Warnings: None
Lucky Child
Chapter 60:
"Good to be Alive"
The one reliably private place I could think of was a nearby karaoke booth—because we sure as hell weren't playing this enormous game of supernatural catch-up in my parents' house, no sir. The walk there took longer than normal, however, since I had to hobble at the tail end of our group on my crutches. Kurama and Kuwabara very politely hung back to keep me company while Yusuke walked backwards in front of us, hands knotted behind his head. Shizuru plowed ahead, leading the way with a streamer of cigarette smoke trailing in her wake.
Hiei, of course, had jumped out the window (literally) the minute we proposed going to karaoke, much to the ire of everyone—but that was just his style, and I tried not to mind it too much.
Kuwabara certainly didn't seem bothered by Hiei's absence. He was too busy gaping at the back of his sister's head, mouth dropped wide as she gave us a by-the-numbers rundown of her recent time away. Seems she hadn't gotten a chance to fill in her brother yet.
"You've been training with a former Spirit Detective?!" he yelped when she divulged the identity of her tutor.
"Wow, bro." A baleful glance over her shoulder. "It's almost like you want the entire street to know my business."
"Sorry, sorry." His chivalrous instincts could not be denied however. He stammered, "It's just—you could've been hurt!"
"Maybe." Her eyes slid to me, pointed and cool. "But maybe that's better than ending up on the wrong end of a teacher possessed by a demon bug."
I winced. "I can attest that one would not want to face a horde of those suckers untrained." I paused, struck by an incongruous observation. "Wait. You know about the demon bugs and—?"
She took a drag of cigarette, exhaling a gray plume upward. "Oh, I know all about Kazuma's little field trip. Forced the truth out of him when I came home and saw Sleeping Beauty there asleep in my bed." Yusuke squawked at his unflattering nickname, but he shut up fast when Shizuru glared at him. "And Kuroko filled me in on the big picture crap. I know about everything."
That made sense, because heck, even I'd told her quite a bit about Spirit World, Demon World, and all that associated jazz back when I explained where Kuwabara had gotten off to during his summer training with Genkai. I couldn't suppress a relieved sigh, knowing Shizuru was in-the-know about everything. Girl was a total asset to us, especially given her recent training.
Kuwabara, meanwhile, didn't appear to agree. He shoved his hands into his pockets with the poutiest of scowls (and seeing this, Kurama hid a smile behind his hand).
"She couldn't even wait till breakfast to interrogate me," Kuwabara muttered. "Flipped my mattress to get me out of bed."
"Tough tittie," said Shizuru. "I've been sleeping on rocks for weeks."
"Yeesh. Sleeping on rocks?" I said. "I didn't imagine Kuroko's training was a walk in the park, but…"
"It was the exact opposite of that," Shizuru said, blunt as the rocks that had formed her bed. "Final test was a walk through the woods, for a week. Had to keep up while she ran, fight the demons that came out at night. A stroll through hell, more or less." Her smirk held equal parts satisfaction and mischief. "But I have some neat tricks to show for it, at the very least."
Kurama, walking at a sedate pace at my side, said, "Care for a demonstration, Shizuru?"
"Nah." Now her smirk was all mischief. "I'll save the big reveal for a special occasion."
Yusuke was not impressed. Not breaking from his backward walk, he looked over his shoulder at Shizuru and whined, "I can't believe you met another Spirit Detective before I did!"
"I can't believe Keiko met another Spirit Detective before you did." She jabbed her cigarette my way over her shoulder. "She's the one who introduced me to Kuroko."
"She what?!"
Yusuke wheeled, coming to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk. I swung like a pendulum atop my crutches, rubber pad at their top biting into my armpits as my fingers scrabbled around the hand grips. Probably would've tumbled off my crutches had Kurama not put a hand on my back to steady me, but Yusuke hardly noticed. He looked me up and down with mouth agape, as if seeing me for the first time all over again.
"Keiko, how the hell did you know about Kuroko?" he said. "I had no idea there were other Spirit Detectives!" Brown eyes narrowed, glittering with suspicious. "Did Koenma tell you? You're my assistant so I bet he's told you tons of things, that rat bastard."
My eyes rolled of their own accord. "Actually, no. Koenma never tells me shit. Hell, I haven't even met the guy."
"Then how—?"
"You know my fancy-ass aikido lessons you love to mock?" I said, and when Yusuke looked confused I couldn't help but giggle. "Turns out my teacher is a friend of Kuroko's. Helped her with cases back in the day. Introductions happened when Hideki-sensei learned I was helping the new Detective, and when Shizuru asked where you two had gone…"
"Wasn't about to let my baby bro fight demons without backup," Shizuru said. She stood a little ways away on the sidewalk, careful to aim her cigarette smoke away from our group. Eyes on Kuwabara, she said, "I've had your back since you were born, Kazuma. Really think I'd stop now that there are demons involved?"
The big guy looked touched, chiseled face melting. "Shizuru. You really—?"
This time she blew smoke directly into his face. "Save the weeping for a romcom, kid." Shizuru pointed over her shoulder as her brother coughed, cigarette aimed at a building bearing a garish neon karaoke sign. "We're here."
Yusuke whooped, gunning for the door with a cry of calling the tambourine. Shizuru followed him, and Kuwabara followed her, tugging at her shirtsleeve with sappy (and adorable) comments about her being the best sister in the entire world, looking out for him the way she did, only she'd better not get hurt fighting demons because then he'd be sad (to which she replied he was an ugly-ass crier, which meant she had to stay alive to spare the world the sight of his hideous tears, to which Kuwabara replied with an irate yodel, to which Shizuru replied with an elbow in his ribs, and so on and so forth). I laughed and started to swing myself after them, once more glad that our group had solidified, all the canon characters together at long last—but a hand brushed my elbow and I stopped.
Kurama put his hand in his pocket, regarding me with eyes as appraising as they were amused. I quirked a brow at him. "What's up?"
He paused. Then, softly: "Aikido lessons?"
"Oh. Did I not mention those?" I said, nervous chuckle tickling the back of my throat.
"You did not," he said, even-keeled as ever. "Why are you taking them, may I ask?"
Because admitting I didn't want to be utterly helpless felt wildly embarrassing, I just shrugged and adopted a flippant grin. "Gotta keep up with the rest of you somehow, don't I?"
Kurama's smile was small, yes, but warm. "I suppose that's true." A gentle incline of his chin, commanding but not pushy. "I'd like to see these lessons for myself sometime, if you'd allow it."
"Uh—sure thing, I guess?" Only if I warned Kagome not to show up ahead of time, though. "But why?"
"No reason," he replied—but the musical tint to his words, not to mention the conspiratorial glint in his eye, spoke of motives I felt certain he didn't mean for me to understand.
"…and then I saw you fall off the roof, and I managed to get mad enough to beat that asshole Suzaku with a final Shotgun—and yeah. Beat the guy's ass in one hit!"
Yusuke sat back in his seat with a grandiose grin, arms crossed proudly over a puffed chest. It was the first time anyone had heard the story of Suzaku's defeat (he ran straight to my house when he woke up, after all) and we'd listened in awed silence to the tale of daring do—not to mention a recap of my own fight with the infected, witnessed by Yusuke in all its gory glory on Suzaku's big screen. While Kuwabara winced along to the recounting of traded blows and Suzaku's devious tricks (not to mention what I'd been through at the hands of the infected), Kurama paid attention to the mentions of Yusuke's various techniques, gears and pistons working behind those green of his eyes like the unending tide of a deep ocean. Shizuru, meanwhile, just looked bored, because nothing and no one could shake her unflappable calm.
Me, though? I listened to Yusuke's story with heart lodged firmly in my mouth. Even though I'd known Yusuke would (likely) come out alive, getting a play-by-play wracked my nerves like thumbscrews in the hands of a very capable torturer.
"Wow," I said when he was through. "Just…wow." I shook my head, trying to calm the nervous pulsing of my heart. "I'm so glad you're safe."
"Me?" he said, peeved. "You're the one who took a flying leap off the goshdarn roof of your school! How'd you even survive that, anyway?"
To stall, I took a sip of the soda I'd ordered when we rented the karaoke booth. Swirling lights from a disco ball above our heads dappled the room in rainbow colors, Yusuke's hair an oil slick in the multifaceted light. So, he hadn't seen what happened after I fell, because that's when he beat Suzaku and passed out—which meant he hadn't seen Sailor V. Good to know.
"Botan," I said by way of answer. "She flew up on her oar and caught me." I glared at my foot, which sat propped atop the karaoke booth's coffee table (and a pile of napkins for sanitation purposes). "Though that still happened."
"Well, even so. From what I saw, you handled yourself like a badass." He laughed long and loud and thrilled. "You're a real chip off the old block, Grandma!"
"Really? And whose block would that be?"
"Mine! Duh! You learned from the most badass delinquent in town and it shows!" Pride as obvious as a bleeding wound made his eyes shine from within, and in response I could only preen and try not to blush. Yusuke leaned across the table and rapped his knuckled against my cast, smirking when I flinched at the sharp pain in my shin. "But man, you've been holding out on me. Why didn't you tell me you know how to make a taser?"
My eyes watered, but I managed to grin anyway. "Gotta maintain an air of mystery somehow."
"Kei is full of surprises," Kurama murmured.
"I'll say," said Yusuke. "Thought for sure she'd bit the bullet when she jumped off the roof. It was the last thing I saw before I passed out." Another rap on my shin, but he stopped when I hissed between my teeth. "Gave me quite the scare, you little brat."
"Sorry, Yusuke. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Thinking of the infected as they surged through the roof hatch, I winced again. "And I didn't have much time to think it over."
"I'm just glad you didn't go splat on the pavement," said Yusuke.
Kuwabara bounced in his seat, hand shooting into the air. "Me, too! Me, too!"
"Thanks, guys." I took a deep breath to steel myself for the hard conversation I knew we couldn't avoid any longer—and a hard conversation I needed to manipulate. "But much as I'm enjoying being the object of everyone's affection, we have to talk about Botan."
The entire room tensed at the sound of her name—expect for Shizuru, of course. She stubbed her cigarette into an ashtray at her side, scanning our dire faces with her trademark pokerface. We sat on a circular sectional couch around a low table, one wall of the rectangular room taken up by a huge TV screen. Lyrics scrolled down the monitor, bright yellow highlighted with pink, but nobody sang along to the familiar tune pumping through the speakers mounted by the ceiling. Still eyeing us, Shizuru drew a new cigarette from her pocket and lit up.
"Dare I ask?" she said. "Who's Botan?"
"Yusuke's former guide to the Spirit World—a ferry girl who shepherds souls to the afterlife," Kurama said, answer as neat and clean as his ironed white shirt. He looked to Yusuke for confirmation. "As I understand it, she helped Yusuke return to life."
"Damn right, she did!" Yusuke barked. "And she doesn't deserve any of what's happening to her."
Shizuru took the talk of resurrection and ferry girls in stride, eyebrow lifting the merest fraction. "Which would be?" she asked.
It fell to me to explain, given I'd been there when Botan had been cut by the Shadow Sword and given I'd been the last to see her at the school during the infecteds' attack. I gave Shizuru the same explanation I'd given Kurama and Kuwabara since, like them, Shizuru hadn't met Botan yet. I covered the Shadow Sword debacle (though I left out my presence in that scenario for brevity) and told her about Botan being kept in isolation, as well as the fact Botan developed her third eye when she came to Human World to help me. She listened in silence, taking slow drags off her cigarette every now and again.
When I finished, her eyes slid to Yusuke.
"No wonder you freaked when Hiei bugged out," she said.
Yusuke bristled, a low growl grinding under his breath—not that I blamed him. The minute my parents had left the room back at my house, Hiei had made a beeline for my window.
"Hey," Yusuke had said, word bearing the barest hint of an edge. "Where ya goin'?"
"Away." Hiei lifted a foot and placed it on my desk. "This is getting far too chummy for my tastes."
"Well, hey—don't worry," Yusuke said, and this time the edge in his voice could cut. "We're about to get the exact opposite of chummy, Hiei. So stay."
Hiei stilled, one foot on the desk, poised to leap from the window—and then he did just that without a backward glance, flitting from view like he'd never been there at all. Yusuke bolted to the window as the papers on my desk rustled in the wind of Hiei's departure. Hands braced on the frame, he stuck his head over the sill and bellowed, "Hey, get back here you little asshole! I have a bone to pick with you!"
But Hiei did not return, and Kurama and I shushed Yusuke in unison. We were still at my house, and my parents could overhear.
In the present, face colored like a clown under the light of the disco ball, Yusuke slapped his fist into his palm. "He knew that if he'd stayed, I'd've punched his face in." His voice rose in timbre, frustrated and reedy. "You can't just do what he did to Botan and get away scot-free!"
Kurama caught my eye, then, the merest hint of worry clouding his green gaze. Yusuke was too distracted to see the subtle nod I gave Kurama in recognition. Kurama knew Hiei was meant to be our ally. It was time for damage control, stat.
"Look, Yusuke." I leaned forward, earnest, and met his grimace with a mollifying smile. "I want to hold Hiei responsible, too, but he's our ally now. We can't—"
Yusuke blinked, surprised, and his aggression faded. "Oh—I wasn't gonna kill him or anything. Jeez, Keiko! I just wanted to maybe give him a wedgie and call him some names, that's all." A resolute nod as he crossed his arms, apparently more than satisfied with a wedgie as punishment for Hiei's sins. "Hiei wasn't our friend when he did that to Botan and you. I know he wouldn't do that now, but still. Gotta get some comeuppance for Botan, right?"
Even Kurama looked relieved to hear Yusuke say that, though he hid it well. Shizuru had no stake in this game and just puffed away on her cigarette, picking up the room's food and drink menu and flipping through it absently. Kuwabara, however, frowned, looking between Yusuke and I with nose quite scrunched.
"Hey, uh?" To Yusuke he said, "What do you mean, what Hiei did to Botan 'and you?' What did Hiei do to Keiko?"
My turn to look confused. I shot a glance at Kurama, murmuring "I thought you filled him in?"
He nodded. But: "I told him you and Hiei were acquainted after a previous case of Yusuke's. I spared the details, however. There wasn't time."
"Oh. Um. Well." Shoot; when Kuwabara said Kurama had told him how Hiei and I met, I thought he'd covered the kidnapping. With a shrug, voice as breezy as I could make it, I said, "It was no big deal. Hiei sort of kidnapped me and Botan to get to Yusuke, and then—"
Kuwabara was on his feet in an instant, voice upped an octave with outrage. "What the?! He kidnapped you?" A fist slammed into his palm, rage now his instead of Yusuke's. "Oh, that's it, he's going down!"
"Slow down there, sport," I said, yanking on his sleeve to send him back into his seat. "It's like Yusuke said. Things were different then."
"Yeah, well, he's still a little punk in need of an attitude adjustment, doing to you what he did!" Teeth ground in his carved jaw. "I oughtta—"
"My honor doesn't need defending, Kuwabara." I settled into the couch with a coy smile. "And I've got Hiei handled."
"You do?"
"Yup." I inspected my nails with manufactured detachment. "He's easily persuaded if you have the right incentives. Which I do."
Kurama shot me a sidelong glance. "And what 'incentives' might those be?"
"It's a secret." I thrust my nose into the air, prim as a girl from finishing school. "Like I said: Gotta maintain an air of mystery somehow."
Kurama didn't look like he wholly approved, lips pursed, eyes critical. Meanwhile, Kuwabara looked like he wanted to be sick, and Shizuru looked like she didn't give a crap (because, Shizuru). Yusuke rolled his eyes at me with a snort. He knew my tricks better than anyone; I'd coaxed him into doing my bidding with promises of food as reward one too many times for him to not get the joke.
"OK, OK, enough about Hiei," he said. "What do we do about Botan?"
The others sobered at once. Kurama said, "Finding her takes top priority, I should think."
"Agreed, and I don't even know the girl," Shizuru said.
"Yeah, Kurama's right." Yusuke grimaced like I'd just asked him to hand in his homework on time. "And I know just the demon who can get the job done."
"Think Hiei will even want to help?" Kuwabara grumbled. "You said he's our ally, but that little twerp…"
"Oh, he'll help, all right." Yusuke's feral grin made even me shudder. "We'll make him help."
"I doubt it will have to go that far," Kurama said. He sat with legs crossed, hands cupped around the higher of his knees, back straight and posture authoritative. When Yusuke's eyebrows rows he clarified: "Much though Hiei can be cutthroat, he possesses an honor code—one he seems to have reclaimed in recent months." Green eyes flickered in my direction. "I doubt he'd shirk taking responsibility for his actions now."
"Not that I'd give him a choice, but yeah, I see your point," Yusuke said (Kuwabara looked totally skeptical, though, miming barfing behind Kurama's back). Nigh conspiratorial, Yusuke asked, "Grandma, think you could use your 'incentives' to get Hiei's help?"
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
He nodded, and then I think he considered the conversation closed, because he picked up the nearest songbook and thumbed through it, looking for a karaoke track to sing. I tried not to let relief show on my face, but it was hard. The conversation had gone well—better than I'd hoped, actually. Much though I wished Hiei had stayed, stuck around to bond with everyone, it was good he'd left when he had. If he helped us find Botan, and Botan was still with Sailor V, that'd be a hellacious mix of fandoms. I felt badly about lying and keeping V from my friends, but it was for the best, right?
…right?
Trying not to feel guilty about my many secrets, I grabbed my glass of soda and raised it. The others quieted, all eyes at once on me—and oh shit, maybe this was a bad idea, after all. Spotlights weren't my strong suit.
"Well, gang," I said, swallowing my nerves as I lifted my glass a little higher. "To all of us. For making it out alive."
They raised their glasses and chorused back, "For making it out alive!"
We drank as one—and for the next few hours of karaoke, drinks, and catching up, it felt good to be alive, indeed.
Close to closing time, I stood up and headed for the door of our private karaoke booth. Yusuke and Kuwabara caterwauled to a Megallica song, competing to see who could outshout the other. Only Kurama noticed I'd moved, Shizuru too busy cackling (and chucking cigarette butts at her brother and Yusuke) to notice me.
"Do you need something?" Kurama asked, red hair dyed utter black in the dim booth.
"Bathroom," I said, and he let me go without further inquiry.
The bathrooms lay at the front of the establishment, next to the reception desk and behind a big swinging door, which provided quite the obstacle thanks to my crutches (I'd begun to hate them most sincerely, especially when out in public). On my way out of the bathroom, an attendant at the desk stood up, craning his neck to watch the spectacle of my exit. I balanced all my weight on the crutches and pushed the door open with my good foot, cackling as I swung through the swinging door like Indiana Jones dodging traps in some ancient temple.
"Hey there," the attendant said as I shuffled past. "You need any help?"
He offered now? Too late, buddy. But to keep from being rude I opted for a neutral, "Nah, I got it. But thanks."
I headed around the desk, but the guy—a bit older than me, with a pierced ear and trendy clothes—looked me up and down. I knew the look, shoulders tensing even before he asked, "You with the big group in room seven?"
I hated that I smiled at him on reflex (because you never knew which dudes could or could not handle rejection, nor which ones would try to give you hell for it). "Yeah. Room seven.
"Cool." A lazy grin, another sweep of appraising eyes. "How old are you?"
"Too young for you, I'm afraid."
"What?" He put a hand to his heart, barb not slowing him down in the slightest. "I'm only seventeen!"
"Like I said. Too young."
"Aw, c'mon. Just one date?"
"Sorry. But you're a handsome guy. You'll be fine without me, promise."
But he remained undeterred—although I got the sense he wasn't upset at the rejection, just passing the time by flirting, which was better than the alternative. Nothing worse than a guy who couldn't handle rejection. "What, you already got a boyfriend?" he said with a bright laugh.
I shook my head. "Nope."
"There's a guy you like, then?"
"Nah, nothing like that. I just don't date."
"Pretty girl like you?" he teased. He leaned his elbows on the upper riser of his desk. "Why's that?"
"Personal policy." I shrugged. "Life is way too hectic to focus on relationships."
"If you say so." He winked. "But if you change your mind, you know where to find me."
I laughed, though I didn't really want to. "Sure thing. Good luck!"
"Thanks!"
He didn't give chase as I limped around the corner and started down the hall, back toward the karaoke room, and for that I was grateful. I was also grateful to find Kuwabara, Yusuke, and Kurama standing just a few feet down said hall. They stood in a lose knot, hands jammed in pockets, looking for all the world like the most oddball delinquent squad on the planet.
"Oh, hey!" I said, careening to a halt. "What's up?"
They exchanged a Look, all three of them, which was honestly kind of concerning.
"Not much," Yusuke eventually said. "Just decided we could use the bathroom, too, is all." But his eyes hardened. "Was that guy giving you trouble?"
"You heard that?" I muttered, scowling as I started hobbling anew. "Nah. Just an overeager flirt, is all. Nothing I can't handle." They moved to let me pass. I said, "See you guys in there."
A chorus of "see you laters" followed me down the hallway, as did an utterance of my name. A glance over my shoulder revealed Yusuke and Kurama walking away, Kuwabara hanging back and staring at me. He hesitated when our eyes met; my brows lifted.
"What's up?" I said.
"Ah—" But whatever he meant to say, he appeared to think better of it. A wry smile crossed his features as he said. "Never mind. It's nothin'."
I frowned, starting to press him to just spit it out, c'mon man, we're friends—but he turned and skulked off down the hall, hands jamming back into his pockets like they'd done him some personal wrong.
For a minute, I just stood there.
Then I went back to room seven, because I wasn't sure what else to do.
Two nights later, Hideki-sensei stood before me on the sparring mat, surveying my casted leg and the bandages edging above the neckline of my karate gi with face utterly devoid of expression. His hair looked silver in the dojo's harsh floodlights, glinting with almost as much frost as his gray eyes. Kagome stood off to the side of the sparring mat while she put on her shoes and stretched, and while she did a good job of not looking directly at us, I could tell she was trying to eavesdrop (though she also kept her eyes on the door to the dojo; I knew why, and I'd let her handle that little wrinkle if it came up). Not that Hideki was saying much to overhear, of course. He just stared, eyes as brittle and biting as flint.
I gulped.
He scowled.
"I'm sorry, sensei?" I ventured, unsure if he'd appreciate an apology or just find the sentiment annoying.
The latter, it seemed, because his scowl deepened. "Apologize to yourself, not to me." A tired wave of a tired hand. "The fight. Describe it."
I did so. By the time I finished, he looked grudgingly impressed—which honestly surprised me. I waited on pins and needles to get berated, but he just sighed and ran a hand through his long hair.
"Not bad for your first fight," he said.
I blinked like an owl caught in a floodlight. "I'm sorry?"
"This was your first fight. Your first of note, anyway." His head tilted to one side as he surveyed me again, cataloguing the damage done to my body in light of the fight's details. "Facing multiple enemies, defending an untrained friend. Those are handicaps. And at the point of the night in which you were cut, you had been fighting for a while. To come out with bruises and merely one stab wound…" He shook his head, clucking between his teeth. "You did well, all things considered." And then his eyes turned stony indeed. "But you also got lucky, lucky child."
Kagome couldn't keep from butting in at that point. "Maybe it was skill that got her through?" she ventured, and when Hideki looked her way, she turned her back on us with an 'eep!' of fright.
"Some skill, some luck," Hideki said. "Luck is sometimes just as important." He lifted a hand, pointing first at Kagome, and then at Ezakiya standing over by the warehouse door. "You two, katas." The hand extended down to me. "You, come here."
While Kagome and Eza got to work (Kagome shooting me concerned glances all the while) Hideki helped me stand and get my crutches situated before leading me off to the side of the dojo, over toward a couple of wooden crates I had long ago assumed been left over from whatever this place had been before Hideki converted it into his personal training ground. Turns out I was wrong, because from one of the crates he pulled a big wooden board painted like a shooting target (big black outline of a person, with point values at various vital spots) and a rolled-up length of canvas that clinked when he lifted it into his arms. Which was….well. Ominous, I guess? He leaned the wooden target-board against the warehouse wall, grabbed a folding chair from the stack of them by the dojo's door, and gestured for me to put the knee of my bad leg atop the seat. The chair acted like a prosthetic, almost, letting me put my weight on it instead of my foot.
Before I could ask what dubiousness we were about to get up to, Hideki unrolled the canvas with a snap of his wrist.
The canvas was covered in knives.
Sleek silver knives, handles painted black, of various shapes and lengths and weights, all held fast to the canvas by small elastic strips. Hideki plucked one of the smaller ones free and—in a movement so fluid it looked almost supernatural—hurled it overhand at the target.
The knife buried itself right in the middle of the painted person's face.
He turned back to me and waited for me to pick my jaw off the floor before speaking. "You should be trained in ranged weaponry, anyway. With your leg like that, now's the time." He pointed at the target. "Aim there. Throw like this."
He forced a knife into my hand, walked me through the motion a few times, demonstrated a few more whip crack throws, and set the knife-covered canvas on the chair next to my knee.
"Go," he said, and he walked off to train the others.
Across the dojo, Kagome's astonished mouth snapped shut with a clack of startled teeth.
Knowing failure to perform would result in some form of punishment (maybe situps or pushups since I couldn't run laps?) I picked up my first knife—the first knife of the many, many I'd throw in the coming weeks—and got to work.
By the time practice ended, my arm felt like it had caught fire.
Correction: My arms, plural, felt like they'd caught fire, because Hideki insisted I learn to throw with both hands.
Kagome regarded me with pity as I struggled atop my crutches, arms like jello as I used them to cart around the weight of my lead-heavy body. She walked like a snail so I could keep up, huffing and puffing after her like an out of shape wolf chasing a fairy tale pig.
"Think you can make it all the way home?" she asked, halfway teasing and halfway serious.
In response I could only glare, because I had not the breath for a clever retort.
Kagome insisted on walking me home that night, even if my laborious gait might make her miss the final train of the evening. She epitomized patience when she recommended I sit on a bench to recuperate and rest, even though we still had quite a bit of journey ahead of us. Still, I said yes and collapsed, letting her blot my sweaty forehead with her sleeve when my noodley arms wouldn't cooperate.
"So," she said as she blot-blot-blotted away my perspiration. "Minato didn't show."
"Nope." The word came out in a pathetic wheeze. "I guess he really did mean it when he said he didn't want to be friends."
"That sucks," she said, sighing. "And you said he seemed excited to join us, too."
I didn't say anything—because I was still having trouble breathing, and because Minato had indeed looked pleased when I invited him to aikido with us. I mean, training certainly had seemed up his alley. He'd even said he'd be there, give it a shot, gave his word. And he didn't seem the type to break his word, which meant…I wasn't sure.
All I knew is that I'd have to give him a call in the next day or two and check in. I could still worry about him even if he didn't want to be our friend.
"I kept looking at the door all night, waiting for him to walk in." Kagome sighed, pressing the back of her wrist to her brow. "How horrible it feels, to get your hopes up only to find them dashed upon the rocks of despair!"
She threw herself onto the bench next to me with a moan.
"Drama queen," I said, and I rolled my eyes. "Now help me up. We gotta get you on that train in time."
She hauled me to my feet and kept up a chipper stream of chatter on the rest of the way home, talk only ceasing when we reached the end of my block. She stopped walking and popped a smart salute.
"Well, captain. Think you can make it home from here?"
"I should be able to manage a block on my own. See you next week?"
"For sure!" Kagome whirled on her heel and danced off down the sidewalk, waving over her shoulder. "See ya next week!"
"Bye!"
I watched her go until she disappeared around a corner, crossing my fingers that she made it home on time. Few people wandered my parents' street this time of night, mostly drunk businessmen and the occasional gaggle of young adults from a nearby college out on the party prowl—though it was only Thursday, but I suppose the weekend starts early for college kids. I passed a group of them, tipsy and stumbling, and grinned to myself. I'd been the same way at their age. Heck, my 21st birthday had fallen on a Tuesday, so my friends and I bought a bottle of whipped cream vodka and mixed it with pineapple juice the morning before a midterm. That philosophy paper had been a wild ride, as I recalled. I chuckled as I entered the alleyway running alongside my parents' business, caught in the grip of reminiscence. Man, that paper had referenced Lion King and Bladerunner, right? Marrying a take on particularist ethics with a take on personal agency and—
Something ahead of me moved, a flash of molten gold amidst the dinge and dark.
I stopped moving, the rubber tips of my crutches scraping gummily across the pavement, shoulders and back tensed up at the sudden flash of color. Ahead of me, under the glare of the single overhead light in the alley, the restaurant's side door swung open. I relaxed at that, mouth opening to greet what would surely be my mother or father—but instead gold flashed again, and I fell quiet.
From the dark of the door stepped Sailor V, blue and red and resplendent in her crimson domino mask.
"I apologize for not making it to aikido," she said. She ('she' in her hero form per Minato's request, I reminded myself) took three steps forward, facing me with hands perched on hips. "Something came up."
I said, "Something came—?"
Said someone else, "Keiko?!"
"Oh?" I blinked—and when blue flickered in the doorway, I gasped. "Oh! Botan!"
She ran from the door at full tilt, and at the last second I tossed aside one of my crutches so I could throw an arm around her. Its metallic clatter didn't quite mask the sound of her buried sob, tinny accompaniment as she buried her face in my neck, arms tight around my chest, clutching at me like I could save her from drowning in a cold, dark ocean. I clung to her right back, of course, hand traveling from her shoulder to her waist to the fall of her soft hair just to make sure she was real.
"Oh, Keiko." Her voice shuddered into my neck, breathy with tears. "I was so worried!"
"You were worried?" I said. "Ha! You're one to talk, sleepyhead!"
She hiccupped and pulled away, hands still on my shoulders but far back enough to meet my eyes. We drank in the sight of each other's faces in unison, and when we both asked "How are you feeling?" at the same time, we collapsed into (perhaps slightly hysterical) giggles. She touched her forehead, careful not to disturb her bangs—which fell in a straight curtain across her brow, not parted and curled in the middle like she'd worn before. Her hands shook, touch nervous and tentative.
"I feel like myself," she said, emphasis clear. Her mind was hers, not the bloodthirsty monster's I'd seen the week before. But her face spasmed, eyes welling with tears. "Keiko, I'm so sorry about what happened. I saw my blood and I just—"
"Hey, it's OK," I said, smiling as she sniffled. "We'll get this all sorted out, I promise. Trust me."
"I do. I do trust you." She nodded and scrubbed at her eyes, composing herself before she gestured over her shoulder. "So, um. This…person…said she's a friend of yours?"
V's mouth twitched at Botan's hesitant wording—and when I looked at her, it was difficult to see Minato behind the mask. His demeanor completely changed as V, though the hidden smile felt familiar. Damn V's masking technology, handy as it was for Minato in his daily life and V in her pursuits as a superhero.
"Botan, this is Sailor V," I said. "She came to help us during the incident at the school." I smiled, sunny and brilliant, hoping Botan would be as dazzled by V's presence as Amagi had been. "She's a superhero."
"Really?" Botan stared, staring at V with interest. "A real superhero?"
V popped up a victory sign, holding it over her mask in her trademark pose. "That's right. I'm the guardian of love and justice, Sailor V!"
"I knew Spirit World would take you back, so she agreed to hide you," I explained.
Botan paled, and then she looked grateful, and then she paled again. "Oh. Oh." Taking a deep breath, she dropped into a bow aimed at V. "Thank you, Sailor V. I am truly in your debt."
"No debt required. It's my duty as a hero to aid those in need," V said, every inch the cheerful, upbeat hero she'd been the night she saved me. She reached into a pocket sewn into her skirt (wow, that short thing had pockets?) and pulled forth a tiny gold box tied with a red ribbon. "Before I forget—Botan, this is for you."
Botan looked to me for support, and when I nodded and gave her an encouraging smile, she took a timid step forward and lifted the box off V's palm. She tugged the red ribbon away and flipped open the box's lid with hesitant hands—but the hesitation evaporated when she saw what lay inside, eyes lighting up like magenta lanterns.
"Look, Keiko!" Botan said, thrusting the box toward me.
I craned my neck to see. Inside lay a pair of earrings on a cloud of white satin, gold studs in the shape of stars. Botan cooed over them, simple and pretty as they were, but I shot V a look with a quirked brow.
"Thought she might have a little trouble walking around with her new feature," V said. When Botan looked up, frowning, V smiled. "Try them on."
Another look to me for confirmation, and Botan put the earrings in her ears (lucky thing she had them pierced, I guess). They glimmered against her pale skin like stars fallen on a snowy field, brilliant against the powder blue of her hair. Nothing happened, however, so we just stood there blinking at each other—until V cleared her throat, reached once more into her pocket, and drew from it a compact mirror. Botan took it, opened it, and lifted it to view her earrings, smiling at their golden sheen.
Then she did a double take, gasped, and shoved her bangs aside with one shaking hand.
Her forehead looked as smooth and blank as a drift of newly fallen snow, her newly acquired eye nowhere in sight.
"What?" Botan sputtered. She rounded on V with wide eyes. "What? But? But how?"
"Cloaking technology," V said. She pointed at Botan's forehead. "The eye is still there, and you can feel it if you touch it, but those earrings will hide it from the naked eye."
"Pun intended?" I said.
It was V's turn to do a double take. Eyes rolling she said, "You really do love your puns."
"It's my mortal weakness." Since Botan was much too stunned and much too busy staring at her empty forehead to speak with any degree of coherence, I did my best to bow atop my single crutch. "Thank you, V."
Botan remembered her manners with a start. "Yes, thank you. Thank you so much!" She dipped ten bows in quick succession. "This is—this is amazing! You're amazing! Where did you come from, Sailor V?"
V struck a pose, cheesy but totally fitting. "When a hero is needed, one shall appear!" she said, and then she dipped a frilly western-style bow of her own. Her eyes met mine through the holes in her red mask. "Alas, my time here runs short. Keep in touch, captain."
"Roger that," I said.
Botan looked into the mirror again, too (understandably) entranced by the sight of her forehead to realize V was about to make her exit. Before V walked back through the door to her base, however, she stepped toward me and closed one gloved hand around my elbow.
"I can keep prying eyes away," she said, voice low and lacking V's exuberant, affected pizazz, "but you should move Botan, and quickly, when I'm gone."
"Right." I needed to get Kurama's Spirit-World-spy-disrupting seed from my bedroom first chance I got. "Thank you."
"My pleasure," she said—and with a final wave at Botan, who had finally torn her eyes away from her reflection, V walked through her TARDIS portal and vanished from our view. Botan ran over and wrenched the door open for one final "thank you," though, and stood there blinking at the inside my parents' restaurant in shock.
It took a minute, but eventually she gathered her wits and turned my way. "Keiko, it's ever so good to see you and I'm sorry to get serious so soon—but 'Captain?'" She searched my face, confused. "You two seem awfully familiar."
"Fighting hordes of infected bug-people will do that, I guess." Hoping that would be enough to satisfy her, I kept speaking. "But we need to—"
Botan was not so easily placated. "What do you know about her, Keiko?" she said. "What do you know about that hero? I woke up only an hour ago, but she has technology and powers I've never seen before—and I never heard of her in Spirit World, even when Koenma still considered me his right hand! She didn't balk at my third eye, either." Guileless and curious, yet brow knit with critical inquiry, she stared straight into my eyes and placed her hands on her hips. "Keiko, where did Sailor V come from?"
Processing, I stared at her. I'd wondered at the intersection of Spirit World and the galactic scope of the Scouts, but it honestly surprised me that they hadn't crossed paths (so far as Botan knew, at least). More importantly, however, it felt like Botan was still doing her job even though she and Spirit World aren't on the best of terms—and that was so utterly, perfectly, adorably Botan I couldn't help but smile. I hoped the smile looked more confused than affectionate when I said, "You've really never heard of Sailor V?"
"No. I haven't." Sadness weathered her determined jaw, making it quiver. "But I suppose I've been out of the loop for some time now, haven't I?"
My heart near about broke at that. "I'm sorry, Botan," I said, reaching for her hand. She squeezed my fingers, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry it all went down this way."
She took a deep, shaking breath. "Part of me wants to go home, back to Spirit World. But…"
"Not if they intend to isolate you like that again," I said.
"Right." She shivered, wrapping her free arm around herself. "I couldn't handle that a second time, I think. So I suppose the question becomes…"
"…what do we do with you now?" I finished.
We stared at one another, gazes equally uncertain, both of us unsure of how to grapple with that boding rhetorical question.
A rhetorical question that someone answered, voice floating from the alley's darkness like silk on a damp wind.
"I believe I can answer that," Ayame said, and the reaper—the last being either of us wanted to see that night, for reasons both obvious and chilling—materialized from the shadows like a ghost.
NOTES:
(TV announcer voice/the voice of Jorge Saotome:) "Keiko thought she had more time to spirit Botan away after V's departure, but with Ayame waiting in the wings, it seems Botan might be spirited off to Spirit World, instead. Have we regained Botan only to lose her once more to Koenma's misguided clutches? Find out on the next episode of Lucky Child!"
I had way too much fun writing an episode outro like you hear at the end of the anime episodes.
Had a three-day migraine this week. Your reviews made a painful week bearable. Thanks to all who chimed in with their thoughts over the past week: DeathAngel457, Leahcar-Soutaichou, Counting Sinful Stars, DiCuore Alissa, Marian, SunniKing, Laina Inverse, laurent1991, CelticMonk, buzzk97, xenocanaan, Dreaming Traveler, CitylightsinNYC, Dark Rose Charm, Lola, general zargon, Metro Neko, wennifer lynn, ryafire1, InTheArmsofaThief, Just 2 Dream of You, AnimePleaseGood, tatewaki2000, Lady Rini, Kuramag33, brave story, shen0, Guest Starring As, WaYaADisi1, Viviene001, zubhanwc3, ArdentAlice, MissIdeophobia, Kaiya Azure, Beccalittlebear, ED99, A, ahyeon, Siera-Knightwalker, Kuesuno, Mayacompany, Khaleesienee, Tsuki-Lolita, Tsarashi, AnniePater, and two anonymous guests!
