Ticking Timebomb

Chapter 66: Hurts Like Hell

A/N: Back to Kasumi's POV!

. . .

"Do you plan to just stand there and watch me?"

A week. One entire week in his presence. One week with my sister-clone where we spent as little time as possible speaking to one another. One week away from Hiei. One week closer to the day I would die by this man's hands.

But it hadn't been an entire waste of time.

"I did not realize you found pleasure in doing Tai-chi. I was merely curious," he said.

"Take your curiosity and shove it up your ass."

Hideki was surprisingly lax within his own domain. It was far too easy to see him as the man my younger and far more naive self fell in love with.

He dressed in casual clothes that still managed to show off his defined body and drank a lot of tea and made faces of disgust when I drank my coffee black and bitter. It was far, far too easy to see him as human and not the monster that he was.

And perhaps at one point Hideki wasn't such a bastard. Maybe he once held some kind of good in him. But years of being locked away in Purgatory sapped any chance of him being a decent person. It quite literally took away any semblance of sanity.

Because even as he sat there, watching me go through each movement as fluid as water, I could see this strange light in his eyes that made coldness coil in my stomach. It was more than curiosity or intrigue.

It was hunger.

Hideki was only playing at being a man; beneath the mask was a beast with sharp teeth and claws that would tear me apart.

"Now, now," he said, in that calm admonishing tone he always used with me, "no need to be so unladylike."

I sneered at him and gave him the finger. How was that for ladylike, you prick?

Hideki chuckled, rising from his perch on the arm of a wing-backed chair. He strode over to the fireplace and stoked the flames in the ever roaring fire. That was another anomaly—he never allowed it to go out. I thought it strange, because it wasn't cold here. In fact, the temperature remained perfectly comfortable no matter how hot the flames became. And it was like that throughout his entire home.

I stopped my movements, watching him now as he had watched me, and asked, "You act like if that goes out you'll freeze to death."

He looked at me from the corner of his eye for a brief moment, his face carefully blank. "Do you have something against a warm fire? Surely not, considering your choice in a partner."

The way he said it, as if it were something dirty, made my hackles rise. Hiei was a better man than he ever was or would be. It did not matter how much blood stained his hands, because Hideki's outnumbered his a thousand fold.

And Hiei had no ideations about destroying the three main worlds.

I sneered at him, stopping my movements. "I'm going to find Hitomi," I said.

He gave me that same sidelong glance again and then shooed me with a wave of his hand. I was not stupid enough to turn my back on him, so as I left I watched when he placed an arm on the mantle and leaned over the flames, the colors flickering across his rather rugged face, casting his sharp angles in shadows that made him look sinister. My blood ran cold.

I needed to get out of here.

Finding Hitomi was easy. She didn't often leave Hideki's extensive library unless she needed to sleep, even going so far as to take her meals in there.

As expected, she was hunched over his desk pouring over several open books, her fingers tracing across the pages. She would write something down here and there, and then go back to reading. She paid me no mind when I entered the room by throwing the glass paned door open hard enough to rattle it.

It was almost disappointing when it didn't shatter. Maybe that would have been enough to get a reaction out of her.

I slumped into an armchair, letting my gaze bore into her forehead until she was forced to look up, a disapproving look on her face that strongly reminded me of Kurama. Under normal circumstances I might have laughed, but right now my demeanor just turned sour.

"Can I do something for you, Kasumi?"

Hitomi dropped all pretenses this past week. She no longer acted anything like the girl I'd grown up with and while there were still hints of that same personality, they were overshadowed by this...other Hitomi. There was just no way to truly explain it. It was as if all the things she witnessed during her years of travel molded and shaped her into an entirely different person. But I didn't understand that change, couldn't comprehend it, because for me...she was still my sister and I needed to protect her.

The only benefit to this change that seemed so sudden to me, but definitely didn't for her, was that she was more honest. Even Hitomi believed I planned to stay here, because it was for the good of the worlds. She honestly believed this was the only way, out of all the outcomes she witnessed.

"What was the future Hiei like?" I asked this for one simple reason—because I missed him. But also because I was curious. She wouldn't tell me before, but now she resented my actions of a week ago and found ways to try and anger me.

Chronos wasn't any better. If she spent any time talking to me at all it was to inform me of my utter ineptitude and lack of remorse.

Because, apparently, not killing the woman I always thought to be my sister made me a heartless bitch.

Hitomi looked back down at her books, writing a few more notes before she deemed it okay to speak. "I met several."

"You spent a long time in a certain timeline though, didn't you?"

Her lips twitched downwards. The pen in her fingers scratched across the paper in a furious line. "Yes, it took awhile to learn how to properly travel between timelines. I was stuck there until I was able to figure it out."

"You had help?"

"If you could call it that. None of them were too thrilled at my arrival."

She rose from her seat, wandering over to a lone mini-electric stove that sat on a counter against one side of the library, in front of a large bay window that showed a fake view of the sky. I knew it wasn't real, because upon opening it all there was outside was a black hole threatening to suck you into oblivion.

Hitomi put a kettle on for tea, the smell of it brewing dragging back old memories of times with our grandmother. A bitter wistfulness filled my lungs and spread through my chest.

Where had everything gone so wrong?

As she waited, she continued to talk, almost as if she were lost in the memories. "He was...much different from this time's version of him. Perhaps he would come to grow into such a man, after much tribulation and heartache. But he was also far more wise and open and less likely to fly off into a temper."

I laughed. That didn't sound like Hiei at all. "You sure you're remembering the right guy?"

"He knew who and what I was the second I entered his domain—that small, brimming city he ruled over was something to marvel at."

"He...ruled over a city?"

"The last city. I wasn't even sure what part of the world it was in, but demons and humans and all manner of life maintained some semblance of a home there. He, along with Yusuke and the others, drew them all together. There were others, lost to the wastelands, to the forests teeming with death and oceans clouded with rot and blood. He created teams to go out and extract as many living and uncorrupted people as he could."

The world Hitomi painted was something out of dreams or nightmares. Hiei as a pseudo king, a vigilante like fucking Batman rescuing people in the night from the monsters that escaped from Purgatory. It was...both madness and mesmerizing.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

She turned, a fresh cup of tea clutched in her palms. "Because you asked."

"But before you were all worried about messing up the timelines."

She snorted, taking a sip of her drink to stall. "Not much more I could do to mess things up now. It's already ruined beyond repair. I made a foolish decision and I'm paying for that. The destruction of time as we know it is a very real possibility, forget the loss of the three worlds."

She poured a second cup of tea and handed it to me. I took it with fingers I forced not to tremble and stared at her until she grew uncomfortable and moved away, back to that damned chair that must have a permanent imprint of her ass by now.

"What does that mean...for us? If time were to just...crumble?"

Hitomi contemplated her answer for only a moment before replying with complete honesty. "The world's ether would implode and our universe would be wiped from existence. And ours would probably drag several others down with it."

For once I was at a loss for words. What did you say to something like that?

I slumped in my chair, my cup of tea dangling from my fingers held precariously at the rim. How did someone like me...stop something like that?

. . .

A couple days later and I found myself in a rather strange situation.

It was late, past midnight, and the house was dark. He didn't lock me in my room or even really treated me like a prisoner, minus not allowing me to leave his home. It made feel like a rather buff Belle from Beauty and the Beast, except I held nothing but revulsion for the "beast."

I was stumbling my blind ass towards the kitchen, unwilling to put contacts in this late and creeped out by the set of glasses Hideki had procured for me. They were my exact prescription and I didn't want to know how he knew that, let alone wear the damn things. They were too stylish and tacky for my taste and any kind gesture from him would surely be a mistake to accept.

So here I was, wandering down halls I barely knew in search of something to quench my thirst.

After wandering into several abandoned rooms, I bit the bullet and turned around. It took me a few tries to find my own room, but the door was noticeable enough once I got close to it. There was a strange pattern engraved in the wood different from all the other doors.

I retrieved the pair of glasses and begrudgingly placed them over my nose. My vision cleared to crystal clarity and I crept back out into the hall.

Able to see now, I tracked my way towards the den area that Hideki seemed to spend most of his time in when he wasn't off doing...whatever devious things a criminal mastermind did. From the crack in the doorway I could see the glow of a blazing fire, the light flickering and ever changing. The heat was near unbearable, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I found myself pushing the doorway open inch by inch.

I held my breath, afraid that if I was too loud I would be caught. But it seemed I never needed to worry...

Hideki was slumped in that wing-backed chair, long arms and legs sprawled out, his body almost too big for the piece of furniture. And he was sound asleep.

I crept closer...and closer, until I was standing just in front of him, my toes nearly touching the tips of his boots.

Rude, I thought, to wear his shoes indoors.

His full lips were parted, soft breaths falling with each rise and dip of his chest. He was so unworried about my presence in his home that he could fall asleep like this, out in the open, unprotected. What a goddamned moron.

Hideki also made the mistake of keeping my powers unhindered here. When I confronted him about it, he told me it was best that I kept them and used them, that I continued to train and strengthen myself every day. That becoming complacent was not in my cards.

I was three parts enraged, confused, and intrigued by this.

So with careful intent, I pulled a small amount of my energy into my hands. I morphed and shaped it into something sharp and jagged, something that could easily slit his throat.

Steady now, keep steady.

I leaned over him, careful not to touch his feet or jostle his arms or even breathe on his face. I was so close I could smell the sweat that glistened on his forehead and practically count each eyelash that rested against his cheeks.

Just as I would have brought my makeshift dagger up to give Hideki a nice red smile, his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, the hold tight and unrelenting. He broke it with little hesitation, the sound of snapping bone loud in the silence of the room. My energy dissipated with a searing fizzle.

I screamed, the sudden pain overloading my senses, and I struggled to get out of his hold.

But he just rose from the chair, my broken wrist still clutched in his tightly squeezed fist, pulling me up with him. His dark eyes were cold, a hint of madness so tangible in them that it stole my breath quicker than the pain.

"Let this be a lesson to you, Kasumi. It will take much more than that to kill me. I am not someone who can be easily trifled with."

He let me go, allowing me to sink to the floor and clutch my wrist to my chest and grit my teeth to keep my shuddering breaths at bay. Oh fuck, did it hurt. And he'd done it so simply, with such little effort.

Forget the fact I was trying to kill him, to break someone's arm without any warning...

This man...he was...

Terrifying.

Hideki towered over me, his chiseled face so cold it had turned ugly, and I was utterly terrified for the first time since I was brought here. So afraid I forgot the pain in my wrist and my energy reacted on pure instinct, rushing up to encase me in a solid barrier that looked something akin to pink glass, but was thousands of times harder. Never was my energy so pure and perfect.

He laughed, the sound as cutting as a blade, and placed a palm against my shield. It shattered, falling apart in iridescent pieces that glowed and sparkled in the light of the fire. And it was with horrifying clarity that I knew how many leagues apart our strength was. Why Koenma and Takahiro and even Genkai worried about this man.

We were ants compared to him. Ants that he was rounding up to put into a little farm and torture until he grew bored of them.

Hideki crouched, pulling my arm away from my chest, and I let him as if I were in a trance. He inspected my wrist, saw that it was purpled and bent out of shape and swollen already.

"It's rather beautiful, isn't it?" he remarked. "The color of bruises and blood."

He traced his fingers up towards the palm shaped scar on my forearm, running the tips over each dip and curve of Hiei's hand print. "I would like to mark you just like this," he said.

But then he dropped my arm and stood up. "Perhaps another time."

He wandered over to several locked cabinets, collecting items from each—a splint, bandages, anesthetic, and a vial of something that shone a pale blue.

When he came back to me, settling each item in a neat array on the rug and kneeling so he could reach them, I asked, "What is your goal? Why am I here? What do you want from me?" and I cringed at how hysterical I sounded, at how he so easily broke my facade.

He took my arm in a firm grip and poured the vial of light blue liquid over it. It felt like oil instead of water, and did not drip from my skin, but slowly soaked into it right before my eyes. The pain lessened a degree and the angry purple skin calmed.

He did not answer me the entire time he tended to my arm—first the oil, then the injection of anesthetic, the splint, the bandages—and when he was finished he sat back on his hunches and just stared.

I don't think my eyes could have gone any wider.

When he finally began to speak his tone was hollow, as if the words were meaningless to him. "When we first met I planned to kill you from the start, thinking your blood was the key to getting what I wanted. I was only partially correct and in my foolishness I nearly lost the most important piece to my entire plan."

"What the hell does that mean?" I snapped.

"You are...the final piece to the puzzle of godhood. With you, I will rise to a power of unknown heights, more vicious and brutal than the Titans, more righteous and just than the new gods," he said. "And, if you want to save your world, you will do exactly as I say. Do you understand?"

"How will that save anything, you psycho?!"

He smiled, the twist of his lips cruel and sinister. "Because once you have gained the ability to open the gate at will, there will be no need for the destruction. What good is a god without a world to rule over? Without people to worship him?"

I realized then why he'd allowed me to keep my powers, why he did not bind me with his energy and seal them away so I could not use them against him...

"If you want to save your world...and the people you care about, you will train and harness the power of both gods. And you will rule beside me...as a goddess. My queen."

Speechless. I felt my jaw drop and sweat break out on the back of my neck.

Madness...this was pure fucking madness.

Hideki brushed a strand of hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. "It is a fair trade...for the life of your friends."

He left then, the soft click of him shutting the door the only sound. It was as if even the crackling of the fire had gone silent.

Fair?

What was fair about this?

WHAT WAS FAIR ABOUT THIS?!

Fury roared through me, so bright and burning that the flames behind me flared and spread out of the fireplace until they were close enough to singe the back of my clothing. My anger was so strong and unbearable that my reiki poured out of me in a constant torrent of suffering. It filled the room with static pink light and electric flashes of godly gold and I just...screamed. And screamed and screamed—until my lungs felt as if they were filled with blood and my voice was hoarse and unusable.

Nothing was fair about this.

I picked myself up, stormed into Hideki's study, through to his library. I rattled the books from their shelves and tour open the drawers in the desk, breaking the locks on the biggest one. The wood splintered and snapped and the drawer came flying out, papers scattering through the air.

I gathered every piece of Hitomi's research I could find, carried it back to the den, and threw it into the flames along with every book I could fit in my arms.

He wanted me to train?

So be it.

I would get stronger. I would get so strong that he would no longer be able to contain me here.

But I would never be his fucking queen.

I shaped a single arrow into my hands, bright enough to guide me through the halls of Hideki's absurdly large single floor home.

I found the one room I had not entered once since coming here.

And when I shoved the door open, I found her sitting in a chair in the center of the room—waiting. Waiting for me. She knew. She knew along, the crooked bitch. But still I loved her. I loved her and wished she could have been that sister I always thought she was. But she wasn't, never had been. I didn't know what hurt worse. The lie. Or the truth.

She smiled, a quirk of her lips that was both kind and cruel. Her hair slipped over her shoulder, long and red as a fire.

I lunged, my hesitation from days ago gone and forgotten.

The arrow sunk into the tender flesh over her heart; slipped between the bones of her rib cage. Blood poured over my hands, into her lap, to the floor. I felt it between my fingers, tasted it on my tongue, and smelt it with each rattling breath I took. Too much blood; more than should have been natural, as if she were melting away.

Hitomi's hands reached up to clutch mine, wrapping around my hands and the arrow, and squeezing.

She breathed out a final, "Thank you..."

And I wrenched the arrow from her chest, blood flying to splatter across the floor and wall. I dissipated it, the weapon gone, but the blood still coating my hands, splatters of it across my face and chest.

This person was not my sister.

I did not know her anymore.

But damn, if it didn't hurt like hell.

So much of my life was dedicated to her—to raising her, to taking care of her, to finding her, to saving her.

All of that was lost now. A waste of time. A waste of a life.

I fell to my knees, laying my head in her lap, and wept. Even as the rush of pure unadulterated power began to consume me, as my entire body lit up like a firework, gold and pink and green—still I wept.

The agony I would soon feel...was nothing compared to this.

I pushed a hand into my pocket, felt the box there, ran my thumb over the wood and begged for forgiveness as Hitomi's body began to crumble to dust and sand and ash.

I'd never wanted this much blood on my hands. Never did I even imagine my life could turn into such a mess.

And it really did hurt like hell.

. . .

A/N: Ayyy, your fav cliffhanger queen is back at it again! Tell me how much ya wanna kill me in the comments! And lets be real here folks, this story is in the 'drama' section for a very obvious reason—because it's dramatic as shit. If that isn't your cup of tea, I don't know what to say my dudes. Because I live for this shit xD

I am doing my best to get back on a more regular update schedule for at least my two main fics. So starting next month (if all goes according to plan) I will update both my fics twice a month, by alternating which weeks I update on. I won't set a definite day, because it is contingent on when I'm working, and my schedule is always changing. And I'm also working on a Kuwabara/OC fic, so that is eating up a bit of my time as well, lol. But I'll try my best for ya'll!