Wild Tournament Run

"Wha?" Jin looked surprised. "You're not signing up yourself?"

"I'm not a fighter. I got a bit of training in the Forest of Fools, and Genkai has helped me a great deal in my flying, but I don't have any killing instinct, and the majority of the ones going into this tournament play by those rules. I'd be driven to invisibility and running within two minutes. Besides, that's assuming I even want the job of 'ruler of Demon World,' which I don't." I sighed. "All I want to do when the tournament is over is go home – home to the human world."

100 days later

Kurama did arrange for me to get a front-row seat. "Should I attempt to get Machiko here?"

"She knows what's happening. She also says that rather than try to come in person, she's going to watch through my eyes. Just like we've always done growing up, only this time…well."

"Indeed. Well, you'd best get to your spot."

I ran off, and then switched to camouflaged flight – flight to get there, camouflage to avoid getting catcalls from any demons that might look up.

"Who are you rooting for?" Machiko asked when I'd gotten to my spot, revealed myself and settled.

"Uh…not Kurama: if he won, he'd probably have to stay here. Same goes for Yusuke, I can't wish that on Keiko. Other than that, I have no preferences."

I was a bit too far away to hear what Yusuke was saying, first to Mukuro and Yomi, and then to Kurama and Hiei.

Though I caught him shout something at Hiei about "standing on a phone book to fight." I facepalmed. Men…

Finally things got moving. The preliminaries were going to have groups of forty-nine fighting until only one from each group was standing. I didn't keep the numbers straight, but Yusuke wasn't put into the same group as any friends or enemies.

"Well, this is certainly going to be interesting." Machiko did sound interested.

Not every group was going to be forty-nine; some people dropped out almost as soon as the lottery was finished. But soon the carnage began.

There were lots of surprises, so many that I won't go into them. Hiei, Kurama, and several other people I'd met were moving on.

I confess, by three-quarters through the preliminaries I'd withdrawn into the back of my own head and let Machiko have the foreground. Once I knew Kurama had made it, I just didn't need to see anymore.

"Drunky blew it for a girl, and Yusuke's whipping demons left and right!"

"That's great, Machiko, but do me a favor and don't drag me into this unless Yomi and that kid show up, okay?"

"Alrighty." Then Machiko suddenly dragged me up again. "Wait, Yusuke was the second-to-last group. Ol' Six-Ears is the last one."

I watched.

It started with the two of them standing there facing each other. I'd call it a staring contest like the announcer-girl did, except I know full well Yomi can't see anything.

Little guy made the first actual move, and things went wild. It soon became a chase, with the kid leading his dad on a merry chase through the trees that the blind demon was somehow keeping up with! How's he doing that? …Hey, Machiko, you might consider a bit of blindfolded training!"

"Thank you, I'll do that – after the tournament!"

Then the little guy spun around and started swinging punches at his dad, but the guy was blocking every single swing – and was he smiling?

Then the kid got a pounding of his own: one throw, one zap, one punch and one kick that sent him flying!

"I feel sorry for the poor boy" was all I could think.

"For real, he had no idea what he was getting into when he signed up for this."

I missed what happened next. It involved fire. And then I retreated back into the depths of my own head. "I can't watch. Seeing a child get pounded like this goes against everything I hold dear!"

"Okay, okay…I'll tell you who won."

I did my best to ignore the sounds of battle whenever they reached my ears.

After too long, Machiko spoke again. "The kid surrendered."

"At least you didn't start with 'Yomi won.' I'd hate to think the boy got killed." I came forward again.

Yusuke got the microphone and said he wanted this tournament to be held every three or four years to choose the new ruler. I couldn't tell how the demon viewers felt about this idea.

"Hey…I might want to enter the next one!"

"Machiko, you know nothing about being a ruler. Dream on."

The next match was set up. Yusuke was up first, and easily took down his giant cat opponent. I admit I skimmed over most of the other matches, though Machiko was taking in every detail.

The cute imp-fellow I met some time back lost to a guy who could stretch his neck. At least he surrendered instead of getting killed. And then there was Jin, who also lost, though the aerial battle was pretty amazing to watch!

"If we ever fought," Machiko asked, "Would our battles look like that eventually?"

I considered that for a moment. "Well…I guess. Maybe. You know, if I actually put some effort into learning some aggression and actually liking to fight."

"Spoilsport."

Jin's opponent carried the guy off the field. It was so odd that he'd passed out on his feet like that. Fighters; I'll never understand them.

…Actually, everybody I'd met just before this tournament who'd been friends with Yusuke lost in this round.

And then a match I was thoroughly interested in appeared: Kurama.

I wondered if he'd read that note yet.

"What'd you write in that thing, anyway?"

"I'm not telling you, sis. That's my business."

I didn't care if Kurama won or lost. I just had one prayer for Kurama:

Don't die.

It wasn't long before Kurama pulled his rose whip, but then his opponent threw his bladed ring of death and Kurama had to keep dodging the thing!

…I won't give a blow-by-blow. Those are very stressful to me when I'm reading them in a book or when Machiko's telling them to me. Kurama became the Youko midway through the fight, though, and was bounding around and generally driving his opponent up the wall by being impossible to hit! But he changed back almost immediately afterwards, even though it did lead to him getting hurt in the arm a beat later!

Kurama…did you come to a decision?

The ultimate result is that Kurama won, but collapsed! I wanted to go see him, but…

"Go."

That's all Machiko said. I didn't question, I just went camouflaged and took flight.

I met up with everyone as I flew, and joined Botan and Jin, revealing myself. My emotional color had ended up a shade of lavender that was so pale it might as well have been white.

My demon-sharp eyes picked out Kurama being supported by Yomi as they came out, and I breathed a sigh of relief as my color darkened back into a proper lavender tint.

My ears were just sharp enough to pick up what they said to each other, though only just – they were speaking softly.

"Kurama…have you forever deserted yourself as Youko?"

"I don't know. I never leave anything behind. I never have."

After that exchange, Yomi walked away, and we all ran or flew over to our friend.

I did my best to slow my flight so I wouldn't smack into him too hard, but…I did reach him first, and I didn't have time to backwing all my speed away before I hit him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and continued flapping my wings hard to try to keep us from falling over, trying to find the ground again with my feet.

And Kurama laughed softly into my ear, hugging my waist.

That…would have been a losing battle for balance if Jin hadn't grabbed my tail. "Whoops! Easy there, Kami, our ol' buddy Kurama's not too steady!"

"I know – I was trying to stop!" My feet dangled, and I looked over my shoulder, or tried to; my wings made that awkward. "Hey, could you lower my feet back to the ground?"

"Hm? Oh, righto." After a second, my long talon-toes found the ground and I could stand again. Putting my wings away and returning to my standard form, I released Kurama and stared into his face. "So you made a decision."

Just going by his expression, he suddenly realized what I was talking about. "Your note! This was what you wanted me to decide on before I read it: whether I chose to live as a human or a demon!"

I nodded slightly.

"Note?" Jin sounded confused as we brought Kurama back to the main house of demons.

I took pity on him. "I'd given Kurama a note before he'd left the human world, but I'd told him he needed to make a decision before he opened it. I didn't want to tell him what decision, because I felt that would take away all element of choice."

"Why would you bother giving him a note if you were coming here, anyway?" asked the kimono-imp who I'd forgotten the name of.

"You forget," I waved the tip of my tail admonishingly at him; "I didn't know I was coming here. Yomi brought me here unasked more-or-less around the time you lot had started your training."

Kurama refused to go see a doctor, claiming he only needed a few moments to rest. Jin called him on that, and Kurama changed his statement as far as wanting to watch the next battle: Hiei's next battle. And then he'd go.

I tapped my temple as if listening to a phone call. "Machiko says she's got no objections to sitting with Kurama as we watch Hiei's match."

The small group of demons stared at me for a second. Then Kurama smiled slightly. "You made that up."

I giggled. "It'd amount to the same thing, since she's watching the tournament through my eyes."

"Alright."

I settled down next to Kurama and spread one wing, draping it across Kurama's shoulders. He sat forward, his gaze intense on the screen. I allowed Machiko to turn my eyes onto the screen with equal intensity, or maybe more so considering how intense my eyes are in full demon mode.

Machiko winced once inside my head, when Hiei said he had nothing left to live for. "I hope he's just faking that, to keep people from knowing how he feels about me."

"He's retreated into his past, Machiko. I believe he did so the moment he crossed through that portal, with only a brief thought of you, if any." We watched the battle a bit more in mental silence as Hiei took a bit of a beating and ditched his shirt. Then I spoke again. "You're dating a demon, Machiko. Doesn't it make sense that he's got some demons of his own to get rid of before he can truly focus on the future?"

"…Yeah, I guess…" I could still feel the hurt my twin was experiencing at being so casually forgotten.

"You just wait, I guarantee you, if he succeeds in fighting off any of his inner demons, the first thing he's going to ask is where you are."

Kurama suddenly stiffened under my wing. "The Darkness Flame!"

Our attention returned to the screen. Hiei was getting ready to channel his black fire.

Then something Mukuro said struck home to Machiko, or at least it felt like something struck home to her. "It's not hatred, it's longing – you just want to belong to something! You know in your soul that I'm right, Hiei, admit it!"

"He wants…to belong…to something?"

I didn't bother asking what she was thinking. Her mind had stuttered to a complete stop, she wasn't thinking anything right this instant.

Then the sparks of light died away, and I was left feeling like that was anticlimactic.

Then he started going at her with his fists!

"Huh; the last time he was fighting with just his fists, that I know of, anyway, was with me!"

Then Mukuro shot a ray of light that…

"She has the power to divide space!" Kurama sounded nearly awestruck. "I thought it was just a rumor, but it would seem the stories are actually true."

Jin stared at Kurama. "What does it do, now?"

"Mukuro can cut directly through the third dimension itself. Anyone who comes in contact with the cuts will be split as well."

"Hiei!"

And Hiei was dodging cuts being made through space! Machiko had closed my third eyelids so that she could watch every moment…and I was starting to retreat so that I wouldn't have to watch.

I still listened a bit, though.

The next I personally knew of a difficulty, our friendly ice-master had said, "He's trapped!"

Kurama compared what Mukuro was doing to crafting a large spider's web, and said that if Hiei didn't do something quick he'd be torn apart.

Machiko was becoming ever more agitated.

I came forward when I heard Hiei's voice say "Just remember you asked for it." He took off the bandages covering his third eye…and his right arm.

Dark flames surged from his hand, and his third eye opened. Then he unleashed the true Dragon of the Darkness Flame!

"Machiko…you sure you want this one?"

"Oh, yeah, I definitely want to keep this one, sis, you're not talking me out of it."

"This will soon be over," Kurama sounded apprehensive. Which was fair, I felt apprehensive.

Then Mukuro…split the dragon!

Hiei

I was knocked flat. Mukuro approached me. "Now I am satisfied. Thank you."

I slowly got to my feet.

"In truth, every time you summoned the dragon you struggled to control it consciously. It could only feed off the intentions of your soul. You've lost. Your flame couldn't hurt me."

"Heh. I accept that, and all that it means."

"Please, Hiei, don't tell me your only purpose for living now is the hope of one day defeating me. I don't think that I could bear it."

"No, Mukuro. You…just missed the point."

Her shackle cracked.

"Now you can leave your hatred in the past, where it belongs." I pointed at her. "Now you don't have to be shackled to it anymore."

And the shackle fell off.

"There are things in the future that are worth living for, both for you and for me."

The last of my strength faded at that moment, but strangely enough, Machiko was still foremost in my mind from when I'd said that. I was aware, vaguely, that Mukuro was supporting me against her before I blacked out.

For a moment before my eyes fell shut, I saw…stripes.

"I'll be honest with you, Hiei, the one thing that always bothered me – not all the time, mind you, just when I happen to be reminded – is that…I can't tell if I'm black with white stripes, or white with black stripes. I also don't know which is worse."

I'd laughed at the time. And going by the self-deprecating smile she was wearing, she'd meant for me to laugh.

Now, though…I want to tell her. I know which she is.