Please read Disclaimer in Chapter One.
The events in Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; Firebird Sweet directly follows that timeline. I strongly suggest you read those fics in order, THEN take a look at the sidefics!
Title: Peace, Love, Hiei C3: Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, Humor
Rating: T
Summary: A mission at midnight puts Kurama in jeopardy.
A/N: As always, thanks for reading this, and please review!
"I thought you looked familiar!"
Peace, Love, Hiei (C3: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil)
by
Kenshin
I returned to Hiei's house at midnight on a covert mission. Miss Rainbow Chakra Freedom had already wasted half a serving of perfectly delectable ambrosia; no sense in me wasting my plants. As it was dark, no one was likely to see me at work--or sense me either. The small amount of ki I would expend was negligent and hardly to be detected, unless you were searching for it.
And while I knew Shay-san might give me both barrels for accomplishing what she had forbidden, I also knew her innate love of beauty, not to mention longing for flowers, would eventually win out.
Besides, I wanted to repay her hospitality with something a bit more lasting than manual labor.
It was the work of a few minutes to poke a variety of seeds, corms, and roots into the flower bed Hiei and I had prepared, and the pattern had density; there is nothing sadder than a row of tulips sticking out at intervals like lollipops. If you're going to do something, do it lavishly.
My level of spirit energy being well-fed by beer can chicken, potato salad, and ambrosia, I could tackle 'lavish.'
Kneeling before the bed, I gathered my ki, then slammed both hands into the dirt, releasing life energy into my plants.
They responded as they were meant to, for within each seed lies its own destiny. The welcome sight of bursting green shoots greeted my slightly unfocused gaze.
I stopped when the plants had grown to seedling height, so that they might be taken for nursery transplants. I did relent to grow a fully mature section of parrot tulips, whose frilled profusion of pink, green, gold and mahogany tones would be flanking the front steps to greet Shay-san in the morning. I could just imagine her astounded, delighted look. For good measure I added an Elodie lily, of delicate pink hue and profuse, many-fingered blooms.
I knelt admiring my handiwork for a few minutes.
"What are you doing?" said that familiar, dry little voice.
Scrambling to my feet, I spun to face the intruder, wiping my hands on my jeans, thereby rendering myself almost as dirty as any garden-variety hippie.
Miss Chakra herself stood beaming at me, with an open curiosity she had earlier lacked. The breeze had stilled. Her hair hung lank about her shoulders, and as before, her jug-handle ears made a bold, if comical, statement.
"Respecting nature," I reassured her. "You're keen on that, are you not?"
Clapping her hands, Miss Chakra gave a triumphant squeal, making her seem about ten. "I knew I'd be a good influence!"
She was still wearing that faded top and skirt. Maybe she kept late hours, or maybe that was her only outfit. Or maybe she slept in them.
"You're awfully nice," she sighed, sidling up to me, winding both undernourished arms around my right biceps. "Not like that horrible little fellow who hates the environment."
"No comment," I murmured, glancing uneasily back at the house. Hiei is a very light sleeper possessed of excellent hearing.
Just now, my feelings toward this waif were more parental than romantic--and I wasn't even a parent. I regarded the house across the street. Nothing special about it. It was just a house at night. No reason for my dry throat.
But as Miss Chakra displayed no inclination to return my arm, I began gently herding her across the street. "It's late. How about we get you home?"
Her only reply was a quick squeeze. Hoping she had not misinterpreted my motives, I made my way toward the hippies' front door. The house looked a bit down-at-heels, but then again I had never before visited the premises and did not know in what condition Mrs. Itoya, its former occupant, had left it.
As deftly as possible with one arm, I fumbled for the doorknob, opened the door, and eased my way inside. The girl still clung to me.
The house was dark inside as well.
A strange sort of lassitude descended, as if the house's very dilapidation could effect those within it.
I could hear Miss Chakra breathing.
When my eyes adjusted to the lack of light I saw that this interior was smaller than Hiei's, lacking the long and somewhat grand length of hallway. It did share the same general floor plan, so that just to the left of the genkan, a flight of stairs led to the second floor.
Like Hiei's house, this, too, had the living room on the right, opening into the hall, and at the end of the hall an open arched doorway probably led to either a kitchen or dining room.
We're not alone!
It was the body odor that warned me; I turned once again to the living room--where 'Kit Carson' awaited us, sitting on an overturned packing crate against the far wall.
In the dark, he still wore his sunglasses. His legs were crossed at the knee; both hands covered his mouth and were clasped as if in prayer, although it was a safe bet not.
The living room was furnished in Early Derelict, with packing crates where conventional seating should be. Against the adjacent wall on which the dining room pass-though opened, sagged a single musty-smelling armchair. I wondered whether the pair had bothered to have the power turned on, or were too concerned about saving the planet from the evils of electricity.
I had no idea of the nature of Miss Chakra's relationship to Buffalo Bill. Lover, mentor, Svengali? For all I knew, he could merely be her landlord.
Still. I disengaged Miss Chakra from my arm and stepped protectively in front of her.
"Imaimashii?" Miss Chakra's voice sounded thin.
Imaimashii. Was that his name? Something distant tugged at my thoughts. Something important. His name. His face.
The male hippie spoke for the first time, from behind his clasped hands. "Way to go, girl." He had an odd voice, harsh and deep, yet curiously non-resonant. "You got him. This pad's as good a scene as any."
"Wh-what are you talking about?" she stuttered.
I became uncomfortably aware of the house's silent dark, its air of dirt and disuse, and the fact that my classes would not resume until Monday, and that Kaasan was away on vacation, and that none of my friends knew my whereabouts.
The male hippie reached down and snapped on a lamp on the floor next to his packing crate, washing the immediate area with a wan yellowish glow. Removing both hands from his mouth, he slid off his sunglasses, carefully tucking them into the pocket of his pink paisley shirt.
He looked up at me, revealing his eyes. They were red. But unlike Hiei's quite normal-appearing eyes, his were scarlet, rim-to-rim, lacking pupil, white and iris altogether.
Then, ceremoniously, dramatically, and with great self-satisfaction, he lifted the headband from his brow.
The headband did not conceal a Jagan. It concealed a mouth.
The girl squeaked, a bodiless, choked-off sound.
The round pink lipless mouth, more like that of a lamprey's than a human's, was crammed with jagged teeth that glittered even in the faint lamplight.
No wonder his voice lacked resonance, having to travel all the way to his forehead like that.
"Wh-what's happening?" The girl's teeth chattered, making a castanet background to her query. I shook my head.
I am not Hiei.
I do not possess Hiei's eidetic memory, that blessing or curse which literally renders him unable to forget a single incident since before his birth--a memory that includes the icy command of the Kourime matriarch to destroy him.
My memory is good but not infallible, and overloaded with study and work. There is also the thousand years of Youko Kurama's memory to consider, entwined with those of Minamino Shuuichi like ivy round an oak.
So I could be somewhat excused for failing to immediately recognize the person on the packing crate.
The resemblance was not exact--no identical twin, this--but was there nevertheless, in the bony shape of his face, the length of his hair, the grayish tint of his skin (though probably altered by cosmetics) and the sunglasses.
I knew why this creature had seemed familiar. It was not merely the freakish forehead-mouth, but his general appearance; the mouth only confirmed he was not human.
In such situations, I believe in the value of the pre-emptive strike. I shot a glance at the frightened Miss Chakra. "Run!" I commanded, but she remained frozen to the spot.
Women never listen to me when I tell them to run. I don't know why.
Taking hold of the girl, I shoved her backward into the hallway, ignoring her squawk of protest. Then I yanked a rosebud from my hair and swept it toward the not-quite-hippie in a cutting arc. "Rose Whip!"
The rosebud remained a rosebud.
"Bummer." Buckskin Boy laughed. His human-looking mouth did not move, but the wet lipless hole on his brow worked in and out with each bark of mirth. "That jive won't work here. None of your plant crap will."
Not good.
Without my floral weaponry, I am just another young man with some martial arts skills--and a thousand years's experience. "I don't suppose you'll tell me why."
"I don't suppose you noticed that the birds stopped singing when I crashed your little party this afternoon."
"Actually, I--" Never finished the sentence.
The hole on his forehead gaped, and two tentacles shot out, sinuous and muscular like those of a squid, a livid grayish color, as thick around as my wrist, and foul with youki.
I dodged, but both tentacles hit me, slamming me back into the staircase, too close to the girl. She screamed. I heard the crack of wood. I hoped it was wood and not my ribs.
Tumbling aside, I managed to dodge his next strike and draw the attacks away from the terrified Miss Chakra.
This was a good thing. The tentacles had a circle of snapping teeth on their ends, like those in the lipless mouth.
I looked around to 'pick me up some difference,' as Shay-san puts it, but the hallway was bare of possible weapons, and the wooden banisters had cracked on my impact, but not enough to wrench one loose for use as a club.
I risked a glance at the girl. She stood frozen against the wall like a deer caught in headlights.
I feinted away from her. "Congratulations," I gasped, dodging another strike that gouged plaster from the wall. "This is the first known instance of underarm stink masking youki."
"The funk ain't just for show." This time the demon's strike did not miss; I yelped in pain as the tentacle's teeth tore across my left arm and opened up a gash that ran nearly shoulder to elbow.
"Didn't your mother teach you not to speak with your mouth full?" I countered. The tentacles were fast and infinitely extendible. He didn't even have to move to attack, whereas I was dodging all over the place, and running out of room.
Time for the tables to turn. Those steely tentacles were as effective as my Rose Whip, and the only way to fight a whip is to ignore the damage and run up into the whip-master.
I had to draw his attacks further from the girl. That pass-through between living room and dining room! I could make this demon chase me all around the kitchen, or I might even break free and rouse Hiei. I flicked my gaze at the connecting wall.
"Thinkin' of splitting so soon?" A casual swat of the tentacle caught me under my knees and bowled me over. "If you try to bail, I'll waste the girl."
"Let me guess." Staggering to my feet, my right hand clamped on my arm to stem the bleeding. "Your tactics reek of cowardice. Team Rokuyuki?"
From the hallway came a thready cry: "What is going ON?"
Team Rokuyuki, headed by the late Zeru--our first opponents in the Dark Tournament. We had never seen either bench-warmer Imajin or Gao fight and therefore had no idea of their powers.
My opponent laughed. "So much for Youko Kurama's smarts."
"I'm seldom this wrong." Was now the time to run up on him? "You were perhaps another of the team alternates?"
"Close, but no reefer." His human mouth bared its teeth in an unpleasant imitation smile as the tentacles slammed into the wall on either side of my head. Leaving a hank of hair in each tentacle, I dropped and rolled. Pain from my injured arm blasted my nerves. Slipped a little on my own blood, I not only gained my feet, but a few inches distance. "You look very much like--"
"Imajin," he replied. "My brother."
"I could tell by the yellow streak you share in common."
"Meet the person who's gonna waste you."
I gave him an icy stare. "I assume we're awaiting his arrival?"
"It's me!" he shouted, thumping his chest. "Imaimashii! Your executioner!"
"I've stepped on better things than you." Imaimashii: the name could mean provoking, or mortifying, or disgusting.
"Who's bleeding all over the floor and who's sitting here untouched?"
He did have a small point there. "Why target me? Why not Chuu? After all it was Chuu who killed Imajin when he fled the fight--a tactic that must run in your family."
My smart remark earned me a slash to the face.
Yet I had good reason for my insults. He had revealed a weakness. Taunting an opponent like Imaimashii both clouds his mind with rage and causes him to waste precious battle energy on wild strikes, which very often miss.
Regrettably, not now. Blood seeped from both my wounds.
"Chuu?" Imaimashii's red-on-red eyes narrowed. "All in good time, dude. But you witnessed my bro's disgrace."
"It was nothing he didn't bring upon himself."
"Shut up! You're here now, and Chuu ain't."
"I can see why you would be afraid to tackle Chuu. His sort of weaponry doesn't run to plants. And I understand what you want with me, twisted as your logic is. But why the girl?"
He gave me an immeasurably ugly look. "She was convenient."
"Convenient?"
From out in the hall I heard Miss Chakra cry out. Run, I begged silently.
Imaimashii was enjoying every minute. "They're a dime a dozen, that kind. So fulla youthful enthusiasm, so eager to set the world right! Ain't it a stone groove?"
Miss Chakra did not heed my advice. She was, in fact, edging into the room. I could hear her clumsy, halting footsteps.
"And the gag is," continued the demon, "my powers suppress elements of the natural world. Not to mention I've got her believing she can't bathe or eat above subsistence level else she'll destroy Mother Earth!"
Close behind me now, the girl gave another soft wail.
I had to distract him. "How courageous of you to weaken a human girl and then deploy her to do your dirty work."
The second tentacle lashed out, cutting me across the forehead. Blood flowed freely, stinging my eyes. I raked a sleeve across them to clear my vision.
"Did I give you permission to speak?" he raged. "And the chick did just like I knew she would. The second I copped to you releasing your ki, I figured she'd spot you from upstairs and go running to you: 'Oooo, you're communing with the flowers!'"
"And you all safe and snug here in your palace."
"Wasn't exactly sure when you'd show up at that punk demon's house, but it hadda be sooner or later. Felt a little of your ki get it on this morning."
"That's the last pot of chives I'll ever grow."
"That's the last anything you'll ever do," he sniggered.
Miss Chakra gasped, too close now, but I dared not take my eyes off Imaimashii. "Let the girl go."
"What for?" He gave an unpleasant laugh. "She oughta thank me. She was just an exchange student when I picked her up--a pretty little well-groomed nothin' of 18 from some cornfield in the middle of nowhere. Now look at her!"
"You look," I spat. "I'm too busy examining the last of a long line of cowards."
"Who's a coward? That whole tournament scene just ain't my bag--too many rules."
"You must have crawled under the nearest rock just in time to escape. I'll bet Gao was your last-minute substitute."
"Shut up!"
Another tentacle lashed; I dodged, managing to put myself closer to his packing crate. "Is that the best you can come up with?"
Fast as a striking snake, one tentacle shot around my ankle, yanked me off my feet. I landed hard. Miss Chakra, her face pink, teetered forward.
"Stay back!" I warned her, but again she paid me no heed.
The demon looked at her: at her mouth rounded into an 'o' of shock, at her wide, unhappy blue eyes. And he gloated. "You've been a useful little idiot in your way, but time's up."
"You--!" Miss Chakra's demeanor changed at once, and again I caught a glimpse of the person she used to be. Her slender little fists clenched. "What the hell did you do to me, you scheming--! Say it again! I dare you!"
"What a bore when you get all uptight." The demon flung a third tentacle from that 'mouth,' slammed it against the girl's chest, knocked her back into the sagging chair. She went silent and limp as a rag doll.
But she had bought me a second's worth of time. And while he was reeling the third tentacle in--
--scrambling to my feet, I charged--too late!
"I saw that comin' a mile off!" He gave a shriek of malevolent triumph and flung the tentacle back at me. All three came on, like contrails of death. I dodged, was nearly upon him, reached for his eyes.
A tentacle tore my arms aside, pinned them. Another snaked round my neck, teeth snapping at my jugular. Another wrapped up my legs. Still I thrashed about, seeking an opening.
Our struggles knocked the lamp over. It spun in lazy circles on the wooden floor, its light swirling like the cherry atop a police cruiser. But there were no police around.
He had me, and knew it. Pressure crushed my throat. Each heartbeat brought a dizzying throb ...Losing consciousness...
"Now these odds I can really dig." His laughter was already fading against the roar of my own labored pulse. "So much for your miserable life." The tentacle around my throat tightened further. I could not tear it loose.
Girl, I thought dimly, Have to save the girl. He would find no further use for her once this was finished.
Imaimashii's voice grew distant, then washed away altogether.
Sometimes, the battle comes down to nothing more than hanging on to the next breath. Stars appeared as silver salt upon the black veil that dropped over my sight. I did not have time to count them.
(To be continued: Will Kurama lose more than just the fight?)
-30-