Warnings: Brief mention of disordered eating.


Lucky Child

Chapter 98:

"All's Well That Ends Well"


The couch felt so soft, it hurt. I'm not sure if that's what made snapping back into my body so torturous, or if it was the surge of nausea that slithered up my neck and onto my salivating tongue—a tongue that weighed heavy and meaty against my teeth—but I digress. The couch's soft cushions made every last nerve ending scream, and at once I launched forward and off the couch, slamming to my knees on the carpet as I retched.

As if by magic, a trash can appeared, catching the stream of cranberry juice that poured with a liquid slosh from between my lips. I grasped the edges of the metal can as I coughed and gagged and groaned. The cranberry juice burned my sinuses, a great deal of it pouring from my nose with a rush of acidic pain. It tasted horrible, but as I sobbed, a hand smoothed my hair out of my face, fingers trailing along my cheek.

The hand was very, very cold.

"You poor thing," Hiruko said in a voice that sounded incongruously warm.

He knelt beside me. He had been the one to provide the trashcan. He looked at me with his oceanic eyes and smiled, offering a tissue between two fingers. I took it without a word. The tenderness he showed was surprising.

"You—" I swallowed the grit in my neck. "That memory can't be true. I wouldn't—"

The tenderness in his expression intensified, and that only made it all the more horrible when he said, with the gentlest of smiles: "You stupid, stupid girl."

My hand froze, tissue pressed against my mouth. Hiruko continued to stroke my cheek.

"Seeing is believe, and you're still in denial. But that's to be expected, I suppose." His thumb traced my cheekbone, infinitely gentle. "Pride has, historically speaking, been your greatest weakness in both this life and your previous. As you saw."

I slapped his hand away. "You manipulated me."

"Did I?" he said, puzzled. "You agreed to my terms willingly enough."

"I never would have agreed to this if I'd known what it would be. Never. I never—"

"Don't kid yourself, Keiko." He smiled wider. "You would have, and you know it."

"No. You lied to me," I said, falling out of my kneel and onto my ass, hands fisting in the lush carpet. "You lied and manipulated and—"

"You've been this way since you were a child, you ignorant, weak-willed little girl." His hands were on my face again, cupping it as he towered over my stunned form, staring into my eyes like a hawk bearing down on a dumbstruck rabbit. "I know what ran through your mind when I suggested you would be the best person for the job, even if you don't remember. You thought, no one can do these characters justice but me. You thought, no one can measure up to what I can do. No one but me can do this—no one in the world, no one at all, out of the eight billion people on earth, you thought that you alone could do Yu Yu Hakusho justice. And so you volunteered." His hands were a vice, fingers digging, palms burning, eyes the color of flame and asphyxiation. "Ever since you saw that anime, you thought you were its biggest fan. Its most ardent friend. The only person who truly understood it. Presenting your head-canons as fact, your opinions as gospel, and because you possessed the merest modicum of writing talent, people fell for that act. They ate it up!" A cruel laugh, his mouth stretching, smile no less prominent. "And you never once questioned if you were as good as you thought you were, or if their faith was misplaced. So you volunteered, and you made this entire world about you. Pride is your greatest weakness, Not Quite Keiko, Star Charter, nameless wisp of consciousness in the scope of the broader universe—pride, and your inability to see past it. You accused me of manipulating you, but the truth is that I did no such thing. I made a single appeal to your damnable pride, and you fell prostrate at my feet for the chance to prove your worth to no one besides yourself."

He let go of me.

"Because while you might have pride," Hiruko said, "what you lack is self-assurance, and that combination will no doubt lead you to your doom."

Hiruko stood. He walked away, gait stiff but agile, to face the windows and the frozen world beyond. He said nothing else, and I sat there in silence, stinging and in pain with my back pressed against the too-soft couch. With the grace of an automaton I dabbed the vomit off my chin, tissue coming away the color of blood and bile—but its sight and acrid smell nauseated me only a fraction as much as Hiruko's words.

He hadn't needed to explain what had gone through my head when he offered me the chance to enter the world of Yu Yu Hakusho. While I had not been privy to my past self's train of thought, it had been easy enough to guess that the things Hiruko said were right—but the self of today knew that my former delusions of grandeur had been false. The characters of Yu Yu Hakusho had surprised and confounded me enough to show me that I should be humble, and that I wasn't the perfect confidante of the series that I had thought I was.

But although Hiruko was no doubt right about me, something in his speech did not add up.

"If you hate my pride so much," I said, "why did you choose me at all?"

Hiruko gave a derisive snort. "Choose. I wish I had never used that word," he said. "I should have known you'd revel in it, prideful as you are." He whirled, red robe flying, pink braid a weapon striking whip-like through the air. "The truth is, Not Quite Keiko, that I did not choose you."

"What?"

"Choice. It was the wrong word, choice. As a writer, you know the importance of choosing just the right word, and in that respect, I failed." Hiruko's hand became a fist held tense and low at his side. "I didn't choose you, nameless girl from another world. You don't matter. I could have used anyone, and my plans would still come to fruition as they no doubt will, and soon. I only said what I said to you so you would agree to do what I asked." He laughed again, cruelly instead of kindly. "Not Quite Keiko, I played you like a fiddle—and you sang for me just beautifully."

Hiruko faced the window again, leaving me sitting on the floor with my thoughts. Said thoughts ran wild, tumbling one over the other in an unending loop. Was Hiruko lying to me? Was he telling the truth? There was so much back and forth with him, so much obfuscation and prevarication and so many outright lies. How could I hope to parse truth from fiction, reality from fantasy, when he said so much that could be both… or did it even matter, whether or not he was lying? Perhaps it didn't matter either way. Perhaps he had said all of that to distract me, lead me from the path I'd originally come here to tread and into the dark forest of confusion. Hiruko was a manipulator, after all, and a very good one. Maybe he was manipulating me even now.

I sat in silence for a moment. I threaded my fingers through the soft carpet—deep red with flecks of gold, cut through with a jagged silver pattern—and thought about why I'd come here. The million-and-one questions I had for him ran simultaneously through my skull, a confusing babble of uncertainty and frustration, and with a burst of mental acuity I reached into the cacophony and pulled one question from the hat that was my frazzled brain.

I said, "Peter Pan."

The non sequitur drew one blue eye over Hiruko's shoulder. "What about it?" he asked, sullen.

"You didn't know Tinkerbell." His withering gaze forced a knee toward my chest, arms snaking around it for protection. "In my memories, you didn't know about Peter Pan or Tinkerbell. Why? How?"

"I didn't exactly have anyone to read me bedtime stories as a child, now did I?" Hiruko said with an expressive roll of his eyes.

"So you made this world, or at least cobbled it together from other sources—and you left some details and stories out, because you never heard of them?"

Hiruko bared his teeth. "Stop trying to parse things your mind is too small to understand."

I soldiered on, pulling forth another (and the most pressing) question. "What do you hope to achieve, Hiruko?"

"None of your business," came his sharp retort. "Your little ally, Clotho, saw fit to obscure that memory, didn't she? Let sleeping dogs lie." He sneered. "Don't you trust her?"

"You're not going to fool me that easily," I said, refusing to rise to his bait. "Tell me what you want."

Hiruko remained quiet, stone-faced despite his smile.

In response, I changed tactics. "I was rooting for you," I said, struggling to stand. "You told me what you wanted, and I rooted for you. I said I hoped you'd get what you want. I said I had sympathy." Dodging around the vomit-filled trashcan, I stepped toward him, trying to sound sincere. "What if telling me now will result in the same thing? Maybe I'll root for you again, Hiruko."

Like approaching a skittish dog, I knew better than to get too close. I stopped a few feet from him, watching him as he watched the standstill scenery. He remained quiet. I wondered if I'd said too much. I wondered if, when he spoke again, he'd continue to obfuscate. But soon he looked my way once more, our eyes meeting in the reflection in the window, and his gaze did not flinch.

In tones no louder than a murmur, Hiruko asked, "To what lengths would you go to please your mother?"

I frowned. "My mother?"

Hiruko said nothing. He watched, and he waited—and I thought about bowing and scraping for a scrap of approval. I thought about the times I forced a finger down my throat and overworked my body so my mother might say something nice about it. I thought about when my mother finally gave her approval, how I'd run to a bathroom to sob as hunger gnawed my insides with sharp teeth. The lengths to which I'd go to please her were vast—but why was Hiruko asking about her?

He guessed my answer before I could speak, saying, "At one point, you would go so far as to hurt yourself to please your mother."

Bile stung my throat. "Yes."

His eyes closed. "Empathy rebounds, and rebounds again," he muttered, and then his eyes opened. "I understand that compulsion very well. I would move heaven and earth to please my mother—the equivalent of the one who made me."

The admission felt telling, but it raised new questions in its place. Could he be referring to his literal parents, the gods Izanami and Izanagi of legend? But he'd said 'one,' singular, which made less sense—so I just filed the tidbit away for future contemplation.

"There are other ways to feel whole," I said, thinking of my mother.

But Hiruko only asked, "Are there?"

"The approval of a critical parent isn't worth hurting yourself." It was a lesson I'd learned on an intellectual level, although one I'd never quite internalized. I forced the lie from between my teeth: "I learned that lesson for myself, eventually. Can't you do the same?"

"No, I can't." He grimaced. "Because it's not the same."

"What isn't?"

He didn't answer the question. He only said, "I must prove myself, Not Quite Keiko. I must prove myself, or I will never find my place to belong."

"But to hurt others along the way?" I insisted, because he'd sung this song and dance before. "At the expense of others?"

But Hiruko only laughed, and said in knowing tones: "Is it really at anyone's expense, my lucky child?"

He wore the look of someone telling an inside joke—like he expected me to know what he meant. But I didn't, and so I said, "I don't understand."

"You will." He sounded maddeningly certain, without a shred of doubt. "You're a smart girl. I trust that you'll figure it out, and soon."

With that, he was smiling again, spinning in place so hard I flinched at the gleam of his flame-bright eyes. I flinched again when he thrust out his fists, fingers rounded like he held something in each hand. I stared in confused silence until he shook his hands, nodding at me like a parent encouraging a child.

"Well, go on," he said with another shake. "Pick a hand."

"… why?" I said, staring as if his hands had sprouted fangs.

"Because I have a gift for you, silly girl," Hiruko chided. "No need to look so suspicious."

I backed up a pace. "I think I'll pass, thanks."

"No, I insist." He grinned wider, stepping toward me with one sharp motion. "Pick one. Go on. You won't be disappointed, I assure you."

"I don't think that's such a good—"

His smile faded a tick. "Pick one, damn you."

I pointed at his left hand, movement reflexive, like swinging an axe at a striking snake. His right hand vanished behind his back, left extending closer toward me. Gingerly I held out my hand, and into it he dropped a small drawstring bag. I nearly recoiled, but the only thing that touched my skin was velvet—and then I recoiled for real when Hiruko walked right toward me. He didn't stop when we drew near each other, though. He kept walking until he reached the other side of the table bearing the gigantic vase of sunflowers, a hum spilling from his throat, and for a moment I swore that I recognized the tune.

"Well, don't just stand there," Hiruko said (without turning around to check if he was right about my posture). "Open it."

I obeyed with the care of a bomb squad technician in a room full of soufflés—until I saw what lay inside the bag. Care evaporated in an instant. I ripped the bag away and spilled its contents into my hand, staring in complete and utter shock at the small, silver and white rectangle with its shiny screen and the pair of earbuds wound tightly around its body. It was, without a doubt, an iPod. The touchscreen model not much bigger than a pack of gum. The exact type I'd had right before I died in a car crash, in fact. I hadn't seen technology like it in fifteen years, but I knew what it was as if I'd held one just yesterday. But why the hell would Hiruko give me—?

Hiruko chuckled. A whispering noise cut the stillness. I knew what was happening even before I turned and saw the hole he'd torn in space and time. It filled the room from ceiling to floor, a hole the color of distilled darkness with edges ringed in bristling red threads, ones that branched from each of the infinite angles that make up the surface of a sphere. The threads tethered the hole in place, and when he stuck his hand into the center of the circle, they thrummed like plucked catgut.

Hiruko winked at the iPod. "Take care of that for me, will you?"

"Hiruko." I shoved the iPod into my pocket and glared. "Don't you dare—"

"Oh, hush. I'll be seeing you, and much sooner than you think."

"Hiruko, wait!"

He wriggled his fingers at me. "Ta-ta for now!"

And with that, he was gone, leaping through the portal and vanishing into the black. At once the light in the room stuttered, shadows shifting a disorienting few degrees eastward. The bird frozen beyond the windows fluttered into motion, flapping it wings and flying as quickly from sight as had Hiruko.

I almost didn't notice the bird. The demons that had stepped into the room through the red-edged portal were, in a word, distracting. There were six, all tall and muscular, each of them uniquely formed and equally terrifying. One had ten eyes, another the face of a lizard, another six arms and yet another with two mouths that bristled with needle teeth. Unsurprisingly, I backed up until my shoulder blades hit the windows, wishing with all my might that I could flee along with the vanished bird.

The one with all the mouths cocked his grey-skinned face to the side, long white hair brushing the emaciated ribs jutting from his chest. When he spoke, it was with a chorus of many voices, tones vibrating with discordant harmonics when he said, "Keiko, right?"

I tried not to let my voice quaver (but probably failed). "Who wants to know?"

"Just us demons, that's all." How he talked around his teeth, I'll never know. "We're supposed to play with you a little." He took a step forward, clawed feet carving gouges in the red-gold carpet. "Think you'd like that, huh? To play with us?"

His friends started grinning, then. Even the one with the face of an ox managed to hold a lot of sharp teeth inside his smile. I gulped, hands slipping into the pockets of my maid outfit's long, black skirt.

"Fair warning," I said. "I tend to play a little rough."

"Do you, now?" The many-mouthed demon cackled. "Then I think we'll get along famously!"

As one, they started for me—but I was prepared, the hole in my dress's pocket big enough to reach the bandolier of knives I kept strapped to my thigh. I yanked one out and chucked it at the massive vase of sunflowers between me and the demons, exploding it in a shower of water, plants and razor glass. Most of it sprayed across the demons' faces, and while I was under no illusion that it would hurt them, they all yowled in surprise and reeled back—and that was all I needed. I hiked my skirts and sprinted for the door, manic grin bursting across my face.

The grin vanished when the door to the lounge swung open ahead of me. For a wild minute I thought the demons might have reinforcements, but it was only Otoha, pink scales luminous against her dark skin and lovely face. Her eyes found me at once.

"Keiko? Did you find—" That's when her eyes found the demons. "What the hell!?"

I grabbed her hand as I ran past, yanking her through the door after me. "And we're running, we're running, we're running—!"

No need to tell her twice; she almost overtook me, running past the freaky, secretive doors down the long hall to the casino. We slammed open that door and ran into the bright and loud gambling hall without pause, but nobody really looked in our direction until we got halfway across the casino floor. By then a few heads turned, faces confused—and then a lot of heads turned, and some screams rang out, as our demonic stalkers burst into the room, too. I chanced a glance over my shoulder as they barreled into the crowd of richly dressed humans, knocking people out of the way with violent swipes, overturning a roulette table with a thunderous clatter, sending shrieking humans scattering. When the lizard demon peeled away from the rest and headed toward the casino's exit, cutting us off with his demonic speed, I grabbed Otoha's wrist again and dragged her in a new direction.

"Otoha! Behind the bar!"

She rerouted like a GPS on steroids. "Don't have to tell me twice!"

The bartender we'd met earlier in the day was still there, looking infinitely more stressed out as he huddled out of sight behind the bar. He looked up when we joined him, but he didn't say a word as I stripped my maid outfit over my head to reveal my leggings and t-shirt, not to mention the knives on my legs. He just watched in shock as I balled the maid's dress up under my arm and leapt atop the bar with a cry of, "Hey, assholes!"

The demons didn't need to be called; they were already on their way over, storming through the crowd of screaming humans toward our stronghold. They didn't count on me throwing my dress and then a few bottles of vodka at them, however, and when they tried dodging, I threw a salvo of knives in their direction. Two went down with a howl as my shots connected with their faces, but the remaining three kept coming like runaway freight engines.

Not that that was unexpected. I'd already clocked the drink cart sitting next to the bar, which I leapt atop and pushed with my legs, sending it flying toward the demons. One crashed into the cart, stalling him, but the other two kept coming, and fast. I ran back toward Hiruko's lounge, cutting through the crowd of rushing rich-folks, trying to get some distance between the demons and the hidden Otoha. But that was as far as my slapdash plans had gone, so what was I supposed to do now but throw more knives and hope like hell I didn't miss?

The demons didn't give me a chance to find out. One of them yelled in a voice like thunder, "Hold it right there!"

The demon with many mouths had Otoha by the throat, the other hand tangled in her rich, dark hair. Her eyes showed white all around her irises, terror as evident on her beautiful face as her sakura-pink scales. I skidded to a stop as the other demons gathered around them, each sporting a grin more gruesome than the last, hands going to my knives at once.

"If you hurt her," I spat, "I swear to fucking Christ, I'll kick your goddamn ass so hard—"

"Ha!" The demon threw back his head and laughed. "You and what army?"

A cool voice cut the chaos: "That'd be me, actually."

The lizard demon appeared, sailing through the air to land with a crash at the feet of the many-mouthed monstrosity. His head sat crooked atop his broken neck, a long gash carved up the length of his naked back, exposing vertebrae—and which injury killed him, it was hard to say. The person who'd killed him was obvious enough, however, because the energy-knife she held in her fist gave off a green glow so eerie, even the demons shrank back as she stalked across the casino. Shizuru didn't seem particularly offended by that. Smoke curled lazily around her face and hair, cigarette glowing cherry red when she took a long, slow drag.

"So." She exhaled a plume of pale grey smoke. "What were you saying about armies?"

Sensing opportunity, Otoha snatched a bottle off the bar and smashed it over the many-mouthed demon's head. "Two armies!" she screeched, stomping another demon's foot so hard, he crumpled with a cry. She kicked the shit out of the side of his head and then kicked another in the crotch. "Keiko has two armies! Yeah! Take this! And this!"

The remaining upright demon lunged for her; Shizuru was there in an instant, slashing his neck with a spray of green energy and even greener demon blood. But the others were rising, too, so Shizuru spat out her cigarette and pointed at the casino's front door.

"You two, this way!" She spared no time for chat, grabbing Otoha's hand and falling into a flat-out run. "Pronto!"

"Don't gotta tell us twice!" Otoha said—and we ran out of the casino and into the halls beyond.


At the very bottom of a winding, building-high stairwell, we found a place to hide: a hollow nook under the lowest flight of stairs, blocked from view by stacked boxes and discarded crates, lit only by the thin and indirect red light of the EXIT sign above a nearby door. Otoha hissed for us to follow her as demons pounded down the stairs in our wake, and we tucked ourselves into that darkened hideaway like a trio of fleeing shadows. The demons soon ran directly over our hiding place, yelling and squawking, footsteps slamming out the door at the stairwell's bottom and into the rest of the hotel.

When they left, Otoha didn't move. She sat crouched in the darkness with her hands cupped around her giant, batlike ears, eyes closed, mouth set in a thin line. I touched her shoulder, leaning close to her.

"You OK?" I murmured.

"Shhh!" Otoha susurrated. "I'm listening for the demons, or even for Hiruko!"

"Oh." I removed the hand. "All right."

She didn't reply. She sat there, crouched and concentrating, in the silence and the dark. I watched her warily, but I didn't speak. I'd been wondering if Otoha's oversized ears were capable of hearing more than my ordinary human ones, and her insistence on silence made me think that I was right. But the scales, what were they indicative of, and—?

A hand brushed my shoulder, and Shizuru said, "You OK?"

She crouched nearest the entrance to our hideaway—ready and willing to defend us if the demons returned, I surmised. I started to shush her on Otoha's behalf, but Otoha didn't seem bothered by Shizuru speaking. Maybe it only mattered if we spoke to her. Still, I kept my voice low when I decided to reply.

"I'm fine," I whispered.

She nodded. She said: "Who's Hiruko?"

Panic rose sharp and hot and heavy as I momentarily believed that Shizuru had somehow developed the ability to read minds, but then I remembered what Otoha had said just a moment prior. I swallowed, unable to keep from noticing the way the EXIT sign's crimson light turned Shizuru's eyes to twin sparks in the darkness. I opened my mouth to tell a lie. Maybe ask her who she was talking about and play dumb.

Instead, what poured from my mouth was the truth.

"There's a man named Hiruko who's aligned himself with Sakyo, and he wants to cause trouble. I don't know what kind of trouble, precisely, but it's bad, and he's the one who sent those demons after me." It took every ounce of my willpower to keep from clapping a hand across my blabbering mouth. "He's never threatened me directly before, and I don't know what he's—"

Something clicked behind Shizuru's eyes. "I think you said it back at the stadium before you ditched us. He wants to rattle the team by kidnapping one of our own." Her teeth gleamed. "Even when you blow smoke, there's fire, huh?"

…that was actually a pretty good guess on her part, now that I thought about it. The demons did say they had been sent to 'play' with me, after all.

She kept speaking, more good guesses falling from her lips. "I'm guessing this Hiruko character is the reason why Sakyo kidnapped you."

"Yeah." I swallowed, nerves like wasps in my wrists and throat. "He wanted information."

It wasn't really a question when she said, "And I'm guessing you don't have much to share with the class."

"Not for lack of trying," I grumbled.

For a moment, she remained silent—but soon she shook her head, hair whispering across her blazer like a reedy wind.

"Somehow, I believe you." Her sparking eyes grew contemplative. "Hiruko. Nice to know our real enemy's got a name, at least." The sparks turned suspicious. "Koenma put you on a secret mission or something? Is that how you know so much?"

I hesitated, because while what she said wasn't true, it was a good lie—one I would've surely taken and run with in any other situation. Too bad for me, Otoha's hands came down from her ears before I could take advantage of Shizuru's imagination. She crawled over to Shizuru and me and jerked her head toward the stairwell door.

"They're in another stairwell on the west side of the building, heading back up again. Coast is clear, but only for a few minutes." Another jerk of her head toward the door. "I'd get out of here as fast as you can. Front exit's through there; take the door around the corner and you'll let out near the elevators. They won't expect that."

"Thank you for all your help, Otoha," Shizuru said.

"You're welcome." She giggled. "And I thought this would be a boring shift…"

Her insouciance struck a chord in me, and not a good one. The last person I had seen act too casually about Hiruko had wound up stripped of her name and thrown into an anime, after all. It took effort to keep from sounding strained when I clasped her hand and said, "Stay safe."

"You, too," she said, squeezing my fingers. "And you gotta tell me what this was all about at some point, because this is spy-movie intrigue and I'm dying to know what happens next!"

She ran off quickly after that, ghosting through the darkness and through the door to the hotel lobby. We followed quickly after, walking briskly but calmly through the lobby's echoing chamber, heels of our shoes clicking purposefully—but not panicked—across the lobby floor. Only a few people loitered nearby, most of them hotel staff; there was no sign of the demons anywhere. Still, so as not to attract undue attention, we maintained a steady but measured pace until we got outside, at which point Shizuru broke into a dead run down the path leading into the nearby forest. I followed, matching her speed as best I could. When she skidded to a halt under the cool shade of the forest, however, I had to wonder if I was about to get a lecture… but all she did was point ahead of us down the path.

"New stadium is that way," she said. "We got most of the way there before realizing you'd left, and I dropped everyone off before coming back for you." Shizuru shook her head, reaching into her pocket for a cigarette. "Kid, you are trouble, you know that?"

I fidgeted. "That has been brought to my attention on previous occasions, yes."

"Figures." She lit up and took a long drag. "Just tell everyone you needed to take a piss when they ask where you went, because we don't need that guy—Hiruko, right? We don't need him getting what he wanted." Like a conductor with a flaming baton, she waved, punctuating each word. "No distractions. Not during the semifinals, and not before the finals. You hear me?"

"Loud and clear." I saluted (like an absolute dork) and then gave her a sheepish smile—because that was all I could do. She'd told me once she wouldn't be asking more questions, but I hadn't thought she'd meant it the way she had. It was with true gratitude that I said, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." She puffed gamely at her cigarette until it turned mostly to ash. With a flick of her fingers, she tossed the butt to the ground and stamped it under her heel. "Now let's go. Your little potty-break excuse won't hold up if we take too long standing around."

All too eagerly, I broke into a run. Shizuru learning Hiruko's name wasn't a huge revelation in and of itself, but if she broke her promise and started asking questions, my inability to tell a convincing lie would not doubt spell revelations too monumental for comfort. Instead I hoped for distraction, to keep her too occupied to ask me anything at all (although how long that tactic would work against someone as single-minded as Shizuru, it was tough to say).

We didn't have far to run, it turns out. The path almost disappeared a few times as Shizuru led the way through the woods, and I could see at once why we had managed to get lost earlier in the day. Soon, however, the forest thinned out, and then the weirdly bug-like contours of the stadium rose over the trees like a looming eldritch horror. When we emerged at last from the forest, we found ourselves standing at the foot of the gigantic stadium, the concrete ring around its bulk hosting dozens of milling demons. While the old stadium had resembled a sports arena, this one resembled nothing I'd ever seen before in Human World. Unlike the previous stadium, it lacked any television screens that non-ticketed spectators could watch to see the fights, and the only entrance to the arena was a set of enormous gates at least twenty feet high. Two burly demons in cop uniforms, of all things, stood outside the gates, glaring at any demon who dared to stray too close.

I came to a stop and stood there with my mouth open when we first caught sight of it. Enormous and black, festooned with angled, jutting columns and strange towers like the antenna of a gigantic insect, the closed-roof stadium looked more like the shed carapace of a mammoth beast than it did a manmade structure. The many windows along its upper floors glowed from within against the blue sky, lit like a million yellow eyes watching the movements of its prey below, the columns like legs that could at any moment come to life and crawl in a streak of destruction across the earth. Nothing at all like the previous stadium, which could've been mistaken for a soccer arena if you didn't notice the demonic onlookers in the stands. And it didn't help that the aforementioned crowds were screaming inside the arena, an unholy dissonance that sounded almost like the cry the beastlike arena might make on some moonless night.

Shizuru, meanwhile, appeared unfazed. She stalked toward the gates with hands jammed in her pockets, mouth set in a ferocious scowl, ready to fight and kick her way inside—but just as I started to follow her out of the woods in her wake, a voice from the forest called my name.

"Keiko!" said the voice, which sounded infinitely relieved. "You're back!"

I wheeled, peering around in confusion, because I saw no one.

"This way, silly—down here!"

It wasn't until Botan waved that I spotted her. She sat at the foot of a tree well beneath the forest's camouflaging shade, partially hidden by a bush and a large rock. I called Shizuru's name over my shoulder and waded back into the forest toward Botan—but when I rounded the rock, I stopped short, mouth dropping open in surprise.

Yusuke was with Botan—and he was asleep on her shoulder.

And that wasn't all. Puu lay asleep in her lap, bright blue wing-ears wrapped tight around his body like a security blanket. Yusuke's face bore no expression, jaw slack, while Puu snored lightly, sound like bubbles on the air. Despite wearing his hair down instead of shellacked back with pomade, Yusuke looked… the same, really. The same, but battered. A purple bruise covered his cheek while a bramble of scratches adorned his knuckles and fingertips, nails worn down to the beds. His clothes and skin bore a thick layer of dirt, too, and his shoes were missing most of the tread along the bottom. But he wasn't hurt in any obvious ways, and he didn't look at all pained as he slept.

Funny. After the ordeal he'd been through with Genkai, I thought he'd look different, somehow.

Botan cleared her throat, soon, and gave an awkward wave. Sticks cracked as Shizuru approached; she joined me in silence beneath the trees, staring as Botan began to blush. Neither of us spoke as the blush turned to a full-out flush, and then into a red so deep it was a wonder her brain didn't boil.

"Well, don't just stand there!" Botan eventually yelped, steam almost pouring from her ears. "Say something!"

Shizuru took out a cigarette, although she did not light it. "You two look…"

"Cozy," I supplied. "Very cozy."

"Couple of regular lovebirds, even," Shizuru observed.

Botan gasped. "Ex-cuse me!" she warbled. "It isn't my fault he's practically comatose. Again." She glared down at her passed-out companion, pinching his somnambulant cheek—true proof he was out cold, because he'd surely protest if he wasn't. "This boy has a nasty habit of falling into impenetrable sleep, doesn't he?"

"He's got a knack for it." I glanced about, suddenly worried. "So where are the others?"

"And how'd Yusuke get here?" Shizuru added.

Botan looked very excited to discuss something else. "Yukina and Atsuko went inside to watch the fights," she said in an energetic rush. "As for Yusuke, Genkai dropped him off and asked us to look after him." Her blush flared back to life. "But then Atsuko said she wanted us to have alone time and abandoned me…"

The only thing that can accurately describe Botan's face is the word "atomic." Shizuru watched her with amused eyes, holding her unlit cigarette between two fingers as Botan became increasingly uncomfortable. Botan looked everywhere but at Yusuke, magenta eyes roving across the trees and the sky and my feet as she desperately searched for something else to discuss.

I was not sure how I felt about any of it.

"A-anyway." Botan cleared her throat, fingers absently petting Puu's mop of messy black hair—but then she caught herself and quickly removed her hand. "We're mostly hidden back here, but a little while ago some demons happened upon us and almost tried to make mincemeat out of poor Yusuke! Luckily for us, Chu—you remember Chu, don't you? Well, he and Rinku appeared, and so did Jin and Touya from that shinobi team! They chased the demons off lickety-split." She couldn't keep from shooting Yusuke a fond smile. "Apparently trading punches makes Yusuke friends."

"Sounds like him," Shizuru said with a chuckle.

I couldn't join in. I wanted to join in and tease Botan about this, but her encounter with Jin and the others confirmed what I'd suspected the moment I found Botan leaning against that tree with Yusuke. It seemed that (for all intents and purposes) Botan and I had swapped places for the purposes of this particular scene. Which meant what, exactly? I couldn't say for sure, but I had a sinking suspicion that my date with Jin, and the subsequent changes the date wrought on Keiko's love life, probably had something to do with this—and the fact that I'd missed my chance to see Jin again within the confines of canon didn't do any favors for the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, either.

If Shizuru noticed my unusual silence, she didn't say anything. She only cocked her head when a feminine voice cut the air, words booming and indistinct but very, very loud. Koto's voice, instantly recognizable, even if we couldn't quite make out what she was saying. A moment later, another voice followed hers, excitedly calling out something unintelligible. Juri's voice over the loudspeaker now that she had taken over Koto's referee duties, if I had to guess.

"Who's fighting now?" Shizuru asked.

"Genkai, I think," said Botan. "There was a hullabaloo over her identity when she tried to fight, from what I could overhear, but…"

Koto screamed something, voice rising even louder. She was delighted about blood, from what I could make out. Specifically about the chance of seeing it outside of someone's body. We listened in silence, heads cocked toward the sky, as demons booed and hollered. Seems whoever they were rooting for was on the receiving end of the bloodshed, then.

"… it sounds like everything turned out all right, in the end," Botan observed.

"And by baby brother?" Shizuru looked at Botan through hooded eyes. "How'd he do? Last I saw him, he was gearing up for a rematch against Shishiwakamaru."

I did a double-take. "A rematch?"

"I'm not sure," said Botan, anxiety flashing across her face. "Atsuko said she'd come out to give me a status report, but…"

"A rematch against Shishiwakamaru?" I pressed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

We'd already seen Kuwabara break canon when he bungee-jumped back inside Shishiwakamaru's portal, but we hadn't known for sure if he'd managed to get back to the new arena or not. In the anime, he'd had to walk all the way back to the new arena, where he challenged the Beautiful Suzuka in disguise as the old man Onji (who promptly used the same teleportation technique on Kuwabara to send him back to the old arena, again). He'd never had a rematch with Shishiwakamaru in canon—so what the hell had happened in this version of the story?

Shizuru (who maybe, in fact, could read minds) promptly filled me in. "Remember when we saw my brother come flying out of that portal at the old stadium?"

"He bungee-jumped back inside it with his Spirit Sword, yeah. I remember."

"Right. And it took him back here, to this new arena." She smirked, familial pride glinting in her bright eyes. "But before he and that Shishi guy could throw down, the committee ruled that Kuwabara had been out of bounds for a ten-count. And since he couldn't prove he hadn't been on solid ground for the ten seconds he was out of the stadium…"

My jaw dropped. "They ruled that a loss?!"

"Yup," she said, looking far less concerned than I felt.

"And then what happened?"

She shrugged. "Shishi got pissed, that's what."

I hung my head, rubbing at my temples at the thought. "Ugh. Poor Kuwabara."

"No, kid," said Shizuru with a firm shake of her head. "Not at my brother. At the committee." That smirk returned, cigarette bobbing before her mouth. "Shishi said that giving him a win on a technicality was shameful and that real demons fight to the bitter end. Guy demanded a fair rematch so he could, and I quote, 'earn the reputation he was due.'" Shizuru laughed, smile wry. "You wouldn't think he'd be that type, given he was fine with teleporting Kazuma outside of the ring to begin with, but that's not the first time a demon has surprised me."

The mind boggled—but if this could change, what else had shifted in the match against this team? I asked, "What about the other matches? The outcomes?"

Shizuru shrugged again. "I'm not sure since I haven't been inside yet. Heard all that about Shishiwakamaru from some of the demons walking around down here."

"And I got saddled with Yusuke too quickly to check in with the team," Botan said, cheeks turning seashell pink again. "But I think Hiei and Kurama won their fights, if it helps."

"About time we found out for sure," Shizuru said, turning back toward the stadium. "C'mon, Keiko."

Botan jolted in place, though she settled down with a guilty look at the sleeping Yusuke. "Wait! What about me?!"

Shizuru glanced over her shoulder, smirk reappearing. "Like I said—you look cozy. Would be a shame to break that up now, huh?"

"Shizuru!" Botan groaned.

"Holler if somebody tries killing Yusuke again, I guess."

'Offended' didn't even begin to cover the look on Botan's furious face. "Why, I never—!" Her head whipped toward me, blue hair flying, eyes pleading and huge. "Keiko, what about you?"

"Sorry!" I skipped over and pinched Yusuke's cheek. "He's just so cute when he's sleeping."

Botan groaned again. "Keiko, no!"

"Keiko, yes!" I chirped, and I ran off after Shizuru.


"You were late."

For a demon who'd been acting pissed at me for days, Hiei certainly seemed salty about that fact. He glared, arms crossed, foot tapping as Shizuru and I approached our group in the tunnels beneath the arena floor. Shizuru and her magical intuition had led us to our friends in short order. They'd just come off the main stage of the arena after Koto declared them the victors of the semifinals, battleworn and limping but all in one piece. Hiei wore a bandage around his shoulder, blue undershirt stained with blood; Kurama's clothes were torn along the arms and legs; Kuwabara's coat was a shredded mess, hanging off his arms in tatters, pompadour half fallen out of its style so curls spilled along one cheek. Genkai—unmasked at last—appeared largely unharmed, though her hair was a bit frizzier than usual. None looked at all perturbed by the boos filtering through the concrete over our heads. Hiei only had a glare for me, while Kurama looked on with amused sympathy and Genkai observed in expressionless silence.

Kuwabara wouldn't even look at me, though, gaze averting the second I appeared alongside his sister.

"Sorry!" I clapped my hands together and bowed, trying to look contrite. "Got a little lost in the woods."

"Keiko here has a tiny bladder, apparently," Shizuru muttered in her usual deadpan. It was a lie, of course, but no one said a word; her understated delivery was quite convincing.

Atsuko stepped forward and clapped me on the back. "Glad to see you're all right. Had us worried for a sec."

Yukina nodded in agreement. "Yes, when we turned around and saw that you were gone, we could only assume the worst." She covered her mouth with her pale blue sleeve. "We thought maybe those demons…"

That got Kuwabara's attention; his head swung my way, brow knit and eyes wide. "Huh? What demons?" he asked, striding a few steps toward us.

"Oh, nothing." Atsuko grinned and popped her knuckles. "Just some demons trying to menace the little human girls, that's all. But we kicked their asses, no sweat."

"All's well that ends well," Shizuru grunted.

Kuwabara shook his head, teeth grit and on full display. "Yeah, but still!" He crossed his arms, tatters of his jacket swinging. "If demons know you're with us, there's no way all of you can go off on your own again." A resolute nod nearly knocked his fraying pompadour askew. "24-hour guard, if that's what it's gonna take to keep you safe."

Kurama, tone detached, suggested, "Perhaps our energy would be better spent on preparing for tomorrow's finals." He looked Kuwabara over with cool green eyes. "Especially considering the shape you're in."

Kuwabara glared, trying to stand a little straighter as he combed the tatters of his coat. Kurama just offered him a pleasant smile, face a mask of innocence I didn't believe for a minute.

"He's right." Genkai stepped between them. She clasped her hands behind her back, gaze full of force and fire. "Hiei, Kurama. In the finals, we'll need a win from each of you—"

("Hey?!" Kuwabara squawked. "What'm I, chopped liver?!")

"—so be sure to watch Team Toguro's semifinal match very closely later today. Then rest." She broke away from our group and headed off down the dark and echoing concrete hall. "Your lives depend on it."

"What's her problem?" Kuwabara muttered at her retreating back.

Yukina hummed, uncertain. "I imagine she must be fatigued from the matches."

"Who, Genkai?" Kuwabara said with pronounced skepticism. "Nah; she's tough as nails. Something must be bothering her…" His face screwed up, watching as she walked with slow, shuffling steps away from us. "She was acting funny when she showed up to fight Shishiwakamaru, too."

"Shishi…" I grabbed at his arm on reflex, though I snatched back my hand at the last second. Still, he noticed, turning to me as I said, "That's right. Kuwabara, I heard you were pretty badass today!"

"Heh. That's for sure!" He thrust out his chest and turned up his nose, looking smug and happy and tired at the same time. "I learned an all-new application for my Spirit Sword on the fly, and then I clobbered Shishiwakamaru by turning it into a net and turning his own energy against him! It was as easy as—urk!"

He must've tweaked something by throwing out his chest, because he fell to the floor clutching his back, face nearly blue with pain. Yukina gasped at his strangled cry, and Atsuko burst out laughing (because she was Yusuke's mother, and some things are just genetic). Shizuru cocked her head to one side, face barely shifting at all.

"Kazuma?" she said. "You OK?"

Kuwabara squeaked, "I think I pulled a muscle."

"I think you pulled your everything," Atsuko cackled.

"Ha!" Hiei tossed back his head with a laugh. "What a fool!"

"Oh, can it, shorty!" Kuwabara snapped. "If I wasn't in horrible pain, I'd turn you into mincemeat!"

Hiei's eyes blazed. "I'd like to see you try it, dolt."

I stood back as Atsuko and Shizuru helped Kuwabara upright, angling him so Yukina could send a blast of her healing powers across his spine. Hiei bristled at the sight, but he turned his face with a pointed harrumph and sulked a few feet away, clearly unhappy with the whole affair. The sight pulled a laugh into my throat, but before I could join in with a quip, Kurama stepped into the space beside my elbow.

"He's right, you know," he muttered in my ear. "Genkai was acting strangely when she appeared in the middle of the fights." At my look of confusion, he grimaced. "Despite the strange changes in her energy, it was what she said to us before her fight that proved more interesting."

I ducked my head closer to him for privacy. "What did she say?"

"Genkai insisted that she be the one to challenge Onji—or the Beautiful Suzuka, rather." He nodded toward the others, and to Kuwabara where he lay in pain upon the ground. "Hiei and Kuwabara were both in poor physical shape after their matches, but I am in relatively sound condition, and I had questions for Suzuka, besides. And yet, when I volunteered to fight, Genkai said she could not allow me to risk myself. She wanted me in top form for the finals, despite the fact we have a day of rest tomorrow." Kurama stared after her contemplatively, eyes distant. "For someone as keen on pushing one's limits as Genkai, her reticence was surprising indeed."

He was right; it was odd of her to say those things. At least, it was odd if you didn't know what I did. In silence Kurama and I watched as Genkai stopped before a doorway at the far end of the hall. She didn't look back when she pressed her palm to its dark expanse. She just pushed it open and disappeared within, silent as a ghost.

Kurama murmured, "Do you know why she was acting that way, Kei?"

He looked at me with curiosity, but not insistence, green eyes inviting explanation but not demanding it. It hurt to not share the truth with him, but…

I shut my eyes, if only so I wouldn't have to look at his. "I can't tell you."

His hand closed around my elbow. "Kei—"

I didn't yank my arm away, per se, but I didn't give him any choice by to let me go when I jogged off after Genkai. Kuwabara and Yukina called out after me, asking where I was going, but I didn't turn to acknowledge either of them. Doggedly I went to the door Genkai had vanished through, which opened onto another long hallway, dimly lit and shadowy. A short figure stood at the hallway's end, just barely out of sight in the darkness; I waited for my eyes to adjust, which only took a seconds, before heading toward her.

I didn't get far before I noticed him.

He stood with his broad shoulders leaning against the wall, impossibly tall and as quiet as the grave. He smiled when he saw me, and although I could not see his eyes, I got the sense he was giving me a quick once-over. The kind of scrutiny a warrior gives out of habit, sizing up a potential enemy so as not to be caught unawares.

For my own sake, I hoped like hell that the younger Toguro brother didn't consider me as such.

"No need to jump like that," he said, although I wasn't aware that I had jumped at all. He had the deepest, most melodious voice I'd ever heard. I'd expected the former quality, but the latter took me by surprise. "It's not you I'm interested in."

Anxiety forced a joke out of my mouth: "I'm actually just kind of jumpy in general. Try not to take it personally, all right?" I bowed at him, hoping manners might distract him. "If you'll excuse me…"

"Wait." The word froze me in place, flight triumphing over fight as he pushed away from the wall to stand at his full height. But his massive size wasn't nearly as intimidating as the angular planes of his face or the lithe way he moved, catlike in spite of his physique. "Keiko, I presume."

"Yes." I cursed myself for being honest, forcing out the words, "What do you want?"

"Nothing." His lips quirked. "Your name's just come up a few times in my hearing, that's all." A long pause followed. "But for the life of me, I can't see what's so special."

"That makes two of us." Another desperate joke, but Toguro didn't laugh. I bowed again. "Well, then. Bye."

I got only two steps away when Toguro called, "What. No pleas for mercy?" He looked amused behind his sunglasses. "No begging for the life of your friend?"

Friend. Singular.

Begging for the life of your friend.

I knew exactly who he meant, and when anger rose hot and bright and horrible in my chest, I didn't have the wherewithal to consider if rising to that bait was worth it. I bristled, rounding on him with a snarl he no doubt saw as kittenish in its ferocity.

"You know damn well that what's about to happen has been coming for decades," I spat at his feet. "No pleas, no matter how well worded, could change your heart now." I threw my hand out, pointing down the hall. "Not your heart, and most certainly not hers."

Toguro said nothing.

Then: "I stand corrected."

"Beg pardon?"

A chuckle rumbled in his chest with surprising warmth. "Nothing. Nothing at all." He nodded. "Go on, now. And be sure to cheer your friends on two days from now." Toguro spun on his heel, strolling in the opposite direction from Genkai and myself. "They'll need your support, I'm sure."

"And they'll have it," I murmured. Yet another bow, this one calmer than the last, though no less unnecessary. "Goodbye, Toguro."

He didn't turn around. "Goodbye, Keiko."

I didn't wait for him to call me back again. I ran off after Genkai, hoping I'd catch her before she left the stadium—because I knew in my gut that no matter what changes I made to canon, I did not have long to say goodbye to her.


NOTES

Anyone who spots the obscure-ish Terry Pratchett reference in this chapter is henceforth my hero.

I've started a playlist on YouTube for this fic; there's a link to it on my Tumbler page. The theme song of chapter 97 is "I Was Just a Kid" by Nothing But Thieves.

Had a whole big scene at the start of this about the self-destructive lengths I've gone to in order to please my mother before, but I chickened out of posting it. Sorry. But the subject has become relevant in my life again and it's still too raw and unresolved to publish here.

This chapter ends with the same scene that ends episode 51 of the anime series; couldn't resist using it to fit in a Toguro cameo. In terms of episode count, this means we've covered almost half of the Yu Yu Hakusho episode canon. Weird to think about.

NEXT UPDATE: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 2020.

Many thanks to everyone who came out to read and comment last week. I miss some old faces, and those still reading make posting a dream: vodka and tea, Lady Milk tea, noble phantasm, McMousie, MissIdeophobia, xenocanaan, MyWorldHeartBeating, Vyxen Hexgrim, tatewaki2000, A Wraith, Call Brig On Over, Lady Ellesmere, Kaiya Azure, AnonymousNett, Biku sensei sez meow, Kitty-ryn, sousie, buzzk97, NightlyKill, Sorlian, OdinsReaper, MetroNeko, Else1991, cestlavie, general zargon, ewokling, SterlingBee, IronDBZ, Sky65, tammywammy9, Bardic Knowledge and guests.