Warnings: None


Lucky Child

Chapter 104

"Fatalistic Determinism"


The cold, dispassionate stars rained silver light onto the forests and shores of Hanging Neck Island, turning the landscape into an impressionist painting of monochrome severity. Broad strokes of silver scored the distant, crashing sea, while smaller flicks of deep grey enumerated the swaying treetops far below my perch atop the roof of Hotel Kubikukuri. Any other night, I probably would've found the silvery scene rather beautiful. But tonight was not any other night, and as I stared in tense silence at the realm below, I wished the world could always be so black and white. Heads or tails. 50/50. If the world could be so easily parsed, the anxiety in my chest would surely ease.

What were my friends saying about me now, back in our hotel suite?

What were they discussing about the truths that I had told them?

What would they decide about my fate, and about our friendship?

It hardly mattered. Attempting to predict the outcome made my head spin, so I'd stopped trying mere moments after completing my story, being dismissed and heading to the roof. Instead I just stared out over the dull, indeterminate island, trying to count the minutes in the shift of the unbiased stars, shivering as the faintest of winds stirred my hair.

"Make that face much longer, dear heart, and it might get stuck that way."

I jumped, but it was only Jin, floating a few feet away above the hotel roof. His toes barely skimmed the gravel-strewn ground, a whisper-gentle breeze tossing the tips of his hair. It looked inky black in the starlight, his eyes silvery with delight, grin like soft moonlight lancing across his face.

But I couldn't smile back, happy though I felt at the sight of him. I curled my knee closer to my chest, arm around it holding on tight. I sat on a ledge near the edge of the building, a safety measure set some feet back from the sheer drop to the ground below. It was as close as I dared get, but Jin showed no fear as he wafted closer and settled at my side. His smile had faded, eyes full of trouble like clouds drifting across the moon.

"Och, wee lamb," he said, gentler than before. "The stars shine too bright for this much shadow. What's ailin' ye?"

I forced a breezy insouciance. "Oh, I dunno. Just feeling a bit glum, is all."

"I don't believe that even for a moment," he said with a huff. "A smile suits ye much better, that it does, and you damn near look like you're about to cry. Ye wouldn't look that way for not, my sweet girl."

But I didn't want to talk about it. "What are you doing here?" I said, hoping to change the subject.

And Jin, bless him, seemed to understand. "Nice night for a traipse through the clouds," he said, smile returning like a rising sun. "And the blood hasn't stopped pumping since your friend Urameshi took out that monster named Toguro. Och, what a fight! More eager n' ever for a rematch, dontcha know." Jin loosed a bright laugh. "Course, I'll have to train a while first to catch up, because Urameshi took a level to heights even I can't reach just yet, and I'm a bloomin' Wind Master!"

He chattered on in his way, and he didn't ask me questions. He didn't make me talk. He didn't press or pry or invade my space, instead filling the silence with the sunshine of his laugh and the warmth of his melodious voice. Expectation did not live in him. For all his ferocity in the ring, Jin was a breeze of a person, not a gale or a storm or a whirlwind battering you with force. When he at last fell quiet, staring thoughtfully at the clouds with a slight smile on his face, the silence held only comfort and contentment—and in spite of myself, I found my words drawn forth by the subtle power of that silence.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" I asked.

Jin's brow shot up. "Now that's a bolt from the blue if I ever heard one."

"Well. Do you?"

He dug a finger into his ear, lip jutting in a contemplative pout. "I dunno that I've given it much thought, to tell all honest truth," he said after a time. His ears wiggled the littlest bit; Jin giggled along with them. "And I don't plan on taking a trip to the great hereafter with any sort of immediacy, as you might imagine, so I won't be finding out anytime soon, either."

I looked back at the silver of the distant trees. "That makes one of us," I muttered.

"Eh?"

"I…" I took a deep breath. "My name is Yukimura Keiko, but that hasn't always been my name."

It was easier to tell the story of everything, this time, and Jin needed no warning to stay quiet. He listened in silence as I repeated what I'd told the others back in our hotel suite: That I was once someone else. That I had lived another live, in another plane of reality, where the people in this world existed not as people, but as characters in a kind of legend. Thanks to that, I knew things I shouldn't, and not just the language I had spoken in my first life. No, I knew how the threads of fate were meant to tangle, and I had been pulling strings as best as I could for as long as I'd been able, with the goal of preserving the weave of destiny—but now the strands had snapped. Things were happening that had not happened in the legend, and without the threads of fate to carry me, I had begun a dizzying freefall into the depths of the unknown.

I left out some things, of course: Minato, Kagome, the horrible secret Hiruko had whispered in my ear (the one I refused to consider, the one I refused to repeat). Although I had promised to end my string of deceptions, these were not my secrets to tell. Not yet, anyway. I could only hope that when these secrets revealed themselves, my friends would understand.

But fearing they, and Jin, would not, I said, "I'll understand if you don't believe me, or if you want to go sailing off of this roof away from me." I refused to look at him, dreading what I'd see on his face. "I know it's a lot, and that it presses the bounds of incredulity. But I promise that I'm done lying, and—"

"That's how you knew my name long before we met, then." He spoke with an odd, distant detachment I had never heard from him before—a tactician considering facts, perhaps. It reminded me that for all his gentle nature, Jin was a shinobi. I held my breath as he added, "And that's how you knew who stood beneath that cowl on the day I first laid eyes on you." His voice dropped low. "I just wish you'd told me sooner, that you had."

"I know," I said, gritting my teeth. "Lying to you wasn't—"

"Because you've lived as human twice, and that means I have twice the number of questions to ask!"

I couldn't keep from looking at him, then—and I found him beaming. The distance was gone from his voice, Jin's eyes bright with glee as he shifted toward me on the ledge, grabbing up my hands with a merry laugh.

"All of that other world stuff is above my head, high as it so often flies, but—America!" he said with overstated relish. "You were from America! What's it like? Is that how you knew the differences what it's like here and what it's like elsewhere?" He ruffled my hair with obvious affection, laughing again when I grumbled. "Och, I knew ye were a lucky girl, but this takes the prize in all kinds of new and fascinatin' ways, that it most assuredly does!"

"You're not—mad?" I said, choking out the uncertain words.

Jin blinked a few times, momentarily stunned. "Mad?" he repeated. "A kind of madcap secret like that is just beggin' to be kept, and we've only just met, really, even if we've become fast friends since that very day." He ruffled my hair again. "No, Keiko, I'm not cross with you. Not in the least. You had every call to keep your secret close to your chest, I'll say that once and I'll say it again."

It was more than I could have dreamed—and I couldn't keep the tears from welling in my eyes at the sound of his excited voice, the lilt to his eager questions, the light in his delighted eye. He was enough of a gentleman to keep talking and not acknowledge my tears, looping an arm around my shoulder as he waxed poetic on the luck of living twice.

When I calmed down, he held me a little tighter. "This explains that ill wind I sensed tossin' ill-swept breezes round your head not so long ago," he said—but softly, gently, like he didn't want me to startle like an unbroken horse. "And I suppose that business with Urameshi's mother gettin' herself kidnapped had something to do with this, not to mention the way that slimy Toguro brother behaved before his match with Kuwabara." Here his smile faded, expression earnest and tinged with heartache. "That secret you told me you were keepin', back on our date, before. This secret's been weighin' on you fierce since even before you rode the waves to this island's rocky shore."

"Yeah. It has." I swallowed. "And now it's not a secret. Not from you. Not from them."

His eyed widened. "You told them, then. Urameshi and all your ilk?"

"I did."

"And that's a good thing, or so it would seem to a bloke like me."

"Maybe. Maybe not." I took another deep breath. "I have no idea what's going to happen next, and I—I'm not used to not knowing. And that scares the shit out of me."

"So that explains the look I saw, all sallow on your pretty face," Jin said.

"Yeah," I said. "It does."


Earlier that night, after I told them everything, I stood before my friends in silence, waiting for the fallout to descend like an oncoming storm.

Because surely there would be fallout, I thought as I scanned the room. I had just told them I was once someone else in another place and time, who knew them from a story, and now I was here, reborn as Keiko after being killed in a car wreck. I had explained what I knew was supposed to happen and what had changed at this tournament, clarifying my strange actions—and my dedication to making sure the tournament went to plan successfully. It was the unvarnished truth, laid bare before them at long last. How I knew things I shouldn't. How I knew what would happen next. But things had gone wrong, and I could no longer cling to the woven tapestry of fate and destiny. Instead it had unraveled, leaving me standing before my friends in the mess of severed threads leftover.

"I promise to tell you the truth, if you ask it of me now," I said when I finished telling them everything (although everything was a relative term, because I had not mentioned Kagome, Minato, or what Hiruko had said to me as the stadium collapsed). Steeling myself, head held high, I told my friends: "I promise the time for deception is over. I promise not to lie to you anymore. And that's it." My nerves at last failed me, leaving me standing in a miserable puddle of anxious fidgeting. Smiling a smile of pure hysterics, I grinned and spread my hands in a helpless, defeated shrug. "So that's my story, guys and gals. I open the floor to questions, commentary, commendations, condemnations—so. Yeah. Thanks." I fidgeted some more, not daring to meet anyone's eyes. "Um…"

For a long while, no one said a word.

Then Yusuke raised a finger to point at me and blurt, "I knew you weren't that goddamn smart!"

I blinked twice. "Excuse me?"

"I said I knew you weren't that smart!"

"No, I mean, I heard you—just, what does that mean?"

"It means you aren't that smart, is what it means," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. Chin raised high, grin on his defiant face, Yusuke looked at me and said, "I knew it. I knew it!"

My failing composure completely broke. "Look, I've spent fifteen years trying to predict how you'll react to this little revelation," I said through clenched teeth, "and you calling me an idiot comes later, not—not immediately after I finish talking, and—"

"You were correcting our teacher's English grammar in the second grade," Yusuke said with a glare that stunned me into silence. "You're smart, but you didn't just learn English through—through—through listening to tourists on the subway somehow!" He looked like he'd suddenly turned into the conspiracy-brain meme, dawning comprehension illuminating lightbulbs in his eyes. "You were born knowing English! And this explains 'yippee ki yay mother fucker,' and—"

Botan reached over and swatted his knee. "Yusuke! I know this is a shock, but mind your language!"

I ignored her, because there were more important things afoot that Yusuke's potty mouth. "OK, that's the second time you've brought that up in as many months," I said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He scoffed, looking like he didn't believe me—but then he saw the confusion on my face, and he heaved a sigh. "When we were kids, you dragged me to see Die Hard; do you remember that?"

"No," I said, because I didn't. "I don't."

Yusuke soldiered on. "It was brand new. Japanese premiere and everything. We had to scheme to get tickets somehow, and when that didn't work, we had to sneak into the theater." He grinned, though he quashed the look after a moment or two. "Anyway. You called it a heist and you said it really fit the movie, and I had no idea what the fuck you meant, but I went along with it because it sounded fun." His glare returned. "Do you remember that now?"

"I do," I said, because suddenly I did—but only now, after the reminder. It was one of the many movies I had dragged Yusuke to go see, blending into the fabric of my memory until it almost disappeared… but now I remembered the smell of popcorn and the ratty carpet in the theater, which we'd crawled across on our bellies to find an empty seat. The flashlight of an usher, shining on us. Diving under a chair to crawl away, between feet of oblivious moviegoers, just like John McLane through a ventilation duct. Whispering translations of the dialogue to Yusuke in the dark, because he couldn't keep up with the subtitles.

And I remembered 'yippee ki yay, motherfucker,' too.

"You swore up and down I'd love that movie," Yusuke said. "You told me it was going to be amazing. I wondered how you knew so much about it, but I just figured you'd heard about it from someone or read something about it—but when we were in that theater, you whispered something. You whispered it just before Bruce Willis said it, in the same… the same rhythm, or whatever. The same tone. In English." Yusuke's eyes were hard when he said, "You whispered—"

"Yippee ki yay, mother fucker," I whispered.

"Yippee ki yay mother fucker," he repeated. "That's right." He settled back against the couch cushions, arms a defensive cross over his chest. "There was no way you could've seen the movie before. There was no way you'd know right when it was coming. But now I get it. You had seen that movie before. You'd seen it back when you were someone else. This has bothered me for years, but now—now it all makes sense." His face screwed up. "Well. It makes sense in the sense that it makes no sense at all, but whatever. I just—" He paused. Licked his lips. Blurted with hurt spilling from his eyes: "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me any of this? Why wait until now?"

"I didn't tell you when we were kids because I didn't think you'd believe me," I confessed. "I knew that after you died and came back, I'd stand a better chance at being believed. Your death kick-started all the supernatural bullshit, so…"

Now he just looked peeved. "OK, putting aside the fact that you apparently knew I'd die and didn't think to be a pal and warn me—"

My cheeks flushed. "You needed to die for all of this to happen, and also I knew you'd come back, so…"

Atsuko sat up straight. "Screw Yusuke—why didn't you tell me that?" she said, chucking a pillow in my direction.

I dodged; Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks, Mom," he snarked. To me he added, "And why didn't you tell me the truth after I came back, then?"

"I tried," I said. "I tried to tell you that night you brought up Die Hard for the first time. And then I had to leave, and when I came back, you were gone." A shrug, helpless and desperate. "And then I sent that letter."

"The letter that I lost?"

"Yeah."

Koenma stepped forward. "This letter, you mean?"

He had been standing in the corner of the room during my speech, but now he sauntered into the middle of the living room, standing only a few feet before me with an envelope held between two fingers. I reached for it on reflex, recognizing the handwriting and the color of the ink I'd used on the address, but Koenma held it up and out of my reach.

Yusuke was on his feet beside me in an instant. "Hey, pacifier breath! That's not yours!" he said.

My hands fisted at my sides. "Where did you get that?" I asked, voice low and thread.

"Yeah, what she said!" said Yusuke. "I thought I lost that, so why—?"

"Genkai told me where she'd kept it when she reached Spirit World," he said.

Yusuke did a bit of a double-take. "Wait. Genkai took it?" Grimacing, he grumbled, "No wonder I couldn't find it. Old bat probably kept it under her wig or something."

"I figured she'd destroyed it." I said.

Another double-take, bigger than the first. "Wait, you knew she had it?" Yusuke said.

"She told me a few days ago." It felt odd to tell the truth—the words came with effort, my speech slow, unused to transparency after so much time in the dark. "She said that distracting you before your matches with this was a bad idea. I agreed—grudgingly—but I saw her point. She didn't want you to be distracted while you were training before the tournament, either."

Yusuke was less forgiving. "That old hag," he said, looking skyward as if to lob curses at her ghost. But soon his ire quieted, a heavy weight settling into the depths of his eyes. "I mean, I get it, but—wait, Genkai knew about you?" His third double-take of the night, to me and then to the ceiling and back again. "About you being all reincarnated and whatnot?"

I tried to answer him, but Koenma cut me off. "We'll talk about that later, Yusuke." He tapped the latter with the back of his other hand, a smart rap of sound in the otherwise quiet room. "Genkai said to open this letter when, and I quote, 'Keiko decides to come clean.' I was tempted to open it as soon as I got my hands on it, but something told me she'd come back from the dead and put me in the dirt if I disobeyed, so I refrained."

I held out my hand. "Give it to me. Please," I said. "Just—"

"No." He tucked it out of sight in the folds of his blue and red eyes, bright brown eyes hard as malachite. "I want to examine this. To see if there are any discrepancies between what you just told us and what it contains."

"Oh. Yeah." A bitter smile twisted my lips. "Good luck with that."

"And what is that supposed to mean, pray tell?" Koenma said, brow arching high.

"Just that it's layered with code and obfuscation," I said with lazy indifference (that I didn't feel inside, but whatever; I just needed that letter in my hand, now). "You'll need me to decode it. Me or Genkai, that is, but right now, I'm all you've got."

A smooth voice cut in, "I imagine I might suffice, as well."

It was Kurama, of course, who'd spoken, and who elegantly rose from his chair to approach Koenma. I stared at him, mouth agape, as he offered Koenma a small, mild smile.

"I dare say I should be able to make sense of it." Green eyes slid my way, smile still in place. "Do you agree?"

My mouth shut with a clatter of teeth. "Yes," I said—because Kurama knew enough about my past that he'd be able to wade through the layers of concealment I'd written into that confessional, swimming through the nonsense to find the truth buried within. Still, I wanted to be in control of this, and handing the letter off to him felt wrong. "But I really think I should be the one to—"

"Kei," he said, voice firm.

I stopped talking. His eyes flickered sideways, to the rest of the room—the rest of the room where the others had been watching in silence, following the back-and-forth without a single spoken word. I'd almost forgotten about the crowd of people playing spectator to my confession, but now I couldn't tear my eyes off of them. Hiei sat blank-faced on a windowsill, not looking particularly concerned with the proceedings. By contrast, Yukina said with her hands clasped firmly on her lap, staring at the floor through narrow, troubled eyes. Atsuko nursed a flask of booze as she lounged on the couch, eyes hard as she looked me over—but her gaze wasn't nearly as upsetting as Botan's. Botan sat with her fingers over her mouth, expression brittle and distant, attention traveling somewhere far outside the room's four walls. Like she couldn't believe what she was hearing, teetering on the edge of anger or a breakdown, and I was helpless to discern which. Next to her, Shizuru lazily chain-smoked, face as inscrutable as a sphynx's… but her brother was a different story. He stared openly at me, not bothering to hide the confusion, the hurt, the sheer agitation bubbling in his eyes like a cauldron slow to brew.

When I met his eyes, he was the first to look away.

"It would be best to give them space," Kurama murmured. "To process."

"I get it," I said, tearing my eyes from them. "But—"

I found him looking at me like an oak a millennia old, unflinching and immovable. "Let me be your advocate for just a little while," he said, allowing himself to smile the slightest bit. "Please."

I thought about it.

Then, grudgingly: "Fine."

Koenma seized the moment, as he's wont. "Then it's settled," he said, drawing himself up. "Yukimura Keiko—or whatever your name is—please leave. We have much to discuss. Starting with whether we believe any of what you've said in the first place."

For a minute, I just stood there.

Then I walked out, to the stairwell, where I sat to have a proper stress-cry over being kicked out of my own damn trial—but it didn't make me feel any better than before.


Jin listened in silence. He held my hand, and even when I stopped talking, he didn't let go.

"Ah, sweet girl," he said when I was finished—but that was all.

"I'm afraid of what will happen when they ask me to come back and talk about it," I said, grateful for the warmth of his hand. Despite the comfort he brought, I couldn't keep from adding, "If they ask me to come back, that is."

Jin frowned. "They're your friends, or do I have it twisted?" he said. "No, no. They'll want you back. Trust me, Keiko." Nudging me with an elbow, Jin grinned and said, "They'll want you back, with bells on."

"Wish I could. Trust you, I mean," I muttered. "This is like waiting to hear my verdict at a trial, and I'm not even allowed to be there to defend myself. I'm just—tense." A shrug. "Who wouldn't be, though?"

Jin didn't answer. He just popped up, leaping with nimble precision from sitting on the ledge to standing on it—and his grip on my hand never slackened. He pulled me up with him and swept me into his arms, and without a word we went streaking into the silver and black night, wind cool and insistent on my cheeks.

"What are you doing?" I had the presence of mind to shriek.

"You'll see!" was all Jin said, and away we went.

He flew me to the top of Hanging Neck Rock, so high above the rest of the island, an impossibly distant perch overlooking the sea of silver-flecked trees dotting the hills and valleys below. I stumbled when we landed, but he caught me and held me to his chest for a moment, letting me go only so he could spread his arms as if to embrace the world.

"Now, wee lamb—yell," he said, voice a laugh on the wind.

"Huh?"

"Yell. Scream!" His grin widened, eyes like stars set in warm skin. "Shriek like a banshee at the stars and tell the universe you're not gonna take any of this lyin' down, that you aren't."

"Why?" I said. "Why are you—?"

He was beside me in an instant, hands on my waist, spinning me in a tight circle before tapping a finger gently against my nose. "You are a tightly wound skein of stress and fear strapped together by the thinnest threads of self-control, a kettle boiling under a lid that doesn't want to budge—but that pressure will blow, one way or another, and it best blow on your own terms and not when you least expect it to rear its ugly head, eh?" he said in that lilting rush of his. He spun away, laughing again, a light shining in so much dark. "So yell, Yukimura Keiko! Let out what's in that beating human heart of yours until the sky trembles at your fury! Unless you're not feelin' any fury, in which case, pick the emotion you feel thundering in your bones and let it roar like the wind, sweet girl!"

And he danced away on weightless feet, arcing off into the sky with a roar of air. His laugh following him into the dark, leaving me alone with my thoughts upon the top of Hanging Neck Rock. The dark of his form passed over the stars, negative space the only thing left as he sailed above me, laughing and joyful. I wished I could follow. Alas, I could not, so I just bent and snatched a loose stone off the top of the rock formation I stood upon. It was a small pebble, sharp at one corner, rounded at the other, pressing deep into my palm when I clenched it in my fist.

So Jin thought I should yell, huh?

But did I even know what to say?

"Fuck you, Hiruko."

The words came thin and soft, cotton on a weak tongue. I felt silly saying them. I gripped the rock in my hand tighter still.

"No. Forget you, Hiruko," I muttered. "This isn't about you anymore. You may have forced my hand, but that's it. What comes next is up to me."

Somewhere out there, Jin's laugh cut the gloom. It filled my head to bursting, bolstering my confidence. Jin had accepted the truth about me without an issue. Whatever reactions my other friends had, I'd take them in stride just as I'd taken my confession with Jin. I wouldn't allow Hiruko to take that away from me. He wouldn't worm his way into my relationships any more than he already had.

I gripped the stone even tighter.

"This is my night," I said—but not to Hiruko. Not to anyone, really. I said it to me, and no one else, because these were the words I needed most to hear. "This is my fight. This is my fight to keep my friends beside me, and it's about me—me, and nobody else." I raised the rock high. "So you hear that, universe? You hear that, fate, destiny, whatever the fuck you are? This is my life! These are my choices! I own them, and they are mine, and I don't care if my name is Yukimura Keiko or something else entirely—because it belongs to me!" I pulled back my arm. "Now butt the hell out!"

I threw the rock when I was done, shrieking all the while. Then I threw another. I threw a third with a wordless cry of desperation, feet scrabbling across the uneven top of Hanging Neck Rock—and I came too close to the edge. With a cry I stumbled backward, falling on the sloped stone, landing hard on my back, only to slide precariously toward the drop. But at the last moment I caught myself, and when I sat up, salty tears ran into my mouth. Pressing my face into my hands, I yelled once more into the night, a bellow of rage and fear and hurt that felt like it had been pulled from my heart by a force outside myself.

And then Jin was there, holding me, murmuring comforts against my hair as strong hands traced soothing circles against my back. I clung to him and cried, fingers winding deep and tight into the fabric of his loose white shirt. Like if I let go, I'd plummet into the night, a stone dropped into the depths of the sea.

"It's all right," Jin was saying. "Just let it all out and have a good cry, sweet girl. You'll feel better for it."

And he was right. Unlike the tears I'd shed in the stairwell, these actually made me feel better. I felt more centered when my sobbing ceased. Calmer, somehow. Like the sea after a storm, washed clean and smelling of rain. As Jin gathered me back up into his arms to take me back to the hotel, wishing me good luck as I headed back inside, I knew that I could return to face my friends with my head held high.

I wasn't running from this anymore.

It was time to set things right.


Saotome Jorge, of all people, came to get me—an unexpected occurrence since he hadn't been part of our group back during my original confession. Where Koenma had stashed him during that interlude, I haven't a clue. I sat on a bench by the elevators down the hall from the boys' hotel suite, and when he came upon me there, he started to introduce himself. Only belatedly did he remember that we'd met before. Still, he carried on. It was only polite, after all.

"I'm Jorge. And you're… Keiko. I suppose?" he said, rubbing awkward at the back of his meaty blue neck. "Or do you want to be called something else now? Or—"

"Keiko is fine," I said, rising to my feet. "It's what I've used for 15 years, anyway."

"Right. That's a good point." He nodded, fringe of yellow hair flapping over his shoulders. The single horn on his forehead and the pair of tusks jutting from his mouth gleamed sharply in the overhead lights, but despite his height and supernatural appearance, Koenma's assistant didn't intimidate me. Perhaps it was the hangdog look on his face as he gestured down the hall, or his generally polite demeanor. "Well, if you'll come with me…"

He escorted me to the suite with surprisingly light footfalls, ones I self-consciously mimicked as we headed down the silent corridor. When we neared the suite, I belatedly wished I had made more noise while walking, because Jorge had propped the door open when he'd left, and voices drifted through it as if projected by a loudspeaker.

"… answer me this," Atsuko was saying as we approached the suite. "Is there any chance she's just crazy? Like, she's making this up?"

"No," said Kurama. "As stated, I have acquired certain assurances that she isn't lying when she talks about her past. At the very least, she believes that she's telling the truth."

I stopped short, a fleeting sense of numb dread building in my chest. What an odd thing for Kurama to say—like he didn't actually believe any of what I said was real. Like he had entertained the notion that this was all in my head for some time now. When I stopped walking, so did Jorge; he looked between me and the door in turns, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot.

"Hiei can vouch for that as well, given he's seen her memories for himself," Kurama continued.

Someone huffed—Kuwabara, most likely, given he then grumbled: "Still can't get over that you two have known about this for so long…"

He no doubt meant Hiei and Kurama—and he did not sound happy about it. The bite in his words didn't bode well. I started to hold my breath, wondering what I'd overhear next. Any preparation I could get before going in there would help me say just the right thing to smooth over—

"Quiet, fool." This was Hiei, voice cutting and sharp. "She's here."

No advantages for me, then. Taking a deep breath, I heaved open the door and walked inside, doing my best to look confident… quite a feat, given the oppressive silence and cloying stares that filled the room to bursting. No one spoke as Jorge walked me over to a chair beside the windows. The hot seat, I thought. Suppressing a panicked laugh, I gave Jorge a nod of thanks and settled into my chair, not daring to meet anyone else's eyes just yet. Who would start talking first, I wondered? And what, worse yet, would they say?

Like the time before, Yusuke began the inquisition.

"So, before we get into it… I gotta know one thing." He leaned forward, elbows pillowed on his knees, brown eyes intense and impossible not to meet. Puu lounged on his lap, eyes rapt on my face, too. "Where's the other Keiko?" His jaw twitched. "The… the real one, I guess."

I swallowed. I said, "I don't know." At the lift in his brow, I added, "I don't even know if she ever really existed. Not the way all of you do." Those words felt horrific in my mouth; I moved on before I could place a finger on why. "I don't know if I stole her place, or if it was created in this world for me to fill. But near as I can tell, it's only ever been me here, in this body and in this world." I swallowed again, mouth too wet all of a sudden. "I'm sorry I don't know more."

Yusuke sat back in his seat.

Yusuke crossed his arms.

Yusuke said, "OK."

I waited for him to continue. He did not. It was my turn to lean forward, searching his face for clues.

"Just… just OK?" I said, not believing it. "What do you…?"

"Yeah. Just OK." He shrugged, rolling his eyes. "I mean, that's good enough for me. Can't speak for the rest of us, but…"

"I don't understand."

He loosed the smallest of growls, sitting up again to grouse, "Stop overthinking. I can see you overthinking, and it's stupid!" When I didn't move, he heaved a sigh and flopped back against the cushions, Puu grumbled at being jostled. "Look, Keiko—as far as I can tell, you're the only Keiko I've ever known." This fact he presented with an air of grudging protest, and the slightest of color entered his cheeks. "You can't miss somebody you've never met, so—so OK." He waved vaguely at me, the room, the world. "You being Keiko, the only Keiko, is good enough for me."

I sat there in silence, hardly daring to process the enormity of what he'd just said—but then others nodded, murmuring quiet agreement. The slow chorus might have been resenting on some people's part, but no one contradicted Yusuke's words… and that mean that on the subject of stealing Keiko's place in this world, all was well.

It was more than I'd dared hope for.

It was more than I dared believe could happen to me.

Slowly, I lowered my face into my hands.

"Oh god, are you crying?" Yusuke immediately griped. Couch springs creaked as he stood, Puu voicing a squawk of protest, and then a set of hard knuckles dug into my scalp. "Don't go gettin' mushy on me now, dammit. We aren't done!"

"Sorry." I sat up and wiped at my eyes, relieved to find them still dry. "I'm just—relieved. That you believe me."

Here he looked guilty, though I wasn't sure precisely why. "Well. It's not just that," he said, looking askance.

"Koenma looked into your background long before now," Botan said. She didn't look nearly as brittle as she had when I left, a genuine smile on her face and the usual chipper note in her bright voice. "As you're aware, Spirit World has been suspicious of your actions for some time. Koenma filled us all in about that."

"And there isn't anything to indicate you displaced another soul," Kurama smoothly interjected. "Whatever means brought you here, it did not cause harm to another person."

Koenma harrumphed. "As far as I can tell, anyway."

A warmth spread through my chest. "That's a relief," I said, unable to keep from sagging in my chair. "Thank my lucky stars."

"And besides." Botan's smile grew sweeter still. "It's clear to me, even if others don't agree, that you've been working quite hard on your own to make things go to plan. To ensure our future stays on course, I mean. If that daring rescue you put together when Atsuko was kidnapped is any indication, you've been fighting for us whenever you can!" She tittered, looking at me with regret and sympathy all rolled into one. "But oh, Keiko—we only wish you had told us sooner, dear. We could have figured all of this out together, you see."

The words felt wholly inadequate, but still I said, "It never seemed like the right time."

She only nodded, taking my excuse in stride—another thing I hadn't dared hoped for. "I can't imagine how difficult it must've been to decide when and if you'd come clean," she said. "Certainly there must have been many factors to consider. But enough about that!" She bolted to her feet, but only so she could trot over and kneel beside me, eyes shining and full of obvious curiosity. "I have questions, Keiko, dear, and they need answering! I want to hear all about your past life, because it sounds fascinating indeed."

I studied her for a moment. "So you believe I was telling the truth?"

"Of course I do!" she said.

"Because from what I overheard" (I shot a fleeting, accusatory glance at Kurama) "some of you have doubts."

"Well, duh!" said Yusuke, throwing up his hands. "What you're saying sounds impossible! Even if Kurama did make a good point earlier."

"I pointed out to them that I, too, once existed in another physical body," Kurama clarified when I just stared, nonplussed. "Your situation is only a slightly more complex version of my own, after all."

"Kurama can be very convincing, as you know," Botan said with a resolute nod.

"It helped that he knew all about you," Yusuke said. "Heck, even Hiei knew some stuff." He sank deeper into the couch with a grimace, and a pout for good measure. "What made you clue them in but not me, huh?"

No hesitation; I announced: "Hiei threatened to kill my ass before he used his Jagan like a battering ram to see inside my head, and I only told Kurama because he threatened to feed me to a giant Venus flytrap."

Botan gasped, darting across the room to swat Kurama's arm. "Kurama! How could you?" she said, aghast. "And same goes for you, Hiei!"

While Kurama had the decency to look at least a little ashamed of himself, Hiei just sneered at Botan's reprimand and turned to face the windows, where he'd been ever since I waked through the door. Yukina giggled at the exchange, but Yusuke ignored all of them, staring at me with lip thrust out, eyes narrow and intense.

"Well… I admit that that sounds in-character for him. For both of them, even," he eventually relented (at which Kurama gave a little cough of what I hoped was embarrassment). "But still! Can't believe I'm so low on the pecking order…"

Kurama swooped into provide a rescue, and for that, I was willing to forgive him (a little, anyway). "Truth be told, Yusuke, Keiko has wanted to tell all of you the truth for quite some time," he said, a smooth note of placation in his words. "The time, alas, never seemed right. It's entirely circumstantial that I was the first to know of her secrets."

"Don't look smug," I shot back (even though he didn't look particularly smug at all). "You weren't the first."

"I wasn't?"

"No." I couldn't keep a bitter smile at bay. "That was Genkai."

That certainly got Yusuke's attention. "Wait, what?" he said, easing forward once again. "You met Genkai first?"

I nodded. "I went to see her years ago. It doesn't matter why." Yusuke looked dissatisfied by that, but I kept talking before he could pry; there were some details about my life as Keiko I hadn't had a chance to discuss yet, and my quest to gain powers was one of them. "It was inevitable that I had to tell her the truth back then. She was too insightful to believe I was just an ordinary person no matter how well I acted the part of one. That means she was the first to know."

"But not the first of us you met," said Shizuru.

She had been quiet until then, content to sit in silence and watch events unfold with the cool detachment she was so famous for. My heart leapt into my mouth when she spoke, but she didn't lash out with an accusation or punch a wall like she had in my simulation of the Big Reveal™. She just flicked ash from her cigarette into the tray on her knee, gaze knowing and intense.

Somehow, I knew what she was about to say before she even said it—but I was too slow to stop her, and too stunned to even try.

"That would be my brother and me," she said, pointing her cigarette my way. "Right, Keiko?"

Kuwabara's head swung in my direction. He hadn't spoken much, either, and I hadn't looked at him at all since I'd returned to have this chat. I hadn't wanted to see that look of hurt in his eyes, but now I found my eyes inexorably drawn to him. However, no hurt lay in his gaze this time; his eyes only held confusion as he asked, "Wait. What's she talking about, Keiko?"

Shizuru put a hand to her forehead. "My baby brother. The idiot. Now's not the time for playing dumb."

He looked back at his sister, hands thrown up in frustration. "What in the Sam Hill are you talking about, sis?"

Frustration to mirror his crept into her dark gaze. "Don't pretend you don't know," she said, words as curt as her eyes. But when Kuwabara just looked at her like she'd sprouted a tentacle from her nose, she said, "Oh, come on, Kazuma. She ran into us a long, long time ago and made damn sure to say 'hi.' Even gave you a gift. Remember?" But still he did not react; her face screwed up in consternation, honest-to-god confusion writ across her irises. "Have you really not figured this out yet? I thought that's why you were always following her around with puppy dog eyes. No?"

I hoped, in a vague way, that he wouldn't catch on. It wasn't like she'd said anything too specific, and if I said something to throw him off the scent, surely I would be able to keep him from stumbling upon the unfortunate truth, and—

But I had only just promised not to lie to them anymore, hadn't I? How quickly my brain had leapt to deception as the answer to my problems. No, I couldn't lie to distract him. So could I change the subject? Or would—

Kuwabara and his sister shared a long, silent look.

Then Kuwabara's eyes widened, and he turned to me in horror.

"You—you're—" He took a deep breath, chest swelling as his hand rose to point directly at my face. "Volcano G—"

Panic gripped my brain in tiny lizard hands, claws digging in sharp. I babbled, "It wasn't some big scheme, I promise, I just saw you on the playground and—"

"You're Volcano Girl?"

"—and you looked sad so I helped out and I figured you wouldn't remember me because we were both so young, and then Shizuru saw me and she—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" he cut in, voice rising an octave and more than a few decibels. "Keiko, why didn't—!?"

"What in the world is a Volcano Girl?" Yusuke grumbled.

Kuwabara ignored him. His knees wobbled when he rose to his feet, eyes locked on my burning face, shock giving way to anger moment by horrible moment. "Why didn't you—why didn't you say—I looked for her!" The words burst free as a yell, a shout, a bellow of confusion and disgust and pure, unmitigated hurt. Rising to his full height, Kuwabara stared me down and said, "I looked! I searched! I wanted to thank her. I wanted to see her—to see you." His breathing hitched, a horrible noise of raw emotion. "And you were here the whole entire…" Hurt changed to rage like a snapping flame. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"What?" I said, stunned. "N-no. Of course not!"

"Have you been laughing at me? Laughing because I didn't figure it out?" He wheeled on his sister, rage burning for her, too. "And Shizuru, you knew this whole time, but you didn't say anything?"

"I thought you knew!" she said.

"Like hell I did!" he bellowed. "If I'd known, I never would've—"

Kuwabara stopped talking. His head turned in my direction, a sharp jerk like a neck snapping under cruel hands. Eyes swept over my face, and while I don't know what they found there, it only seemed to upset him more. Livid anger changed to deathly calm, a serenity I could not mistake for forgiveness or for ease. It was the dark, brooding kind of calm I had seen a million times on Hiei, but never on Kuwabara. Not on the happy, friendly, best-friends-forever Kuwabara Kazuma.

Seeing that look on his face was bad enough.

Knowing I had put it there was the most devastating thing of all.

Kuwabara held that pose for a few seconds. It felt like a lifetime. But soon his head jerked again, facing the door, which he headed for with a stiff swing of leg and arm. "You know what?" he said, not bothering to look at me. "I'm outta here."

I was on my feet and after him in seconds. "Kuwabara, wait!"

He was too fast, though. He had made it out of the room and halfway down the hall by the time I caught up and latched onto his wrist, which he wrenched from my grasp with a growl of frustration. It was a dangerous sound (not a sound Kuwabara should ever make), but I didn't let it distract me. I spread my feet and stared him down as the suite door slammed shut somewhere over my shoulder, waiting for him to at last turn to face me. When he did, he didn't meet my eyes, but this was a little thing. At least now he wasn't walking away.

"Just wait a second, would you?" I said. "I can explain—"

His eye flickered from the carpet to my face. "Were you only friends with me because you had to be?"

I froze. "What?" I said, because it was the only thing I could say. "What do you—"

"You—!" He stopped to draw a deep, shaking breath, teeth gritted behind grimacing lips. "Look, I held my tongue in there, but I'm—I'm pissed, OK? I was pissed even before—ugh, Volcano Girl!?" His voice climbed again when he invoked the name of his one-time friend, whom he had lost and longed for for so long. "Volcano Girl, Keiko? Really?"

"What do you want me to say?" I said, tongue a leaden block inside my mouth.

"I want you to tell me the truth!" Kuwabara countered.

"I have been!" I said. "For the first time in forever, I have—"

But he didn't want to hear it. "Was any of it real?" he demanded. "Any of it?"

"Of course it was!" I said, hands tossed high in frustration. "We're friends. Best friends. You know that!"

"So staying up with me on the phone when I can't sleep?" he said. "Telling me stories to pass the time? Defending me from those jerks when I couldn't fight for a week? You did all of that because you wanted to, and not because you had to?"

"Of course! I care about you!"

He bared his teeth. "Not enough to tell me the truth, like you did with Kurama and Hiei and—and even Genkai, of all people! Why them and not me?"

"Because I didn't have a choice with them."

"But you had a choice with me. And you chose not to tell me!" Kuwabara's feet moved beneath him as he spoke, a tiger pacing its cage. "And that's what pisses me off, because I chose to tell you everything. Before I made friends with people who'd understand, I chose to tell you I could see ghosts. That I was psychic. Do you know how much courage that took? And how happy I was when you didn't freak out? When you didn't reject me? I trusted you from the moment we met, but joke's on me!" Acidic humor colored every word, sarcasm dripping like poison. "Joke's on me! We weren't even friends to begin with! You just needed to keep me close to make sure that legend thing went according to plan. I trusted you, but you didn't trust me enough to do the same in return and just be honest with me!" He started to turn, but at the last second he wheeled to face me, expression livid, hurt like a raw nerve behind his raging eyes. "God—Volcano Girl! Why the hell didn't I see it?"

"There are reasons I—"

"Bullshit, there were reasons!" he countered, still pacing, eyes still on fire—an inferno fueled by pain, anger a mask for the bruise hiding just out of sight beneath, but I could see it, still. I could see it in every line of his agonized face as Kuwabara said, "Those reasons didn't apply to Kurama. Or Hiei. Or Genkai. They only applied to me." He stopped moving, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, so he could look me straight in the eye. "You know, I found out earlier that Genkai died," he said, searching my face. "The elder Toguro told me during our fight. Apparently I was the only one on the team who didn't know. Yusuke and Hiei and Kurama kept that from me on purpose."

"Oh." In all the chaos, I had forgotten that that secret would wound Kuwabara's relationship with his teammates, and that he must have still been smarting over that big reveal as he dealt with my confession. I couldn't keep from reaching for him, saying, "Kuwabara. I'm so sor—"

But his eyes turned hard, and he pulled away. "You knew she died, too," he said; it was not a question. "Thought so. Don't bother denying it. It's written all over your face."

Because it was all I could say, I said, "I'm sor—"

"Save it," he spat. "I was pissed at them for lying to me, but now I can see who the real liar is." A twisted smile cut the hurt in his eyes to ribbons. "You know what's funny? You always say you're bad at lying, but you sure had me fooled. Looks like you're better than you realize. Or maybe you just got used to it, huh?"

Sensitive and intuitive as he was, he had to know that he was striking a nerve, sending precision strikes deep into my heart—and for Kuwabara, of all people, to do such thing, was a hurt all its very own. "Why are you being like this?" I said, unable to keep the tears from pricking. "Why are you so angry? Everyone else came to terms with it, but you—"

Shutters closed behind his eyes. "It's different for me."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"How is it any different for you than it is for Yusuke?" I said. "I left him out, too. And what about Botan? Your sister? Yukina? Atsuko? Koenma? What about—"

The shutters behind his eyes flew open.

"Because none of them were fucking in love with you like I was, Keiko!" Kuwabara roared.

His voice reverberated through the hallway like a bell beaten by a heavy hammer, ringing and loud and clear. It struck the words from my mouth and the thoughts from my head, leaving heavy, empty silence in their wake. For a time we only stood there, staring at one another as Kuwabara's labored breaths evened out, thinning into normalcy I wasn't sure was better than the outburst that had come before.

Because the anger in Kuwabara's eyes was gone, at last.

All that remained was pain.

"That thing Hiruko said," said Kuwabara, after a time. "About one of us being hopelessly in…?" He couldn't finish. A bitter smile surfaced against the backdrop of murmured words. "Now I get why he said 'hopeless.'"

I couldn't move. I couldn't think. Kuwabara looked away. His words, when he spoke, were unbearably soft. And that only made them hurt worse.

"When you first told us the truth about who you are, I was willing to let it go," he said. "And when it occurred to me that you must've been lying about Genkai being dead, I was willing to let that go, too. And when I found out that you told other people, but not me, even after everything we've been through, I was even willing to let that go. But Volcano Girl—" He drew in a deep breath. "On top of everything else, you lied to me about her. You knew what she meant to me, and you still lied. And that's a bridge too far."

My tongue awoke at last. "I'm sorr—"

"No," he said, sharp as a shard of shattered glass. But then he looked at me, and what he saw on my face seemed to calm him. In softer tones, he murmured, "No. Don't look at me like that. Because you look like her, like Keiko, and when it comes to that face—"

He had to stop. Compose himself. I hoped it was because he had had a change of heart.

It wasn't.

It was so he could deliver the final blow.

"No matter what you look like, Keiko, tonight you've made one thing clear," said Kuwabara. "You may have told us all the truth… but I don't know who you are anymore."

I watched him walk away in silence. It seemed to take a hundred years, although it only could've lasted a few seconds. When he turned a corner, vanishing down the hall and out of sight, my concrete feet shuffled forward—but a door behind me creaked open, and a hand closed around my elbow. It was Shizuru, presence heralded by a cloud of smoke and the scent of faint perfume.

"Don't," Shizuru said, staring off after her brother. "When he's like this, it's best to leave him be."

I swallowed. "But I…"

Her face spasmed, souring and smoothing in a matter of seconds. "I know, kid. I know." She pushed me, delicately, toward the suite. "Just go back inside. You're not done yet. I'll handle my brother."

"OK." I could do nothing more than obey, wooden as a marionette. "Thanks."

But Shizuru wasn't finished. Just as my hand touched the doorknob, her voice cut through the quite. "Hey, kid?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"You said you were 26 when you died?"

"Yeah." I swallowed the knot in my throat, but I barely felt it. "Yeah, I was."

Her eyes closed. "I get it, now."

"Get what?"

"I thought you were trying to break his heart for a while there. But now…" She took a drag. Let it out, slowly. "Bet he looks like a pretty big kid in your eyes, huh?"

I grimaced. "Not that I feel much older than him right now."

But Shizuru only shrugged. "We never really grow up. But something tells me we've all done a little growing today." She nodded at the door. "Go back inside. I'll take care of this."

I hesitated. "You're sure?"

"Yeah." A small smile. Secretive. Maybe even scheming. "You're his best friend, aren't you?"

I didn't reply.

I turned the knob and went back into the suite.

She had asked if I was his best friend.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure he'd want that anymore.


"Awkward" doesn't even begin to cover the looks on people's faces when the suite door shut behind me. No one so much as glanced in my direction as I walked inside, leaning my back against the door so I could calm the racing of my heart. How much of that had they overheard? It hardly mattered. What was said was said, and there was no putting a lid back on the box (or the top back on the erupted volcano) that was the Volcano Girl fiasco. All I could do was breathe deeply, steel myself, and shove the events of the past five minutes into a box, which I buried deep inside my head, right alongside the box of Hiruko's whispered secret. Now I had two things to avoid thinking about. At least for the next few hours, anyway.

No one looked at me as I retook my seat, their eyes sliding pointedly elsewhere even when I walked right into their field of view. It's impossible not to notice when someone doesn't look at you on purpose. The only one who didn't shy away from eye contact was Koenma, who soon cleared his throat and re-crossed his legs. He had taken up sitting in Kuwabara's abandoned armchair, hands gripping the armrests, fingers drumming against the fabric.

"While your interpersonal relationships are fascinating indeed, Keiko," he said, imperious and snobby as always, "it's time we changed the subject to more important matters. You can hash out petty differences on your own time. For now, though…"

"I know what you're about to say," I said. "And the answer is that I don't know."

Skepticism carved lines into his youthful face; he gave the blue pacifier in his mouth a careful suck, somehow managing to grimace around its heft. "You don't know who Hiruko is?" he said, voicing the exact question I had expected him to ask. "What he wants? What he'll do next?"

"I thought my conversation with him in the stadium was pretty clear on that subject," I said. "He's the architect of this entire insane scenario, but he's not exactly the type to spell out his motivations in a concise PowerPoint presentation."

Yukina's head tipped to the side, wintergreen hair falling in a silken lock over her shoulder. "What's PowerPoint?" she asked.

"Nothing." Now was not the time to go explaining my world's technological advances. "All I know is that he engineered my presence in this world. I suspect he engineered this world's existence in the first place."

But Koenma scoffed. "That, I doubt."

"Oh?"

"The mysteries of the creation of the known universe are beyond mortal comprehension," he said, also snobbishly, "but I assure you that a Spirit named Hiruko was not responsible for the creation of the universe."

Resolving to dig into who did create the universe at a later date (and noting that I wasn't sure I believed him when he said this), I asked, "So Hiruko is a Spirit being, then?"

"Undoubtedly. One Spirit knows another, even if they've never met before."

"And you're sure you don't know anyone by the name Hiruko?" I said. "Or maybe Ebisu?"

His face screwed up the smallest bit. "The names mean something to me. Little, but something."

"They should," I said, "since he claims he's your uncle."

That finally got everyone to look at me. Jorge actually gasped, while Botan looked more confused than I had ever seen her.

"Koenma, sir!" said Jorge. "I didn't know you had an uncle!"

"To my knowledge, I don't have one," Koenma retorted. "Not by that name, anyway."

"But you do recognize the name Ebisu?" said Botan.

"In passing, yes." His chin lowered, pacifier bobbing a few times. "Loathe though I am to admit it, I happen to be a relatively young deity—"

("No shit, diaper breath," said Yusuke.)

"—and not all Spirits are known to me."

"How is that possible?" I asked. "I don't know much about how Spirit World really works, but I guess I thought all Spirits were a kind of family, or something? Or that you'd at least know the names of them and stuff." A beat. "How many Spirits even are there, anyway?"

"Many." Koenma shook his head. "And do you know the name of every human? I didn't think so." He waved ambiguously out the window. "But while you don't know the name of every human due to the sheer number of human beings in the world, I do not know every Spirit largely thanks to the construction of Spirit World itself."

Botan's face lit up with understanding. "Ah, yes. Spirit World is a tremendously broad realm, stretching many times the expanse of the earth."

"For every mile on Earth, Spirit World stretches for a thousand," Jorge added. "Entire populations of Spirits go millennia without interacting even once. Koenma-sir here hasn't been around nearly long enough to meet all the Spirits who reside in Spirit World."

"Correct," said Koenma. "Even the deities among Spirits don't see one another for prolonged periods, and when they need to communicate, they tend to go through couriers or other methods that don't involve face-to-face meetings. Travel simply isn't worth the time."

"So it's entirely possible this Spirit name Hiruko, or Ebisu, is out there somewhere, but you just haven't met him yet," said Jorge.

"Correct again," said Koenma. "Which means you, Jorge, will need to do quite the volume of research once we return home. We must dig up any and all references to this Hiruko—Ebisu, whatever his name is—that we can."

Jorge looked markedly crestfallen at that. I pitied him, but I didn't let that stop me from raising my hand like a kid in school. "Question!" I said, waiting for Koenma to give me a nod before continuing. "You said other deities. What's that mean?"

"Just what it sounds like," he said. "Other deities. Other beings of the spirit who preside over the gateways between life and death, who—"

"Like other gods," I interjected. "From other religions?"

He rolled his eyes. "What else would I be talking about?"

"So… for instance, Zeus?" I said, fascination rising. "Shiva? Odin?"

"Potentially," said Koenma, looking somewhat fatigued. "Although many of the older deities are retired. Which in some cases means taking an extended nap, or enjoying an infinite fishing trip in some remote corner of Spirit World." He rubbed his temples with a sigh. "Oh, how I envy them…"

"Well. This is certainly fascinating." On the edge of my seat, I asked, "So do humans who die all go to their respective religious locations in Spirit World, or—?"

"We're not here to explain the intricacies of the afterlife. We're here to talk about you, and about what this mysterious Hiruko wants from you," Koenma snapped. "So tell me, Keiko, or whatever your name is. What will he do next?"

Bummed, I settled back into my seat, shaking my head all the while. "I told you: I don't know."

He was not convinced. "You've lied before. You could be doing it again."

"I'm not, though!"

"Yeah, Koenma," said Yusuke. "Back off."

"The only thing Kei stands to gain from more deceit is distrust from us," Kurama agreed. "She would not lie about this. Isn't that right, Kei?"

"Yeah, what he said!" said Atsuko.

Clearly outnumbered, Koenma changed tactics. "Then at the very least tell us what will happen next, so that we can prepare for however this Hiruko might choose to interfere," he said. "Tell us what happens next in this legend of yours."

I blinked at him a bit. "Um…"

His expression soured. "Well, don't get shy on me now," Koenma said. "Tell us the future!"

I looked away, at the ceiling. "Uh…"

"You said you were done with deceit," he said. "Are you taking back that promise?"

"I'm not," I snapped. "I'm just… not sure if I should tell you what I know." A pause. "I literally do not know what to do here." I looked around the room in shock, lips twitching at the corners. "I don't what to do. I don't know what to do!"

Koenma was less than amused, however. "This isn't funny," he growled. "Stop stalling and tell us!"

I shot him a Look. "I'm not smiling because it's funny. I'm smiling because this is just—just a deterministic nightmare, is what it is!"

"What do you—?"

"Let's say I told Yusuke he was destined to win some fight he's supposed to fight tomorrow." I turned to the fighter in question. "Yusuke, if I told you that fate had decreed that you'd win, how would you go into that fight? How would you approach the battle, tactically speaking?"

He yawned, lazily pillowing his head on the hands he'd laced behind his neck. "I mean, if I'm meant to win it, it's gotta be a cinch, right?" he said with a slow grin.

"That's precisely the problem, actually," I said. "Answer me this: What if to win that fight, you have to give every last ounce of your effort? What if you have to use your life energy and get maimed and make sacrifices to win, but you go into the fight and half-ass it, banking on the knowledge that you're supposed to win instead of actually giving your all in the fight?"

The self-assurance in his eyes abated. He thought about it for a minute. And eventually he said, "Well, shit."

"That's not exactly a convincing argument," Koenma said. "It just illustrates that you need to tell us every last detail of what you know. In your little fiction, if Yusuke were to know he's supposed to use his life energy and get maimed, he can ensure that those instances come to pass in order to achieve victory."

Yusuke looked at Koenma in horror, saying, "But I don't wanna get maimed!"

"My point exactly!" I said. "If the events are painful and horrible, will Yusuke be willing to let them come to pass? Will he be willing to be maimed just so events can fit my outline for them?" I lifted an eyebrow at Koenma. "An outline you're trusting I would accurately portray, by the way."

Koenma considered what I'd said for a minute, hand on his chin in thought. Eventually the doubt in his eyes cleared, head rising with a defiant sniff. "If Yusuke puts the greater good before his own selfish interests, then yes, he will allow himself to be maimed," he declared. "It's only right that he bites the bullet!"

Yusuke shrank back into his seat. "I know this is all a hypothetical, but this is starting to get personal…"

But I had Yusuke's back. "Do you really think everyone is that selfless, though, Koenma?" I said. "For instance, if I told you that tomorrow you were supposed to get your hand chopped off, would you want that to happen?"

Jorge jolted in his seat. "Is Koenma-sir going to get his hand chopped off?!"

Koenma ignored him, firing back at me, "Well, my willingness to let that happen would depend on—"

I was rolling my eyes before he even finished speaking. "Oh, don't give me that high-horse bullshit. No one wants to get hurt or suffer; it's human nature to avoid that kind of crap, and even if you're a Spirit, I still think that instinct applies to you," I said—and then I grinned. "Especially if the Koenmatron 5000 is any indication."

Kurama frowned. "The Koenma-what?"

Koenma, meanwhile, looked like a kid whose hand got stuck in a cookie jar. "How do you know about—?"

"That plan was top secret!" Jorge yodeled.

"Not to me, it isn't," I said. "And that's how I know that you'd avoid getting into the scenario that results in seemingly avoidable suffering—and that goes double for if I tell you that losing your hand is just a random thing that happens to you. Like, what if I said that losing your hand is not a big deal? That keeping your hand won't hurt anything?" I wiggled my fingers, pretending to flick something on the coffee table. "But what if losing your hand is the first domino in a chain that makes good things happen later? And what if I don't even realize that event is connected to a good event that happens later?"

"Can you not count on us to act as we're meant to?" Koenma countered. "Can you not trust destiny?"

"No. No, I can't." My lips thinned, pressing together and rolling for a moment. "Because no matter who you were in my past life, in this life, you are not characters in a story."

"A legend," Kurama softly corrected.

"Right." Eagerly, and to distract from the small discrepancy Kurama had pointed out, I launched into a diatribe I'd unloaded onto Kagome more than once, but one I had never had the opportunity to deliver in front of anyone else. "This place isn't governed by legend-led, fatalistic determinism as far as I can tell. You have free will to act in whatever way you see fit, and it isn't always in line with what I know from the legend." That line of thinking reminded me of a certain unpleasant whisper I had buried in a mental box; I changed the subject, fast. "And even more importantly, I am not infallible. The fact that Atsuko wasn't supposed to get kidnapped but totally fucking got kidnapped shows that not everything will go according to plan, and we need to stay on our toes if something like that happens again—not just rely on a shonen manga that existed in another universe to tell us what to do next!"

A lengthy pause followed my rant.

Then Yukina murmured, "… a shonen manga?"

My head dropped into my hands like a stone. "Fuck."

"A shonen manga?" Atsuko repeated, words slurred with as much alcohol as incredulity. "What the hell?"

"So it wasn't a legend, then." Kurama sounded oddly satisfied, though I didn't understand why. "This isn't the first time you've slipped, Kei." His smile faded. "But a shonen manga, of all things…"

Into my hands I muttered, "I am not having this fucking conversation right now."

"A shonen manga?" Yusuke sat up, peering around like a meerkat in tall grass. "Like, in Shonen Jump or something?"

"… yeah," I admitted.

"Holy shit! That's awesome! Was it popular?"

"… yeah."

"Fuck yeah!" A beat. Then, slyly: "So tell me… who was the main character, huh?"

"…"

"Oh my god, it was me, wasn't it?"

I glared from between my fingers. "I'd say yes, but your ego would never let it go, would it?"

"Not on your life," Yusuke said, grinning like a goddamn moron, "because I was the main character in a shonen fucking manga!"

"Kill me," I moaned. "Kill me, for I am in hell."

"Was I popular?" Yusuke asked, glee rising with every question. "Did I have merchandise? A fan club? Cosplayers?" He gasped. "Did I get an anime adaptation!?"

"I. Am. In. Hell!"

Yusuke cackled, his mischievous delight reveling in sadistic satisfaction at the horror I had unleashed into this world. But while he was happy as a pig in shit at this particular revelation (really, I would've led with this if I knew how happy it would make him!) Koenma was far less impressed. He waited for Yusuke to finish chortling before speaking, suckling moodily on his pacifier until his chosen Spirit Detective settled the hell down (mostly thanks to Botan, who eventually got tired of his shenanigans and whacked him with her oar when he asked if she had a thing for protagonists).

"Convincing though your arguments may be, Keiko," Koenma said, "you cannot be allowed to be the only one who knows what's coming. We can't just sit back and allow you to play god, puppeteering us the way you claim Hiruko controls you."

My head jerked out of my hands exclusively so I could glare at Koenma, not bothering to hide the fury. "Do not compare me to him," I said. "Do not."

He continued as if I hadn't spoken, tossing his hair with a smirk. "And luckily for us, we have a secret weapon in that regard." Brown eyes cut toward the windows. "Hiei."

Hiei—who had neither said a word nor even moved since taking up his spot on the window sill—didn't move then, either. Only his eyes shifted, finding Koenma in the window pane's reflection, scarlet eyes bright in his tanned face.

"What," he said, with undisguised disdain, "do you want?"

Koenma wasn't intimidated. He merely lifted a finger and pointed it at me. "Read her mind and tell us what the future holds," he said with an air of command—and when Hiei's eyes shifted to mine in the reflection, my heart leapt into my throat.

"Hiei, please." The words were more a whimper than a whisper, barely audible—but I knew Hiei heard them, because his eyes narrowed at once. "Hiei, please don't. I can't—"

"Calm down, Meigo." His curt words cut through mine like steel through satin. "I won't play roll over or play fetch for Koenma like a dog."

Koenma bristled. "Need I remind you that I control your freedom?"

"My freedom, yes. But while you may be a prince of Spirit World, you don't control me." I'd never seen Hiei look so disdainful, disgust curling his lip and narrowing his eyes. "Assuming so was your first mistake."

Koenma sucked on his pacifier once, twice, three times. "And my second mistake?"

Here Hiei outright sneered. "Shouldn't a deity like you know better than to tempt fate," he said, "or are you just remarkably more stupid than the other Spirits in your realm?"

Fury purpled the prince's face. He shot back, and Hiei snapped at him, and Botan stepped in to calm them both down, but then they both snapped at her. While Jorge watched the exchange from the safety of a nearby corner, Yusuke made a joke about how they should all just shut up and listen to him ("I'm the main character, after all!"). In the background, Atsuko guzzled down another beer and passed out on the sofa. Yukina just watched in silence, looking terrifically uncertain, and in the background Kurama looked on the verge of cradling his head in his hands. Just as I feared that we were about to witness the complete dissolution of Team Urameshi, someone knocked on the door.

"Ignore it!" said Koenma, who had just gotten up to drag Jorge into the fray ("As backup!" he'd cried). "It's probably just Kuwabara, anyway. So—"

He went back to squabbling with the others, oblivious to when I stood up and headed for the door—guided there on numb feet, like a voyager drawn by the light of a distant way-star. Whether I wanted to put distance between myself and the chaos, or whether I wanted to see Kuwabara, or whether it was something else entirely, I don't know. All I know is that soon I found myself opening that door and staring up at an older woman with white hair cut to her shoulders, a leather motorcycle jacket draped across her thin frame. We looked at once another in silence for a time. Soon she hooked a finger into her black sunglasses, pulling them down her hawkish nose to stare unimpeded into my face.

Her eyes were grey—no, silver—and familiar.

For a moment, neither of us moved. Eventually, she gave me a nod.

"Hello, Keiko," said Cleo. "It's been a minute."

We stood there for a second longer.

Then, without a word, I stepped aside to let her in.


NOTES

And here comes Cleo to shed some light and reveal some answers, at long last. Stay tuned.

I wrote the dialogue for that blow-up of Kuwabara's back in 2017. Been a long time coming. Hurts my heart, but… anyway.

I know some characters' reactions weren't covered here, but in a big group setting, you can't let people talk over each other (plus they all probably vented while she was gone, and will vent again sometime later when they get solo time with NQK). Various "on-camera" reactions will come at different times; some people probably don't want to hash things out with NQK in front of everyone else, etc. So just hold on a bit if a character you're interested in hasn't said much yet.

And now we know what Yusuke was saying when he talked about "Yippee ki yay motherfucker." This is a good instance of NQK being an unreliable narrator. There are things she doesn't remember doing, but things that others DEFINITELY remember her doing. This is not the last time this will happen. I still intend to write out exactly how that scene went down from Yusuke's POV, but I haven't had time yet. Will get to it eventually, promise!

And it was nice to work some Jin into here. I want to say things about their interaction I can't say, and keeping quiet is killing me.

OH, and the thing Kurama said about her slipping up before stems from one of my collections of LC shorts, Penned in Memory or Written in Ink. Can't quite remember which, but you should check those out for 60+ drabbles set in the LC-verse.

News: I have completed Daughters of Destiny, the side-story about Kagome and Keiko taking a trip to the past. I have ALSO finished Scooby Doo Where Are Yu-Yu?, my ridiculous crossover crack-fic that crosses over exactly what the title implies. Would love for y'all to check them out!

Additionally, I'm trying to pick one of my other three unfinished fics to focus on completing (along with LC, of course, which I will continue to update regularly). There is a poll on my profile for those interested in weighing in on that decision.

It was wonderful to hear from all of you after chapter 103 came out. You give me the encouragement I need to keep plugging away at this behemoth of a story. I truly do not believe I could do this without you, and the biggest of heartfelt thanks go out to these fine folks and benefactors: TasukiLover05, RE Zera, Hvshi Ninak Aya Neko, wordsflowfreely, KhaleesiRenee, Forthwith16, Kirie Mitsuru, Theproblemadult, Sorlian, balancewarlord, Mia, Domitia Ivory, Mistress Belfray, cestlavie, tehquilamockinbur, MyWorldHeartBeating, Yakiitori, EdenMae, vodka-and-tea, Sky65, IronDBZ, Melissa Fairy, rezgurnk, MissIdeophobia, mothedman, TheEccentric1, spworynski, setokayba2n, read a rainbow, Luka14, EasilyAmused93, Call Brig On Over, Kitty-ryn, Kaiya Azure, Mathemagician93, A Wraith, abbynicks126, xenocanaan, alexa-chan me, cezarina, RedPanda923, LadyEllesmere, SterlingBee, MysticWolf71891, YukiQuin, Vienna22, NightlyKill, tammywammy9, buzzk97, marrona, Jengurl24, Silverwing013, Neko-Mitsuko, wing of butterfly, DeusVenenare, MetroNeko, Skylar-sama, The Mysterious Mr Anonymous, Jinlover, BlueCampanula, ConsumedByTheShadows, The Eternal Forgotten and shaybaybayXO!