Disclaimer: isn't it fantastic how the U.S. hates to sell foreign music? I feel so cultured.

Fall

Hello old friend
What have you been doing between now and then?
Can't say I'm happy about you coming 'round here again
Telling tales of heroes, foes and friends

Off the Road Band, "Hello Old Friend"

Chapter Thirteen: Sorry for the World

Kurama smiled then, his mask firmly back in place. His "Hiei" mask, Hiei recognized now. It was determined, slightly tender, with bare traces of emotion that needed to be sought but were worth it once found. Though he had taken great comfort in it before, because it shone of Kurama's demonic origins and his lingering connection to the past, Hiei now found it terrifying. It was hideous, and he needed it to go away.

But there was no way to do that without killing Kurama, something Hiei was absolutely not willing to do.

"All right," Kurama said softly, his smile never wavering. "All right."

Hiei took his hand then, and they walked towards the trisection, Hiei slightly in the lead.

Kurama's footfalls were silent.


Yûsuke and Kuwabara walked several miles, Kuwabara in the lead, as they followed the energy trails of their two friends. The unsettled sense in the atmosphere was obviously uncomfortable, but both boys attributed it to the discomfited energy they were tracking. Yûsuke, however, was beginning to notice something that didn't quite match up.

"Kuwabara," he said, nudging his friend. "You okay? I mean, is that disturbance in the air from Kurama's energy or from yours?"

Kuwabara looked over at his friend, obviously surprised and slightly irritated. "How could you ask me such a thing?" he asked coldly, turning back to look at the path ahead of them. Yûsuke shrugged, now certain that something was going on.

"Dunno. It just seems that you're not yourself right now and I wish you'd tell me what's bothering you."

"Eh—" Kuwabara stopped walking for a mere moment before picking up his pace, moving at almost a jog. "Nothing's wrong with me, I'm just worried."

Yûsuke smacked his friend's shoulder. "That's shit, and you know it. Tell me what's going on up there," he said, tapping Kuwabara's forehead. The taller boy looked somewhat put out but relented at once, slowing to a crawl as he collected his thoughts.

"Okay, okay, fine. Yeah. I mean, I am worried, of course, but also I'm thinking about the last few years we've been—I don't want to say 'together,' maybe the last few years we've been alive. All of us, I mean. The last few years we've been around here."

Kuwabara paused, staring off into space, and Yûsuke cocked his head. Kuwabara had sure been having some deep thoughts as of late. Not wanting to interrupt the creative process, Yûsuke said nothing. His friend continued quickly enough, anyway.

"We've not really been in contact with Hiei or Kurama for what, three? Four? Five years now? And then all of a sudden, we're thrown into this huge war zone because you happened to pay him a visit and Hiei happened to be there, and it just so happened that Kurama was about to go off to find the girl who's been ruining his life and kill her, finally, once and for all, and so Koenma decided that you and I really ought to follow them? I mean, what interest do we have in the success of this mission? Kurama has become just another victim, hasn't he, just another guy who needs saving."

Yûsuke frowned. He had never thought of the situation that way before; Kurama had been their friend for so long, it was simply natural that they would stick around and help him. But how much help were they doing? Clearly, Hiei and Kurama didn't want to be found and hadn't gone seeking out Yûsuke's or Kuwabara's help, so they probably didn't think they needed it. What if they did find them? What would happen then? Kuwabara and Yûsuke were probably the last people on Hiei's or Kurama's minds. No, Hiei was likely preoccupied with Kurama, and Kurama had to be thinking about Miru almost constantly.

"So what," Yûsuke said skeptically, although he was not entirely sure his next thought was so ridiculous as he made it sound, "you think we should just give up? Go home? 'Yeah, sorry, boys, but we're too busy to be bothered with a couple of ex-criminals now that we're not friends anymore'? Is that what we should do?"

"I don't know," Kuwabara replied shortly, sounding insecure. "Maybe. Maybe I want to. I'm not sure I'm throwing myself into this mission, I'm not sure I'm giving it my all. I don't know if I really have all that much interest vested in it. I did, of course I did, the first time, but now I can't be too sure."

Yûsuke frowned as something dawned on him. "But what happened to Kuwabara, friend to the end?" he asked. "What happened to your moral code, your fighting ethics? Your 'friends first' policies? You'd never give up on a friend, I know you wouldn't. So why give up on Hiei and Kurama?"

"I don't even know… Something about all this makes me want to, you know?"

Yûsuke frowned. "Can't say I do," he said, cutting Kuwabara off. "I'm beginning to regret bringing this up at all."

Kuwabara shook his head, his eyes closed.

"We should really be paying attention to this path."

Yûsuke nodded.

"Probably."


Hiei did not turn back to look at Kurama as they walked, but made sure to think of him always. His expression was different, not the "Hiei" mask (which, Hiei realized, was more of a "For Hiei" mask, and he hated himself for it), but all in Hiei's mind, it didn't matter. Kurama could be kind or gentle or fierce or crazy and no one would ever know. Hiei found that he was imagining none of these, to his surprise; he saw only a genuine friend, walking down the street and sensing his presence, turning to smile and wave. The mask he wore was not for Hiei, nor was it really a mask; it was years ago, when Kurama was only seventeen, but it was genuine and it was real and it made Hiei want to smile, as well. Back then, before the start of things, Kurama had been happy and satisfied with his life. The blissful time between the end of the Makai tournament and Miru's first message and appearance.

It would never return, of course, nor would anything like it. Kurama would never be quite the same and Hiei, try as he might, would never be able to forget these missions on which he had fought so hard and changed so much. His accidental but not regretted admission of love, for instance, was one of the side effects which he would never forget, even if nothing came of it. It would also have to be dealt with after Miru's death (she would be killed, he was positive), he thought with some dread.

"I love you, too, you know."

The words were so random and unexpected that Hiei actually stopped short, his eyes wide and blinking rapidly. He still did not turn around, but Kurama kept walking as if nothing was changed and drew ahead of Hiei.

Hiei thought to say "What did you say?" or even "You do?" as if disbelieving, or happily awed, but his mouth and his brain tended to disconnect at especially unusual moments.

He gaped for a moment before uttering a single word:

"Oh."

He could have punched himself.

Kurama's step did not falter, exactly, but to Hiei's eye, trained in the ways of speed, he did slow for a mere moment before continuing on, expecting Hiei to follow. Expecting rightly, at that; Hiei followed quickly, reminding himself of an eager puppy as he scampered after his partner.

"Kurama, I didn't mean to sound crass or short with you. I was surprised."

Kurama nodded, his idle smile in place and his eyes only darting sideways to glance at Hiei briefly. The fire demon sighed tiredly.

"Kurama, I'm sorry."

"For loving me?"

"What? No, of course not!"

Hiei was completely flabbergasted at the last accusation, his eyes widening once more and his hands shoved into his pockets to keep them from wringing. Kurama was looking ahead again, distracted from the present by the potential of the future. He sighed a happy little sigh, smiling just a bit. Hiei frowned.

"Then why?" Kurama asked dreamily.

Hiei raised his eyebrow in disbelief. "For sounding so unappreciative at your…admission."

Kurama smiled softly. "I'm not too worried," he said. "I'm sorry if you were concerned."

"Why?" Hiei cut in. Kurama looked at him curiously. "Why are you sorry?" he clarified. Kurama smiled again.

"I didn't mean to cause your concern," he said, his voice still oddly distant.

Hiei shook his head. "You don't need to apologize," he said somewhat crisply. "Not for my being concerned, anyway. That's what you did, you know—you apologized for my concern, not for causing it."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop doing that!"


Things were not going well at all.

At Kuwabara's words, Yûsuke had begun to think of his devotion to the current mission and was coming up stunningly blank. It wasn't that he didn't want to save Kurama and Hiei, exactly. Only that they had grown apart, and he hadn't had a mission in years, and he was getting settled in the human realm. He had a noodle shop, and he was married! He had a life on Earth the likes of which he could never have among demons. Shedding his past—his distant, distant path, more like the path of his ancestors which had become his own life—had been incredibly hard, and he still needed to fight some of the time. He needed to go amongst the demons briefly, only occasionally, until his blood settled again. It was in his very soul and there was no denying that. But he had done it, and it was finished, and he needed to move on.

Didn't he?

In fact, what good would it do to put Kurama and Hiei into that block of time he called history and never touch it again? He revisited his other life every time he needed to drop by the demons' realm and spar with a few. He never saw Hiei; Yûsuke made sure to steer clear of the northeast sector and he guessed that Hiei made sure to steer clear of Yûsuke's obvious and recognizable power when it was near. He never saw Kurama; though the two did not live terribly far from one another, they never had reason to be in contact. Yûsuke did not attend a college or university and Kurama did not make a point to eat at Yûsuke and Keiko's noodle shop.

But still, he could have made an effort to keep in touch. Kurama and Hiei clearly had, with one another. Come to think of it, Kurama had really had little reason to keep in touch with Yûsuke or Kuwabara. They did not assist him in any way, nor did they have the means to. Foxes were known for being fickle with friends outside the family, and it was not surprising that even as a part human, Kurama had retained the fox instinct to drop companions who had outlived their usefulness. Yûsuke found himself becoming bitter at the very thought.

"What're we going to do when we find them?" Yûsuke asked suddenly. This bitterness would be nothing but detrimental to the mission, and Koenma would have his hide if they returned with the news that they had found Kurama and Hiei, only to let them get away untouched.

" 'When'?" Kuwabara asked cynically. "You don't mean 'if'?"

Yûsuke frowned. "I think we'll find them. Something's telling me we will, even if we don't want to."

Kuwabara grunted something which may have been a "yeah." The boys walked silently, immersed in his own thoughts for a bit. Suddenly Yûsuke waved his hand above his sharply nodding head.

"I've got it," he said. Kuwabara looked at him curiously.

" 'It'?"

"Yeah, sure. We'll find Kurama and Hiei and the first thing we'll want to do will be to help them. Hey, we're detectives, right? I mean, you're a detective because you want to help people. I want to help people because I'm a detective. It all works out."

Kuwabara shook his head. "I dunno. Usually, we meet people for the first time on our cases, so we haven't got any personal involvement. These guys were our teammates, our friends. We were all close, you know? We knew each other, really. And, I don't know—well, maybe I do. I think it's that we all just sort of drifted apart from our team of four into our groups of two. No big argument or falling out, just kind of…nothing. We stopped talking, and that's all. Since there was nothing to end our friendship, it doesn't seem like there'd be anything to stop it from picking up again."

"Except us," Yûsuke finished, nodding with a steady comprehension. "We're standing between us and them, aren't we? I don't know why, but we are. I don't know how to stop doing it. I don't even know what 'it' is."

"Me neither, but we've got to stop it if we want to have any hope of helping out once we find them."

"Yeah."

Their trail continued without words for awhile when Kuwabara looked up and smirked halfheartedly.

"Do you see what I see?"


Kurama looked at Hiei with genuine curiosity, his head slightly cocked and his eyebrows slightly furrowed. Hiei looked away at once.

"Stop doing what?" Kurama asked gently.

Hiei frowned, biting his lip. "Stop apologizing. Stop apologizing for things that aren't your fault. My concern, my confusion, Miru following us, Miru driving me crazy, all of it. Just…please just stop."

Kurama smiled, shaking his head. "I'd like to, really. I've tried."

"But why can't you?"

"I…don't know. I suppose it's just that someone ought to, and why not me?"

"Someone ought to what?" Hiei asked desperately, reaching out as if to take Kurama's hand.

"Someone ought to apologize, even if it's not his fault."

"But apologize for what?" Hiei whimpered, aware of all his fury and frustration coming out in one mildly inappropriate moment.

Kurama completed Hiei's beginning and took the smaller man's hand, pulling him closer and hugging him tightly. He leaned down slightly to whisper in Hiei's ear, a soft and pleading prayer for some escape from reality contained within a single word:

"Everything."

Hiei's eyes went wide and unseeing as his face was pressed closer to Kurama's chest and he finally reached his arms around to hug back, pulled even closer so that there was no space at all between them. Somehow, out of the corner of his senses, he felt some unwanted and unwelcome presence, but he could not quite place it. Not until it made itself known.

"What a touching scene to wander in on."

Immediately, Kurama's hold became fiercely protective, his aura territorial. Hiei recognized that voice. It made his blood boil and his skin crawl.

How could he forget?

"Miru."

A light, tinkling laughter, that same laughter from years before, echoed through the air and pierced his mind sharply in neat rows of pinpricks. He cringed as he felt Kurama tense.

"So glad our introductions will be unnecessary," she said playfully. Hiei turned his head slightly so that he could barely see her dancing down from her place a hundred or so meters above them, held in midair on an invisible cloud. She laughed all the way down, grinning like a child. Child, he thought bitterly. That was what she was. Nothing more than a selfish child.

"Have you changed at all?" Kurama asked scathingly. "I think not. Unless," and here his tone became almost taunting, "you've learned any new tricks? Hm?"

Miru laughed again, but this time was not at all tinkling. A harsh, cold sound Hiei had never heard from her before spun around them in a blurry wave, somehow visible; was she wasting her magic on theatrics? Then no matter how much she had changed, or claimed to, it could not be much. She was the same vain, overconfident brat.

"It's none of your concern," she said coyly, walking around them in some cross between a predator's pace and a fan girl's dance. "Shall we say I haven't been spending the last few years simply lazing about, awaiting your next attack?"

"From the looks of things, that's all you've been doing," Kurama returned. Hiei kept himself pressed close to his friend, although he doubted he would have been able to pull away even if he had wanted to. Kurama seemed to have all but forgotten him, latching onto his hug as if holding onto a cliff to keep from falling.

Miru scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. "You wish," she bit out snottily. "I've been spending my time wisely enough, thank you. I'll have you know I'm a lot stronger than I used to be."

"So you have been practicing," Kurama surmised to Miru's catty sneer. She tilted her head side to side, still glaring. Even with his limited view of her, Hiei could tell she was getting annoyed quickly.

"I've learned lots of new things!" she said arrogantly, and Hiei recognized a weakness at once. She was a braggart still, as much as she ever had been. Kurama merely needed to bait her and she would divulge absolutely anything. That would be useful, assuming she didn't catch on and shut herself up. So this would be a delicate battle, but not terribly difficult.

Not so long as—

"I see you've got yourself a little prize there," Miru said suddenly, her smile audible. Hiei nearly cursed aloud, but restrained himself; what was she going on about? Hopefully not what he feared. Kurama had tensed further, his grip around Hiei nearly painful.

"What prize?" he snarled lowly. She giggled, again light and gleeful.

"Why," she said as if old and wise and speaking to a child, "your little demon there. The dark fire. He is yours?"

"He is no one's," Kurama replied too quickly in that same harsh tone. She laughed again, more softly.

"Your love is obvious," she said slyly, "but does he feel the same?"

Hiei closed his eyes and buried his face in Kurama's shirt. Don't give it away, he begged silently. Don't give that to her. Please.

"It is no concern of mine," Kurama said with a cold fury. Hiei tightened his hold around Kurama's middle, glad that he had kept his sense about him. Sort of, anyway; that was the best response Hiei could have hoped for. Miru did not seem too pleased with it.

But Kurama was assured of Hiei's love, wasn't he? There was no actual question about it, was there? There couldn't be; Hiei had been the one to confess, not the other way around as had been every other time. Every other time that counted, anyway. Miru couldn't use that to her advantage, she simply couldn't. Hiei would give his life for Kurama's to prove his love if need be, but Miru would not be allowed to break them. He had resolved not to let her do so when she was not present, and her physical form only intensified his hatred of her and his devotion to her defeat.

Such trifles as love could be sorted out after the battle ahead.

Let the games come to an end.

Ready?

Set?

"Go."