Ride like the Wind
Chapter 46
"Well, it's all really awkward now..." Yusuke mumbled to himself as he looked around Boston the next morning. 'But hell, it always was. I guess I wasn't supposed to be here from the start, was I? So should I stay or should I go? If I stay it'll be trouble, but if I go..." He sighed. I'm in a jam.
"Urameshi..." Kuwabara said to Yusuke as he walked to him.
'What?" he replied.
"So... You coming home now? I mean he was what kept you here, right? You could stay with me in Houston if you want or..."
"No, I'm staying here til I'm eighteen."
"Did something happen in Mexico?"
"No... Just... Pursuing something. I don't remember what anymore. But if I don't find it, I'm coming home. You got two years to wait, big guy. Don't worry too much."
"Yeah but still..."
---
"Hey," Kirin's voice came from behind Mukuro.
Mukuro turned around to look at him. "What?"
"I've heard some crazy talk. Something about Raizen..."
"That's not crazy talk. This is crazy talk: blahc aojdhsd sdhsagaw ksdhgss..."
"Enough. How can you pronounce all that?"
"...Because I'm German, and Jewish. We're great people."
"Yeah, well I heard that..."
"I heard that your nonexistent girlfriend opened her legs for some random guy that smelled like mutton and got a really bad disease. Really I don't care. Yeah I know it's something about Raizen being dead but I don't really care. Don't you have respect for the dead?"
"But you met when you arrested him. That's not a very good start to me."
"Yeah and I meant you when some thugs were trying to get you to..."
"That was a bad time for me! You promised never to speak of that."
"I had my fingers crossed. That kinda thing runs in the family. In anyway case you have you right to call him a bad guy if you never sat down and talked to him. Just because society calls someone a bad person doesn't mean they are a bad person. Look at me. Everybody cusses me out all the time for being a bad guy but I'm not really all that bad according to the people I know. Maybe you think so but I'm not to them. See, listen here. We're all born empty. It's the choices we make that paint the image of good and evil on us. Those choices are what make us part os society or alienated. The only way to fight alienation is to fight your way into society somehow. In truth, there is no right or wrong. We see the world through one set of eyes- our own. We interpret things the way we want our eyes to see them pure and simple, Kirin. Pure and simple."
"Why do you always have to make things so complicated?"
"I only tell it the way I see it."
"Okay, well, I'll tell it the way I see it too. Something's wrong."
"What makes you say that?"
"For one, your shirt's on backwards."
"What?" She looked down. "How the hell'd I...?" She ran into an alley. "Make sure nobody comes by to see this! I don't think people love me enough to want to see me topless."
"Right..." Kirin stood in the middle of the alley, his arms crossed. I'm three years younger than he is and I still have more sense n' he does. He rose an eyebrow when he saw Mukuro's back was covered in scars like she was lashed with a whip.
"Stop staring like you haven't seen a man's bare back before," she said suddenly. "It's creepy when you do it."
"Those scars on your back. How'd you get them?"
She cocked her head at him questioningly. "...I was a really bad kid. They used to whip me for doing stuff wrong or when they felt it was right to do so."
"They?"
"You and I both know who I mean..." She started to walk away. "Sit tight like a good boy. I need to get my pistol from home."
---
Later that day Mukuro was standing by the docks. Then Kurama walked up to her.
"There you are," he said in a near whisper. "...So it's been a crazy week for you, too?"
"I guess so," Mukuro sighed. "Talking its toll on me."
"You look depressed. Should you even been working like that?"
"No, this is just the way I always look. You're the first person to point out that I don't always look pissed off. I guess I am subconsciously."
Kurama looked away. "It hurts?"
"The condition I'm in or are you going on something else?"
"Youko, he... Just because he takes over my body doesn't mean I don't know what he's doing. So that gets me into some awkward situations..."
"What he did? Not really. Or are you going on about something else? Just don't apologize about it. I know he's not sorry."
"I wasn't. It's just that... I know it might bring some bad memories but... What happened to your right eye?"
Silence. Mukuro chuckled a bit. "I was kind of counting on not having to tell you but I guess everyone does at one point... You know, I gave Hiei all the nice details and he's thinking I got this because the guy that raped me beat me and he's over here trying to be nice about the wrong thing. I left out the real reason why this happened. Go ahead and tell him if you want, I don't care if he knows anymore. I know him well enough to know his reaction. Basic background information, I was almost four when I was sold as a slave for these guys who sold demons as slaves. I ended up in Louisiana and then I got raped by some bastard with s lump in his pants and I ended up running away about a day after. I went to school here and ended up where I am.
"I never told Hiei why I got screwed up like that. He just assumed. Even if I were beat too badly I wouldn't be that bad. Even if that family wanted a new slave they couldn't buy me being from the homeland I am unless they got me from that one that sold demons. Well... It was basically like this..."
Flashback
"From now on, you're answering to the name Anne Boelain," the overseer said to Mukuro.
"That's not my name," Mukuro, at the time five, replied irritably.
"It is now."
"Nuh uh. I'm only the one my..."
"No one gives a damn about who named you. Just get used to the name and make my job easier or I'll make your work harder."
She frowned at him. "Well..." Then... And aura came. It was weird. It was Spirit Energy but Demon Energy too... How was that...? Then the overseer kicked her in the stomach.
"Don't stand there looking stupid! You..."
"Let me give her inspiration to change her name..." Mukuro saw the speaker for a second. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. Pointed ears... Then he poured a liquid on her right eye. "Holy water, my friend. Gets them good."
"Zeru! Quit messing with my slaves! I thought you came here to talk..." the master's voice went on but Mukuro took no more of it in. The only word she really remembered was Zeru. The Demon Exorcist...?
End Flashback
There was a long silence when it was over. Mukuro glanced at Kurama who stared at her, emotionless. "Don't try and be nice to me because I told you all that. Hiei tried and failed miserably. And I don't want pity over all that. I don't cry when I think back and I don't want anyone else to either. I'm too used to people not liking me."
Kurama looked away. "So... Did Hiei tell you about his past?"
"Didn't tell you his story? What do you know if anything?"
"He was beat as a child and how John died when he was fifteen."
"That's the gist of it. All that's really important..."
"So... The thing he did in Chicago... Did he really do it?"
"I don't know. It's in the book that he did but... I really don't know. I really can't put it past the guy. He's not really much of a law abiding citizen no matter where he is."
"Hiei... He owes you one..." He turned away from her.
"For what?"
More silence. "Thanks for helping me out the other day... I probably wouldn't have gotten any sense into him."
"Nothing that makes sense fits into that thick skull. We red heads have to stick together."
It looks brown from here... "I'll be off."
She stared into the sky. I feel really sick now... She threw up and stared at the ground for a while before she fainted
---
Mukuro sat up. "Where the hell am I?"
"Apparently you fainted while you were working," Yomi explained while he walked into the room with a bottle of medicine and a spoon in one hand. He almost dropped the medicine when she started screaming. "What?! Don't tell me you're going to redo what happened in Salem!"
"...Oh it was just you, never mind."
"That was polite." He would have smacked her but he knew better. "So... Another ulcer this time?"
"I guess. I don't know."
"Were you drinking?"
"That's a stupid question. I'm known as the drunk around here."
"Why? Just so you can forget?"
"Don't do that. I just do. That's all. I don't question your habits. Like..."
"Don't bring that up."
"Hey, don't bring my habits up and I won't bring up yours." She looked away. "Are you gonna made me take that?"
"Yeah. You have to."
"You can't really diagnose anything for me. I'm a really sickly person as it is."
"I know that. But even so... This should help. There's nothing I can really do with the condition I have myself. I suggest you look for a doctor. Stop this act, find a doctor and move on so you won't have to worry."
"If you can't do much right now then why do you keep your job?"
"Quit asking." He poured some of the medicine into the spoon. "Just take this. It would knock you out but you should feel better when you wake up."
"Of course you make me take the one that would make me fall asleep..." She swallowed it.
"Don't say that." He walked out. "Drink more fluids. And it better not be alcohol and eat an apple everyday." Then the front door closed.
"Acts like my mother sometimes..." She laid back and rolled over. "Sleep doesn't feel half..."
Hiei ran in. "Hey... Oh."
He started to walk away when he saw a note left on the table.
"Hiei,
You owe Mukuro!
-Kurama
PS No sex or booze! ): (" (Why did he add that?)
Hiei sighed and put his own note on the table.
"Hey Mukuro
When you get better meet me in Louisiana. You know where.
-Hiei
PS Kurama wants to add No sex or booze."
End chapter 46
Notes:
1. Anne Boelain- Odd way to spell the name of one of King Henry VII's wives. This was the one that got beheaded...
2. "...What happened in Salem!"- In the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts there was this big witch hunt. Read The Crucible. Explains it all.
3. Note the emphasis on the word booze in the last note.
Supper sorry about the wait. I was having this thing where I didn't feel like updating. Sorry again!
Reviews are appreciated!