Yukina

Chapter 6: The Shattered Walls

I stare around at them all, and not a word is said. I want desperately to know what...or who they are trying to hide. Trying being the key word. And doing an incredibly poor job. They are making themselves almost too obvious. There is definitely something they are hiding from me, but I can see by the stoic expressions that their faces have hardened into that they'll never tell me.

There is no point in questioning them any further.

I stand to leave, and their eyes follow me. I walk out the door and into the hall without anyone saying a single word, and pad along a few feet of the corridor.

Only now do I realize that I have absolutely no idea where I am going. I don't know where the exit is, and I don't even know where in this place I am. I don't even know what this place is. It could be a prison, for all I know, with no chance of me wandering off past the walls. It would explain why they let me leave.

I hate that. I hate the feeling that I might be trapped. I don't care if I have to rip a hole in the wall, I won't be boxed in.

Only...I don't think this is a prison. It doesn't feel like one. It does feel like somewhere I have been before, many times before.

And why aren't I getting more upset about this…? Only a short while ago I was having an anxiety attack from not being able to remember tiny little things. Not knowing where I am is a much bigger deal than not being able to recall some insignificant fact I was once told.

My memory, as if trying to make up for what it severely lacks, supplies me with the image of green powder falling from an open hand, and flames turning green and dissipating.

No…Kurama is definitely not an idiot. That must have been some concoction to relax my mind…but how…?

Then there is the telepathy incident. I suppose he could know me well…very well…

I am looking into this too much. Anyone could probably guess what was running through my mind when he answered the question I had yet to ask.

What's going on…?

"Hiei. You have amnesia."

He was just telling me what was plain as day. Nothing more.

But his warped, almost…mixed energy…

I whirl around, hearing soft, barely audible footsteps behind me.

Kurama. How predictable.

He says nothing. He only smiles. And once again it is the sad, pitying smile.

But that isn't what bothers me.

What bothers me, what really bothers me, is that every time he smiles like that I see the red-eyed girl instead.

I saw her just now. Only for a moment, but she was definitely there. She bears a striking resemblance to the boy I 'saw' in Yusuke…and the only reason I can pass off this vision as completely meaningless and unimportant…is that the girl was smiling. It was not a happy smile, but it was a smile. She wasn't crying, and both her eyes were whole.

I want to know who she is. She must have been important to me. Why else would my mind keep distorting how I perceive other people to make them look like her?

But I have no more time to think about this anonymous girl. Kurama has finally stopped just staring at me and has begun to speak.

"You don't have any idea where you're going, do you?" His smile transforms into a slightly amused one with just an upward quirk at the corner of his lips

I frown. "Hn," I grudgingly admit. Like hell I'll give him the satisfaction of a 'no.'

Kurama chuckles lightly, despite the scowl on my face. Then he walks up to me and takes my hand, practically dragging me in the direction opposite from the one I had been planning to take.

When we finally reach the open foyer, Kurama lets go of my hand. He steps back in a gesture meant to give me some alone time. I gladly take the chance, and step outside into the bright sunshine.

I squint my eyes, and bring my hand up to my forehead to block the sun's harmful rays. I blink a few times, adjusting to the light change, and continue walking to nowhere. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Kurama step outside, silently watching me from about a hundred yards away. I don't care. All that matters is that I am free. I feel better than I did trapped in dark rooms, and I am sure that I was…that I am the type of person who rarely sets foot indoors.

I keep walking. I like the feel of the soft grass, wet with dew, on my feet…the feel of the warm sun on my back, and the smell of growing, living, breathing things. This is better by far than staying in a dark, cramped temple.

I can see something sparkling a bit farther away. I stare at it, and, unable to determine what it is, I decide to investigate. I walk over to the sparkly thing, and only when I get closer do I realize it is a small pool. Like a pond, only deeper, and much more clear.

There are no algae to speak of, and there are brightly colored fish swimming in its depths. I mentally commend whoever owns this property for their excellent care-taking skills.

I walk to the edge of the pool, and kneel down beside it. I look in, for no real reason other than just out of curiosity. I am exploring, after all.

Only when what I see makes me gasp do I realize that I don't even know what I look like.

Or at least, I didn't.

The boy staring wide-eyed up at me is someone I've seen before. I blink, thinking that I am seeing someone other than myself. Believing that the reflection in the pool is merely the whisper of a memory my subconscious struggles to call forth…

I squeeze my eyes shut, and lean over a bit further, so that when my eyes open I can see my reflection…not this facsimile of something that my mind wants so desperately for me to remember.

But when my eyes ease open it is still that same pair of large, red eyes staring up at me.

Two images blast into the focus of my inner eye. The mutilated body of someone I cannot recognize and a little boy whose face is hidden, shaking with silent sobs in the corner of a dark room.

My eyes widen and the boy looks up, his face bloody and his mouth twisted into a demented smirk. The maimed body drops into a mirror-like puddle with a splash. The mirror ripples and shatters, sending shards of glass flying everywhere, skidding across the darkness, hurtling through the air towards me and away, everywhere I can see.

Water spreads around the boy, the two images blending…the boy is drowning in a sea of blood, stuck inside the mirror… and his face morphs into the marred one of the girl I so need to remember.

Then both images disappear and I'm left only with my own horrified reflection in the glassy surface.

My hands slip, and meet cool water. A shattering sound echoes as I break the surface. As the rest of my body becomes submerged in the pool's innocuous depths, a thought occurs to me.

I don't know how to swim.