Chapter 21

A demon's howling, snarling face popped up only inches from Rin's nose; at the same time, a crash of thunder shook the pitch black passage. Rin screamed, fists lifted with Spirit Knives ready, Spirit Knives she didn't remember summoning, her heart pounding. Sweat broke out all over her skin. She couldn't hear anything but a shrill ringing as she lunged for the awful face and was pulled back. Her vision narrowed until it was all she could see. She roared in rage and fear, struggling to get away from the hands restraining her, and at the same time she couldn't breathe, couldn't get enough air. She wanted to fight, put down the threat, wanted to run as far as she could, wanted to curl up in a ball and shriek. Someone was saying something, but she couldn't make out the words.

And then there was a hand on her back. Warm, to the edge of burning. But not burning like a wildfire, out of control and destroying everything in its path. Burning like a campfire, or a candle in the dark. It brought her back to herself, if only a little. She focused on the feeling, and slowly she remembered where she was. The panic attack wasn't gone, but the knife's edge of pain and anxiety was blunted.

Rin was in an amusement park funhouse with Kuwabara, Yukina, and Hiei. It was his hand on her back. She felt the outline of his fingers pressing against her skin through her shirt, keeping her steady like a ship's anchor in rough waters.

He kept his hand there, fingers light, as they made their way through the inky black haunted hallway, following the vague outlines of Kuwabara and Yukina. There were a few blasts of air, more scare actors jumping out, creepy noises and more thunderclaps playing over speakers somewhere in the rafters, screams from other people ahead and behind, and then they were out. His hand fell away.

The funhouse had started with a revolving tunnel to walk through, stumbling and laughing, and then a corridor with moving floors to walk through, stumbling again. Rin had eyed the darkness of the haunted hallway skeptically, but had not expected to react so strongly to its (frankly juvenile) scares. She hadn't been to a haunted house since… since before the Dark Tournament, and the dark hallway with things jumping out at her was just another of the items on an increasingly long list that gave her flashbacks. Maybe she needed more therapy. Or another therapist. She could say she had been a soldier. It wasn't far from the truth.

The next area was a dimly lit hall of mirrors, which after the loud and dark hallway was a welcome respite. Their images were reflected back to them a thousand times over, fractured and whole and distorted. Pathways led off in all directions through the maze, but it was impossible to tell how large the room actually was.

After making sure Rin was all right, Yukina said, "Come on, Kazuma, let's go this way." She took his hand and pulled him into the rightmost corridor, one hand out in front to stop her from bashing her nose on an unexpected wall. As she disappeared into the maze, Yukina looked back, caught Rin's eye, and winked.

While his sister and brother-in-law abandoned the two of them, Hiei had been looking around at the mirror maze, perplexed. "But what is the point of this?" he asked.

"Fun, I guess," Rin said shortly, still jittery and embarrassed.

He gave her a flat, red stare, fully done with the foolishness of humans.

"Come on, the faster we get through, the faster we get out," she said, taking a deep breath. "Let's go."

"Or the fastest way: I break myself out," Hiei said under his breath. She pretended not to hear him.

They dove into the maze, picking a path at random, sometimes running into glass walls or their own reflections, other times hitting dead ends. Sometimes they passed other people on their way through the maze, and once waved at Yukina and Kuwabara, as if from a long distance away due to the many panes of glass and mirrors between them. Even though Rin knew other people were wandering through the mirror maze, even with their images literally reflected at her from all sides, it felt like she and Hiei were isolated on another planet, separate from the rest of the world.

And then she found another dead end, turned, and he wasn't there. He must have taken a different pathway and left her without realizing. After all, mirror mazes were meant to confuse. A niggle of worry wormed its way into her mind, but she reminded herself that he was an adult (not to mention a demon!) and could find his way out. There was only one exit. Allegedly. Thoughts of nefarious carnies putting up a mirror maze to abduct people floated into her head, but she pushed them away. Time to get out of here and leave the funhouse behind.

Rin straightened her shoulders, walked back down the passage, and only got a few steps before a hand clamped tight over her mouth.

"Sleep," hissed a voice.

She did.


Rin woke slowly, swimming up from the depths of unconsciousness a few times only to be pulled back down. Once she came to herself and realized that she was being carried somewhere before passing out again. Another time, someone was tying her to a chair as the same voice told her again to sleep.

When she finally woke and stayed awake, she kept her eyes closed and listened, hoping to hear something that might help her. And while the haunted hallway had given her a panic attack, she found that she was eerily calm and focused after being knocked out and kidnapped.

Steps came from somewhere around her, accompanied by the creaking of an ancient wooden floor. The room smelled of dust and stale air. Rin pretended to still be asleep, hanging limp in the bonds around her chest and legs, letting her head hang down bonelessly.

"Wake up and look at me." It was the same voice as before, with a sibilant command under the silken tone.

Before she could resist, the order wormed its way past her conscious brain to somewhere much more primitive, and she opened her eyes.

A woman stood there, tall and slender, with gossamer-thin, blond hair and large, liquid hazel eyes over high, delicate cheekbones. She was watching Rin carefully. Rin blinked, bringing more of the room into focus. It was a dank, cramped storage room filled with the detritus of fifty years of funhouse operation. Piles of tangled wires and cables, layers upon layers of brochures, posters, and wrappers, shelves of rusted props and devices, and a thick layer of dust covering everything. A single lightbulb hung from a wire in the ceiling. It seemed no one had entered this room in twenty years at least.

The woman cocked her head, drawing Rin's gaze, and she saw that the woman had wings. Iridescent, translucent wings that she wrapped around herself like a cloak. And sprouting from the crown of her head were two fluffy rainbow antennae, like those of a colorful moth.

"I sincerely apologize for the inauspicious nature of this meeting," the woman said. Her lips were full and red. "My name is Mayuga Nokawa. As you may have ascertained, I am related to Sanzu Nokawa, whom you met at the wedding of Kazuma and Yukina Kuwabara. He was my brother."

Rin could not hold back a small gasp. She had wondered fleetingly if the woman could be related to the dragonfly demon, but she had not expected such a close family connection. Focus. She needed to get out of here. If Mayuga was anything like her brother, Rin was in a great deal of danger indeed. Double, if the woman wanted revenge. She was at least as strong as her brother; Rin could feel her aura pressing in.

She wiggled her fingers experimentally; her hands were tied together behind the back of the chair with thick, scratchy rope. Her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair and several loops of the same rope wrapped uncomfortably around her chest and shoulders.

"What do you want?" Rin asked, letting an edge of panic into her voice. "Why are you doing this?" Better to have the demon underestimate her.

"Both excellent questions, my dear," Mayuga said, elegantly brushing a long strand of hair out of her face. "What I want may take some time to explain. But first, I must apologize for my brother's abhorrent actions at your friend's wedding. I told him that his plan would never work and that it was terribly uncouth to attack someone at their nuptials, but Sanzu has always been somewhat of a loose cannon, as you humans like to say." She paused, then said in a lower voice, "I am aware that you had a hand in doing away with my brother, and while I loved him very much, I am trying not to blame you for what happened."

A spike of fear went through Rin's heart. Did this demon want revenge? If she did, why wasn't Rin already dead?

Rin stretched her fingers as much as she could, trying to summon one of her Spirit Knives without alerting Mayuga, but her energy sputtered and died. If she could just concentrate enough, she could cut free. But her head was pounding; she suspected that whatever mind control the woman had used came with a heaping side dish of headache, which was not conducive to summoning Spirit Energy. So far the best plan was to keep the woman talking. Hiei and the others were out there and certainly looking for her.

"I'm sorry about what happened," Rin said, ducking her chin and trying to look contrite. "Now please, let me go."

Mayuga shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't do that yet. I need a captive audience, if you'll excuse the terrible pun. And please stop trying to escape. If you do, my men will have to subdue you, and I'm sure we don't want that."

Rin's fingers stilled and she paled. Out of the shadows in the corner of the room stepped two demons, both large, muscular, and green, fanged mouths turned down into scowls. They bracketed Mayuga like bodyguards, arms folded.

"I apologize; I do so hate having to use threats. Please excuse my rudeness, but needs must." Mayuga clapped her hands. "Now. Let me get to the point." Though her manner was confident, the demon seemed unsure of how to begin. "How to explain this?" She tapped her chin, then lifted a finger. "Oh yes, I've got it. Tell me, have you heard of King Raizen?"

The question was so unexpected that Rin was silent for a few seconds. What in the world did a dead demon king have to do with her kidnapping? Was this woman insane? Better to hear her out, in any case. Finally, she admitted, "Yes, I know a little about him."

"Splendid," the moth demon said. "Now, you must know that King Raizen refused to eat human flesh after being saved by a human woman. He wasted away until he died."

Yes, Botan had told Rin the story, back in the day when Yusuke had gone to Demon World and the two girls were still keeping in touch. The ferry girl had framed it as all being terribly romantic. Rin nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Not all demons need to eat human meat," Mayuga continued, her antenna vibrating slightly, "but many must consume it to survive. They can't live on any other food, like King Raizen." She locked eyes with Rin. "When Raizen's ancestral son, your friend Yusuke Urameshi, destroyed the previous Three Kings governing system, he de facto decreed that humans and demons must live in harmony."

Rin just stared at her, waiting for her to go on. This woman really loved the sound of her own voice, just like her brother. Must have been a family trait. Rin kept working her fingers and wrists, trying to keep her shoulders from moving and giving away the game.

"And on the face of it, all of that harmony is a good thing," Mayuga continued. "Humans and demons getting along, no one killing each other, open borders between the three worlds and a democratically-elected king. Progress. Everyone lives happily ever after. But that's not the reality." She took a breath. "With a moratorium on human-demon conflict, that means… That means that some demons cannot get the food that they need to survive. Many are starving to death as we speak."

"That doesn't make sense," Rin interrupted. "None of the demons I know eat humans."

Mayuga shook her head. "Some demons are lucky to be omnivores, like your friends Kurama and Hiei. They can eat non-human animals, vegetables, fruit - whatever they can find. But there are those who cannot eat anything but human flesh and blood, like King Raizen. Some have gone insane with hunger, attacked humans, and have been put down, their only crime trying to eat to survive."

She watched Rin, seemingly waiting for an answer, but Rin had no idea what she wanted. An apology? A confession? A conversion? Finally, Rin said, "I'm very sorry to hear that and all, but I'm not sure what you want me to do." She tried to shrug her shoulders, forgetting for a moment that she was tied to a chair.

Taking a deep breath and looking intently at Rin, Mayuga said, "My brother gave his life trying to save himself and others like him who must eat human flesh. His way was terribly misguided, but he was fighting for our right to live." Pausing to gather herself, she continued, voice growing louder as she warmed to her topic, "You must understand that we are sentient beings. We think, we feel, we love. We create art. We fight. We are as human as you are. It is not our fault that we must eat human flesh; how else are we to live? You humans do not condemn yourselves for eating cattle, chickens, and even intelligent animals like pigs and octopi. How can Spirit World and Yusuke Urameshi tell me and my compatriots that we deserve to die?"

Rin was stunned. Her mind whirled at the implications. If all that were true… Well, she knew Spirit World was not as squeaky clean as it pretended to be. They couldn't just ignore the problem, could they? They couldn't just let intelligent beings die for something that wasn't their fault. But they also couldn't let demons murder humans for food.

"On the face of it, democracy and peace are good things. But Spirit World has ignored our many pleas for help, and we are growing desperate. Hungry." Mayuga's expression twisted with pain and disgust, and her voice grew softer. "Have you ever been so hungry that you would gnaw off your own arm, just to have something in your belly? I have. I am."

Rin's mouth hung open. Her mind had not yet even begun to process any of this. She started to speak, but Mayuga interrupted her, spearing her in place with the intensity in her hazel eyes.

"I am a proud woman; I do not ask for assistance easily, especially from humans. Particularly from a human who helped murder my beloved brother. Please, I am asking you, and your precious Spirit World, on behalf of all of my brothers and sisters: we need your help."


Author's note: And thus, Plot finally arrives!

One thing that has bothered me about the Three Kings/Demon World Tournament arc is that Raizen starves to death after declaring he would never eat another human. If he could eat other things besides humans, it seems like a pointless, if romantic, gesture for him to starve to death. If he can't, then there should be other demons who can't eat anything but human flesh, and we never hear about them. I decided to take it in the second direction, and I hope you enjoy my speculation about it!