Warnings: None
Lucky Child
Chapter 84:
"Hotel Kubikukuri"
Morrie stared forward into the yawning black of night with eyes both sharp and distant. The world beyond the glass of the enclosed bridge resembled the inside of a cave: fathomless in its darkness, landscape untouched by light, a place of blind shadow I was helpless to identify. The stars and moon above did nothing to brighten our way through dark waters, their light as fitful and indistinct as the illumination of scattered glow-worms as we sailed forward into the night. I found myself wondering, as we stood with Morrie on the bridge, if we had sailed into some abyss—some portal to another place or time, the path to it forged in the choking vacuum of dark, empty space.
Morrie's hand stayed true upon the ship's wheel, however. His blind eye, milky and pale, remained affixed on the unseen waters ahead, his head tilted just so. Perhaps the eye was not quite as blind as it appeared. I did not dare to ask, though.
"So, ladies." His age-roughened voice cut clear through the thrum of the engines beneath the deck, as loud as a crashing wave. "Your first time at the Tournament?"
Botan, who stood near the door to the bridge, nodded. Morrie's green eye flickered to her reflection in the window as she said, "Yes, that's right."
"We don't exactly fit the usual audience demographic, I suspect," Shizuru quipped.
"Aye, that ye don't," he said. I stood behind him, my face a fawn moon in the glass; upon this his green eye fixed. "You," Morrie said to me.
I blinked. "Me?"
"Stop yer fidgeting." His eye moved to my hands, then, as they stopped their wringing and fell limp to my sides. "I control the waters round the ship. Ye've got little to fear." But then his eyes, both of them, glimmered, moving down to the deck spread below the bridge's front window. "Any o' them give ye grief, I'll give 'em hell. No violence on my vessel, unlike others I could name."
A dozen demons lounged on the deck. It was them he'd indicated, of course. They looked human enough to my eyes, but Botan and Shizuru had hissed a chorus of "swordfish" in my ear when we passed, following Morrie up here to the bridge to spend the journey away from the dangerous crowd. "First class treatment" apparently meant getting to stay with Morrie in the dingy, splintered bridge and avoid mingling with the demons—plus, Morrie said the demons would probably be soaked and freezing by the time we made port on Hanging Neck Island. Sea spray and all that. Much better to stay in the bridge. I just hoped the demons wouldn't get too uncomfortable and try to enter the bridge themselves.
That wasn't why I'd been wringing my hands, though.
Like Morrie had said: This boat would see no violence, unlike a certain other boat currently sailing to Hanging Neck Island—a boat upon which my boys were currently stuck (so far as I knew, anyway). Here we were, safe and dry on the bridge, while they were fighting both for their lives and for their right to fight for their lives in the Tournament itself. What an irony. It's no wonder I wrung my hands not for myself, but for them. After all, Morrie had turned out to be… well, "nice" wasn't the word. But he wasn't outright evil or trying to hurt us, which I'd half expected all the demons on this trip to be and do, and that was a check I could place firmly in the "Win" column.
Part of me felt a little guilty about that expectation, I had to admit. Hiei and Kurama were demons; they certainly weren't all bad. They were my friends—and yet I'd feared the demons on this boat and expected the worst. Seemed Spirit World propaganda affected even me, despite all my outside knowledge…
"Now." Morrie rocked the boat's wheel to one side a hair. "Tell me, you lot. Where do ye plan on staying during the fights?"
Botan perked up at that. "One of the hotels on the island, of course."
"Aye," said Morrie. "But which one?"
Botan's face screwed up. "The. Um." She put a finger to her chin. "Let's see. I know the tickets come packaged with a room. The demon I took them fro—I mean, the demon who gave them to me said they did." She smiled, mouth a bit twitchy at the corners. "One moment?"
Morrie chuckled as Botan turned away, facing the wall of the bridge as she reached into the inner pocket of her coat. From it she pulled out a white envelope; I saw this as I moved closer to her and watched as she peeked inside, staring at the Dark Tournament tickets within before swiftly hiding them away again with a furtive glance at Morrie. He made no move to grab the tickets from her, though, and she relaxed once more.
Botan then threw a finger into the air. "I remember now!" she said, pretending she hadn't just checked the tickets in her pocket. "It's called the Inn of Remiss."
Morrie grimaced. "You'll not want to stay there, I reckon. It's where the demons all stay."
Botan's eyes widened. "It is?"
"If we shouldn't stay there, where should we go?" Shizuru said, leaning against the boat's control panel next to Morrie.
"Yeah." Atsuko leaned against it on Morrie's other side, women flanking him like a pair of mafia muscle-men. "You got a suggestion, buddy?"
Morrie was not intimidated. "Not particularly," he said, shrugging. "I sleep on the boat."
Botan's jaw dropped. "Don't offer criticism of our lodging if you can't offer an alternative, sir!"
"Yeah," Shizuru said. "Fat load of help you are."
Morrie's green eye rolled; the white stayed fixed in place somehow. "Aye, fine. Listen well. There are three hotels on the island: One for those fighting in the Tournament itself, one for the Tournament's human backers, and a third for the demons who fill the stands to watch the fights." He shook his head. "Obviously the hotel for fighters ain't an option, but I wonder if ye lot could even get into the hotel for the backers. It's posh, and exclusive, but you'd be safest there."
Atsuko's ears pricked up (metaphorically speaking) at the word "posh," but I couldn't keep a scowl off my face. Even if that hotel was safer than the Inn of Remiss, we shouldn't stay there. We needed to keep away from the boys until a certain pivotal moment of the Tournament. Staying at the same hotel meant risking seeing them ahead of canon's schedule—but wait. Where had the girls stayed in the anime, anyway? Same hotel? And who had gotten them a room there? Koenma? I couldn't remember seeing a second hotel in the anime at all. And if they had indeed stayed in the same hotel as they boys, why wasn't the risk of running into the boys addressed? Canon-Keiko had wanted to keep away from Yusuke as much as I did, even if it was for very different reasons.
Ugh. Plot holes. You're killin' me, smalls.
Oblivious to my reluctance, Atsuko leaned in closer to Morrie. "Posh," she said with an exaggerated brow-waggled. "As in… expensive?"
"Imagine so," said Morrie.
Botan whispered to me, "Did you think to bring much money?"
"Some. But not enough for a week's worth of fancy hotel nights," I muttered back.
"Same."
"Damn."
Morrie heard my curse somehow and tossed a look over his shoulder. "Damn is right. If you have to stay where the demons live, keep your head firmly down."
"What about the guest team?"
Morrie looked at Shizuru, who'd spoken, askance. "Hm?"
"The guest team." She didn't look at Morrie and reached into her back pocket for a cigarette. Her casual, restrained movements betrayed little of the tension I saw in the set of her shoulders and in the precise way she thumbed the wheel of her lighter. "Which hotel do they stay in?" she asked, flame illuminating her face with a burst of warm orange.
Morrie's chin tucked close to his chest. "Ah. So it's like that, eh?" he muttered. "I'd heard the guests this year were human. Some of them, anyway." He looked at each of our reflections in the window in turn. "So you four are…?"
Shizuru let herself bristle, annoyance flitting across her impassive face. "None of your business."
Morrie lifted a hand from the wheel in surrender. "Fine. Far be it from me to pry." His hand descended to the wheel again. "The guests stay in the hotel with the backers. It's called Hotel Kubikukuri—"
("Real literal name," Shizuru muttered.)
"—and the idea is to give the guest team room service and swanky digs before they meet their makers," Morrie continued. "Or at least that's the Tournament Committee's thinking."
He spoke with such nonchalance, it took Botan a moment to realize she should be shocked by his bland statement. "Don't say that!" she said with a gasp of horror.
"Yeah, man," Shizuru said, blowing out a plume of smoke. "Harsh."
But Atsuko wasn't incensed. She looked Morrie over like she was seeing him for the first time, dark eyes narrow in her golden skin. "You seem to know an awful lot about this Tournament," she said.
Morrie's thin chest puffed out. "Only been running a ferry to it for a century. You pick up a thing or two in all that time."
I blinked. "Wait. The Tournament is that old?"
"Even older." He laughed like a creaking rope in a high wind. "Always surprises me, how little humans know about their own world." The laughter died. "But then again, I'm one to talk. Been running a ship for a century, but I haven't been home in even longer than that."
Home. For Morrie, that had to be Demon World—and as that through sank in, a lance of pity struck my heart straight through.
I hadn't been home, to my first home, in fifteen years. I thought that was bad, but Morrie? He had me beat in a big way, now didn't he? Still, he knew more about this world than I did, and he was right: despite living in this world for fifteen year and loving the anime based in it for even longer, there was still so much I, and the others, simply did not know.
I just hoped that deficit of knowledge didn't get us killed.
We arrived at Hanging Neck Island a little after midnight, on the south side of the island at the foot of a dark forest. Morrie told us, as we pulled up to one of about a dozen docks stretching away from the rocky shore, that the island rose up and up as it went north, plateaus and cliffs and bluffs stacked one on top of the other until a crooked column of stone rose up to pierce the sky. That stone column gave the island its name, he told us. You could hang a man off the edge of that stone spear; watch him dangle and kick until his breath gave out and his neck broke under his own weight. We saw none of this, of course. It was too dark, the landscape invisible in the night's gloom, a layer of clouds covering the stars and moon like a burial shroud.
Morrie has a knack for disturbing metaphor, it turns out.
We docked in short order. Before Morrie lashed the boat to its mooring, the demons began vaulting over the bulwark, peeling away from the docks to vanish into the forest—a forest barely visible past the scant lights illuminating the docks. A path wandered into these woods like a bit of spilled yarn. Morrie pointed at this after he lowered the gangplank, finger long and spindly.
"Yer hotel is that way," he said. "Take the path to the fork and go left. The hotel for the backers is to the right at the fork. And those tickets ye got from me are round-trip, now. Come back here the day after the Tournament ends. Ship departs at sundown." A pointed glare. "I will not wait for you if you're late."
"Good to know," Atsuko said.
"Thank you, Morrie," I added.
"Hmph. Just don't get yerselves killed." He shoved his hands in his pockets as we walked across the gangplank and onto the dock; once we disembarked, he tugged the gangplank back on board the ship and stalked back off toward the bridge. "Devil forbid I have the lives of four weakling humans on my conscience," he said as he walked away, not bothering to keep his voice low.
"We love you, too!" Atsuko called after him; Morrie flipped her off over his shoulder, but that only made Atsuko grin. Her grin faded, however, as we stood there on the dock in silence, a light on a pole overhead giving off a high pitched, tinny whine.
"So what now?" Botan eventually murmured.
"I think we should try the human hotel. The fancy one," Atsuko said at once. "I've slummed it in places that'd make your hair curl, but if I could avoid bunking next door to a pack of slobbering demons—and besides." Here she grinned again, hand on her jutted hip. "We can always crash the boys' party. Why should they have all the fun?"
Shizuru opened her mouth, to protest or support I could not say, so I opened my mouth, too—but definitely so I could protest. Lucky for me, though, I didn't have to concoct an on-the-fly argument against staying at a safer place, because Botan did that for me. She was shaking her head as I started to speak, blue ponytail flapping about the shoulders of her black jacket.
"No," Botan said. "We should go to the Inn of Remiss."
Shizuru's mouth dropped open, endangering the wellbeing of her cigarette. "That's not what I was expecting you to say," she said. "What gives?"
Botan did not flinch at Shizuru's hard stare. She merely lifted her chin and said, "Koenma might be with the team."
A moment of silence followed this declaration—one punctuated by Atsuko's confused frown, Shizuru's knowing sigh, and my wince. I'd forgotten in all the excitement that Koenma would be here, and Botan… well. She was still on Spirit World's Most Wanted List. Botan squared her feet under herself as the silence continued, face suddenly resembling a statue carved from stone.
"It's unlikely he would stay away, with Yusuke in the Tournament," she said, voice brisk and leaving no room whatsoever for argument. "Therefore, I need to stay as far away from Yusuke as possible. At least for the time being."
"I don't get it." Atsuko crossed her arms, brow hitching. "What's the problem if we run into him? Isn't he your boss?"
"You still worried he'll cart you off to Spirit World jail?" Shizuru said.
Here Botan hesitated, stony face cracking just a bit. "Well," she said. "Not exactly."
"So what's the problem?"
She hesitated again, searching for words as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "It's not him I'm worried about," she eventually let slip. "It's his father who wanted me incarcerated when this happened." Botan started to reach for her forehead, but she refrained from touching it and shoved her hand into her pocket. The stone returned to her face, eyes like chips of sharpened garnet. "Koenma cannot disobey his father's direct order. That is why Ayame refuses to see me; if Koenma found out, he would have to tell his father, his own feelings on the matter notwithstanding." A toss of her hair, defiant and proud. "And besides. This Tournament is dangerous, and Koenma is still a prince."
"You think he's under surveillance?" I said.
"Undoubtedly. And by people who would not hesitate to act if I'm discovered here." Her eyes glimmered, stone etched now with worry. "I fear that if they find me here—"
Shizuru held up a hand. "Say no more. I get it. We'll lie low."
Atsuko sighed. "There go my posh daydreams." A shrug accompanied her wry grin, as did a sly wink. "Ah, well. Sleeping in a seedy motel is more my style, anyhow."
Botan's face buckled, gratitude cracking her mask to bits. "Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry to impose, but…"
"It's not a problem, Botan," I said, offering her a smile. "We'd rather you be safe than sleep on Egyptian cotton, for what it's worth."
Botan looked adorable as she ducked her chin and thanked us, overcome with shy gratitude Atsuko was swift to tease her for. As the four of us gathered our bags and started down the path into the forest, I figured that I'd truly lucked out here. I didn't have to make a single excuse with Botan around… though I did feel a little badly that her perilous situation was working out in my favor, but I digress.
The path through the forest was nigh invisible in the night, but the ever-prepared Minato had insisted I pack a flashlight; I dug it out of my bag and used it to light the way, Botan's hand in my belt, Atsuko's hand on her shoulder, Shizuru's fingers hooked into the strap of Atsuko's pack. We walked mostly in silence, the wind carrying a hint of salt that slowly faded the further inland we trekked. The trees rustled on the breeze overhead, sending an occasional smattering of leaves falling on our heads. Even if there hadn't been cloud cover, we wouldn't have been able to see the stars thanks to the canopy above—a canopy that rustle, once or twice, out of sync with the persistent wind.
Shizuru stared at the rustling spots when they arose, eyes hard and penetrating, and at once the rustling ceased.
Eventually the path indeed forked, as Morrie had said it would. We veered left, as Morrie had told us to, and walked through more dark forest until the trees began to thin. Soon the path exited the forest, and before us at the foot of a tall cliff sat a building—or rather, a whole slew of buildings standing in a ring, well-lit at last by stadium lights mounted on tall electric poles. The buildings looked almost like apartment complexes or a series of motels that were each several stories tall. Doors to rooms opened onto open-air corridors, staircases zigzagging up the buildings' corners to grant occupants access. The structures were all sort of dingy, the presence of chipped paint and raw concrete persistent, but they didn't look on the verge of being condemned, either.
"So this is where the demons stay," Botan said as I switched off my flashlight. Her eyes gleamed almost crimson in the near-dark. "So many rooms!"
Shizuru nodded ahead of us. "Apparently not enough of them to go around, though."
I followed her gaze to the foot of the dozen or so buildings. People who were probably demons, dozens of them, wandered about the hotel buildings. Campfires winked in the distance between the roving shapes of the Tournament's spectators; I spotted a few tents here and there, some makeshift lean-tos constructed out of plywood and tarp. Seemed like a small city, almost, had spread around the base of the demon hotels, housing those demons not lucky enough to get a proper room.
"Don't go walking in the woods alone," Shizuru said in a low voice. "I get the feeling you can't walk two feet without stepping on a demon."
Botan nodded and gulped. "Roger that. Let's get inside."
We headed for the nearest of the multi-storied motels, walking past a few pockets of people gathered around bonfires as fast as we could, not daring to make eye contact or even look at them closely for fear of drawing attention. A few of them called out to us; we ignored them, bustling into the hotel's main doors beneath the sign marking it as "The Inn of Remiss Registration Office." We breathed a collective sigh of relief once the glass door shut at our back, but just as quickly we tensed again. The front room of the hotel was huge, wall to wall tile and concrete (easy to hose blood off of, was my thinking) and the entire left wall had been lined in desks. People in crisp red uniforms sat behind these desks next to large computers, typing away as the people (could I even call them that?) standing in at least seven separate lines shuffled forward and presented paperwork. Atsuko and I stared with our mouths open, tracking the length of the long lines (it had to be fifty, sixty feet-worth of these folks!) in silence. Too stunned to say a word—at least until I gulped and forced a laugh.
"Dorothy, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," I said.
Atsuko frowned. "What?"
"Oh." So that story didn't exist? Or had she just not heard of the Wizard of Oz? Either way, I shook my head and shrugged. "Never mind." I shot Shizuru a look. "So, uh?"
"Yup." She lit up another of her cigarettes. "Swordfishes, the lot of them."
The demons here were not bothering to hide themselves, and even my mundane eyes could tell that I stood in a room full to the brim with creatures who could probably eat me for breakfast. A rainbow of skin tones, faces with beaks and pincers, teeth extending past the chin, horns on almost every head, some humanoids, some animal-shaped, one with eight legs and no arms and a face like a pig—they were the demons who had filled the stands in the YYH anime, wild and varied features on full and overwhelming display. Atsuko and I could not keep from staring, and just as I wondered why the heck I could see these demons and why the ones on the boat had looked human, the door behind us whooshed open once again. I turned as two human-looking men in large overcoats walked inside; they looked around and grinned at each other
"Finally!" said one. "Thought we'd never get here."
The other lifted his hands toward his collarbone. "Now I can finally take off this stupid disguise!"
He hooked his fingers beneath his chin and wrenched them upward. The flesh on his jaw peeled up and away, bright blue skin showing through rends and tears in his previously human flesh. I watched in awe as he peeled his face entirely away, demonic features like enormous teeth and spiral horns blooming out from under whatever very convincing mask he'd just been wearing. He was bigger than his human disguise, swelling like an inflated balloon from beneath the costume as his demonic face revealed itself. He mopped his hands over his face, sloughing off the last lingering shreds of human skin, and then he grabbed at the backs of his hands and pulled sheets of tawny flesh away from them, too. Claws erupted from beneath false human nails, and when he dropped his true hands back to his sides, he let his discarded mask drop toward the floor.
To my astonishment, the false human flesh evaporated into mist before it even hit the ground.
"That's better!" he said, stretching his arms (which had lengthened considerably) over his head; beside him, his companion shredded his own human face away to reveal a beak and seven winking eyes. "Now c'mon. Those lines are huge!"
My group exchanged a glance, and without a word we huddled together and followed those demons to the back of the shortest line. The pair of them had both shot up in height, blue-skinned and feather-coated calves now jutting out from beneath the hems of them large overcoats. As we queued up behind these demons, my brain stayed busy trying to put together the implications of what I'd just seen. Morrie had looked human until he showed me his teeth. Those demons had removed actual, literal disguises (made out of who-knows-what) that restrained their demonic features. Was I unable to see demons because I wasn't psychic, or because they were capable of disguising themselves both physically and even, perhaps, with their own energy? I wanted to ask Botan about it, but as the doors opened and a few more undisguised demons stood behind us in line, I kept my mouth shut. There would be time later, and I didn't want to pull focus onto us.
Neither did anyone else in my party. We instinctively stood with our backs together in an outward-facing ring, shuffling forward every time the line inched up, clutching at our bags as we simultaneously avoided looking the demons in the eyes and kept a close eye on any possible threats. Luckily none of the demons picked on us (though I did catch a few looking at us through narrow eyes, confused by our presence there) and we made it up to the counter without incident.
The women behind the counter wore the same pressed uniform I'd observed from the door: a red coat and pencil skirt with a blue tie, very smart and polished. She didn't bother looking at us as she pecked at her computer's keyboard—maybe because another woman prowled the space behind the desk, going from station to station and looking shrewdly over the shoulders of the workers through the lenses of her thick glasses. She had one the same uniform as the women behind the computer, but on her breast glimmered a golden pin. The office manager, probably, and they both looked human to my untrained eyes.
Botan didn't seem scared of them, so I guessed I was probably right. She danced up to the counter as the manager wandered off, beaming. "Hello! I have a room reserved as part of my Tournament ticket package, and—"
The worker (whose nametag read 'Fujie') held out her hand without a word. Botan stopped talking. Fujie wriggled her fingers; Botan hesitated, then fished out her Tournament tickets and handed them over. From beneath the desk Fujie pulled a handheld barcode scanner; she passed its red beam over the tickets until the machine beeped, at which point she turned to her computer and began to type. Botan stared, clutching the edge of the counter between them, as Fujie typed for an oddly long time, fingers flying over the keys with a series of energetic clacks.
The manager meandered back over as Fujie typed; she looked over her underling's shoulder at the computer screen and frowned, then glanced up at us. Botan gave her a brave smile and a small wave, but the manager's eyes passed over her without pause. They perused Atsuko, and Shizuru, and then myself with that same fleeting look—and was it nerves making me imagine this, or did her eyes widen just the tiniest bit when they saw my face? My skin prickled, but she looked away without even a second's pause. Probably just my imagination, then.
But if that look had been my imagination, why did the manager grab Fujie's shoulder and whisper something in her ear? Fujie stopped typing as her manager spoke to her, listening intently; when the manager pulled away and walked off with a click of high heel on tile, Fujie looked at Botan for the first time—and with a smile, no less, even if it look a touch apologetic.
"We're sorry," Fujie said, "but it seems that we've given your room away by mistake."
No shocked silence followed; instead, Atsuko, Shizuru, Botan and I all shouted "You've WHAT?!" in perfect unison, our hands slapping down onto the counter with a sound like thunder.
Fujie winced, but her smile did not falter. "This happens with the ticket packages at times, I'm afraid. The high volume of—"
"Spare me the excuses and just tell me what you're gonna do to make this right, buddy!" Atsuko hissed.
Fujie's smile turned to one of pure delight. "Luckily for you, we put customer service first at the Inn of Remiss. This blunder makes you eligible for an upgrade at Hotel Kubikukuri."
Atsuko scowled and crossed her arms. "Which hotel is that, exactly?"
Fujie's smile thinned a tad. "To be perfectly frank, it's a hotel at which your group will feel far more comfortable, if you catch my meaning."
"I don't, sorry."
Botan cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, "She means the hotel for humans, I think."
Atsuko's eye widened. "The one where the Tournament backers stay?"
"Yes," said Fujie. She reached beneath the desk and pulled out a rectangular brochure, which she slid to us across the desk, along with our Tournament tickets. "Here is a map. My manager has called a car to take you to the proper hotel."
"A car?" Botan said.
"See? What'd I tell ya?" Atsuko threw back her head and laughed. "Swanky!"
"Indeed," Fujie said. She looked back at her keyboard and started typing, not sparing us another glance. "Enjoy your stay, ladies."
We faltered, not quite sure what to do, but then there came the sound of a throat clearing. The manager had come out from behind the desk wearing a huge smile; she shepherded us toward the door, heels clicking with ever step, and when we exited through the big glass doors we found… well. It wasn't a "car," exactly, but rather a stretched golf cart with a canopy erected over several rows of seats; the kind of thing you'd ride in while getting a tour of a movie studio lot. A young boy in a suit jacket wearing a chauffer's cap sat behind the wheel; he hopped out when we neared and trotted up to us, taking our bags with a huge smile (he was missing one front tooth) and loading them onto the final row of seats. He came only up to my waist; how did he even reach the cart's pedals?
I didn't have time to ask, because fingers pinched the edge of my sleeve. Botan had sidled up next to me, eyeing the cart with worry in her eyes. "I don't like this, Keiko," she said in my ear. "I don't like it at all."
"Me, neither." I looked around; spotted what I was looking for; pried Botan's arm off my sleeve. "Wait here."
"Oh-okay."
The manager had only just reached the hotel's doors. I broke away from Botan and darted over. "Hey, you!" I said, lifting a hand. "Wait up!"
The manager looked over her shoulder at me with a frown. "Yes, miss?" she said, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "What can I do for you?"
I didn't bother mincing words. "I know you're not out of rooms. What gives?"
She looked quite thoroughly taken aback. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said with another glasses shove, and with that she reached for the door. "Have a good ni—"
I wasn't about to let her run; I stepped swiftly between her and the door, cutting off her escape at the pass. "Cut the crap," I said, glaring. "You looked us over before saying we couldn't stay here. Is it because we're human, or what?"
It was her turn to scowl. "We at the Inn of Remiss aren't so gauche as to discriminate, Yukimura-san. We simply gave away your room and wished to make amends for our oversight."
I crossed my arms. "Is that so?"
"Yes." She bowed. "Have a pleasant evening, miss."
She held the bow for a long time, looking at me from under the shelf of her thick grey bangs. Hair in a bun, those half-moon glasses, her uniform pressed and no-nonsense… I couldn't read much from her other than good customer service vibes. If she was hiding something, she was very good at it, and I got the sense I wouldn't be squeezing much out of her even if I tried. So, I passed my hand through my hair and sighed, nodding and muttering an abrupt "You, too" as I turned away and walked back to Botan.
Botan had been watching us, it seemed, because she looked at me with eager eyes, hoping for answers. When I shook my head, she sagged, crestfallen in the face of uncertainty. But Shizuru and Atsuko walked up before Botan could say anything. "Don't suppose this is about to turn into a human trafficking situation, do you?" Shizuru said around her cigarette and with a nod at the stretched golf cart.
"I mean. It's a glorified golf cart." I shrugged; the cart had no doors, just little metal railings you could easily slip past. "They try anything funny, we just jump out, right?"
"I guess?" Botan said.
"Seems safe enough," Shizuru concurred.
Atsuko lifted her arms over her head with an overstated yawn. "Well. I don't know about you girls, but I'm beat enough to risk it." She grinned and headed for the cart, hopping into the back row of seats and slumping down onto the vinyl cushion. "Wake me if they try anything funny, would ya?"
Botan and I exchanged and look and giggled. Shizuru sat next to Atsuko; Botan and I slipped into the seats just behind the young driver. He indeed couldn't reach the pedals with his feet, his shiny black shoes at least a foot off the cart's floor after he climbed into the driver's seat—but then a long, furry tail snaked from around his hips and hovered over the brake. I stared with my mouth open until he noticed me, but he just smiled his toothy smile and tugged at the brim of his chauffer's cap.
"Anything I can do for ya, miss?" he asked.
"Oh. Um." I laughed, rubbing at the back of my neck. "Actually, yeah. I don't suppose the hotel has a back entrance we can use instead of the front one, does it?"
His grin widened. "You fancy going incognito, miss?"
"I do."
"Very well then, miss." He twisted the key in the cart's ignition and pointed forward into the night. "To the service entrance, it is!"
Botan clapped and gave a delighted laugh, one that turned into a shriek when the boy slammed onto the gas and sent the cart lurching down the bumpy gravel road. We left the Inn of Remiss behind at a breakneck pace, Botan yodeling in fright as we careened through the dark and over the bumpy ground. Atsuko snored peacefully in the back, unperturbed, while Shizuru laughed and tried not to bite her cigarette in half. We left the Inn of Remiss with such speed, it wasn't until we checked in Hotel Kubikukuri, sneaked up to our room, and climbed into gigantic feather beds that I had a chance to realize something. Something about the Inn of Remiss I didn't notice in time to question.
I had never told the manager my name—and yet she'd somehow known to call me Yukimura-san.
The next morning, we awoke to the sound of fireworks and a gigantic western breakfast fit for a gaggle of queens.
We ate at the restaurant on the hotel's bottom floor—one of three such restaurants dotting the hotel, because true to Atsuko's word, this place was swanky indeed. The food was even complimentary, which Atsuko had crowed about when the women behind the front desk delivered that bit of good news. We'd come downstairs to eat after the fireworks roused us from our beds, and only after flagging down a member of the housekeeping staff to ask if the Guest Team had left for the day. Once we'd gotten a "yes," the coast was clear for a royal breakfast indeed
Of course, we were the worst dressed people in the whole place. I really mean it when I say it was a royal breakfast. All the other diners sat at tables in sparkly dresses or suits, perfect complements to the crystal glasses, fine silverware, white linen tablecloths, golden chandeliers, and rich marble flooring of this sophisticated eatery. They shot Atsuko major side-eye as she downed her fifth mimosa of the morning and let out a satisfied belch, but Atsuko just asked for another drink with a wink; she took great delight in scandalizing the upper crust. Botan, meanwhile, was just plain oblivious to the snooty people watching us, because she shoveled back waffles coated in syrup and strawberries without a care in the world given to those ogling her table manners.
I had eaten my food quickly so I could scour a map of the hotel; a brochure had been provided by the front desk when I asked for one. Printed in gold ink on elegant cardstock, the map showed me at least four ballrooms, the three aforementioned restaurants, a spa (also complimentary, we'd been told), several pools, and what even looked like a nightclub for partying in some distant wing of the sprawling resort of a hotel. Very, very swanky indeed—but I was more interested in finding the emergency exits over the spa or nightclub.
Zombie survival preparedness depended on knowing all the routes in and out of a place, after all, as did avoiding people you didn't wish to see who were staying at the same hotel. If we needed to duck away from the boys at some point, wouldn't hurt to know where to run to.
Atsuko burped and leaned back in her seat, patting her belly with a smile on her face. "Damn this was good."
"Agreed!" said Botan through a full mouth.
"Everything tastes good when it's free," Shizuru said. She tapped her cigarette into the ash try on her knee; the 90s were still pretty lax about smoking in restaurants, and at this behavior the ritzy patrons of the restaurant didn't balk. Some of them were smoking cigars, after all. Hashtag-90s-culture, I guess.
A waiter appeared just as Botan cleared her third plate of waffles. He wore a tux, a white cloth draped over his arm in the most cliché portrait of a fancy waiter you can think of. "Will you be requiring anything more, madam?" he said as he stood over Shizuru's shoulder.
She stubbed out her cigarette and passed him the smoldering ash tray. "Nah."
An annoyed look flashed across his face before he pasted on a smile. "Very good, madam," he said with a bow. "I'll leave you to it. Have a wonderful day watching the fights."
"Sure," she said. When he walked away, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded brochure—the fight program we'd been given that morning. She waved it at us and said, "We've got about an hour. Wanna walk over, take in the sights? Arena isn't too far away."
Botan patted her mouth with a napkin. "Sure!"
"Yeah, let's go," Atsuko said.
I folded the hotel map and put it in my pocket, joining them as they stood and headed for the restaurant entrance. Light music drifted from the grand piano in the corner, soothing and serene and totally out of time with our clattering footfalls. More waiters bowed as we passed, murmuring well wishes and pleas to return for our next meal—and honestly, it was a little creepy. I wasn't used to anything this fancy, in this life or my previous, but I had to wonder if it would be creepier to hang around these subservient (but safe) humans or the potentially dangerous demons at the stadium.
At that thought, my hand wandered to my thigh on reflex, fingertip running over the handle of a knife strapped to my leg. Having my knives certainly gave me a little comfort, and—
Wait.
I stopped walking. "Hold on a sec."
The others stopped walking, too. The piano from the restaurant trickled from the golden archway, indistinct but pretty. "Sup?" Atsuko asked. "You not eat enough waffles?"
"It's not that." I pointed at my leg. "I have a second knife bandolier, but I forgot to put it on. Can I go grab…?"
Shizuru snorted. "Paranoid, much?"
Botan just giggled. "We'll wait at the front door, scatterbrain."
"Thanks!"
Botan laughed aloud as I took off at a run for the elevators; a few hotel employees shot me disapproving looks (as did some guests who were wearing formal attire at nine in the fucking morning; so who cares what they think, right?) but I ignored them and jabbed impatiently at the ivory "up" button. When the elevator doors dinged, I boarded and pressed the 5 button, leaning against the mahogany paneled back wall with a sigh as the carriage bore me upward to my floor. My eyes lingered on the button panel; there were some buttons, for the floors labeled 13 and higher, that couldn't be pressed unless you had the key that went into the keyhole next to said buttons. VIP areas, the hotel map had told me, but even after this room upgrade, we weren't allowed access to them. Atsuko had been pissed, but c'est la vie, I guess.
I slipped out of the elevator doors as soon as a gap large enough opened up between them. Our room wasn't too far from the elevators, just a minute's quick walk, and since I was running the distance passed in a flash. The hotel rooms had old-fashioned metal keys that turned in the lock with a satisfying click; my door creaked open to reveal a sumptuous living area with attached, full-service kitchen, appliances brand new but furniture luxuriously antique. I passed all of that and headed for one of the two bedrooms off the living space, the one with the two four-poster canopy beds with the satin coverlets and mounds of fluffy pillows. My duffle lay tucked in the bottom drawer of the giant wooden dresser with clawed feet; I pulled it out and fished out the second bandolier of knives Hideki had given me, which I strapped to the bare thigh beneath the hem of my blue dress. I wore a light jacket over the dress and a pair of comfortable but dainty leather shoes, and to anyone who didn't know me, I probably looked like a sweet little schoolgirl. Unless someone knew where to look, they'd miss the shoulder holster of knives hidden by said jacket, not to mention the dozen knives strapped just out of sight below my skirt's hem and the garrote wrapped around my waist beneath a white sash.
In a moment of indulgent whimsy, I went into the bathroom and twirled in front of the full-length mirror, gold taps and clean white porcelain gleaming in the image behind me. I looked… cute. Cute, and not at all deadly. This innocence was a calculated risk, the way I saw it. Better to be underestimated by the demons at the Tournament than to challenge them, make them want to fight me, or—
From beyond the bedroom door, there came a low, slow creaking sound.
At once I ducked into the space behind the bathroom door, heart beating like mad in my chest. I held my breath as light footsteps creaked their way across the living room floor before coming to a quiet stop. Was it one of my friends come to check on me? No, they would have called out, asked me where I was. Feet like a leopard's on a forest floor, I stalked out of the bathroom and to the space behind the open bedroom door. Peering through the crack between door and frame showed me nothing but a sliver of velvet couch, however—but then, muffled and distant, there came a high-pitched sound, ragged and distressed.
A shriek. A pained shriek, stifled like someone had put a hand over a screaming mouth.
I reacted without thinking, darting out from behind the door and into the living room, hand tight on the knives at my thigh. I slipped into a throwing stance and swept the room over once, looking for the threat, seeking out whoever had screamed and whoever it was who'd made them make that sound.
I spotted them at once.
My hand on the knife loosened.
For a minute, I could only stare. Soon, though, I leaned against the frame of my bedroom door and crossed my arms over my chest, debating what to do as the intruder carried on about their business. On my couch, I might add.
Eventually I took a deep breath, and I spoke.
"You know," I said (and at that she jumped off the couch with a squawk), "sometimes I scream into pillows when I'm stressed, too."
The woman—because it was a woman who'd come into the suite uninvited, and who had sprawled across my couch, and who had been screaming into a pillow to relieve stress—wore a dark uniform with rows of gold buttons up the front, collar white and starched and stiff against her deep russet skin and coal black hair. She backpedaled across the room until the backs of her knees bumped into a chair; this made her lose her balance, and she sat down heavily, hands still clutching the velvet pillow into which she'd been screaming. Black bangs fell like a curtain across her forehead, framing her huge brown eyes as they blinked up a panicked storm. She tried to stammer something, tucking her long, lush hair behind her ear with a single shaking finger, but the words died before she could voice them.
And speaking of ears. Hers were inhumanly large, almost batlike, sprouting off the sides of her head to fly outward in a sweeping arc of eye-catching flesh. When she tucked her hair behind the, the motion revealed more of her cheek—not to mention the rash of bright pink scales that stood out against her skin like jewels.
A demon, then. Definitely, definitely a gorgeous demon wearing the uniform of a hotel employee screaming into a pillow in the middle of my living room. Of all the situations I'd expected today, this was absolutely last among them.
"I-I'm sorry," she eventually stammered. "I'm, I'm so sorry, I didn't think the room was occupied." She stood up and took a step toward the door, then remembered she was still holding the pillow and doubled back to put it down. "I'll be going now, so very very sorry again that I—"
"Oh, it's OK." I held out a placating hand. "We checked in really late last night, if that helps."
She stopped short. "Oh. I see. Well. Um." She tucked more hair behind her enormous bat ears; her eyes flickered between me, the door, the pillow, and me again. "I'll be going, then. I have to, uh, get back to, uh—"
"It's OK," I repeated, and this time I gave her a knowing grin. "You escaping a shitty boss or what?"
It was an attempt at a joke, just to lighten the mood, because honestly she looked like she was about to throw up and I was worried about having to pay for the expensive carpet—but then her face fell, and her lip jutted out with a pronounced quiver, and to my extreme discomfort she sat heavily in the chair and snatched up the velvet pillow again. Two tears slipped from her eyes before she pressed her face into the cushion and screamed, an outburst that turned into a muffled sob as her shoulders began to heave and shake.
I panicked. I full-on, outright panicked at that point, feet pedaling beneath me like a cartoon character as I headed first for her, and then for the bathroom, and then for the kitchen. "Oh my god, oh my god, tissues, tissues, let me get you some tissues!" I babbled as I scrambled into the bedroom and back to her again with a box of Kleenex in my hands. I knelt at her side and shoved a tissue at her fingers (which still had a vicegrip on the pillow). "Here, here, please don't cry I'm so sorry I didn't mean to make you—!"
She grabbed the tissue and lifted her face, which had puffed up a little with stress and tears. "It's" (she hiccupped) "It's not your" (another hiccup) "It's not your fault!" She blew her nose and grimaced. "My boss is just so mean!"
For a minute I thought she might go off on a good, cleansing rant about said boss, because a fire lit in her deep brown eyes and her teeth grit tight with anger—but the fire doused, and the anger cooled, and she buried her face in the pillow again with another sob. I had no idea what to do, of course, so I just sat there holding the box of tissues like a bump on a log, wondering what the heck I'd gotten myself into.
"Oh, I get it," I said after a while. "Have you been using this room as a private escape when stuff gets bad at work, or something?"
She sniffled, face lifting off the cushion a fraction. "Uh-huh," she said, glum as a cemetery in October. "It's been reserved for weeks but nobody ever checked in, so I thought…" Her lip trembled. "I'm so sorry, please don't tell my boss, please please please don't—"
"I won't tell," I was quick to assure her. "We all need a place to go when our bosses start acting terrible, after all."
An emphatic nod. "Yes, we do." She dabbed at her nose with the tissue and heaved a sigh. "And, oh, it's not even just my boss. These horrible humans have been so utterly terrible, it's a wonder I—"
I suppose something showed on my face when she said that, because she stopped talking. She looked me over. Her face contorted with embarrassed horror and she recoiled, scooting away across the chair with eyes as wide as saucers. "Oh!" she groaned. "Oh, I'm so so sorry, I had no idea that you were—" She pressed her face back into the pillow. "I'm so embarrassed, I just—"
"Hey, hey, please don't cry!" I said. "Humans can be awful. Especially the rich ones."
Her face lifted once again. Although she looked uncertain, she needn't have; I meant most of what I'd said. Humans could be The Worst, and the levels of snooty in this hotel were very high indeed.
"Rich humans can be the scummiest ever, in fact," I went on. "I don't blame you one bit for needing to complain about them." I offered her a hand to shake. "I'm Keiko, by the way."
She eyed the hand with skepticism (as if wondering if it could bite?) but eventually she took it. "I'm Otoha," she said. "I work at the front desk."
"Oh, cool. Well, Otoha. It's nice to meet you." I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away, offering her the tissue box with my other hand. "I, ah. I dunno if this is weird to say, but we're all girls here in this suite, and we're all pretty nice. So if stuff gets bad at work again, you can come back here." I chanced a grin. "Just knock first so you don't scare anybody, OK?"
Otoha looked at me in silence.
She blinked. She sniffled.
And she burst right back into tears. "Why are you being so nice to me?" she wailed, pressing her hands into her eyes.
"Uh. I dunno? Because that's what you're supposed to be toward crying people?" I blurted. When she didn't stop crying, I gently put my hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Is this job really so bad?"
She looked at me with a nod, eyes screwed up with disgust. The anger crept back into her eyes as a scowl crept across her lips. "It's a nightmare," she said, taking a shuddering breath to wrest back control. "An absolute, total nightmare."
"Could you quit?" When her eyes widened in shock, I babbled, "I know we just met and all, but I can tell the job is giving you a lot of grief, so if your mental health is taking a huge toll, maybe you should…"
But she shook her head. "N-no. I can't. I have to stay."
I frowned. "Why do you have to…?
Otoha heaved a heavy sigh and wound her fingers through her bangs. "It's a long story," she muttered. Then panic flashed across her face; she stood up, nearly knocking me over, and began to hastily brush the front of her rumpled dress. "And I need to be getting back to work or my boss will be even worse to me!"
"Oh, uh." I stood up; Otoha was about six inches taller than me, I noticed, willowy and tall. "Sure."
She tossed up her hands. "Ugh, manners!" Otoha swept me a curtsy, wobbly but efficient. "I'm very sorry for barging in and I'm grateful at your offer of a place to come when things get, um, overwhelming." She scrubbed at her face with her hands and smoothed her hair, the very portrait of an overworked employee trying not to look like she'd just been crying in the supply closet. Talking almost on autopilot she said, "Please call the front desk and ask for me if you need anything at all, and I will be happy to oblige." She fluffed out her hair and took a swift step toward the exit. "So if you'll excuse—"
"Actually," I blurted. "There is one thing, if you're offering."
She paused, halfway to the door and looking as shocked as I felt. I hadn't meant to speak, but the words had just come out. One of her brows hitched; she took another deep, shuddering breath, and even though her voice cracked a little, I sensed she was done crying for the day. "Wow," Otoha said, looking just the littlest bit impressed. "Didn't expect you to take me up on that offer so fast."
"What can I say? Humans are enterprising." I held up a single finger. "One second."
She crossed her arms over her chest, head tilting curiously to the side as I headed for the roll top desk in the corner of the living room. A pad of hotel stationary and a pen lay upon it next to a phone and the room service menu; I picked up the pen and scribbled a note, which I tucked inside an envelope from a box in one of the desk's drawers (fancy hotel, fancy complimentary amenities, I guess).
"Do you do any work in the hotel where the fighters are staying?" I said as I taped the enveloped shut. "Or do you know anyone who does?"
"Yes, but why would a human—?"
I cut her off before she could ask; I didn't intend to give her answers if I could help it, anyway. "Could you deliver this note to someone for me?" I said.
She blinked. "That's all you want?"
"Yeah."
Otoha looked at me in silence, but then she put her hand to her forehead with a laugh. "And here I thought you'd go asking for something big," she said. "But you humans. You're unpredictable, aren't you?" She shook her head, still laughing. "OK, sure. I'll deliver your note. Why not?"
"Perfect!" I scribbled the name of the recipient across the envelope and handed it to her. "I hope this is OK."
She took the envelope; her brow shot up when she saw to whom it was address. "Wait. You know him?" she said, sounding thoroughly incredulous.
"Oh. Well. Not really, no," I admitted. "But I'm hoping to make an introduction. Thanks for your help."
"Of course." The envelope disappeared into a pocket on her skirt. "I'm just—sorry again about, you know." She rolled her eyes. "Crying all over your pillows and calling humans names, and suchlike. Really, I swear I'm a lovely demon, first impressions notwithstanding."
I couldn't help but grin. "Any time. It was nice meeting you."
Otoha looked a tiny bit surprised at that, but she just laughed. "Humans really are strange," she muttered to herself, and she tapped the pocket containing my note. "I'll let you know if there's a reply."
"Thanks. See you later?"
Another eye-roll. "Yes, I imagine I'll be invading your room again if my boss keeps this up." At that she jolted, leaping a few inches straight into the air with a yelp of wild dread. "Oh, crap! I really am going to be late at this rate!" she squeaked, and she turned on her heel and marched swiftly for the door. "Goodbye, Keiko! See you later!"
"Bye, Otoha!" I called after her, but the door had already shut in her frantic wake. I stared at the door for a minute after she left, shaking my head, and then I cleaned up the discarded tissues lying strewn about Otoha's chair. The pillow was soaked; I left it on the window sill to dry in the sun. Otoha had come into the room like a whirlwind, but despite the small disaster she'd left behind, I hoped I'd be hearing from her again soon.
That note I'd given her was another of my calculated risks, like looking innocent and sweet among a throng of vicious demons—only if that note had its desired effect, and if I got what I want, the results would be far more useful against said demons than the knives strapped to my thigh.
I just hoped the note made it to its intended destination, and that the demon to whom I'd addressed it was feeling generous.
"Now," Botan said, looking at each of us with stern solemnity. "Remember the rules?"
We nodded in unison. Above us loomed the dome of the stadium, fireworks (well, more like smoke bombs launched high into the sky, but they made the same sound) going off far above our heads. Demons loitered and milled about by the hundreds, a thick gaggle of them moving in and out of the stadium's many entrances and exits. A few vendors here and there hawed merchandise, trinkets, and food; some demons in long coats hissed about scalped tickets as they passed, offering passage in to see the fights at wildly marked up prices. Huge TVs set into the sides of the stadium displayed the inside of the dome, but right now no one occupied the ring. The matches hadn't yet begun for the day, but demons were already too distracted by the theatrics of the Dark Tournament to care about the four women (three humans and one… unknown) walking through their midst.
Honestly, the whole spectacle reminded me of a sports match. Scalpers and souvenirs, crowds and clamor, the smell of buttery popcorn and the sound of cheering fans… if it hadn't been for the odd anatomy of the spectators, I could've mistaken this hullaballoo for the Super Bowl when it was hosted in my city in my old life, but that's neither here nor there.
Botan waited for us to answer her impatiently, tapping her foot against the ground as she looked around at the nearby demons. Shizuru chuckled and took the cigarette from her mouth, holding it loosely between two fingers with hip cocked out beneath her hand.
"Keep our heads down," Shizuru said.
"Hang back whenever possible," I added.
"Do not engage!" Botan reminded us.
"And kick ass should the occasion call for it," Atsuko said, punching her fist into her hand with a wicked grin.
Botan groaned. "Atsuko-oh…!"
"What?!" she groused, eyes rolling skyward. "Yusuke can't have all the demon-fighting fun, now can he?"
Behind her, someone laughed. "I should think not," he said—and beside me, Botan paled.
We turned as one to face the newcomer, and all at once the world seemed to grow louder—louder the moment I saw him, as if the world wanted to drown him out and spare us from something we'd wanted so badly to avoid. Botan appeared to feel the same way as the scents of food grew stronger and the crowd seemed to roar around us, the movement of their passing rising nearly to a wind against my suddenly electric skin. Botan's hand crept into mine, gripping my fingers tightly in her own; she shrank into my side with a tiny gasp, eyes huge and vivid against her skin and contrasting hair. "Y-you!" she stammered, clinging to me even tighter. "Y-You're—"
"Here?" he said, tossing his brown hair. "Of course I'm here. And hello to you too, Botan. It's good to see you after all this time."
"B-but." She stopped speaking and swallowed. She looked this way and that, "B-but, sir, I—"
His eyes moved to the rest of us, then. "And it's good to see the rest of you in the flesh for the first time." He smiled. "Let's see. You're Urameshi Atsuko, mother of Urameshi Yusuke."
Atsuko did not look amused by this show of insight. "Damn straight," she said between her teeth.
He kept talking before she could snark at him. "And you're Kuwabara Shizuru, elder sister of Kuwabara Kazuma," he said, turning to her as his smile widened.
"So they tell me," Shizuru grunted, unimpressed.
He nodded at her, pleased—and then he turned, at last, to me. "And you're Yukimura Keiko," he said. "Local busybody and civilian liaison to Spirit World, correct?"
My eye twitched; if Botan hadn't been holding my hand, I'd be tempted to swing it at him. "Wow," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm flattered."
He preened. "I aim to please," he said, and as he opened his mouth to speak again, Shizuru stepped toward him.
"Well, this isn't fair." Her tone held no accusation, merely neutral observation—but her eyes were hard, like she wouldn't hesitate an instant if he threatened us. "You know who we are, but I'll be damned if I've ever seen you before."
"Yeah!" Atsuko stepped up next to her with a sneer. "So just who the hell are you supposed to be, huh?"
His eyes shut briefly; a smile touched his mouth. "Apologies. Where are my manners?" he said.
"It's been a while since I've had the chance to socialize, but that is no excuse. Allow me cut to the chase."
Botan's hand clenched around mine so hard, her nails dug into my skin. Her mouth moved next to mine, whispering his name before he could even begin to say it—but she had no idea that I knew his name, too, and that she was not the only one among our number who felt threatened by the presence of this man.
Well. This toddler pretending to be a man for the sake of appearances, but you get what I'm trying to say.
He drew himself up, red cape swirling about his ankles as he struck a prideful post. Brown eyes gleamed nearly gold in the light of the morning sun as he tossed his hair again, the tattoo upon his forehead stark and inky black amid the strands. The blue ogre behind him rolled his eyes, but the toddler-man did not notice, and he continued his theatrics unopposed.
"I," he declared with relish, "am Koenma—Prince of the Underworld and sponsor of Team Urameshi." He dipped a low bow, smile wide and eager on his lips. "And let me just say, I am very pleased to meet you."
NOTES
Thus, Koenma enters the picture. And we're, what, only… (glances at watch) 700k words into this? YEESH.
NaNoWriMo begins Nov. 1, so my regularly scheduled November hiatus effectively begins now. See you on December 8 with chapter 85!
Meanwhile… keep an eye out for the end of the countdown on October 31. We're only 3 days away from finding out what that countdown is all about. I think you'll like it.
Here's a hint for ya: Let's just say that even though LC will be on hiatus during November, you'll be hearing from me rather a lot in the weeks to come… mwa ha ha!
EDIT, Nov 14: The countdown was to announce the debut of and begin posting "The Ghost in You," my Kuwabara/OC fic. I really love it and hope you'll check it out. It'll update twice a week until December. Here's its summary:
If Kuwabara hadn't wanted to live in a haunted apartment, he probably should've toured the place before putting his name on the lease. Alas, foresight was never his strong suit, and now he must learn to live alongside a rambunctious spirit—one whose unfinished business keeps her bound to the world of the living, not to mention the inside of Kuwabara's closet. [Kuwabara/OC]
Also, "Hotel Kubikukuri" is not a name I made up; it's the name of the hotel in the anime. It was spelled in English and not with Japanese characters so translating it was a bit weird. But "kubi" can mean "neck" and "kukuri" can mean "tightly," so I'm guessing it translates to something at least a little close to "Hotel Hanging Neck." Very literal way to name the hotel, indeed…ALSO I SWEAR TO GLOB that the hotel had a different name in the manga (Hotel Za or something) but I can't, for the life of me, find it. The name of the hotel isn't displayed when they first arrive in the manga (which is where it's displayed in the anime). If anyone knows, please let me know!
One more thing: The DT stadium is HUGE. Where do all those demons stay? Where do they get food? My city hosted the Super Bowl a few years ago and preparations started YEARS in advance. Cities that host the Olympics prep for even longer. I personally find it interesting to explore these small realities of the Tournament, because the anime/manga really did gloss over them.
Many thanks to all those who came out last week. I know people have a hard time picking the story back up after I go on hiatus but that just means I'm especially grateful to those who found the time to read the chapter. You're rock stars: Yakiitori, Blaze1662001, Lady Ellesmere, Deus Venenare, chasesgirl11, Laina Inverse, Metro Neko, C S Stars. EdenMae, xenocanaan, Baoh joestar, Convoluted Compassion, DiCuore Alissa, rya-fire1, Sterling Be, read a rainbow, Marian, Kaiya Azure, AnimePleaseGood, IronDBZ, xxhikagexx, shen0, Tequilamockinbur, Sesshomaru's Luver, Teacup Galaxy, ballet022, Sweetfoxgirl13, Konohamaya Uzumaki, ahyeon, Just 2 Dream of You, kittenfood, and two guests.
