Ugh. Not another one. I pick up the stupid white stone. It's about the size and shape of a bead, just like the others. I glare at it, not like that does anything.
I know I can't pretend nothing's happening anymore. I know I should let Hokushin know.
And I know he's busy, so I don't want to.
OK, in reality that logic doesn't work, since A) Hokushin's always busy with his job and B) his job is my Chief of Staff, and that basically translates to "clean up Yusuke's shit, make sure world doesn't end/T1 doesn't collapse". So he'll always make time for me no matter what. But let's face it - I ain't the easiest bum to babysit. Dealing with me can be rough. I'm fully aware I sometimes take him to the point where a lesser dude would have spontaneously combusted. I got a bet going with a few of the interns that if he ever decides to stop shaving his head and grow hair again, nothing'll happen. (So far, nobody's collected any money yet. Stay tuned!) I'm probably shaving years off of his demon lifespan, whatever that is, on a regular basis.
So, I'm conflicted. And I hate being conflicted. Basically I hate anything that makes me think. Thinking makes you second guess all your decisions, and who the hell has time for that? What I need is to get beyond this emotionally and just make a goddamned move. If I make a list of all my options and all the pros and cons, that might help. OK, I guess that technically counts as thinking, but it's like… thinking so I don't have to think more. Yeah, let's go with that.
OK. Plan A: Tell Hokushin.
Pro: Hokushin knows, probably solves The Mystery of the Stupid White Stones in like two hours. Hooray! Con: It's been a few days already. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get a "Your Majesty, why didn't you tell me earlier?" lecture.
Nahhhh.
So, Plan B: Don't tell Hokushin.
Pro: No lecture. Con: Problem not solved. Aaaaand I'm really not sure what to do after that. If I tell somebody else, then sooner or later that'll get to Hokushin, and then it won't be "Your Majesty, why didn't you tell me earlier?" but "Your Majesty, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?!"
So. Plan C: Deal with The Mystery of the Stupid White Stones myself. Which I am already doing right now. Which so far has consisted of me throwing the stones out the window and getting pissed off whenever I see another one. Sure, you'd think I'd be pretty good at solving mysteries considering I was a Spirit Detective over a hundred years ago, but like I keep reminding Koenma, that job title was sooo misleading. It shoulda been Spirit Gopher, or Spirit Bouncer, or Spirit Asskicker. And things weren't that different after I went independent either, except Spirit Noodlemaker ended up being a way more sustainable business.
Anyways, can't win, man.
So. Plan A, with a twist: tell Hokushin. But do it in a nice, thoughtful, considerate way. Hokushin says "Why, Your Majesty, you should simply have told me earlier," finds out where these stupid rocks are coming from, the end.
OK, Plan A, you win this time. Stupid stone in hand, I go looking for the good ol' Chief of Staff.
I'm walking along the corridor on one side of the central administration building when I pass a tour group on the opposite side. I don't notice them at first since we're separated by the atrium - it's basically a giant gap dropping down through the centre of the tower, all the way down to a view of the main floor, and the two corridors run separately on either side. You can't just fly from one side over to the other. Well, unless you can fly, or jump across the gap. I can jump it, and so can most of my staff, but most of the tourists would probably fall down and die.
But they definitely see me, and they start making a lot of noise. "I love you, Your Majesty!" somebody screams.
I stop to give whoever it is a thumbs up. "Love ya too-AauUUGH!" I'm almost blinded by all the fricking camera flashes. I wave in their general direction with the hand that's not covering my eyes. "Er, anybody seen Hokushin?" I ask, when I can see again.
"We saw him headed for the Archives just a few minutes ago, Your Majesty!" somebody shouts.
"Thanks!" I take off.
The Royal Archives is our giant fancy library. It's got super high ceilings and expensive looking furniture and books and documents and all the shit you'd expect a bonafide library to have. It's had a few renovations since I first came to the Makai, but it's still got that same vibe. Can't say I've ever been much for libraries, but it's pretty cool, looks just like a fantasy movie set. That's what I thought when I first saw it. I ended up getting stupidly lost in it that time. A couple hundred years later and it's not so overwhelming anymore; I actually know where stuff is now. And anyways, I'm here for a reason today.
It's pretty quiet and there aren't a lot of people - a couple of our own researchers here and there. I pick up Hokushin's presence in the direction of the map room pretty quickly and head straight there. His back is to the door, and he's inspecting a map of some sort. In the map room. Duh.
OK, Yusuke, remember Plan A. Let's do this.
I open my mouth. "Hokushiiiin honeyyy-"
He doesn't even turn around. "What did you do now, Your Majesty," he says without missing a beat.
Damn, too obvious. And then I'm like, wait, too obvious what, I didn't even fucking do anything this time! I'm offended. "I didn't fucking do anything!" I say, letting him know my Royal Offensiveness… Offension.. Offend… ed… ness? Whatever. "Somebody's been leaving these stupid white rocks around my room, so I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about them."
He stops. As in, he completely freezes, then fully turns and looks straight at me. I know right away what he's thinking.
Assassination attempt.
When I first became king - OK, second time, since the first time I disbanded the kingdom - practically any time something weird or unexpected happened, that was Hokushin's immediate reaction: assassination attempt. Kitchen got the order wrong? Assassination attempt. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and fell on the floor? Assassination attempt. Nothing was too small or too minor to be worth considering as part of a carefully hatched murder plot. I made fun of his paranoia mercilessly... until a bunch of them actually turned out to be assassination attempts, and it got a little less funny.
But it's been improving over the years. The Makai grew more civilized, and assassination attempts in general dropped off. It was so 20th century, you know? But I get it, some people are old fashioned. And honestly, considering what a pain in the ass the king is (that's me, in case anybody forgot), a Chief of Staff would probably be relieved if somebody actually succeeded one day.
But god bless the long-suffering man. Hokushin's loyal as hell and damn good at his job. He never shirks his duties, unlike some people I can name (like, uh, me). Doesn't matter if it was a hundred years ago or a hundred years from now, the possibility is always real to him. And you know, he's awfully creative in coming up with ways that something could be playing into some other big convoluted master plan. Little white stones equal Yusuke-offing scheme? That didn't even cross my mind. (And before anybody else says it, yeah, so doesn't a ton of other shit. I'm self-aware, you know.) On the contrary, for Hokushin, it's a no-brainer: someone is clearly trying to kill me by putting marbles in my room and they must be stopped.
"Are they still there?" he says, taking me out of the impression I'm doing in my head. "Don't touch them." He's walking over to me and his face is dead serious.
Shit. I automatically put my hand behind my back. "Uh, I'm holding one right now," I say.
He turns almost as pale as the rock hidden in my hand. I look over my shoulder, wondering if some, I dunno, giant head with a gaping maw or ghost ninja or whatever with a sword's materialized behind me, about to eat me or cut my head off. Nope, nothing of course. I would have sensed it, or Hokushin would have clobbered it already.
I look back at him. "Good news is I'm still alive," I say. "Wait, lemme check." For a split second I almost pretend to freak out about my heart not beating, but then I remember "Plan A, with a twist" was supposed to be nice, thoughtful and considerate. Ditching that idea. "Yep, still alive," I say instead. Lame. Whatever.
He doesn't laugh. Well, it wasn't that funny. "Give it to me," he says, hand outstretched.
"No way, man," I reply, holding my closed fist angled as far away from him as possible. His worrying is starting to get to me, and it's honestly freaking me out a bit too. If this stone's part of some black magic shit, marker of death or whatever, I ain't about to let anybody get near it. And fucking hell I'd let Hokushin get killed thanks to my dumbassery. "It's not doing anything now. What if something happens to you? You stand right there. I'll open my hand and you can check it out from over there. Over there. Right there."
He pauses, stopping about two metres away, then nods. "Show me," he says. I show him, spreading my fingers carefully.
He extends his neck to get a closer look, eyeing the gleaming thing lying in my open palm, checking it out from this angle and that.
"It appears to be a white pebble," he finally says.
"That's what I said!" I say, annoyed. And that's when Mister Stretchy Smartass with his rubber arm plucks the stone right out of my hand before I know what's what. Fortunately nothing happens, except me nearly flipping my shit.
"Fuck you," I say, after making sure my stomach hasn't exploded out of my mouth.
He's inspecting the stone more closely, his neck and arm back to normal people configuration. He holds it up to his eye. "You said you found it in your room? And there were others?"
"Yeah, just a couple," I say.
"A couple is two," he says. "Only two?"
"Uhh," I reconsider. "Guess not. There were a few of them. Here and there." He looks a little frowny. Guess I shoulda paid more attention.
"When did you first notice them?"
"A day or two ago," I say. "Maybe three. Max."
He's nodding now. Ooh, I got them details. Good job, Yusuke. That's why you're the king.
"Mm," he says thoughtfully. I can hear the I wish you had told me about this earlier behind that Mm. At least I don't hear a Your Majesty, why didn't you- in it. "What did you do with them?" he asks.
"Threw them out," I say with complete confidence. He gives me a Look. That's right, a Look with a capital L. What'd I say? Can't win. "What? I didn't know they were important. What am I supposed to be, psychic?" I pause. "Oh yeah." Ba-dum shhh. That's a rimshot, in case you can't tell from my killer repertoire of sound effects.
Hokushin sighs, his long, drawn-out Lord (100% not me)-Give-Me-Strength sigh.
"Let's go to your room," he says.
"If we're both going, that means I'm not grounded, right," I joke. He doesn't laugh. Zero for three. Geez, the audience is brutal today. I shrug. "OK," I say, and follow him out of the Archives.
"Forgive me, my Lord," he says as we walk. "The reason I am particularly anxious is because we had found some stones like these elsewhere in the tower and the garden grounds."
I can't believe what I'm hearing. "What?" I say, outraged. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
He looks at me. "What would you have done?"
"Uh…" I say, lamely. "Thrown them out, I guess." Then I stop. "No wait, if you told me you were looking for weird little white stones, then I wouldn't have! And that's besides the point! Ain't a guy entitled to a little self-righteous high horse every once in a while?"
"Yes, my Lord, you are entitled to a little self-righteous high horse every once in a while," he says. He looks like he's trying not to crack a smile. I can tell; it's all in the eyes. OK good, at least I'm not making him question the meaninglessness of existence all the time. "We don't know what they are yet, so I didn't want this to weigh on your mind unnecessarily. However, you are right; I should not have kept you in the dark about this. Seizan has been looking into it, and will hopefully soon have findings for us."
"Indeed, I have just now completed my investigation," says Seizan, who conveniently crosses our path right at that moment.
"Oh hey," I say brightly. "That was fast." I admit it, Hokushin had a point about not boring me with everything. By the time I know about it, a lot of shit is already solved. Being king is great. (Later I realize it was so great that it even made me forget Hokushin said those three magical little words: you are right. Damn it!)
"My Lord." Seizan bows. "Hokushin. It is good that you are together. Here is the analysis of the pebbles that had been found." He hands Hokushin the report. Everybody knows I hate reading reports. Did I mention it's awesome being king?
Hokushin looks at it - I can see his eyes skimming it quickly - and then at me.
"Oh," he says.
"Yes," says Seizan.
"Oh what?" I say. "Yes what?" I look at Hokushin, and then at Seizan. I'm kind of wishing Seizan had handed me the paper now; both of them have those unreadable expressions on their faces, the kind that piss me off. Friggin' hell, if this were Touou and Nankai I wouldn't be having this problem. Touou would have made some sort of offhand remark that let you figure it out, and Nankai would eventually have just plain spilled the beans from excitement.
"Thank you, Seizan," says Hokushin, handing the report back. "This greatly eases my mind." Well, that's a relief. He turns to me. "Come with me, my Lord. We know who's been leaving these white stones."
"I'm all ears," I say.
"It will be easier to show you," says Hokushin. All righty then, lead on, my man. We don't get too far before he stops. We're standing in the hallway, just short of the long corridor leading to my room in the the Acorn.
"Here is our culprit," he says.
And whaddya know. It's big fluffy Puu, who's just waddled out of the Acorn.
"Puu?" says Puu, when he sees us.
"You!" I say, walking right up and poking the guilty party in his feathered chest. He squeals and then crows cheerfully. "What's the big idea, Puu? Why are you leaving tiny white rocks all over the place? You freaked the hell out of Hokushin."
"They're not rocks," Hokushin says from behind me. "They're eggs."
"Yeah, Puu," I say, jabbing again. "Why are you shitting tiny white eggs all over the- what the fuck did you just say?!"
"Spirit beast eggs," say Hokushin.
I'm, I know it's hard to believe, at a loss for words.
"B-but..." I finally stammer.
Hokushin lifts an eyebrow. "Where did you think spirit beasts came from? You took the test."
"-But I thought spirit beast eggs were gold," I say. I quickly warm up to my argument. "And bigger. And egg-shaped." These were definitely not gold. They were super tiny. And they were kind of roundish shaped. I rest my case.
Or not. "They take on a golden sheen once they've accumulated enough ambient - free-floating - energy to be able to latch onto a single host," says Hokushin. "They grow on exposure to more spirit energy. They are generally round, but that shape can vary."
"But I'm a guy," I say. I can hear the whine in my own voice. Bleah.
"Yes, my Lord," says Hokushin patiently in his My-King-The-Idiot voice. "You are male. Puu is your spirit beast. Puu is a reflection of your soul, but Puu is not you. And spirit beasts technically have no gender."
"Oh," I say. Oh yeah. I always forget about that.
It's way easier to think of Puu as an extension of me, and that's pretty much what everyone thought of him - er, it - as from day one. The reality is, as Kurama explained to me once, and Botan and Koenma confirmed later, that spirit beasts are just spirit energy parasites. They're called spirit beasts because they're animals native to the spirit world, so the Reikai conveniently adopted them for its own use for stuff like those tests. Puu eats extra emanating bits of my soul (which is kind of weird and freaky to think about, so I don't) and my spirit energy, so his - its, whatever - appearance is a reflection of that, and Puu's awareness and temperament mirror my own, and if I get super down that affects Puu on a level nobody else can understand.
But that aside, you could beat the physical shit out of one of us and that'd be a separate thing entirely. I'm just a long-term food source with a lot of input on the fashion. That's cool with me. I'm glad to have the big blue bird around. Puu's really handy. He can fly and carry lots of people, he can generate protective shields, he cares about the same things - the same people - I do. Most of all, not a lot of people can say they've got somebody who 100% understands them all the time. It's pretty comforting, especially if you're somebody as screwed up as yours truly.
Anyways. So Puu's a grown up spirit beast that lays eggs. Little tiny white eggs with future baby Puus. Or baby whatever they would look like when they hatch.
"In any case, my Lord, congratulations," says Hokushin. He holds out the egg he had snatched from me so I can see it, shining in his palm like a tiny white jewel. "The normal spirit beast life cycle takes hundreds, if not thousands, of years. You may be the first host to have lived long enough, and to have provided enough power, to see eggs laid by your own spirit beast."
"Puu!" says Puu.
"Holy shit," I say quietly, staring at the egg. Damn. It's so tiny and so white. Barely bigger than a Koorime tear, smaller than a rurimaru. Sure can't carve anybody's names on that thing. I feel sort of dazed, kind of awed.
And then, I remember. And when I say I remember, I mean it hits me like the jolt of a fucking 800 ton lightning bolt from the sky. "Holy shit!" I yell, making Hokushin and Puu jump out of their skins. "I threw them out the window!"
I brush past Puu, race like a madman into my room, to the window, and jump. I threw them out. I fucking threw Puu's babies out the window because I thought they weren't anything important. Fuck me.
My feet hit the ground with a crunch and I immediately have a nightmare that I landed on one. I look at the bottom of one shoe and then the other, sweating bullets. Nothing, just some twigs. Thank god.
I get flat on my stomach, crawling the grass for anything that looks like tiny white gumballs. Sure, I'd spent a few weeks with a spirit beast egg in my spirit pants pocket, but I know dick all about them. Like I know dick all about most things because I'm a lazy, dumbass moron. I know they feed on spirit energy and that when they're ready to hatch they're big and golden and sometimes giant-eared blue penguins come out of them. The end. Fuck fuck fuck.
It's only been a few days. They look like rocks. They feel like rocks. Maybe they're OK from being tossed out of a tower like a thousand meters high and not shattered into a million pieces with baby Puu-goo oozing out of them or rotting into the earth somewhere. Fuuuuck.
I'm on my hands and knees digging through the dirt, praying to every god I know (which is like two, and one is incarcerated) and don't know (which is like all the rest of them), when I hear that familiar voice.
"My Lord," says Hokushin, "Are you all right?"
Puu puus worriedly, looking super distressed. Swear to god, I'm ready to cry. All my desperate searching - OK, all my five minutes of mentally screaming DOES THIS LOOK LIKE AN EGG at everything that vaguely looks like an egg - had turned up was one rock that was probably a rock, and one rock that was definitely a rock.
"I think I'm losing my fucking mind," I mutter under my breath.
I feel Hokushin's hand on my shoulder. I look up at him. "Don't worry," he says reassuringly. "Spirit beast eggs are very resilient. They take hundreds of years to hatch if there is no host to accelerate the process, so at present they are little different from stones."
"Yeah, but what if…" I think hard. Yeah, go right ahead, insert some joke about that hurting. "... What if one of the cats eats them?"
Hokushin considers. "It would probably pass through their system undigested. I'll have the garden staff and the veterinarians keep an eye out. We'll make notices for the visitors if they see anything that looks like little white pebbles. And I'll have our researchers investigate the rate of egg lay. I imagine the Reikai should have solid data; that will give us quite an accurate number of eggs needing to be accounted for."
Thank god for Hokushin. This dude thinks of everything. I look at him appreciatively.
"This is so fucking stupid," I say.
He smiles. "At least," he says, "it isn't an assassination attempt."
Author's note: To be honest, I've written Yusuke POV for a couple of other stories, but I wasn't really comfortable with tackling Yusuke first person. The thought of it intimidates me, which is one of the reasons why you won't see much of that in Ends of the Earth (the other reason being I find it interesting to write about Yusuke from other people's perspectives). But this story kind of begged for it, so I hope it worked out!
Many thanks to my sister for the suggestion. Everything described here about spirit beasts is accurate to or within the possibility of the series, as per Koenma's explanation to Botan of what Yusuke's test actually involves (I referenced the original manga version for convenience). There's a post on my tumblr about our discussions and thoughts on the nature and evolution of the spirit beast if you're interested! Username maiji, rest of the URL is /post/109119029294/a-reflection-of-yusukes-heart-the-nature-of (or just search "reflection of Yusuke" on my tumblr).
Ends of the Earth is generally its own continuity of sorts. So far, it's managed to be pretty consistent. However, there are some things I haven't really decided on one way or another yet, so I might write them one way and then a different way later on. Yusuke's voice is an interesting item of debate. I imagine his extreme snarky attitude would certainly mellow out to some degree over a hundred, two hundred years. I guess in this version, that's pretty much not detectable at all because it suited what I was trying to do… but perhaps a future story will call for a stronger change of tone.