady's old. My, my… even my son got to learn etiquette. "
For a moment he was disoriented. That bitch could kick butt if she put her mind to it! He brushed the dirt off his tattered shirt, hell… why bother? It's ruined beyond repair already. Good thing his pants still covered where it counted. How humiliating it was to walk in the castle with a whole in his…
"Master Hiei, how surprising to see you here!" A human-looking youkai bowed low in obeisance. His head was shaved, and he wore an itchy-looking ensemble. A monk. From Yusuke's territory.
"You're trespassing, Monk," he called the entire baldheads 'monk'. Couldn't distinguish one from the other. It was discomfiting to meet one when he was just beaten in a fight that never even began!
"Oh, been to Ningenkai so you don't know?"
"Don't know what?" He hated it when he missed out on things every time he left.
"We're closing up the Portal."
The words served as fuel to his anger.
"Closing up the portal? Why the hell would you do that!" he shouted at the monk. That idea got to be the most stupid thing Enki came up with! He grasped at Masamune only to find out that he has forgotten it!
"Master Hiei, I am but a poor vassal, please do not take out your anger on me." The Monk held up his palms and tried to calm the jaganshi. His temper was a legend in Makai and no sane youkai would dare send him over the edge. "This is for the good of Ningenkai and also for Makai. The two world's are still too close that with the exchange of energies and peoples, there's no doubt that an Imbalance would occur in the future. The Planes as they align with…"
"Cut out the Crap! Explain!"
The Monk shuddered as he realized that Hiei didn't care about technical explanations. He scratched his bald head as he answered.
"If we don't close the Portal completely, one or both the worlds will be swallowed up by the other."
Hiei, who was about to strangle the Monk, stopped.
"One will be destroyed?"
"H-hai…" the Monk breathed a sigh of relief as Hiei retreated his claw-like fingers.
How could that little thing destroy a world as big as Makai? Even the Gods couldn't destroy Hell!
Mokuro yawned as she watched Hiei's changing expressions – from surprise, to shame, to anger, then finally puzzlement. If she knew him as well as she believed, her little son would refuse to simply sit and do nothing.
"The question is… could you do anything?" she thought aloud. She picked up another blunt dart (it's no fun if it's sharp) and turned her attention to her humanoid plant. "Ah… things will surely be interesting in Makai, don't you think?"
The Plant shuddered, a feat so unusual since the human it so resembled was a balding fat merchant in Mokuro's youth. Her unburnt lips curled into a cruel smile.
It was afternoon when Hiei returned. Mokuro was sleeping.
"Get up, Mokuro. I know you're awake. The plant's still bleeding."
The Warlord lazily opened her eyes. One good blue eye, and one so burnt only a few threads of flesh attached it on her skull.
"You are getting better at observation, but do not try your luck."
"What the Hell is that doom's day scenario?"
"Doom's Day?"
"Don't play dumb. Out with it. Who came up with the portal trash? Was it that nitwit Enki?" Hiei glared at his mentor. She would win if they fought, but he'd make sure she won't be fit to rule Makai after!
Mokuro felt the stirrings of danger in the air. She had invested too much time and hope on the jaganshi that it would be a bother to waste it all.
"It was discovered by Yomi's Scientists. Do you know what a blackhole is?"
"A black hole? What's that?"
Mokuro furrowed her brows. How could she explain something so rudimentary as a black hole?
"Go to Yomi. He started it."
It was half a day's journey to Yomi's territory, or what was left of it. Gandara has been Makai's technical haven, but now, it was in a state of disrepair. Yomi went to the Mountains to train Shura and without his leadership, Gandara was at the mercy of lawless youkais. But now that the King was back, order has returned.
No use wasting time so he jumped over the City Gate's sentry's head and went straight to the Palace. Or more accurately, the Fortress. This was the place where he had to announce his arrival. Fighting his way in would be too much of a bother. Even Mokuro wouldn't siege the Fortress if she had no cause.
"Yomi! Open up!"
"Who goes there?" A lone guard leaned to take a look, only to be spiked in the head with Masamune.
Shura, GAndara's Prince ordered the Guard to look so everything that happened was within his sight. The reddish luster of the blade left no question to the identity of its owner.
"Papa, Uncle Hiei's outside," the crown prince addressed Yomi who was relaxing beneath a sun beam.
"Ah, so he has come. It's a little later than I thought though… Let him in."
The Fortress' enormous gate opened.
"Papa said you know the way Uncle, we're at the Gardens." Shura spoke through the intercom.
It would be difficult to renovate such a mammoth structure so the fortress hasn't changed. If that was so, then the secret passages and traps would still be there. Hiei chose the safest and surest, though not the most obvious route – the spiral stairway. He found the Father and Son in the Gardens as Shura had said.
Shura, though barely ten years old was almost as tall as Yomi, and now has three horns on his head. Aside from that, he was every inch Yomi's clone.
"A friend of Kurama is a friend of mine. What brings you to Gandara?"
Hiei knew that the King was baiting him, and he was too tired from journeying all over the two worlds to be diplomatic.
"Why the hell are you ordering the Portals closed?"
"Ah… but that's Enki's call, not mine. Remember, I am no more a King as my son. All authority rests on Enki."
"Don't fool with me Old Man. What's this stuff about the two worlds being put off balance by the Portal?"
Yomi put his fingers to his lips, "Oh, you heard of that?"
Shura giggled. Hiei glared and in an instant struck the Prince on the nose, sending him crashing to a pool and about two- three stories down. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to show him who he's dealing with. Yomi smiled – but Hiei couldn't discern if that was a laugh or a sneer.
"Mokuro trained you well. Perhaps I should send my son to her for advanced studies."
Hiei crossed his arms on his chest as they waited for Shura to get up. The pool was now empty and no doubt the servants were at a loss on what to do with the mess.
Shura flew up the hole and glared evilly at Hiei.
"You little – " he was about to say something nasty but Yomi held out his palms for forbearance.
"Shura. Stop it." Shura stopped midway and sulked back to the ground. Like his Father, he has learned to switch off his emotions, though Hiei doubted he would forget the sleight.
"I will use comparisons to explain to you my friend, the terrible situation we are in. It is no joy of mine to separate the worlds, for like you, I," he paused, "… had loved someone there. But our hearts do not matter in a scheme as grand as this.
"Makai and Ningenkai are not different worlds. They are one and the same. So what we call as Makai is but one aspect of the one world we share…" Yomi explained, crafting the technical theories into something that the jaganshi could understand.
"The two halves are in different planes. Imagine a mountain whose feet is underwater and whose summit is in the clouds. The ones that live underwater couldn't live in the skies, and the ones in the skies couldn't live underwater. Only a few could live on both."
The strongest of us.
"Those who could live on both found a path to the other side – a 'Nothingness' in the Mountain's core – for that is the best I could describe it – the Portals. As more and more used the Portal the larger and larger it grew. Finally, its size threatened to destroy the Mountain."
Yomi cast his unseeing eyes unto Hiei.
"Now, do you understand? The only thing we could do is close the Portal, and hope that the damage is not that too far gone."
Hiei prayed that for once, Yomi was joking, but the King was deadly serious. Finally, he mustered enough courage to ask, "H-how long?"
"The Spells will take three months. Go say your good byes."
His steps were heavier as he made his way back to Mokuro's castle.
Close the portals permanently? Gods… he passed the torii and he saw a malevolence that has before, escaped his sight.
Hiei immediately knew the implications.
If he chose to live in Nigenkai, he would have to live as a human, for his strength and skills had no use in Ningenkai. He would have to look for a job, and pretend to be normal. That meant being nice, and groveling, and kissing someone's ass to get ahead.
But he would have Kurama.
Would he?
Would Kurama love him forever, as he promised? Or were his promises made in the heat of the moment?
Would Kurama, live as long as him, or would he, like a Mortal, die after ten.. twenty… or thirty years? And he, without anyone stronger than him, have to live alone hundreds of years after him? In a sea of Mortals?
He didn't want to think about it. But he had to… a month was all he had to chose.
He walked towards the torii and placed his hands on the cold stone of its foundation.
Faintly, he heard a soft melody echoing from Ningenkai. This, like smells were somehow carried over by the strange currents inside the Portal.
As we move to embrace
Tears run down your face
I whisper words of love so softly
I can't believe this pain
It's driving me insane
Without your touch, life will be lonely.
-- END OF PART 2 --