White.
A blanket. A fog.
A damning purgatory.
Silence followed them, trapping them in a cage.
"... This is... unreal." Yusuke whispered.
They had taken the mountain passage all the way down to a widened flat valley where nothing stirred amid the corpses of failed crops. An eerie foreboding lay about the land, causing heart rates to flutter and eyes to jerk nervously in the skulls. Were those shadows, or people? Were those ghost? ... Or monsters.
Through the fog, forms of houses slowly emerged, and as a main road became apparent underfoot the nervous tension thickened.
"Where the fuck is everyone?" Yusuke demanded.
No one answered him.
Every house was boarded up. Windows were broken out, doors were blown off their hinges, and roofs were caved in. What lay lurking in the fog? Yet nothing stirred, even as the visitors swore they saw something in the mist.
Yukina and Hiei were arm in arm, almost unaware of the action. Perhaps they needed one another in this moment, walking through the land that had once been their home. The Hyouga had fallen into a state of darkness, plunged into a plague with no promised return. Overhead, the castle loomed in the distance, shrouded by dark fog that stood out against the purest white of the snows. Yukina was certain Shikei was lurking there.
"This place is ruined." Kuwabara managed to speak, though his voice was strained with stress. "What the hell happened here?"
Kurama, bringing up the rear, kicked a foot full of snow into the air and caught it with his hand. He tasted the snow, licking it as if it were a wound.
He paused.
"Kurama?" Mukuro addressed the yoko, worried as she noticed his ears flatten. Kurama looked around, sniffing the air with sudden determined purpose.
"... Something is not right."
"Yeah I'll say-!" Yusuke interjected, but Kurama cut him off.
"You do not understand, Yusuke. I do not refer to the state of the town." Kurama snapped. Taking a few steps forward off the main trail, Kurama approached what once would have been a store for common goods. Covered with snow, it appeared to be a mindless block of white... till Kurama pushed the snow aside.
Black charred wood greeted their gaze.
"What?" Mukuro was perplexed, joining kurama and touching the wood. It crumbled into black ash, tainting the snow.
"Taste the snow." Kurama instructed her. Mukuro bent down, scooping up a clean handful and bringing it to her scarred face. She licked it and grimaced.
"Ash!" She gasped, spitting out the dark blur at once.
"Ash?" Yukina asked. She bent over as well, taking up some snow and rubbing it with her fingers. Part of the snow remained water... but part turned a dark gray.
"...Ash." Hiei whispered.
"Wait so something was burning here?" Kuwabara asked, slightly confused. "But I thought this place was made of snow."
"It is." Yukina agreed, nervous. "Fire is forbidden here! How could this building have burned?"
"Maybe... something caught fire by accident? Like... paper or something?" Kuwabara bit his lip. Hiei rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated noise.
"No fire has ever existed in the Hyouga!" Hiei snapped, "Nothing can catch fire if there is no excess of heat, are you daft?!"
"Dude, I'm a billion miles away from home, I'm freezing my ass off, I'm about to shit my pants from fear- what do you want from me?! Answers?!" Kuwabara demanded, suddenly very angry. His arms were shaking, as if from nerves, but the chilly wind blowing about their ankles and necks was the culprit.
Hiei was growing more agitated without any viable solutions. They'd come to the Hyouga to solve problems, not to find more waiting for them! Hiei pushed his way past Kurama and Mukuro into the burned down shop. He looked about, noticing that the entire place was charred black. Counters and shelves were barely distinguishable.
"... The fuck?" Hiei muttered, sniffing the air. No sulfur greeted his nose... no kind of tincture that might have brought heat where heat had never been before.
Just the smell of earth. Of mud.
Hiei's jaw opened slightly.
"Shimo." He spoke up.
"What was that?" Yusuke asked, eager to hear an answer.
"It smells of rotting clay!" Hiei turned on his heel to face the frazzled group. "It smells like Shimo!"
Yukina hurtled into shop, looking about as if she expected to find Shimo waiting there hiding behind the clerks counter. She smelt the air, sensing the clay, and bit her lip.
"Hiei..." Mukuro spoke up, touching the walls of the shop, "... Do you think Shimo had anything to do with this? With the fire... and the deaths of the villagers?"
"I wouldn't rule it out." Hiei muttered. "But why, if he was Shikei's puppet? Why would Shikei want her own village to fall."
Yukina had no answers.
"...Lets keep moving." Yusuke spoke up from the road, "This place gives me the creeps and I feel like we're being watched."
"We probably are." Kuwabara agreed. "But where do we go? How do we get to the castle?"
"We're on the outskirts of town." Yukina spoke up, bowing her head as she exited the shop to keep from getting cinders in her hair. She wiped her dirty hands off on her kimono. "We'll need to make our way up the main road. It'll fork at the five points. Each point leads to a different section of town... we'll want to take the northern road. That will lead us to the mountain pass... And other places." Yukina paused.
"So let's get moving!" Yusuke urged. "The sooner we can take this old bitch out the better!"
"But it's not that easy-"
"Oh for the love of god!" Yusuke moaned, rubbing his face with his hands, "What the fuck do we have to do now?"
"Well, I mean, we can head there if you like... but we have to be careful!" Yukina urged. "The villagers may be gone, but the land is still very dangerous!"
"So what are you saying?" Mukuro snapped. "What invades this land?"
"Snow storms, and they're awful!" Yukina warned. "They kill koorime all the time... they're so cold and so thick that you freeze alive!"
"So we'll just use Hiei!" Kuwabara offered.
"We cannot give away our position!" Mukuro snapped, "Shikei will know we have come."
"If she doesn't already know now." Yusuke added warily.
"And will slaughter us before we can gain the upper hand!" Mukuro finished, pursing her lips.
"But then what do we do?" Kuwabara gripped his hair, infuriated.
"We can take cover in one of the houses!" Yukina offered "That should provide shelter enough. They may be strong but they do end after a brief period."
"Then let's do it." Hiei snapped.
They set off without another word, trekking through the snow and ash, heading for the center of town as they did so. The smell of burning flesh was strong upon the air, and Yukina grimaced.
"Jesus man, it stinks!" Yusuke muttered, his eyes beginning to sting. "What the fuck, Yukina? Do you guys ever bathe?"
"It doesn't usually smell like this." Yukina sounded the slightest bit irritated.
"Maybe the villagers resorted to cannibalism." Mukuro commented, casting a glance at some of the ruined houses, "I doubt many crops can grow here."
"Winter plants are our main crops for obvious reasons." Yukina explained. "We may have gone hungry a few times but we've never resorted to cannibalism, Mukuro."
"First time for everything." She sneered. "Never question out the sanity of a starving dog, Yukina."
Yukina said nothing, slightly disturbed by the idea of the villagers she had once known as family forced to eat one another in order to survive. The lack of people in the village left everything in an unnerving quiet, where nothing stirred save for a few wind chimes that tinkled in the wind or old doors that groaned in the breeze. Every house was dripping in white, rather odd for the time of year... Yukina was certain it was meant to hide the fact that every house had been torched. Had Shimo done this, and if so, why?
"What's that?" Kuwabara asked, pointing to a large dark pile in the snow up ahead. "Some kind of ceremonial mound?"
"No, there used to be a well there." Yukina muttered, wondering what had happened to the well. Had a new one been dug and the old one become an earth pile? "Maybe a new one... was... " but her voice drifted away into small silence as the fog lifted and she gained clear sight.
"Oh my god!" Yukina cried out, clapping her hands over her mouth.
"Holy shit." Yusuke gagged, clapping a hand over his mouth, "They roasted 'em!"
Indeed, they had.
Where the village well had once stood, now there was a massive pile of bodies. Yet unlike the pile below which had consisted of villagers who'd jumped these villagers appeared to have burned to death. Their blackened bodies were without feature or form, completely charred like logs out of a hearth. The remains of rope that had been used to tie them were thin and winding... mere strings after the blaze.
"Well shit!" Yusuke cursed again, "The houses are toast, the people are just as burnt... looks like someone had a party and didn't invite us."
"Dude, why would they do this?!" Kuwabara demanded, throwing a hand at the body pile, "What on earth could these people do to deserve this kind of death!?"
Yukina shivered, taking a step back so that she was behind Hiei.
Hiei stared in somber silence. He had nothing to say for this sort of ignorance.
Mukuro was likewise unamused.
She stepped forward, making a bee line for the burnt body pile and stooping over to tear a limb off from a faceless corpse. Kuwabara made a gagging noise at the sight, sound, and smell, but Mukuro brought the arm up to eye level, looking into the bone marrow as if for clues. Her hands were stained black from the act.
"The marrow is cold. This body has been here for at least three weeks." Mukuro snapped. "These people were burnt long ago. The bodies in the gorge, however, were fresh. It gives me an incentive to believe that this act lead to the other."
"What do you mean?" Yusuke asked, curious to hear Mukuro's theory.
"Look at this way." Mukuro narrowed her eyes, gesturing with the dead arm for emphasis, "Shikei creates a doll. That requires a lot of magic and a lot of power. I don't think it went unnoticed. I think someone started talking. I think that someone told a lot of their friends, and the next thing you know we've got a whole group of people speculating about the authority of their fraudulent leader. Shikei can't stand for that sort of uprising, so she has the traitors torched, and then burns their houses to warn the others not to fuck around with her control... without goods, crops, or a well... people started starving. But Shikei refuses to help, and says that this is all ordained. She sounds like the kind of bitch who'd take on the role of god." Mukuro added spitefully, "So the villagers start getting picked off. First the weak. Then the old. Then the young... you know how it goes. Finally, they can't take it anymore. They go mad... and they jump. Maybe not all at once... maybe one by one. But in the end, they all jumped to their death... because they'd rather die than live on this godforsaken ice rock."
Mukuro finished, tossing the burnt arm onto the blackened pile.
"...Shit, man." Yusuke muttered, scratching his chin in thought, "It kind a fits, you know?"
"The elders word is law." Yukina mumbled in agreement, still behind Hiei as if unwilling to stare directly at the gruesome pile, "Anyone who goes against the elders must die. Usually they're forced to jump... but maybe... this time it was the other way around. Maybe Shikei wanted them burned. It would have traumatized the others, especially the children."
"And it would keep all the others scared shitless." Yusuke added, ticking off a notable finger.
"Damn her!" Kuwabara spat, his moral ambiguity flaring up at once, "Damn them all, for doing this to the weak and innocent! These people were suffering!" he shouted, breathing hard, "And they did nothing! They don't deserve to lead! They deserve to get their asses kicked!" "
Kuwabara's voice echoed around the valley, bouncing off the burnt houses and up to the far off view of the castle. Yukina gasped, biting her lip as if afraid.
"Kazuma, you mustn't yell!" Yukina begged, "We don't know who could be hearing or watching!"
"I don't care if they hear me!" Kuwabara kept shouting, stamping one of his huge feet into the snow, "I want justice! For your mother! For her people! For you!"
"Kazuma I beg of you-!"
A distant rumbling caught Hiei's and Kurama's ears.
"Quiet!" Kurama snarled, his long Yoko fangs bared as he looked over his shoulder in tense fear. Silence fell at once as Kuwabara clamped his large mouth shut. Without his screams, the rumbling became more apparent.
"... What is that noise." Yusuke murmured, his amber eyes growing wide as his breathing quickened.
Hard, banging rumbling... the sound of a million thundering hooves-
"Oh no!" Yukina screamed, clapping her hands over her mouth, "We have to run!"
All eyes turned back to the path from which they'd come, where a strange white wall had suddenly formed. An ice storm! Moving fast and furious, it swallowed building after building in billowing waves of snow; it would surely kill them all if they were caught inside it!
"Run!" Kurama roared, grabbing Kuwabara and Yusuke by the shoulder of their jackets and shoving them hard towards the northern road.
The entire group took off, pelting down the street as they desperately searched for a house! But every one that they passed was burned in or caved down, no good for shelter from such a storm!
"What do we do?!" Yusuke demanded over the wind, running as fast as his feet could carry him, "Where do we go?!"
"I know of a place!" Yukina screamed back, her speed nearly matching her brother's as they reached the five points and took the northern branch. "If we can reach it in time, we'll be safe!"
"Well let's hurry the hell up!" Yusuke roared, casting a quick glance over his shoulder! The snow was ten feet high, pouring out over the village like a demonic blanket and wiping out life in a flood!
They took a turn to the left, a turn to the right-! Yukina lead the way, huffing and puffing as the storm gained ground on them! It was at their heels now, practically nipping their skin in a frigid blast that froze the blood and stopped the heart!
Through the walls of ice and trees, a sturdy shack appeared just out of sight!
"There!" Yukina screamed.
The door was mercifully ajar, even if only by an inch or so, and Mukuro kicked it wide open as she pelted through! Hiei was next, grabbing the handle and urging the rest in as Yukina, Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Kurama flew in after them. Hiei slammed the door shut, bolting it just as the sudden blizzard overtook the house and plunged them all into darkness.
"Shit!" Yusuke yelped, "What in the fuck was that?! I mean, what the fuck!" Yusuke's anger was universal, and Mukuro gasped as she clutched her pounding heart. If they had been overtaken by the snow, all would have been lost. No amount of demonic energy could withstand a Hyouga snow storm... they would have been frozen in the snow.
The door rattled violently on its hinges, and Kurama immediately stepped forward to plant seeds in its cracks. Using his energy, thick vines grew and wrapped the door tight like a swaddling net. The rattling ceased... the door held fast.
"Nice thinking, man." Kuwabara thanked him, "But I feel kinda bad busting into someone's house. I mean, they're probably in that pile you know? ... Still..." He shuddered.
"No. They're not."
Yukina spoke up from the hearth where she had knelt. She was looking at a moldy chair which sat close to the empty grate with a strange expression of sorrow.
"You okay, babe?" Kuwabara asked.
Yukina did not reply, staring up at the chair as if she longed to touch the one who might have once sat in it.
Hiei regarded his sister warily from behind the broken couch, coming around the rotting ataman to stand at her side.
He looked about at each faded wall, at the broken floorboards through which odd weeds grew. Perhaps around that corner, a kitchen might have once flourished with life around a cast iron pot. Down the short hallway, Hiei was almost certain that a bedroom could be found. Yet how did he know these things if he'd never been in the house before? Perhaps the jagan was to blame... and yet... Hiei was uncertain.
"Yukina." HIei addressed his sister. "Did... we live here?"
Yukina did not answer him. Her eyes were closed and her brow was furrowed. She looked over her shoulder, opening her mouth as if to answer him. Yet her eyes fell onto the darkened hallway, and she paused with her mouth still open.
Slowly, she rose up to her feet. Ignoring Hiei's curious gaze, she trod around the couch past Kuwabara and Yusuke down the darkened hallway.
She knew the way. She'd walked it before.
There was only one door, down on the end at the left.
She stared at it.
"Yukina! Yukina no!" Rui begged, desperately trying to grab Yukina's pudgy hands even as she jerked away. The house was full of elders, all of whom were in the hallway talking rapidly to one another with angry voices. Their eyes fell on Yukina with disdain and pity as the little girl wound her way through their kimono folds.
"Mama!" Yukina cried out, screaming even as hands held her back from the door, "Mama!"
No one answered.
"Someone stop her!" Rui begged, unable to get through as the elders blocked her way, "Don't let her see! She mustn't! She's just a child!"
"Every child must grow up." The oldest elder, Shikei growled from her place by the door. "Yukina is no exception. Today is an important day for her Rui. Today is the day she learns how weak her mother really is. Pathetic and clumsy even in her own suicide."
The word 'suicide' seemed like a foreign language in Yukina's little ears, and she would not hear it. She finally reached the door amid the forest of legs and skirts. She grabbed it, pushing it open.
Yukina reached out, and very gently touched the door. It creaked open, rotting on its broken hinges.
A body lay lifeless on the floor, cluttered by a coil of rope that hung tight around its neck. From the ceiling rafts, half of the rope still swung in the soft breeze that came through the open window. Yukina trembled on her tiny legs, stumbling forward.
The face of the person on the floor was hidden by a massive curtain of dark blue hair.
"...Mama..." Yukina called out.
The body on the floor did not move nor answer her plea.
"Yukina!" Rui cried out from the hallway, forcing her way through till she reached the door frame, "Yukina, come back here! Don't look! Come away!" Rui begged.
Yukina did not listen.
She dropped to her knees, crawling forward on the dusty floor till she reached the body. She reached out, picking up a long lock of the blue hair to pull it away from the hidden face.
Her mother's blank eyes stared out at her, her entire pate swollen and blue from suffocation.
Yukina screamed at the top of her lungs, clapping her hands over her eyes and rocking back and forth, her cries echoing about the room unheeded by the elders. Only Rui came to her aid, scooping her up from the floor and pulling her away. Rui cradled her in her arms, hiding her from the world and pushing her way through the hall.
Rui whisked her away from the house, and did not look back. Rui protected her, regardless of what her heart longed to do in grief of her fallen friend.
An old bit of weathered rope hung from the rafters, untouched through the years.
Yukina stared at the spot on the floor where her mothers body had once lain... only feet away from the ancient crib that had once held her and Hiei as infants. Her mothers bed was molded beyond repair, covered with dark lichen so that the covers were indistinguishable from the mattress.
She stared, and felt nothing in her heart.
From the living room, Hiei watched the shadow of his sisters form move silently across the walls. As she re emerged into the main entrance, she looked withered and pale.
"... We'll have to wait the storm out here." Yukina whispered, her voice strained as if by distress. "We cannot venture outside until the ghosts have settled. Death awaits the foolish traveler during such times."
"That's cool. We'll chill here." Yusuke nodded, looking about. "Nice place. Who lived here? Friends of yours?"
Yukina did not answer. She walked back to the chair by the fire, and sat down in it. It groaned ominously underneath her weight but did not fall in. She stared into the empty grate, looking lost and miserable.
Hiei flicked a finger at the hearth, and a small fire sparked in the hearth. Its light filled the house, chasing the ghosts and shadows of the past back like a beautiful bright shield. Yukina looked down into her lap where her white satchel lay, and gently withdrew a small pot bound in powerful scrolls. She stroked the clay surface, looking into the fire.
"What's up with this place?" Kuwabara asked. Yukina did not answer him.
"... I feel... like someone's watching us, you know?" He murmured to himself, treading carefully lest he fall through the rotten floorboards. "I feel like someone's stuck here. You know?"
"Yeah." Yusuke admitted. "Like someone's really sad and can't leave."
"You are close, but not correct." Kurama spoke up after a moment of hesitant silence, reaching out and touching the weather walls. "It is not a someone that you feel... but a something. Something terrible happened here. A person died here in a fit of grief and rage. Now their presence lingers, but not their spirit. The final moments of their tragic life are held here... cocooned in that moment when their last breath past their lips. They say in the ancient texts of Japan that when a person meets a terrible end something is left behind... a scar on the air... a stain on the earth." Kurama paused. "A hateful grudge... that will not leave until it knows justice."
"Long winded and wistful as usual." Hiei sneered. "... But your correct. I can sense it too."
"Yukina, do you know what happened in this house?" Kurama asked.
Yukina did not answer him, staring into the grate that now held a tiny flame.
Mukuro had had enough of the silence. She pushed past Kuwabara and Yusuke, taking the hallway Yukina had trod through to find the lonely door. It smacked against the wall from her strength, and she observed the dangling bit of rope hanging from the rafter.
She spotted the crib and the molded bed. A broken coil of rope lay about on the floor... as if forgotten by the one who had left it there.
Dark powerful energy wafted from it.
Mukuro snatched it up at once, grabbing the bit that hung from the ceiling as well. Storming back to the hearth where Yukina sat, she tossed the icy rope inside. At once, it cracked and popped in the heat, hissing and spitting at the flame. As if resisting its death, the rope curled into a black lumped char instead of ash. Mukuro did not care, merely glad to see it go in any way possible.
"What was that?" Kuwabara asked, curious. "What did you do that for?"
"This house is their house." Mukuro addressed, pointing to Hiei and Yukina. "Their mother was murdered in the bedroom, hung to death by the rope I just tossed. The presence your feeling is Hina's death."
"What?!" Kuwabara gasped, looking about the house in awe and fear. "You mean, you mean Hina died here?"
"We cannot stay." Kurama shook his head at once, heading for the door as if intending to rip off the vines. "We cannot be in this house. Our presence will only anger the memory."
"We cannot leave." Yukina spoke up from her chair. "The blizzard will kill us."
"I would rather die than anger a ghost." Kurama warned Yukina. "I should think you wise enough to know why."
Yukina continued to stare into the hearth, looking more tired than ever.
"Why should the ghost be angry if it's our mother." Yukina whispered. "Maybe it's glad we're home."
Behind her, Hiei looked away as if pained by her words.
"I don't give a shit if she's happy or not." Mukuro grumbled. "We're camping here until the blizzard dies down. The minute it does we're heading to the castle and kicking the shit out of Shikei. I've had enough of this ridiculous emotional history! You hear me?" Mukuro warned Yukina. "I have fought battles all my life, little koorime, and none of them were won by grief and despair. If you truly love your mother, if you truly want to avenge her, then you must leave behind the sadness that you fear. Do you understand me? This is your house! Do not let it be tainted by the evil that Shikei intends!"
Silence fell after her words.
Yukina tilted her head, casting a dark glance at Mukuro out of the corner of her eye.
"... You sounded like my mother just now." Yukina finally spoke. "... She was angry all the time."
"Well I don't blame her." Mukuro snorted. "Look at this dump! Look at her children!" Mukuro snapped, waving a biconical hand at Yukina and Hiei. "One of them a wet blanket and the other one an asshole!"
Hiei seemed rather impressed by this, and even cracked a strange smile.
Mukuro raised her only eyebrow at him.
"What are you smiling at, you're half the problem!" Mukuro warned.
"Oh come on man!" Yusuke groaned, "Why do you have to be such an ass, huh? They're upset, that's what happens when you come home after a long time to find nothing but ghosts and dust! I mean look at this place... it's horrible. Maybe they're remembering how it once looked, yeah? So don't get on their cases about being sad. We're cool, but no one picks on my friends. You get me, Mukuro?" Yusuke warned.
"Yeah!" Kuwabara added with gusto. "This is a sad moment! It's okay to be upset!"
"You give them the power!" Mukuro snapped, "You give them half the victory by shedding tears over ghosts."
"It is healthy to mourn." Kurama challenged.
"You call this stale disgusting pile healthy?" Mukuro snapped. "The air we breath is poisoned by rot."
"Then what would you have us do? Spruce it up?" Yusuke sneered sarcastically. He shrugged off his jacket, rubbing it against the wall hard to reveal a soft yellow paint that had been molded by time. "Look at that! Yellow walls! Better now?"
Mukuro glared, unamused.
"I'm serious man!" Yusuke continued on, angry, "I know you demons are all about fighting and killing, being strong and stuff, but damnit sometimes life sucks and isn't fair! Hell look at me! I had to watch my own mother cry over my dead body! It wasn't fun, I can tell you that much!" His amber eyes flashed at this, as if the memory of which he spoke was burned into his mind.
"Just because you've never had a parent to mourn doesn't give you the right to deny it to them." Yusuke growled, his voice dark with intent.
Mukuro bristled, her teeth bared at the insult. She cracked her neck, took a step forward, but was cut off by Hiei who held out a hand.
"No." Hiei muttered. "Now is not the time to pick a fight. The house would cave from the chaos and then we'd all freeze alive. No doubt the idiot's screams alerted Shikei to our presence... this must be her doing."
"You do your mother a disservice by giving Shikei power over your emotions." Mukuro snapped, glaring at Yusuke even as the Mazoku glared back.
Hiei looked up at her, his eyes devoid of anger or spite. Instead they were simply tired, and perhaps a little old. 'What would you have me do' they seemed to say.
"... This is fucking ridiculous." Mukuro finally snapped, turning away from Hiei's unhappy eyes. She couldn't stand them- they made her want to throw up! She wanted them to be full of anger- to rage and burn! But now, in the depths of snow, Hiei's eyes had changed from bright and violent to dark and somber. In this house, where he had once been swaddled and rocked, Hiei had changed from a soldier to a silent witness.
Because here there were no enemies to fight, save ghosts... and ghosts could not be touched by a blade.
Mukuro stormed away, heading up the hall to the darkened room where Hina had once been slain. There she would stay, all night if she had to... However long it took to purge Hiei- to pure herself- of this madness in which the Koorime lived.
Late into the night, with only the wind at the shutters to make noise, Mukuro sat with her back to the molding wall, and observed the dark red smudge on the floor.
It did not intimidate her in the least.