Warnings: Vomit, hospitals, that kind of thing


Lucky Child

Chapter 114:

"Homeward Bound"


An aquiline nose, beard thick and edged in ginger—the nose was the same, but the beard was new. Tom had been clean-shaven when I'd died. Luckily his eyes were the same old shade of blue.

The dog sitting at his feet upon the dark, featureless ground was also new. Its pink tongue lolled as Tom knelt and scratched its belly, pointed ears standing upright at attention as Tom muttered some small coo of affection I could not quite hear. The dog was a husky mix. The markings on its face, the bandit-mask and brown eyebrows, were unmistakable, though the animal was small. Very small for a husky mix, with stumpy legs and a barrel chest.

The dog's brown eyes opened wide when it spotted me. It leapt up and strained at its red leash, whining as Tom rose to his feet and whispered to the dog to calm down, calm down—that's just your mama.

I frowned. Me, that dog's mama? But I didn't have a—

Tom's blue eyes flashed when he smiled. "Hey, babe," he said in his good-natured grumble. "Miss you."

"I miss you too," I said, mostly on reflex—and then I frowned, because he shouldn't be here. "Tom, why are you…?" The dog barked once, high and frantic. "—and who's that?"

"This little guy?" He knelt again, ruffling the dog's ears. "You know who this little guy is." When I said nothing, it was Tom's turn to frown. "Babe, what's wrong? You know him. It's—"

"Nori." The name rolled off my tongue of its own accord. How had I known that, though? I gaped, confused, but soon repeated, "Nori. It's Nori. Our dog."

"I knew you'd remember." Tom beamed. Soon the expression dissolved into one of mealy sadness. "You've missed a lot, but don't worry, babe. It'll come back to you soon."

I stepped toward him. "What do you—?"

A sound cut the darkness at my back—a murky sound, sibilant and strange, wet scales sliding across loose gravel. It killed me to tear my eyes from Tom's, but I did so I could look over my shoulder.

Behind me yawned empty black, endless and void.

Slowly, I turned back to Tom—but just as I tried to find his eyes once more, the shadows rippled, surged, and lunged with a sound like breaking glass, flying at my face with a flash of teeth, and I screamed—

—only to jolt awake, gasping for air against the window of the rocking train car.

I sat up with a curse, the stone charm on my bracelet clicking against the glass. The scant few passengers in the car nearby didn't look in my direction; seemed like I hadn't made a total fool of myself and talked in my sleep, then. Good. Turning my face away, I rubbed at my bleary eyes, listening as a cool voice announced over the PA system that we were almost to my stop. Good thing, too, because that dream had been… well, it had been unsettling, and I didn't want to fall asleep again just yet.

I found Kagome waiting for me on the train platform when I disembarked a few minutes later. She spotted me and waved as I strode over, watching as she bounced like a leaping deer and skidded to a stop at my side.

"Hey, girl," she chirped, but then she tittered. "What's wrong?"

My eyes rolled. "You sound like my parents."

"Huh?"

After splitting up from Yusuke and Kurama after school, I'd run straight home to ask Mom and Dad if I could bring the food for the little get-together Koenma had requested for the following day. They'd said yes just like I thought they would, just so long as I helped them prep some of the dishes ahead of time and not leave them with the bulk of the work at the last minute. That meant chopping a ton of vegetables and prepping soup stock before I skipped out to go to my weekly aikido lesson, of course, so I fell into sync beside them in the kitchen without complaint.

But even though I didn't say much, Mom was too perceptive for my own good. Not long later she sidled up next to me with a low murmur of, "Keiko, honey? How are you feeling?"

"Fine, I guess." My knife connected with the chopping board in a rhythmic tattoo, undaunted. "Why?"

"You've just seemed… tense, lately," Mom said. "Like you're walking on eggshells for some reason."

I swallowed, self-conscious. "Really?"

She nodded. Waited a beat for me to speak. But when I did not, she leaned in close and asked, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

A million things. A billion things. But this was the time for precisely none of them. And yet, her plaintive expression and concerned gaze told me I wasn't getting out of this with making at least one confession, so I took a deep breath and racked my brain for… something. For the least incriminating topic in the long list of things causing me endless amounts of grief.

"Lately I've been fighting with Kuwabara," I said, knife hitting the cutting board a little harder. "That's all."

"Oh no!" Mom put a hand to her cheek. "And he's such a sweet boy, too. What have you been fighting about?"

"Just… I didn't tell him something, and he's mad about it." Sweeping my diced carrots to the side, I reached for a head of garlic and started peeling. "I did it to protect him, and he gets that, but…"

"But it still hurts," Mom surmised.

"Yeah."

Her arm slipped around my shoulders. "Trust can be so hard to earn back once it's lost," she said, "but he knows that you care about him." She leaned her temple against mine and smiled. "Give it time. Time heals all wounds."

I chuckled. "Thanks, Mom."

"No thanks required. Dispensing motherly advice is what I'm here for." She let me go and reached for a large radish, holding it aloft like a sword. "Now help me chop these daikon so we can make pickles!"

We cooked for a while longer after that—too much longer, actually. I lost track of time as we giggled and chatted, to the point that I was running too late to sit and eat a proper dinner. Mom tucked a few onigiri into my bag as I bolted for the train station, shouting after me to eat something when I got the chance ("Because I saw your bento, and I know you skipped lunch!"), but I fell asleep on the train before I could bolt down some food. Not that I was actually hungry. The dream I'd had on the train had put a hollow pit in my stomach, too large and cold to fill with mere food. Had Kagome picked up on whatever my mom had seen in my face, or had the dream been bad enough that she could pick up on the mood it had left behind?

Not that it was all that weird that she'd sensed one or both of those things. Kagome was basically my best friend at this point, so perhaps it made sense she could pick up on whatever mood I was in.

But unlike with my mother, my beef with Kuwabara wasn't the only thing I could talk about with Kagome. All the things I couldn't tell Mom needed to get spilled, and Kagome was the perfect person to hear them out.

"Seriously, you look like a total space cadet," Kagome was saying. She waved a hand in front of my face, snapping me back to the present with a flutter of slender fingers. "Earth to Eeyore! You get completely stuck in a daydream, or what?"

"Some things have happened in the past week or two, Kagome," I said, shaking my head in slow strokes. "I haven't had a chance to tell you about them yet, but…"

"But what?"

"Koenma is coming to Human World tomorrow to tell us what he's learned about the Makers."

Kagome blanched. "Oh my god."

"Yeah. And while that's intimidating as all hell, there's something else that's got me even more keyed up." Fighting a grimace off my face proved impossible. "I saw Sato Shogo the other day."

"The husband of the former Spirit Detective?" Kagome clarified.

"Yeah. Him. And he read my fortune."

Feet striking the concrete pace by somber pace, I told Kagome about the cards—the cards that predicted tyranny, change, tough decisions and martyrdom in turns. She said not a word as we left the station and trekked down the streets toward the warehouse district, shadows depthless under the eaves of shops, houses and the boughs of looming trees. Her eyes grew wider and wider with every revealed card, and when I fell quiet, she let out a low whistle from between her teeth.

"Why didn't you tell me about that sooner?" she asked, voice hushed.

"I just couldn't say it over the phone." This was absolutely true, though not all there was to it. "And then when we saw each other, there wasn't a good moment to…"

"To talk about tyrants and stuff?" she guessed, and then she rolled her eyes. "So you've just suffered in silence this whole time. You martyr." Kagome winced and blushed. "Um. Poor choice of words, I guess, all cards considered…"

I stared straight ahead, fists clenching at my sides. "For a while I thought that maybe that card—that card that meant martyrdom—was referring to Yusuke," I said. "He's supposed to die and resurrect as a demon during the Sensui case, right?"

"Oh, that's right!" Kagome said. "I'd forgotten that. Like, he has a demon ancestor or something? And his death awakens those genes?"

"Exactly." And yet, I couldn't share her excitement, nor could I mirror the relieved sparkle in her eye. "But Shogo said that the cards were specifically for me—me, and me alone."

But Kagome wasn't about to let go of hope so quickly. "Well, I hope he was wrong. I hope he was wrong and the cards were talking about Yusuke." Her lips pursed when she frowned. "Wait a second, Little Miss Atheist. Don't you think tarot is a load of hogwash, anyhow?"

"I do. I did." Sweeping my hand out at the wider world, I mused, "But we live here, don't we? Where there are demons, and powers, and Spirit Worlds… maybe tarot is real here in a way it wasn't in our old lives."

"Maybe. But maybe it is a load of hogwash," Kagome said. "Has anything else the cards said come to pass?"

"Annoyingly, yeah," I admitted. "The cards about my past certainly made sense. 'Justice' is about accountability and honesty, plus a major upheaval, which…"

"Yeah, you coming out of the reincarnation closet certainly rings a bell there," Kagome observed with a brilliant smile.

"And then my present corresponded to the Moon, High Priestess and Magician cards—feelings of doubt, no sense of self, and a trickster figure. AKA, my mental state and Hiruko."

"But I mean, I read your mood from down a train platform," Kagome countered. "Maybe Shogo could sense you felt that way, too, and he read the cards to reflect what he observed. There's not enough data here to say for sure if the cards are magic, or if he's just good at reading you."

If hearing that hadn't made me feel so much better, I'm sure her logic would've irked me—because that logic was practically word-for-word the reasoning I'd used to dismiss fortune telling in my past life. But it hadn't occurred to me to think about that in this life, so all I did was smile and admit, "That's a good point, Kagome."

"What can I say? I'm amazing." Her smile faded as quickly as it had emerged. "Dunno if you want advice, but I'm gonna give it anyway. You said the future cards meant stuff like change, tyranny, martyrdom and then a big, enormous choice that's gonna change everything or whatever. Until those future cards actually seem to come true, don't think about the cards at all. Just go with the flow and put them out of your head." She slugged my shoulder, smile as affectionate as it was reproachful. "I know that's hard for you, but at least try, OK? Don't want you falling into a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know?"

"Yeah. That's good advice," I said. "Thanks, Kagome."

She beamed. "Don't mention it."

As we continued to walk through the dark streets, I watched Kagome from the corner of my eye, cataloging the spring in her step and the unconscious smile that perpetually adorned her tiny face. Both Kagome and my mother had come in clutch that evening, dispensing assurances that were almost exactly what I needed to hear. I was a lucky child, indeed, to be surrounded by such incredible people—but the more I thought about my loved ones in this life, the darker my mood grew.

"And besides," I said as we turned a corner onto the lot of warehouses in which Hideki-sensei housed his dojo, "there are more immediate and much bigger fish to fry in my life right now, anyway." At Kagome's lifted eyebrow, I said, "You be careful when you're out in public, OK? Kaito said there's a really serious bug going around that his parents are treating, and—"

"Treating?"

"His parent are doctors, apparently. And Kaito wasn't in school today, and he was acting weird yesterday…"

Her eyes widened below the curtain of her thick black bangs. "You don't think he caught it, do you?" she said, edging away from me a bit.

"Dunno." Although that was exactly where my mind had gone, too. Whining, I wrapped my arms around myself, tilted my face to the sky, and bemoaned, "But I hope not, because I seriously don't have time to catch it and get sick, too!"

From the shadows, a deep voice rumbled, "You feeling OK, Yukimura?"

Kagome squawked; I leaped back; we gasped and grabbed for one another in fright, but it was only Ezakiya who emerged from the darkness pooling in the lee of the warehouse we'd just passed. He held up his hands and babbled apologies as we came down from our shock, blocky face contorted with extreme remorse even as Kagome leveled a finger at his face in accusation.

"You scared me!" she shrieked. "Don't do that!"

"Somebody needs to put a bell on you, Big Guy," I said, hand pressed atop my thundering heart. "You're like a cat!"

Ezakiya winced. "My mom always says the same thing!"

"I'll bet she does," said Kagome, cursing. "Jesus, man. My heart is racing."

"Sorry, Kagome. I promise to make a little noise next time." He bowed low, passing a hand across his buzzed hair with another series of apologies. When Kagome accepted them (though not without a harrumph) he cracked a smile and tried to change the mood. "So how are you two doing tonight?" he said, falling into step beside us.

"Oh, fine. Was just telling Kagome that a friend of mine got sick," I said. "Apparently there's a nasty bug going around Mushiyori."

His thick brow furrowed. "I think I saw something about that on the local news. People keep collapsing, don't they?"

"My friend didn't give me specifics, but yeah. That sounds right."

"Hopefully they'll get it under control soon." For such a big guy (he probably had a few inches and fifty pounds on Kuwabara, of all people), Ezakiya looked quite nervous. "I live in Mushiyori, so—"

"Wait, you do?"

"Yeah." Ezakiya laughed. "I guess we've never talked about ourselves to each other much, huh?"

Kagome and I, knowing that wasn't really the case when it came to the two of us, exchanged a loaded look—but before Ezakiya could stop to wonder why we hadn't said anything, we arrived at Hideki-sensei's dojo. The door to the warehouse had been propped open with a brick, and as we pushed the door ajar and walked inside, Hideki himself greeted us almost immediately, stalking toward our group from his place near the punching bags against the warehouse's back wall.

Ezakiya—who had opened his mouth to speak—shut it with a click of teeth and scowled.

But Hideki didn't pay him any mind at all. He just pointed at the sparring mat in the middle of the warehouse, where a handful of other students stretched in preparation for the night's lesson.

"We're focusing on conditioning," he barked. "Too many of you have been slacking on your strength-training, and it shows in your sparring matches. We'll start with basic exercises." Fingers flickered as he snapped. "Now. Go."

And so we went. At Hideki's command, we cycled through tons of sit-ups, pushups, weight lifts, rounds on the punching bags, stretching and more, each set of reps broken up by a grueling series of wind-sprints that left some of the newer students in a heap on the floor. Horrible though the exercises were, it was nothing Hideki hadn't thrown at us before… but rather quickly I felt myself tire, hot lead amalgamating in my muscles and weighing them down to the point I could barely keep up with Kagome's short stride. Still, comparison is all too often the death of progress, so I ignored everyone else's efforts and concentrated on my own, focusing my perception on the stitch in my side, the drag of my feet, the air hissing like hot steel wool down the column of my throat. Zoning out had carried me through an arduous training session many times before, so I allowed my mind to wander as I ran what felt like my hundredth set of wind-sprints. Daydreaming about the food I'd bring to the meeting the following evening was a perfect way to distance my brain from my weary flesh. I'd already diced the onion and the carrots, and I'd prepped the soup stock, so when I got home I'd just need to pack up my noodles, finish prepping the daikon for pickles, grill some fish, maybe make some rice ahead of time…

"Yukimura!" Hideki called, voice rasping through the sounds of running feet and ragged breathing like a splinter. "Yukimura, stop!"

I skidded to a halt, resisting the urge to put my hands on my knees as my lungs tried to tangle themselves into a tight ball. "Hmm?" I said, barely able to speak. Sweat dripped down my face and over my chest, cold liquid stinging when it rolled into my eyes.

Hideki didn't say anything about my haggard appearance, though. He just stalked across the warehouse, expertly weaving through the others as they did their sprints, and handed me a bottle of water. "Drink this," he said, brusque tone brooking no room for argument. "Now."

"… OK?"

Withering under his piercing stare, I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a sip. Hideki watched me like a hawk; wasn't sure if it was the force of his stare or the exercises that made my heart beat like an injured hummingbird beneath my ribs, but either way, it was hard to swallow from the force of its swift pound.

Hideki's scowl deepened. "You'd better sit down," he said, pointing at the sparring mat.

"Um." I lowered the bottle from my lips, tongue flicking out to catch a drop of sweat. "Why?"

"Because your pupils are dilated and your skin is the color of printer paper and if you don't sit, you'll fall down, that's why," he growled—and for a second I just stared at him, not understanding.

That's when a fresh batch of icy sweat sluiced down my face.

All at once the blood roared in my ears and whispered through my throat, a cascade of sparks clouding my vision like fireworks blotting out a summer night's sky. I swayed where I stood, physical sensation in my feet and hands lost like I'd stood up too fast after sitting down for a thousand years. Frankly, it was a wonder I didn't faint. It was only Hideki's hand on my elbow that kept me upright when I staggered, guiding me into a graceless (but safe) heap upon the floor as he plucked the water bottle from my numb hands, which surely would've dropped the thing without his intervention. I could barely feel the touch of his hand through the roar of thundering blood and the cold wings fluttering in the nerves of my face and chest and throat. I barely heard it when someone else called my name, hands alighting upon my back and smoothing over it in small, soothing circles.

"Keiko, are you all right?" Kagome said in my ear. "What's wrong?"

My hand covered my face, though I barely felt it. "I feel like garbage," I mumbled through numb lips.

"You're not—" Kagome struggled to keep her voice calm. "You're not sick, are you?"

"Don't be stupid," Hideki snapped. "She's just dehydrated. And when was the last time you had a decent meal?"

Disoriented as I felt, it took me a minute to remember—oh, yeah. Aside from the small bites of onigiri at lunch, I hadn't had much to eat at all today. No time for breakfast or dinner, either, Mom's rice balls untouched in my backpack on the other side of the warehouse. Whoops.

Sensing I wasn't going to get out of this without admitting my mistake, I grumbled, "Well… not since last night.

"Last night? Last night!?" Hideki repeated, voice like a thunderclap in the suddenly quiet dojo. "You show up here to train, and you haven't eaten since last night? Why did you skip so many meals?"

"It wasn't on purpose." And that was the honest truth, as was my next statement. "I just wasn't hungry today, that's all."

But Hideki had no sympathy. "No excuses," he snarled. "You should know better than to skip meals, especially on the day of a grueling practice session."

Hanging my head was easy, because keeping it upright was honestly sort of hard. "I'm sorry, sensei."

"What was this, some misguided diet attempt?" he continued as though I hadn't spoken. "What you need is more muscle, and you can't grow it if you don't eat. Do you want to be a fighter or don't you? Fighters eat. Warriors know that food will give them the strength to fight another day." He pressed the water bottle back into my hand. "Don't show up to practice in this state again, got it? You could have fallen and seriously injured yourself, and—"

Kagome cleared her throat. "She gets it, sensei."

"What she can get," Hideki retorted, "is out of my dojo and to the nearest restaurant." The sparkles in my eyes had abated just enough for me to see him point at me from above, a king calling down his wrath on a disappointing subject. "Carbs and protein, Yukimura. That's what you need. Now go. And you'd better be prepared for double wind-sprints next time you're here, you hear me?"

"Yes, sensei," I replied, too exhausted to be anything but meek. "Thank you."

Once I felt well enough to stand, sparkles finally (mostly) gone and my heart thumping at a pace a bit closer to normal, Kagome helped me to my feet. Hideki watched through narrowed eyes at my progress, eventually nodding his approval when I was able to stand without swaying.

"You go with her, Kagome," he said, and then his lip curled. "Don't want her fainting in some gutter on her way home." Before I could reply, he turned on his heel and barked, "Ezakiya!"

Eza (who had not stopped running sprints, dutiful and honor-bound) skidded to a halt at once. "Yes, sensei?" he said, trotting over to us from across the dojo.

"You go with them, too. Make sure Yukimura eats—" (here he shot me a Look) "—and they get home safe."

Ezakiya nodded. "Yes, sensei," he said, and he turned dutifully our way.

The three of us left in a knot, Kagome shielding me as we practically retreated from the warehouse and Hideki's censorious gaze alike. I felt quite small indeed after getting a dose of Hideki's tough love, and Ezakiya looked more than a little awkward as the warehouse door fell shut and we stood silently in the evening's balmy dark. Still, he gamely pointed off into the distance after a few seconds, forcing a grin onto his broad face like he didn't feel awkward at all.

"There's a noodle place I like over that way; they have good takoyaki, too," he said. "Want to get some yakisoba before you head home?"

I didn't care what we ate, so that sounded about as good as anything else (in the sense that nothing sounded good at all, which made everything equally appealing). Eza led the way out of the warehouse yard and down a few streets, taking us to a small hole-in-the-wall eatery in which I immediately felt very much at home. We were some of the venue's only customers, so we had our pick of seating and chose to establish ourselves in the very back near the kitchens (my choice; no sense making the lone server on staff walk across the place to talk to us). In no time we'd placed our orders and settled in to wait, listening to the radio in the kitchen play an evening show off a local station for the benefit of the cook.

And… that's all we did, because no one knew what to actually talk about. Ezakiya kept glancing between Kagome and me and trying to talk, then reconsidering and closing his mouth again. Clearly he wanted to talk; he just didn't know what to say.

And Kagome, bless her, was too empathetic to let him suffer. She quickly launched into a spirited retelling of one of her favorite anecdotes about the temple where she lived, filling our silence with story that got both Ezakiya and I laughing in no time flat. But soon her story had to come to its end, and once more we lapsed into uneasy quiet broken only by the radio show in the kitchen reading listening love letters aloud.

Next time, Ezakiya himself broke the silence. "You know…" he mumbled to his hands, which he'd folded on the tabletop. "I'm glad we're getting dinner tonight."

Kagome cocked her head. "Oh?"

Eza chanced a hesitant smile. "We all started coming to see Hideki-sensei on the same day, right? Since then, everyone else in that first class dropped out. Now it's just us and a bunch of newbies." He rubbed the back of his neck—an uncertain gesture he paired with a genuine grin. "I kind of feel like we're the originals, you know? The old guard. I realized that the other day and couldn't get it out of my head."

Kagome's eyes lit up. "Is that why you came up to Keiko a few weeks ago to talk?"

"Yeah, actually." Eza's grin grew. "I'm not the best at making friends, but after practicing together for so many months, I feel like I know you both pretty well, so it's less intimidating. I just think it's a shame we haven't gotten to know each other better, if that makes sense."

"It does, Big Guy," Kagome said. Placing her elbows on the tabletop, she rested her chin on her hands. "Y'know, you're pretty cool."

"Thanks, Kagome," Eza replied, relieved. "So're you."

Just then, our server returned with some of our smaller food items, namely takoyaki and some pickled vegetables. Kagome gave the steaming takoyaki a once-over and then stood, saying she needed to use the bathroom while our food cooled off. I reached for some of the small plates we'd been given as she walked away, portioning out the appetizers so she wouldn't accidentally miss out.

But Eza cleared his throat, diverting my attention from the meal. "I gotta say this fast, but—sorry about the other week, when I tried to talk to you out of nowhere," he said in a rush, staring bashfully at the tabletop again. "Kagome is so much younger than me, and you're closer to my age, so I wanted to talk to you first. Looks weird for someone my age to talk to a gradeschooler out of nowhere."

"That makes a lot of sense." It spoke well of him, that he thought ahead so much. "How old are you, out of curiosity?"

"17."

"Wait, really?" I did a double-take at his massive muscles, broad shoulders and shaved head. "I thought you were 20 or something!"

"I get that a lot," he said with good-natured humility. "Big guy, remember?"

"Apparently so!" Serving him some takoyaki, I asked, "Anyway, where do you go to school? Tell me about yourself."

He did so, and by the time Kagome came back, I'd learned quite a bit about the boy I'd been sharing aikido lessons with for so many months: Ezakiya was in his final year of high school; he wanted to study social work in college so he could help people after he graduated; he did aikido to stay in shape; and he care for plants, specifically pepper plants, as a hobby. Over the course of the evening together, Kagome and I learned all that and more about our new-old friend, and I came away from dinner thinking it had been an evening unexpectedly well-spent.

Ezakiya, I decided, was nice—a nice person who was just being friendly, albeit a bit overdue. I'd been so suspicious of people lately, including of him, and that hadn't been cool of me. He'd just wanted to make friends, after all, and there was nothing wrong with that.

After we ate, Ezakiya walked Kagome and me to the train station to see us off before making his own way home. He dropped us off on the station platform with a wave before taking the stairs back up to the street, and as he walked away, Kagome began to whistle the tune of "Mister Cellphone" between her teeth.

"I dunno, Kagome," I said, staring at his retreating back. "He's more like parchment paper now, if you ask me."

"I guess you're right." Nudging my ribs with her elbow, she asked, "You feeling better?"

"That food really did help, actually," I admitted, still tasting delicious takoyaki and stir-fried noodles on my tongue. "I feel like a new person."

"Good noodles can do that to a girl," Kagome said. Around the corner of the train platform came a rattle and screech of brakes, train's headlights cutting the dark in the nearby tunnel. "Think you'll make it home OK?"

"I don't see why not." Checking my watch, I told her, "Getting let loose from practice early is a blessing in disguise, to be honest. I have a lot to cook tonight for tomorrow's meeting."

Anxiety pinched her features, pulling dark lines between her eyebrows. "You'll call me and let me know how that goes, won't you?" she asked, voice pitching higher than usual.

"Of course," I assured her—and when we parted, each of us homeward bound, I only hoped that unlike the results of a certain tarot reading, whatever Koenma revealed to us the following night would not be too dire to tell Kagome over the phone.


That night, I had another dream of a dog I knew—without really knowing how—was named Nori.

The tiny husky mix, with his white chest and gray back and bandit-masked face, sat in a puddle of light below a streetlamp on a quiet suburban street, windows of nearby homes dark as their occupants dreamed in rooms unseen beyond the glass. Stars burned in the black sky above, and Nori looked happy indeed to be outside on this warm spring night—but his red leash lay limp upon the pavement, and in his eyes I saw a spark of mischief.

"Nori!" I called, a note of warning in my voice.

But Nori did not heed my call, and with a wag of tail, he scampered off, leash scraping across the pavement with a hiss.

"Hey!" I shouted after him. "Get back here, you little—!"

Without a second thought I bolted after him down the rain-slicked road, feet slapping the pavement as a bloated supermoon cast silver lights onto the whispering trees. Though Nori had the stubby legs of a corgi, he ran like the wind inspired his every step, flying past the darkened homes of my neighbors (How did I know they were mine?) and around a corner, down another dark road, toward a park in the heart of the neighborhood's secluded streets. I only caught up to him because he stopped to smell the roses—literally. The house closest to the park had roses beside the driveway, and when he slowed to sniff at the base of the plant, I pounced on the end of his leash and held on tight.

"Thank god!" I said, winded as I bent to pet his silky neck. "You almost gave me a heart attack." When he bent his neck to lick my hand, I asked him in a cooing baby voice, "Who's mommy's little shithead, huh? Huh? Is it you, sweet baby?"

"Nori!"

I looked up. Across the street at the park, standing beside the swing set in a pool of amber streetlamp, stood a woman and a man and a dog—a dog called Nori, bandit mask and stumpy legs utterly unmistakable.

That's when I realized Nori's leash was no longer in my hand.

Nori, who had vanished and reappeared across the road, stood at the feet of the man and the woman, butt shaking with joy as he wagged his tail and yipped at the moon and stars. The man pulled a face as he stared at the dog, shaking his head and laughing in disbelief.

"He almost peed on me!" the man said in a voice I recognized—in Tom's voice.

"Who's a good boy, Nori?" said the woman in another voice I recognized—in my voice, as viscerally recognizable as the sight of my own face, which she wore as naturally as breathing. But her hair was shorter than mine had been, a long bob instead of a waist-length mass of waves. "Who's mommy's little shithead? Huh? Is it you, sweet baby?"

Tom laughed again. "That little rat…!"

I watched in silence as they chatted and laughed, leading Nori to the carousel so Tom could spin him and the woman (her, me, my old self) around and around, their laughter flying heavenward like roving fireflies. Numb feet carried me closer to watch them talk and laugh and smile, leading me to a spot behind a nearby tree, unseen but seeing, caught immobile in the light of the scene playing out before me. Tom's laugh put an ache in my heart, and to myself I said I wanted to listen to his laugh forever.

When Nori staggered on the carousel, they helped him down and meandered toward the swings, pushing themselves back and forth as their toes dragged tracks through the scattered tanbark. Nori bedded down in the chips and rolled on his side, panting with a grin plastered across his pointed face. It was all I could do to stand there in silence, numbed to feeling as Tom reached out for her (my, the other-me's) hand and twined her fingers with his own.

The single light above the playground glinted off the ring on her finger—the silver ring set with a single sparkling stone—as shadow pooled thickly on the ground below.

"You know, I like this neighborhood, I think," she (me, my other self) said with casual breeze. "Not as fancy as the one we used to walk through when we were scoping out zombie fortresses, but it'll do."

"Makes sense to me," said Tom with his typical, beautiful, long-missed sense of humor and cheeky grin. "Less people, fewer zombies."

"And there aren't nearly as many trellises out here," said the other me. "Better zombie defense overall, if you ask me."

"But we are in the suburbs," Tom countered with feigned regret. "And we got a dog. And we work white-collar office jobs and drive gas-guzzling cars. All zombie defenses aside, we're basically peak White-People-Being-White-People."

"Hey, we didn't get a golden retriever!" she said, defensively gesturing at Nori. "We're not a total cliché yet."

"Yet," Tom emphasized. "But we're just a golden retriever and a minivan away from being total suburban assholes."

"You're right, it's too risky," the other me mournfully intoned. "We gotta sell the house and move."

Tom bent over and wagged a finger in Nori's face. "You're never allowed to bleach your fur, Nori. You hear that?" he said with mock solemnity. "You're all that stands between us and being insufferable mayonnaise monsters."

"Gross!" she (I, we) said with a cackle, and Tom pulled her (me, us) in for a kiss.

Watching them chatter about their new home in the 'burbs was both familiar and utterly alien—because while I knew my old face, and I knew Tom's bearded face, Nori was new, and this life in the suburbs they spoke of was one I had never lived. I'd never adopted that dog named Nori with Tom; we'd never bought a house together, either. I had died when we were just dating, not engaged, talks about marriage and homes and cohabitating still new and tentative… but here, in this place, they had both a dog and a house, and she wore a sparkling ring I had never seen before. But watching them felt like coming home, so I wrapped my arm around the tree beside me and leaned my temple against its bark, sighing a wistful sigh snatched away on the springtime wind.

Still, entranced as I was by the sight before me, an unsettled ripple tugged at the zen settling within my heart—and then unease turned to alarm as something moved in the shadows by their feet.

"Hey." The word came out as a whisper; I leapt out from behind the tree. "HEY—"

The word froze inside my throat, chill lodging within my neck like a chunk of poison apple. I tried to move to no avail as the shadows at their feet bubbled like boiling tar, scattering bursts and pops of sloppy ichor. It spattered their shoes and Nori's soft coat, but they didn't notice. I tried to move, to run and warn them, but my feet refused to step, my hands refused to twitch. I tried to scream again, to tell them to run, to get out of here, but—

Nothing.

Unable to move or speak or even breathe, I watched in numbed and inert horror as the shadow bubbled and buckled and rose, a shape rising from the darkness to tower behind Tom and my other self, a shapeless shade that loomed like the night itself over their unknowing heads, sucking in the light of the stars and the moon and the streetlight until its darkness was all that remained.

I tried to ludic dream, then. This couldn't be real, after all. But what came so naturally to me in other dreams refused to come to me that night, leaving me stuck and helpless, impotently watching as the shadow loomed higher, and higher still, until its head brushed the dying stars—and then it came crashing down. Like a tidal wave it fell upon Tom, upon Nori, upon the other me and consumed them, hurtling back into the pool of shadow beneath the swings… swings that were now empty, rocking back and forth on the wind like empty caskets. But just as suddenly as it had crashed back into that pool of shadow, the monster rose up again, standing even taller than before.

And then it turned to me.

Panicked and unable to move, I tried to take the reins of my dream again, to snap into control the way I had so many times before. Nothing happened, though, and as the shadow creature drew nearer, I cast about for something, for anything that could save me from this monster that had eaten Tom and my other self and Nori with such mindless hunger, but I saw no weapons, I saw no friends, I saw no means of escape—

Escape!

With a burst of willpower I tried something else: to end the dream, rather than take control of it. I'd done it before, with Hiruko, and once again I forced myself to wake with an icewater shock of I-don't-want-to-be-here-anymore

The monster screamed like breaking glass.

I sat up with a gasp, safe and sound in my room in Sarayashiki, Japan.

It took a few minutes to calm the racing of my heart, but soon I flopped back against my bed and draped an arm over my tired eyes. "What the fuck was that?" I asked the empty room. "I mean, what the hell—?"

Three sharp raps on my bedroom door had me sitting up again, heart leaping into a gallop, but it was just my father. "Honey, are you OK?" he called through the door, concern resonant in every syllable. "Honey?"

"Yeah, Dad!" I called back. "Just had a bad dream."

"Oh. Well, must've been quite a nightmare. You were yelling blue murder!"

He only plodded off down the hall once I assured him I was truly OK, saying he'd cook breakfast if I felt up for it. I told him 'yes' mostly to placate him, rolling back into my bed and pulling the covers over my head as his feet descended the creaky stairs into the restaurant. I hadn't been lying when I said it was a bad dream; it was honestly one of the worst I'd ever had, confusing and strange and worryingly out of control. Normally I could lucid-dream, but…

A shiver skated down my spine.

Throwing the covers aside, I grabbed my alarm clock and squinted at its face. Both the clock and the vague orange light filtering through my curtains told me it was disgustingly early in the morning—far earlier than I usually woke up, and I'd gone to bed pretty late the night before, too. But even though it was too early to go to school, the thought of going back to bed held zero appeal whatsoever, so I swung my legs off the mattress and got dressed with a reluctant sigh.

Mom and Dad didn't seem to mind that I'd gotten up early, though. They were more than happy to let me help with the morning's allotment of restaurant prep work, though Mom still tutted as I sleepily helped her chop a crate of onions.

"You're up really early, sweetheart," she said, fretting when I just shrugged. "You sure you don't want to take a nap before school?"

"Nah." I winked at her. "I'd rather hangout with you two."

"My!" said Mom, flattered. "And they say teenagers normally think their parents are so uncool!"

"It's nice to be popular," said Dad with a laugh. "You've been out so much with your friends, I gotta say I like spending time with my daughter."

"I'll have to wake up early more often, then."

They agreed that that might be nice on occasion, and when it came time for me to head to school, they saw me off with their typical affection and warmth. I carried it with me that day, a salve for my frayed nerves and worried heart as I weathered the storm of schoolwork and social interactions I inevitably encountered at school. Junko and Amagi both noticed I looked tired, but I shrugged them off and spent class thinking about the dream. I spent most of the morning's lectures staring out the window, truth be told, letting my mind drift where it wanted without interference. Even in dance class, I let my body move on autopilot while my head wandered.

I confess I thought mostly of Tom. But I tried not to think about what that might signify in great detail.

When lunch arrived, I considered it a blessing, heading up to my usual stairwell haunt at double speed. Kurama beat me there, however; I found him sitting on the steps with his bento opened across his lap. He smiled when he saw me, hair glinting with red highlights as spring sunshine filtered through the nearby window.

"Hello, Kei." Green eyes swept the steps. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I haven't seen Kaito today."

"Me neither, actually." Well, that was mostly true; since I spent the class daydreaming, I couldn't actually recall if he was or wasn't in lit class. I suspected he wasn't since normally he talked up a streak and inevitably pissed someone off, and I didn't remember hearing him utter a peep that day. Per my usual character, my brain leapt to the worst possible scenario, and to Kurama I muttered, "Not to sound totally paranoid, but you don't think he's…?"

"Afflicted with whatever illness his parents are treating?" His lips thinned, eyes harrowed. "I'd be remiss if I didn't say the thought had crossed my mind."

"I hope he's OK." I shivered in spite of myself. "I hope we don't catch it or something."

"You appear well to me," Kurama said after giving me a swift once-over. Deviousness touched him smile. "Perhaps nervous and sleep-deprived, but I sense nothing amiss worth mentioning."

"That's a relief." I plopped onto the stairs beside him with a suspicious glance askance. "You didn't smell me again or something, did you?"

He kept his expression carefully neutral. "I know you aren't fond of that little skill of mine, so I refrained."

"Good." With precise movements I popped the lid off my bento. "One less thing to be paranoid about."

His lips twitched. "But if you'd like for me to—"

"No. Nope. No thank you."

"I thought as much." His laugh filled the stairwell at my blushing expense. "I see you're eating your lunch today."

I jammed a fried shrimp into my mouth. "Do you approve?"

"Of course." Kurama watched me chew in momentary silence. "Though I can't help but notice you don't seem terribly enamored with the experience."

"It tastes great." Swallowing brought forth an involuntary grimace. "Just not very hungry." Hesitation, followed be a nervy confession: "Anxious about tonight."

Kurama nodded sagely. "I see."

"And it's not just because of Koenma's big news," I said. "It'll be the first time the whole gang gets together since we got back from the tournament, right?" Eyes downcast, I muttered, "I just want it to go well."

"Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but are you perhaps worried about Kuwabara?" Kurama silkily inferred. "You're on good terms with almost everyone else, as far as I'm aware."

"Yeah." My chopsticks scraped the bottom of my bento when I tried to spoon up a bite of rice. "It's the Kuwabara of it all."

"I've been meaning to ask how your chat at the arcade went, but there was never a good time." It was his turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. "May I…?"

I shrugged. "It was nothing crazy. He just doesn't trust me. Said me knowing everything about him but him knowing nothing about me is too imbalanced." Another shrug, this one more helpless than the last. "I have all the power. And even if I tell him about myself, he'll still wonder what I know about him and what I might be holding back about myself."

Kurama nodded, but he didn't speak. I jabbed the rice in my bento again, breaking up starchy clumps with unfeeling, absent swipes.

"He didn't say it in these words," I said after a moment or two, "but back when we first got to be friends, he confided some things in me that he'd never told anyone else. The fact that he shared these intimate details with me, assuming I didn't know them, and then to find out I knew all about them and more…" I sighed. "I guess I see why he's pissed."

"Yes. I understand it as well." Kurama smiled when I turned to him and frowned, confused. "Although I learned your secret in short order, for some time after we first met, it was clear to me that you knew something about me that I had not chosen to share with you. That invasion of privacy, the presumption of intimacy that had not been earned…"

"I haven't said it in a while, but just in case there's any doubt, please know that I'm still sorry about the puns," I said in an air of defeated apology, and Kurama tossed his hair and laughed.

"I appreciate that," he said when the humor faded (though his eyes continued to sparkle). "They were truly quite horrific."

"Well." I turned away as my heart gave an unexpected thump. "The good news is that I think you realized pretty quickly that I'm not the enemy, all my terrifying puns aside."

He hummed an affirmation. "Your commitment to saving my mother's life illustrated that concept quite efficiently, yes."

"Hmm. Well." Gazing out the window, I pillowed my elbow on my knee and my chin on my hand, thoughts wandering back to Kuwabara. "It may take a grand gesture on my part, but eventually I think Kuwabara will realize the same thing. He already knows that I lied and hid things for what I think are good reasons. Now he just needs to believe that for himself—head versus heart and all that jazz." Another sigh, longer than the one that had come before. "Too bad he doesn't have any moms to save with a magic mirror, though."

"Alas, we cannot all be as lucky as myself in that regard," Kurama said. "And Kei?"

I looked away from the window as fingers skimmed my sleeve. "Hmm?"

"Give him time." Kurama's smile dazzled my eyes even more than the bright spring sunlight streaming through the window. "He's far too attached to you to continue being angry for much longer."

But his words did little to comfort me. "I hope you're right," was all I could mutter as I dug back into my bento box.

"Considering I speak from experience," he said, fingertips tracing a pattern on my arm, "I have every faith that I am."

I choked on my food and nearly died. Kurama watched my brush with death with a look of perfect innocence on his face, even handing me a bottle of water as if he hadn't been the cause of my untimely demise.

"Why, Kei," he merely said as I coughed and hacked, face the very portrait of virtue. "You're all red. Did I say something embarrassing?"

I glared at him over the top of the water bottle. "You know damn well what you said, fox boy."

In response, Kurama just laughed, returning to his lunch without a care in the world.


After school, Kurama walked me to my house before accompanying me to Yusuke's apartment across town. We arrived outside the complex just as the sun began to set, arms laden with bags and boxes of the food my parents had helped me prep for the evening meal.

"Thanks again for helping me carry all of this," I said as we prepared to summit the apartment complex's many flights of stairs. "Never could've managed on my own."

"It's nothing," Kurama quickly assured me—and then he smiled a familiar, all-too-innocent smile. Expression utterly angelic, he added, "Helping is just an excuse to spend more time with you."

Thank fucking god I wasn't in the middle of eating that time, because I surely would've choked again. As it stood, I just turned the color of a beet and glared at him with an accusatory mutter of, "Why are you like this?"

"Hmm?" His head tilted. "Like what?"

I probably looked close to purple by then. "Like all charming and—"

"Uh… Hey?"

The words froze on my tongue like blocks of ice in a midwinter squall. Kuwabara stood a few paces behind us, hands in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders slumped as a nervous not-quite-smile played across his sharp mouth. As Kurama issued a perfunctory and perfectly pleasant greeting, I swallowed and tried not to gape, blindsided by the urge to nervously babble or otherwise make a fool of myself in the face of Kuwabara's unexpected appearance.

Obviously, this was the first time I'd seen him post-alteration at the arcade… but I'd been practicing in preparation for this moment, and after taking a second to adjust, I pasted on a breezy smile.

"Hello, Kuwabara. Nice to see you." Jiggling the bags in my left hand, I said, "Would you mind taking this? My hands are on fire."

"Oh, uh… sure," he said, taking them from me (because even when mad, he was still polite).

"Thank you. That's much better." Flexing my hand a few times, I bared my teeth in an anxious grimace. "You nervous for whatever Koenma has to say? Because I sure am."

"Yeah," Kuwabara immediately agreed, but then he walked the statement back with a cough and a shrug. "I mean, I guess so. Yusuke looked pretty freaked out when he told me about the meeting, so…"

"He showed you an emotion that wasn't sass?" I said, impressed. "Huh. Growth. That's good of him." After flashing a grin, I turned to the stairs and groaned, "Man, I wish this place had an elevator…"

I began the long climb upward, Kuwabara and Kurama fell into step behind me without argument. With my back to Kuwabara (and Kurama by extension), I could finally let the easy smile slide off my face, an egg sliding off a nonstick pan and splattering on the sidewalk of my inner mood. Hopefully Kuwabara hadn't seen right through me. That was all I could ask…

Kurama's voice slipped silken on the air after we'd climbed a flight or two—an odd amount of delay to greet someone, in my opinion, because what he said was: "Good to see you, Kuwabara. It's been a while—since the Tournament, in fact."

Kuwabara grunted a reply, but he didn't say anything else. A rather tepid response from the normally effusive guy. Was probably still mad at Kurama, too, likely over the issues with their parents. I hated to admit it, but knowing I wasn't the only person Kuwabara was pissed at was actually kind of… nice? Made me feel a little less alone, at least, since I wasn't the only person on his Shit List.

Anyway.

I put the thought out of my head when we at last arrived outside Yusuke's front door. Botan opened it a minute after I knocked, gorgeous face immediately breaking out in a smile.

"Keiko!" she said. "And Kurama, and Kuwabara—oh, and the food, of course. How nice!" Turning, she cupped a hand over her mouth to shout, "Yusuke, Yusuke, the food—"

"GET THE FUCK OVER HERE YOU LITTLE GODDAMN RAT!"

Like a ball hit by a professional slugger at the bottom of the 9th, loaded bases and all, Puu sailed into the living room in a streak of brilliant blue. Yusuke soon followed, moving with supernatural speed after the little bat-bird creature—who carried a bottle of hair mousse in his claws, I noticed. Yusuke snatched for it and loosed a ferocious growl when Puu fluttered away, bat-wings nimbly propelling him through the air and out of reach. Yusuke shoved the untamed hair falling over his forehead back with a scream of frustration, then performed a flying leap over the back of the couch and managed to snag Puu midair, the pair plummeting to the floor with a terrific crash. A second latter he popped up from behind the couch with a crow of triumph, slinging Puu through the air like he'd caught a prized foul ball.

Botan cleared her throat.

Yusuke spotted us at last.

"Uh." He shoved Puu behind his back, waving awkwardly with his other hand. "Hi, guys."

I held up my bag of food. "I'm just gonna go put this in the kitchen," I said, and with a teasing smirk I walked past Yusuke and into the aforementioned room.

The apartment smelled like Yusuke's cologne and Atsuko's beer, both mixed with the scent of the detergent I always used to wash their clothes. Those scents faded into the smell of instant ramen and old vodka in the kitchen, where Kuwabara and Kurama deposited their bags of groceries at my feet. They offered to help cook (Kuwabara quite halfheartedly), but I shooed them away so I could start setting up for dinner (not that Kuwabara needed any persuading to get lost). Conversation murmured in the living room as I assembled ingredients and fired up the stove to get a pot of miso soup started, but no sooner had I started working than did a blur of black flash past, sending some pieces of parchment paper I'd wrapped around blocks tofu scattering. Hiei appeared just behind me, livid red gaze raking over the food spread across the counters with undisguised curiosity.

"What's for dinner?" he demanded, not bothering to greet me.

"Soup and yakisoba. You'll like it, I promise." When he still pulled a face, I grabbed a bento off the counter and handed it to him. "But if for some reason you don't, I also made onigiri with salmon—your favorite."

He opened the box to inspect it, nose twitching as he gave it a sniff. It apparently passed muster, because he set it on the counter with a wordless grunt and no complaints.

"You're welcome," I said.

Hiei just glared. Before I could tell him to be grateful I was making dinner at all, Botan poked her head into the kitchen, brilliant blue hair scintillating far too prettily than any normal person's in the harsh florescent lights.

"Not feeling social today, Hiei?" she said before wincing. "Though I suppose I'm one to talk, since I'll be heading out soon, myself."

"You're not staying to hear what Koenma has to say?" I asked.

Botan shook her head. "It's better if I don't, in case Koenma's father asks if he knows my whereabouts. But it's all right—I'm sure you'll fill me in in no time flat!"

"Of course. I'll just miss your optimism, I guess."

Botan crossed the room so she could pat my shoulder. "Everything will be fine, Keiko. You'll see." She danced away against just as quickly, ballerina graceful on her feet. "Save me a plate, would you? It already smells divine."

She left shortly after that, judging by the open and shut of the apartment's front door, sound distant but distinct. I expected Hiei to follow her lead and make himself scarce, but he just leaned against the kitchen doorway and glowered at me, arms crossed over his cloak-clad chest.

"You," he said, words accusatory as all hell, "told Yusuke where I live."

But I only shrugged. "I don't know where you live, Hiei, so that's kind of impossible."

"You gave him a hint," he insisted, as if that was somehow worse.

"He's a detective, Hiei. He would've figured it out eventually."

"You gave him a hint!"

"And is that really so bad?" I said. "Botan's right. You really aren't very social. It'd do you some good to have a friend over, though."

"I doubt that very much."

"Who knows? Maybe they'd bring snacks."

Hiei opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

Said "harrumph" and looked at the floor, scowl fiery enough to burn a hole straight through the pale linoleum.

"Got 'em," I said, and when he turned that scowl on me, I stuck out my tongue.

Hiei's glare intensified, but nothing caught fire except the stove. He remained silent as I fixed dinner, observing with shrewd eyes when Yusuke came in to help wash and chop ingredients, his hands flying with blinding speed over cabbage, green onion and bamboo shoots. He'd acted as my sous chef a hundred times; Yusuke knew what he was doing, including the part where we carried an alarming amount of plates and bowls and cups on each arm and into the living room to serve dinner. Hiei continued to sulk while we ate, though his mood seemed to improve with every bite of yakisoba and soup (which, apparently, he liked after all). Puu ate out of a little bowl on the coffee table, examining bites of food with his clever little claws before nibbling at them, tasting each element of the meal before settling on the yakisoba, which he appeared to like most. It was easy to relax as we all watched him eat; he provided a nice distraction from the nerves gnawing at my gut. I kept up a lively appearance and did my best not to avoid looking, or to look too pointedly at Kuwabara, and given the relaxed atmosphere, I think I did an OK job.

I had a good teacher, after all. Every smile and optimistic statement I channeled from my friendship with Botan, mimicking the ever-present light she radiated even in the yawning dark.

But I didn't have to keep up the bright-and-cheery act for too long. Just as we finished eating, there came a knock at the door. Everyone shut up and stared at each other, more than one of us flinching when the knock came a second time, more urgent than before. I swallowed down the lump in my throat as Yusuke rose, watching as he took a deep breath and strode purposefully to the front door.

"Well," he said when he reached it, and with a backward glance at the rest of us. A grim smile settled upon his mouth. "I guess it's that time." With no further preamble, he wrenched open the door. "How's it hanging, diaper breath?"

"Charming, Yusuke," came Koenma's dry retort. "Just charming."

Yusuke grinned and stepped back, allowing the prince of Spirit World passage into his home. Koenma wore the face of a young man, his teenage form clad in red and blue robes from an era long since passed. He would've looked like someone out of a period film if not for the black "Jr." tattooed upon his forehead and the blue pacifier hanging from his mouth. Koenma, with his chestnut hair and golden eyes, was handsome as an adult, but I couldn't get past the pacifier. Made him look like he was about to head off to a rave or something; facial tattoos and pacifiers tend to do that to people, no matter how handsome they are.

Oblivious to my observations, Koenma walked into the apartment with head held high, robes swirling around his ankles with every step. He looked at each of us in turn, meeting our eyes pair by pair by pair, saying: "Kurama. Hiei. Kuwabara. Keiko. Is this everyone?"

"Yeah," said Yusuke. He collapsed onto the couch beside me and kicked his feet up on the coffee table, nearly upsetting my still-kind-of-full plate of yakisoba in the process. "There a problem?"

One of Koenma's carefully manicured eyebrows rose. "I was expecting the entire cavalry."

"Tough tittie." Yusuke cackled (on the coffee table, Puu gave a little burble of worry). "You only gave us a day's notice, and Genkai needs at least a week to move those brittle-ass bones of hers across the prefecture."

"Shizuru had an appointment with a client," Kuwabara added, trying to be helpful.

"And my mom had an appointment with a local bar," said a smirking Yusuke, who wasn't trying to be helpful at all.

Koenma ignored him, though. "And Botan?" was all he asked with careful insouciance. "What about her?"

Out of nowhere, a sharp bark of laughter cut the room—one issued by Hiei, of all people, who had installed himself upon the nearest windowsill overlooking the apartment's front stoop. Koenma turned to him and scowled, a frown that deepened when Hiei didn't deign to so much as pay the prince a sidelong glance.

"Something funny, Hiei?" Koenma asked when Hiei did not deign to speak.

"Don't act innocent," Hiei snapped. "You know just as well as we do why she isn't here, Koenma."

Koenma opened his mouth to snap back—but he closed it just as quickly, chin ducking toward his blue-clad chest and the rest scarf wound around his shoulders.

"Yes. I suppose I do," was all he muttered before tossing his hair and rising back up to his full height. "Since I can tell I'm not exactly a fan favorite, allow me to cut directly to the chase. All of you know why we've gathered here: to discuss the Spirit known as Hiruko and his attempts to contact the Makers in pursuit of a goal we do not yet fully understand."

The air in the room changed in a snap. Kurama's bland smile faded; Kuwabara sat up straighter; Yusuke slouched deeper into his seat, and Puu flapped his quick bat-wing ears and leapt onto Yusuke's shoulder, to which he clung like a baby koala (only, y'know, more batlike and stuff). Only Hiei did not react, staring pointedly aside at the curtained window.

I'm sure I pulled a face, too, though I tried my best not to look too unsettled as my brain leapt to the dream I'd had of Hiruko so recently. In it, we'd sat upon a cliff overlooking an ocean of flowers, stars and planets wheeling through a technicolor sky on the tide of space and time itself. In that dream, he'd confessed that all he wanted was a place to belong, and that the Makers could give him that—but should I tell Koenma about Hiruko's words, solve the mystery of Hiruko's goals once and for all? His confession had been so intimate, so private, but… he was the enemy. Could I afford to give him privacy?

In the end, Koenma himself deemed my quandary irrelevant, because apparently he didn't much care about Hiruko's goals at all. Marching to the nearest empty chair, he sat and waved one hand through the air in great arcs, as if gesturing to the whole of the world at once.

"Not that the specifics of Hiruko's goal are particularly important. In fact, they aren't important at all," he said. "If we stop him before he succeeds, his exact desires will never become relevant." Golden eyes slid my way. "And given the efforts of one Yukimura Keiko, he has not succeeded. Not so far, anyway."

Yusuke grinned, slugging my knee with his knuckles right on the spot that hurt most. I cursed and slugged him back, and I'm sure that the proceedings would've devolved into one of our famous tussles had Koenma not cleared his throat with a pointed scowl.

"As we all know," he said when we settled down, "Hiruko appears to have stolen an item of power from the Fates."

"Probably a section of weaving or a loom or something like that," I added, trying to be helpful. "He's said stuff like 'the tapestry lit up' and things like that, and he seems to use threads as a weapon, so…"

"Right. Thank you, Keiko." Koenma cleared his throat again. "He used this item, whatever it may be, to bring legends from another reality to life, and in the same turn, he placed Keiko into the body of… well. Into the body of Keiko. Since then, he has urged her to break the rules as she follows the path of… what was it?" His nose wrinkled. "Yu Yu Hakusho?"

"The shonen manga I'm the protagonist of, in case anyone's forgotten," Yusuke interjected with a grin.

"That's right," I said, to both of them (though my scowl was only for the preening Spirit Detective at my side).

Koenma nodded, just once. "Given the involvement of the Fates, I can only presume Hiruko is encouraging you to break the rules of destiny and to force the story of Yu Yu Hakusho to deviate from the canon you are familiar with. So far you've managed to keep it mostly on track, for which we are all grateful." His lips pursed, tight and pale in his smooth bronze skin. "Indeed, if the Fate called Clotho is to be believed, his success would mean the undoing of the very fabric of this world. But again: We won't let him get to that point. We know his end goal is to impress the Makers. So long as we prevent him from contacting them in the first place, we should be just fine."

Kurama, sitting a few feet away in an armchair, raised his head just so. "Am I to infer that you've made some headway on this matter?" he asked.

"Indeed," Koenma said. Once again he met all of our eyes in turn, an air of gravitas descending like a storm. "As I stated during our conversation on Hanging Neck Island, not a word of this can be repeated to anyone outside our close circle of friends. Is that understood?"

A chorus of agreements rang up (though in Hiei's case, he just grunted, and in Puu's, he gamely chirped).

"Very well." With no further ado, Koenma squared his shoulders and said, "I have discovered the place where the Makers can be contacted."

The room stilled. Puu stopped chirping. When Kuwabara swallowed out of sheer nerves, the sound all but echoed through the room. Even Koenma himself sat in silence for a minute or so, face turning the color of cold oatmeal bit by sweating bit.

"In theory, anyway," he said after a time—and then he smiled, nose thrusting high into the air. "Finding this information was quite the task, as you might expect. It took the entire month since we last saw each other, working day and night, to find the tiniest scrap of a hint, but I found it, and then the whole world seemed to open up. A feat of genius on my part, it goes without saying."

Yusuke pretended to yawn. "Get to the point, pacifier breath."

Koenma's bubble burst. "Fine. The Makers can be called in one place, and one place alone, and whether or not they respond to that call is up to them. Reaching the place where they can be contacted is difficult enough, but actually calling them…" He shook his head, frustration etching lines along his mouth. "The specifics of that part I didn't discover. Not yet."

"Still," said Kurama. "Reaching them is half the battle."

"So where the heck are these guys, huh?" Kuwabara asked.

Koenma took a deep breath before he said, "The Makers are rumored to sleep in the spaces between worlds—planes of existence as immaterial as they are material, as absent as they are defined, existing and not existing at once. It is within the space between worlds that tethers the Demon, Human and Spirit worlds together that the Makers dwell."

My mouth twitched at the corner. "So they're the literal god of the gaps, then."

Kurama eyed me askance. "What's so funny, Kei?"

"Nothing. Ignore me."

"If you insist," Koenma said, soldiering on with a dismissive toss of his hair. "It's fitting that the Makers, contradictory as the Makers are, should exist in such a realm—the pseudospace that is in itself a contradiction in physics and the laws of reality."

At that word—pseudospace—a shock of recognition lanced light lightning up my back, but Koenma did not notice and continued to speak without pause.

"My research yielded quite a bit of information about the pseudospace, as Spirit World has dealt with the space a number of times," he said, "but on the Makers, my research yielded only said one fact: If you seek the creators of the universe, in the pseudospace is where you shall find them. The Fates are also said to weave themselves through this liminal dimension, as well."

"Perhaps we'll see Clotho again," Kurama said, green eyes glinting with fresh interest. Turning to me, he said, "Perhaps we'll even meet her sisters, or—Kei, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I hastily choked out. "I'm fine."

He—and everyone else in the room—stared at me in concern or irritation, because apparently I can't keep my cool to save my life. Obviously, my statement to Kurama was a dead lie. I was not fine. Far from it. As soon as Koenma said pseudospace, everything clicked into place, pieces falling together like a puzzle made of homing pigeons. It was no great leap to connect his talk of pseudospace to Itsuki and Sensui. They desired to open a path between the worlds, after all, and to break the Kekkai Barrier that barred the way between the Demon and Human realms. They wanted to break that barrier so that demons could flood the domain of humans and rain chaos upon their heads, wipe out the race that Sensui viewed as inferior and corrupt.

And where did the Kekkai Barrier lie in the grand scheme of this world?

It lay within pseudospace—in that liminal dimension between realities that both Sensui and Sakyo before him had wanted to tear to pieces. That same liminal space that Hiruko so desperately wished to access.

And speaking of Sakyo—it all made sense now, didn't it? First Hiruko had allied himself with Sakyo, who would have opened the path between the worlds into pseudospace if he had won the Dark Tournament. And then, when Sakyo's team had lost the tournament to Yusuke's team, Hiruko hadn't seemed at all perturbed. And what was it that he'd said to Sakyo just before the billionaire made the stadium collapse?

"It was a pleasure working with you, Sakyo," he'd said at the time, bowing at the walking dead man clutching the detonator before him. "May I assure a dying man that our objectives were, indeed, the same? They merely lie upon a different timeline, I am sorry to admit."

The same objective—cracking into pseudospace—just on a different timeline.

And if canon came to pass exactly as it was meant to, that meant—that meant Sensui would use Kuwabara's dimension-slicing sword, as of yet undiscovered, to indeed open the door between worlds and access pseudospace, a fact Hiruko was sure to take advantage of. And that meant Hiruko's quest to contact the Makers would soon be...

The alarm and horror on my face definitely wasn't subtle, judging by the skeptical cast to Koenma's. "Why do I not believe a word of that?" he said, looking me up and down with judgmental eyes.

I did my best to roll my eyes like I normally would, pushing my horror aside as best I could. "Paranoia is a poor choice of color on you, Koenma."

"It's not paranoia if it's true," he shot back.

Before I could reply, Yusuke said: "This has got something to do with that guy who kidnapped you, doesn't it?"

The bottom fell out of my stomach. "Eh?" I said, twisting toward him in shock. "What did you just say?"

"It's been on my mind a lot," Yusuke said. He plucked Puu off of his shoulder and settled the creature in his lap, toying with the mop of black hair on the creature's blue head. "Just before the Tournament and whatever, you got kidnapped and stuff. Remember, you guys?"

"I remember very clearly, Yusuke," said Kurama.

"Me, too," said Kuwabara with a shudder.

"She disappeared entirely," Hiei said, bristling. "How could we forget that?"

"Cool down, man. Was just making sure we all were on the same page." Yusuke flicked Puu's little yellow beak, laughing when his Spirit Beast sputtered a reproach. "My point is that that guy, the one who kidnapped her, Itsuki? We still haven't seen that guy come up again. But it'd be weird if he never showed his face after making such a big deal of himself, so…" He glanced my way. "That thing you're always talking about. Rock 'Em Laser?"

"Occam's Razor."

"Yeah, that." Poking Puu's belly with a fingertip, Yusuke said, "You said Itsuki kept you in another dimension inside some weird shadow demon's stomach." His eyes traveled back to Koenma. "Is that where the Makers are?"

"No, Yusuke," Koenma said. "The pocket dimension inside a shadow beast is not the pseudospace that exists between worlds. If pseudospace is a glass containing the water of the world, that shadow beast's dimension is a bubble inside the liquid."

Even though his eyes gleamed with understanding, Yusuke frowned. "But still!" he said. "It's another weird dimension thing, and we know Itsuki will end up being a future enemy of ours someday, so… they've gotta all be connected." Once more he looked my way, eyes searching my face for clues. "Whoever our next big emergency turns out to be, it's gotta be connected to this Hiruko guy. He was all over Sakyo and the Tournament, right? And they were dealing with opening doors between dimensions. Could whatever they were doing connect to pseudospace?"

"Undoubtedly," Kurama said. "You must pass through pseudospace to travel between the worlds."

"Then that proves everything!" said Yusuke. "Itsuki and his dimension demon, Sakyo and his dimension door… Hiruko likes dimension junk. Occam's Razor tells me that that isn't a coincidence, and whoever our next enemy is, he'll be all over them like white on rice."

Yusuke had no clue how right he was. I refused to look at him, watching instead as Puu clambered onto the coffee table and grabbed a chunk of rice off my plate. He turned it over and over in his hands, inspecting it from every angle before putting it down and picking up a roasted pepper, instead. His hands were smart, nimble, efficient. And here Yusuke was, acting like a real detective. Maybe Puu's smart little hands were reflective of a larger change in Genkai's favorite dimwit… Not that anyone else saw what I did in Yusuke's newfound cleverness.

"I dunno," Kuwabara said, eyes screwed up in concentration. "That seems pretty complicated to me."

"Nah, man. It's the opposite." Yusuke put a knuckle to his temple and twisted it like a key. "You gotta think simple with Occam's Razor." When Kuwabara continued to look unconvinced, Yusuke shrugged and grinned. "Just trust me on this, man. Focus on our next case, as it'll all be OK. We solve one problem, we'll solve another. Just gotta sit back and wait for the bad guys to come to us."

Once again, Yusuke had no idea how right he was about that. He was wrong in the way Itsuki (and the unseen Sensui, by extension) were connected to the concept of pseudospace, hanging onto the red herring of Itsuki's dimension-manipulating shadow beast… but he also had no clue that Sensui intended to open the door between the worlds and flood the human realm with demons. He was so close to being right; he just needed the tiniest bit of additional information to realize how close to correct he'd stumbled.

But Koenma was less impressive with Yusuke's inductive reasoning. "I've never been one for waiting around for answers," he said before facing me, eyes as imperious as I'd ever seen them. "Keiko. Does what Yusuke's saying have any merit? Is our next enemy Itsuki, and do his goals align with Hiruko's?"

I froze. "Um…"

"Swordfish!" Yusuke yelped.

Everyone twisted to look at him, faces all sporting identical masks of befuddlement and shock. Only my face sported another expression—specifically that of annoyance mixed with stark relief.

"Aren't I the one who's supposed to say that?" I groused. "And also, yes. Big ol' swordfish." Dropping my voice to a mutter, I told him, "It's ironic that you're the one saying it since you just played Sherlock Holmes up and down the block for all to see at my expense."

"Sher-what who?" said Yusuke.

I sighed. "Oh, nobody. Never mind."

"Well, whatever. And I can't help it that I'm smart!" He had the decency to look a little cowed, at least. "My mouth kinda ran away with me before I could call 'swordfish' for you."

"Again, I'm supposed to be calling 'swordfish,' not you!"

The others had had enough of our confusing chatter. "Swordfish?" Kuwabara cut in, brows high upon his broad forehead. "Why are we talking about sushi?"

Hiei sat up straighter. "There's sushi?"

"No, Hiei," I chided. "No sushi tonight."

"What are we missing, in that case?" Kurama asked, gently drawing us back on track.

"It's a code we made up," I confessed, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment. "Yusuke thought of it. Basically, if he asks a question I can't answer for fear of ruining canon, I say 'swordfish' and he knows to stop pushing."

"It's like a safeword," Yusuke proudly said, "only the opposite of sexy."

I eyed him askance. "Atsuko's been letting you watch late-night TV again and I don't like it."

"Yeah, she—" His pride fell away as he did a double-take. "Wait, how do you know what a safeword is, Keiko?"

I socked his arm. "I was 26 years old! Take a wild guess!"

"Ahem."

Koenma appeared none too happy with our shenanigans; he tapped his foot against the carpet, fingers drumming a matching tattoo against the arms of his chair. In contrast, Kurama had started to snicker behind his hand, but Kuwabara and Hiei mimicked Koenma's mood. The former appeared a little pale, face limned in sweat, while Hiei just looked pissed off in general. Probably because there was no sushi to be had, but that was neither here nor there.

Koenma spoke first. "So you won't be giving us any hints about the future again, I gather," he said—and since it wasn't really a question, I felt bold enough to explain my reasoning.

"No," I said as firmly as I could. "I made myself clear the last time we talked. If I tell you what to expect, you may act in ways that disrupt the natural order of events. This situation hasn't become any less of a deterministic nightmare since our previous conversation, and—"

"Please." Koenma put a fingertip to his temple, eyes falling briefly shut. "Not another lecture of fatalistic determinism, I beg you. You made your point last time, when you talked at length about cutting off my hand."

I held my own hands up in surrender. "Fine. Mea culpa. No lectures. But let me just say this." After a deep breath, I locked my eyes onto Puu as he nibbled at some pickled daikon, intent on not letting anyone read my face. "If Hiruko's plans and the demon who kidnapped me are connected—and I'm not saying they are—you will recognize it almost immediately once you know more about either." A bitter smile twisted my lips, the taste of it as sharp as lemon. "It seems like such a small thing to keep close to my chest, but… I'm not cluing you all in just yet, because I want to keep canon intact for as long as I can."

No one said anything. In spite of myself, I couldn't keep from glancing at Kuwabara. He watched me in silence, shutters closed behind his eyes, but the tightness around his mouth revealed disquiet. I just hoped what I was about to say didn't add to it.

"The more control I have," I said, every word measured and precise, "the more control we all have over the situation. I can only maintain that control if canon can be maintained—and it's more likely to be maintained if you don't know what to expect." When no one protested, I continued to speak. "As soon as canon veers off the tracks, I'll be flying just as blind as the rest of you. And we can't let that happen. Not with so much at stake."

No one said a word.

Then Koenma sighed, hand massaging his temple once again. "All right, then," he said, tone ringing with begrudged acceptance. "All right, then, Keiko. Keep your secrets."

"Thanks, Frodo."

The hand dropped like a stone. "Who?"

"Swordfish!" Yusuke yodeled.

I rolled my eyes. "For the last time, that's my thing to say, not yours! And also yes. Swordfish."

Kurama chuckled, but after a moment, his smile faded. "I believe you will let us know what the time is right," was all he said, meeting my eyes with a rush of sincere green. "We trust your judgement, Kei."

"Most of us do, anyway," said Yusuke, throwing a sharp stare at Koenma.

"Don't give me that look," Koenma shot back. "Anyway. In case it's not obvious, you now have your marching orders. Keep an eye out for any hints that someone, Itsuki or otherwise, may be trying to access a liminal space—any liminal space—just in case that space is pseudospace."

"Say that three times, fast," Yusuke grumbled.

"You know what I mean." Koenma's fingers tapped against his chair at double speed, a clatter of nail upon wood. "If you hear of an enemy trying to access pseudospace, I am to hear of it at once. Because where there is access to pseudospace, Hiruko is sure to follow."

"Uh… call me crazy, but why does someone as powerful as Hiruko need someone else to get him into pseudospace?" Kuwabara said.

Silence greeted this question. Kuwabara fidgeted in his chair, discomfited under the weight of nearly half a dozen stares (in you included Puu). For the first time that day, I noticed the bags under his eyes, blue bruises that made his hooded brow fall even deeper into shadow. I wasn't accustomed to seeing that on his young face—a face far too young to bear the weight of this entire mess.

Guilt speared through my chest, biting and cold. But no one noticed my discomfort, and Kuwabara soldiered on.

"Well, I mean," he said, fidgeting some more. "He stole from the Fates themselves, right? He's powerful as heck. But if he's really so powerful, why doesn't he just open up the path to pseudospace himself?"

As one, everyone in the room turned to me. I'd half expected this, so luckily for me, I had an explanation prepared. Hiruko's dependency on myself, on Kagome, on Minato, was something the Not-Quites had discussed at length, after all.

"I think that for as much control as Hiruko has over this world, there are some laws of this reality he's bound to obey," I said, hoping my words made sense. When no one spoke or agreed, my gaze dropped to my lap. "Or something like that, anyway." My brain ran ahead along this road of contemplation, sprinting through possibilities at warp speed. "It's also possible that opening the path himself would undermine his goals."

Kurama frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We talked about how he wanted to impress the Makers, right?" I said. "Maybe manipulating someone else to open the path for him is more impressive than just opening it using his own power."

"That certainly falls in line with his manipulative tendencies…" Koenma said, eyes growing distant in thought. Abruptly he stood, cape and scarf swirling as he took a surefooted step toward the door. "If there are no more questions, I'll be taking my leave. So—"

"Wait!" Kuwabara blurted. He flushed when Koenma turned to pin him with an unamused stare, but still he managed to ask, "Did you ever figure out if you and Hiruko are related, like he said you were?"

Koenma's lips thinned. "Yes, I did. Although the results of my research were underwhelming, to say the least."

"Do tell," Kurama murmured.

"Yeah, spill!" Yusuke demanded.

Koenma breathed deeply for a moment, action evident in the rise and fall of his chest. For a moment I wondered if he'd tell us anything, but soon his eyes fluttered shut, a defeated grimace rising at the corners of his mouth.

"Hiruko… better known by the name Ebisu." Every word came clipped and careful, as though he'd rehearsed this explanation many times before. "My findings revealed that he is a long-forgotten Spirit, one who disappeared from the sight of Spirit World hundreds of years before I was born, and under… dubious circumstances." I wasn't sure I liked the way he'd phrased that, nor was I certain I enjoyed his dramatic pause, but Koenma just kept talking. "He, like my father, was birthed from the union of Izanagi and Izanami, gods of creation. And he—"

"So he is your uncle," Hiei said, voice a knife in the quiet.

Koenma's brow twitched at the interruption, but all he said was, "Yes."

"Heh." Hiei's smirk made him look even more devious than usual, eyes aflame with insidious glee. "To think, our greatest enemy is Koenma's own flesh and blood. The irony rather warms my heart."

Finally Koenma snapped, voice like a lashing whip as he said, "My father holds no warmth in his heart for Ebisu, so wipe that smirk off your face."

Yusuke's eyes widened. "Wait. You spoke to your dad about this?"

"Of course. The record vault told me precious little, so I went to the source." Much though he'd hated Hiei's smirk, Koenma saw no issue in wearing a prideful one of his own. "First I found a text that mentioned Ebisu in passing and took it to my father for more information, so he wouldn't be suspicious, and then—"

Kurama said, "You mean you haven't told your father about the situation regarding Hiruko?"

"He's far too busy managing the underworld to care about some long-lost brother trying to summon the lords of all creation to grant some mysterious wish." Koenma rolled his eyes. "And I know this is the case because he barely gave me the time of day when I asked him about Ebisu. All he said was that Ebisu was a troublemaker who got kicked out of Spirit World court for, and I quote, 'a series of divine annoyances.' He painted a portrait of little consequence. The only noteworthy thing he told me is that Ebisu is his elder brother." A chuckle escaped his chest, wry and sardonic. "I just assumed the mountain that is my father could never be anyone's little brother, but even the most brilliant among us can be wrong at times."

"Do you think your dad was telling the truth?" Kuwabara asked. "About not knowing much about Hiruko, I mean."

Koenma shrugged. "I see no reason why he would lie."

"King Enma's dearth of information could be attributed simply to his age," Kurama said, eyes alight with racing thought. "You said King Enma is Ebisu's younger brother. Perhaps they were born so far apart, your father simply doesn't have any information to share."

"That seems the most likely explanation," Koenma agreed. "Unfortunately, we aren't likely to find many others. Spirit World records say little to nothing about Hiruko, and with my father in the dark, the only people who could give us additional information are their parents, Izanagi and Izanami—but my grandparents have been sleeping in some distant corner of Spirit World for millennia. Contacting them is about as easy as contacting the Makers." He sucked his pacified, wet noises grating on my nerves. "And trust me, during the last Dark Age, I looked into that."

Somehow, this lack of information didn't surprise me. If Hiruko really did craft this world, it made sense that he'd write himself out of its history, or at least write himself into obscurity to keep his secrets, weaknesses and habits in the dark. Clever of him, really. I couldn't bring myself to be mad about it as a result.

Koenma felt less zen about the whole thing, I think, because once again he turned to the apartment's front door with a swirl of cape, fabric cracking through the air like a whip. "There is more research to be done, so I'll be taking my leave now." Opening the door, he looked over his shoulder to give us one final order, words delivered with his trademark gravitas. "Remember, all of you, to keep your eyes peeled." A beat. Then, to Hiei: "Three, in your case."

Hiei bared his teeth. "Don't tell me what to do."

"He means he'll cooperate," I helpfully translated.

"You don't tell me what to do, either." His teeth gleamed a little brighter. "You didn't even bring sushi."

"We'll be vigilant in the meantime," Kurama said, ignoring our theatrics. "I'm looking forward to what your additional research might reveal, Koenma."

"As am I." Once again he turned to leave, and once again he stopped. This time, his eyes traveled toward me, gears turning behind them as he considered something to which I was not privy. "But before I go… Keiko."

My heart kicked like a mule against my ribs. "Yes?" I said, voice a little higher than I intended.

Koenma only smiled, though.

"The friend you brought Ayame," he said. "It's… interesting."

Koenma didn't wait for me to reply.

He just left in another flutter of cape, door falling softly shut behind him.

Kuwabara stared after Koenma in consternation. "What the heck was that about?"

"Not much," Kurama said in his typical pleasant tones. "Just pest control."

"Pest what-now?"

Kurama chuckled, glancing at me to ask, "May I fill them in?"

I shrugged. "I don't see why not."

I'd told Yusuke about the Makai insect Amagi had brought us in passing, but because it hadn't been connected to a concrete case, he'd mostly just yawned and ignored the issue. While Kurama filled in Kuwabara, who took the issue more seriously ("Not another Saint Beast debacle!" he groaned), I began gathering up plates and dishes, carrying them into the kitchen while Yusuke and Kuwabara started concocting conspiracy theories to explain the bugs. Only listened with half an ear as they speculated about whether or not Suzaku had returned to attack a school again, chuckling when Hiei told them they were both idiots and Suzaku was absolutely dead. Their chatter faded when I turned on the sink and filled it with water and soap suds, splash filling the kitchen with thick white noise.

Which is probably why I didn't hear Kurama come in until he appeared at my elbow, staring disapprovingly at the plates of food I'd piled on the counter. I knew what he'd say even before he pointed at my plate, which remained conspicuously full of cold yakisoba.

"You barely touched your food," he said, gloomy as a wilted flower. "Kei, we talked about this."

"Who are you, my dad?" Snatching the plate off the counter, I marched over to the trach can and dumped the leftovers in the bin and out of sight. "Why are you so obsessed with my diet recently?"

"Stress impacts you in some rather… specific ways." The euphemism was not lost on me; he was just trying to care for my health, I told myself, and as he offered me a small, apologetic smile, I forced myself to give him one in return. "I'm simply looking out for your wellbeing."

But even though I understood his concern, I still reached into the sink to flick some soapy water at him. "Mind your own business," I said, pretending to be cross, and that earned me a bright and genuine laugh.

"Need help with the dishes?" he said, vengeful hands dangerously close to the suds in the sink.

"Nah, I've got it." I grabbed the nearest plate and dunked it, up to my elbows in suds. "Helps me think, anyway."

"Then I won't disturb you." He bowed a little, playacting formality we didn't really need. "Thank you for dinner, by the way. And call if you need anything."

"Sure," I said, bowing back, and he left me in peace to do the dishes.

I hadn't been lying when I said cleaning helped me think. Cleaning was almost meditative, my mind clearing of its cluttered thoughts with every plate I scrubbed to gleaming. As I washed plates and cups and set them on a dishtowel to dry, my brain wandered in haphazard serenity through the events of the night, replaying what Koenma had had to say and mulling it over like fermenting wine. My friends now all knew that Makai insects were buzzing around. Those could only come here through a rift between Human and Demon World. It wouldn't be long, therefore, before they connected the presence of those bugs to pseudospace. They still hadn't connected them to Sensui or Itsuki, of course, but eventually all of those pieces would fall into place…

Did that mean that holding back information was an arbitrary decision, then?

No, I told myself as I scrubbed at a stubborn saucepan. If I told them too much, they could discover Sensui's hole between the worlds too early, before they were ready to face him. I was sure that Sensui's rift already existed on a tiny scale somewhere; we wouldn't be seeing the Makai bugs without it, after all. But Yusuke and the others still needed to be tested by Genkai and the Territory psychics before they would be ready for Sensui, and I'd be damned if I let Yusuke off the leash too soon and got him killed before he was powerful enough to resurrect as a demon. So many factors to consider. So many moving parts working in tandem, synchronicity in jeopardy with every move I made…

And besides, I told myself as I washed out a cup (my cup) of half-drunk miso soup. If I wanted to be useful, I needed canon to remain intact. Knowing things in advance was the only useful thing I could do. If the canon train flew off the rails, I'd be flying blind, my one and only useful skill rendered completely useless. I was already too weak to fight and make a difference on the battlefield. If canon fell to pieces, I'd lose my usefulness entirely, and—

The cup in my hands fell into the soapy water with a splash.

I wasn't entirely certain why I dropped it—at least, not at first. I assumed it had slipped, slick as it was with soap and water, but then… no. That wasn't the only reason. My fingertips felt like they housed a hundred tiny, buzzing gnats, silver and fluttery and cold, numbing them to any sensation but the beat of their frantic wings.

Gingerly I lifted my hand, staring at my fingers… but they looked fine.

I reached for the handle beside the faucet, turning off the trickling water with a twist. In the absence of that steady stream, silence reigned… but only for a moment or two, because the kitchen wasn't actually quiet at all.

The refrigerator hummed in the corner. Water dripped from the faucet drop by drop, falling into the filled sink with a minute splash. Soap bubbles hissed and popped, each sound as crystalline as the rainbow swirl on the faces of the bubbles themselves. Beyond the kitchen doorway, voices murmured. The overhead light released a frail and high-pitched scream, sound almost beyond the verge of hearing, illumination harsh and horrible in my dazzled eyes.

A rush of cold suffused my face.

I walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway, heading for the bathroom. Only barely did I manage to get the door shut before I started heaving, vomit bubbling up my neck and out of my groaning mouth so fast, I almost didn't make it to the toilet.

Hardly anything came up, though. I hadn't eaten much dinner. Mostly I just heaved, saliva and bile streaking the bowl of the toilet faint, brackish orange.

Or at least it did until my vision whited out.

One second I could see bubbled bile in the toilet, the next I couldn't see at all. A ringing settled in my ears, pressure building in my skull just behind my jaw. Breath ragged, fists clenched, chest gripped in an unseen vice, I sat on the floor with my arms around the toilet and just breathed, shivering, sweating cold sweat, hoping that any second now, the sparkles swimming in my eyes would clear. That soon I'd be able to see again. Surely my vision whiting out was just a product of moving too fast, straining too much. Like when I'd lost my sight at aikido after running too hard on dehydrated legs. Yeah. That's what was happening. If I just waited for a few minutes. I could—

My stomach heaved.

Arms wrapped tight around porcelain, I coughed and gagged, head hanging low on a boneless neck.

When at last the fit subsided, I raised my head, but my vision did not return.

Slowly, I stood up, using the counter for support. On uncertain feet I felt my way out of the bathroom, blindly bumping down the corridor with my fingers skimming wall, the voices of my friends guiding me back into the living room. At last I stood in the doorway, one hand on it to steady myself, the other limp at my side, thoughts swimming in a maelstrom swirl 'round the feeling of this isn't right, this isn't good settling so thick inside my head.

I knew what fainting felt like. I'd fainted before. And as the blood rushed up my throat and made my head swim, blinking sightless eyes at lights I could not see, I knew I didn't have long before the darkness closed in all around me.

I don't know how long I stood there before someone noticed my presence, but eventually Yusuke's voice cut through the air. "Keiko?" he said, concerned etched in every familiar syllable. "Are you OK?"

"There's a bag under my bed at home." The words tumbled out like stones, each one dropping into my chest with an icy clunk. "Black with purple flowers. It's got my overnight stuff. I keep it there for emergencies."

"What?" said Kuwabara.

"What are you blathering on about?" said Hiei.

"One of you is going to need to get that bag. Someone else will need to call my parents." My voice came from a million miles away, from a mouth that wasn't mine, from lips I could not feel. "And the others—one of you is going to need to come over here in a second, because I'm about to—"

I fell. I collapsed to my knees on the carpet, but as I pitched forward, I connected with something warm—a broad, hot back, kneeling before me to cushion my fall, the scents of evergreen and char crowding my nostrils in cloying gouts. The others weren't far behind, the pound of feet and the clatter of an overturned chair signaling a swift approach.

"Tex!?" Yusuke said, a hand alighting on my back. "Tex, are you OK?"

"Kei, what's wrong?" Kurama said, cool hand sliding along my cheek.

"I don't know," I mumbled. "But I—I need a hospital."

"Kei, can you tell me if—"

I did not hear whatever he said next. I'm not sure he even said anything more as my head snapped back and then forward again, a paralytic spasm like someone had stuck an electrode to my spine and cracked the wattage to full blast. My limbs followed suit, trembling so hard I pitched sideways, or maybe upside-down. The world tumbled end over end and shook like an earthquake, hands grabbing at my legs and arms to no effect, shouts ringing up with cries of fear and dread, words lost but emotions obvious even though the voices sounded like they came from underwater. And through it all, my vision, whited out and blind, incapable of seeing anything but endless, formless gray—

An enraged roar cut through the rush of blood within my ears, and a brilliant yellow light—a golden light, a light like the sun, like joy piercing through sadness—dazzled my sightless eyes from inside out. I still could not see, though, barely even feeling when someone snatched me up and held me to a broad chest, and then I was bounced and jounced as they ran pell-mell toward—toward somewhere—and—

The warm air shifted. The scent of Yusuke's apartment vanished. I smelled antiseptic and urine, cleaning supplies and sorrow carried on a cold, dry breeze.

"A doctor, a doctor!" Kuwabara bellowed. "I need a doctor, dammit! Now!"

A chattering PA system, a page for a doctor name Tamaki. A hospital? How had we gotten to a hospital? And how had we gotten here so fast? I absently wondered these things as my back pressed against a cot, cool and crackling with a paper cover. Something pinched my fingertip; something else speared my elbow. I whined, but strong hands held my shoulders—and then a voice I didn't know muttered a low curse.

"She's crashing—we need to get her to the ICU, immediately," they said, and with a jolt my cot began to move, to roll along the floor, cold air stinging my numb face like the cut of a winter wind.

Yusuke's voice rang out, full of anger and sharp fear. "Hey, wait a second—!"

"Sorry, kid, but you can't go with her. That's—"

"Like hell I can't go with her, she's—!"

"Family only!"

"That's my sister, my sister, you can't tell me I can't go with my goddamn sister—!"

"Security!"

It'll be OK, Yusuke.

I'll be fine, Yusuke.

Just sit tight and wait, Yusuke.

That is I wanted to say.

But I did not say that.

I just lay there as a door slammed and other voices spoke above my head, eyes still sightless, cotton-muffled ears catching the barest hint of an urgent whisper, a cracking sound as something burned upon my wrist, voices murmuring that my needs were dire, my time short, and then—

Darkness.

Then a blinding light.

Then warm arms, and words I didn't understand.

The words were in English, for one thing. I hadn't heard English spoken so casually in a long time, but this voice I didn't recognize—not right away, at least. It was male, and deeper than Minato's or Byron's, a soothing baritone that sent warmth scurrying into the depths of my toes. I smiled at the sound of it, smiling harder as a hand gripped mine, fingers tracing circles over the back of my wrist.

"Babe," the voice said, softly. "Babe, can you hear me?" He paused, stroking my arm, touch venturing higher in tiny increments. "Babe?"

His fingers danced across my elbow.

Pain, dull and throbbing, blossomed in their wake.

"It—" The words creaked, my mouth dry, my throat an arid waste. "It hurts."

The fingers retreated, venturing back to my wrist again. "Oh, babe. I'm sorry."

"It…" My eyelids fluttered, lashes brushing against cheekbones. "Where am I?"

I caught only the barest glimpse of the room, but it was enough. The room was dark, but a lamp by the nearby door cast a warm glow over the pale blue walls, the flowers on the nightstand, the TV mounted at the foot of the bed. I'd never been here before, but the bland tile and lack of décor, not to mention the IV hanging from a metal hook at my bedside, told me more than enough. Spotting the hospital bracelet on my wrist—the wrist not connected to the arm wrapped in a bright pink cast—filled in the rest. This wasn't my room, or my school, or Yusuke's apartment. This was—

"You're in the hospital," he said. "You were in a car wreck, but you're fine." He chuckled, a sound that filled me, inexplicably, with joy. "I mean, you broke your arm. Again. But you're used to that, so you're basically fine."

"Car…?"

"You were driving back from Denise's wedding, babe." A thumb stroked my cheek. "Don't you remember?"

My eyes fluttered again. This time they stayed open. They stayed open long enough to see his blue eyes, his aquiline nose, beard thick and edged in ginger—a beard I had never seen on him before, but one that fit his face as perfectly as the shirt stretched across his chest. As perfectly as the smile that wrinkled the skin around his eyes. As perfectly as his sigh of relief when our eyes met, exhale delicate and gentle, as if he feared I might break. A sound I'd longed to hear for fifteen years.

One I thought I would never hear again.

My eyes filled with tears. He rushed to wipe them from my cheeks, soothing nothings spilling from his perfect mouth. He misunderstood why I'd started to cry, but I didn't correct him. I just let him hold me and stroke my back, sobbing into his chest as he dragged long fingers through my hair.

"It's OK, babe," Tom said. "It's OK. I'm here. You're here."

His arms around me tightened.

"You're safe," he said.

"You're home."


NOTES:

I know it looks bad, but… don't jump to any conclusions just yet, OK?

Chapter notes: Nori (for those who don't follow me on Tumblr) is the name of the dog I got a few years ago, AFTER I began writing LC. I've avoided placing him in any flashbacks on purpose, barring a few in some extra non-canon chapters in CoM and other collections. Let's just say his appearance here is significant. I mean obviously so is Tom's there at the end, but… anyway. I've said too much.

There is a new birthday-themed one-shot up in Children of Misfortune; would love some of you to check it out!

Next update: October 4, 2020.

Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday (or just commented on the story) last time. I couldn't go out and celebrate turning Dirty Thirty, but your well-wishes made the day great anyway. THANK YOU SO MUCH, FRIENDS! You're beautiful: Mistress Belfray, HoboNarwhal, cestlavie, Keywordlf, general zargon, DarkMoonDiamond, MiYuki Kurama, C S Stars, Vienna22, tammwammy9, Sorlian, dbzfangirl13, Psycho Mutt, forthwith16, xenocanaan, starlightstella, Kaiya Azure, MissIdeophobia, Ouca, ladyofchaos, EdenMae, LadyEllesmere, rueedge, abbynicks126, TheEccentric1, MyMidnightShadow, A Wraith, kindsoul1991, Sarah, Melissa Fairy, Call Brig on Over, setokayba2n, Biku-sensei-sez-meow, IronDBZ, MyWorldHeartBeating, buzzk97, MetroNeko, Spirit of the Orchid Flower, cezarina, A, bearsage, PretiBirdie, and MysticWolf71891!


OTHER NOTES

(Placing this in its own section because I'd already prepped the general chapter note before Friday happened, but I still wanted to say something and I don't have the energy to rewrite the earlier segue about birthday wishes without coming across as totally tone-deaf. Blah.)

This chapter almost didn't get written. I am deeply depressed, afraid and unsettled after the death of the Notorious RBG. Writing this was like pulling teeth, even though I was excited about it, because I'm just not good right now, mentally speaking.

But wallowing never did anyone a lick o' good, so I'm channeling fear and dread and depression into action, starting with the following plea.

I can only recall getting deeply political in this story once, but I'm about to do it again when I tell my American readers TO VOTE THIS NOVEMEBER. FOR THE LOVE OF SOCIAL PROGRESS, VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. And vote BLUE. Vote like the lives of the most endangered citizens of this nation are on the line, BECAUSE THEY ARE.

It is no exaggeration to say that that based on whoever gets placed in RBG's spot on the Supreme Court, we may never see another piece of progressive legislation pass through the Supreme Court again IN OUR LIFETIMES. You are not just voting for a president; you are voting for the wellbeing of this nation, for the very soul and safety of its citizens, and to vote anything but blue in this next election isa willful choice to endanger the most vulnerable members of society.

Voting third party is putting ideology over living people. Not voting is putting pride over living people. Voting red is a vote for racism, fascism and bigotry. Biden ain't perfect; he wasn't my first choice and he wasn't even my fifth. But a vote for him is far better than a vote for bigotry, ignoring living people so you can flatter your precious ideologies, or wasting your vote because you're upset your candidate isn't on the ticket.

Progress is made in inches. Progress is made in increments. Progress depends on you.

Just… vote. Fucking vote. Please.

We can make real change in the months to come and in memory of RBG, and it all starts with your vote.