Tears of Time
Summary: For the last few years, Kuwabara Yukina has lived a content life alongside her dear husband Kuwabara Kazuma, her twin brother (as she had figured out long before) Jaganshi Hiei, and their group of friends and family members. However, when going with Kazuma on a rather routine mission to stop a demon that appeared in the Human Realm uninvited, Yukina falls-not just through space, but also through time...and now she's stuck in the past! But how does her knowledge of things to come change what is happening? How does she leave it the same? Only time will tell...
Other Notes: Names will be last/family name first, then given name, just as in the original series. There will be major spoilers in this, as is to be expected, so be prepared. Names will be spelled as I prefer them to be, although most are as they are in English, with a bit of a Brittish flair (i.e. Yoko=Youko, Toya=Touya, etc.). And feel free to drop a review! I adore knowing what people think of my work, like many writers out there. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own. But if anyone's curious, the reason why Yukina acts and thinks the way she does will all be explained in due time, as well as her role in the future of the Spirit Detective team and the circle of friends she has chosen. Patience may be a virtue, but I don't hold it in high regard, so I'll probably reveal everything sooner rather than later, hahaha. ^.^
Decisions and Meetings
As it turned out, after sleeping in the mysterious clearing for the night, Yukina found herself to be at the time just after Urameshi Yusuke had died, but before he was awakened, judging from the stories Kazuma and the others had shared. Yet she was at a loss as to what to do next. Where she would stay, what she could or would change if anything, and perhaps most importantly...
Where was her brother?
According to what Yukina remembered, Hiei and Kurama would break into Spirit World Vaults shortly after Yusuke came back to life, then they would meet. Yusuke would save Kurama's life and Hiei would try and kill him (the thought made her pale, when she compared the image of the awkward and distant yet caring brother she had learned to know to the image of a snarling demon charicature of him impaling one of his few and trusted friends with a sword), then...what was next? Something about Genkai...a tournament or something?
Either way, that was her in, Yukina decided with a determined feeling. So it was that she found herself standing awkwardly in front of the enterence to Genkai's Temple.
After staring at the building for a long few minutes, the door finally opened, revealing a narrow(er)-eyed Genkai staring suspiciously at Yukina's small, humble form.
"Who are you and why the hell are you standing on my lawn," Genkai deadpanned, lit cigarette in hand and frown in place. Yukina sweatdropped at the classic response before bowing hurriedly.
"I'm sorry for intruding," she said honestly, gaze steady on the ground as she dared not stand straight yet, "but I have a favor to ask."
"That doesn't answer either of my questions."
Yet despite the dry tone, Yukina could sense that Genkai was reasonably more relaxed, so the younger hesitantly rose from her bow and locked childishly wide eyes on the elder.
"Well, um," Yukina began, not quite sure how she would word what she wanted to say, "I'm Koorime Yukina."
"So an Ice Maiden then," Genkai noted, leaning against her doorway and eyeing Yukina with slightly more curiosity. "Don't see many of you out and about." There was a pause, then Genkai heaved a large sigh and dropped her cigarette, stomping it out. "Come on in, then. I get the feeling this is gunna be a long talk."
So it was that Yukina was sitting on the mat across from Genkai, pouring her heart out, explaining all she knew and had witnessed through the long two years of adventures with Kazuma, then a brief outline of her life afterward, including the mission that had sent her back in time. She hadn't meant to say everything-and with good reason, since she probably sounded like a lunatic-but once she saw the face of the woman who had become her surrogate grandmother and the closest human woman she knew, she found herself raving and ranting. Her considerable control over her tears (developed over the years once she found time to do so) slipped three times during the discussion, and she was sure that at least leant credence, if nothing else.
When the story was over, Yukina shifted nervously from her spot kneeling in front of the tea table Genkai had out. The greying woman was silent, staring unerringly at Yukina, who kept eye contact as steadily as she could considering her discomfort. Eventually, Genkai made a noise of annoyance and sipped at her tea.
"That's quite the tale," she said gruffly.
There was another silence.
"...then...do you believe me?" Yukina incredulously asked. Genkai grunted around her tea, then when Yukina continued to stare, put it down with a faint huff.
"I'm not sure yet," Genkai admitted. She looked suitably annoyed at the admission. "The fact that you know that much about my past, most of which I've sure as hell never told anyone, makes me want to, but you understand that it's hard to believe a story about time travel." Yukina wilted slightly. Genkai eyed her for a moment before slamming her hand on the table, making Yukina jump. "Then again, I've seen weirder things in my time, so I guess I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Until I have further proof, though, you're on probation."
Thoughts of jails popped into Yukina's head and she paled visibly. "P-probation?"
Genkai ignored the faintly panicked tone in favor of standing up, giving a half-hearted sneer at the ice demon before her. "You are clearly disoriented and I can sense little physical ability from you, let alone your obvious lack of offensive spirit abilities, if I'm reading your youki correctly. But any sign that you're decieving me, and I'll put you down faster than you can say 'shit'."
Yukina's eyes were wide (mostly because she never swore, with few exceptions in her whole life) even as she nodded rapidly. Genkai smirked.
"Good. Then help me out around here, and you can use this place as your base of operations while waiting for my Tournament to come underway," she said absently, turning away from Yukina's stunned expression. "You can begin by cleaning up the tea things, then clearing out the extra bedroom. If you really do come from the future, I can assume you know where it is...?"
A bright smile crossed Yukina's face as she scrambled to her feet and bowed enthusiastically, calling a "thank you!" to Genkai's back as relief flooded her. It seemed everything was going to be alright...for now. Now she just needed to plan out the rest of her time-however much of it she had.
-Tears of Time-
Two days later, Yukina paused midway through sweeping in the front area of Genkai's temple and sharply looked up. She could sense not only Yusuke's unbending energy, but also a weakened Hiei, more human Kurama, and a very low-level demon-mid D at best-emerging from a portal. The four energies were within a scant mile of each other, and she could sense Botan as well despite her energy being mostly masked.
"Master Genkai, do you sense that?" she asked, turning sharply on her heel to look at the old woman playing Goblin City on her TV. The other didn't pause in her game, merely giving a slight nod as she played a fighting round, smirking whenever she scored a hit. "I'm...I'm going to go check it out."
When Genkai said nothing, Yukina took it as agreement and quickly put away the broom before slipping on her sandals, pausing with one foot literally out the door only when Genkai finally spoke.
"Think before you act," she said simply, "or else you might end up changing things you don't mean to."
Yukina glanced over her shoulder and nodded once in understanding before she was out and running at speeds impossible for a human, but slower than most demons of decent level could manage. She could name nearly ten she personally knew that would easily outpace her, but this was the fastest she could go at her current level of energy, let alone her physical limitations now that she was in an untrained body.
But that didn't matter, Yukina quickly determined as Kurama's human-demon energy walked away and Hiei's too-weak energy disappeared only to reappear quite a ways away and Yusuke's faced the D-level demon. All that mattered was that she show up and find what was happening. She knew Kurama and Hiei had been in on the heist, but she forgot there was a third member, one that had never been mentioned by name and dismissed by all involved as too weak to care about. But with Yusuke at so little power overall, let alone at that moment, she knew it was worse than the others made it out to be. And it would be nice to make another again-friend...
Yukina was barely out of breath when she made it to the energies, stopping in a tree and staring with wide eyes at the sight before her. Yusuke was there, for sure, facing a mysterious ogre demon that she recognized after a moment of shock as a Kyuukonki "spirit-eating demon." Realizing how much trouble Yusuke was in, she quickly gathered her youki and blew her cold breath onto the clearing, slowly taking the Kyuukonki over with a chill.
The large demon shivered violently and looked around with wide eyes, dropping Yusuke and taking a step away from the cold spot. After pausing a moment, Yukina once again utilized one of the Kyuukonkis' few weaknesses, due to their armor-like skin: so busy were they defending against physical attacks, they were increadibly weak to heat and cold. The "armor" material their skin was made of easily conducted the elements and would overheat or freeze the demon out with little provocation.
Thus it was that when the cold began to follow, the Kyuukonki shouted at Yusuke in a gravelley yet shaky voice, "I-I'll l-l-leave, Spirit D-D-Detec-ctive, but if-f-f you bother-r m-me again, I s-swear I'll ki-ill y-y-you!"
Then he turned tail and ran, leaving a panting and wounded Yusuke laying on the ground, staring with confusion and anger in the direction the Kyuukonki had left. Yukina took only a moment to revel in her victory before jumping down from the tree, landing in a crouch and startling Yusuke into looking up with wide eyes. She held his gaze with her own deep red one before smiling in relief.
"Thank goodness he didn't do too much to you," she said softly, straightening up and brushing off the hem of her casual pink-flower kimono. "I have the strange feeling this could and would have been much worse if I hadn't shown up when I did."
"And...you are...?" Yusuke slowly asked, struggling to stand up. Yukina quietly shushed him and put a hand on his shoulder, smiling softly as she pushed him into a sitting position on the ground rather than his crouching/near-standing one.
"My name is Yukina. I'm...a friend." Gently, she touched his cheek, ignoring his blush in favor of carefully healing the small cut he had there as she crouched again. She couldn't help but giggle as she pulled back and shook her head knowingly. "Why is it that whenever someone is in a fight, they always recieve a singluar cut on their cheek...?"
Yusuke was silent, just gaping as Yukina moved her attention down to his arms, humming lightly as she healed the bruising there. There was a slight trace of a bruise on the bone itself, but that was easily fixed with an extra blast of power, making her wonder if it had ever been treated in the first timeline. It could have been ignored then as a simple nagging ache from repeated fights, in which case it probably had adversely affected Yusuke's abilities for quite a while before it was caught.
"Why...are you helping me?" Yusuke asked as he watched Yukina move her powers down to his heavily bruised stomach. Yukina just hummed again, too focused to speak, but when the bruise was gone and she could see nothing else obviously wrong with him she stood again.
"I am a healer," she explained (as if he didn't know that already), "and as such I don't enjoy seeing others in pain needlessly. Besides, Kyuukonki are notoriously hard to defeat, so I thought you could use this chance to recover yourself fully before going after him again."
"I don't have time for that." Yukina blinked, startled, at her once close friend, but Yusuke ignored it in favor of getting to his feet with a fierce expression of protectiveness. "That-thing is eating souls, not just any souls, but the souls of helpless children! I don't have time to recover, to rest, I have to do what I can to protect them!"
For a long moment, there was silence in the clearing as Yukina simply stared at Yusuke and Yusuke stared back. Then, slowly, Yukina smiled a soft and encouraging smile.
"You are a good man, Spirit Detective," she told him, ignoring the way his eyes went wide. A loud crash of thunder signaled coming rain, and she took a single step back. "Kyuukonki take 24 hours to digest a soul enough to where it cannot be saved. At least sleep and regain some energy before you try to fight him again." She paused a moment. "And, by the way...good luck."
With a final wave, Yukina whirled away and sped off, just as the cleansing rain began to fall through the heavy night sky.
-Tears of Time-
The next week was calmer than Yukina had thought it would be. Genkai had mentioned in passing her tournament would be starting soon, making the ice demon blink before smiling and thanking the elder for the information, which Genkai ignored (of course). At the time the full moon was at its peak, she sensed the awakening of the Forelorn Hope and the large amount of energy taken from then returned to both Kurama and Yusuke, but otherwise she knew of nothing that had happened.
Of course, part of the reason for that was the secret nighttime activity she had taken up after finding Yusuke began his first case. For Yukina was determined to find out what her brother was like before they had met, when he was still a fearsome demon and she was too innocent and he felt she had to be viewed at a distance or else broken by accident. Stupid, now, but she somewhat understood where he was coming from.
So Yukina spent her evenings and occasionally nights following her brother's demon energy, sometimes in person but usually just in spirit, watching him watch the goings-on in the human world. He was so much more uptight than in the future (/Yes, hard to believe,/ she amusedly thought to her mental image of Kazuma), so much more on-edge without others to watch his back.
"Oh, Hiei," she whispered aloud when she sensed the battle between he and Yusuke beginning. Carefully, she inched out of her room in Genkai's place and took off, masking her own demon energy as she made her way towards the battle. She paused only once during her journey to watch Kurama sprint by hurriedly, tilting her own head before shaking it off.
Unfortunately, Yukina arrived just in time to sense Hiei's defeat, filling her with an odd mix of relief (it was finally beginning) and horror (her brother, her only brother, in so much pain!). She dropped down in front of the strange metallic building they were in, waiting for Yusuke's spirit energy to drift away before she slipped inside using a small and conveniently-placed door.
The prone body of her brother instantly caught Yukina's attention, so tense even in the oblivion of unconsciousness, so drained due to the past battle. Her senses remained on the other energies in the room even as Yukina drifted closer, crouching next to Hiei when she was close enough and gently reaching forward to touch his face.
To her surprise, Hiei shifted slightly at the touch and opened his deep red eyes a bit only to breathe in sharply. "Yu...kina..." he whispered, staring in disbelief. Yukina could only give a sad smile as she stroked his cheek with one finger.
"Sleep, Hiei," she softly told him. "Rest and regain your strength. We'll meet soon enough."
Too tired to question the statement, Hiei gazed at her for a moment longer before his eyes drifted shut again and he visibly relaxed with a deep shudder. Yukina stayed by his side for as long as she could before the energy of Botan grew too close for comfort, at which point in time she gave her brother a single kiss on the forehead over his closed Jagan eye before leaving the scene with tears in her eyes.
It would not be until much later that she would realized she had shed a single one of those tears, which remained within reach of Hiei's body in the form of a beautifully sparkling yellow jewel.