Warnings: None
This chapter is going to have a pretty atypical structure compared to past chapters. TBH, this could probably exist as a bunch of small chapters instead of one large one, but I wanted to put all the little pieces that wrap up the Dark Tournament into one installment. What you're going to get is two long scenes sandwiching a number of small drabbles/short scenes only loosely connected to one another. Think of it as the montage that wraps up this story arc. I hope you enjoy despite the odd structure!
Full disclosure: We probably won't do this structure again because I HATE IT.
Also I will edit this tomorrow because I don't want to look at it for even another minute; BYE.
Lucky Child
Chapter 106:
"The 4 O'clock Ferry Bound for Home"
Beside me upon the couch, Botan wore a look of utmost concentration. It weighed heavy, that look. I fidgeted beneath it, wondering when she'd at last break the silence—but she didn't leave me wondering for very long.
"So tell me, Keiko," she said. "You were how old when you…"
She faltered, intensity breaking at last. Resisting the urge to laugh, I gave her knee a small, reassuring pat.
"When I died?" I supplied sweetly.
Botan's face flushed. "Well, I didn't want to be rude!"
"It's fine. And 26." I smiled. "I died when I was 26 years old."
It felt oddly normal, talking to her out in the open like that. Yukina sat not too far away, and Atsuko lounged on the floor with a beer as the delicious smell of baking cake wafted out of the kitchen. On any other night, this would feel like a typical night in. I'd come back from the roof after Cleo left to make dinner, which we all ate while chatting and generally goofing off. Sure, there were some odd looks and awkward silences when I spoke. And sure, Kuwabara and Shizuru hadn't come back in time for dinner (conspicuously), necessitating setting aside some food for them, but still. The whole night felt routine—which only made it feel weirder. Nothing about that night had been routine, but as there I sat, getting grilled by Botan, I could've mistaken the moment for any from the past week.
Only with more talk about how I died while waiting for dessert to finish baking, and stuff.
"26, huh." Atsuko raised her beer in my direction. "I'll bet you were a college girl, Brainiac."
"What is college?" Yukina asked, after I gave Atsuko a nod of affirmation.
"It's a form higher education," said Kurama from his place in a nearby armchair. "In Japan, human children must attend school through middle school, but high school and then college are considered optional."
"But you stand a good chance of getting a nice job if you attend college," Botan added before she turned to me. "What did you major in, Keiko?"
Hesitation marred my reply; it was still hard to loosen my tongue and talk about this, even though I'd been getting quite a bit of practice that evening.
"Well, not much that would get me a good job. At least not according to my parents," I said, words labored and slow. "I had a degree in poetry. With minors in philosophy and marketing."
Botan blanched, but she composed herself quickly enough. "Well, I suppose it's an interesting mix, if nothing else!" she said. "And you said you lived in… Texas, was it?"
"Yeah."
Yusuke—who had been hovering vulture-like in the kitchen so he'd get first crack at dessert—stuck his head out of the doorway and raised an eyebrow. "So, like… cowboys. Guns. John Wayne?" he said. "Did you ride a horse to college every day?"
"I went to college in another state, and no, I didn't," I said, turning up my nose. "That's a stereotype."
He just stared at me, deadpan. "Did you ever ride a horse?"
My cheeks flushed. "Well, yes—"
"Shoot a gun?"
"Yes, but—"
"Wear boots and spurs?"
"I mean…"
"So you are the stereotype, then. Guns and all!"
I put my head in my hands. "I'm a bad example, I swear."
Kurama, who had watched this exchange in silence, shook his head. "Guns, Kei? That seems out of character for you."
"But awesome!" Yusuke scowled at me. "We're definitely gonna have to talk about this later. You've been holding out on me."
"Who is John Wayne?" Yukina asked, looking between Yusuke and me in confusion. "And what is a cowboy?"
I floundered. "This is… a lot to explain."
Yusuke scoffed, head pulling back into the kitchen and out of sight. "Nobody better n' you to do the talking, then, Tex."
My glare would've burned him had he not already retreated. "OK, but we are not calling me that!"
"And why the hell not?"
"Because we just aren't, that's why!"
"26…" Botan mused, distracting me from my plan of following Yusuke into the kitchen and kicking his ass. "At that age, you were on your way to becoming a Christmas Cake, weren't you, Keiko?" Her cheeks colored; Botan grabbed my hand with a gasp of apology. "Oh, I'm sorry! I don't mean to offend. It's just…"
Yukina's confusion was only just beginning, it seemed, because she asked, "What is a Christmas Cake?"
"Christmas is a human holiday," Botan explained. "In Japan, it's customary to eat cake on Christmas."
But that didn't actually clarify anything, and the furrows on Yukina's brow deepened further still. "But what does that have to do with Keiko's age?" She gasped, hands covering her mouth. "Humans don't eat people in cakes on Christmas, do they?"
Atsuko promptly started laughing her ass off, beer tipping precariously in her unsteady hand. Botan shushed her and glared, then turned to Yukina with a soothing smile.
"No, no, nothing like that!" Botan said. "It's just that sometimes people—very rude people—call any unmarried woman over 25 years old a 'Christmas cake.' Christmas takes place on the 25th of December, you see, and you're supposed to eat your Christmas cake on that day, and not later in the month." She sighed and rolled her eyes, clearly not on board with this little facet of Japanese culture. "They're implying that women, like a Christmas cake, should be considered stale after 25."
Yusuke's head appeared around the corner of the kitchen again. "They turn into hags if they don't get married young enough, is what she means."
This time, he caught the full force of my glare. "We are going to have a long talk about misogynistic beauty standards at some point, you and I," I said. "And you will not enjoy it."
But Yusuke just laughed. "You only say that because you were about to spoil."
I flipped him off. "Joke's on you, Yusuke, because I wasn't single."
This was a mistake on my part. No sooner had the words left my mouth than did Botan's head whip around, hair flying behind her in a flash of intrigued blue.
"Wait, what?" Botan said, eyes enormous in her gorgeous face. "You weren't single? You were married?"
"Well, no, not married," I was quick to tell her, "but—"
She seized on the 'but' immediately, asking, "Engaged?"
I flushed again. "Uh—"
Botan gasped, delighted. "You were engaged!"
"Not quite," I said. "I mean, we talked about it. Getting engaged, I mean. And that was the plan, eventually. But…"
"Ahem."
I flinched, looking sharply over my shoulder—but it was just Shizuru, standing behind the couch with her hand on her hip. I started to smile at her, but the sight of Kuwabara lingering awkwardly behind her stopped me cold. His dark, narrow eyes roved over the living room, skimming Botan, Kurama, Yukina and Atsuko… but never once looking at me. He tried to play it cool, but I knew what he was doing. That kind of avoidant eye contact is so obviously intentional, you can't mistake it for anything but the snub that it is.
So he was definitely still mad, then. Whatever talk he'd had with Shizuru hadn't mended any fences at all, or at least so it seemed to me.
Shizuru hopped over the back of the couch and settled in next to Botan, propping her feet up on the coffee table as she lit a cigarette. Botan giggled as Shizuru's landing bounced her in her seat, looking at the other woman with a smile.
"Hello, Shizuru. Back already?"
Shizuru rolled her eyes. "Baby bro insisted we take a tour of the whole damn island. But we figured out some stuff you'll wanna know along the way."
"Care to enlighten us?" Kurama asked.
"There's a ferry leaving tomorrow at 4 PM, and we need to be on it… unless we wanna live here until next year's tournament, that is."
"If there's even a tournament next year at all," I said. At Botan's confused expression, I added, "Since the committee got massacred, and stuff…"
A chorus of recognition filled the room—but even though everyone else looked at me as I spoke, Kuwabara turned his face pointedly toward the ceiling. He leaned against the windows, not even deigning to sit in my presence. Luckily Shizuru seemed to notice what he was up to, though, because she shot him a disapproving scowl before turning her gaze on me.
"So, Keiko," she said. "What'd we miss?"
"A lot, actually."
"We met one of the Fates herself!" Botan gushed. "Pity you couldn't be there, Shizuru."
"One of the Fates, huh?" Her eyes slid sideways. "Hear that, baby bro? Why don't you sit down and get caught up on what we missed, huh?"
"I'll stand, thanks," Kuwabara grumbled. "But I shoulda known there'd be more." A spasm of annoyance rumpled his features, and finally his eyes drifted to me—and away again just as quickly. "Well, don't just sit there. Rip off the bandaid, huh?"
"OK." After telling Botan to get them their dinners from the kitchen, and after the Kuwabara siblings sat down to eat (Kuwabara's ire couldn't resist a bowl of my katsudon), I began the tale. Or tried to, anyway. "Well, it turns out—"
"Keiko, wait!" said Botan, voice spiked with anxiety. "Koenma was very clear that we aren't to repeat the information he revealed to us. Do you think it's OK to tell them what we know?"
"Koenma said the information couldn't leave this room." I gestured at the walls. "And since we're still here…"
Yusuke's bark of laughter echoed in the adjoining kitchen. "Should've known you'd find a loophole!" he yelled. "That's have you've always broken the rules."
"You have my past debate and rhetoric classes to thank for that. But anyway." I looked around the room. "Who wants to start?"
Her reluctance assuaged, Botan launched right in, Kurama throwing in additional details as she enthusiastically recounted our encounter with Cleo. Yusuke wandered into the room to listen as they told the Kuwabara siblings everything they could about the Makers, Fates and Hiruko, and I was more than content to let them take the lead. Kuwabara couldn't so much as look at me, so it's not like my presence was really necessary… and being ignored wasn't exactly my idea of a good time. When everyone became sufficiently engrossed in the retelling, I went into the kitchen to check on the cake, which I removed from the oven and set on a rack to cool. Much better to wait around in the kitchen until they wrapped up.
Once the cake cooled, I frosted it, and then I cleaned the kitchen sink and stove until it gleamed. After that, I had nothing to do, so I just sort of lingered in there eating frosting directly from the bowl (not my finest moment) until Botan called my name. Reluctantly abandoning my frosting, I returned to the living room to find Kuwabara looked quite gray around the gills, staring at Botan with a halfway horrified look on his face. Meanwhile, Shizuru looked mildly disgruntled (which is saying something when it comes to her). She said nothing and did not move when Kuwabara rose slowly to his feet, mopping his sweating face with one large hand.
"Makers, huh." He ran a hand over his hair, mussing it completely. "I need a bath, after that. To clear my head."
I stepped forward an inch. "Dessert is almost—"
"Be right back."
He didn't pay me a second look, disappearing into one of the bedrooms without another word. In the ensuing silence, Shizuru lit up a cigarette, while Yukina stared forlornly at the floor. Botan shifted toward me after a minute or two, a bright, cheery smile pasted haphazardly across her face.
"So, Keiko," she said. "Let's back up. Tell me about him." A pause. "Or her. I don't want to assume…"
I noted her inclusiveness with interest, but that was a topic for another time. I just said, "Him, in this case."
Her eyes lit up. "What was his name?"
"Oh. Well…" Now this was a topic I hadn't touched in a while. Taking a deep breath, I tried not to let the emotions roiling in my chest show in my eyes. "His name was Tom."
"Tom," Botan repeated. "What a nice name!"
"Oh, god," Yusuke grumbled. "Not more mushy stuff! I'm outta here."
We ignored him as he beat a hasty retreat into a bedroom. Botan stuck her tongue out at his back, then returned her attention to me. "So spill, Keiko! What was Tom like?"
"Um." Thinking about him put an awful ache in my stomach, but I conjured up the image of his face, anyway. "He was… uh, tall, I guess? Brown hair, blue eyes."
"Blue eyes?"
"Yeah. And he was cute, too, though I'm probably biased." Despite the ache, tart with longing and sharp with affection, thinking of him made me smile. "Objectively, though, he was goofy and sweet. Smart, but not pretentious or overbearing. And he was funny. Funniest guy I ever knew. Couldn't go a minute without making me laugh." I tried not to meet anyone's eyes when I spoke, although it was hard. "He had this ability to say just the right word at just the right time and in just the right tone, and I'd just fall over, I'd start laughing so hard. Tom was also humble. He never lorded anything over anybody." I shrugged, lost for words at last. "He was just… a nice, genuine person. I was lucky to find him when I did."
Yukina reached over and lay one cool hand atop mine. My fingers curled around hers in surprise, but it was the concern etching lines around her mouth that really got my attention.
"You don't have to talk about him if you do not want to," Yukina murmured.
"I like talking about him, though."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," I said. "Why?"
Yukina's eyes widened. Her fingers curled around mine in return.
She said, "Because you're crying, Keiko."
I said nothing. Then, slowly, I touched my face. My fingers came away wet. For a second I just stared at my glistening fingertips, but soon I recovered enough to scrub my face with my sleeve.
"Oh my god, I am so, so sorry," I said, forcing myself to laugh. Standing up, I headed for the door. "Guess all that reminiscing caught up with me, and—you know what? Come to think of it, I'm still wearing that bloody shirt from the fight we had in the casino, so I'm gonna go get cleaned up before we cut the cake. If you'll excuse me…"
Botan called after me as I basically sprinted from the suite, but I paid her no heed whatsoever, fleeing to the elevator without a backward glance. The elevator took forever and a day to arrive; I jabbed the button over and over in the interim, trying my damndest to keep my breaths from quivering and to keep the ache in my throat at bay. I had mostly succeeded at this by the time the doors opened, and it was with a relieved sigh that I entered the car and leaned heavily against its back wall.
Relief turned to dread, however, when a hand slid between the doors just as they started to close, and Kurama climbed aboard with me. He had the good sense not to talk right away, thank my lucky stars. We rode the elevator in silence, its smooth descent accompanied by the merest whisper of turning gears. Kurama stared straight ahead, as if he didn't see me—but I'd had enough of being ignored for one night, and eventually I snapped.
"You keeping tabs on me?" I muttered, looking at him askance. "Can't be trusted not to wander off alone?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps."
"Figures."
"Or perhaps I am merely worried about someone I consider a friend."
I paused.
Then: "Or that, I suppose."
Another pause followed, thicker even than the silence that had come before. Tension tightened my shoulders like a key winding up a music box, lid lifting into discordant song when Kurama's green gaze shifted in my direction.
He said, "Do you need to talk about—?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't appear fine, Kei."
"I'm just stressed." I didn't look at him. Couldn't bear to. "But not having to lie anymore is helpful." Even I didn't believe the truth of my smile, just then. "I'll make it through. I always do."
Judging by the silence, Kurama didn't believe me, either. He said not a word until the doors opened, nodding me forward and first into the hall.
To my back, he murmured, "Why do you not talk about him to me?"
I froze solid, listening to the whisper of his footfalls against carpet. Feigning confusion, I said, "Talk about who?"
"You know who."
"Wasn't aware you were a Harry Potter fan."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing." I walked forward. "Bad joke."
He followed. "You're avoiding the question."
"Probably because that's not an easy answer." My footsteps turned to scuffing shuffles, Kurama's steps almost silent in comparison. It was easy to pretend he wasn't even there, which gave me the courage to admit, "Talking about him is painful. Because I miss him, but there's no way to ease that heartache. So I just pretend it isn't there, more often than not. It's worked so far." Voice dropping to a whisper, I added, "And besides. I did my grieving already."
"Not all of it, it seems," Kurama said.
"Can you not be observant as hell for once in your life?"
"Apologies. It's one of my many faults." A warm hand curled around my elbow. "But Kei…"
I stopped. "Yes?"
"I do not know how to ameliorate your grief. I confess such a task beyond my capabilities." He stepped forward just enough to catch my eye. "But I am here, if you need someone to listen."
I swallowed.
"I appreciate that," I said.
We looked at one another, for a while—trading another of those raw, vulnerable moments we had an annoying tendency to share at the most inconvenient of times. But while the sight of Kurama's beautiful face would normally put a cavalcade of dragonflies in my belly, tonight his earnest eyes glimmering with the light of care and warm regard only put the feeling of crawling ants against my clammy skin. Hiruko's words—"You didn't think any of this was real, did you?"—rattled in my skull like coins in a tin cup, disturbing and discordant and inescapably, indescribably loud. Too loud to hear Kurama's words for what they really were, let alone accept his offer. Too loud to let this continue for even another stolen moment. My feet moved of their own accord, breaking the intimacy we shared and exchanging it for distance, emotional as well as physical as I moved away from him down the hall.
If Kurama followed me back to the suite I shared with Shizuru, Atsuko, Yukina and Botan, I couldn't hear him. I wouldn't hear him. I didn't allow myself to listen as I opened the suite door and stepped inside, striding into the darkened rooms without a look back. As the door fell shut, my toe collided with something small and light, sending an object skittering across the carpet and into the living room. Took a minute for my eyes to adjust after I turned on the light, but when they did, I spotted what I'd kicked. A small white cardboard box—like the kind they put jewelry in in department stores—lay a few feet away, its bulk tied shut with a length of red ribbon.
A voice made me jump, but it was only Kurama, having slipped into the suite behind me without a sound. "Kei," Kurama said as I headed for the box. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," I muttered, but I did not look at him. I was too busy examining the box. It weighed little, and when I shook it, it didn't make a sound. "No, Kurama. You didn't."
A decisive footfall struck the carpet. "Then why did you—"
I swallowed, nerves thick inside my throat, and yanked on the red ribbon—because I didn't want to have this conversation. Kurama could always see right through me, and just then I wanted a distraction. The mystery of this stupid little box would provide that, I was sure. Perhaps Botan or Shizuru had dropped it. Perhaps it was a gift from Jin. Who knew, really? There was only one way to find out, and as Kurama began to speak again, I tossed aside the ribbon and lifted the lid off of the box.
It all happened very quickly, after that—a loud screech I felt more in my teeth than in my ears, and a riot of pure color that erupted from the depths of the white cardboard, exploding in my face like an erupting firework. The colors swarmed my vision like a horde of locusts; I dropped the box and stumbled back, but before I could so much as scream or wonder what the colors even were, they slammed into my face like a visual thunderclap and sent me careening to the floor, blinded by the pictorial cacophony. Vaguely I heard Kurama call my name in horror, hands alighting on my shoulders as he knelt somewhere by my side, but I was too busy focusing on the stinging, scraping pain creeping up the front of my thighs to hear whatever he'd said. Panicked, I screeched and slapped at my jeans, but the pain didn't fade—and my hands came away wet, smelling the unmistakably copper scent of blood. Blood. Goddammit, blood? What the hell—
Although the pain was horrible, it ebbed quickly enough, retreating into a dull ache and sharp sting tolerable enough for me to grit my teeth and finally open my eyes. Just as I spotted the enormous wet patches on the front of my jeans, fabric dyed brown with blood—but before the horror of this could sink in, the suite's front door burst open. Yusuke led the charge, flying forward with hand shaped into a gun at his side. Hiei and Kuwabara followed him in, each of them scanning the room with twin looks of warrior's scrutiny.
"Kurama—you OK?" Yusuke said when he spotted us on the floor. He was at my other side in a flash, looking down at me on horrified confusion.
"We felt your energy go nuts!" Kuwabara said.
"As intended," Kurama. He nodded sharply at me. "Something's happened."
"I'll say something has," said Yusuke. "Keiko, are you all right?"
I ground out, "It hurts."
"What was it?"
"Not sure. Came out of a box."
Hiei, off to the side, kicked the aforementioned container with one derisive toes. "It's an ordinary box," he said, oddly accusatory.
"With extraordinary contents," Kurama countered. "Tell us what you're feeling, Keiko."
"It's—it burns. Like a bad sunburn."
"Oh, shit." Yusuke pointed at my legs, revulsion twisting his features. "Is that blood?"
"Yes—wait."
"What?"
"It's blood, but it's also…" I rubbed my wet fingers together, feeling the silky texture, observing the fluid's color—red in some spots, but clear in others, blending into a pink paste I somehow recognized. "It's mostly plasma?"
"So?" said Yusuke.
"How do you know that?" Kuwabara said.
Took me a minute to remember, truth be told, because I hadn't seen raw plasma in a good 18 years or so. But eventually I remembered the last place I'd seen a fluid like this, and so I said, "Back in my old life, I used to have—wait." In an instant I shot to my feet on shaky legs, dread gripping my chest so hard, it's a wonder I could even breathe. "No. No! No, no, no, no—"
More stumbling than walking, I hobbled to the nearest bathroom, trailed by my friends until I slammed the door in their faces and leaned heavily against the counter. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and unbuttoned my pants, peeling them off to my knees in one swift strip—an act that hurt, goddamn it, but not nearly as much as the sight of my skin did. Staring at the mess on my thighs, I practically collapsed against the counter, full of numbed nothingness and insensate shock.
"Keiko—what's happening?" Kurama said, voice muffled by the door.
A raw cry escaped my lips; I clapped a hand over my mouth, hoping they hadn't heard.
No dice. "… you sound like you're drowning," said Yusuke, thoroughly grossed out.
"It's—" The word came out in a croak. I tried again. "It's just—this is bad." My voice cracked; panic rose hot and sharp in my chest. "This is really, really fucking bad—"
"I'm coming in," said Kurama.
"Wait, no, don't—!"
The door opened. Immediately Kuwabara yelped and spun around, ears beet read at the sight of my state of undress. Yusuke looked grossed out by the image of me in my underwear and turned around, too, vanishing around the edge of the door and out of sight. Only Hiei and Kurama looked at me without a trace of embarrassment, clinical detachment keeping Kurama's face composed while boredom kept Hiei's aloof expression intact. They both marched over to join me in staring at my legs, neither of them saying a word as they realized what they were looking at.
I wasn't the only on in shock, it seemed.
As Kurama grabbed the nearest hand towel and wet it at the sink, Yusuke's voice cut the air. "Hey, Keiko! Where's your damn suitcase?" he called, words muffled by walls and distance.
"In the corner by the window," I ground out. "Why?"
A pair of athletic shorts sailed into the bathroom like a windswept kite.
"Can you please put some damn pants on?" he said. "Like, now?"
Because this was probably in my best interest, I did as he asked, stepping out of my jeans and into the shorts, which I bunched up around the tops of my legs so we could see the alarming marks on my previously unblemished skin. Said skin felt stretched and pulled and mangled and tight, all stinging pain and burning throb—and it hurt even worse when Kurama bent and began to dab at the mess with the washcloth.
I snatched it away from him in short order. "Let me do it."
Dispassionate green eyes narrowed. "Are you—?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
As Kurama backed off, Yusuke warily stuck his head back into the bathroom, having regained the ability to look at me thanks to the presence of proper pants. His eyes widened when he beheld the mess of blood and plasma on my thighs, and his eyes widened further still as I stripped that blood away stroke by painful stroke, revealing the bright swirls of vivid, rainbow watercolor adorning each leg. My eyes pricked with tears as the images swam forth—and not just from the pain. I recognized the images on my legs even before I finished cleaning them and revealed their true nature. Their familiarly place momentary homesickness deep inside my chest—but it faded quickly enough, and soon a stream of curses poured from my lips. It was a rant, spoken in English, populated by every bad word I knew and a few I had to make up on the spot. I might've known two languages, but even I didn't have the vocabulary to properly express my ire.
And Kurama knew that, I think, because he waited for me to stop cursing before he asked, "Kei. What are those?"
"They're tattoos," I said through gritted teeth.
"Yes, I can see that," he said. "But why are they there?"
"I have my suspicions."
Hiei, mind reader that he was, proffered the white box and red ribbon from the hallway. Kurama took it and examined it with careful fingers, pulling from within it a small scrap of paper. This he smoothed out across his palm, eyes carefully cataloging the words penned on it in thin, spidery handwriting.
"To my Not-Quite-Keiko," he dutifully read. "You never asked about the gift in my right hand. Enjoy." He studied the paper for a second, frowning. "It isn't signed. But I can only presume—"
"Goddamn it, Hiruko!" I spat. "My old fucking tattoos? What the fuck is this supposed to achieve?"
They looked exactly as they had in my part: A rainbow, watercolor octopus on my right thigh, and a rainbow, watercolor lion on my left, colors swirling into each other in a technicolor maelstrom. Every line and stroke of the ink looked exactly as I remembered it, the lion's stare imperious and bold, the octopus cheeky and alien as its arms undulated across my limb. I'd been proud of that ink in my past life, but seeing them there, on Keiko's thighs instead of my past self's, filled me with the sensation of distilled wrong. More than once I'd idly wished for my old tattoos back, but never once had I thought that wish might come true!
Yusuke's jaw dropped. "These were yours?"
"Not in this lifetime!" I shot back, and my cursing resumed with gusto—but a second later, Yusuke's hands closed around my face, and I found him leaning down to stare me dead in the eyes from a distance of just a few inches.
"Hey!" I said, trying in vain to bat him aside. "Get off!"
"Just hold still!" he demanded.
"Leggo of my—"
"Keiko, they're doing it again!"
I stopped struggling at once.
"Your eyes," Yusuke said, searching my face. "They're—they're doing it again. What they did during the tournament."
"Yusuke," Kurama said. "What do you—?"
"What are you talking about?" Hiei said.
Yusuke ignored them both. "What color were your eyes in your old life?" he said instead. "In the body you used to have?"
"They—they were grey," I admitted. "Why?"
Yusuke didn't say anything. He just released me, stepped back, and pointed over my shoulder at the bathroom mirror. It took willpower immeasurable to make myself turn around, spinning in slow increments to face Keiko's reflection in the mirror… but warm brown eyes, familiar after 15 years in Keiko's borrowed skin, did not stare back at me.
Instead, a pair of bright grey eyes, unfamiliar after 15 years, met mine—but then I blinked, and they were brown once more.
"OK, please tell me everyone else saw that!" Yusuke said.
"I—I did." I couldn't tear my gaze from Keiko's face, from the reflection of the tattoos that did not belong to her and yet emblazoned on her skin. "But what—?" Words failed. I settled for: "What's happening to me?"
Kurama spoke for all of us when he said, "I'm afraid I am not sure."
In the kitchen the next morning, I listened to Childish Gambino and cooked breakfast for my sleeping friends.
I knew this was a bad idea—the music part, specifically, because breakfast is always a good idea. It didn't take a genius to realize that both of Hiruko's so-called gifts represented connections to my past life, and the added wrinkle of my nostalgic eye color proved something Machiavellian was afoot regarding these callbacks to days of yore. We'd talked about my eyes at length the night before, not to mention the tattoos, but we hadn't been able to come up with any particularly solid theories about why Hiruko had placed these backdated obstacles in my path.
I had a theory, though. One I would discuss with Minato and Kagome first, because it impacted them before anyone else. Whatever the truth, it couldn't be good.
After constructing the majority of a breakfast casserole, my legs ached fiercely enough to warrant taking a break. With a groan I sank into a chair in the dining room, focusing on the song blazing in my ears to drown out the steady stream of pain. Each of my tattoos had taken at least three sessions to finish, originally, black outline and colors and touchups requiring their own discrete trips to the tattoo parlor. As for these throwback pieces? They'd taken a second and a half to become ensconced within my skin, resulting in an intense, flashbang concentration of all the pain that had been spread out over the course of many hours in my past life. After experiencing all that pain in one fell swoop, it was no wonder my legs hurt. I stared moodily at the bandages wrapped around my legs as I mumbled the lyrics of "Sweatpants" under my breath, contemplating the new—or old, rather—additions to my person with an unamused frown.
"What kinda music is THAT?"
I looked up to find Yusuke standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the frame. He hadn't slicked back his hair yet, face softened by the gentle fall of his thick black bangs. Normally I made fun of him when he wore his hair down, but that morning, all I could do was gape at him as I hastily stuffed my earbuds into my pocket.
"I…" I said. "I don't know how to explain Childish Gambino to you?"
Yusuke's eyes narrowed; in a flash he crossed the room and bent at the waist to stare me in the eye, practically glaring all the while.
"They're doing it again," he informed me. "The grey thing."
"Shit. Really?"
"Yup." He snickered, pulling back a bit. "Dunno how you're gonna hide any of this from your parents."
"Sunglasses and long pants, I guess." I shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time."
"What do you mean?"
I patted the side of my leg. "I had these in my old life, right? This isn't the first time I've had to hide tattoos from disapproving parents." A grimace, one I could not hold back. "The eyes are new, though. Or old, depending on your point of view?"
"I don't really care. But still… grey eyes." Yusuke laughed. "You must've really stood out back then, huh?"
"Uh. No? Why do you say that?"
"I mean, we're Japanese. Grey eyes aren't exactly normal, are they?"
"Oh. Well, I wasn't Japanese in my past life, so…"
Yusuke did a double take. "Wait a minute." His expression morphed into one of understated horror. "You were white?"
"Oh my god, Karen," I said in my best impersonation of Gretchen Wieners. "You can't just ask people if they used to be white!"
"I have no fucking clue who Karen is, but whatever." Plopping into a nearby chair, Yusuke stared at me in undisguised consternation. "White. A gaijin. I can't believe it." Shaking his head, he continued in more serious tones: "Anyway. What the heck do you think Hiruko's doing this to you for?"
Another shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."
This wasn't precisely true; I hadn't told him, or the others, about Hiruko's gift of the iPod. It wasn't a conscious deception, but rather one made subconsciously and only realized a little while later. But it made sense why I hadn't brought it up during the tattoo's explosion. The songs on it and the technology that formed it were direct results of the future, and to show it to them… well, Kuwabara liked science, right? Who's to say he couldn't replicate the technology and change something huge?
"I still think it's weird as hell that you had tattoos in your past life," Yusuke said, oblivious to my internal monologue. "You don't seem like the type. What were you, Yakuza?" He cracked a lopsided grin. "Or I guess it'd be the mob, not the Yakuza, you being a hakujin and all."
"Well, I wasn't in organized crime of any stripe, if that's what you're asking," I said with a roll of my eyes. "I was just a rebel, I guess. My parents were furious when they saw my back piece."
His grin widened. "You had a back piece?" he said, impressed.
"Um…" I rubbed at the back of my neck, not looking at him. "I did, yeah."
"What was it?"
"None of your business."
His grin widened further still. "So you had a tramp stamp, huh?"
"No. I did not have a tramp stamp," I said—and then it was my turn to grin. "It was way too big to qualify as a tramp stamp."
"Heh. Maybe you're not entirely lame, after all."
I assured him that I wasn't, in fact, entirely lame. But he just laughed and said I'd have to prove it, because it would take more than a pair of rainbow tattoos ("So girlie!" he groaned) for him to be convinced.
As our group gathered in the dining room and I slid the last slice of breakfast casserole onto a plate in the kitchen, Hiei appeared beside me in a rush of sudden black. It was unusual of him to stand so close; the heat of his fiery aura beat against my skin, steady like the sun rising outside our suite's wide windows. On reflex I started to greet him and back up a pace, but a single withering look from his scarlet eyes froze me solid even when it seared. I held perfectly still as he reached over to turn on the faucet, hiss of the water loud and echoing in the otherwise quiet kitchen.
"That thing Hiruko told you," he said.
I continued to hold very still, lest I provoke the fire blazing in his eyes.
"I hope you intend to suss out his meaning." He spoke in murmurs backed by cinders and flame. "And the sooner, the better."
"Yes," I said. "Of course."
"Good," said Hiei. Hot goals gathered in his irises, glowing with pure fury. "Because I don't take kindly to being underestimated."
He said nothing else, walking from the room to join the others with a flutter of dark cloak.
When we finished eating our morning meal, our friends scattered to their rooms to pack—everyone besides Yukina, that is, who stayed behind to help clean up. I washed while she dried, her pale hands surprisingly strong as she gripped cups and plates and heavy baking dishes.
And speaking of hands. "Are you certain you don't require additional healing?" she asked after a time, gesturing at the bandages wrapped around my legs.
It was kind of her to care. She had healed over the worst of the raw tattoos the night before, fingers gentle and cool against my inflamed skin. Fresh tattoos were little more than open wounds, so it was nice to have her push me past that stage of the healing process—but I hadn't let her progress further. I now sat at the itchy-and-peeling stage, slapping at the tattoos' covering to ease the worst of the discomfort. I wasn't sure what Yukina's healing would do to a tattoo from an aesthetic standpoint, and if I had to be stuck with them, they might as well look pretty.
"I'm good, I think," I told her. "You've already done so much, anyway."
She did not appear convinced. "If you're certain…"
"I am," I said, too firmly for her to argue any further.
We continued our chores in silence for a time. In the next room, Botan yodeled something about missing her hair curlers and best suspenders; Shizuru yelled back that she'd buy Botan new ones if she'd just shut up, because Shizuru and Atsuko both had hangovers the likes of which they'd never before experienced. Celebrating our victory had called for booze immeasurable, more or less. I chuckled as they argued back and forth, banter amusing and familiar—and in that manner, comforting.
"Keiko?" Yukina softly said.
I hummed, smiling. "Yes?"
"Do you… know who my brother is?"
My brain promptly blue-screened, hands freezing with the cold weight of shock and roaring nerves. From the corner of my eye I could see Yukina staring at me, her crimson gaze locked on my face—an intense gaze, but one quite different from her recalcitrant brother's. Crimson instead of scarlet, calm instead of irate, curious instead of demanding… the two of them, for all their shared blood, could not have been more distinct.
Her voice sounded different than his, too, when she quietly intoned, "You do, don't you. You do know who he is."
I took a breath that shuddered in my chest. "Yukina…"
"I know you don't want to speak out of turn or tamper with the laws of destiny," she said. Despite her calm demeanor, the barest undercurrent of fear placed a waver in her voice, a slight vibrato that spoke of yearning and desperation. "So if not his name, then can you tell me how to find him?"
"I—"
"Keiko. Please."
She looked at me with hope in her eyes, unvarnished and vulnerable. Anger filled my chest in response, but it wasn't aimed at her. It was aimed at the knowledge that I had to crush that hope, and held no power whatsoever to see it through.
"It's not my place to tell you who he is, or how you find him—or if you even find him at all," I said, bracing myself for the pain that would surely rise in her bright gaze. "For that, Yukina, I'm sorry. But I can't tell you anything."
Yukina stared at the sink, watching as suds spiraled around the drain before vanishing into its dark maw.
"It's all right," she whispered.
But that was a lie. I could see it in every line of her face, heart shattering into the same thousand tiny pieces in which Yukina's heart now surely lay. But I had made a promise to Hiei to keep his secret—and much though I hated that look on Yukina's face, it was not my promise to break.
It was a relief to join Botan in the bedroom to pack. She whistled to herself as she folded her clothes, placing them beside her curlers and suspenders (which she had managed to locate, apparently) in her large suitcase. I flopped onto the floor beside her and dragged my duffle bag to me with my toes, hoping I wouldn't have to get up and walk too much to find the rest of my possessions.
"Oh, hello, Keiko," Botan said as I hunted through the bag. "How's the pain this morning?"
"Manageable, thanks to Yukina's help."
"She's wonderful, isn't she?" Her face fell, just a touch. "A pity she'll have to return to Demon World, but…"
"Yeah." A beat. Then: "Say, Botan?"
"Yes?"
"How do they enforce that, anyway? Keeping demons from just staying here once the tournament ends?"
"Well, they can't make all of them go back to Demon World," she said, shifting to face me with a smile. "Some demons come to this tournament as a pretense for coming to Human World so they can stay behind illegally, in fact. Minor members of the SDF are occasionally sent here to police the migration efforts and collect stragglers, but typically just the threat of Spirit World retaliation is enough to keep the demons in line."
"Oh. I see." I shivered at the mention of the SDF. "So long as Koenma doesn't send them after me."
"Oh, Keiko, he wouldn't do that," Botan was quick to assure me. "I might not be in his good graces at the moment, but Koenma isn't cruel. You're cooperating with us, and clearly you are being manipulated by forces outside of your control." She patted my knee, careful to avoid the bandages above it. "You have nothing to fear from them."
"Maybe. I'm just wondering if he's still gonna keep me as Hiei and Kurama's parole officer."
"Oh! Good question."
"Did he say anything more about you returning to Spirit World?" I asked, hoping the question wasn't too invasive. "You ran after him when he left, so I thought maybe you'd talked."
Her face fell again, further than the time before. "Unfortunately, Keiko… Koenma isn't at liberty to make promises," she said, turning away from me again. "He said it's clear I'm a valued member of this team, and that this little feature of mine—" (she rubbed her forehead, where her Jagan Eye lay hidden from view) "—can function as an asset in some situations. That I am something more than a mere ferry girl because of it. But…"
"But?"
"He still fears that I can't control it. Not yet." Before I could react, she reached into her suitcase and pulled something out of a small zippered pouch. Handing it over, she said, "Do you remember this?"
The watch she'd handed me was small and dainty, with a pearly face inscribed with gold numbers. The hands on it didn't tick, however, and the glass covering its face bore a long crack from bottom to top. When I'd first seen this watch, the glass had been whole and intact, and the hands had ticked with perfect time.
"It's the inhibitor watch that Ayame gave you, to help you control your eye," I said. "Is it broken?"
"Yes." Her face fell; she tucked a strand of blue hair behind her ear, magenta eyes crestfallen. "It typically prevents me from losing control, but when I was injured in our fight while rescuing Atsuko, even it could not keep me from losing grip completely." Taking the watch back, she gave a resolute nod, sadness changing to strong determination. "I have work to do yet, is what this means. More training. More discipline."
I eyed her over as she stowed the watch back in her suitcase. "So, if the watch is broken…"
"Koenma gave me another," she assured me. "It's the last contact we will have for some time, I should think. He asked me to continue to assist Yusuke and wait patiently for his next word." Sadness returned in a melancholy wave. "At least for the time being…"
"Botan, I…" My mouth dried; working up saliva, I hoarsely managed to whisper, "I feel like I owe you an apology."
Botan's brow knit. "About what?"
"I said last night that one of the changes from the legend—"
"Manga."
"Right, manga. One of the changes from the manga was you getting hit by that sword instead of me. That's what got you into this mess. And I just…"
But Botan had already started shaking her head, taking one of my hands into hers so she could rub soothing circles on the back of my wrist. "Oh, Keiko. From everything you told us, it sounds like you tried to help me, back when this happened. You did all that you could, and you succeeded in preventing this eye from taking over completely. It was only thanks to you that I wasn't turned into a demon." Her bright, gleaming smile could've powered an entire city block. "I remained myself due to your sterling efforts. That is a victory, not a loss."
"But it wasn't enough," I said, unable to share her sentiments. "And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry that I wasn't enough."
"Not enough?" she repeated, and she gave me a little shove. "Keiko, I'm surprised at you! You're normally so confident!"
"I am?"
"Of course you are!" Botan laughed at some private joke I did not understand. "But I suppose this just means that you and I are more alike than I realized."
"What does that mean?"
"I've been feeling like I'm not enough for Spirit World, as of late," she admitted with a small, bitter smile. "Koenma assured me that his father was the one pushing against my return, but I still can't shake the feeling that Koenma won't argue on my behalf with his father, either." The resolute cast returned to her eyes as she gave a determined nod. "I have to forge my own path. It sounds like the Botan in the manga had an easy path, in comparison."
"She had her struggles. But they're nothing compared to yours." I couldn't keep a smile off my face, remembering all the times Botan had come in clutch in the past few months—saving me from bug-infested teachers, aiding Yusuke on his cases, beating demons to rescue Atsuko, and so much more. "She wasn't a fighter at all, for instance. She could swing her oar with the best of them, but compared to what you're capable of…"
Botan pulled a face. "I can't imagine not being able to assist and support the others in this way. Whatever it has cost me in terms of my home, the eye certainly has its advantages." Rubbing at her forehead again, Botan caught my eye and winked. "As much as it pains me at times, this eye is a gift—make no mistake about that, Keiko. If Koenma, and King Enma can't see my value, then that is a failing of theirs, not mine. I have to admit that a part of me is glad, that this happened to me."
It took every ounce of my willpower to keep my jaw from dropping. "Wait, really?"
Botan nodded. "It's allowed me to see so much I had taken for granted before." Here her smile vanished, replaced by grim resolve and dark acceptance. "The prejudice of King Enma. The way Koenma won't stand up to his father. The fact that ferry girls are not trained for combat, even when consorting with Spirit Detectives. And as you said to Koenma once before, recruiting teenagers to do Spirit World's perilous work is simply…" She shook her head, sadness pouring from every pore. "There are flaws in the system, Keiko. And before this eye, I could not see them."
"You've always been such an optimist. I wish I could be like you in that respect," I said, meaning every word of it. "And in your abilities, too."
Botan cocked her head, blue hair falling against her long neck in a silken wave. "What do you mean?"
"Well… I'm still the only normal person in this whole group," I said with a shrug. "Aside from Atsuko, of course."
Botan frowned. "Still?"
I couldn't keep the sheepish smile off my face, hand creeping up to rub the back of my neck. "I've been hunting for ways to make myself stronger. More psychic. That sort of thing. But nothing I've done has worked. That's how you ended up getting cut with the sword instead of me. Like I said last night. I tried to get Hiei to cut me with it. To maybe give me a type of power. But…"
"That Hiei is as stubborn as they come," Botan said with a huff. She crossed her arms over her chest, ponytail flapping as she shook her head from side to side. "Tell him to do something, and he'll do the exact opposite—AKA, he'll cut me instead of you." She reached for my hand again, sympathy playing over her features. "I'm sorry, Keiko. That your plan didn't work, I mean."
"It's all right," I said, although I didn't really mean it.
And perhaps Botan picked up on that, because she said, "But you're not useless, if that's your fear. You're also a valued member of this team." Squeezing my fingers, Botan laughed with merry abandon. "You keep Yusuke grounded, and I dare say you're the only one who can. You also make Hiei less prickly, and you actually bring Kurama into the fold. And as for Kuwabara—"
She stopped talking, biting back her words with an embarrassed cough. Slowly she released my hands, turning back to her suitcase with awkward, jerking movements.
"Yeah," I said, sighing. "That."
"I'm just saying that we're all useful, in our own way," she said, folding more clothes to busy her hands. "And I'm so glad you came with us this time! We needed you here—of that, I am absolutely certain."
Botan appeared sincere enough when she voiced this statement aloud. I only wished, despite her claims to the contrary, that I could be more confident in both myself and in her assessment—but Botan had enough to deal with. She didn't need to worry about my troubles on top of everything else. Copying her, I began folding my clothes, too, reaching first for a pair of socks crumpled way at the bottom of my duffle bag. The socks were oddly heavy, though, and something inside them clinked when I lifted them from the sack.
"Keiko?" Botan said when she saw the way the socks stretched toward the floor, weighed down by their heavy contents. "What's in there, I wonder?"
I didn't need to look inside the socks to remember. I just stood up, bid Botan goodbye, and headed for the door—because while I was not really confident in myself, I was confident I knew exactly what to do next.
Otoha's dark eyes widened so much, I feared they'd devour the rest of her pretty face, baby-pink scales and golden skin and all. "You can't be serious," she said, staring into the depths of my sock. "You just can't!"
"I can, though."
"But these are—" She paused to swallow, looking up at me in abject disbelief. "These are priceless."
We stood in the tunnels below the hotel, where maids and cooks and the rest of the hotel staff bustled about, packing up and getting ready to leave now that the tournament had ended. Otoha sat on an overturned bucket in the supply closet where I'd met Koto only a few days prior, clutching my sock to her chest in her slender fingers, staring at me with more of her wide-eyed disbelief. She'd also worn disbelief when I handed her my socks and told her they contained a gift, prompting her to make a joke about foot fungus—but her jokes had died when she saw the glittering jewels wrapped tight in my clean clothing.
"They are priceless," I agreed. "Which is great, because you said you needed money."
"Well, yeah, but… I didn't mean this much money!" She shook the sock, listening to the way the gems struck each other with sounds like tiny bells. "My family will never have to bust their butts again, and—"
She ranted for a bit about how much her parents deserved a vacation, as if daring me to try and take the gems away again, but I just sat back and giggled. I had no intention of taking Yukina's tear gems back to my life on the mainland, and I could think of no one but Otoha who deserved them more. I'd given her every last one of the gems Yukina had asked me to get rid of… expect for the pink gem of happiness, which I'd set aside for myself. Otoha could have the yellow Hiruiseki stones, I'd decided. She deserved them, after all I'd put her through. Now I just had to get Otoha to agree.
"You've been the biggest help," I said when she fell quiet. "I can't leave without repaying you."
Otoha waved the sock haphazardly. "But all of these?" she said, as if the notion was utterly ridiculous. "All of them?"
"You could give one or two to Tobi if you see him, if you feel weird taking the whole lot." I shrugged, grinning at her flabbergasted face. "Split some with the other hotel staff. Maybe give a few away to some lucky random demons on your trip home." But my smile faded a touch when I admitted, "I worry that you won't have employment next year."
Otoha blinked. "Huh?"
"The tournament backers," I said, voice gentle as I broke the news I'd figured she already knew. "Toguro said he killed them all. So I don't know who will run this show next year."
Otoha didn't appear broken up by the news; she just scoffed, saying, "Well with this motherlode, I won't need to come back, anyway!" Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes, Otoha bent over her knees and groaned, "Ugh! I can't believe this!"
"Can't believe what?"
She looked up at me, glare as accusatory as it was playful. "You actually made me like a human," she said, sticking out her tongue. "I never would've guessed anyone could do that—not in a million years! But you? You're my favorite!"
I put a hand to my heart, touched. "Aww, Otoha!"
"I'm serious!" Hopping up off the bucket, she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me tight. "I've never sent a letter to Human World, but could I have your address so I could at least try?"
I hugged her back. "Do we have compatible postal services?"
"Great question, and probably not, but it's still worth a shot. Never leave a sister hanging, right?"
"Right." Pulling away, I looked into her eyes and smiled, throat going just a little thick with emotion. "Otoha… I'm gonna miss you."
"Call me crazy, but I'm gonna miss you, too!" she said with a brilliant laugh. "But this isn't the end of the sisterhood, I promise."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, Keiko." Her hand slipped into mine, fingers warm and gentle. "We'll meet again. I just have this feeling."
"I'm holding you to it," I said—and as she ushered me out the door, I looked over my shoulder and said, "Oh, and Otoha?"
"Yeah?"
"If anyone asks where you got those, when you try to sell em? Say you found them on the island in a dead man's room." My smile was all gone, replaced by stark severity. "Don't give anyone a reason to come looking for more from you. Do you understand?"
She gulped, but she nodded. "Will do." Giving me one, final hug, Otoha whispered in my ear, "Goodbye, Keiko."
"Goodbye, Otoha," I whispered into her oversize bat-ear. "Until we meet again."
Saying goodbye to Otoha was hard—harder than I thought it would be, and by a much wider margin than I ever could predict. Tears beaded in my eyes as I walked out of the staff tunnels, a few of them dribbling down my cheeks as I wondered when (or if) I ever would lay eyes on her again.
But my goodbye with Otoha was not the most bittersweet farewell of the day. Not by a long shot.
As Jin carded his fingers into my hair, I asked, "Have you ever seen the Wizard of Oz?"
And nose scrunching, Jin replied, "The wizard o' what now?"
He looked like a blooming sunflower from my vantage point. With my head in his lap, gazing up at him placed his fiery mane against the sky above Hanging Neck Rock, a riot of red atop cool blue. But it was his eyes that blazed with warmth even gentler than the springtime sun, smiling down at me with so much humor, I almost started laughing at the sight. A giggle passed my lips as I reached up and framed his face with my hands, cheeks warm and smooth under questing fingertips.
"It's a movie," I explained, tracing a nameless pattern into his skin. "About a girl named Dorothy taken to another world on the winds of a storm, where she meets people who change her life as she tries to return home again."
"Winds of a storm, eh?" Jin mused, fingers caressing my scalp. "Color me intrigued, pet."
"I knew that would interest you." I couldn't keep a laugh inside, at that—but soon my humor abated, melancholy stealing its way inside my head. "But Dorothy's story isn't all cool winds and happy breezes. She spends the entire movie looking for a way to go home, but by the time she finds one, she's made so many dear friends, it's horrible to say goodbye to them." My hands stilled upon his face. "Especially the Scarecrow, whom she'll miss most of all."
Jin's eyes turned the color of homesickness, desolate and blue. "Sounds a bit weepy, if you ask me."
"Maybe the way I describe it. But Jin?"
He leaned closer to whisper, "Yes, sweet girl?"
"I've made a lot of good friends on this island," I said. "I didn't expect to, but… you were there for me exactly when I needed you." Tears, traitorous and hot, leaked over my temples and into my hair, wetting his hands with drops like rain. "I know this is about to end, but… when it's over, Scarecrow, I think I'll miss you most of all."
He leaned closer still to murmur, "And I, you, Dorothy."
We exchanged kisses, and between them pretty words, and vague hopes—not quite promises; we didn't dare—that we'd see each other again someday. Fate was bittersweet and strange, drawing us together only to draw us apart so soon, and we both would hate it when this had to reach its end… but that ending wasn't here just yet. Breaking away from him for just a moment, I whispered against his mouth, "Think you could do me one final favor?"
"Anything," Jin breathed into my throat. "Name it."
"Could you tell me where to find Touya?"
He pulled away, uncertain—but still Jin said yes, and away we flew.
Touya's bright green gaze possessed the chill of winter, and underneath its glacial force, I shrank into Jin's warm side. Still, I managed to smile and say to him, "So, Touya. It's nice to meet you again."
"Likewise," he said (but after a moment's pause, as if he had to decide whether it was truly nice at all). Crossing his arms, Touya looked me over and brusquely said, "What do you want?"
"Me, personally? Not much." Stepping aside (and dragging Jin along with me) I gestured at the person behind us. "I just want to introduce you to Yukina."
We stood in the hotel lobby, Touya and Yukina both summoned to meet us downstairs near the front desk. I'd managed to prep Yukina as we escorted her to the meeting point, so it was with poise and grace that she dipped Touya a humble bow. He didn't appear impressed with her, however, turning back to me without a word for her.
"The question," he said, "remains: What do you want, Keiko?"
Yukina and I exchanged a look, after which she nodded. I took a deep breath.
"I asked Yukina before we came here, and she's on board if you are," I said, "but… I was just wondering if you happened to be looking for an apprentice."
Touya frowned. "An apprentice?"
"The shinobi ranks were thinned by the violence of this tournament. And I don't know how apprenticeships work in the shinobi league, but…" Again I gestured at Yukina. "My friend here is an ice maiden, one of the Koorime. She has natural abilities and an affinity for ice. So I thought…"
"Touya-san." Yukina cut in with another bow, her voice the softest of winter winds. "I know this offer comes apropos of nothing, but… I want to learn to fight. And I believe you are the best person to teach me."
He examined the surety in her expression, the confidence in her stance, in silence. Yukina did not wither under that look, although I was sure I would do so if I stood in her stead. She merely met Touya's eyes with bold determination, hands loose at her sides, shoulders back, head held high. This was not a woman looking or charity; no one could mistake her for such, and soon Touya's eyes fell shut.
"One of the Koorime…" His eyes opened again, wintergreen a touchless chilly than before. "It's rare to see your people away from their isolated clime."
Yukina nodded. "Yes."
"I must ask, in that case… why are you here?"
"I was searching for someone," she said at once. "But I know now that any search I conduct will end poorly if I do not learn to fight my own battles."
He looked her over again, assessing—and when she lifted a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, her sleeve fell back the slightest bit. A thin white scar encircled her wrist, but it was gone in an instant, hidden once again beneath her clothes.
"I take it you've been prey for many a would-be abductor," Touya said—but when Yukina winced, he did not back down. "The tears of the Koorime are priceless, after all. But if you pursue your own ends, why should I induct you into an apprenticeship with the shinobi?" His head lifted, pride evident in every line of his wide shoulders. "Would you abandon our goals in favor of your own, should they fall in opposition to one another?"
Yukina hesitated. "That…"
As she struggled to find the words, I watched the pair of ice demon with uncertain eyes, wondering if I should step in—but just as I considered doing so, Jin's arm stole around my waist, pulling me away from them and across the lobby elsewhere.
"Leave them be, sweet girl," he said into my ear. "Let them talk."
"But—"
"I can see the urge to meddle dancing in your gaze, but Touya won't take kindly to the intervention of a stranger," he said, voice musical and soft and soothing. "You've introduced that icy pair, and that is all you can do, dear heart. Now leave them be, and let the wind take them where it will."
Stealing a glance over my shoulder, I saw Yukina begin to speak—and Touya's eyes sparked in response. Though I wanted to watch more, I made myself turn away.
"You're right," I said, hating the admission. "She's on her own." A wry smile; a sharp laugh. "Not like I can follow her into Demon World and be a helicopter parent, anyway…"
Jin laughed, too. "No idea what that is, dontcha know, but I ken your meaning regardless of the words." His grip tightened, drawing me against the heat of his side. "Now come with me. We have our own goodbyes to say."
I was right, I found out.
Saying goodbye to him was the hardest thing of all.
Coincidentally, I ran into Yusuke after Jin dropped me off in front of the hotel. Yusuke had come down to the lobby for snacks, which the remaining hotel staff had happily given the tournament winner—in the form of an enormous gift basket, no less—upon his request. I tried to sneak past him as he stood by the front desk, but he turned around and spotted me almost instantly. Damn Yusuke and his senses!
"There you are!" he said, a half-eaten cinnamon bun clenched in his fist. "Where've you been, anyway?"
"Just doing some last-minute meddling before we shove off." I ran a hand over my hair, hoping it wasn't too horribly messy. Jin had gotten a bit grabby with it, which I hadn't minded at the time, but... Stifling the panicked grin threatening to overtake my face, I cleared my throat and asked, "You?"
"Taking a walk; getting snacks." He shoved the bun into his mouth, and as he chewed, I thought I'd averted disaster—but then his eyes narrowed. Stalking toward me, gift basket in tow, he stared at my collarbone and asked, "Hey. What's that on your neck?"
I clapped a hand to my throat with a gasp. "Mind your own business!"
But he only grinned, deviance on full display. "So who's the lucky guy?" A pause. "Or girl. Never quite know with you."
"Very funny," I snarked. "And also, you know that I'm…?"
Yusuke just scoffed. "Dude, you're not subtle. You make goo-goo eyes at Kurama just as much as you make them at Yukina. Pretty obvious you're a dual-wielder."
"Huh. Well, that saves me one kind of coming out."
"I'll bet." He jabbed a cinnamon-coated finger at my neckline, grinning when I dodged back a pace or three. "So spill it, grandma. Who have you been—?"
"Urameshi Yusuke!"
We spun in tandem toward the source of that irate bellow, but it was just Koto, of all people, striding quickly across the hotel lobby in our direction. Her heels clicked against the marble floor with every step she took, a funerary beat matched by the grim-repeater-flutter of her heavy trench coat. Yusuke shrank back at the rage burning in her luminous green eyes, clearly thinking he was about to get an earful—but when Koto reached us, she came to a stop and planted both hands on her hips, tossing her hair with a vicious grimace. (I, meanwhile, backed the hell up and took cover behind a couch.)
"Urameshi Yusuke," she said. "You were a thorn in my side from the moment you stepped into that ring, you know that? A target on your back, committee intervening and demoting me for standing up for you, messing up my sacred rules to try and knock you off your game—"
"What can I say?" Yusuke snarked. "I'm a popular guy."
"You're an entity of chaos, is what I'd call you!" Koto shot back. "You turned my tournament into a circus. A circus! What do you have to say for yourself, huh?"
Yusuke thought about that for a minute.
Then he grinned, cackled, and declared, "You're welcome!"
Koto's cheeks flushed, catlike whiskers vibrating with pent-up energy. "Well I—" she said, fuming. "I—I—!"
Yusuke's smile vanished when she took a sharp step toward him. He shrank back, eyes screwing up as he braced himself for the attack he clearly expected her to launch—but she didn't raise a hand to slap his cheek.
What she did, instead… was kiss it?
My eyes practically bugged out of my face when she laid a big, fat kiss on Yusuke's cheek, leaving upon it an unmistakable lipstick kiss-mark in Koto's bright red shade. Yusuke's eyes behaved similarly to mine, flying open so he could stare in unmitigated shock down at Koto's smirking face. She flipped him a wink when their eyes met, expression then as mischievous as his had been before.
"I have to admit, this was the most exciting tournament we've thrown in years," Koto said, voice a flirtatious purr. "And it's all thanks to you."
"Oh," said Yusuke. "Well. Uh?"
She laughed at his befuddlement, spinning with a flourish back the way she'd come. But she only took a step or two in her tall high heels before looking over her shoulder at him and tipping another sassy wink.
"If you're ever in Demon World… call me, 'kay?" said Koto, and then she strut her stuff across the lobby and out of sight.
Yusuke watched her sashay away from him in silence, clutching his lipstick-stained cheek in one numb hand. I emerged from my hiding place and gradually sidled up to him, suppressing a giggle as I gave him a nudge with my elbow.
"So… you gonna tell Botan about this?" I said.
His face purpled, clashing horribly with Koto's lipstick. "Shut up!"
"Oh, that's a 'no,'" I teased. "So am I gonna have to tell her, or—?"
"Shut the hell up, Tex!"
"One, don't call me that. And two, fine." Pointing at my neck, I flashed him a grin and said, "Call us even, then."
Because it felt fitting to prance away and leave him in shock just like Koto had, I headed toward the elevators while whistling between my teeth—but Yusuke didn't follow, and soon I stopped to tell him to hurry the hell up. He wasn't looking at me, though. He stared off in the direction Koto had gone, brows lowered over intense eyes I almost didn't recognize.
"Hey, Keiko?" he said—so softly I almost couldn't hear him. "Can I ask you something?"
I wandered back toward him, concern rising like a high tide. "Yeah, Yusuke?"
"What's next for us? In the legend. Manga. Whatever." Bright brown eyes cut sideways, sizing me up askance. "What happens now?"
I laughed. "Are you asking when you'll see Koto next?"
But he wasn't in the mood for jokes. "Don't be stupid," he said. "Just… tell me." At last Yusuke turned to face me, uncharacteristic gravity turning his gaze to stone. "Keiko. What happens now?"
I didn't reply right away. The flint in his eyes cut sharp—too sharp to answer flippantly. It demanded honesty, no jokes or distractions from the truth he sought… but this was not a truth I was prepared to give. Not yet, anyway, and he knew it.
"You know I can't tell you that," I said, apology in my eyes and voice alike. "You're just gonna have to trust me, I think."
He deflated like a punctured hot air balloon, sagging back to earth as he mopped a hand over his cheek. "OK. But you owe me dinner or something. Call it condensation for pain and suffering."
"I think you mean compensation."
"Shut up," he said, angling toward the elevators. "You knew what I meant to mean."
I followed where he led. "Yeah, yeah…"
Perhaps it was my recent bittersweet goodbyes, or perhaps it was simply knowledge of what was to come, but the smile faded from my face as we boarded the elevators and waited for the doors to close. Yusuke noticed, like he always did, and grabbed a banana from his gift basket so he could prod me with it.
"Hey. Grandma," he said, jabbing me in the ribs. "What's that look on your face for?"
"Just thinking about what's to come," I admitted, smile bitter on my mouth. "I said this before, but… Keiko is supposed to be the helpless girlfriend archetype. So I'm not sure how much use I'll be in the days to come."
"Helpless girlfr…" His spine went ramrod straight, Yusuke facing forward with an awkward clearing of throat. "Uh. Hey, Keiko?"
"Hmm?"
"You know…" He looked at me sidelong and then glanced away again, face flushing. "You know I'm not in love with you or anything, right?"
I pretended to look hurt. "Well darn, and here I was planning our wedding and picking out the name of ours kids—yes I fucking know you're not in love with me!" I cat-slapped at his arm a few times in disgust; he retaliated by pulling my hair. "Ouch! And don't be gross. It'd be like kissing my brother!"
"Oh, thank god!" he said, sagging against the side of the elevator car. "Because when Hiruko said that thing about people loving you, and then you said the girlfriend thing—and since I'm the main character, for a second there I just thought—even though it's obvious to me who's actually in love with you, but—"
"Well…" I waffled a bit, then said. "You're not wrong. Not exactly, anyway."
He blinked. "Wait. What?"
"Keiko… well, she was supposed to be Yusuke's girlfriend." It was kind of fun admitting that particular truth, because Yusuke's expression of horror was absolutely hysterical. "But that just didn't happen. And here we are."
"Like I said," he groused. "Thank god for that!"
"Hey. Rude!" I said, slapping his arm again. "I'm a catch!"
"Yeah, a catch like a virus," he retorted. "To me, you're more like…" He paused, scratching the side of his face and smearing lipstick everywhere. "Well, I guess if I had to be one of those people Hiruko talked about, you're like my sister. Maybe?" He chortled a little. "Now, if he'd said grandma, that'd be it, for sure."
"Yeah, I suppose it would." Fishing a tissue from my pocket, I said, "Yusuke?"
"What is it?"
"Thanks. For having my back through all of this."
He grinned. "You've always had mine, right?"
"Right." Dabbing at his messy cheek, I said, "That's right."
Koto's lipstick wouldn't come off easily, but I tried my best to get him clean—and to hide the well of emotion that had made my eyes start to sting. Yusuke saw it, though, and dodged away with a groan of exhaustion.
"Don't start cryin'!" he said, scowling. "You aren't my girlfriend, I did not sign up for—"
It didn't matter, how much he hemmed and hawed about disliking my mushy side. He still gave me a half-hearted hug with one arm and let me shed a tear or two into his shoulder, telling me that I needed to suck it up, and that was a direct order. Since none of his other wishes had come true, he reasoned, consider his command to stop crying his tournament-winner's request.
And not knowing yet if his true wish would come true, I was more than happy to oblige this minor one.
The girls finished cleaning and packing first, and once we left the hotel suite even cleaner than we'd found it, we headed down to the boys' suite to help them finish up.
Not that four teenage boys (one of whom didn't have any luggage whatsoever and who might not've actually been a teenager at all) actually needed help packing. It's just that I liked Otoha quite a bit, and I'd be damned if we didn't make sure the boys' suite was spotless before we checked out and headed home. Neither Kuwabara nor Yusuke could be trusted to perform tasks like cleaning out the fridge or making the beds, so I was more than happy to micromanage their asses as they vacated the hotel room.
And it's a good thing I followed that instinct, because their refrigerator was a wreck, and they'd tossed pillows and blankets just about everywhere. As Botan and Yukina gathered linens and forced Kuwabara into assisting them, I sat in front of the fridge and tossed everything that could no longer be considered edible. Luckily we hadn't been there but about a week, so the boys hadn't done too much damage… but someone had knocked over a soda at the back of the icebox, and I soon found myself up to my elbows in cleaning supplies as I scraped out the sticky residue.
After a few minutes, Botan called from the living room, "Keiko? How's it going in there?"
"Fine!" I called back. "Just takes some elbow grease, that's all!"
Kuwabara muttered something in the distance, but I didn't quite catch what he said. A few minutes later, Yusuke's voice ricocheted out of one of the distant bedrooms, somehow carrying despite the walls between us.
"Keiko?" he bellowed. "Have you seen my good shoes?"
"By the front door!" I called back,
And then, not long later, Botan stuck her head through the kitchen door. "Hey, Keiko?" she said. "Do you have any—"
"Stop calling her that!"
I froze at Kuwabara's outburst. So did Botan. A minute later he appeared beside her in the doorway, glaring at me through eyes as dark as they were irate. He didn't say a word, though. He just scowled, looking at me as he uneasily fidgeted next to Botan. Out of his line of sight, Botan shot me a questioning look. But all I could do was stare helplessly back, because nope—I had no idea what this was all about, just like she did. Eventually Botan got tired of not knowing, though, and turned to Kuwabara.
"Kuwabara," she said, face as sweet as her kind words, "what are you talking about?"
"Stop calling her 'Keiko,'" he said, and then he turned to me. "That's not your name, right?"
"It's—"
He didn't let me finish. "You might as well tell us your real name. I know you said it didn't matter when you were explaining things last night, but it's weird to keep calling you Keiko when we know that's not your name." He crossed his arms over his broad chest, not budging an inch in the face of my pleading stare. "So tell me what else I can call you, because—"
"It's not that simple!"
"The hell it's not." His eyes darkened considerably, not at all buying my penitent expression. "Just tell me your—"
Kurama appeared beside him, hand alighting on his shoulder. "Kuwabara. She can't tell you," he said, not flinching from Kuwabara's dark eyes.
"But—!"
"She can't tell you," Kurama said, "because she doesn't remember her old name."
Kuwabara stared at him, expressionless. Botan, however, actually gasped, spinning to face me with her hands over her mouth.
"Is this true, Keiko?" she asked, clearly disturbed. "Do you really not remember your own name?"
"Um. Yeah." Turning back to the refrigerator, I mumbled, "I remember everything else. Just not that."
"How awful," Botan said—and when she hesitated, I suspected I knew what she'd ask next. "But he raises a good point. Do you still want to be called Keiko?"
"It's been my name for 15 years," I said, scrubbing a little too aggressively at the stained refrigerator. "Don't see why I'd go changing that now."
A murmur of agreement followed that declaration. Footsteps slid across the floor, and once I thought I was alone, I stopped scrubbing. I dropped my head into my hands and sighed, shoulders sagging with depressive, dark defeat.
A gasp cut the air.
But when I looked up, whoever had made the sound had already disappeared.
While Atsuko and Shizuru raided the bar one final time, the rest of us waited with our luggage in the mostly deserted hotel lobby.
And when I say "mostly deserted," I mean that quite literally. A sheet had been draped over the grand piano in the lobby's corner, and most of the potted plants had been wheeled out and stashed… somewhere. The remaining staff member at the front desk had actually had to remove some sheets from the lobby seating so we could rest our feet; the rest of the many plush chairs and shiny tables had been covered to protect them from dust. It was almost eerie, seeing the normally bustling lobby in that state… but I was the only one bothered, I think. Yusuke and Kuwabara kept themselves busy as they demolished the food in Yusuke's gift basket, and Kurama read a book in peaceful silence while Hiei took a nap in the chair beside him. I tried valiantly to enjoy a novel, but I confess I absorbed very little of it, skimming and reskimming the same paragraph a dozen times before finally putting it away with a sigh.
Kuwabara glanced my way at that, but he looked away again just as quickly.
"I miss Yukina already," Botan said in her spot beside me on a couch. She kicked forlornly at the rug beneath our seating area, magenta eyes downcast. "I wonder when we'll see her again…"
No one replied. We'd all gone together to see her off at the portal to Demon World, which had been erected in the first of the tournament's two stadiums. She'd walked through the gaping, jet-black hole in space and time alongside Touya and Jin—in good hands, I thought. I just hoped Touya would let her stay by their sides once they made it to the other side, my insides twisting with the same anxiety that no doubt gripped Botan.
Kuwabara sighed, leaning back in his chair to gaze at the skylights overhead. "Feels weird, to think we're going home," he mused aloud.
"Yeah?" said Yusuke after he finished gobbling down a chocolate chip muffin. "How do you figure?"
Kuwabara shrugged. "I mean, it feels like we've been here for years—but also like the tournament passed in the blink of an eye, somehow? Like, I can hardly believe it's really over." His face screwed up tight, etching deep lines between his eyebrows. "And nobody at home knows what we did here, so it's like… did we even come here at all?"
"How very solipsistic of you, Kuwabara," I remarked.
He didn't bother looking at me. "I mean. I guess?"
Kurama eyed him askance. "Not in a philosophical mood, are we?" Rather than wait for an answer, he just turned to me and smiled. "If you'd like to discuss it, Kei, I'd be happy to step in."
Kuwabara's head jerked up, narrow eyes now aimed at Kurama, who ignored him. I smiled at each of them in turn, but only Kurama returned the look.
"Nah, it's fine," I assured him. "Was just thinking out loud."
"Yeah," Kuwabara muttered. "We heard you."
I froze. He spoke the words with such acidity, even Hiei opened his eyes to shoot him an expression of brow-raised skepticism. Yusuke stared at Kuwabara with a grimace, socking him on the shoulder until Kuwabara yelped. Kurama looked his way with outright chill, green eyes like a forest blanketed in heavy snow. But soon he smiled again, although he only did so at me.
"Would you like to take a walk with me, Kei?" Kurama said. "It feels quite cold in here, all of a sudden."
"Oh, uh." I climbed to my feet. "Sure."
Yusuke whispered something at Kuwabara as we walked away, but Kurama put a hand on my elbow, steering me toward the doors quickly enough that I couldn't hear whatever Yusuke said. Stepping out into the sunshine, Kurama's urgency diminished; he let me take the lead, walking toward the nearby forest with slow, meandering steps. He waited until we stepped beneath its shade to speak, darkness in his eyes matched only by the shade-shrouded canopy overhead.
"You shouldn't let him speak to you that way," he said, looking me over as though for injury.
There was no questioning who he meant by that remark. "He's just mad. He'll cool off eventually," I said, shrugging. When Kurama's eyes did not brighten, I reached for him, patting his elbow reassuringly. "Really, Kurama, it's fine. He's allowed to be mad at me."
Still, Kurama did not react. He stayed as stony as a moss-covered boulder, unyielding and impenetrable.
"Really," I insisted. "I appreciate knowing you're on my side, but he's entitled to his emotions. Pushing him in any one direction or another will just make it worse. I can only prove through my actions that I'm not the person he thinks I am." Another shrug. "It just takes time."
Kurama stirred at last to say, "The others adjusted quickly enough."
"I think it's different for Kuwabara."
He paused. Then: "I suppose it is."
Smiling, I patted his arm again. Walked away, back toward the hotel.
Kurama's voice floated after me like dandelion on the wind.
He said, "But that doesn't make it right."
Although I knew he had a point, I didn't have the heart to agree.
Soon Atsuko and Shizuru returned from the bar, the pair of them pleasantly buzzed judging by their red cheeks and relaxed expressions. "Hey, everybody," Shizuru said as they rolled up on our party "You ready to go?"
"We are!" said Botan, hopping gamely out of her chair.
"And we've got plenty of time to make it to the ferry." Atsuko grinned, looping an arm around Yusuke's neck. "What's say we take a nice, leisurely stroll there, huh?
"I'm game, Ma," he said, grinning back. "You all ready?"
We were, so with one last look at the opulent interior of Hotel Kubikukuri, we departed in a train—of friends, of exhaustion, of the glow of a task completed and a job well done, too. Everyone talked, chatting as we ambled out of the hotel and down the path to the seashore, where the 4 o'clock ferry bound for home waited to whisk us back to our lives again.
No one else pondered such a thing, judging by their merry conversation. Botan, Yusuke, Atsuko, Shizuru, Kurama, myself and even the bellicose Hiei traded wit and wordplay with every step. Only Kuwabara, at the edge of the group, remained conspicuously silent, staring off into the trees as if he could see straight through them. I couldn't help but notice that silence, shooting him glance after glance the further we walked—but when I spotted movement in the brush beside the path, my attention wandered there, instead. And suddenly, I understood what Kuwabara had been staring at.
"Oh, hey, look!" I said, grabbing Kurama's arm. Pointing, I said, "A cat! Do you see that?"
Kurama looked, smiling at the small orange tabby sitting underneath a tree. Breaking away from the pack, I trotted toward it, stopping when the cat stood up and made a move for the safety of the forest.
"Here, kitty-kitty!" I said, making kissy noises to no avail. "C'mere, kitty!"
"I don't think it's interested in socializing," Kurama observed.
"Probably feral. But I have some tuna I could give it…" As I unzipped my bag, I called out, "Hey, Kuwabara! Wanna try and make friends with this cat?"
Kuwabara didn't reply. In fact, he just turned his back on me, putting on a burst of speed to catch up with the others, who had walked a ways ahead. At that rejection, I cursed; hadn't I just been telling Kurama that I intended to give Kuwabara space? But there I went, trying to engage with him thanks to a dumb feral cat. Stupid, stupid, stupid—
As the cat observed us from a distance, gravel crunched underfoot behind me. "Forget him, Kei," Kurama said as he came to stand at my side. He didn't bother to keep his voice low, although he didn't exactly raise it, either. "It isn't worth it."
But apparently Kuwabara had sharp ears, because he stopped dead. "You got a problem with me or something?" he shot over his shoulder along with a searing glare. "Because I heard that, Kurama."
Kurama only lifted a brow, though. "Excuse me?"
"Don't play dumb," Kuwabara said, turning around in full. Over his shoulder I watched the rest of our group continue along the path, oblivious. "You got a problem with me, huh? Because that isn't even the first shitty thing you've said today, and I've been feeling all week like you're giving me the goddamn stink eye."
Kurama eyed him over coolly. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, really?" Kuwabara took a few steps forward, glowering down at Kurama through intensely narrowed eyes. "Because it looks to me like you know exactly what I'm talking about."
Zipping my bag back up, I shot to my feet, hands up in the universal gesture of peacemakers the world over. "Now, now," I said through a nervous, uncertain laugh. "We won the tournament, so whatever this is, we should put it aside and celebra—"
Only cold, dark eye turned my way. "This has nothing to do with you," said Kuwabara. "Butt out."
I shrank; I couldn't help it. But before I could even think of standing up for myself, Kurama took a decisive step forward, putting himself between me and Kuwabara like a slender, redheaded wall.
"Don't take your emotions out on Kei, Kuwabara," Kurama said—and as Kuwabara bristled, I got the sense that I was witnessing the beginning of a train leaping the tracks, disaster all but guaranteed to follow. "None of this is her fault."
"Maybe not, but that doesn't make me any less annoyed at you," he replied. "You've been weird toward me for basically the whole damn tournament, and I'm getting sick and tired of—"
The scent of burning tobacco drifted through the air; a hand alit on Kuwabara's shoulder just as Shizuru said, "Bro. Chill out."
Had it not been for that telltale aroma, she would've approached us in complete silence. Now Shizuru stared at her brother with an icy gaze, her honey eyes as hard as amber as she glared her brother down. But he wasn't so easily intimidated, throwing a hand in Kurama's direction with a sputter of disbelief.
"Sis," he said. "You can't really be defending—"
"If Kurama's snippy, it's not because of you. And it's not even about Keiko, either." Chucking his shoulder, Shizuru smiled around her glowing cigarette. "So lay off, all right?"
Kurama's lips twisted into a wry smile. "Thank you, Shizuru."
"What are you talking about?" Kuwabara protested, not understanding. "Kurama's been treating me weird all week, and—"
She cut him off with a laugh. "He's been treating me like that, too. Or at least he was. But unlike you, I actually asked him about it ages ago. And I didn't come at him like a bullet train, either."
As Kuwabara gaped, gears turning desperately behind his eyes, Kurama's smile widened. "You have always been admirably logical, Shizuru," he said. "I appreciate your temperance."
But Shizuru just turned her glare on him, then. "Oh, shut up," she growled, blowing out a plume of ash and smoke like an irritable dragon. "I'm not happy with you, either. It's a tough subject, sure, but you should've just talked to him about it. We wouldn't be standing here if you'd done it like I said you should."
"There wasn't time," Kurama said in his defense. "We couldn't afford distractions before the finals, as you may recall."
Kuwabara threw up his hands, totally over their enigmatic conversation. "What the hell is going on?!" he demanded.
Shizuru only had eyes for Kurama, though. Swiping her cigarette from her lips, she pointed it at the fox demon and said, "Go on, Kurama. Finals are over, right? So tell him. I know you don't think it's wise or whatever, but clearly my brother is perceptive enough to know when you're icing him out."
"You know why I don't think it's wise," Kurama said, frost dripping from every syllable.
He waited a beat, after that—but Shizuru didn't back down. Soon Kurama's head rose. His eyes hardened further still.
"If you insist," he said, and he mechanically turned to Kuwabara.
"OK," said Kuwabara. "What's this all about?"
Kurama said nothing.
Kurama lifted his chin into the air.
"Kuwabara," Kurama declared with cold, dead-eyed dispassion. "Our parents' relationship is completely unacceptable."
For a minute, I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. And Kuwabara felt the same way, judging by his baffled silence and dropped jaw. Soon, though, he shook his head and stammered a reply, mouth chewing on air between each syllable.
"Wait. Wait. What?" he said, gesturing with no particular intention I could discern. "You—? That's what you—?" He laughed, though no humor occupied that sound. "What the heck, man? What's your problem?"
As Kurama drew himself up to reply, and as Shizuru crossed her arms to watch the argument play out, I grabbed my bag and took a deep breath. I only made it one step away from the group before Shizuru blocked my path, however, cutting off my avenue of retreat before I could sneak like hell away.
"Oh, no you don't," she muttered. "You're staying."
"But this seems like a family affair," I whispered in protest, "and—"
"Sorry, kid," she whispered back, "but I get the feeling that I'm gonna need help with the fallout when this is said and done."
Ignoring us completely, Kuwabara threw up his hands again, still gesturing with frantic speed. "What do you mean, their relationship is unacceptable? They're just dating! What's so wrong with that?"
"Tell me, Kuwabara." Kurama's stare could've frozen lava solid, but Kuwabara didn't appear to notice. "Just how honed are your father's psychic abilities?"
"Uh. They're pretty strong. Why?"
"Strong enough to discern that I am not a typical human teenager?"
"I mean, probably? But—"
"And how much have you told him about your friend Kurama?" Kurama continued. "Your exploits with Spirit World? This tournament?"
"Well." Kuwabara's face flushed. "A lot, but—"
"And therein lies the issue," came Kurama's chillingly logical response. "If allowed to pursue my mother, your father will eventually realize that your demon friend Kurama and her son Shuichi are one and the same… that is, if he doesn't realize it already." Tossing his hair, imperious as an emperor, he stared down his nose at Kuwabara said proclaim, "Do you honestly expect your father to keep my secrets for me? To lie about the existence of the supernatural to my mother, as I have done for 15 years? To hide his own nature from a woman he claims to love?"
Kuwabara blanched. "Who said anything about love yet?!"
"Your father's presence in my mother's life poses a real and present danger to the longevity of my secrets, not to mention my relationship with my mother," Kurama said, not bothering to address Kuwabara's yelped query. "Furthermore, bringing more supernatural influences into her life could endanger my mother's wellbeing. As such, I do not intend to allow your father to date my mother for any length of time, Kuwabara."
"You—" His face was nearly purple, now, eyes taking a turn toward livid. "Are you saying that you're going to break them up?"
"Yes." He had no shame at all, making that declaration. "Rest assured, the moment we return, I will do everything in my power to prevent this relationship from coming to fruition."
For a second, Kuwabara didn't, couldn't react.
Then, with a genuine innocence that defies description, he blurted: "But—but what if she's happy? With my dad, I mean."
And yet, Kurama remained unmoved. "My mother's happiness is no concern of yours," was all he said.
"But it should be your concern!" Kuwabara retorted. "If she's happy, what right do you have to break them up? Why would you take her happiness away?"
"That, too, is no concern of yours," Kurama said. As Kuwabara started to speak, Kurama held up a hand, silencing him with another subzero stare. Derision dripping, he said, "I suspected you wouldn't see reason, Kuwabara. Your giddy reaction to the news of their involvement told me everything I needed to know about your stance on this matter. So, Kuwabara—know this." Raw intention burned behind green irises, jealousy made flesh, purpose made positively audible: "You will not stand in my way. I will protect my mother. And there is nothing you can do to stop me."
Kurama walked away before anyone could argue—not that arguing with tenacity so set in stone is even possible. Kuwabara stood in silence in Kurama's icy wake, watching him walk away with jaw slack and eyes wide… and then he, too, turned and walked away, travelling back down the path the way we'd come.
For a single, endless moment, I floundered. Then I cried out Kurama's name, and Kuwabara's, but neither of them heeded my call. Soon Shizuru muttered a curse and darted after her brother, abandoning me to the fitful sunlight filtering through the forest's canopy—and leaving me standing in the crossroads of a ruined friendship, with no idea where either Kurama or Kuwabara's disparate paths might lead them.
By the time I caught up to our group, Kurama had firmly settled into step alongside Hiei. I tried to talk to him, but he only offered me the barest of subtle smiles before facing ahead again. He had no intention of discussing Kuwabara with me. He was too busy being stony, clearly lost to the tide of his own thoughts as our party rounded a corner and found ourselves at the top of a tall cliff. The road continued down the side of the cliff, but from our high vantage point, we beheld a gorgeous view of the ocean. Sunlight sparkled on the bright blue water; below us, boats bobbed alongside a pier, where Morrie's ferry waited to take us home again. We all stopped walking at the sight of the view, Yusuke striding out ahead to place a foot on the cliff's farthest and most precarious edge. Atsuko soon joined him, clapping a hand onto his shoulder with a grin.
Somehow, even though she faced the sea, I heard it loud and clear when she said, "Can't wait to get off this island."
"Ah!" said Botan, shielding her eyes from the sun. "There's our ship!"
Knowing the way home was so close at hand put a murmur of disquiet into my chest, but I tried not to let this show on my face. "Goodbye, goodbye, to the island world," I hummed instead.
Yusuke grinned over his shoulder at me. "Let's go aboard, huh?"
"Yeah," someone behind me said—but it was only Kuwabara and Shizuru, the pair of them appearing behind me along the path. Kuwabara didn't smile as he muttered, "Let's blow this joint."
Yusuke's grin widened. "All righty!" he declared, lifting a fist high. "Off we go—victorious!"
A shout rang up from all assembled—a shout of victory, of cheer, of relief and the feeling of releasing a breath held for far too long. Only I didn't raise my voice in chorus. Only one thread had been left hanging, as near as I could tell… but it was a thread upon which much hung. No cheer lived in me while it dangled unresolved.
No one noticed my trepidation, however, judging by the smiles on most faces in our group. Botan heaved a sigh and put a hand to her cheek, wistfully staring across the water as she murmured, "And that's that, I suppose."
"Yeah." Yusuke spun to face us, grin sparkling in the sunlight. "Now let's move."
Everyone nodded. Turned to leave, down the path that led to the shore below.
But then a thin, hoarse voice carried to us on the wind.
It murmured, "With nary a look back, eh?"
I closed my eyes.
"Huh?" said Kuwabara.
Relied crested over me in a cool and bracing wave.
"That voice…" said Yusuke.
My throat tightened, full of joy unsung- but I didn't open my eyes to see her. I just listened in silence as a shout rang up, and feet pounded the earth, and the cry of Genkai's name rang out across the endless sea.
"What?" she said, miffed at their cries of disbelief. "Gonna leave an old lady stranded?"
But the answer to that, of course, was no—and when I opened my eyes, I saw my friends surging forward toward her, to the spot where Genkai stood just beyond the shadows of the woods, her smile as bright as the sun glinting off the ocean and far more beautiful than it could ever be. They swept her into their collective embrace with cries of joy and the scent of shedding tears, crying out with wonder and with gratitude that Genkai had been delivered back to them, born back to the world of the living on the power of Yusuke's wish. I didn't have time to join them, much though I wanted to. I was too busy covering my face with my hands, a sob wrenching free of my chest with a sound like twisting metal.
"You knew that I'd grant his wish, I take it?"
This was Koenma, of course, who had come to stand beside me on feet as silent as a moth's light wings. He watched my friends, too, sparing me a glance as I tried in vain to cease my sniffles and compose myself. Finally he offered me a tissue, which I accepted, because I was a mess and I knew it.
"No," I told him when I regained my ability to speak. But he looked skeptical, so I added, "I mean… that's what was supposed to happen. You were supposed to bring her back. But things have changed, so I wasn't sure." And then the tears flowed once again, and all my ire for the prince of Spirit World vanished like dew in the light of morning. "Thank you. Thank you, Koenma. If anything could go to canon—anything at all—this is what I wanted the most."
The corner of his lips curled up, smile somehow wry and genuine at once. "I could tell by your reaction, when Yusuke proposed sending you to your other life, that you wanted this even more," he said, gesturing toward Genkai. "It was difficult to argue with a reaction like that, even if I had to bend the laws of Spirit World to make it happen."
"Thank you," I said, because it was all I could say. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
As Koenma preened, basking in unexpected praise, a flash of muted pink caught my eye. Amid the throng of my friends, Genkai stared at me, her rheumy eyes bright and glittering. I stared back in silence, tears and a smile waging war upon my face.
Eventually, Genkai gave me a nod.
I nodded back, and I again began to cry tears of unbridled joy.
As I stood at the bow of the ship, staring before us into the scintillating blue of the sea, I breathed deeply of the salted air. I closed my eyes. And I reflected, silently, that I had told Koenma the truth—something I had trouble telling, but something I could grow to love, if given enough time. I'd told him the truth when I said that if I could've wished, at the start of the tournament, for any one thing could go to canon, it was Genkai's resurrection.
Hiei's lost matches? Kuwabara's unexpected wins? Atsuko's kidnapping and Hiruko's meddling? None of these things had gone to plan, but I could live with them—so long as we got to live with Genkai. So long as her resurrection happened, I would greet whatever chaos that inevitably followed with gladness in my heart.
When the boat at last pulled away from the shore, my friends retreated from the bow of the ship to the cabins below deck. I stayed put, however. I stayed where I was on the bow of the boat, reveling in the feeling of the sea spray on my face and the sound of the waves rushing past the hull. I felt alive and invigorated, and I did not intend to waste that feeling in some dreary hold out of the shine of the evening sun. I did not intend to waste the high of a canon fulfilled on whatever peril lay before us.
So much had happened on Hanging Neck Island. My secret had come out. Kuwabara wouldn't speak to me. Kurama and Kuwabara were at war. Hiruko had cursed me with old tattoos and new secrets. But even though so many bad things had transpired, I refused to look back. I refused to dwell on that past. I chose, instead, to look forward, toward the light of home gleaming just on the horizon.
But although I vowed to not look back, I couldn't help but wonder if we were headed home at all—because could it really be called "home" when everything had changed so much?
I wasn't sure.
I only knew that wherever Fate took me next, I would greet it with arms wide open.
NOTES
Some dialogue was borrowed from the manga during the Genkai scene; hope y'all spotted it.
Think of this chapter as a montage wrap-up of the Dark Tournament arc. From here on out, we're in new territory. Fucking despised writing this chapter, every second of it, which is why it took me so damn long. It's also the longest chapter of this fic yet, which explains something.
Many thanks to all who commented on the previous chapter. Times are hard, and while I'm happy to write this fic, it adds a lot of pressure to my already full plate. Your comments really helped cheer me up when I was in a rough spot, and they keep me motivated to produce chapters at a steady pace. This, and what comes after, is dedicated to these people and the gift that is their readership: MissIdeophobia, shaybaybayXO, balancewarlord, MiYuki Kurama, KhaleesiRenee, rezgurnk, noble phantasm, Call Brig On Over, TheEccentric1, EdenMae, Kitty-ryn, Domitia Ivory, LadyEllesmere, cestlavie, Kuesuno, IronDBZ, Yakiitori, xenocanaan, Sorlian, Tequilamockinbur, DeusVenenare, MoonKishi, MyWorldHeartBeating, setokayba2n, Biku-sensei-sez-meow, Kaiya Azure, vodka-and-tea, C S Stars, Vienna22, Lost4ver2Fantasy, Morganasanguine, Melissa Fairy, AnimePleaseGood, tammywammy9, Sagesof Ages729, kiralol101, Kirie Mitsuru, Convoluted Compassion, SterlingBee, MetroNeko, Tahere-Ravenwood, read a rainbow, ewokling, Neko-Mitsuko, Rigoudon3, cezarina, Aria2302, and passanger
Will see you in two weeks (May 31) with the next chapter. Need time to put stuff in order before we enter the Sensui Arc.
