"Start All Over"
By ss10009
Disclaimer:
YuYu Hakusho does not belong to the author of this story. Those rights go to Yoshihiro Togashi. This fanfiction is created for purposes not associated with profit. Meaning that, if you paid to read this story, well, you're a damn fool.
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CHAPTER 5 - The Fall of Autumn
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"Does the name Sensui Shinobu sound familiar to you?" Yusuke asked. These words bypassed his response to Kuroku's greeting. After spending another ten minutes in the city after running into Keiko, he'd decided to get back to work immediately and talk to Kuroku.
"Sensui Shinobu?" she asked. "Doesn't ring any bells to me. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, uh… You're not still spirit detective, are you?" he asked.
"'Still spirit detective?" she asked bemusedly. "You didn't hit your head on anything while you were out, did you? I haven't been the spirit detective since you were a toddler. I haven't even spoken to Koenma in at least a decade."
"Do they still have them?"
"Spirit detectives?" Kuroku asked. Yusuke nodded his head in confirmation. "For a while after me, there wasn't one. But there's a new one now. I thought you knew, considering that your mother told me Koenma offered the job to you."
"I turned it down?"
Kuroku blinked, and she looked more worried now than ever. "You really did bump your head, didn't you? Were you in a fight?" She took his face in her hands as she tried to feel for a fever. "You feel fine, so tell me. What's up with all of these questions?"
"Uh… Nothing," Yusuke replied. "Just… Things have been weird lately, you know."
Kuroku nodded slowly. She was clearly thinking that the initial 'weird thing' was Yusuke's discovery of his adoption. Yusuke allowed her to believe this, deciding that the truth was just too damn complicated.
"So who's the new spirit detective?" Yusuke asked after a moment of lapse in the conversation.
"Hmm… I can't remember off the top of my head. Maybe, Fujiwara or something. I think it might have started with a 'G.' Possibly. I'll ask around."
"Kuwabara," Yusuke tried quickly, hoping beyond hope that something would go his way, dammit.
"Kuwabara," Kuroku said to herself. "Kuwabara! That's it. Kuwabara Kazuma is the new spirit detective. He's been working for a few years now, yeah. Why so interested in him?"
"I wanted to speak to him," Yusuke said. "See how things were going with his job an' all."
"Do you know him?" Kuroku asked.
"Not yet," Yusuke replied. "Do you know where he lives or anything?"
"I could barely remember the name, Yusuke," Kuroku chided. "I'll try and draw up something by tomorrow. Think you can wait until then to make introductions?"
He didn't want to wait until tomorrow. He wanted to do something now. Anything to get his interaction with Keiko out of his head. Of course, explaining why he was so desperate to get in contact with Kuwabara would've been difficult without some form of an explanation about The Truth. And, again, it was too fucking wacky for him to go into right now.
So he agreed with her. "Tomorrow's fine."
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It was six in the morning, and Yusuke was up for, apparently, no damn reason. The sunrise was still in progress, and the sky was a funny mixture of blue and pink. The birds near Kuroku's apartment were singing, shrilly and loudly. Yusuke swore. He was not a morning person.
Fuck my life, Yusuke thought, pounding his head into the soft cushions of the couch before rising up completely, meeting a view of the sky. It was funny. When he saw the world like this, detached and from behind windows, it was almost like there was nothing wrong with it.
"Up already, Yusuke?" Kuroku asked. She was dressed in conservative office wear, clearly in the progress of getting ready to head off to work. "Breakfast isn't done yet. Of course, it probably won't be done until you put it in the toaster. There's coffee in there, if you've started drinking it since I've seen you last. And there's an assemblage of frozen something-or-other's in the freezer. The frozen waffles aren't half bad if you're hungry. I have to go to work, so there isn't really time to fix anything close to a nice breakfast."
"It's no problem. 'Sides, I'm used to eating the food I can cook. And all of it pretty much comes from a microwave or a toaster anyways." Unless he was getting food from Keiko's. Which was pretty damn often. But he didn't say that.
Kuroku nodded, only half listening as she applied something to her eyes in front of the hallway mirror. She'd already put one of her hands on the door knob before she turned around to face him again. "I almost forgot! I have Kuwabara's address. It cost me a conversation with Koenma," she said, taking a piece of paper off of the hall table and handing it to Yusuke. "This is a sign that I care about you. I was well on my way to never having any sort of contact with Spirit World until I died, which served me just fine."
"Sorry," Yusuke said.
She chuckled. "I'm being over dramatic, Yusuke. It was no problem. Koenma was much too busy with stamping paperwork to get into any sort of lengthy conversation with me. But I've got you an address. And a phone number, too. He doesn't live particularly close to here, so you might want to call before you try an impromptu visit. It'd be pretty inconvenient if you got all the way there and he was out."
"Right," Yusuke said, only half paying attention as he examined the new address. Irony was a real bitch sometimes. Kuwabara lived about a block away from Kurama's apartment complex. He'd been so damn close, and he'd never known it. "Thanks."
Kuroku returned to the front door and opened it to leave. "I should be home around six o'clock. We can go out for dinner, if you'd like. Do you think you'll be here around six?"
He didn't know. He'd talk to Kuwabara, hopefully, but he wasn't sure what the game plan after that was. But sitting on his ass here wouldn't be a part of the grand scheme if he could help it. "Maybe," Yusuke replied. "You might want to go on without me."
"Alright. See you later, Yusuke. Don't do anything too crazy irresponsible today."
"See you, So— Auntie Kuroku."
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In the end, Yusuke didn't take Kuroku's advice of calling ahead of time. He'd stretched, decided to eat some frozen pastry whose primary market was probably ten years younger than him, gotten ready, and was out the door four minutes prior to half past seven. He locked the apartment behind himself, realizing he didn't have a key of any sort but guessing that, as Kuroku hadn't gone over this with him, there was probably a spare around here somewhere that he was supposed to know about.
The walk took about a half hour and only served to piss him off further. Everyone he passed on the way to Kuwabara's seemed to be humming happy songs under their breath and going about their morning in as jolly a fashion as possible. He'd passed by two bird baths on the way, and the robins and the blue birds seemed to be conversing in bird song. There might as well have been dancing antelopes on the way to Kuwabara's house. After all, some stray puppy had decided Yusuke was his new master and had stuck by him for damn near the entire journey. He'd only been able to shake the thing off as he entered the apartment complex. It seemed like the puppy could understand the posted "No Pet" policy next to the building entrance just as well as he could.
Yusuke idly examined the paper Kuroku had given him again. Kuwabara lived on the fifth floor, apparently, in the eighth room. He bypassed the elevator and took the stairs, two at a time, trying to go over what he and Kuwabara would talk about once he got there.
He didn't get too far in his plans, though, as he was at Kuwabara's door before he'd been able to strategize much of anything. He knocked and waited, hoping Kuwabara was at home. Maybe he should have called like Kuroku had suggested?
His hopes were rewarded though, and Yusuke recognized Kuwabara's face as he opened the door. Kuwabara looked at him and blinked. "Koenma told me you might come," Kuwabara said, before Yusuke could speak. "You are Yusuke Urameshi, right?"
Hearing that question from Kuwabara felt strange. In this dimension, they'd never met. Which, in Yusuke's mind was pretty odd, considering the fact that, if you hopped over a dimension or two, they were best friends.
"Yeah," Yusuke said, giving Kuwabara a nod.
"Come on in," said Kuwabara. His voice was gruff, and, although he was trying for hospitable, he still sounded somewhat cold. This Kuwabara seemed hardened, more focused than the Kuwabara he knew.
"Nice place," Yusuke commented blandly. It was just stupid small talk, but the silence that had settled between them in the ten seconds since Kuwabara had last spoken was unnerving.
They were in the kitchen of the Kuwabara family apartment. Yusuke didn't notice Shizuru anywhere. "Tea?" Kuwabara asked.
"Sure." Yusuke took a seat.
The conversation was stiff and carried on like so until, after fooling around with a boiling pot and two cups, Kuwabara sat across from Yusuke at the kitchen table.
"So you're Master Genkai's son?" Kuwabara asked.
"More or less," Yusuke replied, figuring that freaking out about the question would just lead to a new series of questions that he didn't feel like trying to answer.
"You live way out in the mountains, don't you? I've heard you don't come down to Tokyo that often. And neither do Master Genkai or Master Toguro."
Yusuke shrugged and nodded. "And you stay here in Tokyo with your sister."
The moment he said it, Yusuke could tell that he'd done something wrong. Kuwabara tensed, and his eyes darted away from Yusuke's.
"I guess Master Genkai never told you the full story about that. I stay here in Tokyo, yeah, but not with my sister. She died when I was in junior high."
And now Warudo's world had killed of Shizuru. Brilliant. Yusuke was half certain that the girl was part cockroach, just like her brother, and couldn't be killed by normal means. Kuwabara had found strength in dumb luck, but Shizuru just had an exterior tough enough to border on impenetrable.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Yusuke replied. And he was. But he moved on, bypassing what he had meant to be light conversation in favor of getting to his main point. Warudo. "To be honest, I didn't come here to chat," Yusuke said, leaning forward as he placed his mug back on the table. "I came here to ask you a couple of questions. First things first… You ever heard of a demon called Warudo?"
Kuwabara tensed again. "Have I heard of him? It's weird of you to ask me that. Considering… Considering the fact that Warudo was the one who killed my sister. Well, Warudo's goonies, to be more exact."
Kuwabara leaned backwards in his seat, resting one of his hands on the handle of his mug with a pensive look on his face. "Warudo has been the main problem of Spirit World for a while now. And with me as Spirit Detective, it's been my main problem for a long while, too.
"I've been the Spirit Detective for years now," Kuwabara explained. "Ever since Warudo came up, really. Koenma always says that he's never seen a time so hectic…
"But I guess there's a little more you should know about me being the detective. I told you earlier that my sister was killed by one of Warudo's lackeys while I was in eighth grade. It was after school. We were going to go and get some pizza, just me and her. We didn't usually do that. She could usually come up with something better to do than hang out with her little brother. This guy jumped out at us with a switchblade. I thought he wanted money. I found out later he wanted blood. But I didn't know that, so I stepped up, ready to fight him.
"But then he… He did something. He changed. He wasn't human anymore, you know what I mean? His skin turned purple and he grew these huge horns. Bony little wings, too. I freaked out. I'd seen weird stuff before, but not that… pronounced, I guess. Shizuru—she didn't really flinch. She was always the brave type. It killed her in the end. He dodged me, not that hard considering the fact that I'd gone practically catatonic with fear, and then…" Kuwabara's voice cut off. Yusuke knew what happened next.
"A girl showed up. I don't know if you've met her before. Pink eyes, blue hair—."
"I've heard of her," Yusuke said quickly. "Goes by the name of Botan?" he asked, as though he wasn't entirely sure.
"Right," Kuwabara said. "Botan. She showed up and took me and Shizuru off to Spirit World. Shizuru was… Was gone, but she took us both anyway. It's just… I got to come back in the end, and she didn't. She told me about that guy. About what he was and about my awareness. Then I met her boss."
"Koenma," Yusuke offered.
He received a nod in confirmation. "He said that he had a job for me. Spirit Detective. That I would get to learn more about myself and avenge my sister's death. I'd get to stop things like that from happening again."
"And you took the offer?"
"I took the offer," Kuwabara said.
Funny, Yusuke thought. There wasn't any semblance of choice in Yusuke himself becoming a Spirit Detective; he'd never gotten a chance to turn it down, even though he'd wanted to. But a guy like Kuwabara just jumped on it in all dimensions, it seemed.
Kuwabara picked up his mug and took a short drink. He kept it up to his mouth for several moments afterward, even though none of the tea moved past his lips.
"I've heard a lot about Warudo lately, and I'm interested in taking him out. He's a real son of a bitch, you know that. But since I heard that you were the Spirit Detective now, I thought it'd be smart to recruit you. Strength in numbers, an' all."
Kuwabara didn't reply immediately, and, this time when he raised his mug to his lips, he drank deeply for several moments before attempting to reply. "If you're really interested in killing Warudo, I'm all for it."
"If I'm 'really interested'?" Yusuke repeated. "I came all this way, right? Hell yeah, I'm interested."
"Sorry, it's just… You haven't been very involved with any of this before now. This is my first time meeting you, yeah, but it's not my first time hearing about you. Koenma's told me a little about you. He said that you didn't accept the position of Spirit Detective and that your entire family didn't plan on getting involved with Spirit World's fight against Warudo. From what I could tell, you and Master Genkai and Master Toguro were all about isolation. I didn't know any of that had changed."
"Whatever my stance was before, it's different now. All I want out of life right now is to see that guy dead," Yusuke said. "And you didn't seem like you'd be against it. Are you in?"
"I already am," Kuwabara said. "Yeah. I'm in."
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Yusuke was thoroughly pissed by the time he'd realized the consequences of his next decision. He had to finish tracking down the other key players. He'd done Kuwabara first, who was the easiest. He was stuck deciding between Kurama and Hiei. He figured Hiei would be the biggest challenge, so he decided to save him for last. That meant he was going to start by tracking down Kurama.
He'd left Kuwabara's kitchen in favor of Demon World. As the amount of vegetation grew, Yusuke knew that, eventually, he'd reach vegetation under the control of Kurama. That sounded exactly like a fatal way to end a terrible day. It was fitting.
"Looking for a fox demon, looking for a fox demon," Yusuke muttered to himself. "He's got white hair, about seven feet worth of height, a tail, and should be surrounded by a huge ass pile of treasure. And probably naked fox demon ladies. I mean, he's practically living out the life of a music video, right? Kuwabara made it sound way easier than this…"
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Once it was agreed upon that Warudo would be killed with joint effort, Yusuke was ready to leave. He stood, placed his cup on the table, and turned. "It's been nice," he offered, "but I gotta get going."
Kuwabara nodded wordlessly as Yusuke progressed towards the door.
He stopped short of the knob, contemplating his next move. He'd have to find either Kurama or Hiei next. And he had no idea as to where he should start looking. Maybe…
"Hey, Kuwabara, ever… Ever heard of any demons goin' by the name of Kurama or Hiei?"
"Hiei?" Kuwabara asked. "No, I've never heard of him. But I think everyone's heard of Kurama. If, by Kurama, you mean Youko Kurama, the fox demon thief."
Yusuke winced. How much fun would it be to try and entice Youko Kurama to join his services? "Yeah, that's the one."
"What about him? Are you trying to take him out, too?"
Yusuke paused. It would probably sound weird to say that his intention was to add Kurama to the anti-Warudo team he was assembling. "Somethin' like that, yeah."
"I wouldn't waste time on it. Spirit World can't dedicate any resources to him or his group. Warudo's the main concern, and—. I don't mean to tell you what to do or anything, but I've been told he's extremely dangerous and shouldn't be pursued alone. You should go for Warudo first, and then, if you want, I can help you with Youko."
"Thanks," Yusuke said. "But… Do you know where he is?"
Kuwabara scoffed. "He's not very hard to find, considering the fact that his robberies are pretty damn extravagant. He goes through periods of laying low and intense thievery, though. He's really tricky—you know, like a fox? Right now he's in one of his robbing periods. We're pretty sure he's somewhere southwest of where Gandara used to be."
Yusuke had an urge to ask him what he meant by what "used to be" Gandara, but he repressed it. He had nothing to do with Demon World politics in this world. All he wanted to do was find Warudo and kill him. It didn't matter if the rest of Demon World structure was coming down here.
"Thanks," Yusuke offered again, his hand finally twisting the door knob.
"No problem," Kuwabara said absent mindedly, draining the remainder of his mug of tea.
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And that had led him here. Standing in the middle of a forest that was starting to move. He was close alright. One wrong move and he could probably wind up like Karasu or Elder Toguro. Or pretty much anyone else that had ever pissed Kurama off. It was incredibly convenient for him to find Kurama by trekking through his booby trapped lair. Yeah, he should bottle and sell that Yusuke's Amazing Luck stuff, alright.
His entire body was on edge, ready to fight off whatever plant came at him. Any second now, something was going to happen. Something—probably one of the vines catacorner from him, they looked pretty damn suspicious—was going to turn into a personalized Yusuke death trap. Any. Second.
Now.
The intense rustle of leaves behind Yusuke alerted him to the problem. He turned quickly, index finger extended. He wasn't taking any chances here. The Spirit Gun probably wasn't overkill, considering the situation.
"Attacking me in my own territory?" a voice asked. Deep, masculine, and smooth. Youko Kurama. "That's very bold of you, stranger."
"The infamous Youko Kurama," Yusuke said, hoping this counted as a greeting that wouldn't piss Kurama off to the point of enacting that suspicious looking vine. "I've actually been wanting a word with you."
"A word?" Kurama asked. He hadn't come any closer, but, judging from his stance and the way his tail looked, the last thing he felt was threatened. That was good. A threatened Youko could mean a dead Yusuke.
"Yeah. You know… conversation," Yusuke replied lamely.
"And who exactly are you?" Kurama asked, eying Yusuke lazily.
"Ura— Er… Toguro Yusuke," he cringed inwardly. Had he just introduced himself as the son of Genkai and Toguro?
"Toguro, you said?" Kurama asked. "As in the son of Toguro and Genkai, winners of the Dark Tournament a few decades ago and human psychics."
"The one and only," Yusuke said.
Kurama smirked. "Well, what's their golden boy doing here, hmm? You're not doing work for Spirit World now, are you? I know that was never your parents' style…"
"I'm not here for Koenma or anything like that," Yusuke replied. "I just needed to…ask a favor."
"Favor?" Kurama asked. His tail was swishing slowly, back and forth, back and forth. "You've come all the way to Demon World to see me and ask for a favor? Very interesting."
"Yeah, real funny story," Yusuke muttered. "But you've heard of a guy named Warudo, right?"
Kurama didn't answer, and Yusuke hoped that, maybe, that was a positive reply.
"Well, I know he's trying to make Demon World into a he— hedge-thing," Yusuke said lamely. Dammit. He'd tried to use a vocabulary world and failed. Miserably. This was why school and him never got along.
"Hegemony," Kurama said, correcting him swiftly. "What of it?"
Crap. What of it. He wanted Kurama's help in taking Warudo down. He needed it. But how did Youko Kurama, a demon, feel about a guy like Warudo? Maybe he liked what the guy was doing and didn't want to see him dead. That wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility. After all, because of Warudo, Spirit World wasn't even bothering to try and take care of Kurama anymore. The guy was a perfect diversion to his own thievery. There was a significantly smaller chance of Kurama ending up on the end of a hunter's arrow here.
What could he say now? 'Well, Kurama, how do you feel about that? And, by the way, if you don't like it, could you help me kill him? Pretty please?'
"I don't know about you, but I don't like him."
"He's taking over Human World; of course you don't like him. But you came here for to request something. Are you requesting my opinion of Warudo?"
"Look, I know that a lot of weaker demons see Warudo as a rallying point," Yusuke said, hoping against hope that the things Koenma had told him about Warudo a few dimensions over applied here as well. After all, he technically didn't know that what he was about to say was true. "But that a demon like you, who's strong, doesn't give a damn about him.
"So here's my big question," Yusuke said, looking Kurama dead in the eye. It felt weird doing that and seeing cold amber instead of friendly emerald. Without Shiori's care, Kurama was completely unrecognizable to Yusuke. "Would you help me defeat Warudo?"
There was a pause in which Yusuke could feel his skin tensing in wait of an answer.
"Alright," Kurama said.
"Alright what?" Yusuke asked confusedly.
Kurama's tail swished slightly; his two silver ears looked… amused? Could ears look amused? "You asked me to help you take down a demon by the name of Warudo. I consented."
"Right," Yusuke replied. Could it be this easy? He'd expected enticing Youko Kurama into his services to be a lot more difficult. He just didn't seem like the type of demon to be enlisted under a guy like Yusuke. Of course, most demons didn't seem like that type…
Kurama smirked slowly. "But I have a condition."
Shit. He knew it had been too good to be true. "A condition?"
"This demon, Warudo, I've heard rumors that he has the power to control time and space."
"You don't say," Yusuke said, wondering if his sounded sarcastic.
"You've heard of that as well, I presume?"
He must've sounded sarcastic, or at least unnatural, Yusuke surmised. Yusuke decided to skip the full story about how, you know, he'd been fighting the guy and arrived back here with the world upside down. He was pretty sure that wasn't going to gain Kurama's trust.
"Yeah, I've heard," said Yusuke, giving him the short version. The extremely short version.
"The power itself doesn't interest me anywhere near as much as something I've heard he's done with it. Something I've heard he has obtained."
Right. The King of Thieves. Of course Youko Kurama would want some kind of item to compensate for his participation.
"So what's that got to do with you and accepting this whole deal?" Yusuke asked, pressing his hands towards the table.
"If he has the item I desire, then I'll be… most pleased. If he doesn't have it in his possession, than you'll have wasted my time. Time is a very precious commodity, in a business like mine. So you'll understand if you meet up with terms that aren't very tasteful for you if I'm wrong about my speculations."
"So let me get this straight. You're going to join me in killing this guy. And if you find this mystery prize then nothing happens to me. But if you don't find it, something really bad happens on my end, right? And, just to be clear, you're not even sure if he has this mystery item?"
Kurama frowned. "Essentially."
"And, by something bad happening to me, I'm assuming you're talking death? Or maybe torture?" Yusuke asked nonchalantly, as though he were just wondering what Kurama took in his tea.
Kurama leaned backwards in his seat, a slow smirk spreading across his face. "You have a lot of appeal, Urameshi. I'm sure that kind of appeal would transplant easily into… the bedroom."
His heart stopped for a couple of seconds. Well, no, that's not true. His heart had already stopped a while ago, in the conventional sense, when he'd discovered his demon blood. But metaphorically at least, his heart skipped a couple of beats.
It wasn't every day that a friend propositioned you. Especially a friend of the same sex.
Yusuke tried to push himself to remember than, in this dimension, Kurama wasn't his friend. In this dimension, Keiko didn't even know who the hell he was. In this dimension, Genkai and freakin' Toguro were his parents, and damn near everything he'd done as a Spirit Detective was in an arcade or a movie theater or a bestselling novel or some shit. Kurama wanting him to be his personal love slave was not the weirdest thing that had happened to him recently. Not even the weirdest thing that had happened to him today.
"I'll accept those terms," Yusuke replied, trying to remind himself that, even if Kurama didn't find whatever item he was looking for, he wouldn't have to worry about being chained to Kurama's bed or anything like that. If they defeated Warudo, he'd be long gone.
"Then you have my aid," Kurama said.
It still chilled him though. As the deal came to a close, he could nearly see himself bent over double on some overlarge fox bed while Kurama held his rose whip or something.
He really wanted to go back to his own dimension…
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Notes:
1 - Kurama's Condition
Um… I've read so much YuYu Hakusho BL that I sometimes forget that the stuff isn't canon (except for the whole Sensui-Itsuki thing… and even then it's kind of unrequited). So I didn't even know how to give Yusuke a "Huh? Since when were you gay?" type reaction. I probably should have, but I didn't even know how to write it. I figure that Yusuke figures that Kurama's just bi, or something. Or maybe he doesn't even bother questioning stuff since it's another dimension. Yeah… That second reason sounded pretty good… Let's go with that, shall we?
2 – Irony
Yusuke says something along the lines of visiting Kurama's apartment and being so close to Kuwabara without knowing it… Or something. For the record, I know that's not actually irony, but that's how it's used colloquially, so I was pretty sure Yusuke wouldn't know better. I know some people have really strong feelings about the improper use of irony, so I didn't want to be attacked. :D