I remember you.
He smiles. "I remember you too," he says.
His face becomes clearer in my sight as my consciousness expands, sharpens, focuses on and into the wakeful solidness of this world. It is the youth, the foolhardy human boy who disrupted the ritual of one of the last wishes I granted, the only one where I took no one human life. He is a youth no more, though he still bears the semblance of youth.
And he is no longer human. The heart in his chest is silent. He is a demon king now, and he reeks of power.
You have changed.
He laughs. "Not too much, I hope." His hand, flesh inscribed with flowing runes, comes to me. His fingers wrap around me carefully, lifting me out of the box. "You look pretty much the same, except you don't have that giant crack in the middle of your glass anymore. Sorry 'bout that."
I had forgotten all about it until now, I assure him. And I feel nothing. My body is a mere shell. I take in my surroundings. We are in a large, open chamber. There are labels, cartons, white boxes, flickering screens all around us. The room is overflowing with artifacts. Where am I?
"This is T1 Customs and Immigration offices," says another voice. "We are in the warehouse for the interim storage of seized goods. You were retrieved during the bust of an inter-Worlds smuggling operation. You will be returned to the Reikai soon."
Ah. I focus on the second speaker's presence. The rokurokubi. I remember him too, from much, much longer ago: masquerading as human, serving a human lord in human court. I am quickly gaining awareness and strength. I circle their hearts, their thoughts and memories. Between the two of them, I catch up quickly on the news I have missed since I was last awake.
You found a new lord, I observe.
"I have indeed, Yata no Kagami," the rokurokubi replies with a smile, addressing me by my older name.
The youth - the king - looks from his retainer the rokurokubi to me, then shrugs. The gesture combined with his facial expression makes his thought as clear as day, even had I not been able to read them: Meh, whatever, of course they know each other. They're both like a bajillion years old.
We are not a bajillion years old, I inform him.
"Sometime after the dinosaurs died out, and before the invention of the toaster," he says. "Close enough."
A bit of a stretch, but I cannot disagree with that. Time is relative. If memory of bureaucratic process serves me, I assume I will be waiting in administrative limbo for a while. How long? Five years? Ten?
"Not in my territory," the youth/king says. "I'll rip somebody a new one if everything isn't outta here by the end of next month. But we still gotta wait for shipping paperwork. Kurama's expediting that from Minamino Enterprises." He smiles again. "You remember Kurama?"
I do. I recall the human fox. He had certainly stood out in my experience as well, vastly more intelligent, thorough and altruistic in his wish than most who seek me out. His plan was a well-considered one; what he had lacked was time. Time, and his former ruthlessness. He had questioned me, tested me, sought loopholes. Of course, he found only the truth: that I am a translator. I am a converter. I direct all of the energy the wisher can gather for me, the permission granted to me, to effect the desired outcome that has been expressed. Most human lives are barely just enough to accomplish their desire. His fortune was the boy he encountered, the reckless youth/king before me now. His mother lived and passed away happy. He is doing well.
"Yeah," the youth/king says. "You need anything? You eat anything? Other than lives, I mean."
I do not eat lives, and I have no need for physical sustenance. I do not mind a little conversation, after sleeping for so long.
"OK." He brings me closer to his face. "So," he says, curious, "What do you do to pass the time? When nobody's bugging you for wishes?"
I sleep.
His brow furrows. "That's it? Sounds boring."
I can delve anywhere the lives sacrificed to me can take me. I can wander the worlds of their past and their imagination. It is not uncomfortable.
"Yata no Kagami can also see the present, and even the future," explains the rokurokubi. "It is a bit like dreaming, would that be correct to say?"
Yes. It is not as clear as what I perceive from the two of you, before me, at this moment. I do not specialize in clairvoyance or fortune-telling.
"Oh," the youth/king nodded in understanding. "So it's like, you're lying on the couch watching TV all the time. But sorta passed out from all the beer."
You could say something like that. I do see much less action these centuries.
"That's too bad. Wanna see your buddies?" The youth/king puts me down on the table, then bends down, picks something up, brings them into view: the orb of hunger and the sword of demonization.
I see they are whole, and well taken care of. But I have no conversation with them.
"Yata no Kagami is the only one with consciousness," says the rokurokubi.
"What?" exclaims the youth/king. "Really?" He turns the sword this way and that, rotates the gem in the light to inspect its facets. "But these guys are super old too. Even umbrellas turn into demons after a hundred years, don't they?"
"It isn't that simple," says the rokurokubi. "It isn't as though a thing exists for a hundred years and then automatically becomes sentient. But you'll have to ask the Reikai about the sword and the orb. I am not aware of them having spoken to anyone in my time. Koenma may know."
They were perhaps awake once. They are not at present.
"Are they sleeping?" asks the youth/king.
Perhaps. I do not know.
"Well, if they are, hope they're having a good time in there," says the youth/king. "It's probably better they're not awake. I mean, if all people do with you is eat souls and turn shit into demons, can't imagine you'd be pleasant company to be around."
He puts the jewel back into its box. He is about to put the sword back as well, when he pauses.
"Isn't it funny," he comments, holding the blade out and watching the light reflect off of it, "how everything turned out? You guys were my first case. I was in way over my head; shoulda kicked the bucket a million times over. I lucked out with Gouki, shoulda died right there. Kurama - lucked out with him too. He was already expecting to die or surrender in some way. Hiei - it was a good thing Kurama wasn't dead."
He is replaying the memories at hyper speed in his mind. The battle in the forest - forgetting he had already used up his one spirit gun shot - the rescue from the ferry girl - the second pursuit - the child falling before his eyes - the tree branch. The red-haired stranger in the street - the meeting at his school - the mother in the hospital - the split-second decision before anyone could change their minds. The kidnapping - the third eye opening on her forehead - the - the - the -
And then, like a replay you have watched countless times, and suddenly detect something new that you had never noticed before, there is a double take, and a pause, and a rewind.
No, that is not it. It is not a double-take, nor a rewind. It is a weighted contemplation, a circling back and underlining of a note that had been made before, a thought that had already crossed his mind before. He is not the type to dwell on this type of thing, but one cannot avoid such thoughts floating to the conscious surface when given over a hundred years to stir, to churn, to steep.
And before, when such thoughts arose, I was not there.
I am here now, less than an arms-length away. I am awake, and I can hear his heart.
Keiko was almost a demon, once.
His lips are dry. Without being aware he is doing so, he licks them.
He knows it is easier to prevent a death, to cure a terminal illness. Two half-lives is enough. It is easier to resurrect the recently dead, whether two days or two hours. Less than a century of passively accumulated energy is enough. I can sense his heart whirring wordlessly, unconsciously. What of the long dead? What of the long since reincarnated? What of changing the past? What of rewriting the reality of present existence itself?
Every living thing yearns for things impossible; it is the nature of living things. Some admit it, some refuse to believe it, and some simply do not know it yet.
I know this to be true. I am the Mirror of Darkness, and I reflect the truth, even if it is in darkness. And he -
He is a demon king, and he is carrying the Spirit Wave. He has a great deal of power, and a great will, if not the immediate desire, capable of even more.
He looks at me. I can feel the sight of dark glass held in his mind, and I can feel his mind ever so slightly tipping, beginning to sink.
Ever so slightly.
What if, he is thinking, inching the door open to the deeper waters of possibility.
"Put it out of your mind," says the rokurokubi. His voice is steady, but also slightly stiff - it is laced with tension. I can hear the alarm in his heart, the anxious unspoken plea to his lord: Don't tread into those waters. It will eat you alive.
Your retainer is wise, I say. Listen to him.
His mind spreads out. He stops sinking. He is still far, so it is easy.
"I know," he says. He was not deeply tempted, only curious, wondering. "And I do." The corner of his mouth curls up. "Most of the time."
He has grown wise in his years, too. He knows the first stage of drowning is finding a place where the waters can overtake you.
He puts the sword away. "Well, that was a fun little reunion," he says. "Now it's time for you to have a nice, long nap. And I mean that in a positive way, not a I'm-about-to-rearrange-your-face way."
That it was. And that I shall.
He nestles me back into the fabric of my box. The shadow of the lid hovers over my glass.
Yusuke.
He pauses at his name. He hadn't realized that I know it, hadn't thought about it, but of course I know it. The shadow moves away, and I see his face. "Yeah?"
You've changed, I tell him. But not too much.
He grins at me. "That's good. Good night."
Good night, I reply.
He closes the box over me. And I sleep.
Author's notes: "For now we see through a glass, darkly" is one of the translations for text 1 Corinthians 13:12 (King James version of the Bible). Though the actual meaning is more that of looking at a dim mirror, it works either way for the Mirror of Darkness, plus sounds cool and poetic.
Yata no Kagami is the mirror of the Imperial Regalia of Japan, the three treasures that inspired the three artifacts of Yusuke's first case. It represents the virtues of wisdom and honesty.
The umbrellas Yusuke is talking about are, of course, the famous karakasa-obake.
I've visited the "remember that time Hiei almost turned Keiko into a demon?" thought a bunch of times in fanart, and figured I should do it in writing too. (You can see some of the drawings on my pixiv, linked from my profile).
I'm still thinking about Hokushin's past. At some point it would be interesting if I can flesh it out more into something coherent, but who knows...
My original exposure to Yu Yu Hakusho was my sister reading the Taiwanese edition of the manga to me when I was in elementary school. She did her interpretation of all the voices. I never actually saw the anime until I was much older, though we did have lots of CDs so I was completely immersed in the voices of the Japanese seiyuu. That's probably why, for decades, my impression of the main characters was the Japanese cast - but my impression of the Mirror of Darkness was a female voice. And not a kid's version of a woman's voice, but actually a mysterious, deep, woman's voice. (Imagination is a powerful thing.) So, when I first heard the anime's rendition of the Mirror of Darkness (original Japanese), it was major cognitive dissonance, like "Why the heck does it sound like that?" cognitive dissonance. Anyways, read its words with whatever voice you want to hear, but I just wanted to put that out there so you know what was colouring my mind when I wrote.