WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

191. Lucky 57-70

Chapter 57: Sleeping Dogs Lie

Summary:

In which Not-Quite-Keiko learns certain truths, and ignores others.

Notes:

While I think it's rather self-explanatory after a few paragraphs, the first chunk of this chapter is a flashback to when Kagome and Keiko came home after their visit to the past. There are some hints/foreshadowings (er, past-shadowings? Is it possible to foreshadow something that happened in the past?) about Daughters of Destiny, but no spoilers aside from how they both made it back safely (though I don't think that will come as a shock to anyone). Thanks!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Eyes swollen, cheeks wet with tears, Kagome sat up and pushed away from me, away from the arm I'd wound around her shoulders. She scrubbed her sleeve across her face and said, "So what's the plan for the worst case scenario, huh?"

I frowned, because the question—spoken in a voice gummy from crying—had come apropos of absolutely nothing. In fact, it had nothing to do what she'd been crying over in the first place.

"Y'know." She snuffled, trying to dry her running nose. "If I run into the two of you and he recognizes me?"

It clicked.

"He" could only mean Kurama.

I didn't say anything for a minute, leaning back against the headboard of Kagome's twin bed. She sat with her mouth pressed to her knees at my side, eyes distant and unfocused. She wore pajamas too big for her tiny frame, long black hair hanging in clumping mats around her heart-shaped face, arms clutching her legs to her chest. Hair combed straight back over my head, still feeling damp from the bath we'd taken to scrub of the dust of a previous century, there hadn't been time to reflect on our trip to the Feudal Era—not beyond the horrible truth Kagome had learned, anyway. Not beyond that horrible revelation that had caused her to cry in the first place.

Honestly? It made sense she'd want to change the subject. I didn't envy her one bit, even if she'd finally found some of the answers she'd been searching for since Hiruko put her in the body of an anime character.

Sometimes, ignorance really was bliss.

"Good question," I said. "Here's another: What are the odds he'll recognize you, do you think?"

She stirred, eyes focusing again. "I mean. High, right? He's Kurama." She put a knuckle to her temple and turned her hand like she twisted the shaft of a key. "Mind like a steel trap."

"That's true. But would even he remember you after 500 years? That's a long time to remember a face you only saw once, and only for half an hour."

Her head lifted off her knees, rising higher with confidence. "Good point," Kagome said. "And he didn't seem to remember you when you met in this era, right?"

"Right. But I was a lot less interesting than you were during the incident in the past. You were the one who interacted with him most." But that wouldn't comfort Kagome, who clearly needed comfort more than hard truth (she'd already faced too much of that for one day). I dropped the subject in favor of saying: "Even so. It was just for an hour, and 500 years ago. I really doubt his memory of you is razor sharp."

She nodded—and then she managed to smile, even if the expression trembled at the corners. "And you know what? Youko Kurama didn't give much of a crap about humans, back in the day. Why would he commit a little human girl to memory when he only met her once?"

Once—that we know of, I wanted to say, but I didn't.

Comfort, even at the expense of truth.

We'd have to let this sleeping dog lie until she was ready to wake it from its slumber.

"Whatever the case," I said, "here's hoping we weren't impressive or memorable enough for Kurama to recall after 500 years."

She listed to one side, head pillowing on my shoulder. "Say it again."

I grinned. "500 years."

Kagome hummed, appreciative. "Once more time."

"500 years."

"Ooh, nice. Very comforting." She affected a delighted shiver, a la the hyenas from Lion King, although the moment of levity wasn't meant to last. Head on my shoulder again, Kagome murmured, "But if I do ever run into him, we'll use the codename again."

"Different from the one we used in the past, though," I said. "Throw him off the scent even more. How about, um…Mitsuki or something?"

I half expected Kagome to argue, tell me to pick a prettier name, or another flower-name to go with her previous floral alias. I expected her to bring up the names of other anime characters and make a joke about impersonating one, one anime character inhabiting the name of another like a Russian nesting doll of meta anime references.

She did not do any of that, however.

Kagome only nodded and murmured the word, "Sure."

I changed the subject, because that's what Kagome needed.

Kuwabara broke the silence first. He had no reason to be afraid, or perplexed, or stunned into silence—the emotions plastered across the faces of Kagome, Kurama, and myself respectively. He looked between Kagome and I with a confused scowl, though, for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Wait," he said. "Eeyore?" At that he gasped and bolted to his feet, knock-kneed and gangly in his alarm. "Are you tellin' me that even this kid has a nickname for you, Keiko?!"

Had my pulse not started throbbing in my broken leg, it would've been hilarious how far over Kuwabara's head this situation flew. Kurama's eyes flickered to Kuwabara, the lightest trace of annoyance crossing his features at the outburst, but he said nothing and retuned his gaze to Kagome. He didn't look outright angry, which I counted as quite the blessing. He just stared at Kagome with the lightest of frowns—and although I couldn't read his face beyond the smallest edge of confusion, I took comfort in the fact Kuwabara was there.

Kurama, private person as he was, likely wouldn't make a scene over this with Kuwabara present. He had both his secrets, not to mention mine, to keep hidden.

As I struggled to find my tongue and answer Kuwabara's question, Kagome's stare travelled from Kuwabara to Kurama and then back to me again, a round of wide-eyed horror and confusion that she played off within a second or two (thank my lucky fucking stars). She bustled over to the table in the corner and dumped her bundle of sunflowers in the ice bucket, putting her back to us as she fussed with the flowers—because not all of them fit in the bucket. She paused, then grabbed a glass of water and stuck a flower in there, too, one by one arranging the blossoms in every last drinking vessel she could reach, flowers scattered over that side-table with no discernable pattern whatsoever.

Buying for time, by the looks of it.

Time for me to step in.

"Um—this is my friend Mitsuki," I said, gesturing at Kagome. She looked over her shoulder at me, face schooled into a polite (if not slightly manic in its intensity) smile. "Say hi, Mitsuki."

"Hi Mitsuki," said Kagome. She winced, curling her hair behind her ears and hopping from foot to foot. "I mean, hi, I'm Mitsuki." Her smiled went even more manic, twitching at one corner. "Are, um. Are these your friends, Eeyore?"

"Yes. This is Minamino Shuichi and Kuwabara Kazuma." The aforementioned bowed a little (although Kurama's unreadable green eyes never wavered). To the boys I said, "I met Mitsuki at the library. We're good buds."

Kuwabara broke out in a wide grin. "Oh, well, any friend of Keiko's is a friend of mine." He extended his hand toward Kagome, and thanks to their height difference he loomed over her like a skyscraper over a shack. "Great t' meetcha!"

Her hand all but disappeared in his enormous grip. "Great to meet you too," she said—but her eyes strayed to Kurama, who still stared at her with expression utterly inscrutable, and her face paled. She pulled her hand from Kuwabara's and smiled at the fox demon, the twitch at the corner of her mouth growing all the more pronounced.

"And, um." She did not approach for a handshake. "It was nice to meet you as well."

Kurama inclined his head. As if he'd thrown something at her, she dipped into a low, dramatic bow, bent at a clean 90 degrees at the waist. Kuwabara blinked down at her with a low, "Huh?"

"Anyway—gee, look at the time!" She popped up from the bow and made a show of looking at her watch, followed by an exaggerated wave. "I gotta get going! Sure was good to see you, Eeyore—I mean, Keiko." The look she shot me was as loaded as a machine gun, eyes nearly bugging from her skull. "Hopefully we'll do it again soon, yeah?"

"Yeah, but—wait!"

Alas, there would be no waiting, because no sooner had the word 'yeah' left my lips than Kagome darted for the door. Kurama watched with eyebrow raised; Kuwabara watched with jaw hanging open. As for me, I just buried my head in my hands and sighed.

That…could have gone better.

Not suspicious at all, Kagome, nooo…

When I let my hands fall, I found Kurama staring at me sidelong, eyes cool and assessing, wheels behind them turning as calculations fell into place. Inscrutable, though. Forever and always as difficult to read as the future in a cup of tea leaves.

"Uh, no offense or nothin'," Kuwabara said with a point at the door. "But your friend's a little, um…what's the word?" He winced. "Oh yeah. Weird?"

"She's shy around strangers," I said out loud—but inside I cursed the bad luck of Kagome's poor timing (or rather, the poor timing of the boys' visit, because Kagome was the only one who'd bothered to call ahead and schedule a meeting). I didn't blame Kagome for her awkward behavior, though, because obviously facing down Kurama was intimidating as all hell. I would've reacted the same way, had I been in Kagome's shoes after our adventure over summer break.

Green eyes stayed trained on me, trying their damndest to make me squirm. I refused, however, and looked Kurama dead in the eye to ask (in the most casual, concerned voice I could muster): "You OK, Kurama?"

He did not immediately react. When he spoke it was with deliberate leisureliness, Kurama in no hurry at all—which was honestly sort of terrifying in its own right. "That girl. She seemed…" A frown creased the skin between his eyes. "Has she visited you at school before?"

"Um." I put a finger to my lips, feigning thought. "Nope?"

"What's a matter, Kurama?" Kuwabara said. He sat heavily on my bed, mattress dipping under his weight, sliding me an inch toward him with a creek of sling. "You think you've seen her before or something?"

A bland smile. "No. She merely looks familiar. I'm sure it's just my imagination." But he followed that with a pointed stare straight at me, smile showing just the barest hint of teeth. "And if it's not, I'm sure the answer will come to me in time."

We stared at each other, while Kuwabara looked on in mystified silence. Kurama blinked first, seemingly in no rush for answers—and oh my god what was he planning, and how much did he suspect, really?

"Now," he said, all pleasant smiles and easygoing calm, "where were we before your friend…?"

I jumped on the subject change like a flea onto a dog, because this dog I felt more than content to let lie sleeping very still and undisturbed. "I was just about to tell you about my wild night," I said, and before anyone could delay, I launched right into the tale of outfitting the school, Amagi's arrival, and hiding in the PE shed when the teacher when full nutbar.

"So we hid there for a while," I said, "and you won't even believe this—but I heard a scream and ran to the window, and there she was: Botan! Just running across the lawn with a baseball bat, yelling my name, trying to find me. Isn't that wild?"

Kurama and Kuwabara exchanged a Look, which was weird, and what was up with the two of them all of a sudden? For a minute I wondered if they knew something I didn't about the Botan situation, which would be even wilder than her showing up out of the blue like she had—but then Kuwabara said: "Botan. I think I know that name—oh, right!" He snapped his fingers, eyes bright. "She's a friend of Yusuke's, isn't she?"

I snorted. "Of course she is."

"I remember," Kurama said. "She was the one who was cut by the Shadow Sword, was she not?"

"Of course she was," I said, impatient. "Do you guys really not remember—oh."

But before I could get going, the words died on my tongue. Pieces had clicked into place like the gears of a finely tuned watch.

Oh. Oh shit.

Kuwabara had never actually met Botan, had he?

Kuwabara was supposed to know Botan from her presence at Genkai's Tournament. Thanks to her little eye problem, she hadn't attended that tournament, and that meant…well, shit. Kuwabara had probably only heard of Botan in passing. And now that I thought about it, in the anime Kurama didn't formally meet Botan until the Dark Tournament, and in this world he'd only ever seen her unconscious right after she got cut with the Sword. So of course he hadn't much reacted to the idea of her showing up unannounced. He had no idea who Botan was or why her presence could cause alarm. Why be concerned by the presence of a stranger?

It came as no surprise, therefore, that Kuwabara and Kurama listened to my tale of Botan's plight with only the mildest of concern—or disgust, in Kuwabara's case, and fascination in Kurama's. Kuwabara turned nearly green when I told them of the eye ("She had a third what-now?!") caused by Hiei's cut with the Shadow Sword, but Kurama leaned forward in his seat with fingers steepled over his lap. The calculating glimmer in his eyes didn't fade when I finished my story. Neither did Kuwabara's look of revulsion, even after I said that Botan had disappeared when my back was turned, taking her gross new eye with her. I had no idea where she was now, I told them, and was worried for her safety—especially since she'd fled Spirit World's custody specifically to save me from the infected humans.

Even though Ayame hadn't meant to guilt-trip me, I felt guilty all the same. I swallowed a throat full of nerves and took a deep breath before continuing.

"To make matters even more complicated," I said, "I had a little visit from Ayame last night, on behalf of Spirit World."

Kurama scowled. "What did they want?"

"This time? Just to know where Botan is." I hesitated to tell them the hard truth, but now was not the time to hold back details (aside from my deliberate omission of Sailor V, naturally). "Ayame told me Botan's third eye manifested when she came to Human World, not before."

Kurama got it at once, eyes widening just the barest fraction. It took Kuwabara a bit longer, but he soon shoved his fist over his mouth with a gasp.

"Are you saying Botan got worse when she came to save you?" he said, eyes wide and apprehensive.

I nodded, grim. Kuwabara shot to his feet with a wave of his enormous hands. "Hey, it's not your fault she came here to help!" he said, because empathetic Kuwabara knew exactly where my overthinking brain was headed and had no intention of letting it get there on his watch. "You can't blame yourself, Keiko; you really can't! Botan sounds like a nice lady, especially since she can put up with Yusuke. You can't blame yourself for her being nice to you, even if it did give her a third eye or whatever."

"Agreed," Kurama murmured. He, too, knew exactly where my overthinking head and heart wanted to go. "You are not responsible for the actions of others, much though you wish to take that responsibility onto yourself."

I ran my hand through my bangs, fluffing up the strands from the roots. "Yeah, I know," I grumbled. "I'm just worried about her. They kept Botan in isolation before she had the third eye. What do you think they'll do to her now that she's gotten even worse?"

Kuwabara's horrified expression matched how I felt inside. Kurama, geared more for subtlety, stated with mild calm, "It's certainly a valid concern."

"You don't think they'd, like, lock her up in a jail, do you?" Kuwabara fretted.

"I hope not," I said, but my fingers clenched in my hair, pulling at the strands until it hurt. Kurama noticed (curse those eagle eyes) and gave me a Pointed Look of Extreme Disapproval until I stopped.

"Unfortunately, Spirit World operates under ancient laws that are rarely bent, even for the benefit of one of their own," he said when I ceased tearing at my hair. "But even those laws likely do not account for what happened to Botan." A shadow gathered behind his verdant eyes. "Truth be told, I had no idea the Shadow Sword could affect a Spirit in such a way."

"I had no idea there were anything such things as Spirits until just now, so you're ahead of me," Kuwabara grumbled. "But this Botan lady—she's Yusuke's friend, right?"

"Yeah." I swallowed the lump in my throat, hands clenching the sheets instead of my hair this time. "And she's mine, too."

That was all Kuwabara needed to hear, because of course it was, because he was the best. He gave me a resolute nod and held up a fist. "Sounds like we gotta help her, then. We have to find her, figure out how to get rid of that eye, and make it all better." His scowl (aimed toward my room's tiny window) could've melted solid rock. "Though Hiei's the one who oughta go looking for her since he caused all this trouble in the first place! Little shrimp, swinging his sword around like a jerk. This Botan person sounds like a nice lady even if she's goes a little nuts sometimes, so she sure as hell didn't deserve all this crap."

"Perhaps Hiei could be persuaded to aid in the search," Kurama said, neatly glossing over Kuwabara's continued mutterings about Hiei's terrible attitude.

"Maybe so," I said. "I'll pitch it to him, but somehow I don't think he'll much care."

"You might be surprised, Kei. Hiei has quite the honor code these days." The smallest of smiles, secret and just for me (because Kuwabara had only rolled his eyes at the mention of Hiei and honor in the same sentence; it looked like Hiei and Kuwabara had gotten off to the same rocky start they'd shared in the anime). "Or rather, should I say he found the honor code he abandoned during his time with the Shadow Sword?"

"Hell if I know. I'm just glad he's not going around cutting people up anymore."

Kurama chuckled, although Kuwabara rolled his eyes again and increased the ferocity of his dark mutterings. The Mysterious Origin of Hiei's Inexplicable Honor Code still vexed me, but he'd made it through Maze Castle without betraying everyone, so I must not have screwed canon up too much.

"Anyway," I said. "Maybe once Yusuke wakes up, we can see what he thinks and then we can plan what to do with Botan. He's closest with her, and would be the most likely to know what she'd want us to do."

Kurama and Kuwabara both nodded at that—but while my suggestion to wait was based mostly in logic, I admit I had an ulterior motive. If Hiei tried to find Botan while she was with Sailor V…well. I wasn't sure the world was ready for that collision of fandoms. Not just yet, anyway. Delaying looking for her bought me time to find V, and cut this whole mess off at the pass.

"So, uh. Keiko?"

I started, pulled from my reverie by Kuwabara's hesitant voice. He sat up straight, pulling a small spiral-bound notebook from his back pocket, clearing his throat like a lecturer about to deliver a long and formal homily.

"Keiko, I've been thinking," he said, all ramrod posture and faux-official language, nose thrust high into the air. I half imagined a pair of spectacles appearing on his nose when he intoned, "I've been workshopping some nicknames and I was hoping I could get your input on the matter."

I blinked at him. "Nicknames?"

"Yeah! Y'know? Hiei calls you 'Meigo' and Kurama calls you 'Kei' and Yusuke calls you 'Grandma', or 'Mom' sometimes when you're not around, but I don't have one for you and I want that to change."

"Uh. OK?" I waved for him to continue, reclining back against my mountain of pillows. "Have at it, then."

He couldn't maintain his fake-professor vibe for long—not when he started smiling like Christmas had come early. "Great!" he said. He coughed primly into his fist before throwing up a finger and dramatically declaring, "How about…Kei-chan?"

My brow quirked. "That's Kurama's nickname with an honorific, isn't it?"

Kuwabara's face fell. "Oh." He flipped to another page in his notebook, scanned it, and offered a hopeful, "Kei-kun?"

"I'm afraid that's more of the same," Kurama observed.

Kuwabara's eyes bugged. "Argh, you're right! Well, um…" More frantic flipping through his notebook. "What about Ko-ko?"

"I mean, I'm not a gorilla."

"Huh?"

"Ko-Ko is the name of a famous gorilla and—oh, never mind."

He wasn't expecting it, so despite his faster reflexes I managed to lean forward and pluck the notebook from his hands. Kuwabara protested, trying to grab it back from me, but I held it as far away from his as possible and warded him off with my other hand.

"Look, Kuwabara, the best nicknames come up organically!" I said as he tried to wrestle back the notebook, his barrel chest nearly squashing me flat as he leaned over my torso. I said into his sternum, "Like, you find a nickname as a result of the experiences you share with a person, ya big palooka! You don't need to brainstorm stuff—you just gotta play it by ear!"

He latched onto my wrist, dragging the notebook back to him with a whine. "Yeah, but—"

"But what?"

Kuwabara didn't reply for a minute. Too busy taking the notebook, sitting next to me on the hospital bed, staring down into my face with lower lip caught between his teeth—hand still wrapped around my wrist. He shot Kurama a sidelong look, and his voice dropped so low I barely heard him speak.

"I—I don't wanna get left behind, or whatever, OK?" he said.

"Get left…" I repeated—and then I snatched the notebook back again and used it to (gently and playfully) swat the top of his fluffy orange hair. Kuwabara yelped, shielding himself with his hands. "Get left behind?!" I said, swatting at him. "Do you seriously think I'd stop being your friend over a nickname?"

He turned the color of an autumn apple, color standing in brilliant contrast to his carroty hair. "Well—well no, but—"

"Then but nothing, ya dingus!" I dropped the notebook and latched onto his shirtfront, dragging him down to my level to impress upon him just how serious I felt about this particular subject. The blush deepened further when I informed him, "I've told you a hundred times you're my best friend, and there's no way in hell you're getting left behind, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it." He pried my hands off his shirt, looking away with a scowl, but soon he broke out in a pleased grin. "I'll find something to call you eventually, for sure. If Hiei did it, then so can I!"

"Exactly." I crossed my arms over my chest like a haughty warlord. "Now stop fussing over nicknames and tell me about what you two went through. This I gotta hear from the horse's mouth." I frowned. "Mouths?"

Kuwabara chortled. Kurama smiled, too, saying, "Should you start neighing, Kuwabara? Or shall I?"

"You should since you fought first, I think."

"Logical. Very well." Kurama folded his hands, gathering himself before he began. "We entered Maze Castle through the front gate—"

Turns out Kurama was a pretty good storyteller in his own right. He regaled me with the tale of the Gate of Betrayal and his fight with Genbu with aplomb, sparing time for metaphor and description without losing the momentum of the fight. I admit I enjoyed listening to his silken voice and his adept wordplay, but when he handed the reins of the narrative to Kuwabara, the story didn't suffer. Kuwabara stood up and stomped around, mimicking Byakko's heavy gait, acting out all the parts in his section of the story using character voices and pantomime. Quite the contrast to Kurama's subdued retelling, but damn if it wasn't fucking hilarious to watch.

Hilarious—and utterly shocking.

While Kurama's fight had run nigh identically to the anime, Kuwabara's did not. In fact, his retelling of his fight ended when he overloaded Byakko with spirit energy, skipping the lava chamber round of his fight entirely. It started off with Byakko siccing some demonic cats on Kuwabara (which he defeated using a Monster Beast Donut, natch), but I did a double-take when Kuwabara ended his story with Byakko reacting to an overload of Kuwabara's energy—and skipped straight on to Hiei's fight with Seiryu.

"Wait, wait, back up," I said. "So you figured out that Byakko was absorbing your energy, you fed him a bunch of yours…and he just exploded and that was it? Really?"

"Yeah! Apparently I gave him so much power that his body went nuts and panicked. Forced out most of his own power along with mine, just BOOM. Big sonic blast as all the energy left him. He shredded, nearly, got all bony and skinny and just passed out." He chortled some more, looking at Kurama for confirmation. "Collapsed a lot of the castle in the process, but we made it out."

"And then Seiryu killed Byakko when Byakko reappeared in the depths of the maze, asking for aid," Kurama said.

Kuwabara nodded. "Right."

"I'm…wow." Words failed me. I sat there processing until a smile welled, excitement building high inside my chest. "Dude. Wow, Kuwabara. You were a certified badass!"

His laughter sounded like rocks in a blender in the best way possible, deep and gravely as he blushed and rubbed the back of his wide neck. "Aw, shucks, Keiko. I tried my best, that's all!" He sobered to give credit where he deemed it due, saying, "Genkai's training sure did help, though. Dunno that I would've put up even half the same fight without her."

"I'm sure you still would've done great, all the same," I assured him—because it was true. He'd done great in the anime even without her help, combining ingenuity and strength to defeat opponents who perhaps outclassed him. He'd been a badass in his own right long before Genkai's training.

Now, though?

Now he was Super Kuwabara.

How fucking cool.

Kurama picked up the story where Kuwabara left off, and by the time they reached the end, I got the impression that the mission had followed the track of the anime almost exactly…though the details of Yusuke's fight with Suzaku were still unknown given his ongoing impression of Sleeping Beauty. When the story ended we discussed the probability of him waking up (and discussed a plan to prank him upon said waking, which Kuwabara in particular felt most excited about). While Kuwabara cackled at my suggestion of fake blood and Kurama laughed behind one demure hand, I wondered when I'd finally get to see all my friends together in one place, in the flesh.

That image of them together on the communicator mirror had been nothing but a tease.

The afternoon passed too quickly for my taste. As the square of illumination coming from the window climbed nearly to the ceiling, a nurse bustled into usher the boys out. Visiting hours had ended, and with them, my reprieve from the hospital's crushing isolation.

"Thank you for visiting today," I said as they gathered their things. "It was so good to see you both."

Kurama nodded, smile warm and lingering—but Kuwabara stepped between us, blocking my view of the fox demon with his bulk. His hands wrung, chiseled face pinched with nerves as he stared down at me.

"Keiko—Kurama explained some of it, but we still need to talk," he said. "I need to know how you know Kurama and Hiei. Like, properly know, y'know?"

I offered a conciliatory smile. "I know. But later." Point at the clock on the wall. "No time today, I'm afraid."

"Right," he said, reaching for the backpack he'd set by my bed—but as he hefted it over his shoulder, his eyes lit up. Setting the bag next to me on the bed, he unzipped it and said, "Oh. Here!"

I peered into the bag's depths when he opened it in my direction. "What's this?"

"I took Yusuke's Famicon!" he proclaimed, gesturing at the plastic box and tangled wires inside his backpack. "So you can play some games while you're stuck in bed."

I said nothing. Then, slowly, I raised my eyes to his and said in perfect deadpan: "You stole from Yusuke to make me happy?"

Kuwabara's smile faded. "Um…?"

My eyes welled. "Kuwabara, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me!"

If his earlier blush had been blistering, this blush was nigh atomic. "A-anytime, Keiko," he said—and he bent to briefly hug me, arms strong and tight around my torso. He pulled away with a stammer and walked out the door, mechanical as a robot, without making eye contact. "Um. See ya! And get well soon!"

I stared after him with a sniffle, drying my eyes on the edge of my hospital gown, because Kuwabara was the sweetest damned thing in the whole wide world and I felt like a lucky child, indeed. Kurama didn't follow Kuwabara right away, lingering near the door as I grabbed the backpack and rooted through it, but he didn't say anything—not even when I glanced at him and shook my head.

"Hmm. Didn't get Dragon Quest," I lamented, though several other awesome games sat at the bottom of the bag. "I'll have to ask Kuwabara to bring—"

"You shouldn't say things like that."

My hands stilled, fingers tangled in the Famicon's power cord. Kurama stared at me with lips pursed, arms crossed over his chest like a teacher about to scold a naughty student. My brow lifted on reflex.

"Things like what?" I asked.

Kurama spoke in that clipped way he did when he was trying to say exactly the right thing, even when he knew it wasn't something you wanted to hear. "Things that could get his hopes up," he said, carefully enunciating each syllable.

For a second, I wasn't sure what he meant. "His hopes—?" I said, but then it clicked. "Oh. Oh!" I flapped a hand and laughed, head shaking. "Kurama, you've got it all wrong. Kuwabara doesn't like me!"

One red brow climbed high. "Are you certain of that?"

"Of course I'm—"

The word 'sure' fizzled in my mouth, however, before I could say it aloud.

Much though I hated to admit it…it was certainly possible Kuwabara had a little crush. Yusuke had hinted at it before, and now Kurama was saying it, and where there was smoke there was often fire. But the thing was, Kuwabara had crushed on both Keiko and Botan in the anime—and those crushes had evaporated like mist in brilliant sunlight the second he laid eyes on Yukina.

If Kuwabara had a crush on me, it hardly mattered, did it?

"Well, even if he does," I wound up saying, "it won't matter for long."

Kurama's brow knit. "What makes you say that?"

I held up one hand, little finger extended. Kurama's brow unknit and lifted high, inquiring just what the heck I was getting at.

"The red pinkie string of love," I explained, but my cheeks pinked at how ridiculous that must sound to someone like Kurama. Scratching the back of my neck, eyes cast away toward the window, I muttered, "Kuwabara is, uh…he is tied to someone else."

Kurama said, tone flat, "I don't understand."

I put my pinkie to my mouth. "Spoilers."

"…I see." Although he did not seem happy about it, he gave a delicate sigh and pressed a finger to his temple. "Well, I hope you're right." Green eyes pinned me with a cold stare. "For his sake."

It wasn't often Kurama looked at me with such disdain anymore, so I admit his expression rendered me speechless. He just sighed again, however, and once more rubbed his temple.

"Apologies," he said, "for not bringing you flowers this visit. I will remedy the oversight when next we meet." He turned toward the door—and perhaps he did so on purpose to make up for glaring at me, but the cold vanished from his eyes, replaced by subtle warmth I knew better than to miss. "Be well, Kei."

I swallowed.

"You too, Kurama," I said.

The room felt barer after my friends left. It somehow felt smaller even when fewer people filled it, too, like the walls had crept close while Kurama and Kuwabara distracted me from their advance. I slid down in my bed, sling clinking and creaking as I shifted my casted leg. The backpack with the Famicon pressed into my side; my head lolled toward the sunflowers Kagome brought me, sitting haphazard in the ice bucket and water glasses, stars fallen to earth to brighten my dingy room.

"You shouldn't say things like that," Kurama had said.

But all I'd done was thank Kuwabara for the Famicon—and was that really so wrong?

I shut my eyes with a sigh, draping an elbow across my face to block out the overhead lights.

I had lived a long time, at that point. I'd been in too many relationships to mention. I knew how to separate friendship from romance, separate the love and care of camaraderie from the pull of romantic adoration. I knew how to be friends with people I found attractive, and how to keep attraction from ruining a good friendship (heck, I'd been in love with too many straight girls to not learn that valuable skill). I'd had more practice than I liked to admit compartmentalizing emotions for the good of my relationships, a skill learned from one too many heartbreaks suffered before I found my Tom.

Was Kuwabara capable of the same compartmentalization?

And, hell—was this even an issue worth dwelling on?

The Saint Beast Arc was over. The Rescue Yukina Arc barreled toward us at breakneck speed. At any moment Kuwabara could watch the mission's information video tape, and when he did, he'd forget any feelings he might have for me. He'd forget everything but the all-encompassing, fiery passion he felt for that sweet ice demon, no room left in his enormous heart for any love but hers.

He'd still value me as a friend, of course. Kuwabara was too good a person to ever stop being my friend, the way so many people ceased to be attentive friends once they found a relationship. But the fact remained that I would only have him to myself for a short while longer—and that he'd forget me soon enough.

It wasn't wrong of me to cherish the time we had left, was it?

I certainly didn't think so—no matter what Kurama had to say on the matter.

When a nurse came by, I asked her to set up the Famicon, and I played it nearly until the sun came up.

The hospital discharged me the next day, and the first thing I did upon returning home was call Atsuko. She picked up on the third ring (which was good because sometimes she didn't pick up at all) and didn't sound at all surprised when I said, "Hey. He awake yet?"

"No." A clink as a bottle knocked against the phone's receiver. "Any of you want to tell me why my son is in a coma? Again?"

Her wry delivery pulled both a laugh and a wince out of me. "I think it's best we leave that to Yusuke."

"Eh. Suit yourselves." Another clink as she drank. "I'll call when he wakes up, if you want. No sense in you chasing after that lay-about son of mine when you've got schoolwork."

"They shut down the school for the next week, actually, so I'm free as a bird." Administration needed time to clean the blood off the walls, I guessed. "I'll call again later."

"That's my Keiko, I suppose," she said with a raucous laugh. "Responsible to the very end."

We hung up after a few more pleasantries, and afterward I sat on my bed in silent thought, leg propped up on a pillow. Today was the second day of Yusuke's recovery-coma (so long as he stuck to the anime's three-day-coma prediction). He'd wake up sometime tomorrow, in that case.

…so what the hell was I supposed to do now?

I thought about calling Kurama or Kuwabara for some company, but getting in contact with Sailor V seemed much more important than hosting another social event. But I had no idea how to contact Sailor V at all, and she'd told me that she'd be the one to get in touch, so—

I picked up my phone again, punching in Kagome's number from memory. Just as it began to ring, however, Mom's voice echoed up the stairs. I set the phone back in the cradle and yelled back, "Yes, Mom?"

"Keiko, honey? You have a friend here to visit you! Don't get up; I'll send them upstairs!"

I sat up a little straighter, arranging blankets over my lap and fixing the collar of my shirt. Feet pattered up the stairs two at a time, by the sound of it, light and agile instead of Yusuke or Kuwabara's normal pound. Kurama always climbed the stairs without making a sound, and since Hiei never bothered with the stairs at all, that could only mean—

My door inched open, and through the resulting crack poked a small, pale face dusted in freckles.

"Are they here?" Kagome whispered.

I bit back a laugh. Speak of the devil and she shall appear. "No. Just me."

"Oh, thank Christ." She scampered inside and shut the door behind her, sliding down the panel and onto the floor (before reaching back up and locking the door as a hasty afterthought, of course). She blurted, "So the worst case scenario happened sooner than we'd like, but do you think he recognized me?"

"He definitely thought you looked familiar," I told her, "but he also seemed to think it was just his imagination…but then again, he's a good actor." I grimaced, dread an icy pit in my chest. "Basically, I will live in fear of the subject for the foreseeable future."

"Oh, man," Kagome moaned, but just as quickly she perked up, speaking with nearly frantic optimism—as if pleading with me to be optimistic with her, validate her defense against her fears. "But I mean, it was 500 years ago. 500! Even somebody as smart as him wouldn't remember the face of a girl he met just the once 500 years ago, right?"

I took a deep breath and asked, "Well…was it just once?"

Kagome stilled. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think you may have encountered him again in the past?" I said. Kagome wasn't in tears, not like the last time we'd talked about this subject, and so I voiced my hypotheticals with impunity. "The you of right now has met him once, but who's to say that was the last time you saw him? Or the last time he saw you?" Time travel, so hard to describe in words, made me shake my head. "Your future is his past, after all."

Kagome shuddered, hands threading through her thick hair. "Don't tell me that, Eeyore."

"Sorry," I said, and while I meant it for stressing her, I was glad I'd at last voiced my concerns. Much though I wanted to respect Kagome's recent traumas, we couldn't hide the hard truths forever. Time to wake the sleeping dog. "I'll let you know if he asks more questions, though."

"Yeah," she mumbled. She looked up, hands still in here hair, face grim. "And hey, sorry I didn't call before coming over today. I just couldn't stand to wait any longer." She rolled forward and darted to my bed, hopping atop the mattress like a tiger with springs for heels—but she was careful not to jostle my leg. "Tell me everything about what happened!" Kagome chirped.

"You first," I said. "V said you're the one who called her."

"Oh. Well. That's sort of true." She pointed at my leg. "But I really want to hear about your ordeal before I tell you my boring bit!"

Much though I wanted to get to the bottom of Kagome's adventures, I decided to indulge her request. She listened with rapt attention to my recollection of events, gasping and cheering where appropriate, but remaining respectfully quiet of my story—until we got to Botan's entrance. At that Kagome's jaw dropped, legs kicking, flailing around on the bed as words failed her.

"A third eye?" she said, thrashing. "A third eye! That's nuts!"

"You're telling me," I said. "But wait. It gets worse."

"How can it possibly get worse?!"

I told her. I told her about Botan berserking, fighting the infected, and Ayame's assertion that Botan got worse when she came to save me. Kagome looked appropriately horrified, but when I told her about V showing up and taking Botan to safety, her disturbed expression faded into one of awe.

"Oh. Oh wow. She sounds like a badass, even if you didn't see her do anything…y'know. Anything impressive?" She giggled. "That's too funny. V showed up to save you and then did nothing at all!"

"Yeah. She jumped off a roof just as the infected passed out. Definitely not a stunning entrance." I crossed my arms, staring past Kagome at the wall by my bedroom door. Johnny Cash flipped me off from his poster, the same way V's anticlimactic entrance had flipped off all her heroic intentions. "But the thing is, I get this sense she's sort of a badass, even if all she did was jump in and distract the infected for all of eight seconds."

"Really?" Kagome asked. "How's that?"

"I think she's former military."

She blinked, thrown for a momentary loop. "Military?"

"She asked me for my rank and station." Uncertainty gripped me. "Those are military terms, right?"

Kagome hummed. "I think so?"

Confirmation settled some of the doubt suffusing my chest. "OK, cool. And I started to have a panic attack, too. She asked if it was the first time I'd seen combat, and she said she'd seen someone react to combat like that before."

Her eyes widened. For a second I couldn't tell if she felt scared or excited, but then she broke out in an enormous, eager grin.

"Wow," she said. "Wow, Eeyore! A badass soldier girl in the body of a pretty sailor soldier! That's amazing!"

"I also think she's not American," I continued. "She said something to me in, like, German? Or Russian? Slavic, I guess."

Kagome's brown furrowed, head tilting to one side like a dog unsure of a sound. "Is German a Slavic language?"

"Uh…I don't actually know." It was my turn to tilt my head, blink at her like a confused puppy. "Maybe?"

Kagome and I stared at one another, until she flipped to her back and threw her arm across her face, moaning, "Dammit, 1990! Give me Google or give me death!" She lifted her arm to batt her eyes and pout. "Can we please invent Google, Eeyore? Please?"

I grinned. "That's—"

Our tech-talk had to end when a knock sounded at the door. Kagome sat up, eyes meeting mine as my mother called, "Keiko? You sure are popular today—you have another visitor!"

We stiffened in unison, and I'm not sure which one of us looked more horrified. "Who is it, Mom?" I managed to say, and to my surprise my voice held steady even as I contemplated the logistics of tossing Kagome out my bedroom window.

"I haven't met him yet, actually," Mom said, "but he looks closer to your friend Kagome's age than yours."

Just as we'd stiffened as one, so too did we frown. I didn't know anyone Kagome's age but Kagome, and she looked as confused as I felt. At her I mouthed, "Did you bring…?"

But Kagome shook her head.

"Then who…?"

Kagome shook her head again.

Well, that was weird. To Mom I called, "Did you get his name?"

"Yes, I—"

Mom stopped talking. A few seconds of silence followed. Kagome's head turned in increments toward the door, concern etching lines across her forehead.

"I'm…sorry, sweetheart," Mom said eventually. "I did ask, but…I can't seem to remember it." Although she laughed, the shrill edge in her voice said she didn't find it funny at all. "Silly me. I must not have been listening too closely."

"That's OK, Mom," I said, but my stomach churned like I'd swallowed a mouthful of bees. "Don't send him up. I'll be right down."

"Oh, honey, don't walk on your—"

"I'm getting stir-crazy in here, anyway, and Kagome will help me." The aforementioned nodded like a bobble-head doll. "I'll be just a second."

"Well, if you're sure…"

We waited for her footsteps to fade down the stairs before speaking. Kagome managed to get words our first. "Who do you think…?"

"No idea." My mind roved, but the only person I could think of near Kagome's age was—

No.

Not him, surely?

My internal horror must've shown on my face, because Kagome put a hand on my knee. "What, Eeyore?" she said, urgent and low. "What is it?"

I gulped. "You don't think—Hiruko?"

Kagome didn't react for a moment. Then, slowly, her hand on my knee clenched into a tight fist.

"If it's him," Kagome said, in a voice more intense and dangerous and dark than I'd ever heard from her before, "he might not leave your restaurant alive."

"…I get why you want him dead—really, I do—but please try to keep blood off the walls if you murder him in the restaurant, OK?" I mimed choking myself. "Just, like, limit his death to strangulation or something?"

Kagome's dark eyes didn't lighten a single shade—not even when she hopped off my bed, saluted, and marched over to my crutches in the corner on steps that bounced.

She helped me down the stairs in uncharacteristic silence, eyes still hard and fierce, and when we made it to the restaurant floor she scanned the patrons eating at the tables like a lion on the hunt. We took a table nearest the stairwell so I wouldn't have to walk too far. Kagome kept her hand on my back as I lowered into a chair, puffing with exertion and pain, scanning the restaurant with those intense eyes of hers.

"I don't see anyone," she grumbled.

I looked, too. Mostly middle-aged people, some elders, a few couples with little kids. No one Kagome's age, though—and certainly no little brats with pink hair and red kimonos.

"Me neither." I grabbed my crutches and started to haul myself up, grunting. "Let me go ask Mom if—"

Kagome thrust out her hand.

"Wait," she said—and she pointed near the kitchen, around the corner to the restaurant entrance.

Standing there, wearing blue slacks and a button-down white shirt, stood a boy.

He looked about Kagome's age, or maybe a year or two older—never have been good with ages, or kids, or kids' ages, so it was hard to tell. His white shirt had been freshly ironed, pants crisp and pleated, a red tie tied in a tight Windsor knot under his collar. He'd combed his short blond hair with neat strokes, posture upright and straight and natural, every inch a well-mannered little schoolboy whose mother had dressed him that morning. Nothing out of the ordinary, truth be told, except for that blonde hair—and that just meant he was gaijin. Not a big deal, right?

In short: It wasn't Hiruko, and I'd never seen him before in my life.

"Him?" Kagome whispered.

I sat back in my seat with a grunt. "I don't recognize him."

"Me, neither," said Kagome.

In the end, however, it didn't matter that neither of us had seen him before.

From across the restaurant, he spotted us, and he started walking.

Didn't take long to reach us, of course, and when he did he dropped into a low, tight bow—but I hardly noticed. He walked, for lack of better comparison, like Kurama or Hiei. That same purposeful stride, no movements wasted, the predatory stalk of someone accustomed to tracking prey instead of being it. A skated up my back, hair on my arms rising to swift attention.

This kid—just who the hell was he?

Not that I got a chance to ask. The kid took initiative as soon as he straightened from his bow, heels of his polished shoes snapping together with a smart click.

"Keiko. Kagome." Bright blue eyes traveled between us in turns. "It's good to see you both."

"Is it?" I muttered.

"I'm sorry, but have we met before?" Kagome said.

"Keiko and I have." His eyes settled on me. "Though you and I have only a passing acquaintance."

"…we do?"

"Yes."

I studied his face a moment, trying to place him, but nothing came to me. He looked like the most typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid imaginable—the kind of face you'd remember in Japan just because it belonged to a gaijin, and the kind of face I wouldn't have glanced at twice in America. Even his voice was typical, Japanese fluent and clear, tone light and high and utterly, blandly typical of a kid his age.

"Sorry, kid," I said after a moment's contemplation. "But I don't think we've met."

"We met the other night," he said. At that his lips crooked, just the barest of smiles you'd miss if you so much as blinked. "I'll give you a hint: My hair was longer, and was wearing a skirt."

For a second, no one said anything.

Then Kagome said, "Huh?"

Me, though? I just stared at him, because words had become impossible to form.

Logically, it didn't take me long to realize what he meant, or connect Sailor V to the boy standing before me—but when I tried to conjure a memory of the face of the person I'd met two nights prior, the person with the long blonde hair and the flowing skirt, trying desperately to compare that face to this boy's, nothing came to me. I recalled the hair, the outfit, and the red domino mask, but behind the mask…nothing. A complete blank, fuzzy at the edges, slipping in and out of view when I tried to look at it too hard, like trying to grasp incorporeal jello with your bare hands.

I put a hand to my head.

"Oh," I said. Then I met his eyes, and I said: "Oh!"

Another crooked, almost-not-there smile. "Now you're getting it."

"You're—it's you." I stared at him with wide eyes, brain a million miles away, barely able to think past the impossible. "But—but why can't I remember her face?"

"Eeyore?!" Kagome grasped my shoulder as if to pull questions from my skin. "Eeyore, what are you talking about? Why can't you remember whose face?"

The boy made a low 'ah' sound under his breath. One hand disappeared into his pocket, pulling from it a golden object that glimmered in the restaurant's overhead lights. The moon-shaped compact, engraved with stars and set with a bright red jewel, reflected winks of gold into Kagome's face—the face whose expression rapidly turned from shocked to understanding.

Because even if she hadn't met Sailor V yet, she'd knew enough about Sailor Moon to know a senshi device when she saw one.

"So far as I can tell, this device emits an ultrasonic frequency that interferes with the brain's ability to recall faces," said the boy before us. "Specifically my face under…certain conditions that will remain nameless."

His knowing not-smile had me gasping in spite of myself. "You mean, you—?" I looked the boy up and down, then up and down again, trying so hard to speak but finding myself unable. "Are you—?!"

"Oh my fucking god." Kagome leapt back and pointed at the boy, and said what I could not. "Oh my god, you're Sailor V!"

The boy smiled—for real, this time, and suddenly he looked like the Sailor Scout I'd meet two nights before.

"Yes. I am," he said, and he thrust out a hand. "My name is Minato, and it's nice to meet you properly."

Notes:

V is one of my favorite characters in this story, I have to say. More on V's situation next chapter.

I don't particularly like ending the chapter here, because it makes a big deal out of something that just isn't a big deal, or at least shouldn't be a big deal, but it's too long to keep going at this point. Hope it's okay.

There is some legit fabulous reader art on my Tumblr page. I'm still compiling a post full of links; so sorry for that delay! I promised shout-outs last week and I will try to get those assembled soon.

SO many thanks to all of you who reviewed last week. Knowing you're reading and supporting this story means the world.

Chapter 58: Are You Prepared?

Summary:

In which discoveries are made, and offers are rejected.

Notes:

Warnings: dysphoria, potentially.

There are some nods to Daughters of Destiny in this chapter, but I've avoided spoilers (though there are hints at what's to come in that story).

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

When the golden light faded, Sailor V stood before us.

Long blonde hair crowned with a red ribbon, rippling blue skirt, crimson domino mask—the same person I'd met the night before last, down to the gloved hands set proudly on slender hips. Sailor V stared through the mask at Kagome and me without flinching, regal bearing and flashy costume entirely out of place inside my mundane bedroom. We'd run (we'll, they'd run and I'd hobbled) up here the minute we realized who Minato was.

"OK," I said from my spot on my bed. I'd propped my foot up on a pillow, which seemed entirely too undignified a pose when meeting a literal superhero. "Color me convinced. You're Sailor V."

Kagome, straddling my swivel chair with arms crossed over the backrest, raised her hand into the air like a kid trying to get a teacher's attention. V looked at her and quirked a brow.

"Sorry, if it's awkward, but, um—the costume doesn't really fit your civilian image." Kagome's eyes darted sidelong toward me. "Why do you—?"

V's smile looked tight and tired. "I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out how to change this outfit. The transformation does what it will." V's feet shifted, clacking neatly together at the heel. "Observe."

Once more golden light suffused V's body, skin glowing as if lit from within by the light of some warm sun—and when it faded, the young Minato stood before us once again, wearing his slacks, starched button-up, and smart blue tie. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, trying my best to recall the face of the Sailor Scout who had only moments before stood before us. Nothing came to me, however, red domino mask dominating my memory of her features until the face behind the mask blurred into obscurity.

When Kagome gasped, I dropped my hand from my eyes.

Minato's neat crewcut had not returned along with his clothes. Instead Sailor V's flowing mane fell in a golden wave down the length of his back, unbound and silken. He reached back and lifted a lock between his fingers, granting the hair an absolutely rueful smile.

Like this, he looked like a girl wearing boy's clothes—and I almost covered my eyes again. This seemed too intimate, too personal, too potentially painful for me to witness. Not when we'd only just met.

"I'm afraid this happens every time I drop the Sailor V persona," he said, still staring at his long hair. "I have to be very careful about when and where I transform." Minato's other hand disappeared into his pocket; it emerged holding a pair of scissors. "I've taken to carrying these around just in case." Another rueful smile. "Have gotten quite good at cutting my own hair, for the most part, though I carry a hat in case an emergency chop job goes awry."

"That's…wow," I said, because what else could I say?

Kagome, true to form, had no trouble summoning words. "Not to be the one to point out the elephant in the room, but I have to ask," she said. "Your name is Minato, not Minako?"

It was like a cat spotting a dog, the way Minato stiffened. Blue eyes fixed on Kagome, and with deliberate movements he reached back into his pocket. The scissors he exchanged for a simple hair-tie, which he slipped over his wrist as he began to braid his hair in a tail over his shoulder.

"I picked it myself," he said, voice low and soft and wary—and for a moment he looked years younger than the impressive Sailor V, fingers working with artificial confidence around the length of his long braid. "Is it a problem for you?"

"Not at all," Kagome said, head shaking—and then she broke out in an easy, breezy grin. "I just don't wanna call you the wrong thing and sound like an idiot, is all."

Minato had a good poker face, and it didn't even flicker at Kagome's cheerful statement. The minute pause in his sure hands gave him away, however, as did the deep breath he took once he tied the end of his braid.

"Good," he said, and in that muttered word I detected the faintest undercurrent of relief. Shoulders now at ease, he looked between Kagome and me in turn. "Understand this, both of you. In my past life I was six foot four, in perfect physical condition, and a Kampfschwimmer, or frogman, of the Kommando Spezialkräfte der Marine. In other words, I was what you might call a German Navy Seal." The German words rolled off his tongue guttural off his tone, and now he almost glared, serious expression incongruous on his young face. "I could kill a man with my thumb."

Kagome, true to form, laughed at that assertion. Me, though? I didn't let it show on my face, but the statement picked up my pulse, punted it into high gear, blood coursing painfully down the length of my broken leg.

Please tell me he wasn't the type to revel in his killcount, or something.

Please.

"The most important factors of who I am did not change when I inherited Aino Minako's body," Minato continued. One more look at Kagome, and then at me, heavy and assertive. "Do you understand?"

I had to wonder if this was the first time he'd confessed the truth of his in his short tenure as Aino Minato—and how often his gender became an issue in Japan. I answered him quickly, pushing aside my earlier discomfort in order to comfort him. "Yeah. We understand." I offered a crooked smile. "All I've gotta say is Hiruko sure does have a knack for making stuff complicated, doesn't he?"

Minato frowned. "Who?"

"You haven't—? Oh." I let out a low whistle. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

"Seems like it." Minato flipped the braid over his shoulder, lifted the scissors, and very casually sawed at the base of the tail. "I go by Minato in this life. My pronouns are he and him, though when transformed, you may use feminine variations." The scissors made a metallic noise when they cut through the last of the hair. Braid held tightly in his fist, he shrugged. "Don't blow my cover, I suppose. I work hard to maintain it."

Kagome (in the spirit of his past, I think) flipped Minato a cheery salute. "Roger that, officer." She eyed his severed braid, which he wound around and around his hand. "Do you wanna throw that out, or something?"

"No. I have a buyer in the city. You'd be surprised at the worth of human hair." A smirk. "My buyer wonders where I so often acquire such quality hair, and at such length, but I don't think she'd believe me even if I told her."

I couldn't help but laugh. Kagome all but cackled, saying, "Cheat! You've got your own little racket set up, don't you?"

Minato looked pleased in spite of himself. Much as I wanted to hear more about his little get-rich-quick scheme, his joke about his hair had calmed my nerves, and with that calm came clarity.

"Before we dive in, quick question," I said. "Where's Botan?"

Minato's smile faded. "She's safe. Safe and sleeping."

"Unconscious?"

"No. A restful sleep, complete with REM cycle."

Relief felt like a drink of water, bracing and cool. "Good. I've been worried." Lacing my fingers together, I stretched my arms over my head and felt my knuckles pop. "But with that out of the way—how're you enjoying the Sailor Moon life?"

"Well enough." Minato shoved his hair into his pocket and turned, wandering away from me and toward the edge of my room—probably to look at the poster of Johnny Cash on my closet door. "Though it was never my thing, really."

"Oh?"

"I only watched some of Sailor Moon: Crystal. I was never a fan. That was Greta's wheelhouse."

"Greta?" Kagome said.

"My wife." He pointed at the closet. "Is this a closet, a bathroom, or a hallway?"

"A closet," I said. A beat, and then: "Why?"

"I will need the two of you to follow me. Provided you're comfortable doing so."

Kagome and I looked at each other.

I said, "Follow you…into my closet?"

Minato held up a finger. "Give me a minute."

He had pockets like the TARDIS, given the amount of crap he kept pulling out of them. Minato pulled forth four small objects, no bigger than coins and glimmering like liquid gold, which he placed on the four corners of my closet's doorframe. I squinted and managed to discern the shape of crescent moons—but before I could ask what the moon-shaped chips were for, Minato pushed open the door.

The door no longer belonged to my closet.

Past the frame, lights whirled, dappling the landscape of my bedroom with neon splats. The sounds of coins dropping into slots clanged through the formerly quiet bedroom air. The scent of dry carpet and cotton candy wafted into the room, polluting the homey smell of ramen and laundry detergent. Around the corner of the door I spotted a shape moving, small and lithe, and behind him—

Behind the kid, the Super Mario logo burned bright and red.

"Is—is that an arcade?" Kagome asked.

"Holy shit," I said. So much for Minato's pockets, because, "You turned my closet into the TARDIS!"

Minato shut the door; the lights and scents and sounds ceased. "I suppose that works as a measuring stick," he said, eyeing me up and down. "What Doctor were you on, before you came here?"

"You mean before we died?" Kagome said—and all three of us winced. She took a deep breath and continued, "Yeah. We both died, and then…here we were. In these bodies."

"Also, Capaldi as 12, and he was brilliant," I added.

"I see," Minato said. "Me too, about all of it. I had wondered." He gestured at the door. "But we'll talk more inside."

Even though the thought of walking through a portal into some unknown arcade (which existed who-knows-where in the breadth of time and space) was more than a little daunting, Kagome and I exchanged only a short look before rising to our feet. She helped me get my crutches under me and walked me to the door ahead of Minato, who stayed behind to usher us through. I braced myself before passing over the threshold, but crossing through the doorway felt no less ordinary than stepping from my bedroom and into the hall. In fact, the only real indication that this wasn't a normal door came from the humidity, of all things. My bedroom felt drier, and when I entered the arcade a wash of humid air perfumed with burned bulbs and the scent of sweat washed over my wrinkling nose.

What lay beyond the door felt ordinary, too. It was just a hallway leading to the arcade, short and carpeted and commonplace, lights of the arcade flashing at its end. We had taken no more than a three steps into it when Kagome stopped walking.

"Oh, hey! I know where we are!" she said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "This is the Game Center Crown! And that means—"

She dashed away with no further preamble, too fast for my limping gait to follow. I stared after her with a sigh; behind me Minato passed through the portal, coming to my side with a disgruntled frown.

"Wait!" he called after Kagome, but she was too far gone for that, having disappeared behind the corner of a racing game at the end of the hall just as Minato spoke.

"She has a tendency to bolt," I explained. "You'll get used to her, promise."

Rather than look reassured, Minato scoped me out, eyes traveling up and down my frame as he frowned. The scrutiny was innocent enough, but even so, pulse beat heavy in my lips and chest, thudding with needless fear (he was almost a head shorter than me, after all; what did I have to be scared of?). He said, "I admit, neither of you are what I was expecting."

"We sure as hell weren't expecting you, either, if it helps," I said, tone artificially breezy. "What'd you say you were? German?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. After a moment's hesitation he said, "German by birth, Polish by descent."

"Ah. Kagome and I are both American."

Minato's lips twisted. "That explains a few things."

"Oh, does it now?" I said. "What, we live up to an American stereotype or something?"

Minato flushed, looking away with expression most guilty. "We should find Kagome."

His plan was not difficult to follow, goal even easier to fulfill. Down the hall and a left turn later, I spotted her in the midst of a gigantic floor of games, standing in front of a pink and gold machine with large red and blue buttons on its console table. She spied us just as we saw her, beaming as she pointed at the screen.

"Eeyore, look!" Kagome said.

Minato's brow shot up like a rocket. "What did she call you?"

"Oh. We have nicknames. I'll explain later."

Minato did not seem placated in the least by my non-explanation, but Kagome was mimicking a palm tree in a hurricane to beckon us over and people were staring; best get over there, fast as one could on crutches. I hobbled my way to her and did a double-take at the machine she'd chosen—specifically at the blonde haired, blue eyed character painted on the side of the pink console.

"Wait," I said. A game demo played, showing a tiny Sailor Scout traversing a side-scroll environment full of cartoon monsters. The character leapt up and kicked a beast with her bright high heel, golden hair flowing in the air behind her. "Is that a Sailor V game?!"

"Yup! Spotted it a few weeks back. This is how I found V," Kagome said, jabbing her index finger at the screen as the demo ended, giving way to the game's title card. "Look at the leaderboard!"

The screen—which had displayed the Sailor V logo alongside a posing cartoon version of the person literally standing a few feet behind me (fucking bizarre)—flashed and changed, red and gold letters scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. I almost didn't bother to read them, but Kagome pointed with more vigor at the screen, so I did as she asked and scanned the roster of MVPs.

My eyes promptly bugged out of my skull at message streaming past. Specifically the message in the name section of the leaderboard, which someone had filled in with…well.

They'd fill it in with us, I guess.

YU YU HAKU

KEIKO YUKI

KAGOME HIG

INUYASHA

SAILORMOON

HELLOVENUS

WASSUP

"Impressive, right?" Kagome said, pointing at the high scores accompanying the letters. "I got really good at this game, lemme tell ya. If I scored even a little higher or a little lower, the whole order got messed up. Took me ages to get it right."

"…I see." I looked over my shoulder. "You were right, Minato. She spends way too much time at the arcade."

Minato chuckled, hands jammed deep in his pockets. Kagome gave an indignant squawk and planted her hands on her hips.

"Hey! It worked, didn't it?" she said. "I remembered that in the manga, Minako used the game to train, so I figured if she was monitoring the leaderboards and was one of us, there was no way she'd miss my message—but to everyone else it just looks like gibberish." She winked at Minato, then. "You lived right up to my expectations, buddy."

"You made it easy," he said. In the arcade's uneven light his hair looked more silver than gold, his eyes more black than blue. "I admit, I was shocked when I saw it. I thought I had to be hallucinating." Another of his most rueful smiles. "More people like me? Or was it some trick?"

Taken aback, I asked, "You mean—you mean you didn't suspect we existed?"

He matched my shocked expression with one of his own. "How could I? I still have no idea how you learned of my existence."

"You were in the papers," Kagome said. "Took down a mob ring, right?"

Understanding gelled. "Oh. Right. That would explain it."

"And how'd you find us in return?" I asked.

"After I spotted Kagome's message, I started monitoring the games. Eventually I recognized her as the one leaving the messages." Minato stepped close, voice pitched low under the clamor of the surrounding video games and laughing patrons. "Truth be told, Keiko, finding you two nights ago was an accident. I had no way of knowing at what part in your plot you were. There was no sign of you at Sarayashiki Junior High—and yes, I checked once I saw your name on that leaderboard. But then the call came on the radio of rioting in Sarayashiki, and they mentioned Meiou High School…"

"Two and two makes four," I surmised—but before we could go further, a kid ran over and queued up behind Kagome, waiting for a turn at the shiny Sailor V game. "Um. Got a quiet place where we can talk?"

Minato's eyes flickered to the kid, who bounced up and down on his heels and craned his head over Kagome's shoulder at the gleaming game. Minato nodded, and without a word we followed him into the depths of the Game Center Crown.

He'd made this arcade his base of operations, just as Sailor Venus had in her manga series; he knew the building inside and out, leading us through the maze of games and to a door tucked behind a dusty old shooting game no one wanted to play anymore. Through the door lay a hall, dark and echoing, and at the end of it stood another door—ordinary, made of metal like an exterior door to an alley or something. Nothing that would draw attention, that's for sure. Minato put his palm on its handle and paused, waiting for the handle to take on a faint orange glow before pushing the door open wide.

What lay beyond was anything but subtle.

The gigantic circular room, tiled all in white, looked almost like an amphitheater, concentric levels descending stair-like down to a bottom floor. A half-circle of computer panels cupped the bottom level, consoles like something from a space mission, transparent screens of flickering data and cascading numbers projected into the air above the boards of blinking buttons. A few chairs and benches had been set near the control panels; it was to these Minato led us, helping me and my broken foot down the steps and onto a plush blue couch (made of burnished white metal, very futuristic, very Sailor Moon-control-station). Minato took a seat across from Kagome and me in a high-backed bucket chair, which had been set in front of the computer console like the captain's seat on the Starship Enterprise.

"Now." He sat still and straight-backed, hands resting neatly on his knees, control panel behind him blinking like a meteor shower. "Where do we start?"

Kagome and I exchanged a Look—and then we both giggled.

Minato lifted a brow. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, just—we asked that same question the day we met," I said, gesturing between Kagome and myself.

"Where do you start with something like this?" Kagome explained. "We're all anime characters. It's like a huge crossover fanfiction nobody had any business writing!"

"Fanfiction," Minato repeated. Kagome had said the word in English; he pronounced it with heavy Japanese inflection. "I don't know the word."

"Oh. Um." I shifted in my seat, wondering how good this German soldier's English was. "Well, hey. Let's start at the start, huh?"

And so, we told him everything—everything from our respective births to the days we discovered who we were, and that we hadn't merely been reborn with intact memories. No, nothing so simple for us. He listened with rapt attention to our stories, to our recollection of meeting during aikido lessons, to our current places in the many plots of this patchwork world.

"Eeyore is farthest along in her story, I think," Kagome said.

Minato looked at me at the sound of my nickname, so I said, "We gave each other our nicknames the first night we met."

"Yeah, because this one was being all mopey," Kagome said, elbow against my ribs. "'Eeyore' fit like a super morose glove."

"And you bounce off the walls, so…" I returned.

Kagome put on her very best poker face. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said—and as one we giggled.

Minato frowned, but then his expression cleared. "The two of you are friends," he said.

It wasn't a question, but then again, it was such a random (not to mention obvious) statement that I had to pause. Minato held my gaze for a moment longer than was necessary, and did mine eyes deceive me, or did he look…sad, almost?

Why the hell did have reason to look sad?

"Yeah. We are," I said. I leaned forward, unable to help it. "You OK?"

Minato hesitated. When he spoke, it came slow and soft and pondering, like even he wasn't quite sure where his words meant to venture.

"When I met you," he said, "I wondered if you were like me." Blue eyes briefly closed, lashes like soot on his cheeks. "Not just in the obvious ways, but…when I saw those traps you laid, for a moment I wondered if, perhaps, you were from my company. Another frogman I'd known before." And then that smile, full of hard regret, crossed his young face once more. "I see now that you're not."

"I'm so sorry," I said, wincing inside—because while I'd only been protecting myself with those traps, the thought that I'd gotten his hopes up cut to the core. Conscience screaming at me to make it better, I offered: "But even if I'm not what you were hoping, I hope you know you can call me a friend."

"And me, and me!" Kagome said, hand in the air. She nudged my thigh. "Think we should give him a nickname, too? Really induct him into the tribe?"

I wore the kindest smile I could offer when I looked at Minato. "Only if he wants."

I expected him to leap onto the idea, to be honest, the same way Kagome and I had cleaved to each other moment we met. Two lost souls finding each other in a huge, cold world against all odds. Who wouldn't cling to someone in that situation, forge a family where before there had been only isolation?

Instead, Minato surprised me.

He didn't hesitate a moment. Voice firm, though not unkind, he told us, "I think we had best keep this relationship of ours professional."

I blinked. "Professional?"

"Professional?" Kagome repeated. Her nose scrunched. "It's not like we're not coworkers."

Minato's ramrod posture straightened even further, if such a thing is possible. "Mixing our various fandoms seems like a poor idea," he said, clipped and rehearsed, a soldier repeating back the contents of a dossier. "As such, I believe it is best we limit our interactions when possible." His voice softened just a tad. "I understand the two of you have a close relationship, one which appears to be based on a sense of mutual support. While I appreciate your willingness to induct me into that arrangement, I assure you it is not necessary."

Neither Kagome nor I said anything. Frankly, I had no idea what to say. I started to talk, then stopped, then started again.

"That's…logical, I suppose," I said.

"Haven't you been lonely?"

Minato's head whipped toward her, as did mine. Kagome stared at Minato with jaw clenched, teeth visible behind her curling lips. Upon her thighs her hands clenched, tension vibrating her arms and tightening her shoulders, small frame alive with pent-up energy.

"You were just saying," she said, "that you hoped we were part of the Kommand—the Kommando Special Mar—?"

"The Kommando Spezialkräfte der Marine," Minato supplied.

"Yeah, that." Kagome tossed her head, hair flying, eyes like lit coals. "And we're not, which I guess sucks, but we're still in this with you. We're still regular people who got dragged here against our will. We're still just like you." Her face spasmed, pain and fear and anger turning her eyes darker still. "And you said you didn't even know we existed until now, and you're what, thirteen? Thirteen years of solitude, and you want to keep it professional? Some of us don't get so lucky, finding friends all over the place. Some of us have to be alone our entire lives, and yet you're going to reject us?!"

Her voice had risen with every word until it reached a feverish crescendo, echoing high and biting in the cavernous control room. Minato didn't move while she talked, staring her down with a neutral poker face that probably rivaled my own. I put a hand on Kagome's knee, giving it a light, warning squeeze.

"Kagome. Calm down." I kept my voice as neutral as Minato's blank face. "He doesn't have to be buddy-buddy with us if he doesn't want to."

Kagome's teeth gnashed. "Yeah, but—fuck, ugh!"

She shoved my hand away, bolting off the couch and back up the stairs, back the way we'd come toward the door to the arcade. She didn't leave the room, merely stood by the door with her back to us, hands wound tight into her thick hair. Trying to calm down, I suspected.

And she had every reason to be not-calm just then, after what had happened on our trip to the past.

Minato had no way of knowing, but he'd just stepped on a fucking rake.

"I've offended your friend."

My head jerked back toward Minato. He stared up at Kagome uncertainly, and when I caught his eye, he tried to smile. Didn't do a good job, though. I don't think he'd been expecting her to react with that much piss and vinegar.

"She went through something difficult recently," I said, keeping my voice down. "She learned something about her presence in this world that makes things like isolation a sore subject. But it's not my place to tell you about what she went through. That's something I think she'd only share with a friend—a true friend."

Minato didn't look happy about that. He was the type of guy who didn't like being left in the dark, or at least that's how he seemed to me. I wasn't about to go flaunting Kagome's pain to this guy so soon, though. Not after he'd rejected the offer of friendship, and not after only meeting him a few days prior.

We were in this together, just like Kagome had said, but that didn't negate the fact that we were still—for all intents and purposes—total and complete strangers.

"Still. She does have a point." I sat back in my seat, trying to keep my body language open and free of accusation. "All of this would be easier with support. But it's not like I can force you to be our friend."

"Thank you for understanding," Minato said. He glanced up at Kagome while he spoke. "I intend to do what I must and play my part on my story's canon, but once that part is over, I have every intention of returning to my old life. Having friends to leave behind would only make that harder."

My brow knit of its own accord. "Is it even possible to return to our old lives?"

Minato's eyes closed, pain flashing bright and raw before his lids concealed what he felt inside. When his eyes opened again, they held nothing but cool detachment, like he spoke of subjects no more personal than the weather.

"Perhaps not," he said. "Not the exact life we left behind, at any rate. But once my duty as a Sailor Soldier is finished, Germany calls me home."

How he'd manage that, I couldn't say, but… "If that's your choice, I'll respect it. Just know we're here if you need to talk, or whatever. OK?"

He nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

I got the sense he didn't mean what he said. His expression hadn't changed, hadn't shown appreciation for my offer—but it's not like I could force him to want companionship (or admit that he wanted it, at least). After one more smile I turned in my chair, looking up toward Kagome.

"Hey, Tigger?" I said. "Why don't you sit down?"

She wheeled in place, glaring at us with arms crossed over her chest—but after a moment she slumped, trudging down the stairs with head hanging low.

"Fine," she grumbled, throwing herself onto the couch beside me. Pointedly ignoring Minato, she asked, "He knows he'd get a really hilarious nickname though, right?"

"Hmm?"

"Well, he's analytical and whatnot, so clearly we'd call him 'Rabbit'—and considering his fandom, that's pretty ironic, dontcha think?"

She said "Rabbit" in English, and I admit it took me far longer than it should have to recognize the pun. When my brain translated the word to Japanese, however, it clicked, and suddenly I was a puddle of helpless laughter, arm thrown over my face as I leaned back against the couch and cackled.

"Rabbit!" I said, eyes streaming, breath coming in hard, hilarious pants. "Oh my god! Rabbit!"

Minato's scowl could've cut stone. "What's so funny about that?"

Kagome looked at him askance. "Rabbit," she said with a toss of her hair. "Rabbit. Get it?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

I sat up and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. Minato stared at Kagome without blinking, trying to read the punchline in her stubbornly quiet face. The pun was obvious as heck, though, which could only mean…

"Minato," I said. "Did you only ever watch the dub of the anime?"

He didn't reply verbally, but the pang of guilt that crossed his face said it all.

"…oh." Huh; this guy's anime knowledge was even more limited than I realized. Trying to be helpful (but wary of talking down to him) I said, "Sailor Moon's name is 'Usagi' in Japanese."

It clicked at once, of course, Minato's lips twitching in a smile of humored recognition. "Usagi" meant "Rabbit," and for another Scout to bear Sailor Moon's civilian name was an irony indeed.

"Plus," I went on, "in the anime, Venus spent some time pretending to be Sailor Moon herself, so…"

That pulled a laugh out of him, finally. "Now I'm regretting turning down your offer of a nickname," Minato said.

Kagome huffed. "Damn straight you are!" She paused, but then she grinned—and she tipped Minato a wink, unable to help herself. "There's always time to reconsider. Lord knows we could use someone like you if we run into Hiruko again."

Minato smiled back, but the look faded into one of stony resolve. "This is the second time you've mentioned that name. Dare I ask to whom it belongs?"

Kagome and I shared another of our Looks, one that conveyed far more than words ever could. Her eyes had hardened at the sound of the demigod's name, mouth a line of thin aggression, so I elected to take point on this subject.

"Well, we have to get to him sometime," I said. "Minato, how much do you know about Japanese myth?"

Nothing at all, it turns out. He had never even heard of the god Ebisu, much less his ancient name of Hiruko. I filled him in on the basics as best I could, outlining what I knew of Hiruko's origin, how I'd met him, and the fact that I had no idea what his goals were. Minato didn't bat an eye when I said Hiruko had probably stolen thread from the Fates themselves, though, which I counted as a lucky break. Minato could adapt, could roll with the punches as they flew, and that was an enviable trait indeed. When I finished telling him about Hiruko's insistence that I "break the rules," he gave me a resolute nod.

"Although I wish I knew what this Hiruko was planning," Minato said, "I can only assume it isn't with good in mind. To long for such chaos isn't the mark of a well-intentioned man." A grim smile, satisfied but dark. "Too bad for him I do not intend to break the rules."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Once again he straightened in his seat, posture as rigid as it was formal. "From what I understand of the anime, Aino Minako was Sailor Venus, leader of the Sailor Scouts and sworn protector of Princess Serenity." His chin inclined a fraction, pride evident in his glimmering eye. "As I have had tactical and military training, I am uniquely suited to assume Sailor Venus's role in events to come."

"All right!" Kagome could roll with the punches too, it seemed, because she beamed at Minato without compunction, earlier quarrel forgotten (especially if it meant gaining an ally against Hiruko). "Hiruko picked the wrong damn guy, that's for sure!"

"Thank you. If he aims to take Serena off her path, I will not let him." His head rose higher, confident and purposeful. "I will protect her with my life. It's what I have been trained for."

Kagome crowed, pumping a fist into the air. I didn't cheer, however. Something nagged at me—something small, but wrong. Too wrong to just let go.

"You said earlier the anime was your wife's hobby," I said. "How much of it have you seen?"

Kagome's expression turned curious; Minato's brow furrowed, body shifting toward me in his seat.

"I admit, only parts of Sailor Moon: Crystal," he said, "but Greta spoke of the series often."

Well, that was a fat load of help, little did he realize. "I think it's easier to start with what you know," I said after a moment's contemplation. "Tell me all you remember?"

Minato did. He had a decent grasp of the start of the series, thankfully. He knew about the Inner Senshi, Mars and Mercury and Jupiter, and knew that the evil Queen Metaria had destroyed the Silver Millennium hundreds of years ago. This same queen would menace the world again soon, and it was the Scouts' job to save the world from her dark reign.

"Good start," I said when he stopped talking. "What about the Outer Senshi?"

But Minato frowned. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean."

I paused. Then, hesitantly: "Chibiusa?"

"No."

"…Wiseman and Demande."

"I don't—?"

"Did you read the Sailor V manga?"

"No," he said. He raised a hand before I could throw more names his way. "I assume these are all details I missed?"

"Yes, they are, I hate to say it, and I hope you don't take offense—but I think Hiruko picked the right damn guy, after all."

My hands trembled on my lap as I spoke, words tumbling in a mad rush of babbled dialogue. I really did hate to say it, truth be told, because Kagome's face fell and Minato adopted a look of burgeoning determination I wasn't sure I liked very much. It made my mouth go dry, made the breath hitch in my lungs as Minato appraised me.

"What do you mean?" he asked, tone uncomfortably inscrutable.

I took a very deep breath.

This could go one of two ways: Either he could listen, and absorb, and alter his thinking…or he could get defensive and tell me to get the hell out of his secret Sailor Scout clubhouse, and take my opinions with me.

I had no idea which road he'd travel.

My pulse quickened in my belly, hot and nauseating at the thought of challenging him.

The last time I'd dared question a former military operative, I'd gotten shoved face-first into a wall. But that had been in another lifetime, and I tried not to think about that asshole ex-boyfriend of mine anymore. He wasn't worth the time. He wasn't worth the heartache.

Hopefully, the man that was Minato would not be like him.

Fingers crossed that I wasn't about to alienate this already distant person, or make me the target of his ire, I said, "How does the Maboroshi no Ginzuishō work?"

Minato's chin rose once again, proud he could answer me. "The Silver Crystal is a jewel of immense power. It's a weapon enemies wish to steal."

"I didn't ask what it is. I asked how it worked."

Though I tried to voice that statement gently, Minato still looked taken aback. "I—I don't know," he said, tone hushed.

Another deep breath, to quell my mounting nerves. "The Silver Crystal's power is directly tied to the emotional state of Sailor Moon," I said. "If she's emotionally unstable, sad or angry or despairing, the Crystal doesn't work as well. Emotion is the key to her power. It's the key to all of the Scouts' powers."

Minato did not reply. In fact, he didn't even move. His chest stopped rising and falling, still as his lungs caught a breath and held it tight.

"In fact," I said, "Sailor Moon was praised by critics for its positive portrayal of emotion. Emotion is generally regarded as a feminine weakness, but Sailor Moon weaponizes girls' feelings, turning them from liability to asset in what many critics deem is a decidedly feminist statement about expressing feelings."

Minato had no idea how to take that, judging by the look of absolute shock on his face—and for a moment I regretted bringing up that point at all. He had enough crap about gender on his plate without me shoving that down his unsuspecting throat, too…but the fact remained that Sailor Moon defeated Metaria, and other villains, thanks to the power of her bond with her friends.

That was the hard truth of the matter.

Military strategy would only get him so far if he didn't forge the necessary bonds to back it up.

Kagome hummed in recognition. "Right. I'd forgotten most of that, but you're right. They fought, yeah, but in the end it was their relationships and feelings that mattered more than fisticuffs."

"Exactly." I reached for her, found her hand and held it, grateful for her presence as I looked at Minato's frozen eyes. "You have military training, Minato, and that's great. I wish I had that, too. But I'm afraid that that's not what the Scouts rely on to win their battles. It's part of it, sure, but bonds of love, friendship, and trust are what give the Scouts their true strength."

Something shuttered behind his eyes. "They will be able to trust me. I know the value of teamwork. I know what it is to work cohesively."

"Teamwork isn't the same thing as friendship, though, is it?"

Minato drew himself up, shoulders straightening, mouth opening to draw in breath—but then the shutters in his gaze cracked open.

Behind them, I saw pain.

"I'm sorry," I said. He was too far away, but even though I feared how he'd react to me, I wanted to reach for him, give him a hug and ease some of the stark loneliness hiding in plain sight within his features. "I know I sound harsh as hell right now. But you haven't seen the anime much, and I don't want you caught off-guard." My smile came sad and slow, apologetic and unyielding all at once. "Protecting Usagi is going to take more than acting as her bodyguard and directing fights. Half of the Scouts' missions revolved around their friendship and character development—and the battles Usagi wins with the Crystal hinge on the love she has in her friends. Becoming the Scouts' friend will be just as important as protecting their lives."

No one spoke when I was through. Kagome stared, small fingers firm around my larger ones. Minato had stopped breathing again, hands digging into the fabric of his pants hard enough to crease their ironed pleats.

"Are you prepared for that?" I said, so soft Kagome leaned in closer to hear. "Are you prepared to make friends in this world, I mean?"

For a little while, Minato didn't speak.

Then he stood.

I flinched, but he didn't lunge for me. He simply stood, walked away, and exited the command center via the door behind us.

Kagome and I met each other's eyes. She swallowed, action audible in the quiet room. I took a deep breath and tilted my head back, stretching my neck with a pop. Tension, hot and tight, had gathered there while I hadn't been paying attention. The ceiling of the room, I noticed, was black, winking with a million points of light—a star map. One I guessed would be quite accurate given Minato's personality.

"Where do you think he went?" Kagome whispered.

I opened my mouth to reply.

Minato came back into the room.

The words soured, shriveled, and died as Minato marched smartly down the steps towards us. I tensed, neck aching as my muscles pulled taut, but Minato walked right by and returned to his swivel chair. He sat ramrod straight once more, but this time his hands didn't rest atop his knees. In them he held a pen and a pad of stationary, Game Center Crown logo stamped in black at the top. Minato scribbled something, and then he looked straight at me, young face wearing expectance like a tailored suit. Kagome tittered, eyeing the stationary in his steady hand.

"What are you doing?" Kagome asked.

"I'm setting up to be debriefed," Minato said—and the shutters behind his eyes had gone, replaced by open determination. "I'm ready when you are, captain. Teach me everything you know about Sailor Moon."

Notes:

Strength comes in many forms. I think that might be one of the themes of this fic.

Minato is a badass for sure, but the Sailor Moon series isn't necessarily tailored for his particular brand of badass. He's going to have to change how he thinks about strength, emotion, and friendship if he wants to do well as Sailor Venus. I wanted to make it clear that while Minato is very competent with military strategy and fighting, he isn't necessarily going to be team leader of the Switcheroo Crowd. I think all the switched souls have strengths and weaknesses, and not all of their strengths will be applicable in their respective series.

I started to write a flashback scene for this chapter about an exboyfriend who was in the military, and how he could not handle any challenge or criticism of his opinion, which affects how I'd likely feel about giving criticism to Minato (and to this day affects how I behave around people in the military)…but I got a pretty bad trigger-flashback because my ex was an abusive asshole. I had to leave it out and just stick with a few little lines about it. But those moments where NQK worries about being frank with Minato spring from that ex of mine, whose military training enabled him to act violently at the slightest perceived slight, and in ways I was unable to stop. I still have trouble speaking to people in the military, and it's been years.

I know this was both late and short, but this week (insofar as my personal life goes) was…actually sort of scary. I get migraines. They're bad. They've been getting worse over the past year or so, decline remarkable and drastic. This week I got very dizzy, and remained severely dizzy and disoriented for more than 24 hours. I couldn't stand up for a good chunk of the day.

It's not often I get scared over my own health. I've shattered an arm, had two tumors removed, and endured more broken toes than I can count. When I get sick, I generally power through, but those 24 hours were actually rather terrifying. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Paired with my dramatically worsening migraines, I admit I'm alarmed. I'm seeing a neurologist and price-shopping for an MRI (fuck you, American healthcare, for forcing me to type that phrase). I don't know what that dizzy spell was symptomatic of, but I intend to find out and kick its ass.

Thanks for the support, everyone. You're all lovely, and your comments were a bright spot in my topsy-turvy week. You had no idea how buoyed I felt by your comments, but just the same they lifted me up when I felt indescribably low. Thank you.

Chapter 59: Got My Wish

Summary:

In which Not-Quite-Keiko plays a joke and kicks someone in the face.

Notes:

Warnings: Parents fighting/fractured home life

NOTE: I'm in a terrible rush and don't have time to give this as thorough an edit as I'd like, but I will do that this evening. Please forgive the inevitable typos!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Kagome had fallen asleep, and I had grown more than a little hoarse, by the time Minato ran out of questions. He surveyed the notepad on his lap with a critical eye, quiet as I eased back against the couch and tried not to rouse Kagome. She leaned heavily on my shoulder, snoring, head nestled in the crook of my neck. I draped my arm around her shoulders and pet her thick, soft hair, motions absentminded and slow.

"This should do for now." Minato closed the book and nodded. "Thank you, captain."

He'd called me "captain" more than once over the past few hours. I didn't mind it (I'd suffered far less dignified nicknames before) but its grandiose quality felt a bit weird. I said, "Please. Call me Eeyore."

Minato eyed Kagome's sleeping face. "I confess I am still mystified at your nicknames."

"Why?"

"Keiko and Kagome are perfectly good names," he said, as matter of fact as a weather report.

"Yeah, but…they aren't ours. We forgot our names when we became who we are today." I hesitated. "Did you…?"

"Yes." Blue eyes turned nearly navy, dark with uncertainty. "I forgot mine as well. I remember everything else about my life, but…"

"Everything but that. Same here." I pointed at Kagome with my free hand. "Neither of us felt comfortable using a name that didn't belong to us. Not around someone who knew it didn't, in fact, belong to us. So we picked the names, and we use them when we're alone." A shrug, best as I could manage given I currently functioned as a human pillow. "Gives us something of our own to hang onto, I guess, when we have so little else of our past selves."

Navy brightened back to royal blue. "Ah. I think I understand." He put a hand to his chest. "I chose my name in this life. Or I altered Minako's name, at least. I made it my own, as did you."

"Right." Another hesitation, but my curiosity got the better of me. "Can I ask something potentially invasive and awkward? You don't have to answer if you don't want to, of course. Safeword is…um, 'swordfish.'"

Minato smirked. "Good to know. And sure. What is it?"

"Your school, your parents. What do they think of your new name?"

This was, of course, a carefully coded way of asking how he got away with staying true to being a man, despite inhabiting the body of Aino Minako—or at least a question of how he was treated by society. Japan was a conservative place compared to 2016 America. Part of me knew it was way too personal a question so early in my relationship with Minato, but he didn't react badly to it. Minato merely looked above my head, staring off into space as his thoughts gathered.

"My parents…you mentioned the anime and the manga portrayed them differently." He scanned his notepad, flipping back a page or two. "According to this, my current life follows the canon of the anime, in the sense I live alone."

I couldn't help but wince. In the anime, Minako was a tragic character, totally alone and without family. In the manga she had parents, even if she didn't have a great relationship with them. Even so, having parents of any stripe after being torn from your old life would be better than a life of loneliness, wouldn't it?

Minato must have sensed my unease, because he elucidated without prompting.

"My father travels. My mother is dead." He shrugged. "I never knew her, and I barely know him. He rarely sees me, and has no opinion of how I live my life. As for school and teachers…" At that he smirked, conspiracy in expression. "I have access to technology not of this world. Altering my records was easy enough."

My brow lifted, impressed. "So, legally…?"

"My birth certificate says male, now." He gestured at himself. "And when this body develops more, this transformation brooch will prove useful indeed. It transforms me both into Sailor V and into a variety of different forms." Another smirk. "I've experimented. It can make me look like just about anyone, changes subtle or severe as I see fit."

It was, essentially, perfect for someone who wanted to "pass"—and I got the sense that for Minato in particular, passing was the goal. I smiled, some of my worry abating. "That's awesome."

Minato nodded; I started to speak, change the subject to something less person, but a yawn rose high and round into my throat. Kagome stirred against my shoulder, muttering under her breath.

"You should head home, I imagine." Minato gave my foot a pointed look. "You're still recovering."

"We'll go in a little while," I murmured, offering him a soft smile. "We told you our stories. You're still a question mark, though, but I don't want to pry more than I have."

His brow knit. "What would you pry about?"

"Well…where's Artemis, for starters?"

At the mention of the talking white cat, who had led the original Minako through her awakening as a Scout, regret coiled behind Minato's eyes. "At my apartment," he said—but softly, like he didn't want to admit he'd left the cat behind at all.

"Does he know?" I couldn't help but ask.

"No. I haven't told him." Still, a tightness gathered in Minato's shoulder. "But I think he suspects. I'm nothing like the Venus he used to know."

"Now that's a question mark." The idea had been brewing at the back of my mind since I learned a Sailor Scout had been switched out, and now I finally had a chance to say, "V and the other scouts were all reincarnations. So you…?"

"I have no idea what I am." Minato spoke with matter-of-fact assurance, and if not knowing bothered him, he gave no sign. "I have no idea what happened to the soul of the original Venus, and if I took her place in this world. From what I recall of Inuyasha, your…Tigger, was it?"

"Yes."

"Tigger likely has similar questions, given her relationship to…I forget her name. The priestess."

"Kikyo. And we actually figured that whole debacle out over the summer break."

Minato's calm exterior crumbled just a little when he leaned toward me, intent. "Oh?"

I smiled. "The Feudal Era is lovely the time of year."

He looked impressed. "She went to the past? But she's so young."

"She is. But I didn't let her go alone."

"You both—?" Minato cut himself short, chuckling under his breath. "Hiruko must be pleased, I imagine."

"Maybe. I haven't seen the little bastard in months." Thoughts of his pink hair and ever-present smile set my teeth to gritting. "Remember how I said Kagome went through trauma recently? It happened on our little vacation to this past this summer. We have our answers regarding her reincarnation…but again. She needs to be the one to tell you." A look at her sleeping, snoring, trusting face hardened my resolve, even when Minato looked less than pleased. "I'm sorry, but I can't say more without her consent."

For a moment, he did not reply. Eventually he admitted, "You're a loyal friend. I can see that now." Minato gazed at Kagome like he could read the answers in the fall of her hair. "For all the crime-fighting I do, I suspect the two of you have had far more interesting adventures than I have."

"Hey," I said, winking. "Stick with us and life's bound to get pretty exciting, right?"

I half expected him to snort, brush the overture of companionship aside, and soldier on…but the soldier in the body of a Sailor Scout hesitated, instead. He flipped through his notebook in silence, fingers skimming the words on the page like they were written in braille.

"I don't know how good of a friend I can be to the two of you," he murmured, so low I almost missed it. "It isn't…it isn't in my nature to open up."

Poor guy. I couldn't help but feel for him. If my past experiences had taught me anything, it's that emotional vulnerability didn't come easy to people who'd had to guard themselves in warzones. Didn't blame him for that, of course. It just meant becoming his friend (if he ever let it get that far) wouldn't be as easy as it had been with Kagome.

"You don't have to open up right away. Or ever, really." At that he stared, surprised by my soft words. "We'll still support you. We're in this together whether you want to open up or not."

Another glance at the notebook. "Given what you've told me about the Scouts' powers, I might have to try."

I caught his eye and smiled. "You a fan of fro-yo?"

"I like it well enough. But what…?"

"Well, Kagome and I routinely get fro-yo and rant about how hard it is to relate to teenagers when you're an old fogey inside—"

(That time Minato did snort, lips twisted with wry humor.)

"—and you're welcome to join us any time." I lifted my free hand in surrender. "No strings. No expectations. Just fro-yo and a good venting session, if you have a need for it. Here, write my number down."

He took it down as dutifully as a secretary, scribbling down his own number on a torn bit of notebook paper. Midway through the proceedings, Kagome groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes with both hands.

"What'd I miss?" she mumbled.

I smoothed down her hair, which had fluffed in the back as she slept. "We're just planning future fro-yo dates, that's all."

"Oh. Good." Sleepiness vanished at the mention of her favorite snack. "Do you like fro-yo, Minato?"

"I like it well enough."

"Good." Arms over her head in a long stretch, Kagome yawned, sending a ripple of sympathy-yawns through the room. "Man, I'm beat. What time is it?"

"Late," I said, and I reached for my crutches. "We should head back."

"Right. Let's go!" She bounced to her feet, but before she took a step she put a finger to her chin. "On second thought, I'll take the front door and leave the TARDIS to you, Eeyore. This arcade is closer to home than your house."

"Ah, really?"

"Yup. It's deep in the heart of Tokyo…" Kagome glanced at her watch and sighed. "And yup, the last train left already." Her face paled, eyes widening beneath her fringe of heavy bangs. "Oh god. My grandpa and mom must be worried sick!"

"Well, quick like a bunny, then," I said—and I shot a glance at Minato, sheepish. "Pun not intended."

His lips twitched. "Though I appear stoic, rest assured that inside, I'm screaming."

Kagome cackled; I laughed, too, pleased when Minato smiled and didn't run away terrified from my bad jokes. When he cut a glance at the computer console nearby, however, the smile faded.

"Before the two of you leave, I have something for you," he said.

While Kagome helped to my feet, Minato headed for the computer and typed something on one of its many flashing keyboards. The transparent screens projected above the console glittered and pulsed, symbols in a language I did not recognize, and after a few moments out of the console popped a metal drawer. From this Minato lifted two pink capsules, like something from a gatchapon machine, which he brought over and handed to each of us. At his nod Kagome and I exchanged a look, then as one we opened our respective capsules.

Inside mine lay a necklace—or, more specifically, a pretty golden pendant on a gold chain. Shaped like a star with cute rounded tips, a circular stone occupied the star's center, bright red facets scintillating in the computer's blinking light.

"Press the gem three times in succession if you need to speak with me," Minato said. He took the necklace from my capsule and demonstrated; three sharp clicks, and the jewel pulsed with its own internal radiance like the beating of a gemstone heart. "Reserve the beacon for emergencies, of course."

Kagome looked thrilled, draping the chain around her neck with eager hands. "Wow! It's so pretty!"

"I'd change it to something less twee if I could, but for the time being it serves its purpose," Minato said. He held out the necklace, draping it around my neck when I bent my head for him. That done, he turned smartly on his heel and headed for the door. "Follow me."

The chain settled cool and smooth against my nape as we trailed him up the stairs and out of the command center, down the hall, and onto the arcade floor. The place had closed for the day, games dark and desolate, an unnatural quiet swathing the normally bustling arcade like the cast of some great shadow. Minato unlocked the main doors (sliding, glass, and automatic) with a key and pushed them open manually. Kagome skipped out the gap between door and frame like her namesake cartoon tiger, spinning in place to wave at us from the sidewalk beyond.

"See ya later, Eeyore," she said. Her eyes moved from me to the boy at my side and darkened. She hesitated, rocking on her heels, then sighed and shook her head. "And Minato—it was nice meeting you. Sorry I got grumpy earlier."

But he merely shook his head. "Don't apologize. The captain here told me you've been through recent stress, and that I walked right into it."

Kagome chuffed at the nickname, shooting me a rueful glance. "'The captain' is right." She banished the regret in favor of a merry grin. "I promise to tell you all about it if you buy me fro-yo, though!"

"Sure." He waved in farewell. "Safe trip home."

She saluted to Minato. "Roger that, officer!" And to me she waved. "Night!"

Kagome vanished into the midnight of Tokyo like a ghost into fog, dashing down the street toward home without a backward glance. Minato locked up after her and led me back to the TARDI door, which he opened with a push of one strong hand—on the other side lay my bedroom, dark and tidy, moonlight streaming in the uncovered window above my desk. As I passed through it, that odd change in humidity brushed against my skin, the only mundane tell revealing the laws of time and space had been bent and broken just for me.

I couldn't help but wonder how many of those same laws Hiruko had bent—and perhaps outright broken—to put us in our various positions.

"So." Turning around on crutches isn't easy on thick carpet, but somehow I managed, hanging off them with my armpits so I could kick off my shoes. "Before we shut the door on this—pun intended, this time—what's going on with Botan?"

Minato (who did not join me in my room, staying firmly on the arcade side of the TARDIS door) reached into a pocket and pulled out a metal tube, about the length of my hand and no thicker than a finger. Out of this he yanked a small metal rod; between the rod and the main tube appeared a screen, a pull-out monitor that flashed twice before filling with light and color. More Sailor Moon tech—but I did not have time to marvel.

Upon the screen I saw Botan.

"I'll call when she wakes," Minato said. "Doubtless she'll be confused."

He held out the screen, showing me an image of Botan asleep in some sort of metal cradle with a transparent dome lid, like Snow White in her glass coffin. Various symbols and ciphers scrolled across the dome, and when I caught sight of a heart monitor pulsing with a steady rhythm, I surmised they were medical readouts. Her face looked serene enough, I supposed, bangs brushed straight back over her forehead to reveal the black slit of her (mercifully closed) third eye.

So. She was safe, it seemed. Good.

But how long before she woke, I wondered?

"I didn't say this before," Minato said, "but I can page you via the necklace I gave you." He pointed at the star upon my chest. "If it lights up, call me immediately."

"Will do." It was even harder to bow on crutches that it was to turn on them, but I managed anyway. "Thank you for caring for her, Minato. And please know I'm happy I met you."

"Thank you." He bowed back. "I—"

Minato stopped. We weren't close, and perhaps we never would be, but his roving eyes and parted lips conveyed a lot of things—uncertainly, mostly, as if he knew what he should say, but had no idea how to actually speak the words.

"Don't force it," I said, tone gentle. "I was just telling another friend of mine to just let relationships evolve organically. So, please don't stress. I'm not going anywhere, and neither is Kagome."

The confusion in his eyes cleared, and when he spoke, I got the sense he meant every word sincerely. "I appreciate that." He reached for the door. "I'll be keeping in touch."

Just as he started to close the door, something occurred to me. "Oh, wait—Minato?"

The door paused mid-swing. Blue eyes raked my face, confused. "Hmm?"

"I don't suppose you've ever had any interest in taking aikido lessons, have you?"

I had the pleasure of seeing him look surprised, then—surprised and pleased.

Minato and I weren't close. Perhaps we never would be.

But it turned out we had common ground, after all, that would help bridge the gap between us in ways both small and necessary.

He stood with hands behind him, rocking forward and back atop his wooden sandals. Time had not dulled the high-wattage intensity of his smile, nor had it cooled the mischievous glitter in his blue eyes. In fact, he looked exactly the same as he had the last time he visited me in my dreams—way back when Yusuke was still dead, months ago, when Hiruko and Cleo visited me together and I banished them from my head out of frustration. Red kimono, fishhook dangling from an ear, insouciant grin pulling his lips into a cheery bow, he looked every inch the boy I remembered, diminutive and lithe.

But this was not a boy to be trusted. Not after what I'd seen when Hiei invaded my head, and not after my trip to the past with Kagome, where we saw of what Hiruko was truly capable.

"Not-Quite-Keiko," he said, but only after I said nothing. "Or is it Eeyore now?"

"You are not allowed to call me that."

One petal-pink brow lifted. "Oh?"

"Only friends call me that."

"Ah, yes." His smile took on the faintest tinge of regret. "And you don't consider me one of those. I had forgotten."

I couldn't help but snort. Fat chance this puppet-master had forgotten anything. Putting my back to him, I took a deep breath and organized my spinning thoughts, shuffling and reshuffling questions in order of importance. I finally had this asshole in my grip; no way was I going to fuck this up. Before me stretched an endless field of green grass dotted with pink flowers, sky overhead shifting from powder blue to periwinkle behind a smattering of puffy clouds. Nice of Hiruko to craft this dream into something pleasant. It made getting centered all the easier, calm landscape easing the nerves fluttering in my gut.

"So tell me. How was your little soiree in the past?"

I turned. Hiruko waited, expectant, still with his hands clasped politely behind him. I put my hands on my hips and scowled, trying to affect the look of a stern teacher.

"So that's what you're here about," I said.

A nod, chipper and efficient. "It was quite alarming, seeing you vanish from an entire time period the way you did."

"Sorry to have startled you." I pivoted (my leg wasn't broken in this dream, interestingly enough) and gazed back at the gilded horizon. A distant, rising sun stained the sky there gold and violet and magenta, a technicolor maelstrom it almost hurt to look at. "And if you want to know, talk to Kagome."

It wasn't often I managed to throw Hiruko off-balance, but judging by his sharp intake of breath, I managed to do so just then. A smirk twisted both my lips and my heart. Fucking good. Little prick deserved to feel uncomfortable.

"Oh, yeah," I said, tone deceptively pleasant. "We know what little trick you pulled with her. And she's going to tear you into pieces for what you did." Eyeing him over my shoulder, I shook my head. "But it's not my place to beat the shit out of you. Not even my place to scream your ear off. I'll leave that to her."

But Hiruko shrugged, voice a humored song. "Perhaps you shouldn't. Her story won't start for some time." He spread his hands as if he were helpless, which was a total joke and we both knew it. "Who knows when I'll be seeing her?"

"You little shitstain."

Even Hiruko's ever-present smile flickered at my hissed jibe, at the pure wrath radiating from every syllable. I rounded on him, fists clenching with the fury that had flared to life inside me—because how fucking dare he? How fucking dare he say something like that?

"That's just so like you, isn't it?" I snarled. "You tear people's lives apart and then abandon them like they mean nothing to you! That's what you did with Kagome and her family, what you're doing to me, what you did to Minato—!"

When he held up his hands this time, it was with actual helplessness, because my rage was the one thing beyond his direct control. "I haven't abandoned any of you," he said.

"Then what the fuck do you call what you're doing to us?"

I wanted to strike the patronizing look off his face with my fist. "Now, now, Eeyore. You know I can't tell you that."

"Just like you can't tell me what happened before I woke up as Keiko, I imagine." But Hiruko didn't look guilty, or conniving, brow furrowing merely with confusion. "Hiei unlocked something, that day he went inside my head. I know you fucked with my memory, Hiruko." I stepped toward him; he stepped back, smile a ghost upon his lips. "I saw the couch. I saw meting you after I died. I saw how you ripped off The Good Place. What other memories did you take from me?" When he didn't speak, I snarled, "Answer me, dammit!"

"You're stressed." He held up a hand. "Here. Let me help."

I opened my mouth to tell him he could take his help and shove it up his ass.

He snapped his fingers before I could get the words out.

And with that, we were not in the field anymore.

No fading, no morphing, no bleeding of color or evolution of shape and form. One second we stood in a field, the next we were somewhere else with a jolting shift of hue and solidity. No sky arched overhead and into the distance. Instead a white ceiling crisscrossed with elegant beams hovered above my head, a ceiling fan spinning in lazy circles through the quiet air. I wheeled on reflex, taking in the windows on the rectangular room's every wall. One bank of windows overlooked a dark, quiet bedroom, huge bed draped in white linen and velvet pillows. Behind the bed stood a set of built-in shelves filled to bursting with books, two white statuettes of rearing horses cupping the set of signed first-edition tomes on the top shelf. The other three walls looked out over riotous greenery, a caramel wood fence cupping the garden like hands cupping a whispered secret. Two robins and a blue jay splashed in a fountain in the garden's back corner, water dripping onto the purple and pink and blue cabbages at the fountain's base, and onto the face of the stone cherub watching from the fountain's top.

I said nothing. I merely turned in place, staring out the windows, eyes scouring the room's black and white checkerboard floor, the green velvet fainting couch in the corner, the wicker furniture with black cushions, and the myriad potted plants lining the sunporch's many windowsills. A chess set, brass and heavy, sat on a glass-topped table in the corner, board draped with delicate ivy trailing from a hanging planter. Next to it atop a white pedestal sat a bronze bust depicting a young woman, laurel-crowned and smiling.

Nostalgia—nostalgia and pain—filled my chest, like the garden's birdbath had spilled inside me.

If I went to the bust of the young woman and turned it over, I'd find my name written on a scrap of masking tape beneath its heavy base. And under my name I'd find the words, "This is for my granddaughter when I die, and no one else."

My Nana had bought that bust of Daphne, the tragic girl from Greek myth, when she was 26—the same age I'd been when I died.

"You don't recognize it?" Hiruko said.

"No." The rebuke came hard and sharp, a blade in the stillness. "I know where we are. Just, how…?"

"I know everything about you, Not-Quite-Keiko. And I know this is one of the places you feel most at ease in all the world."

I closed my eyes.

I hated to admit it, but Hiruko was right. My grandmother's sunporch—smelling of old books, growing things, lemon-scented cleaner, and Nana's rose perfume—eased the rage inside me like cool water on a burn.

"I know everything about you," Hiruko went on. "I know everything about Kagome, about Minako—or Minato, rather." His smile turned wistful and morose. "You think I have abandoned you. Maybe in some ways, I've done exactly that. But that doesn't mean I care nothing for you."

It felt pointless, somehow, to argue. I walked to the pale green fainting couch and sat, pulling the angora throw atop it across my lap. The blanket felt just as I remembered, silky and yet rough at the same time. Typical angora weaving. My family had raised those goats for decades.

"What do you want, Hiruko?" I said, fingers tangling in the blanket's fringed edge.

"What do you think I want?" Hiruko asked. "Cleo all but told you."

I took a deep breath, Nana's perfume homey and disturbing on my tongue. Of all the relatives I worried about, she I worried for the most—because I'd been her girl, her favorite grandchild (which she admitted freely, to anyone who'd listen). My death would have killed her, I was sure.

But now was not the time to cry, much though I wanted to wrap myself in angora and sob into this facsimile of her furniture. My eyes pricked, but I did not let tears fall.

"You took something from Cleo. From the Fates," I said. "Cleo coughed up a stone when she tried to tell me exactly what…but when I had that dream with the both of you in it, you had string. That glimmering cord you used to fight her. When she saw it, she got angry. I assume you stole…the thread of destiny, perhaps. The loom of fate, maybe." A shrug. "I don't know all the terms to describe working of destiny, so maybe my feeling is right and my words are wrong."

Hiruko's grin amped up a few watts. "Something like that."

"Just…why? Why did you take it from her?" My many questions reordered themselves, vying for answer. "What are you planning? What are you doing?"

I expected him to deny me. To prevaricate and equivocate, change the subject and shield the truth with cryptic nonsense, the way he always did.

Instead, he looked hurt.

Raw pain clouded his eyes the way a storm clouds the sea, drear polluting his crystalline vision like wine poured into water clear.

"Cleo…she said you were a lost soul looking for his place." I knew I was on the right track when Hiruko's eyes flicked down to the clawed feet of the fainting couch, away from my questing eyes. "Is that why you created this world? To make a place for yourself?"

He hesitated—but then, in a voice like a quiet wind, he said: "Something like that."

It was both an answer and not an answer, stirring my earlier ire back into being. "But why the fandoms?" I asked. "Why ask me to break the rules?" When Hiruko didn't reply, and stared instead at the bust of Daphne in the corner, I shook my head. "I don't understand. I just don't—I just don't understand."

Hiruko walked away from me, wooden sandals clicking against the tile, and approached the windowsill overlooking the garden. His hands alit on the sill like birds, as likely to stay as they were to fly. His pale face and pink hair reflected in the window's wide glass, image just clear enough for me to read the resignation in his eye.

For the first time that dream, his smile had faded down to nothing.

"You had a terrible relationship with your parents," he said. "That's why you love this place so much. Your grandmother protected you from them here."

"Why are you bringing up—? Oh." It clicked, the legend of Ebisu provided neat explanation. "You weren't so cozy with your parents, either."

He snorted. "If you call them putting me to sea in a basket as a baby 'not so cozy,' I suppose that's true enough." A long sigh, low and desolate. "You did everything you could to get their attention. But nothing ever worked, did it?"

We were no longer alone on the sunporch.

As soon as he finished speaking, they appeared—the golden-haired girl with ringlets the width of my wrist, eyes grey like polished pewter, and at her side the slender woman with eyes of the same burnished shade. Nana looked younger than she had when I last saw her, face less lined, back less bent. Instead of a short pageboy cut, she wore her hair in an intricate mass of braids woven across the base of her skull, held in place by three jeweled pins (they had belonged to her mother, and her mother before her). I'd cried when she cut her hair short when I was thirteen or so—but the girl on the floor, fingers clasped around crayons, was younger than that. My hair had turned brown and lost its curl when I turned eight, which meant…

Screaming, guttural and raw, cut the silence like a buzz saw.

The little girl's eyes—my younger self's eyes—filled with tears as the sound echoed through the bedroom and into the sunporch. Her hand paused over her notebook, the story she'd been writing stopping short at the sound of a plate breaking in the distance.

"Now, now," Nana said, chiding and warm. "You can't stop there. I want to see how the story ends."

My heart nearly broke at the sound of her creaking voice, at her cadence, the way she over-enunciated the last three words for comical effect, eyes as wide as they'd go for emphasis. Little Me nodded and went back to work, eyes still swimming, as Nana began to hum. She wasn't particularly on key, but the strain of Sinatra's "New York, New York" covered the sounds of my parents fighting like a fog covering the sun.

Another plate crashed.

Nana stopped humming.

A tear fell down the face of my past self.

"Stop it," I whispered as my child avatar climbed into Nana's lap. Nana hummed again, that same cheery tune, but it couldn't drown out my mother's shrieking or my father's returned bellow. "Stop that."

"That's why Nana kept the pictures you drew, and why your refrigerator at home was bare." Still he didn't turn from the window, watching me in the reflective glass. "That's why she read the stories you wrote, and not your parents. She was the only one to ever value what you made. Your parents left you with her for months at a time, and it was the only time you ever felt like you belonged." His fists clenched on the sill, in time with yet another breaking plate. "Well, Keiko. I don't have a doting Nana like you did. I was all alone—I've always been alone."

From inside the house swam words, shrieking distinct as the screaming grew closer. None of the words were kind. Some of them concerned me, my birth a mistake my mother never should have made, my father a mistake she never should have married—and my father agreed with her, because she was a petty fucking bitch, and he should have left when he had the chance, before she popped out a kid and ruined his life.

Nana hefted my younger self into her arms, stood, and—expression thunderous—opened the sunporch door and took me into the garden, over to the birdbath and the decorative cabbages. The door shut behind her as she sang "New York, New York" aloud.

From what I remembered of that day, her voice would only cover some of my parents' fight—a fight still raging in the house behind me, screaming melding with Nana's song, the two amalgamating in terrible, disgusting harmony until I had no choice but to cover my ears with my hands.

"I said stop it!" I shouted.

But the fighting, the singing, it didn't stop. It only grew louder, gathering behind my eyes like a brewing migraine. Hiruko turned to face me with teeth bared.

"I thought you, of all my chosen, would have the capacity to understand me," he said.

My eyes squeezed shut. "Stop it, Hiruko!" The signing only reached a crescendo, though, my mother's voice a collection of harsh, wordless shrieks of pain and fury, Nana's song a desperately futile plea for peace. "Stop it!"

But he did not obey. "I thought that you—"

The rest of his words blended with the cacophony of singing, of screaming, of pain and misery all rolling together, filling my chest like someone had packed me full of concrete. My teeth gnashed, my fists clenched in my hair, and the words ripped out of my gut as if pulled free on the end of a sharp hook.

"I said, QUIET!" I bellowed.

And all at once, silence reigned.

I opened my eyes.

Hiruko, hand clutched to throat, gaped at me. Nothing came out when his lips moved, and when he took two steps in my direction, his feet made no sound against the tile. Out in the garden Nana still sang, carrying child-me in her arms, body swaying in time to music…but I couldn't hear her.

From inside the dark house, the fighting had ceased.

There was…nothing.

It was, at long last, quiet.

"Well. That's. Um?" My voice echoed in the tiled sunporch. "That's interesting."

Hiruko glared at me, because apparently he found this turn of events far less interesting. One hand rose, fingers snapping (though soundlessly) and movement flickered at the corner of my eyes. Into Nana's bedroom surged two people, a man and a woman.

As soon as I saw the woman's livid green eyes and the man's purple face, I scowled.

"Go away," I said.

My parents obeyed, vanishing as if they'd never been.

Hiruko's expression of wild, shocked confusion nearly made me laugh, but I held the mirth at bay. Instead I rounded on him, holding aloft a single accusatory finger, glaring down its length like I aimed at him down the barrel of a hunting rifle.

"You do not get to conjure an image of the one place I ever felt safe, and turn it into that, in some misguided attempt at forcing me to empathize." Every word rang like a gunshot, purposeful and deadly. "You are not allowed to do such a thing."

Hiruko's mouth opened and closed, but still no sound came out. Blue eyes cast about, desperate for some escapee, some clue as to how I was doing this—but even I wasn't sure. Still pointing at him, still staring with all the imperious, righteous fury I could muster, I took a deep breath and made a wish.

At once, the windows blacked out.

The garden and bedroom through the glass disappeared into featureless black.

My wish had been granted in the time it took to breathe.

"I don't want you here," I said to the wide-eyed Hiruko. "I don't want you near me." My finger swung toward the door. "Get out. Leave!"

The door swung open, blackness beyond as deep as an empty galaxy. Hiruko's body jerked backward toward the door as if pulled there by the vacuum of space, like I'd jettisoned him from the airlock, but at the last second his fingers caught the doorframe and held on tight. He clung to it and stared at me, mouth moving as he spoke his silent pleas—but like the pharaoh before Moses, I remained unmoved.

"This is my dream, isn't it?" I said. "My dream, my mind?" A wicked grin split my features, and his face reflected horror in return. "Well, buddy, I have news for you. This is my brain, and that means it's my playground—and right about now, solipsism has never sounded so good."

I strode toward him. Lifted my foot.

"Get lost, asshole," I said. "Boy, bye!"

I smashed my foot onto his hand.

Hiruko let go, and he vanished into the black.

For a moment I just stood there, silent, as in the back of my brain I felt his presence dissolve and disappear. It felt like a literal weight vanishing, someone removing a textbook from a pack I hadn't realized I carried on my back. I closed my eyes and hummed, more room opening up inside my soul as Hiruko's manifestation faded.

Once I closed my eyes, I found I didn't want to open them again. Not here, anyway. Not in this nostalgic place, one which carried as much love as it did pain.

"I don't want to be here anymore," I said. "Gimme…oh, I dunno. Oz?"

When I opened my eyes, I stood in a field of poppies, the Emerald City looming high and stately against the azure sky. The gold slabs of the Yellow Brick Road pressed firm and hard under my feet, scent of sweet flowers filling my lungs like cotton candy.

"Huh. That's neat." And because this was a dream, and because the lightness in my chest could not be denied, I spread my arms and sang, "I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the—eek!"

My feet lifted off the golden cobblestones at once.

A shriek tore out my mouth, but I didn't rise any higher, didn't careen into the endless blue firmament as Hiruko had careened into the black of deep space. I breathed hard, staring at the ground below, and swallowed down my fear.

"OK," I said. "Here we go."

Flying in a dream works best when you don't think about it. It's like moving your muscles, really—not controlled by conscious thought, but propelled rather by the sheer force of your will. It didn't take me long to get the hang of it, zooming over the tops of the red and pink poppies like Matilda, gathering blossoms in my hands as I flew past. Cackling like the Wicked Witch, I gathered an armful of flowers and darted up into the sky, scattering the blossoms to the wind with a wild whoop of joy.

And then a phone rang, incongruous and shrill, and I found myself lying awake in my bed.

"Way to kill my lucid dream," I muttered, somehow wide awake. I snatched the phone from its cradle by the second ring and shoved it between my chin and shoulder. "Hello?"

A pause. Then: "You're up late, kiddo."

I knew that scratchy voice, those deadpan words ringing with an undercurrent of wry amusement. All grumpiness forgotten, I said, "Shizuru! You're back?!"

"Apparently." A low exhale, probably exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But lemme ask you something."

"Anything."

"Why the hell is Urameshi Yusuke asleep in my bed?"

In the shadows of my darkened bedroom, all I could do was laugh.

The door popped open as my mother hummed a merry tune. "Keiko, honey, are you—oh my god, Keiko, are you all right?!"

I popped up like a jack-in-the-box, hands aloft and placating. "I'm fine, I'm fine, Mom, I promise! It's fake blood! Fake! Fake!"

Truly, she had every right to freak out given how much fake blood I'd poured on the bandages wrapped oh-so-liberally around my head and arms. I'd even blacked one of my eyes with makeup and done a good job faking a split lip with lipliner, and I'd put my leg cast on prominent display atop a mound of pillows. I'd been lying down when she came in, head lolled piteously to one side, every inch of me posed for maximum tragic effect.

Too bad she wasn't my intended target.

"But—but why are you—?" Mom stammered.

"Yusuke's coming over and I'm going to scare the crap out of him."

Dad appeared in time to hear this explanation, and after doing an impressive double-take at my costume he threw back his head and cackled. "That poor son of a bitch!"

Mom turned and swatted him. "Language!"

"Sorry, darling! But Yusuke is in for it." Dad chortled behind a hand. "Our daughter could be a comedian!"

"I knew one of you would be proud," I grumbled, and then I slapped on a sheepish look. "I'm so sorry I scared you, Mom, but he's going to come over in the next hour or two so I thought I'd get ready early. And then I heard you coming up the stairs, so…"

She considered this, and then her face softened. "Well. I suppose Yusuke has scared you enough times in the past to deserve some payback. But sweetheart, why didn't you ask me for help?" She walked over, leaned down, and sniffed me. "Is that…is that jam on your bandages?"

My sheepishness intensified. "Yeah."

"Oh, dear." She tutted. "You know you can make much better fake blood with cornstarch and food coloring, don't you?"

I stared at her, both because she knew how to make fake blood and because, "We have food coloring in the house?"

"Of course. Leftover from those White Day chocolates you made a few years back."

Mom winked, and I cracked the hell up, because apparently giving Yusuke a good scare was meant to be a family activity. Mom and Dad scampered downstairs giggling like the co-conspirators they were and returned a few minutes later with a mug of surprisingly convincing fake blood. We exchanged my sticky, jammy bandages with clean ones and then doctored me up all over again, maniacal laughter reverberating off the walls as they helped me perfect my best I-am-about-to-die pose and facial expressions.

Soon they left, however, to go keep watch downstairs ("We'll warn you when he gets here!" my mother promised with devious glee). With that done, there was little left to do but wait. I sat up in bed and pulled out my latest notebook, opening it across my somewhat bloody lap as I uncapped my favorite pen.

Before I could start writing, however, a voice muffled by glass and distance said, "Meigo?!"

I flinched, but it was only Hiei crouched outside on the roof, white showing all around his irises as he stared. "I am scaring literally everyone but Yusuke today," I muttered, and then I waved and pitched my voice a little higher. "It's fake blood, don't freak out." A point at my cast. "Leg's a little banged up; can you let yourself in?"

He did as I asked with his brain, Jagan glowing as he opened the window lock from the inside. Clambering over the sill and onto my desk, he snapped, "I wasn't going to freak out."

"Well, your face suggested otherwise," I said, good-natured and teasing. Before he could bristle I added, "How've you been, Hiei?"

He ignored the question, looking my over with a scowl. "What happened to you?"

"Suzaku sicced the infected humans on me." I shrugged. "Broken foot and a cut up shoulder, but I'll survive."

"Hmmph. Yes. You're nothing if not resilient."

It was amazing how he made a compliment sound like an insult. I brushed aside his derisive tone and chirped, "Aw, thanks Hiei! And by the way, I heard you kicked some ass against Seiryu."

"That's putting it mildly." He wore the haughtiest smile you ever did see. "I slaughtered him."

I gold-clapped. "Good show, old chap. Though I don't imagine you came here just to get your ego stroked."

His pert nose turned up. "As if the opinion of a weakling human would matter to me."

Pretending to look cowed, I opened my journal back up atop my lap. "Well, then, far be it from me to keep giving you compliments." And with that, I pointedly began to write in my journal, ignoring him completely.

Hiei wasn't the type to let that slide, however. Hands jammed in his pockets, he strode over and stared down at my notebook with a sneer. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

I closed the notebook, sighing, because would I ever get to write down my interactions with Minato and Hiruko at this rate? "I'm journaling."

"What in the world is that?"

"It's—it's journaling?" The fact that he could operate a record player but didn't know what journaling was struck me momentarily dumb. "Y'know? Writing down all your thoughts and observations so you don't forget them?"

"Hmmph." Once more, he turned up his nose, snooty as a little prince. "A human invention, no doubt. A demon would never forget what matters."

"Maybe so." His supercilious act had me biting the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. "All I know is that it helps me."

His brow arched, disappearing beneath both bandana and bangs. "Helps you how?"

"It helps me worry less. Makes things less scary." I tapped my temple with my pen. "My brain has a way of puffing things up. Makes monsters look bigger than they really are. But if I put the things I worry about on paper, they become…small. And then they're a lot less scary." I couldn't help but grin. "Monsters look smaller in broad daylight."

"I don't understand."

Hiei's scarlet eyes, stare bold and bald and combative, bored into me with unrelenting confusion…and perhaps some curiosity, if I read him right. He knew how to operate a record player, so while he put on quite the show of disdaining humanity, I suspected he wasn't the type to reject researching them, either. To know one's enemy and all that…

"Expressing how I feel helps me cope," I said. "Helps me move on past things that trouble me. Whether it's journals or venting aloud, getting my fears and anxieties out in words makes me feel better." Once more, I tapped my temple with my pen. "My worries are really subjective in my head, too, so getting them out in front of an audience is helpful. I do it for my mental health, I guess."

For a moment he just stood there, brow furrowed, staring—and then his eyes solidified, almost, as he gave a resolute nod.

"So that's why you refuse to shut up when we eat ramen," he said, half accusing and half satisfied.

"Eh?"

"You talk and talk and talk about pointless little worries until you run out of air, not caring that I don't give a damn." Now he was all accusing, glaring at me as if I'd personally insulted him. "You do it every single time."

"Well, you're a good listener, even if you don't care about what I'm saying." My smile was as sweet as peach pie, which Hiei met with a somewhat disgusted scowl (because of course he did). "Thanks for that, Hiei. I really do appreciate you."

Hiei's scowl vanished. He blinked twice—but before he could snap at me, tell me to quit being an emotional sap—my mother's voice cut the silence as it bounced toward us up the stairwell.

"Well, now, Yusuke," she said with the fakest, most overblown sadness she could muster—complete with a dramatic sniffle and an artificial crack or two, totally selling it, acting worthy of soap opera stardom. "I'm glad you're here. Poor Keiko could use a visitor, given her condition." Another sniffle, and then an overacted wail of anguish. "Our poor daughter! Who knows how much time she has left?"

"Oh, dammit!" Yusuke said. Feet slammed onto the stairs. "I'm comin', Keiko, just hold on!"

I suppressed a maniacal laugh and flopped back onto the bed, quickly assuming the I'm-dying-so-please-be-sad pose my mother and father and I had workshopped—but I cracked an eye and growled at the slaw-jawed Hiei, "Quick! Hide!"

He looked positively mortified. "Hide? Why?"

"Don't fucking argue, Hiei just get in the closet or something, just go!"

Hiei glared, seemingly debating the merits of obeying as Yusuke thundered toward us—but just as the door to the room burst open and slammed against the wall, he disappeared, flitting from sight so fast I had no idea where he actually managed to hide. No time to wonder, though—I heaved a heavy groan and let me head fall to the side, allowing my lashes to flutter as if the act of opening my eyes had become a heavy burden.

"K…keiko?" Yusuke stammered from the doorway.

"Yus…uke…" I muttered, and I stretched one shaking hand out toward him.

Poor sucker absolutely bought it. He gasped and dashed to me, on his knees at my bedside, gathering my hand in his and holding it to his heaving chest. Through my slitted eyes I saw figures gather in the doorway, Kurama and Kuwabara, Mom and Dad, even Shizuru standing with hands over their mouths, trying desperately not to snicker and give the game away.

When Yusuke turned his head to look at the cast on my leg, I gave everyone in the doorway a cheesy-as-hell wink.

"Keiko," Yusuke said. "You broke your—and the blood—oh my god." He clutched my hand tighter, peering into my face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't get to the whistle faster."

"Yusuke," I grated out, trying my best to sound pained. "Come…come closer."

That drama queen didn't even hear me, too busy muttering. "I'm going to kick Koenma's ass, I promise you, Keiko, I—"

"Closer, Yusuke," I said, a bit louder this time. "I—I can't see…!"

That got his attention, finally. He leaned in, eyes wide and horrified. "Yeah, Keiko? What is it?"

"Clo…ser…"

He held his breath and did as I asked. I waited for him to put his ear basically over my mouth to speak.

"Eat," I said.

"What was that, Keiko? Are you hungry?"

"Eat…eat a dick, Yusuke…"

He sat up.

Stared at me.

"Huh?" he said.

And then everyone in the doorway burst out laughing. So did I, in fact. I rolled to my side and howled, slapping at the mattress as Yusuke's jaw dropped. He looked between me and the others in turns, mouth working as he tried to summon words and failed.

"You idiot!" I wheezed, eyes streaming. "You big idiot! You should see your face right now!"

"What the—?" he managed, and then he bolted to his feet and leveled a finger at the others. "You tricked me! You were all in on it!"

But no one answered him right away. Too busy laughing, even cool-as-a-cucumber Kurama and Shizuru unable to form words amidst the riot. Yusuke turned the color of the fake blood on my bandages and wheeled on me.

"What is that, pig's blood?" he said, snatching the bandages off my head. "It certainly suits you, old hag!"

My dad laughed loud at that. "She got you good, Yusuke, you have to admit!" Arms around each other, my parents waved and wiped their eyes. "Now we'll leave you kids to it. Thanks for the laugh, kids!"

They left, and the others filed into my room and shut the door—but I hadn't yet recovered, lying flat on my back and trying to catch my breath, giggles cresting over and over again. Yusuke stared down at me with teeth grit, but when I buried my face in my pillow, I heard his feet scrape over the carpet.

"And to think I was worried about—is that my Famicon controller?!"

His voice cracked on the last syllable. I lifted my face and saw him holding the controller, face purple with fury, the controller's long cord snaking from his fist to the space under my bed—the space where I'd stashed the gaming system when I got home from the hospital. But how had he seen the controller? I thought I'd shoved it pretty deep under there.

"I wondered where this went!" he said. Before I could make a quip about him caring more about his gaming system than he did me, his childhood friend, he glared and said, "What, you stole it while I was asleep?"

I pointed across the room and threw a certain someone under the bus without compunction. "Kuwabara did it."

"He did WHAT? OH, that's it!" But Kuwabara hid behind Shizuru, who rolled her eyes, and Yusuke decided he'd beat the other boy black and blue another day—because right now he had to find his precious Famicon. Glaring at me, he demanded: "Where's my game, huh? Where is it? Where'd you hide it?" He followed the controller's cord and dropped to the floor, lifting the bed skirt to peer beneath my mattress. "What, did you hide it under your—oh my god what the fuck?!"

In half a second he was across the room, back against my closet door, pointing in horror under my bed. Before anyone could ask what he was yammering about, however, something rustled—and then Hiei appeared, brushing off the front of his black cloak and glaring straight at Yusuke. The others all stared, open-mouthed with shock.

"What the fuck is Hiei doing under your bed?!" Yusuke yelped.

Hiei pointed at me. "She told me to hide!"

"I don't care what she did! You scared the shit out of me!"

Hiei's stare was as baleful as it was unapologetic. "Perhaps if you'd been more observant—"

Yusuke bared his teeth. "Why you little—!"

As was custom, a squabble broke out, replete with threats and headlocks and all the yelling you could ask for. Kuwabara jumped in, gleefully mocking Hiei's size ("Doesn't surprise me a shrimp like you could fit under a bed!"), while Kurama and Shizuru looked on from the sidelines, amused. The giggles caught up with me again, of course, because their antics were the stuff of legend—but then they died down, leaving me to stare at the boys (and one girl) in awed silence.

I'd finally gotten my wish, I realized.

All of my boys were here at last, together in one place.

They were all here, and they were all OK.

My boys were together at long last, and aside from Botan, everything—well. Everything had turned out OK, hadn't it?

The sensation settled over my shoulders like a blanket, warm and soft and bracing.

Everything was going to be OK.

I'd done a lot of crying over the past few days. Tears of worry, tears of sadness, tears of fear, tears of mirth. And all of them—no matter how unpleasant, or even how fun—served their varying purposes.

That day, as my eyes welled and my boys bickered, I learned that tears of happiness felt the best of all…not that that should come as a surprise to anyone.

Notes:

Up next: Rescue Yukina…or at least the build-up to that arc.

Just a few loose ends to tie together at this point. Namely Botan's situation, Shizuru's experiences, and Yusuke's thoughts on the Saint Beast Arc. We'll get that wrapped up in chapter 60, for the most part, and then we'll barrel on ahead to the next big case.

Also: 60 chapters. YEESH. This has been a long ride, hasn't it?

I was happy to end this chapter on an upbeat note. The boys are comedy goldmines and getting to put a twist on "Yusuke thinks Keiko is dead when he wakes up" bit was super fun. Her parents totally stole that scene, which I didn't expect, but I LOVED writing them.

Many thanks to those who reviewed last week!

Chapter 60: Good to be Alive

Summary:

In which Not-Quite-Keiko sings some tunes.

Notes:

I sincerely cannot recall if Kurama knows about Keiko's aikido lessons. This fic is huge; I can't find a moment where she tells him. If I missed it and you remember it, let me know and I'll rewrite a certain bit in this chapter. Otherwise it'll be left as-is because I'm tired and hungry and just want to post this damn thing already, HAHA but not really.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The one reliably private place I could think of was a nearby karaoke booth—because we sure as hell weren't playing this enormous game of supernatural catch-up in my parents' house, no sir. The walk there took longer than normal, however, since I had to hobble at the tail end of our group on my crutches. Kurama and Kuwabara very politely hung back to keep me company while Yusuke walked backwards in front of us, hands knotted behind his head. Shizuru plowed ahead, leading the way with a streamer of cigarette smoke trailing in her wake.

Hiei, of course, had jumped out the window (literally) the minute we proposed going to karaoke, much to the ire of everyone—but that was just his style, and I tried not to mind it too much.

Kuwabara certainly didn't seem bothered by Hiei's absence. He was too busy gaping at the back of his sister's head, mouth dropped wide as she gave us a by-the-numbers rundown of her recent time away. Seems she hadn't gotten a chance to fill in her brother yet.

"You've been training with a former Spirit Detective?!" he yelped when she divulged the identity of her tutor.

"Wow, bro." A baleful glance over her shoulder. "It's almost like you want the entire street to know my business."

"Sorry, sorry." His chivalrous instincts could not be denied however. He stammered, "It's just—you could've been hurt!"

"Maybe." Her eyes slid to me, pointed and cool. "But maybe that's better than ending up on the wrong end of a teacher possessed by a demon bug."

I winced. "I can attest that one would not want to face a horde of those suckers untrained." I paused, struck by an incongruous observation. "Wait. You know about the demon bugs and—?"

She took a drag of cigarette, exhaling a gray plume upward. "Oh, I know all about Kazuma's little field trip. Forced the truth out of him when I came home and saw Sleeping Beauty there asleep in my bed." Yusuke squawked at his unflattering nickname, but he shut up fast when Shizuru glared at him. "And Kuroko filled me in on the big picture crap. I know about everything."

That made sense, because heck, even I'd told her quite a bit about Spirit World, Demon World, and all that associated jazz back when I explained where Kuwabara had gotten off to during his summer training with Genkai. I couldn't suppress a relieved sigh, knowing Shizuru was in-the-know about everything. Girl was a total asset to us, especially given her recent training.

Kuwabara, meanwhile, didn't appear to agree. He shoved his hands into his pockets with the poutiest of scowls (and seeing this, Kurama hid a smile behind his hand).

"She couldn't even wait till breakfast to interrogate me," Kuwabara muttered. "Flipped my mattress to get me out of bed."

"Tough tittie," said Shizuru. "I've been sleeping on rocks for weeks."

"Yeesh. Sleeping on rocks?" I said. "I didn't imagine Kuroko's training was a walk in the park, but…"

"It was the exact opposite of that," Shizuru said, blunt as the rocks that had formed her bed. "Final test was a walk through the woods, for a week. Had to keep up while she ran, fight the demons that came out at night. A stroll through hell, more or less." Her smirk held equal parts satisfaction and mischief. "But I have some neat tricks to show for it, at the very least."

Kurama, walking at a sedate pace at my side, said, "Care for a demonstration, Shizuru?"

"Nah." Now her smirk was all mischief. "I'll save the big reveal for a special occasion."

Yusuke was not impressed. Not breaking from his backward walk, he looked over his shoulder at Shizuru and whined, "I can't believe you met another Spirit Detective before I did!"

"I can't believe Keiko met another Spirit Detective before you did." She jabbed her cigarette my way over her shoulder. "She's the one who introduced me to Kuroko."

"She what?!"

Yusuke wheeled, coming to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk. I swung like a pendulum atop my crutches, rubber pad at their top biting into my armpits as my fingers scrabbled around the hand grips. Probably would've tumbled off my crutches had Kurama not put a hand on my back to steady me, but Yusuke hardly noticed. He looked me up and down with mouth agape, as if seeing me for the first time all over again.

"Keiko, how the hell did you know about Kuroko?" he said. "I had no idea there were other Spirit Detectives!" Brown eyes narrowed, glittering with suspicious. "Did Koenma tell you? You're my assistant so I bet he's told you tons of things, that rat bastard."

My eyes rolled of their own accord. "Actually, no. Koenma never tells me shit. Hell, I haven't even met the guy."

"Then how—?"

"You know my fancy-ass aikido lessons you love to mock?" I said, and when Yusuke looked confused I couldn't help but giggle. "Turns out my teacher is a friend of Kuroko's. Helped her with cases back in the day. Introductions happened when Hideki-sensei learned I was helping the new Detective, and when Shizuru asked where you two had gone…"

"Wasn't about to let my baby bro fight demons without backup," Shizuru said. She stood a little ways away on the sidewalk, careful to aim her cigarette smoke away from our group. Eyes on Kuwabara, she said, "I've had your back since you were born, Kazuma. Really think I'd stop now that there are demons involved?"

The big guy looked touched, chiseled face melting. "Shizuru. You really—?"

This time she blew smoke directly into his face. "Save the weeping for a romcom, kid." Shizuru pointed over her shoulder as her brother coughed, cigarette aimed at a building bearing a garish neon karaoke sign. "We're here."

Yusuke whooped, gunning for the door with a cry of calling the tambourine. Shizuru followed him, and Kuwabara followed her, tugging at her shirtsleeve with sappy (and adorable) comments about her being the best sister in the entire world, looking out for him the way she did, only she'd better not get hurt fighting demons because then he'd be sad (to which she replied he was an ugly-ass crier, which meant she had to stay alive to spare the world the sight of his hideous tears, to which Kuwabara replied with an irate yodel, to which Shizuru replied with an elbow in his ribs, and so on and so forth). I laughed and started to swing myself after them, once more glad that our group had solidified, all the canon characters together at long last—but a hand brushed my elbow and I stopped.

Kurama put his hand in his pocket, regarding me with eyes as appraising as they were amused. I quirked a brow at him. "What's up?"

He paused. Then, softly: "Aikido lessons?"

"Oh. Did I not mention those?" I said, nervous chuckle tickling the back of my throat.

"You did not," he said, even-keeled as ever. "Why are you taking them, may I ask?"

Because admitting I didn't want to be utterly helpless felt wildly embarrassing, I just shrugged and adopted a flippant grin. "Gotta keep up with the rest of you somehow, don't I?"

Kurama's smile was small, yes, but warm. "I suppose that's true." A gentle incline of his chin, commanding but not pushy. "I'd like to see these lessons for myself sometime, if you'd allow it."

"Uh—sure thing, I guess?" Only if I warned Kagome not to show up ahead of time, though. "But why?"

"No reason," he replied—but the musical tint to his words, not to mention the conspiratorial glint in his eye, spoke of motives I felt certain he didn't mean for me to understand.

"…and then I saw you fall off the roof, and I managed to get mad enough to beat that asshole Suzaku with a final Shotgun—and yeah. Beat the guy's ass in one hit!"

Yusuke sat back in his seat with a grandiose grin, arms crossed proudly over a puffed chest. It was the first time anyone had heard the story of Suzaku's defeat (he ran straight to my house when he woke up, after all) and we'd listened in awed silence to the tale of daring do—not to mention a recap of my own fight with the infected, witnessed by Yusuke in all its gory glory on Suzaku's big screen. While Kuwabara winced along to the recounting of traded blows and Suzaku's devious tricks (not to mention what I'd been through at the hands of the infected), Kurama paid attention to the mentions of Yusuke's various techniques, gears and pistons working behind those green of his eyes like the unending tide of a deep ocean. Shizuru, meanwhile, just looked bored, because nothing and no one could shake her unflappable calm.

Me, though? I listened to Yusuke's story with heart lodged firmly in my mouth. Even though I'd known Yusuke would (likely) come out alive, getting a play-by-play wracked my nerves like thumbscrews in the hands of a very capable torturer.

"Wow," I said when he was through. "Just…wow." I shook my head, trying to calm the nervous pulsing of my heart. "I'm so glad you're safe."

"Me?" he said, peeved. "You're the one who took a flying leap off the goshdarn roof of your school! How'd you even survive that, anyway?"

To stall, I took a sip of the soda I'd ordered when we rented the karaoke booth. Swirling lights from a disco ball above our heads dappled the room in rainbow colors, Yusuke's hair an oil slick in the multifaceted light. So, he hadn't seen what happened after I fell, because that's when he beat Suzaku and passed out—which meant he hadn't seen Sailor V. Good to know.

"Botan," I said by way of answer. "She flew up on her oar and caught me." I glared at my foot, which sat propped atop the karaoke booth's coffee table (and a pile of napkins for sanitation purposes). "Though that still happened."

"Well, even so. From what I saw, you handled yourself like a badass." He laughed long and loud and thrilled. "You're a real chip off the old block, Grandma!"

"Really? And whose block would that be?"

"Mine! Duh! You learned from the most badass delinquent in town and it shows!" Pride as obvious as a bleeding wound made his eyes shine from within, and in response I could only preen and try not to blush. Yusuke leaned across the table and rapped his knuckled against my cast, smirking when I flinched at the sharp pain in my shin. "But man, you've been holding out on me. Why didn't you tell me you know how to make a taser?"

My eyes watered, but I managed to grin anyway. "Gotta maintain an air of mystery somehow."

"Kei is full of surprises," Kurama murmured.

"I'll say," said Yusuke. "Thought for sure she'd bit the bullet when she jumped off the roof. It was the last thing I saw before I passed out." Another rap on my shin, but he stopped when I hissed between my teeth. "Gave me quite the scare, you little brat."

"Sorry, Yusuke. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Thinking of the infected as they surged through the roof hatch, I winced again. "And I didn't have much time to think it over."

"I'm just glad you didn't go splat on the pavement," said Yusuke.

Kuwabara bounced in his seat, hand shooting into the air. "Me, too! Me, too!"

"Thanks, guys." I took a deep breath to steel myself for the hard conversation I knew we couldn't avoid any longer—and a hard conversation I needed to manipulate. "But much as I'm enjoying being the object of everyone's affection, we have to talk about Botan."

The entire room tensed at the sound of her name—expect for Shizuru, of course. She stubbed her cigarette into an ashtray at her side, scanning our dire faces with her trademark pokerface. We sat on a circular sectional couch around a low table, one wall of the rectangular room taken up by a huge TV screen. Lyrics scrolled down the monitor, bright yellow highlighted with pink, but nobody sang along to the familiar tune pumping through the speakers mounted by the ceiling. Still eyeing us, Shizuru drew a new cigarette from her pocket and lit up.

"Dare I ask?" she said. "Who's Botan?"

"Yusuke's former guide to the Spirit World—a ferry girl who shepherds souls to the afterlife," Kurama said, answer as neat and clean as his ironed white shirt. He looked to Yusuke for confirmation. "As I understand it, she helped Yusuke return to life."

"Damn right, she did!" Yusuke barked. "And she doesn't deserve any of what's happening to her."

Shizuru took the talk of resurrection and ferry girls in stride, eyebrow lifting the merest fraction. "Which would be?" she asked.

It fell to me to explain, given I'd been there when Botan had been cut by the Shadow Sword and given I'd been the last to see her at the school during the infecteds' attack. I gave Shizuru the same explanation I'd given Kurama and Kuwabara since, like them, Shizuru hadn't met Botan yet. I covered the Shadow Sword debacle (though I left out my presence in that scenario for brevity) and told her about Botan being kept in isolation, as well as the fact Botan developed her third eye when she came to Human World to help me. She listened in silence, taking slow drags off her cigarette every now and again.

When I finished, her eyes slid to Yusuke.

"No wonder you freaked when Hiei bugged out," she said.

Yusuke bristled, a low growl grinding under his breath—not that I blamed him. The minute my parents had left the room back at my house, Hiei had made a beeline for my window.

"Hey," Yusuke had said, word bearing the barest hint of an edge. "Where ya goin'?"

"Away." Hiei lifted a foot and placed it on my desk. "This is getting far too chummy for my tastes."

"Well, hey—don't worry," Yusuke said, and this time the edge in his voice could cut. "We're about to get the exact opposite of chummy, Hiei. So stay."

Hiei stilled, one foot on the desk, poised to leap from the window—and then he did just that without a backward glance, flitting from view like he'd never been there at all. Yusuke bolted to the window as the papers on my desk rustled in the wind of Hiei's departure. Hands braced on the frame, he stuck his head over the sill and bellowed, "Hey, get back here you little asshole! I have a bone to pick with you!"

But Hiei did not return, and Kurama and I shushed Yusuke in unison. We were still at my house, and my parents could overhear.

In the present, face colored like a clown under the light of the disco ball, Yusuke slapped his fist into his palm. "He knew that if he'd stayed, I'd've punched his face in." His voice rose in timbre, frustrated and reedy. "You can't just do what he did to Botan and get away scot-free!"

Kurama caught my eye, then, the merest hint of worry clouding his green gaze. Yusuke was too distracted to see the subtle nod I gave Kurama in recognition. Kurama knew Hiei was meant to be our ally. It was time for damage control, stat.

"Look, Yusuke." I leaned forward, earnest, and met his grimace with a mollifying smile. "I want to hold Hiei responsible, too, but he's our ally now. We can't—"

Yusuke blinked, surprised, and his aggression faded. "Oh—I wasn't gonna kill him or anything. Jeez, Keiko! I just wanted to maybe give him a wedgie and call him some names, that's all." A resolute nod as he crossed his arms, apparently more than satisfied with a wedgie as punishment for Hiei's sins. "Hiei wasn't our friend when he did that to Botan and you. I know he wouldn't do that now, but still. Gotta get some comeuppance for Botan, right?"

Even Kurama looked relieved to hear Yusuke say that, though he hid it well. Shizuru had no stake in this game and just puffed away on her cigarette, picking up the room's food and drink menu and flipping through it absently. Kuwabara, however, frowned, looking between Yusuke and I with nose quite scrunched.

"Hey, uh?" To Yusuke he said, "What do you mean, what Hiei did to Botan 'and you?' What did Hiei do to Keiko?"

My turn to look confused. I shot a glance at Kurama, murmuring "I thought you filled him in?"

He nodded. But: "I told him you and Hiei were acquainted after a previous case of Yusuke's. I spared the details, however. There wasn't time."

"Oh. Um. Well." Shoot; when Kuwabara said Kurama had told him how Hiei and I met, I thought he'd covered the kidnapping. With a shrug, voice as breezy as I could make it, I said, "It was no big deal. Hiei sort of kidnapped me and Botan to get to Yusuke, and then—"

Kuwabara was on his feet in an instant, voice upped an octave with outrage. "What the?! He kidnapped you?" A fist slammed into his palm, rage now his instead of Yusuke's. "Oh, that's it, he's going down!"

"Slow down there, sport," I said, yanking on his sleeve to send him back into his seat. "It's like Yusuke said. Things were different then."

"Yeah, well, he's still a little punk in need of an attitude adjustment, doing to you what he did!" Teeth ground in his carved jaw. "I oughtta—"

"My honor doesn't need defending, Kuwabara." I settled into the couch with a coy smile. "And I've got Hiei handled."

"You do?"

"Yup." I inspected my nails with manufactured detachment. "He's easily persuaded if you have the right incentives. Which I do."

Kurama shot me a sidelong glance. "And what 'incentives' might those be?"

"It's a secret." I thrust my nose into the air, prim as a girl from finishing school. "Like I said: Gotta maintain an air of mystery somehow."

Kurama didn't look like he wholly approved, lips pursed, eyes critical. Meanwhile, Kuwabara looked like he wanted to be sick, and Shizuru looked like she didn't give a crap (because, Shizuru). Yusuke rolled his eyes at me with a snort. He knew my tricks better than anyone; I'd coaxed him into doing my bidding with promises of food as reward one too many times for him to not get the joke.

"OK, OK, enough about Hiei," he said. "What do we do about Botan?"

The others sobered at once. Kurama said, "Finding her takes top priority, I should think."

"Agreed, and I don't even know the girl," Shizuru said.

"Yeah, Kurama's right." Yusuke grimaced like I'd just asked him to hand in his homework on time. "And I know just the demon who can get the job done."

"Think Hiei will even want to help?" Kuwabara grumbled. "You said he's our ally, but that little twerp…"

"Oh, he'll help, all right." Yusuke's feral grin made even me shudder. "We'll make him help."

"I doubt it will have to go that far," Kurama said. He sat with legs crossed, hands cupped around the higher of his knees, back straight and posture authoritative. When Yusuke's eyebrows rows he clarified: "Much though Hiei can be cutthroat, he possesses an honor code—one he seems to have reclaimed in recent months." Green eyes flickered in my direction. "I doubt he'd shirk taking responsibility for his actions now."

"Not that I'd give him a choice, but yeah, I see your point," Yusuke said (Kuwabara looked totally skeptical, though, miming barfing behind Kurama's back). Nigh conspiratorial, Yusuke asked, "Grandma, think you could use your 'incentives' to get Hiei's help?"

"I'll see what I can do," I said.

He nodded, and then I think he considered the conversation closed, because he picked up the nearest songbook and thumbed through it, looking for a karaoke track to sing. I tried not to let relief show on my face, but it was hard. The conversation had gone well—better than I'd hoped, actually. Much though I wished Hiei had stayed, stuck around to bond with everyone, it was good he'd left when he had. If he helped us find Botan, and Botan was still with Sailor V, that'd be a hellacious mix of fandoms. I felt badly about lying and keeping V from my friends, but it was for the best, right?

…right?

Trying not to feel guilty about my many secrets, I grabbed my glass of soda and raised it. The others quieted, all eyes at once on me—and oh shit, maybe this was a bad idea, after all. Spotlights weren't my strong suit.

"Well, gang," I said, swallowing my nerves as I lifted my glass a little higher. "To all of us. For making it out alive."

They raised their glasses and chorused back, "For making it out alive!"

We drank as one—and for the next few hours of karaoke, drinks, and catching up, it felt good to be alive, indeed.

Close to closing time, I stood up and headed for the door of our private karaoke booth. Yusuke and Kuwabara caterwauled to a Megallica song, competing to see who could outshout the other. Only Kurama noticed I'd moved, Shizuru too busy cackling (and chucking cigarette butts at her brother and Yusuke) to notice me.

"Do you need something?" Kurama asked, red hair dyed utter black in the dim booth.

"Bathroom," I said, and he let me go without further inquiry.

The bathrooms lay at the front of the establishment, next to the reception desk and behind a big swinging door, which provided quite the obstacle thanks to my crutches (I'd begun to hate them most sincerely, especially when out in public). On my way out of the bathroom, an attendant at the desk stood up, craning his neck to watch the spectacle of my exit. I balanced all my weight on the crutches and pushed the door open with my good foot, cackling as I swung through the swinging door like Indiana Jones dodging traps in some ancient temple.

"Hey there," the attendant said as I shuffled past. "You need any help?"

He offered now? Too late, buddy. But to keep from being rude I opted for a neutral, "Nah, I got it. But thanks."

I headed around the desk, but the guy—a bit older than me, with a pierced ear and trendy clothes—looked me up and down. I knew the look, shoulders tensing even before he asked, "You with the big group in room seven?"

I hated that I smiled at him on reflex (because you never knew which dudes could or could not handle rejection, nor which ones would try to give you hell for it). "Yeah. Room seven.

"Cool." A lazy grin, another sweep of appraising eyes. "How old are you?"

"Too young for you, I'm afraid."

"What?" He put a hand to his heart, barb not slowing him down in the slightest. "I'm only seventeen!"

"Like I said. Too young."

"Aw, c'mon. Just one date?"

"Sorry. But you're a handsome guy. You'll be fine without me, promise."

But he remained undeterred—although I got the sense he wasn't upset at the rejection, just passing the time by flirting, which was better than the alternative. Nothing worse than a guy who couldn't handle rejection. "What, you already got a boyfriend?" he said with a bright laugh.

I shook my head. "Nope."

"There's a guy you like, then?"

"Nah, nothing like that. I just don't date."

"Pretty girl like you?" he teased. He leaned his elbows on the upper riser of his desk. "Why's that?"

"Personal policy." I shrugged. "Life is way too hectic to focus on relationships."

"If you say so." He winked. "But if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

I laughed, though I didn't really want to. "Sure thing. Good luck!"

"Thanks!"

He didn't give chase as I limped around the corner and started down the hall, back toward the karaoke room, and for that I was grateful. I was also grateful to find Kuwabara, Yusuke, and Kurama standing just a few feet down said hall. They stood in a lose knot, hands jammed in pockets, looking for all the world like the most oddball delinquent squad on the planet.

"Oh, hey!" I said, careening to a halt. "What's up?"

They exchanged a Look, all three of them, which was honestly kind of concerning.

"Not much," Yusuke eventually said. "Just decided we could use the bathroom, too, is all." But his eyes hardened. "Was that guy giving you trouble?"

"You heard that?" I muttered, scowling as I started hobbling anew. "Nah. Just an overeager flirt, is all. Nothing I can't handle." They moved to let me pass. I said, "See you guys in there."

A chorus of "see you laters" followed me down the hallway, as did an utterance of my name. A glance over my shoulder revealed Yusuke and Kurama walking away, Kuwabara hanging back and staring at me. He hesitated when our eyes met; my brows lifted.

"What's up?" I said.

"Ah—" But whatever he meant to say, he appeared to think better of it. A wry smile crossed his features as he said. "Never mind. It's nothin'."

I frowned, starting to press him to just spit it out, c'mon man, we're friends—but he turned and skulked off down the hall, hands jamming back into his pockets like they'd done him some personal wrong.

For a minute, I just stood there.

Then I went back to room seven, because I wasn't sure what else to do.

Two nights later, Hideki-sensei stood before me on the sparring mat, surveying my casted leg and the bandages edging above the neckline of my karate gi with face utterly devoid of expression. His hair looked silver in the dojo's harsh floodlights, glinting with almost as much frost as his gray eyes. Kagome stood off to the side of the sparring mat while she put on her shoes and stretched, and while she did a good job of not looking directly at us, I could tell she was trying to eavesdrop (though she also kept her eyes on the door to the dojo; I knew why, and I'd let her handle that little wrinkle if it came up). Not that Hideki was saying much to overhear, of course. He just stared, eyes as brittle and biting as flint.

I gulped.

He scowled.

"I'm sorry, sensei?" I ventured, unsure if he'd appreciate an apology or just find the sentiment annoying.

The latter, it seemed, because his scowl deepened. "Apologize to yourself, not to me." A tired wave of a tired hand. "The fight. Describe it."

I did so. By the time I finished, he looked grudgingly impressed—which honestly surprised me. I waited on pins and needles to get berated, but he just sighed and ran a hand through his long hair.

"Not bad for your first fight," he said.

I blinked like an owl caught in a floodlight. "I'm sorry?"

"This was your first fight. Your first of note, anyway." His head tilted to one side as he surveyed me again, cataloguing the damage done to my body in light of the fight's details. "Facing multiple enemies, defending an untrained friend. Those are handicaps. And at the point of the night in which you were cut, you had been fighting for a while. To come out with bruises and merely one stab wound…" He shook his head, clucking between his teeth. "You did well, all things considered." And then his eyes turned stony indeed. "But you also got lucky, lucky child."

Kagome couldn't keep from butting in at that point. "Maybe it was skill that got her through?" she ventured, and when Hideki looked her way, she turned her back on us with an 'eep!' of fright.

"Some skill, some luck," Hideki said. "Luck is sometimes just as important." He lifted a hand, pointing first at Kagome, and then at Ezakiya standing over by the warehouse door. "You two, katas." The hand extended down to me. "You, come here."

While Kagome and Eza got to work (Kagome shooting me concerned glances all the while) Hideki helped me stand and get my crutches situated before leading me off to the side of the dojo, over toward a couple of wooden crates I had long ago assumed been left over from whatever this place had been before Hideki converted it into his personal training ground. Turns out I was wrong, because from one of the crates he pulled a big wooden board painted like a shooting target (big black outline of a person, with point values at various vital spots) and a rolled-up length of canvas that clinked when he lifted it into his arms. Which was….well. Ominous, I guess? He leaned the wooden target-board against the warehouse wall, grabbed a folding chair from the stack of them by the dojo's door, and gestured for me to put the knee of my bad leg atop the seat. The chair acted like a prosthetic, almost, letting me put my weight on it instead of my foot.

Before I could ask what dubiousness we were about to get up to, Hideki unrolled the canvas with a snap of his wrist.

The canvas was covered in knives.

Sleek silver knives, handles painted black, of various shapes and lengths and weights, all held fast to the canvas by small elastic strips. Hideki plucked one of the smaller ones free and—in a movement so fluid it looked almost supernatural—hurled it overhand at the target.

The knife buried itself right in the middle of the painted person's face.

He turned back to me and waited for me to pick my jaw off the floor before speaking. "You should be trained in ranged weaponry, anyway. With your leg like that, now's the time." He pointed at the target. "Aim there. Throw like this."

He forced a knife into my hand, walked me through the motion a few times, demonstrated a few more whip crack throws, and set the knife-covered canvas on the chair next to my knee.

"Go," he said, and he walked off to train the others.

Across the dojo, Kagome's astonished mouth snapped shut with a clack of startled teeth.

Knowing failure to perform would result in some form of punishment (maybe situps or pushups since I couldn't run laps?) I picked up my first knife—the first knife of the many, many I'd throw in the coming weeks—and got to work.

By the time practice ended, my arm felt like it had caught fire.

Correction: My arms, plural, felt like they'd caught fire, because Hideki insisted I learn to throw with both hands.

Kagome regarded me with pity as I struggled atop my crutches, arms like jello as I used them to cart around the weight of my lead-heavy body. She walked like a snail so I could keep up, huffing and puffing after her like an out of shape wolf chasing a fairy tale pig.

"Think you can make it all the way home?" she asked, halfway teasing and halfway serious.

In response I could only glare, because I had not the breath for a clever retort.

Kagome insisted on walking me home that night, even if my laborious gait might make her miss the final train of the evening. She epitomized patience when she recommended I sit on a bench to recuperate and rest, even though we still had quite a bit of journey ahead of us. Still, I said yes and collapsed, letting her blot my sweaty forehead with her sleeve when my noodley arms wouldn't cooperate.

"So," she said as she blot-blot-blotted away my perspiration. "Minato didn't show."

"Nope." The word came out in a pathetic wheeze. "I guess he really did mean it when he said he didn't want to be friends."

"That sucks," she said, sighing. "And you said he seemed excited to join us, too."

I didn't say anything—because I was still having trouble breathing, and because Minato had indeed looked pleased when I invited him to aikido with us. I mean, training certainly had seemed up his alley. He'd even said he'd be there, give it a shot, gave his word. And he didn't seem the type to break his word, which meant…I wasn't sure.

All I knew is that I'd have to give him a call in the next day or two and check in. I could still worry about him even if he didn't want to be our friend.

"I kept looking at the door all night, waiting for him to walk in." Kagome sighed, pressing the back of her wrist to her brow. "How horrible it feels, to get your hopes up only to find them dashed upon the rocks of despair!"

She threw herself onto the bench next to me with a moan.

"Drama queen," I said, and I rolled my eyes. "Now help me up. We gotta get you on that train in time."

She hauled me to my feet and kept up a chipper stream of chatter on the rest of the way home, talk only ceasing when we reached the end of my block. She stopped walking and popped a smart salute.

"Well, captain. Think you can make it home from here?"

"I should be able to manage a block on my own. See you next week?"

"For sure!" Kagome whirled on her heel and danced off down the sidewalk, waving over her shoulder. "See ya next week!"

"Bye!"

I watched her go until she disappeared around a corner, crossing my fingers that she made it home on time. Few people wandered my parents' street this time of night, mostly drunk businessmen and the occasional gaggle of young adults from a nearby college out on the party prowl—though it was only Thursday, but I suppose the weekend starts early for college kids. I passed a group of them, tipsy and stumbling, and grinned to myself. I'd been the same way at their age. Heck, my 21st birthday had fallen on a Tuesday, so my friends and I bought a bottle of whipped cream vodka and mixed it with pineapple juice the morning before a midterm. That philosophy paper had been a wild ride, as I recalled. I chuckled as I entered the alleyway running alongside my parents' business, caught in the grip of reminiscence. Man, that paper had referenced Lion King and Bladerunner, right? Marrying a take on particularist ethics with a take on personal agency and—

Something ahead of me moved, a flash of molten gold amidst the dinge and dark.

I stopped moving, the rubber tips of my crutches scraping gummily across the pavement, shoulders and back tensed up at the sudden flash of color. Ahead of me, under the glare of the single overhead light in the alley, the restaurant's side door swung open. I relaxed at that, mouth opening to greet what would surely be my mother or father—but instead gold flashed again, and I fell quiet.

From the dark of the door stepped Sailor V, blue and red and resplendent in her crimson domino mask.

"I apologize for not making it to aikido," she said. She ('she' in her hero form per Minato's request, I reminded myself) took three steps forward, facing me with hands perched on hips. "Something came up."

I said, "Something came—?"

Said someone else, "Keiko?!"

"Oh?" I blinked—and when blue flickered in the doorway, I gasped. "Oh! Botan!"

She ran from the door at full tilt, and at the last second I tossed aside one of my crutches so I could throw an arm around her. Its metallic clatter didn't quite mask the sound of her buried sob, tinny accompaniment as she buried her face in my neck, arms tight around my chest, clutching at me like I could save her from drowning in a cold, dark ocean. I clung to her right back, of course, hand traveling from her shoulder to her waist to the fall of her soft hair just to make sure she was real.

"Oh, Keiko." Her voice shuddered into my neck, breathy with tears. "I was so worried!"

"You were worried?" I said. "Ha! You're one to talk, sleepyhead!"

She hiccupped and pulled away, hands still on my shoulders but far back enough to meet my eyes. We drank in the sight of each other's faces in unison, and when we both asked "How are you feeling?" at the same time, we collapsed into (perhaps slightly hysterical) giggles. She touched her forehead, careful not to disturb her bangs—which fell in a straight curtain across her brow, not parted and curled in the middle like she'd worn before. Her hands shook, touch nervous and tentative.

"I feel like myself," she said, emphasis clear. Her mind was hers, not the bloodthirsty monster's I'd seen the week before. But her face spasmed, eyes welling with tears. "Keiko, I'm so sorry about what happened. I saw my blood and I just—"

"Hey, it's OK," I said, smiling as she sniffled. "We'll get this all sorted out, I promise. Trust me."

"I do. I do trust you." She nodded and scrubbed at her eyes, composing herself before she gestured over her shoulder. "So, um. This…person…said she's a friend of yours?"

V's mouth twitched at Botan's hesitant wording—and when I looked at her, it was difficult to see Minato behind the mask. His demeanor completely changed as V, though the hidden smile felt familiar. Damn V's masking technology, handy as it was for Minato in his daily life and V in her pursuits as a superhero.

"Botan, this is Sailor V," I said. "She came to help us during the incident at the school." I smiled, sunny and brilliant, hoping Botan would be as dazzled by V's presence as Amagi had been. "She's a superhero."

"Really?" Botan stared, staring at V with interest. "A real superhero?"

V popped up a victory sign, holding it over her mask in her trademark pose. "That's right. I'm the guardian of love and justice, Sailor V!"

"I knew Spirit World would take you back, so she agreed to hide you," I explained.

Botan paled, and then she looked grateful, and then she paled again. "Oh. Oh." Taking a deep breath, she dropped into a bow aimed at V. "Thank you, Sailor V. I am truly in your debt."

"No debt required. It's my duty as a hero to aid those in need," V said, every inch the cheerful, upbeat hero she'd been the night she saved me. She reached into a pocket sewn into her skirt (wow, that short thing had pockets?) and pulled forth a tiny gold box tied with a red ribbon. "Before I forget—Botan, this is for you."

Botan looked to me for support, and when I nodded and gave her an encouraging smile, she took a timid step forward and lifted the box off V's palm. She tugged the red ribbon away and flipped open the box's lid with hesitant hands—but the hesitation evaporated when she saw what lay inside, eyes lighting up like magenta lanterns.

"Look, Keiko!" Botan said, thrusting the box toward me.

I craned my neck to see. Inside lay a pair of earrings on a cloud of white satin, gold studs in the shape of stars. Botan cooed over them, simple and pretty as they were, but I shot V a look with a quirked brow.

"Thought she might have a little trouble walking around with her new feature," V said. When Botan looked up, frowning, V smiled. "Try them on."

Another look to me for confirmation, and Botan put the earrings in her ears (lucky thing she had them pierced, I guess). They glimmered against her pale skin like stars fallen on a snowy field, brilliant against the powder blue of her hair. Nothing happened, however, so we just stood there blinking at each other—until V cleared her throat, reached once more into her pocket, and drew from it a compact mirror. Botan took it, opened it, and lifted it to view her earrings, smiling at their golden sheen.

Then she did a double take, gasped, and shoved her bangs aside with one shaking hand.

Her forehead looked as smooth and blank as a drift of newly fallen snow, her newly acquired eye nowhere in sight.

"What?" Botan sputtered. She rounded on V with wide eyes. "What? But? But how?"

"Cloaking technology," V said. She pointed at Botan's forehead. "The eye is still there, and you can feel it if you touch it, but those earrings will hide it from the naked eye."

"Pun intended?" I said.

It was V's turn to do a double take. Eyes rolling she said, "You really do love your puns."

"It's my mortal weakness." Since Botan was much too stunned and much too busy staring at her empty forehead to speak with any degree of coherence, I did my best to bow atop my single crutch. "Thank you, V."

Botan remembered her manners with a start. "Yes, thank you. Thank you so much!" She dipped ten bows in quick succession. "This is—this is amazing! You're amazing! Where did you come from, Sailor V?"

V struck a pose, cheesy but totally fitting. "When a hero is needed, one shall appear!" she said, and then she dipped a frilly western-style bow of her own. Her eyes met mine through the holes in her red mask. "Alas, my time here runs short. Keep in touch, captain."

"Roger that," I said.

Botan looked into the mirror again, too (understandably) entranced by the sight of her forehead to realize V was about to make her exit. Before V walked back through the door to her base, however, she stepped toward me and closed one gloved hand around my elbow.

"I can keep prying eyes away," she said, voice low and lacking V's exuberant, affected pizazz, "but you should move Botan, and quickly, when I'm gone."

"Right." I needed to get Kurama's Spirit-World-spy-disrupting seed from my bedroom first chance I got. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," she said—and with a final wave at Botan, who had finally torn her eyes away from her reflection, V walked through her TARDIS portal and vanished from our view. Botan ran over and wrenched the door open for one final "thank you," though, and stood there blinking at the inside my parents' restaurant in shock.

It took a minute, but eventually she gathered her wits and turned my way. "Keiko, it's ever so good to see you and I'm sorry to get serious so soon—but 'Captain?'" She searched my face, confused. "You two seem awfully familiar."

"Fighting hordes of infected bug-people will do that, I guess." Hoping that would be enough to satisfy her, I kept speaking. "But we need to—"

Botan was not so easily placated. "What do you know about her, Keiko?" she said. "What do you know about that hero? I woke up only an hour ago, but she has technology and powers I've never seen before—and I never heard of her in Spirit World, even when Koenma still considered me his right hand! She didn't balk at my third eye, either." Guileless and curious, yet brow knit with critical inquiry, she stared straight into my eyes and placed her hands on her hips. "Keiko, where did Sailor V come from?"

Processing, I stared at her. I'd wondered at the intersection of Spirit World and the galactic scope of the Scouts, but it honestly surprised me that they hadn't crossed paths (so far as Botan knew, at least). More importantly, however, it felt like Botan was still doing her job even though she and Spirit World aren't on the best of terms—and that was so utterly, perfectly, adorably Botan I couldn't help but smile. I hoped the smile looked more confused than affectionate when I said, "You've really never heard of Sailor V?"

"No. I haven't." Sadness weathered her determined jaw, making it quiver. "But I suppose I've been out of the loop for some time now, haven't I?"

My heart near about broke at that. "I'm sorry, Botan," I said, reaching for her hand. She squeezed my fingers, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry it all went down this way."

She took a deep, shaking breath. "Part of me wants to go home, back to Spirit World. But…"

"Not if they intend to isolate you like that again," I said.

"Right." She shivered, wrapping her free arm around herself. "I couldn't handle that a second time, I think. So I suppose the question becomes…"

"…what do we do with you now?" I finished.

We stared at one another, gazes equally uncertain, both of us unsure of how to grapple with that boding rhetorical question.

A rhetorical question that someone answered, voice floating from the alley's darkness like silk on a damp wind.

"I believe I can answer that," Ayame said, and the reaper—the last being either of us wanted to see that night, for reasons both obvious and chilling—materialized from the shadows like a ghost.

Notes:

(TV announcer voice/the voice of Jorge Saotome:) "Keiko thought she had more time to spirit Botan away after V's departure, but with Ayame waiting in the wings, it seems Botan might be spirited off to Spirit World, instead. Have we regained Botan only to lose her once more to Koenma's misguided clutches? Find out on the next episode of Lucky Child!"

I had way too much fun writing an episode outro like you hear at the end of the anime episodes.

Had a three-day migraine this week, hence this chapter's late posting. Will let y'all know if I make headway on fixing the migraine issue. So far no progress.

Thinking of writing another very short chapter and posting it tomorrow or Monday, but we'll see. It'll probably end up too short to be a full weekly update but I like this cliffhanger too much to keep going. No promises, though; please stand by.

Your reviews made a painful week bearable. Thanks to all who chimed in with their thoughts over the past week. You're awesome and you should feel awesome.

Chapter 61: If Anyone Can, It's You

Summary:

In which Ayame shows her true colors, Yusuke has feelings, and Hiei hates feelings.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The moment—taut as molten glass pulled from the depths of a cooling forge—held for far longer than it had any right. I hopped sideways on my crutch, free hand fanning between Botan and Ayame. Botan stared at Ayame with hand pressed over her mouth, knees trembling in the quiet night air.

My hair stuck to my neck and face, and not because the night was humid.

"Botan," I said, her name a growl in my throat. "Botan, get inside."

Magenta eyes flicked toward me and then back to Ayame. "I'm not leaving you."

I went on like she hadn't spoken, thoughts a whirlwind, planning next steps as fast as I could. "There's a little silver jewelry box on my desk. Take it," I said, because it contained the seed that could hide her from prying eyes like Ayame's and oh my god how the fuck did she find us so fast?! "And look in my phonebook and call Kurama—and call Yusuke, too, now."

"Keiko—!" said Botan.

At the same time Ayame said, "There's no need for this, Keiko."

Words bubbled like magma beneath a tectonic plate. "Like hell there isn't," I snarled. "I won't let you touch her. Now, Botan. Go."

"But Keiko—"

"Now!"

With one last, desperate look at Ayame, Botan obeyed and vanished into the restaurant. Ayame wore a bitter smile as the door fell shut, eyes somber as I swiped my other crutch off the ground and positioned myself between her and the door. I was a piss-poor barrier, but at least I was better than nothing.

I wasn't letting Ayame take Botan without a fight.

"You really didn't have to send her away," said Ayame.

"What, and let you take her back to Spirit World?" I said. I tossed my hair with a snort. "How'd you even find us, anyway?"

"I've been on high alert for Botan's energy signature since her escape. Naturally I'd keep watch on your home."

"Right. Spirit World and their spies." Summoning my most heated glare, I asked, "So tell me this, Ayame. You planning on dragging Botan back to Spirit World yourself? I'd hate for you to mess up that pretty kimono."

A slow shake of her dark head. "I'm not here to drag Botan back, Keiko. I'm here to warn you."

At that I could only snort again. "Warn me? What am I, stupid? Like I'm really gonna believe you?"

The barest flash of annoyance wrinkled her pale brow. "I meant what I said in the hospital. Botan's treatment was a misstep, one I do not wish to repeat."

"Ayame—is that true?"

I cursed as Botan's voice drifted through the door to the restaurant, and I cursed again when that door swung open. Botan stood on the stoop and stared at Ayame, eyes watering like she'd plucked them fresh from a saline bath. Clearly she hadn't obeyed me at all, eavesdropping from just inside the door like…well, that's a move I'd expect from Yusuke, really. Ayame smiled at her, but I just cursed a third time and swung toward Botan with a clack of crutch against concrete. "Botan, get back inside."

"Ayame, is Jorge OK?" she said, not bothering to look at me. Her eyes welled even more. "I tried to be gentle, but…"

"He's fine, Botan," Ayame assured her. "How are you?"

"I'm good." She swallowed, swiping a thumb across her powder blue bangs. "Scared, but…"

Her feet carried her forward. I lurched in front of her with a shake of my head.

"Botan, don't," I said.

She blinked, and then her tears dried all at once. Her ponytail flew when she shook her head. "No, Keiko," she said, resolute as a revolution. "If Ayame says she's not here to take me back, I believe her."

"You believe—?!"

"Ayame trained me." Fire lit her eyes, magenta nearly emitting sparks. "She showed me what it means to be a ferry girl. She wouldn't lie to me. We're friends." And then the tears returned as she looked at Ayame, lip trembling as she spoke. "Even if she made a mistake before, I know she wouldn't hurt me on purpose."

Ayame wore the softest look I'd ever seen from her, pale face melted like snow in sunlight. "You have always been the kindest of the ferry girls," she said. "When I saw what this had done to you…" Her eyes lit on Botan's forehead, smile tinged with regret and sorrow. "I worried that kindness might not survive, but…I am happy to have been proven wrong."

There was no stopping Botan when she burst into tears, darted around me, and threw herself at Ayame with a cry. Ayame wrapped her billowing kimono sleeves around Botan and held her tight, pressing her face into Botan's shock of brilliant hair. "Oh, Ayame!" Botan wailed into Ayame's chest, but Ayame only stroked Botan's back and murmured comforts I couldn't quite hear.

I, of course, had no fucking idea what to do and stood there staring like an idiot until Botan's sobs turned to sniffles, and until then her sniffles to wet hiccups. She pulled away and beamed into Ayame's face, although her lips still trembled. Ayame swept Botan's bangs from her forehead with a smile and inspected her brow, eyes narrowing in confusion at the bare flesh there. What the hell was Ayame doing here if not to take Botan back? She said she'd been waiting here and keeping watch for Botan, but—

Wait.

"I kept watch," I said.

Botan started, like perhaps she'd forgotten I was there, but Ayame only lifted a brow.

"I kept watch," I repeated. "That's what you said. I kept watch. Not we." I looked around for emphasis. "Ayame. You're here alone, aren't you?"

Her chin inclined. "I am."

Suspicions confirmed, in that case. Which begged the question, "Does he know you're here?"

Botan frowned. "He? Do you mean—" she looked to Ayame "—do you mean Koenma?"

Ayame nodded, slow and intentional. "I do mean Koenma. And no, he doesn't."

Much though I wanted answers, Ayame didn't give them. She slipped her hand into Botan's and squeezed, gazing at her fellow ferry girl with understanding eyes. Eyes that promised gentleness and sympathy, and not the cold calculation I had grown so used to seeing in her dark gaze.

"May we take this inside?" Ayame said—and because my curiosity is undeniable, I led the way upstairs.

Seeing a grim reaper in Japanese formal wear sitting atop my bed felt absolutely wild, but I tried my best not to stare as both ferry girls settled in. I heaved myself atop my swiveling desk chair and propped my casted foot on the bedframe. Botan looked nervous, fiddling with the hem of her sweater, but her eyes stayed focused and clear as they rested on Ayame. Clearly Botan felt we could trust her—though I wasn't so certain just yet, not even after our moment of connection at the hospital a few days prior.

Even so, despite the trust she felt for Ayame, Botan had questions. She was too sharp to have nothing to say.

"You said Koenma doesn't know you're here, Ayame," Botan said, "but I know you well enough to know you're loyal to him. So loyal. That's why you're our leader."

Ayame nodded, hands folded neatly on her black-clad knees. "Koenma does not know I'm here. Nevertheless, this meeting has his blessing."

My eyebrows shot up. Botan shook her head. "I don't understand. How can that be?"

Ayame's dark gaze slid toward me. "I told him what we talked about that night in the hospital. In the end, he agreed that Botan's treatment was unacceptable—but he felt that way before you raised concerns."

I scoffed. "Seriously? If that's true, why did he allow her to be kept in insolation for that long? If he knew it was wrong—?"

"He knew. But Enma-daio held another opinion."

Although Ayame spoke with the detached air of a refined noblewoman, all gracious and poised and soft of voice, the very absence of emotion in her words said quite a lot. It said she sought control in this situation—because if she lost it, I'm sure the results would be quite unflattering. At once puzzle pieces clicked, falling into place and aligning to form a picture I hadn't even considered. When I saw what they depicted, I slapped a hand to my forehead.

"Of course," I said. "Why didn't I see this before?"

Ayame shot me an approving look, barely visible and yet distinct, but Botan spoke first. "King Enma himself wanted me locked away?" she said with a strangled gasp. "But why?"

"He felt it the most prudent option, even in light of your unfailing loyalty to Koenma, given the severity of your condition," Ayame said—and once again, her robotic response felt like a study in negative space. In the act of saying little, Ayame said so much.

And what she said, or didn't say, made sense. Enma brainwashed demons on the regular. Of course he'd want to lock Botan away now that she didn't play the part of a docile little ferry girl—and at this stage in the game, Koenma would be powerless to protest. He wasn't meant to rebel against his father until after Chapter Black. He hadn't uncovered his father's misdeeds yet, which meant he held none of the capital necessary to overthrow the current monarch.

Koenma was stuck.

And I'd bet my left buttcheek Enma was counting on that to get his way.

"Maybe it was especially in light of Botan's loyalty," I said.

Botan frowned even as a flicker of recognition sparked in Ayame's eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Kings often fear the rise of their progeny. Just take a look at history." I waved in the vague direction of Yusuke's house, myself, Botan. "Koenma has a new Detective, loyal ferry girls, more responsibilities…maybe this was a pull for power on Enma's part. Or a reminder of who pulls the strings, at least."

Botan gaped. "He wouldn't!" She pivoted on the bed, grasping at Ayame's sleeve. "He wouldn't Ayame, would he?"

Ayame said nothing. Her long and measured stare, as emotionless as a statue, revealed nothing.

And that nothingness, in and of itself, told me everything—as did her utterly political response, as calculated as the life's work of a brilliant mathematician.

"It is not my place to comment on the affairs of my superiors," she said as if reading from a script. "I am certain my small mind could not fathom the workings of my betters."

I had to laugh, while Botan stared at Ayame with uncertainty painted across her face. Ayame waited a beat for those words to sink in, as if hopeful someone might overhear and report them back to Enma in Spirit World. Soon she turned to Botan, however. Her hand alit on Botan's knee; Botan blinked at it and met Ayame's gaze with the tiniest murmur of question.

"I come with a message," Ayame said. "Koenma has placed me in charge of finding you. He will not look for you himself, as he is much too busy to attend to such a trifling matter. The only things he will report to his father are the things I tell him."

Botan nodded, expecting more—but I just snorted, and Ayame stopped talking to look at me.

"Well," I said. "That's certainly clever of him."

"Hmm?" said Botan.

"He's engineered himself some plausible deniability," I said, "and that's good for him, but it puts you at risk, Ayame."

Ayame demurred, lovely face tilting toward her lap—and yeah, OK, she totally knew what I was talking about. Botan, however, appeared quite lost. She looked between me and Ayame in turn, blue hair lashing like a flag.

"Plausible deniability? Risk? What risk?" Botan repeated. "I don't understand."

"I mentioned loyalty earlier," I said. In dry tones I said, "It's a wonder Enma hasn't come after you, Ayame. "

She smiled, bland but firm. "I am prepared to deal with Enma-daio should he change his mind."

"Are you?" I pressed. "The wrath of a king isn't to be taken lightly."

"Agreed." Her already perfect posture seemed to straighten. "But I fear the disappointment of princes far more."

I gasped. It was quite the declaration, small though it seemed, but it flew right over Botan's head. She threw up her hands and said, exasperated: "Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

Ayame demurred once more—which meant she was leaving the dirty work to me. Great. Let's see if I got all this right.

"Koenma's turning a blind eye to you, Botan, and on purpose," I said. If my hunch was correct, these were the things Ayame could not say. "He can't tell his father what he doesn't know."

Botan stared at me, processing—which didn't surprise me. Botan was no liar. She had trouble keeping secrets per anime canon; understanding deception wouldn't come naturally to someone so kind. I was, of course, intimately familiar with lying by omission, and by manipulating the technicalities of semantics. I knew full well how to speak in half-truths, how to keep from lying without ever giving away my secrets.

Technicality.

Lying was all about manipulating the technicality—and I got the sense Ayame's mastery could put mine to shame.

Botan's eyes lit up soon enough, though, meaning clicking into place. "Oh. I get it now! He's delegating the work to Ayame, and she'll keep things from him to protect me, but he won't know about it! And that keeps him safe, and it keeps me safe, too!"

"Exactly. If Enma learns Ayame is hiding you, Koenma won't get in trouble," I said. "Ayame's in charge, after all, and anything Koenma knows will have come through her. If Enma realizes you're roaming free in Human World, Ayame will take the fall. Koenma's protecting you, and so is Ayame—but she's the one bearing the greater risk." I couldn't help but shake my head, chest rumbling with irritation (Botan looked like she didn't know if she should be touched or appalled). "There he goes again, risking his loyalists. Did Koenma put you up to this, Ayame?"

Ayame said: "It was my idea."

She spoke plainly, simply, too elegantly to be lying. I stared with my mouth open for a minute, jaw shutting with a clack of teeth.

"Are you really that loyal to him?" I asked, voice more hushed, more awed than I intended.

"I am." A minute raise of her head, proud but subtle. "He does not place faith in me blindly, just as I do not blindly place faith in him. Or in you, Keiko."

I blinked. "Me?"

"You're at risk, too, if you agree to hide Botan."

I hated that Ayame was right—but it's not like I'd let that stop me. I shrugged, a quip about not being afraid of King Enma on my tongue (I'd died before so death wasn't a big deal, and surely he was too busy to deal with the likes of little old me, anyway) but Botan put a hand to her mouth, horrified.

"Keiko, she's right!" she said, and she was on her feet and heading for the door. "I can't stay here. I can't stay with you, and I can't go back, and I—"

I shoved away from my desk, rolling chair sending me careening after her. I snagged the edge of her shirt with my fingers and said, "Botan, calm down!" A desperate look toward Ayame for backup. "I'm assuming you have a plan?"

"Of a sort," she said, and like a charm Botan stopped to listen, attention rapt and eyes wide. Ayame cleared her throat and angled herself toward us. "Much though King Enma wishes for Botan's return, he is too preoccupied with more pressing matters to attend to her capture. In short: We have time."

"Time to what?"

"Time to prove Botan is an asset and not a liability," Ayame said. "If she can prove herself here, then—"

"Wait, wait, wait," I said. I spun in my chair, pointing my good foot at Ayame in accusation. "The last time we talked, just days ago, you said Botan needed energy therapy. What's 'proving herself' got to do with that? Is energy therapy just not a thing anymore?"

Botan perked up, nodding so hard I feared she'd give herself a concussion. The nodding stopped when Ayame donned a regretful smile, one that spoke of incoming Bad News.

There it was. There was the catch. I knew there had to be one. This was Spirit World, after all.

"Over the past few days, we've analyzed her condition." She took a breath, hesitating for the merest of stolen moments. "We think she is past the point of therapy curing her of…her new addition."

Botan's eyes widened. "You mean—"

"Yes, Botan. I believe that in the act of coming to Human World, this change to you has been made irreversible."

Ayame spoke like the personification of ripping off a band-aid, quick and searing and to the point. Botan didn't understand, however. She just stood there, staring, until I couldn't help but reach out and lace my fingers through hers. At my touch she came back to herself, startling like a deer hearing a gunshot.

"I don't—" she said.

Ayame said nothing. I remained quiet, too. Eyes locked on Ayame, Botan rocked in place on her heels, back and forth like a kid on a seesaw—and then her lips began to quiver, and then she was crying. Wet, meaty sobs filled my quiet bedroom, but Ayame moved before I could even think to react. The sleeves of her kimono flowed like the wings of a bat as she rose from the bed and enveloped Botan in a hug, shushing the sobbing ferry girl as she broke down.

"What even am I?" Botan cried. "Not quite a Spirit, but not a demon, just—just both? Neither?"

"You're you, Botan," Ayame said. Understated ferocity crept into her voice, urgent and low and bracing. "You always have been. You always will be." She held Botan tighter, pressing her fingers into Botan's shimmering hair. "The construction of your soul changes nothing about who you are."

Botan sniffled. "Really?"

"Yes. Koenma believes so, too. In fact, he told me to give you a message."

"H-he did?"

"Yes."

Her hands slid over Botan's shoulders, holding her at arm's length, black meeting magenta straight on. Botan snuffled and tried to stop crying, holding her head up high as she received orders from her prince. Ayame straightened, loftily staring at Botan down the length of her nose.

"Train hard, Botan," Ayame said, voice resonating with power and command. "Find control. Prove to everyone you are the same smart, sassy ferry girl you've always been." And her voice softened, kind and gentle and warm. "And do not ever give up, on pain of Koenma's infinite disapproval."

Botan teared up again, but she kept her emotions in check this time. "That's my Koenma," she said, stanch even though her words trembled. "His methods are, at times, haphazard, but his heart…it's always been in just the right place."

Ayame's hands dropped from Botan's shoulders. She returned to her seat on the bed as Botan composed herself, scrubbing at her cheeks with her sleeves. I put my back to them both and scooted to my desk. The moment they shared felt private; it didn't feel right, inserting myself into the middle.

"So!" Botan eventually chirped. "Down to business!" Her bright smile had returned, even if her swollen nose and eyes still burned red. "What happens now, Ayame?"

"You stay here in Human World," Ayame said. "Your friends can help you learn to control your new powers. They will protect you until you are ready to show all of Spirit World that you are not a Spirit to be feared."

"Right! Um." She kicked at the ground before venturing, "And how do I gain control, exactly?"

Ayame chuckled. "The demon Hiei is a good place to start. The Sword seemed to give you powers similar to his."

"Right. Hiei," she said, but she looked a bit green at the idea (metaphorically, but also ironically considering Hiei's Jagan form). "And what do I do when I'm not training, would you say?"

Ayame said, as if it were obvious, "Perform your duty, Botan. It's what you were born for."

"Oh. Right. Right!" She nodded, arms crossed over her chest—perking up like a bloodhound finally catching a scent. "I suppose I'm always telling Yusuke to do his homework. Now it's my turn!" She paused. "Does that mean I can aid Yusuke again?"

As Ayame and Botan discussed the pros and cons of Botan returning to work as Yusuke's assistant, and whether or not Botan would need a part time job to cover her living expenses, I allowed my mind to wander—namely to the issue of Koenma. I didn't enjoy being wrong, but the fact remained that this…well. I hadn't been expecting it from him, because this display of reasonableness didn't seem in his character. No, this was the demigod who routinely abused and derided Jorge, who recruited teens to do dangerous work, who imprisoned Botan in isolation against her will—but at the same time, it hadn't occurred to me to think Enma himself might be behind Botan's treatment, and I had no one to blame for that oversight but myself.

Was Koenma, in fact, blameless in this scenario? Or did this situation exist in shades of grey I didn't possess the context to fully fathom? It did make me feel better about Koenma to know he was willing to bend rules to benefit his allies, but something still bothered me about the situation.

In his willingness to bend the rules, Koenma had put more than just Ayame and myself in danger.

"Keiko. You look concerned."

My head jerked up at the sound of Ayame's voice. Rubbing my nape with a hand, I shot Botan an apologetic smile. What I wanted to say wouldn't go down easily, I was sure.

"What I'm going to say will sound harsh, but I promise you, Botan, I'm not judging you personally." A deep breath to steady myself, a moment taken to ensure I spoke with care. "This eye of yours is new. You haven't had time to master the changes it's brought. But…you flipped a switch when we were fighting the infected humans. You even attacked me." Her face spasmed, and while it hurt me to see her hurt, I soldiered on. "While I don't want you in any form of isolation, is it wise for you to run free in Human World?"

Her face fell at once, because while Botan might be flighty and gregarious, stupid she most certainly was not. "Oh," she said. "Oh, Keiko, you're right. I didn't mean to lose control that night, but I couldn't help it. Something came over me and I was powerless to resist." Her eyes filled with fear like water fills a jug, heavy and cold. "What's to say I won't accidentally harm a human, Ayame?"

The question was fair, even if it came at Botan's expense—but when Ayame hesitated, I sensed it wasn't because she feared Botan harming humans. She reached into the sleeve of her kimono and pulled forth something small and golden, links of a chain wrapped around her pale fist.

"I was hoping not to have to use this," she said, "but I agree that it's prudent to give Botan a failsafe, if you will."

Botan and I leaned forward, both peering at her hand. "What is it?"

Ayame held it out, palm opening to reveal the circular face of a watch. Delicate golden hands tick-tick-ticked in circles, skimming over delicate black numerals and a small box bearing the number 15—oh. Today's date. It was a cute watch, fancy and simple, old-fashioned and maybe antique. Botan reached for it on reflex.

"Its look deceive," Ayame said. "Truthfully, it's a shock collar, of a sort."

Botan recoiled, snatching back her hand at once.

"Should you exhibit abnormal levels of aggression," Ayame continued, "or should your energy spike beyond a certain level, that bracelet will render you…momentarily incapacitated."

Her careful wording sent a chill skittering up my back. "I don't like the sound of that," I said.

"Me, neither," said Botan with a dreadful gulp.

Ayame grimaced. "I feel the same. However, it was the only device I could slip from the Spirit World vault without detection." She pulled back her hand, though her fingers did not close. "If other options of control avail themselves, I can—"

Wheels turned behind Botan's eyes, clicking together like the gears of a clock. With preternatural speed she lifted the watch off Ayame's palm and slipped it over her wrist, thumbing closed the catch with a resounding snap. Ayame looked thrown for a loop, rare sight drawing a giggle from me unbidden.

"You already went to such trouble stealing this from the vault," Botan said, more determined than ever. Not a shred of doubt marred her clear expression. "No. This will do, and you will not take another risk stealing another item." She heled out her hand and admired the watch's golden gleam. "And besides. Most of our technology is rather dowdy, but this? It's actually pretty. And it even matches my earrings!"

Botan flipped her hair to show said earrings off—but Ayame looked less than impressed with them. In fact, her eyes narrowed nearly into slits, staring at the earrings (and then at Botan's forehead) with outright suspicion.

My stomach dropped straight into my toes.

"Speaking of which," Ayame said, voice all silk and scheming. "Who was that who gave them to you? I did not sense her when I approached. Her presence took me by surprise. I sensed only you, Botan, and only because I had been looking for you. Her presence caused a pronounced obscurity."

"Oh, that was Sailor V!" Botan chirped. "A superhero, I'm told, though I hadn't heard of her before tonight."

"A superhero?" Ayame said, incredulous. "I haven't heard of her, either." She reached for Botan, curling her hair behind her ear to better see the earrings and Botan's smooth forehead. Botan bore this inspection with a smile; Ayame's mouth thinned. "Her methods are befitting of her occupation. These are remarkable."

"She's, um—she's up and coming." The words tumbled from my mouth almost of their own volition. When Ayame glanced at me I ducked my head, regretting having opened my big mouth, and muttered, "She's very, ah, new to the game."

Botan nodded vigorously. "She and Keiko are good friends!"

Ayame's brows rocketed upward. "Is that so?"

Helpless, I nodded, feeling every inch a bug pinned neatly under glass.

"I see." Ayame appraised me, long and slow. "And how did you meet her, Keiko?"

"She came to the school during the infecteds' attack." Which was true, even if it left out so much. I shrugged and tried to play it off. "You know. Just being her superhero self."

Ayame said nothing for a moment. Eventually her eyes swung toward the window, staring into the dark beyond.

"The disruption in our monitoring was obscured the night of the attack," she murmured, "and I couldn't sense her tonight, either. She possesses abilities that are most interesting." A long pause followed. Her lips curled. "Very interesting indeed."

I didn't like that look on her face, shrewd and contemplative (though of course any shreds of deviousness were obscured by Ayame's usual sleek manner). Clearing my throat, I tried not to fidget or look unnerved by the topic at hand.

A difficult feat indeed, since Ayame then asked me, "Though why you failed to mention her when last we spoke I am uncertain."

While I seized up as though electrocuted, Botan looked surprised. "You didn't tell Ayame about her, Keiko?"

There's only one way out when a question knocks you on your ass, and that's to tell the truth—but tell it slant. Because I was sure to trip all over myself if I lied, given how flustered I felt. My cheeks flushed hot and bright, supernovas made flesh. "Well, I, um—I asked V to take Botan. To hide her from you, Ayame, and she agreed and I thought you'd take Botan away, so I lied to you and I'm sorry." A deep breath, hoping my babbling would come across as sufficiently contrite. "But I really didn't know whether or not you'd take Botan away, so at the time—"

She held up a hand "Stop."

I stopped. She said nothing for a second, but the hand lowered soon enough.

"I understand now," she said—but her eyes hardened like chips of polished onyx. "Regardless, I will have to tell Koenma about her."

Aw, fuck. Of course she would. Before I could concoct an argument to convince her to refrain (all of which sounded forced, even in my wishful ears) Ayame stood and adjusted the fall of her kimono. I hauled to my feet as well, Botan following suit and sticking close to Ayame's side.

"You will be compensated for any expense regarding Botan's room and board," she said. Her head shook. "I will not ask where she'll stay. If questioned, I want to give as few details as possible."

"Right!" Botan flipped a salute, heels clicking. "The next time we talk, I'll be sure to keep the details close to my chest!"

I half expected Ayame to chuckle, make a remark about Botan's exuberance and untarnishable good cheer. Instead, Ayame's chin ducked, hands folding in the depths of her voluminous sleeves.

"Botan," she said, voice a brusque rip of truth. "I'm afraid that there won't be a next time. Not for a long time, at any rate."

Her hand fell from her forehead, salute breaking into pieces alongside her smile. "Wh-what do you mean?"

Ayame's eyes briefly shut. "Much the way Koenma has engineered himself plausible deniability, I too must do the same. The less information that can be wrung from me about you, the better."

The truth of the matter clicked as surely as horror settled over Botan's expression. "But—but Ayame—"

"I'm sorry." And it sounded like Ayame meant it. "But for now, you have to be on your own."

For a moment Botan held stoic—but her mouth twitched, and she blinked, and her eyes filled with welling tears. I don't blame Botan for breaking down again, shedding tears for the third time that night—and as Ayame held her once again, I could only look on in impotent silence.

Something told me there was nothing I could do or say to make this right, or to make Botan's flight into the unknown any less terrifying.

We left Botan in my room to compose herself. Even though traversing the stairs on crutches wasn't fun for me (it was the exact opposite, in fact), I nevertheless walked Ayame down them and out into the alley behind the restaurant.

Botan needed—no. Botan deserved a minute to herself after all she'd been through tonight.

"I can't say I like this," I said once we walked outside. The end-of-summer humidity clung to the back of my neck and matted my bangs against my cheeks. "But I don't see another way, either."

Ayame turned to me and nodded. "It's not often Koenma breaks the rules. For one of us, however…"

She trailed off. Somehow her complexion remained dewy without being greasy, hot air not ruining her skin's silky finish. I shrugged, trying not to focus on the sweat building in my armpits and squelching against the crutches when I moved.

"Well," I said. "I'm glad he at least saw reason."

Another nod. "He has a message for you too, Keiko."

I scowled. "Me? Not Yusuke? Seems he's the one Koenma should be talking to."

"I'm sure he'll be in touch with Yusuke personally," she said. "You, however…the two of you have yet to meet face to face. About that he sends his regrets."

I didn't bother pretending to look anything but skeptical. "Really," I said, and it was not a question.

Ayame remained as unflappable as ever. "Yes. He's entrusted you with far more than you bargained for. For your cooperation and grace, he is grateful."

"Yeah, well. Tell him thanks for letting Botan off the hook, I guess. It's what she deserves."

"He agrees. As do I." She bowed to me, and from both the finality of her expression and the habit of the gesture I guessed she intended to cut the evening short. She said, "Farewell, Keiko. Until the next big case."

Before she could pull a disappearing act, I shook my head. "Ayame, wait—I'm worried about you."

Ayame's head tilted, curious and seemingly uncomprehending. I wondered if that was an act, but then again, Ayame had been transparent with us tonight. What did she have to gain from lying?

"What if you get caught?" I said. "Is your loyalty worth that?

Her expression cleared, but only so it could darken again—as dark as the hue of her kimono, the color of her hair, the depth of her eyes. Voice no more forceful than a summer breeze she said, "The great King Enma would not deign to speak to one such as me without cause." And then her voice dropped low and hard like a stone into the sea. "And trust me, Keiko, when I say to you that I will not give him cause."

Our gazes held for one moment, and then another. I detected no doubt in her. No hesitation. No sense of wavering. I saw in her only the glare of resolve, scintillating like light off a flawless diamond.

"If there's anyone who can play this chess game," I said to her, "it's you."

Ayame paused—and then she bowed to me again.

"Thank you," she murmured to the ground. When she straightened, her stoic face cracked, the lightest edge of desperation gleaming silver against black. "Take care of Botan, Keiko. Please."

It wasn't like her to say please. It wasn't like her to speak with such bald desperation, either—and the words burst out of me of their own accord. "I swear," I told her, rushing. "I swear. She'll be like my own sister, promise."

Ayame's lips thinned, flinching—and her features smoothed over once more.

Still, though.

I'd glimpsed more in her tonight than perhaps I ever had.

"And what a wonderful sister she is," Ayame murmured, and she walked on wooden sandals away and into the night.

I watched until she vanished into the dark beyond the alley. Once her figure vanished into the gloom, I went indoors again.

I still didn't feel like I knew Ayame well. She dealt inscrutability like a blackjack dealer, specializing in hands built to confuse and mystify—but despite her best efforts to remain an enigma, I was certain of one thing: Ayame was brave. Brave enough to defy the will of a cosmic king to protect a person she cares for. Brave enough to play a game it was far easier to lose than win.

Brave enough to die for her loyalty, perhaps.

I just prayed it would never come to that, and that the thing I respected most about her would not lead to her undoing.

An hour later, I opened the alley door and said, "Hey, Yusuke."

He swaggered on in with a roll of his eyes and an overstated, totally-trying-to-guilt-trip-me yawn, arms stretching luxuriously over his head. "Don't hey-Yusuke me," he groused once the performance ended. "It's the middle of the goddamn night. This couldn't have waited till morning?"

I ushered him toward the stairs with a bow like a French butler. "Nope."

"Well, this had better be worth the hike over here, because—oh." He stopped short with one foot on the first step, hand on the railing, staring at the second floor landing with wide eyes. "Oh. Botan."

She stood at the top of the stairs, one foot tucked behind the other like a shy ballet dancer. "Hello, Yusuke," she said, looking at him from under her lashes. "It's good to see you."

A beat passed.

Yusuke vaulted up the stairs like a gazelle on steroids and swept Botan off her feet with a hideous, shrieking cackle, spinning her in place as she laughed, thrilled and surprised and giddy.

"You're back, you're back, you're back!" Yusuke yodeled. He put her down and stared at her (totally ignoring me when I shushed them, I might add, because it was two in the morning and my parents were sleeping down the hall). "Aw, man. I never thought I'd be so glad to look death in the eye again!"

"It's good to see you too, Yusuke," Botan said, once again on the verge of choking up—though this time with happy tears. "I missed you while I was gone."

Yusuke lit up like a Christmas tree, mouth flying open to reply—but his teeth clacked shut and he turned a quite livid shade of purple, instead, turning from her with a cough into his fist. "H-hey, don't go getting mushy on me, now!" he said.

Botan rolled her eyes. "There you go again, not admitting you have feelings."

"I'm just trying to keep you from crying, that's all! Because clearly you've been doing some tonight."

"What?!"

He pinched her face and stretched it, ignoring Botan's indignant cries. "Just look at these puffy cheeks! You two been holed up in here watching chick-flicks or something?" He let her go, though, studying her face as she sputtered—and then he lifted one accusatory finger. "And hey! I thought death had three eyes these days, not two. What gives?"

"We found a way to hide the eye from view," I called up the steps, "but it's still there."

He did a double-take, apparently having forgotten I existed (ouch). Yusuke's eyebrows did a little dance as he processed that, but in the end he just shrugged, because Yusuke. "Huh. Well, whatever. So long as you're back and—wait." Brown eyes narrowed, murderous and dark. "What about Koenma?"

Before we could tell him anything, a thump came from down the hall. Botan threw her hand over Yusuke's mouth and dragged him out of sight, probably back into my bedroom, and then steps shuffled down the hall. My dad appeared at the top of the steps and rubbed his eyes.

"Keiko?" he said, voice gummy with fatigue. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Dad," I said. "I just went for a midnight snack and tripped going up the stairs, that's all."

"Oh. Well. Try not to do that again, OK?" He yawned into his shoulder. "Night, honey."

"…night, Dad."

I wasn't sure what was more insulting—the fact that he'd mistaken Yusuke's horrific, braying donkey-laughter for my own, or the fact that he considered me tripping up the stairs a plausible idea.

After trekking up the stairs (without tripping, thank you very much) I found Yusuke and Botan sitting on my bed, cross-legged and facing each other, Botan speaking to Yusuke in hushed tones. They turned when I entered, Yusuke saying, "Botan's told me the gist of it, and it's great she's back—but I don't like that Enma's after her. So what happens now?"

I collapsed onto my desk chair, laced my fingers together, and cracked them. Botan and Yusuke winced

"Now we get Botan trained," I said—and when I smirked, Yusuke edged away with fear in his eyes. "Lucky for us, I know just the demon to do it."

Yusuke knew better than anyone that when I put my mind to something, heaven help anyone who stood in my goddamn way.

Hiei regarded my sweet smile the way most people regard snakes: with distrust, disgust, and a whole lot of ah-hell-naw. "Hello, Hiei," I said, ignoring the way he took a step back when I said his name. "How've you been?"

"…fine." He scanned the alley, not to mention my crutch-occupied hands, and scowled. "Where's my ramen?"

Hungry little bastard, I thought, but I didn't let my smile falter. "We'll get to that. But first, there's someone you ought to meet." I craned my head back at the restaurant door. "Oh, Botan?"

If I could bottle Hiei's bewildered expression, I totally would, and I'd hoard it to savor on a rainy day. As it stands I could only laugh on the inside as he glared at the door, and at Botan as she slipped out of it. She wore a sunny smile, too, even brighter and happier than mine—which in Hiei's grumpy eyes probably just looked deranged. Hiei sidled away from her like she'd presented him with a bouquet of scorpions, though he didn't outright leave. He hadn't had his ramen yet, after all.

"Hiei, this is Botan," I said—with a pointed glare when I added, "You remember her, right? You met right here in this alley."

Hiei either played dumb or had the worst memory on the planet, because without skipping a beat he just said, "Did we? I can't recall." And then it was his turn to glare. "My ramen, Meigo. Where is it?"

But I just glared right back, even as Botan mouthed 'Meigo?' and tried not to look confused. I said, "Don't be stubborn, Hiei."

Botan stepped toward him, then, despite the instructions I'd given her to hang back and let me take the lead—the instructions she'd readily agreed to the night before, back when she and I (and a thoroughly amused Yusuke) planned how to broach this subject with the cantankerous fire demon. She strode toward Hiei and pointed at her forehead, lips pursed into a pink bud.

"Well, if you don't remember me, surely you recall cutting me on the forehead with the Shadow Sword?" she demanded.

"Hmmph." Hiei's eyes raked over her before he turned up his nose. "You're no worse for wear."

Botan bristled. "Aren't I, though?" she said, and she pulled one of Sailor V's earrings from her lobe.

The night before, we'd learned that removing one of the earrings disrupted their overall effect—mostly because Yusuke yanked one out to examine it and had then nearly pissed himself when Botan's third eye flared into sight like a firework. Her eye appeared in the same manner just then, blooming with a spark of violet light amid the fall of her light blue bangs. Hiei took a step back, hand coming up as if to ward Botan away, but she did not approach him. She merely stood there and glared, earring in hand, as Hiei looked her over in shock. I'd never seen him look quite so stricken, actually. Teeth bared, scarlet irises ringed in vast expanses of white sclera, he radiated pure confusion, the kind that bordered on anger for no reason other than Hiei didn't like being taken by surprise.

Sorry, Charlie. But surprise you we've gotta.

"Now Hiei," I said, giving him my most supportive, I'm-your-mother-and-I-love-you-no-matter-what smile. "We don't blame you for this. I know things were weird when you had the Sword. But facts are facts, and Botan could use your help."

"My help?" he repeated, contempt dripping from every syllable.

"Yes, your help," I said, wishing with every ounce of my being for some deity or another to grant me patience; I wasn't picky about the who just then. "Her power is a lot like yours, I'm told. She needs to learn to control it." I nearly batted my eyelashes at him. "Do you think you could train her to use it while you stay here in Human World? Pretty-please?"

Hiei didn't say anything. He eyed me, then eyed Botan askance, before shrugging.

"What's in it for me?" he asked.

Well, so much for patience. A glare melted my supportive smile from the inside out. From between my teeth I told him, "Well, Hiei, you'll get my undying devotion and gratitude, for starters—"

"And mine!" Botan chirped, because apparently she hadn't realized I was being utterly and completely sarcastic and was planning on following my statement with a threat to jam my fist down his throat and/or revoke ramen privileges for at least a month (though I suspected the latter would be more upsetting for the goth midget). Pasting her smile back on, Botan took a deep breath and walked toward Hiei again, hand outstretched for a western-style shake. Her grin could've melted a glacier when she said, "Hiei, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I'd be ever so grateful if you helped me. And I'm Koenma's number one ferry girl, so I'm sure he'd be charmed indeed if you helped me learn to control my condition." She thrust her hand forward like a spear, weaponized friendliness radiating from every pore. "So. Friends? What do you say?"

Hiei didn't even look at Botan's hand, which she began to withdraw as her smile faded into uncertainty. Hiei just frowned, stared at her—and then he smirked, tossing at me a malevolent smile and a chuckle most derisive.

"So Koenma would be in my debt, you say?" he said, even though no one had said such a thing and Hiei was clearly reaching, that devious little asshole. "Well, then. I say Koenma in my debt is something I'll think about."

Botan blinked at him, distracted as she put her earring back in. "Eh?"

"I'm saying," he said with scorn abundant, "that I will think about it."

And then Hiei disappeared, a flicker of black and a bladed wind the only sign he'd ever stood before us to begin with.

Botan (who was not accustomed to Hiei's disappearances just yet) let out a startled cry and staggered backward when Hiei vanished. I just released a roar of frustration, throwing up my hands and baring my teeth at the stripe of sky above the alley.

"Hiei, c'mon!" I yelled. "You didn't even eat your ramen!"

A moment passed.

A wind stripped by.

Botan shrieked again as Hiei reappeared not two inches away from me, hands jammed in pockets and teeth bared.

"Oh, so there is ramen?" he snarled. "Why didn't you say so?"

I drew myself up to my full height. "I didn't say so because there is only ramen if you agree to help Botan."

He tossed his head, eyes ablaze, but he tucked his chin behind his scarf and simmered down. "Tcch! Fine. I'll help the damn wench." He rounded on said wench with a sneer. "But I won't go easy on you."

Botan bounced on her heels with a bright laugh (which only made Hiei reel back as though struck). Once again she approached with hand outstretched. "Fine by me, Mister Hiei!" she said, eyes glimmering with eager satisfaction. "I look forward to working with you. I'm a go-getter and the best student you'll ever have, I promise!"

At last he seemed to notice her hand—insofar as he stared at it, sneered, and turned up his haughty-ass nose at it. On stomping feet he stalked away from her to lean against the alley wall, face turned pointedly away from both Botan and myself as he crossed his arms over his chest and slouched.

Botan's eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to say something.

I grabbed her arm and dragged her inside the restaurant.

Just inside the door and atop a server station I'd set a tray bearing three bowls of ramen, still hot and waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves. "Take that," I told Botan.

She picked up the tray and frowned, steam rising into her face like the fringes of a ghostly dress. "I don't think he likes me very much," she muttered.

"He doesn't warm up to anyone fast," I said, hoping that might bring her some comfort. I tapped a crutch against the ground. "It's good I'm on these and have my hands full, frankly. You giving him the food is bound to help, at least a little." When Botan frowned I whispered, "Hiei is easily bribed with food."

Botan laughed and hefted the tray into her arms. "Good to know. And thank you for helping me with him, Keiko. Without you, I wouldn't know where to start."

I hummed a noncommittal agreement, because deep down I still felt guilty for getting her into this predicament in the first place. Getting Hiei to come around was the least I could do to make things right. No need to hash that out, though. I reached for the door to the alley, and when I propped it open ahead of us, Botan beamed.

"Oh, and Keiko? Don't worry about me." She winked, and for a moment I wondered if her third eye had given her the ability to read minds like Hiei could—and if, perhaps, that's what lay in store for everyone's favorite reaper. Botan declared, "I'm tenacious and I'll make friends with Hiei yet, you'll see!"

Carrying the ramen like a practiced waitress, Botan strutted out the door and presented the food to Hiei with a flourish. He rolled his eyes but nevertheless he tucked in, grunting his extreme displeasure when Botan settled atop a crate beside him and began to chatter about their future training sessions.

There was no way to know if Botan would succeed in her goal of making friends with Hiei—but holy shit, finding out promised to be a wild ride. Unable to keep from grinning, I lurched my way out the door.

I wasn't going to miss a minute of this, that's for sure.

Notes:

Thanks to all of you who tuned in last week! I'm so freaking excited to start the Rescue Yukina arc with you. Hope you had great weeks, and see you next Saturday.

Chapter 62: Days of the Week

Summary:

In which time passes.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Probably to make a point, or at least to express his extreme displeasure at the disruption of our typical lunchtime routine, Kaito marched into the study room with nose thrust straight up into the air and barely deigned to look at me. The door swung shut as he set his book bag and lunch sack on the table with a clatter, sealing us off with quiet hush—and privacy. Gotta love privacy.

"I got your note, Yukimura," he said, looking at me down the length of his thin nose. "Though why you would want to meet for lunch in here, of all places, is beyond—"

He stopped talking.

He assessed.

He said, "And what, pray tell, happened to you?"

He'd finally noticed the crutches leaning on the wall behind me, the bandages peeking above the collar of my school jacket, the scabbed cut on my cheek, and the casted leg sitting propped on a chair. His eyes ping-ponged from one to the next in turns, wheels in his head spinning in frantic place. I took a bite of my onigiri, leaned back in my seat, and grinned.

"Nice to see you, too, Kaito," I said.

He shoved his glasses up his nose with a finger. "Hmmph. So I see the rumors are true. You really were involved in the incident that happened here last week."

"That's what they tell me."

Kaito didn't say anything for a minute. He pulled out a chair, the scrape of chair on tile echoing in the tiny study room, and began unpacking his lunch—regarding me all the while with a bald, interested stare.

He wasn't the only one. Through the small panel of glass running from ceiling to floor in the study room door, put there so teachers could monitor student activities, students walked by and tried sneaking not-so-subtle glances through the pane. Totally obvious about it, despite their best attempts. They all walked far too casually, eyes lingering on that tiny window as they passed, telltale sign they didn't feel casual at all. Kids had been staring all morning, but none had been brave enough to approach me directly and ask about the crutches.

But they knew. It was pretty obvious.

The whole school was in an uproar, of course, both over the recent rioting as well as its presence in our school building. Classes had been cancelled for an entire week as the police investigated the incident at our school, leaving the student body to grind the rumor mill like cracked pepper over a cooling meal. Cleaning crews hadn't quite managed to fix all the damage left by the infected. Some windows were still covered in cardboard and tape. A few classes were missing doors, and in one room the tile floor sported a suspicious brown stain everybody knew had to be blood. Clear signs of the rioting, the students whispered, and their curiosity only grew.

They were right, of course. But I wasn't about to tell them that the missing windows and broken doors and bloodstains had been a part of the violence, nor confirm that my oh-so-conspicuous crutches were indeed related to the same…let alone reveal the cops had been by to see me three times since the incident to question me about my run-in with the bug-infested Hamaguchi. If my peers asked, I'd tell them the same thing I told the police: I had been there after school to study, and the teachers had attacked without provocation. Nothing more, nothing less.

The police never mentioned the weapons I'd left scattered around the school. I had to assume Spirit World, or perhaps even Sailor V, had cleaned up that part of my mess. I'd have to ask at some point, for sure.

Kaito chewed his food and swallowed. "Well then, Yukimura. Tell me: Which of the rumors is true?"

I looked at him and hummed, mouth full of sticky rice.

"Did you try to kill a teacher, or did the teacher try to kill you?" Kaito asked, not bothering with euphemisms. I nearly choked on my food. "I heard it was Hamaguchi, so really it could have gone either way."

Wow. Of all the rumors, that I hadn't expected. Maybe my violent reputation, born of my relationship to Yusuke, still lingered. I pounded my chest with a fist and coughed, marveling at the inventive mind of teenagers.

"Very funny, Kaito," I said when I recovered. "But for the record, he tried to kill me. I fought back, then jumped off a roof to get away." I jiggled my broken leg. "Got this to show for it, too."

He almost looked impressed. "Now that rumor I hadn't heard."

"What have you heard?"

"That a superhero was seen in the area the night of the riots, and she was headed this way." A sharp stare, beady and intrusive. "Know anything about that?"

Leave it to Kaito to know way more than he should, that jerk—but just who the hell had leaked that little bit of info? Shrugging, I pasted on a smirk I said, "Maybe I do. Maybe I don't."

Kaito huffed. "Fine. Keep me in suspense."

The urge to tease him never bore fruit, because behind us the door swung open. Kurama nodded when he walked in, sitting next to Kaito across from me at the small study table. He looked just as he always did: clean cut, polished, with shining hair and even more luminous eyes, and his small, warm smile coaxed a similar look from my lips on reflex. Kaito, however, appeared less than impressed, watching with hawk-like scrutiny as Kurama took his seat.

"Hello, Minamino," said Kaito.

"Hello, Kaito," Kurama replied. "Yukimura. I got your note. I assumed you'd have trouble climbing the stairs to our usual meeting spot." He gestured at the table, upon which he unpacked his lunch like a civilized person. "I approve of the new location."

"Yeah," I joked. "No more eating off your lap like a peasant, huh?"

Kaito's brow lifted while Kurama chuckles. Looking balefully at Kurama, he waved a hand toward me. "You don't look surprised to see her like this."

"Indeed." Kurama's reply was as smooth as it was disarming. "I visited Keiko in the hospital. I've already been filled in."

Kaito's brows shot up higher. "Visited her in the hospital?" he said, disbelieving. "And here I didn't even receive a phone call."

"Aww, you mad, Kaito?" I reached across the table and swatted his arm, smiling when he rolled his eyes. "I figured you'd use the time off to read. Didn't figure I should disturb you."

"Well, you're half right. The time off was an unexpected boon for my reading list." A withering look in my direction. "But I still wouldn't have minded a phone call."

"Sorry, Kaito," I said, and I meant it. "Next time, for sure?"

He gave me the single most 'are you stupid?' look I have ever seen on a living face. "Please, Yukimura. Do not tempt fate to send you a 'next time.'"

"I'll do my best!" Because I had seen this coming, and because I'd forgotten to bring it on our first day back this semester, I reached into my school bag and presented Kaito with its contents atop my supplicating palms. "Please accept this as an apology."

He raised a brow at the book. "Sato Shogo's latest novel? I already own a copy, thank you."

"Not like this, you don't." I shoved the book forward. "Title page. Take a peek."

Kaito scowled, reaching out a finger to flip open the book's cover—and then he gasped and snatched it out of my hands, peering down with bugging eyes at Shogo's signature and the short accompanying message. "To Kaito Yuu," it said. "Let's talk about your papers sometime. You do great work. With admiration from Keiko's friend, Sato Shogo."

"You—you!" Kaito's hands shook around the book, face broken out with a light sheen of sweat. And of course he zeroed in on the part that paid him a compliment. "He's read my papers?!"

"He thinks they're pretty great, actually," I said. "Next time he's in town, I'll set the two of you up on a coffee date. That sound good?"

Kaito nodded so hard his hair flopped atop his head, but he was quite beyond speech (quite a feat, that) and lapsed into solemn silence, staring at Shogo's words with jaw dropped. I had to giggle. It wasn't often I could throw Kaito for a loop, and I confess I rather enjoyed being on the giving end of it this time around.

"I assume you're being grilled by your classmates?" Kurama said. He spoke low, so as not to disturb Kaito's reverential silence, but I heard the amusement in his voice and saw the spark in his green eyes regardless.

"Of course. Teenage curiosity is voracious," I said.

Loathe though I felt to disturb Kaito, I rapped my knuckles on the table and got his attention so I could fill him in—using a revised and condensed version of what had happened at the school, similar to what I told police. Kurama managed to maintain a bland expression as I spun my web of lies, though the telltale glitter in his eyes told me he approved of my fabrications. Kaito, oblivious, looked impressed when I finished speaking, leaning back in his chair with arms crossed over his chest (and the book held tight under them like a protected treasure, which was sort of adorable).

"I've always said libraries are the best weapons." He adjusted his glasses with a smirk. "Don't worry. I'll set the rumors straight, should I have the opportunity."

"Thanks, Kaito."

"Don't mention it." An awed glance at his book. "It's the least I can do."

The bell rang not too long later, scattering our lunchtime soiree to the winds. Kurama offered to help me carry my books, an offer I accepted with gratitude. Halfway to class, however, he stepped close and muttered, "Be careful, Kei."

I knew better than to break stride and call attention to his words. I hummed instead, hard as it was to talk while swinging atop my crutches, and he shot me a sidelong smile.

"Kaito is clever," he said, eyes trained carefully forward once more. "Keep your story consistent, even when speaking with other students."

"Will do my best," I muttered—and when Kurama dropped me off at my classroom door, I was glad he'd given me that word of warning.

The minute I sat down, they swarmed.

Junko led the charge, because even though we were friends at this point, she couldn't resist the lure of gossip. She plopped into the desk next to me and pinned me with a stare so pointed it could skewer meat.

"Is it true, Keiko?" she said, and her words released the floodgates. In a flash all the other students in the classroom (who had been doing that don't-look-at-Keiko dance in the corners) flocked in a knot around my seat. The babble of questions filled the air, and through the throng of students I saw Kurama standing in the doorway, smiling a very smug "I told you so" smile. Eyes warm with amusement, his lips were as charmingly curled as the tips of his glossy hair, and in reply I could only lob a glare at him through the swarm of chattering teens.

Kurama's smile widened—and then he winked, turned on his heel, and walked out the door. Good luck, he seemed to be saying, because Kei, you are going to need it.

All I'm going to say is that no one has the right to look that pretty and that smug at the same time, because holy hell, it's a frightening combination.

A particularly ridiculous question brought me back to the matter at hand. "Did you really fight Hamaguchi off with a meat cleaver?" one student asked.

"No way!" another protested. "I heard she had a gun!"

Everybody gasped and looked at me for confirmation. I rolled my eyes with a derisive snort for good measure. Drama, much?

"Um, no. Neither," I said. "I just ran away when I could and punched when I couldn't, that's all."

Nobody look convinced, however, and some even looked crestfallen at the idea of me not, in fact, being in possession of a very illegal firearm. Soon they rallied, however, and the questions began again. I could hardly pick them out since everyone started talking at once—but one of the questions stuck out like a brick in a shoddy wall, and I honed in on the speaker at once.

"Is it true that Sailor V showed up?" one girl asked. She was in my class, but I wasn't sure of her name.

My eyes narrowed; everyone quieted. "Where did you hear that?"

"A ton of people saw her running around the city the night of the riots!" she said. Her voice rose an octave with palpable excitement. "Did you see her?"

"She saw her," Amagi said. "We both did."

Everyone turned. Amagi stood in the doorway, staring through the crowd and straight at me, bearing in her arms a conspicuous bouquet of brilliant red carnations. My eyebrow rose—both at the flowers and at her unbridled speech. Why the heck was she telling everyone about V, anyway?

"Oh, hey Amagi," I said as she crossed the room, gaggle of students parting before her proud stride. A nod at the flowers. "What are those?"

"For you," she said. She set the flowers on my desk and stepped back so she could bow, deep and long and low. "Thank you very much for saving me, Keiko-san."

The students around us murmured, even Junko whispering to someone else behind her hands. My cheeks colored when a thought flashed through my head: Every single person in the room was staring at Amagi and I. Nowhere to run. Chin ducking I told her, "Oh. You don't have to bow. I didn't do much."

Her unimpressed expression could give even Kaito's a run for its money. "If it hadn't been for you, I'd be dead," she said with utmost certainty.

"You mean if Sailor V hadn't shown up, we'd be dead," I countered.

Junko rallied at the mention of the hero. "So it is true!" she crowed. "You did see her! What was she like, what did she say, what did—?"

Chaos erupted, everyone screaming over each other in their pursuit of Sailor V, whom I guess was a lot more famous than I realized given the absolutely nutbar reaction she was getting—but the bell rang before they could tear me limb from limb and they were forced to leave me alone.

Amagi, though? As she went back to her seat, she shot me a smile.

A secretive smile. A knowing smile. A satisfied smile. A smile that said that she had brought V up very much on purpose and had gotten exactly what she wanted out of it.

Too bad for me I had no clue what that something was.

After class, it took quite a while to fend off my inquisitive classmates—but eventually I did so, answering question after question about the superhero Sailor V until they were satisfied I'd told them everything about her costume, personality, and catchphrases. When the well of information ran dry and I saw their curiosity waning, I told them not to wait for me. I was cumbersome on my crutches, I said, and didn't want to slow them down. Go home, everyone. I'll be fine hanging back on my own.

Amagi, of course, didn't go with them. She dawdled in the corner until the others left, inconspicuous as a shadow. Only when the door shut behind our peers did she look my way. Eyes like bottled ink looked me up and down, skimming the flowers on my desk with another of her satisfied smiles.

My mouth moved of its own accord. "Why did you tell people about—?"

She knew who I meant even if I didn't say it. "To distract them," she replied.

"Distract them? From what?"

"From what you don't want them asking about." A long pause. "I didn't feel comfortable lying about V. She was too conspicuous to leave unmentioned. And since people are too busy asking about V to pry into anything else…" She trailed off, gaze knowing. "They won't ask about anyone else who might or might not have been there that night."

Our gazes locked and held. For a minute I had no idea what she was on about, but soon it clicked: She was talking about Botan. She'd been the only person there that night aside from the crazy teachers. But why was Amagi talking about the reaper at all?

"How did you know I wouldn't want them asking about…her?" I said.

Once again, she knew who I meant without being told. "You said V took her with her," she told me. "You said your friend would be 'safe' with V. That means she wasn't safe staying behind." Her head tilted, short black hair curling over her soft, pale cheek. "Perhaps I assumed incorrectly, but I felt a smokescreen was in order, just in case."

And she was right, of course. No one really had a reason to ask about Botan, but if they were distracted with Sailor V, they wouldn't press for details about the rest of the night in general. And if Hamaguchi mentioned Botan, people would still be way too distracted by V to care. Perhaps Amagi's effort here weren't necessary, but…

"Thank you," I said. Amagi walked across the classroom and sat in the desk in front of mine; I put a hand on her shoulder, staring her right in the eye so she knew I meant it. "Thank you, Amagi."

"No. Thanks are all mine." Amagi shook her head, tone as resolute as stone. "I meant what I said. You saved me. Even before V showed up, you put me somewhere safe. You gave me a weapon and hid me. I owe you."

"You don't," I said, shaking my head. "You watched out for the bugs for me, after all. I already owed you a favor."

I think she sensed I wouldn't let this go, because she smiled at me and said, "That's true, I suppose. Perhaps we're even, after all." But then her dark eyes darkened further still, and her voice dropped low and soft and urgent. "May I ask? The bugs. Where, exactly, did they come from?"

I didn't say anything—mainly because I hadn't been expecting that question. What had I told her about them the night of the riot? I couldn't remember, caught too off guard by the unexpected query.

"You said a man named Suzaku summoned them," she said in that same low voice, "but they were strange. Not of this world." She leaned toward me, gaze imploring. "Where did he get them, Keiko?"

It took a minute for me to gather myself, to remember the half-truths I'd whispered in her ear as we huddled in that dark PE shed, the infected humans frothing at the mouth for our blood. Eventually I reached for the flowers on the desk between us. My fingers traced the edges of a petal, crimson and soft and fragrant.

"Amagi," I said, half to the flowers and half to her. "There's a great big world out there. It's bigger than you know. You know more about it than most people, seeing the things you see, but…" I met her eyes, guileless and pleading, and winced. "If I tell you about the bugs, there's no real going back. Your eyes will be opened, and I don't know if you can go back to being blind after you start to see."

Amagi considered this.

She asked, "But will you tell me about that world, if I ask to hear about it?"

Once more I hesitated. Not because I didn't think Amagi could handle the truth about demons and humans and Spirit World. I got the feeling Amagi could handle anything I threw at her. Rather, the question became this: Was it more or less dangerous to keep Amagi in the dark, and what might be the consequences of inducting this girl into a world more dangerous than she could comprehend? Should that knowledge hurt her, could I live with the guilt that would follow?

But then again, if I kept the truth from her, I'd be a pretty damn big hypocrite, wouldn't I?

Keiko had been kept in the dark for far too long in the anime. She'd suffered for being kept in that dark, had been endangered time and again when a mere explanation could've prevented dire peril. I bemoaned Keiko's fate in that regard all the goddamn time. I rejected remaining uninformed, bullied and bit and scratched my way into Yusuke's inner circle—so who was I to say Amagi shouldn't know the truth if she asked directly for it? Who was I to make that decision for her, the way the decision had been made for Keiko in the anime?

But then again (again), who was I to put Amagi's safety in jeopardy?

Call me crazy, but I felt like Yusuke all of a sudden—and in that moment, maybe I understood canon-Yusuke's decision to keep canon-Keiko in the dark just the littlest bit better. My first instinct was to protect Amagi, to keep her out, to ensure her safety by pushing her away from the dark and terrible truth and back into her normal world, just as Yusuke had pushed away Keiko to keep her safe.

Still, though.

I wouldn't, couldn't make the same mistake he did—because that is exactly what excluding Keiko had been. A big, fat, honking mistake. And I wouldn't do that. Not to Amagi, anyway.

A deep breath stretched my lungs and chest. I shut my eyes and opened them again. Amagi watched in silence, brow knitting and then unknitting again when I met her eyes and smiled.

"If you ask, and if you're sure," I said, "I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

Amagi was not the type to run into anything blindly, however. My word seemed good enough for her. She nodded, staring at the red carnations through distant eyes. "Thank you, Keiko. May I think about it?"

It was a relief, really, that I wouldn't be telling her the truth that day. Someday soon, but not quite yet. "Sure," I said. I reached for my crutches. "Want to walk home together?"

Another nod, black hair gleaming in the harsh fluorescent lights, and together we left the classroom behind.

Although I resolved that day to wait for Amagi to come to me, and to only tell her the truth when she asked to hear it, it turns out my resolution isn't always rock steady. Amagi would be inducted into my world a bit sooner than I would've liked, and more at my behest than hers—and part of me wonders if in doing so, I did her a disservice.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Life—thrown so unceremoniously askew by the Saint Beast debacle—returned to normal with alarming ease.

School, homework, the rhythm of being a teenager in Japan has the tenor of a lullaby, drawing you into a haze of routine like a mother's song draws an infant into sleep. The administration fixed the doors and windows and stained floors at our school. The cut on my cheek healed. The bandages came off my back, and with them went the rumors surrounding my role in the riot at the school. People stopped asking me about Sailor V, instead sharing newspaper articles and the blurry photos therein taken by reporters at scenes of various crimes. I stayed the object of school-wide interest for no longer than two weeks.

Life went on, essentially, because that is what life does.

That's not to say life was boring. Far from it, in fact. Life could never be boring when I ate lunch every day with Kurama and Kaito, those anime characters for whom I felt such affection. I spent my evenings with Kuwabara, Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei, Botan, a weekly schedule of social events keeping me in constant contact with the characters I adored so deeply. Until that period of time I had never been more conscious of the cycle of the days of the week, because each day promised contact with another character, another experience, and something new to learn about the pulled-from-fiction world I'd come to call my own. It was honestly kind of amazing how life snapped back into place after the Saint Beasts came thundering in the way they did. Relics of my past schedule (weekly parole meetings and debriefings and tutoring sessions and Dragon Quest playdates with Yusuke) remained largely unchanged after the chaos cleared—though some small differences availed themselves, mostly owing to Botan's renewed presence in everyone's lives.

It turns out Amagi wasn't the only one who'd have to get acclimated to the presence of the supernatural in their life.

"You need to heal, Yusuke. Heal! You didn't put a white mage in your party for the aesthetic!"

"I don't know what that word means but don't fucking tell me what to do, Grandma, I'm doing just fine with my—aw, hell! He got me again!"

Yusuke tossed the controller to the floor and rolled into a ball, writhing in mental anguish on my carpet. I rolled my eyes at him, as did Kuwabara, the Dragon Quest "End Game" music blaring tinny through my small TV's speakers. He'd been trying to beat a boss for the entire two hours I'd been tutoring Kuwabara, mainly because he didn't give a crap about healing and trusted his tank-heavy party to kill the boss before it could retaliate. Sign of his fighting tactics in days to come? Probably, which explained why Yusuke died so many damn times in the anime. The writing was etched very deeply into the wall, as it were…

"I'm telling you, you need to be healing every turn even if your characters aren't in the red zone!" I told him, waving my pencil about for emphasis.

Yusuke stuck out his tongue. "Like you could do any better."

"If you'd ever let me have a turn at the controller, maybe I would."

"Well if you didn't back-seat game so much, maybe I'd let you have a go!"

"Well maybe if you—"

"Um." Kuwabara held up his textbook. "Not to break this up, but can we talk about past participles some more, please?"

Yusuke took advantage of my moment of distraction to restart the game and queue up the boss battle, yet-a-fucking-gain. I grumbled about Yusuke using his brain sometime and turned back to the study session at hand, ignoring it when Yusuke took the white mage out of his party in a clear attempt to piss me off.

Kuwabara had taken a shine to English lessons after I helped him pass his test at school, and we'd continued our English homework sessions ever since. Yusuke liked to drop in on these and play Dragon Quest in the corner while I worked with Kuwabara, mainly so he could pester us and ask for help beating the harder bosses (not that he'd ever admit he needed the help, but the next time he lost to the boss I caught him putting the white mage back into his lineup with a sidelong glance at me). It was nice, having Kuwabara and Yusuke over to hang out every week. I got to socialize, (vicariously) play some games, and brush up on my English. Sounded like a win to me.

However, much though I enjoyed spending time with him, I suspected Yusuke was coming over not just to spend time with me, but also to get out of his house for a bit. Botan had been staying with him ever since she got back to Human World since he had a second bedroom (and also since my parents probably wouldn't approve of me having a friend with blue hair, at least not until they got to know her, and we didn't have room for a permanent guest, so she couldn't stay with me). I didn't know what Botan got up to when Yusuke showed up on my doorstep, though. I needed to check in on that soon, for sure.

A little while later Yusuke managed to beat the boss (thanks to healing strategically, I might add), and as he crowed his victory and did a dance around my room like a football player celebrating in the endzone, my phone rang. I shushed him and grabbed the receiver off the cradle; Yusuke just crowed louder. I stuffed a finger in my ear and said, "Hello?"

"It's me," came a smooth, familiar voice.

"Oh hey, Kurama," I said. "How are you?"

Yusuke stopped crowing, thankfully, and Kuwabara looked up from his textbook.

"Am I interrupting?" Kurama said. "I thought I heard—was it singing? I'm not sure."

"Ah, no. No signing. That was just Yusuke being a moron."

Yusuke squawked; Kurama chuckled. "I see. Tell him hello from me."

I did as instructed and delivered the greeting, which Yusuke returned with a wave. Kuwabara also waved and said, "Tell him I said hi, too."

"You're popular this evening," Kurama observed. "I'm calling in regard to our meeting tomorrow. With your leg as it is, our usual walk might not be a tenable option for us."

My hand collided with my forehead; the first of our weekly parole meetings since I broke my leg was coming up the next day, and I hadn't thought about alternate plans at all. "Oh, shit. You're right." Eyes alighting on the video game system on my floor, I said, "Want to just hang out here? I might be able to persuade Yusuke to leave the Famicon behind for us. Can show you Dragon Quest; it's my favorite."

"That would be nice, I think," he said—and I think I might've made him like video games after our trip to the arcade, because his voice sounded more sincere than expected at the prospect of playing a game together. "See you tomorrow, then."

"See you tomorrow."

The received clacked against the cradle, and when I turned back to the boys, I found them both staring at me—Yusuke with outright suspicion, Kuwabara through narrowed eyes set under a furrowed brow. Couldn't really read his expression, truth be told, but I wasn't sure I liked it much.

"What did Kurama want?" Yusuke asked.

"Work out plans for tomorrow." I jiggled my casted leg, glaring at the words Yusuke had scribbled on it with a sharpie (they said things like "OLD LADY" and "GRANDMA," predictably enough). "We can't do our usual thing. Long walks are currently beyond my capabilities."

"Oh, right." A wicked grin made his eyes glitter. "I'll leave you the Famicon if you do my homework for me for a week."

"In your dreams. Not worth it. But I can help you with it if you'd like."

He slumped, defeated. "Aw, phooey."

Kuwabara leaned toward me. He sat on my swiveling office chair, next to me where I perched on my bed. "Hey, uh. Keiko? Can I ask you something?"

"You just did," I deadpanned, and when Kuwabara blanched I giggled. "I'm kidding. What's up?"

He looked momentarily relieved; his features tensed again, though, and quickly. "So…you and Kurama hang out sometimes, huh?" he said.

He said it casually—too casually. The kind of casual that immediately makes your hackles rise because obviously the speaker is up to something sketchy. "Well, we are classmates," I explained. "So…"

"I mean outside of school," Kuwabara said in that same too-casual-for-comfort tone of voice. He kept his features arranged in a pleasant mask, as well, like he didn't really care about my answer to his questions at all. "You said your 'usual thing.' Do you see each other a lot?"

"I mean. Yes? Technically I'm his parole officer. We have a meeting once a week to check in."

He sat up a little straighter, smile breaking through his too-fucking-casual affectation. "Oh, I get it. So you're hanging out because Spirit World makes you!"

No. Nope. Wrong impression given. "I mean, that's not the only reason—" I said, but Kuwabara waved a hand.

"Nah, Keiko, it's OK. I get it now," he said, having apparently made up his mind about something, and he wasted no time shoving his textbook at me. "So you were saying that this is called a gerund, right?"

I admit the whole thing caught my off my guard, and when Yusuke started ranting about his latest hurdle in Dragon Quest, I got too distracted to cycle back around and readdress Kuwabara's odd line of questioning. The night passed in a blur, too, and by the time we broke for the evening and it came time to show the boys to the doors, I'd just about forgotten Kuwabara's questions entirely. It wasn't until later—like in my bed, about to fall asleep level of "later"—that I remembered what he'd asked, and wondered if that conversation meant what I thought it meant.

But before that happened, I put another issue entirely to bed before it could get out of hand.

"Hey, Yusuke?" I said and he and Kuwabara packed up their thigs to leave.

"What?" he grumbled.

"Where's Botan right now?"

"Home. Why?"

Figured as much. I leaned back against my headboard and crossed my arms over my chest, staring at Yusuke over the bridge of my nose.

"Do you just leave her there when you go places?" I asked, and I knew I'd hit the nail on the head when he winced. "Ever think of inviting her along?"

"Sure I do!" he said, but his cheeks colored. "It's just, y'know…what'm I, her babysitter?"

Yusuke stared at me with bold eyes, as if daring me to contradict him. Truth be told, I wanted to contradict him. I wanted to tell him yes, you are indeed her babysitter, because she's all alone in this world and we need to take care of her—but Yusuke was a teenage boy, not somebody's mom. Expecting him to take care of another person was unrealistic, not to mention not in his character. I sighed and admitted, "No. I suppose you aren't."

Tension crumbled behind his eyes, slumping with relief. "It was different when she just came to visit and didn't have to live with me, y'know?" he said. "Now she's all up in my ass about Spirit World missions and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy as hell she's back—but I'm tired of sleeping on my damn couch instead of my bed!"

"Sounds like you need space," I said—and a thought struck. "Botan probably needs space, too. Her own room instead of sleeping in yours. A space to be herself in." I couldn't imagine she was allowed much of a personal life in Spirit World. Thinking about options, I turned to Kuwabara and said, "I have an idea. You have a spare bedroom, right?"

"Yeah, we do," he said. "But—oh."

His eyes had gone the shape and size of coins, getting it. Yusuke got it, too, sitting up and eager at the prospect of having his own bed back.

"Think you could swing it?" I asked.

"Um, I mean—yeah," Kuwabara said, but his forehead broke out in a sheen of sweat. He looked left, then right, then up and the ceiling, then down at the floor. "I think so, but…"

"But what?" Yusuke said.

"It's just—I'm going to be sleeping next door to death," Kuwabara said, and he looked like death warmed over when he said it.

It didn't occur to me that Kuwabara still hadn't actually met Botan until he and Yusuke were walking away from me down the street, and I heard Yusuke telling him that Botan was a skeleton in a black robe who only consumed dead tanukis and toenails for sustenance—and Kuwabara appeared to believe every single word.

I knocked three times before the door creaked open, revealing the do-not-fuck-with-me stoicism of Shizuru's unimpressed face. Kuwabara stood a few feet behind her in the foyer of their home, just beyond the rise in the floor, beyond which no one should wear shoes. He appeared a bit green around the gills, though, standing in his socks all knock-kneed, arms canted off to the sides of his wide body. He looked younger than fourteen, weirdly—like a kid expecting an older bully to knock him down, preparing himself for the worst.

And maybe that's exactly what he'd been doing, because when he saw Botan standing behind me, he did the most amazingly cartoonish double-take I'd ever seen in my life.

"Shizuru, Kuwabara," I said, hobbling backward a bit. "This is Botan."

Botan waved, smile on its highest, most winning wattage. "Hello! It's very nice to meet you." She dropped into a bow, her ponytail flopping long and blue and silky over her shoulder. "Thank you ever so much for letting me stay with you in your lovely home!"

"Don't mention it." Shizuru crossed her arms and leaned against the open doorframe, looking Botan up and down. "So tell me. Are there mushrooms growing in Yusuke's shower, or what?"

Botan blinked. "Eh?"

"You've been staying with Yusuke for what, a week now? Can't imagine living with a dirty teenage boy is too pleasant." She tossed a lazy smirk over her shoulder. "Lucky for you, you've got me to balance out my baby bro's gross bathroom habits."

The aforementioned brother purpled, stalking forward to loom over his sister. "Hey, Shizuru! I don't have any gross bathroom habits! Don't say stuff like that in front of Keiko!"

Shizuru rolled her eyes and told Botan to come in, so she could show her where she'd be staying when Botan bunked with the Kuwabara family. I nudged Botan in after Shizuru with a smile, mouthing at her to call me and waving a quick goodbye. Botan grinned back and danced over the threshold, cheerfully greeting Kuwabara when they passed each other—and though he returned the hello, Kuwabara skirted around Botan like he feared getting too close to her.

I figured out why soon enough, just a few minutes into my walk home from the Botan drop-off.

"So Botan," he said. Kuwabara walked with his huge hands laced behind his head, cut of his abdominal muscles visible in the low-cut arm holes of his tank top. "She's…well. Um?" Dark eyes darted over the street, nervous. "She's pretty?"

He sounded like he couldn't believe his own words, nor the sight of Botan's doll-like features and porcelain skin. But it was hard to talk while swinging around on crutches, so I just grunted a sparse, "That she is."

"But like…she's death?" His voice rose an octave on the last word. "A shinigami, right?"

"Yup."

"Oh. Wow." A pause. "Wow. I knew Yusuke had to be messin' with me when he was telling me all that crazy stuff last night, but I never thought death would look like that."

I knew exactly what he meant. Yusuke had had the same reaction to Botan in the anime. Hell, the fandom made memes about Botan not looking anything like death, too. I managed to breathe a wheezing chuckle and say, "Her looks definitely don't fit her job description."

"I'll say!" Kuwabara said, face alight with glee that I'd agreed—but he sobered, crossing his arms as his jaw jutted forward. "But I shouldn't have assumed she'd be scary, I guess. Wouldn't be the first time I guessed something like that wrong."

I eyed him askance. "Hmm?"

"Oh. Well. Y'know." He scratched the back of his neck, eyes cutting to the side. "It's not like I thought demons could ever look like Kurama, for instance." Before I could agree, or disagree, or even ask him to clarify, Kuwabara threw up his hands with a sigh. "Just, you know—don't judge a book by its cover and stuff, that's all, and I gotta start applying that to all this demon business." His chiseled cheeks colored a bit, pink contrasting with his ginger hair. "That's what you taught me, isn't it? Not to judge too soon?"

The memory of when I'd first met him (or re-met him at the record store, at least) popped into my head. I couldn't keep the smile off my face. He'd been stunned when he learned that Little Miss Perfect Grades had loved Megallica like he did. Tone caught halfway between sarcasm and pride I said, "Well, if that's what I taught you, I sound pretty smart."

"You are pretty smart," he said (and I reminded myself not to be sarcastically self-aggrandizing again, because apparently Kuwabara would just take that in stride and make me own it). He puffed out his chest and clenched a fist before him, a man making a solemn vow. "I just need to keep that in mind when I meet demons and stuff. You can't really know a person until you get to know them. I shouldn't have assumed all demons look like monsters or that shinigami would wear black robes and have skulls for faces." And then his look turned adorably anxious. "Do you know what Botan likes? I want her to feel welcome staying in Human World and stuff, y'now? Especially after everything that's happened to her? And I don't want to make any assumptions that we should decorate her room with corpses or whatever."

I let out a bark of laughter at the thought of bubbly Botan collecting taxidermy. "No, no corpses, that much I can say. But…I don't really know what she likes, or if she's experienced much of Human World at all." Something told me Spirit World had never let her have much of a life here, where it didn't concern her job. "You'll have to ask her. I'm sure she'd love to tell you."

His eyes lit up. "Yeah, you're right. I just have to ask." Another resolute clench of his huge fist. "And if she doesn't know what she likes yet, we'll just have to help her figure it out!"

"Right," I said.

Botan, I decided, was in good hands, and would fit into my new-old routine with aplomb.

Botan returned to aiding Yusuke in the days and weeks that followed, because as Ayame said, that was her duty.

Following the threat of the Saint Beasts, Yusuke found himself once more tackling the small potatoes of the supernatural—namely tanuki and ghosts, low-level demons causing trouble, creatures that bumped in the night but didn't do anything more threatening than make a bit of noise. These were the thing I'd helped him with after he was resurrected, but this time, I didn't do much more than deliver his assignments to him. Actual aid in the field, this go-round, fell to Botan (and on occasion and curious Kuwabara, who felt more than a little vindictive toward the ghosts that had pestered him all his life). In one fell swoop my role in Yusuke's duties had been reduced to that of a messenger and little more.

It's not like I could run to the ass end of town and back with my leg in a cast, after all.

Ironic, really. I was learning to throw knives and fight with staves at Hideki's bidding, defending myself even while immobile, but even with a new set of skills under my aikido belt, my rank in Yusuke's Hierarchy of Helpers had definitely taken a nosedive. Crutches rendered me unable to keep up no matter my skill set. Week after week I found myself delivering dossiers from Ayame, debriefing Yusuke on his next case, and watching him run off without me—Botan and Kuwabara most often as his side. And yeah, sure, per canon that was totally cool or whatever, but still. Watching their retreating backs, knowing I was unable to follow, sent my heart sinking into my heels…or more specifically my one broken foot, dammit all to hell. With it in a cast, I had become just what my job description said on the tin: a record-keeper and nothing more.

To be honest, it felt almost painfully metaphorical, like the efforts of a first-year creative writing student trying to be clever. My cast would come off eventually. I'd eventually get to accompany Yusuke on these little cases maybe just in a matter of weeks. But watching Yusuke and Botan and Kuwabara run off together, the feeling of getting left behind again and again…it was a precursor of things to come. Talk about depressing.

Keiko got left behind so many times in the anime. My turn for the same approached at breakneck pace, heralded by the arrival of a certain video tape.

I watched for that video tape like a cat at a mouse hole. Every time I met with Ayame I eyed the bells of her kimono sleeves with breath held tight, waiting for her to produce a white-sleeved cassette and tell me Yusuke was about to head out on a rescue mission in the mountains—waiting for her to tell me I once again had to stay behind while literally every other cast member got to do something cool, and useful, and impactful. Part of me looked forward to my weekly meetings with Ayame. They were the only real connection I had to Yusuke's world, the one way I still felt like I influenced his job as Detective, but the feeling of paranoia and anticipation dried up any joy I could squeeze from it.

That and the whole don't-talk-about-Botan thing. That really put a damper on my meetings with Ayame.

Not that Ayame had ever been particularly chatty with me before Botan's transformation, of course. "Terse" was Ayame's middle name. Now, though, she was downright cold to me, delivering folders of documents to give to Yusuke with only the barest of verbal acknowledgements. She accepted my written accounts of the previous week with similar detachment, affecting a bored demeanor as though she would like to be anywhere but in the alley beside the restaurant (we couldn't meet in the forest given the constraints of my injuries). As a rule we never, ever talked about Botan—though once a month or so, Ayame would finally break down and ask for a report, but only in the most coded and vague of terms.

"Keiko," she'd say, but always just after she said goodbye, just before she would inevitably vanish into the shadows and disappear. "How is…?"

"Adjusting," I'd say, or something to that effect.

"Any progress?"

"No. The, ahem, tutor is less than enthusiastic."

And at the non-mention of Hiei she'd always heave a sigh, delicate as a spring breeze. "I trust you have provided proper incentive?"

"And then some." A smile meant to comfort, at that point, though I doubted it did much to soothe Ayame. "He'll come around."

Her eyes would always close, as though she had felt a pain. "I look forward to the day he does," she'd say, and she'd bow, because she was Ayame. "Thank you."

"Of course," I'd tell her. "See you next week."

Ayame, it turns out, favors an Irish goodbye, because she only rarely ever bid me goodbye in return—though perhaps she simply didn't feel she could manage to keep up her calm charade any longer.

Hiei, naturally, decided he wanted to be a taciturn little shithead when it came to training Botan.

After discussion, Botan and I (with input from Kurama, of course) decided it would be best to let Hiei set the pace of her training, not force him or pester him about said training when at all possible. One doesn't make friends with stray cats by being pushy. Instead I invited Botan to my weekly parole meetings with the reluctant fire demon, instructing her to bring out the food each week and present it to Hiei. A Pavlovian response, is what I was hoping for. See Botan, think of food, think happy thoughts—or whatever kind of thoughts serve as happy ones for Hiei. I dunno, he's got an unconventional sense of the word "happy" and I'm not about to try and get inside his head just yet; so sue me.

Unfortunately for my grand attempt at a psychology experiment, Hiei remained nigh impervious to (my very well-meant!) conditioning attempts. Sure, he accepted the food she offered, but he ignored her when she chattered, directing any questions (or any kind of talk at all) at me instead of her. He never brought up training at all, and when Botan pushed to include him in conversation, he'd more or less ignore her—or at the very least make his disinterest in whatever she had to say abundantly clear. Hiei, as it stands, is very good at cutting remarks, and more than once Botan ran out of the alley almost in tears.

"Hiei, behave," I'd tell him in those moments, and of course I'd sternly (read: screechily) threaten to revoke his ramen privileges, but he typically only glared and retaliated by stealing yet another of my bowls, that bastard.

Weeks passed like this: Botan trying her hardest, Hiei avoiding her, the two of them dancing around the subject of training like a pair of rival ballet dancers trapped in an awkward pas de deux. Though I agreed with Kurama that waiting for Hiei to broach the subject of training had a certain wisdom, after a few weeks I felt my inner coil of tension tighten near to its breaking point—and it turns out I'm a helluva lot less patient than Kurama, and maybe even Botan.

When I finally snapped and blurted my feelings (in the form of an oh-so-subtle "So have ya given any thought to training Botan yet, Hiei?"), Hiei paused. He had been in the middle of slurping noodles, a fringe of buckwheat strings hanging like jellyfish fronds from the thin line of his unamused mouth. With malevolent eyes he stared at me, slurping up the last inches of those noodles with painful, deliberate sluggishness. When they vanished, he swung his face toward Botan.

"What can you do?" he said.

Botan's lips pursed. "Eh?"

"What can you do?" Hiei repeated. When Botan didn't answer, he bared his teeth. "What powers do you have?"

"Well, I don't know!" Botan said with a laugh, like she thought Hiei might be joking (which he very definitely was not). "That's what I was hoping you'd tell me, Hiei."

That was, apparently, the wrong damn thing to say. Hiei's teeth gleamed in the dark of the alley like needles of ivory. "Feh. You don't get it," he said, and he scarfed down the last of his meal and vanished in a flicker of black.

Botan and I sat there in silence, staring at the spot where he'd been. Eventually we looked at one another and shrugged in unison.

Despite the foolhardiness of my blurted question, which killed the idea of letting Hiei bring up training himself, my intervention did bring about a chance in the otherwise monotonous meetings we'd been having with the fire demon. Now Botan felt free to bring up training herself when she saw Hiei, as did I—but that resulted in a different kind of monotony. Hiei met our queries with that same query of his own, asking time and again what powers Botan possessed, and she'd always reply she didn't know. Every time she said that he'd scoff and vanish, sometimes taking my bowls of ramen with him, sometimes bolting down his food before making his exit (I switched back to paper bowls for a while there just to keep my parents' stockpile of kitchenware from depleting entirely). He seemed utterly dissatisfied by Botan's answers to his question, though neither of us really knew why. Her answers were honest enough, after all.

"I fear he'll never train me at this point," Botan confided in me one night. Tears made her eyes swim, magenta color even more brilliant than normal. "He seems to find me repulsive."

"He'll come around, Botan. You'll see," I said, though she didn't look too comforted. "It took me ages to win him over."

She sniffled. "Really?"

"Really-really," I assured her. "Just give it time."

Time, it turns out, is the one thing I'm very bad at respecting, because a few weeks later I found myself once more breaking my own damn advice to be patient.

"Hiei, can you at least try to train Botan?!" I snapped one night.

Hiei sneered at me, even though he had a bit of spinach on his chin and looked ridiculous. "Why should I?"

"Aside from the promise of Spirit World's favor?" I reminded him (though at that he looked less than impressed). "You could at least give her a hint about how to control her powers. Just a hint!"

But Hiei was not so easily persuaded. "It's a waste of time," he said, and he turned up his nose like he'd smelled something foul.

Seems Botan's patience had worn thin, too. "A waste of time?" she repeated, irate. "How can helping someone in need be a waste of time, Hiei?"

A low growl rumbled in his chest. "It's a waste of time giving you hints when you won't even try to discover your powers yourself!" he said, eyes flashing like an animals in the darkness.

Botan and I both fell quiet. Hiei stood, the crate serving as his chair scraping against the pavement.

"Every week you ask me to train you. Every week I ask you what abilities you have. And every week you tell me you don't know." Hiei glared first at me, and then more fiercely at the dumbstruck Botan. "How can I train you in an ability if you don't even know what that ability is? How can I know what your abilities are if you don't? And how could you ever hope to control something you don't know is even there?"

Because he'd talked more in the last thirty seconds than he had in the past half hour, I found myself rendered quite mute by his tirade. So did Botan. We both stared at him while he glared at us, unable to reply—because he was right, to be honest. We didn't know anything about what Botan was capable of. How could we expect Hiei to be a decent tutor when Botan didn't even know what triggered her weird berserker side?

"If you're too scared to experiment on your own," Hiei continued with the most derisive sneer imaginable, "I can't help you. I won't waste my time babying you." He grabbed his bowl of ramen with a huff. "Ask me for help once you know what it is, exactly, that I'm supposed to be helping you with."

And with that, we lost him, his form blurring from sight and evaporating with a puff of displaced air. Another bowl lost, another week gone by with no results—but much though I wanted to lob insults at the sky, I was not the one who needed comforting.

"Botan," I said, turning to her. "Are you OK?"

She stared at Hiei's abandoned crate with eyes unseeing, flinching at the sound of her name. "I'm…I'm fine," she said—but she looked quickly away from me, because her eyes had started to well up. Botan stood and said, "I'm going to go home."

My hands went for my crutches on reflex. "Do you need—?"

"No." Her rejection came firm, but not sharp, and I saw that though tears still swam in her eyes, her jaw had tightened into a hard line of unmistakable determination. "Thank you, Keiko, but no." She took a deep breath, glancing upward at the dark sky. "The walk back to Yusuke's will do me good. I have a lot to think about on my own, you see."

I didn't argue with that.

I let Botan go, and I hoped that whatever reflection she underwent, it provided the answers she sought.

It felt like minutes, and it felt like months, but soon autumn arrived in all its fallen-leafed splendor. And with that changing of the season came the whirring of a buzz saw.

It was an aggressive sound I welcomed, because it came from the inside of a doctor's office as she sawed away the plaster of my cast—and with the sound of its strident grinding came my freedom. Sure, I'd have to do physical therapy for a while, and the limb wasn't totally perfect even after months spent in a cast, and it would probably hurt when the weather changed the way my bad arm had hurt in my old life—but the cast was gone, and I was free once more.

Mom had to pull me out of class to get the cast removed. After the appointment ended we went straight home so I could take a bath. Limbs stink to high heaven fresh-out-the-cast, and my leg reeked something fierce. First thing I wanted to do was track down Yusuke and shove my toes in his face, gloat that I was free as he gagged at my horrible stench, but the nicer part of me won out and said he should probably not die again, and that necessitated ridding my foot of its pungent post-cast aroma. Bathing my limb felt ambrosial as hell, even though I lamented that one calf now look smaller than the other from loss of musculature. That was nothing Hideki-sensei couldn't fix, though, so I put it out of my mind and got dressed, chomping at the bit for school to end so I could find Yusuke and shove my emancipated toes at him. When the time came I took the stairs cautiously, of course, because I needed to take it easy so as to not reinjure myself, but when I reached the bottom I hopped in place and pumped a fist into the air.

It was the first time in months I hadn't had to labor down the stairs in crutches, and that in and of itself was a victory worth celebrating.

Too bad for me Fate had no intention of letting my good luck continue unchecked.

She moved the minute I exited the back door and stepped into the alley. Her kimono blended with the shadows by the dumpster, and when she stepped into the light her expensive garment and coifed hair looked comically proper next to the battered and dirty trashcan at her side. Her grave expression didn't fit the setting, either, too serious and weighty for this most informal of settings.

I barely saw any of that, though.

I only had eyes, instead, for the video tape held tight in Ayame's pale hand—the image of it burning into my brain the way lightning sears a retina, electric and unforgettable.

Notes:

Big montage to denote the passage of time, ahoy. And now we have the video tape. Eager to see what happens next!

This weekend and next weekend was/will be hellaciously busy. Fun Announcement Time: I have an art studio as of this month, where I'll be displaying my work from now into the foreseeable future. It opens to the public next weekend. Tons of prep work has gone into this and I'm ferociously swamped as a result. But I do lots of writing on my lunch breaks, so that helps me with time management and I don't feel so swamped that I have to take time away from the story yet. Could happen in future, but not yet. We'll see. Wish me luck!

Many thanks to those who took the time to review last chapter. Amidst a migraine and a trying week, you brought me joy. Thank you so much.

Chapter 63: Out of My Hands

Summary:

In which Not-Quite-Keiko gets a haircut.

Notes:

First section implies possible sexual assault, though it's not at all explicit in any capacity.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It was January, I was nineteen years old, and as the snow crunched under the soles of our shoes, Kristie "Tell Me Your Whole Life Story" Baker was telling us her whole life story.

Lucky for me I'd brought a flask of cheap rum along to keep me company while Kristie ranted. I snuck nips of booze as I walked ahead of my friends, nursing a healthy buzz as Kristie buzzed away. Something about the time she met one of the Real Housewives and how it related to the first pet goldfish she'd ever had, not to mention the death of her great aunt and the time she got her first period, or something—Kristie's stories never followed any internal logic, meandering from intimately personal topic to intimately personal topic like a river cut by millennia of oblivious, oversharing glaciers. My friends (well, my friend and the acquaintance she'd brought with her), listened to Kristie in polite silence and were about as animated as glaciers, themselves, but no one stopped Kristie as she drunkenly rambled on our walk to the Delta frat house. Becky checked her phone a lot (Kristie didn't notice) but Timothy nodded along and tried to look engaged.

"So that's when my parents decided to get a divorce," said Kristie "Tell Me Your Whole Life Story" Baker. "They'd been fighting for a long time, and—"

"Sorry to hear about your parents," Timothy said, making a brave show of sounding something other than totally, totally bored. "That must have been rough."

Kristie paused. Since silence from her was a rare sound indeed, I glanced at her over my shoulder to witness this most evasive of phenomena. She'd stopped walking, crunching boots gone silent, fluffy pink parka unzipped down to her navel. She looked Timothy up, then down. It didn't take very long. He was 5'1, at least six inches shorter than Kristie even when she wasn't wearing her heeled and fur-lined fashion boots, and a full nine inches shorter than me. She blinked her mascara-covered lashes at him and smiled. Timothy smiled back, uncertain.

"You know," Kristie declared. "Timothy, you're nice and all, but I'd never, ever date you—because you're so fucking short!"

Perhaps if I hadn't been drinking that night, I would have reacted differently. Perhaps I would have thought first, defended Timothy later, because I barely knew him and my only interaction with him before that night had been during freshman orientation, where he'd proven to be an annoying asshole I didn't much care for—but because I was drinking, and because my rum stash was mostly depleted at that point, blood roared in my ears like an angry manticore and I found myself wheeling on Kristie with a sigh of disgust.

"You know," I said, words as distant as if I heard myself speaking from the other end of a bad phone connection, "you limit yourself like that, reject people for shallow-ass reasons like their height, you might be missin' out on the best sex of your life."

Timothy gaped at me. Alex gaped at me. Becky looked up from her phone like a startled baby deer.

"So fuckin' what if he's short?" I said. "For all you know, this guy right here—" (at that I pointed at Timothy, who still gaped at me like a beached sturgeon) "—he could be your goddamn soulmate for all you know, and you're rejectin' him because he's short? He didn't even say he was interested, and you're rejectin' him because he's short?" My head shook, hood flopping off, scalp at once suffused with cold. "I feel sorry for ya, Kristie. You're gonna have a hard time findin' anyone with a sorry attitude like that."

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my flask, rattling open the top and tipping it back to get the final drops of rum. Everybody stared; I wiped my mouth on my wrist and shook my flask.

"I'm goin' back," I said. "Gonna get a top-off. Y'all want anything?"

"Where are you from?" Kristie asked. She looked me up and down, which took longer than it had taken with Timothy since I was ten inches taller than him even in just my snowboots. "What's that accent?"

I cursed; my Southern must have slipped. It did that when I got angry. I pushed past her and shrugged, content to let her revel in the mysteries of my origin.

"Wait!" said Timothy, and he trotted after me.

Later on, after I doubled back for more rum and then went to the party at Delta house with Timothy in tow, Becky pulled me aside. "Careful," she warned me. "Timothy's going to take that the wrong way."

I'd had even more rum at that point; my words came slow and slurred. "Take what the wrong way?"

"You defending his height to Kristie. He'll think you're interested."

"Pffft!" The booze-soaked laugh echoed in the frat's tiny kitchen, beer bottles shining like stars on the countertop. "Kristie was being a dick!"

"That's not the point."

"I was telling her off, not defending him!" I said, because that was the truth. "I was being nice, not hitting on him. I mean, he had to know that, right?"

She stared at me—and then her eyes shifted over my shoulder. I turned to look, brows raised.

Across the room, Timothy's wide blue eyes trained unmoving upon me. He smiled when he saw me looking and raised a glass in my direction.

I waved back, but I didn't smile.

"Just be careful," Becky murmured.

I promised her I would. I rejoined the party, was as nice to Timothy as I was to everyone else in the house, and when he asked me for my phone number, I gave it to him—stressing the word friend at every opportunity. Because surely that would be enough.

I was nineteen years old. I thought stressing friendship would be enough to let Timothy down easy. I thought stressing I liked girls (because at that point I didn't want much to do with men) would be enough to put him off of me. I thought those things would be enough to keep him at bay, to telegraph my disinterest, to make him forget the night I'd defended him, because what Kristie had said to him was awful, and defending him had been the right thing to do.

Two months later I woke up naked on the floor of a dorm room, unable to recall the night before. My mouth tasted like cotton and vodka. Bruises spotted my hips like the marks of a leopard. Timothy sat next to me, naked.

"You're my girlfriend now," he informed me as he handed me my clothes—clothes I had no memory of taking off.

I told him I wasn't interested, and that our encounter—whatever it had entailed, because I had no memory if it—had been a mistake.

Timothy didn't like that.

Timothy stalked me for months, but because he was so fucking short, both my friends and the police laughed in my face when I said I feared for my safety—until the day he cornered me at a party and tried to give me a black eye. He missed, because I stepped back and out of the reach of his stubby arm.

Thank god he was so fucking short, I guess.

Just as I predicted, the video showed nothing more interesting than static and fuzz as it played on my TV screen—and yet Amagi watched with rapt attention from her seat on my bedrooms floor. I watched her in turn, studying her reactions to images I could not see. She paled a little after a few minutes, and then she thumbed the pause button on the VCR. Fuzz fixed in place like a snowstorm frozen solid.

"There's a corrupt billionaire with the face of a malformed baboon in the mountains north of here. He's holding an ice apparition named Yukina hostage," she said. Her voice adopted the faintest of tremors. "When she cries, her tears turn to priceless gems. He—he tortures her to get them."

She put a hand to her mouth, so I put a hand on her shoulder. I'd gone straight to Amagi with the video tape once Ayame left me alone. Part of me wondered if that had been the right decision, but on short notice I wasn't sure who else I could go to. Time was of the essence. Every minute Yukina spent with the monster Tarukane was another minute of hell.

"I'm sorry, Amagi," I said, and I meant every word. "I'm so sorry you had to hear that. The tape—it wasn't graphic, was it?"

She shook her head. "No. Not at all."

"Then why…?"

"Just—the look on her face. That look of pain and sadness." Her eyes fixed on the TV. "She's too lovely to look so sad."

I looked to the TV, too, but once more I saw nothing. My eyes played tricks on me, for a moment suggesting the outline of a head, the curve of a jaw, the round of a shoulder—but I blinked and it vanished. Wishful thinking, probably. If only I was psychic…

Amagi said nothing for a minute or so, just staring at the screen. I put a hand over hers; she jumped.

"I'm so sorry to make you do this," I said.

Again, she shook her head. "Don't be. You warned me there would be no going back if I learned the truth."

"That I did."

"And I asked to learn it, anyway." She pulled a knee to her chest, wrapping her arms around it for comfort. "I've got no one to blame by myself."

But was that really true? She'd come to me weeks prior, firm in her desire to know the truth even after all my warnings, and I'd told her the basics as best I could. Spirit World, Demon World, demons, ghosts…and Amagi had just nodded along, undisturbed.

"That explains things," she'd confessed when I told her what I could. "I've seen women on oars near hospitals and at the scenes of accidents. I've seen little horned men with blue skin climb into people's mouths and then watched their behavior change. I've seen more ghosts than I can count, more tanukis vanishing from sight than I care to mention." And she'd shrugged when I'd asked if she was OK, like my revelations hadn't been a big deal at all. "All you've done is given me more context. I can't regret that."

I certainly hoped she'd never come to regret it. But time would tell, as time is wont to do.

Amagi uncurled her leg and pressed "play" once more. Her lips moved, eyes roving across the screen as the static began its soothing, fuzzy dance. Every now and then she'd speak, pausing between thoughts as the video showed her more and more: details about Yukina's imprisonment; more information about her background in the world of ice; shots of Tarukane's ugly face, which she described with utter revulsion.

"There are directions to the compound where she's being held," she said. "And that's it, I think—wait. No. One final thing." Amagi's eyes narrowed and she leaned close to the screen. "Yukina is the sister of someone named Hiei. And this Koenma person seems disturbed by that. He says under no circumstances can Hiei watch this tape—but he wants Hiei to deliver it to Yusuke?" At that she heaved an indelicate snort. "That's a horrible idea. Koenma thinks it will throw Hiei off the scent, but I think it's stupid." She sighed, watched a bit more of the fuzz, then pushed the "eject" button. "Nothing else of note, although Koenma should be wary of copyright infringement. He ripped off the MGM logo in the credits." But she shook her head and turned to me with a frown. "Who is Hiei?"

I grimaced, wondering how much I should say. Eventually I settled on: "A very, very grumpy friend of mine."

"A demon?"

"…yeah."

Amagi's lips twisted. "No need to hide it. Of course he's a demon, if he has a demon for a sister." Once more she glanced at the TV, even though the screen had gone dark. "Yukina looked human enough. When you first told me about demons, I thought of oni. Ogres from fairy tale. And the little imps I've seen around town, too."

"Some do look like that," I said. "They come in hundreds of varieties, and some are more human than others. Yukina is definitely on the human side."

Her pale brow furrowed. "You say that like you've seen her face before."

Amagi was too smart for her own good. I covered my unease with a shrug and a hasty lie. "I assumed she'd look human since her brother looks human. But anyway." Time for a swift subject change, methinks. "Thanks for watching that for me. I hate not being psychic."

Amagi nodded, and for some reason she looked at me with concern—as though she feared for me, and perhaps she did. "It would be helpful for you to be psychic, all things considered."

"Totally," I agreed.

Too bad for me no amount of psychic power would help me figure out what to do next, nor how to handle the situation that had been dumped by right into my unwilling lap.

Of course, I'd wondered about this story arc before, back when I first entered the world of Yu Yu Hakusho and created my multitude of canon journals. The thing was, I'd assumed the video tape would be given to Hiei himself, not to me—because I most certainly hadn't anticipated becoming Yusuke's Record Keeper and all-around helper. Now I had to decide if I should tell Hiei what was on the tape, and if I should give it to him in the first place…because canon hadn't revealed how Hiei found out about the tape's contents. Did he watch it himself, read Yusuke's mind, spy on Yusuke while he watched the tape? I wasn't sure, and those uncertainties complicated an already complex situation.

In the end, though, I decided to Occam's Razor the shit out of the situation and just make it simple. And I did so by waiting for Hiei to show up to our weekly meeting (a meeting Botan hadn't attended ever since Hiei's rebuke) and handed the tape to him without a word.

Well, I tried to hand it to him. Hiei acted like Hiei and didn't accept my offerings. Instead he eyed the cassette in its white sleeve like it might grow a mouth and bite him, saying "What in the world is that?" with all the disgust of an emperor presented with non-name-brand clothes.

I sighed and set the tape atop the crate where Hiei would sit to eat. "Spirit World told me to give it to you." I didn't look at him while I spoke, concentrating on setting up our evening meal of ramen and our dinette set of empty produce crates. Hiei had graduated back to actual bowls instead of plastic; he'd been stealing them less now that Botan wasn't around to annoy him and make him bolt. Arranging chopsticks on the crates I said, "They said you should deliver it to Yusuke."

"To the Detective?"

"Yes."

His growl sounded like annoyance personified. "But you see him all the time. Why can't you take it?"

I couldn't keep my eyes away. Shooting him the most what-do-you-want-from-me look I could muster, I said, "This is what Spirit World has asked me to do, Hiei. It's not my idea."

He appeared most thoroughly unconvinced. "But why would they want me to deliver it?"

At that I could only shrug and tuck into my dinner, just so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore—because if I kept looking, I was sure I'd give myself away.

"Spirit World likes to play games," I said.

I spoke with care, of course. I tried not to lie, but I tried not to give anything away, and speaking in a near-nonsense riddle felt like appropriate middle ground. But when Hiei didn't reply, didn't berate me for not speaking sense, I felt an itch on the back of my neck. Swatting at it didn't make it go away—and with the ponderous weight of dread draped across my shoulders, I lifted my eyes to Hiei's.

His stare had teeth—teeth and the kind of heat you found at the heart of a furnace, searing and solid and deep. Hiei wasn't stupid. He wasn't a particularly introspective person, sure, but he wasn't stupid by any means. His eyes flickered to my throat when I swallowed, and in response his lips curled at the corners.

He knew.

As soon as I saw the curve of his mouth, that knowing sneer that said the game was over, I knew that he knew. He knew I had to be up to something, or at least that there was something I wasn't saying, and on purpose.

The itch on my nape, right at the base of my skull, intensified.

Hiei said nothing, however. He sat atop his crate (after nudging the tape aside with his foot) and ate his meal in silence, staring at me with unblinking eyes as I tried desperately not to think about the damn video tape. Of course, that became all that I could think about, and as soon as Hiei finished his foot he swiped the tape off the ground and stowed it in the depths of his billowing cloak.

"Be seeing you," he said, curt and rough and biting—and then he vanished, the breeze of his passing ruffling my hair with a breath of hot air.

I barely slept that night.

This situation was as out of my hands as that damn video tape.

Based on the timeline established by the anime, Hiei would contact Yusuke and hand over the tape sometime in the morning, before Yusuke went to school. I distinctly remembered Yusuke bringing the tape to school, where Kuwabara would ask if it was a porno (ew) and Keiko would remark that they couldn't bring video tapes to school…only in this reality, Keiko didn't go to Yusuke's school, unable to drag him to class or ensure his attendance.

Well. Almost unable.

He answered the phone just before the answering machine could kick in, and he sounded sleepy as hell. "Jeez, Keiko," he said through a muffled yawn. "It's barely after dawn!"

"…Yusuke, it's almost 8."

"Yeah! Dawn!" Another yawn; I could picture his bed-head, for once free of gel and soft. "What do you even want this early?"

"Just an assurance you're going to go to school today. Atsuko said your attendance has been terrible ever since you got back from Genkai's."

I could feel his disdain radiating through the phone. "School I stupid and I hate it."

"I know," I said, scolding and soothing all at once. "But at least graduate middle school, all right? It's one thing to not attend high school in this country, but middle school…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it." His voice pitched up in nasal mimicry of mine. "No one takes a middle school dropout seriously, blah blah blah!"

"Well, at least you've been listening to me some of the time," I grumbled. "But you'll be late if you don't leave soon."

"Kind of hard to leave when I've got a naggy grandma keeping me on the phone."

"So hang up and hustle, dipshit!"

"Fine, I will!" he said, and he slammed the phone into the cradle.

It wasn't the most encouraging of calls, but Yusuke feared my wrath and would probably (hopefully) go to school today—and since I could do basically nothing else to ensure his attendance, I hung up the phone and headed off for Meiou.

Out of my hands. This whole damn thing was out of my hands, and all I could do was wait.

Kurama noticed, of course, that I wasn't my usual chipper self. My thoughts lived with Yusuke and Hiei, their whereabouts and Hiei's curiosity chief among my many concerns. Barely had the energy to listen to Kaito talk about his latest paper over lunch, even though I made an effort to follow along. When lunch ended Kurama fell into step beside me, eyeing me askance as we wound our way through the crowds of students coming back from lunch.

"How's your ankle?" he said.

"Hmm? Oh. It's fine." I glanced down at my foot, clad in a shoe instead of a cast. "Why?"

"You seemed distracted," he said. "I thought, perhaps, you might be in pain."

I wasn't, or at least I wasn't in any pain worth mentioning. My ankle felt stiff, unaccustomed to walking without crutches, and too much activity made it sore, but beyond that I'd mended fairly well. I shrugged and said, "Sorry, Minamino. I've got a lot on my mind."

"Care to share?"

"Not really." I tucked a bit of hair behind my ear, then realized what I was doing and grabbed my bangs, holding them in front of my nose to stare at them cross-eyed. "Yeesh. My hair's getting long. I need a cut."

He stared at the length of hair between my fingers, too, and smiled. "Perhaps a trim, if you're so inclined. I'd wondered if you were growing it out, actually."

Over the past two months I hadn't kept up with seeing Shizuru for style updates, mainly because getting to her house or her salon took too long on crutches. I blew air out of my mouth to clear the bangs from my face and hopped from foot to foot.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Hoof it to get a cut, or let it do its thing? Long hair or short?"

"I admit I'm biased." He looked at the red-black hair lying in silken coils on his shoulder; I suppressed a giggle. "The short hair suits you, however. But your hair looked lovely longer, too."

"Fat load of help you are."

He chuckled at my deadpan expression before adopting a look of suspicious innocence. "Apologies. But can you really be angry with me?"

"Hmm?"

More innocence, slathered on too think to be genuine, all mournful eyes and slumped shoulders belied by the wicked gleam in his green eye. "All I've done is say you look lovely no matter how you wear your hair," Kurama said, tone gleefully morose. "You can't fault me for that, can you?"

He was every inch a fox in that moment, not the teenage boy he pretended to be with such damning expertise. I'm certain I went crimson as I socked his shoulder and called him a cad, but Kurama only laughed before slipping away and vanishing amidst the rest of the student body.

Distracting Kurama from my state of distraction had come partially at my expense, but at the same time, I was glad to put him off the scent. It wasn't like I could let him tag along with me after school, after all—certainly not with what I had planned looming on the horizon.

Straight after school I booked it to the Kuwabara residence, and as was her custom, Shizuru answered the door mere seconds after I knocked. Pretty sure she could predict people coming even before her training with Kuroko, so now I really wouldn't put it past her. She took one look at my hair and let her eyebrow fly high.

"You here for a haircut or my brother?" she asked. "Because I hope to god it's for the hair."

Because Shizuru held the wellbeing of my hair in her hands, I thought carefully before speaking. "Can it be both?" I ventured.

"I guess." She stepped aside and gestured for me to follow her indoors. "But I'm afraid you just missed my baby bro."

With her back to me as I trailed in her wake, I didn't have to hide my stricken expression. I only had to conceal the sudden nerves in my voice when I voiced a casual, "Oh?"

"Yeah," Shizuru said. We entered the kitchen and she pulled out a chair, upon which I sat while she fetched her collection of clippers and a smock. "He and Yusuke came over to use our VCR. Watched some video tape with Botan." She walked in front of me, combing my bangs with her fingers—but she wasn't looking at my hair. "Said they got it from a guy named Hiei, who said he got it from you."

I should've known better than to play dumb. Trying to keep calm under the weight of Shizuru's glower wasn't easy. "Right. They did," I said. "Any idea what the tape was about?"

For a minute she looked confused, but then her expression cleared. "Oh. I get it. The little baby on the screen said those without spiritual sensitivity couldn't watch it, didn't he?" She combed my hair some more, tutting. "No wonder you're confused."

I was rare that I ever got to hide things from Shizuru, so I bit my tongue and hoped to hell she believed the excuse she'd cooked up for me. She wandered behind my chair and played with my hair a little longer, than grabbed a spray bottle of water and misted the strands.

"There was a girl." She put the bottle aside and hefted scissors and a comb, clipping at my hair while she talked. "Name was…Yukina, I think. Being held in the mountains by a guy who looks like a horse's ass made out of wax that melted a bit, only uglier."

My lips curled. "Colorful description."

"One he deserves." More snipping, and then Shizuru plugged in an electric razor to trim the back of my neck. "The mission was to save the girl. Pretty standard rescue operation, it sounded like. I actually thought Spirit World's bullshit would be more…what's the word? Exotic?"

"Nah. They're pretty derivative."

"I'll say. The baby guy ripped off the MGM roaring lion intro." She tutted again, somehow managing to sound disdainful over the hum of the clippers. "Still can't believe Spirit World is ruled by a toddler."

"He's about 700 years old, or so I'm told."

"Hmmph. Slow bloomer, I guess."

She set aside the razor and concentrated on the longer bits of hair atop my skull, eyes narrowed in concentration while she worked. I left her alone for a minute, even though beneath my black smock my ankles twisted together like agitated snakes. There was something I needed to know, something Shizuru could tell me about, but asking would be awkward as hell. Was there any way to pull the information out of her?

Only one way to find out.

"Right," I said when I couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer. "So…anything else?"

Her brow quirked. "What else would there be?"

"I dunno, just…" I spread my hands, fingers peeking from under the black fabric draped atop me. "Any other details I should know?"

Shizuru's lips pursed at the sound of my leading question. "You're fishing for something."

"Me?" I did my best to look confused, though inside I'd started to shake. "What would I—?"

"Don't play dumb, Keiko. You're looking for me to confirm what you already know." Damn Shizuru and her perceptiveness! So much for fooling her. Arms crossed over her vest-clad chest, unimpressed and totally not buying my ignorant act. "And the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is..."

A game of chicken started, basically. Breath bated, I sat there fidgeting under her intense gaze, waiting for her to clue me in to what she knew while she waited for me to break and confess everything. It's a good thing I'm stubborn, because eventually Shizuru sighed and hung her head, fishing in her back pocket for a cigarette. Probably just impatient and of the opinion this was a stupid contest, probably, not even worth the effort of winning.

"Fine. Be that way," she said, blowing a cloud of grey smoke toward the ceiling. "This Yukina girl knows someone we know." She studied my reaction, mouth thin. "I'm not gonna reveal how, let alone who, if you haven't guessed. Not my place."

A knot of tension unspooled in my shoulders. So she'd seen the end of the video, then, and had assumed that's the secret I already knew. "It's Hiei," I said. "And I know they're siblings."

"Smart girl." She took another drag. "That what you wanted to know?"

"Sure," I said, relieved—but the lie felt wrong, because what I actually wanted to know had nothing to do with Hiei and it had everything to do, instead, with Shizuru's brother. But was it worth shattering this successful obfuscation just to get a bit of extra intel?

…dammit all to hell, but I felt like it might be worth it.

I sighed, and I tried not to move when Shizuru came at my bangs with her scissors again. "Actually, no. It's not what I wanted to know." I took a breath to steel my nerves. "Can I be blunt?"

She didn't even pause in her work, scissors snipping in a steady rhythm. "I'd prefer that over delicate. More my style."

"Good to know." One more deep breath before I bit the bullet. "So. Your brother. How did he react to being sent on this mission?"

"What, you worried about him?" Shizuru said. "He's been on missions with Yusuke before…but I get the sense that's not why you're worried." She scanned my face, scissors at last going still, but then she shrugged and seemed to decide what she saw in my features didn't matter. "He seemed fine to go on this mission. Felt really sorry for Yukina, same as Yusuke. They left as soon as they finished watching the tape." Another sharp exhale through the nose, humored and wry. "The outro credits were as cheesy as the intro."

"I see," I said—and air caught in my lungs like the hem of a skirt on cactus. Kuwabara had felt sorry for Yukina? That was a weird way to put it. Even weirder was the notion he'd left alongside Yusuke after they finished the tape, not bounding ahead as soon as he saw her face—

Wait.

Wait just one fucking goddamn minute.

"They finished the tape?" I blurted.

Shizuru stood back when I moved in my spot, hands on her hips. "Well, yeah."

"All three of them?!" I yelped. "Botan, Yusuke, and Kuwabara?"

"What, were they not supposed to watch the full debriefing before being sent into a demonic lion's den?" Shizuru said, like the answer was obvious and I was stupid for even asking, but holy fucking shitballs there were implications here that she had no idea about and holy shit, holy shit—

"I—I just—I don't—I have to go!" I said, and I bolted from my chair and headed at a run for the front door.

I caught a glimpse of Shizuru's face, blanched and nonplussed, as I streaked past her. "Keiko, wait—my smock!" she said, and I doubled back to strip the garment over the top of my head. I all but threw it at her in my haste, dipping the faintest of bows as I backpedaled out of the kitchen,

"Thanks, Shizuru, bye!" I said, and I left her standing there in the middle of the hair-covered kitchen floor, mouth agape as I beat my swift retreat.

In Shizuru's details lay two horrifying realizations. The first, of course, was that Kuwabara hadn't bolted from the house the moment he saw Yukina. That reaction boded, and it boded nothing good—but even more distressingly was the revelation that he'd watched the video tape to the very end.

The video tape that revealed the relationship between a certain fire demon and the ice demon Kuwabara was on his way to save.

Which meant that Kuwabara—kind, helpful, blabber-mouthed Kuwabara—knew that Yukina was Hiei's long lost sister.

Kagome whistled, long and long and breathy through the phone connection. She said, "Holy shit, girlfriend."

I grimaced against my palm, elbow propped on my desk, chin pillowed on hand. "I know."

"No. I mean, holy shit. Kuwabara didn't fall in love at first sight and he knows about Hiei and Yukina—that's nuts!"

"What do I do?" I said. I'd said that a hundred times in this phone call with Kagome, made the minute I finished sprinting home from Kuwabara's house. I could think of no one else to call, and she'd listened to my babbled reveal in horrified silence—but neither of us knew quite what to say. "What do I even do?"

"Well, first thing's first: You gotta hope Kuwabara isn't so far in love with you that this can't be fixed."

My chest spasmed, refusing to take in air. "In love with me?"

"Well, yeah," Kagome said. "That's what happened, right?"

Truth be told, I wasn't sure, and I hated admitting as much. I'd seen a few signs here and there that Kuwabara like-liked me, if you'll pardon the immature phrasing. All the blushing, the attention he paid me, his protectiveness, it was hard to miss—but that was just a crush, not actual love. Yeah, that's right. It was just a crush, the kind any 14 year old boy would have on a pretty girl who paid him even the littlest bit of attention. Love was deeper than attraction. Love was different. There was no way Kuwabara loved me. And even if he did…

"I thought that the minute he saw her, any crush he'd have on me would disappear," I said. "He crushed on Keiko and Botan in the anime, but the second Yukina entered the picture, those feelings evaporated. So I guess…"

"You couldn't have known," Kagome said, trying to comfort me. "I mean, what were you supposed to do? Be rude to him? Be mean to get him to not like you?"

"Actually—actually yeah. Maybe?" I sighed and pressed my fingers against my eyelids until I saw sparks. "I've seen it before. Sometimes dudes don't take hints. Sometimes they just latch on and no amount of 'We're just friends' will dissuade them. Sometimes you have to just break a heart and walk away." Kuwabara was no Timothy, but even so, memories of the asshole who wouldn't take no for an answer wouldn't vacate my head. I threw up my hands, blinking in the sunlight streaming through my window. "Maybe I could've been aloof? Distant? But Kuwabara is just—he's my favorite character. I couldn't not be nice and supportive and whatnot. Being a dick to him would break my heart!"

Kagome tittered. "I hate to say it, but hindsight's 20/20. Maybe you should've been an ass to him instead of his friend. Sucks to say it, but…"

It did indeed suck. It sucked hard. Being rude to someone without cause was not a part of who I am, and the idea of being needlessly nasty to Kuwabara to drive him away put a foul taste in my mouth…but was that what I'd have to do when he returned from recusing Yukina? I supposed it all depended on how he reacted to her in person…

"He's a teenage boy, you're a pretty girl, and you like all the same things he does," Kagome continued. "How was he not supposed to imprint like a sweet little baby duckling onto you?"

"But that's just it," I said. "He crushed on Keiko and Botan both in the anime. Those crushes dissolved the minute he saw Yukina. He imprinted on Yukina, instead." I swallowed a lump of nerves before admitting, "And yeah, he and I are closer now than he and Keiko were in the anime, but still. If it's just a crush…"

"But he didn't imprint on Yukina," Kagome said. "If his crush on you stayed put when he saw her, maybe it's not just a crush after all."

My eyes squeezed shut. "No."

"Maybe he's straight up in love with you, no crush about it."

"No, Tigger."

"Denial is a pretty color on you, Eeyore."

"I'm not—ugh!" My free hand, once more, shot skyward in agitation. "This can't be happening. Not again!"

"Again?" Kagome asked.

The urge to brush aside the question was hard to deny. I opted for the middle ground of explanation. "I'm nice to people, OK?" I said. "I'm just…I'm nice, most of the time. And I try to be good to people and Kuwabara wouldn't be the first guy to think me treating him with basic decency means I'm interested in him romantically."

Kagome didn't say anything, merely inhaled a long, slow breath that sounded like she thought I'd made a point. And perhaps I had. Most of my girlfriends in my past life had their own version of a Timothy Story, after all. I knotted my hands in my still-damp hair with a sigh, head hanging on the end of my limp neck.

"Maybe Shizuru was wrong," I said, studying the grain of my wooden desk. "Maybe he did fall for Yukina. This isn't the anime. People don't sweat-drop and grow hearts for eyes in real life. This is a real version of Yu Yu Hakusho. Maybe his reaction was subtler, and he was embarrassed in front of Yusuke, and contained himself."

That was wishful thinking. I knew it and Kagome knew it, but Kagome was a good enough friend to let me have this last shred of hope. She was kind enough to let me think, if just for a little while, that my selfish desire to become friends with my favorite anime character hadn't ruined everything about my Yu Yu Hakusho OTP.

"Maybe," was all she said, gentle and comforting. "I think you're only going to be able to tell if you ask him, or see him and Yukina together."

I harrumphed. "Too bad there's no way I can follow them on this mission. I'll have to wait until Yukina shows up at the Dark Tournament to get that chance."

Kagome giggled. "And patience is not your strong suit."

"No. No it is not." I sighed, slumping until my forehead touched my desk. "Though in the end I should probably be even more concerned that Kuwabara knows the truth about Hiei, and not about who like-likes whom."

"Ouch. You got that right. If Kuwabara lets it slip—"

"Hiei will murder him."

Kagome then hummed a funeral march with way too much gusto to suit the situation. It made me laugh, the weight on my chest the littlest bit lighter for her efforts. I stood and stretched, walking as far away from my desk as the phone's cord would allow. Johnny Cash flipped me the bird from the back of my closet; I needed to channel his moxie, that was for sure.

"Poor Kuwabara." I sighed. "I should call Kurama, probably."

She stopped humming. "Why's that?"

"He's supposed to make a five-second appearance in this arc, way at the end. No idea how he finds out that the arc is taking place, of course, so maybe that duty falls to me."

"Maybe so." She gasped, delighted. "Or maybe Hiei borrowed Kurama's VCR to watch that tape!"

And that got me to laugh again, because it made sense, and the mental image was worth a giggle. "I should call and find out. Even if that's not what happened, maybe Kurama'll know what to do about keeping Kuwabara's mouth shut."

"Here's hoping. Need me to let you go?"

"Probably." I grimaced—and as the words came out, something behind me rattled. "Before Hiei murders you-know-who."

"Before I'll murder who, now?"

I froze at the sound of his voice, and somehow I felt Kagome do the same on the other end of the phone. Silence held like spun sugar until a horrendous shriek buzzed through the telephone line—Kagome screaming, long and high and filled with both horror and excitement. She stifled the sound at once, though, with a noise like a choking hamster.

"Oh my god!" she whispered-yelled. "Is that him?"

"…I have to go."

"Keiko, is that—?"

I hung up on her.

Slowly, inch by laborious inch, I turned.

Hiei knelt atop my desk, halfway through the window, black cloak spilling over my textbooks and pens like solid shadow. He didn't speak, staring at me with all the intent of a raptor on the hunt. I swallowed, heart pumping like an engine in my aching chest.

"Hiei," I said. "Hi."

He wasted no time on pleasantries. "You were right, Meigo," he said.

I tried to tuck hair behind my ear, but I failed. It was too short for that kind of comfort now. "What about?" I asked.

"Stick with the Detective, and I find her."

He spoke simply, words as unambiguous as a boulder, but it wasn't triumph coloring his voice—not exactly, anyway. More like anticipatory satisfaction, the way you feel at the end of a long day knowing you can crawl into bed soon. Not right now, but soon. He hopped off my desk and slouched, staring at my from under the fringe of his bangs with eyes the color of smoldering coals.

"So." I glanced at his forehead, a pointed look at the concealed Jagan. "You…?"

"Yes. I saw." His chin tucked, mouth hidden by the folds of his ratty white scarf. "They're on their way to her now."

"I'm happy for you, Hiei.

The words slipped out unbidden and unrehearsed. Hiei looked as surprised by them as I felt. His eyes screwed up, mouth lifting from its nest of scarf to scowl.

"Happy for me?" he said.

I nodded, smiling in spite of myself—because Hiei had been searching for Yukina for so long. It's why he'd come to Human World in the first place. At last he could find her, ensure her safety, satisfy that unspoken desire of his to find his family.

Even if this situation had swung out of my hands and out of my control, this part I could celebrate with impunity.

But Hiei had no use for pretty words and assurances. I just smiled instead, wide and genuine and warm. "You found her," I said, and I waved my hands at the window to shoo him away. "Now go get her. Go get your sister."

His scowl deepened; he did not move. "She's warded heavily. I can't pinpoint her location, not exactly. I will have to follow the Detective until I'm closer."

He said that like an excuse, almost, for why he wasn't climbing out my window in a blur of speedy black. I didn't let my smile falter. "So go," I said, shooing him again. "Go follow them!"

But Hiei did not move. He just stood there, mouth hiding in his scarf again, staring at me with those unreadable scarlet eyes. My shooing motions ceased, then resumed with renewed enthusiasm.

"C'mon," I urged him, hands flapping. "Hop to it. Flicker out the window, quick like a bunny."

Hiei's chin ducked lower. He mumbled something, words too low to catch. I leaned close with a frown.

"What was that?" I said.

Hiei cursed, low growl rippling through the air. "Don't make me ask, Meigo."

"Ask what?"

His growl intensified both in volume and ferocity, but it cut short when he drew in a deep breath. I recognized that breath. It was the breath I so often took, the one I drew before doing something I felt unsure of—or something that scared me. But what reason did Hiei—irascible, irritable, hot-tempered Hiei—have to be afraid of?

"Fine," he said, biting out the word. "Fine, then. I won't ask." He drew himself up to his full height, somehow managing to glare down the length of his nose despite his unimpressive height.

"Meigo—get ready," he said. "You're coming with me."

And just like that, my hands were back on the situation once again.

Notes:

First chunk is super duper personal and I honestly hesitated to include it, but the whole "NQK is oblivious to Kuwabara's feelings" thing is, sadly, realistic considering my history, and I think it's important we share stories like that so we feel less alone.

This week and weekend were hellish and I am both emotionally and physically exhausted. Going to go collapse now. Thank you.

Many thanks to those who brightened my less than stellar week with their comments. I love you all

Chapter 64: The Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990, Part 1

Summary:

In which the show gets on the road.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

One beat passed, and then another. Hiei watched me with eyes narrowed, gauging my reaction like a tiger assessing the awareness of its prey. Before I could reply—before I could even wrap my brain around what he'd said and implied, let alone ponder the reasons why he wanted me to come with him—he cursed under his breath.

"Don't overthink it," Hiei snapped. "I can see you overthinking it, but it's really very simple." He drew himself up to his full height and leveled one finger at my confused nose. "You're coming with me because I think you'll be useful to me, and that's all."

"…really?" I said.

His nose turned up. "Yes."

"Useful how?"

Hiei looked at me like asking that question had proved, once and for all, just how big of an idiot I was. "You know the future, Meigo, or at least you're privy to it," he said. "I know better than to use you to look too far ahead, but for my sister, I will make an exception."

Handy explanation, sure, but something about it didn't sit right. I shook my head. "Much though I'd love to take a road trip with you, Hiei, from my perspective it seems I could only slow you down."

"Maybe. Maybe not," Hiei said, dismissing me with only a few words. He took a step in my direction, efficient and quick. "But you're coming with me anyway."

I eyed him up and down. "And I assume I have no choice in the matter."

"None whatsoever."

"Well." I shifted from foot to foot, unnerved by the intensity of his scarlet gaze. "Um."

Bringing me along was a terrible idea, of course. Terrible. Horrible. Totally illogical. Maybe illegal, even, depending on Japan's kidnapping laws. Denial and refusal built on my tongue, bubbling like foam on a stormy sea—but then Hiei's fists clenched at his sides, muscles twitching in his tight jaw. His eyes combed my face, searching for answers to questions I hadn't yet been asked, urgency evident in his set shoulders and tense stance.

The protests fizzled on my tongue.

Hiei was obviously not telling me the real reason he wanted me along. He wasn't the type to bring along a liability without good reason, and the reason he'd given was too flimsy to hold up under scrutiny. The tension in him, too, alluded to troubles unspoken. Maybe he was nervous about meeting Yukina? But Hiei wasn't the type to bring emotional support with him, either, unless he'd finally come to trust me in ways even he couldn't articulate (and if that was the case: d'aaaw! How cute!).

Or did Hiei's reasons for bringing me along even matter, in the end?

I'd lamented not getting to go on this mission. Hadn't I just been telling Kagome that I wanted to see Yukina and Kuwabara interact? Wasn't Hiei's demand, in that case, exactly what I'd been asking for? If I didn't take this chance I'd have to wait for the Dark Tournament to see Yukina and Kuwabara together—and sure, I'd be a fool to send myself into the demonic lion's den (to borrow Shizuru's phrasing) and insert myself into the Rescue Yukina arc, but…wouldn't I be just as big of a fool for saying yes as I'd be for saying no?

Well. If I was going to be a fool either way, I might as well be a fool with more information under her belt. And I could only get that information if I went with Hiei, so…

"Aw, to hell with it," I grumbled. "May the Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990 commence."

Hiei's wide eyes went wider still. "You mean—?"

"I mean I'm in. You don't have to force me." Before Hiei could recover enough to gloat, I stepped around him and headed for my desk. "Let me just call Kurama and—"

One burning-hot hand closed around my wrist when I reached for the phone. "No," Hiei said, vehement—but he didn't say anything more. He just stared, grabbing me, as if trying to knock the idea of making a phone call from my head with the force of his eyes alone.

I looked at his hand on my wrist, then at his face, and then at his hand again. "Excuse you?"

"Leave the fox out of this." His sharp teeth bared themselves. "He'd only get in my way."

I debated arguing but decided to fight the call-Kurama-fight later. Hiei would have to let me out of sight eventually, and when he did I'd find a phone and make the call regardless. With a shrug I told him, "Fine. Then let me go so I can back a bag."

One thin brow arched. "A bag?"

"Yeah. You know. Clothes, toiletries, supplies…" When Hiei did not release me, I added, "And food?"

Food was the magic word. He let go of my wrist and turned on his heel, arms crossing over his chest. I rubbed my wrist (damn, his skin burned) and headed for my bedroom door.

"Fine," Hiei said, nose aloft. "Pack this bag of yours."

"I will." I stopped with my hand on the doorknob. "Oh, by the way—how long will we be gone?"

Hiei's nose wrinkled; behind the fringe of his bangs and the white of his bandana, I spotted the faintest of purple glows. For a second he just stood there, staring into space, but then he shook himself and looked back at me.

"It will take a night to get to her," he said. "We will reach her by morning and be back tomorrow night."

"OK, good. I won't miss school." It was Saturday afternoon, early since we only had a half day on Saturday. My Sunday schedule lay wide open, ripe for an adventure with Hiei in the mountains. "Be right back."

I found my mother downstairs attending to the afternoon rush, barking orders at the kitchen staff as they cooked and arranged food on plates. "Hey Mom?" I said as I edged my way toward her through the chaos.

She ducked under one of the chef's arms, carrying a tray of chopped vegetables. "Yeah, honey?"

A nook between an oven and a prep area gave me a spot to stand out of harm's way. "Can I go camping with Kuwabara and Yusuke tonight?" I said as Mom scraped her veggies into a pot of boiling soup stock. "Shizuru is chaperoning. We'll be back tomorrow night."

Mom barely paid me any heed, too busy to realize I told her lies. "That sounds nice, sweetie," she said, cleaver flying. "So long as Shizuru goes with you, I think it's a great—" She did a double-take to her left and yelled, "Masaru, look alive! Those onions aren't going to fry themselves!" A final glance at me, accompanied by a rather hurried smile. "Sorry, honey, but I have to run!"

It was probably a good thing she was distracted, because it prevented her from asking more questions, which allowed me to tell no more lies. Sighing with relief, I waited for a chef carrying half a roasted chicken to pass before ducking out of the kitchen and heading back upstairs.

Two years prior, my parents had taken Yusuke and me on a camping trip just outside the city. Dad had gone a little nuts purchasing tents, sleeping bags, firestarters, survival gear—but the restaurants had been doing great, and for the first time in a while my mother hadn't balked at the idea of spending money on a vacation. While it was too bad we hadn't had the time to repeat our camping trip in the years since, I took comfort in the fact that the camping gear in our hall closet was practically brand new as I stuffed a hiking backpack full of supplies. A trip back downstairs to the pantry and I'd acquired all the food Hiei and I would need to survive the weekend…plus a little something extra, a treat for Hiei if he didn't make too much of an ass of himself on our trip. But only time would tell me if he deserved it or not.

Hiei scowled when I came back into the bedroom; he hadn't moved, standing exactly where I'd left him. "About time."

"You can't rush perfection." Walking to my closet, I shoved clothing into the bag's remaining space and pulled my hiking boots from a top shelf. Hefting my backpack for emphasis, I said, "And one doesn't just leave town without supplies."

He eyed the bag with undisguised distaste. "Do you really need all of that?"

"You want to eat, don't you?" He looked cowed; I laughed. "Thought so. Now what comes next?"

His brow burrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the place they're holding your sister is in the next prefecture, I hear." I put a hand on my hip and cocked my head, teasing. "You planning on walking, or what?"

It had been a joke, but Hiei didn't take it that way. He just smirked and tossed his head. "I'll run," he said.

I rolled my eyes, I-told-you-so in action. "This is the part where I point out that I will most definitely slow you down."

His smug sneer vanished. "Fine," Hiei spat. "Then what do you suggest we do?"

"Let me call the train station. I'm sure they have something." Once again I headed for my desk and the phone upon it. "Or a bus, maybe. But you'll have to track and see where Yusuke and Kuwabara went, and then I'll have to see what bus routes will take us—"

Hiei flickered, appearing between me and the phone in a whoosh of displaced air. I stumbled back with an 'eep' of surprise as he said, "No. No train, no bus. I'd rather carve out an eye than ride in a rattling human deathtrap."

I stowed that nugget of information ("Hiei is scared of human transportation") away for later use. "Well, if you won't take a train or a bus, and if I can't run with you, then what're we gonna do?" I said. Frustration bred sarcasm. "You volunteering to carry me, Hiei? Huh?"

But to my horror, Hiei didn't scoff and dismiss the notion outright. Instead he stood there for a minute, staring at me—and then his eyes firmed, resolution gelling like set concrete, and he started forward with hands outstretched.

I backpedaled and shook my head like a wet dog. "Wait, wait, it was a joke!"

But Hiei kept coming. "Just hold still and I'll—"

He reached for my legs with one hand for my shoulders with another; like a waking nightmare, the image of Hiei carrying me in dreaded "bridal style" flashed through my horrified head.

"Hiei, no!" I shrieked, clutching at my shoulders like he'd walked in on me in the shower. "You are not going to carry me all bridey-like like some goddamn Mary Sue!"

Hiei froze, hands still outstretched. "Some goddamn what?" he repeated.

"Never mind. But you are not carrying me like that. Nor will I allow myself to be thrown over a goddamn shoulder like, like—like a sack of potatoes!" And then it was my turn to walk at him with arms reaching, and it was his turn to backpedal in outright alarm. "Here's an idea! I'll ride piggyback!"

Hiei's eyes bugged out of his face. "Like hell you will!"

"Oh c'mon, Hiei." I grinned and quoted him, marching ever forward. "Just hold still and I'll—"

"No. No, Meigo." Hiei shook his head like a wet dog, our roles totally reversed as he scrambled away from me, darting around the room in flashes of black while I pursued. "It will look ridiculous. I'm not doing that!"

"Oh, so now you care about dignity!" I said. Hiei took up residence in a top corner of my room, perched there with hands and feet braced on the wall like Spiderman. Glaring, I put hands on hips and said, "Tell you what. I'll let you steal ten bowls without nagging you even once if you let me ride piggy back."

Hiei growled at me. "Not for all the bowls in the world, Meigo."

I put a hand to my chin. Thrust a finger in the air. "Twenty bowls!"

"No!" Hiei snarled.

"Thirty bowls!"

"No fucking bowls at all, Meigo!"

"Forty—"

"Do not make me set you on fire!"

"Fine, fine jeez, no piggyback rides," I said, grumbling, and Hiei let himself fall to the floor (though he did that superhero-landing bit, panther-like in his grace, just to add insult to injury). I paced in a few quick circles and threaded my hands in my hair. "OK. So we're at an impasse. You won't carry me, I can't run, whatever. How do you propose we solve this?" I shot a glance at my phone, wistful. "Kurama might have an idea. If you just let me call him—"

Hiei flashed out of sight and reappeared next to my desk, phone's connection cable pinched between forefinger and thumb. I blinked, not sure what he was doing—and then black smoke drifted from between his fingers as a sizzling noise filled the air.

"You are entirely too talkative," he said, and the cord melted in his molten grip.

I gaped, unable top form words. The scent of melted plastic and charred metal filled the air as I lifted my finger and pointed at him.

"Hiei—did you just cut my phone line?!" I squawked.

Hiei's nose thrust upward. "I regret nothing."

I gaped. My backpack slid from my shoulder and hit the floor with a thud. I sputtered, tried to talk, stalled, and fell silent. Hiei stared back at me with more of his smug superiority, and when he stepped toward me yet again with arms outstretched, I released a yodel of impotent rage.

"Oh, that is it, Hiei!" I screeched, hands flapping. "You can't carry me like a romance novel heroine, you won't let me ride piggyback, you won't take a train or a bus, so—" I waved my hands harder, faster, another wordless cry of frustration as I thought of the most ridiculous option imaginable. "So what do you wanna do, Hiei? Gag me and shove me in a sack?!"

This was just more desperate sarcasm falling out of my mouth, of course, but rather than piss Hiei off as I thought it might, his eyes merely narrowed. "You keep making jokes."

Through clenched teeth I replied, "Humor is how I keep from screaming."

"You keep making jokes," he continued, "that are actually good ideas."

I froze solid.

Hiei stepped toward me.

"Hiei—Hiei, no!" I stumbled backward over my own feet until I collided with my bedroom door, one hand raised to ward him off. "Hiei. No. No," I said, heart hammering at the sight of his determined expression and the steady pace with which he approached, methodical and measured like a stalking beast. "It was a joke, not a suggestion! And you've got that look in your eye—"

He tugged off his bandana. The Jagan cracked open with a spark of purple. I gulped.

"—you've got that look in all three of your eyes and I don't think I like it very much, and—"

He blurred from view. Reappeared in front of me, but I could only make out the flare of his violet Jagan through the spread of his fingers, his hand closing over my face with a burst of heat and the scent of metal and char. The purple of the Jagan flared outward, coating the world, drowning out all other color before fading into the deep black of unconsciousness—and with that, I slept.

Hiei had been right.

When it came to going with him to rescue Yukina, I truly had no choice…and that bastard had made sure of it.

I came to lying on something soft, but with hard bits beneath it poking into my back and arms like fingers of accusatory skeletons. Light streamed onto my face; I blinked and sat up, shielding my eyes with my arm. The air tasted funny in my mouth, cooler and cleaner, almost, not nearly as humid as it had tasted in the heart of the city.

"About time you woke up."

I cracked and eye. Hiei stood over me with hands in pockets, chin tucked into the scarf wound around his neck. Behind him lay a backdrop of…trees? Tall trees, greenery swaying as a chilly wind breezed brushed my cheeks. I blinked, eyes adjusting, and lowered my hands to the ground.

My fingers brushed soft cotton.

"What—?" I looked down and beheld a field of periwinkle dotted with yellow flowers. My eyes popped wide, sting of the sunlight forgotten. "Oh my god, is this my comforter?"

Hiei shrugged, because it was indeed my comforter beneath me, a pale purple puddle of soft bedding spread across the soft earth below, and those had to be sticks and twigs poking into my ass, right? Birds chirped in the trees, song merry and totally oblivious to the indignation rising hot and hard inside my chest.

"You did it," I said. "You really did it." Once again I pointed right at Hiei's face. "J'accuse! You psychically gagged me and shoved me in a sack!"

"It got you to shut up, didn't it?" Hiei observed. "We're here, and you weren't even awake for the journey. You have no room to complain."

It was all I could do to sputter at him like an engine with too little fuel. "Don't I, though?" A glance at myself, at my socked feet, athletic shorts, and soft sweater—totally inappropriate for a hike through the mountains. "You didn't even give me time to change clothes!"

Hiei took a single smart step to the right, revealing my backpack sitting on the forest floor alongside my hiking boots. Well, he earned some points by bringing all of that along, but it remained to be seen if he'd earn the treat I'd packed for him (and this little incident definitely counted against his deserving quota, that's for sure). Glaring, I scrambled across my comforter (feeling dampness against my knees as the fabric pressed into the muddy ground, and oh my god my mother would freak out if this thing stained!) to grab my bag and boots. Hiei watched as I pulled out some of the clothes I packed, and when I slipped on my boots and rose to my feet, his eyes straight-up narrowed.

"What are you doing?" he said.

I made a shooing motion at him. "Turn around and don't turn back around until I say so. I need to put on pants."

Hiei huffed, but he turned his back; I tiptoed away from him in my unlaced, half-on boots behind the nearest tree for added privacy. I exchanged my sweater for a plaid button-up and my athletic shorts for a pair of thick leggings, over which I wore denim shorts that just barely covered a certain accessory I strapped to my thigh (I wondered, vaguely, if Hiei would notice, and resolved to watch his reaction when I saw him after changing clothes). Very "Lumberjack Chic." I shivered when I stripped off my top and felt the chill air of the mountains on my skin. That's where we had to be, right? The mountains, near Tarukane's mansion? Coniferous trees stood tall in all directions, the ground rising in a gentle slope to…to the north, judging by the position of the sun, which lay more than a few ticks westward of its high noon position (though it was admittedly hard to tell through the canopy of leaves above). So it was late afternoon, then. Probably just an hour or two before nightfall, if I had to guess. Good thing I'd brought a heavy jacket. It would doubtless get cold after dark.

Another wind blew through the trees. The birds quieted for the briefest of moments before resuming their song. Aside from their cries, the forest was quiet.

We were very, very far from home, weren't we?

Nerves kicked up a flurry of butterflies in my gut, but I told myself it was no use worrying about distance just then. I was here, and there was no going back. After I laced up my boots and put away my shed clothes, I rounded the tree and headed for Hiei, buckling the straps of my backpack across my chest after I stuffed my comforter inside it. "How far are we from Yusuke?" I asked.

"Not far." Hiei turned and looked me up and down, surveying my new clothes (and if he spotted my little accessory, he didn't mention it). "But they won't be able to sense us."

"Or hear us?"

"Depends on how loudly you complain." His head cocked before I could retort, a dog lifting an ear at a sudden noise. "They're on the move. Follow me."

And so we walked.

Well, we hiked—or even more specifically, I hiked, and Hiei scared the ever-loving crap out of me. We walked for about half an hour, Hiei nimbly leaping from boulder to tree branch while I toiled along on the ground, making good headway but doubtless not keeping up the pace Hiei would maintain if he travelled on his own. More than once he looked over his shoulder and growled at me to hurry up; I merely returned the demand with a glare, or a muttered insult, until finally Hiei growled under his breath and flitted out of sight in a flash of black.

I stopped short, breath snagging in my throat like a hem on a thorn. The quiet forest seemed all at once too loud. Every rustle of leaf, every chirp of bird, it echoed like gunshots in my ears as I strained my hearing for the sound of footsteps.

But I heard nothing—and then anxiety started talking.

Had…had Hiei left me?

No. No way. No way would he leave me. He hadn't liked my speed, sure, but he wouldn't have abandoned me just because he was frustrated…right?

The memory of his scarlet eyes telling me to hurry up, though, wouldn't leave my head. Hiei was ruthless. Leaving me behind was totally within his power, wasn't it? But he'd wanted me to come along. He'd been the one to force the issue. It didn't make sense for him to just leave me behind without provocation.

Unless I was wrong.

Unless I was wildly miscalculating.

Unless Hiei really had abandoned me and I was all alone in these mountains and oh god oh god oh god where the hell was I, even, and how would I get home, and—

"Hiei?" I ventured, hardly daring to speak his name. "Hiei, are you…are you there?"

He appeared at once before me. I flinched. Hiei scoffed.

"I'm scouting ahead," he said. "Just keep walking."

"But Hiei—"

And he was gone again.

Well, at least I'd determined he hadn't actually abandoned me to the wolves. That was something. Maybe Hiei cared about me, after all.

We kept walking, and the next time Hiei pulled his little disappearing act I didn't panic. I just walked, concentrating on not tumbling over the mossy rocks and fallen branches strewn across the forest floor. Eventually he came back and pointed off into the trees, guiding me in a new direction until his next reappearance. We leap-frogged around like that for quite a while. Sometimes I'd find him waiting for me a little farther ahead, standing under a tree or crouched on a branch in wait. As soon as he'd see me he'd point, command me to walk, and then disappear again. This continued for at least an hour, routine only changing when I found him stand in the center of a small clearing.

He didn't flit away when I found him in the meadow. He stood in its center, staring off into the distance between the trees without moving. The hem of his dark cloak caught the wind and swirled, revealing a pop of its bright red lining. It looked like blood against the pale green grass and the white flowers dotting it. Somehow Hiei hadn't disturbed the grass around him; I carved a trail through it when I walked to meet him, leaving crushed flowers and broken grass in my wake.

"What's up?" I said.

His eyes flicked toward me, locking on my face—and then he looked away again. "Stay here," he said, and he bent his knees and was gone. Leapt straight up and out of the meadow, if I had to guess.

"Showoff," I muttered.

Hiei didn't reappear to lob a retaliatory insult. I sighed and unbuckled my backpack, letting it drop to the ground with a bump. I sat next to it and rummaged inside until I found a candy bar, upon which I munched as I let my weary feet rest. Keiko was fit, possessing a natural (not to mention conditioned) athleticism my previous body had lacked, but even her runner's legs weren't used to carrying the weight of heavy hiking boots. I lay on my back in the meadow and propped my feet up on my backpack, gazing at the cloud strewn sky and savoring the taste of chocolate-coated wafer. I tried to pick out the identities of specific nearby birds by their songs alone, but it had been a long time since my past-life father took me birding…not that he'd taught me the calls of Japanese birds. Even so, the calls of starlings and sparrows weren't too different. Perhaps that was a warbler I heard somewhere to the south, trilling up and down the musical scale as it tried to summon a mate—

A branch crunched somewhere to the east, and a footstep dragged through the meadow grass.

"About time you came back." I sat up and crushed the candy bar wrapped into a ball, shoving it into my back pocket as I twisted around. "I keep thinking you're going to just leave, and—oh."

I froze solid.

"Oh," I said. "You're not Hiei."

"No," the stranger agreed. "I'm not."

Taller than Hiei by a mile, the well-built man with broad shoulders and thighs like tree trunks wore a neat black suit and a black tie, brown hair combed back and away over his head like Yusuke's—only he had waves in his light brown hair, skin pale and white, blue eyes peeking over the top of his dark sunglasses. This gaijin in a suit in the middle of a forest seemed human enough at first glance, if not totally out of place.

I wasn't fooled for a second.

The anime had made it clear that Tarukane's goons would look human at the outset.

The strange man and I stared at each other, neither speaking. I rose slowly to my feet, fearing any sharp move might set him off, but he didn't come near me. He stood at the edge of the meadow with hands in his pockets, looking me over like he didn't quite know what to make of the girl that had appeared in his forest. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he just looked curious. Not at all threatening. I didn't trust him in the slightest.

"Are you lost?" he asked, voice pleasant and concerned.

"Uh…no." I pointed at my boots, pasting on a chipper grin while I wondered where the hell Hiei had gone. "Just doing some hiking."

At that he gave me a chiding smile. "This is private property, you know."

If I was good at anything, it was pretending to be a sweet, innocent schoolgirl. My hands flew to my lips, which I'd arranged into an astonished O shape. "Oh, gosh, it is?" I said, feigning total surprise. "Mister, I'm so sorry! My map didn't say I wasn't allowed here!" Rapping my knuckles against my forehead, I tried to look sheepish, a kid caught sneaking an extra cookie from the jar. "I can be so silly sometimes. My mom's always telling me I need to be more careful."

"Is she, now?" the man said, and he laughed, too—but those blue eyes of his didn't crinkle at the corners, unblinking above the tint of his glasses.

"Yup!" I chirped. I reached for my backpack. "So sorry, again, and next time I promise to be more careful. I'll just head back the way I came and leave, so—"

The man stepped forward. He didn't move fast, nor did he move sharply, but even so the motion froze my reaching hand in place. "Where are you going so fast, young lady?" he said. His smile widened, showing teeth. "It's not often we get a pretty thing like you in these woods."

I couldn't move. His smile showed teeth—a whole lot of teeth. Perhaps more teeth than I'd ever seen crammed into a single smile before, curved and white and crowded.

"In fact…we rarely ever get visitors all the way out here." Yup, I was no dentist, but there were definitely too many teeth in his mouth—and did mine eyes deceive me, or was that a flicker of livid neon green in his blue eye? He took another step toward me and said, "But today's proven to be the exception to the norm. You're not the only one trespassing, but I get the feeling you know that already, don't you?"

My foot slid back, reflexively. He stepped forward, pursuing.

"Trespassers?" I stammered, taking another step. "Sorry, but I don't know anything about—"

His lips stretched further, smile inhuman and deranged. More teeth, more teeth, how the hell did he have even more fucking teeth?—and then the skin at the corners of his mouth tore backward, crevices opening up from lip to ear.

"Don't lie to me, girl," he said—and his head exploded.

Well, "erupted" might be the better word. From his ruined skin burst a new face, climbing up and out of the mouth of the strange man like an alien crawling from the belly of its screaming host. Whatever lay inside his fake human skin expanded outward, shredding his carapace into meaty ribbons that pattered onto the meadow grass in a dark red rain. In pure defiance of conventional physics the gargantuan demon blossomed from the remains of its human disguise, enormous and purple and hulking and horrible, seven feet tall and covered in gleaming scales. He had two arms and two legs, just like a human (except the arms not scraped the ground with their crooked claws) but that's where the similarities to humanity both ended and began. His oblong head nearly split in half when he talked, mouth bisecting his skull nearly into halves above the elongated barrel of his chest. Four lime green eyes blinked at me from just above the creature's top lip; above them flared three nostrils, arrange in a triangle around the spiral of a golden horn.

I'd met demons before—but they were demons like Hiei and Kurama, limbs and eyes and features arranged properly and in conventional amounts (aside from Hiei's third eye, of course). Despite the animes I'd watched and the fantasy novels I'd read, all the weird mangas and sci-fi movies, nothing had prepared me to see a sight like this one.

This—this was a demon.

But while I was most assuredly impressed by his countenance, my knees did not shake. My hands did not quiver. Instead a calm came over me, chill budding behind my breastbone as my senses sharpened, narrowed, and focused.

Hideki had trained me well in the way of the warrior, and this demon—terrifying though he was—was no match for my sensei's tutelage.

"Yes," the demon said, mistaking my stillness for something else entirely—which suited me just fine. "That's it. Freeze with fear, little human wench." His voice had deepened like a pit opening beneath my feet, words resonating like a hive of angry bees. "I think you're well aware you shouldn't be here." He dropped onto all fours, weight shifting onto his back legs. "And that means I can't let you leave!"

My body, trained by Hideki-sensei to read opponents and react before my mind could make decisions, recognized the shift in the demon's weight for what it was: preparation for a lunge in my direction. My body also recognized that I couldn't outrun this thing given the length of its limbs and the huge muscles rippling over hard bone—and to my satisfaction, my body processed this information and reacted almost of its own accord. Before the creature even finished speaking I reached down, tugged up the hem of my shorts, and grabbed the weapon strapped to my thigh. The demon, strong though it most definitely was, wasn't expecting a supposedly-terrified little human to fight back, and I counted on that as I took aim and threw.

The thing didn't even have time to dodge. The throwing knife sliced through the air and embedded itself into the thing's chest—but I didn't stay to watch it bleed.

Instead, I turned tail and ran.

Two weeks before I fought the demon in the forest near Tarukane's mansion, Hideki called for the end of the day's lesson. Ezakiya and Kagome (plus a few more students we'd recently collected) rolled off the sparring mat and traded bows. I watched from my corner, kneeling atop a rolling chair with a collection of knives at my side on a small table. A wooden practice dummy across the warehouse bristled with a dozen shards of metal, a veritable pincushion after what I'd done to it that evening.

"Yukimura," Hideki said.

I pushed with my good foot, spinning atop my chair to face him. Hideki stood behind me, the others over his shoulder cleaning up to go home. I caught Kagome's eye and mouthed at her to wait for me; she nodded, mopping sweat from her brow with her sleeve. Hideki cleared his throat. I looked back at him with a sheepish grin, but he didn't smile back. In fact, he remained utterly impassive, ponytail of grey hair snaking in a river over his shoulder.

"I have something for you," he said.

"Oh, a present?" I made grabby-hands. "Gimme."

Hideki-sensei snorted, but he didn't call me a child like I expected. From under his arm he pulled a bit of rolled-up cloth, which I eagerly unfurled atop the knife table. My eyes bugged from their sockets as I surveyed a set of polished silver knives, handles wrapped with tape, blades honed to a wicked edge. They were beautiful and deadly, but they didn't catch my attention nearly as much as the vehicle in which they'd been delivered.

"Is this a thigh holster?" I said, lifting it up for inspection. The knives sat in little sleeves of fabric secured at the top by elastic straps; the contraption could cling to the thigh thanks to a set of adjustable nylon belts and plastic buckles, durable and quiet. "This is so cool!"

I started to try it on, of course, but Hideki held up a hand. "Don't wear it in public. Knives like these aren't legal, strictly speaking."

"Aw, you mean I can't wear this under my school uniform? Because it would totally match my shoes."

Hideki managed to smile at the joke, but the humor faded fast. "I talked to Shogo," he said.

My brow lifted. "Oh?"

"He says you're regularly associating with demons. That you've befriended more than one of them."

Judging by his sour expression, Hideki did not approve. I steeled myself for a lecture when I admitted, "Yeah. He's right."

But a lecture didn't come. "Are you sure that's wise?" Hideki merely asked.

"These demons are on a bit of a leash, if it helps," I offered, but he did not appear placated. I held up the holster and knives with a smile. "You'd feel better knowing I've got these on me when I see the demons, huh?"

He considered me a moment before relenting, "Maybe you should wear them with your school uniform."

"See?" I beamed. "Told you it was a great idea."

Hideki, ever vigilant, remained unconvinced. "Just be careful."

"I will."

"And practice your throwing techniques at home, too."

"Yes, sensei."

"Don't get into any fights you can't win. There is no shame in running if you are outclassed.

"Yes, sensei."

"And make sure the demons know what you're capable of."

"Yes, sensei."

"But don't let them know too much, either," he said. "Let them underestimate you."

My forehead furrowed in confusion. "Wait. So do I show them what I can do, or keep it a secret?"

Hideki paused, considering…and then he gave a resolute nod.

"Both," he said. "Do both."

I sensed he was joking, even if his face remained utterly devoid of humor. The barest glimmer of mischief was the only thing that gave him away. Sighing, I said, "Remind me to get you a copy of the Art of War. You've got the whole 'confound your enemies' thing down to a science."

"Yes, I do," he said—but he sobered when he looked at the weapons in my hands. "Be careful, Yukimura. I get the feeling you're going to need these, and sooner than you might think."

"Maybe I will," I said—and then I remembered something. Before he could finish turning away, I said, "Oh, Hideki-sensei?"

My teacher looked at me over his shoulder with a frown. "Yes?"

"You, uh…you wouldn't mind me bringing one of these demon friends of mine to a lesson sometime, would you?"

Hideki's eyes narrowed—but the heated conversation that followed is a topic for another day.

Hideki was fond of telling his students not to be heroes. If you don't feel you can handle a situation, and if you don't think you have at least a 75% chance of winning a fight, it's not a fight you should even enter. He told us that as often as we could stand hearing it, and while I'd rolled my eyes at him more than once for impersonating a broken record, I felt nothing but gratitude for his repetition as I pelted pell-mell away from the roaring demon and into the surrounding trees.

That was a fight I could not win no matter how many knives I threw.

My knife would only slow him down a moment, I knew, which meant time was of the essence. Luckily the forest, densely packed and thick, wouldn't allow the bulky demon to follow easily. Trees whipped by, branches catching my face and scarping my skin raw, roots threatening to trip me at every step. Soon I heard the pound of the demon's feet against the earth, felt the rumble of its gait through the soles of my feet, but I didn't let myself panic. I couldn't let myself panic. "You panic, you die," as Hideki-sensei so often said. I zigzagged through the forest as quickly as I could, trying to ignore the sounds of wood cracking and splintering at my back, a tree falling somewhere behind me with a crash. This thing would tear the entire forest apart in search of me, and I knew I couldn't run forever. Hell, I couldn't even run for a little while. The longer I ran, the more time I gave it to catch up. The longer I ran, the more tired I'd be come, and the less I'd be able to fight back. Adrenaline only lasted so long.

Running was not the answer. It was a stopgap measure at best. So what else could I do?

If you can't fight, and you can't run, the last thing you can do is hide—or pull a dirty trick.

Putting on a burst of speed, I zagged around a pile of boulders and saw exactly what I needed: a tree with low-hanging branches, thick and dense and perfect. I didn't run right at it, though. Instead I ran past it by about a hundred feet, then doubled back and retraced my steps to my hiding place. Throw the asshole off the scent, provided scent was something he could track. I clambered up the pile of rocks and used them to lever myself into the tree with a quick pull-up into the lowest branches, maybe eight or ten feet off the ground. Then I climbed higher and higher, wedging myself against the trunk of the fir as needles tangled in my hair and scored my exposed hands, regulating my breathing the way Hideki had shown me until my panting evened out into long, slow breaths. I could barely see the ground from my spot in the tree, but not too far off I heard the demon crashing and thrashing through the brush. Not too far off now, getting closer, getting closer—

Hiei—where the fucking hell are you?!

I couldn't scream that thought aloud, of course, but in those few moments of stillness in the tree I definitely took the time to mentally shout at the absent fire demon. Shout at and berate. Castigate. Verbally tear-a-new-one. Glaring up at the sky, trying my best to keep panic at bay and maintain my quiet breathing, I called Hiei every insult under the sun and then some, Japanese and English and even my limited Spanish coming into play as I cursed him out.

The fun ended when the crashing drew so close I could feel it in the body of the tree, and then a flash of purple scale appeared below be through the trees. My hand crept over my mouth to stifle a cry of fear, but the creature paused for only a moment before growling and lumbering away, feet pounding like a drum on the forest floor. My plan, it seemed, had worked, and with the smallest of sighs I let myself relax.

I should've known better than to celebrate so soon.

No sooner had the demon passed me by did it double back, the thud of its feet pausing and then thundering once again in my direction. I clapped my hand back over my mouth and curled up tight, trying to remain small and hidden on my perch. Scales flashed below amidst the trees, the demon pacing back and forth below like a crocodile waiting to be fed.

"Little human thinks she can hide, eh?" he rumbled. "Too bad I can smell her fear!"

I don't know if he punched the tree or what, but I couldn't suppress the screech that rocketed from my mouth when the tree shook, bucking under my legs like a bronco trying to unseat a novice rider. It shook again, and then again, the demon howling with laughter as he attacked the tree, and then the entire thing listed to the side with a sickening crunch and horrifying jerk. I scrambled for the end of my bough with another screech as the whole tree began to topple like a ship caught in a gale, spying another nearby fir and leaping for it just as my tree fell out from underneath me. I barely managed to catch to those branches, barely managed to close my eyes in time to keep from being blinded by needles, but with squirrely determination I scrambled into that neighboring tree and clung to its trunk with both arms and both legs.

This tree, unfortunately, didn't have nearly the same density as my former hiding spot. The demon stood below me, leering upward with a wide, frenzied grin. A magenta tongue lolled from his mouth and dripped saliva onto the forest floor.

I reached into my holster and threw another knife.

This time he was ready for me. Clawed hands flew up, batting the knife away with a single swipe of enormous paw. I followed that knife with another, though, too fast for him to track; it hit his chest but glanced off, tweaking the end of the first knife I'd thrown, still sat buried to the hilt in his pectoral muscle. The demon grunted as the knife moved in his skin, leer turning into a glare.

"I will catch you if I have to raze this entire forest, bitch!" he snarled.

I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off—but there, behind him, came a flicker of deepest black.

"Heh." I shut my eyes, not at all interested in witnessing the upcoming carnage. "Keep dreaming, pal."

I don't know what Hiei did to that demon to make it scream so loudly. I didn't dare open my eyes to find out. I simply clung to the trunk, face pressed tight to fragrant bark, and breathed shallow sips of air through my nose as the demon gibbered and screamed and moaned, meaty tearing and thudding noises accompanying the screams like percussion. The stench of filth and copper drifted up to me at one point, followed by the smell of burning meat. I switched to breathing through my mouth and tried my best not to throw up on myself.

"The girl," Hiei said during a lull in the demon's screams. "The one Tarukane tortures. Is she still at the mansion in the woods?"

Voice labored, the demon replied, "So that's why you're here."

"Answer the question. Or do you want more?"

The demon screamed again, that burning meat smell growing even stronger. "Just kill me," the demon gurgled through what I suspected was a mouthful of blood. "Just kill me, and—"

"As you wish," said Hiei.

I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have have peeked between my fingers at the bloodbath below, at the demon's scattered organs and smoldering body…but peek I did, because I'm the worst. I saw just enough of the demon's soon-to-be-corpse (it's a wonder it was still talking, really) and the violet flare of Hiei's Jagan before slamming my eyes shut again. The demon's four eyes had rolled backward in its head, body convulsing as Hiei used his Jagan to…I don't even know what.

All I knew was that the demon was done for.

The demon stopped gibbering soon enough, death rattling in its throat before silence reigned. Some of the burning smell faded, too. "It's over, Meigo," Hiei said. A patting noise (perhaps hands dusting themselves on the front of a black cloak) cut the dreadful silence. "You can come down now."

"I—I don't think I can," I said—both because I didn't want to open my eyes and because this tree didn't have a lot of branches below the one I occupied. At least, I didn't think it did, and one surreptitious peek through squinted lids revealed my hunch to be correct. No footholds. Yeesh.

I heard Hiei sigh even from a distance. A moment later the branch beneath me dipped, and then one hot hand landed on my shoulder and yanked. My hands tore free of the tree trunk, wind-milling twice before I pitched backward into space. I didn't even have time to scream, let alone process the fact that Hiei had literally pushed me out of a tree, before two strong arms locked around my body and halted my freefall through the empty air. I gasped and jolted, eyes popping open, to find that Hiei had caught me just before I hit the ground.

He'd caught me with one arm around my back and another beneath my knees.

Bridal style.

Just what I'd wanted to avoid.

"Gee," I said. "My hero."

The sarcasm popped out on the coattails of hysteria; I shoved at Hiei's hands and stumbled when he put me down (and none too gently at that). I took two shaking steps away from him before looking up—and oh, shit, I'd been heading right for the mangled demon. Its smoking corpse lay ahead of me, but I whirled around and put my back to it before I could internalize the gory details. For a minute all I could do was stare at Hiei, at his bored expression and the hands shoved casually into his pockets.

And then I saw the blood on his face.

It was red, but not the red of human blood. This demon had the blood of a Texas Aggie, a maroon thick and gloppy with stars knew what. This has not been a clean kill on Hiei's part. Far from it. My hand twitched toward my handkerchief, my instinct being to wipe the blood away, but I made my hand go still.

Words tumbled out of my mouth of their own accord.

"See, Hiei?" I said, tone high and reedy. "I told you I'd be a liability!"

But he only shrugged. "You served your purpose just fine."

"My purpo—oh, hell no." I understood the implication at once, brain firing on all panicked cylinders, filling my head with anger hot and searing. "Hiei, did you just use me as bait?!"

He just shrugged again. "He was suppressing his energy. I had to see what we're up against. Testing him was the best way."

I just stood there.

Hiei…he wasn't denying it.

In fact, he was admitting it—he was admitting he'd used me as bait, put my life in danger for a test, risked my wellbeing just so he could get a read on our opponents. And he didn't even have the decency to pretend that wasn't what he'd been doing to someone I thought he considered a friend.

He had no shame at all, did he?

I thought about calling him out on it, of course.

But I didn't.

I turned away from him (though not toward the dead demon) and walked off into the trees.

Hiei dogged my steps. "Where are you going?" he said as he trailed behind my heels.

"To get my bag."

"Wrong way." He adjusted his course. "Follow me."

He had the decency not to lead me by the dead demon's eviscerated remains, thank my lucky stars. He just took me back to the meadow, where I collected my dropped backpack and once again strapped it to my shoulders. Hiei watched in silence, brow furrowing deeper and deeper as I fussed with the straps and checked the laces of my boots. They'd come a bit loose; I tightened them and straightened up, looking at Hiei with dead eyes.

"Where to next?" I said.

"Spit it out, Meigo." He spared no time for subtlety. "No use hiding it. What's wrong?"

My voice held steady when I very evenly, very quietly replied, "I could've been killed."

He tossed his head. "But you weren't."

"But I could have been," I said, not allowing my calm to break. "You could have warned me."

"And given away the game to the demon?" he said with a sneer. "I think not. In fact—"

"You could have warned me, Hiei."

I didn't yell. I didn't raise my voice. I kept deadly calm, staring right at him without flinching. I don't think Hiei expected that from me. His mouth worked around empty air before he scoffed, rolling his eyes with all the derision he could muster.

"So I didn't hold your hand like a child. So what?" he said. "I needed to know what we're up against and I made a judgement call. If you're angry—"

"I'm not angry."

He blinked. "You're not?"

"No."

I leaned close, closer and closer until we came nose to nose. Hiei jerked back, unnerved, searching my face with confused eyes.

"I'm not angry," I told him. "I'm disappointed in you."

Hiei didn't move. Behind him the sun had begun to set. The golden light caught the blue in his hair and made it glow like a backlit sapphire. His jaw clenched, scarlet eyes blinking at me once, twice, three times. Our gazes held for what felt like an hour. Eventually, though, I pulled away, and I hefted my backpack just a little higher.

"Where to next, Hiei?" I murmured.

Hiei didn't move—and then, eyes downcast, he walked off without a word into the darkening forest.

Notes:

Keiko 100% just used Mom Voice on Hiei. How he'll take it remains to be seen.

I talked about it on my Tumblr, but I've decided to do Camp NaNoWriMo in April to finish an original novel. Thus, I won't be updating in April, but there are a few more weekends this month during which you'll get new chapters. HOWEVER, I'd like to finish the Rescue Yukina arc before I go on break, so I might post in April in the event that the next two chapters don't wrap things up. But we shall see how the next two chapters go.

As per usual, this went longer than I thought it would and scenes I thought would make it into this chapter will be used next week, instead. Stay tuned for more Hiei! It's all Hiei, all the time this arc.

Chapter 65: The Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990, Part 2

Summary:

In which NQK goes camping and has a strange dream.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Yusuke. Yusuke? Yusuke!"

But Yusuke did not respond, neither to the teacher barking his name nor to the snickers of our classmates. I leaned out of my desk and aimed a kick at his shin. Yusuke jolted, eyes tearing from the classroom window with a blink.

"Oi," he said, glaring at me for interrupting his daydream. "What do you want?"

A pointed head-jerk toward the front of the class. "The teacher is asking you a question."

Yusuke adjusted the heat of his glare to the woman in question. "OK, then what do you want?"

The woman shoved her glasses up her nose, disgruntled but still willing to give Yusuke a shot at being something other than the classroom miscreant. "As I said, Yusuke: Can you tell me the difference between a meteor and an asteroid?"

"Uh…" He thought about it, nose wrinkling—and then his smile turned wicked. "A meat-eor's somethin' you put on spaghetti and an ass-teroid's a cream for your butt."

The rest of the class erupted into laughter while I admired Yusuke's surprising grasp of English puns. Meteor, meatball, and we'd all learned the English word for "ass" last week after Okubo came back from a vacation in America and taught us the curses he'd gleaned from his cousin abroad. Yusuke's jokes weren't sophisticated in a broad sense, but to a classroom of third graders, Yusuke was practically Saturday Night Live.

Our teacher was less impressed, of course. She gasped and pointed at the door. "Out in the hall, Yusuke. Now."

Seemed like Yusuke was destined to be the school delinquent—at least for another day. He carried water buckets until class ended, arms shaking and face red by the time the lunch bell rang. We grabbed food from the cafeteria (though I had to carry his plate for him, given his noodle-arms) and headed up to the roof. It was the only place Yusuke liked eating anymore, and although we weren't technically allowed up there, the teachers were willing to look the other way just to get Yusuke away from the other kids (and to let me be his chaperone for just a little while). He'd started too many food fights, and I'd stopped too many food fights, for them to force the issue of eating with our peers.

"You really gotta stop mouthing off to teachers," I said as we settled in.

"I will when they stop asking stupid questions," he grumbled. "Asteroids and meteors—feh! That's dumb. Who needs to know that?"

"Anyone who wants to be a scientist."

"So, not me."

"You'd like astronomy if you gave it a chance. It's actually quite fascinating."

"You only think that 'cause you're a big ol' nerd."

Rather than get offended, as Yusuke probably hoped I might, I just beamed at him. "That's true. Nerds rock."

Yusuke rolled his eyes and begged me to feed him his food because his arms had turned the consistency of jello after holding water buckets for hours. I indulged him to get him to shut up, spooning rice and veggies into his mouth. This was one of the few chances I'd get to make him eat vegetables, probably, and I wasn't about to pass that up.

"Regardless, Yusuke," I said when his mouth was full and he couldn't argue. "You really have to start paying attention. They'll hold you back if you don't, and then you won't be able to cheat off my tests."

Although he looked begrudgingly cowed, with a grunt he choked down his food and said, "Astronomy is just dumb, though. And didn't we learn about it already in, like, the second grade?"

"Yeah." I gave him a deadpan, unimpressed stare. "We did learn about it last year."

"So it's kiddie stuff."

"And what, being in the third grade makes us adults all of a sudden?" I used my chopsticks like a conductor's baton, punctuating every word. "And all the stuff they taught us as littler kids is the foundation upon which we build—"

"—all of our developing stores of knowledge and reasoning abilities, I know, I know," Yusuke finished, voice pitched high in mockery. "You never stop saying that! And you sound like a dumb grown-up when you say it, too." He opened his mouth as wide as it could go, cavernous and hungry. "Now gimme one of those fried shrimp, would ya?"

I fed us both in silence for a bit, alternating bites between Yusuke and myself. I'd only known Yusuke for a year or two at that point, and while we were close (I was his only friend; of course we were close) I still hadn't quite learned what made him tick yet. True to the anime, the kid was hard to predict. Things that made him happy one day pissed him off the next. I dreaded the day puberty would hit and make him even more of a—

"So."

I shook myself from my reverie and found Yusuke staring off to the side, eyes downcast and hooded. They flickered to me and away again—wait, was he nervous? That wasn't like Yusuke at all. Popping a bit of rice into my mouth, I hummed an inquiry.

Yusuke fidgeted. For a minute he said nothing. He just watched me chew, looking at me and away again in turns. Like steam building in a kettle the words bubbled in his mouth, swelling his chest up and up until he couldn't keep them in even a moment longer.

"So… what is the difference between a meteor and an asteroid?" he blurted.

I blinked, dumbfounded. "You mean you don't know?"

Yusuke hesitated. "Well—"

"You can remember that we learned about it last year, in the second grade, but you can't remember what you actually learned?" My hands flew, rice flinging off a chopstick to the floor. "You even have my "foundation of knowledge" speech memorized, but you can't be bothered to remember about meteors? Yusuke, c'mon. You're smarter than that! This is easy stuff and you just—"

He stood up almost too fast for me to follow, reflexes impressive even at age eight. Hands jammed deep into the pockets of his shorts as he stalked off, head dropping on the end of his hanging neck. "You know what? Forget it," he said. "Forget I even asked."

I shot to my feet, too. "Yusuke, wait!"

"Nah, Keiko." The grin he threw over his shoulder looked as acidic as it did sad. "I'm just dumb, right? Write me off like everyone else—"

My hand closed around his wrist. Yusuke stopped walking, one hand reaching for the roof's access door. He didn't look at me, though, eyes locked forward… but his throat moved when he swallowed, and the careful way he kept from looking at me made me wonder what kind of emotion this little boy was hiding.

Because that's what Yusuke was, in the third grade. He was a little boy, still sensitive and untested, a far cry from the thick-skinned delinquent he'd one day become. Some days, like that day, I tended to forget that all-important fact.

"Yusuke." My hand tightened on his wrist. "Yusuke, I'm sorry."

That got his attention. Wet eyes set in a stunned face turned my way. "Huh?"

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I shouldn't have talked down to you." I released him and bowed, letting formality speak for me. "It was wrong, and I'm sorry."

Yusuke stared at me in wonder when I straightened up. "You—you mean it?"

"I always mean what I say."

He hesitated—but then he dragged a finger beneath his nose with a sniff, and his welling eyes dried up.

"Yeah," he said, a smile finally breaking through. "Yeah. You always do."

That got me to smile, too. I grabbed his arm and tugged him back to our spot, pushing him to sitting with a hand on his shoulder. "Sit." And then I shoved another fried shrimp into his mouth. "Eat that and listen."

Content now that he had more food, Yusuke munched on his shrimp with a series of satisfied crunches and smacks. I got a book from my school bag and opened it across my knees, scooting to sit next to him. We were the same height at that age, heads knocking like coconuts when I leaned too close.

"Now," I said as I flipped the pages. "An asteroid and a meteor are both bodies of matter floating in space, but where they differ is in how they interact with the earth's atmosphere."

His nose wrinkled. "The earth's what?"

"Oh." I turned to a different section. "We'll start there. The atmosphere—"

That day on the roof I made a solemn promise to myself—but more importantly, I made a solemn promise to Yusuke. Never again would I shame him for not knowing something, let alone for asking questions to remedy that lack of knowledge. After all, it wasn't like I'd been born knowing what asteroids and meteors—wait, never mind, bad comparison. In my first life I hadn't been born knowing the difference between meteors and asteroids. Someone had had to teach me the difference just the way I had to teach Yusuke. Sometimes I forgot Yusuke was still just a kid, and like all kids, he didn't know much yet… and that was totally OK, even if Yusuke's lack of knowledge came from willfully ignoring his teachers.

Turns out, that's exactly what Yusuke needed. Over the years he'd come to me with all kinds of questions, obvious and obscure alike—and I hoped he came to me because he sensed that I'd made the promise never to talk down to him, even if I'd never said those words aloud.

Hiei and I walked until a cold mountain stream wound across our path. Easy enough to ford, shallow as it bubbled over rocks and fallen leaves, but as darkness fell around us I paused. Hiei stopped on the pebbled bank and cast one baleful scarlet eye my way. Wind rippled the trees at the edge of the stream, leaves and water moving in unexpected tandem.

"This is a good place to camp," I said. Nearby birds quieted when I spoke, silence eerie in their wake. "That OK with you?"

Hiei harrumphed, and the birds began to sing their end-of-day opera again.

Hiei didn't move while I pitched a tent, unrolled sleeping bags, and organized the food and cookware in my rucksack. He stood on the edge of the stream and stared off into the woods, instead, breeze tossing the edge of his cloak and the tips of his blue-black hair. Last shreds of sunlight streaked the darkening sky rose and peach, stars beginning to peer from between those glowing strands. I cleared a spot on the ground and ringed it with stones, calling out to him as I brushed off my dirty fingers. "Will you get some firewood?"

He eyed me askance. "Why?"

"So we can build a fire upon which I can cook us dinner," I said, enunciating every word with prim precision.

Hiei scoffed. "I can make fire, you know."

"Sure, but do you really want to play the role of Keiko's Personal Easybake Oven the entire night?" I said, brow arched, and Hiei blanched. "Plus, it'll get cold later. I'll need the heat."

"… fine."

He left, soundless as the footfalls of a panther, only to reappear again laden with an armful of sticks and branches. This he set next to me before flitting away again, reappearing twice and then a third time with more fallen wood. I started to tell him that was enough, far more than we could possibly use in one night, but he shot me a glare and vanished yet again. The pile of fire wood rose to my thigh by the time he was satisfied, and without preamble he arranged the sticks into a teepee shape inside my ring of stones. He even set the teepee on fire for me, grasping one of the base logs and setting it aflame with nothing more than the contact of his bare and burning palm. Uncharacteristically helpful of him, to be honest—and that gave me a theory. A theory, and an idea.

"Hey, Hiei?" I said. I brandished the tin cookpot I'd packed. "Would you fill this with water for me?"

He scowled. "Why?"

"It's for dinner."

I held out the pot. Hiei stared at it. Then, with a dramatic sigh of annoyance, he grabbed the pot and stalked toward the nearby stream. I watched with brow knit, lips pursed in concentration. Either Hiei had been well and truly shamed by my "disappointed" comment, or he'd turned over a new and very helpful leaf sometime in the past hour. Not sure which, though. We'd certainly passed a lot of leaves on our walk here, that was for sure.

Hiei stalked back with the pot full of cold water in tow. I took it and set it next to the fire, close enough for it to heat atop one of the rocks ringing the crackling blaze.

"What are you doing?" Hiei said.

"Boiling the water."

He rolled his eyes, leaned down, and touched the outside of the pot. Within moments the metal heated to a red glow, water within bubbling and frothing in a burst of scalding steam.

Wow. So despite the eye-rolls and hemming and hawing and deep sighs, it seemed Hiei was being helpful, after all.

He still hadn't earned the right to his treat, though.

His sudden rash of helpfulness had its limits, I soon learned. He didn't help me make dinner, but then again, I'm not sure he knew quite how to help as I tore open packets of meats and vegetables and stocks to make us an easy, hearty stew. He certainly watched with intense scarlet eyes, monitoring my hands as I chopped and stirred and peeled and diced. Once he started to say something when I picked up my paring knife to julienne a carrot, but as I sliced the root vegetable with practiced eased, the words died on his tongue.

Not for the first time that day, I wondered what he might be thinking, and whether or not he'd learned anything during our adventure today.

Night well and truly fell while I cooked, last shreds of sun dispersing into the veil of the velvet sky. We sat a little ways back from the stream atop the pebbled beach beneath the trees, stars shining like winking fireflies through the canopy overhead. Hiei ate his half of the stew in silence, staring into the bonfire (it was a bit too large to be just a campfire thanks to Hiei's zealousness) without blinking. I ate in equal quiet, lost to my own thoughts.

You served your purpose well enough.

My fingers tightened around my tin spoon.

Bait. He'd brought me along to be bait.

A spark of hot annoyance lit in my chest, a complement to the sparks rising from the bonfire. My show of disappointment had been real enough, but I hadn't admitted to being angry even when Hiei called me out for it. Didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right. That same part of me didn't want to give him the satisfaction of my continued company, either, and debated turning around and going home. How many more times did he plan to use me for bait? How long would it take me to find civilization and somehow get home from here, anyway?

A spoon clattered against a bowl. I looked up in time to see Hiei look away, eyes pulling back to the fire and away from me.

If he'd only brought me along to act as bait, why had he been trying to help set up camp? Why had my comment about disappointment affected him, even in such a small way?

Soon we finished our meal. I hunted through the wood pile for two long, skinny sticks, still springy and not quite dry. My paring knife cut through their bark with ease, whittling down the tips to sharp, thin points.

"So. Logistics," I said, not deigning to look at Hiei. "What time do we leave in the morning?"

"We leave when they do," he said.

By 'they' he meant Yusuke and the others, I was certain. "Are we following them?" I asked. Under my breath I added, "Not sure why we're not just going to the mansion already, to be honest."

Annoyance sharpened his words. "It's warded. I can't sense her, or the mansion itself, well enough to find it on my own. And these woods are crawling with demons." At that he loosed a chuckle, low and conniving. "I'll let the Detective clear them out for me."

I chanced a look at him. He sat a few feet away by the fire with back against a particularly large rock, uncaring of the pebbles that must be digging into his thighs (I sat on a log; more comfy, for sure). Despite the smirk on his lips, his eyes refused to settle, flicking from the fire to the trees to the stream and back again. It wasn't like Hiei to hold back from a fight, nor to let another fight on his behalf. Had he had a different plan before I balked at being bait? Was this 'leave it to Yusuke' scheme a reaction to what I'd said?

I doubt he'd tell me even if I asked. So I didn't.

"I see." My knife hissed across the wood, curls of bark falling to my feet. "Wake me up in the morning, I guess, whenever it's time. But try to give me time to pack up my stuff. Oh, and time to cook breakfast, too."

He shifted, mouth and chin dipping into the fabric of his ratty scarf. "Whatever."

Hiei slouched, hands in his pockets, eyes darting to the darkness pressing against the tremulous firelight. Moths had gathered, fluttering around the flames and even into them, turning to ash in the space between breaths. Call me self-centered, but I got the sense Hiei wasn't looking at me on purpose. When my feet shifted on the pebbled ground, he shifted, too, reacting to my presence on instinct… like the way he'd reacted to my need to boil water. I hadn't even had to ask for that. He'd just done it, because it needed to be done.

My heart softened in spite of myself, and I wondered if this was how moms felt when their kids were naughty and pouted from their seat in time-out.

"Hey," I said. "You still hungry?"

Hiei allowed himself to look at me, eyes at once cast in my direction.

"I packed a treat for us," I said.

Hiei frowned, suspicion obvious. "What kind of treat?"

"A camping favorite. Here." I handed him the sticks I'd been whittling. "Hold the ends of those in the fire to sterilize them."

Hiei scoffed and pinched the tip of one stick between forefinger and thumb, dragging the pads of said fingers up the length of the twig. The wood sizzled in the wake of his hand, singeing at once under his touch. I rolled my eyes and called him a show-off, rummaging through my bag until I found the packets of goodies hidden at the bottom. Hiei eyed the material I laid out on a large, flat rock, giving special attention (special wary attention, specifically) to the plastic bag I wrenched open with my hands.

"What are those?" he said.

"Marshmallows." I pulled one fluffy while candy from the bag and squished it between my fingers, grinning. "Here, hold out a stick."

Reluctantly, Hiei did. I put marshmallows on the ends of both skewers and took one from him, holding mine not too close but not too far away from the flames. Soon one side toasted, lightly browned above what was sure to be a perfectly gooey interior. I flipped the marshmallow around to the other side to give it the same treatment.

"See what I'm doing here?" I said. "Hold the marshmallow over the fire until it gets nice and toasty and melty." When he didn't partake, I smiled to encourage him. "Well, go on."

Hiei didn't move—and without warning he plunged the marshmallow right into the heart of the fire, where it ignited in a bright blue flash.

"You're not supposed to light it up!" I warbled. Hiei yanked the marshmallow from the fire and held it up, watching through narrowed eyes as it burned like a small torch. "You're supposed to make it golden toasty brown, like this!"

With one hand I grabbed his stick and blew out his flaming marshmallow; with the other hand I brandished my perfect marshmallow, golden and just barely bubbly at the top. Hiei looked between mine and his and scowled, tossing his hair with a sneer.

"Mine looks better," he said of his burned mess.

"How would you know?" I countered. "You've never even had a toasted marshmallow before."

Before Hiei could try and poke holes in my logic (not that there were any to be had, unless he got really tricky somehow), I handed the sticks over to him and grabbed a packet of graham crackers and a chocolate bar. Taking two crackers and half a chocolate bar, I sandwiched my good marshmallow between them and pulled it off the skewer. Hiei stared at the confection with undisguised skepticism as I held it out his way, strings of melted marshmallow trailing off the crackers like spider silk.

"Here. You can eat mine." Pointing at each part of the treat, I explained. "It's a graham cracker, some chocolate, and a marshmallow, and it's called a s'more."

Hiei frowned. "A su-a-mo-ru?" he said, slippery English word proving troublesome.

"S'more," I repeated. "In English when you want more food, you want 'some more.' S'more, 'some more,' s'more. Get it?" I thrust the s'more into his hands. "Now eat that before it gets cold."

Hiei didn't immediately obey—but I didn't mind. He rarely dug right into foods when he wasn't familiar with them. He took his time sniffing the s'more, examining its components, before taking an experimental nibble first of the cookies, then of the chocolate, and lastly of the marshmallow. Just as I started to nag him to eat it before the marshmallow cooled and got gummy, he took a bite off the corner of the treat—only to pause and hold it in his mouth like a cat not sure of its new food. Soon, though, his jaw moved, chewing once, twice, three times in quick succession.

And then he took a huge bite, shoving half of the thing in his mouth at once, marshmallow squishing and leaking out the sides of the mangled s'more in a volcanic burst. He crammed the remaining chunks into his mouth with a muffled grunt of annoyance, glaring at the melted chocolate, sticky marshmallow, and dusting of crumbs decorating his now-empty fingers.

"Good, huh?" I said, mouth twitching with a suppressed smile.

Hiei swallowed. He turned up his nose. "It's… edible."

How very like him, that comment felt. "From you, that's high praise indeed," I said, rolling my eyes. I picked up the remaining skewer and stripped the burned skin off Hiei's ruined marshmallow, tipping my head back so I could drop the char onto my tongue. Hiei watched with a glare.

"I thought you said they should be golden toasty," he said, accusing.

"Yeah, well, the char isn't always awful." I held out the empty stick. "You want s'more?"

Hiei snatched the stick from me with a glare. He'd had enough explanation to recognize the pun when I said it, especially given how my eyebrows waggled with the sadism one feels when making a truly terrible pun. "Make that infernal joke again and I'll shove this stick through you eyeball, roast it instead." He commandeered crackers and chocolate for himself. "I'm making my own, this time."

"Suit yourself," I said, "though you should still listen to my advice. I'll have you know I'm the best marshmallow-roaster in the—"

Hiei shot me a Look and lit his marshmallow on fire. "Don't tell me what to do, Meigo."

I held up my hands. "Fine. Burn your s'more; see if I care."

Satisfied, he bit into his s'more—only for his face to go blank, jaw working more slowly than before. He ate the damn thing, all right, making a brave face all the while, but he made his next marshmallow golden toasty instead of burnt and crusty, just like I'd instructed.

We ate the rest of the s'mores in silence, tension easing as Hiei absolutely crushed the graham crackers and chocolate. Despite his lukewarm words, s'mores definitely seemed to agree with him… and maybe a little too well. When we finished eating, chocolate wrappers and crinkling plastic empty, Hiei sat back against his chosen rock and scowled, once again staring into the fire with hooded scarlet eyes. I settled in, too, content to rest after a long day and listen to the sounds of nighttime and exiting summer. A nightingale sang in a distant tree, tinny noise undercut but the hollow hooting on an owl. My eyes fluttered, heavy as the soothing sounds of the babbling stream and gentle wind lulled me into relaxation.

Hiei ruined it, standing with a clatter of pebbles and the rustle of flapping cloak. He stalked off toward the edge of the forest and stopped, pacing back toward the fire and then away once more.

I watched him pace for a while—because that's what he was doing, now that he didn't have food to occupy his hands and head. Pacing back and forth like a tiger in a cage, footsteps steady but vibrating with unspent, restless energy. He didn't pay me any mind. Once he growled, wordless and agitated, but he said nothing as he patrolled the edges of the fire's glow, guarding the border where darkness met light as if to keep the night at bay.

"Say, Hiei?"

He stopped short. "What?"

"Are you nervous?"

He rounded on me, nonplussed. "Am I what?"

"Nervous." When he didn't react, I supplied the obvious and unspoken. "About Yukina, and meeting her."

Hiei wheeled, putting his back to me with a low 'tch' of dismissal. "Stupid," he said. "That's a stupid question."

"Not really. I'd be nervous, in your shoes." It occurred to me we hadn't talked about one thing yet, and it was a thing worth talking about indeed. "Oh. By the way: I know you're not going to tell her who you are."

And he was facing me again, every last one of his sharp teeth on full and intimidating display. "You breathe a single word, and I will—"

"I won't tell her." A shrug. "I think it's stupid not to tell her, but I know you promised the demon who gave you your eye that you'd stay quiet. And I respect that."

Whatever he'd been expecting, that wasn't it. Hiei pulled back, uncertain. "You know about that?"

"I know the past as well as the future." Better keep it cryptic, even if I thought Hiei needed a little push in the right direction. "All I will say for certain is that your sister wants to find you as much as you want to find her."

But he didn't look surprised to hear this. "I know that," Hiei said. "It's why she left the ice village. To find her long lost brother." His lips curled, teeth showing once again. "I'm the reason she's trapped here with that human pig."

There was something in the way he said that—a viciousness, perhaps, but not aimed outward, even if he had insulted Tarukane. No, this was a simmering rage, directed inward and contained behind walls of thin restraint, magma housed in a fragile teakettle. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me to think Hiei might blame himself for his sister's capture in Human World, but it certainly occurred to me as I watched Hiei resume his frenetic pacing. I'd always assumed he wouldn't tell Yukina about their kinship because he feared rejection, after being rejected by the ice maidens as a baby, and because he did not think his violent past worthy of present acceptance—but guilt at his sister's capture itself added a new wrinkle to my perception of his emotional tapestry, a wrinkle much more immediate than his infant rejection or worry about his bloody past.

Not that Hiei would ever admit to any of that aloud. Hiei was as complicated as he was private in that regard.

For a time I let him stew, wondering if I even had the right to offer commentary, let alone comfort. I busied myself with cleaning our dishes and tidying the campsite, conscious of his presence like a pulsing, aching tooth. Only once I sat back down next to the fire did I take a deep breath, center myself, and speak.

"You know… not in this life, nor in any other, have I had siblings," I said. "I'm an only child all the way down."

Hiei stopped walking, standing on the opposite side of the fire. Light licked at his hair and face, golden shadows setting hollows in his cheeks and bags beneath his curious eyes.

"I met Yusuke when I was just a kid," I continued. "At first I hung around him because I wanted to look out for him. He was always getting into things." A wry smile tugged at my mouth. "Probably would've died long before that car wreck had I not been around to keep his ass in line."

His voice crackled like a smoldering branch. "What's your point?"

"My point is that somewhere along the way, I realized something." My smile held only warmth, then. "I realized that Yusuke is my brother."

Hiei's eyes widened a fraction, or perhaps the flicker and spark of the fire merely created that illusion. Still, I pressed on.

"We're not related," I said. "We don't share blood, but he is my family. He's the closest thing I will ever have to a brother, and if he ever got hurt..."

I let my words trailing into the air like sparks into the velvet sky, ephemeral but bright. Hiei watched my face, unmoving, even as the campfire made the edges of his body flicker like a waning ghost.

"Why are you telling this?" he said.

Another deep breath, full of smoke and purpose. "You don't have to tell Yukina who you are—but that doesn't mean you can't still be her brother." I held up a hand when Hiei's eyes narrowed. "You can be there for her. You can be a person she trusts. You can be her friend—and if that friendship is deep enough, it turns into family." Another smile, freely offered, freely given. "Family isn't dependent on blood. In fact, I think our most precious family members are those whom we choose to be our family."

Hiei scoffed. "Sentimental drivel."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Probably, even. But it's sentimental drivel I stand by."

"It's preposterous." Hiei's teeth bared, gleaming like they'd been dipped in molten metal. Every word he spoke rang with utter contempt. "Be her brother without being her brother—you're mad."

Another shrug. "Maybe so."

"Definitely so, Meigo," he said, a predator catching the scent of blood. Through the field of the flames I saw his fists clench, saw the tension turn his shoulders to stone. "I'm no one's brother. I'm a felon. I was raised by bandits, nursed on blood and murder instead of milk. I've killed more people than I've spoken to. That girl who shared a womb with me is my sister, yes, but even she would balk if she knew what I'd done." His words rose from a growl to a bark, almost a yell, but not yet quite. "She would hate me!" Hiei said, and his hand lashed out as if to strike an invisible foe.

I didn't budge at the aggressive display. I knew what self-loathing it had to hide. "You're really so sure no one could ever care about you?" I murmured.

Shutters closed behind Hiei's eyes. "Forget it," he said, and he put his back to me.

I sat up, ready to go after him if he pulled a disappearing act. "Hiei, wait a second—"

He shook his head. "I should have known you'd overthink it."

"Hiei, you can talk about—"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, MEIGO!"

The bellow of my name rang through the encampment, echoing off the trees like the knell of a broken bell, and somewhere in the darkness came the shriek of startled birds. Branches rustled and leaves fell as they took frightened flight, sleep disturbed beyond salvage. Hiei rounded on me once again, striding so close to the fire I feared it would set his cloak aflame.

"I'm not you, Meigo." Scarlet glared like the eyes of the animal through the fire. "I don't need to express my feelings like some pathetic, weakling human who can't even handle the stress of her own emotions—like some pathetic child who refuses to eat when she can't stand to look at herself in the mirror." He drew himself up as I gasped, pulse quickening at that pointed barb. "I am stronger than that. I am stronger than you—and I am fine. I'm fine alone. Don't think you can change that." His head shook. "Don't think you can change me."

My swallowed, throat like sandpaper. "I don't think I can change you."

"Good," he spat.

"And I'd never try to change you, even if I felt I could." My next words came slow and with difficulty, forced out even as my pride stung and my feelings withered. "You don't need to change, Hiei."

"Feh!" He tossed his head and glared. "You wouldn't say that if you knew."

It was almost like a challenge, the way he said that—a challenge to contradict him, so he could call me ignorant or stupid. It wasn't a challenge I wanted to take just then. Instead, I wanted to be mad. Deep down, I probably was. Deep down I felt my emotions smart, rattled after he'd called me weak and thrown my eating disorder in my face, hurt beyond measure that he'd attack me in that way.

But—such was the way of the wounded. To lash out, to attack, when one feels vulnerable. Like a wolf in a trap Hiei bit and scratched at anyone who came to close, driving them away so he could lick his wounds in private.

You couldn't be hurt by others, if you were alone.

But you couldn't be comforted by them, either, if you always pushed them away.

Hiei didn't expect me to stand up and walk around the fire, nor to walk right past him without saying a word. He watched me with wary eyes as I strode to the stream and knelt to bathe my face and hands in its cool water. I needed to compose myself. I didn't know Hiei's true age (and I reminded myself to ask Kurama about that) but something told me that in this situation, I had to be the adult. And if I had to be the adult, there was only one adult I could emulate who could possibly make this any better.

He'd certainly made my life better, at a time when (if I were a betting woman) I bet I'd felt a lot like Hiei.

"You know, Hiei." I didn't look at him, kneeling on the pebbled beach with hands atop my folded legs. "Growing up, there was this man—his name was Mister Rogers. And he ran a human TV show that I adored."

Hiei shifted, feet crunching over scattered stones. "What are you babbling about?"

"Mister Rogers was like a second father to a lot of kids, including me." I needed to get this out before I lost my nerve, paying Hiei's snark no heed. "He was a hopeful person. He never judged, and he took children seriously. He gave us permission to feel, to express—and most importantly, to love ourselves, even if we didn't like ourselves too much."

Hiei didn't speak. Still facing the stream, I stood. My voice carried into the darkness, small and soft and lost within the nighttime gloom.

"Every time his show would end," I said, "he'd look right at the camera and speak to the kids watching. It was the best part of the show. He'd look right at the camera, and he'd smile, and he'd say, 'I like you just the way you are.'"

A lump gathered in my throat, the way it always did when I thought of Mister Rogers—because cheesy as it sounded, he'd brought me immeasurable comfort as a kid. Without him I wasn't certain I would have survived. Frankly, it was a wonder Hiei had survived, alone as he'd been as a child. He'd had no one to say the simple, but necessary, things Mister Rogers had said to me.

You know… Hiei and I were alike, in that way. Neither of us had had loving parents, even if mine had been present in my life. But whereas he'd been alone entirely, I'd found other adults to give me validation. Mister Rogers, my grandmothers, the friends of my parents whom I'd adopted for my own—they'd given me what the conventional adults in my life could not.

Hiei didn't have a Mister Rogers in his life. But come high water or hell, I'd try to fix that tonight if I could swing it.

Be the Mister Rogers you wish to see in the world, I suppose.

Hiei didn't move when I turned around to face him. He didn't budge when I smiled, nor when I walked in his direction with the crunch of shoe on stone. I stood only a foot away on the bank of that tiny stream and smiled, smoke curling around us like the hands of a worried mother, hoping he wouldn't run before I said what I needed to say—and what I thought he needed to hear.

"Mister Rogers made me feel like it was OK to be me, even on days when I refused to eat and couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror." I shrugged, helpless. "And call me immature if you want, but there were days as an adult when I'd watch that TV show for children, just because it made being me a little easier."

Hiei searched my face, shutters drawn behind his eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"

I shrugged again. "You want to push me away, maybe. I won't pretend to know for sure. And maybe I'm totally off base, but I think it might do you some good to hear what I heard from Mister Rogers, back when I needed it most." I caught his gaze with mine and held it, frank and unflinching. "Hiei, you should know—I like you just the way you are."

His eyes did widen, then, no trick of the firelight or illusion cast by evening's shadow. The tension in his shoulders shifted and changed, too, surprise and shock taking the place of anger and resentment. I had no way of knowing what Hiei thought of what I'd said, but he didn't run, or rebuke me, or call me stupid. He just stared. I just stared. We stared at one another until my eyes dried out; my lashes fluttered, and in the tiniest of increments I lifted my hand.

To my immense surprise, Hiei did not flee into the dark when I placed it on his shoulder.

"I like you just the way you are," I repeated, "and brother or no brother, I think Yukina would, too."

The moment held, spinning into infinity like a shout flung into space. Hiei didn't drop my gaze for what felt like forever—but it was a forever that ended far too soon. He shifted, shoulder sliding out from under my fingers like water beneath a hull. I didn't fight him. I let him go, and my hand fell to my side.

"Drop it, Meigo," Hiei said—but quietly. So quietly I almost didn't hear him under the crackle of the bonfire.

"Dropping it." I stepped around him, heading for the tent. "I'm gonna go to bed, OK?"

Hiei didn't reply, and I didn't force the issue. He said nothing as I entered the tent, undressed, and slid into my sleeping bag, where I lay in the dark until sleep finally claimed me.

My watch's blue glow informed me it was just past 2 AM. Time for sleeping, said my brain, but time for a trip outside, protested my bladder. Weary and bleary and all manner of fatigued, I unrolled from my sleeping bag like tuna from loose maki, grabbed a flashlight, and stumbled from the tent. Arms tight around myself (I had been right; it had gotten very, very cold once night fell over the mountains) I shoved my socked feet into my hiking boots and wondered where the best place to pee in the dark might be.

"Meigo?"

I flinched and turned in place, looking for him, but I saw no one. "Hiei?" I said, squinting into the darkness. The fire had dimmed, coals bright red and smoldering beneath ashen logs. "Where are you?"

"Up here."

I followed the sound of his voice as much I did his description, turning back toward the tent and looking skyward. There, suspended above a branch about ten feet off the ground, two eyes reflected like a coyote's in the dark, glowing as if lit from within by flame. I could make out nothing of his body in the shadows—just those eyes, fixed and intent on me.

"You're sleeping in a tree," I said. My eyes rolled. "Of course you're sleeping in a tree. Why am I even surprised?"

Hiei ignored my ramblings. "Where are you going?"

I brandished the flashlight, pointing at the roll of toilet paper sitting atop my backpack (I'd left it out as a courtesy to Hiei, though lord knows what his bathroom habits might be). "Bathroom," I said.

That was enough detail or him, thanks. He grunted, not moving from his lofty perch as I flicked on the flashlight and picked my way over fallen branches and tumbled boulders into the woods. I turned the light off and peed in the dark just in case anyone (or anything) wanted to be a perv, and when I finished I headed back to the stream to wash my hands. The cold water numbed them to the bone and chased away the weariness pulling at my eyelids—which kind of sucked because I wanted to go back to bed, dang it. Instead I stoked the fire, added a new log, and stood there warming my hands. Cold mountain wind twined into my hair, turning my scalp to gooseflesh.

"You know," I said, shooting a look at the branch where Hiei had been (and where I hoped he still was, though I couldn't tell in the dark), "that cannot be good for your back."

His eyes opened, sparks of maraschino in the night. So he hadn't moved. Good.

"Don't you want my other sleeping bag?" I said.

"No," Hiei said. He scoffed. "Weakling human contraption…"

I snorted, recalling a very old fanfiction trope. "I bet you'd prefer a pile of pelts in a nice cave somewhere, then."

Somehow his eyes managed to look contemptuous, even though I couldn't see his expression. "What are you blithering about?" he said. "A tree is sufficient. It gives me the high ground."

"Sure." How very like him, to choose a sleeping spot for tactical reasons. "But when you're an old man with back problems, don't come crying to me."

He laughed, a sharp bark of acidic humor. "As if. You'll be long dead by the time I'm old."

"That just means I'll have to come back as a ghost to pester you to sleep properly and eat your veggies," I replied with a cloyingly sweet smile.

Hiei glowered. "You would be that annoying."

"What can I say? Smothering you is part of my charm."

He didn't say anything, not confirming but not denying it, either. Maybe he'd brought me along to be more than just bait, after all. I hummed a tune under my breath and turned, warming my back at the fire instead of my hands. Sparks drifted up and over my shoulder; I traced their flight into the sky, watching their path to the stars peeking through the branches overhead. At that I let out a low, impressed whistle, an idea flaring like a firework in my head.

"Say, Hiei?" I said.

A grumble of annoyance. "What, Meigo?"

"What're the chances of rain tonight?"

A pause. Then, sarcasm resplendent: "Are there clouds?"

"Well. No?"

"Then there's your answer, dolt."

I ignored the barb, because this was Hiei, and if I got offended by every one of his insults… well, that just sounded tiring. I grabbed my sleeping bag and lugged it out of the tent, walking along the bank of the stream until I found a spot not too obscured by overhanging trees, just outside the glow of the campfire. The lumpy ground wasn't the most pleasant surface to lie upon, sure, but I dug my butt and shoulders into the pebbled shore until the earth conformed to my body—and then it wasn't so bad, after all. I cuddled into my sleeping bag with a sigh, fingers laced together under my head for a pillow.

Hiei appeared in short order, looming over me with a scowl. "What in the three worlds are you doing?" he said, face oddly comical when viewed upside down.

I patted the ground at my side. "Have a seat."

Hiei balked—but he dropped to the ground, still scowling, hands braced on his crossed legs. Stone crunched beneath him, loud in the night's stillness.

"Now lie back, like me."

More balking, more scoffing, but he did as I asked, lying next to me with more complaints and rebukes than I can conceivably recall, let along write down accurately. He didn't take his eyes off me, lying as rigid as a corpse at my side, eyes locked confused and indignant on my face.

I suppressed a giggle. "Stop looking at me." And I pointed. "Look up."

Slowly, moving in the tiniest of increments, he turned his face away. His eyes followed soon after, sliding from my features like molasses—but soon he looked at the sky, just as I wanted him to.

"You don't see stars like this in the city, that's for sure," I said.

Above us sprawled the firmament, deep and endless, studded with innumerable points of brilliant light. The ash of the Milky Way cut through the blue-black expanse in a gentle, glowing ripple—an echo, almost, of the white streaks in Hiei's midnight hair. Out here in the mountains some of the stars even gleamed with bits of color, far-flung galaxies and nebulas showing hints of pink and green and blue and gold and lavender away from the diluting lights of the city. You only saw the color of the stars in places like this—in wild places, untamed and unspoiled, nature in competition with nothing but its own glory.

A sigh slipped from my mouth. "Aren't they pretty?"

"… they're decent."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at Hiei's understatement. "Decent, he says," I grumbled—but then I grabbed Hiei's arm with a gasp, pointing with my other hand. A brilliant point of light streaked across the sky, a trail of white neon marking its descent. "Oh, oh, meteor, make a wish!"

"A wish?" he said as the meteor faded from view.

"Yeah, a wish." I shut my eyes, made the unspoken wish I always made on shooting stars, and opened them again. "OK, I made mine. You make one, too."

"Human nonsense." He crossed his arms over his chest with a pointed 'harrumph.' "I will not partake."

"Oh, c'mon, Hiei." Twisting onto my side, I propped my head on my hand and frowned at him. "What's wrong with making a wish on a shooting star?"

"You already took the wish for that—for that meteor, or whatever it's called," he said, as if I were stupid for not realizing it. "We can't wish on the same thing. That doesn't make sense."

My brow arched. "Such strong opinions about human nonsense. One would almost suspect you care."

His glare cut like a meteor through a dark sky. "Meigo, I will end you."

"No, you won't." I flopped onto my back with a smug smile, hands laced atop my belly. "You like me too much to kill me."

"Lies."

"Truths."

"Lies, dammit."

I laughed because there was no fire of truth in his voice, and I grabbed his arm again when another light shot by. "Oh, there's another! Get it, get it! Make a wish, Hiei!"

Hiei muttered something under his breath, the word 'stupid' intelligible amid the garbled rest, but he shut his eyes for a moment anyway. He said nothing when he opened them again, brilliant red flickering over the stars as if searching for another meteor upon which to pin unspoken hopes. Only that's way too cheesy for Hiei, huh?

"What'd you wish for?" I asked.

Bluntly: "Not telling you."

"Good call," I said. "Wishes don't come true if you share them."

Hiei nodded—and then he did an impressive double take, rising up on an elbow to stare at me. "If that's the case, why did you even ask to know?"

"Because I'm nosey." Before he could agree, I gestured at the stars. "You know, I used to do this with my grandparents. We'd come out on clear nights and lay out a blanket and look at the stars. It was my favorite part of visiting them."

Gradually, Hiei lowered himself to the ground again.

"Grandmother would always bring a thermos of something to drink," I continued, "and when I fell asleep, Grandfather would carry me inside and put me into bed. It was like magic." A smile crested across my features, as undeniable as an ocean tide. "I'd fall asleep to fairy dust and wake up somewhere else, warm and cozy and safe."

Hiei harrumphed, but he didn't mock me for being sentimental or flowery like I expected. My smile grew, warm and content.

"Grandfather taught me the names of the constellations. Let's see." Mapping the stars, I hunted for familiar shapes, tracing them with a finger when they revealed themselves. "There's Cygnus, the swan. And the Big Dipper. Oh, and that's the Little Dipper. You can see the North Star at the tip of the handle." I scooted closer to Hiei so he could look down the length of my arm, see just exactly which stars I was talking about. "See those, there? They make parts of Major and Minor Ursa, the bears." When Hiei nodded, understanding, I scooted away again. "I'm rusty, though. Those are all I can pick out."

"What are constellations?"

Hiei turned his head my way, searching my face, brow furrowed as he waited for a response. For a second I didn't reply—mostly due to shock. Hiei could work a record player, but he didn't know what a constellation was? How was that possible?

Not that it mattered. Hiei had asked a question, and I needed to answer it.

"Constellations are basically pictures you see in the stars." Sitting up, I swiped a handful of pebbles off the ground and arranged them on the foot of my sleeping bag, tracing lines between the stones with a finger. "The stars connect together to form an image, though the images are pretty abstract. Humans named the stars thousands of years ago. They made up the constellations, too."

The furrows in his brow deepened. "Why name the stars at all?"

"Good question." I thought about it for a minute. "The stars move through the sky in a fixed pattern. Depending on the time of year, other constellations become visible. Based on their movements, human astronomers could navigate, determine the time of year, the size of the earth, all sorts of things. So the constellations are basically part of humanity's pursuit of understanding how the world works." I scratched the back of my neck, eyeing the tail of the Little Dipper. "Some myths and legends tie into the constellations, too."

Hiei processed this explanation, patchwork and shallow though it was, without comment. Eventually he looked away and up to the sky again. I joined him, lying back down to watch for more shooting stars.

"We don't have stars in Demon World."

He spoke so quietly I nearly missed it, and something in his low, murmuring voice made me tense—like saying too much would send him running, break the moment into pieces like a meteor burning up in the earth's hard atmosphere.

"Oh?" I said, not risking saying more.

A pause. I feared talking had been a mistake entirely, but then Hiei took a deep breath.

"There are layers in Demon World," he murmured. "Some ceilings so high up you can't see them. There are clouds, rain, weather under the bottoms of other layers, but the sky…it is not like the sky here." One finger lifted atop his chest, the barest of indications. "No stars."

Hiei spoke with matter-of-fact precision. I, of course, was instantly fascinated. The manga had hinted at Demon World's geography existing I layers, but no sky? No stars? These were the details I'd longed for as a fan; give them to me, Hiei, and be quick about it. I sat up on my elbow and tried not to look too eager, though it was hard.

"Where does light come from?" I said.

He frowned. "What?"

"Where do you get light? Day and night? If you don't have access to the sky and the sun…"

"Depends on the level." He shrugged. "The top level sees the sun. The rest do not. Some places have no light at all."

My jaw dropped. "No light? Really? That's crazy!" And it explained why Jin was so damn obsessed with Human World. "Where are you from, Hiei?"

"A few levels down." Another shrug. "I never spent much time on the surface. Spirit World controls the surface. Parts of it, anyway. And I wanted nothing to do with them." He looked momentarily disgruntled, probably since he was now on a Spirit World leash, but the expression passed soon enough. He eyed me askance. "And Human World…?"

I wasn't sure if he wanted to know where we got light, or if Spirit World controlled us, or what—but he hadn't known what a constellation was, and something told me that despite his familiarity with a record player, some basic knowledge of Human World might not have been available to him in days past. I sat back and put my hands behind my head, centering my thoughts.

"Human World is a globe. A sphere." My forehead wrinkled. "Well, it's actually an oblate spheroid if you want to get technical about it. Like a ball distended at the ends, but still. It's got a molten core of magma that we've never actually been to. Nobody lives under the earth's crust. And the earth itself floats in space." And I had to sit up again, once more using pebbles to demonstrate my points. "Stop me if you already know this, but the earth spins on its axis while revolving around and the sun." I held a big rock in one hand and moved a smaller rock around it in a circle, spinning it between my fingers all the while. "The sun gives us light and heat, and the spin gives us day and night. Seasons, too, based on the earth's tilt." A moment of nerves; I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Sorry. Am I making sense?"

Hiei eyed the stones. I moved them again, demonstrating spin and orbit. Eventually he nodded.

"OK, good." I flopped back to the ground. "The earth is actually really anomalous in terms of astronomy. We're just close enough to the sun to be warm, but not close enough to get cooked. It's called a Goldilocks Planet—not too cold, not too hot, just right for life to start." A smirk as I thought of the future, of the Goldilocks Planets we'd one day find, though of course they still remained out of reach. "As of 1990, we haven't found any other planets that could support life. It's just us, alone in the vastness."

Hiei didn't seem to hear me. "A globe. No levels," he murmured. "I had guessed, but…" He shook his head. "Tell me, Meigo. What is a meteor?"

I told him. I told him about meteors and asteroids, about planets and galaxies and gravity and black holes, everything I knew about the construction of the universe and the tilt of the whirling stars. He asked few questions, but he listened, eyes propped firmly open even as mine began to ease shut.

"It's a great big world out there," I said, fighting a yawn. "So much to learn. More than I'll ever get to see, and I've seen more than most people." The yawn won, stretching my jaw until it creaked. My eyes fell shut as I said, "I'd like to see Demon World someday. Learn about how it's built."

"You wouldn't like it," Hiei said.

"Oh?"

"No stars. But it's bigger than Human World." He paused, and when he spoke next I heard the barest undercurrent of… not longing, no, but something close. "Even if there's no sky, it's bigger. There's more energy." His words soured. "This place, it's cramped. Cramped and shallow."

I chuckled, eyes cracking despite the weight dragging them down. The stars burned as another meteor cut through the jewel-studded black.

"When I look into the stars like this, I feel small," I whispered. "Like the world is much too big. Like I might just fall off the world and into the sky. Just plunge into dark and stars like a stone into the sea, and…"

I fell asleep mid-sentence, I think, because in the space between words I found myself sitting in a rocking boat on the waves of an ocean—of an ocean that reflected stars and was full of them, too, meteors flying through the water beneath my hull before fading into depths unfathomable. In the sky burned colored stars, jewel toned and luminous, gems shining upon black velvet, huge enough to reach out and touch. A single sail flapped above my head; two oars sat at my sides, waiting for me to take them and sail away to somewhere new.

A dream.

This was a dream.

I gripped the oars.

The boat on the ocean of stars caught a wind in its sail, and I was flying.

I flew for time untold and across miles unnumbered, skimming the ocean of stars with my oars and the laughter of a person at peace. An image of my boat and my joyful face reflected in the water beneath me, but it was not Keiko's face I saw when I leaned over the bulwark to look closer—at least not at first. The image rippled, water undulating, and Keiko's eyes turned blue and her hair grew long and then it was my old face I saw on the ocean of stars, twenty six years old and unfamiliar and mine.

I leaned close, reaching out to claim the image of myself, and the boat capsized into the starry sea.

Only, I didn't drown. The world flipped with us, and the sea became the sky—the same star-studded sky I'd seen with Hiei, galaxies distant pinpricks of silver light. Below my boat lay a forest, mountains looming high in the distance, and between the branches of the trees wound a small stream. Upon its bank a fire burned, red and flickering.

I touched the oars.

I sailed away again.

My boat moved up and down at my will, obeying my commands and carrying me just above the tops of the swaying trees. Gliding over them, I leaned out of the boat and skimmed the leaves with my ghostly hand, feeling them pass over and through my dreaming flesh like whispers of silk. The boat's sail snapped in the wind with chimes like music, keeping tempo with my flight and the sound of my careless laughter—but upon the horizon a yellow light flared and sparked. The sail's song clashed, clanging instead of chiming, discord disrupting harmony at once.

It wasn't a star on that horizon. It wasn't the rising sun.

In time with the beat of my curiosity, the boat turned a course toward the light.

The light grew brighter and brighter as I sailed in its direction, source swimming into focus brick by brick, window by window. At the foot of a mountain I found a mansion, bloated with too many wings and festooned with too many fountains, opulence so overblown it looked nothing short of distasteful—the house of a man who tried too hard to be more than he was, a fair façade concealing a foul foundation. The lights in the windows burned against the night as if to deny the darkness entry—because there was no room for any more darkness inside that rotting house. It was already too full. Despite the lights, nothing but darkness lay beyond those panes of bulletproof glass, house filled to the brim with pain and death I tasted on my tongue.

But a light in one window shined brighter than the others—and it shine warm, and genuine, and soft.

I flew to that window in my boat, borne there on the wind of my whim, and stopped just outside that shimmering glass. A lamp burned on a table within the room that lay beyond. An empty bed sat in a corner, and a chair rested in the center of the room.

Upon that chair sat a figure, head bowed.

Tendrils of long, mint-green hair brushed her lap and the skin of her pale white hands.

I knew her, even though I'd never seen her before.

I reached out to touch the glass, to perhaps pass through and greet the woman in the chair, but at my touch the window crackled and spat sparks—odd, because in my dreams I was never denied entry anywhere, because the dreams were mine. Ever since I learned to control my dreams after Hiruko's invasion, nothing had been beyond my control.

Something about this dream, then, was different.

I felt no pain, because in dreams I never felt pain anymore, but still I kept back from the window. On the other side of the glass hung wires strung in a crisscross barrier, long strips of paper hanging upon their lengths. Black ink on these tags showing like blood against snow. I pressed my hand to the window again. Once more the window spat sparks, keeping me at bay.

Upon her chair, the woman sat up straight. Her eyes opened—and they were the color of rose petals, or poppies, or blood.

"Who's there?" Yukina said.

Her voice was a winter wind, airy but not weak. I floated to the glass and spread my palms over its expanse.

"A friend," I said.

Her head cocked, hair falling along the length of her pale throat. She stood with motions slow and wary, her aqua kimono rustling as she took a small step toward the window. I didn't move an inch as she neared. I noted the point to her chin, the size of her eyes, and the formation of her lovely, delicate features, instead.

She looked very much like Hiei—or perhaps I only wished she did.

This was my dream, after all.

Here, even without a star to cast a wish upon, all my wishes came true.

She scanned the window, peering beyond it until her eyes locked onto me. "What is your name?" she said.

"I don't remember." And that was the truth, as was this: "But I know yours. You're Yukina."

Her eyes widened. "How did you…?"

"My friends and I are coming to save you." I smiled, as close to the window as I dared. "You'll be free soon. I promise."

Dream or no dream, Yukina in any form deserved to know the truth. She put her hand to her mouth, eyes as round as coins.

"You mean—you're coming to—?" Her breath shuddered, eyes welling with crystalline liquid. She came to the window, too, hands outstretched but not daring to touch the wards that kept her bound and captured. With joy in her voice she said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, I—"

But then she stopped.

Yukina lifted her hand to her eye, touched the tears that gathered there, and scowled.

She really did look like Hiei, after all—only she looked like him inverted, features hard with glacial chill as opposed to Hiei's roaring fire. Her warm eyes froze from inside out, transforming into chips of deep red ice, blood frozen on the white tundra of her face.

"This is a trick," she said, voice a wind winding through hard ice. "A trick by Tarukane." Her fist clenched. "It must be."

I said, "It's not."

But she ignored me. "He's tried so many things. So many horrible things, and none of them work—not anymore." Her chin lifted in determination. "But there is one thing he hasn't tried."

"What is it?" I said.

"To give me hope, and then to take it away."

She spoke with the simplicity of a woman on her way to the gallows, emotionless and cold. Just facts, no feelings—as unfeeling as the glaciers she might call her home. I pulled back from the window in shock when she glared at me, all warmth in her gone. Her hand lifted, palm open, to the window.

"Yukina, no—" I said.

"I refuse to hope," said Yukina. Her palm glowed molten blue. "You are not wanted here."

In dreams, I feel no pain.

I felt pain, then.

The blast of arctic chill fired like a gun from Yukina's hand, slamming into me with the howl of a vicious blizzard. The wind caught the sail of my boat and sent it flying upward, carrying the boat and me along with it into the star-filled firmament. The boat spun and spun and spun, earth becoming sky becoming earth becoming sky in a nauseating, star-strewn swirl. I clung to the bottom of my boat, unable to right myself, too dizzy to move even when the vessel stilled and floated aimless above the forest below. Even when the dizziness faded, I remained curled in a tight ball, not daring to move for fear of sending myself spiraling once more into oblivion—for fear of falling up into the wide black ocean dotted with burning stars, endless and void and terrifying, never to return to earth.

Soon the boat began to bob, however. It bobbed with a gentle, swaying rhythm, like it wanted to rock me to sleep—and with a start I woke up.

I woke up in my sleeping bag, back in the tent along the banks of a winding stream and beside a dying campfire, as Hiei's shoes crunched quietly away over the rocky shore.

Notes:

Hiei probably grabbed the extreme edge of her sleeping bag like someone handling a dirty diaper and dragged her into the tent. Sweet gesture, but performed in a very not-sweet Hiei sort of way. But at least he's learning. I think NQK's mothering of Yusuke prepared her to look after the even pricklier Hiei. I greatly enjoyed getting to work details of Demon World's construction into the convo with Hiei near the end. And the Yusuke scene was totally unplanned—I thought of it, outlined it, and wrote it in about an hour, but it's my favorite part of this chapter.

Also: My boyfriend inspired the whole s'more bit. He suggested campfire songs, too, but that's where I drew the line at Hiei's Camping Adventure.

Mister Roger's birthday was last week on March 20. Happy birthday to him! When my friends want to embarrass me at work, they send me GIFs and videos of him because they know I'll insta-cry. He was a huge part of my childhood and I'm serious when I say he helped me survive it. Sounds cheesy, I know, but he was a special person to many of us, and hopefully he can help Hiei a little bit, too.

Many thanks to those who read chapter 64. Your comments totally made my week, and I'm so happy you enjoyed all the Hiei moments. Reminder that I go on hiatus in April for Camp NaNo. Next week we wrap up most of the Rescue Yukina arc, and then we're in Dark Tournament territory at last. See you next Saturday!

Chapter 66: The Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990, Part 3

Summary:

In which Not-Quite-Keiko goes along for the ride. Several rides. Some of which she wishes she hadn't been on. It's complicated.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I stayed in the tent as long as I could stand it, but when pale green light turned the side of my shelter luminous white gold, I crawled from my sleeping bag and got dressed. Hiei was already on his feet by the time I unzipped the tent and stood, stretching with a satisfying crack of shoulder and neck. He watched from beside the fire pit, which had turned to pale ash in the night, in silence.

"Hey," I said, still stretching. "Morning."

He didn't bother with a greeting in return. "You're awake," he said, and in Hiei's mouth it sounded like an accusation.

I shrugged. "Yeah. And?"

"And it's not time yet."

"Then I'll make breakfast until it is time."

He considered this and found the notion acceptable, nod curt and perfunctory. "Good. Be quick about it."

And with that he flitted out of sight, a blur of black in the lightening dawn.

Birds sang, casting off the fug of sleep as I unpacked my breakfast rations: bread for toast, sausage links, and eggs cracked free of their shells and poured into a thermos, all kept cold with a packet of ice. No telling where Hiei had gone. He wasn't there to heat the skillet for me; I used the fire, instead, once I added a log and coaxed into being a steady flame. Before long the sausages and scrambled eggs were sizzling. Their hearty perfume filled the crisp mountain air; my mouth watered at the scent.

"Hurry back, Hiei," I said to the cooking food. "I'm hungry."

Hiei did not appear.

The food cooked before he returned; I set it up in the skillet by the fire so it wouldn't get cold, then dismantled my tent and cleaned up the rest of the campsite. With that finished, I settled onto the log beside the fire with a sigh. Hiei's absence left a void in the campsite—and of course my anxious brain filled that void with paranoid thought.

Or was it hopeful thought, in the end?

The dream I'd had about Yukina weighed heavy on my mind, naturally. While it wasn't the first lucid dream I'd experienced, it certainly had been the most vivid of them all—and the first dream to swing so wildly out of my control. It had felt too real, too unpredictable compared to my usual lucid dreams—lucid dreams I'd experienced with some regularity ever since I chased Hiruko from my consciousness weeks prior. I'd always wanted to lucid-dream in my past life, so I'd embraced my new skill with gusto. Not that it was very useful, mind you, for much more than keeping up with school. I mostly used the dreams to study (when I didn't just fuck off and fly around for fun, of course). Rebuilding my textbook from memory alone helped me recall material for class. Sleep had always seemed like a waste of time, but now I could actually make use of it. Seemed Hiruko's influence was good for a few things.

(Well. Some of the time it was good. Some nights I couldn't resist rebuilding Tom's apartment in my head: the sagging couch, the wall of video game posters, the vanilla candle he'd purchased with me at IKEA and had grown to enjoy even when I wasn't around. Dream-me sat on the couch under the blanket with the octopus photo on the front and watched Dream-Tom play games at his computer, listening with a giggle as he swore when an enemy got too close.

I never dared build an image of his face. I just stared at the nape of his neck and listened to his laugh, lest homesickness swallow me whole.)

But, anyway. Those dreams were just that: dreams, plain and simple and ordinary even if they were lucid. The dream with Yukina, though? I wasn't stupid, and I was too genre-savvy to dismiss that as a mere lucid dream gone wrong. It had been different. It had been weird. It had been alarming.

It had been thrilling.

Because if that dream had indeed been more than just a dream…

A crunch behind me; I wheeled just in time to see Hiei walk out of the trees, hands jammed deep into his pockets. Before I could greet him (or scold him because the eggs were probably overcooked by now) one of his quick hands lashed out; something sliced through the air beside my cheek, ruffling my hair and eyelashes as that same something hit the ground behind me with a thunk and a smattering of tossed pebbles.

Three throwing knives—the ones I'd launched at the horrible demon the day before—quivered where they jutted from the rocky ground.

"You'll need those today," Hiei said.

I looked at the knives and swallowed.

We ate in silence, Hiei consuming eggs and toast and sausage after a few minutes of sniffing and his required taste-testing (and watching me eat them first to ensure they weren't poisoned, of course). I ate quickly out of nerves, setting aside my plate after I gulped down the last bites of scrambled egg. My feet pressed together at the ankle; I sat ramrod straight with hands folded primly atop my knees.

"So," I said. I swallowed again. "Uh."

Hiei—who ate with plate held directly beneath his pointed chin—glared at me over his remaining sausages. "Spit it out, Meigo."

"I had a weird dream last night about your sister."

Hiei's hand stopped moving, stopped shoveling eggs past his lips. Slowly he lowered the plate to his lap. Red eyes scraped against my skin as he looked me over, as if searching for secrets in the folds of my clothes.

"A dream?" he repeated, suspicious.

"Yeah." I didn't let my posture falter, fighting back a joke to lighten the mood and calm myself (something about a sex dream; Hiei would have killed me for that). "I flew to the mansion in a boat through the sky and I saw her, locked in a warded room."

"You have no aura. No power." Even without me saying so, he knew what I was trying to get at, coming in fast and hard with frank denial. Lifting his plate again, he grumbled, "Dreams are sometimes just that, Meigo—dreams."

I winced. "Yeah, I know, but—can you just, like, check again?"

Once more he lowered the plate. I thought he'd rebuke me, tell me to just give it up and stop my inane prattling—but instead his eyes closed, and behind his headband came the faintest violet glow. My breath snagged in my chest. I felt nothing, though, as Hiei doubtless scanned me with his Evil Eye.

The glow faded.

His red eyes opened.

"You are a human," Hiei said. "Normal. I sense nothing from you but humanity."

My nose wrinkled. "Damn."

"Still on that quest to be more than you are, I see."

"I'm persistent like that. All part of my charm." My spine bent when I sighed, slouching under the weight of defeat—defeat that stung. Damn. I'd really wanted this to be a sign of some burgeoning power, but if Hiei said it wasn't… I sighed again and shook my head, fingers running through my hair. "Well. Seems like I'm dealing with crushing disappointment today. And how are you this morning?"

Hiei ignored my attempt at humor. He just shrugged and lifted his plate back to his face.

"Nervous?" I asked.

Once again the plate dropped. He glared, spitting a disdainful 'tch' from between his teeth—but as his fist clenched around his camping spork, I wondered if I'd hit the nail on the head. Not that I'd push about it, of course.

"Fine. No heart to heart in the light of day," I said, and I gathered up our plates and the cookware to clean in the river.

Hiei ate the rest of his meal without a word, bringing me his cutlery so I could wash it and repack my hiking bag. He watched in that same silence as I doused the fire in a way that would make Smokey the Bear proud. Once I finished, I sat back down and affixed my throwing knives to my thigh.

"How much longer, do you think?" I said as I fiddled with the straps.

Hiei eyed the sky, and the slanted shadows cast by the rising sun. "Not long. They're moving, but—"

He stopped talking. Like wind through the trees he tensed, stiffness sweeping over him from crown to feet in a wave of tightening muscle. His head whipped toward the trees; eyes pierced the depths of the forest with a stab of scarlet.

I was on my feet in a second, snatching up my backpack out of nerves. "Hiei?" I said.

My voice broke whatever spell he'd been under. He shook off the tension, shoved his hands in his pockets, and jerked his head northward.

"Follow me," he said. "Quickly."

He didn't say why. He merely turned and headed away from the camp, darting over the trees in a flash of black. I hopped from stone to stone across the brook in his wake, wondering just what he'd sensed in the woods.

A demon, if I had to guess.

I had no intention of waiting around to find out.

We travelled for hours, route circuitous through the woods as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The directions Hiei took felt random, but perhaps he was avoiding demons or trying to confuse any demons on our trail—not that he cared to tell me so. Regardless of the reasons, he ran out ahead and doubled back to give me directions as he had the day before, and after a long hike I found him standing still and waiting for me. He held up a hand, silhouetted by the break in the trees a few dozen yards ahead, dark body outlined in green and gold. I walked to his side and squinted in the sun, past it toward the open ground that lay beyond the line of the close-pressed trees.

The open ground looked like an absolute warzone.

I smelled it before I saw it: gunpowder and sulfur, ash and fire, wafting on the wind and into the woods. A hundred yards of pock-marked dirt lay between the forest and a high brick wall, smoke rising from jagged craters filled with embers and debris. Trees, stumps still smoldering, lay shattered across the great expanse like fallen artillery. A huge iron gate, standing open, cut the wall in front of us, but the metal had sagged and melted, hanging from its hinges like wax left too long in the sun.

Rising above it all behind the wall, green-tiled roof glimmering like jade in the sun, rose the mansion of Tarukane Gonzo.

"Does it look the same?" Hiei asked.

I flinched. "What?"

"Does it look the same as in your dream?" he said.

From our vantage point, obscured by distance and smoke alike, it was hard to say. The white brick and green roof certainly looked similar to what I'd dreamed, but the wall blocked too much of the house to say for certain. Even through the open gate I only saw part of the monstrous structure, and that was obscured by a bubbling fountain. I hadn't dreamed of that wall at all, nor of the ruined field between us and it—but then again, perhaps the ruined field hadn't looked like this until today. I vaguely recalled mention of land mines in the anime, which Yusuke and Kuwabara triggered and walked straight through without flinching.

The boys had indeed beaten us here, it seemed. And they weren't too far ahead, judging by the smoke.

"Parts of this seem similar," I admitted to Hiei, "but no. It's not exactly like I dreamed." A sigh passed through my lips unbidden. "Sometimes a dream is just a dream, I guess."

Hiei smirked. "Wise words."

"Somebody's full of himself," I grumbled, but this indication that my dream had not, in fact, been a sign of burgeoning psychic powers was too depressing for continued attention. I shook myself and took a deep breath. "So where do we go in?" A pause. "Do you even want me to go in with you?"

Scarlet eyes narrowed. "What?"

My hands came up, thumbs twiddling. "This is prime I'll-just-slow-you-down territory, is all."

Hiei's smirk returned. "Maybe I'll just use you as bait again."

"Do it and I'll never cook for you again," I deadpanned. When Hiei chuckled I said in softer tones, "Why did you bring me here, Hiei?"

The smirk vanished. He turned away, shoulders broad beneath his dark cloak.

"Bait. Like I said," said Hiei.

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care what you believe."

"Of course you don't." Even though he wasn't looking at me, I still saw fit to smile. "But whether you want me in there with you or not, just know I've got your back."

His head turned just enough for him to see me from the corner of an eye, but before I could read his expression he looked away again, hair tossing in obvious defiance. "Feh! Your help would only slow me down."

"That's what I've been saying," I whined—and when he walked along the edge of the tree line to the east, I jogged after him. "Hey, wait!"

And so I followed him—because he did not tell me not to.

We walked around the mansion's perimeter, staying in the forest and out of sight. The boys had only triggered some of the landmines surrounding the mansion, it seemed, because in other areas outside the wall lay nothing but large swathes of undisturbed and very green lawn.

"I think there might be explosives under the grass," I said. "All that smoke earlier—I think Yusuke triggered them."

One dark brow rose high. "You think the Detective got himself blown up?"

"No. He'd have shielded himself. But I just wanted to warn you just in case."

Hiei snorted, like my warning was more an inconvenience than anything (or perhaps in doubt of Yusuke's competence), but regardless he led the way across the field to the house—sticking to the charred ground where Yusuke and Kuwabara had cleared out any potential mines. He kept low and moved quickly between mounds of earth and plumes of billowing smoke, motioning me after him when he determined the coast was clear. I held my breath next to the worst of the burned patches and crouched beside Hiei in the shadows of the melted gate, trying not to get too much ash on my good hiking boots. Hiei glared past the gate and at the yard beyond with an audible grit of teeth.

"Flying deathtrap," he said.

I followed his gaze. Past the gate and in front of the sprawling mansion lay a wide lawn dotted with fountains and long stretches of paved driveway. Off to the west, toward the side of the house near the wall guarding the property perimeter, a tandem-rotor helicopter painted fatigue olive sat on a concrete helipad. It looked military, though I was no expert, and the sight of it made me want to laugh. Why the hell did Tarukane have that huge and unwieldly monster on his property? Was a regular single-rotor copter not good enough for that bastard? I couldn't image he'd need to transport a whole platoon.

Unless he did need to transport a platoon, after all.

Around the helicopter milled at least a dozen men in stark black suits, like the one the demon had worn in the forest before his transformation, seemingly patrolling the grounds and standing guard. Another six or so men walked in tight formation toward the mansion, disappearing through a heavy metal door into the nearest wing of the house.

Every last one of them carried a firearm.

My mouth dried. It had been almost fifteen years since I last saw a firearm (aside from the odd pistol on the belt of a police officer, but even then they were holstered, the barest bit of their stock painted flat matte black). I'd sort of hoped I'd never see a gun again, but here I was in close proximity to at least… wow. OK. At least four AR-15s, and the rest of them openly carried pistols. Talk about overkill—overkill Hiei would hopefully be able to handle. Tarukane had employed a small army, it seemed, and in that context the helicopter had started to make sense.

One of the men nearest the helicopter paused. He pressed his index finger to his ear, turning his mouth toward the cuff of his sleeve, lips moving the barest fraction before he dropped his hand again. When he turned the sun caught the silvery spiral trailing from his ear and into his collar.

"Wanna bet they're about to move Yukina, evac Tarukane?" I muttered. "See the wires in their ears?"

Hiei's eyes narrowed. "Radios."

"Right." Somehow it didn't surprise me that Hiei knew about that bit of human tech. "Take them out before they can use those. Don't let them call for backup."

"And the flying deathtrap?"

"Cut off one of the rotary blades and it'll never get off the ground."

His smile looked as sadistic as a torturer's rack. Without preamble he flashed away from me, sprinting across the lawn toward the nearest goon so fast my eyes couldn't follow. A chorus of pained cries went up almost in unison from every single guard on the field just as a metallic groan came from both of the copter's blades. Hiei reappeared on the other side of the lawn near the door the six armed men had used, and then as one all of the guards—not to mention the copter blades—collapsed to the earth like fallen stones.

Had he just—had he taken out all of them in two seconds?

I stood there with my mouth open, awed, until Hiei barked my name. He opened the door to the mansion before I got there, ushering me through ahead of him with a jerk of his head. "My, what a gentleman," I managed, trying to cover my shock with humor.

Hiei only smirked. He knew just how impressive he was, smug bastard.

We entered into a small, windowless room with a tile floor, lined by cases with padlocked Plexiglas doors—behind which lay an arsenal of guns. So, a storage room for Tarukane's army. He could militarize a small country with this stockpile, that's for sure. Continuing my trend of being utterly shocked by everything ever, I stared with my jaw dropped as Hiei strode across the room and opened the door on the other side. Beyond the door a long hallway stretched to our left and right, passage lined with red velvet carpet and gold crown trim—and ah, yeah, this looked like something out of the anime. I remembered the ostentatious crystal chandeliers dotting the embellished ceiling.

Hiei cared little for chandeliers, though. He looked left, then right, before zooming down the hallway to our left, chandeliers chiming in the wake of his passing. I followed at a slower pace (AKA a dead-on sprint, still pathetic compared to present company) to the end of the hall, here Hiei crouched by the wall where the hallway turned. I stood over him and peered around the corner, our heads stacked like characters from Scooby Doo spying on the monster of the week. Three men stood maybe thirty feet from us at a three-way fork in the mansion's maze of halls, guarding a door in a tight knot. Below me Hiei tensed; I placed a hand on his shoulder before he could attack.

Baleful scarlet eyes turned upward. "What?"

"Guns," I murmured.

These men, like the ones who'd come before, carried assault weapons at the ready in their hands. One gentle squeeze of the trigger and they'd send a hundred rounds rocketing down the hall in our direction. Those weapons had to be illegal since this was Japan, right? While Hiei hadn't had trouble with the guns outside, he'd be coming at these men from one direction—and for them it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, unless I truly was underestimating how quickly Hiei could get the jump on them. It was basically Yusuke killing one of the Demon Triad members with his Shotgun all over again, but Hiei was playing the role of the demon whom Yusuke skewered.

"They've got the advantage with those guns unless you take them out hella fast," I whispered. "You ever tangle with a firearm up close?"

Hiei looked away from me, lips pursing. "No."

Oblivious to our presence, one of the men lifted a hand to his ear and spoke into his sleeve. He waited a beat, spoke again, and then again. The three men conversed in low voices—probably about not getting a response from the men outside, who were just a bit too unconscious to reply. Thanks, Hiei.

"They're running scared. Won't think clearly," I said, mostly to myself. To Hiei I added, "Mind if I try something?"

Hiei balked. "You said I could take them out fast. I'm fast."

My eyes rolled; I dropped to one knee and rummaged through my backpack, "Oh, just let me be the hero for two seconds Hiei, jeez." He scoffed but allowed me to have my moment, eyeing the object I'd pulled from my bag with skepticism. "Be ready to run," I said.

Hiei nodded.

I threw the smoke bomb.

The red canister sailed through the air and bounced off the carpet right in the middle of the pack of goons. They flinched and danced away from it, hands waving as white smoke poured forth. The cloud rose around them, billowing to cover their faces in seconds, and one of them yelped a panicked, "Where the hell did that come from?!"

Hiei had already vanished, though, and a mere moment later I heard three grunts, followed by three thuds. The smoke was still too thick to see through, however, so on ginger feet I rose and padded toward the cloud down the hall. This wasn't the kind of bomb that caused respiratory distress, thankfully. It only obscured, and by the time I made it to three men lying sprawled across the carpet, the smoke had started to fade. I skirted around their discarded weapons with distaste.

"They're not dead, much though they deserve to be." Hiei appeared at my side, scattering plumes of smoke. "Spirit World wouldn't be happy with me if I murdered them outright."

"Good call," I said—and movement caught my eye. My hand dipped to my thigh and threw a knife, hard, into the carpet below. "Watch it, buddy!" I snarled.

A goon whom Hiei hadn't quite knocked out had been stealthily reaching for his gun, fingers inching across the carpet; he shrieked, snatching his hand back and away from the knife quivering between two of his splayed fingers. Hiei growled and ripped off his headband, glaring at the goon with all three of his eyes.

Suffice it to say, the goon fainted dead away.

I recovered my blade as Hiei opened the door, revealing a set of steps leading up. A voice, laughing and guttural, echoed down the stairwell like gunshots. I didn't need to meet Tarukane's real-life counterpart to know the sound of his twisted mirth, and neither did Hiei. He growled and darted up the stairs without a word. I followed, the laughter growing louder with every step.

The stairwell let out into another hallway, but this one had been paved with tile instead of carpet, austere and clinical instead of distastefully opulent. A few doors lay along this hall, but Hiei stood at the farthest door, way down at the hall's dead end. I trotted to his side, boots clopping atop the tile, as more laughter poured through the crack below the closed door.

I heard an enraged bellow, then, Kuwabara's potent voice unmistakable—followed by a sound I'd never heard before. Bright and pinging, powerful and harsh, it could only be the sound of Yusuke's Spirit Gun, right?

The boys were fighting Toguro just past this door.

"Meigo—she's in there."

Hiei stood with hands clenched at his sides, glaring at the door as if to melt it with his gaze alone. I danced from foot to foot with impatience visible.

"Yeah, she is, so what are you waiting for?" I flung a hand in her supposed direction. "Go get her!"

But Hiei didn't move. His fists and shoulders and his everything tightened like a rope on a winch. Red eyes turned my way with a scorching spark.

"What do I say?" Hiei said.

"…what?"

He bristled as if my lack of understanding had personally insulted him. "What do I say to her?" Hiei snarled. "What do I say to Yukina?"

My mouth moved, unable to form words—because holy shit I think Hiei had brought me along for moral support, after all, but last night had been the time to get it, not now! I shook my head and made a wordless sound of frustration, stepping behind him so I could shove him bodily at the door. He planted his feet, though, not moving an inch even when I put my weight between his shoulder blades and shoved.

"Say whatever's in your goddamn heart, Hiei!" I said through gritted teeth, struggling to move him past the door. "Feel your feelings because I know you've got 'em and just go, dammit!"

Hiei hesitated a moment longer—but there came a bellow of rage from beyond the door, impotent and desperate. With a growl he threw the door open and launched himself straight through. I lost my balance and fell to the carpet when Hiei disappeared from under me, but the curse of pain died in my chest when a shriek cut the air.

Past the door lay a long, wide room, the far wall made entirely of windows above a weird control-panel-looking-thing set with buttons and knobs and flashing screens. Hiei had Tarukane shoved up against this, one hand latched onto the man's collar while he punched Tarukane again and again in the face with the other (for the record, Tarukane is even uglier in person, looking for all the world like a sagging scrotum infected with dryrot). Beyond the windows I saw white-paneled ceiling and the tops of a few screens—the weird dome-thing the boys fought Toguro in, no doubt, watched over by members of the Black Black Club, but I hardly spared the view a second look. Three other humans lay in unconscious heaps behind Hiei, and to Hiei's right stood a girl.

Yukina, obviously.

The minute I saw her, I found I couldn't look away.

I stared at her with my mouth open, rising inch by inch to my feet as the scene played out in front of me. It happened like it did in the anime, so far as I could tell, but I was too distracted by Yukina to pay close attention. Hiei beat Tarukane senseless, verbally berating him for what he'd done to Yukina, and I wondered if I should intervene before Hiei took human life—but I needn't have worried. Fate knew what to do. Yukina threw herself onto Hiei's arm, holding him back from murdering the human outright. Tears welled in her eyes, solidifying into perfectly spherical crystals that rolled down her cheeks and onto the floor, as she begged Hiei to spare the ugly human's life.

She was, without a doubt, the single most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life.

The dream hadn't done her justice. It hadn't captured the translucent glow of her pale skin, nor the richness of her crimson eyes (crimson, not livid scarlet like Hiei's—her eyes were blood and flowers and the color of passion made visible instead of the rage of hot and billowing flame). She was beautiful, yes, all pink lips and small features and delicate bones, but the thing that caught your eye and held it was her carriage. The way she moved, the resolution in her grip on Hiei's arm, the sheer determination painted across her elfin face… there was a purpose to her, a strength in the lines of her traditional kimono and porcelain jaw, a hidden power she let shine through when the chips were down and she had nothing left to lose.

"Please no more," she was saying, but there was nothing pleading about her, not really. "I can't take it!"

And then more tears fell, the clack of gem against tile more painful to my heart than any gunshot.

Luckily Hiei gave her what she wanted (if he hadn't I would've marched in there and smacked him upside the head for denying her anything). He stared at her with pure fury radiating off of him like heat from a flame—and then he ducked his chin. His grip on Tarukane slacked.

Hiei's face, when it softened, looked almost like it belonged to someone else.

"Understood. I won't make you cry," Hiei said. "He's too worthless for that."

He dropped Tarukane to the ground. Yukina's shoulders slumped.

"How can I ever thank you?" she said—and then her eyes widened, and I knew what was coming even before she said it. Eyes locked on Hiei's face she said: "You seem… familiar."

Hiei froze. It was almost chilling, witnessing a being of raging fire turned cold with fear. He stood motionless while Yukina searched his features, as if trying to read the truth in his enormous eyes and parted mouth.

"But I'm not sure why," she said. Her head tilted, one hand lifting as if to touch Hiei's face. "Who are you?"

Hiei's throat moved as he swallowed. The demon thawed, turning back to the window overlooking the fighting arena.

"No one," he said. "Just a member… of the team."

Yukina flinched as if struck, face turning toward the arena as she gasped. "Oh no! I forgot about them!" she said, and she bolted for the door.

Toward me, in point of fact.

I stood just outside the door, thumbs hooked awkwardly into the straps of my backpack as Yukina skidded to a stop before me. She looked me up and down as I lifted a hand in an awkward wave. I felt remarkably bedraggled in front of her. For a prisoner she was well dressed indeed, kimono pressed and expertly wrapped, hair lustrous and shiny as her eyes swept over me. Holy shit, was she pretty. My face flushed on reflex as she stared at me.

"Who are you?" she said.

"Um." I fidgeted, vaguely aware of Hiei watching us from inside the control room. "I'm, uh. Yet another member of the team?"

So much for eloquence. So much for impressing her with something witty, something comforting, something to let her know she was—once and for all—free at last. Thank my lucky stars I didn't need to be eloquent. Yukina was too smart to require eloquence. She nodded, a lightbulb flaring behind her eyes. Said eyes narrowed a moment later, however, once again scanning me from hair to hiking boots. She took a step forward atop her traditional Japanese sandals with the toe socks. The scent of winter wind and evergreen enveloped me in a cloud, and when she drew close I could see the deep violet flecks around her dark pupil.

God, she was pretty.

"Do I…have we met before?" she said.

The breath hiked in my chest, but no words formed. The heat in my cheeks intensified at her proximity. Yukina's brow furrowed, tracks carved in fresh snow.

"No," Yukina murmured. "She didn't look anything like you."

And she bowed to me, and then to Hiei, before excusing herself and running down the stairs.

Hiei watched her go without moving, eyes locked on the door to the stairwell even after it swung shut behind his sister. Good thing, too, because I needed a moment to compose myself and catch my breath again. When I did, I glanced Hiei's way and caught his eye with a small, encouraging smile.

"Maybe you should follow," I suggested.

Scarlet eyes flashed. "Maybe you should mind your own business."

I stared at him, nonplussed. "Hiei."

"Meigo," he countered, my name an accusation on his tongue.

A staring contest commenced, mine deadpan, his defiant—but for once this was a staring contest I could win. He looked away and out the window, into the arena where Yusuke and Kuwabara waited. Hiei met my eye for one moment more after that. His mouth opened, then closed, and then opened again.

Hiei seemed to think for a moment.

Hiei snorted.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, left the room, and walked down the stairs after his sister.

After doing a small victory fist-pump (yay, sibling bonding!) I very carefully snuck my way into the control room, keeping my head down so no one in the arena would see me. I made sure to give Tarukane a swift kick to the groin when I passed, too, but he was too unconscious to do anything but groan (also it should be noted that Hiei's pummeling had improved the look of Tarukane's features; literally any change to them was an improvement in my book, though, so perhaps I'm biased). Crouching beneath the window, I inched up until I could see over the edge of the sill and into the space below, just in time to catch glimpse of a green blur heading for a door set in the room's curved wall—Yusuke running off to see about Tarukane, probably, not knowing Tarukane had already been dealt with. I could hardly pay attention to Yusuke, however, nor even the blue-clad Kuwabara lying in the middle of the arena with Botan at his side.

I was too busy staring at Toguro, instead.

He was impressive even lying there unconscious, playing dead for the benefit of the boys who'd 'slain' him. Barrel chested and enormous, he was taller than any person I'd ever seen, dwarfing even the lanky form of Kuwabara, muscles cut with such precision he looked carved from stone. The Elder Toguro still kept the form of a meaty, twisted sword, lying unmoving and silent and gross near his brother's hand (also, talk about an anime plot hole: The boys had been content with just killing one Toguro, paying no mind to the shapeshifting brother they'd failed to attack; had they never thought the Elder Toguro would reappear when they'd done nothing to stop him?). Kuwabara and Botan sat only feet away from the two terrifying demons, oblivious to the monsters sleeping at their side, the tsunami about to crest across all their lives and wash away any semblance of peace we'd once possessed.

The sight of Toguro's face—angular and long, sunglasses hiding his deceptive eyes from view—filled my stomach with dread the consistency of lead.

Movement caught my eye, a door flinging open to admit Yukina, followed closely by Yusuke and Hiei. I ducked down, barely peeking over the sill as Yukina ran to Kuwabara and knelt at his side, hands glowing an unearthly and icy blue. Kuwabara reacted to all of this with much babbling, judging by his flapping lips and waving hands, staring at Hiei like he'd grown a second head—and at something Kuwabara said, Hiei bristled. But he didn't tear Kuwabara limb from limb, and Yukina didn't look surprised or alarmed or anything, so it seemed Kuwabara hadn't blabbed about the siblings' relationship just yet. Hopefully Botan, who stood off to the side watching with a huge grin on her face just barely visible beneath the ballcap she wore, had impressed upon the boys the importance of not meddling in Hiei's personal life.

I watched Kuwabara very closely for the next minute or two, especially when Yukina lifted her hands to heal the cut leaking blood along his cheek. His cheeks visibly reddened beneath her touch, flustered at her closeness—and perhaps even as struck by her beauty as I had been. Yusuke coughed into his fist and put his back to the pair as they spoke, and beside him Hiei's expression grew more and more thunderous… and then Botan pulled both boys away, presumably to give Yukina and Kuwabara space. My heart thudded at the sight.

Maybe love at first sight had won out, after all. Kuwabara was a blushing mess down there. Perhaps seeing Yukina in person had had more of an impact than her image on the TV, and Kuwabara felt—

"Kei?"

I swore up and down and jerked away from the window, spinning in place until I saw him. He looked amused, that jerkwaffle, so I glared and slapped a hand to my chest, breath heaving in my startled lungs like a locomotive engine.

"Don't scare me like that!" I hissed between my teeth. "And where the hell did you even—?"

A pointed stare. "I've been looking for you since I realized you, and almost everyone else we know, had gone camping without me."

Kurama stood with arms crossed over his chest, one foot tapping the tile floor. His eyes held a sharp edge, his smile a bit too many teeth, as he raked me over and studied my boots, my backpack, the knives strapped to my thigh. I scratched the back of my neck as his brow rose higher and higher, waiting for an explanation.

"Ooh, sorry," I said with faux apology, trying to make a joke of it. "Invite-only kind of deal. Guess you didn't make the guest list."

"And you didn't think to give me a call and add me?" he asked, delicate but cutting.

"Actually, I did." A thumb over my shoulder at the observation window. "But a certain someone cut my phone line when I tried."

Kurama sighed. "Hiei, I assume. You've been travelling with him."

It didn't sound like a question, coming from him. "How'd you know?" I asked.

A smile lifted the corners of his lips. "I might not take the form of a fox anymore, but I am still adept at tracking."

"You were following us?" I said—but I shook my head with a snort, remembering Hiei's odd behavior when we left our campsite. "Right. That explains why Hiei freaked out this morning."

"He sensed me coming. Another smile, this one conspiratorial. "He's harder to fool than most."

"Yeah. He's hard to beat him when he's got his eyes peeled. Since he has so many and whatnot."

Kurama's face spasmed at my joke, like he'd bitten into a bitter lemon and wasn't sure what to make of the taste. Payback for him scaring the bejeezus out of me, in my book. I laughed and cast one final look out the observation window. Hiei, Botan, and Yusuke had rejoined Kuwabara and Yukina, the five of them standing in a loose knot as Yukina continued to heal their wounds. Hiei watched his sister closely, but without seeming to, eyes locked on her only sidelong. Kuwabara openly stared, though, face still flushed with nerves.

The sight of his blushing face filled me with satisfaction—and, for some reason, a burgeoning feeling of disquiet.

But now was not the time to wonder what that meant.

"All's well that ends well," I told myself. To Kurama I said, "So what happens now?"

He looked out the window, too, but he did not remark upon anything he observed. "Ayame, or another messenger for Spirit World, will likely be along in short order to clean up."

His ominous phrasing set an electric pulse through my blood. I walked out of the room, not chancing the others catching sight of me; Kurama followed on my heels and shut the door behind us. It locked with a click, hopefully trapping Tarukane inside.

"Clean up," I said, studying his face for any indication this was worth freaking out over. "What does that entail, exactly?"

Kurama leaned against the wall, arms crossing over his chest again, and his face betrayed nothing but calm nerves. "Altering the memories of the humans, mostly, to rid them of recollections of demons. And they will have to arrange Yukina's passage back to Demon World. A portal, if I had to guess. Spirit World can open them on a small scale, as you know."

"OK." Sounded like absolutely nothing I could help with, now that the action was over. "I guess I'll leave it to the boys, then."

Kurama looked surprised. "You don't want to stay?"

"I… I don't want them to know I was here." That wasn't a lie, though the thing I said next was only halfway true. "Spirit World might not take kindly to it."

Kurama's thoughtful expression lingered a moment. "No. I imagine they wouldn't." He gestured down the hall. "Time is of the essence, in that case. Would you like an escort to the train station?"

"I need one, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." A shrug. "I don't know where it is on account of being unconscious on the trip over."

Kurama stiffened, rocking off the wall and onto his feet. "You weren't conscious?" he said, aghast and appalled and dangerously displeased all at once.

I pointed automatically at the door to the observation deck. "Hiei did it."

Kurama's eyes narrowed at my placement of blame, and while he didn't bolt downstairs and interrogate Hiei about my accusation right away, I got the sense he had every intention of wringing the details out of me—and I got the further sense that our trip home would be a long one, indeed, and the perfect cap to the wild ride that had been the Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990.

The train rocked around us like the arms of a mother, lulling and constant and steady. Sagging against the window, I watched the lights in distant houses streak past amidst the dark, fireflies caught in night's deep gloom. My throat burned, raw from hours of talking.

"Sleepy?" Kurama asked when I yawned.

"Getting there," I said, sinking into my plush seat. "It's been a long day."

Before Spirit World arrived, Kurama led me off of Tarukane's property and down the mountain, to a road and the small township of Bone Ulcer Village at the mountain's foot. We took a bus to another city, larger this time, and there boarded a train back to Sarayashiki. I'd told him my half of the weekend's festivities as we trekked, finishing my tale just as the snack cart rolled by with refreshments. Kurama passed me a can of juice, smiling at my bleary eyes and slow blinks. The sugar woke me up a little; I stretched until my neck gave a satisfying pop.

"OK. I think that's all I can say," I said through yet another yawn. Nursing my juice, I drew my knees to my chest and curled up, back to the window so I could watch Kurama. "Your turn. Take it away. How'd you find me, fox boy?"

He folded his hands atop his knee, words simple and precise. "I called. Your line was dead. So I called Yusuke, and he was gone. Kuwabara was not at home, either." He paused, considering. "Shizuru is a frank person, isn't she?"

"That's one way of putting it," I said, laughing at how their introduction must have gone. "So she told you what's up?"

"Only that you were on a mission from Spirit World. The tape told me the rest."

I blinked, a little more alert now. "You watched it?"

Kurama nodded.

"So you know about Hiei, and…?"

"I know Yukina is his sister," Kurama said, neatly guessing what I didn't want to say aloud.

But I wasn't comforted just yet. "Did you know that before or after seeing the tape?"

"Before." My disquiet melted at the word. "I met Hiei years ago. He was looking for his sister even then. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together." Kurama's green eyes grew distant; the red hair falling along his cheek looked darker than normal in the dim train lighting, inky like the night outside. "The moment the tape mentioned an ice apparition, I knew."

Slowly, inch my inch, my neck collapsed until my forehead hit my knees. I breathed deeply in, then out, to calm my beating heart. Kurama shifted at my side, one hand gently alighting on my ankle.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm relieved." I looked up, peering at him over the tops of my knees. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you. It's his secret, and not mine to share. The fact that you already knew is a good thing, for sure." A wry chuckle. "Saves me from evisceration."

Kurama shook his head. "I doubt he'd do that to you."

"Oh, no?"

"He saw fit to bring you along on this mission, Kei. He would not have done that if he did not value you in some capacity."

"Value me?" I shook my head and grumbled. "For food, maybe. Or for bait."

"It's more than that, I assure you."

Kurama regarded me without flinching, staring frankly into my eyes as if to impress just how serious he felt about his assertions upon me. I uncurled in increments until my feet hit the floor again, body still angled in his direction. He shook his head and sighed, exhale nearly inaudible over the hushed roar of the moving train.

"Hiei is a complex demon, with a convoluted code of honor and complicated set of values," Kurama said. "Long though I've known him, at times even I can't tell what he's thinking, or how he might behave. He is not the sort to open himself emotionally, as you know, but even Hiei is not immune to self-doubt." He looked behind me, out the window at the looming dark, expression empathetic. "Meeting his sister for the first time… I can't imagine how he must have felt."

"I think he blames himself for her capture." At Kurama's surprised glance, I said, "It was something he said, actually. That if she hadn't gone looking, it never would have happened."

Kurama nodded. "No doubt your presence brought him comfort amidst those feelings."

My brow knit. "Comfort?"

"Yes. You've become close to him in recent months."

"Have I? It's not like he opens up to me, like… ever."

"Not verbally, no. But he trusts you." When I didn't agree, Kurama leaned a fraction of an inch toward me. "He would not have brought you with him if he didn't trust you, Kei."

That made sense, much as it could. "I get that," I said, hands spread in helpless defeat "I guess it's hard to see Hiei as ever trusting anyone. And I don't know what I did to deserve that trust."

Kurama looked, in equal measure, both flummoxed and not surprised. "Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that you don't see it."

My head cocked to one side. "That I don't see what?"

"That you've been kind to him with no expectation of reciprocity." A small smile lit his eyes, warm and intense. "You're like that with most people."

I rolled my eyes and looked out the window. "Stop. You're making me blush," I said—because it was true. Heat crept into my cheeks and sat there, smoldering.

"I'm almost finished, so abide the torture a moment longer," Kurama said, even tone carrying the faintest hint of tease. "Hiei is unaccustomed to kindness, but I think in you he has found some semblance of it. Acceptance, perhaps, as well. Given his history, I don't believe he's ever had that before. It's new territory for him." He shrugged, elegant and understated. "As I said, I can't predict him. But his actions say, to me, that you are part of his inner circle."

I started to deny it, the way I denied most compliments or praise—but I stopped. I thought about it. Hiei had denied needing advice or support when I offered it, but just before we met Yukina, he'd turned to me for help. "What do I say?" he'd asked me, like I would know exactly the right thing to tell his sister upon meeting. "What do I say to her?" he'd said. I replayed those words, replayed the lost and desperate look in his eye, as I stared out the window and the landscape rushing past.

"You really think he brought me along for support?" I murmured.

Kurama's reflection in the window nodded, expression as resolute as his voice when he said, "I do." He hesitated a moment, teeth scraping over his lip. "May I ask?"

I faced him with a frown. "Hmm?"

"What possessed you to go with Hiei on this little venture?" Kurama asked.

A smile threatened the corner of my mouth at Kurama's serious expression. "I mean. Like I said, it was Hiei's idea. Asshole literally shoved me in a sack and carried me here." I laughed and shook my head, pressing my hand to my brow. "I mean, I agreed to come along, but the method was less than dignified."

"I understand that." Kurama's voice held steady, though insistent. "But that wasn't what I was asking."

I frowned. "Mmm?"

"It was Hiei's idea, but method of transportation notwithstanding, you agreed to go with him." He searched my face for answers. "Why?"

I shrugged. "Why not?"

"You put yourself in grave danger today, Kei," Kurama said. "You are not the type of person who does so without reason."

Another shrug. "Maybe I am."

Kurama's eyes narrowed. Like a winter wind, biting and cold, shutters closed behind his eyes.

"Then I've misjudged you," he said.

He angled his body away from me, toward the aisle of the train, one knee crossing smartly over the other. Disapproval radiated off of him in palpable waves—and oh hell, was this how Hiei had felt when I said I was disappointed in him? My, how the tables had turned. I sighed in spite of myself, feeling my resolve waver and crumble under the weight of Kurama's pointed silence. I lifted a hand and touched Kurama's knee, drawing his attention back to me. Still, his eyes remained cool.

"The real Keiko wasn't supposed to go with Hiei," I said, keeping my voice low. "So to be honest, you guessed right. I did indeed have a reason of my own for saying yes." I shrugged. "Most of the time, I need to have a reason to justify breaking the rules."

Now that gained his interest. He re-crossed his legs, angling toward me once again, eyes interested and intent on my face. But this time it was my turn to scowl.

"I'll admit, this bit of rule breaking was all your fault," I told him.

Kurama blinked, taken aback. "My fault?"

"Your fault." I tapped my temple with a finger. "You got in my head."

"How so?" he said, not in the slightest bit convinced.

"Just something you said." I took a deep breath, wondering just how much I could get away with telling him. "You know that I'm living a story. Well, I went with Hiei to ensure a bit of plot happened that needed to happen. And I think it might have."

His interest intensified, if that's even possible, eyes sharping with laser focus. "You think it might have?" he repeated.

"Yeah." My nose wrinkled of its own accord. "I don't know for sure. It should have been obvious. It's alarming that it wasn't obvious. But…"

I trailed off, the image of Kuwabara's blushing face lodged in my mind's eye. He hadn't been screaming and declaring love, no, but that blush… did it mean what I thought it meant? It was there, yes, but it wasn't exactly what I'd been looking for. Or was Kuwabara in this version of reality simply more understated than his anime counterpart?

But Yukina had been so damn gorgeous. And sweet. And poised amid the chaos.

If he had fallen for her, how could he not have shouted it from the rooftops?

Kurama leaned toward me, silken hair brushing the back of my arm. "May I ask what was supposed to happen?" he murmured.

God, it was tempting to tell him. It was tempting to just let it spill, let loose the arrows of a good old-fashioned ranting session—but Kurama wasn't the person I needed to be talking to about Kuwabara's love life, nor the whim of fate pertaining to it, nor the way Yukina's hair had fallen over her slender neck and caressed the line of her jaw when she turned her head.

Nope.

I most definitely could not talk to Kurama about those things.

I just patted Kurama's arm, instead. He covered his hand with mine, frowning as he searched my expression.

"I think, for the time being, it's best I keep it to myself," I said. I offered him a conciliatory smile as his thumb traced the rise and fall of my knuckles. "It doesn't affect you, if that helps."

"It helps less than you might suspect." His lips barely moved, words a murmur in my ears. "I worry more about you."

I squeezed his wrist, hoping to reassure him. "That's sweet of you to say. I promise I'm fine." I couldn't help but laugh, though little humor lay within the sound. "Honestly, it's you you need to worry about."

Green eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Forget I said it." I lifted my hand from his arm, sliding out from under his touch, and shook my head. "I'm tired and not talking straight."

Kurama said nothing for a moment. He just watched as I settled into my chair, trying to get comfortable as the train rocked and swayed around us. I'd meant it when I said I was tired. My lids felt like they were made of gold, heavy and soft and full of the sparkles you see when you're well and truly fatigued.

"If you say so," Kurama said—and that's the last thing I remember before I fell asleep.

I woke some time later to a hand on mine, squeezing my fingers with gentle touch. "We're here," Kurama said in my ear. His breath misted over my forehead, tickling my brow. "Wake up, Kei."

I grumbled, wordless and grumpy, cuddling sideways into something warm and solid—and then my eyes popped wide open and I sat up like I'd been electrocuted. Kurama watched, amused, as I looked him up and down, noting how close we'd been sitting—and realizing with another jolt that I must have fallen asleep on his shoulder.

"Oh my god." My hands clapped to my cheeks in horror. "Oh my god, did I drool on you?"

He inspected his shoulder. "We appear to have avoided that horrible fate, in fact," he said.

Relief pooled in my belly like rain; I buried my face in my hands with a moan of, "Oh, thank god."

The rule is this: The prettier the person is, the less I want to make a fool of myself around them. Given Kurama is only just a little bit less gorgeous than Yukina, drooling on someone like him would have been a fate worse than death. He's too attractive for those shenanigans, so it's no wonder it took a bit for me to recover from the embarrassment of falling asleep on Kurama like a goddamn child. Once I did, after a thousand apologues and supernova blushes, he walked me home from the station—well, he walked me to the subway station and rode the subway with me to my stop, and then he walked me home. We made this trip mostly in silence, and mostly because I was still sleepy as hell, and also because I could hardly bear to look him in the eye without going atomic. We'd gotten back late, close to 11 PM, and I absolutely dreaded having to get up the next day to go to school. Kurama laughed when I said as such aloud, but after a moment he sobered.

"Kei," he said, but gently. "What happens next?"

I glanced at him. We were walking down the street toward my house, its face dark since it had closed for the evening. "What?" I said, confused.

"You said I should be more worried for myself." Still, his voice stayed gentle. "What happens next?"

"Next—?" I said, and I stopped.

Perhaps it was the late hour, or the fatigue in my sore muscles, or perhaps I was just tired of keeping secrets. But the image of Toguro lying on the floor swam into my head, and the words popped out of my mouth of their own volition.

"Next—next we go to war," I said.

Kurama's feet stilled on the pavement. A night breeze, cool and clean and mild, caught the ends of his hair and sent them tossing. He stood very still as he looked at me. The streetlamp burning above our head caught the color of his gaze, but barely, onyx tinted with the barest hint of forest.

"You won't give me any hints as to what's coming?" he said, voice as quiet as the wind in his hair.

And this is where I found the line I would not cross. "No. I won't." My lips twisted. "I fear already I've said too much."

He studied me. "Are you afraid?"

"Yes. No. I'm terrified." My garbled reply made me sigh, and the alarm in Kurama's eye had me scrambling to comfort him. "But—I have faith. In you, and in the others."

"And in yourself, I hope," came his delicately piercing reply.

I'm ashamed to admit his vote of confidence caught me off guard, and that my tendency to shrug off compliments with denial rose to fill the silence. "Oh, I don't know about that," I said with a dismissive laugh—but Kurama caught my arm, coming into my personal space in one swift step.

"Don't underestimate yourself, Kei," he said with all the gravitas of an incoming missile—but his features softened when I gasped. "If you insist on doing so, however, allow me to have faith in you in the meantime."

I swallowed. "Thank you, Kurama."

His laugh tasted like spring. "You're welcome," he said, and he let me go. He turned back the way we'd coming. "Sleep well, Kei."

"You, too," I said.

Kurama vanished into the night, then, leaving me alone on the stoop of my parents' restaurant.

The next day after school, I went straight to Yusuke's house. Was too chicken-shit cowardly to call Kuwabara and ask what he'd thought of the uncommonly pretty ice apparition in the mountains—not so soon, anyway. I hoped Yusuke would let slip some hints so I wouldn't have to baldly ask, like, ever? Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door to his apartment and told myself to calm down. The truth about Yukina would out itself in due time, and I just needed to be patient.

Botan answered the door, not that that surprised me. She stayed with Yusuke and Kuwabara in turns these days, depending on her whim. No Evil Eye showed today, telltale golden stars winking in her earlobes as the afternoon sun hit her brilliant hair.

It lit up something other things, too, that caught my eye at once.

"Oh, Keiko!" she said. "Perfect timing—"

"The hell happened to you?" I interjected.

Botan put a hand to the small split in her lower lip and to the dark bruise beneath her right eye. She hadn't had those bruises before she left, and these looked halfway through the healing process—so what the hell had happened.

"Oh," she said, fidgeting under my gaze. "Well. I trust you noticed that Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei and I were all missing this weekend?"

"Um. Yeah?"

She gestured at her battered face. "This has something to do with it. Like I said, you have perfect timing. Yusuke just got here, too, and we'll have to tell you everything." She grabbed my hand with a sunny grin, pulling me over the threshold indoors. "Oh, Keiko, the boys have been ever so helpful these past few weeks."

I blinked at her as the door swung shut behind us. "They have?"

"Yes! You remember the last conversation we had with Hiei, don't you?" Her grin widened, eyes mere crescents of pleasure in her face. "I went straight to Yusuke after that, and he and Kuwabara have been giving me tips on learning to use my powers."

My jaw dropped. "They have?!"

"Mm-hmm! Tips straight from the mouth of the legendary Genkai, no less, so it's no wonder I've been improving!" She nodded so vigorously I feared her head might fall off. "It's just what Hiei said: I hadn't been exploring my powers on my own, but with proper practice and meditation advice, I've been making good headway on harnessing my spiritual energy."

Happy though I was to hear Botan had been training, this did not compute. It did not compute at all. "Wait, wait, I'm sorry—and Yusuke has been helping you do this?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"And Kuwabara, too." More beaming, more grinning, Botan totally on board with the thought of the boys as teachers despite their combined academic records. "They were both trained by Genkai, so they know what they're talking about!"

"Yeah, but…" I faltered. "Yeah, but Yusuke?"

"What about me, Grandma?"

I flinched as Yusuke called to us from the kitchen, appearing in the living room doorway with a bag of chips under his arm. He crunched noisily on a handful and swallowed, leaning against the doorframe with all the laziness I'd come to expect from him. Yusuke, a teacher? Heaven for-fucking-bid.

"Botan was just telling me you've been helping her train, of all things," I said.

Yusuke scoffed. "If you can call it that. Mostly just been chucking rocks at her and making her dodge."

My eyes whipped to Botan for confirmation. She laughed, nervous. "He's only slightly exaggerating." She leaned toward me with a hand cupped around her mouth to whisper. "They're only pebbles, really; hardly rocks at all!"

"What?!"

Yusuke yelped when my murderous gaze swung in his direction, scrambling for his bedroom to escape. Botan sputtered and shrieked as I vaulted right over his couch and pelting down the hall after him. He didn't manage to get the door shut in time and buried himself in his blankets like a shield, but I dug through their bulk and gave him the worst noogie ever witnessed by mankind, which he bore with much screaming and screeching and flails at kicks. Once satisfied that he'd been sufficiently punished for literally throwing rocks at Botan as a training exercise (I told you he'd make a terrible teacher!) I plopped into the chair at his desk and sighed. Yusuke whined and ran his hands through his mangled hair gel, shooting me dirty looks all the while.

"So where the hell did everyone go gallivanting off to this weekend?" I asked, ignoring him.

Yusuke's glare dissolved. Botan sat on the foot of his bed with careful precision; they shared a Look I wasn't sure I liked, and then as one they turned to me.

"Another Spirit World case," Yusuke said.

"Yes, just another standard case!" Botan was quick to confirm.

"A rescue mission," Yusuke said.

"Very normal," Botan assured me.

"Standard as hell, actually," Yusuke said.

"Even boring, really!" said Botan.

Their back-and-forth looked about as rehearsed as a third grade play, but I just lifted a brow and said, "Uh huh. Sure." A wave of my hands. "Well. Get going. Tell me all about it this very normal, very standard rescue mission from Spirit World."

The pair of them dove in like they'd rehearsed the story, too, and perhaps they had. They told me about the video tape, Yukina, Tarukane, Bone Ulcer Village, all that jazz. The only thing they didn't tell me was Yukina's relationship with Hiei, and while that irked me a little, I respected them for keeping his secret. That was good of them, really, even if I resented being left out of the loop (so far as they knew, at least). I noted that I should play dumb where Hiei and Yukina's relationship was concerned, further noting that neither Botan nor Yusuke remarked that I'd been at Tarukane's when everything went down. Seems they really didn't realize I'd been there, after all.

The other thing they didn't mention stood out even more than the bit about Hiei, though.

Neither of them—including Yusuke, Chief Kuwabara Taunter Supreme—mentioned Kuwabara fawning over Yukina.

That fact grew more and more apparent the more they talked. Video tape, the trek into the mountains, the trip through the woods, finding the mansion, braving the land mines, taking out guards—all of that went by without a single mention of Kuwabara getting mushy, and alarm built in my gut like steam building in a heated kettle.

Yukina was phenomenal.

So why the hell hadn't Kuwabara reacted with more gusto?

"So we get into the house, right?" Yusuke was saying. "And there's this demon lady named Miyuki—"

All at once my worry over Kuwabara vanished because I was too busy bracing myself for an account of Yusuke being an absolutely asshole. He surprised me, however, when he didn't mention anything about her gender, let alone an account of him groping Miyuki to verify said gender.

"—and by then Botan had gotten tired of being on our second string, so she stepped up to the plate." He shot the reaper a look of outright pride, grinning like a loon. "Totally kicked that demon lady's ass!"

"Wait." It took effort to keep my jaw from dropping. "You fought Miyuki, Botan?"

"I did!" Her chest puffed as she pointed at the remnants of her black eye and busted lip. "She gave me these. My first battle scars! They were more impressive yesterday, before Yukina sped up the healing process, but I did it. Battle scars! Aren't they impressive?"

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "They were until you freaked the hell out."

I sat up straighter; I didn't like the sound of that at all. Botan caught my reaction and hung her head, rubbing awkwardly at the back of her neck.

"We've figured out my trigger, Keiko," she said. "It's blood—specifically my blood. If I see myself bleed, I… well." She hesitated. "You saw it that night at the school."

"Miyuki split her lip and Botan went a little whacko," Yusuke cut in, swirling his finger around his temple. "Botan's a badass when she gets fired up. But don't worry—we stepped in before it could get too bad, Grandma." He sniggered at Botan, who glared. "She passed out after, too. Had to carry her around like a piece of luggage for a while."

"Hey!" Botan protested. "At least I'm very cute luggage!"

"That you are, Botan," I agreed.

Yusuke, meanwhile, blushed the color of a tomato. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. So anyway—"

I couldn't help but note the way he changed the subject away from Botan's appearance, but he talked too fast for me to work in any teasing. Together he and Botan outlined the rest of the Demon Triad fights, then the spar with the Toguro brothers. They talked about that fight in breezy tones, not at all aware of Toguro's true strength… or his acting abilities. I somehow kept my face composed using my own acting abilities, not letting on that they'd stood next to an agent of death completely unaware, and that the fight with Toguro had been nothing but a farce. Watching Yusuke's proud recollection of the bout, I thought it would be a shame to burst his bubble, anyway. Let him live with this victory for a while yet. The time would come for the hard truth—but not today.

I was more interested in the rest of it, to be honest: Ayame showing up, a journey up into the mountains above the mansion, and the portal that had taken Yukina home to Demon World. She had been returned to where she belonged, Yusuke said, and that was that. They'd won, rescue mission complete.

The Rescue Yukina Arc—not to mention the Great Hiei-Keiko Road Trip of 1990—had come to an end.

Not that I'd gotten the answers I'd wanted by the time Yusuke's story (not to mention my road trip) ended. I'd wanted to ask about Kuwabara's feelings for Yukina, but an organic moment to slip in a nonchalant question hadn't arrived by the time the story ended. In fact, by the time Botan and Yusuke had finished an exhaustive description of sending Yukina back to Demon World, the alarm on my watch had beeped. It was time for me to get home and do homework, much to my chagrin. My parents would be wondering where I'd gone for so long.

Setting myself on high alert for any opportunities to ask my questions and get my answers, I asked Botan and Yusuke to walk me home. They agreed, asking if they could get dinner at my parents' restaurant afterward—and yeah, cool, that just gave me more time to make inquiries. Sweet. I'd learn what I wanted to learn come high water or hell, just watch me.

Too bad fate didn't care about my plans.

"You should've seen him, Keiko!" Botan said as we walked to my house. She skipped out ahead, walking backwards so she could stare with wide eyes, impressing upon us just how serious she was being. "That horrible man who had Yukina hostage looked like a toad!"

"Nah. He looked like an ass," said Yusuke. He walked with hands behind his head, blasé until his lips curled in a wicked grin. "A horse's ass!"

Botan gave him a Look. "Don't be vulgar, Yusuke."

He did a double-take. "Hey, you can't seriously be defending that creep! He literally made a girl cry to earn money!"

Botan started to speak and stopped. She put a finger to her chin in thought before snapping her fingers and giving Yusuke a cheery nod.

"On second thought," she declared, "he did look like a horses' ass!"

"He sounds creepy," I remarked.

"He was totally creepy," Yusuke agreed. He grimaced. "But Elder Toguro was worse, twisting up into a sword the way he did."

But Botan shook her head. "No way, Yusuke. Tarukane takes the prize. He was pure evil!"

"I mean, I guess?" he said—and then something dawned on him. "Actually, you know who was creepy? Sakyo!"

Botan tapped the bottom of one fist into her opposite palm. "Oh, that's right! He was handsome, admittedly, but he was definitely a shady character if you ask me."

"Yeah, for sure," Yusuke concurred with a dramatic shiver. "Especially with that weird guy standing behind him on that video feed."

Something in the way he said it caught my ear—that and the fact that no one had stood beside Sakyo in the anime. "Weird guy?" I said.

Botan had trouble remembering him, too, it seemed. She asked, "Which one, Yusuke?"

"Oh, you know." He paused in order to hock a loogie and spit. Botan and I said 'ew' in unison, to which Yusuke only rolled his eyes. "Oh, bite me. But you remember, right, Botan? It was that dude with the pink hair who kept giggling?"

My breathing stuttered.

… pink?

"Pink hair?" I asked, but the words came out in a whisper.

"Oh, right, him!" Botan said, memory apparently restored. "I'd forgotten."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said. I stopped walking, holding up a hand to call for silence. Botan and Yusuke barely noticed me, though, staring mostly at each other as they racked their respective brains. "What was that about pink hair?"

"Yes, he had pink hair!" Botan put a hand to her chin and looked skyward, lips pursed into a pink bud. "Now let me see. What did Sakyo call him?"

"How the heck should I know?" Yusuke griped. "I was trying really hard to not die when he said it, not playing Name That Scumbag Billionaire!" He paused, though, blinking down at the pavement. "Wait. Was it Haru-something? Ho-ta—?"

The second he started saying a name that started with H, I knew. I knew deep in my gut what was about to happen, truth rocketing right into my face from out of nowhere like a precision-guided missile, totally unexpected and yet—and yet totally predictable, too, the second Yusuke began puzzling out names that started with H.

Pink hair and a goddamn H name.

You have three guesses as to what's coming, and the first two don't count.

"Guys." I barked the word, stopping Yusuke and Botan in their tracks. My glare could surely melt steel when I demanded, "What the hell was this guy's name?"

Yusuke scoffed, taken aback by my snap. "Jeez, Keiko! What's eating you?"

But Botan wasn't fazed. She gasped, one finger thrusting up into the air as a lightbulb went off inside her head.

"Oh, that's it! I remember now!" Shen turned to me with an eager smile, happy to be of help. "I forgot for just a moment, but Yusuke jogged my memory. The man with the pink hair stood behind Sakyo on that video call, but while he didn't talk much, that hair of his stood out—that and the smile." Her own smile faded, trouble brewing in her magenta eyes. "He never stopped smiling. Not even when Yusuke and Kuwabara killed Toguro."

Yusuke's eyes widened in recognition. "That's right. He didn't even flinch when we killed Toguro. He just grinned, didn't he? And he said…"

Botan's voice came in a whispered hush. "He said he enjoyed the show we'd put on and that he looked forward to more someday."

"See?" Yusuke pointed at her, gleeful with triumph. "Creepy as hell! Creepiest of them all! And I sure as shit never want to see him again, that's for sure!"

"His name, you two," I said, foot tapping tetchily against the ground. "His name. What was it?"

Botan shot me a mollifying look. "Now Keiko, be patient. I'm getting to that!"

"Yeah, calm down, Grandma!" Yusuke concurred.

But I was not to be calmed. I was not to be patient. This was big, bigger than rescuing Yukina, and as out of left field as a foul ball. My teeth gnashed and my fists clenched, the sound of their names like crashing boulders in my throat. "Botan! Yusuke! Tell me his name, now!" I snarled, and both Yusuke and Botan flinched.

"All right, all right!" Botan threw up her hands, unnerved. "Now, Sakyo only said it once, so there's a chance I'm wrong about this—but if my memory serves me right, I believe the smiling man's name was Hiruko."

And there it was.

As expected.

A fate-guided missile striking right on target—putting a bombshell bow on what I'd planned, at the outset, to be nothing more noteworthy than an unexpected road trip with a persnickety fire demon.

It's like I said, I guess.

Fate doesn't care about your plans.

Notes:

And thus my April hiatus begins.

Longest chapter yet, I do believe.

The goons with guns, the hallways, the door they went through by the helipad—I have screencaps of each from the anime (episode 25). It was fun pulling so much setting from the episodes and having an excuse to rewatch this arc. I also don't use dialogue directly from the show much at all, so it was neat to use a snippet of it in this chapter during the Hiei-meets-Yukina scene.

So the anime and manga portray the whole Rescue Yukina arc VERY DIFFERENTLY. Kurama and Botan aren't in the manga arc AT ALL, but the anime shoehorned them in for no reason (and depicted Kurama working on cahoots with Koenma to trick Hiei?). I tried to justify their presences in this arc in different ways: Botan went along for training purposes and Kurama went along because he was worried when LITERALLY ALL OF HIS FRIENDS vanished to go camping. Yay, reasons!

Also, the anime has a weird scene of Yusuke, Hiei, and Kuwabara standing with Yukina in a snowy landscape as she bids them goodbye and then, like, wanders off into a blizzard? That's not in the manga. And where did that take place, anyway? Demon World, Human World, what? In the manga the chapter just ends with Yukina and Kuwabara talking, and in the next chapter Yusuke remarks that Yukina went back to Demon World. So, I had Kurama in this talk about Spirit World making a portal for Yukina, just to explain that away. Neither media ever really covers how Yukina got home with any detail so I wanted to address that here.

And…yeah. I'll see you again on May 5th with chapter 67! My hiatus begins today. Wish me luck as I finish a novel for CampNaNo!

MANY THANKS to everyone who came out last week and left a review. Your comments cheered me greatly in a rather rough week (my beloved boss quit last week, as did the coworker closest to me) and I can't thank you enough for your words of support and encouragement: Just 2 Dream of You, the shadowless nuance, atsuyuri-sama, TwilightSin, MageKing17, , Not Quite A Morning Person, Eternalevecho, Trippy Nymph, Unctuous, and Masked Trickster!

Chapter 67: WWKD?

Summary:

In which NQK asks the important questions.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

At first I thought it was the magnifying glass making the kanji swim and dance and overlap on the page of my open book, but nope—as I pulled back from the microscopic words, muscles behind my eyes pulled and strained until I found myself quite cross-eyed. Text dancing, words distorted into so much ash on white paper, I rubbed my forehead and heaved a weary sigh.

Around me, the library thrummed with hush.

The quiet didn't last. As night pressed against the windows arching high above, there came a tap-tap-tap from behind me in the midst of the library stacks. A librarian (one I'd come to know rather well in the past month) regarded me with a smile from behind her glasses.

"We're closing in five," she said with a polite bow. Dark eyes scanned the dozen or so tomes lying atop the long table I'd commandeered when I arrived earlier that afternoon. "Did you find everything you need?"

I glanced at the books, too. My eyes crossed again as if to protest any more reading that night. Words once more turned to nothing, to indecipherable chickenscratch under my strained vision, blurry and bleeding.

Only one word—the sharp and striking kanji for "Ebisu"—swam out at me as legible.

"I wish," I told the librarian.

I gave her back the magnifying glass and helped her collect the antique books she'd pulled for me from the history stacks. I wasn't allowed to check them out, these books. Too old, too important, in-library-only copies of rare manuscripts from the Feudal Era, much too precious for an average schoolgirl like me to take home. Not that I minded, really. I'd already gotten lucky when Kagome got wind of their existence through her grandfather. I'd gotten even luckier when he pulled strings that allowed me to see them. He wrote Kagome and me a letter. We were on official temple business for a historical preservation effort, he'd said. No idea how Kagome got her grandfather to tell that lie, but still. I was grateful for his efforts.

Grateful even though the books yielded absolutely nothing of value regarding Hiruko. But beggars cannot be choosers, as the saying goes—even if I'd been begging for a solid month without success.

Another night, gone. Another library, searched. And another day of fruitless research had come to a disappointing close.

Not that I was even surprised at this point.

Fall down enough times, you get used to failure.

The walk home passed quickly, and Mom called out to me from the living room just as I put my hand on the door to my bedroom, my name sleepy but insistent in her mouth. She sat under the kotatsu, a small pile of clementine peels next to a bowl of ripe orange fruit. Her smile lingered on my uniform. I hadn't had time to take it off after school. Had booked it straight from class to the library when the end-of-day bell rang, same as I'd done almost every day this month.

Suffice it to say, I was running out of local libraries. At this rate I'd have to hit up libraries in Tokyo.

Mom took a fruit from the bowl and held it out to me. "Another late night, I see."

"Yeah." I took the fruit and sat with her, draping the kotatsu's quilt across my lap. The tail end of autumn wasn't necessarily cold enough to justify the kotatsu, but Mom loved it, so out the kotatsu came. "More homework, y'know?" I slid my nail into the clementine's peel, paused, and removed it. "Oh. I took a look at the call-in numbers."

"You did?"

"Yeah." From my school bag I pulled out a packet of papers, mostly spreadsheets, with a write-up on my observations and suggestions on where to advertise next. Mom took the papers and scanned the data, brow rising when I said, "I think the billboard on E Block has run its course, but you and Dad should look over the spreadsheet and see what you think."

"Honey." She put the papers down. "You should be focused on schoolwork, not the family business."

I shrugged, pulling peel off of clementine with my thumb. "Eh. I can handle both."

"Of course you can—but that doesn't leave much room for your friends, does it?" She leaned toward me, worried. "The boys were here looking for you."

My hands stilled around the clementine. "Oh?"

"Sweet Kazuma and Yusuke both. They seemed worried about you. And I am too, for the record." Tapping the spreadsheets with her finger, she said, "You've really been hitting those books. And keeping up with the business on top of that? You deserve a little break now and then."

"I know." A segment of fruit popped free; I put it in my mouth, sweetness flooding across my tongue. "Maybe next weekend."

But Mom wasn't satisfied. "You haven't been avoiding them, have you?" she asked. "Your friends?"

It hurt to look at her, so I didn't. I put another bit of fruit in my mouth and chewed, waiting until after I swallowed to speak.

"I just want to keep up my grades, that's all," I said.

Her voice softened. "Such a hard worker." A hand rested warm and comforting on my shoulder. "Just be sure you don't burn out. Go to the arcade sometime. Relax."

I smiled, unable to help it. Some of my school friends got two hours of sleep a night, naps stolen between classes and during meals. That was how it was in high school in Japan, it seemed. Kids propelled to academic heights, neglecting self-care to appease both their parents and societal expectation. I'd gotten lucky. My mom was so chill, my mom wanted me to chill, and for that I was grateful… even if her concern wasn't always convenient for me.

I'd probably have to lie to her, I realized. I hated doing it, but if it would ease her worries, that's what I'd do. I'd tell her I went to the arcade even though I'd really been to the library again. Maybe win her a stuffed toy to sell the story.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, I finished my clementine. I swept the peels into my shirt, held in front of my like an apron, and placed a kiss atop my mother's head. She squeezed my fingers with a happy sigh.

"Will do, Mom," I lied.

"And give those sweet boys a call, would you?" she murmured.

"Will do," I repeated—but that was a lie, too.

… since when had lying come to me so easily?

Best not to think about it too hard.

I locked my bedroom door and slid down that expanse of wood until my knees hit my chest. A light blinked on my desk in the dark, red blip signaling a voice message left on the machine. I watched it wink on and off in silence for a minute or so, and when I rose to change my clothes, I didn't check the message. I knew who it would be from.

It wasn't that I was avoiding the boys, per se. It's just that not owning a cell phone was extremely helpful when it came to staying purposefully out of touch. Gave me all the privacy I could ask for, really, as I scoured every library within train distance for information on Hiruko. On Ebisu.

On the pink-haired man Yusuke had seen standing behind Sakyo, smile as unflinching as the sun.

No. It was better to maintain a little bit of distance from the boys during my research period. No sense getting them involved. And hey, my single-minded focus on research left little time to dwell on the mystery that was Kuwabara's love life, so that was nice.

Not that that conundrum didn't still weigh heavy on my heart, of course. It's just that the Hiruko thing had pushed it to the side, out of focus, so I could devote myself to what mattered more. And I'm sorry to say that while the Kuwabara/Yukina debacle was a Big Deal, it wasn't nearly as big a deal as what Hiruko was planning.

… supposedly, anyway.

I still had no fucking clue what his intentions were, and that uncertainty scared me more than any breach in canon to date.

Shirt halfway over my head, I flinched when someone rapped at my door. "Oh, and Keiko?" came Mom's muffled voice.

"Yeah?"

"The school called. They said you have a sheet to pick up from the office. Class choices for next semester, I think."

Ugh. That again. My stupid guidance counselor just wouldn't give up, would he?

"Will go get that tomorrow," I said, pulling my shirt down around my shoulders. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Night, honey. I love you."

"Love you, too."

The mattress creaked under my weight when I flung myself face down across it. From under the bed I fished one notebook, then another, piling them on the pillow next to my head in a tilted stack of dog-eared paper and smudged ink. A flick of the finger lifted one notebook's cover. Scans of drawings, hand-copied text, photocopied text, graphs and charts and timelines… a mélange of meticulous research that revealed nothing. Just tables of Shinto and Buddhist pantheons, lines tracing their lineage to broader mythologies like Hinduism and other Chinese religions. Hundreds of tiny details all working together to forge a roadmap—to nowhere.

These were the important things, inscrutable as they were. Even if I hadn't uncovered a damn thing about Hiruko or his motives, this was what I should focus on.

Sitting up, I paged through the notebooks and made a few notes in the margins, recalling what scant little I'd gleaned from the day's work. Most of it wasn't new. Most of it repeated information I'd already found. But all leads were good leads, so I wrote it all down anyway.

That's what Keiko would do, after all.

As soon as Yusuke told me about the smiling man with pink hair, I'd asked myself that question: "What would Keiko do?" I wrote the acronym on my wrist in big block letters during class, staring at that bold "WWKD?" until the characters ran together the way the kanji had bled into one black mass at the library. The answer had come as clearly as the letters appeared against my skin: Keiko would hit the books. Keiko would study. Keiko would plan a logical attack on this mystery and turn page after page until she found her answers.

And that's what I'd decided to do. With a little help, of course.

I set my notebooks on my desk and sat heavily in my chair, one hand going for the phone by the window. Someone picked up on the first ring, and I could tell who it was by just her short "hello." She knew who I was by the same, asking a short, "Any luck?"

"None."

"Shit." Kagome's breath hissed against the receiver. "I'm still on it."

Even with Kagome's connections thanks to her grandfather, we'd both come up short in the last month. I flipped through my notes and sighed, despondent. We'd found many records of Hiruko, or Ebisu's origins, but nothing about the man he might be today—and that "man" was an important distinction. Yusuke said the man standing behind Sakyo wasn't a little kid. He'd been a handsome man, early twenties or late teens, with a braid of long sakura-petal hair snaking over the shoulder of his rich red kimono. Yusuke and Botan hadn't been able to recall the color of his eyes, but even if they hadn't noticed his eyes the color of oceans under bright sun, there was no way a pink haired, ever-smiling man wasn't Hiruko.

But what did Hiruko want? Why was he with Sakyo? And why (not to mention 'how') the hell did he look all grown up?

My finger traced over a photocopy of an old woodcut drawing. A fisherman with a thick black beard cast a line into painted water, cheeks split in an enormous grin.

Ebisu.

This version of the deity looked nothing like my Hiruko, nor like the man Yusuke had seen on that video feed.

"Here's the ticking clock," I murmured.

"The what?" Kagome said.

"In fiction, a story's sense of urgency is called the ticking clock. 'Where's the ticking clock?' editors like to ask." I followed Ebisu's fishing line down the length of the page with the edge of my nail, keratin hissing against paper. "I think this is my ticking clock. But the problem is that I don't know when Hiruko will actually be relevant next." I closed my fist, blocking out the sight of Ebisu's face. "I don't known when the ticking clock turns into a blaring alarm."

Kagome tittered. "Spring break seems most likely."

My fist clenched tighter.

"Yeah," I said. "It does."

I'd recounted the Yu Yu Hakusho timeline enough times in front of Kagome for her to know all the gory details. The manga said the Dark Tournament happens over spring break, per my best recollection, and it was only barely winter now. We had time before we went to Hanging Neck, but even so, days and weeks had passed in the blink of an eye since Toguro's supposed death. The tournament was closing in fast. Sakyo would be there, and maybe Hiruko would be, too. But that was just conjecture based on a video I hadn't seen firsthand.

As always, I had more questions than answers, even after my copious studying.

"We keep looking." The words slipped from my mouth like a mantra, and lord knew I'd said them enough times over the last month for them to be called as such. "We look until we figure it out."

"Roger that," Kagome said. "Call me tomorrow?"

"Of course."

Her voice whipped over the line before I could put the phone in the cradle. "And hey—take a break every now and again, would ya?" she said. "I can hear the stress. Breathe. Go goof off at the arcade or something."

I pulled the phone away from me ear. Stared at it. Put it to my ear again. "Have you been talking to my mother?" I asked.

"… what?" said Kagome.

"Never mind. But sure." I smiled, but the expression felt hollow. "Will do, Kagome."

Another lie, this time to a friend instead of family—but even if I did indeed look and sound stressed, I had no intention of slowing down my research. These were the Important Things, and in my quest to do what Keiko would do, I couldn't allow my concentration to slip.

When the line died I cleaned up my notebooks and put them away, safely out of sight underneath my bed. When I flipped off the light and darkness bathed the room, I pressed my face against my pillow and sighed. I'd lucid-dreamed many times since my trip with Hiei into the mountains, but no matter how many times I called desperately into the dark of my dreamscape, I received no answer. Not from Hiruko, certainly, and not from Cleo, either.

Dread filled my heart the way darkness filled the bedroom.

If only I could talk to Cleo again. If only I could call her on the phone instead of Kagome after a day of fruitless research. Clotho, spinner of the thread of life, would surely have the answers Keiko needed—but unlike Kagome, Fate didn't have a phone line.

And it fucking sucked.

The Meiou guidance counselor one, Nakamura Futoshi, glanced up from his paperwork when my shadow fell across his hands. His mask of polite inquiry faded when he saw me, morphing into a look of barely restrained annoyance. I pasted on my own mask in return, channeling "What Would Keiko Do?" as best as I was able—and Keiko would sooner chew off her own arm than disrespect a teacher.

Not that this particular teacher was all that respectable, granted, but I had a role to play.

"About time you came in," Nakamura said, not bothering to hide the ire in his voice. He reached into his desk and pulled forth a folder, which he thrust in my direction with a flick of agitated wrist. "This is late as it is. Do not have it back to me any later than Saturday."

I took the folder with both hands, bowing. "Yes, sensei. I will complete it immediately."

He nodded, curt and sharp. "Good."

The polite mask I wore cracked as I turned away, but the crack had to mend when Nakamura repeated my name. I looked over my shoulder with the most civil smile I could muster. He just stared, brow knit behind the ridges of his enormous glasses. Around us in the faculty room puttered a few other teachers and students; none of them paid us any mind.

"Yukimura," he repeated. A short, precise clearing of his throat. "After the incident with Hamaguchi, we've been giving you space. We know your trust in teachers must not have recovered just yet." His dark eyes softened the slightest degree. "That must have been a stressful night."

I hesitated, then admitted: "It was."

Truth be told, I didn't think about the Saint Beast incident all that much, and I talked about it even less. I'd discuss it openly if anyone asked what had happened (leaving out the supernatural bits, of course) but when I was by myself, I did my extreme best not to think of that violent night at all. It only crossed my mind in snippets, the most dangerous moments flashing uncontrollably through my head when something reminded me of falling from a roof, or the glimmer of a knife arching toward my face, or blood dripping down the length of Botan's porcelain jaw—

No.

Stop thinking about it.

My fists clenched around the folder in my hands, creasing it with a rustle and crackle of bent fiber. Nakamura eyed the paper with one brow raised.

"Stress or no stress," he said, "you still have to turn your paperwork in on time. You can't check out and slack off after one bad experience."

"Wow. Way to brush off a kid's trauma, why dontcha"—that's what I wanted to say, at least, but I didn't. Keiko might stick out her tongue when his back was turned, but she wouldn't mouth off to a teacher even if he deserved it.

"We accepted you into this school under odd circumstances," Nakamura continued, "but so far you have been a credit to our institution. And after the incident, of course we're willing to extend some grace… but be careful, Yukimura." He almost glared at me, then. "Don't fall down on the job."

It was all I could do to bow and smile. "Yes, sir."

My deference pleased him, I think. He picked up a pen and went back to what he'd been doing before I showed up, grading tests with flicks of red ink. "Have it back to me with your class choices by the end of the week," he said. "We expect great things."

As soon as I got away, I shoved the folder he'd given me into my bag and out of sight.

Not that I was procrastinating, exactly. It's that there was too much going on in my personal life for me to give much of a crap about school. Sure, I paid enough attention in class that day to not totally tank my grades, but wanting to make my parents proud only took me so far. My mind wandered during my biology and history lectures, drifting to Hiruko and Cleo and dwelling on the library network in my city. What hadn't I read yet? Which libraries should I visit next? It was tough not to dwell on my research project, and that alone, even despite my desire to Do What Keiko Would Do, and as soon as the bell rang for lunch I found myself walking on auto-pilot toward the library.

Using the main staircase.

Not the side staircase where I used to eat lunch with Kurama and Kaito.

It sucked, but I'd been a little too busy this month to goof off during lunch, making a variety of excuses to those boys regarding my whereabouts. Not sure what they believed, but I didn't have time to dwell. I walked to the library and reached for the big double doors guarding the rows of books, mentally calculating my plan of attack of the day—

"And just where do you think you're going?"

My fingers slipped; the door fell shut with a clatter. Another student walking just behind me glared and grabbed the handle, moving past with a mutter and a scowl. I hardly noticed, though, shooting a smile toward the two people standing just at the top of the stairs.

"Kaito. Minamino," I said. What's up?"

Kaito looked thoroughly unimpressed by my casual tone of voice, shoving his glasses up his nose with a finger. "Much though I would normally approve of one locking oneself in a library in pursuit of academic betterment at the expense of petty social interaction, we insist you take a break."

"Your mental health is as important as your schoolwork," Kurama chimed in.

Although some small part of me was touched they'd noticed what I'd been up to as of late, I still scoffed, unable to help myself. "Is literally everyone on my case about this?" came my weary grumble.

"Yes," Kurama said, helpfully.

"And don't waste our time trying to argue." Kaito's smirk could cut glass. "With our combined IQ, you don't stand a chance of changing our minds."

"I'd be insulted if I didn't know how damn smart you both are. Fine." Hand waving in helpless circles, because I got the feeling they weren't going to take "no" for an answer and because I was too tired to argue, I motioned for them to lead the way.

At that, Kurama and Kaito exchange a glance I can only describe as "gloating." Those jerks.

As I followed them around the corner and to the library's side stairwell, I stared at the backs of their heads and tried not to smile. It was odd, seeing them present a united front like this—but it was kind of cool at the same time. They had been at such odds in the anime, but now I had to wonder what trouble they could get up to when they really put their heads together. The world wouldn't know what hit it if the pair of them really got going.

And call me a prophet, but I wouldn't know what had hit me, either, once they really got going.

No sooner had the three of us gotten settled in out customary seats (gosh, this felt nostalgic after a month of skipped lunches) than did Kaito start his interrogation. Stabbing his chopsticks into his bento, he oh-so-pointedly turned to me and asked, "So. Indulge my curiosity. What, exactly, have you been doing squirreled away in the library day after day? You're a dab hand at studying, but this is excessive even for you."

Kurama perked up, setting aside his own bento with careful precision. Although he didn't ask a question outright, the razor's edge of keen intent in his eye said a lot. He was holding back an interrogation of his own, I could feel it—but something told me he'd let Kaito take the lead, here.

I'd been skipping our weekly meetings all month, after all.

Kurama doubtless had questions he could not voice in front of our unknowing classmate.

In the end, I decided to meet Kaito's question with a half-truth. "College stuff," I said, taking a small nibble of my lunchtime onigiri. "I skipped a grade, remember? There's some stuff I missed. Gotta catch up before any pertinent exams."

Kaito stared as if to read the truth in my expression, but soon he picked up his bento again and took a bite. Kurama looked comparatively less accepting, however, regarding me askance a few moments longer before returning attention to his food—but I mean, I hadn't exactly lied, had I? The forms in my bag certainly backed up my story.

"To that end…" I pulled out said forms and tossed them onto the ground between the three of us. "That's due at the end of the week. No idea what to pick."

Kurama grabbed the file and opened it, and whatever he saw there didn't seem to surprise him. Kaito, meanwhile, leaned over his shoulder and perused the document with a flick of bespectacled eyes. His brows shot up.

"This says you've tested out of English language?" Kaito said.

"Yeah. And I'm ahead in math and science. By the time I hit our final year, I'll mostly be taking electives." Chin on palm, I rested my elbow on my knee and glared at the forms. "And I have no idea what to choose."

"Isn't it obvious?" Kaito said with a snort. "Play to your strengths."

And at the exact same time, Kurama offered: "Take something useful, to cover places where you're academically weak."

Kaito and Kurama paused, blinking at each other like startled deer while I giggle-snorted behind a hand. Soon Kaito scowled, but Kurama met the look with a charmingly jovial smile. They'd really summed up their academic personalities in a nutshell, Kaito high specialized while Kurama was better-rounded, and their advice reflected as such. Seemed Kaito didn't like being contradicted, however, because he turned from Kurama's winning grin with a huff. Hadn't taken long for their united front to dissolve, now had it?

I giggled again. "Well, thanks for trying, guys." I plucked the folder from Kurama's hands, staring at the pages within for a moment. Records of what I'd taken, what I'd tested out of, which classes were available for me next—they didn't hold my interest in the slightest. I shut the folder. "It's not like it's important anyway."

Kaito cocked his head at the sound of my muttered words. "What did you say?"

"Nothing." I slapped my hands onto my knees and grinned. "So, catch me up. What've I missed, cooped up in the library like I've been?"

Kaito launched into an explanation of a paper he was in the middle of writing, letting me off the hook with his single-minded enthusiasm. It was fun, listening to him, even if Kurama's sharp eyes didn't once waver from my face while Kaito spoke. I tried not to think about why, which Kaito's chattiness made easy. He talked until the bell rang and even until we parted at a fork in the hallway to get back to class—but before I could beat my retreat, a hand closed around my elbow. I took a deep breath as Kurama gently drew me into the shadow of a supply cabinet, out of the river of students streaming past us down the corridor. "Are you all right?" he asked, eyes searching my face.

I just smiled. "I'm fine."

He didn't believe me, if his grimace was any indication. "You've been distant since we came back from Tarukane's estate." Green eyes darkened near to black. "You've even skipped our weekly meetings."

"It's nothing, really," I said, but his hand did not loosen around my elbow.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I can't imagine Spirit World approves."

"It's fine. They'll get over it." I swallowed down a lump of nerves, Hiruko's smiling face leaping to the forefront of my mind. "I just have to figure some things out."

We were already standing close together, but he closed the distance even more. "What things?" Kurama murmured.

"Just… I'm trying to be helpful." It hurt to think of the 'why' behind that statement, so I kept my explanation brief—for his sake as much as mine. "I can't do much. But I can do this."

And then his eyes were all black, dark and hooded and unhappy. "I don't understand."

"I know." I pulled my arm free. "I'm sorry. Gotta go."

I left him in the hallway looking as grave as a cemetery, staring after me with those concern-dark eyes. He watched me go with vision unwavering, and when I lifted a hand in parting at the end of the hallway, he did not lift one back—so I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue.

For a moment, he did not react.

Then his lips shifted at the corners, the barest of smiles restoring the green in his eyes.

Satisfied, I turned the corner and went to class.

I didn't like keeping Kurama in the dark, looking so grave—so worried. But until I had my answers, there was no point in subjecting Kurama to my wild conjectures. He would only try to puzzle them out with me, and he had bigger things to worry about. Toguro would return soon. And then Kurama would need to focus on training, on surviving.

If he slacked off on training while trying to help me, and got hurt because of it… I couldn't bear to think about that.

"So what would Keiko do?" I asked myself. The answer was obvious, at least it was to me. She'd try not to worry anyone and would do what she could to help the team—alone.

Or maybe that's only what I would do, and deluding myself into thinking she'd agree was more convenient than facing the harder truth.

But I tried very hard not to think about that.

Too bad for me, asking "What Would Keiko Do?" is easy—it's putting it into practice that proves difficult. I had taken all of three steps out of the school gate, bee-lining for the nearest train station and a new library of untapped resources, when the sound of my name cracked through the chilled autumn air. My feet stilled and I spun, ends of my scarf flapping on the breeze.

"Yo, Keiko!" Yusuke repeated. "What's up?"

He and Kuwabara stood not a dozen feet away, leaning against the school's wall wearing identical, conspiring grins. Said grins only widened when I stopped and stared, for a moment unable to believe what I was seeing—because school had only just let out. Had they skipped their last class to get here so early after dismissal? The nerve of them!

"Yusuke? Kuwabara?" I said, blinking at them with owlish confusion. "What the hell are you two doing here?"

"Oh, y'know." Yusuke shrugged, shoving away from the wall with a lithe bounce of his knees. "Just busting you out of jail, is all."

"Jail?"

"He means the library." Kuwabara trotted over and peered down at me, concern etching lines between his eyes. "We talked to your mom, Keiko, and I know you're smart and you want to do well in school, but this much studying will make your hair fall out!" He clasped his hands, eyes as wide as they could go. "You gotta come hang out with us today, please?"

Yusuke joined him, slinging an arm around the big guy's shoulders. "Stop pretending she's got a choice in this, Kuwabara. We're dragging her to have some fun whether she likes it or not."

Kuwabara glared, about to say something in my defense, but I just laughed and rolled my eyes. "Between the two of you, how could I possibly say no?"

Kuwabara launched a fist into the air while Yusuke cackled. "All right! We got her!"

I leveled a finger at them. "But only if Yusuke pays."

The aforementioned's jaw dropped. "Hey!" And he advanced toward me, expression maniacal. "Why I oughtta—!"

"Hello, everyone. You're all looking well, I see."

Kurama's smooth voice cut through the moment like a blade, saving me from Yusuke's retaliation (like a noogie, knowing him). He stood behind us wearing an innocent, friendly smile—one I didn't believe in the slightest.

My disbelief intensified when Kuwabara's heels clicked together and he stood up very, very straight. "Hey, Kurama!" He gave a mechanical wave, forcing fake surprise. "Well, I'll be darned. Fancy meeting you here!"

"Yeah!" Yusuke said with more of that same manufactured enthusiasm. His grin seemed too big, too cheeseball to fit on his face when he repeated, "Fancy meeting you here!"

I, meanwhile, shot Kurama an unamused glare. "Did you do this?"

His smile grew even more angelic, touched by darling confusion. "Did I do what?"

"You know what."

"Why, Keiko." More of that oh-so-innocent blinking and smiling, one hand resting on his chest in denial. "How could I have possibly contacted Yusuke and Kuwabara while we were at school?"

A beat. Then: "I hate that you make a good point. But I'm sure you have your ways." I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. "Well, no use delaying the inevitable. What did you guys have in mind for today?"

"The arcade," they said—all of them, all at once, after which they all looked at each other wearing "oh shit" faces. Kuwabara and Yusuke awkwardly coughed into their fists and laughed in nervous unison. Kurama cast his eyes skyward, smile turning just a touch brittle at the edges.

Once more I delivered unto Kurama the stare of a dead fish. "Nothing to do with it, huh?"

He cleared his throat, and he did not meet my eyes.

"… fine." The absurdity of the situation had me laughing, even if Kurama and Kuwabara and Yusuke were being sneaky. "The arcade it is."

Yusuke's face lit up. He started to speak, but before he could, the sound of my name rang out yet a-fucking-gain—this time in a voice only Kurama and I recognized. Near the school gates stood Nakamura, the guidance counselor. He eyed Kurama with approval, but when he caught sight of Kuwabara and Yusuke his expression soured.

"Yukimura!" he repeated, waving me over. "Come here, please!"

"Oh my god, what now?" I muttered, but I pasted on my Keiko Face and obediently approached. "Yes, sensei?"

"Remember to fill out your forms by the end of the week!" Once again he shot Yusuke and Kuwabara a look of pure, distilled judgement; probably recognized the uniforms, and since he knew my reputation for associating with delinquents, I couldn't imagine he approved. He harrumphed and said, "We're being gracious as it is giving you this extension. Do not be late."

"Yes, sensei. I know, sensei." A bow, obedient and courteous. "I'll have them back to you by then."

"Good." He nodded at me, then aimed another nod over his shoulder. "Minamino." He hesitated, then added: "Others."

Nakamura didn't nod at said "others," so Yusuke openly mean-mugged him while Kurama and Kuwabara tried to look demure (though only Kurama succeeded, Kuwabara too big and ungainly to remain unobtrusive). Nakamura glared right back, stomping off down the sidewalk without another word. My mask crumbled as soon as his back turned; I stuck out my tongue, pulling it back into my mouth just as Yusuke looped an arm around my neck. His mocking smile gleamed like a bullet inscribed with my name.

"Well, well, well. Look what we have here," he said. "The great Yukimura Keiko, late on an assignment?"

"It's not an assignment; it's class selection for next semester."

"What the—?" He pulled his arm away so he could get a better look at my downcast face. "Even I sometimes turn crap like that in on time! What gives?"

"Yeah, Keiko, are you OK?" Kuwabara said, joining us with a look of concern. "It's not like you to put off something so… so minor."

His word choice rang inside my head like a bell. "That's just it. It's minor." And for a moment I threw caution to the wind and let myself speak freely, because maybe they could understand even if I didn't tell them everything, and feeling understood would be nice right about now. "Learning all these big secrets about the world, demons and ghosts and whatnot—it puts everyday life into perspective."

But apparently I'd given them too much credit, because Kurama arched a brow and said, "What do you mean by that?"

I gestured at him, at Yusuke, at Kuwabara, but no lightbulbs went off. Helplessly I managed, "I mean. You're off saving the world, and I'm stuck doing homework. Classes just don't feel important by comparison."

Yusuke eyes shot open. "Hold on a minute. You don't think schoolwork is important?" He leaned in close, nose to nose, and glared. "Who are you and what have you done with Keiko?"

Behind him, Kurama frowned. "I didn't realize you felt like that."

"Can we help at all?" Kuwabara asked.

"Not really." I shrugged, a balloon deflating in time with my fading hopes. "I just—I dunno."

"Hey." Yusuke's arm encircled my shoulders again, hanging there like comfort made solid. I tangled my fingers with his when he asked, "What's wrong?"

I hesitated—and then, affecting a breezy insouciance, I grinned my hardest and joked, "Oh, you know, the usual. It's like my life just doesn't mean anything, that's all!"

It was funny because it was true—because I knew I was being dramatic when I said that, but at the same time and in spite of my joking tone, I meant far more of that statement than I'd like to admit. Kuwabara's eyes bugged nearly out of his head as he looked me up and down, stammering a worried, "Wow, Keiko, that's really morbid!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way," I said, rushing to pretend everything was fine, that those joking words had indeed been just that: a joke, morbid and terrible but a joke nonetheless. "But gotta admit that it's kind of hilarious, how imbalanced it all is. You're contending with the Toguro brothers, and here I am worrying about stupid, pointless classes. It just doesn't measure up."

A split second after I spoke, I mentally cursed myself. I'd talked about the Toguros in the present tense, and the second I had, Kurama's eyes had flickered to me with a firework of intense green. Luckily, however, Kurama was the only one who noticed. Yusuke's arm tightened across the back of my neck.

"Hey, you don't have to worry about them," Yusuke said. He flexed his free arm and grinned. "We beat the Toguro brothers black and blue."

"Yeah, we kicked their asses!" Kuwabara concurred.

I bit my lip and scrambled to cover, because Kurama was still staring at me. "Of course you did. But will the big bads of the next case be even tougher?"

Yusuke's smile faltered. He and Kuwabara exchanged a glance, confused and worried. Oh, shit, now I'd put my own worries into their heads. Great job, Keiko.

"Sorry," I said, trying to ameliorate the fear I'd planted. God, I was a fucking mess today. "It's just hard not to dwell on it. It's hard not to worry." And once again the truth slipped out, almost on its own, spoken in whispered words I didn't really intend anyone else to hear. "And it's harder not to think about my future as a footnote in a larger story."

Alas, Kuwabara heard them, for his jaw dropped again. "Keiko! That's even more morbid!"

But Yusuke only laughed. "Heh. There's the Keiko I know and love." He waved his hands up and down, squawking like an agitated bird. "Flap those wings a little harder why dontcha, ya big ol' albatross?"

"Yusuke!" Kuwabara snapped, grabbing him by the collar. "That's not very nice! You take that back!"

"It's OK, Kuwabara. It's an inside joke of ours—and to be frank, I do worry too much." I pushed between them, playing peacemaker with a smile. "How 'bout we get my mind off it and go sing out hearts out like a couple of canaries, yeah?"

That time several fists went into the air, Yusuke and Kuwabara chorusing an elated "Yeah!" as one.

They started to squabble almost immediately about what arcade to hit up, striding out ahead of Kurama and me as they argued and fought and bickered like an old married couple. I trailed behind them with a fond smile, watching them in silence. My stomach buckled with nerves at the prospect of losing a day of research—oh my god, and of hanging out with Kuwabara. This was the first time we'd really hung out since we came back from the mission, wasn't it? Was I supposed to pry into the whole Yukina situation now, or wait until—?

"The Toguro brothers."

I flinched, but it was only Kurama, walking at my side with hands held loosely in his pockets. His eyes cut toward me sidelong, but he didn't speak again. I managed a weak smile, looking back at Yusuke and Kuwabara.

"I said too much," I admitted, voice low and soft. "Think I covered OK?"

"Seems that way." A pause, followed by a mild, "I admit, this conversation has been illuminating."

My turn to glance his way, but I read nothing of value in his calm, collected face. "Has it?" I asked.

Once more his eyes cut my way. "Keiko truly was a secondary character, wasn't she?"

For a second I forgot how breathing work, but soon I laughed under my breath and put a hand to my forehead. "You're too sharp for your own good. How'd you know?"

"A combination of factors." Amusement quirked the corner of his mouth, dry and understated. "Calling yourself a literal footnote in a larger story was certainly a hint."

I winced. "Admittedly, that was a bit on the nose."

"Luckily I'm the only one who saw that for what it was: Literalism as opposed to metaphor." Another hesitation before he said, "I admit I am confused by one thing."

"Oh?"

"You don't seem like a secondary character. Not to me." He nodded forward, ahead of us. "Not to them."

For a minute I couldn't say anything—too stunned, too touched to formulate a reply that wouldn't sound disgustingly saccharine and precious. I laughed and hung my head, hoping the fall of my bangs might hide my smile. It was comforting to hear I didn't feel secondary to Kurama, that he suspected the same of our other friends.

Comforting… but it didn't make it all better, either.

"Thanks," I said when I gathered my wits. I think my smile trembled at the corners. "Thanks, but it's true. In the source media, Keiko was very quickly relegated to the role of side character with diminishing contributions and shrinking importance."

Kurama's face turned my way, but I didn't have the heart to look him in the eye. Gaze trained carefully ahead, I stared at Yusuke's back, green fabric shimmering the slightest bit in the light of the setting sun.

"We're well past the point of Keiko's usefulness," I continued. "Now she's just the supportive girlfriend archetype, and that's it." I aimed a kick at a rock on the pavement, sending it skittering to bounce off the back of Yusuke's shoe. I smiled when he glared at me, saying under my breath, "If I prove useful past this point, it's not because of that."

Kurama stopped walking. I stopped walking, too, hopping a little as momentum tried to carry me forward. Spinning on a heel, I planted my hands on my hips and stared Kurama's way, lip jutting out in consternation. He, meanwhile, looked me over through narrowed eyes, lips pursed into a thin line of confused displeasure.

"What?" I said, fidgeting as he looked me up and down again. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

His eyes met mine. One brow lifted.

"Girlfriend?" he said.

A moment passed. Then two.

Kurama stared at me, expectant.

My face went damn near atomic.

"Oh, for the love of—we are not talking about this!" I pivoted on a foot and jogged ahead, hiding my molten face behind the folds of my knitted scarf. "Yusuke, Kuwabara, wait up!"

Kurama's laugh chased after me through the darkening night air, but to my immense relief he did not push the conversation further.

Not that night, anyway.

Fifteen crashed rally cars and a thousand yen later, Yusuke declared me utter shit at racing games and shoved me out of the driver's seat. "I told you racing games aren't my style!" I protested, but he made fun of me, anyway, and vowed to show me how it was done.

"Yeah, yeah, big man on campus," I said with an exaggerated roll of the eyes, but he flipped me off and revved the engine to drown my protests out.

The lights of the arcade made my eyes water, blinking colors and fluctuating brightness a far cry from the subdued libraries I'd visited recently. Yusuke cackled and howled as he knocked other racecars off the track, viciously spinning the plastic wheel left and right. Kurama watched with open amusement, entranced by Yusuke's delinquent behavior, and he stifled a laugh behind his hand when Yusuke crashed even faster than I had. "Just getting warmed up," Yusuke said by way of excuse, and he fed another coin into the machine.

"So you're not into racers, huh?" Kuwabara said to me. He eyed Yusuke's antics with an exasperated shake of his head. "What do you want to play instead, Keiko?"

"I dunno. I like RPGs best, but…" I spotted something winking with neon pink and bright gold over his shoulder; my eyes probably lit up. "Oh hey. Sailor V!"

Kuwabara followed me over to the game, looking over the bubbly logo and the girly color scheme with critical attention. He didn't seem put off by it, though, which was nice, and he actually looked at the promo scrolling across the screen with a big grin. "Nice graphics!" He shot me a look that seemed too searching, for comfort. It was odd. He said, "I've seen some stuff about Sailor V in the papers but I didn't know she had a video game."

"Apparently so," I said, fighting to keep a knowing smirk off my face. I stood in front of the controls and traced my hands over the buttons. "It's really fun."

"It looks fun!" he said—and he bit his lips, but soon he leaned forward with hand cupped around his mouth. "I know you know her, by the way."

My breathing stuttered. "Huh?"

"Botan told us while we were training her," he said. "Her earrings and stuff? She said she got them from Sailor V, who showed up during the whole Saint Beast incident, which means you must know her." He looked quite proud of himself, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "Figure you were playing it cool for some reason, so don't worry. I didn't tell anyone."

My breathing resumed. I'd kept Sailor V from the Yu Yu Hakusho crowd to keep things simple, and it hadn't really occurred to me that Botan would go blabbing. Bad move on my part. Taking a deep breath, I ran my fingers through my bangs and tried not to look too cowed.

"She swore me to secrecy," I mumbled. "Superheroes, y'know?" I shook my head and reached desperately for a subject change. "But anyway. Since then I've played this game a few times here and there and it's really fun."

"Hey, awesome!" Kuwabara crowded close to the edge of the screen, pressing against the side of the console with an eager expression. "Can't wait to see it!"

"Yes, Kei. Show us how it's done?"

Kurama walked up behind Kuwabara with a smile—a knowing smile, one with just enough teeth to be menacing. Had he overheard our talk about Sailor V? Uh oh.

"What, you don't wanna watch Yusuke crash cars anymore?" I said, hoping a joke would cover my nerves.

"People were staring," Kurama said, tone pleasant. "And besides. This game looks interesting."

He emphasized that last word.

Uh oh, indeed.

Rather than try to fire back, I popped in a few coins and started blasting monsters. I did pretty well, actually, managing to make it onto the second page of the leaderboards in pretty short order. Kuwabara threw up his hands with a cheer as I typed in my name.

"Great going, Keiko!" he said. "Can I try?"

"Be my guest!"

We played more than a few rounds of the Sailor V side-scroller before moving on to other games, Tetris and bubble pop and Galaga flying by in swathes of rainbow pixels and tinny music. Kurama excelled at puzzle games, predictably, while Kuwabara did very well at brawlers, also predictably. I didn't stand out at anything in particular, but I liked playing anyway, and soon the three of us were talking and laughing and Kurama's intense expression had melted into one of nonchalant enjoyment (whew!). I preferred console RPGs to arcade fare, but even so, we passed an hour or so like regular teens—teens who didn't have to save the world or fight monsters, for one precious hour clinging to normalcy like any other kid spending a fun afternoon at a local arcade. Stress melted from my shoulders in the light of those winking machines, and for the first time in ages I found myself laughing without restraint.

I should have known it wasn't meant to last.

We had just finished up a rousing round of House of the Dead when Kuwabara stopped, looking off toward the crane machines lined up near the front of the arcade. His eyes brightened as he pointed, grabbing my sleeve with a gentle tug.

"Oh, Keiko! Look!" he said. "It's an octopus."

And indeed it was, a pink and fluffy cartoon octopus plush with a smiling face and small felt suckers on each of its limbs. It sat on a small mountain of other animals, most of its tentacles resting atop other plushes—so it wasn't halfway buried, meaning maybe I could grab it? Half the time the prizes in these games were slotted in so tight, you could never get one loose. I cooed and pressed my face against the game's glass exterior, hand sneaking into my pocket so I could count how much money I had left.

"Aww, it's cute!" I pulled out a fistful of coins and held them up. "I'm gonna get it. It looks loose, too."

"Nice!" Kuwabara said.

"Kuwabara!" Suddenly Yusuke's voice cut over the din of the nearby games, shouting the name at top volume. "I need somebody for a co-op shooter! This kid's dual-wielding over here!"

Kuwabara glared at the ceiling and scowled. "I'll be there in a second!"

"Not in a second. Now! This kid's kicking my ass and I don't like it!"

"Ugh, fine!" Kuwabara said. He stomped off with a call over his shoulder of, "Be right back, Keiko, OK?"

"OK!" I said, and he vanished behind another game. I turned to Kurama and gestured at the octopus. "Wanna help?"

Though he nodded, he shot the game a dubious look. "How might I be of assistance?"

I pointed around the corner of the machine, to the Plexiglas wall perpendicular to the control panel. "Stand there and tell me when the claw aligns. It's hard to tell from the front of the machine."

I don't know if Kurama had ever played one of these kinds of games before, but he understood what I meant after a quick once-over of the game, noting the clear walls and the robotic crane-claw that ran on a track above the pile of prizes. "Right," he said. He stood where I'd pointed and gave me a nod. "Ready."

I fed coins into the machine until it lit up and the countdown timer started, joystick finally responding when I pushed it forward. The claw obeyed my commands and soon hovered over the octopus, from my vantage point looking pretty perfectly aligned. Kurama's eyes had narrowed, however, so I said, "There?"

He shook his head. "To the left."

I inched the claw to the left, the motion sending it wildly swinging on its tether.

"A little more toward me," Kurama said.

I did as he asked; he held up a hand and nodded, indicting we'd aligned the claw at last. I didn't press the button, though, watching as the claw swung back and forth, back and forth, parabola of its swing lessening bit by bit. Kurama opened his mouth, then shut it, realizing why I hadn't pressed the descend button (and I couldn't help but giggle because I was playing a claw game with Kurama, of all people, and wow, we were strategizing, and if that wasn't the most Kurama thing ever, I'll be a monkey's uncle).

In the silence I heard Yusuke yell again. "This kid is insane!" he said, and in the background Kuwabara yelled a wordless cry of defeat. Yusuke's voice grew even louder. "Hey, Grandma, you gotta come see this kid!"

My eyes tracked the claw like it had hypnotized me. "Kinda busy, Yusuke," I called back, eyeing the timer. Only ten seconds to go, my finger hovering ready over the drop button…

"Well, fuck—c'mere, kid, you should come play with us!"

There came a shout, this time by a higher voice I didn't recognize, and through the clear back of my claw machine I saw two figures appear around the corner of House of the Dead. One was Yusuke, clad all in green and instantly recognizable, but next to him stood someone shorter, unfamiliar for the barest of moments before I truly took in his mop of wild hair—

My hand spasmed around the joystick.

The claw jutted to one side just as the timer hit zero, swinging as it plummeted to the bottom of the machine. It landed on its side atop the octopus instead of grabbing it by its bulbous head; the game made a sad noise, consoling me in my defeat. I vaguely noticed Kurama staring, wondering why I'd just fucked up our game and lost us the prize, but I paid him no mind as he followed my gaze toward Yusuke.

Toward Yusuke, and toward the boy at Yusuke's side.

He had a mop of curling brown hair, this boy, shaved short on the back and sides, and he wore loose athletic shorts and an oversized t-shirt. To Kurama he surely appeared a totally ordinary boy, one of many such boys scattered across the islands of Japan, ten years old and gangly and freckle-faced and short. His eyes narrowed at the boy, taking him in from top to bottom in a long, slow sweep, but soon Kurama turned back to me with confusion painted across his face.

Kurama's eyes, sharp as they were, could not match my own, nor could they understand why the sight of this boy had turned my joints to brittle clay.

Though Kurama's destiny was inexorably entwined with the fate of the boy at Yusuke's side, he was not equipped to feel the electric jolt of recognition streaking down my back. He didn't see destiny writ in the boy's enormous eyes and pouting mouth the way I did. He couldn't feel the swing of the cosmos click into place around us and hold on tight, like some vast claw in a galactic prize game, nor could he experience the feeling of familiarity clenching into tight, hot dread inside my chest. He could only stare at me, and then at the boy, and wonder why my face had drained of color and why my hands had begun to shake around the joystick of a claw game.

Kurama's eyes, sharp as they were, had no way of knowing that this boy was Amanuma—Sensui's appointed Gamemaster—and that he was destined to die by Kurama's own hand.

Notes:

We're back! Figured it was fitting, putting a timeskip into the story that corresponds with my real-world hiatus. And rut-roh. Another character met out of order. Where the hell is this going to go, do you suppose?

It's important to delve into how NQK is feeling at this time. They're officially past canon!Keiko's most useful story points, so the strain of that would be getting to her in bad ways. I hate feeling useless, and while I think I'm good at hiding stress, my friends all agree I am NOT. So of course everyone but Keiko realizes she's in a bad way. I am also a workhorse. Everyone else can usually see me overworking myself, but until I have a breakdown I don't usually realize what's happening to me. It's not great, but it's me! So I hope that came across here.

ALSO: I went to a neurologist! I have migraines. Which… duh. But I have meds now and I'm getting used to them. The meds have side effects a mile long and they're all cognitive delays and stuff about language confusion. I am loopy as hell as I write this. Hopefully it won't impact my work too much, but we'll see.

Many thanks to all those who wished me luck during my hiatus! I got lots of good work done, though I'm looking forward to the next Camp where I can hopefully finish what I started. Thank you all SO MUCH, because you are fantastic: Flaremage, Procrastilove, Just 2 Dream of You, Vinlala, SirisDerp, MageKing17, Han, MikoMouse, Unctuous, Eternalevecho, Not Quite a Morning Person, Sdelacruz, musiquemer, atsuyuri-sama, raeliskey, AnnAisu, Redfennec, sandybeach22, drmsqnc, opalalchemy.

Also I'm going to make a concerted effort to reply to comments after this chapter because I feel like it. Hope that's OK and not weird!

Chapter 68: What Kei Would Do, Instead

Summary:

In which NQK has a decision to make.

Notes:

Warning for suicidal thoughts/mentions of suicide.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

As the boys—three I called mine, one new and unexpected—cooked meat on the small grill set in the middle of our table, I tried my best not to stare.

It wasn't hard. I'd done my staring when Amanuma introduced himself properly, confirming my almost supernatural premonition regarding his identity. Now I merely stared at the coals glowing beneath the grill's metal grate, orange and red and swimming behind a wall of heated haze. Yusuke and Kuwabara chatted with Amanuma at a decent clip while they flipped and turned our dinner. Neither appeared to notice my consternation.

Probably for the best. Just then, I really didn't want to be noticed.

I sat still and quiet at our booth. The octopus toy from the claw game sat on my lap. My hands hung loose and sweaty around the sphere of its mantle, slicking over its plush fur like tires over wet asphalt. Amanuma had won the toy for me in seconds. His eyes had lit up, he'd shouldered past me, and with a smug shrug he'd explained how best to time the swing of the claw to better your chances of winning a prize. Didn't pause a beat, winning that toy. Insert coins, move crane, press the drop button, and bingo. He won. I was the proud owner of a bright pink cartoon octopus that smelled inexplicably of strawberry.

"Here ya go," he'd said, handing over the toy with another shrug—and a grin I couldn't help but return with a shaking smile of my own. "Kinda silly-lookin' if you ask me, but if you like, that's OK I guess."

We were all staring by then, my personal fixation blending with that of my peers.

And now I wasn't blending so much as flying under the radar—just keeping quiet, out of the way as the boys talked and laughed and elbowed each other for the best pieces of beef and pork. Amanuma gamely fought Yusuke and Kuwabara for the food, giggling like mad when they tag-teamed him and wrestled away a choice chicken wing. Perhaps he didn't get the chance to roughhouse with other boys too often. He was enjoying this almost too much, and after an hour at the arcade had come with us to dinner without a moment's hesitation.

"Hey, waiter, we need veggies!" Yusuke called out.

"You, Yusuke?" Kuwabara said with a snicker. "Veggies?"

"Not for me—for Keiko!" When Kuwabara's brow furrowed Yusuke added, "She only eats meat when her parents cook it; duh!"

Kuwabara blinked, looking to me for confirmation; I gave him an afforming nod. Didn't say anything else, though, or volunteer information—not like I normally would have. Normally I'd overshare about my conditional vegetarianism, but not today. Kuwabara waited a beat before muttering a confused "OK, then" and returning his attention to the food.

Beside me, Kurama's green eyes slid sidelong. His gaze pricked my skin like the tines of a cactus. He knew something was up, clearly, but there hadn't been a moment to ask why I'd gone as quiet as the grave at the sight of a happy elementary school kid.

Because that's what Amanuma looked like, chatting with Yusuke and Kuwabara, roughhousing over food with them and laughing his head off when Yusuke stuck a straw up his nose. Amanuma looked happy. Happy and cute and adorable.

It was wrong.

Kuwabara blinked at something Amanuma said. "Mushiyori? What're you doing all the way out here?"

Amanuma shrugged, his wide smile shuttering a fraction. "Came to see if there were any new games." He spoke with clipped tones, like he thought maybe we wouldn't believe him, or feared we might ask questions. "I've played all the ones out near my house and I thought I'd see what I could find."

Yusuke frowned—but then he shrugged. "I mean, sure. That makes sense, I guess."

"You find anything good?" Kuwabara asked.

Amanuma perks up at once. "Yeah, I did! That new Sailor V game isn't in Mushiyori yet, but I've been reading about it in the papers and wanted to try it out. It looks girly, but the graphics are really cool."

"Hey, Keiko's pretty good at that one!" Kuwabara grinned at me. "Aren't you, Keiko? You made it onto the leaderboards earlier, right?"

My hands clenched around the octopus plush, under the table and out of sight. "Uh. Yeah. I did," I said.

"Ah, really?" Amanuma's eyes glittered, kid bouncing in his seat. "That's great! Maybe you could show me the good combos sometime. I tried to get them to work but there must be some trick to it I'm not seeing."

He beamed, waiting for me to explain said trick.

I didn't say anything.

Amanuma's smile faltered.

Yusuke to the rescue. "Of course she'll show you the combos." Yusuke kicked me under the table with a pointed glare. "Keiko loves a chance to show off. Don't you, Keiko?"

Again, I said nothing—but my fingers clamped onto the octopus a little harder.

Yusuke waited for me to chime in, but when I didn't he lost patience with me soon enough. Tossing his hair, he settled back in his seat with a smirk and shut his eyes, cracking one of them to look askance at Amanuma. "Say. We aren't usually in the business of hanging out with grade-schoolers, but skills like yours?" A lofty raise of his sharp chin. "It's not often anyone can challenge me at the arcade. You owe me a rematch."

"Gee, Yusuke," Kuwabara muttered, poking at a strip of pork. "You act like I didn't school your ass at Time Crisis last week."

"And as if I didn't best you at a game of competitive Tetris earlier this afternoon," Kurama demurely murmured.

Yusuke sputtered and rocked forward, booth shuddering a little from the force. "Sheesh! Some friends you two are!"

Amanuma, meanwhile, crossed his arms and put his nose in the air. "Well. As for that rematch, it depends on if I'm busy or not. I have a lot of friends, you know, so I'm usually booked up."

Yusuke and Kuwabara exchanged a look, conspiratorial. It hadn't escaped their notice Amanuma had been playing games alone. "Is that so?" Yusuke said.

"Yeah!" The kid's pert nose rose even higher. "And hanging out with middle schoolers isn't that big a deal."

The fact that no one had said it was before then didn't get past anyone, given Yusuke's ill-concealed snickering and Kuwabara's goofy smile. Even Kurama appeared in on the joke. "Isn't it, now?" Kurama mused.

"And hey, maybe middle schoolers ain't shit, but these two are in high school," Yusuke said, pointing at Kurama and I.

"Even so. I'm friends with an adult, and he's really cool." But Amanuma's triumphant smile faded. "I was supposed to meet him today, actually, but he didn't show up."

Yusuke harrumphed. "Some friend he is."

"Yeah, you sure he's really your friend?" said Kuwabara, concern etching lines across his brow.

Amanuma hung his head. "I thought he was…"

Such freckle-faced disappointment, large eyes watery above a jutting lip, could not stand at this table. Yusuke made a tetching noise between his teeth. "Well, kiddo. It's no great loss." He grinned like a rogue as he caught Amanuma's curious eye. "You met us, right?"

The kid's smile returned as quickly as it had disappeared. "I guess I did!" he said. "And yeah, my friend was really nice, but you guys seem—"

As it was no great leap to assume his older friend was a certain former Spirit Detective bent on flooding Human World with demons, a cold void opened beneath the cage of my lungs, hollow and empty and gaping. My breathing stuttered, chest hitching out of my control, and with a burst of icy adrenaline I slid out of the booth.

"Where you going in a hurry?" Yusuke called after me as I stalked away through the restaurant.

"Bathroom," I called back.

"Must be an emergency!" he said—and although the words were intended as a sarcastic joke, Yusuke had no idea just how right he was.

Because I didn't know what else to do, I did as I'd said and went to the bathroom, peeing for the sake of it even though I didn't have much to pee in the first place. I washed my hands with exacting care and stared at myself in the mirror for a minute longer than was necessary. Only left because a few more girls came in, talking and giggling, so I slipped into the hallway and just stood there. To my left lay the restaurant, clinking cutlery and conversation creating a bright concerto—much too bright for my tastes, light and sound like acid on the eyes and ears. To my right lay a short hallway, darker and much more preferable. Only two doors past the bathrooms, one marked as a supply closet, the other unmarked entirely.

I knew what it was, though: a back door. Every restaurant had one.

This back door let out onto the fire escape three stories up above a dark alley at the back of the building. The restaurant was in a plaza, a three-story ring of shops and eateries arranged in a U around a big open green dotted with benches and fountains. Very trendy spot, though this back door didn't show any of what made the place a favorite haunt of local teens. The rickety metal structure overlooked the tops of neighboring businesses. Whirling A/C units, gouts of steam and smoke, boxes stacked next to rooftop access doors—not a great view, no, but beyond the businesses lay a neighborhood of swaying trees and winking lights. I tried to look at those instead of the ugly roofs as I propped open the door behind me with a brick I found lying on the fire escape; most likely the cooks used it so they didn't get locked out on their smoke breaks. Deep breath in, deep breath out, I tucked my octopus toy under my arm and grasped the railing of the fire escape in both hands. The scent of earthy garbage wafted across my face, likely from a dumpster hidden in the darkness below. I didn't mind, though. I gazed out over the city until my eyes lost focus and the lights all blurred together. When a wind stripped by, cold with oncoming winter, the fire escape creaked beneath my feet. The entire structure swayed the slightest bit, a boat on a vast, dark sea.

I wondered, vaguely, how long it would take for me to hit the ground from this height, but I stopped short of actually doing the math. I knew the physics. I could do the math if I tried. But there was a difference, I felt, between wondering and performing, and the latter felt too morbid for my tastes. And there was no desire in me to die or anything, either, when I wondered about falling and smashing on the pavement below. Just a vague curiosity, a tingle of adrenaline in the palms, as if I didn't trust myself not to toss myself over the rail simply to scratch my intellectual itch.

There was a French term for it, I recalled. A term for that obsession with death, that odd compulsion to throw oneself from a high place alongside a lack of suicidal ideation—but I couldn't remember the word. Had been a long time since I had any reason to think in French.

But I was stalling.

I was stalling because I didn't want to think about what I needed to think about, and because I didn't know what to do.

I had no fucking idea what to do.

This went beyond "What would Keiko do?" Now I wasn't sure what question to ask myself, much less the answer to it.

Earlier that afternoon, wandering behind the boys through the scintillating arcade, I'd wracked my brains for what I knew about Amanuma. I'd gathered every last piece of information I could recall, hoping to arrange it into a mental dossier that would tell me precisely how to handle the unexpected situation unfolding before me. I recalled as follows: Amanuma was a kid, he lived a city over (what was he even doing in Sarayashiki?), he was great at games—and he was lonely. That was the biggest personality trait I could recall, the most important piece of the Amanuma puzzle. He was lonely as hell, and that's how Sensui got his claws into the kid in the first place. Didn't even have to show him Chapter Black to get him to go along with Sensui's scheme, in fact. Just gave the kid a chance to belong to something and Amanuma went along with it, because he was so fucking lonely.

Earlier, I'd wracked my brain for all of that. But I wasn't wracking now. Now I just stared, eyes unseeing, over the dark roofs of the surrounding neighborhood, chest as cold as the wind in my hair.

In theory, I should have taken control of the situation as soon as Amanuma introduced himself. In theory, I should have taken the reins and swung into action and fixed all of this the minute he walked up.

Instead I'd let Amanuma win me the octopus under my arm and make friends with the boys.

Make friends. When he was supposed to be lonely.

What a mess.

What a fucking mess.

I'd been too overwhelmed to do a goddamn thing, when Amanuma showed up out of the blue the way he had. I'd wracked and wracked and wracked until mental exhaustion led to physical exhaustion, following the boys around from arcade to restaurant in a stunned haze, unable to do anything but weakly protest ("Now, now, we can't stay out too late.") when they invited the boy to dinner.

Because what else was I supposed to do? Be actively mean to an innocent kid to preserve canon?

Nah, Amanuma, you can't sit with us. On Wednesdays we wear pink and your hair is hideous. Who am i, Regina George? Christ...

My chin tipped down, viewpoint swinging with it into the dark abyss below the fire escape. I wondered with more clarity what it would be like to pitch over the railing and over the edge, into that dark below. The rail would bite into my stomach for just a second, perhaps pushing a little air from my chest, and then I'd fall. I'd fall into the cold and dark, smash on the pavement, just obliterate into a thousand tiny stars of consciousness and scattered atoms, and cease to exist.

It was almost comical. I'd completely lost control of the situation when Amanuma arrived. Death was, ironically, perhaps the one thing I could control—though perhaps Hiruko would intervene again. I'd smashed my head in once, a car crash as opposed to a flight into the void, and Hiruko hadn't let it stick.

Right. That was the term for it: l'appel du vide. Translation, "the call of the void." That was the phrase I was looking for.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suicidal. There was no desire in me to die. I wanted to live. And perhaps that's what these thoughts were telling me. Some psychologists thought l'appel du vide was the brain's way of reminding you to appreciate life, in fact.

I don't know, really. But damn if a long nap in the void didn't sound appealing, if it meant an escape from the responsibility dogging my steps that night.

Speaking of which: I did not want to go back into that restaurant. So, I wouldn't. It's not like anyone could make me, after all.

I had just sat down, legs thrust between the bars of the fire escape so my feet could dangle in thin air, when the door behind me creaked open. "Kei?" Kurama said.

"Here," I replied.

He didn't move. I leaned my forehead against one of the bars in front of me, octopus toy pillowed on my lap. Its strawberry scent mixed with the garbage smell from the alley, tangy and pungent. No one could make me come back inside, but I got the feeling Kurama was about to try, so I braced myself. Not that I had much fight in me at that point.

"They're wondering where you've gone," Kurama said.

I snorted. "How many constipation jokes has Yusuke made?"

He started to speak. Stopped. Admitted in a quiet, embarrassed whisper: "Four."

"Disappointing," I said. "I'd counted on at least six."

"You make jokes to deflect."

That simple declarative sentence wasn't voiced like an accusation, but in my agitated state it somehow felt like one. I shifted in my seat and grimaced, pressing my forehead against the bars until it almost hurt. The cold empty spot beneath my ribs yawned open like a black hole, trying to suck down every last drop of my emotions.

"I hate that you can read me so well," I said.

"I consider it a blessing." His footsteps, measured and precise, barely vibrated through the metal fire escape when he walked across it and sat at my side, leaning against the railing instead of threading his legs through it. He could look at me this way, head turned to one side with the crown of his head against the bars, green eyes luminescent even in the single fitful light above the door. "Especially when you keep to yourself with such tenacity."

I said, "It's necessary."

"I know," he said. "I understand the necessity of keeping your knowledge of the future secret." Here his voice firmed. "But I wish you would trust me to—oh!"

Kurama didn't quite know how to react when I started to cry, but then again, neither did I. I hadn't expected tears. He hadn't even gotten going, admonishing me, but the tears had started nonetheless. I blotted at them with my sleeve with almost angry swipes, teeth bared in annoyance at the hiccups inflating my tight chest. Kurama offered me a handkerchief, which I took with a growl of thanks. This was more embarrassing than anything, crying out of nowhere—embarrassing and inconvenient. Crying filled the empty pot in my chest with a heavy weight, surging and bubbling, forcing its way up my neck like lava from the mouth of a volcano. But I kept none of my journals in Japanese, and despite a lifetime's worth of speaking such, I knew I couldn't express myself in any language but my native one.

"May I speak English?" I rasped.

"Yes," Kurama said, uncertain.

With his permission, I launched right in. "It's a gigantic clock, the world. All these moving gears and parts, spinning in place and intersecting with only the barest of margins for error, a cosmic spiral of fate and destiny and intention as inscrutable as the whirling stars." These were the words I'd written in private, had told myself a hundred times over, and at their sound Kurama's eyes widened. I blazed forward, unable to slow or stop. "The slightest anomaly could shatter the gears, send them spiraling out of control, hands striking midnight at high noon, fate inverted and perverted until nothing but ash remains." I thrust a hand at the door behind us, handkerchief waving like a white flag. "That boy we met tonight is a small cog in an enormous mechanism, and if the teeth of that cog fall out of alignment, I have no idea what consequences might be wrought. And I have no idea of those consequences will be terrible or insignificant."

Kurama paused, sorting through the English onslaught. "To know the future," he eventually said, gravitas unmistakable. "To know fate—it isn't the gift some assume it might be."

"That's just it. I don't know the future. I know one future. I know one version of fate." Another wave at the door, motion almost violent. "A version that could evaporate if I don't fix what's going on inside right at this very moment."

But even as I said the words, I knew how futile they were. I sagged against the fire escape, fingers winding around the bars with just enough strength to hold onto them—but only just. And then they lost their grip entirely and fell to the octopus on my lap.

"What do you need to do?" Kurama asked.

"Something awful," I said.

I shut my eyes. The next part wasn't something I could face with eyes wide open.

"That boy is lonely," I said. "Terribly, terminally lonely. So lonely he could die, in fact. And for him to play his role in fate successfully, he needs to suffer that cruel fate. I need to stand back and let him fall into absolute despair." My chest shuddered. "I need to stand idle and watch."

Unbidden, my hands pressed into the octopus, releasing a burst of strawberry scent I only barely smelled—because to smell something so sweet when I spoke something so foul wasn't fair. Not fair at all. Kurama didn't move beside me, didn't flinch away like I feared he might at my admission. In fact, he didn't move at all, but that was almost worse. He went utterly still, unmoving the way he did when the moment became unbearably tense, and I stilled, too, to echo him.

"That isn't the Kei I know," he said after a time. "That isn't the Kei who made my mother so many meals." His voice gained a modicum of strength. "That isn't the Kei who came to me on that rooftop and saved me from myself."

"I know," I said.

My eyes fluttered open, giving me a view of the darkness below. I tried not to think of l'appel du vide again. I thought of l'appel du vide again. I thought of having the power to throw myself into the void, and of having the power to refrain.

I thought of Amanuma having no power at all.

"I am in agony, Kurama—because that boy does not deserve his fate." The words slipped out of their own accord and I found myself quite unwilling to stop them. Part of me screamed to stop, to keep secrets, to preserve destiny as had been my practice since I first came to this new world, but the rest of me didn't have the willpower to care. The words poured from my mouth like boiling water from a geyser as I said, "Amanuma does not deserve what happens to him, Kurama. He does not deserve to suffer the way he is destined to. And in the end fate intervenes, and it rights the wrongs that happen to him, but even so. Even so! The cruelty he suffers—" I gnashed my teeth. "And what if fate does not behave as it's supposed to? What if the deus ex machina that saves him breaks down like a clock unwinding, gears tarnished, unable to perform its duty? What if I ensure the fate of this boy's suffering, but I undo the fate of his salvation?"

I looked at Kurama for the first time in a long time, then, for confirmation or condemnation I can't say. He provided neither. He merely stared at me, stricken, back ramrod straight and eyes narrow with… I don't even know what. Worry? Fear? Anger? Confusion? There was no telling. There was no finding out. There was no stopping to find out because I wasn't finished, and if I didn't say this now, there was a chance I'd never say it at all.

And I needed to say it, I thought.

I needed to say it, or else I might explode.

"I'm the aberration, in the end," I told him. "I'm what's different about the legend today. Me, and only me. If things go wrong, it's all on me. I'm the one to blame. The only one to blame. And the pressure of that—"

I shook my head and laughed—laughed long and loud and hysterical, head thrown back atop my limp neck, clutching the stuffed toy on my lap like it could save me from drowning. Kurama watched without a word, and now true worry crept into his gaze. He'd seen me anxious. He'd never seen me quite like this.

"That's why I keep things from you, Kurama," I said, uncaring of how unhinged I looked, uncaring in the slightest for editing myself (a choice I would, perhaps, regret eventually, but in the moment I found I did not care). "I can't put that burden on anyone else. This life I live? This fate I know? It's excruciating. It's excruciating, knowing the choices I make could result in chaos. That by being true to myself, by treating that boy kindly the way I want to, that by being kind I could kill you."

Kurama roused from whatever trance he'd been in when he repeated me words back at me, saying, "Kill me?"

Uh oh. Despite my revelatory state of mind, that had been too specific—too specifically tying him to the Amanuma situation, to the chance of him losing the Goblin City game. With haste I waved a hand and shook my head.

"Kill you. Kill everyone," I tried to amend. "The fate of the world depends on the loneliness of a grade-schooler—depends on him dying at just the right moment in time."

I stopped, biting my lip to bite back the rest of what I'd been about to say. Kurama leaned toward me almost imperceptibly, drawing in a sharp breath that sounded almost like a gasp. I hadn't meant to go that far in my confession tonight.

But now that I'd gone there—

Fuck it.

"Because that's his destiny, Kurama," I admitted in a softer voice, one tangled up in regret and sorrow. "His fate is to die. And he'll be brought back, but he will cower in terror before he goes, and he will live in utter, depraved loneliness until his life snuffs out." My head shook harder than it had all night, hair slicing against my cheeks. "It goes against everything I believe it, to stand by while someone else suffers, but for the wellbeing of everyone I care for, I have to watch him rot. I hate it." The admission cut my tongue like a blade. I sat there in silence, reeling from the sting, and then I repeated: "I don't know what to do and I hate it. I hate it." I looked at him in as much wonder as I did horror. "I hate it, Kurama. I hate it—!"

And then I was crying again.

Kurama took my breakdown very much in stride, with a level of poise that shouldn't have surprised me, and yet it did. He looped an arm in front of my shoulders and pulled me to him, hand tangling with the hair on the back of my head as I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and dug my hands into his school jacket. I owed him a dry-cleaning bill, probably, but he didn't say a single word as sobs tried to shake my bones apart. He only stroked my hair with his thumb and let me cry until I couldn't cry anymore, and when I pulled away, he looked very politely to one side while I composed myself. I knew I'd be embarrassed about this in the morning, but I was too tired to give a damn that night.

"You said that boy doesn't deserve the fate he has been given," Kurama said as I mopped off my face. "Neither do you."

For a moment I thought I hadn't heard him right, blinking into his borrowed handkerchief in disbelief. Soon I lifted my face from the cloth and very articulately blurted, "What?"

"You didn't ask for this life," he said, still not looking at me. Another wind blew by, curling his hair around his broad shoulders. "You didn't ask to be put in this position, responsible for the fates of those you care for. It eats at you. I can see it." And then at last he looked at me. Luminous eyes searched my face, steady and insightful. "I see it gnawing at you from the inside out, day after day. It's a burden you won't share, even if, perhaps, you should." His lips thinned. "It's a wonder you haven't broken down before today."

"I have."

His brow knit. "When?"

"When you found me out." I swallowed. "But it all worked out OK, so I was OK, too."

He considered this. What he thought about it, I can't say. We sat in silence for a long time—and I wondered how long we'd been outside, what the boys might be thinking of our absence. I didn't want to go back in yet, necessarily, but if Yusuke had forgotten his wallet I didn't want him walking out on the check or leaving Kuwabara and Amanuma (or me, for that matter) saddled with—

"You said that being true to yourself could end in chaos."

I flinched at Kurama's soft voice, at his unyielding stare and the way he'd angled his torso ever so slightly toward me. "Yes," I said in belated answer.

"Then let chaos descend," he replied.

I couldn't have heard him right. "What?" I said.

"We welcome chaos. I welcome chaos." His chin lifted, internal decisions—inexplicable as they were—made and set. "Whatever storm it brings, we'll weather it together."

"You don't understand what you're suggesting," I said, because clearly he didn't, he couldn't.

"Don't I?" Kurama said, face composed and cool. His eyes hardened into chips of bladed malachite. "You said your choice could kill me. I do not believe you misspoke. You rarely misspeak. I believe I am connected to this, and intimately. Am I wrong?"

"No," I had no choice but to admit.

"Then it is not even your choice to make," came his simple reasoning. "It is mine."

"You—but you don't understand."

My weak reply seemed to grate at him, for his lips pulled back below his narrowing eyes. Kurama leaned toward me, the part of him that was Shuichi making way for pure Kurama, that demon I barely knew who was all bared teeth and radiating menace surging to the forefront. "Then make me understand," he said, leaning so close I caught a hint of evergreen and mint. "I understand the need for your secrecy, Kei, but even my patience has its—"

Under the weight of his livid gaze, something inside me broke.

"That boy is recruited by an enemy to stand in our way on the eve of the end of the world," I said, "and you will have no choice but to kill him when that time comes, to prevent the descent of an apocalypse."

It was the most detailed thing I'd ever said regarding our shared future, and Kurama knew it. He pulled back in shock, blinking away the wild until the Kurama I knew returned in full. We traded a long look, bald and vulnerable, until he spoke.

"Me," he said.

"You," I said.

"I will have to kill a child."

"Yes." I took a deep breath, one that shook in my throat. "He was a stranger to you in the legend. And if he becomes your friend today…"

"You fear I won't do what must be done." A beat, and then: "You underestimate me."

I winced. "You're not that cruel."

"But I am that dedicated," he said. "But I am the kind of man who does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, my feelings notwithstanding." Once more he lifted his chin, imperious and proud. "You once blamed yourself for my actions, Kei, when I did not use the Mirror of Darkness to cure my mother. Do not make the mistake of crediting yourself for my decisions again." The faintest of smiles ghosted across his mouth. "My pride will not allow it."

"I imagine so." And the strength left me, head hanging atop my boneless neck. I lifted the octopus plush to my mouth and murmured "What have I done, telling you this?" as I drank the scent of its fur.

"You've given me a choice," Kurama said, utterly matter of fact, not at all bothered by the risk I had just taken in divulging the future to him—perhaps he had more faith in fate than I did, or perhaps he just had faith in me, though in the moment that seemed preposterous. "You have a choice to make, as well."

Kurama put a hand on my shoulder. I lifted my head, agonizing though the action felt, to look him in his bright eye. He was all serious, then, no smiles or jokes to soften his delivery. What he had to say booked no room for prevarication.

"You have two options. The first is to do nothing. Betray your principles and let that boy suffer," he said. "The second is to honor yourself, and to do what you feel is right."

"Right for him, or right for everyone?" I murmured.

"I can't say. It isn't up to me."

A million different responses flitted through my head just then. Jokes about the Trolley Problem in real life, utilitarianism's practical application, that Agents, Actions and Ends class I took in college finally getting put to good use. But none of that felt appropriate. None of that felt like it mattered, relevant though it most certainly was. Instead I looked back out into the dark, into the light-polluted sky devoid of stars, and sighed.

"You know," I said. "Sometimes I ask myself 'What would Keiko do?' The real Keiko, I mean. The Keiko I replaced." I smiled at the starless sky, at the void arching high above. "She was kind, the real Keiko, but she was responsible. She was strong."

"And what do you think you are?" Kurama asked.

It took me a minute to work up the courage and admit: "I don't know what I am." But that was the truth, and to say anything else would be a betrayal indescribable. "But she would know what to do right now."

"Kei."

Once more he touched my shoulder. Once more I looked his way, managing the shakiest of smiles I barely felt inside. He matched it with a smile of his own, mild and subtle. A Kurama smile. One he didn't show me often, but one I drank the sight of eagerly.

"Perhaps instead of wondering what the other Keiko would do—" He paused, gathering himself. When his green eyes firmed, he looked me in mine and continued. "Perhaps it's best you ask what Kei would do, instead," he said.

His hand on my shoulder tightened.

"The original Keiko does not have a monopoly on good decisions," he said.

Kurama knew better than to wait around, I think. He knew I'd only argue, or that I'd shrug off the compliment with something self-deprecating. With one final squeeze of my shoulder he stood and went back inside, carefully propping open the door so I wouldn't get stranded on the fire escape.

I didn't move.

Not for a while, anyway.

I'm not sure how long I sat there, honestly. I'm not sure how long it took me to swim from the depths of my own disquiet and stand, to walk back into the restaurant and down the dark hallway, to the edge of the well-lit interior where I could watch the boys talk and laugh at eat at their chosen booth. Amanuma almost glowed as Yusuke ruffled his hair, freckled face beaming from the inside out at the attention he probably felt starved for.

I didn't know what to do.

I still didn't know what to do, even after everything Kurama had said to me—but he was right. The crux of the matter was the choice of being true to myself or respecting canon… and in this case, the two were not compatible.

So what was I supposed to do, exactly?

Yusuke cackled, the sound audible even from my distant vantage point. Amanuma joined in. I heard him laughing, too, even from so far off—and at the sound of that eager laugh, something inside me solidified.

Perhaps it was the wrong choice, what I did next. Perhaps it was a choice that would damn us all, bring us to ruin, make everything about this life I'd made for myself come crashing down around my well-meaning head.

Still.

It was the choice I made—and I made it myself.

I took a deep breath.

I steeled my nerves.

I walked into the restaurant, over to the boys, and back into the light.

Notes:

I recognize this is a bit shorter than usual, I'm not feeling motivated enough to write 10,000 words like I do most weeks.

Also this chapter was dark but I'm OK, so don't worry.

It was wonderful to hear from you after coming back from hiatus. To the following I give enormous thanks for greeting the story as it returned from hiatus. I couldn't do this without you: Just 2 Dream of You, Sdelacruz, Unctuous, Procrastilove, drmsqnc, TheInterim_VectorChronos, eternalevecho, vinlala, Saj_te_Gyuhyall, Tactile, musiquemer, NotQuiteAMorningPerson, MageKing17, BastetTheWritingCat, atsuyuri_sama!

(Also I have a few comments left from last week to reply to, and I will do that later today. Sorry for the delay!)

Chapter 69: This is the Choice I Make

Summary:

In which NQK is comforted.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The star map overhead danced and whirled like something from a dream, casting minute pops and sparks of errant light across the listening faces of Kagome and Minato. Neither of them interrupted me, thank my lucky stars. I'm not sure I would have the strength to finish my story if they did. I'd called them to this meeting in Minato's underground command station the second I'd bid Yusuke and the others goodbye that night—"the others" including Amanuma, the name of whom both of my switcheroo friends had recognized at once, recognitions accompanied by twin dropped jaws and a gasp of shock from Kagome. I tried not to look at their faces while I spoke, much though I wanted to know what they were thinking when I explained my decision not to pull a Mean Girls and treat the kid with all the disdain with which a proper high school girl should by all rights be capable. It wasn't right, I said, to let this boy suffer the way he was fated, even if his suffering was canon, and thus I could not let that suffering rage unchecked—and then I held my breath and waited.

I waited for them to rebuke me—or to wish me luck.

I wasn't sure which way this pendulum might swing.

It felt like a long time passed, even though it couldn't have been more than a minute or two before Kagome cleared her throat and sat up straight. The vinyl bench beneath her squeaked, loud in the stillness of Minato's fortress. Sweat beaded on my neck and rolled down the length of my throat, a cold track left in its chill wake.

"Well," she said. She shot Minato (his face impassive, regarding me with cool detachment) a defiant look, as if daring him to contradict her. "I, for one, think you did the right thing."

I could only blink, astonished. "You do?"

She hummed. I stared, waiting for the "but," for the other shoe to drop—but neither came. My knees weakened. I sat down, head in my hand, elbow on my knee. My palm smelled like the meat we'd grilled at the restaurant, aroma clinging to my clothes and hair. Kagome made the sound of a worried mother hen; I felt her presence at my side a moment later.

"You said—you said, what if you ensure Amanuma dies, but then somehow Koenma can't resurrect him?" she said, arm going around my back like a comforting scarf. "It's a valid concern. But that's not even the worst 'what if.'"

I raised my head. Looked into her drawn face and the tight smile on her small mouth.

"You could ensure Amanuma bands with Sensui, and along the way a hundred new things could go wrong," she said. "Amanuma could die before Kurama is supposed to kill him. Or Amanuma could be angry at you for rejecting him and fight harder, not lose against Kurama at all."

Truth be told, neither of those possibilities had occurred to me—and they were arguably both worse the possibility I'd cooked up, of a missed opportunity for resurrection. The thought of them stilled the air in my lungs; I only started breathing again with Kagome told me to do so, a command uttered with a chiding look and a knowing giggle.

"You aren't the only one who's overthought this," she went on. "I've wondered, too, what consequences all the little canon aberrations will cause in our futures." Her smile, tight though it was, managed to make her eyes crinkle. "You weren't supposed to meet Amanuma now, Keiko. But you have, and you can't change that. When canon has already gone so far off course, is there any point trying to put it back on track? Maybe, in that case, it's best to see where the new track leads, and hope it arrives at the same destination even while taking a different course." Her face screwed up. "But also maybe I'm not making sense."

Minato's brusque tones cut in like a razor. "You are making sense. And I agree." He stood up, back ramrod straight and head inclined just so as his blue eyes blazed. "I will confess I don't like the thought of such a complete breach of fated events. But at the same time, you are the earliest along in your story. This is a valuable research opportunity."

I winced, but not in a bad way (if that even makes sense). Minato's words were a little harsh on the surface. Kagome certainly shot him a sharp glare, but I just laughed and shook my head. "I didn't want to call myself a guinea pig, but I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't occurred to me." Leave it to Minato to see the tactics at play in my decision. "Amanuma does play a key role in events to come, but he's no Yusuke. He's no Sensui, even. I don't think he's as much of a linchpin as some of the other Yu Yu Hakusho characters."

"What are you saying?" Kagome asked.

"I'm saying that if I can test the waters and see just how much canon can be stretched without breaking it, these events with Amanuma acting as my litmus test," I said, nodding at her and Minato in turn, "it could benefit the both of you when your stories kick into gear."

She stared at me a second—and then she grimaced. "You martyr!" The word heaved forth on the edge of an exasperated sigh, her hand tangling with her thick bangs, eyes closing after they rolled.

"You know me. Always looking for a chance to show off," I joked. All jokes died when I added, "Though I'll admit giving Hiruko what he wants puts a sour taste in my mouth."

"And in mine," Minato concurred.

Kagome nodded "Me, too."

We shared a moment of contemplative silence. The Hiruko of it all weighed heavy on my heart—had been weighing heavy on my heart for a month, ever since Yusuke saw him standing over Sakyo's shoulder back in Tarukane's mountain mansion. I'd had a month to grapple with the idea of his presence in my physical world. I'd only had a few hours to grapple with Amanuma's. Perhaps the month of contemplation regarding Hiruko had prepared me to wrestle with Amanuma, because after my talk with Kurama and frantic calls to Kagome and Minato, I'd been able to take a minute to breathe. To think. To slot everything I knew into neat (if not agonizing) categories. Kurama's pep-talk had helped, of course. It had given me some perspective. Waiting in my room for Minato to open a TARDIS-like portal in my closet door had even afforded me time to jot down a pros and cons list in a journal, too, and that had also helped.

My decision hadn't been simple, of course.

But in the end, it had been easy—the way the right decisions all so often are.

"My mind's been racing all night, all afternoon, ever since Amanuma showed up," I said. The quiet hums and beeps of the command center permeated the air like the heartbeat of some great beast. Minato and Kagome watched me carefully while I spoke, Kagome's arm tightening the slightest bit around my shoulders. "I don't intend to throw canon completely off the rails or anything. Too much at risk to do that, but... I don't know. It doesn't seem canon can be kept perfectly in line, either. And if that's the case, why run myself ragged trying to fight it?"

"You've been doing just that chasing after Hiruko," Kagome said. "Worrying yourself to death over breaking canon on top of worrying about him…"

"I'll never stop worrying," I admitted—and that admission took an effort untold. I kept talking with my eyes closed tight. "I don't think it's possible for me to ever stop worrying. But I can try to roll with changes better. I can try a new tactic." I made an effort to correct my posture, to channel Minato's upright sensibilities, force confidence until I felt it inside myself. "Instead of worrying about the little details that are going wrong around me, I'm going to adjust my thinking. Try to focus on the bigger picture." I was trying to convince myself of this as much as I was trying to convince my peers. "The small decisions I make along the way don't matter so much, so long as in the end they add up to a greater whole: Yu Yu Hakusho's happy ending, and the subversion of all the end-of-world scenarios Yusuke prevents."

"Like a Monet."

It was Minato who said this; surprise opened my eyes and drew them to him. He stood with hands in his pockets, the lightest of smiles ghosting across his lips. The moment he drew the comparison, it made sense to me, even if before the comparison had not occurred.

"Exactly," I said. "I think that's right."

Kagome frowned. "Sorry, you two, but a Monet?"

Minato didn't reply; he walked to the long, low control panel dominating the center of the underground amphitheater and began fiddling with the control, the light screens projected above the command station blinking and shifting through a series of images almost too fast for me to follow. I turned back to Kagome.

"Claude Monet was a French painter. He was—" I found I didn't know the term in Japanese, however; I switched to English on reflex. "He was an impressionist. He painted—"

She pointed over my shoulder, eyes widening. "Oh, I remember! Water lilies!"

Minato had summoned a selection of Monet's work, mostly of his myriad paintings of colorful water lilies; among the rotating mass of images I spotted "The Japanese Footbridge," "Woman with a Parasol," and the eponymous "Impression, Sunrise." The saturated colors and broad brush strokes, the sense of light and depth, all so characteristic of his paintings—it had been a while since I'd seen them up close. Not since my past life, actually, when my grandmother had given me a book of his work for a birthday present. We'd loved Monet, my grandmother and l. The memory brought a smile to my face.

"Yeah." I caught Minato's eye and gestured at "Woman with a Parasol." "And when you zoom in…"

He did as indicated, zooming in on the luminous grass at the bottom of the painting—only the closer the view became of the flowers dotting the grass became, the clearer it became that the flowers were no more than smudges of paint, featureless and without detail atop green and brown stripes of paint and the blue background of the woman's dress (though up so close you couldn't tell). Nothing flowerlike remained of the yellow smudges at all.

"Oh." Kagome's nose wrinkled. "It's a mess."

"It is. It's an inscrutable, colorful mess." My lips curled into a helpless smile. "And when you pull back, it's a beautiful field of flowers."

Minato zoomed out again. The flowers became themselves once more.

"Perhaps it's wishful thinking, that the choice I've made with Amanuma will turn out this way—that the mess I create now will contribute to a larger whole I can look back on with satisfaction. But that is my hope, and this is my choice." I shrugged, unable to do anything more elaborate than that. "My heart is in my teeth, but this is the choice I stand by, and this is the path I take."

"I'm sorry—that last part." Minato looked over his shoulder as he banished the images of the paintings one by one, frowning. "The path you…?"

My cheeks colored. "Oh. Sorry. I said—" And I had to repeat myself in Japanese, because I hadn't switched back from English in some time. Rubbing the back of my neck I muttered, "Even though I've grown up with Japanese, sometimes it's just easier to express myself in English."

"Feels homey, huh?" Kagome said, cracking a grin.

I grinned back. "It does."

Minato watched us, smiling, but his smile possessed a wry edge I couldn't help but notice. "The two of you are lucky, to converse in that respect." I couldn't help but note that he changed the subject just then, either, with a shake of his head and a clearing of his throat. "At any rate. What are your plans involving Amanuma?"

"'Plans' is a generous term," I muttered, lips twisting. "I was a bit too stunned to really get to know him, but Yusuke and Kuwabara promised to meet him again next Sunday. I supposed I'll come with and see what shakes down." A moment's hesitation before I added, "I might let Yusuke and Kuwabara guide that friendship."

"And the Kurama of it all?" Minato asked.

"I'm not sure. Still debating the wisdom of telling him he's meant to kill the kid, but..."

"From what I remember, he is not the type to be ruled by his emotions," Minato said.

"No. He's not." But even with that reassurance, I didn't want to think about that anymore. Time for a subject change of my own. "I think my best bet is to let this run its course as an informed observer. Be kind to the kid, but don't try to force anything. Let Kuwabara and Yusuke take the reins. Happy medium between walking away and swooping in like the albatross I am, I guess."

Kagome nudged my knee with her own. "Good thinkin', Eeyore."

"Be sure to keep us informed," Minato said.

"I will," I told them—and I meant it.

Much though Kurama could offer some comforts, it was Minato and Kagome who truly understood my plight, and it was the two of them who remained best equipped to understand the dilemma of my choices.

With their blessing regarding Amanuma and my decision to treat him with civility (such a small decision, when put in such bald term; such a small decision with potentially far-reaching consequences), the night was at its end. Minato walked Kagome to the door of the arcade, seeing her off on her way home, before escorting me to the supply closet where my portal home awaited. A typical drop-off, all things considered, even if the reason for our meeting had been anything but. We'd had an occasional meeting since Minato had delivered Botan to me so many months before, but he'd remained distant since then aside from the occasional and utterly cursory check-in. Minato was never cold (he was too polite to be that) but he'd met all of mine and Kagome's invitations for frozen yogurt with civil declinations.

As I stepped over the threshold of the closet-portal, transitioning from the humid arcade and into the dry quiet of my bedroom, an image of Minato's wry smile flashed through my head. Perhaps I was simply tired of thinking about myself and my own problems, albatross nature desperate for something to mother into distraction, but I turned on my heel with an inquiry on my mouth. I smiled. Minato saw this as he reached for the doorknob and stopped.

"Hey. Quick question," I said.

One blond brow lifted, eloquent in its silence—and at his deadpan stare the mothering albatross wings in my soul closed up tight, looked away, and whistled with awkward nonchalance, nerve lost in the span of two seconds.

Great.

So much for a distraction.

"Um," I said, searching desperately for another topic. I found one in short order, though it sounded lame even to me. "Um—is it OK for me to play the Sailor V games?"

His brow shot up higher still, in danger of melding with his cropped hairline.

"You have them out in public so I assume it is," I continued, well aware I was almost babbling, "but Amanuma is interested in learning to play them better, so I wanted to ask…"

Minato shut his eyes and shook his head, as if perplexed by me. "It's fine. I knew putting them in public would attract attention. I mostly use them to monitor for Scout activity, anyway."

That got my ears perking, lemme tell ya. "Have you seen…?" I asked, now well aware I was fishing.

Minato smiled. "Do you really want to know?"

Yes, no, of course, but also of course not—I knew it was a bad idea to get involved, much though I wanted to. I stuck out my tongue. "Spoilsport."

That got a laugh out of him. "Best not let the wires cross," he said, grasping the doorknob and pulling the door toward him and the arcade threshold—but he paused. Stood there, staring at the floor, until he raised his eyes to mine with a sly smile. "But for the record, captain—whenever you or Kagome play, I'm sent a ping." His smile widened. "Your scores have improved lately."

I grinned back. "Good to know."

It was gratifying to know Minato had a sense of humor, that he could make small, sly jokes when the occasion called for it. He had a sense of humor buried under his dour side, under the side of him trained by duty and honor to put responsibility first and friendship second. As I wandered into my bedroom and sat restless on my bed, pillow held loosely to my chest, I wondered if he would be funnier in German. I certainly thought I was funnier in my native English than I was in Japanese, all my years speaking the latter be damned. That's why Kagome and I almost always slipped into English when we were with each other, why I'd resorted to English when expressing myself around Kurama. It felt more natural. It was a pity I didn't speak German, and that I didn't know anyone who did I could introduce to Minato—

It was around this time I got an idea. Probably the best idea I'd had all night, in fact, and one that suited my internal albatross quite nicely.

Putting the idea into action took a little finagling, of course. A bit of research and some flipping through a certain catalogue—but only half an hour's worth of work, really, and most of it involved shuffling stuff around, which isn't much effort at all when you get right down to it. No trouble at all in the grand scheme of things. Happy to do it, really. Whistling a tune, I trotted down the stairs just as my parents were finishing cleaning the kitchen for the night, last of the cooks and servers bidding them goodbye as they shuffled out the alley door for the evening. I sat at the bar and slid a packet of papers across it with a chirp of, "Hello, Mom. Signature, please."

She put down the steel wool she'd been using to scrub out a stubborn pot and peered at the papers on the bar, eyes brightening a watt or two when she recognized them. "You finished your class selection!" she said. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"You're welcome." I produced a pen with a flourish. "Now sign my life away, please."

"Of course, of course," she said, but she couldn't resist flipping through the sheets until she found what I'd chosen. A quick scan with her brown eyes and she said, "Oh, interesting choice. Dance as an elective?"

I shrugged. "Always wanted to try it."

"I see." A second scan. Her brows lifted. "More literature?"

"It's my favorite!"

"Psych, philosophy…" Her lips pursed. "No more math?"

"Well, I'm just about finished. I thought I'd take the final stuff my senior year."

"Yes, but…" She sighed. "Well, if you're sure—wait." Her eyes widened. "You want to take German classes?"

At that I could only grin. "They offer them on Saturdays," I said, "in place of regular homeroom."

Mom sighed, a little flummoxed by the choice, but she signed her name on the approval line regardless. When she asked I told her I just thought the classes sounded fun, and that since I'd already tested out of more English classes, colleges would find it impressive if I took another foreign language. She bought that reasoning without undue complaint, though she thought French would be a more aesthetic option for a second foreign language choice.

I couldn't tell her the real reason I wanted to take German: I wanted to find out if Minato was indeed funnier in his own language, even if it meant crossing the wires of our fandoms just a little more than was necessary—and I wanted, perhaps, to give him some of the comfort speaking one's native tongue so often afford me.

But of course, Mom wouldn't understand any of that.

It was amazing, though, how eager I felt to complete my class choices all of sudden, when before I'd looked at them as such a burden—as such a reminder of the inconsequential nature of my role in Yu Yu Hakusho. But that was textbook Not-Quite-Keiko for you, finding motivation just about anywhere but in myself. It was sort of depressing, really, how unmotivated I'd been to pick classes for my own sake, but the minute someone else got involved—

Before I could delve into the dark of that particular rabbit hole, from down the hall I heard my bedroom phone ring. I climbed the stairs two and a time and threw myself belly-down atop my bed, glancing at the clock as I threw my course list onto my desk and snatched the phone off the cradle on the final ring. 9:30 PM. Not too late, then, so probably a friend. Yusuke or Kuwabara, if I had to guess.

I was right; Kuwabara's rough voice grated my name through the connection a moment later. "Hi, Kuwabara. How are you?" I replied, flopping onto my back with phone balanced precariously on my turned cheek.

"I'm good, I'm good—but enough about me! It's you I'm worried about!"

I gave my bedroom wall a deadpan stare. "You said two words about yourself. Don't be dramatic."

"I'll be dramatic if I gosh darn wanna, Keiko! First time I've seen you in a month and you ran out in the middle of dinner like you'd gotten sick or somethin'?!" His aggressive voice dropped low, plunging right into the depths of worry. "You didn't actually get sick or somethin', did ya?"

"No, I didn't get sick." Lying to him hurt, but it felt like a necessary evil—as lying so often did these days. "Just needed some air."

"Good," he said. "Kurama was telling us you've been busy with high school stuff, you're behind on some things because of the school transfer and skipping a grade…"

He trailed off, as if waiting for me to deny or confirm. "Sounds about right," I said.

"OK." But he didn't sound convinced. "And I asked Yusuke, too, and he said it's pointless to nag you. If you want to talk about it, you'll talk about it, but not a minute before."

"That sounds about right, too."

"OK. Um." He paused, and then the words burst out of him like steam from a teakettle. "But Keiko—you'd tell me if something was wrong, right? Like if something was really, really wrong? Like if you needed help, you'd tell me?"

My heart swelled. "Of course I would."

"Good. Just—ah." I could practically hear him blushing, rubbing the back of his neck, staring at the floor as he avoided my gaze. "I worry about you, y'know?"

"You really shouldn't," I said, fighting to keep a giggle from my voice (and a tear from my eye, if all truth is being told, because after this night of emotional wreckage this call tugged at every last heartstring I possessed). "I'm a big girl."

"I know, I know," he grumbled. "You've never been the type who needed rescuing or whatnot, but still. I'm here if you need me." And his voice turned plaintive once more. "You know that, right?"

"Of course I do." A lump gathered in my throat. Although he didn't know it, I'd needed this call from him tonight, and I meant every word when I said, "You're my best friend."

"Damn straight, I am!" he said, preening like a peacock. He gasped, though, and made a wordless noise of excitement through his teeth. "Oh, oh Keiko—now don't get too excited, but I've got something really, really cool in the works, and it's not a sure thing yet so I'm not going to tell you what it is, but if it works out the way I want it to, next fall is gonna be sick."

I frowned, sitting up in a tangle of phone cords and bedclothes. "Really, now?"

"Hell yeah!" He modulated his town, clearing his throat and speaking like he'd been called on by a teacher. "But like I said, no guarantees, so I gotta keep a lid on the specifics until I get this more nailed down. Don't want to disappoint you if it doesn't work out, y'know?"

"Well, color me intrigued. I will wait with bated breath." And speaking of waiting and bated breath—mine suddenly hitched. Speaking quickly lest my courage fail me, I clenched my fist around the phone and said, "Say, Kuwabara—I never did follow up with you about your mission for Spirit World. The rescue mission in the mountains?" A deep breath, bracing and cool. "How'd that go for you?"

"How'd that go?" he repeated, incredulous. "Yusuke said he and Botan filled you in."

"They did. But I never got your side of it before the school stuff swallowed me whole." I did my best to sound casual, but interested, encouraging him to talk. "Anything you want to talk about? Anything exciting Yusuke probably forgot to mention?"

"He would forget to mention if I did something badass, wouldn't he?" Kuwabara groused—and yet he sighed. "But no, not really. Mission went off without a hitch."

There followed a pause.

"Though I did meet someone pretty nice," he said.

He didn't say it in an overly excited way. No yelling or screeching or babbling—but his voice brightened a tough, lifting a little, and my heart quickened in response. I sat up straighter on my bed, free hand winding tight into the spiral cord of my phone.

"Oh?" I said.

"Yeah—the girl we rescued? Yukina? She was really sweet!" He spoke with that same eager brightness as before, though still not yelling or anything. "Healed us right up after we fought those asshole Toguro brothers."

I waited for him to go on. He didn't. "She sounds great," I supplied, hoping it might spur him on.

"She was!" he agreed, and he heaved an annoyed sigh. "Too bad she had to go back to her home world, y'know? I got the feeling she would have fit right in, and—hold on a second." Something rustled against the receiver, and although muffled I heard him bellow, "Shizuru, I'm on the phone! Wait, what the, no no wait I'm sorry stop wait—"

A thump and a thud and a screech later, the line buzzed. Something crackled, and a new voice filtered through the rough connection.

"Sorry, Keiko," said Shizuru, "but my baby brother has a test tomorrow and social hour is hereby over."

The words sounded as desperate as I felt. "Shizuru, wait—!"

"Sorry, kiddo, but I'm pulling rank," she said, unimpressed. "He'll see you when he sees you."

"We were only talking for five minute, sis, why do you have to be such a—" Kuwabara yelled from somewhere in the distance, but his protests did him no good.

A moment later, the line went quite dead.

I pulled the phone from my face and stared at it, disgruntled (and also more than a little pissed at Shizuru, who would suffer my wrath at an unknown point in the near or distant future; my vengeance would not be denied and time would play no role in its deliverance). If only I'd been able to talk to Kuwabara a little longer, I could have pulled more out of him about Yukina—more than the warm but not gushing enthusiasm he'd displayed over the phone. He'd seemed happy about her, sure, but nothing like the exuberance he'd displayed in the anime. This reaction of him was ambiguous. Much too ambiguous for my tastes, and I had no idea what to make of it. It was possible he'd been playing it cool for my benefit, or maybe since Shizuru had been nearby, but…

I was really, really looking forward to seeing the pair of them together at the Dark Tournament, that was for sure.

Sighing, I swung my legs off my bed and put the phone back in its cradle. My course schedule packet had come un-paperclipped when I threw it on my desk; I gathered up the papers and tapped the bottom of them on the surface of the table a few times, securing the top of them with the clip before filing them carefully away inside my school bag. Wouldn't the guidance counselor be surprised when I turned them in early instead of late, or barely under the deadline. I lifted my face to the window to practice my best Keiko Smile, the one I'd wear when his jaw dropped and he stammered out that he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. Lots of teeth would be necessary, but not so many that I looked aggressive, and I'd want my eyes to glitter just so—

Two brown eyes did not stare back at me from the window pane.

Instead, two luminous red orbs of fire glared back at me from beyond the glass, reflecting the light of my lamp like coals burnings in the darkness beyond.

I screeched, of course, because that is what I do when I'm frightened out of my own damn skin, and then a purple glow appeared above and between the red sparks and my window slid open with a rattle. "Meigo," Hiei said as he slid onto my desk and hopped lithely to the floor. "What in the world were you doing just now?"

I didn't dignify that question with an answer, because I was on the other side of the room backed all the way up against my bedroom door with my hand over my heart. "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, Hiei, you fucking scared me!" I said.

He glared, because he was Hiei, and Hiei glares a lot. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded.

"What kind of question is that?"

More glaring, this time accompanied by a sneer and a look that said I must be the stupidest person alive. "You skipped our meeting," he said, like it was obvious.

And yeah—I had skipped our meeting today, so I could go meet with the other Switcheroo Characters at Minato's arcade. But the thing was, I'd left a note on my window for Hiei to find when he inevitably wondered where I'd gone. "Did you see my note?" I asked, mimicking his it-was-obvious-and-you're-an-idiot tone of voice.

"Yes. And I found it…" He raised his nose so he could look at me down its length. "… insufficient."

I glowered. "You mean you're hungry."

An overstated roll of the eyes. "Your deductive powers never cease to amaze."

"Ugh, fine." I went to my closet, grabbed a coat, and headed for the window. "I could do with a snack, anyway. C'mon."

Hiei followed me out of the window and onto the roof without complaint, seemingly triumphant that I hadn't insisted we use a proper door. I didn't want my parents asking where I was going this time of night, was the thing, and I didn't want them asking why I hadn't eaten dinner; too hard to explain I hadn't had the stomach for food during dinner with the boys, nerves making it impossible to eat. But I felt calmer now, and at the mention of food my belly had buckled with a pang of insistent hunger. Hiei leapt into the night and vanished as I shimmied down the drainpipe and into the alley; he reappeared at my side a moment later, trailing behind me as I led him from the dark side street and into the neighborhood beyond.

Fortunately for Hiei, even though my parents' flagship restaurant had closed for the night, they had a fleet of mobile foodtrucks open into the wee hours of the night that were still bustling. The cook manning the nearest one served up my favorite veggie version of their ramen on the house, happily giving my "charming goth friend" (first word spoken with ample sarcasm) a helping of pork ramen, too, once I told him what Hiei liked. Hiei didn't say anything, just glared, and practically inhaled his meal as we stood at the cart to eat.

"Good, huh?" I asked.

He slurped up noodles and shot me A Look of Significance. "Not as good as usual," he said, but that didn't stop him from taking another enormous bite.

I wasn't sure if I should be flattered the he preferred my parents' cooking, or if I should be glad the cook heading up this cart was too busy with another customer to overhear the indirect insult. Soon the cook swung back over to ask how we were.

"Think you'll get dessert after this?" he asked.

"Maybe," I said.

"Try the crepe place off 7th and 42nd," he said. "Better n' ice cream on a night like this, that's for sure."

Ice cream, huh.

Now there was an idea.

The night had turned chilly, ramen a perfect choice to keep me warm on our outing. I'd been wearing gym shorts when we'd left, forgetting to change into pants when Hiei had demanded food and a trip outside. As we walked away from the ramen cart, I shoved my hands deep into my jacket pockets and sighed. Full belly, nice and warm, only my legs felt cold as we slowly walked back home, two Keiko-flavored popsicles carrying the rest of me through the night. I giggled at the imagery, earning an annoyed look from Hiei, so I stopped—but thinking about popsicles reminded me of ice cream again.

"You in the mood for dessert?" I asked.

Hiei scowled.

I wasn't sure if that was a yes or not, but he didn't protest when I steered us in the direction of an ice cream parlor nearby. I stopped outside of its big plate glass windows and nodded at the colorful awning, the counter with its many tubs of ice cream being scooped onto cones by servers in paper hats. Hiei narrowed his eyes at it, staring at my smiling self with outright suspicion. I couldn't keep a grin off my face, expression as bright and happy as the yellow awning hanging above the shop's door. I vaguely wondered how they stayed open this time of year, but I guess ice cream is a favorite no matter the season.

I jerked my head toward the shop. "You ever had this before?" I asked.

Another of his 'are you stupid' expressions. "Yes," Hiei said, hands shoving almost violently into his pockets. "Why?"

I'm a little ashamed to admit I was disappointed I wouldn't get to introduce him to ice cream, but then again, he'd known about record players; this shouldn't have surprised me. "So it's called…?" I said, trailing off so he could finish the sentence… and hopefully with the phase 'sweet snow.'

Hey. What can I say? I'm a trashy fangirl at heart, through and through.

But Hiei surprised me again.

"What are you on about?" he said, head tossing like a defiant horse. "It's ice cream, Meigo. It says so on the damn sign. I'm no idiot, and I can read." He turned away, slouching in his dark cloak. "And I don't care for ice cream, anyway."

That last statement struck me momentarily dumb. "You—you don't?" I managed to blurt when I found my voice.

"Of course not," he spat. "Pointless human invention. Absolutely useless." He looked at me over his shoulder, baleful and accusatory. "Nothing that cold has the right to taste good."

For a minute, it was all I could do to stare, slack-jawed… and then it hit me.

Holy shit—Hiei got tossed off a goddamn ice island by a bunch of ice demons. He associated cold with bad, with rejection, with pain. Why in the fucking hell would he like ice cream, of all things? It took something he hated and combined it with a good taste, making a mockery of his long and deeply held associations, and—

Well, then.

No wonder he didn't care for ice cream overmuch, let alone have a cutesy name for it like "sweet snow."

I put a hand to my forehead with a laugh, chiding myself for this mistake. "Y'know, you're right," I said. Hiei eyed me with suspicion, so I offered him a shrug and an apologetic smile. "And besides. It's too cold outside for ice cream, anyway." I walked past him and latched onto the arm of his cloak, dragging him after me down the street. "C'mon. Let's head over to that crepe place we heard about."

He wrenched his arm out of mine with a snarl of protest, but nonetheless he dogged my steps down another street, and then another, until we found the crepe place the cook had mentioned. Hiei seemed to like the crepes, though I didn't get him the sweetest one on the menu (he wasn't the biggest fan of sweets, I'd learned, though he didn't hate them or anything, preferring when something acidic cut the sweetness; Yusuke was the real sugar fiend of our friend group). We sat outside on the curb to eat, consuming the baked goods in silence that wasn't… it wasn't bad, I guess. Hiei wasn't the silent statue fanfiction often made him out to be, but he still wasn't a man prone to pointless chatter, either, and in this moment, we both felt content to eat.

When we finished, however, I felt I had something to say.

"Sorry I've been skipping our meetings," I said.

Hiei looked at my askance, mid-bite and only mildly interested in what I had to say. In the past month I'd attended our meetings as scheduled, but I'd left early and skimmed library books during them, distracted by my Hiruko research. Wasn't sure if Hiei had noticed, though of course he'd noticed when I failed to show up at all. That had to count for something in this odd friendship of ours, I decided.

"Just… I've been busy." I shrugged, crumpling my crepe's wrapped in my fist. "But I think things are going to calm down a bit, so… meetings are back on, as scheduled."

Hiei harrumphed, took a bite, and chewed. "Good," he said once he swallowed. "You've been on the verge of implosion since we returned from the mountains."

I blinked, taken aback. "You noticed?"

"How could I not?" he said, annoyance grating in his harsh voice. "Even when you show up to our meetings, you're a thousand miles away. It's not like you. It's irritating." Another bite, this one vicious, all gnashing teeth and clacking jaw. Through a full mouth he muttered, "You haven't even pestered me about my parting from Yukina."

Gently, carefully, I smoothed the edges of my gym shorts.

Gently, carefully, I kept a devious grin from appearing on my face.

Gently, carefully, I asked, "Do you want me to pester you about your parting from Yukina?"

Hiei went stock-still, fingers tightening around his crepe.

"Because the fact that you brought it up," I oh-so-primly suggested, "makes it seem as though, perhaps, you want me to pester you about your parting from Yukina."

His fist completely clenched, crepes smushing into paste under his hand. "Utter garbage," Hiei snarled.

"I can pester you about it if you want me to, Hiei," I said, face as innocent as a newborn lamb's. "I'd be happy to do that for you, if that's what you way."

"Don't be ridiculous." The crepe fell to pieces, pattering onto the pavement in a chocolatey shower. Hiei turned toward me with a glower that could melt stone, though under its glaring heat my angelic smile remained unmoved. "That is not what I want and you are perfectly aware of it, Meigo."

I lifted a hand. Placed it on his shoulder. Smiled at him as a mother might, with understanding and unconditional affection. His did a double take between my face and my hand as I very sweetly told him, "Any time you want to talk about your feelings, Hiei, please know that I am here for you—"

His face turned as crimson as the strawberries lying squished and uneaten on the ground below. "Be quiet you annoying wench!" Hiei snarled, and in a flash of black and a rush of hot air he disappeared from sight.

I couldn't keep up the charade any longer. As soon as he disappeared, leaving my hand to clutch nothing but empty air, I fucking lost it. My head hung on a boneless neck between my knees as I guffawed, a rich and true belly laugh bubbling from my gut and between my lips, a cackle soaring after him into the dark of the night like—like a bird after a bug? Something. A metaphor escaped me, but surely it would involve an albatross.

"Love you, too, Hiei," I wheezed between my laughed. "See you next week, you little shit."

As I got up to walk home (and to pick up Hiei's litter), it occurred to me that this night—every last part of it, really—hadn't gone as expected. First my research had been interrupted, and then Amanuma had arrived, and then I'd had the frankest talk with Kurama yet, and then I'd been given the random support of Kuwabara, and the unexpected gift of laughter from Hiei had dumped itself onto my laugh… and that laughter was certainly the last thing I'd expected after such a harrowing evening.

The last thing I'd expected, but probably the thing I'd needed most.

Truth be told, each in their own way, all of the boys had come through for me that night. Yusuke had advised Kuwabara from a distance on how best to support me, and doubtless Yusuke had been behind the trip to the arcade in some form or fashion. Kurama had given me the strength I'd needed to make a hard decision, and a reminder of my principles when I had lost my perspective of them. Kuwabara had been there for me, too, a reminder that I was loved and valued in a dark moment, and of course Hiei had swooped in like a weird goth bat and made me laugh like a hyena, in his own way providing support he didn't know I needed.

None of them knew it, but these tiny gestures added up in enormous ways. Alone, I could only do so much, but with them behind me, I felt I could do anything. I only hoped that everything worked out, and that the choices they gave me the strength to make—the choices I made as Kei, and not merely as Keiko's replacement—turned out for the best. For all of us.

I could only hope that these early days were the painful, madcap strokes of a fledgling Monet, and that in the end they would come together to form a beautiful image coherent—and not a portrait of the havoc I feared my choice my wreak.

Notes:

Yesterday was… a clusterfuck. 10 hours in the car with my parents. They were less than pleasant ("People with mental illnesses are prone to violence and therefore we can't trust you anymore, Star Charter, since you recently disclosed your anxiety disorder to us," is about the gist of what they said—what a load of horse shit that was). This chapter is late because I was basically just too exhausted to function, let alone write. But here we are, and I hope you enjoyed what I managed to produce today.

Writing it was the best part of my weekend, hands down. Thanks for abiding the sort of fluffiness after last week, but it cheered me up, and that was nice.

These next few chapters are going to be a bit of a montage that show the passage of time leading up to the kick-off of the Dark Tournament, which canonically happens during Spring Break (late March in Japan). Stay tuned. I'm not interested in writing reams of filler but there are a few necessary scenes to cover before the Dark Tournament gets underway. Will endeavor to make them speedy.

Thanks to everyone who commented last week: Atsuyuri-sama, Not Quite a Morning Person, Angelfish 1214, Vinlala, fox lover, Sun Shark, musiquemer, Bastet the Writing Cat, Mage King 17!

Chapter 70: Happy Death Day

Summary:

In which NQK dispenses some advice and shows off her baking skills.

Notes:

In Japan, most schools have school on Saturday, but it's a half day devoted to homeroom stuff like cleaning (or so I've read). It's briefly mentioned here.

This contains a brief reference to a Japanese cryptid called a tsuchinoko, which is featured in Lucky Child's Inuyasha side-story crossover, Daughters of Destiny. So just know that NQK's little references to that are in regards to that story.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Like the subject of an impressionist painting, my new reality came into focus one brush stroke at a time.

The first image to swim into view took the form of Amanuma.

He became a fixture at the local arcade slowly, at first showing up twice a month, then once a week, then twice a week as time slipped by and fall turned decidedly to winter. Yusuke and Kuwabara enjoyed the kid, mostly because he represented a chance for them to show off—an audience for whom they could posture and pose, and one who provided them rapt attention and a constant source of wide-eyed (though he tried to hide it) fascination. Although we were only three years older than Amanuma, I'm sure we looked quite mature in his eyes. Teenagers always looked like adults when I was a kid (or they had in my past life, anyway) and I was certain the same held true for Amanuma. He certainly giggled and laughed at Yusuke and Kuwabara's antics with genuine glee, even if he followed that laughter with a snotty comment or two and then whupped the older boys' asses at video games. The boys took that in stride, though, and each of them was good at their respective games of choice (racing and platformers for Kuwabara, beat-em-ups and shooters for Yusuke), providing Amanuma with enough challenge to keep him interested during their weekly meetups.

I was there, too, but I wasn't good enough at any of the games to really factor in.

Not that they ignored me when I tagged along at the arcade, mind you. I came to the prescribed meetings as scheduled and was greeted warmly—but mostly by Kuwabara and Yusuke. Amanuma eyed me askance most days, calling me the formal "Yukimura" instead of my given name, and addressed Yusuke and Kuwabara more than he did me. I understood why. That first night, when we'd met, I hadn't been the most social or affable of people. It was no wonder he was more drawn to the exuberant Yusuke and Kuwabara, who were better at arcade games, besides. And when Kurama came around (maybe only twice a month, friendly but not oppressive, likely to maintain some degree of distance between himself and the child he might someday be forced to slay), Amanuma went nuts. Kurama was brilliant at puzzle and strategy games, and when Amanuma had all three of the older boys in attendance, he looked happy as a clam. Far happier than when it was just me around.

Plus, they were dudes.

Amanuma was 11. Mature for his age, sure, but still: 11 years old. Something told me he wasn't quite sure girls did not, in fact, carry cooties (nor that cooties were just made up and couldn't actually kill him if he touched a girl). He was never mean to me or anything, but he just wasn't warm. It was easier for him to look up to the boys, who welcomed him with open arms, and to merely tolerate me, who had been standoffish toward him at first blush. Kid was lonely, after all. Why would he risk cozying up to me when I'd been cold toward him? He wasn't the type to risk rejection like that, or so it seemed to me.

Part of me was happy about his apparent decision to keep his distance, frankly. Much though I had resolved to cure Amanuma's loneliness, I had likewise decided to let Yusuke and Kuwabara take point on said intervention, watch from afar while they befriended the lonely little boy and keep myself mostly out of it, an observer as opposed to active participant. Amanuma wasn't not a fan of mine, but we weren't super-duper buddies, either, and that felt comfortable to me.

Too bad for me, my albatross tendencies are hard to keep in check.

Especially when I find myself alone with terminally lonely little boys.

One Saturday in late November, I headed over to the arcade alone after my half day at school. Kurama and I had parted at the school gate (he had promised to go grocery shopping with his mother and would be skipping this arcade venture) and I made my way to the arcade alone. The rest of the boys would be meeting me there.

And the boys were late—two of them, anyway. And the most inconvenient two of the bunch, at that.

I found Amanuma standing by a racing game, idly dropping coins from one hand into the other in a clinking silver stream. He saw me from the corner of his eye and turned, not quite able to keep his face from falling. I raised one hand in an awkward wave, hoping the blinking multicolored lights of the surrounding games would cover the anxiety most certainly etched into my features. "Hey," I said—and as the word left my mouth, and as I noticed that look in his eye, I realized the reason for his expression. I took a deep breath; the arcade was warmer than the cold day outside, air perfumed with the scent of carpeting and the singed filaments of hot video games. "So they're not here yet, huh?"

"No." Amanuma shifted from sneaker to sneaker, his mop of hair not quite hiding his searching eyes. "Haven't seen 'em."

No wonder he'd looked disappointed when I walked up alone. I tried on a conciliatory smile, but his expression didn't change. "Running late, I'm guessing. Probably had to clean the bathrooms or something." I rolled my eyes. "Extra chore for cutting up in class, knowing them."

"Oh. Well." He looked only slightly placated, but nevertheless he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Wanna play Street Fighter?"

"Sure."

It was awkward, just the two of us, but I let Amanuma take the lead as I secretly wished all manner of unpleasantness onto Yusuke for putting me through this hell. We queued up the game and chose our characters before pummeling the crap out of each other, and of course Amanuma got the better of me in minutes. I got the sense he was even going easy on me; he looked less than pleased by my performance, tiny face barely clearing the top of the game's control panel, frown turning down the corners of his small mouth.

"You're good at blocking," he observed as he fed more coins into the machine, "but you really need to learn better combos. Watch how I—"

The kid had good sportsmanship; I'll give him that much. He taught me a few combos during our next round, not bothering to hit my character and letting me attack him to get a feel for stringing hits together. Amanuma liked being challenged, and he didn't see the point in playing a game that ended in an easy win. Made sense why he liked Sensui, who was good at games, and why he'd taken a shine to Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Kurama, who could give him a good show if they chose the right game. Me, though? I stood zero chance at beating him at… well, anything.

As Amanuma beat my character to a pulp, however, looking satisfied when I managed to pop off a round of combos he'd taught me, I found myself smiling. Normally I was rather competitive. Normally it would bother me to play a game I knew full well I'd lose—but for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on, I didn't mind so much just then.

"Say, Amanuma."

As the victory screen played, declaring him the winner of the round, he glanced up. "Hmm?"

"Sorry I'm not very good at this."

He looked back at the screen with a shrug. "It's OK. I'm used to it." A countdown began, signaling the start of the next round. "Not too many people can really challenge me, anyway."

"Is that so?" I said. "I think I remember you saying you had a friend who could."

He didn't take his eyes off the screen; the round had begun, and he maneuvered his character swiftly into striking distance. "A friend who could…?" he asked.

"A friend who could challenge you—oh, wait, dangit!"

The conversation had to stop—not because of Amanuma, who could have easily kept talking while playing, but because I couldn't keep up the dialogue when my hands were busy on the controls. Incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, that's me. Amanuma won the series of battles (of course he did) but after his earlier instructions, the score this time around wasn't as pitiful to behold. I barely noticed, though, even if Amanuma looked at it with undisguised pride.

"The day we first ran into you, you said you were meeting someone who was good at games, and then he ditched," I said. "Whatever happened to him, anyway?"

Amanuma frowned, leaning an elbow against the Street Fighter console. "You remember that?" he said, face screwing up in consternation.

I tapped my temple with a knuckle. "I've got a weird memory. Can't remember anything I've got planned this week without my day planner, but I could probably remember what you ordered for dinner that night we met."

It wasn't a bluff—I had a shit head for dates and appointments but a strong biographical memory, an attention to little details like meals and outfits and snippets of past dialogue. Drove my past life family and friends nuts, though remembering what I'd worn when I met someone was a nice party trick. Amanuma certainly seemed to think so.

"Really?" He looked interested in something I had to say, for once, almost eager when he asked, "What did I order?"

"Let's see…" I thought about it, hand on my chin. I ventured, "Buckwheat noodles and pork belly?"

His face screwed up as he tried to recall the meal—and then his eyes popped wide. "Hey, I think that's right!" he said. "That's cool!"

"Glad you think so." I nodded back at the game. "Another round?"

"Sure."

It was a shame the conversation had drifted, I thought, and that steering it back toward Sensui would look too pointed and suspicious, but I figured there would be more moments to go fishing. I concentrated on the game, trying to give Amanuma a decent fight even if I knew he'd win in the end—and perhaps the universe rewarded me for that show of good faith, because as punches flew and combos stacked, Amanuma drew in a deep breath at my side.

"He, uh… I haven't seen him," he said.

The sound of flying fists and aggressive music nearly rendered his words inaudible; my distracted brain could only manage to force an eloquent "Eh?" from between my clenched teeth.

"That friend," Amanuma said. His hands on the joystick and buttons didn't pause even an instant. "I haven't seen him."

I didn't react, aside from my fingers going rigid on the console. Amanuma's chin ducked toward his chest as his character on screen delivered an enormous blow, reducing my character's HP bar to nothing. Victory music, tinny and electric, rang through buzzing speakers like rain through a glutted gutter.

"Guess he wasn't a friend, after all." His eyes vanished beneath the shade of his brown hair. "Not that I'd know."

"Amanuma," I said. "Do you—?"

"Oh, look. Time Crisis is free." He turned on his heel and walked away. "Let's play that now."

Without a word, I followed.

Time Crisis had a tag-team mode; we played that, Amanuma taking pity on me instead of beating me into the dirt again. Good thing, too, because I surely would've been killed in two seconds flat again had I'd gone up against someone as skilled as him, given what he'd muttered under his breath just minutes before—not that he'd meant for me not to hear what he'd muttered, of course. His last comment had been one of those pointed things kids say to get your attention, wanting you to pry but scared of what'll happen when you do, hence him running away as soon as I'd tried to talk him. A cry for help, though he'd never admit it. It was almost cute—but knowing the root cause of it was heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking, and infuriating.

Dammit, Sensui. You were such an asshole, weren't you?

As Amanuma and I shot enemies onscreen using controllers shaped like plastic firearms, Amanuma favoring the pistol while I used a shotgun, I pretended each opponent bore Sensui's smug face. Amanuma was probably wondering why his friend, his super cool adult friend Sensui, had all of a sudden abandoned him. Had probably assumed he did something wrong and drove his super cool friend away. Had probably internalized his super cool adult friend Sensui's rejection in recent weeks and taken it personally, letting it chip away at his self-esteem until he wondered if he was worth being friends with at all.

Sensui had preyed on the kid's loneliness, and if I had to bet, he'd done a bang-up job sending that loneliness into overdrive, too, with this disappearing act of his.

No wonder Amanuma had wanted to be friends with Yusuke and company so badly in recent weeks, in that case—and the irony was that we were probably the reason Sensui had rejected Amanuma in the first place, if indeed Sensui had rejected the kid wholesale. We were the cause of his present loneliness as much as we were the cure for it.

As I shot another enemy, and then another, each blast ricocheting like thunder in my ears, I imagined Sensui's dick-ass face (cartoon version; I hadn't seen the flesh and blood version yet) saying, "Well, seems the kid has friends; guess he's worthless to me now." And then he trotted off atop his ridiculously long legs and into the dark of my imagination with a dramatically evil laugh.

"Dick," I muttered to myself, shooting an enemy with vengeful gusto. "Fucking dick."

Beside me, Amanuma gasped. I shot him an apologetic smile, but he looked… pleased. Like he hadn't known a girl could curse, maybe, and he began to fire upon the Time Crisis opponents with renewed vigor.

As I returned my attention to the game, I warned myself that it was too early to tell. Sensui might just be busy. Or this could be a plot to make Amanuma lonelier, and then Sensui would reappear and Amanuma would feel grateful to have a friend again (thought joke's on Sensui; we were here now). Whatever the reason for his absence, Sensui might resurface and try to recruit Amanuma… but the fact remained that if we made the kid less lonely, he'd be less easy for Sensui to recruit. And maybe Sensui wouldn't even bother trying to recruit him if the kid became too much effort.

Or maybe he'd just show Amanuma Chapter Black and call it a day. And who's to say if the tactic would or wouldn't work, Amanuma having friends as he now did? We could only be there for Amanuma when it happened. If it happened. That's what friends are for.

… did Amanuma know that, though?

We cleared the battlefield in good time; Amanuma made it onto the first page of leaderboards (of course) and I somehow made it onto the fourth. Amanuma laughed as we shot our names onto the screen, beaming at me with the warmest look I think he'd ever given me.

"Y'know," he said, favoring me with new respect, "you're actually a pretty good shot."

"You sound surprised," I said as I holstered the game's replica firearm.

"I mean, yeah." Even though he laughed at me I couldn't find it within myself to feel insulted. Giggling, he said, "You're not very good at most of this stuff."

"Well, I like turn-based RPGs more than anything."

"And shooters," he observed.

"Some of them." Only the ones with a fake firearm like this, which made it easy to aim; reminded me of shooting actual guns in my past life, which I'd been pretty good at. Seems muscle memory transcended time and space, but since I couldn't explain that to Amanuma, I pointed over his shoulder toward the edge of the arcade. "Hey, you want some cocoa? My treat."

His eyes lit up, and he scampered off ahead of me with a delighted cry of, "All right!"

They'd built a tiny café onto the arcade. It wasn't much, basically a coffee shop with some premade snacks and a seating area in case kids wanted to hang out with their drinks. We grabbed a table after we got our cocoa and sat near the front, up by the windows facing the street near the arcade doors. Every now and again the automatic doors whooshed open, letting in a blast of wintry air; we bundled up in our various scarves and coats and settled in, Amanuma chattering about nothing and everything while we sipped our drinks. He had a way of filling the silence, this kid, especially when there were video games in eyesight he could riff off of.

Eventually, though, he had to pause for breath, and to take a big drink of his cocoa.

That was my moment, and I took it.

"At the risk of being a buzzkill, can I say something kind of serious?"

He looked at me over the rim of his cup, enormous eyes confused below a knit brow. Slowly he lowered his drink, licking his lips to clear the whipped cream from his chin. A teeny bit of foam clung to his cheek; he didn't appear to notice. "Uh. I guess?"

"Adults don't need help from kids."

He put down his cup, nonplussed. "What's that mean?"

"If an adult tells you they need your help, and only you can help them, they're full of shit." Amanuma balked at my profanity again, but I soldiered on, unblinking and sincere. "There's no reason an adult should need the help of a little kid."

"There's no reason…?" he said, mystified.

"Now, if they're pinned under a fallen tree and they're asking you to call 911, that's one thing. In that case, they're just a person in need asking the nearest human being for assistance." I lifted a finger into the air. "But, if an adult tells a kid they need them to keep a secret to help them, or something like that? If they say that kid is the only person in the world who can help that adult with something?" I tapped the finger on the table, nail clicking loudly against wood. "It's shady. They should be asking another grownup for help, not a kid in elementary school." I drew back the hand, wrapping it around my cup of cocoa. "An adult like that isn't your friend. My grandma told me that a long time ago." I took a prolonged drink of my hot chocolate, sweet and bitter and warm. "It's good advice, and I wanted to pass it along."

Amanuma didn't react at first. Not that I blame him. My comments came out of nowhere, in his eyes. I sipped my drink while the wheels turned in his head, watching as the light dawned in his eyes. He was smart, this kid. He connected the dots fast enough.

"You think that friend of mind, the one who ditched me… you think he was shady?" he asked after about a minute, eyes narrowed with equal parts confusion and suspicion.

I shrugged. "Who's to say?" I took another drink. "But I definitely think it's weird for an adult to want to be friends with a little kid."

Amanuma bristled. "I'm not just a little kid."

"I agree," I was quick to assure him. "You're not 'just' anything. But you are 11, and that makes you a little kid—and there's nothing wrong with that." The agitation in his eyes dimmed somewhat, though confusion remained in its wake. "The problem isn't with you. The problem is that adults should be hanging out with other adults in their spare time, not befriending random kids on the street." Yet another shrug. "If an adult can't make friends with people their own age, that's worth noticing."

It took a minute, but eventually he saw my point. "I mean. I guess?" He slumped a little in his seat. "Just…"

"Just what?"

"Why?" He peered up at me from beneath his mop of light brown hair. "Why are you telling me this?"

Amanuma, for all the machinations of fate that hinged upon him, was still just exactly what he was: a kid. A regular, ordinary kid. And he had never looked more like one than he did in that moment. A smile pulled at my lips, though I held it mostly at bay. Didn't want Amanuma to think I was patronizing him.

"Yusuke has a nickname for me," I said, shrugging again. "Calls me an 'albatross.'" I held out my hands on either side of my, hands flapping, but he didn't laugh at the silly posture. "I like to take care of people, sort of shield them under my wings."

Amanuma's head tilted to the side. "I don't get it."

I sighed and let my hands fall. Reaching for a napkin, I gestured for him to lean toward me. When he did, I blotted the dot of whipped cream off his face.

"It means I'm an onee-san," I said, "and that means I have to watch out for you."

For a second, he didn't get it—but then his cheeks went pink. He batted my hand away and ducked his face to the floor and wouldn't look at me. He didn't say anything, sitting utterly still across from me. I'd begun to fear I'd overstepped, maybe pushed a bit too hard, when his chin lifted just the slightest fraction.

"I thought you didn't like me very much," he said.

He said it in a voice like the hinge of a toy chest in need of grease, or maybe a kitten in need of warmth—squeaking and tiny, desperate and small, in want of attention as much as it was affection. My heart almost imploded at the sound, and it was all I could do to sigh and wince.

"I wasn't the warmest toward you the night we met, was I?" I muttered. "I'm sorry, Amanuma. That was rude of me. Will you forgive me?"

His chin jerked up. He looked startled—startled I acknowledged my behavior, and even more startled I apologized, probably. Wasn't often kids received apologies. I'd lived too many childhoods to not have learned that lesson.

"I'd like to be friends, if you're game," I said, and I stretched out a hand.

He hesitated. Watched the hand as if waiting for me to think better of the offer and retract it, get up from the table and walk away.

I didn't walk away.

Eventually, he took the hand.

"I'm game," Amanuma said, and though his voice still sounded small, that squeaking desperation had eased.

I grinned at him. "Well, alrighty then. So." I sat back in my seat, drained the rest of my hot chocolate, and set the cup to onto the table with a clatter. "Before the rest of them get here and start telling fart jokes, why don't we play catchup. Tell me about yourself."

The direct question had him all shy again, I think, or maybe he'd remembered I was a girl. He fidgeted and looked away with a stammer of, "I don't know what to say."

"Oh, y'know. Just start with the basics." I affected a breezy tone and counted options on my fingers. "Hopes, fears, deep dark secrets. That sort of thing." When he didn't reply I leaned forward until I caught his eye, at which point I gave him my most charming smile. "Dreams for the future, perhaps?"

I think he tried to look away, but the eye contact held him fast. There's something about eye contact that makes the rest of the world drop away sometimes, drowns out everything but that frozen moment in time shared between two people—and under my gaze Amanuma froze. His mouth worked. He swallowed.

"I—I wish I had more friends," he whispered.

And for a moment the world fell away for me, too, at such a vulnerable admission—but over his shoulder through the window I saw bright smudges of blue and green, and the world rushed back in to greet me. I smelled cocoa and carpet and burned electronics, heard the bells and pings of arcade games, felt the cold air against my skin as the doors swung open and two teenage boys walked inside.

"I think your wish might be coming true," I said, and I pointed at Yusuke and Kuwabara.

Amanuma ran to meet them when they called his name, eyes like fireworks against his freckled skin. Watching him bolt in their direction, happy and excited, made me feel… well. Happy and excited, I supposed, his emotions a mirror of my own. He wanted so little in life. Hopefully we could give it to him—and hopefully that asshole Sensui would have a harder time getting claws into him now. Rising, I gathered up mine and Amanuma's abandoned cocoa cups and threw them away, wiping down our table with a napkin and pushing in our chairs before heading over to join the boys. Yusuke had Amanuma in a headlock, ruffling the kid's hair and teasing him about something, and I was about to make a snarky comment when I noticed him.

"Hey, Kuwabara?" I said.

He flinched, coming back to himself as if the sound of his name had scared him—but then he swung his face back toward the arcade doors again, staring out them with the same frown he'd been wearing earlier. I peered out the doors, too, but saw nothing but sidewalk. A few people meandered down it, but I didn't see any demons (not that I was capable of seeing such, but still).

"What are you looking at?" I asked, and when he did not reply, I waved a hand in front of his face. "Hey. Earth to Kuwabara. You with us?"

He flinched again. "Huh?" Saw it was me and smiled. "Oh, yeah. Sorry."

"You OK?"

"Yeah, fine. It's nothin'." He grinned. "Just seein' things, that's all."

Hands alit on my sleeve before I could press for details. "Keiko, Keiko! Can you show me those combos on the Sailor V game now?"

It was Amanuma, of course, hanging on my arm and giving me puppy eyes. "Sure thing, kiddo," I said, helpless to resist those eyes and his sudden use of my given name, and I let him pull me into the arcade.

As the air grew colder and the seasons changed, Yusuke resumed his cases for Spirit World.

Nothing major like the rescue of Yukina or the assault on the castle of the Saint Beasts, of course. These were the small cases of before, rogue spirits and minor demons making trouble for the mundane humans who could not see them or defend themselves from supernatural chicanery. Nothing Yusuke couldn't handle, of course, especially with Botan at his side providing assistance and the wealth of knowledge she'd accumulated during years as a ferry girl. The pair of them greeted each new case eagerly (though with much kvetching on Yusuke's part), every assignment given by Ayame tackled with precision and efficiency… if not a little property damage.

This was Yusuke, after all. His methods were, in a word, unorthodox.

I rarely helped out with the missions. My role was to deliver the dossiers and intel, not to fight the ghosts and demons I couldn't even see. Every week I met with Ayame to collect mission briefings from her and to update her on the statuses of the various charges placed under my care, and every week went much the same way in light of this. She'd give me the paperwork, I'd give her mine in return, and we'd part ways without incident—much the same as it had been before Yukina's rescue.

I had been worried about things changing after that mission, truth be told. My trip with Hiei hadn't exactly been sanctioned by Spirit World. Frankly I'd wondered if Ayame knew about the trip, because surely Spirit World would be mad if they found out I'd interfered, but one snide comment (delivered with her trademark subtle smile) was all Ayame said on the matter.

"You're looking well, these days," she'd said, out of the blue during one of our meetings.

To which I'd replied with a very articulate, "Hmm?"

And she'd said, "Perhaps that fresh mountain air did you some good, after all."

And she gave me her best smirky-smirk and yeah, she definitely knew I went up to the mountains with Hiei, though why she wasn't mad about it I couldn't really say.

Not that I minded, of course. I was still doing research into Hiruko (and Spirit World-slash-mythology of the world at large by extension) so I really didn't need Spirit World on my case just then. Lying low was top priority, so far as I was concerned.

One day in early December, I woke up per my usual routine and looked at my month-at-a-glance calendar, scanning the color-coded days and the litany of appointments, due dates, and times marked in colorful inks across the boxes representing each day of the week. The days were all marked and coded for ease of reference—a "Keiko-ism" I'd picked up in this life and from Keiko's brain, because I sure as hell hadn't been quite so organized in my former one. I'd been an absolute train wreck when it came to keeping track of appointments in my past. Now, though, Keiko's color coding made keeping up with my appointments easy. Purple days were Hiei parole days; yellow represented aikido; green delineated a meeting with Kurama; red marked a meeting with Ayame. Today, it seemed, was a red day. I was to meet Ayame before school in that clearing in the woods, where she might just give me a new file-folder containing Yusuke's newest case. Normal. A very normal day, marked like so many others.

The day after it, however?

It was quite unlike any of the others.

It was outlined in heavy black ink, for one thing, edges like a grave dug deep into dark soil. I knew, even without looking, that it was the only day like it in the entire calendar. I'd marked it down when I got the calendar fresh at the beginning of the year, carefully embossing the edges of the date with that heavy darkness.

I'd been waiting for that day for an entire year.

Ayame seemed quite unconcerned, however, even when I brought it up.

"So, uh… auspicious week, huh?" I said as she handed me the latest case file.

One finely arched brow lifted. "What are you talking about?" she said.

I stared at her—and realized she had no idea. "Never mind," I said, stuffing the file under my coat.

Ayame watched me leave the clearing without a word, puzzlement etched into her porcelain face like scrimshaw.

It felt odd, to me, that she didn't seem to realize what tomorrow was. Was this just not a big deal to her? I went to the grocery store after school and wondered if I was the only one who remembered, perusing the baking aisle with a scowl. Chocolate, corn syrup, gelatin… as I tried to recall recipes I'd seen on Pinterest 15 years prior, I hoped that I wasn't making this damn cake for nothing, and that I wasn't going to make a damn fool out of myself for no reason.

But we'd see soon enough, wouldn't we?

After dropping my stuff off at home, I headed for Yusuke's apartment with the case file. Botan greeted me at the door like she usually did, because Yusuke was too lazy to get off his ass and stop playing Dragon Quest long enough to answer the dang doorbell. He lay on the floor of his bedroom with controller in hand, sprawled out on his stomach like a crawling starfish; I stepped over him and sat crosslegged on his bed, passing the folder to Botan when she sat next to me. She scanned its contents and let out a giggle.

"Ooh, Yusuke," she said, "you're going to love this!"

He eyed her askance before heaving a dramatic sigh and pausing his game, flopping down next to her on the bed so he could peer over her shoulder at the case. His eyes bugged out of his skull a second later. "No way! Those are real?" he yelled, snatching the folder from her.

I frowned and leaned backward, around Botan, so I could see the apparently real whatevers, but Yusuke jerked away and stuck out his tongue. "Are what real?" I asked, annoyed.

Botan grabbed the file back and held it out to me. "Tsuchinokos," she said—but she didn't need to.

I recognized the illustration of the small, flat, snakelike creature with the pointed tail at the bottom of the page on sight. Hard not to. I'd spent quite a lot of time dealing with those annoying little fuckers during a certain trip to the past with a certain friend of mine not too long prior, though Yusuke and Botan did not need to know that.

Keep a straight face, girl. Keep a straight face.

While I tried very, very hard not to look like one of those viral dog videos (you know the ones—the dog who tears apart the couch and then looks super guilty about it while hiding in a corner) Botan explained that a couple of mischievous tsuchinokos, or Japanese snake cryptids, were causing a ruckus at a campground south of the city, and Yusuke would need to catch them and release them somewhere in the wilderness. Genkai's temple was a safe bet, though we should probably call and ask permission first.

"These aren't spiritual beings, Keiko, though they can talk," Botan said, and at that her eyes lit up. "Say! You could help us with this case if you'd like!"

"I'll pass, thanks," I was quick to say, and when Botan looked disappointed I barely felt badly at all—and when Yusuke said something about getting a move on and heading for that campground, I felt relieved at our visit getting cut short. No sense chancing my bad poker face giving me away. I walked with Botan and Yusuke out of the apartment complex and down the street to the corner, but as we were about to part ways I put a hand on Yusuke's arms.

"Would you mind swinging by my place after school tomorrow?" I asked. "Need to talk to you about something."

While Yusuke frowned, Botan asked, "Is everything all right, Keiko?"

"Everything's hunky dory, Botan." I smiled up at Yusuke. "Just have a little something to give him, that's all."

His frown vanished. "Give me? Am I getting a present?"

"May-be."

"Heh, all right!" He chucked my arm with his fist. "You buried the lede on that one, Keiko. I'll be there if I'm getting a present!" But his eyes narrowed when something occurred to him. "Though what's the occasion?"

So even Yusuke had forgotten, it seemed. Shrugging after a moment's stunned pause, I decided to keep him in suspense. "You'll see when you get there, I guess."

"Heh." He tossed his hair, grinning. "You're lucky I like surprises, Grandma."

Botan glowered at him. "He means 'thank you.' And I'll be sure he doesn't forget to stop by, Keiko, whatever this is about."

And that told me Botan had forgotten, too—which meant I was probably making a big deal out of nothing.

… but that's just who I am as a person, I guess, and I really shouldn't have been surprised.

Yusuke showed up late the next day, as I thought he would, and I greeted him at the door carrying a white cardboard box and two forks. He knew what that meant, eyes brightening at the sight. "Have I ever mentioned I love it when you bake?" he said.

"On occasion." I jerked my head toward the stairs. "Our spot?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

I'd baked the cake the night before, after he'd run off to capture and relocate the rogue tsuchinokos, and my 15-year-old-Pinterest-inspired cake venture had turned out exactly as planned—good thing, too, because I'd had a very particular vision for this cake, not that Yusuke knew that. We climbed out my bedroom window and got settled on the roof, a spare comforter from the hall closet draped around us for warmth in the cold night air. We had enough light to see by thanks to my bedroom window and one of the building's nearby exterior lights, and before us stretched the lights of the city like a field of fallen stars. Very pretty scenery, as always, though I hoped the contents of the cake box would be the true star tonight.

Yusuke emitted a gleeful chuckle as he reached for the box in my hands, but I held it out of his reach with a tut.

"Not so fast," I said. "There's an occasion, remember?"

"Right, right," he grumbled. "Well, get to it, I'm hungry."

"Right. OK." I put the cake on my knees and sat up straight, centering myself and clearing my throat. Looking Yusuke in the eye, I asked: "Do you know what today is?"

He thought about it. "Thursday?"

"… it's Tuesday. "

"Oh. Uh." He snapped his fingers. "Arbor Day."

"Hell no."

"The 7th?"

"It's Tuesday, December 3, with no holidays to speak of."

Yusuke threw up his hands with a wordless cry of frustration. "Then what's the freaking occasion?" he groused. "Seriously, Keiko, you drag me all the way up here and then you dangle cake in front of me and then you—"

"One year ago today, you were hit by a car."

Yusuke stilled, hands still aloft. I waited a beat, letting the words sink in as a chill breeze gusted past. It ruffled Yusuke's hair, disturbing the gelled mass like the hand of a doting father.

"One year ago today, you were hit by car, and you died," I repeated with utter gravity—and I let my eyes go misty.

I told him: "It was the best damn day of my life."

Yusuke didn't move for a second—and then he was on his knees, staring at me with mouth agape. "It was what?!" he yodeled, hands flexing like he wanted to wrap them around my neck.

"You heard me," I said, affecting a dreamy sigh. "Best damn day of my life." I leaned back on an elbow and gazed skyward, reminiscing. "No more Yusuke to deal with, I thought? No more chasing around that loser, making sure he turns in his homework on time?" At that I let myself get a little worked up, member of a gospel choir singing praises to the lord. "Goodness gracious, great balls of fire, praise Jesus, hallelujah! Truly, my life begins this day!" Settling down again, I rolled my eyes. "And sure, your mom was having a breakdown on the floor next to me while I celebrated, but that was a small price to pay for freedom."

Yusuke turned redder and redder with every word I spoke, and when I stopped talking he snatched the cake box off my lap and wrenched it open. "Keiko, you asshole, this cake had better have an apology written in—why the fuck is this cake shaped like a goddamn coffin?!"

And with that, I absolutely lost it.

Yusuke stared at the cake in abject shock, jaw hanging loose, eyes moving between the coffin-shaped cake and the cackling puddle-person I'd become in horrified turns. It was impossible for me to keep a straight face when I could see the mirror-glazed cake made to look like the glossy wood grain of a mahogany coffin sitting innocently in its box—and oh, Yusuke's face! He had not been expecting this, and his complete lack of comprehension was absolutely delicious. Helplessly I lay on the roof's cold shingles, giggling until tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, every breath hitching in my chest until my diaphragm began to bounce and spasm with helpless hiccups.

"Really, Keiko? Really?" he said, utterly deadpan once he recovered a little. "A coffin?"

I could do nothing more than lay there and laugh-cry. Yusuke rolled his eyes. Looked a little more closely at the cake. Did a double-take and squinted.

"Wait. Does this say 'Happy Death Day' on it?" he said. He stared at me as if I'd sprouted a second head resembling Steve Buscemi. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It's—it's the exact opposite of a birthday. It's a death day," I said, eyes streaming, words almost unintelligible for my hiccups. "So I thought—so I thought, for a death day, a coffin-shaped cake—"

But I couldn't talk for laughing, and Yusuke was glaring at me so hard I thought I might burst into flames, and I started laughing harder. He grumbled and grabbed a fork, taking a bite directly from the center of the cake.

"Don't pull a muscle, Grandma," he said as I kept giggling. Another bite, bigger this time. "Well, if I'm going to be insulted, I might as well eat cake at the same time." A third bite, cheeks packed to bursting with dark chocolate sponge, crumbs dotting his chin like the stubble of a beard. "Can't believe I came all this way just so you could play a stupid prank like this…"

The laughter in my chest—it died.

"You know why I don't get mad when you call me 'grandma?'" I said.

I didn't sit up when I said it. I just lay there, sprawled on the roof atop that ratty old comforter we'd pulled down from the hall closet, tears leaving cold tracks on my stinging cheeks. Yusuke looked me over with a frown, cheeks squirrel-like in their fullness. "Hm?" he said, shoveling down another bite.

"It's because if I'm your grandma, that means I'm family."

Yusuke—fork halfway to his mouth—put down the cake.

"We have fun fucking with each other, Yusuke," I said. My voice sounded as soft as chocolate cake in the winter dark, sweet and rich even to my ears as I smiled. "And I know you think I'm kidding, but the day you died really was the best day of my life."

He glared again. "That's not comforting, you old hag."

"It was the best day of my life because that night you came to me in a dream and said you were coming back." My smile didn't widen, but it deepened, and that isn't the same thing. "How could it possibly count as a bad day, in light of that?"

Yusuke stared at me. He looked away, turning his face from mine. Took another bite of cake. "Don't say such mushy crap," he said, voice thick—though from cake or emotion, I can't say for sure. He held the spare fork in my direction. "Eat, so you'll stop talking."

It was as close to a 'thanks' as I'd probably get, and I didn't want to push my luck, so I took the fork and scooted close, wrapping the comforter around us as the wind tried to knock us off the roof. A big bite of cake found its way into my mouth, moist and rich and delicious, buttercream holding together layers of sponge enveloped in fondant, more buttercream, and mirror glaze. I chewed and swallowed, pointing at the cake with my fork all the while.

"Damn," I said through my mostly full mouth. "I did good."

"You did, actually," Yusuke grudgingly admitted. His voice turned wicked. "I'm not saving any for Botan."

"Heh. I made an extra cake because I knew you'd say that."

He blinked at me. "You didn't."

"I did."

"Damn. You know me too well." His lips quirked. "But I guess that's family for you." And then he turned beet red and spun away from me atop the roof's slick shingles. "So. Uh. What'd you say today's date was?"

"The third."

"November?"

"December, you absolute walnut."

"Hey, you're the walnut." I couldn't see what he was doing, but the comforter shifted and I heard an odd scraping sound coming from Yusuke's other side, just out of sight. "You said today's Tuesday, but I definitely died on a Monday." He shot me a baleful look over his shoulder. "I'd remember. I hate Mondays."

And thus I found myself gearing up to explain how the Gregorian calendar works, breathing deep both to calm my nerves and to fuel what was sure to be a very long rant. "Yeah, but the day of the week shifts every year and stuff, so even if you died on a Monday that doesn't mean that this year the third will be on a—what the hell are you doing?"

A long, loud screeching noise had interrupted my lecture, like nails on a chalkboard only worse. I set the coffin-cake aside and rose to my knees, leaning against Yusuke's back so I could peer over his shoulder at—at whatever it was he was doing, because I really wasn't sure. He had clutched the metal fork I'd given him to eat cake with in his hand and was digging it into the roof, scratching away at it in short, hard strokes. He moved to block his handiwork before I could view it, though, brushing the comforter across it with a glare.

"I'm commensurating," he informed me.

"… do you mean commemorating?"

"Yeah, that."

"But what are you—?"

He shrugged, pushing me off of him with a growl. "Just gimme a minute, jeez! You'll see!"

I did as he asked, watching as he hunched and pulled the comforter over his head to shield his efforts from the world. After about a minute I slowly reached for the cake and started munching. It took about three minutes of various scratchings and scrapings and frustrated mutterings for him to finish, and then he burst forth from beneath the blanket with a triumphant bellow of "Tah-dah!", face brick red from heat and exertion. I was on my knees again in seconds, cake quite forgotten, bracing my hands on his shoulders for purchase as I squinted down at what he'd carved into the shingles with his dessert fork.

Yusuke, it turns out, had written his own epitaph.

RIP Urameshi Yusuke

March 26 1977 - Dec. 3 1990

survived by his Grandma

badasses till the bitter end

I stared at it in silence until Yusuke covered my hand with his own and squeezed. He had cake on his chin and lint in his disheveled hair and in that moment he had never looked quite so alive. My zombie boy, the closest thing to a brother I had ever had, my Yusuke—he looked up me with his most insouciant of grins, probably unaware of just how happy I was to celebrate his death day with minor property damage and a cake shaped like a goddamn coffin, because it was in Yusuke's nature not to realize his worth until his visited his own funeral. Or in this case, his Death Day celebration, coffin-shaped cake and all.

"Happy Death Day to me, right?" he said, squeezing my hand again.

I pressed my face into his neck and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

"Happy Death Day to you, buddy," I said against his skin—and he was kind enough to let me hold him like that for just a little while.

And then he squirmed out of my arms like a feral cat and smeared cake across my nose, because he's Yusuke, and I would take him in no other fashion or form.

Notes:

Had to work through lunch a lot this week and lost crucial writing time as a result. When I post late, I usually always mention it on my Tumblr, so follow me there for news when the chapters seem delayed. Thanks!

Next time on Lucky Child: Kurama makes a surprising request and NQK has to be on her best behavior. MYSTERIOUS. Stay tuned as we cover all the small scenes and fill up the months between now and the Dark Tournament…

ALSO: I started a new fanfic for the revered anime series Cowboy Bebop, which is my VERY CLOSE SECOND FAVORITE ANIME SERIES after YYH (it's my all-time favorite in terms of animation style/quality, music, and writing, but YYH has that nostalgia factor that gives it an edge). Anyway, turns out the CB fandom is… uh… desolate? Desiccated? Decimated? There are a handful of active authors, even fewer readers, so if you feel compelled to check out that story, it would be reeeaaally coooool. LOL. I'm quite in love with the story's premise and I'm excited to delve deeper into it, so if you're looking for a story that combines action with science fiction, romance, jazz and blues, humor, and a whole lot of angst (BECAUSE IT'S MEEEEE, ahem) then you might like it.

And if you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop itself… you should. You really, really should. It's a classic for a reason. I'd like to think the fic is readable without having seen the show, but IDK if that's true, so go give Bebop a watch. You'll be glad you did, whether or not you read my fic notwithstanding.

Many effusive thanks to all of you who came out and reviewed last week. YOU DA BEST. Churning out chapters every week is a ton of fun, and it's super gratifying to know you're out there reading. Writing can get lonely, truth be told, but you make this process anything but. Till next time, and thanks so much again: MageKing17, Dreese5581, Bastet the Writing Cat, brawltogethernow, Unctuous, Atsuyuri-sama, dartuche, Lala the Fox, vinlala, gloss my eyes, Not Quite a Morning Person, Tactile, Eternalevecho, Sdelacruz, Just 2 Dream of You, Masked Trickster, Nollyn, BiblioMatsuri. You're seriously all so great and lovely. Love you.