Just one note: Kurama is going to be first-person narrating for his bits for one reason only: I couldn't handle the pronouns any longer. There's him, there's Karasu, there's the mainly-male Tantei, and half of the Endless are guys. (Which is compounded by the fact that I don't use their names in narration, because I'm an idiot and it's fun. So, while it's technically "I"-ness, we are not privy to his every thought, or even most of his thoughts. Partially because I don't even know what the hell he's thinking.)
Dedication and Disclaimer in prologue.
Chapter One
Shiori set the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table and watched her son's green eyes flicker and re-focus, jumping from his textbook to the bowl, and then to her own brown ones.
He smiled, one of the bemused ones that made her feel so much better for their fallibility (and maybe, if she could have thought that way, never looked quite right on his face). "What's the occasion?"
"Does a mother need a reason to spoil her son?" She reached over, beaming, to pat Shuuichi's head, and let her fingers linger just because he was here again, finally, to touch. And because he, unlike the teenage sons of so many of her friends, would still let himself be touched. (What she did not think was of Araki-san, who had an adopted daughter who was the child every mother dreamed of having, and who still had once said to Shiori, "I'm not complaining, it's just that… she acts as if she owes me something. As if she can't get angry because if she isn't, well, perfect… then she doesn't deserve me. It doesn't make sense, does it - I should be happy. She's very respectful. It's just that it's almost like living with an acquaintance, not family.")
"Mother? Are you feeling alright?"
Shiori realized her fingers were still tangled in Shuuchi's hair, and laughed, drawing back. "I drifted away. You've been studying since you got back from your trip - aren't you tired?"
"Not terribly." He smiled ruefully. "I suppose I didn't keep up very well while I was gone. I simply need to do a bit of catching up."
"Yes…" Shiori looked at the books. "A bit."
"Perhaps more than, then. Yusuke and Kuwabara are rather hard to ignore."
"Oh, yes." She brightened. Those two were such nice boys. Rough diamonds, certainly, but…
"So you three had fun?"
"Of course." A strange look, and she didn't comment, and he didn't say anything more.
"It's a pity the phones were down."
"I am sorry about that. I'm afraid we were rather in the middle of nowhere."
"It's not your fault, darling." She moved around to sink down on the other side of the couch. "I'm pleased you have such good friends." Finally. She reached for the remote control for something to look at other than him. "Do you suppose you'll be going on more of these trips?"
He hesitated. "It seems likely. The chess teams do travel a fair bit."
"And this team is what you want to be on? It seems to have taken so much out of you." She reached with her free hand for his. He gave it, fingers weaving through hers.
His hands were bigger than hers, she realized. Of course, they would be. He was taller than she now. She just hadn't noticed. "I wish I could still say I knew what was best for you. Tell you whether this… club is a good idea." Her hair swung as she shook her head. "But you're not a little boy any longer. And it's not as if you won't come back."
His fingers didn't tighten in hers, and his face didn't tense, and absolutely nothing about him indicated anything but utter sincerity as he laughed and flipped his book closed, attention leaving his text completely. "You worry too much."
"I still wish you were small enough for me to tell you what to do," she mourned playfully, freeing her hand from his and running her fingers through his hair again. "You've never been gone for so long at a stretch, and now you'll pay the price in my maternal overreaction," she chuckled. Her brow creased as her fingers caught; some of his hair was… burned? A few locks were singed off near his shoulders. "Well, you had rambunctious fun," she tsked. "But you should take better care of your hair."
"What?"
Shiori withdrew her hands, startled when he stiffened and leaned back. "Shuuchi-kun, you know the rule. You can wear it as long as you like so long as you're responsible about it. I'm not going to ask who was smoking, or what have you, but…" she laughed, catching herself. "There I go. I suppose at fifteen I should just be glad you're not dying it blue."
And then he dismissed the book to join the others on the table, moving to rest his head on her shoulder. "You're right." He took the remote, dragging the popcorn over onto her lap. "You know, I think I've done about as much studying as I'm going to tonight."
"Are you sure?" she queried, turning to put her arms around him. No matter how tall he grew, he always felt so small like this - as if it was just moments ago when he had been safe inside her and nothing could hurt him. He still smelled the same as he had when he was just a baby, a small piece of her waiting to be his own person (with those eyes that said he'd never been anything else).
"Yes, the rest can wait." He turned on the TV, flicking for their channel, one they hadn't stayed up watching in… years. Old films asking What's it all about, really, when you get right down to it? and never giving a satisfactory answer.
The movie seemed awfully familiar, and I flicked through the part of my mind dedicated to these nights. Yes, we'd seen it before. Everyone died before the end, except the fetching young woman who was drifting through the film on the brink of death. Consumption, maybe, seeing as she was forever in her nightgown. It was all deeply unimportant, but then, one could make a case for memorizing the year that Kido Takayoshi and Saigo Takamori challenged the shogunate being deeply unimportant, in the broader scheme of things. It was 1866.
I wished I had not had to leave, and hoped this is enough to make her feel…
I had planned on my staying being a support, not a burden. This could prove problematic. And, Idun's Box aside, I could not make things right for her by turning back time.
But I could do this.
So I leaned back and let my eyes close. It was true that I was tired, and as riveting as the performances might be, it was late and I knew how this ended.
Shiori, as desensitized as I to the plight of mortals faced with The Tough Questions, was singing one of her lullabies:
"She has a lovely child, lovely child; that's
Why she's cawing up there…"
Her voice danced in and out of that croaking onscreen, until they'd woven together so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell them apart. Funny, it only being a few minutes into the movie - should we have gotten to the ghosts yet?
I opened my eyes, curious, and her hair was hanging over my shoulder. It slid as I watched, moving down almost to my waist, much longer than Shiori's, and the song twisted with it.
"I
will dress your eyelids
With dimes upon your eyes
Laying close
to water
Green your grave will rise…"
The skeletal fingers tracing a path up my arms were drawing blood with their long nails, and even as I jumped up - cursing myself for falling asleep, that film for its hair fixation, and Karasu for in general being himself - I couldn't help thinking Wouldn't Freud be amused…
I, however, had less to laugh at.
The attic was a mess. Cobwebs, boxes, shadowy recesses, trunks. Extremely disordered. Most of all there was the plantlife - mold, vines, flowers, saplings. Some of them dying, some dead, most alive, and the wet, green smell makes what would be dry and dusty seem alive. It should have been comforting. They should all have been potential weapons.
Regardless…
"You don't belong here. These are mine."
Karasu looked up with a raised eyebrow, as if he hadn't noticed I was there. He was going through a trunk, with framed pictures, teacups, and sharp metal objects scattered around him.
"But I am here. As for these being yours… so am I." He shrugged, and might have come across as honestly casual if it hadn't been for his eyes.
"No." The room creaked as frost crackled across it, wood warping and plants shrinking back. Petals blackened and fell. "This place is not for you."
Karasu held up a hand, watching it turn blue with ice, and closed his fingers. The frost shattered, his hand bled, but the bits fell to the ground without doing anything permanent, anything that mattered. "That doesn't matter, Kurama. You must know that." He looked at me, amethyst eyes narrowing with amusement. He wasn't wearing his mask, but he might as well have been - he wasn't making any real expressions. I'd have to be content with his eyes. "Don't you have places to be?" he asked.
Shiori was putting a kettle on for tea, a cutting board next to her.
"Get out!" I grabbed for my rose, slamming energy through it and lashing out rather less cleanly than I might have liked.
He caught the end of the whip. Just grabbed it, yanking it once, and I didn't let go - I stumbled closer along the linoleum floor. "No," he murmured, releasing his end and flexing his fingers again. I could see the small bones, like a bird's. "That isn't how it works here, is it."
"Shuuchi," Shiori called over her shoulder. "Supper's ready."
I froze, turning to go towards her, and Karasu's (perfectly hale and whole) hand closed on my arm. "She didn't call you," he whispered. There was a dull, throbbing heat flowing from his hand, and I wrenched away just before the explosion went off.
Shiori sat at the table with a mockery of a human being, a body of ice, roses for hair and leaves for eyes.
"You know… all she wants is to see you."
"No," I said. "She doesn't."
"So you just wait for them to decay?"
"Rather than destroy them pointlessly, when I could treasure the time I have left?" I smirked. "Yes."
I stand beside the hospital bed as the bag of bones and meat releases its last breath and sets itself free, and crush the changeling to dirty, melting water, and when I pull back the curtain there's nothing real to stop me. There never was. Gold made of dead leaves.
I turned on Karasu. "Don't do that again."
He stopped a hand reaching for me, spreading his arms innocently instead. "I didn't."
Very slowly, I looked over my shoulder.
The man appeared to be a sort of Western monk, with his brown robes, but I was quite certain most of them don't have books chained to their wrists. He was very tall, taller even than Karasu, and the room distorted around that book, around him, as if it couldn't hold them. The human mind can only hold so much reality, after all.
"You will be shown now," he said. It sounded like reading - the words black, dropped on white, rustling paper. "It will frighten you, and you will be angry. But you will see."
Toguro throws him back to the ground beside Bui…
Yusuke brushes against me in the street…
Why me, why then, why didn't I…
I am Karasu. I am holding my sister's hand for the last time, with my parents' bodies nearby, and then I set a bomb off against her chest and her eyes close.
I am Kurama. This human woman is holding me and asking me if I am all right, and she is the one bleeding, and if it weren't for me she would never have…
I am about to fight Karasu, and I really cannot fathom why. I have no idea why he has the effect on me that he does, but the fact remains that I will not be at my best against him, and I cannot afford to lose a match at this point. Kuwabara just offered, and while he would not win, nor would he die - he's easy to underestimate. All I have to do is say something.
I don't. I jump into the ring.
I am Karasu. I am at the Dark Tournament, and I really cannot fathom why. I could have run. I could have…
… but I didn't. And the redhead should provide at least temporary amusement now that I am here. I'm not (ever) going anywhere, and in a few weeks I will look back at this and laugh as my life drains away with each pump of my heart.
My lips curled back in a snarl, and I whipped around to face the man fully, feet sliding on the pristine floor. "He went willingly to his destiny. I don't want him. Take him with you."
"No more than any other. There is no escape to be had." That face was an inversion of Karasu's - the lower portion just visible in the cowl, eyes always hidden. It shook now, indifferent. "He is not mine. He will stay another night." And then he was gone.
I turned back instinctively, because that is what one does when there is an enemy behind one.
Perhaps trying to foist Karasu off in front of him was not the best plan I had ever essayed, though it seemed a (the only) plausible option a moment ago.
He walked toward me and I couldn't move.
And then I woke up, gasping for air that didn't seem to be there. Onscreen, Kayako croaked.
I beg reviews! I feed on them, and then float away on them like a balloon. God I need sleep.
Three more things: 1) Yes, that movie did morph into The Grudge as soon as he fell asleep, because dreams are illogical and Adi can do as she pleases.
2) The songs are… darn. Okay, I can't find the title of the first one any longer, but it's a real Japanese lullaby - "The Crow Child", or "The Crow's Lullaby" or something. It was popular a decade or so back, and I made my poor sister-in-law find me a translation. The other one is "You'll Not Feel the Drowning" by the Decembrists, who for the purposes of this fic do not exist, because their songs are apparently lullabies over in Makai.
3) I wanted to give the Endless all cool things to distinguish their speech, to approach what they have in the comics. But then I figured that it might just look silly, and also FF.N would screw it into the ground, so… just imagine the cool. I think Destiny's dialogue was going to be underlined.