Well, this one sure took a while, didn't it?
Darn those narcotics and wisdom teeth. Simply horrible. Ugh.
Anyway, I hope the chapter is worth it. Feel free to comment! )
"Since when do you smoke?" Keiko demanded, snatching the cigarette from Yusuke's mouth.
"Oye!" He complained, unsuccessfully trying to snatch it back before she crushed it under her shoe.
"Smoking is bad for you. I'm not going to stick around if you get lung cancer!" She folded her arms and turned her back on him.
"Aw, c'mon Keiko," Yusuke wheedled, wrapping his arms around her.
"You smell like smoke," She snorted and pulled away.
"Okay, okay," he relented. "No smoke. Wanna kiss?" He nuzzled her neck.
"Ugh, you probably taste like smoke too."
"Keiko," he stretched her name out. "C'mon." His cell phone rang. "Eh?" He picked up the phone, stepping away from Keiko.
"Yusuke! Where are you?" Koenma barked from the tiny phone's earpiece, making his eardrum throb.
"Whaddaya mean, diaper boy? I don't have to be anywhere!" He retorted. Yusuke had conveniently forgotten to bring his alert watch with him.
"You didn't get Botan's message?" Koenma sounded scandalized. "Get over here now! Kurama's sick!"
Yusuke paused and looked uneasily at Keiko; she was still turned away, tapping her foot. This was their first time together in almost a month, and she had only recently come to know the truth about Yusuke's little "part-time job", she still wasn't happy about it. "I see," he said to Koenma, hanging up the phone. "Say, Keiko," he turned to her.
"What is it?" She started to turn.
Yusuke caught her mid-turn, his lips on hers as he embraced her tightly. They stayed that way for a few impossible moments; Yusuke cupped her face in his hands, kissed her once more, and ran off. Keiko stood there, at a loss for words; her heart pounding. She raised her fingers to her lips, finding that she didn't really mind his smoky taste after all.
"What in all of Spirit World is wrong with him, Koenma?" Botan held the fringe of her pink kimono to her mouth daintily.
"Well, it seems as if he's fallen ill," Koenma looked through the glass, seeing the doctors running diagnostic tests on an unconscious Kurama; giving an obvious answer to an equally obvious question.
"Say, Koenma Sir, is it really okay to have hat girl in the medical ward?" Botan looked at Koenma's teenage self shrewdly. "It seems like only bad things have happened since she came here. She's been trouble, nobody can figure her out, and even Doctor Bryce has been looking…worse than usual." She shook her head. "And now Kurama is probably sick with guilt!"
Koenma snapped to attention beside her. "Guilt?" He queried. "Is that even a possibility?"
"Well I certainly think it is!" Botan said, her accent becoming sharp. "He's known her much longer than the rest of us have, he conducted the initial surveillance, and they were friends! Then he's the one who lead her into a trap to be captured. Any normal person would feel guilty, don't you think?"
"Kurama has never let his emotions get in the way of his job before," he was reluctant to admit it was possible.
"But didn't he first steal the mirror of Forlorn Hope to save his mother?"
"That's right, he did! Good lord Botan, could he really—"
The door of the observation room slammed open against the wall, and Bryce fell face-first on the hard floor.
"…Ow," was all he said before staggering to his feet, wincing.
"Are you okay Bryce?" Botan was immediately at his side, holding onto his arm to keep him steady.
"Of course, Botan." He gave her a distracted smile that made her blush a darker shade of pink than her kimono. "I tripped…Into the door," he said slowly, looking like not quite everything was working in his brain. "How is Kurounu?"
"Kurama." Botan corrected.
"Oh, yes, him too."
"He won't wake, his fever is at dangerous heights, his fingertips are purple and he's in a lot of pain." Koenma said matter-of-factly.
"Purple fingertips?" He looked down at his own digits as if they'd divulge the secret of Kurama's illness to him. "Sounds like an infection. What tests have they been—"
"Well, I still think he just feels guilty!" Botan insisted, cutting Bryce off.
"What do you think of that, Doctor?" Koenma posed the question.
Bruce snorted. "That's idiotic. I may be a human, sir, but I'm not an idiot."
Botan opened her mouth in outrage, but with a look of warning from Koenma, she satisfied herself with huffing out of the room.
"Why is it such a ridiculous notion? After all, Kurama is not ruthless…"
"You display your ignorance, sir. Kurama is more ruthless than you know. This has nothing to do with his personality, however. Yes, some of the symptoms correlate with heartsickness in the figurative sense, but it wouldn't affect his physical heart, which I can tell you without a doubt, it's already doing. His blood isn't getting enough oxygen. Either his lungs, heart or arteries aren't operating properly. Aside from this, these exact symptoms have appeared before. I searched the patient archives for similar cases, and it appears to have happened once before, during the Stealer War. A Soldier was attacked in the middle of the night, mistakenly thought to be the enemy, and died from the fever. He was attacked by a demon of light we can now deduce, and…Oh God…You have to be kidding…" He halted. "Koenma, can you call Aika? Please? It's very important."
Confused and wary, Koenma scrutinized Bryce's earnest face. "I don't know…She won't enjoy being called, you know that," he said slowly. "Especially not for anything connected with my Spirit Detectives."
"We need her. She can…Er…She can heal Kurama!" He leaned in towards Koenma, his gaunt face accentuating the shadows under his eyes made him look desperate.
"Oh, all right then, if it's really as important as you say, then I'll call her." Koenma pouted. "I just hope she doesn't react like she did last time…" He walked out of the room, looking for all the world like a scolded child.
Rio was in tears.
"How was I supposed to know it'd melt on my skin?" She sniffed, holding out her orange hand to the doctor.
He bent his head over her hand and snuffled at it before releasing a great puff of hot air through his tusks. "Lead-based paint is bad." He grunted.
"How on earth did you get your hand hot enough to harden lead-based paint into plaster?" Donovan stared at her incredulously.
"I don't know," she gritted her teeth and tried hard not to whimper as her doctor pulled a piece of dried paint away from her skin with tweezers.
"You're just full of surprises," he shook his head at her, looking at the half-finished painting she had been working on. "Looks like you're painting some pretty cryptic stuff nowadays. Where did you get the inspiration for this?" He gestured to the painting.
The painting was of Rio, naked but modest, curled like a baby in the fetal position in a cocoon of fire on one side, brightly contrasting with another girl in the same position cloaked with a smoke-gray substance. Bright strands of light connected the two, pulling them together.
"Who is she?"
"I don't know. Somehow I feel…Familiar with h—ayOWW!" She cried out involuntarily. She couldn't stop the tears from overflowing her eyelids this time.
"Sorry ducky," The doctor said apologetically. "Almost done."
She bit her lip and nodded, then turned back to Donovan. "How is Kurama? Er, I mean, I haven't talked to him since he…"
"Kurama is perfectly fine," Donovan lied. "He is very busy with his own things. Do you want me to relay a message to him?"
Rio looked down at her curled fingers. "No…No, I don't have anything to say. I just wondered." She looked around for something to distract herself with. "Look at that painting over there. Is that cryptic enough for you?" The playful note came back into her voice.
It was a simple sketch of Donovan, sitting at a table with a newspaper and a cup of coffee in front of him. He was affectionately mussing the hair of a young boy who was grinning up at him. Even in the lifelessness of a sketch, the Donovan in it seemed warmer and more full of love than the one smiling down at it.
"This is beautiful, Rio. May I keep it?"
"But won't they need to take it like the others?" She queried, looking confused. All of her other artwork had been confiscated during her sleep the night of their creation. The first time this had happened Rio had been outraged, but she had come to accept it.
"Let's just keep this a secret between us, then." He winked slyly at her while the doctor turned a blind eye and deaf ear. The only hint that he had heard anything was the hint of a smile playing on his tusks as he packed up his instruments after finishing with Rio's hand.
As Donovan accompanied the doctor into the hallway, he started chuckling.
"What are you laughing about, Doctor?"
"Are you always this soft on your patients, or is she just special?" His eyes twinkled with amusement as he looked at him. Donovan felt like those eyes saw straight through him.
WH-what? I'm professional with all of my patients!" He objected.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing," the doctor smiled, ignoring his objections. "It's good to see you…Well, more alive. And she's stopped throwing things at me whenever I enter the room, I'm happy about that." He smiled, looking at Donovan like a father would a son. "Just watch that you don't get too…" He paused, whether for effect or if he was searching for the right word wasn't clear. "Heated up."
"Of…Of course not." Donovan looked down.
"By the way. Why doesn't that girl just release the heat in her hand? She's being so silly,, absorbing everything she comes across. Maybe she doesn't know how?"
"Release…heat?" Donovan was dumbfounded.
"Yes, of course. She's some kind of fire demon, isn't she?" The doctor's eyes twinkled even brighter.
He moaned. All day and all night. And he cried. Tears continually leaked out of his eyes, even when it seemed impossible that he had any tears left. Sometimes he screamed, but his voice was usually to hoarse for that. Whit was getting sick of it.
Why won't that bastard shut up? He gritted his teeth and glared at Bo, unconscious and in pain on a cot in the corner of Whit's bedroom. It had been days since Daichi had bitten him. He was recovering. At least he could breathe now. The first few hours had been the hardest, dealing with vomiting, hallucination, fever, and constriction of the esophagus. It Whit hadn't been there, Bo would have suffocated many times over. The next days could hardly be construed as "better" in terms of less pain. He stopped vomiting and suffocating, but the hallucinations continued and all of his wounds crusted over and oozed green pus. Whit would look at him and remember the burning sensation he knew was going on under Bo's skin, just like it had when Daichi had bitten him.
He moaned again, causing Whit's expression to soften as he applied a fresh cool cloth to his hot forehead. I remember what it was like still, he thought, his eyes softening even more to Bo's pain as he re-applied bandages to some of Bo's more gruesome wounds.
No, you idiot, thought another part of him. HE's the reason you had to feel that pain! Everything is the fault of the bastard in front of you!
Whit's soft look hardened and he pulled off a crusted-on bandage harder than necessary, ripping a cry of pain from between Bo's lips.
You should kill him right now, the voice said. He deserves it for what he did. Everything was blamed on you. You had to pay for his sins! Pay him back!
His hands moved slowly up Bo's body to his neck. He should do it. Bo not only broke their friendship, he broke Whit's heart. His hands tightened, cutting off the unconscious man's air. His body started choking and sputtering helplessly, and his eyes popped open, unseeing.
Instantly, Whit's veins burned with white-hot fire. His hands burned with a ferocity that no earthly fire possessed. He screamed, wrenching his hands from the pitiful man's neck and falling to the floor, whimpering. Daichi's words echoed in his head. Take care of him, Keep him alive. They echoed over and over and over.
A few tears of frustration spilled from under his eyelids. Frustration that had built up over fifteen years, ever since Bo had betrayed him and cursed him to his fate. Daichi's venom in his veins controlled him, infected him. He was a slave. The most pitiful kind of slave. A slave that could not leave his master.
An irritated-looking woman leaned against a wall in Koenma's office.
"You know how I feel about dealing with them," she glared at Koenma. Hostility seemed to radiate from her every pore.
"But Donovan said it was urgent," Koenma said, poking his fingers together. "Besides, it's not him. He's not here."
"A minor positive point in a situation full of negative ones. It's like complimenting bad food—you can find something to say if you try hard enough, but you can still barely bring yourself to eat the food."
"I…See," Koenma said, trying hard not to look at her.
The door opened and Donovan entered, looking more awake, yet worse for ware as he fixed his eyes on Aika. "Oh, thank Yamma you're here," he cried, coming towards her.
"What do you want?"
"I need you to tell me about one of the Chosen. You oversaw that, didn't you? What of the light demon? Weira?"
"I remember her very well. What do you wish to know of her?" Aika looked Donovan over skeptically. Was he really the head of Koenma's medical department?
"Do you know if she stayed in contact with any of the Spirit Detectives? Kurama, more specifically. He's come down with something that I suspect is a special skill of hers."
"I don't concern myself with the social life of Team Urameshi," she spat. "Kurama is no exception. Nevertheless I doubt that is the case, considering the status of her relationship with Kerya."
"Oh…I see," Donovan looked heartbroken. He turned to leave, downcast.
"Wait," Aika said, looking like she thought she'd regret her words later. "Has he been…Cured? Kurama, I mean."
"No, nobody knows how to reverse whatever's been done to him"
"I think I know what to do to help, if you wish," She looked reluctant and sour that she was offering in the first place.
"You do? Really?" He looked hopeful.
"It's only experimental. I may have seen the actual process of infection and therefore may be able to reverse the effects," She looked even more sorry for talking.
"Please try!" Donovan implored, beckoning her to follow him to Kurama.
Weira preened herself on the way up the elevator. Daichi's little servant boy, she noticed, was absent. When the elevator doors opened, she stepped out, trying as hard as she could to look alluring. She knew she was beautiful, and she had never failed to look beautiful, but there was something about being in the company of Daichi that made her feel weak, inferior and inadequate.
"My, don't you look lovely. Were you fussing over yourself like a vain little hussy again?" His silky-sweet voice sent daggers into the heart of her pride. She tried to smile haughtily, to rise above his cruel words, but she faltered.
"I brought news of the girl you asked for," she said.
"Well, hurry up. I'm waiting."
Weira faltered even more in the face of his impatience. "I-I checked the surveillance tapes at her workplace. She came to work regularly after she left her home. About one week after, she left the building after work with a demon named Kurama, also known as the spirit fox Yoko. He is a notoriously known as a Spirit Detective working for Spirit World. She wasn't seen again after that. It's been almost a week since then, and two weeks since she left home."
"Did you get any information from this…Kurama? " he said darkly, obviously not pleased with this new information.
"I questioned him at the risk of his mother's life, but he refused to admit any knowledge of her whereabouts."
Daichi slapped her across the face, knocking her to the floor. "You useless woman," he said contemptuously. "It's obvious Koenma has his hands on her by now. You had better hope that it takes him a while to find out what he's dealing with, or this will be your fault." He pulled Weira up from the floor by the front of her dress, pressing her to him with a kiss. She melted like putty in his hands as he lead her towards the bed.