Warnings: None

NOTE: The Forlorn Hope works differently in the manga vs. the anime. In the anime, the Mirror spared Yusuke to honor Yusuke's nobility and selflessness. In the manga, Yusuke survived because he and Kurama shared the burden of the sacrificial life energy required to grant the wish—not because of nobility/selflessness. Wanted to clear that up (there's a long post about it on my Tumblr) for those who are familiar with only one canon or the other, because in this chapter it's super relevant.


Lucky Child

Chapter 41:

"How Do You Know My Name?"


The nurse at the front desk flinched as I slammed through the doors of the Long Term Care Ward, a wild-eyed tornado clad in disheveled clothes with flyaway hair. He started to speak, probably to tell me visiting hours were over, but at the look on my face he shut his mouth. I'm not sure what the look on my face said, exactly, but I knew it couldn't have been good—not if it reflected the turmoil I felt inside. Not if it reflected the turmoil that had sent me sprinting through the streets, guts churning into a maelstrom of agony as I ran beneath the light of the full and bloated moon, bloated like a corpse, a corpse like Shiori would become if I didn't fix this oh my god, Kagome was wrong, Kagome was wrong, I did influence Kurama, I did throw him off track, I did

As I approached the desk, I squeezed my nails into my hand. Pain-wrought clarity, cold and sharp, sliced through the haze like a sword. A smattering of bloody drops hit the floor when my fingers unclenched.

"I'm here for the Minamino family," I said. A set of forbidding double doors stood behind the nurse, this man, this Cerberus guarding hell. I said, "Where are they?"

"Are you a relative?" he asked.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what I said back. The memory is too blurry, too panic-punched to recollect. I know I babbled with tears in my eyes (it wasn't hard to cry on command given the circumstances), saying how badly I needed to see my friend because I heard his mom is dying, and please-oh-please won't you help me, sir, I'm begging you, please just let me in to see my friend, please? The man's face softened automatically. Nothing like being a cute young woman in crisis to stir feelings of sympathy, am I right? For perhaps the first time in this life, I didn't mind being quite so young. Leverage what you got, girl.

"It's OK, miss. You can go see them," he said, probably breaking some law or another in his attempt to soothe a sobbing teen. He hit a buzzer under the desk; behind him, I heard the heavy double doors unlatch. "Room 114."

Poor bastard. I didn't even thank him. I shoved away from the desk and pelted at the doors, throwing them open with my shoulder as if ramming down the gates of Troy, running past and down the hall, tracking room numbers one by one. 100, 102, 104, 106—

Room 114 was empty.

I stood there for about ten seconds, every breath a punch to the gut, taking in the empty room. It was a typical hospital suite furnished for an extended stay. TV, bed, table, chair, kitchenette. A few homey touches—a knitted blanket, some books—gave the space a lived-in feel. A vase of tulips on the bedside table had been knocked askew, water puddled on the floor, reflective like a Mirror.

A mirror. The Mirror.

My fist clenched again, half-moons of my nails gouging deeper into my palm. The pain felt good, felt real, lashing me to the here-and-now, keeping me suspended just above the yawning abyss of panic threatening to swallow me whole.

Where the hell was Kurama?

Where the bloody fucking goddamn hell was Kurama—?

"Yukimura?"

I almost started to cry when I heard him say my name. He stood behind me only a few feet away, eyes as wide as I'd ever seen them, hands hanging loose and empty at his sides. His garnet hair glimmered in the humming florescent lights; the bags beneath his tired, swollen eyes puffed like he'd been punched. Were they swollen with tears? Who knew. Who cared?

"Minamino," I breathed. My voice hitched and cracked from emotion and exertion both. "Your mom. Is she—?"

His brow furrowed, probably wondering just how the hell I knew to ask. "In surgery. What are you doing here?"

'In surgery' meant 'not dead yet.' Cool relief flooded my breastbone; I sagged for just a moment, collapsing against the foot of the bed with a gasp.

I wasn't too late.

I could still fix this.

"Oh, thank god," I said—but this was no time for celebration. Not yet. I stood and wedged my nails back into the flesh of my palm, reveling in the firework of pain. "Come with me."

Minamino's eyes hardened. My knees almost gave out again, though this time for an entirely different reason.

"I don't have time for you today, Yukimura," he said—no, he spat. His silky voice had lost all traces of musicality, burlap usurping silk, rough and thin and strained by emotions I couldn't begin to name. He pointed down the hallway. "Leave. I need to be here for my mother."

For a second I couldn't move.

Then I squared my shoulders.

"And you will be, if you come with me," I said—and I reached for him.

He only gasped, too confused to argue, when I grabbed his hand and pulled him after me down the hall. I paid him no mind, not even when he dragged his feet against my grasp. I was too busy looking for a stairwell sign, which I found in short order. I kicked the door open and hauled Minamino through, but mere moments after the door banged shut behind us, he ripped his hand from mine with surprising strength—only, it shouldn't have surprised me. This was Kurama we were talking about.

…not Shuichi. Kurama.

That's who stared at me with eyes on fire. Not Minamino. Not my classmate. Kurama the fox demon glared up at me, three steps below on the landing, not deigning to follow me even three measly stairs.

"Yukimura, what is this?" he said in a low voice—a low, controlled voice scarier than any bellow or snarl. "Why are you here? I am in no mood for—"

"You're in the mood for this, trust me," I said.

Before he could argue, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Mirror.

Minamino…he stopped talking.

The silence that followed seemed to last an hour, though I know it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. His eyes travelled from my face to the Mirror in a loop, wheels turning behind those living emeralds, trying to discern just what, exactly, was happening, and why, exactly, Yukimura Keiko held the Mirror of Darkness in her hand.

I had no idea what I was going to tell him: not now, nor what I'd say when all of this was said and done. There had no time for clever plans or devious schemes tonight, no time for my overthinking and worrying, no time to wonder what the real Keiko would do in my position.

There was only time to act, as I would act. I'd deal with the consequences later.

Just as the silence stretched to its breaking point, a rubber band pulled too taut to do anything but snap, Kurama's eyes met mine. A spark of green flashed like broken glass, striking me silent and still.

Kurama asked, in a voice of deadly quiet, "Where did you get that Mirror?"

I shook my head. "No time. We're going to use this save your mother's life." I turned and started up the stairs. "C'mon. Come with me."

His hand closed around my wrist like a vice snapping on the foot of a rabbit. I almost fell, whipped around in my tracks, but his hand on my shoulder kept me from tumbling down the stairs. I felt demonic the strength in him again as he supported me, felt the way he bore my weight as though I were made of twigs, and once more I sagged. He didn't move. He didn't let me fall against him—just like I wouldn't let him fall tonight. Him, or his mother.

We were going to save her, and save Kurama in the process. No fucking doubt in my mind…just so long as he cooperated. Stubborn fox.

"Wait," he said—and finally the agony inside broke through his calculating calm, raw pain turning green eyes dark. "We can't use that. The cost—"

"The Mirror takes a life if only one is offered," I blurted. "If you've got two people, it just takes a little of each life and grants your wish, no death involved." I pointed at him, then at myself, then at him again, hysterical grin cracking across my face like a brick through a window. "Math ain't my best subject, mister-sir, but gosh-golly-gee, I see two people here, so—"

A flex of his hand pushed me back to standing, but he didn't look relieved by my logic. His eyes merely narrowed with obvious suspicion. "How do you know that?"

"No time to explain. I just do." I started up the stairs again. "Now come on."

"No."

My hand spasmed, nails biting hard into my palm. The world reddened, adrenaline pounding so sharp I could taste it, and I couldn't help myself: I threw up my hands, opened my mouth, and shrieked. The wordless, feral, guttural shriek echoed up the stairs like the cry of a wounded animal. I spun, foot stomping, and glared at the fox demon below with teeth bared. He didn't so much as cringe. Was probably like getting growled at by a bunny rabbit, but whatever, I was beyond caring at that point.

"Shove your 'no' up your stubborn ass, Minamino," I said, or maybe yelled—but Kurama remained unmoved.

"No," he repeated. "Not without a guarantee that your theory is correct." A grimace crossed his lips. "I can't risk letting you get killed for—"

He said something else. I didn't hear him, too caught up in the sensation of my anger cooling. I put a hand to my forehead.

I can't let you risk getting killed.

"Oh, Kurama." His name slipped out on a sigh. "Worrying about others even now?"

The air between us seemed to vanish, just then, sent running by the sound of his true name. No distance between us, no lies, no walls—an admittance I knew more than I should, and about far more than the Mirror in my hand. Kurama stilled, every muscle a stone, eyes locked on mine as if to burrow inside them and see what secrets I kept. I waited, unable to keep the small, warm smile off my lips as Kurama's posture corrected. He rose to his full height, hands falling to his side in fists, feet squaring under him as if he meant to fight.

"How?" he breathed. Despite their volume, the words reverberated in my ears as if they had been screamed. "How do you know my name?"

My smile grew, then faded, then grew again. Kurama watched, hair-trigger tension readying like a fist behind his luminous eyes.

"Same reason I know how the Mirror works," I grated out. "Which I will tell you about—but later."

His eyes narrowed again.I skipped down the stairs and latched onto his sleeve before he could speak. Kurama put his hand over mine, but not in a caress or gesture of warmth: this was a warning, feather-light and zephyr-cool, that I'd come close enough to touch. Close enough to strike, if he so chose.

Normally that would have scared me. Now, though, I banked on my own vulnerability to get me what I wanted.

"Please," I said, gripping him tight. His fingers curled around mine in response. "Please. This wasn't supposed to happen." My voice trembled with fear and pain and more fear. "If you just trust me, it doesn't have to be this way. Your mother can live." My throat thickened with unshed tears. "Please?"

Kurama did not answer. His thumb traced over the back of my wrist as if seeking the delicate vein below the skin…but to cut it or protect it, I can't say.

"Please, Kurama," I said, and my voice broke entirely, cracking like an egg in a clawed hand. Desperately I wished for a power, any power, to make him believe me, or to fix all of this with a finger snap. "I'm—I'm not lying to you. Please, believe me. I need you to trust me, even if it's not in your nature, OK?"

He remained quiet. Green eyes searched my face the way a lost traveler reads a map. A vibration travelled up my spine in a wave; I trembled, unable to prevent it, knees and hands shaking as much as my quavering voice. Kurama's scent—mint, earth, ozone—filled the air like the scent of rain before a storm, but breathing it did little to calm me.

"Please," I repeated. "If we were ever, ever friends—please just let me help you."

Kurama stared, hand still poised over mine, without speaking. We traded that long, lean look until my eyes teared, a single drop of saline spilling down my cheek. Kurama traced its fall with his gaze until it dribbled off my quaking chin.

Something shifted behind his eyes.

Without a word, Kurama's fingers curled around my wrist, and he pulled me after him up the stairs.


The moon hung above us like a watching eye, distant and cold as we dashed together to the middle of the roof. I felt to my wooden knees and tried to set the Mirror on the ground. It fell from my numb fingers with a clatter of metal on concrete, surface reflecting the sky as a spate of clouds moved across the moon. Kurama knelt across from me, color of his eyes lost to the dark.

"Are you certain?" he said.

I took a deep, shuddering breath.

Before I could reply, the clouds parted, and the Mirror reflected the face of the pearlescent moon.

Light bloomed inside the mirror like one of Kurama's hothouse flowers, radiant green to match the Rapacious Orb—only gentler, the light of a thousand glow-worms in a peaceful, shadowed cavern. I leaned forward on reflex, but my face only looked back at me for a moment before the image rippled, changed, distorted into something new, more colors swimming from the green glow like a developing photograph.

I had never met Shiori. I did not know the lines of her flesh and blood face. Still, when the image of a dark haired, liquid-eyed woman stared up at me, I knew it must be her.

She had Shuichi's eyes, somehow, even if their color didn't match.

"Mother," Kurama said—but I hardly heard him, because the Mirror had begun to speak. Its voice didn't travel through my ears and into my skull, but the other way round, from inside out as if the Mirror had lodged itself inside my head. Deep and booming, commanding yet soft, the voice filled up my head like tea poured from a warm jug.

It happened too quickly to impress or thrill me. There wasn't time for wonder.

"You seek to mend what has been broken," said this rich, old voice, "and align destiny on its proper path. You require the life of this woman restored, and the happiness of her son returned." I heard Kurama draw sharp breath, but I ignored him. "Is that what you ask me to grant?"

"Yes," I said, because the Mirror spoke the truth. "That's exactly what I want."

"You are sure?" the Mirror asked. "You would sacrifice your life for this boy's happiness?"

"Yes." I extended a hand, one finger brushing the Mirror's cold face. "But I don't think it will come to that."

I was looking at Kurama when the Mirror said, "Then your wish is granted." I was looking at him and smiling, amused by his shocked expression, laughing at how even now he was not accustomed to receiving help. Unnamable affection filled me from the inside out, cool and tingling, then warm, then hot, then burning, then a thousand little needles pricking at my insides as the green light from the Mirror burned to white, then rose to a crescendo of blinding pain—

Was that me screaming?

Oh.

So it was.

It wasn't affection that I felt, after all. It was the Mirror sucking hot and greedy at my very life, siphoning my vitality like gargantuan wasp larvae on the back of my tiny self, an ant beneath its enormous, hungry mouth. It wormed its way through my hand and into my body and gulped, guzzling, gluttonous, curling into the roots of my hair and the tips of my toes, ravenous for every last drop of me it could possibly consume. I smelled blood and bone and singed hair and pulped teeth, felt my nails shudder in their beds, eyes swelling in their sockets from the force that had lodged itself inside me. My lungs threatened to heave out of my mouth as I gasped and choked for air, stomach a knot of iron, unable to see or think or feel anything but that horrible, sucking drain threatening to reduce myself to nothing more than hollow memory.

Then I felt him touch me—him. Not the Mirror. A real touch on my real skin, pulling me from the depths of pain and back to earth again.

When the hand closed over mine, my abused nerves sang in protest—but the force inside me deflated, retracted. I could breathe again. I felt the concrete under my knees and the mad raging of my heart. I heard the sound of my own breath, my own whimpers, and a sound like crackling fire somewhere at my feet. Opening my eyes felt like lifting doors of iron.

Green lightning haloed Kurama's body, aurora borealis twining into his hair and lighting up his eyes with verdant flame. Teeth grit, hair on end, shoulders like strained wire, he met my eyes and grimaced, a guttural cry escaping his lips as the force that had been inside me tried to eat him, too. His fingers spasmed around my hand, but he did not let go—not even when those Mirror's gnashing teeth bit at me again, and I felt my body slump backward, away from him.

Darkness consumed me.

I fell into the black wondering if Keiko's frail, human body had enough life to give, or if our shared sacrifice had been in vain—and hoping, against all odds, that I'd sated the Mirror's depthless appetite.


I woke to a hand on my cheek and an arm beneath my shoulders. Someone said my name, but the pounding ache inside my skull all but drowned it out. Bam, bam, bam, each beat of my heart sent a spike of migraine misery through my temples and down my back. I clutched my face in both hands and sat up with a groan.

"Ugh. Jesus-fuck, my head!" I said.

"Keiko—are you all right?"

I cracked an eye, wincing even in the mild moonlight, light a lance striking sharp into my brain. Kurama knelt next to me, hair still reamed with static. He looked a bit like a lion who'd gotten stuck in an electric socket, though I'd never tell him that. How'd he get that way? He was normally so put-together…

"Were you kicking my head while I was out?" I grated up at him. "Sure feels like it."

Green eyes narrowed. "That was incredibly reckless," he said. His arm around my shoulders tightened, pulling me to his chest. "That was—"

His soft voice sounded too loud, too close, like a microphone with bad feedback. I looked away, wincing—and a shaft of light caught the Mirror where it lay on the ground.

Oh. Right. That. That's why we were here. How had I forgotten the Mirror and the wish—

The wish.

Had I done enough?

"Is your mom alright?" I blurted. My eyes opened all the way despite how much it hurt; I was shoving away and rising to my knees in an instant, wheeling on Kurama with a curse. "What the heck are you still doing up here, dumbass?!" My arm flung toward the door. "Go to her! Go see if she's OK!"

It was as though he'd forgotten the reason we'd come up here, too. Realization struck like lightning, suiting his on-end hair.

"Mother," he said. Without preamble, he was on his feet and running for the door—only when he wrenched it open, he paused. Turned back and met my eyes with…not a frown. Not anger. He was too worried for his mother to waste energy on me, but in his eyes I saw something build and break and build again, new information warring with old assumptions and the revelation of tonight.

Tonight, everything had changed. When it was over, and the dust settled…

"Keiko." My name sounded like petals on a cool wind. "When this is over—"

"We'll have to have that little conversation of ours. I get it, I get it," I said. I tried to brave a resigned smile; I fear I only grimaced. "It's been a long time coming."

"Yes," he replied, with odd wonder. "A very long time."

Kurama paused for just a moment, eyes shutting. When he opened them again, I saw nothing but sincerity—sincerity and a promise left unspoken.

He said: "Thank you, Keiko."

My skin tingled, but not in a good way. It crawled as though besieged by termites, burrowing beneath the bark and into the wood of my guilty heart.

"No," I breathed. Then with more force: "No. No. I deserve no thanks. None whatsoever." My hand lashed at the door again, harder. "Go. Go!"

Kurama did not argue. He merely left, leaving me alone on the roof.

It took a few minutes to gather myself enough to stand. Electric ticks jumped through my muscles when I moved; an ache settled into my bones, hot and throbbing, too intense to ignore. I hobbled to the Mirror and picked it up, teeth grinding when bending over made my spine creak.

"My, my," the Mirror said. Its voice came quieter this time, deep inside my head, somewhere above the palate but below the place where memory lives. "So you knew my secret."

"Wow." I blinked at the Mirror as it reflected the night sky above. The moon stayed firm behind the clouds; I angled the Mirror down so it could reflect the front of my shirt, instead. "You, uh…you talk."

"On occasion." Its voice drifted toward the realm of yearning. "To think. If only more had instincts like yours, perhaps I wouldn't be called the Forlorn Hope at all."

I felt a little sorry for the Mirror, suddenly. Its reputation wasn't its fault. It was merely hungry, after all. Dare few ever tried to feed it out of fear.

"Perhaps not," I said. "So you did grant the wish?"

"Yes." Cool relief flooded my head at the frank confirmation. "Your gift of life energy, spent for the sake of another, eased my hunger."

I breathed a relieved sigh. "Good. Thank you." I hesitated before asking, "Say. Can you tell me something?"

It paused, a vacuum opening behind my eyes in the absence of its voice. Some of my migraine sucked into that vacuum and disappeared. Perhaps the Mirror was still hungry, for pain of any kind. I held my breath as I waited for its response. Talking to a Mirror wasn't the highest marker of intact sanity, but still…maybe it could ease the worry polling in the place the migraine had once filled.

"I have granted many wishes, and I have taken many lives," the Mirror mused, "but I have answered few questions since my creation long ago. Few have dared speak with me, I suppose." I could almost sense it stirring in whatever non-space it called home, as if summoning its sentience like a maître-de. "Still. I will try. Ask."

"Did I do the right thing tonight?" I said. "Was I supposed to make canon happen, or was I supposed to let this new Yu Yu Hakusho have its say?"

The Mirror didn't reply. Perhaps it didn't know what Yu Yu Hakusho was. My head shook almost of its own accord.

"I'm the one who planted the seeds that led to this," I said. "Wasn't it my job to fix what broke?"

"It is…difficult to say," the Mirror told me. Its tone firmed when it continued. "But it is clear to me you care deeply for this world, and for those who inhabit it. Let that care guide you, and all consequence you will weather." The presence in my head dimmed, lights fading to black before a movie. "Now I must sleep, my friend. Good luck to you."

"Yeah." I put the Mirror in my pocket, and its presence left my head for good. "Thanks."

Wind stripped by, cold at this lofty vantage point. With arms wrapped tight around my shoulders, my feet drifted toward the edge of the building. A chain link fence kept me from a plummet to the pavement below. The fence rattled when I looped two fingers through the links; I sighed, leaning against the icy metal wires, thoughts with Kurama somewhere in the hospital below.

What did Kurama think of me now?

And what would I say to him when we next saw each other?

But more pressingly—what the fucking hell was I going to say to Yusuke when I saw him next? Because that was going to happen much sooner than my confrontation with Kurama.

Much sooner.

Like. Immediately, in fact.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Yusuke waiting for me in the street below—lounging on the same bench where I'd waited for him earlier. Despite the casual way he draped his ankle over the opposite knee, I read the tension in his shoulders and the agitated jiggle of his leg even from the hospital roof.

As if sensing my gaze, his face lifted in my direction.

When our eyes met, Yusuke did not smile.

Suddenly, it wasn't Kurama I was most afraid of.


"So he's fine."

"Yeah." I swallowed, mouth dry from talking. "And his mom is, too."

Yusuke leaned forward and spat off the edge of the roof, into the bayou behind my parents' restaurant. He'd listened to my story without saying a single word. Not like him at all, and to be honest, his silence was sorta freaky. I'd been expecting sarcasm and yelling, not this. We'd taken the train to my house without speaking and climbed on to the roof without even communicating the need for this conversation to happen in our special hang-out place. I guess it was the only private place we both knew. The story slipped from my lips in a series of curt, factual statements—ones I'd rehearsed during our quiet journey home. Had to spend the train ride doing something other than picking my nails bloody with worry…

Eyeing me askance, Yusuke asked, "You wanna tell me how you figured it out?"

Feigned ignorance came easily. "Hmm?"

"How the Mirror worked like that." He held up two fingers, eyebrow askew. "Taking parts of two lives instead of one whole one?"

"This child got lucky, I guess." Time to attempt a lame pun, throw him off the scent with a bad joke and a cheesy wink. "That's my name, after all."

"Yeah, right," Yusuke said, not buying it in the slightest. "You mean to tell me just lucked out and solved all our problems?"

"Well, what's the alternative?" Another cheesy wink. "I'm secretly from Spirit World and I've been sitting on all the secrets of this world since I was born?"

Tell all truth and tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson would say. Yusuke had no idea that this absurd hypothetical came distressingly close to describing the truth of my existence. He blinked, pursed his lips, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"When you put it like that," he grumbled, "it sounds pretty stupid."

I chuckled; Yusuke scowled. He wasn't one for brooding, but just then he stared into the dark above the drainage canals as though to pierce the shadows with his gaze. I put a hand on his knee and squeezed.

"Look, Yusuke, I…I panicked," I said, and this wasn't a slanted truth at all. "I couldn't stand the thought of Minamino's mom dying, and I knew the Mirror could help, so…I had to try. I had to try something." Even though the effects of the Mirror had abated, my smile trembled at the edge. "I couldn't just let my friend's mom die, you know?"

Yusuke looked at me for a long time. He didn't believe me—not entirely. That was obvious in his furrowed brow and pursed lips. Too bad he had no solid evidence to work with, nor any theoretical alternatives to supersede my explanation. He sensed something was up with me, but he had no means of proving it, and no compelling leads to explore or unravel.

Plus, I'd never lie to him. I always meant what I said, so far as he knew. Other than his nagging instincts, he had no reason to suspect me of anything scurrilous.

Though I would not let it show on my face, I worried I was being cruel to him, deceiving him this way.

I tried very hard not to think about that too much.

Eventually Yusuke sighed, running a hand over his slick hair. The tension left him with the sagging of his lean shoulders.

"Yeah, I know," he grumbled. Sighing, he laced his fingers together and stretched, knuckles cracking like fireworks. "Well. This means two down, one to go." At last a smile returned, sly with triumph as he lifted the Mirror from his pocket. "Thanks to you, I've got the Orb and the Mirror."

"Yeah," I said.

"That means I face Hiei next, to get the Sword." Yusuke's nose wrinkled like he'd just licked a lemon. "But he's the nastiest of the bunch. And I don't have any inside intel on him like I did Kurama. How am I gonna handle this one?"

"You've got your work cut out for you, for sure," I agreed—but I offered Yusuke no tips on how to deal with the bloodthirsty fire demon.

I was too busy thinking about how I'd deal with him, when the time finally came for Hiei and Keiko to meet.

Of course, it's not like I hadn't considered the Hiei Abduction before that night. I'm not stupid. I'd been thinking of meeting Hiei almost daily since my rebirth as Yukimura Keiko. It was, after all, her first brush with true danger (if you didn't count rescuing Yusuke from the fire). The incident therefore required quite a bit of worrying on the part of yours truly, even if it had remained a distant dream for most of my childhood.

Well…it was distant no longer. Now that Kurama had lost the Mirror, Hiei's time to strike loomed large.

Although I felt inclined to worry about Kurama (where was he? on the run from Spirit World?) and Yusuke (had he really swallowed my explanation that I'd gotten lucky?), I pushed those worries aside after Yusuke went home that night. I went to my room, pulled my journals from their hiding spot, and opened the one marked The Artifacts Case to my notes on Hiei's abduction.

I had a plan. Of course I had a plan. This is me we're talking about, Overthinker Extraordinaire.

The problem was that for my plan to work, I needed to know exactly when Hiei would strike—and unlike the situation with Kurama, I didn't have the full moon to guide my way. I knew Hiei abducted Keiko after school one day, but was that day tomorrow? The day after? How could I anticipate Hiei's arrival if I didn't know when he'd come for me?

Lucky for me, Keiko has some really great friends.


Intent on tracking down Kurama and seeing if he'd made it to school that day, the sight of Kuwabara leaning on the wall by my school gates knocked me for quite the loop. My feet skidded on the sidewalk when I spotted his blue uniform and orange hair—definitely out of place amidst the red and pink Meiou uniforms streaming past.

Also out of place was Kuwabara's posture. He stood with hands thrust deep into his pockets, shoulders slumped, schoolbag clamped between his elbows and ribs hard enough to give me sympathy pains. Jutting neck supported his head as it jerked left, right, and back again, eyes roving over the street as if hunting for a tiger on the loose. Instead he spotted me. His eyes widened, coin-round and anxious, and he pushed away from the wall to dart in my direction.

"Kuwabara?" I said. "What are you doing here?" My brow arched. "And how did you know where my school was?"

He ducked his head as he came close, sheepish. "Aw man, I had to ask, like, a lot of people where it was—but that doesn't matter!" He grabbed my hand in his massive ones, fingers delicate yet strong, peering nervously into my face. "Keiko, are you OK!?"

"Uh…of course I am." His face came dangerously close to mine; we probably looked like lovers to outside parties, holding hands like this, but I shoved that thought away (hopefully the rumor mill didn't go ballistic). "Why wouldn't I be?"

Kuwabara began to speak, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder so hard I feared he'd give himself whiplash. When he gave a strangled grunt, I leaned around him expecting to see that tiger he'd been searching for...but only my classmates walked by. Strange.

"Ooh, I don't like this," Kuwabara muttered, voice climbing an octave. "Ooh, I don't like this at all! I don't—" He looked at me, then over my shoulder, and at that his eyes popped wide. He jumped past me with a yelp, shielding me from something with his bulk. "W-what in the Sam hill is that?!" he said, pointing into the limbs of a tree a few feet down the sidewalk.

I scrambled to his side, eagerly scanning the foliage above. Had Kuwabara spotted Hiei, maybe? Was Hiei up there watching me?

It seemed not. The tree was rather barren, in fact, limbs clearly visible—and empty—between the smattering of clinging leaves.

"What?" I said. "Where?"

"You didn't see—?" Kuwabara blinked like an owl, then lowered his reddening face. "Oh. Um. Nothing's there, after all." Tangling his fingers in his curled hair, he said, "Aw man, I'm losin' it. This sucks."

My hand descended on his arm, pulling his fingers free of his pompadour before he could make himself bald. "Kuwabara, what the heck is going on?"

"The Tickle Feeling!" he hollered, as though he'd been holding back the words for days. Around us, several of my classmates flinched and stared. "It's the Tickle Feeling! I've been getting it nonstop since Sunday and last night I had a dream where—" His cheeks pinked; he stopped talking, shaking his head. "Doesn't matter. I just had a premonition last night, and it involved you, and lately my premonitions have all been right. Beats me why this is happenin' all of a sudden, but it is, so I just gotta deal with it." He grabbed my hand again, once more peering into my face as though he could find a threat hiding in my eyebrows. "You're sure you're OK, Keiko? Like, for-sure for-sure?"

I squeezed his hand back in an attempt at reassurance. "I'm sure about me. But I'm not sure about you."

"It's not me you need to be worried—" he began, but then the blush drained from his face. So did his usual complexion, followed by every last scrap of blood coloring his veins. Face like paper, sweat beading on his temple, his eyes fixed on something just behind me, back toward the school gates.

"Oh no." His voice came small, a child in a dark bedroom after something went bump in the night. "Oh—oh no. Not her."

But there was no one behind me when I turned to look—no one Keiko could see, anyway. Squeezing his fingers harder, I asked, "Her who?" I waved a hand in front of his face when he neither responded nor looked at me, eyes locked on the empty air. "Kuwabara, what are you looking at? You're freaking me out!"

He snapped back to reality, but his face didn't color again. More sweat beading his forehead, he said, "It's—it's hard to explain—but Keiko, I have to go." Fear twanged like a broken violin in his rocky voice. "Just promise me you'll stay safe, OK?"

Before I could craft an answer, Kuwabara dropped my hands and loped down the sidewalk faster than a gazelle on speed. Blinking after him, stunned by his abrupt exit, I merely stared when he stopped on the corner and yodeled, "And don't go anywhere with any small children wearing black, you hear me?!"

"Uh," I articulated.

Kuwabara shuddered, the shake of his body visible even from up the road. "Oh no. No, no, not today, Satan—!" he said, and he ducked around the corner and out of sight.

"Is your friend all right?"

Flinching, I spun on my heel and found Amagi standing a few feet away. She glanced the way Kuwabara had gone, but she didn't wear the freaked expressions of my other classmates. Apparently she was made of sterner stuff than they when faced with a squawking delinquent.

"Oh, Amagi-san," I said. "Um. I'm not really sure."

Amagi hummed, low and musical in the back of her throat. Expression bland but shrewd, she looked first the way Kuwabara had gone, then back toward the school gate—toward the place where Kuwabara himself had been staring only moments before. She frowned, head dipping in a knowing nod.

"Ah," she said. "It's no wonder he ran."

"Um…is isn't?"

"No." She inclined her head at the empty spot. "There is a dead woman by the school gate. She is quite unhappy, not to mention vocal."

For a second, I thought I'd misheard. I stared at Amagi with my mouth open, trying to absorb the sight of her unexpectedly expectant face without success. Eventually Amagi took pity on me and offered the barest of smiles.

"Your friend can see ghosts, can't he?" she asked.

I blurted, "Can you?"

"Sometimes." She shrugged; I nearly passed out from shock. "Mostly during sleep paralysis. But there's a nasty spirit just over there, and I don't have to be sleeping to see her. She probably spooked your friend, if he's at all inclined toward the spiritual." Her eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?"

It took a minute more to both process this oh-my-god-what-the-hell information and to remember how to speak. "My friend, he was really embarrassed to admit he could see ghosts," I said when I regained use of my faculties. "I'm just surprised. You're so…open."

"Not with everyone," Amagi said, blandly, "but given your interest in Minamino, I guessed you'd be as open to hearing as I am to sharing." She stepped toward the school gate, apparently unconcerned that she'd just admitted she knew something was up with Minamino and oh god oh god what was happening with my classmate? "Let's get inside before the bell rings. Oh, and Keiko?"

Against all odds, I remembered how to be a human being. "Yeah?" I grunted.

"Your friend is right. There's a pall over you, as though someone at a great distance means you harm." She skimmed my body from head to toe, and on some days that would've given me butterflies, but just then my jaw was on the floor and I couldn't be compelled to care. "Be careful today."

"You…you got it," I managed to mutter.

Junko approached me and Amagi at the shoe lockers, chattering about a new boy she'd met. Amagi made no further mention of our conversation at the gate. Kurama never showed up for class. I spent all morning with my mouth hanging open, trying to put my shattered brain back together in the wake of this morning's excitement. When I finally managed to regain my critical thinking skills, I came to one conclusion.

I had psychic friends—more of them than I realized—and both had given me a warning that today was not meant for ordinary measures.

Like I said: I'm lucky Keiko has such good friends.


When school let out that day, I did not allow myself to be alone.

Junko took the train home each day. A single friendly overture saw me walking her to the station, two friends chatting about teachers and cute boys, normal as could be. If Junko noticed the way I scanned the trees and powerlines above, scoured the alleys and dark doorways for the sight of a black-cloaked man, she did not mention it. She merely talked and gossiped until she boarded the train and left me alone—alone if not for the crowds milling through the station, that is. Following a group of young women like I'd stitched myself to their shadow, I exited the station and sat on the nearest bench.

A bench in the middle of the square outside the station.

A bench in the line of sight of hundreds of people and security cameras, well-lit and obvious.

Voices and the slap of feet on pavement buzzed like wasps in the air. No one paid me any mind as I flipped idly through a textbook, highlighter tucked behind an ear as I read my chemistry homework. To passersby I was nothing more noteworthy than a schoolgirl waiting for a train—the very portrait of normalcy. Certainly not the target of a bloodthirsty fire demon intent on world domination.

Little did they know that in lieu of covalent bonds and rogue electrons, the name of a demon repeated itself over and over in my head like the answer to tomorrow's exam.

I had no idea if this plan of mine would work. I hoped it would, of course, but I had far fewer skills at my disposal than did demons like Hiei and Kurama…but this was a disadvantage I would soon rectify.

Maybe. Hopefully. We'd see soon enough.

It felt like I sat there for an hour, though the clock tower above the square suggested I spent a mere five minutes screaming Hiei's name inside my head. Pretty sure I've never thought that hard about something in either of my lives, nor focused on anything with that same single-minded ferocity. Eyes fixed on my book, not daring to look around, his name coursed through me like a mantra, syllables blurring together until the word lost its meaning to the depths of repetition.

Hiei Hiei Hiei Hiei Hiei—

I almost didn't notice when a shiver coursed its slow way up my spine—but I did. In that spot below memory and above my teeth, where the Mirror had spoken to me, something rattled. I stopped thinking his name and sat up straight, looking around the square with as much subtlety as I could muster.

Hiei did not appear.

For a second I felt disappointed. Then I screwed up my courage, remembered Hiei was a stubborn shithead, and hoped the next part of the plan didn't make look like too big of an idiot (though of this I had very little hope indeed).

"You can come out now, Hiei," I said, eyes still locked on my book. "I'm tired of waiting, and I'm not very good at it, anyway."

One moment of nothing passed. That moment turned into two, then three. Drawing breath to sigh my disappointment, I began to close my book and leave—but then black boots appeared in my line of sight, tips of their scuffed toes visible just above the edge of my textbook.

Promptly, I forgot how to breathe.

Hiei demanded, "How do you know my name?"

He had a voice like a sword sliding into an ill-fit scabbard, gruff and rude with pronouns indicating he thought very little of me indeed. Not that I expected much more, but still. His voice scraped against my ears like a cheese grater, higher pitched than I'd expected but no less intimidating than I'd previously assumed.

I barely dared to look at him, of course. I barely dared to think, or breathe, or cheer that my plan of summoning him to me had actually worked. I was too afraid for any of that.

This version of Hiei, the early-canon version…he was not the trustworthy fighter from later in the series. He was the demon who hated humans and sought to enslave them with the Shadow Sword.

He was the demon who might kill me, if I didn't play my cards just right.

Luckily I'd been dreaming of how to play those cards—not to mention perfecting my poker face—for fourteen entire years.

Crossing my legs at the thigh, I made a show of rolling my eyes, not deigning to look up from my book. Curious though I was to see what Hiei looked like in real life, it was imperative I not indulge just yet. I had a point to prove before any of that.

"What, really?" I said, snark dripping from every syllable. "Do you really think I'd tell you how I know? I'm not stupid enough to lose my only bargaining chip."

"Bargaining chip?" Hiei spat the words like he'd bitten into a rotten apple. "That implies I have something you want, and that you have something I would want to exchange for it." Surprisingly talkative, this Hiei. I'd forgotten how mouthy he got during his Villainous Monologue stage. "What could a pitiful human like you ever hope to offer a demon like me?"

"Wait and see." I let my eyes climb a little higher, up to the hem of a ratty black cloak with a torn hem and the tip of a scabbard hanging beside it. "That sword."

Even just looking at his legs, I saw him tense. "You can't have it," he growled.

"I don't want it," I said. "I just want to know something about it."

There followed a somewhat lengthy pause. Clearly Hiei hadn't been expecting that inquiry—which was all part of the plan. Words slow, suspicious, and patronizing, Hiei said, "What could a weakling like you possibly want to know about this sword?"

My breath rattled in my chest. Slowly, every move deliberate, I raised my eyes from my book. Hiei stared back with incredulousness so intense I could taste it—but I didn't let myself fall silent under the sight of his boiling eyes or the curl of his snarling mouth.

"That sword…can it turn me into a demon?" I asked.

And then I waited for my answer.


NOTES:

Here he is. The fire demon you've been waiting for in all his villainous, rebellious-teenage-edge-lord, early-canon glory. Gosh, he's a goober in these early stages. SO FUN.

Guys. GUYS. I debated for MONTHS over whether or not I'd straight up kill Shiori. MONTHS OF PONDERING. In the end I figured if she died, NQK would collapse under the weight of her own guilt and never "break the rules" again. And that would make for a boring story, so…Shiori had to live. And besides. NQK will feel guilty enough even after a close call…MORE ON THIS AND KURAMA'S BEHAVIOR VERY SOON!

And so Amagi revealed a little tidbit about herself. There have been hints about this development before, but they're TEENY tiny.

Apparently I need to threaten peoples' mothers more often, because WOW. The response last week was out. Of. This. WORLD. Thank you SO MUCH for reading! Zenocanaan, Yakiitori, tsaurn, o-dragon, Im Not Itachi, Tw2000, Kaiya Azure, Freaky Shannon-igans, TigressaX, sousie, EmmieSauce, Redpanda923, Melissa Fairy, reebajee, shen0, CrystalVixen93, CitylightsinNYC, general zargon, wennifer-lynn, Just 2 Dream of You, rezgurnk, LittleWesties9, deadkid23, Saria19, AkaMizu-chan, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, Lady Rini, Mayacompany, SoraSira, chinchilla donut, TerrorTwinEpincess, MusicOfMadness, Thornsilverfox, Counting Sinful Stars, HereAfter, ahyeon, LiLy Resh, EdenMae, Maester Ta, Corralinne, Chi-chan, Schattenlos, DiCuoreAllison, Jengurl24, Miqila, mskittyholiday, Marian, ballet022, Yunrii, La Femme Absurde, WaYaADisi1, MyHeartBeating-MWMI, FallenSlayer17, MetroNeko, FireDancerNix, CelticMonk, brave-story, essex2, BringOnTheChaos95, tazdevil, SesshomarusLuver, NoFace, Chaton Rogue, Reclun, Tsuki-lolita, Vyxen Hexgrim, Silverwing013, buzzk97, Orihime-San, and five guests!