Warnings: None

Cultural Notes: There's a saying in Japan that goes "Wake from death and return to life" (起死回生). It refers to when someone is able to turn a bad situation into a good/successful one, and it's a bit of a pun when applied to Yusuke considering he literally woke from death and returned to life. It's featured in this chapter. Also, we see "shoganai" again, and it means "it can't be helped". It's said in Japan when one is inconvenienced as a reminder to just keep calm and move on.


Lucky Child

Chapter 40:

"Tide to the Moon"


Yusuke stared at me.

I stared at him.

Neither of us spoke for a moment—him for fear of my reaction, me for…well. For fear of my reaction, too. Although my mouth had gone quite dry, I licked my lips and tried my best to look stunned. Skeptical. Maybe a touch freaked out, because that was only natural at a time like this.

Be careful, Keiko. Don't look like you know too much, but don't overact any hysterics, either.

"So you mean to tell me," I said, voice measured and even, "that there's a demon at my school."

"Well." Yusuke shifted in his seat, eyes wary. "Well, yeah."

I sat back in mine and breathed a solemn, "Huh."

Yusuke froze like a deer under the gaze of a predator. I lifted my water glass to my lips. Drank. Set it down and sawed off a bite of banana crepe. Lifted it toward my mouth, chocolate dripping from the edge of my fork.

"And, uh…how do you feel about that?" Yusuke asked.

Banana midway to my lips, I stared at him.

Yusuke looked as freaked out as he expected me to be. Leaning away, eyes wide and horrified, he whispered: "Why aren't you screaming?"

Slowly, I put down my fork. I pushed away my plate and lowered my head to the tabletop.

"…I don't know if that's better or worse than screaming," Yusuke observed.

"It's…screaming-adjacent," I muttered.

"The heck does that mean?"

For a moment, I didn't answer—mostly because I wasn't sure how to answer without giving shit away. Would the real Keiko freak out at this revelation, or would she remain stoic? She'd passed out for a mere two seconds in the anime when she was told demons existed, and then she'd beaten a determined warpath to get to Yusuke on Hanging Neck Island. Quite the warrior, even if she did momentarily faint—not that I blamed her. That Keiko didn't have the forewarning I did. She learned of demons all in one go. I'd learned of them the night before (so far as Yusuke knew) and was marginally more prepared to learn one went to my school. Her fainting had been perfectly reasonable in context. In my context, it was less so.

Still.

Even my version of Keiko didn't have enough forewarning to simply pass this off as a non-issue.

"I'm too busy appreciating the irony of all this to be screaming," I mumbled.

I could practically see Yusuke rolling his eyes. "Well gee, I'm so glad you're enjoying this."

My eyes rolled, too. "'Enjoying' isn't the word."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I found my motivation for the scene. This is how Keiko would feel: incensed she had missed something, peeved she'd been kept in the dark, a tiny bit afraid (though she'd cover it with bluster), willful and dry and stern all at once—and she'd direct those feelings toward Yusuke in the form of verbal spar and blame him for everything. Because of course she would. Sitting up, I shot Yusuke a glare and snatched my fork off my plate.

"There's a demon at my school, and here I was worrying about you, Yusuke?" I muttered. "I was worried about you when there was something dangerous under my nose that could bite it off?" I shoved a scrap of crepe into my mouth, and then I shoved in another before I'd even begun to chew the first. Words muffled by banana and chocolate, I slurred, "Fuck that. Fuck it. The irony burns. Just tell me who the hell the demon is and put me out of my misery." Another bite shoveled its way into my mouth, but Yusuke said nothing. I looked at him and made a shooing motion. "Well, go on."

He poked the corner of his mouth for some reason. "It's just—your face—"

An exploratory lick told me I'd covered my chin in chocolate. "Oh, don't go getting prim on me now," I snarked, mopping my face with a napkin as I glared. "You're the one who's pushed me to stress-eating." Grabbing my fork, I shoveled down another bite. "And I can't believe you even read that file."

"Hey, I didn't need the file to figure it out." The boy almost sounded offended at the suggestion. "That uniform is hard to forget."

Ah. There it was. The final clue to this little mystery, and the words I'd rather expected to hear ever since Yusuke asked for his favor. He'd recognized Kurama's uniform. Funny how the simple act of letting Yusuke walk me to school had resulted in this change to canon—but now wasn't the time to muse over canon changes. Keeping my face neutral (AKA, keeping my face disgruntled given the current situation) I watched Yusuke flip through the file and offer it to me.

"The minute I saw him, I thought his clothes looked familiar," he said. "It just took seeing the picture to jog my memory."

Gulping, I took the file from him. A photo of Minamino Shuichi—or rather, a photo of Kurama judging by the predatory glint in his bright eye—occupied the top left corner of the page. A candid shot taken at three-quarter angle, it showed him from the neck up, body clad in familiar bright magenta. Writing filled the rest of the page, but it conveyed little more than his name and the suggestion he might be some kind of animal spirit.

Gee. Spirit World really was incompetent, wasn't it? But I shouldn't say that out loud. Yusuke wasn't supposed to distance himself from Spirit World until after the Sensui Arc, when he learned of the crimes of King Yama and was banished to Demon World for his Mazoku heritage. For now, he was a somewhat reluctant, but loyal, employee.

"See?" Yusuke said, reaching over to tap the paper. "Kurama's wearing a Meiou uniform."

"I see that," I said.

Yusuke waited for me to elaborate. I did not. A vague suggestion of cobblestones filled the photo's dark background. Had this image of Kurama been captured in the Spirit World vault? It seemed a bit silly that Kurama would wear his school uniform during the heist, but that was no skin off my nose, really…

"So," said Yusuke when he tired of the silence. He could barely contain the eager edge in his voice. "Do you know him?"

After briefly flirting with the idea of playing dumb, I decided I wasn't a competent enough actress to pull that off. Tell truth, but tell it slant. Instead I handed the file back to Yusuke and crossed my arms over my chest, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

"Kurama, huh," I said. "That's nothing like what it says on his school ID."

Yusuke bolted to his feet, excitement volcanic. "So you do know him!"

"Well, I thought I did. But so far as I know, his name is Minamino Shuichi."

Yusuke's nose wrinkled at the very human name, nothing at all like 'Kurama'. "OK. Weird. So what's his deal? Know anything about him?"

"Yeah. I do." And then I pinned my friend with an unflinching gaze. "Remember that guy I told you about whose mother is dying?"

Yusuke's eager smile vanished. Moving millimeter by millimeter, he lowered himself back into his chair. I took a deep breath. Telling Yusuke the truth was a gamble, but the fewer lies—even lies by omission—I told now would benefit me in the long term. Couldn't risk losing Yusuke's trust if my deception came out, and there was no reason the real Keiko would keep this information secret.

"This is him," I said. "And he's actually something of a friend of mine." Eyeing the file in Yusuke's slack hand, I forced a tepid smile. "Or he was."

Didn't take long for Yusuke to connect the dots, eyes lighting up with understanding. "Is this the same guy who dumped you?"

"Yeah." I swallowed with a glass throat. "This certainly explains some things. If he's somehow a demon and he recently fell in with dangerous criminals, it's no wonder he's suddenly distance himself from everyone around him."

Half expecting Yusuke to insult Minamino for being an ass to his friends, it came as a surprise when Yusuke's eyes fell to the table. He did not speak. It wasn't often I beheld Yusuke lost in thought (thoughtful this guy most certainly was not). The moment caught me off guard. I paused to observe, and when he did not rouse from his stupor, I rapped my knuckles on the table.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He took a breath. Let it go. Took another, and spoke. "I found them in the big park on the south side yesterday—Kurama, Gouki, and Hiei. They didn't notice me right away. Figured I'd hang back, eavesdrop a bit, see what was up before I kicked their butts."

"Smart of you," I said, unable to keep the warm approval from my voice—but Yusuke hardly noticed. He didn't even gloat.

"When I overheard them, Kurama was…how did he say it?" His eyes screwed up as he summoned the memory. "He was 'withdrawing from their alliance'?" Yusuke shook his head. "He was leaving the others and he was taking the Mirror with him. That Hiei guy wanted to build an army, really start shit. Kurama didn't want any part of it. Kurama even threatened Gouki when the big guy didn't back off and they tried to take the Mirror from him."

Ah. I remembered that part from the anime, I thought. Keiko, however, would have no such context. I lifted a brow and said, "Wow. He threatened his allies?"

Yusuke nodded. "Yup. And the others were pissed, but then I showed up and everybody but Gouki ran off." His eyes rose to mine, uncertain. "Do you think…do you think Kurama stole the Mirror to help his mom somehow?"

"Maybe." Definitely, but no way would I tell Yusuke that. I tried to look suitably uncertain, instead, and then I masked the look with concern. "But do his reasons change anything about your mission?"

Yusuke's brow knit. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, does Spirit World care if Kurama stole the Mirror to save a life?"

Yusuke's brow knit further. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm just wondering what will happen to my classmate when all of this is said and done," I said. The concern seemed logical enough, given Keiko and Minamino were friends. Too bad Yusuke's confused expression told me didn't see that reasoning. I asked, "What will happen to Minamino Shuichi once Spirit World tracks him down?"

It was like watching a fish learn how to fly. The wheels in Yusuke's head turned, turned, turned, but no matter how many times he tried to speak, the words came out a senseless stammer. Understandable, really. He probably hadn't thought that far ahead yet, to the actual punishments for the demons he tracked down.

"I mean—I mean, he'll…they will…I don't know," he said, each syllable a struggle of dawning comprehension. "Gouki is an asshole and he deserves what he gets from Spirit World. Hiei, too. But Kurama—" Yusuke paused, swallowed, and looked quite green. "I—If my mom was dying, I might...I mean, I wouldn't…but—" And then he threw up his hands with an exasperated growl. "Ah, screw it! I'm not paid enough to think this hard!"

"You're not paid at all, actually."

"That makes it worse." Yusuke shook his head like a dog clearing its ears of water. "Here's a riddle for ya. How the hell does a demon have a human mom?"

My brow arched. "I just found out demons exist. What do you think I am, an expert?"

"An expert at being a pain in my ass, maybe," he grumbled, but the jibe had no heart.

In a show of surprising carelessness, Yusuke wound a hand into his gelled hair, mussing the glossy strands. While Yusuke was not a vain person in the traditional sense, he cared very much for his delinquent style. This must really be getting to him...

"This doesn't make sense," he said, half pleading and half frustrated. "Why would a demon have a human mom? Or a human name? And why would a demon care about a human enough to save one who's dying?" He looked to me as though seeking confirmation of his own experiences. "You should've heard 'em talking, Keiko. That Hiei guy, and Gouki—they hate humans. They want to eat them and enslave them and burn this world to the ground. Gouki and Hiei are both human-hating assholes and they deserve what's coming to them, but Kurama—" Another shake of his frustrated head, followed by a string of impressive (not to mention loud) curses. He flopped boneless in his seat and moaned, "I don't understand any of this bullshit!"

"You and me both," I remarked. "So what are you going to do?"

At first he didn't reply. He harrumphed and sighed and muttered a few more profanities, slumping in his chair until his head came level with the backrest. Then his eyes cleared; he heaved his most dramatic sigh yet, sat up, and pounded his fist against the table. My plate rattled a porcelain response.

"I'm gonna kick ass like always, that's what I'm gonna do," he said, triumph crowning his decision and his expression alike. "I'm gonna beat up Gouki and confront Kurama and then when that's done, I'll kick the crap out of Hiei."

How very like him, to fall back on what he was best at in times of uncertainty. Smiling, I said, "Sounds like you've got quite a busy schedule this week."

"Damn straight," he said—and he winced. "Speaking of busy schedules. Sorry to drag you into this, Keiko, but if I want to get that Mirror back before the full moon tomorrow night, I gotta act fast. I gotta level the playing field." He grinned a wicked grin, demonic heritage foreshadowed. "Show this Kurama guy I'm onto him. Kick his ass just like all the others."

That smile of his, mischievous and bellicose, sank into my bones like damp, rotting my mood from the inside. Choosing my words with care, I asked, "So you'll kick his ass even if he's trying to save someone's life?"

Somehow, in his haste to fight, I think he'd forgotten what I'd said about Kurama's mom, if only for a moment. Yusuke's smile vanished, confused blinking taking its place. I didn't want him punching Kurama in the face on sight. Yusuke hadn't done so in the anime, so maybe it was wrong of me to doubt him, but that smile…

"Sometimes people do bad things for the right reasons." I kept my voice cool and even, trying to keep a level head despite how badly I wanted to tell Yusuke to leave Kurama alone. When Yusuke scowled and opened his mouth, I held up a hand. "I'm not defending him. But you don't know him like I do."

"You barely know him at all," Yusuke fired back. "You didn't know he was a demon."

"True," I replied, "but I do know he defended me from bullies when they struck, when you weren't around to do it yourself."

Yusuke hadn't been expecting that. His teeth clacked together so hard, I heard them click from across the table.

"I don't get the sense Minamino—I mean, Kurama is evil, or that he's trying to hurt anybody," I said. "In fact, he seems lonely."

Yusuke's eyebrows shot up like geysers. So did mine, in fact. My word choice had been spontaneous, but once it left my mouth, I realized how true it felt . Kurama had been raised by a woman younger than him, and had been surrounded by peers whose intellects offered him absolutely no engagement whatsoever. And no one else in this world was a reincarnated demon, so far as he knew. He had grown up well and truly alone.

I knew that feeling. I knew what it was like to keep secrets from your birth, and what it was like to be alone. But unlike me, Kurama hadn't had a Yusuke show up and be the canary to his albatross.

If I'd felt sorry for him before, I sure as shit felt bad now.

"He seems like a very lonely person," I concluded, "not an evil one. So I hope you take that into account when dealing with this situation."

I couldn't say more than that without giving myself away, so I shut my mouth and waited. Yusuke stared, considering what I'd said, but eventually he shook his head.

"Sorry, but even if Kurama is pulling away from the others, the idea that a good person would ever be all buddy-buddy with demons like Hiei and Gouki…I just don't believe it." My mouth went desert dry at his resolute attitude, and it went even dryer when Yusuke's evil grin returned. "And he's not gonna believe it when I show up at his school."

"And that's where I come in, I assume," I said, tone mirroring the landscape of my mouth.

"Damn right. Now listen up."

It was a simple enough plan: Show up at Meiou, call Kurama out of class, and either beat the crap out of him right there or just scare Kurama badly enough to make him do something stupid (slim chance there, but Yusuke didn't know it). Yusuke figured if he dangled the knowledge of Kurama's human identity in Kurama's face, and show him Yusuke had the upper hand, it would send Kurama scrambling. All Yusuke wanted from me was a signal to let him know Kurama was actually in school, and Yusuke wasn't hanging around Meiou wasting time.

"Bold move, Yusuke," I said after he relayed the plan—the plan he had no idea was utterly, completely ironic. In the manga, Kurama called Yusuke out of school and took him to the hospital to see his mother. Now Yusuke wanted to confront Kurama, completely reversing their canon encounter.

Like I'd said before: How very, very Yusuke of him.

"What can I say?" Yusuke said with a cocky smirk. "Bold is my middle name." His eyes turned serious. "So. Will you help me?"

To be honest, I hated this plan. I didn't want it to get off the ground at all. Who knew how Kurama would react to being intimidated like this? What would this do to canon? And more concerning still, what would Kurama do to Yusuke? But the alternative to not-helping was staying out of it, and if I stayed out of it, I couldn't intervene if something went horribly awry.

Damn my meddling tendencies and obsessive streak. Damn it all to hell!

"Sure," I said. Before Yusuke could finish pumping a triumphant fist, I grabbed his hand. He blinked at me like I'd grown a second head. "But, Yusuke, please—he's my friend." It wasn't hard to inject my voice with sincerity, because I meant every word I spoke. "If Minamino tries to talk to you, just hear him out." I tightened my grip on his fingers, pleading with my eyes, my voice, my touch when he didn't agree right away. "Do it for me, OK?"

Yusuke took a deep breath. He covered my hand with his, looked into my eyes a second, then closed his eyes and cursed.

"Ugh. Fine," Yusuke said. He opened his eyes only so he could roll them. "I'll hear him out if he talks—but I can't guarantee I'll listen. Capisci?"

Much as I wanted to press for a clearer promise, I figured this was all I could really ask for.

I'd just have to protect Kurama myself, if it came down to that.


Kurama looked absolutely thunderous when he returned to class. He came back only a scant fifteen minutes after Yusuke called him out. They must not have duked it out right there in the office, I surmised, for which I felt immeasurably grateful. Seemed Yusuke could control his temper if he felt like doing so, after all.

And so could Kurama, come to think of it. Although his eyes looked like chips of malachite, all hard edges and flashing facets, no blood stained his hands. Or would death-by-Kurama come cleaner than that?

I tried to catch his eye when he returned and took his seat. So did half the class, of course, but I threw my hat in the ring, too. He didn't deign to look at a single one of us. He just sat down, faced the blackboard, and listened to the lecture as though he wasn't feeling absolutely murderous inside.

His fist gave him away, of course.

It quivered on his magenta-clad thigh like a tightrope in a gale, and when the bell rang, he glided from his seat and beat even our teacher out the door.

Kurama did not join me and Kaito for lunch (surprise, surprise), and he did not appear during my last class of the day. Junko informed me she hadn't seen him in an earlier class, either.

"What do you think happened?" she whispered in a stolen moment before class started. "The girls said he got called out to the office?"

"He did," I confirmed.

Her eyes clouded. "Do you think his mom is OK?"

"No idea."

I had no idea just then, but I knew I'd find out soon enough.


I walked in the door, took one look at Yusuke, and declared, "You look like you got hit by another car."

Yusuke scowled. Botan giggled, leaned down, and poked a finger at the bandage on Yusuke's cheek. "He does, doesn't he?

"Both of you, shut up." Yusuke lay on the floor on his back in the middle of his bedroom, covered in bandages, skin of his index finger blackened—side effect of the Concentration Ring? He mimed shooting the ceiling before letting his arm fall limp to the carpet. "I'm beat up, but I got 'im!"

Stepping over his legs, I crossed the room and sat next to Botan on the bed. "Gouki?"

"Yeah. I got the Orb back."

"Busy schedule indeed," I muttered. I'd come over to Yusuke's house directly after school, still dressed in my uniform, and he'd already taken out Gouki? To confront Kurama and defeat Gouki all in one day was quite the feat. Canon moved quickly once the ball got rolling.

Next to me, Botan reached into the front pocket of her hoodie. A green glow suffused our faces as she pulled out what had to be the Rapacious Orb—a baseball-sized object with a surface that looked like stained glass, sort of, black fissures fracturing a sphere of sickly jade light. The light had odd, unsettling depth, spiraling down and down like it sucked in other lights and tried to eat them whole. Looking at it for more than a few seconds made my forehead prick with cold sweat.

"It's eerie," I said. I was very glad when Botan put the thing away.

"And you haven't seen it suck out a kid's soul," Yusuke said. He lifted his head to look at the reaper next to me. "You maybe wanna take that back to Spirit World before Hiei swoops in and murders us for it?"

"Good idea. I'll return this to Spirit World at once." She bounced to her feet, only to sit back down with a frown. "But before I go—what's phase two of your plan for Kurama?" Botan, like a pinball bouncing between conversation topics, turned to me and beamed. "Oh, before I forget—Keiko! Thank you so much for helping Yusuke with Kurama—or should I say Shuichi." She favored Yusuke with a proud beam, a mother hen clucking over her favorite fluffy chick. "Even with Spirit World's resources at my disposal, I didn't uncover Kurama's human disguise, but Yusuke's detective instincts broke this case wide open. I'm ever so proud of him! To sniff out a demon skulking in Human World is true testament to his talent!"

Yusuke crooked his fingers, smirking. "Yeah, yeah, keep it comin'," he said. "I'm awesome."

Something about Botan's phrasing (the part not devote to praising Yusuke, I mean) bugged me. "Skulking?" I repeated. "I don't think Kurama was skulking."

Botan pushed at my arm, touch both an admonishment and a good-natured tease. "Well, of course he was skulking!" she said with a bright laugh. "Kurama is demon pretending to be a mortal boy. Who knows what dastardly schemes he's been getting up to here?"

"With all due respect, I don't think he's been doing anything but watching over his mother," I said—and Botan's smile vanished.

"Oh, Keiko, you don't really believe that, do you?" she said, tone concerned, eyes pleading, like I'd somehow never learned Santa wasn't real and she was the bearer of bad news. "Demons prey on humans. There's no reason for him to be here unless he was up to something."

"Is that so," I said, but it wasn't a question.

Botan answered anyway. "Why, yes!" She cupped a hand around her mouth, leaning toward me to mock-whisper: "And Yusuke told me that story about his human mother being sick. I think Kurama is pretending to help his mom to throw us off the scent! Maybe it's an act to make us feel sorry for him. Perfectly in character for a demon, wouldn't you say?"

At the suggestion Kurama was faking, my ire rose, fists clenching against my legs. How dare Botan suggest such a thing? I opened my mouth to argue, to set her straight—but her charming, friendly smile stopped me cold.

No guile, no aggression, no venom…Botan spoke frankly and with cheer, as if talking about the weather, laws of nature immutable, and not a good friend of mine. I didn't get the sense she was being cruel. But why would she talk about our friend and ally Kurama like this, if…?

Oh.

Right.

He wasn't our ally yet.

He wasn't yet our ally, and so far as I knew, at this stage in canon Botan was a very devoted Spirit World employee. She looked at demons as black and white, good and evil, no shades of grey between them. To her, it was inconceivable that a demon could be good.

Kurama hadn't proven her wrong yet.

Hopefully he would still get the chance despite the changes to canon.

At this realization (or was it more of a remembrance?) my temper cooled.

"Maybe," I said. "But if Minamino was faking, that would mean he knew Yusuke and I were friends."

Botan looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"You never would have known about his mom if it wasn't for me telling you about her," I said. "Kurama has no idea Yusuke and I are friends. I've certainly never mentioned Yusuke to him by name." Stripping all sounds of accusation from my voice, because I certainly didn't want to antagonize Botan, I said, "Are you saying he planned to use me to make you feel sorry for him, without no way of knowing about my connection to the eventual Spirit Detective?"

Botan put a hand to her chin. For a second I thought she might listen to me, but instead she just laughed. "Well, who knows what Kurama is capable of?" She gave a resolute nod. "He's a very dangerous criminal!"

My lips thinned. How frustrating. If we were all to become friends later, it wouldn't do for Botan to be so black-and-white about demons and their morality. But what could I say to make her more receptive to—?

Botan and I flinched in unison as Yusuke sat up. "No, Botan—I think Keiko's right."

His solemn expression didn't fit his features, somehow. Botan stared at him in wonderment. When my eyes met Yusuke's, I swallowed down a ball of prickly nerves. Maybe I didn't have to do the convincing, after all. Maybe Yusuke would do that for me. But could I really get that lucky?

"You do?" I asked. "You agree with me?"

Yusuke nodded. "There hasn't been time to tell you, but when I talked with Kurama today, I…he requested we meet later. Tomorrow." He hesitated. "And he promised to give the Mirror back to me."

Botan lurched to her feet, aghast. "He what?!"

"I know, I know, bad move, don't trust him, he's an evil demon, blah blah blah," Yusuke said, rolling his eyes. "Spirit World thinks he's a criminal, but he didn't seem like one to me. He didn't seem angry, or like he wanted to fight. He seemed sad." At that his expression fell, diving into grave waters. "You were right, Keiko. He looked lonely."

"Lonely?" Botan asked, incredulous. "What do you mean, he looked lonely?"

Although Yusuke was not the more poetical of the two of us, leaving maudlin and flowery language to yours truly, in that moment he surprised me (he was doing that more and more as days went on). He hesitated, but only for a moment.

"It's like there was this—this space inside his eyes," Yusuke said. "He was desperate to use that Mirror and he was scared I'd take it away from him before he could." Speaking aloud bolstered his opinions, I think, because his stubborn eyes began to gleam. "Someone who wanted to just hurt others wouldn't look like that. They'd be angry, not scared. So I don't think Kurama is a bad guy."

"What?!" Botan threw out her hands, advancing on Yusuke where he lay. Hands on hips, magenta eyes glaring, she said, "You don't mean that, Yusuke! His friend nearly killed you today!" When Yusuke remained unmoved by her logic, she practically grew fangs. "Yusuke, he's a demon, a criminal. Koenma himself told me—"

"Screw Koenma."

Botan shut up immediately. Yusuke heaved himself upright, peeved. Botan's appeal to authority just now clearly didn't sit well with him.

"Screw Koenma," Yusuke repeated (Botan looked quite appalled at this prospect, of course). "That brat isn't here fighting ogres and watching kids get their souls sucked out. And he didn't see the look in Kurama's eyes today. And he didn't hear Kurama arguing with the others, saying he wanted out. I'm the one who's seen it all, not Koenma. I'm the best person to make this call, and if Koenma doesn't like it, he can come down off his throne and do the fighting his own damn self."

I squashed the part of me that was glowing inside (glowing and also screaming that Yusuke was sticking it to the man—er, sticking it to the baby—and hell yeah, boy, you tell 'em!). Putting on a stunned face, I caught Yusuke's gaze and spoke.

"You trust him," I said. It wasn't a question. "You trust Minamino, Yusuke."

"I wouldn't go that far," he said at once. "But…I'm willing to give him a shot." He turned to Botan again, who looked utterly flummoxed by Yusuke's mutiny. "If he gives the Mirror back, it's no harm, no foul, right? Spirit World won't get mad if he returns it, will they?"

Unfortunately for both Yusuke and myself, Botan merely grimaced. "I can't make that promise, Yusuke. Kurama, Shuichi…he committed a crime against Spirit World."

"So his cooperation means nothing?" I said, before I could modulate my fierce, protective tone. Yusuke glanced my way, brow knit at my sharp interjection, but he said nothing.

"I don't make the rules, I'm afraid," said Botan—with real regret in her voice, which surprised me. "If what Yusuke says is true, and Kurama really does return the Mirror after using it to achieve a peaceful goal, perhaps Spirit World will have leniency…but I'm just not sure."

Nobody spoke for a minute. My stomach twisted into a pretzel, tight and swollen with nerves, salt of anxiety withering my tongue. Spirit World had not punished Kurama too harshly in the manga or anime, but…

"Well." Yusuke shrugged, looking at me askance with a sly smile. "If Spirit World can't make promises…shoganai, or whatever."

I couldn't suppress a helpless giggle. He never used that phrase, preferring to meet inconvenience with a gripe or a grouse instead of shrugging it off like a typical Japanese person. Once Yusuke saw me smile, he looked away with a satisfied smirk.

"I'll meet Kurama tomorrow and see what happens," he said. "And if it does turn out he's pulling a trick, and he doesn't cooperate, I'll kick his ass and take the Mirror. Either way, I'm gonna win."

Botan giggled. "You truly do epitomize 'Wake from death, return to life,' don't you, Yusuke?"

"Hell yeah, I do!" he said…and then he shrank a bit. "What does 'epitomize' mean, again?"

As Botan proceeded to give the reluctant Yusuke a vocabulary lesson, I fell quiet, thoughts flying free of the room and into the dark night beyond.

I wasn't going to be a part of Yusuke's meeting with Kurama tomorrow—not the way I'd been a part of Yusuke's plan this morning. If something went terribly wrong during the meeting, I wouldn't be there to fix it.

I just had to hope it went according to canon plan. I just had to hope I got lucky, and everything turned out OK.

Too bad saying shoganai myself didn't do anything to make me feel better, as it had done for Yusuke.


As the full moon appeared overhead, my palms began to sweat, water pulled from them as the moon pulls the tide. Blotting palms on pants, I stared at the hospital looming tall and bright above, slats of the bench below biting into my thighs like teeth.

It was Wednesday night, and Yusuke was with Kurama.

I hadn't followed him to the hospital. I wasn't that stupid. Instead I deduced which hospital housed Kurama's mother (Hotaru had been quite helpful on this matter, thanks to her cousin the nurse) and went there shortly after Yusuke intended to meet Kurama. Now I waited on a bench across the street, protected from the dark by the light of the streetlamp overhead. Eyes on the sky, waiting for a plume of light atop the hospital to signal the Mirror's magic, I waited, knee jiggling with pent-up nerves. The hands of my watch spun round and round. One hour, then two, passed with glacial agility.

By the time Yusuke finally appeared in the hospital's main doors, the skin around my nail beds wept dark blood, stripped to the quick by anxious fingers.

I stood when I saw him. He spotted me at once, looking both ways (somebody had learned from their mistakes) before crossing the street. His shoes slapped against the pavement; he skidded to a stop, hands jammed deep into his pants pockets, shoulders slumped as if to brace against a hurricane wind that did not blow.

Yusuke did not meet my eyes.

Icewater flooded my stomach.

"Hey," I said when he didn't speak. "What happened?"

Yusuke shook his head. "Not here. Train station."

Wanting to press, wanting to pry, knowing I shouldn't do either, I bit my tongue and kept quiet on the walk to the station. Few people lined the streets this evening, but when we passed a couple holding hands and giggling, Yusuke kept his head down. Normally he'd scoff at public affection. Now, though…

Why hadn't I seen the light from the Mirror? Was I just not spiritually aware enough to see it?

Or had it simply never—?

No.

No way.

Don't think like that, Keiko.

We descended the stairs to the train platform underground in silence, heavy and thick like fallen snow. No one else waited on the platform. We were alone. I touched Yusuke's arm, curling my fingers into the fabric at his elbow. He looked down with a start, eyes hollow—hollow and brittle. Like they'd been scraped out from the inside, shells that could see but not take the weight of what they saw.

"Yusuke," I said, low and urgent. "What happened?"

His eyes slid to the train tracks. He grunted, "Not here."

"No one's around," I insisted, waving at the empty platform. "Talk to me."

Yusuke lifted his wrist, watch upon it gleaming. "Two minutes. Train gets here in two minutes." He swallowed, shaking his head. "Tell you then."

"No." My snarl surprised even me. "Now, Yusuke."

Yusuke didn't reply. No verbally, anyway.

He simply reached into his pocket, and showed me the Forlorn Hope.

It was smaller than I expected. Maybe six inches across at the most, set in a round brass frame, orbs of jade studding the perimeter of the metal ring—and plain. Very plain. It didn't sparkle or glow like the Rapacious Orb. Aside from the gems and a braided white cord attached to a ring at the top, the Mirror wasn't event decorated.

Still.

The sight of it snatched my breath, Mirror stealing air the way it had been stolen from the vault in Spirit World.

Drained as it was, my chest nearly imploded when Yusuke said: "Kurama didn't use it."

At first I thought I hadn't heard him right. I stood there, silent, until the notion finally sank home. The words knocked me back on my heels, rocking me in place as if from a punch.

"What?" I said. The icewater in my veins froze solid, muscles tightening, as immovable as stone. "He what?!"

"He didn't use the Mirror," Yusuke said. He shook the object in his hands, or perhaps his hands merely shook. "He started to, but then—he stopped."

No. No. Surely he was kidding. Surely this wasn't real. Surely Yusuke had misunderstood—or I had misunderstood, somehow.

All I could say was, "Why?"

"The Mirror—" He took a deep breath, and in his chest I heard it shudder. "Botan said there was a cost for using it, but she didn't know what it was. But Kurama said…" Yusuke swallowed down the bile I tasted in my own mouth. "He said the cost is your life."

Dimly, far off down the train track, I heard a rumble. The train, or my own heartbeat roaring in my ears?

Before I could figure it out, Yusuke began to babble, and I heard the rumble no more.

Face agonized, hand wrapping around my wrist as though to anchor himself against a typhoon, Yusuke said, "We were talking about his mom and he told me the cost and I don't know why I did it, but I told him about how my mom acted after I died, how upset and sad and pissed off she was, and he—he just gave it back to me." Yusuke looked as if he didn't believe his own words. "He just gave the Mirror back to me, before he even used it, and now his mom—"

"Oh my god," I said.

"He was willing to die for his mom, Keiko." Yusuke shook his head, shaking and shaking like he sought to deny reality itself. "He was willing to die for her, but he said he couldn't do it, and I just—I just—"

"Why?" I asked again. I think it was all I could say.

Yusuke ground his teeth, voice rough and desperate. "He said—he said it was because she would never ask him to trade his life for hers. He said he couldn't betray someone he loves like that, even if he was trying to save them." His tone dropped into sorrow like a stone into a lake. "And he couldn't do it knowing how broken she'd be without him, afterward."

Black spots swam at the edge of my vision, then.

Because these words Yusuke said—the words he said came from Kurama—

They were my words.

These were my words, spoken to Kurama that night we dance beneath the stars, thrown back in my face like razor shards of hail.

Only one thought occurred to me as Yusuke and I stared at one another, him agonized, myself frozen, neither able to speak, neither able to comprehend what had just transpired.

What in the world have I done? I thought.

Time seemed to stop. It slowed and crawled, crystallizing in place around us, spell broken only when the train roared down the track and shrieked to a halt at our feet. Yusuke walked as if on autopilot toward the doors, toes edging the yellow safety line as the train aligned before him. He shoved the Mirror in his pocket, braided cord hanging free over the hem.

My eyes caught on the cord like skin on razor wire.

The moment, like before…it crystallized.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

"Yusuke," I said.

He hummed, but he did not turn around. Good. I didn't want him to. I walked forward and wrapped my arms around him, forehead resting against the back of his hot neck. Yusuke stiffened under my touch, but he did not pull away. In front of him, the doors whooshed open, waiting for us to come inside.

In my head, I began to count.

"What are you doing?" Yusuke murmured.

My arms pulled a little tighter. I smelled his hair gel like perfume in my nose. I took a deep breath of it to steady myself, still counting inside my head.

"I'm sorry," I said after a few stolen moments. "But I have to do this."

He shifted, but he still did not break free of my embrace. "Do what?" he said.

I swallowed.

In my head, the countdown came to an end.

"Do this," I said—and I shoved Yusuke forward as hard as I could.

Yusuke wasn't expecting it. Lucky me. Surprise was the only way I could get the better of him, probably—that and my aikido training. I knew just where to push to knock him totally off-balance, send him careening forward like a helpless avalanche down a hill. He bellowed as he fell, slamming onto the floor inside the train, twisting onto his back so he could look at me and yell, "Keiko!? What the heck are you—oh."

His blazing eyes drifted, and then the fire in them doused.

He'd spotted the Mirror in my hand—the Mirror I'd tugged from his pocket as he fell.

Before he could process what I'd done, or try to take the Mirror back from me, the train doors shut behind him. Right on schedule. All according to my slapdash, desperate, spur of the moment plan.

"I'm sorry, Yusuke," I said as he threw himself at the doors, but it was too late. He pounded his fist against them, screaming my name, demanding I give the Mirror back right fucking now, dammit. "I'm sorry, Yusuke—but I have to fix this."

I didn't wait for the train to pull away, to take Yusuke out of sight into the dark tunnel beyond.

I just started running, pulled to the hospital like the tide to the moon...because if I didn't do something, Shiori was going to die.

And it was all my fault.


NOTES:

There is, perhaps, an argument to be made that this isn't altogether her fault, but in the moment NQK definitely FEELS like it's her fault.

Kurama's decision was influenced by things neither Keiko nor Yusuke are aware of. Hopefully you'll find it plausible. Will come maybe not next chapter, but soon.

I pulled some of Botan's dialogue about Kurama directly from the manga, BTW. She referred to him as a bloodthirsty villain a lot. Obviously her opinion changed over time, but just in case y'all were wondering, the manga validates her initial distrust and negative opinion of him.

And many thanks, as always, to those who reviewed. The comments were little chips of light in a very dark week: EmmieSauce, Lady Rini, wennifer-lynn, Counting Sinful Stars, tatewaki2000, Kaiya Azure, Maester Ta, Tsuki-Lolita, Actic013, general zargon, Mayacompany, RedPanda923, InTheArmsOfAThief, Im Not Itachi, shen0, CrystalVixen93, xenocanaan, DarkDust27, WaYaADisi1, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, Random Lurker, Miqila, Vyxen Hexgrim, FireDancerNix, DiCuoreAllison, Marian, Memelord5000, Jengurl24, Corralinne, 431101134, MyHeartBeating-MWMI, Saria19, racnor, Mikki18, Igneous321, Chi-chan, LiLy Resh, mskittyholiday, Atlas, morpheusandmuse, Noface, cocobyrd87, Beccalittlebear, ahyeon, Just2DreamofYou, o-dragon, and three guests!