"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S MISSING?!"
I winced, cupping my ear against the sudden outburst. Yusuke was on his feet, shaking, fury palpable in the small room.
"He didn't come to school today." Kaito explained, unmoved by the display.
"Hiei, then Kuwabara, and now Kurama?" Yusuke growled, clenching his fists. "You can't count on anybody! I just need to do this alone!"
"Shut up." Genkai interrupted his tangent with a well aimed cup of hot tea straight to his head. I collected the mess out of the carpet and his clothes, ushering the stream of steaming liquid to the sink and feeling my head pulse with the effort. "Now that we know where these psychics are hiding we can mount an attack, but it must be carefully planned."
"I've heard of Demon's Door Cave, it's like... an urban legend." Yana offered.
"It's said scorned lovers go there to die, which shows our enemies like irony." Kaito confirmed. "If we go unprepared it will be suicide as well."
"Hey!" Yusuke jumped in at Keiko's perturbed expression. "I don't need a lesson from you too, rookie."
He turned toward the door, grumbling under his breath.
"Hold on Yusuke." Keiko reached out to him.
"DAMNIT! Everyone, just leave me alone! I'm going to the arcade." He stomped out, slamming the door behind him. I reached past Botan and squeezed her arm, offering her a sympathetic smile.
"I don't know what's gotten into him." She gripped onto Puu tighter for comfort. "He shouldn't be going out alone, should he?"
"Give him space, Keiko. He's not stupid enough to really put himself in danger, he just needs to cool off and blow off some steam."
"If he is that stupid he deserves to die." Genkai shook her head. I shot her a look. "But I suspect he's worried about Kuwabara."
"That stupid concert had to be tonight." I sighed, turning to Kaito and Yana. "Did Kurama give you any indication last you saw him of what he was up to?"
"It's impossible to read him when he doesn't want you to." Kaito snorted. I disagreed but held my tongue. "If I had to guess, he's gathering intel. He certainly has resources the rest of us lack."
"Genkai, I missed a chunk of what's going on." I turned from him and played with the end of my braid. "Botan said the tunnel is expanding more quickly than Koenma estimated; what's going on?"
"The psychic at the center must be more powerful than we thought." She sighed, pouring herself another cup of tea. "The center was further below ground than was estimated, and the sphere surrounding it has nearly doubled in size. It will take less than a week with how rapidly it's growing to stabilize."
Everyone fell silent, the realization of what was happening sinking in. We had less than a week to the end of the world and my stupid cousin decided that a rock concert was the top priority. I was going to dye all of his uniforms purple at this rate.
Botan found her way behind me, redoing my braid from the wear of the day. She was so fidgety I didn't have the heart to be annoyed the fourth time she undid it and started all over again.
"Your hair is getting long." She commented, pulling it straight to see the full length.
"Yeah, I haven't been able to make it to the salon and Shizuru is so stressed I haven't wanted to ask her."
She hummed in response and threaded my hair with expert fingers into a snake braid, finally tying it up and pinning pieces of my flyaways down with hairpins she seemed to pull from the air. She moved to Keiko despite the look of protest and I shrugged in solidarity, that feeling that something was scary wrong growing and bubbling as the clock ticked slowly past.
When Shizuru walked through the door I knew she was feeling the same stress and anxiety I was.
"Hey Ella, you know where my bro is?"
"The concert was tonight." I reminded her, standing up and offering her a seat.
"Oh yeah, Kazuma did mention something like that." She declined my offer, covering her mouth. I gripped her arm, leaning against her, and she put her hand over my new braid, playing with it on reflex.
"You look really worried." Keiko cocked her head at my cousin and she took a shaky breath, searching for her cigarettes.
"Me? No, just a bad vibe, that's all."
She stared at the wet end of her cigarette when she found them, crushing it in her hand. I moved from her quietly and collected my shoes while everyone was distracted with this ominous news. Enough was enough.
"Maybe we should escort him home." Kaito offered.
"Good idea." Yana agreed.
"Sit down." Genkai scolded. "You remember the trouble we had with the doctor; your friend is still confined to a hospital bed. Kuwabara made his choice tonight. We can't split our group further."
I pulled on my jacket, waltzing out the door as Botan called my name, realizing my departure. Sorry Genkai, I wasn't about to leave my cousin to the wolves just because Yusuke was too stupid to realize the danger and no one else was willing to risk it.
The streets were paved in glistening silver from the constant downpour, the levels rising gradually. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a flood warning by the end of the night but I was grateful for the feeling of the rain all around me. Being surrounded by my element... I felt alive and energized in a way I hadn't since the man with the golden eyes began haunting my nightmares once more.
The pull of Kazuma's energy was intense and I followed it down the abandoned streets of Mushiyori City, the winding maze of suburbia.
My final turn led me behind a boy with a yellow rain jacket and two monsters made entirely from water, but it wasn't any water I had ever felt. My cousin was bleeding on the ground but I couldn't hear his words over the rain pounding on the sidewalk around us. I walked slowly forward, gathering discs from the downpour as I moved, careful not to draw any attention in the tense moment.
Three figures lay limp inside the larger monster, and my adrenaline spiked realizing it must have been his friends.
"Hey, it's okay, man." Miyamoto's voice came through clear as I neared behind him. "We know there's no chance to save us. Just go. One of us should live on, right?"
'Stupid, sweet boy.' I shook my head.
"We've been best friends since our first street brawl. Whether it's livin' or dyin' we're doing it together." Kazuma promised, holding his side. I took the confusion to launch my discs at the figure in yellow and launched towards the monster. The small monster took the brunt of the attack but one clipped the side of the boy. He turned to me, rage oozing from him, but I dove into the monster holding the boys and pulled on Okubo's waist. The water inside was fighting me, struggling with me, and I couldn't manipulate it, feeling it sinking me down and away from Kazuma.
I pulled from the moisture of my clothes to create a barrier separating me from the water and took a hard breath, coughing against the struggle to keep it up and constant pressure from the creature I was inside. I pulled Okubo again, grunting when I couldn't move him past the physical shape of the monster's body. A pulse sent me spinning in my own little bubble and I growled, grabbing hold of the boys and expanding over them enough so they could breathe, but the black spots dancing in the edges of my vision told me this wasn't sustainable with my current level of energy. I pleaded with my spirit powers just to give me this boost. I had to save these boys.
I pressed hard against Komada's body, focusing everything on pushing him out. It recoiled as soon as his body hit the side and I found myself thrown out and sputtering on the sidewalk, choking up salt water and blood.
"Oh I forgot about it's tail!" Kazuma shouted and I lifted my head just in time to see him being pulled into the mass with his friends.
"Kazuma!" I moved to run and collapsed right back to the ground, my body spent and shaking.
"How sad. You couldn't think of anything better to do than running into a death trap. Now that's survival of the fittest." The boy laughed, and I launched a stream of water at him, a hot stream of blood flooding down my jaw from my ears, my nose on fire. He was startled but I could do little more than shove him off balance. "You. How did you escape my territory?"
"Fuck you." I coughed, willing the world to stop spinning.
"I'll deal with you after I watch your cousin's last breath." He promised, the malice in his voice chilling my core.
"What gives you the right to decide who lives and dies?" I blurted, trying to keep him distracted from Kazuma's assault inside the monster.
"You have the same misguided idealism as this fool, and look where it's gotten you both." He ignored my question and my baiting, turning to scoff at Kazuma's determination. "You're inside my territory now, a dimension made entirely of water. You can no sooner escape it than you could leap into another dimension. The territory remains unless I'm knocked out!"
"Yet here I am, living proof that your territory is a failure." I spat at him, sitting upright and trying to stop the world from spinning.
He turned to glare at me, blue eyes burning with hatred. "Shut up! You can barely stand let alone challenge me!"
"I'm not afraid of you." I spit a line of blood into the streams flowing around my knees. "You and your entire team will lose. You're a coward who hides behind your power instead of facing people head on. My death will bring you no honor."
He growled, clenching his fists. "His friends are already dead, drowned, and you both will join them."
A ray of light made him turn and his body went rigid. Kazuma's punches were beginning to glow. I held my side and watched, helpless, as his powers began to resurface from their slumber. The first signs of his sword appeared and I felt comforted that I had done my job of distracting the kid and pissing him off. Now my cousin was going to show him what a Kuwabara was worth.
The glow continued to grow, refracting off the water to create yellow beams of light around us, and I closed my eyes and covered my head just as his power exploded outward and a grunt of pain echoed in the aftermath.
Bodies crashed to the ground and footsteps stopped in front of me. Kazuma held out his hand and helped me to my feet, his world of lightning overwhelming my senses while I tried to keep upwards. When I was stable he nodded his thanks and strode back to the kid who started all of this and I made my slow way to his friends, relieved at the choking splutters that indicated they would live through this.
I felt useless when he nudged me out of the way and loaded everyone on his back one by one, grunting that this was going to be a long walk home.
"I can carry the kid." I offered, panicking.
"You can barely walk." He growled, starting his slow pace.
"You're no good to anyone if you're dead." I argued, trying to support anyone hanging off his back but getting stepped on as a result of his bullheadedness.
"You can help by leading the way back."
"You're actually saving me? But I just tried to murder you and your friends." The blonde haired boy stared in awe, blood staining his jacket. "How can you even want to help me?"
"When men do what they're supposed to do, it's not always about what they want." Kazuma grunted, keeping his gaze forward. I wanted to help but he was right; I was going to end up in the pile if I tried to carry someone in this condition. All I could do was clear a path ahead of his feet so he didn't slide in the currents at our feet, wiping at my mouth so he didn't worry.