Warnings: None
NOTE: There are several references to Scribbled in Secret in this chapter: Kuwabara's phone call to Genkai; Venus and Hiei meeting; Shizuru's product line, which Kei helped build in the 'body butter' prompt. Please read that story collection for more context. The time Kagome visited NQK in the hospital after the Saint Beast debacle, only to meet Kurama and other YYH characters unexpectedly (AKA chapter 57), is also alluded to in passing.
Lucky Child
Chapter 118:
"There's Something You Should Know"
After being escorted back to my room by the stern-faced orderly, the phone rang in my hospital room.
And that was weird, because I didn't have a phone in my hospital room.
It sat on my bedside table in the puddle of light below my lamp, white body and gold hardware gleaming like a meteor fallen to earth. When had that gotten there? I was certain I hadn't seen it before. The phone's cradle bore a tiny gold star underneath a rotary dial, and just as I lifted the white hand-piece from its cradle, I made a wild guess like I was wishing on that star.
And that guess proved right.
"Uh," I said. "Hello?"
There followed a pause. Then a whisper resonated down the line.
"Is your refrigerator running?" the whisper asked.
"… Kagome?"
"Then you'd better go and catch it!" Kagome shrieked before giving a squawk of indignation. Rustling overtook the sound of her voice before someone else breathed a sigh, this voice deeper than the previous.
"Look out the window," this person said—and after I all but flew over my hospital bed, scrambling with a tumble of sheets and pillows to the window so I could press my palm against the pane, I loosed a delighted gasp.
Atop an office building adjacent to the hospital stood two figures, bodies silhouetted against the starry night sky. The taller of the pair sported a gleaming blond crewcut; the other, shorter than the first, had long black hair and wide eyes, one hand lifted and waving frantically above her head. She looked about ready to climb over the railing at the roof's edge, staring down the two-story drop toward my window with an enormous grin stretching her round cheeks. I could only grin in return, glad to see the faces of Minato and Kagome even at a distance. Clearly they'd left this phone for me to find, staying far away while checking in. Smart of them, I reasoned. I couldn't be sure when Mom and Dad would be back, so it was probably best the other Not Quites didn't get too close.
I still longed to give them each a hug, though.
"Hi, you two." I wrestled the phone's cradle over the bed and toward the window; luckily it was a wireless rotary phone, of all unexpected things. "It's good to see you."
"See us?" Even at a distance, I saw Kagome's draw drop. "Um, actually? It's good to see you—alive, specifically. We were worried sick!"
"I'm sorry. I didn't—"
"Y'know, I don't know what I expected, but you look shockingly chipper." Kagome studied me from afar, head tilted to one side; beside her, Minato's head tilted back like perhaps he'd rolled his eyes. "I thought you'd look like death, but…" She hesitated, an intake of breath misting through the phone. "We tried to remember if Keiko got sick like this in the anime, but we didn't think she did, so—"
"She means we're glad you seem well," Minato cut in. "We wanted to visit as soon as we learned you were awake, but at the risk of running into characters from your canon like the last time one of us visited you during a hospital visit…"
He eyed Kagome sidelong, understated accusation writ in every line of his face. Kagome sputtered and jerked in place—stomping her foot, probably, out of sight below the ledge at the edge of the roof.
"Don't look at me like that!" A devilish grin lurched across her features. "And besides—you're one to talk, Minato!"
I frowned. "What's that mean?"
"It's nothing." Minato coughed into his fist in a way that suggested he was hiding something. "Just concentrate on your recovery." A beat. "I trust you are recovering, of course."
"I am." Fidgeting, I looked down at the floor, fingers tight around the phone. "But, um…"
"What is it? Are you OK?" Kagome leaned alarmingly far over the rooftop ledge. "You're not feeling faint, are you?"
"No. It's just… A lot has happened since my collapse." A deep breath. "Like… a lot, a lot."
Footsteps in the hallway dragged me away from the window; setting down the phone and holding up a finger (a silent gesture to give me a moment), I crept toward the door and shut it. A few seconds later a pair of feet cast twin shadows in the strip of light beneath the door, someone passing by with a heavy shuffle. The donut-dreaming security guard, I thought. I knew his footsteps and shift times pretty well by then. Once he marched away, sound of his footsteps fading, I crept back toward the window.
"Sorry about that," I said, keeping my voice low. Perching on the edge of the bed, I looked skyward toward my friends. "Anyway… there's something you should know."
They did good to keep from interrupting as I told them everything that had happened, from the moment of my collapse thanks to Mushiyori Fever to the time I'd spent dreaming to what had happened after. I watched the light beneath my room's door in the reflection in the window, pausing to hold my breath whenever the shadows of nurses' shoes broke the light with staccato steps. Silence rang out once I finished speaking, and for a minute I wondered if, perhaps, this strange phone's connection had been severed—but then Kagome gave a mighty shriek, and I wrenched the receiver away from my ear with a start.
"Oh my god! Eeyore! You have a power!" Kagome yodeled (I swear I could hear her through my window, too). "A power! A power!"
"I know!" I whisper-screamed back. "I know! I have a power!"
"A power!" Kagome repeated.
"A POWER!"
"Like, weren't you just telling me how badly you wanted one?" Kagome said, words rattling from her mouth like coins down a wishing well. "We talk about this all the time—how badly you want one, what you'd choose if you could pick, what the best powers are and what the worst ones would be. And I mean, sure, a power over dreams never really came up in conversation, but STILL." She didn't let the disappointment of my manifested ability stop her from jumping up and down. "A power! You have a power!"
"I know, I know!" I said, choosing to not let it stop me, either. "And it really did come at the perfect time, y'know? Like, I've already fucked up canon with Amanuma being on my side instead of Sensui's and whatnot, so I probably won't be able to use my canon knowledge the way I used to, and that's made me feel terrible about myself, so I've been killing myself thinking I can't be useful anymore—"
"But now you have a power!" said Kagome. "Over dreams, yeah, but I'm sure someone as smart as you can figure out how to use it to your advantage, right?"
"Right!" I said, nodding hard and fast. "I haven't been able to use it much or experiment, sure, but still. Once I get the hang of it… I can do things!" It took every ounce of my willpower not to give a delighted screech (and to not dwell on how fucking useless dreams seemed at first glance, but I digress). I settled for bouncing in place, instead, excited grin beaming up toward Kagome and Minato. "I have a power!"
"A power!" said Kagome.
"A power!" I replied.
"Did you hear that, Minato?" Kagome turned and grabbed his sleeve. "Eeyore has a power!"
"Indeed she does," said Minato—but when his eyes met mine, he did not smile.
In fact, he hadn't said a word since I finished telling them about my new abilities. He'd just stood there while I talked, staring down at me in impassive silence. He certainly didn't appear as excited as Kagome. He just… sat there. Looking at me, face as unreadable and smooth as a glassy lake. But his eye—to me, they appeared almost stormy. And I was not sure what reflected back at me from within their clouded depths.
"Minato?" I said when the silence extended past the point of comfort. "Are you OK?"
He nodded, a curt gesture.
"Well… What do you think?" Anxiety flooded my chest. "About all of this?"
He shut his eyes. Opened them again. The clouds vanished with that blink, replaced by an ocean of calm blue.
"I think congratulations are in order," Minato said, smiling at last. "You've wanted this for some time, after all."
"Yeah. I have." A worried chuckle escaped my lips. "I admit, it makes me nervous, though."
"Huh? Why?" said Kagome. "Isn't it awesome?"
"It is, yeah. But…" I shrugged, not sure how to put what I was feeling into words. "I hope using it doesn't throw off canon any more than it already has? The sheer fact that Keiko developed this Territory falls outside the realm of canon." Another shrug, more helpless than the last. "Just nervous about what it might do to the YYH storyline, I guess."
"But as you stated, canon is already off track given Amanuma's shift in allegiance," Minato said, coming in quick and sharp with logic (bless him for that). "Perhaps it's time to throw canon out entirely, given the circumstances."
It was certainly a tempting proposition, but his words only reminded me of the conversation I'd had with Koenma shortly before I fell ill with Mushiyori Fever. On no uncertain terms, I'd stressed to him that the only way I could be useful was by utilizing my knowledge of canonical events, using them as a roadmap to our eventual success and safety. I'd said all that back when I was as mundane as your garden variety potato, but… here I was, capable of breaking down canon with my own hands thanks to the acquisition of a power I had not asked for.
To Koenma, I'd asserted that my knowledge of canon was a power all its own. But which was stronger, in the end? My Territory, or my knowledge of canon? Both were powers in and of themselves. To which one should I cling?
Maybe I'd been greedy, wishing and hoping for more than what Keiko had been allotted.
Maybe I'd taken the power I already had for granted.
Maybe…
"Well." I took a deep breath, not wanting to weigh the shackles biting into my neck. "We'll see, I guess. I get discharged next week, and once I do, I—"
"Captain."
I saw it just as Minato spoke: shadows breaking the line of light beneath the door. Voices rose in the hallway, two of them arguing back and forth, loud and urgent. My dad was one of them; the other, a nurse. I rose from my bed with a start, heart in my mouth as Kagome swore.
"We'll talk later," Minato said. "No one will notice the phone but you."
"OK." A thought occurred. "Can I use it to call anyone outside of—?"
"Sorry, but no. It's a direct line to me."
"Gotcha." I smiled up at them, trying to commit their faces to memory since I wasn't sure when next we'd meet. "Minato, Kagome—thanks for coming by."
"I'm just sorry we have to go so soon," said Kagome, smile full of regret and affection. "You really—"
"No time, Kagome," said Minato.
"Fine, spoilsport." Kagome saluted and winked, as exaggerated as a slapstick cartoon. "See ya, Eeyore! We'll be back soon, I promise."
Before I could vow the same, golden light enveloped Minato. When the flash cleared with a crack like lightning, Sailor V stood where he'd been standing. The hero spared no time before scooping Kagome up like a sack of sputtering grain—and then, in the span of time it takes to blink, Sailor V leapt skyward and vanished, bringing Kagome along for the ride.
As the voices outside my room continued to argue, I hung up the phone, receiver slipping silken through my fingertips before falling into its cradle with a clatter. I stared at it for a moment in silence, tracing the golden star on its face before crawling back into bed and pulling the covers over my leg. The door opened just as I got settled, admitting a shaft of harsh florescent light that glinted off my mother's still-damp hair and the fresh gel my father had used to style his. They marched into the room with smiles on their faces—but behind them trailed a face I hadn't expected to see. He followed them with shoulders hunched, feet scraping the tile floor, eyes darting around the room like he didn't want to be here in the first place.
And yet, there Kuwabara was.
A nurse watched from the doorway, wringing her hands as my father reached back and pulled him forward, pushing Kuwabara toward my bedside. Kuwabara stared at the floor without speaking, jaw clenched tight as a vein pulsed in the side of his throat. He looked uncomfortable to me, but my parents didn't seem to notice. Given their grins and giddy laughter, I got the feeling they were too excited to notice much, to say nothing of the phone sitting ignored on the table beside me. And of course Kuwabara was too polite to tell them to buzz off.
"Look who we found at the front desk!" Mom said.
"Loitering, practically." Dad glanced at the brown paper gift bag clutched in Kuwabara's white-knuckled grip. "Trying to get the hospital staff to give that to our Keiko, huh?"
"Uh. Yeah." Kuwabara lifted his eyes to mine before dropping them again like a stone. "Hi, Keiko."
"Hi, Kuwabara," I said. "It's nice to see you."
And I meant that, though it didn't seem to change Kuwabara's emotional topography. Lines stayed carved around his mouth and beside his eyes, and they stayed put even after my parents made him sit down beside my hospital bed. Mom took the bag he'd been carrying and set it beside the white and gold phone, fluffing the tissue paper spilling out the top with an appreciative hum. Kuwabara didn't look at me once during all of this. He just stared at the floor, hands pressed against the planes of his thighs like he was holding himself upright.
"Aren't visiting hours over?" I said, both to him and to my bustling parents.
"Uh. Yeah." He dragged his finger through the hair beside his temple. "But your parents saw me and insisted I come up here with them. The nurses tried to stop us, but…"
"But it's late and no one turns away my daughters' friends at the front door on my watch!" Dad hollered out the door (and in the hallway, the nurse who'd been wringing her hands at us finally walked off in a huff).
Kuwabara didn't react to my father, though. He just sat there in awkward silence, hands on legs, watching from the corner of his eye as my parents started unpacking the things they'd brought with them from home. My mother chattered about the restaurant and started making tea in the electric kettle she'd brought along, my father humming an accompaniment while unpacking clothes into the bureau. Kuwabara and I accepted an offering of dango and tea as a late-night snack, and as we silently ate, I wondered how the heck my parents expected me to have a conversation with Kuwabara when they were basically standing over us like a pair of particularly suffocating Victorian chaperones.
… provided Kuwabara even wanted to have a conversation in the first place, of course. Given his reluctance to look me in the eye, I had to wonder if he'd come after hours on purpose, intending to drop off that gift bag and leave unseen.
Speaking of which: "So is this from Shizuru?" I asked, reaching for the present.
"Yeah." At last he looked at me directly, brow knit. "How'd you know?"
"She asked for help on her skincare line. I recognize the logo." The front of the bag had been stamped with a blooming magnolia, chosen by Shizuru for its nod to her line's natural ingredients. To fill the silence, I dug past the tissue paper inside to find a tub of body butter and a few other products, all with complementary scents. "Oh, sweet, I love this stuff. That was thoughtful of her." Something glimmered at the bottom of the bag. "What's this?"
The final object in the bag was a small, soft-cover science book, one about recent breaks in neuroscience—not something Shizuru would give me, not in a million years. This was a science-bro gift, one that could only be from Kuwabara. The trio of label-bereft CDs at the very bottom of the bag also didn't seem like a Shizuru gift. They looked like they'd been burned at home, but even without hearing their contents, I knew it had to be metal—some new act Kuwabara thought I'd like. I looked at him in shock, unable to keep my mouth from falling open in slack-jawed amazement. Kuwabara… had brought me a gift? After everything that had happened recently, I didn't know what the hell to make of that.
"I, uh." He combed his fingers through his hair again, face red across the cheeks. "I know it's probably boring, being stuck in here. And I thought you'd like that book, so..."
I swallowed the chunk of nerves in my throat, attempting to smile. "Thank you, Kuwabara. I appreciate it. It's very thoughtful." Scanning the back of the book, I said, "And it seems super interesting, too, so…"
He nodded a few times, staring at the floor again. "It's a good one, for sure." Dark eyes flickered up to mine and down again. "I liked it, anyway."
We lapsed into silence, conversation dying like a firework fading into midnight. My parents had mostly retreated to the corner, chatting quietly as they fold clothes, no longer paying us any attention. And that suited me just fine. What I needed to say wouldn't benefit from an audience.
What I was about to say was hard enough on its own.
"It's OK if you're still mad at me, you know."
Kuwabara's head jerked up, but he didn't say anything. He just looked at me in surprise. Not that I blamed him for that.
"You don't have to magically forgive me because I got a little sick, is what I mean." I offered the most understanding smile I could muster. "I know you want to be nice and stuff after what happened to me, but… it doesn't undo how you feel. And you're not obligated to pretend like it has. That wouldn't be fair to you."
Relief, then guilt, flashed across his face in turns. "Are you sure?" he asked, gravelly voice low and soft. "Because I feel like a heel."
I huffed, though not necessarily at him or what he'd said. "If catching the flu was enough to mend a feud, Shakespeare would have a lot less to write about. The Capulets and the Montagues would've ended their beef the second someone got the sniffles."
"The Capulets?" His face screwed up tight. "Wait, hold on, I know this one…"
"Don't worry about it." I held up the book on neuroscience. "You're my science friend, not my literature friend. I played that metaphor for the wrong crowd."
Kuwabara stared at me, and then—as though in spite of himself—he chuckled.
"Seems like it," he said.
The silence that followed felt less awkward than the one before. Kuwabara fiddled with the hem of his jean jacket while I opened the tub of lotion Shizuru had sent me. I smoothed it over my hands and forearms, breathing in the scents of strawberry and basil. It was… calming, and not just because of the body butter. The moment Kuwabara and I shared was marked by neither strain nor tension—something I had not thought would come to pass between us for many months yet.
"Sorry to harp on this," I said eventually. "But…"
Kuwabara looked up, brows raised.
"I promised you space, Kuwabara." Each word was hard to say, but every word was necessary, too. "I won't renege on a promise like that until you tell me I can."
He laughed under his breath. "Genkai said you'd say something like that."
"You talked to Genkai about me?"
"Yeah. Called her when you got sick." He glanced toward my parents, but they were still talking in the corner, not listening in. "Just for advice. And she said you'd understand. And you do. That's… good." Kuwabara nodded, once. "Yeah. That's good. Thanks, Keiko."
"Of course."
Kuwabara smiled—the first real smile I'd seen from him in some time. It lit up his eyes and relieved some of the tension in his face, taking back years that stress had forced upon him. Call me crazy, but it felt like it returned years to my life, too. A weight lifted, a breeze blew in, stress drained like a drink of poured lemonade—but before I could so much as smile back, Kuwabara stood. He bowed.
"Thank you for having me here tonight." He lifted his face long enough for me to see him blush. "I'm… I'm glad you're OK, by the way."
"Thanks." I managed to smile that time. "Me, too."
His flush deepened. "Yeah. Anyway. Um." He rose, only to bow again for no reason I could see. "I'll bring more books next week."
"I'd like that," I said, meaning it.
Again, Kuwabara smiled. Then he turned and bowed in the direction of my parents, who'd fallen silent when his chair rattled across the floor. Once more he dipped his head toward me, then and only then leaving in a hurry, heading for the door without a single look back over his broad shoulder. My parents waited for the door to shut behind him to look at me, trying to gauge my reaction, but I didn't acknowledge them.
I was too busy staring at the door. Too busy listening for the sound of his footsteps to fade down the hall. Too busy trying to figure out how I was feeling. Maybe it was… not happy. Content? Yeah, that seemed right. A knot in my chest felt like it had loosened, easing a tension I didn't realize I'd been carrying. It was nice to know Kuwabara still cared, that we were back on speaking terms, even if he hadn't quite forgiven me yet.
It was progress. And I'd accept any progress I could get.
"It's nice to see that boy again," Mom said.
Mom and Dad stared at me from across the room, each of them wearing an identical look of pleased, knowing amusement—an expression that instantly had me feeling embarrassed as all hell. Dad patted my foot through the covers as I stared pointedly at the wall, trying my best to not transform into a tomato.
"Glad to see you've made up, even a little bit," said Dad.
"We like that boy," Mom added. "He's a good egg."
"All of your friends are good eggs, of course," Dad added right away.
"But Kuwabara is… earnest," said Mom, looking thoughtful. "And that's endearing."
I murmured an agreement, embarrassment only easing when my parents continued to unpack. In silence I finished sipping my tea, flipping through the book Kuwabara had brought. He was right: It did look good. Not too dry, unlike some science books. I turned to the first page and settled in to read, and when the night nurse came by to turn out my lights, I listened to one of his CDs while I fell asleep—the sounds of metal turned down low, beat of the drum following me into my technicolor dreams.
True to the doctors' words, I was allowed to go home the following Tuesday—one week to the day after I collapsed from Mushiyori Fever.
The day of my discharge arrived with a flurry of activity. I'd missed several days of school by that point, but the doctor had given me the clear to return to class the day after my release from the hospital, AKA Wednesday. I'd dutifully kept up with my homework while I was out, mostly thanks to the friends who brought it to me almost daily. They'd accumulated for me a rather gigantic pile of papers, which I had to organize and complete before we packed up my hospital room and headed home. I was paranoid I'd lose some of them in transit, and I was eager to get rid of it and turn it all in. I'm convinced we dealt more with homework that day than with the paperwork necessary to complete my discharge, but in the end I succeeded on both counts and found myself freed of the hospital with a heavy backpack of papers and tests in tow.
But my teachers' assignments weren't the only pieces of homework I'd completed. I'd heeded Kaito's words and tested my powers almost every night since our stolen conversation in the hospital meditation garden. Unlike Kaito, however, I didn't use my powers on just anyone, sticking mostly to my parents' dreams as they slumbered in my room. I didn't technically have their consent, which bothered me to no small end, but since I appeared in most of their dreams, I felt like viewing their sleeping visions wasn't as invasive as it would've been to view the dreams of someone outside my family.
Well. That wasn't the only reason I stuck to using my parents as test subjects. The nurses tripled security on my floor after I snuck out to meet with Kaito, watching like a contingent of hawks at all hours of both the day and night. The donut-dreaming cop made a habit of sitting outside my room on a folding chair, in fact, visions of sugarplums and eclairs dancing through his head…
Anyway.
My parents' dreams inevitably involved me in one way or another. When they weren't about me, they were about the restaurant or each other—standard anxiety dreams about not ordering enough food, or losing all their chefs, or being overwhelmed at rush hour. My mother's dreams tended to skew angstier than my father's, for whatever reason. I longed to help her somehow and get her a better night's rest, but try though I might to psyche myself up, I didn't do much more than view her dreams the same way I had the night I discovered my Territory… not that I even knew what "more" entailed.
Something told me my abilities didn't end with just viewing dreams. An instinct, one buried deep down out of sight in my psyche, around a corner out of reach. But invading my parents' minds without their consent just didn't sit right. I'd need to find some willing subjects, fast, or else I wasn't sure how I was going to get any more familiar with my power…
In the end, I was excited to go home, mostly because it meant I'd at last be able to speak freely. Staying in that hospital 24/7, my parents at my side for every second, meant I had to perform the role of Keiko without end, forcing good cheer and happy smiles even when I didn't want to wear them. I was used to playing Keiko at school, but I always had breaks in the act at different times throughout the day, mental cool-down periods where I could be myself without reservation. Sure, I had been playing at being Keiko for years now. And sure, I had plenty of practice at doing so successfully. But lately I'd been more honest than I had in years, and switching between an intermittent act to a constant one wasn't exactly easy…
When at last I got settled at home—my room looking both familiar and alien at once—I waited for my parents to leave me alone before going to my desk and opening the top drawer. In a small velvet ring box lay a shiny brown seed, its smooth, round shell like polished marble underneath my fingertips. Kurama had given it to me as a gift so many months prior, claiming it would shield me from the prying eyes of Spirit World should they be keeping watch. Tucking it into my pocket, I prayed that it was still able to scramble any supernatural observation before picking up the phone and dialing a number. As the phone rang and rang, I thought about something Kuwabara had said during our unexpected conversation. A name he'd dropped, the one that belonged to the creaky voice who eventually picked up and spoke a creaky, "Hello?"
"Genkai." I fiddled with the seed in my pocket. "It's me."
"Keiko. So you're alive. Color me impressed." She did not, in fact, sound impressed at all. "Kuwabara seemed to think you were on death's door."
"I was, technically. I got lucky."
"You always do."
I sucked down a sharp inhale. "Others who go Mushiyori Fever… they didn't make it."
The thought of just how lucky I'd gotten did not escape me. The statistics, whispered by the nurses in the hall every hour on the hour, were difficult to ignore. So many hadn't made it through the disease alive, but here I was, sitting pretty as both a survivor and the recipient of supernatural abilities. The survivor's guilt I'd experienced had kept me up for more than one night during the past week—and yet, Genkai just sort of grunted in recognition, crotchety old woman sounding neither sorry nor sad. I thought maybe she said something under her breath, but I didn't catch it.
However, I did catch it when she said, "So I've heard."
My brow shot up. "You have?"
Another grunt, but she just answered my question with one of her own: "Why did you call me, Keiko?"
"Well…"
It was just like Genkai to get down to brass tacks so soon, and I didn't bother wasting her time. I just took a deep breath, and for the first time, told a canon character of Yu Yu Hakusho about my Territory—about having a bad dream before I collapsed, and then having a dream about my past life afterward, waking up days later to the power over dreams. My heart leapt into my mouth when the truth came out, but the subsequent silence over the line didn't do my rapidly fraying nerves any favors whatsoever. I clutched the receiver to my cheek and listened to my pulse pound against my eardrum, a rapid tempo that sounded like the thunder of stampeding stallions.
"A Territory, huh," Genkai eventually said—not the reaction I'd expected from her at all. "That's what you're calling it?"
"Yeah." I swallowed. "And I'm not the only one who has this kind of power thanks to Mushiyori Fever. One of my classmates has it, too. But his Territory… it's more dangerous than mine." I couldn't keep from hearing Kaito's voice in my head, the way he'd defended using a nurse as a guinea pig. "And he's eager to test it, but I don't think it's a good idea without some kind of guide. So I was thinking…"
"That I could be that guide," Genkai surmised.
"Yeah." I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth, long and slow and soothing. "So, Genkai. Would you—?"
"Be here this weekend."
I didn't react right away. She'd spoken simply, quickly, and without adornment. I hadn't expected her to go along with me this fast, without the need for convincing, without any argument at all. It wasn't like Genkai to just… agree. To go along with what I said without pushing back, to make her feelings known.
And yet…
"Just like that?" I said, suspicious.
"You thought I'd say no?" said Genkai.
"I thought you'd take a little more convincing." It was the honest truth. "Or ask more questions. Or—"
"Kid, if you think this is the first I'm hearing about people suddenly developing powers after Mushiyori Fever, you're not as smart as I thought you were," she said with the blunt impact of a sledgehammer. "Though you are the first to use that word." Genkai chuckled. "'Territory.' I admit, it's a good name for this phenomenon…"
My brain short-circuited. "I'm the first who… what?" I said, caught in the grip of a truly disorienting out-of-body experience. "Did you just say that you—?"
"What, do I need to spell it out for you?" Genkai groused. "I am a renowned psychic and spiritualist. My name might not be in the phonebook, but I'm easy enough to track down if you're dedicated—and people who develop dangerous abilities overnight tend to be pretty dedicated."
I swallowed, phone slipping in my sweaty grip. "Are there already others—?"
"Here at the temple? Yes." She didn't wait for me to acclimate to this flood of information, forging on without pause. "They started showing up weeks ago. I'm no hero, but far be it from me to turn away people in need…"
She trailed off. Again I thought I heard her say something, muffled by what was perhaps a hand placed over the phone's receiver. Was she talking to one of the others? One of the other people who had apparently turned to her after developing new abilities? I knew she'd seen Kaito and two of his friends in canon, the trio having sought her out for help after Kaito ripped his own soul out—but even more than them? I didn't recall that happening in canon. I didn't recall—
Genkai kept talking before I could ruminate on canon any further. She said, "These Territories, as you've named them—"
"Kaito named them," I blurted. "Not me."
"Kaito," she repeated. "Your school friend who developed the more dangerous power, I take it."
"Yeah. He's a wordsmith. Which is fitting, given his abilities are—"
I told her about the Territory of Taboo, mouth running entirely on auto-pilot: Kaito could specify any word or sound and attach to it a consequence (namely the removal of a soul, though whether or not he could attach a different consequence was not clear). If someone within his Territory spoke that word, their soul would leave their body and fall under Kaito's command. The Territory also forbade the use of physical violence—though as soon as I said that, I regretted it. Kaito hadn't mentioned that part yet, leading me to believe he hadn't discovered that facet of his power. I only knew about it because of canon.
Not that Genkai knew that detail. She just listened in silence, and that silence lingered long after I finished speaking. I wasn't sure what that silence meant.
But Genkai didn't stay quiet forever. "Bring him to me," she said eventually, words as gruff as usual.
"OK." I wasn't about to argue. "When?"
"Soon. This weekend, if you can get away. No doubt your parents are feeling protective." Genkai chuckled when I tittered a wry confirmation, but her humor faded quickly. "A power like your friend Kaito's is easily abused, and from the sounds of it, he's already on track to use his Territory recklessly." Something rustled; I suspected she was shaking her head. "Many of these Territories are ripe for abuse. What kind of spiritualist would I be if I let their users rage unchecked?"
"And if we find more people with Territories who want guidance…?"
"What am I, a motel?" Genkai snapped—but then she sighed. "Ugh. Fine. Bring them, too. I'm already in the deep end. What's a few more feet of water?"
"I'm thinking I'll find at least three in addition to me and Kaito, if you need to plan and stuff," I offered, trying to be helpful.
But it didn't work. Genkai swore a blue streak and said, "For the love of—how many of these Territory users are there?"
"Do you really want to know the answer to that question?" I said. After a quick mental tally, I told her: "Because I know of at least seven, plus me, and then the other four I want to bring, and—"
"Stop," Genkai ordered. "That's enough. Just bring them to me."
"I will." My eyes rolled of their own accord. "If my parents are willing to let me out of their sight for long enough, that is."
"Like I said: They must be feeling protective after your dramatic collapse."
"I mean, can you blame them? Your kid has a brush with death, you tend to get a little clingy."
"Right." Genkai's voice took on a hard edge, one that brooked no quibbling or argument. "Well. You're good at making excuses for your behavior. So make one, and get down here as soon as you can."
I didn't like the reminder of my past dishonesty, but I didn't protest the mention of it, either; it was deserved. "Thanks, Genkai," was all I said, meaning it—and yet Genkai only laughed.
"Save the thanks until after I help you," she said. "Oh, and Keiko?"
"Yes?"
"Don't tell the others about this."
At first I thought I'd misheard her. I started to laugh, like she'd made a joke, only to recognize the dire cadence of her otherwise innocuous words. I backtracked, replayed what she'd said—realized with a start what she'd just commanded me to do. In silence I stared at the landscape of my bedroom, taking in the pastel comforter and stuffed toys, the cutesy star stickers on my desk and the clock shaped like a cartoon octopus on the wall. The profane Johnny Cash poster on the back of my bedroom door and the metal albums on my nightstand sat in stark contrast to the rest, blips of grudge amid clean gentility. My old self nestled amid the confines of the new, divergence of themes nearly painful in their intimate juxtaposition.
Caught up in that imagery, all I could do was whisper, "What?"
"Don't tell the others about your Territory." Genkai didn't sound even a little reluctant to call them each by name. "Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei and Kuwabara. Botan, too, and even Shizuru. Don't breathe a single word to any of them."
"But Genkai," I said, words sticking in my dry throat, "I—"
"Here we go…" she grumbled.
"Why?" It was all I could say, the syllable desperate and cracking on its frantic way out. "Why the hell wouldn't I tell them about this? I only just started being honest with them! I can't just—"
"You'll tell them eventually. Just not yet," she said, stressing the last word like it should've already been obvious. "Trust me. It's better to wait."
"But—but I promised I wouldn't lie or—"
"No 'buts,' kid. I mean it." Steel flowed through the phone, audible in every clipped syllable that came out of Genkai's mouth. "Do not breathe a word to them about your Territory." A wry chuckle rustled like autumnal leaves. "And if you're going to insist on feeling guilty about this, save yourself the trouble. It's not lying. It's just omission."
"And lying by omission is definitely a thing, Genkai!"
"A thing you are going to have to do for the time being," she shot back. "I know you don't like this, girl of many lives—especially not after recent events—but trust me when I say this is for the best."
It was rare to hear Genkai's voice gentle, but here it did, lowering into a soothing, creaky rumble like rain on a tin roof. I felt myself relax in spite of everything. This was Genkai, after all—the first person to whom I had willingly confessed the truth of my origins in this world. She had been too smart to fool, so I hadn't bothered to try, and I'd trusted her to keep my secret when the time for keeping secrets came. And now, here we were. Genkai asking me to keep secrets, instead of the other way around.
It was as if Genkai heard my thoughts. "Can you do that, girl?" she asked of me, voice as plaintive as I'd ever heard it. "Can you trust me?"
I gripped the phone a little tighter.
"I trust you," I said.
For now, I didn't say aloud.
"Good." Genkai didn't linger on our exchange, instead forging right ahead. "This weekend. Be here, with the others. And do not tell a soul about your Territory."
I didn't reply. I just hung up. Stood there in silence, eyes on my bedroom's conflicting décor, trying to parse the maelstrom of emotion whirling inside my chest.
For a long time, I didn't move.
Then, slowly, I picked up the phone and placed another call.
Kaito and Amanuma arrived at my home only an hour and a half after I summoned the pair of them via phone. They arrived with a vase of flowers and much fanfare, my mother welcoming them inside and insisting she fix them something to eat before allowing them to join me in my room. I placed their offered flowers—cut daisies and baby's breath—in a vase upon my desk beside Kurama's flowers, which still looked as fresh and perfect as they had when he brought them to me. No doubt Kurama had done something to keep them living for far longer than should be natural, but that was neither here nor there. After my call to Genkai, I'd found myself fingering the petals of the chrysanthemum in the arrangement, ruminating while I waited for Kaito and Amanuma to arrive. I tried not to think about the meaning of that flower as Amanuma settled on my floor, lying on his belly with heels kicking the air behind his head.
"—and I can bring all of them to life if I want!" he was saying. He'd started babbling about his Territory the second my mother shut my bedroom door. "I tried it out with Tetris, and Galaga, and—"
The kid had been incredibly eager to tell me all about his Territory, of course—a Territory the wordsmith Kaito immediately dubbed 'arcade' for its ability to bring any game, from arcade or console, to life. Just as I'd predicted, Amanuma had collapsed after contracting Mushiyori Fever, too, waking with a new ability etched into his very being. His Territory filled him with joy, something he stated as well as evidenced in the brightness of his eye and the elation in his young voice. When Kaito had informed Amanuma that all three of us had developed supernatural powers, he'd been even happier. He'd peppered Kaito with a hundred questions when Kaito first called to check on him, and he peppered me with the same before launching into a gushing ramble about his Territory. Hard to get a word in edgewise amid the flood, though after a while, I forced myself to do just that.
"Say, Amanuma?" I said when the kid finally (finally!) stopped to draw breath.
"Hmm?" His grin didn't budge an inch. "What is it?"
"Can I asked what happened to you before you collapsed? "
"What do you mean?" he said, eyes screwing up in confusion.
"Kaito wrote a paper while omitting a certain character from the words, kind of like his Territory, Taboo," I said, nodding at Kaito in his seat in my desk chair. "And I had some weird dreams before manifesting my powers over dreams." (Still felt weird to say that, 'my powers,' but I pressed on regardless.) "Before you collapsed, did you…?"
"Actually, yeah," Amanuma said, surprise etched into his bright eyes. "That explains it! Right before I collapsed, I beat every game in the entire arcade. Top scores across the board. I hadn't really connected that to everything, but…"
"It seems we all successfully underwent a trial, of sorts, before acquiring our abilities," Kaito observed. "How very interesting."
"Yeah, that is interesting!" Amanuma's heels kicked a little harder, grin widening all the more. "What do you think the others who got Territories went through, huh?"
"I imagine it would depend on their Territory. And on that note…" Kaito adjusted his glasses the way he always did before saying something important. "I've managed to connect with a few others whom I believe developed a Territory of their own."
"Really?" Amanuma looked impressed. "How'd you do that?"
"By the methods of the future." Kaito smiled with smug satisfaction. "Online message boards."
A thrill of recognition zipped up my spine, and before he could say another word, I help up a hand.
"Kaito," I said. "Stop."
He wore curiosity the same way he wore his glasses, frank interest painted openly across his face as I got up and pulled a pen, an envelope and a piece of paper from my desk drawer. Ripping off a scrap of paper, I jotted down a few words before folding the paper and tucking it into the envelope, securing the flap shut with a bit of tape.
I handed the envelope to Kaito. "Don't break that seal."
"Why not?" His eyebrows lifted. "What's in it?"
"Proof, sort of. You'll see what I mean soon, but just hold onto it for now."
"How mysterious. Very well." He tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket and out of sight. "As I was saying, I frequent a number of online message boards, among them a selection of local boards. It wasn't difficult to set up a thread that would attract others who developed abilities similar to our own."
"Really?" Amanuma said, eagerly lapping up every word.
I felt less enthused, however. "Is spelling out that we developed powers in a public forum really wise, Kaito?" I said, staring at him sidelong.
"Relax," he said. "The truth behind the thread would not be obvious to anyone who doesn't already know about Territories. I merely asked if anyone had suffered noteworthy side effects after recovering from Mushiyori Fever. Those who replied to me privately inevitably hinted at the development of their Territories, seeking someone who underwent a similar experience."
"I see," I said, relieved. "So to anyone who doesn't already know about Territories, they'd think you're talking about, like, chronic headaches or something."
"Yes. I also revealed no personal details of my own. They tell me everything, while I tell them nothing. And of course I used a throwaway account paired with a disguised IP address, and I encrypted my—"
"I get the picture," I cut in before he could really get going. "You can't be traced. Smart move."
His smile turned quite smug. "Did you expect anything less of me, Yukimura?"
"I shouldn't have, clearly." Shifting atop my bed, I took a deep breath before asking the question I both dreaded asking and wanted most to hear: "So I take it you've gotten a few responses, then?"
"Yes, though only two show promise at this time," he said—confirming what I'd suspected he'd say. "They are as slow to trust me as I am to trust them, though I've made headway on learning their names. In the meantime, I've begun to acquire the various medical records of the survivors of Mushiyori Fever, and—"
I sat up with a jolt and yelped, "You stole medical records?!"
"That's bad, right?" Amanuma whispered.
"That's very bad, Amanuma." Baring my teeth, I growled at Kaito, "That's very, very bad!"
But Kaito just adjusted his glasses. "Needs must, Yukimura," he said, peering at me over the tops of the lenses. "Needs must."
"Yeah, but—but still!" When he failed to look the least bit guilty, I flopped back against my bed and covered my face with my hands. "God, talk about a HIPPA violation…"
"HIPPA?" Kaito asked.
"Isn't that, like, that cow thing with a big mouth in Africa?" said Amanuma. "Hi-po-pa-to-mu-su?"
"That's a hippo, not a HIPPA. I…" Sensing the time for delay had long since expired, I sat back up with a huff and took a deep breath. "OK, here we go."
"Yukimura…" A look of uncharacteristic concern had settled atop Kaito's narrow features. "You look rather green. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just—"
Their stares felt as heavy as a crown of steel, and my head bowed beneath that weight. A deep breath steeled my nerves, fingertips drumming on my pastel comforter. The mattress felt too soft, almost. Like I might sink into it and out of sight, lost in fluff and feathers, descending until I drowned.
Kaito and Amanuma exchanged a silent glance. I tried not to let the skepticism, the confusion of their faces rattle me.
"Look," I said after a time, "I didn't just call you two here today to talk about our Territories. Well, I did, at least in part, but…" I shook my head. "Where to start?"
"The beginning, would be the advice of conventional wisdom," Kaito dryly intoned.
And I decided to take his advice, starting with the most relevant item of interest first. "First of all, I found someone who can help us really figure out our powers." I pasted on a happy grin. "Or maybe 'found' isn't the right word. It's more like I've known her for a long time. And I talked to her, and she's willing to let us come see her so she can train us. Isn't that great?"
Amanuma did not appear to think so, because he pulled a face and stuck out his tongue. "Train?" he repeated. "Why do I need to train? I just play games!"
"I know you think so, but there are some drawbacks to your powers, Amanuma. Ones I don't think you're aware of." I tried to speak gently, but firmly. I wanted to warm the kid, but I didn't want to scare him, either. "My friend can help you get a handle on these weaknesses so you don't accidentally do something you'll regret."
"Drawbacks?" Kaito aimed at me a condemnatory glower. "But my Territory doesn't have any drawbacks."
"And neither does mine!" Amanuma insisted.
Amanuma looked annoyed, affronted that his shiny new toy was being questioned—but his toy was not a toy. It was a weapon, and he had no idea his finger rested on the trigger. Amanuma spoke with all the delusions of invincibility common to kids his age, and that was precisely the problem. It's what got him killed in canon, and if I didn't nip this in the bud right now, it might be why he got killed in this timeline, too. Twisting toward him, I ripped off the kid gloves and stared him right in the eye, looming over him from my high vantage point on the bed as I did my very best impression of an imperious Genkai.
"Do you know," I asked him, "of the game Goblin City?"
"Yeah, sure," Amanuma said at once, frustration twisting his mouth. "And you've watched me play it! So what are you even yakking about, huh?"
"If you were to bring that game to life using your Territory, what would happen?" I asked.
"Uh…" The question caught him off-guard, and for a moment he floundered in startled silence. "Well, it depends, I guess. I could play that game as a player, or I could be the Goblin King and play against friends. And we'd play through a bunch of mini-games like tennis or trivia or 7x7, King vs. the party of players, until someone wins. And then the game would end." He shrugged, still thinking hard. "I can't really end games until someone wins or loses, it turns out. Once you start playing, you gotta play till the end. But it's more fun that way, anyway!"
"You said you could play as the Goblin King or as the player party," I said. "But, Amanuma… what happens if you play as the Goblin King and lose?"
"I dunno." Another shrug. "The game ends?"
"Amanuma, think." I slipped off the bed to land beside him with a thud, staring into his eyes as intently as I could. "What happens to the Goblin King if the players beat him?"
"He…" A lightbulb went off; Amanuma's jaw dropped. "Oh." He clapped a hand over his gaping mouth, horror inscribed in every motion. "Oh!"
"Forgive me," Kaito said, looking completely unamused, "but I don't know what either of you are talking about."
I twisted toward him, knees burning against the carpet. "Have you ever won Goblin City?"
"Yes. But forgive me for not recalling how it ends," Kaito said. "It's only a game, after all."
"If the Goblin King loses, the game explicitly states that he dies. The players killed him. An image of his grave appears on screen, to put a fine point on it." My gaze cut sideways to Amanuma, who had not moved a single muscle. "So if Amanuma played as the King, and he lost…"
Kaito said, "Amanuma would die."
Amanuma had gone grey, a light sheen of sweat breaking across his unlined brow. He didn't protest, or try to deflect, or even speak at all as Kaito and I fell quiet. He just sat there with his hand over his mouth, staring at the floor, the horror of a close call hanging over his head like the looming sword of Damocles. I hated telling him all this so baldly, but ignorance was what had killed him in canon. Not arming him with the knowledge he needed to stay alive in this timeline was a sin I could not let myself commit.
I had knowledge of canon, a power perhaps even greater than a Territory. What the hell kind of person would I be if I didn't use that power now, to save him? I'd already broken canon to keep him out of Sensui's hands. To let Amanuma die anyway would be a complete waste.
"That's why it's important that you train, kid," I said, trying to soothe the hurt I'd caused. "That's why it's important we have someone smart, someone who isn't blinded by excitement over our powers, to keep an eye on us so we don't get in over our heads and get ourselves killed. This friend of mine can be that person. We need to see her before we use our powers any more than we already have, before the worst can happen—and we're in luck." I put a hand on his shoulder, gratified when he snapped out of his horrified state to look up at me—with hope. "She's agreed to let us stay with her this weekend."
"Really?" Amanuma said, a smile growing.
"Yeah," I said. "Really."
"A safe space?"
Kaito spoke the words in the form of a slow question, but with an edge in his eyes like the tip of a sharpened pencil about to scrape down the length of fresh, white paper. Amanuma just stared at him, confused, but I knew what he'd picked up on. A reply caught in my throat, tangling with nerves until its forward momentum stalled, then stopped entirely. The way Kaito's eyes had met mine didn't help matters, either. Cold and calculating, nearly as sharp as Kurama's, they studied my face as though trying to read my mind in the layout of my pores, and beneath them I could not help but shrink.
Kaito, much like Genkai, was the kind of character I could not fool forever.
"What you said back in the hospital," Kaito said with unerring confidence. "You didn't want me experimenting and speaking my own Taboo word until it was safe to do so. And you think this person—"
"Genkai. Her name is Genkai." Looks like I'd found my voice at last. "She's a renowned psychic and spiritualist."
Kaito digested that without flinching, psychics and spiritualists now par for the course after the evolution of his Territory. "You think this Genkai character can be that safety net for me," he said, and his head tilted to the side a fraction. "When I first proposed experimenting on myself, you were adamant I not try until it was safe to do so. This implies you suspected the worst should I experiment in the fashion I described. And while you are undoubtedly intelligent, Keiko, you only learned of Amanuma's power half an hour ago—but you have already pinpointed a dire weakness neither he nor I could determine, and we have known about his power for far longer than you."
Amanuma looked at me and Kaito and back again. "What are you trying to say, Kaito?"
"I am saying, Amanuma, that Keiko knows something." He spoked with his usual clipped assurance, eyes like bullets against my face. "Something she shouldn't. Something she isn't telling us. Something that falls outside of her perception—or should, at any rate." He pressed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with one precision-guided fingertip. "The only question… is what."
Something in his tone of voice reminded me of Kurama, and the comparison made me laugh—as much out of humor as from nerves, but still. Kaito watched me giggle in silence, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned backward in his seat, resting an ankle on the opposite knee. Amanuma looked as confused as I'd ever seen him at my giggles, but Kaito just waited for me to collect myself, patient as my laughter quieted and I became able to look him in the eye again.
"You know, you may hate him, Kaito, but you and Kurama are two peas in a pod," I said, still giggling. "Too smart for your own good, both of you."
"Kurama?" One thin eyebrow shot up. "Who in the world is Kurama?"
"I'll get to him in a bit," I said. "But first… there's something you should know. About me, specifically."
They waited as I arranged my legs into proper seiza, resting my hands on my bent knees as I prepared myself to speak. Kaito was a special breed of person, intellectual and blunt, and I would need to package this revelation very carefully if I wanted him to swallow it without choking. And Amanuma, too, had a fragile sense of trust, one I would need to handle with care lest it shatter and break.
I'd been rehearsing for this all afternoon. Since long before that, during my stay at the hospital, in fact. But it would still take precision to do this properly, and thus, I took a moment to prepare myself.
But I could not have them wait forever, and eventually, I raised my head and smiled.
"Amanuma. Kaito," I carefully intoned. "Before we go see Genkai… I think there's something I need to tell you."
I took a deep breath.
Then, slowly—I told them the truth, at last.
NOTES
Between this chapter and the Keirama Christmas fic, I'll have released more than 30,000 words of content in just three days. Please leave a review! I worked really hard and would love feedback.
Happy fourth birthday to Lucky Child! Today is the fourth anniversary of the day I posted this fanfic in late 2016. What a milestone, huh? How long have all of you been following this behemoth? How the heck did you find it in the first place? I'm feeling nostalgic and would love to hear about how we came together!
And on that note, endless and enormous thanks for being here after so long. I truly couldn't have gotten this far without your support. It's wild to me that it's taken this long to get to this part of the story, and yet, it feels like we've only just begun. Not sure if we'll make it to the fifth anniversary before this tale ends, but just in case we don't see another birthday, please know that spending these years with y'all has been a joy.
And on the story front, all of the pieces are coming together. Keiko is connecting Territory users with Genkai… but why has Genkai sworn her to temporary secrecy? What was in that envelope Keiko gave to Kaito? And how will Kaito and Amanuma react to the reveal of Keiko's big secret?
The Keirama-themed Christmas story I promised is live! I ended up breaking it into three chapters, and the final installment comes out tomorrow. It's bundled into the Children of Misfortune collection, so please go check that out to read the story! Or add it to your alert list so you don't miss when the final chapter goes live. People who ship Keirama will probably flip out over a certain part of Part 2, which I posted a few minutes ago.
Also... did y'all see that they're doing a LIVE ACTION adaptation of YYH? I did NOT see that one coming!
Big thanks to everyone who supported the previous chapter. I know going on hiatus throws off reading habits, so these folks making an effort to welcome the story back to a regular schedule really did make that return feel warm and welcome. Huge thanks to all of you lovely people: xenocanaan, RE Zera, C S Stars, EdenMae, kindsoul1991, lovedigitalhope, Vienna22, empressofthedead, PretiBurdi, vodka-and-tea, Mia, ladyofchaos, slimesoui, Kaiya Azure, Sorlian, Meno Melissa, Moody Potato, Biku-sensei-sez-meow, Call Brig On Over, ewokling, cestlavie, noble phantasm, Pelawen Night, tammywammy9, MyWorldHeartBeating, Rubber and Gum, MissIdeophobia, buzzk97, Durinsdottir, cezarina and firemaster101.
See you on Sunday, January 10, 2021 for the chapter 119.
