Okay, I'll come right out and say it: I'm sorry. I am aware it's been almost a month since I last updated (and with that terrible cliff-hanger, too!). If it's any consolation, I posted it and then thought, 'oh crap, what happens next?' and I had no idea. Some of the things that happen in this chapter were a complete surprise for me too.
Anyway, thanks to my reviewers.
Kuramasredrose, animegrlsteph, and Bhel-Elryss: glad you liked it and here's your update!
What the gaah: I can't write romance. Romance just… no. A little bit (such an this story) is okay, but not as the focus. And really, in this story I am finding that it is more of a catalyst to bring all the separate mini-plots together. It's always good to hear that my writing is improving. Thanks for your review!
Now, I still only own those four characters. And, on a sadder note, I can feel this story beginning to wind down… ¡Es horrible! So, as a heads up, there will be one, maybe two, chapters after this, and an epilogue and then the story will be finished. I'm not one for keeping a story going when it's clearly ready to be finished (in other words, I tried that once and it didn't work.) And sorry about all the cutting back and forth from location to location in this chapter; I couldn't help it--it was necessary to bring all the separate little pieces together.
The kiss was a short one. Kasumi let go of Kiyoshi's shoulders and let her hands fall to her side, surprised at her own actions. She had not made a conscious decision to kiss him. She didn't regret it, but she also knew that if she had contemplated doing it, it never would have happened. She never would have subjected Kiyoshi to what she knew he would view as something to be shared by two people, not viewed by a bunch of strangers.
Sure enough, Kiyoshi stumbled backwards and his face turned the color of fresh strawberries. All this took about a second to take place.
Then Chu made everything worse by saying, "Tha's th' way t' do it!" Kiyoshi proceeded to turn even redder than he had been before, now a shade of red Kasumi wasn't previously aware people could turn. Chu then slapped her on the back in congratulations. When it didn't knock her over he said, "Yer built like yer old man. Used t' be a time I could fight him an' not come out too worse fer the wear. That day passed a long time ago." He sighed.
"It did for all of us, Chu," Toya responded, rather consolingly.
"Feh." Hiei still refused to acknowledge the fact that Yusuke nearly always won fights between them. Except for the bad days. The week leading up to and following Keiko's birthday. And the weeks preceding and tailing the anniversary of her death.
By this point the red had begun to recede from Kiyoshi's cheeks. They had now returned to a slightly more normal shade of pink. He stared into Kasumi's eyes, which hadn't left his face since the fateful moment she had pressed her lips to his without thinking through the possible consequences. "Why?" he asked. "Why'd you have to kiss me? Now it'll be so much harder to avoid giving into the part of me that constantly says it'll be all right if we're together. The part of me that says everything will work out."
"Why can't it work out, Kiyoshi?" Kasumi's words were simple but they struck to the heart of not only Kiyoshi but three other people present. "Why don't you believe you deserve to be happy?"
His next words were filled with rage, not at Kasumi but at himself, "Because in this world nothing ever works out. Something always happens. And I don't want to risk that something being my fault."
"That's the same worn out argument you've been telling everyone to avoid getting close to anyone. Well think about this Kiyoshi—I wouldn't blame you. It would be my choice, not your fault. And you need someone to care about, Kiyoshi. And I am not my grandmother. I won't wait for you forever." Then she turned and walked away, sitting down near the top of a hill, just out of sight. A deep silence filled the space she had been standing as the four people most affected by her words stared after her. Those people were Kiyoshi, Kurama, Yusuke, and, surprisingly, Hiei.
A deep calm had settled itself over Koenma since the special ops team had returned. This was due to the fact that it was now clear they weren't out for blood, no matter what Kurama said. It was heightened by his sense that something big was going to happen, for the better. And soon.
For her part, Botan was simply relieved he wasn't ready to charge into Makai alone anymore. That could only have ended one of three ways. All three were some form of disaster.
But instead he was carrying out his daily duties with a normalcy Botan hadn't seen since before Kuwabara died.
Four people stared in the direction Kasumi had disappeared in. Everyone was stunned. Kiyoshi knew she was right. Yet he still couldn't justify doing something he felt would bring her harm.
Yusuke was struck by the words the girl spoke of her grandmother. And she was right. Keiko had spent her life waiting for him to come back, waiting for his infrequent visits. And now he was still running away. Yusuke fell to his knees.
Kurama's eyes went blank. It wouldn't be your fault. That's what she had said. That's what Hiei had said. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe there really was nothing he could have done.
Hiei sped off in the opposite direction. You need someone to care about. Feh. If he had five hundred aura points on Yomi's aurameter for every time he'd heard that, he'd be more powerful than Yusuke. By a considerable amount. "Damn it!" he shouted at the open air. He did care about someone. Yukina. And he was beginning to feel a strange attachment to Akiko as well, a protectiveness he'd only felt when Yukina was in danger. Caring had brought him nothing but grief. He found himself running down a path he had tread many times as a child. Strange that one of his favorite haunts was so close to one of Kurama's.
At the end of the trail was a single-roomed hut, unfit for human or demon habitation. The roof was falling in and every inch of it was scorched. How many times had he come here in a rage and torched the poor building? How many times had it stubbornly remained standing, against all odds, no matter how long it burned? More times than he really remembered. They all melted together. But this time was different. Either the building felt it had had enough abuse or his rage at being told what to do by a sixteen year old human girl simply trumped all the other times he'd been here, but the building was hit by the first wave of fire and collapsed.
Seeing the building fall somehow broke something in Hiei. He sat down on the smoldering remains, head in hands, and silently admitted defeat to Kasumi's logic.
Later that day, demons living around the area would wonder what had caused the building to fall and what had caused the seemingly unending trail of burnt grass leading up to it.
Hiei returned less than ten minutes after his initial disappearance. A stubborn defiance covered his normally emotionless features. Likewise, shock covered Kiyoshi's, and a blankness covered Kurama's. Yusuke was different. It wasn't just his face.
His entire demeanor had changed. Usually cheerful and strong-spirited, it seemed Kasumi's words had broke something deep inside him. Something that had broken before but been glued or stapled or taped back together. And now, no matter how he tried, he couldn't put it back together again.
In the human world, Genkai was meditating when she was suddenly distracted by a loud, distraught screeching. She knew what it was but could even begin to imagine a reason for it.
Upon throwing open the door to the room Yusuke always stayed in—what she considered Pu's room—she found the spirit beast wailing at the top of his lungs. She had seen him cry before. She'd heard him make odd sniffling noises. She had seen him fly into a fury that wrecked the whole room. She'd seen him perfectly quiet with a glare in his eyes that was frightening. She'd seen him almost dead on multiple occasions. But never before had she seen the poor creature in this much agony. She didn't even want to think about the state Yusuke must be in. Then suddenly the howling stopped. But that made things much, much worse.
Pu flopped over on the floor and didn't move. He simply blinked at the empty wall. It wasn't as if Yusuke was hurt physically. That generally made Pu show a fiery resistance. Never before had he become so… unenergetic. It was as if Yusuke wished he were dead with every fiber of his being. He no longer wanted to live.
Genkai did what any teacher would have done in that situation. She became slightly irrational. And she called her pupil's boss and demanded he take her to Yusuke.
"Absolutely not."
"You misunderstand me, Koenma," the woman before him said, "I am not asking. I am telling." She may be over two hundred, but she still knew how to get what she wanted.
"Genkai, you know better than anyone that humans don't stand a chance traveling in Makai."
"I have a bet chance than almost anyone else. And you sent three humans in yourself."
Caught up short by this undeniable truth, Koenma sighed. "Fine. I'll send you with an escort. Just tell me why."
"Pu is sick. Sicker now than I've ever seen him."
"What's the point of rationality?"
Takeshi's question was met with confused stares from every direction. "What cha talkin' about, Takeshi?" Jin asked, still floating in midair.
He answered Jin's question by addressing Kiyoshi. And Kurama. And from there he moved on to addressing Yusuke and Hiei. "Kiyoshi, everything you do has to be a perfectly calculated, rational decision. You never do anything on a whim. Kurama, you too. Nothing irrational. An irrational decision isn't necessarily the wrong decision. Just one that doesn't make much sense; but it could still turn out better than the rational one you would've made. And Yusuke, the past is the past. You can't go back and change it. What do you think Keiko would want you to do? If she put up with you, I kind of doubt she was the kind of person who'd want you to give up. And Hiei, the defiance in your face is really annoying me. Like you don't want to care about anyone and are trying as hard as you can not to. But tell me, how long has it been since you last saw your sister?"
Everyone stared at Takeshi in shock. No one ever spoke to Hiei like that and lived. Then the real surprise came. Hiei didn't do anything. Yusuke looked up from where he was sitting on the ground, shocked by the words. They were so cliché it was almost funny, but he could still feel their truth. Kurama was the first to speak. "Irrationality the… right decision…?" It was said uncertainly, as if it was such a novel idea he had to hear how it sounded.
"Yes." Takeshi responded impatiently, "I've found that sometimes there isn't a reason for things happening. They don't make sense. Not everyone is as calculating as you. So we have to move on when that happens, not go searching for a reason where there is none."
"He's a lot smarter than most people, myself included, ever give himself credit for," Akiko muttered, with obvious reluctance. Toya and Jin nodded in agreement.
They hadn't even realized that Kiyoshi had walked away. He reached the top of the hill and found Kasumi staring into the distance. "Hey," she said.
"Takeshi said some… intelligent things down there." He lowered himself onto the brittle grass next to her. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "He said the right choice is not always the rational choice. That not everything has a reason. Basically, he told both me and Kurama that we are over-analytical. And I realized he was right. That and I'm afraid of losing you. And when it registered that I was just afraid of you walking away, nothing else, your last words sank in."
"It definitely took less time for you to come to that conclusion than I thought it would. And you're taking having your view of a perfectly organized, rational world torn apart pretty well." She shifted a little closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder and he put his arm around her.
Genkai was attempting to care for Pu while awaiting Master Koenma's envoy. And suddenly he blinked long and slow then pulled himself up from the ground. And Genkai knew from the calm certainty in Pu's eyes that Yusuke had made a decision. This was either very good or very, very bad.
Either someone had talked some sense into him. Or he had made a decision on his own that wasn't well thought-out at all. Knowing Yusuke, Genkai feared the second.
"Thank you, Takeshi," Yusuke said. Akiko thought he looked different, but she couldn't pin down what it was. Kurama could. Yusuke had, after ninety years, resolved to continue living. Not the half-life that was a mockery of what he was capable of, which he had been living since Keiko died. He had decided to actually live.
That's when Kurama realized what he needed to do. If Yusuke could move on, so could he. God only knew how important Keiko had been to Yusuke. But Kurama had had a hundred and fifty years to move on and Yusuke had had ninety. And there was no question that the bond between Keiko and Yusuke had been stronger than that between a teacher and a pupil, or even between two friends. If Yusuke could do it, Kurama could do it.
Yusuke saw the decision in his eyes and smiled.
In a sudden flash of movement, Pu grabbed Genkai and placed her on his back. He then flew out of the house, past Koenma's people and somehow forced his way into the demon plane.
Out of nowhere Genkai appeared, sitting on Pu's back. Seeing Yusuke, alive and well, filled her with relief. "You gave me quite a fright," she called out, "but you're better now, I take it."
"Genkai!" Yusuke shouted, "Yeah, I'm better than I've been in nearly a century. Pu is too, I see."
Genkai nodded, "Where are Kiyoshi and Kasumi?"
"Over th' hill," Chu laughed, staggering a bit, "We got another Yusuke an' Keiko on our hands."
Then Jin's bewildered voice rang out asking a question with so blunt a choice of words, everyone else just stopped. "Anyone else find it odd tha' Kuwabara's death was what set off you three disappearin' an dat it's his sister's descendent that makes ya realize your mistakes?"