Please see Disclaimer in Chapter 1.
The events in Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; Firebird Sweet directly follows that timeline, and you can probably get more out of this sidefic if you read IB and its sequel, FS, first.
Title: Operation Rosary C3: Crawlspace
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, General
Rating: K+/PG-13
Summary: A crisis in confidence looms for Issei.
A/N: Thanks for reading this! Your reviews mean a lot to me. Operation Rosary is told through the viewpoint of Hiei's 'partner,' Ueda Issei; the burnt-out factory of Two Shots (YYH manga, Vol. 7) is the main setting. Places---such as the warehouses in IB and FS, along with this factory---seem to become almost like secondary characters in many of my fics.
And yes, Moolooite is real. As to whether the Agency does, in fact, exist---if I told you, Hiei would have to kill you.
"I wear the chains I forged in life!"
Operation Rosary (C3: Crawlspace)
by
Kenshin
After the Dark Tournament's end, a number of demons had remained on Kubikukuri Island. Some, like Rinku and Chuu, had already been living in the human world, and had simply returned to business as usual.
Others had more ambition. Yabuta was one of these.
Through half-closed eyes, he regarded his minions, now restlessly prowling the too-small space. Had they no appreciation for his work, for his beautiful device?
Perhaps, Yabuta reflected, they were of an order too low to recognize the true nature of its genius, and of their savior.
Exhilarated by a sense of freedom, a few other demons had managed to hide themselves on the island as well. It was from their ranks that Yabuta recruited his cohort: the oni, the minotaur, the cyclops, the eight-eyes and the redoubtable bungee-arms. They had real names, of course, but it was beneath Yabuta's dignity to recall such trivialities.
During the tournament, Yabuta had, through a network of jaki spies, learned of Sakyou's plan to create a tunnel between human and demon planes. The scheme would cost billions, and require much in the way of cumbersome machinery.
Yabuta prided himself on being far more clever. Unknown to the notorious gambler, he had watched Sakyou closely, and had experienced a thrill like none other when he understood the nature of Sakyou's plan. But the money and machinery to enable that plan---
Sakyou was dead, disgraced, failed. Not so Yabuta.
Yabuta had built a better mousetrap. It had taken him a few years and many experimental subjects (all of whom had ended up as dead as Sakyou), but with the theft of the Moolooite crystal (thanks also to the jaki), Yabuta had at last achieved success.
With his own unique and powerful aura, channeled into the Moolooite-powered laser, Yabuta had been able to do what none before had accomplished: twist space into a shape that could create a gateway between human and demon worlds; something resembling a mini-wormhole. Housing the entire unit within thick ceramic, with its insulating properties, was merely another stroke of his pure genius.
All at a fraction of the cost of Sakyou's scheme.
But the rabble took no notice of that aspect. Nor did they seem to have a well-developed sense of esthetics.
For Yabuta's creation was beautiful in color and form, intent and execution. Its every aspect dazzled the senses, but the minions were too blind to see. They would rather complain about the size of the room, or their own impatience, than worship true genius. They nagged at him, crowded round him, but not in proper reverence, and none at all for the twisting thread above his creation, looking like bubbles of champagne.
Their mindless activity irritated him. "Go away!"
They dispersed; all but one.
Yabuta's creation had, in addition to twisting dimensions, the unusual side effect of twisting other natural orders.
Weak became strong. Strong became weak.
Such power-curve reversals were nothing he could not turn to his own advantage. Though he himself was immune, the perfect test subject had quite obligingly turned up on his doorstep--as Yabuta had suspected, and as confirmed by the very jaki who had attained for him the Moolooite.
Circumstances could not have been more to his liking. And either the test subject's reputation was highly inflated, or Yabuta's device worked brilliantly.
The only thing remaining was the final experiment.
The cramped room, made to seem smaller by the hulking oni and minotaur, was painted light gray. On the south wall stood Yabuta's triumph. Gathered on the opposite side of the room, the minions muttered among themselves.
In the corner of the room adjacent to the steel door, a single, nagging inconvenience occupied a steel chair.
Ignoring all else, Yabuta gazed blissfully upon the thin stream emanating from his creation, a circuit of bent space more elegant than any glass of celebratory champagne because it was a symbol of his genius.
Yet the towering presence at his shoulder refused to leave. A shadow fell across his device.
"Hate to bust your bubbles," said the brown oni, "but that guy was strong. He could seriously mess things up."
Fool, thought Yabuta. Aloud, he said, "What's wrong---lost faith in me already?"
The oni stammered, "N-no, only---"
"Only what?"
"Only the boys are gettin' antsy. They want that gateway open, and they want it now."
"Then I suggest you expend your energy urging them to deal with their 'ants.'" Yabuta returned his gaze to his device, to the bending and warping of a thread-sized bit of space---a loop that would bend the world to his will.
Yabuta wondered whether the unique side effects would be amplified once he threw the final switch to his creation's full power and opened the gateway. Would formerly weak, harmless creatures like jaki be able to level buildings, rip humans limb from limb?
The thought made Yabuta smile. "Behold! I have created Eden, as it should have been."
"Ya shoulda did it last week," said the minotaur. The others guffawed.
Their idiocy was as nothing to one who would, that very night, unleash his new and better Eden on an unsuspecting world.
0-0-0-0-0
"Don't feel so hot," Hiei groaned.
Issei's partner had suddenly paled, swaying in the middle of the room.
Issei was not feeling so hot himself. Sapped by the enemy, choked by Hiei, he had a sore throat and a pounding headache. But Hiei's admission of weakness was the first crack in the little guy's armor, and to Issei's shame, he was almost relieved to have witnessed such a thing. "You took quite a beating back there," Issei said. "And I only added to it."
"No. That's not it. Something's wrong." Beads of sweat stood out against Hiei's waxen skin.
He crashed to his knees, then onto his side. Issei could not reach him in time to stop his fall.
Biting his lip, Issei knelt and pressed his fingertips into Hiei's throat, fearful that he had accidentally struck his parter a fatal blow during their tussle.
No. Hiei had a pulse. A bit fast perhaps, but---
Go on alone?
No. Can't leave a man behind.
"Better," murmured Hiei, then tried to sit up.
Issei stopped him. Even though time was of the essence, Hiei would clearly benefit from rest. Perhaps answering a few questions would give him a brief respite in which to recover.
"Those guys who attacked us," Issei began. "I shot at them, and some of the shots hit. I know they did. But no effect."
"Hard to bring 'em down with just bullets," Hiei responded. "You need either point-blank range, or augmented shot."
"Augmented?"
Hiei only mopped at his brow.
"And how do you know our agent's alive?" Issei wondered.
"You didn't take my Holy Water or Salt."
"True. But I still don't see how that tells you Op-X---"
"Holy Water or Salt would burn those guys badly," Hiei explained. "My guess is that they clocked you too soon, and only then discovered I was still packing heat. Whoever took those things off me was as human as you are."
"Stay put." Rising, Issei went to the door, glanced out its dirty, chicken-wired window. "Still locked. Hall's empty." When he gestured, the chains attached to his cuffs jangled. I wear the chains I forged in life, he thought, recalling Jacob Marley's warning to Scrooge.
"Yeah, we're not getting out that way," Hiei agreed.
Chains, thought Issei. Wonder why that quote popped into my head. There's something I'm not quite getting yet.
Abruptly, Hiei sat up, then got to his feet, looking steadier than he did just moments ago. "Let's ditch this place."
Issei glanced at the water-stained ceiling. It was fashioned of sound-muffling tile, each tile about three feet by five, laid into a grid of metal strips. Easy on, easy off. More than likely there was a crawlspace above it, for service access. And, Issei hoped, enough structural stability to hold them.
With no furniture in the room, there was nothing to climb up on, but the relatively low ceiling afforded them at least one advantage. Issei turned to Hiei. "I'll give you a leg up."
"All right," said Hiei, "but just this once."
"Try the panel next to the fluorescent light."
Hiei's movements as he gained a foothold on Issei's shoulders seemed surprisingly fluid for someone who had taken such damage. As soon as the freelancer had the panel set aside, he sprang down. "After you," he gestured.
Once Issei was up, he got Hiei beside him, and they surveyed their surroundings.
Hiei sat with knees drawn up, arms crossed over them, and chin tucked so that only the insolent gleam of his eyes was visible. Issei mirrored his posture, caught himself doing it, defiantly placed both palms flat on the floor---then recoiled at the gritty feel of the floor on his hands.
The crawlspace was some four feet high, and contained a claustrophobic mix of conduits and duct-work. The 'floor' was nothing but wooden joists and crossbeams, but in places, loose plywood sheets had been laid down, so repairmen could sit with relative ease. These seemed sound enough, but littered with various debris in addition to grit: bodies of dead vermin, lengths of wire and wood, a styrofoam cup that some worker had left behind in an earlier time. The dank smell of mould made an unpleasant cocktail with the borderline scents of decomposition and burnt wiring.
Flame rises; water falls. The basement had been relatively untouched by fire, but water damage from attempts to put out the blaze was evident.
Though not quite pitch-dark, the crawlspace grew darker in the distance, not helped by large patches of oily-looking soot clinging to the walls.
Issei sighed. "Never really liked enclosed spaces."
"Better than being shackled to a wall," Hiei replied.
They rested sore arms and legs for a bit. Hiei looked like he'd lost a fight with a wood-chipper; by contrast Issei's bruises seemed playground-level.
"Better replace that ceiling tile," Issei suggested. "If they come looking for us, it might buy a few minutes if we haven't left them a neon sign saying where we are."
Hiei grunted agreement, but when the tile was replaced, much of the light sifting up from their recently-vacated dungeon was cut off.
"I hate when that happens," sighed Issei.
"I can fix that," Hiei said. "More shirt, please."
Another strip of fabric torn and handed over. Hiei grabbed a broken length of wood lath. When he turned back to Issei, the fabric was twisted onto the lath---and aglow with fire.
"How'd you manage that? You said they took everything---"
"First things first," Hiei interrupted. "We'll make enough noise dragging these chains, so be careful locating whatever Op-X came looking for. Don't want them to hear us coming."
Issei ventured a theory. "Whatever they're hiding, it's big. Maybe even the size of one of those old Eniac computers, the ones that filled an entire room. That has to mean it's also in the basement."
"Project X?" Hiei nodded in agreement. "You read my mind."
"The ground floor sustained too much damage, and even if parts of the second floor and executive 'tower' were relatively untouched, they might not be structurally sound enough to support the weight of a big machine."
"And the basement offers superior concealment."
"No time like the present." On hands and knees, Issei began to move out, but Hiei stopped him.
"Nothing doing. I'll take the point."
"What for?"
"I can see better than you." As though to prove it, Hiei handed Issei the torch. "And I have a sense of where the enemy's camped out."
That 'sense' was just one of many things Issei did not want to wrap his brain around just now. It included the possibility that Hiei was not quite your garden-variety special agent. Issei considered, then rejected, the possibility that Hiei had been implanted with a micro-chip containing a homing device of sorts. "I don't think I'll ask the next question," said Issei.
"You'd better, if only to yourself. And you'd better ask some others. Why didn't they just kill us outright?"
"No time? But that doesn't make sense. It took longer to drag us downstairs and lock us up. And why have me substitute a fake Rosary? As far as I know, Rosary doppelgangers aren't found lying around burnt-out doll factories."
"Good point. These guys have been here a while."
"And knew you were coming. But how?"
"Spies are everywhere," Hiei said enigmatically. "So they had that Rosary ready. Someone either guessed, or was informed. Who are they? What do they want?"
Issei only had an answer for the last question. "I'm betting it wasn't just my echinacea."
"If the enemy has the ability to make even third-rate thugs like those bring me down---" Hiei broke off, grinning. "But there are still a few things I can teach them."
"And teach me along with them?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" In the torchlight, Hiei's face revealed scorn mixed with genuine puzzlement. "I have certain---abilities. From the moment I entered this factory I felt a dampening effect, acting to suppress them."
"Project X?"
"X the Unknown. The Agency wants it."
Issei rolled his eyes. "You think?"
"If it can dampen certain abilities, it could also be tuned to raise them."
"And that's bad?"
Hiei snorted. "Those guys back then---they were the types with low power ratings to begin with. What kind of machine can lower a high-power rating and leave the lower one untouched---or maybe even raise it?" Getting to his hands and knees, he proceeded across the plywood at a crawl.
"Why was I kept in the dark about this?" Even as the words left his lips, Issei knew it made him sound like a whiner.
Darkness.
Hiei's words floated back to him. "Maybe this is a test. Maybe they're getting ready to kick you upstairs."
"Some test. No info, no weapons."
"Not even your echinacea."
"Bastards," agreed Issei.
"But what better test than to toss you into the deep end?"
"A written exam? With multiple-choice questions?"
"Or maybe they think you're expendible."
So I'm just a redshirt, like those demons? "Swell."
"Bet my sword's still intact. Those idiots would have no reason to destroy it, and they might even now be playing with it. I hope they're cutting each other to pieces. But the Holy Water and Salt have gone down the drain. And because it's likely Operative X took them, we have to expect he's the one who knew I'd be coming."
"You're saying he's defected."
Hiei didn't answer.
"I don't know," muttered Issei. "One doesn't like to think such things but---"
"They'd better not have harmed a single bead on my Rosary. As for my phone..." Hiei trailed off.
"And a phone'll protect us any better than vitamin C?"
"You still don't get it." Hiei smirked at him. "It's not the phone or anything else that I carried. I'm the protection."
"If you're the protection---" Issei broke off. Finally, "I'm no James Bond," he blurted.
Hiei nodded gravely. "In case no one's told you yet---James Bond is fictional."
"I know that!"
"And he's not Japanese," Hiei continued.
"I know that, too!"
"Have you always choked in the clutch like this?"
"Only since meeting you." Hiei: by turns inscrutable to the point of rudeness, then protective, then murderous. What 'other' agency did he work for? What was his cover? Only questions; no answers. "I can't figure you at all."
"Easy. I break things and kill people."
They sat in stony silence, the faint hiss of burning fabric the only sound. Issei glanced at the chains trailing from wrist and ankle alike. 'Tis a ponderous chain, he thought, again quoting Dickens to himself. Swallowing anger and pride in equal measure, he broke the silence. "X the Unknown---you were saying?"
"It's a two-edged sword," Hiei replied, as though there had been no tension between them at all. "I may be tapped out, but that means they can't sense me coming. And they definitely won't sense you." Hiei jerked his head to the right. "That way."
"What makes you so certain?"
"Because when I turn in that direction, I feel sick."
Through the forest of conduits, they crept toward the source of the 'emanations.' Issei reflected on the possibility that he was indeed expendible. Although in one sense, every agent is, no one wants to believe that his own life does not matter.
The air seemed thicker here; Issei could only imagine the amount of mould he was inhaling. "I don't know why they sent me to tag along with you. You could have handled this all on your own."
"Listen, kid---"
Kid?!
"The Agency doesn't employ junk. And greatness has a way of rubbing off on a guy. Urameshi Yuusuke once beat the crap out of me and sent me to jail. Best thing that ever happened."
"Thanks for the pep talk, 'Dad.'" Issei rolled his eyes.
They crawled further, hampered not only by the crowded space, but also by their cuffs and chains. And the closer they got to their destination, the more apparent that something was wrong with Hiei.
He had slowed, shaking in every limb, like a man at the very limit of his endurance. It could have been the results of previous damage catching up to him, but Issei didn't believe so.
They were probably near the locus---where the effect was emanating. It was clear that Hiei could go no further.
Hiei's shaking increased. His head dropped between his shoulders; he almost fell. Issei came forward to steady him. The torchlight revealed a face soaked in sweat, twisted in pain. "This is bad," Hiei panted. "We're close; I feel it. Can't---"
"I'll go on ahead."
"Close. Really close."
"I'll just do a brief recon," Issei assured him. "Then come right back here." He turned to go.
"Wait," groaned Hiei.
Issei waited. The smoking torch at least masked the stink of mold. Once this mission was finished, he was going to have to go on a high-dose regimen of C and enchinacea for sure. Again---if he survived.
Hiei licked his lips. "You need to know something," he said at length. "I have this---attack---no, secret weapon, oh, Hell, attack. Court of last resort. Based on light---"
"You keep mentioning light."
Hiei shut his eyes; in the meagre yellow illumination he looked pale and sick again. In a hoarse whisper he spoke in rambling, disjointed sentences, something about an attack, about a sword of the archangel, the light---
"Try to relax."
"Can't---light---not fatal---such small amount as the Rosary---but in quantities the attack uses---"
"Brace up! You're going to be fine."
Hiei grimaced. "Just saying---if I have to use it, head for the hills. Won't be much of this place left."
"The hills are too far. No one's bailing." Issei shifted the torch from his right hand to his left. "Which way do I go?"
Hiei pointed straight ahead, and Issei went on alone.
(To be continued: Will Hiei recover in time to help his partner?)
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