WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

192. Lucky 71-80

Chapter 71: Life: A Mess

Summary:

In which Kurama makes two requests.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Like an echo reverberating through the twists of a winding cavern, past promises came back to haunt me—and in their fulfillment another bit of the portrait that was my life became clear.

If by "clear" you mean "a total goddamn mess." Which I do.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Kagome answered the phone on the second ring and listened to my request in silence. "I mean. Sure, I'll stay home," she said when I fell quiet. I let out a sigh of relief, though I drew in a deeper breath when she asked, "But why don't you want me to come to aikido practice, exactly?"

"It's nothing you did, Kagome, I swear. It's just—" The phone's coiled cord bit into my fist as I gripped it a little tighter. "Kurama expressed interest in attending."

"Oh. Oh. Yeah, count me right the hell out, in that case." She knew as well as I did that we best not flirt with fate, gravity in her tone thoroughly appropriate. "So he'll be coming this week?"

"That's the plan." Keeping my voice very carefully casual, I said, "We're getting dinner at his house, first, and then going to the lesson afterward."

For a minute, I thought my plot had worked. "Oh, OK, cool," she said, calm and collected just like I wanted. "That sounds—wait. Wait. Wait a minute." And here she paused. Thought about it. And then her tone dropped low and devious, much to my horror. "At his house?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Kagome."

"At. His. House?"

"Keep it together, Kagome."

"At his place of dwelling?" she said, voice climbing high on that final word.

I heaved a massive sigh. "I see where you're going with this and I am going to cut you off right there and say this is perfectly normal, and not at all—"

"That is so cute!" she squealed.

I threw up my hands. "And there it is."

While Kagome launched into a babbling fountain of questions (and suggestions about what I should wear for the occasion) I sat on my bed and lay back against the decorative pillows at its head. She'd blow off steam for a few minutes before coming back down to earth—but me? I was calm, more or less, which might come as a surprise given my usual temperament.

After the recent incident with Amanuma and my near-breakdown, Kurama and I had resumed our weekly parole meetings like we had before Yukina's rescue mission in the mountains. Sense of normalcy felt good, reestablishing a routine forcing my internal mechanisms back into alignment. Kurama had been very careful to ask me about my mental state in the weeks that followed, encouraging me to vent when I needed it—but I hadn't. Needed much venting, I mean. Truth be told, I'd always thought of myself as a volcano, of sorts. Once I blew my top, the pressure abated and left me more or less fine for a while afterward. I'd been sailing along pretty steadily in recent weeks. Had come as quite a surprise to Kurama, I can tell you that much. After the sorry state of my emotions on top of that fire escape, I think he thought I was a woman made of glass, ready to fracture at the slightest provocation.

Which is probably why he approached the subject of meeting his mother with such hesitance.

He asked while walking me home from a parole meeting at the Lindy-hop venue, where we'd listened to that wonderful swing music played by a live blues band. He knew I'd be in a good mood after that, sweaty and abuzz with endorphins after dancing, lively and invigorated by the cold December air. Few flowers bloomed this time of year, of course, but I could almost smell the Viscaria that had once grown outside the café as we walked home side by side, hands jammed in pockets for warmth, breath puffing into clouds before us.

"Kei," he'd said. "I hate to ask—but I need a favor."

I didn't break stride. "Sure. Anything."

"Would you come to dinner with me this Tuesday?"

He spoke with care, like perhaps he'd rehearsed the words ahead of time, only that didn't make sense. Kurama knew my schedule. He wouldn't make this mistake. Brow lifting, I looked at him askance and said, "Sorry, Kurama. I have my—"

"Aikido lessons. I know." So he hadn't forgotten, then. He smiled, expression colored with the barest tinges of regret and—was that embarrassment, maybe? Hard to tell. "This is a favor in two parts, truth be told."

Something about his hesitance caught my feet, dragged them to a halt at his side. We stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and faced each other, a few people behind us grumbling as they were forced to dodge around. Kurama paid them no mind. I tried to do the same.

Kurama said, "I'd like for us to get dinner, and then I'd like to join you for your aikido lesson."

"… oh." It only took me a minute to remember, and to grumble, "I did say I'd take you to one of those at some point, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." A smile crossed his lips. "And my mother is becoming more and more curious about who I am spending so much of my time with."

"Your mother—oh." I started. "Oh. So this is a 'meet the parents' dinner."

He shrugged, but with the kind of precision one usually reserves for sashimi knife work. "I've met your family. It seems only fair you meet mine."

More of that precise speech, syllables clipped and refined. I shifted from foot to foot. Kurama watched, vigilant, probably looking for a signal I was about to turn tail and run or maybe have a panic attack. Whichever came first.

Instead I just thought about it for a minute, and then I nodded. "Yeah. Yup. That tracks." I took my hands from my pockets and rubbed them together with a resounding smack. "OK, cool. Let's meet Minamino-mom." I paused. Grinned. "Heh. Mina-mama." And then I frowned. "Mi-mama-no? Mama-mino?"

Kurama looked positively mystified. I put a hand to my chin, considered my options, and made a decision.

"Mama-mino, for sure," I said. "That's best. So would you prefer this week or next week or what?" A beat. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

He'd been staring with eyes most buggy; when I called him out, he shoved said eyeballs back into his face (metaphorically speaking) and coughed into a fist. Now it was his turn to shift from foot to foot while I watched, Kurama for once the bug under glass instead of me.

"Given your temperament, I thought there would be some…" Another delicate cough; a shifting of the eyes, a sly pull at the corner of his mouth. "'Resistance' isn't the word."

"Is 'nerves' the word?" I cheerfully supplied.

"I was going to say 'outright and abject panic,' but I suppose 'nerves' does preserve your dignity."

My eyes rolled of their own accord. "Ha ha, very funny. But nope, no nerves."

Kurama frowned, disbelief a black mark between his knit brows, but I just grinned and fell back into stride. He took up his place at my side within a moment, watching as I tucked my hands behind my neck and tangled my fingers in the hair at my nape.

"Honestly? I was wondering when I'd meet her," I said. "So I guess I've already done my worrying, and it was a long time ago." My lips quirked. "Though I am nervous about making a first impression, of course. Your mom's a sweetheart."

His lips quirked, too. "Of course you already know that."

"I didn't even need to cheat," I said, beaming, and in a fit of whimsy I reached up to gently pinch Kurama's cheek. With syrupy sweetness I intoned, "She raised such a sweet boy, didn't she?"

Kurama batted my hand away and rolled his eyes—but I'd like to think he looked pleased at the compliment.

Too bad I was the only person (besides his mom, of course) taking part in the upcoming Tuesday festivities who felt that way about Kurama. In the present, I sighed into the phone hard enough to send feedback puffing down the line. Kagome whined a little at the static; I apologized and kept on talking.

"I'm more worried about Kurama meeting Hideki-sensei than I am about meeting Kurama's mom, to be honest," I said. "Hideki isn't a fan of demons." Understatement of epic proportions, that. "I'm going to have to call and warn him first, make sure he's on good behavior."

"Oh god. Can you imagine, though?" Kagome said, equal parts horrified and entranced. "Those two getting into a knuckle-dust? I'd pay good money to see that fight."

"Well, in that case, want to sit in on the phone call to Hideki?"

An excited squeal preceded her proclamation of, "You bet I do!"

All truth told, I'm not sure if I wanted Kagome to eavesdrop on my conversation with Hideki to soothe her desire to see him fight, or to soothe my own nerves regarding the conversation about to go down—a conversation that did not promise anything pretty. I'd broached the topic of bringing Kurama to a lesson before, back when I was still wearing my cast and Hideki had taught me to throw knives, and he had been… "less than enthusiastic" is a euphemism for "utterly opposed," and I'm going to use it liberally here. He had been less than enthusiastic about the prospect; a near screaming match had transpired, in point of fact, and I had every expectation of a repeat performance of that event as I punched in his number and initiated the Keiko-Kagome-Hideki conference call.

Hideki answered on the second ring, as grumpy as usual. "What?" he said, like I'd interrupted him in the middle of a task of extreme importance and he resented it utterly.

But I didn't let that throw me; he always answered calls this way. "Hideki-sensei? It's me."

A pause. "Yukimura," he said, tone a fraction less hostile this time. "What is it?"

I took a deep breath. "May I bring a guest to this week's lesson?"

I expected the hostility to return with a growl and a snarl—but instead he sighed. He sounded tired, not aggressive, when he muttered, "We talked about this."

"I know."

"And you haven't changed your mind."

"No."

He didn't reply right away. I resisted the urge to peel the phone from my face and stare at it in confusion. Back when I'd asked to bring Kurama to lessons, Hideki had been appalled at the idea of me running around with demons—even demons living human lives. He'd said he trusted me to make my own decisions, yes, but he'd run afoul of too many bloodthirsty demons in his days fighting alongside Kuroko Sanada to trust them, even with me to vouch for them. The idea of associating with one of my demon friends put a foul taste in his mouth, he'd said, and the idea of teaching one fighting techniques it could possibly use on humans made that taste intensify.

… only now he wasn't yelling. He wasn't telling me I was stupid for trusting a demon, or giving me battle tactics and tips on how to handle the demons in my life. He just sat there quiet on the phone line, inscrutable.

I broke first, of course. Of course.

"I'll say what I said before, Hideki-sensei," I said. I squared my shoulders, even though he couldn't see, because the boost in posture injected a measure of confidence into my voice that I figured I could use just then. "This demon friend of mine, he lives as a human. He intends to die as one, too. And it would make me happy if you met him and saw that for yourself."

"… fine."

"Fine?" That time I couldn't resist peeling the phone away and giving it a shocked look, though I crammed at back against my cheek a second later. "Fine?"

"Did I stutter?" Hideki growled.

"N-no. But—"

"Don't be late." He did not try to disguise the sneer in his voice when he said, "And tell your… your friend to dress for the occasion."

The line went dead.

A moment of silence followed.

"… well, that was different," Kagome said.

"I—I really thought I'd have to fight harder on that," I said, staring blankly at the Megallica poster above my bed. "The last time was a bloodbath."

"He had time to think about it since said bloodbath, maybe?" Kagome said.

"Maybe," I said.

But in the days leading up to Tuesday, I couldn't help but wonder if Hideki's easy acquiescence betrayed some hidden motive, and if Kurama's visit to my aikido lessons was a good idea at all.

Hitch the duffel bag a little higher. Hold my Tupperware of tea biscuits a little closer. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Knock on the door.

Kurama—well, Shuichi lived out in the suburbs, in a two-story house with a bit of a yard out front and a large cherry tree with branches skeletal from the winter season. A cute little house, to be sure, manicured evergreens flanking the front door like guards—and I wondered if in times of peril they might be exactly that, knowing Kurama, but as the sun went down over the tops of neighboring houses and a chill wind stripped past, the front door opened, and I didn't have time to ponder.

"Hi, Shuichi," I said.

His lips twitched at the human name, but he smoothed the expression in a moment. "Hello, Kei." He stepped back. "Please, come in."

The inside of the house was as cute as the outside, all awash in traditional Japanese décor and a cute little entry room complete with a shoe cubby. Beyond lay a Japanese-style living room, featuring a heated kotatsu with quilt, and complete with sliding paper doors and tatami mats. In a nook over in a corner I spotted a small ancestral shrine, incense trailing a single plume of smoke into the air. It smelled of herbs, but also of flowers, floral and pungent but light. A framed portrait of a young man sat at the foot of this shrine; he beamed, thick black hair and glittering black eyes the image of youthful vigor. My eyes caught on it, on the shape of the man's chiseled jaw and the tilt of his long nose. Something in the curve of his smile made me suspect it was Kurama's father, but of course I knew better than to ask.

"Don't be nervous."

I flinched. Kurama had snuck up on me, hovering at my elbow and murmuring nearly in my ear. His hands brushed my shoulders; I shrugged out of my coat, watching as he hung it on a stand near the door. He wore a button-up white shirt and jeans tonight—actual honest to goodness jeans, light wash and with that terrible high waist of the early 90s. Still, he somehow looked good in them, gentle light above the entry hall catching the garnet streaks hiding in his thick hair and coaxing them to brilliance. I flinched again when he caught my eye, a green spark in pale skin speaking of curiosity… and amusement, I think.

"I'm not nervous," I murmured back. I set my duffel bag next to the shoe cubby and tried to straighten my clothes, feeling frumpy next to Kurama's luster. "I'm—"

"You must be Yukimura Keiko."

Shiori stood in the middle of the living room, hands clasped over her stomach, watching me through her dark, liquid eyes like a deer I'd happened upon the middle of some deep woods. Hair worn in a low bun, skin like alabaster, the long neck of a soft swan, she radiated a sense of poise and elegance and gentleness that left me momentarily speechless—as did the odd sense of fragility in the lines of her neck, the curve of her thin fingers, the hollows in her cheeks and the glitter in her eye. She wore a smile, of course, and it touched her eyes and made them so very warm, but I found myself wanting to ask her to sit down, to take it easy. Maybe it was the lack of color in her cheeks, a holdover from her narrowly avoided death and prior illness. Maybe it wasn't. But I was very careful to return her graceful bow with one of my own and try not to show any shock on my face, much though I wanted to take her by the hand and guide her to the nearest chair.

This face—my actions had nearly killed this face, once, no matter how much Kurama liked to deny it.

Something told me that thought would be hard to get out of my head no matter how effective my first impression turned out to be.

"Thank you for coming, Kei-san," she said (and the combination of nickname and 'san' pulled my lips into a smile). "I'm Minamino Shiori, Shuichi's mother." She walked forward, steps light and short and nearly inaudible on the tatami, hovering like a curious bird at the lip separating the shoe hall from the living room. "It's wonderful to meet you. I've heard so much about you."

I shot Kurama a look of dubiousness, though one tempered with a sidelong smile in Shiori's direction—a joke to set the mood. "All good things, I hope. Never know with this guy."

She blinked, then laughed behind her fingers. A pretty laugh. A movie star laugh. No wonder Kurama's human body was so darn good looking, with a bombshell mom like her. She had the looks of an old-timey Japanese movie star.

"Yes. All good things," she said—and then some of her decorousness dropped. She hesitated, then grabbed my hand and squeezed it, eager smile bringing color to her cheeks at last. "I confess I've been dying to meet you. It's not often Shuichi talks about his friends, but he often talks about you, so I feel I've already met you, and—"

Kurama cleared his throat. Shiori cut herself off, ducking her head with a shy smile.

"I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself." She gestured behind her. "Would you like to sit down? Dinner is almost ready."

"Sure," I said, and as I stepped into the living room I remembered my manners. "Oh—these are for you." Shiori took the Tupperware of tea biscuits, crunchy and sweet, from me with a curious smile. I explained, "They go well with both coffee and tea. I wasn't sure what you preferred, so I thought…"

Her smile, the enthusiastic one from before, returned. "I drink tea. And that was very thoughtful of you, Kei-san. I'm sure they'll be delicious." Another bow. "Thank you."

Aw, yeah. Keiko's baking skills score another victory!

We didn't linger in the living room, instead venturing through one of the paper doors and into a traditional Japanese dining room beyond it, one with a low table and seating cushions set upon more tatami. Shiori was something of a chatterbox, explaining she had inherited the house from a very traditional aunt and that she hadn't had the heart to update the architecture beyond the kitchens and bedrooms.

"The back yard is lovely," she said, gesturing for Kurama and me to sit at the dining table already been festooned with flatware and utensils. "Though this time of year it's rather bare. You'll have to come back in spring. My son has a green thumb; did you know that?"

"I've seen some of his handiwork, yes," I said, trying not to look like a cat with a canary in its mouth (Kurama, of course, looked as innocent as a newborn lamb).

She beamed. "Yes. You'll definitely have to come back in spring." Smoothing the front of her dress, she turned toward a door set on swinging hinges and put her hand against it. "I'll be right back, and we'll eat."

"Mother, would you like me to help—" Kurama said, but Shiori shook her head.

"Nonsense, Shuichi. Sit and visit with your friend. I'll be right back," she said, and she left us alone in the dining room.

"Well," I said once the door finished swinging behind her. "Just so you know your mother is the single most adorable person I have ever met in my entire life."

Kurama stared after her with a fond smile. "She is."

"Think the first impression went OK?"

He turned his smile in my direction. "I do."

"Good." I leaned back on my hands, giving my hair a little toss. "Not that I'm surprised. Parents love me."

Kurama shot me a Look that said he didn't doubt that, though he knew exactly why they loved me (I mean, I was closer to their age than they realized) and my parent-impressing expertise wasn't as impressive as I imagined. We both knew better than to discuss this out loud, of course. Shiori was only a room away, and she reappeared in short order carrying a series of dishes balanced on her thin arms. Kurama all but jumped off his cushion to help her bring them in and set out a veritable feast, and both of them scolded me in hilariously identical tones when I tried to lend a hand, too. Kurama took after his mom far more than he realized, I thought as I watched them set the table, and after a quick "itadakimasu" we dug in.

Conversation began slowly, tentatively, after that, the way it always does in a room full of people who wish to impress each other and put their best feet forward. Kurama wanted his mother to like me; I wanted her to like me; I could tell she wanted me to like her, too. The topics of discussion started with formal, surface-level fare: my favorite classes, where I grew up, my hobbies, things like that. Kurama stayed mostly silent, watching the interplay between myself and his mother like an observer of a tennis match, eyes moving back and forth between us in turns.

"Do you have plans for winter break?" Shiori asked as I took a drink of warm miso soup.

"Tentative," I said. "Most years we have a gathering for New Year's Eve—a small party. We didn't last year" (because Yusuke had been freshly hit by a car at the time) "but we're thinking of hosting again this year."

"That sounds nice," Shiori said, almost wistful.

"It is," I agreed. "It was just family friends for a while, but eventually it expanded to some of my other friends and their parents." I shot Kurama a sidelong look, smile tentative. "I was going to invite your son, actually, and you by extension."

She looked surprised, though I wasn't sure why. "How kind of you!" she said, hand spread across her chest.

"Yes, Kei," Kurama agreed—though he narrowed his eyes at me, probably not too happy I'd just invited his mother somewhere without asking first, but hey, she'd nearly died by my own damn hand and deserved to attend a party if she wanted to, so sue me. "How thoughtful of you."

"Shuichi would love to attend, of course," Shiori said (and at that Kurama's head swung toward her so fast he nearly gave me secondhand whiplash). She demurred, though, ducking her chin when she said, "I have New Year's plans of my own, unfortunately, but I will be there in spirit."

That was news to Kurama, apparently. "You have plans, Mother?" he asked, brow lifting.

"Yes." Her cheeks pinked. "Hatanaka-san is taking me out."

Kurama's eyes widened the barest fraction, but he recovered quickly enough to fill me in. "Hatanaka-san is the man my mother has been seeing lately," he said. He did not meet my eyes, idly fiddling with his chopsticks with one hand.

"Oh." I looked to Shiori with a girl-gimme-the-deets expression. "Cute?"

Her blush deepened. "Very cute."

"Nice." I winked and jerked a thumb at Kurama. "We'll gossip when this one's not around."

Maybe being stuck with a (seemingly) teenage boy for fifteen years had made her eager for female companionship or something, but she looked positively tickled by that suggestion, more than I'd expected. "I look forward to it," she said—and at Kurama's somewhat aghast reaction, like he had not counted on his mother and his best school friend somehow becoming buddies in their own right, she giggled behind her hand. "But enough about me. So tell me, Kei-san. What do your parents do?"

I think Kurama didn't want to give me another opportunity to befriend his mom, because he jumped in on my behalf. "Kei's parents own several restaurants around town, and many food trucks as well," he said, tone almost too smoothly casual to be real.

"Yes, the Yukimura Ramen line," Shiori said. "I've eaten there, actually. The food is delicious."

"Kei helps with their marketing efforts," Kurama said, and did mine eyes deceive me or did I detect a bit of pride? "She's been helping with the family business since she was a child."

Shiori looked impressed. "Is that right?"

"Uh. Yes ma'am." I nodded down at my plate. "The meal is absolutely delicious, by the way. You're a wonderful cook."

"You are, Mother," Kurama said, and at his earnest tone I used every last fiber of my willpower to resist teasing him for being such a little mama's boy. The utterly earnest look in his eye, sincere as a wedding vow, helped somewhat. He reached out and covered her hand with his when he said, "I'm glad you're feeling up to cooking again."

But Shiori just laughed. "You say that like it's a recent development. I've been feeling right as rain for some time now." She hesitated. "Kei-san, you know I was ill for many months last year. Shuichi tells me you came to visit while I was in the hospital, but I wasn't feeling well enough to chat at the time."

At first I thought Kurama had told a lie, but then I realized—nope. Just a stretch of the truth. I'd visited the hospital the night she almost died, the night we used the Mirror to save her. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and nodded. "Ah. Yes. That's right."

She gave her son a look of heartfelt pride. "My Shuichi stayed by my side the whole time," she said, sandwiching his hand between both of her own, but the tender mother-son moment turned silly when she shot me a sly smile—and I was struck, suddenly, by the similarity of their features, the shape of their mouths and the way they crooked just so when either of them thought of a wry joke. Shiori wore Kurama's most devious crooked smile when she said, "Although it's no wonder he's glad I'm feeling up to cooking again. I'm afraid my Shuichi isn't the best cook."

A grin spread across my mouth. "Oh really now?"

"Yes." She affected a mournful sigh, though her eyes glittered with suppressed mirth. "He can make soup and cook rice, but…"

"Mother," Kurama chided, eyes shifting about the room at a rapid clip.

"… I'm afraid that is where his expertise ends." Her sigh bore the strain of lamentation. "Poor dear."

Hilarious though it was to see Kurama get teased by his mom (and gratifying as it was to learn Shiori had a sense of humor) I couldn't let this slide. Slowly I turned to Kurama, arms crossing over my chest while he fidgeted in his seat. "Well, well, well. You don't say," I said. "So the great Shuichi has a weakness?" The back of my hand touched my forehead as I pretended to faint. "I'm shocked. Shocked, I say!"

"He is quite good at almost everything, isn't he?" said Shiori.

"Honestly, how do you live with him?" I asked in a tone most rueful. "Him and that hair?"

"I do not know where he gets that hair, and what I wouldn't do for even a modicum of that luster," she sighed.

"Not for nothing, but if you let me near the bathroom, I will be spying on whatever conditioner he uses." I leaned my cheek on my hand, staring at him with a dreamy sigh. "Those locks of his."

Kurama, hands clasped tightly around his mug of tea, afforded the wall ahead of him a tight smile. "I am beginning to suspect this dinner was a mistake," he intoned.

"We're complimenting you, dear," Shiori teased.

"Yeah, we're complimenting you, dear," I said. Kurama scoffed at my repetition of the pet name, but I soldiered on. "You think I'd spy on just anyone's conditioner?"

Kurama took a long sip of his drink. "It would be arrogant of me to assume I am the only friend whose selfcare routine you find of interest."

"Have you seen my friends?" I asked. "Or looked in a mirror lately?"

"Your flattery is noted and also futile."

"Taking the identity of your conditioner to the grave, I see."

"I'm allowed my secrets."

"And am I allowed a peek in your medicine cabinet?" When he remained unmoved, I pasted on my best puppy-dog eyes and a pout that could make a toddler proud. "C'mon, Shuichi, I gotta know." But his stoicism didn't crack, so I reached out and flicked the edge of one glossy lock of hair lying on his chest. It swung back into perfect place, of course, pulling a sigh from my beleaguered mouth. "Such bounce. Such shine. You could be a spokesperson for something."

His mouth quirked. "I'm afraid my lips are sealed."

I turned up my nose. "Then I guess I won't share my cooking secrets."

That finally got a rise out of him. He set down his mug and looked at the ceiling, amusement hiding in the tilt of his brow. "Shall I propose a trade, in that case? My conditioner for the secrets of decent cooking?"

"Ooh, tempting." I shot Shiori a wink. "Your son might turn into a decent chef yet, Minamino-san."

I think the joke caught her off-guard, or perhaps the whole exchange with her son had caught her as such, because when I looked at her I found her staring—quite open-mouthed, in fact, though as soon as we made eye contact she tried to cover for it, jumping a little in her seat before smoothing her glossy hair. She had nice hair, for the record. Kurama had inherited much of his good genes from his mother, that's for sure, and she didn't take enough credit.

"That he might," she agreed—but then she bit her lip. "Although, Kei-san, I confess I brought up Shuichi's cooking for a reason. Truly, he isn't hopeless—his meals are always nutritious—but he told me you were the one bringing us dinner when I was ill." She allowed me no time to protest, performing a seated bow at the table, deep and long and low. "Thanks to you, I could rest easy knowing he was being cared for and could focus on his school work. I am in your debt."

It was a wholly unwarranted thanks, one that left me speechless—so of course I looked to Kurama for a hint. He just watched from the side, however, saying nothing and revealing nothing in his expression, features schooled into a mask of nigh expressionless scrutiny trained largely on me. Great. So he was doing his Cryptic Tactician Fox Routine™ and would be absolutely no help whatever. Fantastic. I swallowed and carefully folded my hands atop the table. One of my knuckles popped under my clasping fingers; I eased up the pressure and took a cleansing breath.

"I can't take all the credit, I'm afraid," I said, throat tight.

Shiori looked up from her bow with a curious frown. "Oh?"

"No. I only just started school at Meiou last winter, you see. Other girls at school began the meal preparations before I commenced attending. I joined in when those girls noticed that Shuichi and I had become friends." At that I smiled; Shiori should be thanking Amagi and Junko, not me. "They deserve most of the credit."

Shiori processed this. Kurama sat in silence, waiting. I sat in silence, too, wondering how much he'd left out—how much he'd neglected to tell his mother about Amagi and the others, not to mention why. He'd clearly talked me up before tonight, and without merit. Surely Shiori could see that now that I'd explained.

Or not, apparently. Her expression soon cleared, and she favored me with yet another of her earnest smiles. "Even so. Thank you for your help. It was a difficult time made easier for your efforts."

"Well." I shifted in my seat, not sure how to deflect this compliment I didn't deserve. "You're very welcome, I suppose."

And that was good enough for Shiori. She spent the next few minutes refilling plates and letting us eat, making sure I'd had enough rice and vegetables (there were a lot of them; I think Kurama had tipped her off that I didn't eat much meat) before resuming conversation.

"So you said you only recently transferred to Meiou?" she asked.

"That's right."

"Where did you attend before?"

"Sarayashiki Junior High."

She looked impressed again; I felt small and unworthy. "Shuichi mentioned you skipped a grade," she said. "But what prompted the change in schools?"

My hand spasmed around my chopsticks; I took a sharp breath. "Well—um?"

"I'm sorry." Shiori was a sharp one; she read the reaction for what it was, immediately looking to soothe. "I don't mean to pry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"Oh, it's fine," I said, just as eager to soothe in return. I snuck a look at Kurama, but he was busy studying the composition of the table and did not meet my eyes. Explaining the reason for my school transfer was never easy, but in the end I figured honesty was best. Looking Shiori in the eye, I said: "About a year ago, a friend of mine was hit by a car and it looked like he died." I held up a hand when she blanched. "He didn't, though. Die, I mean. The hospital just made a mistake and nearly cremated him. Which is arguably worse, in my book, but anyway. Um?"

Shiori's eyes had widened a little bit with every word, round as coins and getting rounder. Kurama looked up from his study of the table, staring at me in shock. Something told me he hadn't expected honesty in this matter, but oh well.

"Well, during all of that I was having a rough time coping and my parents thought a change of pace would do me well, so off to Meiou I went." At that point I took a leaf from Kurama's book, pun intended, and left out the part about nearly punching a teacher in the face at what was basically my adopted brother's funeral. Even so, Shiori looked stricken and quite unsure of how to handle my little anecdote, so I gave her an easy grin and threw out a nervous laugh. "My friend is fine, by the way. He's very, very alive, and the hospital paid quite a lot of money for nearly cremating him, which is… nice, I guess? But, yeah." I spread my hands, helpless. "Friend is alive, I'm at Meiou, and… and it's all good."

That ending sounded lame, even to me; I really needed to work on that story's punchline, turn the anecdote into a joke to cut the awkwardness of the whole affair. But since I hadn't polished that story yet, for a minute Shiori did not reply. Probably didn't even know how. Eventually she managed to say, "That's—well." She swallowed. "That's a very interesting story."

"Kei is a very interesting person," Kurama murmured.

His choice to repeat his mother's specific verbiage was not lost on me, given our history with certain words contained therein. I rubbed my forehead, grimacing. "Telling that story makes me look like a complete freakazoid, huh? Sorry about that."

Once again, Shiori was quick to soothe. "It's all right. Truth be told, I have a miraculous recovery story of my own. I haven't perfected talking about it yet, either, and your friend and I would probably get along." Her smile felt as nourishing as chicken soup as she reached for my empty dinner plate. "Would you care for dessert?"

I was as eager for dessert as I was a change in subject, on my feet and grabbing plates in seconds. "Yes—but please, let me help clean up."

She tittered. "If you're sure…"

Kurama tried to help, too, because he's a mama's boy and I will never not believe that to be true, but Shiori shushed his attempts to be helpful and led me from the dining room and into the kitchen—a surprisingly modern room with marble countertops and a large island, with a lovely range and set of stacked ovens my parents would absolutely salivate over. A cake sat under a glass dome on the island, white and yellow frosting piped evenly, but not perfectly. Likely homemade, if I had to guess. Shiori brought down plates and a large serving knife and carefully cut slices, and then she prepared the kettle for more tea. At the sink she paused, however, hands idle on the faucets as she filled the copper drum with water.

"May I ask?" she said, voice somehow clear over the sound of water striking the hollow metal canister. "How did you and my son become friends?"

I blinked, taken aback. "You mean, he didn't—?"

A bitter smile, one that did not sit well on her lovely features. "He's such a private boy," she murmured. "He doesn't tell me much. You're the first friend he's spoken of at length in… Well." She shook her head. "In a very long time, truth be told."

Shiori paused, a long breath expanding her chest in a slow swell. Maybe I'd suffered enough anxiety in my life to know the look when I saw it, but as she pulled the filled kettle from the sink and carried it to the stove, I read in the lines of her brow and in the coiled tension in her eyes a sense of overwhelming nerves. Her fingers shook around the kettle, almost imperceptibly, but the stove's knob rattled as she engaged the burner and blue flame burst to life beneath the teapot.

"I was stunned when he offered to let me meet you," she said. "It's so unusual for him, and I wondered…"

Shiori trailed off. She wandered away from the stove and back to the cake, idly turning one of the plates this way and that. I caught a whiff of lemon from the dessert, vanilla cutting the acidity with its sweet, round scent. She snuck a glance at me, and then another, trying to smile and failing when our eyes met. The plate clattered on the counter under her hand, porcelain ringing against marble like a tiny silver bell.

Words rang in my chest, too.

"I know I talk a lot, and I babble, and I seem pretty gregarious," I said, not quite knowing where I intended to go with that, "but truthfully, I keep to myself most of the time. Make no mistake: I'm an introvert who happens to be good with people, not an extrovert by any means." My turn to smile, confidence rising as I found my rhythm. "Shuichi and I… we made friends the way most people do, I think. We're a lot alike. So in the end—like recognizes like. And we found each other."

Like recognizes like. That old chestnut, back again. Shiori didn't know the history Kurama and I had with that phrase, but she considered my words with gravity regardless, nodding and rolling her lips together in contemplation. Eventually she hung her head, smile tugging the corners of her mouth.

"I see," she said. "My son—he's not accustomed to being understood. He rarely seems fond of anyone, and yet he speaks warmly of you. And you banter with him, even." At that she looked outright surprised, like perhaps she hadn't realized her son was capable of such a thing. "I am happy he has found someone who understands him."

"Me, too."

Another long look, measuring and fond. "He's always been mature for his age. An old soul, I've always said." Her smile deepened. "I sense much the same from you."

Shiori had absolutely no idea how right she was—how achingly, ironically, unequivocally correct her statement was, although she meant it in no way but metaphor. My heart ached, though I dared not let my smile slip.

Kurama was just in the next room, after all.

"My parents own a restaurant. Well, several," I said. "I've been involved in the business most of my life. I think I grew up a little faster than most as a result."

She nodded, accepting this as truth, but then her smile faltered. "I wonder what made my Shuichi—never mind." Shiori shook her head again. "He's never needed anyone to look out for him. Not even me. And that's why I was so happy when he said he'd made a friend." The lines around her eyes deepened. "He's been acting more his age lately, too."

I smirked. "That would be Yusuke's influence more than mine, I think."

"Yes, he's mentioned a Yusuke," she said, jumping on the name with interest. "Do you know him?"

"That's the friend of mine who nearly got cremated, actually. I grew up with him." I could only giggle at Shiori's surprised expression. "If your son is an old soul, Yusuke is a very, very young one. Like, infantile. But if there's anyone who could get Minamino to relax, it's him. And I think he's done a good job."

"And you've helped too, I think," Shiori said.

"Maybe." A happy shrug, bouncing and dismissive. "But as they say, it takes a village."

I wasn't sure I understood her smile, then, pitying as it was, nor why she put her hand on my shoulder. "Don't sell yourself short. You've done more than you know," she said—and then she pulled her hand away as the kettle whistle blew. She reminded me of Kurama again when she donned a flawless mask of good humor, earlier anxiety hidden beneath a cheerful chirp of, "Well, this cake looks delicious, doesn't it? Let's eat!"

The transition between her moods left me dumbstruck—but Kurama had learned from the best, I guess.

Or had Shiori learned that little mask-donning trick from Kurama?

If the former, Kurama had taken the technique and perfected it, because Shiori's cheer didn't last long. We took the cake back to the dining room and tucked in, resuming conversation over tea and dessert, but Shiori only asked me a few questions more before lapsing into silence. Kurama noticed, catching my eye with a frown, but I could do little more than frown back.

Frown, and worry.

Had I said something wrong when we talked in the kitchen?

I bolted my cake fast as a result, and then I did what I did best: I chattered. I chattered long and loud, filling the silence over cake with story after story, just random factoids and observations so we wouldn't sit there in awkward quiet. My parents were testing new menu items, I was excited to start taking German classes come the start of the new semester—and I was almost out of material when, thank my lucky stars, the phone rang in the kitchen. Shiori got up to answer it at once, and as Kurama and I had before, we waited until the door swung shut behind her before speaking.

"What's up with your mom?" I asked Kurama, voice low as I leaned over the table.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied.

We traded a long look, urgent but impotent, before the door swung open again.

"Shuichi? It's that classmate of yours, Kaito," Shiori said.

I gave Kurama a deadpan stare. "You and Kaito are on phone terms now?"

Kurama did not look pleased to be on said terms with Kaito. "He's been hounding me for my opinion on a certain paper. One I have no intention of reading." With a flex of lithe muscle he stood. "Be right back."

"Tell him hi for me!"

"No." A wry smirk. "Then he'll want your opinion on the paper, too."

Shiori watched Kurama go while I muttered and rolled my eyes, and once more she proved that no matter where Kurama had come from, he was very much like his mother. As soon as the door stopped swinging behind him, she practically flew to the dining table and sat back down on her cushion, hands braced on either side of her empty dessert plate.

"Kei-san," she said. "While he's gone, may I—oh, look at me." Shiori sat back in her seat, cupping her cheek in her hand, staring at her lap as she shook her head. "Every time he's out of earshot, I accost you. I'm like a schoolgirl fishing for gossip about my own son."

"Hey. I don't mind," I said on reflex. At her relieved look I added, "He's a private person. I don't blame you for trying to get the inside scoop."

And with that, the floodgates opened. She braced herself on the table again, leaning toward me across it, eyes supplicating as they bored into my own. "Keiko—my son. Do you think—?" Once more she shook her head at herself, vocalizing under her breath. "It's silly of me to ask. But… is he happy?" Her eyes flashed, vulnerable but intent. "He would never tell me if he wasn't. Ever since I got sick, he's been perfect—so perfect. But he's a teenager. Teenagers aren't supposed to be perfect." She bit something back. Reconsidered. Added: "I hope you don't take offense to that."

"Oh, I'm a mess," I said. "No offense taken at all."

She laughed, almost in spite of herself. "Good, good. I just… I worry." And the anguish in her gaze returned. "I worry if something was wrong, he wouldn't say anything. So please, tell me. Is he happy?" Words spilled from her lips in a torrent of justification, an attempt to persuade herself as much as she tried to persuade me. "He has friends now. He's doing well in school. But sometimes I catch him staring into space, and… I just don't know sometimes." Her knuckles pressed against her mouth for a moment, until they turned white. "He's so difficult to read, so secretive. I want to respect his space, but…" She searched my face. "Is he…?"

Is he happy?

That's all she wanted to know.

Not if he was a fox demon. Not if he was actually older than he looked. Not if he had secrets, which she clearly suspected he did. All Shiori wanted, in all the world, was to know if her strange, distant son was happy—and she didn't think she could ask him herself, for whatever reason.

This was the reason for her anxiety, her sudden depression, her distance. She was worried, and she didn't see a way out of her worry until that phone rang and she found herself alone with me, a stranger.

A stranger who'd nearly killed her, once, though she didn't know it.

I knew it wasn't necessarily my business to get involved here, nor to become Shiori's confidante and spy when it came to her son. But the look in her eye, and the way her hand reached blindly across the table as if to capture my own, as if to seek comfort from my fingers—in the way she pulled her hand back at the last second as if she feared she'd overstepped—

My heart broke, and I owed her. I reached out and took Shiori's hand. She gasped a little, startled at the contact, but I held on tight.

"I'm nosey," I said. "If he's not happy, he won't be able to hide it for long. I promise."

The desperation in her face softened. "I admit that's comforting." But then it returned, darker than before. "I admit, there are days when if I didn't know better, I'd say he's…" She looked away. "It doesn't matter."

"No," I said, holding her hand a little tighter. "What is it?"

She hesitated—but like water from a weary dam, the words poured forth. "There are days I think he's seen more than any child his age could," she said, and in her eyes shone the light of great relief even as they swam with sudden tears. "It's the look in his eye—that far-off stare. My father would wear it before his death, when he thought I couldn't see. When he remembered long ago, and forgot the here and now." Air trembled in her swanlike neck. "I know I'm being fanciful, but…"

"You're not," I said, throat turning thick, myself. "You're being honest. And those aren't the same thing."

She required a moment to compose herself, then. From in the kitchen I heard the murmur of Kurama's voice, soft and low as he spoke with our classmate. Shiori blotted her eyes on her sleeve and corrected her posture, squeezing my fingers. They were cold, at least at first, but soon they warmed a little.

"I'm glad for you, Kei," she said. "I'm sure Shuichi is, too."

"Well, he ought to be." I opted for a show of comical bravado and tossed my hair, smirking smugly for her benefit. "Not to brag or anything, but I'm pretty great."

My audacity knocked her for a loop, but she recovered and laughed from deep in her gut—a pretty sound, as pretty as her earlier tinkling giggle. I grinned wider.

"My name might mean 'lucky child,' but c'mon. Let's be real," I continued with more overwrought self-assurance. "He's the lucky on in this scenario. Not to mention all the friends of mine I've introduced to Shuichi are pretty great, too, so." A wink, conspiratorial and full of it. "That boy of yours hit the jackpot."

"Lucky boy, indeed," Shiori said through her laughter. "He's in good hands, I can tell."

"That he is. And I'm not—ah." It felt like the cheesiest thing in the world to say, but I took a deep breath and said it anyway, even if it made heat rise just a little in my cheeks. Looking at my hand clasped around Shiori's, I said: "These hands aren't letting go, I guess you might say."

In return, I felt her fingers lace tighter around my own.

"I appreciate that," she said.

We sat in silence for a moment—a moment that stretched to two, then three, and then Kurama came back through the kitchen door. We pulled our hands apart, but his green eyes missed nothing and fastened intent upon my face. I just grinned, though, sunny and without guile.

"Everything settled?" I said.

"Yes." Sly amusement curled his lips. "He thinks I've read that paper."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I let him talk first. He enjoys doing so, after all."

I eyed Shiori. "He tell you much about Kaito yet?"

"No," she said.

"Oh." I geared up for a comedy routine. "Well, allow me!"

By the time I was finished with my impression of our grumpy, literature-obsessed friend, Shiori was in stitches—and when we left for the night's aikido lesson, the last thing I saw as we walked out the door was a smile on her face, illuminating her dark eyes and alabaster skin like moonlight on still water.

I only hoped that tranquility might last longer than this night, and perhaps our talk, short though it had been, would bring her comfort less ephemeral.

"So your mom is pretty great."

Kurama nodded, not breaking stride as we walked down the road and away from his house. Lights burned in the windows at our back; doubtless Shiori watched our progress down the street from one of them, but neither of us turned to look. We had a lesson to get to, and Hideki-sensei did not approve of tardiness—not that I thought we'd be late. The wintry air put a quickness in the step, burning at my cheeks and chasing me back indoors.

"She is," Kurama agreed. "I'm glad you think so."

"Mm-hmm. Think she liked me?"

"I do. You were charming."

I fist-pumped, mimicked a crowd going wild with my voice, but Kurama only smiled for a moment at my antics. A look of determination settled across his features, undeniable as the cold chilling my bare nape.

"May I ask—did my mother have much to say while I was gone?" he said.

And of course he asked. I'd called myself nosey, but gotta-know-it-all Kurama took the cake. I shoved my hands in my pockets and nodded. "She did."

He look satisfied. "I had a feeling she would ask questions if I left the two of you alone."

I frowned at him, at that 'told you so' expression on his face. "Well, she cares for you. That's natural for a mom."

"Of course." That too-casual sound crept into his voice again. "What did you talk about?"

"Oh. You know." I shrugged, enjoying having the power for once. "This and that."

Only Kurama didn't seem nearly as excited by my acquisition of leverage. "Kei," he said, my name full of warning in his mouth.

"She expressed herself. I validated her feelings," I said with another shrug. "She asked questions. I answered them in ways that would bring her comfort."

"Spare me no detail," he deadpanned—and wow, sarcasm from him? That was unusual. Dry humor, sure; detached understatement, whatever; but outright sarcasm? That wasn't normal. So why—?

Oh.

My feet stilled beneath me, pulling me to a halt on the empty suburban sidewalk.

"Is that why you brought me to dinner?" I said.

He stopped, too, brow climbing high. "Beg pardon?"

Despite the question in his face, I saw guilt, there, too—mostly admission of it. "It is. Wow." My jaw dropped. "The two of you really are related."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just—" I started walking again. "You're your mother's son, that's for sure."

Kurama fell into step beside me. "I failed to inherit Shiori's better qualities, I'm afraid."

"Disagree. But I get the sense you'll be stubborn about accepting compliments, so I'll just say you definitely inherited her indirect streak."

"I don't follow."

Once more I stopped, this time with an annoyed huff and a pronounced scowl. "You said you thought she'd ask me questions about you. Did you let us be alone together on purpose?"

"I could not predict Kaito calling," he said, as though I were not particularly bright for making that suggestion.

But I knew Kurama too well. "That's not a 'no,'" I observed.

"Are you suggesting I somehow planned his call?" Kurama said, guileless as a spring day.

"Sure. Dodge my question." I'd never get a straight answer out of him; he knew it, I knew it, and we both knew we could verbally spar until we were blue in the face and this was pointless—and indignation rose up hot in my belly, both at the memory of Shiori's desperate face and at Kurama's mild mask. Stepping back, I spread my arms wide and dipped a frilly bow. "Well, then: Allow me to cut right to it." And with that I looked him dead in the goddamn eye. "You'd much rather play a game of social chess with your own mother than ask her outright what she thinks of you. Instead you sent me to be your spy. And she waited till you left the room to give me the third degree, rather than just talk to you directly herself." I looked him up and down with a low, appraising whistle. "You're quite the pair, I gotta say."

Kurama bore my analysis with composure, though a subtle twitch at the corner of his eye betrayed him. "Perhaps we're more alike than I thought," he murmured when I was through, "but I didn't invite you here tonight merely to use you as my spy. I wanted you to meet her." He stepped toward me when I scoffed, gaze focused. "Sincerely, Kei. You are both important to me."

"Yeah. Well." I shifted my weight a few times, swiping my hand over my mouth and avoiding his gaze—trying not to smile all the while. Damn jerk and his sweet talk. With a sigh I finally admitted, "That makes me feel a little better… but you did suspect I'd get you some dirt on her, didn't you."

It wasn't a question and I didn't bother phrasing it as such. Kurama knew better than to deny it, too, so he just smiled. "Maybe a little," he said.

I slugged his shoulder, triumphant. "Knew it. OK, then." I took a deep breath. Told him: "She suspects you're not happy."

Kurama stilled.

Whatever he'd expected me to say, that wasn't it.

"Your mother thinks you're a study in contrast, really," I continued. "She understands you're a private person, but she wishes you'd let her in. She said it's not often you're understood, and it worries her. She said you behave too perfectly for a teenager, and that that behavior doesn't make sense."

Kurama's feet moved under him, squaring up as though he meant to launch forward, or perhaps flee backward into the night. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if I should keep going or quit while I was ahead—but the urgency in his eyes did not leave room for hesitation.

"She said sometimes you carry a look in your eye that reminds her of her father, when he was an old man, when he looked back on the past and forgot to live in the present," I said, soft as the cold night breeze rustling Kurama's hair. "She called you an old soul, not knowing how right she is. Your mother is confused by you—and yet, Kurama, she understands you better than she realizes. And this confuses her even more."

Kurama didn't move when I finished. I didn't move, either. I waited for him to react, for him to pass a hand down his face and cover his eyes. "I see," he said from behind that barrier, where I could not reach him, even though he stood no more than an arm's mere length away.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"… I don't know," he admitted.

We stood there for a long time—a long enough time for my watch to beep an alarm, the "get up and go" alarm meant to warn me I was running late. Kurama let his hand drop; I slipped my arm through his, pulling myself into his side as I guided him down the sidewalk. At first he stiffened under my touch, but after a moment he relaxed and I sank a little closer, hand curling around the breadth of his bicep. Our breath mingled in a cloud before us, a ghost preceding our steps through the evening dark.

"Do you ever imagine what it would be like to tell her?" I murmured.

Kurama did not have to ask me what I meant. "No," he replied. But then: "Yes." And then he sighed, breath heavy with emotions I could not name. "I don't know what that kind of world would look like."

"Me neither." We came to a stop at a crosswalk; my temple rested briefly against his shoulder. "But I bet it would be nice."

His reply was almost inaudible. "I'm not so sure."

"She loves you."

The numbers on the crosswalk counter flashed down, descending toward zero one by one. The lit up in red, each flash illuminating the highlights in Kurama's hair. I saw because when I said that, he pulled back, staring at me with mouth parted, stunned. I sighed. Ran my free hand through my hair and cursed.

"Yeah, yeah. People in Japan don't say it much, I know," I grumbled, "but I'm an uncouth American at heart, and I'm going to tell it to you straight. Your mother loves you—and she'll love you no matter the origin of your soul."

The uncertainty in his eyes quieted. "It's not that simple."

"I know," I relented. "It's not that simple—and yet, it is." It was hard not to think of my own parents waiting for me at home at the ramen shop, unware of the truth of my own nature. "You should be honest with the people you care about. I know keeping secrets might keep her safe, but it might bring her some comfort to know that you're…" I stopped. Took a breath. "That she's…"

Words failed me, but Kurama did not look confused. The resignation in his eyes said he understood—understood me completely, words left unspoken no barrier to our shared comprehension.

Like recognizes like, I'd said to him once.

Like recognizes like, I'd repeated to his mother.

And now, a third time, like recognized like in a moment of silence, when words could do nothing but obscure.

The wordless weight of what I meant lingered heavy between us. Eventually the crosswalk timer beeped. Kurama looped his arm through mine again, tugging me once more against his side.

"I was rambling," I muttered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he muttered back. I heard the smile in his voice, even if I didn't look up to see it. "Our lives are complicated, aren't they?"

"We're teenagers," I said. "Our lives are supposed to be a mess."

Somewhere, out there in the dark, I got the feeling Shiori would be happy about that.

We changed our clothes in the train station bathrooms—or at least I did. Kurama stuck to his jeans and button-up, eyeing my spandex workout pants and gi shirt with approval while I eyed his ensemble with outright skepticism. "Think you can move in those pants?" I asked, with a pointed glance at their form-fitting contours, but he just laughed and said not to worry about him. Fuckin' mom jeans, but OK, it's your funeral, I'll save my worry.

Hard not to worry, though, when a cantankerous, demon-hating sensei of mine waited in the wings to criticize everything Kurama did wrong, small or large or anything in between, but oh well!

When we reached the warehouse distract housing Hideki's makeshift dojo, I told Kurama to wait outside a minute, which he did without complaint (he needed to tie his shoe, anyway, a handy excuse in case of listening ears). Taking a deep breath, I stood under the flickering floodlight illuminating the warehouse door and steeled myself before hauling it open with a clatter, striding in intent on finding my sensei and telling him on no uncertain terms to be-freaking-have himself, or else.

Hideki beat me to the punch.

I saw him coming at once, walking toward me like a drill sergeant just as soon as the door shut behind my back. I opened my mouth to greet him (and to greet Ezakiya warming up in the corner) but he was on me in moments, hand firm on my elbow to steer me into the nearest corner behind a row of practice dummies, most of whom were missing limbs, patchwork and broken. I whined something about being manhandled but Hideki shushed me as we cloistered away in the shadows like a couple of wannabe ninjas.

"I thought you said your friend was a demon," he said, rounding on me like a scarecrow cursed into gangly life.

"Uh. He is." I looked my teacher up and down, at his wild grey hair and thin, drawn face and thunderous black eyes. "Why—?"

"He's good at hiding it," Hideki grunted. "Too good. I didn't sense him at all." He leaned toward me, narrow eyes wide for effect. "At. All."

"I mean. Yeah? He's very skilled, I guess?" I leaned backward and away, thoroughly put off by Hideki's intensity and proximity and wait just a goddamn second. I put up a finger, mouth working around air as I put the pieces together. "Wait, wait, hold up. My friend is still outside."

Hideki scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about my demon friend," I said, whispering the last words through my clenched teeth. "I left him outside and was coming in to warn you he was here, but if you can't sense him, how did you know he was even here?"

Hideki stared at me like I'd sprouted tentacles from my nose. "Yukimura, your friend isn't outside. He's in here." And with that he leveled a single wiry finger over my shoulder. "Unless you don't know that boy over there?"

Nonplussed, I stared at him.

Flabbergasted, I turned around.

That's when I spotted him.

And that's about the same time he spotted me, too.

He stood in the center of the training mat doing stretches, clad in a school gym uniform in lieu of a martial arts uniform. He wore no shoes, and his short blonde hair glittered in the fitful lighting of the dingy warehouse. Blue eyes lit up bright when they spotted me; one hand raised in greeting, and when his voice called my name across the dojo's cavernous interior, my stomach dropped into the pits of my hollow heels.

"Sorry I didn't call first, Captain," Minato said, "but I was hoping your offer of an aikido lesson still stood."

I didn't—couldn't—say anything.

Behind me, with a shriek of rusted hinges, Kurama opened the warehouse door.

Notes:

Some of you thought meeting Mom might be Kurama's request; kudos to y'all!

Not feeling great today. Hope you liked this. Many heartfelt thanks to those who took the time to leave a comment last week. This chapter is for you: Eternalevecho, musiquemer, activelyapathetic, atsuyrui-sama, Just 2 Dream of You, drmsqnc, MageKing17, Not Quite a Morning Person, Unctuous, Vinlala, Toki Mirage, Nomyriad, Maskes Trickster!

Chapter 72: Surprises Are Overrated

Summary:

In which the Captain deals with the surprises she's been gifted.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Relatively speaking, this wasn't the worst thing that could've happened at an aikido lesson.

It could've been Kurama who'd shown up unannounced, you see, not asking ahead of time and giving me ample opportunity to tell Kagome to skip lessons. Imagine the clash of canons had that come to pass. Or perhaps a demon could've attacked and murdered us all one night without Kurama there, taking revenge on Hideki, former friend of a former Spirit Detective. Or, hell, Yusuke could've gotten curious and followed me to practice and then blown up in Hideki's face, maybe, prompting a too-early meeting with Kuroko Sanada herself or something equally unexpected—but instead it was Minato standing before me on the mat, barefoot and wearing a school gym uniform, confusedly staring as the color drained from my astonished face and my mind went absolutely blank.

None of those worst case scenarios occurred to me in the moment I saw Minato, however.

In the moment, his presence felt like the end of the goddamn world—and thus only the feeblest of protests found its way out of my horrified mouth.

"Oh," I said. "Oh no."

Minato, standing with ankles together and back ramrod straight, frowned. "Are you all right, Captain?" he said.

Hideki and Kurama spoke as one: "Captain?"

That's when the demon and demon hunter finally saw each other.

Kurama had entered the room on silent feet, with only the squeal of the door's hinges to give his entrance away. Hideki had ignored him in favor of watching my interaction with Minato, grey eyes as observant as a hawk's—but as soon as Kurama spoke I saw Hideki turn, and from the corner of my eye I saw the two of them bristle, an electric current of tension you could almost taste spiking between them on the dusty air. With enormous difficulty I tore my eyes from Minato, dread pooling hot and leaden in my stomach as understanding dawned on Hideki's face. This was the demon, he realized as he looked Kurama up and down, the barest of sneers curling his upper lip. This was the demon, not the young blonde boy from whom he could not sense demonic energy, and suddenly it all made sense. I don't know if he meant to do it on purpose (though Hideki rarely did anything accidentally) but he took a quick step forward and put himself between me and Kurama, shoulders squared as he stared the demon down.

Kurama, to his credit, didn't move a muscle as Hideki took stock of his gleaming red hair and brilliant green eyes, hands lax and loose at his sides—but in the delicate lines of his porcelain features I read tension like stretched piano wire, lips a thin slash as he glanced for a moment in my direction.

Then his eyes traveled to the center of the warehouse, toward Minato.

Maybe it's something in all of us Switcheroo people, an ability born into in all of the individuals swapped into bodies of fictional characters—but the second Minato's eyes locked with Kurama, I saw in them that he knew precisely who Kurama was. He knew. Recognition sparked like a flame, a blue-hot flame like the fire at the heart of a kiln, and his eyes widened. He took a step back, the unflappable Minato flapped for once in his impressive life. Perhaps he meant to mimic me. Perhaps he didn't. But his lips moved, then stilled, and then he swallowed.

"Oh," he said. "Oh no."

Kurama scowled. "Is this a friend of yours, Kei?"

My name broke the spell cast over me; I could breathe again, a great, hitching breath that sent adrenaline skittering up my back in a thrumming burst. "Uh—yeah, actually," I said. "He is."

And then I hesitated—because which of these smoldering disaster-fires was I supposed to put out first?

My feet decided before my brain could catch up. They moved, marching me stoutly across the warehouse and onto the practice mat, plastic sheeting crunching beneath the weight of my heavy winter boots. My mouth ran, too, as I threw open my arms and gave Minato a wide grin.

"Hey, Minato. I wasn't expecting you!" And I enveloped him in a hug (which he greeted with a small sound of surprise) so I could whisper into the shell of his ear, "What the hell are you doing here?"

For a second he didn't move—and then his arms went around me. His face turned, burying itself into the scarf and puffy coat I hadn't yet had time to take off.

"I intended this to be a surprise," he muttered into my neck—and I probably would've been touched by both the gesture and the helplessness in his voice had the situation surrounding it not been so preposterously dire. Irony dripped from every syllable when he added, "I see now that surprises are overrated."

"I'll bet." I released the hug and stood back, tucking hair behind my ear. "Um."

"Um," he repeated, eyes housing the desperate urgency of a runaway freight engine.

I returned the look with one that matched. "Um?"

We stared at each other in silence—but I could hear a clock ticking, at least metaphorically, and the longer we stood there like a couple of awkward kids at a middle school dance, the fishier we'd look. I pasted on my very best Keiko Face (bless my Keiko Face; bless it to hell and back) and smiled sweetly at Minato.

"Well. Y'know what?" I said, still grinning. "Fuck it. Play along." And with that I spun on my heel, stepping to the side so I could present Minato like Vanna White presenting a particularly choice prize on Wheel of Fortune. Kurama looked quite bamboozled as I held out my hands and crowed, "Well, everybody, you're in luck tonight! This is my good friend Minato, the one and only! I told him he was welcome here any time he wanted to join us for an aikido session, and he picked tonight to surprise us, which is wonderful!" I wagged a finger at Hideki and Kurama in turn. "So please be nice, both of you."

They exchanged a look, the pair of them, dubious and skeptical and just for a moment forgetting they were maybe supposed to hate each other. I just laughed—but from the other side of the warehouse came the pointed clearing of a throat. Ezakiya stood over by the punching bags that were suspended from the warehouse rafters, arms crossed over his barrel chest, one foot tapping the ground. Clearly the big guy didn't like being ignored.

I smiled at him, sweet as candy. "Don't think I forgot about you, Ezakiya. You play nice, too."

He passed a hand over his buzz cut and frowned, looking between me and Minato. "Am I missing something?"

Another sweet smile. "Just the buttons on your shirt."

He looked down—and indeed, he'd missed a button on his shirt, lapels hanging quite askew. Color flooded his tanned face. "Oh," he said, and he turned around to right the wrong.

Ezakiya (shit, shit I had totally forgotten about Ezakiya!) safely distracted, I turned back to Minato. This time I waved at Kurama and Hideki like Vanna White, hoping he understood the manic intention behind my 1,000-watt smile. "Minato, why don't you introduce yourself to my sensei and my friend?" I said. I jerked my head toward Kurama. "I brought him along tonight, too, as my guest. The more the merrier, right?"

He seemed to get it, that I wanted him to take the lead on his side of the story, to control the narrative of why he had chosen to come here tonight. Nodding, he stepped forward and dipped a bow in greeting. "Right. Hello. I am Aino Minato, friend of the Cap—of Keiko's." He didn't pause at all after the cover, passing it off as a natural stutter. "It is nice to meet you both." A bow specifically at Hideki. "You are her sensei, of course. We met earlier."

Hideki had moved inch by inch out of the shadowy corner and into the light, standing at the edge of the mat with his back to Kurama, who lingered near the door—but although he looked at Minato, the set of his shoulders betrayed where his focus remained. "Hideki," he said, with a perfunctory nod.

"Hideki," Minato repeated. He bowed at Kurama. "And you are…?"

Green eyes flickered my way—and oh fuck shit-balls, now I had to play double-agent with Kurama, too?! He looked at me for confirmation, to see how I wanted to play this, like I didn't have an ulterior motive like protecting the identity of a Sailor Scout as well as another Switcheroo buddy—which I most definitely, definitely did. Kurama expected me to protect his double identity from people he assumed were normal, and he assumed Minato was normal, and that Minato didn't have a double identity to protect… which made me, what, a triple agent? A quadruple agent? Christ on a saint-be-damned cracker, this was ridiculous!

Luckily my Keiko Face held strong, and enough of the "you take the lead" look I'd worn for Minato's benefit lingered in my expression to serve Kurama, too. He gave me the faintest of nods before looking back to Minato.

"Minamino Shuichi," he said, voice as smooth as butter. "I am her classmate at school." And then our alliance appeared to end, because Kurama went fishing. "And you know Keiko through…?"

At which point Minato decided he didn't want to play leader, after all, because his eyes darted straight to me. He wanted me to take the reins, I read in them, and fuck it, that was the last goddamn thing I wanted just then. But like a gift descending from the hand of some great deity, an excuse bloomed in my brain like a hothouse flower, which I plucked and presented with all the forced-cheer ferocity of a beauty pageant contestant wearing three-inch acrylic nails.

"Minato and I are study buddies!" I declared. I looped an arm around his shoulders and grinned. "He's going to be my German tutor this semester. I picked it for my elective, remember, Minamino?"

His expression eased a little. "I remember," Kurama said.

"And I figured I'd need a tutor since German is difficult and the school hooked me up with a native speaker." Ruffling Minato's hair, I tipped the room at large the merriest of winks. "You didn't think he got this beautiful blonde hair by being all Japanese, did you?"

And at that Kurama laughed, low and amused. "I suppose not," he said.

"Right, right, of course not!" I beamed down at Minato and hoped he had the good sense to keep playing along, dammit, because we were somehow not totally crashing and burning just yet and the fact that he hadn't reacted or given the game away yet was a miracle. "Anyway, Minato and I thought we'd get to know each other before the semester started through aikido. He expressed interest, I take lesson, ipso facto here we are." I paused. Regarded the ceiling for a moment. Said: "That was the wrong Latin phrase to use in that context but I'm blowing right past it because I'm not taking Latin, I'm taking German, so fuck it." Clasping Minato's shoulders, I looked him dead in the eye and sincerely intoned, "I am very excited to start my German lessons next semester, Minato, you have no idea."

For a moment he just blinked at me. "I—ah." He swallowed. "I'm excited, too."

"Good." I clapped my hands together and turned to Hideki. "Well, no time like the present to get started. What's on the menu tonight, sensei?"

His deadpan stare could've melted stone. "Warm-ups," he grunted. "Show them the ropes… Captain."

I almost barfed at the name. "Heh. Sure." Suppressing another nervous giggle, I motioned for Kurama and Minato to follow me and did my best Botan impression when I said, "This way, everyone."

I had to double back and take off my coat and boots, of course, but soon enough I had Minato, Kurama, and also Ezakiya doing the series of sprints, stretches, and conditioning techniques Hideki favored. Did my very best Richard Simmons impression all the while, enthusiasm dialed to eleven, cheeks on fire from smiling so much—even in the midst of running grueling wind sprints, which I hated. I barely had time to marvel at Kurama's lithe running form, at the way he went through the warmup without breaking a sweat and with a kind of preternatural grace Ezakiya observed with his jaw dropped and Hideki watched through narrow, unhappy eyes from the edge of the practice mat (Minato, meanwhile, appeared utterly focused on his own tasks and did not notice). Probably OK that I didn't watch Kurama too closely, though. Would've made me feel self-conscious, him being even more graceful than me.

Still, doing wind sprints and feeling vaguely inferior was preferable to standing around and talking, even if Kurama seemed to take my explanation regarding Minato's presence in stride. Who knew, though? His poker face was unmatched, and I did not react well under pressure. Obviously he had no reason to suspect Minato was from a work of fiction the same way we were, but he probably had some inkling this whole thing had made me feel awkward as hell. Only question now was what did he suspect, and what would he ask me when we got a minute alone—not to mention what would Hideki do when we entered the same situation?

I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

Fortunately for my nerves, physical activity and working up a sweat helped calm me down a little, or at least helped me channel some of my nervous energy into productive behaviors. Unfortunately for me, the warmup ended all too soon when Hideki called for us to settle in to practice katas and aikido form. Kurama sidled up to me with small smile.

"It's been some time since I fought hand to hand," he said, sounding subtly embarrassed.

I did my best to sound breezy. "Think you can keep up?"

Kurama might have winked, or perhaps he just blinked a little sloppily, though Kurama isn't the type to do anything halfway. "We'll see, won't we, Captain?" he said.

My back stiffened. A nervous chuckle squeaked out from between my clenched teeth.

"You do accrue the oddest of nicknames." His head tilted the barest inch to the side, in Minato's direction. "Your friend seems interesting."

When in doubt, make a joke. "There's that word again," I said, rolling my eyes, and I called upon a subject change to save me. "Cut the chit-chat. Let's get started."

Easier said than done, though. I'd never had to teach anyone aikido before and wasn't quite sure how to do so aside from showing them the basics. Ezakiya and I were well past the basics, after all, but I'd heard it said you never attained true mastery over anything until you were able to teach it to others. My eyes cut to Hideki on reflex—but it seemed my ascension to sensei-hood was to be saved for another night, because just then he walked onto the mat and stood between me and Kurama.

Kurama's shoulders straightened an iota, a rope pulled taut between two fists.

"You," Hideki said, looking first at me before nodding at Minato. "Go with him." My teacher turned to Kurama, fists balling at his sides. "I'll handle this one."

'This one' lifted his chin, green eyes imperious and hard as they stared down the length of his nose at Hideki. Minato appeared at my side, frowning, and then Ezakiya (who stood off a few feet looking pitiably confused) cleared his throat again.

"What about me?" he said.

One pitiless silver eye turned his way. "More sprints," Hideki grunted.

"Awwww," lamented Eza, but he had no choice but to obey and trudged wearily away to do as his sensei bade.

Poor Ezakiya. He had no fucking clue what was going on, that sweet summer child, and he was not better off for his ignorance. I would've felt sorry for him had I not been so distracted with everything else. As it stands, though, I grabbed Minato by the elbow and dragged him off toward the punching bags without a backward glance. Sorry, Ezakiya.

As soon as Minato and I were off in our own little corner, I put my back to the rest of the warehouse and mouthed at him, totally bug eyed, "Oh my fucking god."

Minato took a deep, purposeful breath as if to calm himself, but all he said was, "We should begin."

That was all we dared do just then, because we couldn't attract suspicion—especially since I snuck a glance at Hideki and Kurama over my shoulder and saw they'd found a distant corner of their own, over by the practice dummies, where they stood murmuring at each other so quietly I couldn't make out the words. Hideki had his back to me, but Kurama faced in my direction. He wore his politest of smiles, the one he wore for teachers and our classmates at school—the one I instantly recognized as a mask, as fake as if he'd carved himself a facsimile of ivory, worn to conceal an expression far darker than the bland smile adorning his fair lips.

A shiver coursed down my back at the sight.

Please, Kurama. Please, Hideki. Keep your tempers in check and let this night pass without incident, please…

So as not to arouse suspicion, I dove into teaching Minato the basics as best as I was able, guiding him through the most fundamental ideals and principles of aikido as I knew them. Some of it I had to explain verbally, but other parts I demonstrated through showing him isolated moves—select throws and grapples, how to use an opponent's weight and momentum against them, that sort of thing. It's impossible to sum up any one martial art in a single lesson, of course, but Minato seemed to understand that this wasn't a martial art meant to utterly destroy an opponent, but rather one that prioritized the wellbeing of its practitioners over pain and dismemberment, defense over offense.

And then words became superfluous, and we just had to fight it out.

Well. We had to play-fight it out, I guess.

Hideki had gloves and strike-pads on hand; Minato donned the former while I wore the latter, and to get a feel for his fighting ability I had him lob punches and hits at my covered hands. Sometimes I'd strike back, encourage him to use an aikido maneuver to divert my strike, but mostly I was just trying to get a sense of what he might be capable of and of how quickly he might pick up techniques.

And also to cover the fact that I wanted so desperately to talk to him, of course.

Minato was shorter than me, reach not quite as long as mine, but he struck fast and hard like a biting snake at the pads on my hands and forearms, the shock of the blows reverberating through the material and into my joints. He kept his feet active under his body, weight constantly shifting and moving to accommodate for his change in stance and center of gravity—a sign he'd done this before, I surmised. The fact that he could keep up a conversation while sparring said something about his skill level as well.

"Minato, I'm so sorry," I hissed as I parried one of his punches.

He shook his head, dancing back on his active feet. "I should have called ahead. Surprising you was stupid of me." A punch flew with greater force, the impact like bees buzzing in my wrists. Minato bared his teeth. "I never should have tried to—"

"No. It was sweet. You were being—" Words failed as I ducked under a swing of his arm. "Don't be sorry. It's a coincidence." At that I had to smirk, roll my eyes and laugh. "Story of my fucking life."

That got a smile out of him, wry though it might have been. "Sounds like it," Minato said.

In truth, his gesture of showing up to surprise me would have been welcomed any other night—welcomed with open arms, because it showed an effort on his part to adapt to his canon, and that was a good thing. It was indeed sweet of him to try to be friendly with Kagome and I. Just a shame this was the night he'd picked to make that attempt, and I didn't want him walking away from this too burned to try again on a better day.

Not that I had the time to explain that in the short, stolen snippets between palm strikes and punches. I hoped he got the idea, though.

"Are you actually taking German, or was that a clever cover story?"

He muttered the inquiry at such low volume and between such a particularly rapid series of punches, I almost didn't hear him. I countered the flurry of blows and spun, putting myself on his other side and throwing back up my guard.

"I'm actually taking it," I admitted as Minato reoriented himself. I cracked a smile. "Want to actually be my tutor?"

"If you actually need one." He paused, feet stilling underneath him. For a moment he hesitated, but then he asked, almost under his breath: "Are you taking it on my account?"

"That was a factor," I admitted.

"… I see."

I couldn't read his expression, even though his brow his knit and his lips pursed. "I wasn't going to tell you until I'd learned a little of the language," I told him. "Ironically, I intended it to be a surprise."

At last something recognizable registered in his face: shock, followed by amusement. "Well. Don't feel too bad, in that case." A smile ghosted the corners of his mouth as the lines between his eyes smoothed. "Surprises are overrated, or so I hear."

"Wise words," I said, hand dropping to my hip. "Who said them, again?"

I giggled, Minato chuckled, and for a moment we just stood there looking at each other—and call me crazy, but I think the absurdity of the situation had rendered us both a little slap-happy, because even the stoic Minato covered his mouth with his hand and tried very, very hard not to crack up. I stifled a laugh of my own with the sparring pad, wondering if my face reflected the urgent, desperate humor bubbling in my chest—but Minato's blue eyes caught on something over my shoulder. His fists shot up and his feet squared beneath him.

A glance behind me revealed Hideki looking in our direction, scowling, and his critical grey gaze put the fear of wind sprints into my heart. Ezakiya about to keel over in the corner helped, too. We resumed practice at once, circling each other and trading blows until Hideki looked away—back at Kurama, who hadn't moved since I last checked in. He and Hideki still stood off in their corner conferring in low voices. It was hard not to want to wander close and eavesdrop, but something told me neither demon nor demon hunter would allow that to occur.

"To be honest, I'm glad you're here," I whispered to Minato as he threw a punch.

Blonde eyebrows shot up like bullets. "You're kidding."

"No." I jerked my head toward the pair chatting in the corner. "Without an audience, those two might start throwing punches. You and Eza are helpful."

Minato shrugged, bouncing from foot to foot. "Seems I didn't ruin everything."

"Truth." My eyes rolled again. "God, this is a mess." I dodged a sweep of his leg, fluidly bending around the arc of the blow. "On the plus side, at least you're not the powder keg that is Kagome."

Another lift of his eyebrows, questioning.

"She and Kurama met in the past. Your canon doesn't intersect like that."

Minato grunted in affirmation. "Most he could learn is that there are more switched characters." He looked unnerved, then. "Or that the Scouts are real."

"Right," I said. "Dunno if the consequences of either would be too bad, but…"

He grimaced. "Best not tempt it."

"Yeah."

Sparring with Minato, getting a moment alone with him and physically exerting myself in the process, had cleared my head of my at least some of my earlier panic. This whole incident was shocking, sure, and we indeed danced on a high-flying tightrope wire of intersecting canons—but unless Minato transformed into Sailor V in front of the occupants of my sensei's dojo (a feat he had no reason to perform), in the end the consequences of his presence here tonight weren't necessarily huge; it had just taken me a while to calm down enough to realize it. Kurama wanted to keep his own secret identity a secret, so I was pretty sure he'd stay on good behavior and not show off his powers in full view of everyone here, which meant we'd have no reason to drag Minato into the world of Yu Yu Hakusho—given Kurama had no idea Minato was in-the-know about it already and whatnot. Furthermore, Hideki probably now thought Minato was just a normal kid as well, my sketchy behavior notwithstanding. Kurama likely didn't sense anything particularly odd about Minato, either, apart from my aforementioned odd reaction to seeing him unexpectedly. Sure, maybe Kurama and Hideki had seen Sailor V on the news, but given V's cloaking tech, I doubted either one of them would suspect that superhero in a Sailor Suit could possibly be my German tutor Minato.

And even if they did suspect?

"What would the consequences be?" I muttered out loud. Minato caught my eye and frowned. I added, "Practically, I mean? Of the YYH crew knowing about the… SM crew."

It took Minato a minute to puzzle through my use of acronyms, but soon he figured it out. He lobbed another volley my way, which I narrowly avoided. "Demons trying to steal the ISC," he said—and I took that to mean the Imperial Silver Crystal.

I cut my eyes toward Kurama. "He wouldn't do that."

Minato nodded, but he said, "Others might."

"True." I thought about that, about the chaos that might ensue if a demon hungry for power stole the Crystal so many Sailor Moon villains sought to make their own—but I shrugged, because canon afforded some minor protections. "It'd be useless to them, though."

"I hope so," said Minato, darkness brewing in his bright eyes, "but these canons have never mixed. Who's to say?"

He had a point. The Crystal responded to Usagi and her emotions, and it was unlikely a demon could therefore wield it—but without any canon to support that idea, we were working on theories and nothing more. I opened my mouth to say as much, reiterate the need to keep my connection to the world of Sailor Moon a secret (or at least not give anyone reason to think I was friends with a Scout, aside from that one time V rescued Botan and I from a horde of infected teachers) but before I could, a shout rang up.

"That's enough!" Kurama said.

I turned on my heel with a gasp.

Kurama and Hideki stood across from one another, still over in their secluded corner, only something about the scene had changed, though I wasn't precisely sure how or why at first glance. They hadn't moved much, standing in about the same places as before, and Hideki still slouched with hands in his pockets as he stared Kurama down. They were just about the same height, about the same build, neither one of them more imposing than the other at face value… only somehow, now Kurama looked menacing. It was like the shadows behind him had darkened, the broken practice dummies like an army of shambling corpses at his back, his green eye spots of eerie flame against the dark backdrop. Kurama's earlier calm mask had broken, falling away to reveal a face of thunderous, cold fury matched by the fists coiled at his sides and the iron set of his broad shoulders. Somehow I got the sense, as a shiver crawled and snaked up the length of my back, that if there had been plants about, they would have writhed around Kurama's feet like dogs baying for the taste of blood.

Hideki didn't even look impressed.

Minato and I stared, both open-mouthed with horrified wonder, and even Ezakiya froze mid-sprint to watch as Hideki took a step forward, right up in Kurama's face, and muttered something none of us could here. Kurama bared his teeth at that, eyes flashing like aurora borealis—but then, as if sensing our attention, shutters closed behind his eyes. He stepped back, away from Hideki, and passed a hand through the thicket of his hair.

"That's enough," Kurama repeated (softly this time), and he stepped around Hideki and walked away. The shadows behind him lightened into mere gray, tension in the air dissipating like mist in heated sun. Hideki watched him with a frown.

And then Hideki saw us looking.

I tried to turn, pretending I hadn't been staring, but Hideki spotted me too fast. He leveled one long finger in my direction. "You." The finger aimed at Ezakiya. "And you. To the mat. Now."

Ezakiya and I exchanged A Look.

We gulped.

I dropped my gloves, Eza kicked off his running shoes, and we did as we were told.

Minato and Kurama walked to the edge of the mat, watching as Ezakiya and I took up our positions on opposite sides of the red circle inscribed on said mat in paint. Hideki stood on the edge of the circle, too, equidistant between Eza and myself, as he always did whenever any of his pupils squared off. I hunkered down into an at-ready stance as Hideki raised a hand, nerves fluttering in my gut as Eza did the same.

I'd never had an audience for something like this before. Sometimes Kagome or Eza watched while we faced off in various configurations (typically we had a free-for-all, though, all of us against all of us), but never any outsiders like Minato or Kurama. I'd put my back to both of them very much on purpose, trying to pretend they weren't there, but it was tough to ignore the feeling of eyes boring into my nape. My knees trembled, but I concentrated on the adrenaline buzzing in my arms until they stilled. Ugh, performance anxiety. Not now! A bead of sweat slipped down my jaw and over the line of my throat, soaking into the fabric of my gi and out of sight.

Please don't let me fuck up, please don't let me fuck up, please don't let me fuck up, please—

"You two know what to do," Hideki said, hand still upraised. "First to three ring-outs or tap-outs wins." The hand came down, a knife slicing air. "Begin."

I tensed on reflex, preparing for Ezakiya to make his customary charge forward—but it never came.

Instead, something… something funny happened.

Eza didn't move.

It wasn't like him at all, to not come straight at me. He was a big dude, our Ezakiya. All brawn, long reach, but not very fast, he tended to make a straight charge at his opponent and use his momentum to knock the opposition off balance. I knew far better than to get within arm's reach, knew better than to make the first move myself and let him get me in a grapple. If he got a hold on me, I was finished, because grapples were his specialty and impossible to break with my lesser strength. No, when fighting someone like Ezakiya, I had to use his own momentum against him, count on my speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to give me a one-up. Typically I'd wait for his charge, dodge out of the way, and then strike at his weak spots when he wasn't prepared to defend. He was stronger than me, but I was faster and cleverer than him, and we both knew how we each stacked up.

But Ezakiya had learned a thing or two since the last time we fought, it seemed, because he didn't charge.

And since I knew that getting close would give him a chance to grab me, I didn't move, either. I didn't dare strike first. He was on guard and at the ready to defend—too ready for me to chance an attack.

Thus… we stared at each other.

Neither of us moved.

I waited. He waited. We locked eyes and just stood there in our respective stances, each waiting for the other to make a move and strike first.

But neither of us did so.

I think we must have stood there, utterly motionless, for nearly a minute and a half before I figured out what was going on—and judging from the look of confusion on Eza's face, I figured it out first. Barely daring to believe what I suspected, I shifted my weight slowly onto my back foot, as if preparing to make a mad dash forward.

At once, with all the speed of unconscious thought, he raised his arms as if to block a strike.

My lips curled of their own accord.

I'm only a little bit ashamed to admit I played him like a fiddle, then, fucking with him for the sheer fun of it. I slid my foot to the right, watching as he copied the motion and angled his body as if to intercept a potential blow. I slid back, then forward, watching as he mimicked the moves to accommodate for how I might strike—and then I tipped him a wink and put a hand on my hip, joint cocking with a saucy bounce.

"Wanna dance, big guy?" I quipped.

Ezakiya blinked. "Huh?" he said—but when I feinted forward and he flinched, the lightbulb went off. His broad face screwed up tight. "Wait." His eyes shot wide. "Oh."

I feinted again. This time he grinned and made a feint of his own, which I reacted to the same way he had. I giggled. He giggled. I made a T-shape with my hands, and when Eza nodded I turned toward Hideki and thrust my hand into the air.

"Uh. Sensei?" I said.

He looked less than amused, practically glaring. "What?"

"I don't think this is going to work."

His eyes bored into me like the gaze of a fish on ice at a supermarket. "Explain."

"I, uh… I know what he'll do." I jerked a thumb at Ezakiya. "And he knows what I'll do."

"And she knows what I'll do if she does what I knows she'll do," Ezakiya oh-so-helpfully chimed in.

"Which means I won't do what he thinks I'll do," I said.

"But that means I won't do what she thinks I'll do," said Eza.

"Which means neither of us is going to make the first move, because whoever goes first will lose." I scratched the back of my neck, hoping I'd gotten this right and hadn't totally overthought it. "I think we've fought each other too many times."

Hideki's lips twitched, with a smile or a rebuke I couldn't say. "Do you, now?"

"Yeah. If I get within grabbing distance, I'm finished. Eza's too strong. But he can't come after me because I'll outrun him, trip him up, strike when he's off guard. So we're just going to circle each other until—"

"Until I get hungry and go home," Ezakiya mournfully intoned.

I suppressed a laugh. "Yeah, for real though. This has basically become a war of attrition. Whoever breaks and acts first loses."

Hideki stared at me—and then he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, I looked at Ezakiya, but he just shrugged. Seems he didn't know, either.

"I was afraid of this," Hideki muttered. "It happens in small classes. You learn to read each other. You need variety in opponents to grow in your craft."

"I'm sorry, sensei," I said, though I wasn't quite sure why I was apologizing.

"I'm sorry, too," Ezakiya echoed.

Hideki glared at us both. "No. My fault for not finding rivals for you to fight." But then a light sparked behind his steely eyes, which swung away from us and toward the edge of the mat. "You."

Minato started. "Me?" he said.

"Get in there," Hideki said.

Minato blinked twice. Looked at the mat. Looked at Hideki. "Get in…?"

Hideki nodded once, curt and swift. "You and 'the Captain' are about the same size." Lips pulled back across his teeth. "Should make for a decent match."

No one spoke.

My heart thudded inside my eardrums.

The air felt very, very cold against my skin—and then sweat broke out across my forehead like a spray of bullets from a machine gun as my teacher's intention sank home.

As my teacher's very very bad idea sank like an anchor through deep, dark water.

"Sensei," I blurted, hands coming up as if to ward off a blow. "He hasn't studied aikido before. I don't think it's a good—"

"Oh, never fear. He's studied martial arts, all right," Hideki said, totally unaware that Minato's previous and probably extensive training was exactly what I was afraid of. He looked Minato up and down with a sweep of critical eye. "You've studied martial arts, haven't you, kid?"

Minato looked at me, as if asking if he could answer honestly—but he drew in a breath and spoke before I could tell him no, to lie, don't you dare answer that fucking question with the truth, Minato, or I swear to Christ I'll fucking—

"Yes, sir," Minato said. "I have."

Hideki looked satisfied. "What disciplines?"

His back straightened; his heels came together, little blonde boy standing at full attention, and for a moment something about him seemed poised, and proud, and powerful. "Brazilian jiu-jitsu supplemented by Krav Maga," Minato said, words as automatic as a microwave timer.

"Interesting." Hideki grinned outright. "Let's see how you fare against her."

And of course, he punctuated those words by looking straight at me—because the world fucking hates me, and like so many of the goddamn surprises I'd been gifted that night, this one I hadn't counted on receiving in the slightest.

What was it Minato had said earlier?

Oh, yeah.

Surprises were overrated—this one very much included.

Notes:

Is this short? Yes. But did I have my bank info stolen and all of my money cleaned out by thieves this week? Also yes. Do I therefore deserve a break? I most certainly believe so.

… FUCK IT, ENOUGH WITH THE UNDERSTATEMENT, I AM UTTERLY BROKE AND IT'S NOT EVEN MY FAULT AND MY EMOTIONS ARE BEYOND RECKONING.

If I turn out my pockets right now, all you'll find in them are a few fortune cookie prophecies, a hungry moth, and the faded scent of distant dreams. The theft follows a series of migraine days, a bunch of crap at work last week, mounting bills, and I'm so utterly emotionally exhausted that the level of FUCKERY the universe has decided to dump into my lap has become… hilarious. Like, it's too funny to make me angry or upset anymore. I'm just sitting here giggling hysterically into my hands, hoping they refund everything and my case goes through without a hitch. Someone asked me to make a Ko-fi account once a while back and I was like "nah, I feel weird profiting off of fic" and I still stand by that, but dammit do I resent my own principles in this moment.

Speaking of principles, or a pronounced lack of them: Whoever it was in Kansas who went on a shopping spree with my fucking money can go sit on a cactus. FUCK. YOU.

… so, to sum up: It's a short chapter because I'm going to bed now and I don't intend to get out of said bed until Monday morning because FUCK IT.

Your comments last week certainly boosted my spirits, even if you didn't know you were boosting said spirits at the time. So very many thanks to all those who chimed in. Your comments were little pips of light in an otherwise HELLACIOUS week. I'd say I'm indebted to the following people for their time and kindness, but I'm actually literally in debt right now so that turn of phrase is too painful to use offhand. Instead I'll just said "thank you" to the following: Bastet the Writing Cat, Vinlala, Mage King 17, theshadowlessnuance, Han, everlastingice_277, Unctuous, activelyapathetic, Eternalevecho, Kuramag33, Not Quite a Morning Person, Nama, SchizoCherri, musiquemer, drmsqnc, Just 2 Dream of You, D_Ravenheart, TheInterim_VectorChronos. Bless all of you, and may you never have your bank accounts gutted by thieves two days before your rent, car payment, and car insurance payments are all due.

TIME FOR BED.

G'NIGHT.

(Also for the record the martial arts Minato said he studied are often what people in the Navy SEALS study, so it's likely his branch of the German military probably use the same? IDK, it's what my research turned up; thought I'd mention.)

Chapter 73: Old Habits

Summary:

In which NQK wants a fair fight, but doesn't exactly get one.

Notes:

Posting this from my phone at 1:30am after spending all day and all last night on a film set, so if it feels uneven, WELL THAT'S PROBABLY WHY LOL. 3 hours of sleep, omg, with no end to the production in sight. Time to go hibernate as soon as this is done.

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

Chapter Text

Because leaving them open afforded me a constant reminder of the horrific situation in which I had become so regrettably embroiled, I shut my eyes. I grit my teeth. Counted backwards from ten, but every number turned into a swear word. I squeezed my eyes tighter. Saw stars sparking behind black lids, felt blood flood my head until my skull threatened to burst.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—

"Yukimura." Hideki's dry voice scratched against my ears like sandpaper. "What are you doing?"

I forced a smile. "Seeing how many times I can say "fuck" in my head in ten seconds." I paused for the allotted amount of time. Declared: "19."

"That's rather a lot," Kurama observed.

"My rates are impressive."

"Why so nervous?" Hideki asked.

I almost snapped at him, berated him for not seeing the obvious—but Hideki had no way of knowing that he had just signed my damn death warrant. He had no way to know that I, a former copy editor, was about to face off with a former German Navy SEAL, and that I, a present day schoolgirl, was about to go toe to toe with a present day Sailor Scout. A Scout in civilian form, but still. The mismatch between Minato and I was so wild as to be absurd, too utterly and completely farcical as to be believed. Even discounting his status as a Scout, this was a fight I was 100% destined to lose, and probably violently. Minato had more experience than I did by an embarrassingly wide margin. I was a bit bigger than him, with longer arms and legs, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he could hand my ass to me if he tried.

Simply put, this former copyeditor was outgunned and she knew it—but I couldn't exactly tell Hideki that. Instead I pasted on a smile and brushed my bangs out of my face, hoping I didn't look as vomitus as I felt.

"Oh. You know. Minato and I are just new friends, is all," I said, shrugging. "I don't want either of us taking this fight personally."

At that, Minato's blonde brows pulled together above his luminous blue eyes. My words sounded like an excuse at face value, and they were supposed to be exactly that—but as soon as I spoke them I realized my words ranger truer than expected. I was a creature of pride. So was Minato. I had no intention of throwing the match or going easy on Minato, because if I did, I got the feeling I'd get massacred. I had to give it all I had or else risk getting straight up murdered, but perhaps more pressingly, my friendship with Minato was tenuous at best, budding and new and uncertain. If I somehow managed to do a good job, get the upper hand, would this former soldier take kindly to that? The soldier I knew in my first life had never reacted kindly to being challenged, let alone bested. And would I be able to be trust him again if he broke my femur or something equally horrific? Hopefully being forced to trade blows didn't get in the way of our developing friendship's growth…

But Minato looked less concerned by these worries. His head inclined, lips thinning as he smiled. "I assure you, I will leave emotion out of it."

"Right, right. Of course you will," I said, waving a hand. "But, just so you know—I'm actually sort of a pacifist, right? Like, I would never get violent with a person in an argument or outside the ring or unless they threatened me physically, and—"

Hideki glowered. "You're babbling, Yukimura."

"Yeah, so what, sensei?" I snapped, but before he could make me run sprints for that slight I went right back to babbling, hands raised pleadingly in Minato's direction. "Point being, Minato, I'm sorry in advance for anything I do in the ring, and it's absolutely nothing personal. Right?"

Minato nodded, sharp and stoic. "Of course."

"Good. Good. Great!" My head bobbed so hard I thought it might fall off. "Let's keep it clean and keep it sportsmanlike. I won't insult you by asking you to go easy on me, either." I affected the sunniest, most chipper grin imaginable, though it barely covered the twitch developing in my upper lip. "If we're gonna fight, it's gotta be fair, ya feeling me?"

He opened his mouth to speak, to agree—but then he stopped. His eyes widened. He bit back his words, as well as the edge of his bottom lip. Minato's eyes traveled up and down my face, as if noticing something about me for the first time.

Before I could ask what was wrong, Hideki took one sharp step in our direction.

"Enough talk," he said. "I want to see what this Krav Maga of his looks like."

"Sure," I said, but I held up my fingers and gave them a spirited wiggle. "Though if you'll let me wrap my hands, first?"

Hideki rolled his eyes. "Fine. You get ready too, Minato."

Minto nodded. I gave a salute and said, "Be right back!"

The trouble in Minato's eyes, that look like a foundation unsettled in the wake of a tectonic shift, didn't clear as I skipped off toward my duffel bag by the door, but I put my back to him and tried not to think about it as I fetched a roll of athletic tape and began taping up my fingers and wrists, supporting and reinforcing them for stability, protection, and power. I'd done it a hundred times, holding the tape between forefinger and thumb and then layering the strips of fabric over and under my fingers, around and atop my wrist, over and over again in an unending swirl—but the soothing, repetitive motion only calmed the shake in my hands the barest bit. It did nothing to soothe the tremble building in my legging-clad knees—because no matter how hard I concentrated on the winding pattern of the tape, one thought would not budge from my frantic brain.

I was about to fight a goddamn Navy SEAL!

Well. Technically Minato was something else, the German version of a SEAL, but I hadn't been able to remember the exact spelling of his station well enough to look it up at the library (my faulty recollection of his German title hadn't translated well into Japanese, and goddammit I missed Google). SEALs were Minato's American equivalent, and they were certified badasses. Me, meanwhile? I was a former copyeditor, one who'd had a physical disability and no fighting prowess to speak of.

A tremor made its way up my arm, lodging under my breast, worming into my now erratic breathing. I tucked the last bit of wrapping into place, shut my eyes, and centered myself, conscious corrections coaxing my muscles back into mere neutrality. Start at the top of the head. Relax the scalp. Move into the face. Relax the muscles between my eyes. Neck, shoulders, abdomen…

"Are you all right?"

The voice in my ear scattered my concentration and pulled my muscles taut again, undoing all my hard work in a whispered instant. I flinched and cursed when I found Kurama at my side. He stood in my shadow, green eyes aglow with concern. I swore again.

"Hey. Fine," I said when he repeated the query, though my quavering voice betrayed me. "Nerves."

Kurama looked askance, over at Minato (the boy did stretches on the mat, limbs lithe and limber). "He's fast," Kurama said, studying him, "but you're stronger."

I suppressed a derisive snort. "Think so?"

"Yes." I detected no deceit as he traced the length of my arm with his eyes. "Use your reach to your advantage."

My lips curled. "So I'm the Ezakiya in this fight, huh?"

"Perhaps." He frowned. "Are you really that nervous?"

Pride wanted me to make a joke, shrug the question off with a show of bravado—but Kurama's inquisitive, worried expression slid under my skin like a razor. "Yes," I admitted, chin close to my chest. "I am."

His frown deepened. "He's just a boy."

To everyone in the room but me, that was true. But again, there was so much I couldn't say. I licked my lips, debating how to word my reply. Eventually I looked down at my hands and settled on: "Minato has been studying his form of martial arts for a long time. Most of his life. He's not one to be underestimated." Seemed neutral enough, and accurate in its own way.

Kurama nodded, just once. "I see." And he looked to Minato again. "I don't know anything about Krav Maga. But jiu-jitsu is a study of grappling. Avoid being caught." His eyes narrowed, stare intensifying as if he tried to read weaknesses and strengths in the curve of the kid's muscles. I got the sense that's exactly what he was doing, looking for weaknesses, trying to give me an edge in this fight—trying to help me.

But I really, really didn't want to talk about the fight. Anything but the fight would be better.

"What were you and Hideki talking about?" I blurted.

Kurama's attention snapped back to me, brow shooting up like a slash of dark red ink. I tucked my hair behind my ear, unnerved.

"You raised your voice earlier," I said. "It's not like you."

Kurama said nothing, merely looked at me—but then he shut his eyes. Drew in a deep breath. Exhaled long and slow.

"Later," he said.

Before I could dig in, Hideki called my name.

Every step across the warehouse echoed like a funerary bell, but Kurama offered me a smile and walked at my side over to the practice mat. He joined Ezakiya at the edge of the mat as Minato and I stood opposite one another across the red circle, Hideki midway between us with hands deep in his pockets.

I offered Minato a hesitant smile.

He did not return it.

My heart turned a somersault inside my chest.

"I'll explain the rules for the newcomer's benefit," Hideki said, voice devoid of emotion. "If you remain pinned for a ten-count, it's an out. If you're knocked out of the ring, it's an out. And if you say uncle, it's an out, too. First to three typically wins." At that he smirked. "But we'll see how long either of you last, given there aren't any other rules but those."

I breathed deep, weight shifting from foot to foot. "Ready, Minato?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Are you?"

"Of course," I said, brightly—perhaps too brightly, especially considering the hammering beneath my ribs. "Let's do it."

Hideki raised his hand.

"Begin," he said.

And he brought his hand down, fast.

Unlike the fight with Ezakiya, Minato and I had no preconceived notions as to how the other might initiate a fight—and thus we began to circle one another, a slow circuit made around the ring like magnets of the same pole, until Minato decided he'd had enough stalling. He launched across the ring as though springs powered his flight, striking hard and fast with a series of punches and a spinning kick I managed to dodge wholesale, relying on the fluidity of aikido training to avoid contact. We danced backward toward the edge of the ring, and when he aimed a wide punch at my torso I ducked under his arm and spun behind him, backpedaling across the ring to put distance between us once again.

He turned to face me—with a smile on his lips, small and satisfied. Happy he hadn't hit me. Pleased by what he saw. Not truly fighting me, then. Just feeling me out, testing the waters of what I could dodge successfully. Smart way to start, even if it might chip at his energy reserves.

I should probably return the favor.

Minato wasn't one for dodging, I saw when I decided to put my own little test into play and go on the offensive. Rather than lean out of the way of a punch, he deflected it with the flat of his arm, catching a fist and tossing it aside. A waste of energy, if you ask me, but it knocked off the flow of my attack the slightest bit, recovery between strikes delayed thanks to interference in momentum and trajectory. I half expected him to try and get me in a grapple at that close range, given jiu-jitsu's status as a grappling art—but he didn't, and when I put him close to the boundary line he tossed aside my punch and darted behind my back, putting distance between us once again so we could circle like a pair of snarling wolves.

This time, I didn't see the point in dancing around. I didn't wait, didn't let him try to feel out my abilities again. If he wanted a taste, I'd let him have it. I pushed off my back leg with a grunt and flew at him from across the ring, aiming a solid palm-strike at his chest. Not at full speed or power, mind you, even if it was a fast blow, sharp and forceful and direct—direct enough to dodge, perhaps, or deflect if he was so inclined, and it would leave my arm extended if he wanted to put me in a grapple. Not the smartest of moves, necessarily, but one that would certainly get this party started.

Minato looked down. He eyes alit on my hand. They moved, tracing the path of the blow through the air, and at his sides his hands moved. They began to rise, to come up to grab, to deflect, to something.

His face spasmed.

His hands stopped moving.

My blow connected.

Flat palm on unguarded sternum sounded like a beavertail against water, loud and angry and booming in the quiet warehouse. Minato staggered with a grunt and a wheeze, stumbling backward over the red line painted on the mat. He didn't fall, catching his balance with hand on chest, panting—and I just stood there, too, posed with hand outstretched, body in a lunge position, staring wide-eyed as Ezakiya let out a raucous cheer and Hideki called a point in my favor. I barely heard either of them, though.

… why the hell didn't Minato defend?

And why was he smiling, nodding at me like I'd done well, when really he'd just handed me that point?

In fact, he put his hands together and clapped three times. "Good job, Captain," he said, teeth showing between his spread lips. "You did—"

"Don't gimme that bullshit." The words slipped out almost of their own accord; on the sidelines, Ezakiya fell abruptly silent. Minato's eyes widened. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

He put a hand to his chest again, positioning himself once again at the edge of the ring. "Catching my breath," he said, as though it should be obvious.

I glared. "You just stood there and took that."

But he shook his head. "You caught me off guard."

"No, I didn't," I said, and when Minato only shrugged I gnashed me teeth. "You totally saw—"

Apparently Hideki wasn't keen on mid-fight banter, however, because before I could get going, he raised his hand and brought it down. "Fight!"

Minato didn't wait for me to find my footing. He came at me as soon as Hideki's voice stopped ringing in the cavernous room, springs back on his heels as he soared toward me over the mat. If he'd been suffering from stage fright before, freezing up when the going got tough, he'd shaken it off after a nice warmup. He left no space for talking, no time for thinking, coming at me with a furious series of blows that had me dodging and deflecting at top speed, instinct taking over in a desperate fit to keep up with his assault. One particularly keen punch knocked me off-balance, and he followed it up with a spinning leg sweep aimed at my side. I didn't have my feet under me and therefore couldn't dodge, Minto's kick successfully sending me stumbling to the mat. However, the blow didn't actually hurt too much—and not just because Hideki had taught me well how to angle myself, how to aim my own body at strikes and have them make contact in places where I was less weak.

No. The kick didn't hurt for very different reasons—ones I wasn't in control of in the slightest.

I hit the mat on my side, immediately scrambling back up and facing Minato with hands raised to fend off another attack, fully expecting him to take advantage of the opening he'd created and put me in a hold—but he stayed back. He waited for me to regain my footing, hands held almost politely at rest at his sides.

Politely?

"Minato." His name came out of my mouth evenly, almost robotically, as I stared at him across the ring. "What are you doing?"

He put up his fists. "I'm fighting," he said—but that wasn't true. That wasn't true at all. It was just lip service, just a line fed to me to keep me happy, as manufactured as that civil smile adorning his young face.

I knew the truth, though, deep in my gut.

That sweeping kick of his hadn't hurt because I'd softened the blow.

It hadn't hurt because it was just plain soft—and it had absolutely no reason to be.

My teeth ground together, bone on bone buzzing in my ears. "Fighting?" I repeated. "No, you're fucking not." I spread my hands, opening myself to him. "Stop pulling punches and hit me."

He looked affronted. "I'm not pulling—"

"You hit the strike pads twice as hard as you just hit me, and you know it."

At my claim his features twisted, eyes darkening with a pang of guilt—and although he smoothed the look away within an instant, it was all the admission I needed. I'd caught his kicks earlier, back when I'd worn the strike pads, and they had been a helluva lot meaner than the one he'd only moments ago thrown my way.

So it was true, then.

That horrible, burgeoning suspicion rising hot and fast inside my disbelieving brain—it was fucking true?

My lips curled back over my teeth, and when the English words slipped free of my mouth, they were accented. They were accented the way they only became accented when I was well and truly pissed, a low Texas twang creeping into my voice like a rattlesnake through a cactus briar.

"Aw, hell naw," I spat, and with more ferocity than I think I knew I possessed, I flung myself at Minato's startled face.

I'm utterly and completely proud of the fact that I gave him a run for his money, then, calling on every last ounce of Hideki's training to send Minato in a blind panic of deflected and dodged attacks, grunts of discomfort when my strikes hit home, his eyes huge pools of frantic blue beneath his short blonde hair and I punched, kicked, and slashed my way through his defenses, anger and the sting of wounded pride spurring me forward like a spur to a horse's flank. He did far more defending than he did fighting back, though, even when my hectic assault left me momentarily vulnerable to counterattacks I fucking know he spotted—and that just made my hackles rise higher, his refusal to attack me the way I attacked him more painful than any physical blow he probably could've delivered, and that just made me even more furious. I chased him across the mat, pushing him back and back until his heel slid near the red circle of the sparring ring, but just as I aimed for a strike to his shoulder that would send him spinning over the edge, he dodged under my arm danced away on nimble feet. I was spinning on my heel before he even got away, snatching at the back of his uniform, but he was too fast an evaded my grip by a hair's breadth.

"Get back here, asshole!" I snarled at him, and once more I gave chase—only by the time I pushed him to the boundary of the ring yet again, I had concocted a different plan of attack.

Minato, it seemed, was well and truly set on just defending, on not attacking me even in those moments my guard was at its weakest. I waited until I'd pushed him near the edge yet again, and this time when he dodged away to avoid a ring-out, I didn't give chase. Instead I affected a ragged breath, a wheezing pant as if to signal I was tired, and I intentionally left my back to him for a moment longer than was necessary—for a moment that bled into two, then three, more than enough for him to recognize as an opportunity to shove me over the red line and out of the arena, scoring him a point.

Only the shove never came.

I waited one beat, and then another, and then I turned.

Minato stood in the center of the sparring mat, politely (fucking politely!) waiting for me to face me. He had that military posture, all ramrod spine and hands at his sides, stoic and formal and civil.

It infuriated me. That gentlemanly expression, so neutral and full oh-dear-me, allow-me-to-wait-for-you-to-catch-up patience—it was horrible. My fists balled up, tension and fury vibrating up my arms like a swarm of wasps.

"You sorry son of a—I knew it. I fucking knew it." And I leveled a finger at him. "You're going easy on me! J'accuse!"

Minato held up his hands, but that look of shadowy guilt touched his features again. "No, I'm—"

"I was wide open and you didn't take the shot, Minato," I snapped. "I'm not an idiot."

He pulled back as if stunned. "You were testing me?"

"Yup," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "And you failed. Big fat F, right across your forehead." Before he could debate his failing grade, I marched over to him and threw open my arms, presenting myself to him with a lovely Vanna White flourish. "C'mon, Minato. Look. I'm wide open. Not even trying to defend." I slapped my chest with an open palm. "So hit me. Go one. Do it!"

He drew in a breath. Said: "No."

I stared at him. "What do you mean, no?"

"Just—just no." He looked almost sick, taking a step backward. "I won't do it."

"You won't—you won't hit me? But this is a goddamn fight!" The absurdity of his refusal refused to compute, rattling around inside my head like a loose puzzle piece lost in the innards of a racecar engine, totally out of place and on the verge of shaking loose whatever internal mechanisms holding me so tenuously together. I threw up my hands and scoffed. "This is a fight, dammit! Minato! You're supposed to—"

"Not like this!" he snapped. "I will not hit a defenseless—"

He stopped talking.

To be perfectly honest, if anyone else in the room was talking just then, I couldn't hear them. The world narrowed down to that single slice of existence threaded between Minato and myself, vibrating with a kind of tension I'm not sure I'd ever felt before. His chin tucked to his chest, blue eyes roving across the warehouse in an attempt to look anywhere but at me. I stared at him, wordless, unable to comprehend what he'd been about to say—but when he swallowed, and looked up at the ceiling with a curse, I came back to myself with a jolt.

"You won't hit a what, Minato?" I said. When he didn't reply, merely looked at the floor, I said, "Hit a defenseless what?" And when once more he avoided the question, I pinched the bridge of my nose and muttered. "I don't fucking believe this."

"What is going on out there?" Hideki called from the sidelines, voice rattling with dry impatience.

I didn't reply right away. Too lost in thought, because as far as I could see it, there were only two explanations for Minato's behavior just now—and I wasn't a fan of either of them. The first option was that he was reticent to hit me because he didn't think I could handle it, wasn't a good enough fighter to defend myself and take the pain of what it would feel like if he actually tried to attack me. He'd felt me out earlier, and he'd determined I wasn't worthy of his full strength. But the thing was, I wasn't sure that could be the case. He'd had trouble keeping up with me when I went all out, had housed legit panic in his eyes, made true sounds of pain when I hit. If he'd been leery of hitting me due to a presumed lack of skills at first, surely I'd proven him wrong with my fighting at least to some extent. Surely he should've gotten over his hesitation to fight back at least a little. He knew I was no wilting flower—which left only one option I could see.

And it was the option that made my blood absolutely boil.

I took a deep breath, drew myself up, and looked Minato dead in his bright blue eyes.

"Minato isn't giving me his best because he doesn't want to hit a girl," I deadpanned.

He reacted immediately, teeth bared behind curling lips. "That's not true," he said—but he flinched when he said it, like I'd gotten just the littlest bit too close to the truth, and that was all the confirmation I needed. I tossed my hair and harrumphed.

"So that patronizing look on your face when I scored a ring-out was because you're just so proud of me?" I snarked.

Minato bared his teeth even more. His fists came up. "Defend yourself," he said.

Mine came up, too. "Now we're talking."

Now, look—before you put my head on a pike, I didn't want to think badly of Minato. I didn't want to think of him as the kind of macho-military-man with a misplaced chivalrous streak who treated women like glass, but the evidence here was tough to ignore. And hey, it's totally possible I was being prejudicial after my experience with men in the military (my ex, the one who'd done the opposite of pulling his punches with me when he was mad, had used every last one of his military anecdotes to justify his feelings of masculine superiority)—but I had the sinking suspicion I was right about this, and I wasn't happy about it. And I have never been the kind of woman who lets this kind of thing go unchallenged, even if (and in most cases, especially if) the man being a jerkwaffle is a friend of mine.

My friends can, and should, do better. Sorry not sorry.

We fought again, running at each other at top speed, and at first I thought Minato might have gotten over himself and his sudden inability to treat me like an equal—but when he finally did land a blow to my shoulder, it wasn't delivered with nearly the same level of power he'd used on the strike pads. The pain glanced off the edge of my joint, barely sinking in, as if at the last second he'd maybe angled the punch just outside my center mass—and at that spark of disappointing main, I sort of lost it. With a shriek my temper blew its top, a kettle boiling to the point of explosion, and a scream to match tore out of my throat when I grabbed Minato's arm as he threw a punch. His face blurred, mouth a big round O in his shocked face as I twisted my body and hefted him over my shoulder, tossing him to the practice mat on his back with a heavy thud. I followed his trajectory to the floor, crouching on one knee above his head, staring straight into his stunned face with hands planted on either side of his thin neck.

I leveled a finger at his face and said, "You listen here, and you listen good."

Minato—not even winded, I noticed—swallowed.

"You come at me one hundred," I said (although "one hundred" came out "a hunnerd," English thick with the accent of my past life), "or you don't come at me at all. Cause if you don't come at me a hundred, I'll put you on the fucking ground, you understand me?" The finger in his face shook, both with emotion and for emphasis. "I am not second class and I will not tolerate this disrespect. You got that, Minato? Huh?"

He didn't reply. He just lay there, stricken, staring up at me in utter shock. My mouth curled of its own accord.

"Fine. Don't say nothin,'" I said—and I grinned at him. "Just get up and beat my ass… if you even can, that is."

I'm not sure what it was about that particular goad that got to him, but his eyes narrowed almost immediately, a low growl building in his chest as I smirked—and before I could even think to get away, Minato's arm lashed out, hand fisting into the cloth atop my shoulder. Next thing I knew he used me as leverage to pull himself upright, in the same motion spinning up and around behind me, pulling my arm high up over my head and locking it between his shoulder and his neck. I yelped, the stretch of his jiu-jitsu hold pulling at my arm like a torture device; the pain only worsened when he shoved a knee into my back, foot pressing into the back of my knee to keep my pinned very carefully in place. He looped his other arm tight around my throat as the first stayed tight in the fabric of my shirt, exerting just enough force against my windpipe to make breathing horribly difficult, but not impossible.

Even as my eyes watered, my lungs burned, and my back and shoulder screamed to be released, a distant part of my brain recognized this for what it was: a truly impressive show of dexterity, and a testament to Minato's true ability.

Fucking finally.

"That's—more like it!" I said, every word a battle from my tortured lungs. I tugged at the arm around my neck, but it did not budge.

"I don't care that you're a woman!" Minato growled in my ear.

"Good!" I choked out. "Because—most of the villains V faces—ugh!"

I choked, unable to talk for the arm around my throat and that pesky knee in my back, but the mention of V caught Minato's attention. He loosened his grip on me the barest fraction, allowing me to get a deep breath of cold warehouse air that stank of sawdust and sweat—and as he did, my top shifted around my shoulders and chest, loosening just the barest fraction. Minato had more of a grip on it than he did on me.

"What?" Minato said. "What did you say?"

"I said," I said, taking another deep breath, feeling that shift around my shoulders again, "most of the villains you face won't be men."

I couldn't see his face, but his voice held all the uncertainty in the world. "They won't be—" he said, waiting for me to finish the sentence for him.

I did no such thing.

Call it dirty fighting if you want, but I'd take any advantage I could get. I'd distracted Minato just enough for his grip to go slack, so when I flexed his hold on me broke like a wax seal under a hammer (Kurama had been right; I was strong, Minato's youth affording me an edge in the muscles department). He immediately reapplied pressure, of course, but that single moment of freedom had been more than enough for me to reclaim a little wiggle room within his iron grasp. Like a sausage out of casing wrapped far too tight, I slid down and out of my shirt and free of Minato's arms, leaving him grasping the empty shell of my aikido top—but I snagged the end of my sleeve as I went, stripping the garment inside out and wrapping it around his elbow with a swift twist of my wrist. He made a strangled sound of surprise as I shot to my feet, momentum and the slingshot of my shirt carrying him over and up and sending him sprawling onto his back, a horrendous thud preceding a gasp as breath left his lungs in one great burst.

A moment of silence followed, one punctuated by only Minato's ragged breathing. I stood over him in nothing but my leggings and sports bra and dusted my hands, prim as you please, before bending at the waist and carefully extricating my shirt from his tangled limbs.

When I turned around, shrugging into the shirt and grabbing for its dangling belt, I found Kurama, Ezakiya, and Hideki all staring at me quite open mouthed from the sidelines.

My cheeks colored. Words bubbled on my tongue unbidden.

"And may that be a lesson to never underestimate the phrase 'hit like a girl.' Because make no mistake, everyone." I cinched my belt tight. "It's a goddamn compliment."

Minato propped himself up on his elbows, squinting up at me. I smiled and offered him a hand.

He hesitated.

He took it.

"I won't break if you fight me," I said as I hauled him to his feet.

For a second, he looked uncertain—but then something behind his eyes went hard, and at that sight a spike of fear threaded through my gut. He released my hand and stepped back, lips firm under his resolute eyes.

"I know," Minato said.

I banished the fear with a grin. "Good." Turned to Hideki. "Sensei?"

My teacher looked oddly smirky when he raised his hand over his head. "Finally," he muttered, and then his voice pitched loud. "Ready? Begin!"

This time, Minato fought me for real.

There could be no doubt of his ferocity, of his intention to give me his best. I felt that from the moment the fight began. The air turned rigid, adrenaline so thick I could smell it. He came at me as an equal, this time trusting me to keep up, to defend myself, and it took every ounce of my training to not wind up a Keiko-flavored stain on the sparring mat. His punches whistled when they cut the air, the blowback of them slapping against my cheeks and drying out my eyes, kicks slamming into my ribs instead of just glancing off—the way they had when we fought when I wore strike pads. Even as my eyes watered and I idly lamented how many bruises would form before tomorrow, a smile cut my features, one that widened when I managed to duck under a punch and toss my arms around his waist. We went down onto the mat in a tangle, and it was only when I put him in a hold and he reversed it within seconds that I remembered Kurama's warning: Don't let him grapple you.

Well, shit.

I'd been so happy to have a real fight, I'd lost sight of strategy.

But that was OK. Nothing was unsalvageable. I bucked and rolled, locking my legs around Minato's knees and trying to knock him off balance. He stumbled and let go of me, trying to get for a better hold, but I lunged forward with arms outstretched, aiming for his neck—

His arm flew up to block me, elbow rising fast and hard at my face.

Crunch.

A firework of hot, iron-scented pain blossomed across my nose; I was on my feet and reeling in a second, stumbling away from him with a yelp, clutching at my face. "Are you all right?" I heard Minato call after me. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, bouncing from foot to foot as I turned back in his direction. He stared with eyes wide, I saw once I opened my own to grin at him, scrambling to his feet with hands outstretched, mouth parted in horror. Which made no sense because this fight was going great.

"Are you kidding?" I bounced on my heels, shaking out my hands to psyche myself back up. "I'm fantastic. That's what I'm talking about, Minato—you came at me one hundred and it was awesome!" I put up my dukes and threw a mock punch into the empty air. "Now c'mere you little shit, you're totally gonna pay for—"

"Yukimura, stop."

And I did stop, because Hideki's barked command left no room at all for argument—at least not right away. I blinked at him and frowned as he marched toward me across the mat. "What? Why?"

"You need to stop," he repeated.

"Sensei, I'm—" But as I opened my mouth to talk, something trickled across my tongue. I licked my lip, tasting something salty and warm, and then I did it again, and again—and oh. Oh shit. Wait a second. I swiped a thumb across my mouth.

My thumb came away quite bloody.

The blood-faucet that was my nose began leaking in earnest, then, dripping down my chin and onto my gi. I stood there without understanding for a minute, hands raised and idle near my face, and then I looked at my hands and at Hideki and back to my hands again. "Oh. Oh no. Shit shit shit—" I threw back my head, blinking at the lights above. "I'm bleeding!"

"You noticed," Hideki observed. He grabbed my wrist, shoved my hand toward my face. "Apply pressure."

"I am so sorry!" Minato said from somewhere to my right.

I flapped a hand in the direction of his voice and pressed my other hand to my nose, though it hurt like the absolute dickens (emphasis on ick). "Nah, nah, that was amazing, Minato—oh shit, oh shit, it's going down my throat!" I coughed and gagged, blood hacking up to fill my mouth. "Bad news bears, bad news bears!"

Hideki grabbed my head in both hands and pulled it down, face parallel to the floor. "Lean forward with a bloody nose, not back."

And then Kurama was there, hovering at my elbow. "Let me see," he commanded.

Hideki released a low growl, though. "Out of the way."

"Uh. Is she OK?" Ezakiya asked, voice distant and worried.

"I am so sorry!" Minato said again.

"Stop apologizing," I said, words gummy with blood (not to mention I'd stopped being able to breathe through my nose sometime in the previous thirty seconds). Head bowed like this, held still by Hideki's weathered hands, all I could see were the bare feet and shoes gathered around me on the mat, everyone standing in a knot to stare at the bleeding Keiko. Blood hit the mat in tiny droplets, brown against blue plastic. "Minato, I wanted you to hit me and you fucking did and it was great, I loved it." I fought against Hideki's hands to look at him, swirling my free hand around my face with a wink. "Just don't aim for the moneymaker next time. Ouchies."

"You loved it?" Kurama repeated, aghast.

"I loved it," I confirmed. "We scored a victory for feminism today!"

Kurama only sounded more scandalized when he said, "A victory for feminism?"

"Yup." Once again I grinned, though with my bloody teeth I probably looked quite ghoulish. "Equality, yo!"

Hideki didn't let me bask in this glory for long. "You're remarkably chipper for someone bleeding like a stuck pig," he said, utterly unimpressed by my shenanigans.

"Eh, a little blood ain't scary," I said, but as blood once more filled my mouth, I grit my teeth and whimpered, "but please, make it stop?"

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Hideki said, and I could practically hear his eyes rolling in every syllable.

#

Hideki took me outside under the guise of getting a first aid kit, but in truth he had me sit atop a random shipping crate in the shadow of another warehouse so he could heal me with rei-ki. Thank my lucky stars for his glowing hands. He got the bleeding to stop within moments, light of his power cool and soothing against my flushed skin.

"So how'd I do?" I asked once we settled in, and once he'd healed the worst of the damage. Blood had stopped leaking into my throat, though I sensed I'd develop a wicked stomachache from ingesting so much of my own fluids.

Hideki shrugged. "You didn't totally embarrass me."

That was a compliment, coming from him. I thrust a fist into the air. "Score."

But then he launched into a brutal critique of my fighting that night, and my victory died an abrupt death.

I listened to his critique, of course, but I'll admit with only half an ear. It was the usual stuff, the normal weaknesses we'd been working to combat, though this time he had a lot to say about controlling my emotions in battle and not giving in to anger when it came calling. I was just pleased I'd been able to keep up with Minato at all—though I suspected he was a little out of practice when it came to hand to hand combat. After all, it was preposterous to think I could keep up with a SEAL, even one who hadn't seen combat in 13 years. He'd been doing more fighting as Sailor V than as a civilian, after all. Maybe he'd been exclusively fighting as V. Was he out of practice relying on his non-Sailor-skills? Yeah, I'd be willing to bet he was. That was probably the only reason I'd been able to keep up at all, truth be told, and I'd do well to remember that. He'd bested me by the end of the night and hadn't been giving it his all for the first two thirds of it. It wouldn't do to get a swelled head or overestimate myself based on just this fight. And judging from all Hideki had to say about my performance, I still had an infinite amount to learn.

"—of you."

Hideki stood six inches away with his hands nearly touching my face, but still I somehow missed what he'd said. "Hmm?" I said, trying not to look too guilty.

He glowered. "I said I'm proud of you."

That rendered me mute fore entirely different reasons. "Uh. What?"

More glowering. "Do I really need to say it three times?"

"Oh. Um. No. I heard. And thank you. I just—" I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, shy all of a sudden. "What brought that on?"

Hideki passed the tips of his fingers from right to left, top to bottom, a plus sign across my aching nose. The glare of the silver pouring from his hands obscured his eyes, but still I read the slightest smirk in then.

"You were right. He was underestimating you. And you wouldn't accept that," Hideki said. "Even if he outclassed you, you wouldn't accept anything but his all. You respect yourself enough to demand equal treatment… even if you ended up a bloody mess for your efforts." At that he flicked the tip of my nose, impassive when I yelped. "Don't let that pride get you killed someday, girl."

"I'll try my best," I said, eyes streaming. Shaking off the pain, I rubbed my blood-caked but now mostly pain-free nose and said, "Can I ask you something?"

Hideki lifted a brow and tucked his hands into his pockets.

"What were you and Minamino talking about earlier?"

I thought he might shrug me off and avoid the topic, but instead he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You, mostly."

"Oh, god." I gave him A Look. "You didn't give him a shovel talk, did you?"

"A what talk?"

I mimed swinging a shovel, then pretended to hold it up and shake it in Hideki's face. "Hurt her and I'll bury your body so deep using this here shovel that they'll never find you!"

Hideki's lips hiked at the corner. "That's about the size of it, actually."

"Oh. Well, then." I thought about it, because I hadn't been expecting a yes. I held up two fingers, taking them down one after the other. "One. I'm touched. Two. There was absolutely no need—"

"If you're going to consort with demons despite all my best attempts to warn you off, said demons need to know who they'll answer to if you wind up dead," he said, voice flat like a pancake under a steamroller. It was his turn to give me A Look, this one rather solemn. "I'm not going to chase them away. It's your life. You can make your own choices." And then another of his roguish smirks chased the gravity away. "But I put the fear of god in him, that's for sure."

"Did you?" I said, unconvinced. "He's not easily scared."

"Maybe." Hideki shrugged again. "Maybe not."

"Definitely 'maybe not.' So why'd he yell?"

Hideki shrugged a third time. "Why, indeed."

"… must you be so evasive? It's just that he's not the type to lose his cool, is all."

"Maybe you don't know him very well."

"I doubt that." I studied him, trying to glean clues from his face. "What exactly did you say to him?"

"Hmmph." His hands shoved deeper into his pockets, shoulders hunching in a pronounced slouch. "You wanna know, ask him."

"But he's so evasive and vague and mysterious," I whined. "He'll just evade my questions. You gotta tell me." But when he didn't comply to my wishes, I heaved a dramatic sigh. "You're a spoilsport, you know that?"

Hideki smirked. "That's what senseis are for. Now let's go." And with that, he walked away toward the warehouse—though as I hopped off the shipping crate to follow, he looked at me over his shoulder. Gestured at his nose. "Oh—don't clean up much. Don't want Minato knowing I can heal with my hands."

"Right," I said. Joke was on Hideki, obviously. Minato knew everything already.

Oblivious, Hideki reached for the door. At the last second he thought better of it, though, pulling back his hand. "I think we're done for the night, anyway," he said. "See you next week?"

"Yeah." I bowed. "Thank you, sensei, for abiding both of my guests tonight."

"Harrumph," he said, very eloquently, and without another word he walked off into the December dark.

Because standing outside in the cold was a Bad Idea, and because I hadn't put my coat on earlier for fear of getting it all bloody, I booked it back indoors as soon as Hideki turned the corner around a nearby building and out of sight. Kurama caught my eye as the door swung shut behind me; he sat over by the practice dummies lacing up his shoes, but I shook my head when he started to stand. He settled back into place, watching me carefully as I crossed the warehouse and approached my other guest.

Minato had stashed his stuff by the punching bags; he pretended not to notice when I drew near, though he couldn't ignore me when I pointedly cleared my throat. "Hey. Can we talk?" I said when I caught his eye.

He met my smile with a hesitant one of his own, and an equally hesitant utterance of, "Yes." His eyes flickered to my nose, down to my bloodstained gi, and back up again as we stole off into the corner, away from prying ears and eyes. "I'm sorry, Captain. I didn't mean to—"

"No. I'm sorry."

Minato didn't appear to have been expecting that, because he blinked and fell quite quiet. I rubbed the back of my neck, teeth worrying my lower lip as I pondered how to phrase this.

"I, uh. I got a little heated," I settled on eventually.

"Heated?" Minato said.

"Well, yeah." More neck scratching as I avoided Minato's eyes, gazing at the floor as my cheeks flushed. "I said not to take the match personally, and there I went, taking it personally." I forced a laugh. "Talk about hypocritical, me flinging accusations the way I did. I definitely overreacted."

But Minato didn't laugh with me. Instead his gaze drifted to the floor before slowly climbing back up to my face, lingering on my bloody nose before he met my eyes.

"No," he said, voice low and quiet. "You were right." A regretful smile crossed his mouth. "I was going easy on you, at first."

Frankly, I wasn't sure if I liked being right about that, so I decided to breeze past it. Waving a dismissive hand, I said, "And I overreacted, let my pride—"

"No." The word came out sharp, perhaps sharper than he intended, because he modulated his tone and dropped his speech to nearly a whisper. "I'm not used to fighting women. It's true. The Frogmen of my military unit were just that—all men. And in this life I have only fought gangsters, thugs, Yakuza. More men." He shook his head, short blond hair gleaming in the warehouse's harsh lights. "You told me not to go easy, and I hadn't been planning on it—but then you said you wanted a fair fight. And I didn't think a fight between us could be that, given who I am. Given who you are." At that he spoke in an outright whisper. "My father was a chivalrous man. He taught me to be one, too. It is not a lesson I would soon forget."

That look on his face—that look of defeated nostalgia, eyes downcast and weary, yet full of a damned affection for someone who no longer existed—pulled my heart into knots. We did not easily forget the lessons of our past lives. We did not forget the ingrained habits of the lives we'd lived, even if those habits did not suit us here—because to forget them would be to forget where we came from.

We did not remember our names. To forget where we came from, too, would be too terrible to bear.

"I understand," I said, because I did. "Old habits are hard to break. But on the battlefield, there's not really a place for worrying about where people came from, and who they are today. I don't think I have to tell you that a soldier is a soldier, no matter who they are."

"Of course," he said, with a perfunctory nod. "But you are my friend, or getting there, and I worried about that, too." He didn't linger on that admission, although he did react to it with flushing cheeks. He added before I could get mushy, "And it wasn't just your gender. I worried I outranked you in terms of training."

"Well, duh! You do outrank me," I said. "You were a soldier. I was a proofreader. Our fight was a mismatch made in hell."

"But I should have at least given you a shot before dismissing you, trusted that you could handle yourself—because you're right," Minato said. "I won't always be facing men in this life. Until now it's been Yakuza thugs, but soon…"

I grimaced. So did he. "Soon it'll be Queen Beryl."

Minato nodded. "I wasn't aware I even had this hesitation inside of me. But I do." He eyed my bloody nose. Dryly remarked, "Or I did, rather."

"Need to punch me in the face some more and work through it?" I offered, chipper and bright and cheery.

He paled. "I'd rather not."

"Thanks; I appreciate that." I mock-shoved his shoulder, grinning my ghoulish and bloody grin. "And honestly, man, you do outrank me, if not in training then in… well." Shielding my hand with my torso, I mimed holding it up in the air as I whispered, "Moon prism power!" When Minato snorted, I just beamed. "I was shaking before we started."

His eyes widened. "You were?"

"Like a leaf in a gale. But then I felt like you were babying me and I just got mad."

"The anger didn't do you any disservice. You fought well." A hasty addition took the form of: "And I'm not just saying that to patronize."

I grinned. "You'd better not, or I'll drop your ass to the mat again."

That got him to laugh. "It was a clever move, what you did with your shirt."

"Thank you. My old burlesque buddies would've been proud."

"Burlesque?" He looked intrigued. "I sense a story or two."

"Try a dozen."

"We'll have to get coffee." He sobered quickly. "I'm serious, though. You can fight. But we didn't have a proper matchup, did we, Captain?"

"No," I said. "We did not."

"We will, though. Eventually." A true smile lit his eyes up, the blue of a vast ocean, unfathomable and deep. "And I promise not to hold back."

"And I'll hold you to it," I told him.

But I got the feeling I wouldn't have to, because Minato was the kind of man who would always keep his word—in this life, in the time before, and maybe even in the next.

Minato declined my offer of walking him to the train station on the grounds I'd miss my train if I escorted him to his—understandable, though naturally the side of me that worries constantly wondered if he was trying to beat a swift retreat. The smile he shot me over his shoulder, however, assuaged my fears, as did the polite bow he gave to Kurama as we parted.

"It was good to meet you," he said, composure perfectly in place. I admired Minato for that. He could stare the fox demon in the face and not even flinch. "I hope we get a chance to get to know one another next time."

"As do I," Kurama replied, returning the bow. "Kei hasn't mentioned you before. You're quite mysterious."

I flushed, of course, but Minato just laughed. "She's mysterious, herself." But even Minato, cool as he is, knew better than to linger and let Kurama question him. "See you soon, Keiko," he said, and then he was gone.

Kurama and I walked to the station together after that, bundled back up in our coats for the long trek home. If he wanted to interrogate me about Minato (not sure why he would; the tutor angle was perfectly plausible, after all) he refrained, because I pulled a bottle of water from my bag and wetted a handkerchief, blotting blood from my face and neck as best as I was able. When we entered a more populated area of town, I made faces at the few passersby who spotted us, grinning at them and giggling when they gaped and power-walked away from the girl covered in blood. Kurama laughed behind his hand, the trickster in him clearly pleased.

"So," I said when my face felt mostly clean. I shoved the gory handkerchief in my bag. "What did you think of my lessons?"

"Hideki is a capable teacher," he said, reply smooth and instantaneous. "Your skills reflect well of his abilities."

I have him no small degree of side-eye. "Thank you. Though that sounded a little rehearsed."

He ignored me, smile pleasant and bland. "And the maneuver with the shirt—"

My face caught fire; I buried it in my hands to put out the sudden flames. "Oh, god."

"—was clever," he said, a teasing gleam in his eye. "I was impressed."

"Yeah. Well." It took every ounce of my self-control to stare straight ahead and recall my Art of War. "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

"Indeed." He eyed me askance, small smile playing across his lips. "Your fighting reflects your broader personality, by the way."

Not sure if I liked where this was headed, I said, "I don't follow."

"Even fighting, you're helpful," he said. "Nurturing, even."

I flapped my hands by my shoulders, fast and small like a hummingbird. "Ca-caw! The albatross never sleeps." Shoving my hands back in my pockets, I favored Kurama with a scowl. "Don't tell Yusuke. He'd make fun of me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Kurama said. "The aim was to beat Minato, but in the end you helped him overcome a mental block. Even in the midst of battle, your goal was not to hurt, but to help."

"Oh god." My face caught fire again. "You noticed all of that?"

"Difficult not to, though I couldn't hear your reconciliation. It seems you parted on good terms, however."

"We did." I passed a hand over my face, rubbing at the last bits of dried blood in the crevices of my nose until they flaked away. "Honestly, I'm embarrassed. I got so mad at him when he wouldn't just haul off and hit me. I felt silly, getting so heated, but it pissed me off." At that I threw up my hands, hoping my earlier explanation (that Minato had been studying martial arts his whole life) validated everything I needed to get off my chest. "I know he was just worried about hurting me, but I'm not made of glass. I won't break. And he knows that. Or hopefully he learned tonight, at least."

"I don't think you gave him the option of remaining unaware," Kurama said. "You're forceful with your opinions when you have the mind to be."

"That I am." I kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk without really seeing it. "My old mom used to tell me that's why I'd end up alone."

Kurama started. "End up alone?"

"Oh. Uh. Never mind." Subject change, stat. "Tell me. You and Hideki had it out?"

And then it was his turn to be evasive, face trained carefully forward. "You might say that," he murmured.

I rolled my eyes. "I already got the vague and mysterious act from Hideki, so if you could just cut to the chase, that'd be great for me, mmkay?"

The sarcasm didn't make him laugh like I had hoped it would. It just made his eyes go hooded, his steps take on a brisk quality I had to double-time to keep up with. I nearly didn't hear him when he murmured, "As you wish," but I heard him loud and clear when he spoke up clearly, loudly, and dispassionately, as if delivering an address to a crowd. "He threatened my life if I hurt you. I assured him I wouldn't."

The confession, while not surprising, certainly wasn't gratifying. "So why'd you blow up?" I asked. "A threat of death isn't usually enough, I would think."

He shook his head. "I did not appreciate his insinuations. But I assured him—"

"No. The order's wrong."

Kurama stopped walking. I did, too, nerves building in my belly like steam in a kettle. I hadn't meant to interrupt him, but my brain had made a connection and my mouth had wanted the connection known—even if it meant Kurama staring me down like a lion, green eyes incandescent in the light of the streetlamp overhead. Deep breath in, deep breath out, I dug my fingernail into my cuticle and picked at it in the depths of my pocket, out of Kurama's line of critical sight. No sense letting him know how nervous he made me.

"The last thing you said to Hideki was 'enough,'" I said. "You didn't assure him of anything after that. The conversation ended with 'enough.'" I searched his face, his delicate jaw, tracing the lines of the garnet hair framing his pale features. "So what did he say that got to you?"

Kurama measured his tone like a volatile chemical, careful of a reaction. "I don't want to come between you and your teacher."

"I'm a big girl," I reminded him, and I wondered how many dudes I'd have to convince of this tonight; so far we were a solid three for three. Men, am I right? Flexing, trying to make light of it, I said, "I'm not made of glass and I won't break. I can make my own decisions. So just tell me."

He didn't tell me—not right away at least, but Kurama is never one to do something without giving it ample forethought. He stared off into the sky above my head without speaking, lost in thought. We stood there under that streetlamp, its light keeping back the dark but doing nothing or the winter cold, until I had to wrap my arms around myself with a shiver. The motion seemed to break him from his trance; his gaze alit on me, distant but determined.

"I don't belong in this world, or so he claims," Kurama said. Though he spoke with his usual silken intonation, the barest undercurrent of tension, of pain, snagged the words at the edges like thorns. "He insinuated I do not deserve this life I stole, and that I ought to give it up." He paused a beat, shoulders tensing. "He said demons have no place in Human World."

If we had still been walking, I surely would've frozen stiff, and not just at the unintentionally cruel thing Hideki had said to Kurama. Kurama hid it well, his poker face even better than mine, but I knew him and could hear the ragged tenor to his words. I knew what his pauses meant. I hadn't told Hideki everything about Kurama (mostly the he was living as a human and had a human body, through reasons and methods I'd left vague) but he'd managed to touch on some of the insecurities Kurama liked to forget he harbored. And Hideki had thrown them right into his face.

My heart just about broke.

"He's never met a demon like you before," I said, knowing my words didn't have the power to make it better, but trying all the same. "Just the ones he had to round up with the first Detective." I touched Kurama's arm, trying to convey comfort. "I'm sure if he really knew, though…"

He smile, albeit thinly. "Old habits."

"Old habits," I agreed. Something told me it was best not to linger on this subject. I shook myself and asked, "So, the blowup? Is that was caused it?"

"No." At that he looked almost annoyed. "He said I should stop pretending to be what I am not—for your sake."

"Mine?" I pulled back with a scowl. "What's that even mean?"

Kurama hesitated. I thought he might divert, tell me to go ask Hideki or something, but instead he sighed. Squared his feet and faced me. Seemed to debate something, and then make a grim decision.

"Kei," Kurama said. "Are we friends?"

The sheer absurdity of the statement rendered me momentarily mute, but I detected no trickery in Kurama's face—just sincerity, incongruous as it felt. "What the hell kind of question is that?" I said when I found my voice again.

"An honest one," he said. "So tell me: Are we friends?"

"Well, what the hell do you think? Of course we're friends." I huffed and turned away, hands balling into fists inside my pockets. "Pretty damn good ones, too, hence my extreme consternation."

"I see." Kurama looked pleased with himself, although the look dissolved into solemnity again when he breathed deeply. His next words were delivered with that same clipped tone he'd used before, a speech he'd been rehearsing in his head for hours: "Hideki thinks I am using you to have what he calls the 'full human experience.' His exact words were that I am using my pretty face to lure in a young girl with a soft heart." At that he eyed me up and down, the barest flicker of amusement lightening his expression. "He knows about your caring nature, your compulsion to care for others, as well as I do."

I thought about it. Realized with mounting horror what was going on. "Aw, man," I lamented. "He thinks I'm trying to mother the emo demon, doesn't he?"

The amusement flickered more brightly. "That's one way of putting it. In any case, he thinks I want to experience all humanity has to offer—including young love." And at that he outright chuckled, concealing his mouth behind his hand—but he had that gleam in his eye, that traitorously playful sparkle that said he expected me to blush atomic again. "He thinks I'm trying to seduce you."

"Gee." I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at the light overhead, internally gleeful I wasn't playing into his hand. "I wonder where he got that idea."

Kurama blinked, hand dropping. "Beg pardon?"

"Kuroko, the former Detective, had the same suspicion." A heavy roll of my eyes conveyed just how annoying this was. "Either you're too pretty for your own good, or they've been colluding."

Kurama regarded the light above, too. "I don't know which I find more disconcerting."

"Me neither." I passed my hand through my hair with a sigh. "So. Aside from the seduction accusation, what else did he say?"

He shrugged. "More of the same. He thinks if I decide said human experience is not for me, I will cast you aside with no regard to your feelings like so much unwanted garbage. That is why he wishes I would abandon my charade, as he calls it. He does not want to see you hurt."

"Hmmph. That's sweet of him."

At that he looked rather shocked. "Sweet?"

I shrugged, that time. "He's looking out for me. It's annoying, sure, but… sweet." Although I had to give the absent Hideki a look of disdain, too. "But as I've said a hundred times tonight, I don't need to be babied. I told him so when he was healing me. If you meet again, I'd like to think he'll play nicer. But we'll see."

Kurama didn't seem all that concerned about Hideki's treatment of him, however. "You don't think I'm using you?" he said instead, surprised.

I frowned. "Why the hell would I think that?"

"I just—" He paused. Thought about it. Admitted: "I was worried you might believe him."

It was almost comical, the look of open concern he wore, but I tried not to laugh at him. Something told me his pride wouldn't react kindly, and we'd had enough prideful reacts for one night. I just shook my head and snorted. "Seriously, Kurama?"

One red brow shot up.

"You let me meet your mother."

I didn't need to explain the importance of that, and what it meant, to Kurama. He knew full well what that introduction had implied, even if Hideki did not. Still, Kurama didn't reply to my simple reasoning right away. He threaded his hand through his hair, strands tangling around his long, dexterous fingers and against his palm like spidersilk.

"Yes," he said, voice soft and low. "I suppose I did."

I smiled. "Then that's all the proof I need."

And it was.

Hideki, and anyone else who questioned my relationships with the demons whom I'd come to call my friends, would just have to take my word for it.

Notes:

I love Minato. Recently it occurred to me that he stressed needing to protect the Scouts in earlier chapters, rather than fight alongside them as comrades. That influenced this chapter. Part of his initial reluctance to become friends with Kag and Kei might have been because he first saw them as more people he would need to care for, which would be exhausting, hence his initial resistance before they proved themselves useful with their knowledge of Sailor Moon. I imagine he came from a very traditional, old-world household with rather strict gender roles, and his time in the military reinforced that—or rather, just made it so he never really had to give fighting women much thought, and this is the first he's really had to wrestle with the idea. Pun intended.

Minato has very distant parents in this life who didn't dictate how he was raised or force him to be something he wasn't. He was born in this life and was like, "I don't care what character's body I was born in, I am who I am and that's who I'm going to be." Documents updated, name updated to Minato, BOOM, he's living his best life from the start. His old-life chivalrous streak would remain intact, given this. I hope I handled this believably and w/ sensitivity. If I didn't, then let me know, because I think you probably know me well enough to know by now that I'd want to fix it. At least I hope that's how I come across, haaaaa. XD

About NQK in the fight scene: If I thought he was going easy on me because I'm a girl, I'd FLIP OUT. It's something I'm sensitive to. So much for keeping emotion out of the fight, indeed. My raging feminist pride would make an issue out of this, LOL.

I'm getting last week's fraud handled, but Friday night as I was writing I got an alert on my phone that someone tried and failed to gain access to my online banking account (they had the password and username but not access to a security item). Someone appears to be trying to hack that account. This so close on the heels of the fraud has me a complete nervous wreck. I feel like I'm under attack with no way to defend myself. It's suuuuuuuuuper not cool.

As of this exact moment I'm literally dragging myself into bed after a weekend spent on a film set. Wrote a script Friday night from 7 PM to 3 AM, filmed today, have to turn it in Sunday. Yay, 48 Hour Film Fest. Functioning on 3 hours of sleep. Nothing short of a miracle I got this done, but here we are. I literally wrote the final line today between takes on the set. MANY THANKS to all those who left comments last week, because y'all really did help me stay sane during my financial crisis: ToriLilo, Unctuous, Eternalevecho, cosmoqueen, curaga, Everlastingice_277, theshadowlessnuance, musiquemer, vinlala, gerbilfriend, actively apathetic, Masked Trickster, Roses Universe, atsuyuri-sama, D_Ravenheart, MageKing17, Linnadhiel, shrilaraune, rosesandlion, and junebird.

A big thanks especially to Tewdrig, too, who reviewed a METRIC TON of chapters recently and completely made my day. Days. They're awesome, is what I'm saying, as are all of you. ❤

I'm one sleepy screen writer and script supervisor. SO TIRED. Night. Zzzzzzz.

Chapter 74: Red vs. White

Summary:

In which NQK throws a party and might actually be a demon, IDK, she certainly has a laugh befitting one.

Notes:

Cultural Notes: New Year's is a MAJOR event in Japan, apparently. One of their biggest holidays. Some terms that come up this chapter: Kadomatsuare decorative trees placed near the door of a home after Christmas, left up until Jan. 7. Osechi-ryōri is the collective name of the various foods served on New Year's, served in a special box called a jubako box (basically a fancier bento). Ozōniis soup with mochi in it; it's a New Year's dish. Fukuwaraiis a game like "pin the tail on the donkey" only you stick facial features onto a big face while blindfolded instead of a tail onto a donkey's ass. Hanetsuki is a game in which you hit a shuttlecock back and forth with racquets and try to keep it in the air. In Japan you send postcards out to friends and family in honor of the New Year; it's briefly mentioned in this chapter. Kōhaku Uta Gassenis a signing competition, red team v. white team, hosted every year in Japan on New Year's Eve. It's very popular and watched by most everyone (sort of like the Times Square Ball Drop for Americans). I think that's everything.

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

Chapter Text

Wrapped in a thick down blanket, I slept—but only barely. Every movement of my foot stirred the comforter, summoned an inkling of winter cold beneath the covers and against my frozen toes, and with it came the dusty scent of dry desert air. Cold pressed against the bay windows above my bed as thickly as the late night darkness. When a hand alit on my back and the mattress dipped beneath my Nana's weight, I awoke in an instant. I'd been expecting her, luxuriating in the warmth of my bed, reveling in the cozy pajamas insulating me from the chilly air outside. Her hand felt even warmer than the sheets, wrinkled skin even softer, too.

"Wake up, sweet girl," Nana said. She pressed her other hand to Cousin Jason's forehead, where he lay on the pull-out mattress on the floor on the floor. "You too, sweet boy. It's almost time."

I hopped up, but Jason was harder to persuade. Nana took him by the hand as I led the way down the dark hall and into the bright kitchen, pure white tile scrubbed to mirrored sheen. More darkness pressed at the windows here, threatened to strangle the orchids growing in the planter box by the sink, but the brass chandelier above the kitchen table kept the gloom at bay. Through the archway into the living room the TV murmured, a glittering sphere atop its pole slowly descending toward a dancing, undulating crowd. I eyed the ticking red timer above the ball as Nana poured three flutes of sparkling apple juice and set them on the counter. Only two minutes to go, the timer told me.

"Shoes," Nana murmured. "Everyone, find your shoes."

Jason didn't move. He rubbed his eyes, blinking slowly as Nana helped him put his sneakers on—but even when tired, his eyes lingered on me. He saw me watching the Times Square footage and stared at it, too, not understanding why but mimicking me anyway. Nana chuckled and draped jackets around our shoulders, hustling us out the door with the champagne flutes held in a clinking bundle in her hand.

She lived at the top of a hill back then, way above the Riverwalk, highest house on Washington Street—one of the highest houses in town, truth told. Her back porch faced south, toward the river, overlooking the tops of swaying pecan trees and the crooked tilt of the neighbor's pueblo-style house. Jason swayed on his little legs, bleary and shivering as Nana made him hold his apple juice. A stray mesquite pod snapped under my foot when I stepped on it. I sniffed my juice when she handed it to me, nose wrinkling as bubbles teased my sinuses.

Though I longed to take a sip, I refrained—because just then, Nana glanced at her watch and smiled.

"You ready?" she said. She crouched between me and Jason, spry (we were only children then, eight and five years old respectively, her knees not yet gripped by arthritis). Arm around each of our shoulders, holding us warm and close in the dry December cold, Nana began to whisper. "Ten, nine…"

"Eight," I said.

"S-seven?" Jason mumbled, looking at me askance for help, and I gave him a proud nod.

"Six. Five. Four," said Nana.

"Three, two, one," I finished.

And together the three of us declared (though Jason made his declaration through a yawn): "Happy New Year!"

Then we drank our juice at last, and to the south the sky came alive with rainbow fire.

Their sparkle a complement to the bubbles on my tongue, fireworks shot up from the Riverwalk bridge a few blocks over, our vantage point the best in town and unknown to anyone but us. Our secret New Year's spot, tradition sacred as church but not nearly so stifling to my young eyes. From inside the house came the clamor of the Times Square ball drop, raucous and rousing and revelatory. Jason started at the booms and pops echoing through the clear west Texas air, sleep clearing from his bright blue eyes, but Nana's hand on his shoulder calmed any anxiety brewing in their depths. Soon he began to sway again; Nana tutted and scooped him up, carrying him back inside with a call of my name over her shoulder.

I didn't follow her inside right away. I waited a moment longer, watching bottle rockets and fire flowers fill the night's sky, blotting out the stars with their own insistent light.

"Happy New Year," I said to myself and to the fireworks—and then Nana called me back inside, and I climbed into my nice, warm bed to start off the New Year.

The next day Nana made me eat a whole bowl of black-eyed peas and collard greens ("It's a tradition; for luck," she said) but since she had let me see the fireworks at midnight, I only complained a little.

The day of our New Year's party, Mom woke me up at the crack of dawn.

We cleaned, first, because it was tradition, and because that's how my mother had spent New Year's Eve with her family when she was a little girl. Dad helped us purify the house from top to bottom in preparation for the New Year, and when Mom deemed the house appropriately spotless, we headed for the kitchen to prepare the osechi-ryōri.

Unlike the New Year's food of my past, the osechi-ryōri did not contain any black-eyed peas or collard greens. Rather, this traditional meal came packed in special jubako boxes arranged in neat towers, containers filled to the brim with traditional foods symbolizing wealth, prosperity, and all the other things one would ideally like to have in the New Year—many of them pickled, harkening to a time when Japan lived without refrigeration. Mom and Dad and I had been making these boxes together on New Year's Eve since I was a little girl, but this year the crowd promised to be bigger; we had our work cut out for us. We stewed buckwheat noodles and steamed enough mochi and fried enough prawns to feed an army, prepping an enormous vat of delicious ozōni to serve when guests arrived. When we finished and stepped back to survey our work, I was pleased to note it looked absolutely delicious, air perfumed with the scents of a promising New Year.

I just hoped I'd planned everything OK, and that this would be enough.

We'd decorated the house and set up the game area on the restaurant floor the night before, just to make it easier on ourselves the day of. It had felt a little odd, decorating for the occasion—mostly because we hadn't done it the year before and Dad had misplaced the kadomatsu and fukuwarai set sometime in the interim. Yusuke's death and the subsequent skipping of our usual New Year's activity had thrown a wrench in the works a bit. All truth told, I hadn't been sure we'd resume this tradition this year—and if we did, I certainly didn't expect the party to be large.

But then my mother had happened, and she had insisted.

"Yusuke was comatose through New Year's last year," she said when she broached the subject of our annual party. "We should the start off his first full year of consciousness with a bang, don't you think?"

I'd been sitting at the restaurant's bar and only paying half attention, nose buried in my winter break homework. "If you say so, Mom," I said, stuffing a fried dumpling into my mouth.

"I do say so. And you've made so many new friends this year, too, and we skipped your birthday this year given all the hubbub over Yusuke. It's about time we had a party." She counted on her fingers as she said, "You can invite Yusuke, Kuwabara, Minamino, the girls from Sarayashiki Junior High—oh, and those nice girls who came over for cooking lessons, too." She smiled at me sidelong, primly brushing of the front of her apron. "We could even invite that young man who always wears black who comes by for dinner on Thursdays. You know. The one you think I don't know about?"

I nearly did a spit-take at that last comment, but Mom breezed past it with party plans and no sign of wanting to interrogate me about Hiei, and I felt I had no choice but to comply lest I incur her wrath—or worse, her curiosity.

Once I got over the shock of her proposal, it made sense that Yusuke's resurrection would prompt the resurrection of this party. Back when we were kids, my mom had started throwing the party for the combined Yukimura and Urameshi households mostly as a way of keeping an eye on Yusuke on New Year's Eve without making it seem like babysitting (to the independent Yusuke) or charity (to the stubborn Atsuko). She also used her family's New Year's Eve cleaning tradition as an excuse to clean Yusuke's apartment, teaching him how to hold a broom and dustpan as she tidied up the Urameshi house. The event helped keep Atsuko close to home, too, free booze enticing her to stay nearby instead of wandering too far afield drunk. With Yusuke gone, my parents hadn't seen the need for a party (Atsuko had just stayed home in a tanked stupor that year) but with him back, it was time to revamp old traditions. At my mother's request I made invitations and sent them to all pertinent parties—the core crowd of Yusuke and Atsuko, Kuwabara and his family, Kurama, and Botan. I tried to get away with just inviting them, but Mom insisted I include the slightly outer circle she'd originally asked for: namely Eimi and Michiko, Junko and Amagi. Still a small group, even if a bit bigger than usual, and with this number I felt comfortable indeed.

And then the guest list had expanded even further, quite accidentally and entirely thanks to my big mouth.

The panicked phone call from Amanuma came midway through December, just as I was putting together invitations for the party in the first place (and writing all my traditional New Year's postcards, to boot). I knocked a few of them off my desk when answering the phone, cursing as they fell to the carpet with a whuff, but I forgot about them the second I held the receiver to my ear. Amanuma didn't even bother greeting me. He babbled too fast to follow, voice cracking with frantic worry—and with a sniffle here and there, like a wire inside him might snap and I might find myself with a crying kid on my hands. Not ideal. Best cut this looming breakdown off at the pass. I sat on my bed and tangled the phone's cord around my hand, foot propped up on my swivel chair, shoulders tight and jaw clenched.

"Hey, hey kiddo, slow down," I said, cutting through the jabber. "Take a deep breath for me, OK?"

"Oh—okay," he said, doing as asked with a gasp.

"Good. One more."

He did as told.

"And one more?"

Another deep breath, this one holding steady at last. On his exhale I heard relief; he'd finally calmed, it seemed, and a good thing, too, because he'd been nigh unintelligible before.

"That's better," I said. "Now tell me what's wrong." A thought occurred; I asked: "Do you need an ambulance?"

"N-no. Nothing like that," he said. "Just—you were right, Keiko. You were right."

That desperate emphasis of his had me sitting up straighter. "Right about what?"

"My friend—my adult friend. He is shady."

And my back turned to steel and plywood, all tension and no give. The cord bit into my hand when I gripped it tight. "What'd he do?" I asked, thought immediately leaping to the dreaded Chapter Black. "Amanuma, what did he—?"

"Nothing bad," he was quick to assure me. "He wanted to see me and I was excited to see him since I hadn't heard from him in, like, forever, but he started talking about how he wanted to… how he wanted to change the world? And how he needed my help to do it." A note of resolve colored his voice when he said: "I'm just a kid. I'm smart and I'm awesome, but I'm a kid." And the resolve faded into uncertainty again. "He should be asking a grown-up instead of me, right?"

"Right, kiddo," I said. "He should."

A relieved sigh. "That's what I thought."

His relief didn't carry over to me, however, because there was no way Sensui would take that kind of rejection lying down. "So what did you do?" I asked, clutching at the phone.

"I told him that."

I blinked. "You told him—?"

"I told him what you said," Amanuma said, like it was just that simple (and to him I suppose it was). "I told him that he should ask a grownup and that I'm just a kid and that it's weird he wants the help of a gradeschooler and that he wanted to hang out with me so much. And he said I was different than other kids. Special, even. But…"

"But you know better than to fall for that," I said, gently.

A long pause followed. I thought the line had gone dead, but soon Amanuma sighed.

"Yeah," he said in a small, sad voice. "I do." And in a stronger voice that quavered at the edges, he said: "I said we can't be friends anymore."

It was the quaver that told me how brave he was being, standing up for himself this way. It had been no small feat, no offhand decision he'd made on a whim. Sensui had targeted the boy when he was lonely, after all. To Amanuma, Sensui had been a symbol of companionship. Of hope. Of acceptance.

And now Amanuma had rejected that symbol wholesale.

That took courage I couldn't begin to name.

"You did the right thing," I said. "I know it sucks. But you did the right thing, I promise."

"I know I did." And I detected no hesitation in his voice at all, especially when he said, "Because when I said that, he looked scary, and he got up and walked away. I mean, he looked scary, nee-san." I heard him shudder through the phone. "It was awful, the way he looked at me. No real friend would look at me like that."

I almost shuddered, too. Anime Sensui had had some teeth on his stare. I'd hate to think what the genuine article might be capable of.

"That's right—no real friend would do that," I said. "I'm proud of you."

"You're what?"

"I proud of you for standing up for yourself." Through the line he made a noise of pleased, strangled surprise; I grinned. "Sounds like you did great."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. Um." He hesitated. Said in a rush: "Think I can came hang out with you and Yusuke this week?"

I looked at the invitations on my desk, half complete and time sensitive. "Um—?"

"Oh. It's OK," he said, disappointment obvious. "I don't need—"

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them: "You free on New Year's Eve, kiddo?"

And that's how Amanuma got invited to my New Year's Eve soiree.

Like I said: Entirely my fault, all thanks to my big mouth.

After we cleaned the house and cooked, my family went upstairs to bathe and get dressed. Mom bought me a nice new dress for the occasion, frilly and sweet and not at all my style, a high-necked red dress with buttons up the front, patterned in flowers with enormous puffy sleeves (damn you, Yoshihiro Togashi, and your terrible but accurate depiction of early 90s fashion). The necklace Minato had given me clashed with the outfit horribly, but the chocking neckline with its ruffled and buttoned collar hid the bauble from view; small favor, I decided, but a welcome one. Mom dried my hair and styled it with an enormous bow on top, emo-punk bangs tucked neatly off to one side under a headband for the sake of decorum. The bow in particular made me feel a bit silly, but it made my mother happy so I was willing to put up with the indignity for a night for her sake.

"You look so cute," she said, sighing as I twirled for her in the poofy skirt. "You're always wearing Yusuke's cast-off clothes and whatever he's grown out of recently. This is much better."

She had a point, so long as she wasn't including the horrible bow in her assessment, but I digress.

While Mom went off to get ready, herself, I headed up to my room to relax a little before the party started—if by "relax" you mean "pace restlessly from one end of the room to the other," which I did. It was tough to sit still. I kept looking at the clock, watching it tick closer and closer to 8 PM, and when it hit 7:15 I collapsed onto my bed with my face in my pillow. I was nervous, not that anyone should blame me. This was the first time a lot of the friends would mix, a variety of different social groups colliding at long last. And of course I'd prepped everyone to be on good behavior, warning Yusuke and Kuwabara and Botan to not call Kurama by that name and all that jazz—but would it be enough? I just hoped everything went to plan…

But of course, I had no such luck, and said luck showed itself before the party even started.

Half an hour before the party's official 8 PM start time, there came a knock at the door. "Sweetheart?" Mom called through the panel. "One of your friends is here."

I sat up in bed and stared at the door, nonplussed. Yusuke was incapable of being on time, Kurama was too polite to be early, Kuwabara and the girls were all probably too cool to be on time to a party—Amanuma, maybe? Sighing, I said "be right down" and smoothed my dress in the mirror by my closet before padding downstairs in my socks. Mom led the way, escorting me onto the main restaurant floor all awash with New Year's decorations, where a young man in a tweed coat with elbow patches and a pair of black slacks waited by the buffet table. He turned when he heard us coming, raising one hand in curt greeting. Curly black hair glimmered above a smattering of freckles and the glare of thick half-moon glasses. "Hello," he said, adjusting said glasses with his middle finger. "I'm the first one here, I take it."

"Kaito!" I scurried over to him, caught halfway between a smile and a frown. "Hey, man. You're early."

"As is my custom," he replied. "Is that a problem?"

"No, just—I wasn't expecting anyone so soon. And people are usually late to parties, that's all."

For some reason, Kaito scowled. "The article I consulted did not deem tardiness to be acceptable party etiquette."

I stared at him. "You consulted a book for party manners."

"A magazine," he corrected. "It was most informative." A long pause, and a lightbulb went off behind his bespectacled eyes. "Ah. I see now. 'Fashionably late' is an English idiom, isn't it?"

"Yup."

"I should have known." A thin smile, but a genuine one. "Oh well. Spilled milk and all that." He thrust out his hands. "I brought this. I hope it is acceptable."

He brandished a melon at me, the fancy kind you only buy on special occasions (though not the type that costs hundreds of bucks, because he was just a kid with pocket money no matter how hard he pretended otherwise), wrapped in fancy department store paper and tied with an enormous ribbon—a very traditional gift, most likely one recommended by that magazine of his. I took it from him with a bow and a giggle, unable to keep back an observation of, "You don't go to parties often, do you?"

He arched a brow. "My lack of popularity is amusing to you, is it?"

"Hey, I haven't been invited to a party in years, so I can't throw stones." Tucking the melon under my arm, I gestured for him to follow me. "Well, come in, early bird, but be warned. When you show up early, you wind up having to help out in the kitchen."

"Harrumph. I dislike standing idle, anyway. Idle minds are the first to go to waste." As we came to a stop in the kitchen doorway, he caught my mother's eye as she bent over a pot of steaming noodles. "With what matter may I be of assistance, Yukimura-san?"

Mom looked at him, startled by his formal demeanor and the methodical way he'd begun to roll up his sleeves. She looked at me. "Uh…?"

"Oh boy." I stepped forward to make the proper introductions. "Mom, this is Kaito Yuu. He's that author friend I told you about."

Her face brightened at once. "Oh. Well, that explains a lot, now doesn't it?" She reached across the kitchen and under the island in the middle, hefting a serving platter of fried prawns. "If you could help me carry these to the warmer in the dining room—"

"Happy to," said Kaito.

Watching Kaito interact with my mom and dad was just the littlest bit hilarious. My parents seemed a bit off-put by Kaito's odd, pointed remarks about workplace efficiency and maximizing labor output as he helped us set out the food and make a bowl of punch, but the subtle twitch at the corner of Dad's mouth and the amused sparkle in Mom's eye told me they found him funny, if not a little weird. As Kaito chatted Mom's ear off about the effect of citric acid on plastic byproducts, Dad pulled me aside by the elbow and whispered, "I don't know where you keep finding these boys of yours, but that one's hilarious."

"Ask him about literature and wait till he gets going. He's fantastic." I nudged him in the ribs. "Oh. Have you picked a team yet?"

"No. Has your mother?"

"Not to my knowledge. Figured we'd draw lots when everyone gets here."

"Good plan." His turn to nudge me, a knowing grin on his bearded face. "You sticking with Red this year?"

"You know it," I said, grinning back.

"That's my girl. Which reminds me." He eyed Mom askance and angled himself away from her, shielding his hands with his torso. "I got what you asked for."

With all the sketchy secrecy of a drug dealer trying to pass along a dime bag of green within eyesight of a beat cop, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a box covered in velvet with a minute gold catch on the front—the box that had housed the bracelet he'd given Mom for her birthday the year prior, I think. This he handed to me with a secretive flourish and another guilty glance at my mother. I beamed at him (on the sly, of course), took the box, and peeked inside. Cackled like the Wicked Witch after dropping a house on someone. Dad shushed me; I stifled the laughter with my fist.

"God bless the foreign marketplace," I whispered at him. "Bless it."

Dad tutted. "You won't be saying that if White wins."

"I have faith in Team Red, father of mine," I said, and I stowed the jewelry box in my pocket before Mom could see what we were up to.

With Kaito's help, we finished setting out the food just as the clock struck 8 PM. We'd moved the TV from upstairs earlier and set it in the middle of the dining room, channel tuned to NHK and the Kōhaku Uta Gassen pre-show, and just as we settled in to wait for the other guests I heard the restaurant's front doors rattle open. Leave it to Kurama to get here precisely on time, of course. He stepped inside the restaurant and spotted us, smiling as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the pegs by the door, and then he paused to take off his outdoor shoes and put on indoor slippers.

Kaito, sitting next to me at one of the many dining tables, leaned in close to mutter, "You invited him?"

I swatted his arm as I stood up. "Stop pretending like you two aren't friends."

"Debatable," Kaito said, shoving his glasses up his nose. "Highly, highly debatable."

"Your face is debatable."

Kaito looked quite appalled. "Yukimura, he is my nemesis."

"Nemesis, shem-e-sis." I walked away. "Minamino, welcome!"

"Thank you for having me," the aforementioned said as he crossed the restaurant. He dipped a bow to my mother and father, lock of bloody hair falling over the shoulder of his crisp white shirt. "Yukimura-sans. Thank you for having me this evening. You have rescued me from a night of boredom, and I am quite grateful as a result."

"Oh, that's right. You would've spent tonight alone," I said. "Your mom had plans, didn't she?"

"She did." His smile was beatific, almost angelic. "She has been seeing someone and is spending the evening with him."

My mother put her hands to her cheeks. "How romantic!" she said. "A date on New Year's Eve!"

"Indeed." His smile widened. "I'm wondering if there's a proposal on the horizon, actually."

"Wouldn't that be so lovely!" Mom said with a delighted gasp. She touched Dad's knee, bouncing a little in her seat. "We'll have to have her and her fiancé over for dinner." She beamed at Kurama, utterly delighted. "I've been wanting to meet your lovely mother for so long now, anyway—it would be a perfect excuse."

"I'll let her know," Kurama said, and he looked rather pleased, himself. "She'll no doubt be honored by the invitation."

Before Mom could really dive in and nail down Shiori's schedule (and judging by the eager look on her face, she wanted to do just that) the door opened again and emitted both a chilly December breeze and a few adults, employees from the restaurant my parents had invited to balance out the adult-to-kid ratio of this party. As my parents rose to greet them, I mused that the gathering had really expanded outward this year, and not just for me.

Kaito looked Kurama up and down, one brow climbing high across his forehead. "As insufferably charming as ever, Minamino."

"Hello to you too, Kaito," said Kurama, pleasant as a warm spring day.

"A proposal." I dug an elbow into Kurama's arm a few times. "You dog. You didn't tell me!"

"I have no evidence. Just a feeling. We shall see, though." But his smile belied his demure words, knowing and secretive despite his claim to no evidence. "Who else are we expecting this evening?"

"Oh, the usual. Yusuke and Kuwabara and their families, Botan, Amagi and Junko from school, my friends Eimi and Michiko from my old school because there were way too many dudes on the guest list and we needed some girls," I said. "Oh, and Amanuma."

He nodded—and then he smiled a smile I wasn't quite sure I liked. "He's about your friend Minato's age," Kurama said. "They might get along."

I had prepared myself in case he asked after my absent friend, and I didn't miss a beat. "Minato can't make it, unfortunately, but he sends his regards," I said, looking appropriately sad all the while.

The truth, though? I'd invited Minato, but we'd mutually decided it was best not to tempt fate and let him encounter Kurama again so soon. The guest list was a careful blend of people in the Core Group and Outliers like Junko, Eimi, and Kaito—people I wanted in my life, ones I didn't want to offend by not inviting to this party, but people who didn't know about the supernatural (yet, anyway). Amagi had one foot in the door and Kaito would join us eventually, but not so soon. Best Minato stay away for the time being, lie low until I could integrate him more organically… if we ever decided to integrate him into my life at all.

Not that Kaito or Kurama knew about any of that, of course. Kaito's face screwed up, snub nose wrinkling under the bridge of his glasses. "Who's Minato?" he asked.

"Kei's new German tutor," Kurama said.

Kaito's glasses swung my way. "You're taking German?"

"I tested out of English," I said, shrugging.

"Really. I wasn't aware." And yet being left out of the loop had him looking quite elated. "But if that's the case, I have a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost and I'm unconvinced that the translation we're using in class is up to snuff. If you would be so kind as to look over—"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing—oh hey Amanuma, what's up?"

Amanuma chose that moment to make a very opportune entrance, saving me from a night of studying in the nick of goddamn time. The poor thing had been standing in the doorway looking lost, unnoticed amid the gaggle of adults still chatting near the coatrack, and when he heard my voice his face lit up. He kicked off his shoes, threw his coat down, and scampered over to us with an enormous grin on his small face.

"Nee-san!" he said, skidding to a halt in his socks on the wooden floor. "There you are!"

"Hey, kiddo," I said. "You make it in OK?"

"Yeah. Only a couple of drunk people on the train." He snickered. "I sent them the wrong way when they asked for directions back to Mushiyori."

It probably wasn't great of me to guffaw at the cheek of that, but I did anyway. "Nice one! Here, let me make introductions." I gestured at the appropriate parties and hoped to hell this wasn't about to go south. "Minamino, you know Amanuma. Amanuma, this is my friend Kaito Yuu from school."

"Nice to see you again, Amanuma," said Kurama with a warm smile.

"Pleased to meet you," Kaito concurred. His chin lifted, lips thinning somewhat. "If I'd known anyone else was coming from Mushiyori, I would've met them at the station."

Amanuma blinked. "You're from Mushiyori, too?"

"Yes."

Kurama looked at Kaito sidelong, brow knit. "Really? I wasn't aware of that."

At that Kaito smirked. "Maybe you're not as observant as you think you are."

"And you go to Meiou?" Amanuma said, ignoring the obvious needling playing out before him. He let out a bright laugh. "Your commute to school must be awful!"

But Kaito just shrugged. "I use the train ride for study time. It's not so bad."

"I mean, I guess so," said Amanuma, but he looked less than convinced. He laced his fingers together and tucked his hands behind his head, favoring Kaito up and down. "Didn't expect to meet anyone from my hometown. You any good at video games?"

Kaito shrugged again. "I'd like to think so."

"What kinds?" Amanuma asked.

"A true combatant never reveals his hand early," Kaito said—but rather than look offended, Amanuma just started to grin, and he let out a mischievous giggle that had the rest of us smiling, too.

"Oh, yeah," he said, "we are so gonna hit up the arcade. And I won't have to travel so far this time, either!" His bright eyes swung toward Kurama. "Say Minamino, did you—?"

As the kid began interrogated Kurama about a recent game they'd played, wondering whether or not Kurama had reached a certain level yet, Kaito took a brisk step to stand at my elbow. "A little young, isn't he?" he said, eyeing the kid over.

"You know me," I said, voice low. "Always taking people under my wing."

"Right. That is your modus operandi." He tilted his head at Amanuma. "Shall I make nice, in that case?"

"You'd like the kid if you got to know him," I said—because I got the sense it was true, and Amanuma deserved to make a few new friends after his recent breakup with Sensui. Kaito could fit the bill just fine. "He's smart as hell and could give you a run for your money at any game in the book. Still growing up a little, but aren't we all?"

Kaito looked pensive. "I suppose it would be nice to have a challenge at the arcade from time to time."

"Thought so." I put a hand between his shoulder blades and gave him a gentle shove. "Go make friends!"

"Fine," he said, "but you owe me that translation check when this is all said and done."

I got the sense he'd hold me to that promise whether he actually made friends with Amanuma or not—so it was a good thing I was a Milton fan. Suppressing a smile, I watched as Kaito joined the others and entered the conversation, taking advantage of their distraction to slip away toward the kitchen. So Amanuma, Kaito, and Kurama were here, which left Yusuke and Atsuko, Botan, the Kuwabara family, the girls from both of my schools… I needed to check on the food again, make sure it was ready to serve and that we'd made enough, do one last sweep for quality control and—

"Keiko, honey?"

I flinched and froze in the kitchen doorway, but it was only Dad striding down the stairs holding a piece of paper in his fist. He ran up and shoved it at me, then followed it up with a roll of tape.

"I forgot to put the closed notice earlier," he said, eyes roving over the kitchen at my back—probably looking for Mom, to see if she'd overhear. "Could you hang that up for me?"

"Sure thing, Dad," I said, and I made a show of hiding the paper under my shirt so Mom wouldn't see our undercover operation.

Not all businesses in Japan closed for New Year's, though many of them did, and it was customary for my parents to write a note to their regulars and hang it on the door next to the "closed" sigh—just a sweet touch to let customers know we were thinking about them. Avoiding the ever-growing bundle of my parents' adult friends that had accumulated near the kitchen, murmur of their voices filling the warm air, I grabbed my coat and shoes from their spot by the back door and looped around the restaurant through the side alley. My breath frosted on the air in great white puffs as I pulled free a bit of tape from the roll and tacked the note down at the corners on our front door. Dad's handwriting was choppy, sure, but it had a sincere quality I was certain any disappointed customers would respect, and as I stowed the tape away in my pocket and turned to go back inside, I smiled into my jacket collar. My parents really were great.

"Hey, Keiko!"

Tonight was the night of being startled from my reverie, as I was yet again this evening by another call of my name. A few dozen yards down the sidewalk a small battalion of hands waved in my direction, and when I saw to whom they belonged I broke out into both a grin and a run.

"Oh, hi guys!" I said as I trotted over. "Did you come here together? This is wild!"

"Nah," said Junko, and she gestured first at Amagi at her left and then at Eimi and Michiko, my two friends from Sarayashiki, on her right. "Just spotted them on the way here."

Eimi nodded at Junko and Amagi. "Remembered them from the coffee shop that one time." Her eyes flickered to the side with mild disapproval. "And then of course we saw him."

Kuwabara stood at the edge of the group of girls like a looming suit of armor in a china shop, out of place with knocked knees and elbows canted to the sides, awkwardly towering above the rest. At Eimi and Michiko's disapproving look he did a double take, hands coming up in defense. "Hey, don't look so mad! I didn't do nothing!"

Eimi and Michiko looked skeptical, however, at the claims of the young man they knew only as the #2 Top Delinquent of their middle school. Junko giggled behind one well-manicured hand. Amagi also looked amused (and also very cute in a black dress with a sweetheart neckline worn over a collared white shirt, black tights and shoes with little gold buckles, and oh god Keiko don't be a dork stop staring). To recover a little of my dignity, I gave Eimi and Mich and look that said 'play nice' and turned to Kuwabara.

"Where's your sister?" I said.

"Running late. Something about a hair dryer." He rolled his eyes. "She and Dad both needed it."

At that Michiko's brow furrowed. "You have a sister?"

"Yup! She's older, about 20." He beamed at me, thrusting out a wrapped box in his enormous hands. "Thanks for inviting me, Keiko, I mean it. I brought you this. I hope you like it because I picked it out special and, um."

He lapsed into silence, cheeks going a shade of bright pink. Eimi and Michiko watched this wearing twin expressions of alarm, the pair of them resembling a matched set of startled owls, but as I took the present from Kuwabara, Amagi stepped forward.

"Thanks for inviting us," she said, voice smooth and low and soft. "I brought a gift, as well."

"Thanks, girl," I said, trying to sound breezy (even though it had become my turn to flush around the ears just a little). Tucking their gifts under my arm, I said, "Well, come in, everybody. It's freezing out here."

Junko shivered right on cue, and they followed me in like a pack of particularly cold ducklings. Kuwabara spotted Kurama and the others over our heads as we stripped out of shoes, coats, and scarves, eyes lighting up as he waved. "Hey Ku—Amanuma!" he said, covering for the name mix-up with a bait-and-switch. "Hey Amanuma, Minamino!"

I started to follow after him, but before I could a hand wrapped around my elbow. This was Michiko, who stared open-mouthed across the restaurant at Kuwabara and the others—or more specifically, stared at Kurama. Her pigtails almost seemed to stand on end when she said, "Oh my god. Is that him?"

Behind her, Junko gave a roguish grin. "Yup. That's Minamino, all right."

Eimi stared with her mouth open as well, but she recovered so she could swat my arm. "Keiko! You've been holding out on us!"

"Amagi and Junko told us all about your pretty new friend," Michiko said with a horrific death stare. "You, meanwhile, haven't said a word."

Resisting the urge to shoot Amagi and Junko a death stare of my own, I shrugged. "Hey, I told you I'd made new friends at my new school. I mentioned Minamino by name, too."

Michiko remained unimpressed. "You didn't say he looked like that!"

Sensing an impending lecture and/or an interrogation about my nonexistent love life, I looked to the even keeled Amagi for rescue, but she just coughed into her fist at the sight of my plaintive stare. No help at all, then. Drat. I sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Oh my god, you two, please don't be weird with him. He's a human being. He's normal, not another specie!"

This was, of course, a lie, but they didn't need to know that. Still, despite their ignorance as to the supernatural, I wasn't fooling either of them.

"Um." Eimi put her hands on her wide hips. "That hair isn't normal."

"That hair is gorgeous," said Mich.

Junko cackled. "Your friends are a crackup, Keiko."

"If you say so." I pinned my former classmates with one of OG!Keiko's patented Firm Class-Rep Stares. "Just be cool. He's a person. It took me weeks to get him to come out of his shell and I don't want you two undoing it by being hyperactive fangirls and scaring him off, capisce?"

Eimi turned up her nose, eyes glittering with a spark of tease. "We make no promises."

Michiko looped her arm through Junko's. "If Keiko won't, Junko, then I insist you introduce us."

"Ha!" said Junko. "Sure!" And she offered her other arm to Eimi, escorting both girls toward the hapless and unsuspecting Kurama with a spring in her step and an alarmingly wicked gleam in her eye.

Amagi, though, lingered behind with me. She slipped into the space behind my elbow, the faintest breath of her perfume wafting over my face. "A normal human being, hmm?" she murmured, so quietly I had to strain to hear.

"As far as they know," I murmured back, and I put my finger to my lips. Amagi nodded, putting a digit over her mouth in return—but she smiled just a little, sharing with me this private joke, and my heart had no choice but to flutter. Damn teenage hormones reacting to pretty girls, am I right?

Lucky for me, Yusuke came along and put an end to those shenanigans posthaste.

Behind Amagi the restaurant door burst open, sliding along its track with a clatter so loud all conversation in the wide dining room ceased. Into the shocked silence swaggered Urameshi Yusuke (because of course he fucking did), dressed in his most garish windbreaker and offensive mom-jeans. Hands jammed with affected nonchalance into his pockets, hair shellacked into place with at least a gallon of gel, he stopped short when he saw me—but he was wearing sunglasses (at night because Yusuke is So Fucking Extra™ like that) and I couldn't quite make out the expression in his sure-to-be-devious eyes. Still, I knew it couldn't be anything good.

New Year's Eve was a night for warfare, and even if he'd slept through the festivities last year, I knew he couldn't have forgotten the stakes at play between us.

"Well, well, well," he said in a slow, deliberate drawl. He looked me up and down, hooking a finger over the glasses to slide them down his nose. "What do we have here?"

Over his shoulders appeared the faces of Botan and Atsuko, the former puzzled, the latter wearing a look of undisguised glee. Botan waved when she saw me; Atsuko took a swig from a bottle wrapped in brown paper, shoving past her son with grizzled chuckle. Yusuke cursed at her, then turned his attention back to me.

"Wow, Keiko," he said. "A dress?"

"Wow, Yusuke," I said, talking through my nose to mock him. "Sunglasses, at night?"

He scowled and shoved said glasses in his pocket. "I'm not the one wearing a dress!"

"Yeah, and what about it? My uniform is a skirt and you've seen me in that a million times."

"A dress isn't the same thing," he said, as if it were obvious and I was an idiot.

I scoffed. "Yes, it is."

He scoffed back. "No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is—White Team scum."

Yusuke's sly smile turned into an outright grin, all teeth and fire. "Oh ho. So the Red Team wench hasn't forgotten, after all."

Someone gasped at his language, and at that point I became vaguely aware of people wandering over, the press of bodies at my back, of Eimi and Michiko appearing in my periphery and looking stricken at the sight of the great Urameshi, their school's #1 Delinquent, facing off against me in the foyer. I tuned them out, though, crossing my arms and popping out a hip, defiant and smirking—because Yusuke might scare them, but I knew better.

"Of course I didn't forget," I said. "You're the one who skipped a year, not me."

"Hey!" Yusuke said, irate. "I didn't skip on purpose!"

"You sure?" I inspected my nails as if they were far more important than this petty conversation. "Because you know who won last year, right?"

Yusuke ground his teeth, but he said nothing. I threw up "rock on" horns and stuck out my tongue.

"That's right, baby!" I said. "Red Team won. Suck it!"

"I didn't get hit by a car on purpose, Keiko," Yusuke said, sulking.

"Oh, but I think you did." I walked right up into his face, nose to nose and belligerent. "I think you had a premonition that the penalty would be especially painful and threw yourself into traffic to escape it, you coward."

He let out a low whistle, getting up in my face with an exaggerated swagger. "Careful, now. Them's fightin' words."

"Makes sense since tonight's a fightin' night." I reached into my pocket for the box my father had given me. Opened it. Showed it to him. "And I'm packing heat, baby!"

He looked at the box. His eyes widened. And then he started grinning, laughter building in his chest and hissing from between his teeth like air from a burst balloon.

"Ooh, color me scared," he said, not sounding scared in the slightest. "But speaking of premonitions… I won't be the one eating that thing this year, I can feel it."

"Says you, asshole."

"Says you, hag."

"What are you two talking about?" said Botan from her spot in the doorway. She looked more than a little peeved, utterly bamboozled by the display. "Fighting words? Red Team?" Hands flew up, blue ponytail flapping as she shook her head. "I don't understand!"

Atsuko, lounging against the wall neat the coat rack, took another pull from her bottle and grinned. "It's their little New Year's bet," she said. "Hope you brought popcorn." And then she was laughing and clapping and almost vibrating with joy, eagerness painted across her face like makeup. "I wait all year for this!"

At that point the entire restaurant, my friends and my parents' friends alike, had gathered around to watch the brouhaha, and it felt a bit silly to keep posturing with Yusuke without explanation. I clapped my hands and spun, pasting on my best Circus Ringmaster face and a grin that could put the Ringling Bros. to shame.

"OK, everyone; listen up!" I said "This is the first time we've had an extended gathering and not just the combined Urameshi and Yukimura clans so this is gonna take a little explaining—but every year Yusuke and I have a little competition."

"Can you really call it a competition when I always kick your ass?" Yusuke drawled, slouching into place at my side.

"Inaccurate and also shut up." I let my grin widen, ignoring him. "As all of you know, every New Year's Even they play Kōhaku Uta Gassen on the TV, Red Team vs. White Team. I'm Team Red. Yusuke is that scumbag Team White." (He squawked at the insult; I pressed forward.) "And every year we have a friendly little competition, red vs. white, to see who's gonna kick more ass in the New Year."

"Language!" Mom warbled from the back of the room.

"Friendly?" Atsuko quoted. "Ha! As if! Yusuke gave you a black eye when you were ten over a game of fukuwarai!"

I rounded on her and pointed a finger in her face "That was an illegal elbow and you know I should've been given the point for that event, dammit!"

"Language!" came the call again, though this time Dad said it.

I composed myself. "Ahem. Anyway. Our teams get a point every time the TV teams get a point. But since relying on the TV teams would be more about dumb luck than skill—"

"And since Keiko is a crazy-ass control freak," Yusuke said, brightly.

"Shut up!" I smoothed the front of my dress with a cough. "We also compete in a series of traditional New Year's games to make this more about skill, less about chance. By the time the night is over, the points determine who gets the loser's penalty."

Near the back of the crowd, Kuwabara raised his hand into the air, a kid in class trying to get the teacher's attention.

"Yes, Kuwabara?" I said.

"What's the loser's penalty?" he asked.

"I'm so very glad you asked," I said, sweet as peach pie. I hefted the box in my hand high. "The head of the losing team must eat this Habanero hot pepper, seeds and all… and they can't drink any milk for five minutes afterward."

I'd like to think the jewelry box glowed like the suitcase from Pulp Fiction when I held it aloft, the single bright orange pepper lying on its satin pillow emitting its own internal light, but I know that's just fanciful thinking. Still, though: People gasped at the sight of it, and at the back of the room I saw my mom hide her face in her hands. Dad just looked amused, though, laughing into his fist as their friends gave them looks that said, "Holy shit, you let your daughter do this every year?!"

Another hand shot up, this one belonging to Kaito. "You've been doing this since you were ten?" he asked, incredulous.

"Seven, actually," I said.

Kurama didn't stand far enough away for me to miss the epiphany he experienced just then. "That's why you have such a high tolerance for spice," he said.

"Probably so." A wicked grin delivered unto Yusuke. "Although Yusuke's had to eat more peppers than I have overall."

He bristled. "I've only had to eat one more than you, ya old hag!"

I shoved my fingers in my ears. "La la la, I can't hear you over the sound of my historic wins!"

"How many wins has it been?" Junko asked.

"So far it's four wins to three." I lobbed a fist into the air. "Red Team for life, baby!"

Kaito put up his hand again. "Forgive me for being obtuse, but what does this have to do with tonight's party?" he asked, brow alarmingly close to disappearing into his mop of curly hair.

At that I pointed behind him; most of the crowd turned to look, finally understanding the significance of the various games set up around the dining room. "As you can see, I've set up a series of traditional New Year's games—and a bracketed Street Fighter tournament on the Famicon because it's the 20th century, natch."

("So that's where my Famicon went!" Yusuke yelped; everyone ignored him.)

"If you're willing, I was thinking the kids could sort into teams and help Yusuke and I battle it out for true New Year's dominance." As people turned back around, a lick of self-consciousness had my ears burning. I tucked one foot behind my other calf and hesitated. "It's something to do, at least?"

It was Amagi's turn to raise her hand. "We… we don't have to eat the pepper if we're on the losing team, do we?" she said, looking well and truly alarmed.

"Oh, no. Of course not. There's only one pepper, and only the team captain has to fall on the knife." I put a hand over my heart and looked her very solemnly in the eye. "I take my duties as captain very seriously. I promise not to let any of you down, should you be on the illustrious Team Red."

"Heh. I don't." Yusuke crossed his arms and smiled like the devil. "Any of you lackeys let down the team and I'll cram that pepper down your throat myself."

I faux-bopped him on the head; he yowled. "He's kidding," I said, though it was more a threat to him than an assurance to those listening.

People at the front of the crowd shifted, parting as Amanuma squeezed through them. "Hey, Yusuke!" he said, beaming and elated at the prospect of getting to play some games. "So what's the point of this, anyway? Is there a prize or something?"

In unison Yusuke and I said: "Yes. The prize is seeing the other suffer."

Behind us, Atsuko started scream-laughing. Botan sighed and rolled her eyes, rubbing at her temples with her fingers. Yusuke and I grinned at each other, then remembered we were enemies for the night and went back to glaring.

"Basically, I want bragging rights," I said.

"It's a battle for dignity," said Yusuke.

"Not that Yusuke has much of that to lose."

"Hey!"

A few feet away, Eimi, Mich, Junko and Amagi stood in a small knot. "To think, the great Urameshi plays New Year's games and eats peppers like this," Eimi was saying.

"It's not very in line with his image, is it?" Mich said.

"Not really, no." Eimi looked at Yusuke with a small, eager smile. "But I admit, I really want to see him eat that pepper!"

"Me too, and I don't even know the guy," said Junko.

Yusuke seemed to recognize Eimi and Mich for the first time, then, doing an impressive double-take at his classmates. He went bow-legged with fright, arms held akimbo at his sides. "Oh, hell, those two are from school! There goes my rep!" He grabbed the front of my shirt with a snarl. "The hell'd you invite them for, huh?"

"To see you suffer, of course," I said, smile utterly saccharine. Not acknowledging that he had me standing on my tiptoes thanks to his grip on my collar, I turned my bright smile to the room at large. "So. Y'all wanna play a game?"

The kids filtered through the lingering adults toward us. Kurama, Kaito, Kuwabara, Amanuma. Botan, Amagi, Junko, Eimi, Michiko. They looked at each other in turns, consulting the crowd without speaking, then turned back to me and Yusuke.

Kurama gave a small, subtle smile, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Sounds fun."

Kaito pushed his glasses up his nose. "If everyone else is doing it, I suppose I will participate."

"Anything to see Yusuke eat that pepper," said Eimi.

"Yeah; he's going down!" said Michiko.

"I'm gonna be on Keiko's team and I'm gonna make Urameshi eat it! Ha ha!" Kuwabara grinned so hard I feared his face might split. "This is gonna be good!"

"Count me in!" Amanuma chirped. "If it's games, I kick butt every time!"

"I'm not very good at games," Amagi said, fidgeting, "but I'll try my best."

"There's no way I'm passing up a chance to watch this dumpster fire," Junko added with a smile.

"And I'm sure a certain friend of ours" (a subtle point skyward, to Spirit World) "will love to hear all about this!" said Botan. "So count me very much in."

There came a crunch from behind me. I have no idea where Atsuko had gotten popcorn from, but she held a bag of it in her arm and happily munched on the kernels, swigging from her liquor bottle after every bite. "This is gonna be good," she said. "Kick my son's ass, Keiko!"

"Excellent." I rubbed my hands together. "Now let the games begin."

In the spirit of fairness (and because even if Yusuke didn't know Amanuma's destined Territory, he still knew the kid was killer at games) we assembled our teams through the drawing of lots.

Team White, captained by Yusuke, consisted of Kuwabara, Junko, Kurama… and Amanuma.

Which left Team Red, captained by yours truly, with Michiko, Eimi, Amagi, Botan, and Kaito.

The gender ratio was fitting, for the most part. Red Team on TV was always all women, and White Team all men. We weren't totally gender-segregated, but still. The coincidence of the team makeup would've made me laugh if it hadn't been so utterly alarming.

Botan was the last person left in the hat when we drew names, and since there was an odd number of players, we decided she'd be on my team and give me more members overall—mainly because Yusuke had already drawn both Kurama and Amanuma, which we all knew was stacking the deck in his favor to begin with. I had Kaito, sure, who'd be my anchor in the Street Fighter tournament (literally none of the girls liked that game besides me and Junko) but knowing Yusuke had both Amanuma and Kurama on his team did not bode well for the safety of my taste buds later.

"OK, everybody," I said after we drew the lots and assembled our teams. "I'm counting on you for a win tonight. I caught a whiff of the pepper early and I think it's a banner year for capsaicin." Not an exaggeration; I'd kept the pepper box shut tight ever since. Swallowing, I looked each team member dead in the eye and said (or maybe pleaded), "Don't let me down."

"Heh." Kaito adjusted his lapels. "You needn't worry, Yukimura. What I lack in experience, I will make up in pure strategy."

"Good." I pointed at him. "You're team strategist. Let's bring home the win." I stuck out my hand. "Red Team?"

They layered their hands atop mine. "Red Team!" we chorused, and we tossed our hands into the air.

As soon as we finished, I found Kuwabara at my elbow. He had looked more than a little heartbroken to be on Team White, still sporting an expression befitting a mopey zoo lion. "Keiko, I'm so, so sorry," he said, but I just grinned.

"You better not go easy on me, White Team trash," I said, but with a wink that got Kuwabara to laugh. Hopefully he wouldn't pull a Minato and throw matches just to help me win, much though I wanted to avoid the pepper penalty.

Atsuko gleefully kept track of our points on a whiteboard, laughing her head off as we began playing the traditional New Year's games of old Japan: fukuwarai, like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey but with facial features on a large paper oni mask; hanetsuki, a game a bit like badminton that involved keeping a shuttlecock aloft in the air with small racquets; and sugoroku, an antique board game that reminded me a whole lot of Snakes n' Ladders. Amanuma swiftly proved himself the best gamer of the lot, at everything from Street Fighter to hanetsuki, prompting awed exclamations from kids and adults alike. Points floated in as the Show's competitors accrued them as well, our real-life scores inflating at odd intervals and out of our control. It added an element of chaos to the festivities, necessitating keeping careful eye on the TV as well as the games we played. No one player could play multiple games in a row, which called for strategizing as we laughed our heads off and tried to finagle good matchups that wouldn't see us get beaten into the dirt. My parents' friends watched us goof off at times, but for the most part they ignored us and talked amongst themselves with little cups of sake in their hands.

The best part of the whole thing was that the games kept us so distracted, we didn't have much time for actual conversation—meaning no one had the opportunity to spill supernatural secrets to those not already aware of them, and soon my more serious friends (cough cough, Kurama) loosened up and played along with the best of them.

When everyone seemed sufficiently distracted, too busy watching a spirited game of sugoroku between Kaito and Kuwabara to notice, I caught Yusuke's eye. He lifted a brow. I jerked my head toward the kitchen. He set down the plate of food he'd been picking at, said something to no one about needing more ozōni, and walked off with a tune whistled innocently between his teeth.

I followed, one eye cast carefully over my shoulder to check for eavesdroppers, but no one dogged my steps.

Like a secret agent meeting an informant in an old-fashioned cartoon, Yusuke and I played it so cool as to push the point of ridiculousness. He leaned against the island in the kitchen and rifled through a drawer, as if looking for something, while I opened the refrigerator and poked through it—for nothing, of course, but it was the act that counted.

"Hey," I muttered to the floor.

"Hi," Yusuke said to the ceiling.

I put my hands in a T shape, holding it just far enough to the side so he could see. "Truce for two seconds, White scum?"

He made the T, too. "Agreed, Red Team filth."

"Sweet." I cut my eyes toward the door. No one lingered in it; we were safe, our clandestine meeting still secret. "You get the goods?" I asked under my breath.

"I did," Yusuke replied under his.

"Enough for all?"

"What do you think I am, a chump?" He bared his teeth. "Think your little gal pals will rat us out?"

He meant Eimi and Michiko, I deduced, but he needn't have worried. To a container of Brussel sprouts in the fridge I said: "Nah. Not if we get Minamino to go along with it. They're smitten."

"Oh-ho. I see. Use pretty boy as bait." He favored his fingernails with a grin. "So how do you wanna play this?"

"I mean. Same way we normally do? Just sneak off one by one when the adults aren't looking?"

He nodded. "I'll grab my team, you grab yours?"

"Twenty minutes beforehand?"

"Roger that."

I dramatically undid my truce-hands, holding them up like a criminal after dropping a weapon. Yusuke did the same, smile anything but friendly as I flipped him a peace sign and said, "Now get out of here, White detritus."

"I don't know what that word means but I'm assuming it was insulting, you big barf bucket," he deadpanned, and he headed for the dining room.

"Yusuke. Wait."

He turned, one hand braced on the door frame, looking at me over his shoulder with eyebrow hiked. I hesitated, but when Yusuke's eyebrow hitched a little higher, and clear 'what the heck do you want?' on his face, I took a deep breath.

"You OK with this?" I asked.

"Huh?" he said, head pulling back a little in confusion.

"You OK with bringing people in on this tradition of ours?" I said. "It's been just us for so many years. I wanted to check in, see if you were…"

I trailed off, self-conscious enough to start fiddling with the hem of my skirt. Yusuke stared at me a sec before swiping his thumb beneath his nose, a small, sly smile playing across his lips.

"Y'know," he said. "I thought about it—and if I get hit by another car, I really don't want you eating a pepper alone in your room again, ya feel me?"

I winced, cheeks flushing as if I'd bitten into a habanero. "Dad told you about that?"

"Course he did," Yusuke grunted. "Told me he'd kill me all over again if I went and died a second time, too, and left you alone for another New Year. So, nah." He shrugged, smile a little less sly this time, a little more sincere. "I'm OK. It's good we've got more friends, even if they're annoying like Kuwabara." And at that he turned away, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he walked away. "Just leave a tradition or two for me, yeah?"

"Yeah, Yusuke," I said to his retreating back. "Sure thing."

As I watched him walk away and rejoin the party, I resolved to spike Dad's dinner with a bit too much pepper next time I got the chance—payback for ratting me out to Yusuke. I had indeed suffered through eating a habanero in his honor the previous New Year's in his absence, but I certainly hadn't thought he'd ever find out. Talk about embarrassing… but now was not the time to dwell on that. I had another clandestine meeting to attend to, and since I was already in the kitchen, now seemed like a great time to get it done.

Earlier in the day I'd set aside a bit of food and packed it up in a few separate bento boxes squirreled away in the back of the fridge, hidden behind a jug or two of juice and a big crate of eggs. I filled a bowl from the big ozōnipot in the kitchen and balanced it atop the boxes, carrying it all as quietly and quickly as I could out of the kitchen and the back door of the restaurant. Nobody saw me; hiding a triumphant smile, I set the food on a spare vegetable crate and looked at the orange-tinted stripe of sky peeping between the roofs looming above the alley. Tried not to shiver too hard as the wind filled the alley to bursting with its insistent cold, though that was a fool's errand. I'd left my coat by the front door and hadn't wanted to chance running to get it.

"H-Hiei?" I said through chattering teeth.

In an instant there came a whump from behind me, a warm wind brushing over the back of my neck. "Meigo," came his grumpy voice, and when I turned I found him standing behind me in his customary black cloak and white scarf. Scarlet eyes glimmered, reflecting the glow of the light above the door like an animal's in the dark. Almost at once the temperature of the alley rose a few degrees; my shivers stopped, muscles relaxing as the cold abated in the wake of Hiei's presence.

"Hey," I said. "You came, after all."

Hiei grunted an affirmative. Hands emerged from his pocket. Between two of his fingers he held a pale blue card—the party invitation I'd given him weeks prior. It was too dark to see, but I knew that if I looked close I'd find a handwritten message across the back in my penmanship. He'd stared at the invitation when I'd offered it with obvious distaste, clearly even less accustomed than Kaito to receiving party invites.

"You don't have to decide right now," I'd told him, shoving the paper at his chest. "Just give it some thought."

"Whatever," he'd said, rolling his eyes, and he'd shoved the card into his cloak and out of sight.

Of course, that had happened weeks prior, and I hadn't been sure if he'd show up to the party or not. I'd scrawled "you don't have to come inside, just stop by" on the back, wondering if that might help him feel comfortable enough to at least stop by and see me. Parties just weren't Hiei's scene—but food generally got Hiei's attention, and apparently the lure of something good to eat had succeeded in drawing him in tonight.

Sure enough, Hiei said, "You promised me food, didn't you?"

"That I did," I said, nodding. "But still. It's good to see you." I pointed at the door. "Don't suppose you wanna come in?"

Hiei didn't bother saying anything; he glared and marched past to scoop up the bento and soup bowl (which I would likely never see again, another bowl lost to Hiei's sticky fingers; I added it to my mental tally).

"Yeah. Didn't think so," I said, and I sat down to watch Hiei eat.

Well, more like to talk him through eating. Some of these special New Year's foods he'd never seen before. We took a tour of the bento together, in which I rattled off a description of each kind of food as Hiei picked it up and gave it a sniff. Some bits he ate with gusto; others he nibbled, made a face at, and set aside with extreme prejudice. I made more mental notes about everything he did and did not like to write down later.

"You usually celebrate the New Year, Hiei?" I asked after he polished off the bento and started on the steaming ozōni.

"What for?" he asked, taking a huge slurp of broth. "Inane human tradition."

"At least the food's good?"

"It's decent."

"High praise from you." I braced my hands on my knees and pushed, standing with a sigh. "Well. I've got people inside and should be getting back. Feel free to come in if you want—though you might want to raid my closet, borrow some of Yusuke's things first." I eyed his outfit. "That cloak stands out."

"Harrumph," Hiei articulated—and as I turned toward the door to go, I remembered something.

"Oh. Did you know my mom knows about you?" I threw up my hands, glad to share this surprise with someone. "Weird, right? I have no idea how she found out!"

But Hiei just shrugged. "She spied on us from your window once."

"She what?!" My mouth fell open. "What—but—I mean—" I stammered a few more times before finding my word again. "But you didn't say anything, Hiei!"

Yet again, he shrugged. "Didn't see a need. I read her thoughts. She thinks I'm another—what was it? Another 'neighborhood stray' you've picked up?" He slashed his soup with his spoon, teeth bared and grit. "It was undignified."

"So you kept it a secret?" I said, incensed, but Hiei didn't look even a little ashamed of himself. I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. "Right. Well, the offer to come in stands. Mom knows you exist, so you might as well meet her, but it's whatever." Once more I turned to leave, and once more I thought of something else to say. "Oh—and we're gonna be out here later, me and the rest of the kids, if you want to join."

He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. "In the alley?"

"Sort of," I said, hedging. "Just be subtle if you join us. No sense scaring the normies."

"Hmmph." He went back to eating. "Humans and their delicate nerves."

I giggled, because it was hard not to, but soon I sobered. Hands in my pockets, one loosely curled around the pepper box, I said, "Hey, Hiei?"

I'd interrupted another bite; he growled, spoon splashing back down into the soup. "What?" he said, exasperated.

"I'm glad we met this year. And I'm looking forward to another year with you in it."

Hiei didn't respond right away. In fact, his only reaction came in the form of widened eyes and frozen posture, hands loose around the bowl he balanced on his lap. We held our gaze for a moment that stretched into, two, then three. Soon Hiei blinked and cast his eyes down to the alley's dirty concrete ground.

"What are you babbling about?" he said, not looking at me.

I cracked a crooked grin. "Just another inane human tradition—a New Year's toast. Hope you don't mind." This time, I didn't think of anything else to say as I grasped the door handle and pushed my way back inside. "See you next year, Hiei, if you don't join us later."

I thought he wouldn't answer me. Honestly, I didn't really need him to do so.

Just as the door fell shut, however, I heard him softly say, "See you next year, Meigo"—and it was the best New Year's toast from him I could ask for.

Atsuko was lying in wait when I came back—but not because she's been eavesdropping on me and Hiei. No, as soon as I walked in the door from the outside, she dragged me into the kitchen for an entirely different reason. "Who is he?" she said in my ear, and she pointed into the dining room with the end of a burning cigarette.

I followed her point with my eyes. Saw who she meant. Turned back to her.

"That," I said, "would be Kuwabara senior."

Kuwabara's father, still clad in his long black coat but sans his outdoor shoes, stood with my parents and his daughter over by the buffet table, wearing a winning grin as he threw back his head and gave a deep, sonorous laugh. At centimeters tall (that's 6'4 for the Americans reading my diary), he absolutely towered over everyone in the room and was as broad-shouldered as a linebacker. Immediately obvious where Kuwabara got his build as well as his blocky jaw and his incredible cheekbones (Kuwabara had growing to do yet, both into his height and into his severe features). That's where the resemblance between father and son ended, however, because Kuwabara-san wore his black hair in a short ponytail and sported a glimmering diamond in each ear—punk-rock even as an adult, looking the littlest bit Yakuza with ring-covered fingers and a flashy gold watch on his wrist. Tinted eyeglasses obscured his expression just enough to be intimidating, and since the rest of him was already intimidating enough as it was, the air he gave off was that of a casual ne'er do well, the kind of man who didn't give a crap what anyone thought of him and would sooner beat your ass as look at you.

But then he said something funny. My parents burst out laughing, and Kuwabara-san's smile softened his hard features into something warm, inviting—and, yeah. Handsome, actually. I'd met Kuwabara's dad a handful of times and had gotten the impression of a man who traded in laid-back humor and calm action, temperament brilliantly contrasting his appearance much the way his son's did.

Atsuko, however, only had eyes for his face—and for hers. She grabbed a soup spoon off the kitchen counter and held it up, smoothing down her eyebrow with a fingertip.

"How do I look?" she said.

"Uh," I said. "Fine. Why do you—?"

Atsuko put down the spoon. She put down her cigarette and beer bottle. She very, very pointedly unbuttoned the first few buttons of her blouse and adjusted her boobs, thrusting out her chest and mussing her hair into alluring bed-head.

"Atsuko," I said, suddenly numb inside. "Atsuko, what are you doing?"

She flipped her hair and checked her teeth in the soup spoon. "I want to make a good impression, don't I?"

"That," I said, voice climbing high and shrill, "is Kuwabara's dad."

"Yes," she said with faux patience. "And as I recall, Kuwabara's mom passed away many years ago. Which means Kuwabara-san is the grieving widower, and I..."

She looked down at her boobs. She waggled her eyebrows.

"Atsuko," I said. "Atsuko, no."

"Atsuko yes," she countered, and with a sway in her hips and a pout on her lips she sauntered out of the kitchen and straight toward Kuwabara's dad.

Shizuru broke away from her father at about the same time. Atsuko and Shizuru passed each other on their respective trips across the restaurant, trading a nod as they neared one another, but Atsuko had her eyes on a prize and didn't stop to chat. Shizuru paused, turning in place to watch Atsuko approach her father, and then with a raised brow she resumed her walk toward me.

"Where's she off to in such a hurry?" Shizuru said as she entered the kitchen.

"To seduce your father, apparently."

I clapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I finished speaking, but Shizuru didn't even blink. She just reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, holding one unlit between her smirking lips.

"Well," she said, leaning against the kitchen island. Together we watched as Atsuko introduced herself, fluttering her eyelashes up at Kuwabara senior. "This should certainly be entertaining."

I stared at her. "You're not mad?"

"Nah." She shrugged. "She's not his type, and he can handle himself." For some reason her lips curled around her cigarette. "You know, Red Team is down a few points."

The abrupt change had me gaping like a beached fish for a second, but then her meaning hit me like a boxing glove to the face. I cursed and lurched against the door frame, hands braced on either side of it, staring at the scoreboard over near the gaming area. Botan had taken up scorekeeper duties, marking down points as they came in, and to my horror the red half of the board had three fewer points than the white half—meaning my mouth was on the line and the habanero hovered like the sword of Damocles about my head. I'd totally lost track of the games while dealing with Hiei and Yusuke, dammit! It was time to get back out there, fix this mess, make sure Yusuke would eat that fucking pepper and—

"Like I said: I'm not worried," Shizuru said. She crossed her arms over her chest, confident and indolent. "But you know who's gonna be?"

I pulled my head back into the kitchen and looked at her. "Hmm?"

And she nodded—she nodded out into the dining room.

She nodded toward where the White Team had gathered in a huddle.

Specifically to where Yusuke and Kuwabara stood talking to Amanuma, with their backs to their parents, completely unaware of the inter-family hell brewing by the buffet table.

I stared at them.

I blinked.

I giggled.

I giggled again.

The laughter built like magma beneath the crust of a volcano, evil and thick, shoulders bouncing in time with my muffled mirth until I couldn't contain it any longer. It poured from my mouth as I threw back my head, fingers arching into claws as I cackled my glee at the kitchen ceiling. Shizuru watched without saying a damn word, utterly impassive as she mouthed at her unlit cigarette—but as my "mwa ha ha-ing" came to an end, leaving me standing there with a devious gleam in my eye and a scheming chuckle on my lips, she spoke.

"So. Tell me," she said. "How frazzled do you think those two would get at the prospect of becoming stepbrothers?"

I rubbed my hands together, certain I'd sprouted horns. "This is great," I simpered. "No. This is wonderful."

Shizuru's mouth quirked. "Something tells me Yusuke's gonna be the one eating the pepper if you play this little distraction right."

"Shizuru, anyone ever tell you you're an evil genius?"

"I get that a lot." She lifted a foot, kicking lightly at my hip. "Now show me some fireworks, kid."

"Hey. It's New Year's Eve." I paused in the doorway, tossing my hair and its ridiculous ribbon with a grin the devil would envy. Over my shoulder I winked, and I said to her, "Fireworks are all part of the show."

And with that, I marched off to do battle with the enemy—the enemy who had no idea what storm was coming, and what horrendous hell I intended to unleash on this chilly New Year's Eve.

"Mwa ha ha," indeed.

Notes:

Smiling devil emoji here. Also, longest chapter yet.

IDK if the manga ever said what's up with Kuwabara's mom, but in the late chapters it showed us Kuwabara's dad. Scans of him are on my Tumblr account. For LC purposes we're saying Kuwabara's mom passed when he was a kid (he's mentioned this once before, but it was a long time ago).

The "Atsuko no/Atsuko yes" bit really shows how Yusuke takes after his mom, methinks…

Three bits of housekeeping:

The EU just passed Articles 11 and 13, which might hinder European readers' abilities to read this fic, as those articles affect sites' abilities to host fanworks and other copywritten content. I will be creating an email list; if the EU's ruling ends up affecting you, I can add you to it and email chapters directly to you. Send me your email via review or PM (or via Tumblr) and we'll work it out.

I'm going on hiatus in July, as mentioned a few weeks back, for Camp NaNoWriMo. Next week (ch 75) will be the last chapter before I go on hiatus. Just some forewarning.

I have three short omake side-bits planned that go along with these New Year's Eve party chapters; they'll be added to "Children of Misfortune" in the coming weeks, probably once I go on hiatus. One includes Keiko eating a pepper while Yusuke is comatose in honor of their unsung New Year's tradition (something this chapter alludes to). I also have some short humor bits planned to tide over everyone while I'm on hiatus, as well, once again intended as "Children of Misfortune" side-stories.

Thanks to all those who reviewed chapter 73. You rocked my socks: Han, librarian_punk, MageKing17, misminor, nomyriad, Eternalevecho, Unctuous, TokiMirage, GerbilFriend, rosesandlion, Not Quite a Morning Person, Everlastingice_277, Vinlala, A Houston Fan, Bastet the Writing Cat, and Lazeralk!

Chapter 75: Happy New Year

Summary:

In which NQK proposes a toast.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Minato had the Switcheroo monopoly on being a soldier, but I'd read The Art of War, and as I marched out of the kitchen and right up to Kuwabara-san I held a quote of Sun Tzu's tight in my focused head.

"If quick, I survive," he'd written.

I needed to strike fast, before Yusuke could get wise and ruin all my fun… mwa ha ha.

Atsuko hung onto Kuwabara-san's arm as he chatted with my parents. She fluttered her eyelashes and laughed at something he said, but he just shot her a sidelong look from behind his tinted glasses and kept talking, apparently unmoved. My mom caught my eye as I neared; one of her brows darted up, wordlessly conveying all the "what the heck is Atsuko thinking?" that had filled my own brain moments earlier. I shot her a sunny grin and said nothing, instead walking straight over to Kuwabara-san and chirping a polite "Hello!"

"Keiko!" he said, grinning his easy, lazy grin. "Good to see ya. Kazuma's been talking about this party all week."

"I'm glad you could make it." I aimed my smile at Atsuko. "I see you've met Yusuke's mother."

"I have," said Kuwabara-san.

Atsuko pulled herself tighter against his side. "We get along thick as thieves, you might even say," she said, eyelashes all aflutter.

"You might." Kuwabara spoke with the casual air of a summer breeze when he asked, "Need help with anything?"

"Actually, yes," I said. "Can you help me with something in the kitchen real fast? I threw out my shoulder and I'd love help lifting a crate."

"Of course." He gently pulled his arm away from Atsuko. "Be right back."

Atsuko looked less than pleased with this development, of course, watching as Kuwabara-san followed me away from her with a look of comical displeasure on her face, but I paid her little heed and led the way into the kitchen. Kuwabara-san immediately leaned his shoulder against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest as I spun to face him.

"So." I smoothed down the front of my dress. "Ahem."

"There is no crate, is there," he said—but it was not a question.

"None," I replied.

His eyebrows hiked above the frames of his glasses. "But something tells me you weren't rescuing me from Atsuko, either."

"Kind of the opposite." I scratched the back of my neck. "I, uh. I was wondering if you'd play along. Flirt back, maybe?"

Kuwabara-san didn't reply right away. His glasses merely slid down his thin nose, revealing the cast of his dark and narrow eyes. He towered over me even when leaning against the door, arms like hams where they crossed over his chest. I'd met him a few times over the past year, but mostly in passing. He ran an imports business, long hours and lots of travel, and wasn't home much—hence Shizuru assuming the role of "mom" in the Kuwabara household. Still, even if we'd only met a few times and had only had a scant few conversations previously, that slow, deliberate glasses-slide and the measured stare he gave me spoke volumes: He did not particularly like my query, though the smile threatening the corner of his mouth said he was at least amused by it. Amusement I could work with.

"Miss Yukimura. Now why would I go and do a thing like that?" he said, almost (but not quite) teasing. "I know better than to play with a lady's heart."

Well, damn. Kuwabara chivalry back at it again. I curled my hair behind my ears and shook my head with an apologetic grin. "Yeah. You're right. It was a bad idea. Forget it, just be polite like you were doing, I'll just—"

He ducked his head, hand mopping over his stubbled jaw. "Pfft. So eager to please. You're an easy one to manipulate, you know that?" But his smile widened into one of true humor, a hearty laugh bubbling from his throat. "At least tell me what you wanted." A sly wink over the top of his glasses. "Who knows? Maybe I'll be amendable."

I certainly hoped he would be. I spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. "Yusuke and Kuwabara are both on White Team. I'm on Red," I said. "And I was thinking it would benefit me if they were… distracted."

Kuwabara-san's lips pursed. "Distracted how?"

"… distracted thinking there was a chance they could become stepbrothers in the near future?" I said, voice climbing through the octaves with every lilting syllable.

For a minute, he didn't react. He just stood there looking like his intimidating self, short ponytail and dark glasses and all—but then he threw back his head and laughed, a rich, deep bellow of delight that had me grinning, too. Kuwabara-san braced his hands on his knees and roared, swiping off his glasses so he could wipe at his watering eyes.

"They'd murder each other!" he said through his mirth. "It'd be a bloodbath!"

"I know!" I said. "Isn't it great?"

"You're devious, I'll give you that." He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, pushing his glasses back up his nose with a finger, which he then pointed at me. "Tell you what, kid. I think we can both get what we want. Do whatever you're gonna do to those boys out there. Just leave my side of things to me." And with that he put his back to my and shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks, muttering, "Stepbrothers. Where does she get this stuff?"

Although I couldn't be sure what he was planning, I watched him walk across the room and rejoin my parents and Atsuko by the buffet table. Atsuko once again velcroed herself to his arm; he didn't put an arm around her in return or anything, acting as normally as he had before, but despite the lack of change in his demeanor I trusted him to play his ascribed part in the festivities in spite of myself. And if he didn't...

As The Art of War said, "Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows." And if it came down to it, I'd have to go with the flow as best as I could.

We'd set up the gaming area in the far back corner of the dining room, farthest from the restaurant's front door as possible. Amagi had taken over Atsuko's job while I was away, dutifully keeping score on a whiteboard as points were accrued by TV players and IRL players alike. White had a tenuous lead, I saw as I scanned the board, though many of their points come from the TV contestants (it didn't seem that many competition games had been played yet, most of my friends just having fun goofing off). Amanuma and Kurama were definitely the leaders for Team White, tiny katakana indicators next to the points indicating who had scored what and for what game. Kaito and, surprisingly, Eimi were the leaders for Team Red. Huh. Didn't know Eimi was much of a gamer.

"It's no fair you got the kid!" Michi was saying as I walked over. She had a finger raised toward Amanuma, who was throwing darts at a dartboard and scoring all bullseyes. "He's a ringer! A ringer!"

"Hey," said Yusuke in protest. He lounged in a chair near the TV blaring Kōhaku Uta Gassen, a dinner plate balanced on his stomach. Through a full mouth he declared, "I drew the kid's name so I get to keep him. All's fair in love and war."

But Eimi thrust her nose into the air, her previous fear of the Great Urameshi quite forgotten. "Wouldn't surprise me if a delinquent like you cheated," she said with a smart shake of her short hair. "What Keiko sees in you I will never understand."

Yusuke bristled. "And why she's friends with a shrill harpy like—"

A discarded plate sat on a table next to me; off of it I swiped a thin slice of pickled cucumber, which I threw at Yusuke from across the room. It collided with his cheek with a wet smack. As he yowled and fell out of his chair I said, "You'd better think twice about finishing that sentence, asshole."

He glared as he scrambled to his feet; Eimi just beamed as I strode over and planted my hands on my hips, staring at Yusuke nose to nose with undisguised (but playful) revulsion.

"Red Team protects their own—unlike scummy White," I said, making a face.

Yusuke peeled the cucumber off his face and dropped it atop my left foot. "What's that mean?" he asked as I cursed and wiped up the mess.

"It means," I said, "that I can't help but notice you haven't played a single game yet." I indicated the scoreboard. "You're letting Amanuma and Minamino do all the heavy lifting."

Amanuma, nearby at the dart board, spun on his heel and stared at Yusuke with a frown. Those around him turned, too, the gaggle of teenagers zeroing in on us like buzzards on the scent of a carcass.

"Hey! That's right!" Amanuma said. "I like games, but you haven't played any, Yusuke!"

Yusuke harrumphed and rolled his eyes. "Leaders lead. They don't do battle themselves. Everybody knows that."

"Or maybe you're just chicken."

Yusuke's head swung toward me so fast I feared his neck might snap. "Say what?" he said, face turning an alarming shade of red.

I didn't reply with words.

I tucked my thumbs into my armpits, hunkered down, thrust out my neck, and squawked.

Didn't take long for Yusuke to figure out I was miming his Spirit Beast, if you'll pardon the pun. I jerked my head forward and back and strut in a tight circle, making chicken clucks as I got up in Yusuke's face. He turned redder and redder with every buck-KAW, and then he went atomic when another chicken cry joined the fray. Amanuma had assumed a chicken pose, too, as had Junko, and soon most of the kids (aside from the too-dignified Amagi, Kaito, and Kurama) had joined in on the Mock Yusuke fun. We circled around him for about ten seconds making belligerent farmyard fowl noises before he let loose a wordless cry of rage and frustration, at which point we scattered like tasty poultry beneath the talons of a hawk.

"Ugh, fine!" he snarled, and he leveled a finger at the innocent look on my face. "Team lead versus team lead. Prepare to go down in flames, Grandma."

"Perfect," I said, grinning ear to ear. "I propose a series of three games. You versus me."

"Fine. So what's first?" He smirked. "Letting you pick because I'll kick your ass no matter the task."

"Mini Street Fighter tournament sound good?"

"Oh, you're toast."

But little did he know that even though Yusuke was historically a much better Street Fighter player than I was, I had a plan up my sleeve, and I had no intention of losing this game to him tonight.

We queued up the Famicon and got started in short order, sitting side by side in front of the TV in a pair of sturdy chairs. Yusuke picked Ryu (natch) and I picked Chun-Li because I was on Team Red and it felt right to pick the only woman on the roster of playable characters. The game was set up as a one-on-one fighting game, winner the best of five short matches—and in short order I found myself on the receiving end of the first KO, Chun-Li falling under a blast of Ryu's Hadouken energy attack. White Team, gathered with Red behind us to watch, let out a loud cheer.

"See?" Yusuke said, mocking grin on his face. "Told you I'd kick your ass."

"Aw, jee Yusuke," I said, giving him a sweet, syrupy smile. "You sure did!"

He blinked. "Holdup. I don't like this." Suspicious had his eyes narrowing and him leaning toward me, scanning my face for tells. "Why aren't you mad?"

"No reason," I said in a singsong tone. "Oh look, the next match is starting!"

The announcer in the game declared the match had begun; our characters began to bounce in place on the screen. I didn't defend overmuch, letting Yusuke pummel Chun-Li mostly as he liked, though of course I threw out a few badly timed punches just for show. Couldn't let him know I wasn't really trying, after all. Had to keep up the illusion that this was a fair fight.

After all, as Sun Tzu said: "All war is deception."

Thus, it should come as no surprise that I lost that second round, too. While Yusuke threw down his controller and thrust his arms into the air, basking in the cheers of White Team, I pasted on a regretful smile and heaved an overstated sigh.

"Oh man!" I put an elbow on my knee, chin resting on my hand. "You really did beat me so badly, Yusuke. You're so good at this!"

But Yusuke is no idiot even in the face of advice from Sun Tzu. He heard my empty platitudes and saw my sugary smile and stared at me, alarm creeping over his features like an urgent fog. Wheels turned behind his eyes, and then they clicked almost audibly into place.

"Are you… are you going easy on me?" he said, eyes flicking between me and the screen in turns.

I put a hand over my heart. "Why, Yusuke. Whatever would give you that idea? I'm insulted!"

"I'm… confused…" he said, inching away from me in his chair like I'd grown a pair of venomous fangs.

I bared said fangs at him, though sweetly. "I just think you deserve a win… especially in light of what's coming."

He blinked. "What's coming?"

"Oh? You mean you haven't heard?" I said, faux shock plastered all over my face.

Just as Yusuke opened his mouth to question me, the game automatically started the next match.

We traded blows immediately, but this time I didn't hold back. I timed every button press perfectly, lying in wait for Yusuke to present an opening and dodging all of his most powerful attacks. Yusuke's eyes cut my way as he button-mashed, seemingly unconcerned when he left himself open and I managed to get in a roundhouse kick.

"Haven't heard what?" he said from the corner of his mouth.

"Oh nothing major." I grinned. "Just that your mom's gonna get remarried. That's all."

For a second he didn't say anything. He threw a punch. I blocked.

Then he rocketed to his feet and rounded on me with a roar of, "She's WHAT?!"

As soon as his eyes left the screen, I performed Chun-Li's signature barrage of kicks, the Hyakuretsu Kyaku, followed by a swift Kiko-ken that sent Ryu flying. "KO" flashed across the screen; Red Team erupted into raucous cheers. But Yusuke hardly even noticed.

"Keiko!" he said, eyes bulging from his skull. "What the hell are you talking about?!"

"You mean she hasn't told you?" I asked, looking as innocent as a spring lamb. "My, my. I thought you knew."

"I know I'm gonna put my fist through your face if you don't tell me what the hell you're talking about!"

"Oops! Can't talk now! Match starting!"

Yusuke grumbled and slammed back down into his seat, but his hands on the controller vibrated with barely restrained rage and probably fear; I won't pretend to know what was running through his head at that moment, but doubtless it wasn't good. Still, it was certainly advantageous, because his attacks kept going wide or coming up short, and with a series of carefully timed blocks and counters I managed another KO strike. Yusuke threw down the controller with a curse as Red Team celebrated.

"Game is tied," Amagi announced. "Whoever wins this gets the point for their team."

"Oh, I'm getting that point," Yusuke growled through his teeth. "I'm getting that point and getting you talking, that's for damn certain—"

My sweet smile returned as the next match started and our characters began to bounce around the screen. "Speaking of talking," I said, voice pitched low and conspiratorial.

"Huh?" said Yusuke, eyes locked on the screen.

"I mean. Isn't it obvious?" And with that I delivered my own personal KO and jerked my head to the side, over toward the parents chatting in the corner. "Just look who your mom is talking to so cozily."

A beat passed.

Yusuke looked around the dining room.

His gaze caught on his mother talking to Kuwabara's father like a toe on the corner of a coffee table—and once again he bolted to his feet with a yelp of "WHAT THE HELL?!"

At which point I seized my opportunity, in the true spirit of Sun Tzu, and knocked our Ryu once and for all with a flurry of blows that sent him careening to the game's digital floor.

"Winner, Keiko!" Amagi declared as Red Team cheered. "To Team Red goes the point!"

But while White Team grumbled about the defeat, Yusuke didn't give a rat's ass about our little bet anymore. "What is she DOING?" he said, staring with mouth agape across the room, but before anyone else could ask what was wrong I stood up and looped my arm through his.

"She's flirting, I think," I said into his ear. "And really, really hard by the look of it." I grinned at him when he looked at me in shock, every last molar on display. "What do you think, Yusuke? A spring wedding? Maybe June?"

His glare could melt steel. "Fuck off and die."

"Not before the wedding!" I chirped. "I'm really looking forward to seeing your mom in a white dress."

"That does it." He jerked his arm away and took a step toward his mother. "I'm going over there and—"

But I grabbed him and held him back, dragging him away. "No time, no time! Next game, next game!"

My next chosen game was fukuwarai, that gigantic felt oni mask upon which we had to pin features cut out of cloth. Two horns, a mouth, a nose, eyes, ears—but the fun part was pinning on the features blindfolded after being spun in circles by your friends. Inevitably the faces looked ridiculous, laughter abounding, but to make the game a bit more competitive we'd introduced a time limit to the event, as well. Yusuke grumbled and groused and kept shooting his mother and Kuwabara's father dirty looks as we set up the game, and when Kuwabara-junior came near Yusuke, Yusuke put his back to him with a huff.

Good. I didn't want those two communicating just yet.

"OK, people," I said as everyone gathered around. "We'll get spun around and whatnot, and then pin on the features within the time limit." I nodded at Amagi, who held a small hourglass scavenged from a board game. "Whoever gets their features closest to perfect wins. Sound good?"

"Fine," Yusuke said. "But as soon as this is done, I'm getting to the bottom of—of what you told me."

People murmured about that, wondering what he meant. Yusuke cast his eyes to the floor and did not elaborate. Again: Good. "Secret operations are essential in war." It wouldn't do for Yusuke to give everything away so soon.

"I'm sure you will," I said. I reached out to Amagi for the blindfold kin her hand. "Time to put me through the spincycle."

She giggled and handed me the white bandana, which I lifted to my face and began to tie behind my head. However, as I tied I felt something brush my elbow, and then a cool voice spoke softly in my ear.

"What are you playing at?" Kurama said, voice silky—and the littlest bit amused.

"Nothing," I said, but I couldn't keep the smirk at bay. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you have the most devious grin on your face."

"Do you approve?"

He paused. Then: "Perhaps."

"Don't play coy with me. I can hear you smiling." And it was true, and Kurama laugh. Once I got the bandana tied I reached out and blindly encountered his arm, which I squeezed. "Fill you in later." And with that I held my arms out at my sides. "OK, everybody. Spin me!"

A dozen hands alit along my arms, tugging me forward to the fukuwaraiarea, and with a chorus of giggles I found myself spun around and around until I could hardly stand. Someone shoved the cloth facial features into my hands as Amagi called out from somewhere (world spun too much to pinpoint her exact location) that it was time to begin, and I staggered forward and started slapping the features onto the oni's face. I only had about thirty seconds to identify which feature was which and try to get them on the face, and I had just slapped on the final horn when Amagi at last called time. I ripped off the bandana and surveyed my work. Everything was in… almost…the right place, if not a little lopsided and off center, but for the most part I'd done OK. It wasn't a tough game, after all, even with the blindfold and the time limit.

Still, Yusuke seemed in quite the hurry to get started. "Outta my way," he said, snatching the blindfold from my hand. "Let's make this quick!"

My head was a bit smaller than his; Yusuke had to untie and then retie the blindfold, which took a minute or two (hey, I'm good at knots), and that afforded me an opportunity to scan the crowd. Almost at once I spotted what I'd been hoping for: Kuwabara senior, standing at the edge of the gaggle of kids with a few other curious adults. He caught my eye and winked—and at that wink my heart lifted.

I had no idea what Kuwabara-san was planning, but I got the sense Yusuke would have been less eager to play if he'd known I had a secret weapon waiting in the wings.

But if Kuwabara-san was here, and Sun Tzu recommended keeping plans secret in times of war, I'd need to make sure my other secret weapon didn't get compromised in whatever was about to happen. I pivoted in place until I spotted the youngest of the Kuwabara clan, who stood watching and laughing at Yusuke as Yusuke struggled with the blindfold's knot. I pushed through the other kids to his side and tapped his shoulder.

"Oh, hey Keiko!" he said. "You really kicked butt at Street Fighter!"

"Thanks!" I tried to look sorry about asking for a favor, even though I wasn't. "Say, would you mind getting me a drink? I'm really thirsty but I don't think I should leave…" And I let my eyes drift over to Yusuke, who had finally managed to get the blindfold untied and was wrapping it around his face.

Kuwabara nodded so hard his head threatened to come unglued. "Sure thing, Keiko! Be right back!"

I felt a little badly about tricking him, but all was fair in love and war, and I was very much embroiled in the latter. I sat at a nearby table as Yusuke put on the bandana and wandered toward the fukuwarai face, hands outstretched so he could take the cloth features from Amagi. As people surged forward and started spinning him, I looked over my shoulder and caught Kuwabara senior's eye once more.

He grinned.

I grinned back.

Yusuke stopped spinning and cursed, hands coming up as he staggered in place toward the fukuwarai. "All righty. No sweat," he said to himself, stumbling. "Just walk forward and—"

He never got to finish—because like a snake in tall grass, Kuwabara-san chose that moment to strike.

"My, that Atsuko sure is hilarious, isn't she?" Kuwabara senior's voice boomed like thunder across the gaming area, followed by a hearty laugh. "A woman after my own heart, that Atsuko!"

At once Yusuke spun on his heel toward Kuwabara-san's voice with an indignant cry of, "SAY WHAT?!"

But his fury was short lived, because as soon as he turned away from the fukuwarai,Yusuke stopped. Froze. Stood there in silence as the hourglass continued to run and bleed his time away.

"Uh oh." He turned to spin back around but faced the wrong direction, perpendicular to the fukuwarai instead of facing it. "Where's the—fuck, where's that face? Where'd it go?!"

But it was too late. He careened into a table, and then a chair, as the kids erupted into laughter at his expense, and soon Amagi called out, "And, time! As Yusuke has nothing on the board, the point goes to Team Red!"

Team Red erupted into cheers, celebrating our second victory of the night. Kuwabara senior winked at me over the heads of the other adults before walking away and back toward my parents—and toward Atsuko, who once again latched onto his arm. He gently abided her flirtation as she pulled straight from a liquor bottle, clearly not encouraging it but not embarrassing her but rebuffing her, either (and when she got drunk, Atsuko did not take criticism, real or perceived, well at all).

But I couldn't sit there analyzing their dynamic for long, because Yusuke had ripped off his blindfold and was glaring at me.

"Keiko!" Kuwabara the younger pushed through the crowd, a cup raised over his head. "I got the punch you wanted!"

"Thanks, Kuwabara."

"You're welcome, I—wait. What'd I miss?" He eyed Yusuke askance and whispered, "And why does Yusuke look ready to explode?"

"He's a sore loser, that's all," I said, and I took a sip of delicious punch to celebrate.

Meanwhile, Yusuke was grinding his teeth to dust. "This is stupid," he said, fists in tight balls at his sides. "This is fucking stupid—"

"Now, now, Yusuke," I chided. "We have just one more game to play, one that we agreed we'd play together." Another of my sickliest smiles. "Or are you scared you'll lose that, too?"

"Grrr… fine! One more game!" The goad got to him like a heat-seeking missile. "But I'm picking the game this time. And I say we play… hanetsuki!"

The triumph on his face glowed like a lightbulb, and for obvious reasons. Hanetsuki was a bit like badminton or ping-pong, and it involved hitting a shuttlecock back and forth with racquets without letting it hit the floor. It was a mostly physical game, one that relied on physicality, and thus Yusuke was sure to have an advantage… but I smiled at him again, letting the look drip with sugar.

"Fancy playing in pairs?" I said.

"Whatever." He tossed his hair (although I didn't move thanks to the metric fuck-ton of gel keeping a stranglehold on its placement). "I don't care. I'm going to beat your ass so hard—"

"How about letting me pick your partner since you picked the game?" I said.

He agreed on impulse, eager to get back to taunting me. "Sure, sure, whatever handicap you think you—wait." His eyes popped open, wider even than his big, fat mouth. "Wait, no, back up—"

"I pick Kuwabara to be your partner." Ignoring Yusuke's sputtering, I turned to Amagi and bowed at her Western-style, extending a hand for her to take. "Amagi, would you do me the honoring of being my doubles buddy?"

"Certainly." Her chin lifted with understated pride. "I am on the tennis team, you know."

"Which makes you my secret weapon."

Yusuke, behind me, cradled his head in his hands and moaned, "No no no no no, not Kuwabara!"

"Hey, what the heck did I do?" Kuwabara said. "I'm great at this game! You should be glad she picked me!"

Yusuke glared at him. "Yeah, well, I'm not, so shut the fuck up and—"

Kurama cleared his throat, then. Everyone quieted down to listen, Eimi and Michiko preparing the playing field in the background. Earlier we'd marked a square on the ground in tape with a line down the middle, a small court where we could play our games. The girls fetched racquets and the shuttlecock from their box in the corner and cleared away chairs so we could have a clean playing area.

"I'll referee this match," Kurama said. "First team to drop the shuttlecock—"

(At that word somebody snickered; I think it was Junko, and then Yusuke snickered, too. Kurama ignored them both)

"—five times, loses. If the shuttlecock is knocked out of bounds, it's counted as a drop."

"We know the rules," Yusuke whined.

"Fine." Kurama's lips twitched, but he said nothing as Kuwabara, Yusuke, Amagi and I all lined up on the respective sides of our courts. He stood near the midcourt line and raised a hand into the air. "Ready? Begin!"

The game began with White Team serving, Kuwabara gently knocking the shuttlecock over onto our side of the field with a flick of his thick wrist. Amagi knocked it back with a practiced sweep of her arm, and Yusuke passed it back our way without much trouble—though he had to dodge around Kuwabara to get to it in time. The game was more about reflexes and speed than power, and on such a small court Kuwabara's bulk didn't do them any favors. He filled the space to the brim, the boys tripping over each other like a pair of puppies not yet grown into their feet. No wonder, then, that they dropped the shuttlecock first—especially since Yusuke kept shooting Kuwabara death glares, even when the big guy wasn't in his way.

"Dammit, Kuwabara!" Yusuke said. He shoved him toward the back of the court. "You stand back there and don't move!"

"Fine!" Kuwabara said. "But you're gonna have a real hard time manning the front line by yourself!"

"Shut up! I can handle it!"

"Can you, Yusuke?" I called, words melodic and smooth. "Knowing what's happening right over there?"

I didn't look over at his mother. I didn't need to; he knew what I meant, and it wasn't yet time to trigger the sleeper agent that was Kuwabara. Yusuke rounded on me with a snarl. "Shut up, you old witch!"

"Hey, don't call her that!" Kuwabara looked between Yusuke and me with a confused scowl. "And what's even up with you two, anyway? You're acting really weird!"

"It's nothing, Kuwabara." I passed Amagi the shuttlecock to serve. "Let's just play."

Kurama watched our argument with shrewd eyes, but he made no comment as he lined us up for another round. We commenced play in short order—and as it turns out, keeping Kuwabara at the back wasn't a terrible idea, after all. He hit everything that went back there with his long arms, leaving the nimbler Yusuke to dodge and dart to catch the shorter shots, and when I sent a shot toward the back of the court, Kuwabara hit it a bit harder than intended. In fact, he spiked it, shuttlecock flying hard toward us and hitting just inside the midcourt line with a loud snapping sound. I jumped back from it with an 'eep' of fright.

"I'm sorry!" Kuwabara yelped; he dropped his racquet. "I didn't meant to hit it that hard! Keiko, I'm sorry!"

"No, no, you did a good job!" I said (wow, Kuwabara really didn't know his own strength, did it?). Beaming, I looked at the other half of Team White and said, "See, Yusuke? Maybe it won't be so bad!"

He almost threw down his racquet, too. "Oh, fuck you, Keiko!"

"Yusuke! Language!" Kuwabara said—but his brow furrowed. "Wait. You're being weird again. Maybe what won't be so bad?"

At that point others had caught on, too. We had a captive audience, after all, so it made sense they'd all eventually realize there was something going on they didn't know about. A murmur picked up; Kurama stared at me, clearly wondering what the hell was going on, so I looked at him and winked.

"Let's just play again, OK?" I said, and Yusuke was more than happy to change the subject away from his mom marrying Kuwabara's dad.

However, it seems I'd miscalculated just a smidge, because this time Yusuke played with a fury unmatched. Fueled by rage, he hit back strike after vicious strike, slamming the shuttlecock into the ground and scoring his team a second point singlehandedly—upping the score from one to two. If they scored one more time, they'd win.

Amagi and I exchanged a glance as Yusuke did a victory lap. I knew full well Amagi was the better of the two of us, catching most shots and scoring our only point—which meant I needed to step up my game and start pulling my own weight. It was time to kick things up a notch.

"Wow!" I said as Yusuke settled back onto the court. Spinning my racquet between my hands, I said, "You two really do work well together. Bodes well for family harmony!"

Yusuke's elated expression shattered. "I swear to god, Keiko, if you keep talking—"

"Family harmony?" Kuwabara said. "What do you…?"

And with that, the time for subtlety was over. It was time to call in the sleeper agent. As such, I let my eyes drift. Yusuke started to talk, probably to tell me to stop, but then he face-palmed and sighed and gave up with a slump of defeated shoulders. The innocent Kuwabara, meanwhile, followed my gaze, staring with uncomprehending eyes at Atsuko and Kuwabara senior for one moment, then two.

His eyes screwed up.

"Wait," he said. He pointed at his chest. "My dad." He pointed at Yusuke. "And your… mom? They're…? Wait. Um." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm… confused?"

Perfect. Kuwabara had been rendered useless. I caught Kurama's eye. We exchanged a nod, and with a glimmer of mischievous green eyes he raised his hand into the air.

"Next round, start!" he said.

Yusuke yelped, something about not being ready, but Amagi served without mercy. Yusuke hit the shuttlecock back to her, scrambling just in time to catch the serve, but Kuwabara didn't move. He stood at the back of the court and stared at his parent, not even registering that the game had begun anew.

"I mean. Dad couldn't," he was saying to himself, but he didn't sound sure. "Dad—he wouldn't, though?"

"Dammit, Kuwabara, this is no time to space out!" Yusuke yodeled as he hit back another shot.

Kuwabara turned to Yusuke as if sleepwalking. "But your mom—and my dad—if they—" His eyes bugged out of his head. "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! What the heck is my dad doing?!"

Yusuke hit a shot at Amagi; she spiked it, and it landed with a smack right at Kuwabara's unware feet. He started and did a double-take at the shuttlecock, knock-kneed with surprise, and then he yelped and jumped back with reaction most delayed.

This time Yusuke really did throw down his racquet. "Dammit Keiko! That was dirty!"

"All's fair in love and war," I said, pitiless as I quoted Yusuke (and Sun Tzu), "and in this case we've got both." I pointed my racquet at them. "Now pony up, kiddos. We're in our final round."

But Kuwabara still hadn't noticed. He marched up to his teammate and grabbed him by the collar. "Yusuke! Tell your mom to get off my dad!"

"Tell your dad to get off my mom!" Yusuke countered.

"My dad is a gentleman and he would never—"

"Yeah, well, my mom has better taste than—"

"Now, now," I scolded. "Stepbrothers shouldn't fight."

"STEPBROTHERS?!" the pair roared in abject disgust.

"Round five, begin!" Kurama said, and the boys gave a little screech of unified fright before diving back into position on the court.

As predicted, the boys were all over the place, tripping over each other and snarling insults and flailing as they fought to keep up with the game despite the fissure that had just opened in their teamwork. But they were warriors, the both of them, and the adrenaline kept them from losing the match immediately, their frantic thrashing managing to return the shuttlecock far more times than I would've thought possible. Kuwabara sent the shuttlecock back with a roar of rage (glaring at Yusuke all the while) and though Amagi managed to return the shot, she only managed it by the barest of margins. If this kept up, we'd lose even in spite of my meddling—which meant I had to end this quickly.

"No country benefits from prolonged warfare," as is says in The Art of War. Please, Sun Tzu, don't fail me now…

Summoning my nerve, I sent back the shuttlecock with a gasp of, "Hey, boys!"

The pair of them looked at me as one, teeth grit and visible behind curled lips. Kuwabara caught the shot and sent it sailing back, a long, slow shot that arced above our heads like a floating butterfly. I stood up straight and pout my hands on my hips.

"So," I said. "How do you feel about bunk beds?"

As one, they both froze, and the cry of "Hell no!" fell from their lips in unison.

Behind me, Amagi's racquet crashed into the shuttlecock, sending it flying toward Yusuke's feet.

He tried to go for it, but it was no use. He'd been too frozen to react, and it collided with the ground with a sound like thunder. All around us the Red Team cheered, members flooding onto the court to clap our backs and give congratulations. Even Amanuma joined, giddy at seeing a spirited game and not caring a lick about teams in his excitement.

Across the room, though, was a different story. Yusuke grabbed Kuwabara by the collar and said, "Dammit, Kuwabara! You lost us this game!"

"I lost us the game?" he replied. "You're the one who missed that shot!"

"Well, you're the one who has a pervert for a dad!"

"You're the one with a pervert for a mom!"

"Don't you talk about my mother that way, you sorry piece of—"

And with that, the two of them began beating each other up, a veritable cartoon dust cloud forming as they hit and kicked and bit and scratched and tried to pummel the other into oblivion. Teams Red and White alike stopped cold to watch, staring at the brouhaha in mortified silence.

Amagi eventually said, in a voice like a timid bird, "Should… should we stop them?"

"Nah," I said. "They'll tire each other out eventually."

"And the rest of the party will be peaceful for it," Eimi chimed in.

"Yeah," said Michi, sounding completely unconcerned. "They do this at school all the time."

"And outside of it!" Botan added.

Kaito pushed his glasses up his nose with a snort of dry humor. "You keep odd company, Yukimura. Though I can't say they aren't entertaining."

"Seconded." Junko looked around with a grin. "Now where's that popcorn?"

"… Mother?"

The word, spoken with quiet urgency, echoed in my ear like the tiniest of struck bells. I turned to find Kurama at my elbow, fox staring off toward the door with wide green eyes, face bearing an expression of complete and utter surprise I was not used to seeing from someone usually so in control. No one else had heard him speak, let alone seen the woman standing uncertain in our restaurant's doorway. Her liquid black eyes scanned the room until they alit on her son, at which point they noticeably softened.

What the hell was Shiori doing here?

"Oh. Oh shit." The words fell out of my mouth unchecked; I slapped a hand over my lips as Kurama walked away, toward his mother, and before I followed I tossed over my shoulder a casual, "Y'all keep playing games, huh? Night's not over yet! Go, Red Team!"

But no one heard me, too busy egging on the wrestling match between Yusuke and Kuwabara to notice the unexpected entry of Kurama's mom.

She had taken off her scarf by the time we reached her, and she smiled at us with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. Kurama gripped her elbow gently, returning her smile with one of his own.

"Mother? What are you doing here?" he said. "I thought you had plans with Hatanaka-san."

"They fell through, dear." And she breezed past that topic at once, clearly not in the mood to discuss (but, like, c'mon—dish that hot goss, girl!). To me she said, "Is it all right that I came by?"

"Of course it is," I said, hoping to soothe the true anxiety I saw building in her expression. "Let me take your coat; come in, come in!"

Kurama stood back a ways, unable to keep all of the nerves off his face (though he did a good job keeping about 98% of them at bay), as I hung up his mother's coat and scarf. He looked like he might be sick, or at least sick with worry, as my parents walked over and eyed Shiori over. They smiled, wondering who she might be, and I stepped in to smooth the introductions. Something told me Kurama wasn't feeling up to the task just then, or that I least I should spare him from having to try.

"Mom, Dad?" I said. "This is Minamino-san, Shuichi's mother."

My mother gasped. "Good heavens, you are lovely!"

Shiori put a hand to her cheek. "Oh, my."

Mom's cheeks colored. "I'm sorry, I just—you are so lovely. And I've been wanting to meet you for ages and I'm overreacting. But you are, though. Lovely, I mean. Um?"

I beamed at everyone present. "And now you see where I get my awkward streak."

"I think you're both charming," Shiori said, laughing her dainty laugh. She dipped a bow. "I'm glad to meet you, as well. Your daughter has been a wonderful friend to my son, and I'm delighted to meet the parents who raised such a kind young lady."

I dismissed the compliment with a dramatic wave. "Oh, stop it, stop it! You're making me blush."

"Yes, Keiko's head will swell if you keep that up," Dad teased. I stuck my tongue out at him as he said, "Have you had dinner? There's food aplenty if you're hungry."

"I'd love something to eat." Shiori looked at her son. "Shuichi, are you…?"

"I've eaten, thank you." But his words sounded rehearsed, almost, like he'd been standing back and practicing while the rest of us talked. "The younger generation is playing competitive New Year's games."

"You should watch after you have a bite," I said.

"And after you meet everyone else." Mom looped her arm through Shiori's with a smile. "This way, this way!"

My parents shuffled Shiori off with much chattered conversation; I know where I get my albatross streak, is all I'm saying. Shiori looked over her shoulder at Kurama with a smile, and he only belatedly returned it before she was swept away into the kitchen. He looked utterly stunned, running a hand through his hair and swallowing, red strands hanging around his face like blood. I stepped into his shadow and put a hand to his elbow.

"You OK?" I said.

"I apologize for the inconvenience." Once again his words sounded robotic, spitting out like he'd prepared them ahead of time—but when our eyes met, some hard guard in his dropped the slightest bit. "I didn't think she was coming," he said, as if it explained everything.

Perhaps it did. But I wasn't sure why or how, just then.

"Oh, don't worry." I offered him one of my more sincere smiles, trying to soothe another member of the Minamino family. Kurama truly was more like his mother than he realized. "We made food for an army and my mom was dying to meet yours. She's in good hands."

He did not reply right away. I squeezed his arm, gentle and reassuring.

"Really, Kurama," I murmured. "Don't worry."

He tried to smile. "I won't. It's just—Mother doesn't have many friends." His eyes strayed toward the kitchen, restless. "I hope she…"

"She'll do fine." Like my parents with Shiori, I looped my arm through his and tugged him along after me. "C'mon. No sense standing around stressing."

Kurama heard the wisdom in this, and the trouble in his eyes quieted the smallest bit. He followed me in silence back to the gaming area and did not complain when I installed him in the Street Fighter seat, pairing him up with Amanuma for a friendly, non-competition game. Fun. That was the goal, to get his mind off his mother's social life for two seconds and relax, to have fun. Soon enough the ploy worked, Amanuma's good cheer and enthusiasm coaxing a smile from Kurama's lips and relaxation into his tight shoulders.

Later, Shiori left the kitchen, and later still, Kurama laughed at something Amanuma said. Eyes drawn across the room by the sound of her son's voice, I watched as Shiori searched for her son. Spotted him. Watched him laugh and socialize and play with kids his own age, carefree for a moment of precious time.

From across the room, she watched her son laugh—and at the sound, she smiled.

I want to make it clear that Yusuke didn't win the New Year's competition because of skill. He won because he got lucky, and because my given name in this life had been given to me in the spirit of irony—a fact becoming more and more apparent the longer I bore the moniker "Yukimura Keiko."

The story of my demise isn't one characterized by dramatic, last-minute point scoring—not on our parts, at least. No, after my victory over Yusuke, the rest of our teammates returned to their various game battles in good spirits, playing casually but intently throughout the rest of the night. Although Kaito made a killing in points by playing Trivial Pursuit, Amanuma also cleaned up by winning the Street Fighter tournament. Thus ours teams were neck and neck for most of the evening—but then on the TV Team White came out of absolutely nowhere with five consecutive wins on Kōhaku Uta Gassen, pulling the real-life White Team ahead at the last possible second. Red scrambled to catch up, but at 11:15 the show ended, leaving us one measly point behind our competitors.

Never one to let a dramatic moment go without taking full advantage of the opportunity to overact it afforded, I fell to my knees with a theatrical "NO" shouted at the sky, hands raised to the heavens in desperation as the program's closing credits began to roll. Yusuke, meanwhile, just laughed like the demon he'd someday be as the rest of our teammates cheered or sighed where appropriate. Within seconds of Kōhaku Uta Gassen ending, Kuwabara appeared at my side to babble apologies, but I just slunk off to sit at a corner table in dejected silence.

If I was to eat this pepper and come out alive, I needed to center myself.

Yusuke appeared in short order (because of course he did) bearing a glass of cold milk, the box containing the evening's penalty game, and a shit-eating grin that could put a dung beetle to shame. The tangible objects he set before me, and then he sat across from me and folded his hands atop the table. Behind him trailed the others, expressions ranging from concerned (Amagi, Eimi, Michiko, Amanuma) to amused (Junko, Kurama, Botan) to detached and maybe a little bored (Kaito, who clearly didn't feel guilty about not scoring more points for Red Team). Kuwabara sat on the bench at my side and scooted close, eyes watering like a scolded puppy's.

"I'm sorry, Keiko," he said. "I'm really, really sorry."

I gave him the stare of a dead and unimpressed salmon and said: "You're dead to me."

"What?!" he yelped. "But I didn't even score that many points."

I leaned in close. "Dead. To. Me."

Standing behind Yusuke, Amanuma's eyes widened. "Am… am I dead to you?" he said in a near whisper.

I paused, hand on my chin, to think about it. Declared: "You get a pass."

"WHAT?!" Kuwabara yelped, even louder this time. "Why does he get a pass?"

"Because he's too adorable to despise."

Amanuma thrust his fists into the air, freckled nose scrunching. "Yay!"

Junko leaned over Yusuke's shoulder, pointing at herself with one polished nail. "What about me? I only scored like, two points."

"You're… halfway deceased," I reasoned.

"Heh. Score." Junko looked inappropriately pleased. "Zombie girl."

Now Kurama stepped forward, hand on the back of Yusuke's chair. "And me, Kei?" he smoothly intoned, sly smile shamelessly decorating his lips.

I glared at him. "Super dead, Minamino. You are super, super dead to me."

Kaito, behind him, shoved his glasses up his nose and laughed. "I can't say I disapprove."

Kurama opened his mouth to say something, a devious sparkle in his eye, Yusuke waved him off before he could speak. "So, Keiko—"

"Oh, and you are completely dead to me." My stare could've set him on fire; Hiei would have been impressed. "Like, cremate-you-and-scatter-your-ashes-deadzos, Urameshi."

He soldiered on, undeterred. "Do you think that pepper—?"

"You're the deadest of them all, ass-face."

"—is gonna be as hot as last year—"

"Deader even than you were at this time last year, in fact," I said.

"—or do you think it's gonna melt your face clean off?" he finished, giggling with every syllable.

"I repeat: Deadzos." My glare grew more intense by the second. "You are dead to me. Deceased. You are an Un-Yusuke. The walking embodiment of not-alive. Pushing up the daises, that's you. Fucking dead to me, Urameshi!"

His grin widened; he traced his finger around the rim of the glass on the table. "I bet this cold glass of milk is gonna look real good in about thirty seconds."

"How are you talking when you're so fucking dead?"

"Too bad you won't be able to drink it for five whole minutes. I'm timing every second."

I slumped in my seat. Whined: "I hate you."

"I'll bet you do." He shoved the pepper-box across the table. "Now eat it."

"Don't rush me," I said. "I'm a delicate lady."

"Pfft." He seemed to find that concept even funnier than me eating a hot habanero, laughing with head thrown back. "As if!"

Luckily the rest of my team wasn't nearly as amused by my plight. Amagi caught my eye; her shoulders sagged, defeated. "We're sorry, Keiko."

"We let you down," Michiko chimed in from her right.

"No. You didn't." I held my head high and tried to be gracious. "White Team simply rose to the occasion."

"Damn straight!" Yusuke cackled (and my graciousness evaporated; I kicked him under the table, laughing when he yelped).

Kuwabara leaned in close to me again. "I'll eat the pepper for you, Keiko. I will. Promise, I totally will."

"We'll split it with you, if we have to," Eimi added from her spot next to Michiko.

And at that even Kaito appeared to grow a heart in a moment of Grinch-like character development. "Much though I perish at the thought, I too will fall on the knife if I must." He straightened his back and nodded once, resolute. "Red Team solidarity, I suppose."

It was tempting to pawn off my penalty onto my teammates, but I had to shake my head. "No. I made a bet, and bets are sacred. As leader of Team Red, it is my sacred duty to eat this pepper on my own." I grabbed the box and opened it. The bright orange pepper, squat and wrinkly with shiny skin, looked like a jewel against the blue velvet of the jewelry box, but I wasn't fooled for a second into thinking this would be pleasant. I gulped. "OK. Delaying it only makes it worse, so—"

"Wait, wait," said Yusuke. "We should at least do a countdown and—"

"Fuck that," I said, and I picked up the pepper and chowed the hell down.

I'd done this before, so I had at least some strategy in place to keep myself alive through the pepper-eating process—and not a strategy recommended to me by Sun Tzu, that traitor. Fuck if I'd ever quote that asshole again. I ate the pepper in two bites, first sinking my teeth into the middle of the pepper and tearing it in half, then without pause biting just below the green stem and taking the rest of the fruit's flesh into my mouth. Two chews, then swallow, tossing the stem aside and holding my hands up over my head and carefully away from my face (because I knew better than to touch my eyes after even gently handling a habanero). Taking only two bites and minimizing chewing would release the fewest juices possible, keeping me from being totally engulfed in flaming hot capsaicin—

Or such was the theory, anyway.

My face lit on fire within half a second, and my theory disintegrated in a wave of pure heat.

The agony was immediate. It didn't creep up slow, hitting me instead like a wrecking ball to the face. My sinuses filled with lava and my eyes welled with tears so hard I could almost hear my ducts producing moisture, and with hands still in the air I rocketed off of the bench and walked in circles, tears falling down my cheeks in rivers, nose streaming like Niagara Falls over my lips and chin. Yusuke cackled and brayed like a manic donkey, slapping his knees at my reddened face, but I ignored him and tried to breathe deep. "Just start the damn timer!" I snarled, trying desperately not to rub at my inflamed nose and mouth.

"Already did!" Yusuke said through his wheezing laughter.

The next five minutes passed in a blur of pain, snot, tears, and Yusuke's merciless laughter. A few people tried to ask me how I was doing, but I waved them off and carved a pacing circuit around the gaming area, concentrating on my footsteps as I tried to tune out the pain—and to tune out Yusuke's unending cackles. Hideki-sensei's deep breathing and meditation techniques brought me a little relief, but unfortunately even that didn't distract me from the stinging hot pain that had invaded every nook and cranny of my lips, cheeks, gums, and nose. I slammed back onto my chosen bench and pillowed my forehead on my hands, trying to keep calm and just breathe. Breathe through the pain, Keiko. Birth the pain like a baby and breathe, just breathe—

Soft footsteps approached from my right, and then Kurama's smooth voice asked: "How are you?"

I swallowed, lips engulfing in new fire. "I am in hell."

"Oh."

"I am in hell and my face is on fire."

"I see," he said, tone grave.

"I hate everyone and everything and I am going to murder Yusuke dead."

"Eh. Not scary," Yusuke said. "I'll just come back."

"He does tend to do that," Botan chimed in from somewhere to my left.

"Not helping, Botan!" I moaned. "Not helping!"

And then I grabbed the hem of my dress, pressed it to my face, and screamed into it.

It didn't help the physical pain, but on the inside I felt just a little better.

When the timer on Yusuke's watch finally entered my final minute of hell, everyone gathered round to watch the last seconds tick by. My leg jiggled up and down under the table, restless with pain, as everyone counted down the final ten seconds like the countdown to New Years. Those final ten seconds seemed to take forever, voices deepening as if in slow motion, and as soon as they hit "zero" I jerked my head off the table and snatched up the glass of milk to chug it down gulp by delicious gulp. It would hurt in the morning (Keiko's body was lactose intolerant) but the milk took the edge off the pain in my mouth at once—but it wasn't enough. Amidst the cacophony of Yusuke's bellowed laughter I vaulted away from the table and booked it to the kitchen, where I grabbed the spare jug of milk I'd stashed in the fridge just in case we needed it. This I took to the sink, where I poured it over my mouth and nose and even snorted a little to clear my sinuses, the dairy counteracting the oil of the pepper and binding with it to neutralize the sting. I was vaguely aware that the girls had all followed me into the kitchen and were watching my horrifically undignified display, but I hardly cared as I scrubbed milk into the beds of my nails and massaged it into my cheeks.

Eventually I felt better (though some sting lingered in my gums and nasal passages) and I lifted my head from the sink with a whoop. "Man," I said, taking a deep breath through the nose as I mopped my face with a nearby dishtowel. "That was a doozy."

The girls all exchanged Looks, and Amagi asked: "Are you OK?"

I inhaled again, with a hand motion to indicate how smoothly I could breathe. "Well, I'm pretty sure my taste buds and sense of smell are fried, but I can breathe through my nose better than ever. That's certainly one way to clean out the sinuses."

Botan's blue brows inched higher and higher. "You… you sure you're OK?"

"Oh, peachy."

"Because you look…" Eimi said.

"You look terrible," Michiko said.

I put a hand to my cheek. "Oh, shit, do I?"

The girls exchanged another Look—and then they converged like piranha scenting blood in the water. Amagi ran water through my hair and repositioned my bow while Eimi adjusted my dress; Junko got her purse and produced an alarming amount of makeup from within the small bag, hiding the redness in my nose and the puffiness under my eyes with green stick and concealer. Botan conducted them like a maestro, rattling off a peptalk about always looking our best to feel our best, and even if it came on the heels of a terrible embarrassing ordeal, it was sort of nice to be pampered like this. We left the kitchen like a marching military unit, the girls backing me up as I marched right up to Yusuke wearing my most winning smile.

He was less than impressed to see me looking fresh as a daisy, though, scanning me from top to bottom with face quite scrunched up. "Why the hell don't you look like hell?" he said, disgruntled.

"Sheer dogged determination," I deadpanned—and I put a hand on the table and leaned down close, nose to nose and leering. "Also. You should know something. Those five minutes constituted the single most productive brainstorming session of my life." I poked his pectoral and grinned harder. "Watch your damn back, boy."

I'm elated to report he looked quite perturbed, especially when I winked at him and walked off, girls flanking me like the army we most definitely were. They followed me back over to the buffet for snacks (eating peppers works up an appetite), and even though I'd had to eat the habanero pepper that New Year's, I was pretty sure my psychological warfare against Yusuke would leave the bigger scar—and that was almost its own victory, pepper notwithstanding.

Sun Tzu had failed me, but one of his pieces of wisdom definitely applied here: "The wheels of justice grind slow, but grind fine."

I'd get my comeuppance someday—even if that day was next New Year's Eve.

Not long later, at only twenty minutes to midnight, my watch beeped upon my wrist. From across the room I heard a twin beep, sound shrill beneath the din of conversation.

Like magnets converging, amid the crown my eyes were drawn Yusuke's.

We exchanged a nod.

Our quarrel with the pepper placed to the side, we began the summoning.

Sounds dramatic, but it really wasn't. We just did as discussed and wandered through the crowd, tapping members of our respective New Year's teams on the shoulder one by one and whispering instructions in their ears. "Hey. Head up to my room." Or 'Keiko's room,' in Yusuke's case. "Why? No reason. Just a little surprise." And people obeyed, because curiosity is an untamable beast, leaving the dining room and disappearing up the stairs to the upper floor.

Eventually I saw that all of White Team had vanished. I'd gotten to most of Red Team already, Amagi the last one lingering downstairs. I tapped her, whispered my instructions, then followed her up the stairs. No one saw us go, nor did any of the adults dog our steps.

Perfect.

Though not nearly as perfect as the sight of my bedroom filled to bursting with my friends, all of them milling around and looking at my books, my record collection, my posters. They looked up when the door opened, staring as I shut it behind me and leaned against the poster of Johnny Cash flipping the camera the bird.

"Shit," I said. "It's crowded."

A chorus of giggles rose up, a few of them playfully jostling for space in my cramped quarters, and when they quieted I cleared my throat.

"All right, everybody," I said. "I have never had this many people crammed into my room at one time before. Um." A deep breath as I surveyed the room, hoping I could pull this off. "This is the first year Yusuke and I have had more than just us performing this little tradition, but we're happy you're here. So follow us and we'll show you the ropes. Be careful, keep low, and it'll be fine." I pushed through the crowd toward my desk and the window set above it. "Let's go."

Eimi and Michiko murmured something about being confused as I hefted open the pane and Yusuke crawled onto the roof. He carried a bag over his shoulder, something inside it clinking as he moved, and once he levered himself over the sill I climbed atop my desk and made to follow suit, one leg hiked high.

"Keiko?!" Kuwabara said. "Wh-what are you doing?"

He was staring at my skirt, utterly aghast. I just rolled my eyes, though.

"I've got shorts on under it, you goon," I said. "We're going onto the roof. Follow me."

It took a little convincing for some of them, but at my urging ("We're short on time!") most of my friends soon joined me on the roof, climbing one by one out the window with my help. Yusuke went on ahead to our spot, where I'd earlier stashed blankets for us to bundle up in; I sent people on to him with promises that they'd understand what was up, and soon, just trust me. Eimi and Michiko didn't want to come out onto the roof at all, scared of heights as they were, so I installed them half-in, half-out of the window and within eye-and-earshot of the rest of the group. They seemed content with this, though they were sad when Kurama chose to come out onto the roof with me and not to stay behind with them.

Kurama stared past me as he exited my bedroom, eyes narrowed at the dark roof stretching off to our left. "Do you think this can take our weight?" he asked.

"… uh." I cupped a hand around my mouth and called, "Everybody evenly disperse yourselves, just in case." To Kurama I added, "Good thinking."

He nodded, smiling as he walked nimbly past me over the shingles toward the others (guy was basically Legolas, I kid you not). Behind him, the last to leave my bedroom, was Kuwabara, who eyed the roof like he really did fear it might cave in beneath his weight. At my encouraging smile, though, he grabbed my hands and let me pull him onto the shingles—but as soon as he stood up to his full height, he reached for and grabbed my hand.

For a second I thought Kuwabara had gotten uncharacteristically bold, grabbing my hand and holding it tight, but when I looked up into his face I realized he wasn't looking at me. He didn't blush, either, the way he no doubt would when holding the hand of the girl he liked, instead staring off into the dark above the neighboring houses through narrow eyes. He swung his head forward and back, looking up and down and all around, scanning the rooftops around us for who knew what. A ball of ice formed in my stomach at the sight, cold and hard and growing larger by the second.

I frowned and squeezed his fingers. "Hey. What's up?"

He came back to himself with a start. "Not sure. I just—" And then his eyes focused on something in front of us; he scowled. "You invited him?"

I followed the line of his sight, looking out over the rooftop and across the alley below, toward the roof of the house next door. Immediately I saw who Kuwabara meant; my eyes rolled, ball of ice in my gut thawing at once.

"Of course I invited Hiei," I said. "He's one of the gang."

Hiei stood with hands in his pockets, balanced on the highest point of the roof next door. He looked a bit like a gothic kite as his cloak flapped in the frigid midnight breeze, one gust too strong liable to blow him away, but he remained unmoving and firm as he and Kuwabara locked eyes. Kuwabara gripped my hand a little tighter when Hiei's eyes narrowed with a burst of reflective red, and then the fire apparition flickered out of sight like a shadow chased away by the sun.

Over with the rest of my friends, Amagi turned her head, but by then Hiei had already disappeared.

"One of the gang?" Kuwabara said under his breath. "Not with that creepy-ass aura of his. Gave me the wiggins. For a second I thought—"

He stopped talking. I waited, but he did not resume. He just kept his grip on my hand, staring at the spot Hiei had been with teeth grit.

"Thought what?" I said.

Again my words seemed to shake him from some trance. "Nothing. I was wrong," he said. He let go of my hand with a start, like he hadn't realized he'd grabbed it in the first place. "Um. Let's go."

And so we went. We went walking carefully over the roof, along the side of the house and to the back of it, to the sloping bit of roof overlooking the large drainage ditch behind my neighborhood. The stars and the moon above shed silver light on my friends huddled together in blankets, hands cupped around tiny, thimble-like mugs that Yusuke slowly filled from the warm jug he'd brought with him in his satchel (though Amanuma went without; he was too young). I caught the scent of sake as wind stripped by and tried to crawl inside my dress, my skin breaking out in gooseflesh. I didn't grab a blanket, though. I wrapped my arms around myself and checked my watch, trying not to let my teeth chatter.

It was almost time, my watch told me. I needed to make this quick.

When everyone had a tiny cup of sake, and once Yusuke handed me a cup of my own, I picked my way down the roof to its edge, to the front of the accumulated crowd all draped in blankets and spare comforters. Yusuke knelt at my side; when another strong gust of wind whipped past, he latched his fingers into the belt around my waist with a little murmured exclamation of frantic concern. I tangled my fingers in his collar, letting him keep me grounded against the driving wind.

"Right," I said. "So. Ever since we were kids, it's been our time-honored tradition to steal some of Yusuke's mom's sake and come out here to watch the New Year change. And since we've made a lot of new friends this year, we thought we'd invite you along." I winked at everyone. "And trust me, this'll be worth it. You're in for a show. But before that starts, in just a minute now—"

Kurama cleared his throat. He sat near the front, a blanket draped loosely around his shoulders, and in the shadow of this drape he pointed one finger up and over his shoulder. I tracked that point with a frown, but my frown disappeared when I saw Hiei standing on the tallest bit of my house's roof, looking down upon us through gleaming scarlet eyes. A smile crossed my lips on reflex; I smoothed my hair, pretending to refasten the bow in it to cover my expression.

"Uh. As I was saying." I straightened up again and smiled at everyone in turn. "Pardon me while I get a bit mushy, yeah?"

Uncertain, most everyone nodded.

"Cool." I spread my hands, or at least the hand not full of sake cup. "So. Here we are. It's been a doozy of a year. I'm not gonna go over everything that happened, because you were there for it. There were changes, big and small. There were good times, and there were bad ones. We made new friends and we kept the old. Silver, gold, auld lang syne and all that jazz." A little laugh followed my joke, but I pressed forward. "In the end, though, no matter how hard it got, one thing remained constant: We were there for each other. And sometimes in this crazy world, being there for each other when times get rough is all we can dream to ask for." A measured look as I met all of their eyes in turn, making sure to include every single person there in my New Year's toast. "I think all of you know I don't consider family those only bound to me in blood. Family isn't forged in blood. Family is forged in bonds. And I'm lucky to share a bond with all of you."

My watch on my wrist beeped. Smiling at this perfect cosmic timing, I raised my cup of sake skyward—and as I did, the bells began to ring.

The kleshas in Buddhism refer to the 108 sins of the human condition. Anxiety, depression, fear, rage, jealousy, they crowd the thoughts and corrupt the mind, and on New Year's Eve the Buddhist temples of Japan ring their bells 108 times, 107 times before midnight and once immediately afterward—both to ring in the New Year and to ring out the old sins, start the world anew and afresh. I'd never heard of this tradition before becoming Keiko. The first time I heard the bells ring in the cold darkness of New Year's Eve, I stood as a child transfixed, utterly entranced by their sonorous peals and mournful sound, every beat of hammer against hollow metal the sound of the universe falling into place around my thumping heart. It hadn't taken long for me to look forward to the yearly bells, and shortly after meeting Yusuke we discovered that our special spot on the roof of my home was in the perfect position to hear the bell-ringing of no less than three neighborhood temples. From that spot on the roof you could hear every last peal as clearly as a mother calling your name.

This was the song I shared with my friends that night. As had I the first time I heard the bells, they sat in utter silence, staring skyward with mouths agape while ringing filled the air. It reverberated off the roofs of the houses and off the water in the reservoir below, thrumming in the shingles under our feet like a chorus of a hundred voices, all of reality spiraling and spinning in place around the call of those pealing bells. You could feel the earth move, it seemed, rotating in time with the song of the bells, delirious and joyful even in its somber song.

"That's why we're up here," I said, though you could barely hear me for the bells. "We're here for those killer acoustics." I raised my glass high. "So, everybody, if it's OK, I'd like to make a toast."

All across the roof, glasses rose into the air.

"Here's to us," I said. "Here's to our friendship. And here's to another year of being there for each other, in the hard times and the good. Because that's all we can dream to ask for." I looked at my watch again. "And… just a second. There. Here we go." A deep breath, the final breath of the cold air of this old year. I said: "Ten. Nine. Eight—"

"Seven," Yusuke said.

"Six," said Kurama.

"Five," said Kuwabara.

"Four, three, two," everyone chorused (even Hiei, I like to think), and in one united voice we said: "One. Happy New Year!"

Behind me, as everyone drained their thimbles of hot sake, fireworks absolutely erupted across the sky.

That was the other perk of this spot on the roof: a great view of the sky, unimpeded by houses or trees, providing us a perfect, secret viewing of the city's firework display downtown. I downed my shot and sat, scooting close to Yusuke to steal a bit of his blanket and lean my head on his shoulder. The others gasped, faces illuminated by the colors of the fireworks blossoming overhead. More gasps rang out when the fireworks intensified, the view was just that good—and for a moment I felt like I was back on that porch with my Nana, holding her hand in the dark, the scents of gunpowder and cold air tickling my stinging nostrils. The sting brought me back to Japan, but the lost recollection didn't leave me feeling empty. It was like I'd said in my toast: I was surrounded by silvery new friends and family, practicing new traditions, but bringing forward to the present some of the old and gold. And as the staccato rhythm of the fireworks continued, undercut by the melody of passing sins, the lyrics and tune of "Auld Lang Syne" bubbled in my chest until I could not help but hum it quietly under my breath—traditions old and new melding together under the light of blooming fireworks and the sound of tolling bells.

Sighing, sake on my tongue and fireworks in my eyes, I leaned my head on Yusuke's shoulder and settled in to watch the New Year come—and for a moment, I think I was happy.

Atsuko had passed out sometime earlier in the night, just before I ate the pepper. She'd gotten too drunk too soon for Yusuke to interrogate, in fact, which I gloated over as I cleaned up around her unconscious body where she lay sprawled and snoring on a bench in the dining room. He'd have to spend New Year's Day sobering her up and then coaxing out answers, and of course there were none to be had. Kuwabara's father wasn't interested, it seemed, and all my taunting that night had been just that: taunting, a ruse to throw Yusuke off his game.

My first prank of the New Year was off to a good start.

As I walked through the dining room with a trash bag, collecting scattered cans and plates and cups, I suppressed a yawn. It had gotten quite late, all of the girls save for Botan having left to go home (we didn't want them going home even later than they already were, and they had the night's final train to catch). Kaito and Amanuma had followed suit shortly thereafter, mostly because Amanuma had fallen asleep in the middle of firework; Kaito had promised to get the sleepy kid home safe, because apparently they lived quite close to one another over in Mushiyori. That left just Kurama, Yusuke, Botan and Kuwabara to help with the cleanup effort, because most of my parents' friends had also split shortly after midnight. The Kuwabaras, Shiori and Mom stood in a corner talking, but as I reached for an empty beer can I saw Shiori yawn demurely behind a hand.

"Minamino?" I said. "You can go if you want to. Your mom's flagging."

Kurama looked up, hand pausing on its way toward a discarded paper plate. He'd been helping me on trash duty; the others all helped my dad in the kitchen, watching dishes and putting away extra food (which, knowing Dad, he's try to pawn off on all my friends as a New Year's gift). Green eyes flicked toward his mother and back to me.

"Are you sure?" he said. "I'd like to help clean."

"I think her carriage turned into a pumpkin sometime in the last hour," I said. "Stroke of midnight and whatnot."

Kurama frowned. "Beg pardon?"

"Uh. Never mind."

He gave me a Look, not understanding my reference to a fairy tale that didn't exist, but he didn't pursue the matter. It was too late in the evening to play 20 Questions, so instead he put down his garbage bag and approached the adults. "Mother?" he said as he drew near. "Do you want to start heading home?"

"It is getting late," she said. Anxiety creased her brow. "But if your friends are still here, I don't want—"

"I can walk you home," said Kuwabara-san.

Shiori flinched, looking over the elder Kuwabara with expression uncertain. His earrings, that ponytail, the tinted glasses and long coat—he didn't look like the kind of man you wanted walking a woman home, unless you knew better like I did. Shiori was far too polite to let on about any of that, of course, but her face wore masks the same way Kurama's did, and thus it was hard not to miss the subtle schooling of her features into a facsimile of politeness.

"I wouldn't want to impose," she said, tying her best to be subtle.

"You wouldn't be," Kuwabara said, cheerful and perhaps oblivious. "That's a man's job, to walk a woman home after dark."

Her eyes cut to the side. "But my son…"

"The kids usually crash here for the night," my mother said, trying to be helpful. When Shiori looked shocked, Mom shot the snoring Atsuko a pointed glanced. "At least, Yusuke always has, and it looks like his mom will, too. The rest of them are welcome to stay as well. We have the futons!" And she held up her hands, sheepish. "They'd be fully chaperoned, of course, if that worried you."

If it worried her, she wore her mask well enough to conceal it. She turned to Kurama, then, with a plaintive: "Shuichi? What would you like to do?"

"Whatever makes it easiest on you, Mother," came his cool and practiced reply. "You're still recovering."

She swatted at his arm. "Oh, nonsense. I'm right as rain."

But Kuwabara-san's ears pricked, at least metaphorically. "Recovering?" he said.

"I was ill, earlier this year," Shiori said, and then she smiled at her next joke. "Or last year, I suppose."

"You'll have to tell me about it on the trip back," Kuwabara-san said, tone firm out of nowhere. "No way are we letting you go it alone now, and like your son said, you need your rest." He looked her up and down, taking in her dress, heels, hose, and pretty blue pea-coat before shrugging out of his ankle-length duster. "Here; take this. Your coat doesn't look thick enough. You should take mine."

Shiori's eyes widened; she tried to take a step back, but he had already begun draping the coat around her shoulders. "But, I—"

"Please." He gave her a jovial grin. "My heart would break if I saw you shiver."

Shiori had absolutely no idea how to handle this. She stared with open-mouthed confusion at the grinning Kuwabara-san, who'd shoved his hands in his pockets and stood there in his white button-up, gold chain around his neck winking almost as brightly as his smile. Shizuru heaved a sigh and rubbed her forehead.

"You might wanna just play along," Shizuru said. "He's persistent. And I'll be coming with, so don't feel too intimidated by those earrings." She flicked his hair with her finger. "You're too old for the ponytail, Dad."

"Hey, now," he said, cupping said ponytail protectively. "I think it captures my youthful spirit."

Shizuru rolled her eyes—and at that Shiori actually laughed, eyes squeezing up as she hid her mouth behind her hand. Kuwabara-san looked pleased, beaming from behind his dark glasses.

"Well. If you insist, I suppose we should be on our way." Shiori looked to her son again, almost pleading. "You'll be fine for the night, Shuichi?"

"Of course, Mother," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"We visit the shrine at noon sharp."

"I won't be late."

"Of course not." And she danced forward to kiss his cheek. "Good night, Shuichi. And happy New Year."

"Happy New Year to you, too, Mother," he said.

We watched the Kuwabaras walk her outside into the cold in silence, and when the door shut behind them I nudged Kurama with my elbow. He stared after his mother with expression drawn, but at my touch his eyes cleared a little.

"She's in good hands," I said.

His eyes cleared further still. "I know. Knowing Kuwabara Kazuma, I suspect his father to be the trustworthy sort."

"Good."

Mom crossed her arms and smiled, staring at the front door as though she could still see Kuwabara himself. "He looks rough, but he's a gentleman. I quite like him, I've decided, and that's that." She dusted her hands together. "Now. We need to finish cleaning up here and set up the futons upstairs. Faster we do this, faster we can get to sleep."

Sleep sounded ambrosial, so in short order Kurama and I helped her clear the dining room, lug all the spare futons down from the hall closet, and unroll them across basically the entire living room upstairs. Then we went back and checked on Dad, Yusuke, Botan, and Kuwabara in the kitchen, our help the final push they needed to complete cleanup and food repackaging. We turned out the lights in the restaurant and trudged upstairs together in a sleepy mass (Dad and Yusuke lugging Atsuko up the stairs together, of couse), and at the door to the living room my parents bid me a tired goodnight and happy New Year with many cheek-kisses and promises to give me my otoshidama money in the morning (I insisted I didn't need it, but there was really no arguing with them about this particular custom so I let it go and watched the shuffle off down the hall to their bedroom without complaint).

Yusuke and the others had brought overnight bags with them, having heard the drill about our New Year's traditions through the grapevine or through experience, but as Kuwabara and Yusuke headed for the bathroom to jostle for the sink and Botan went into my room to change into pajamas, my eyes caught on Kurama's empty hands and his crisp white shirt. No way could he sleep in that. I'd been about to follow Botan to change, but instead I stopped and grimaced.

"Oh, shoot," I said. "No PJs, huh?"

"I'm afraid not," Kurama said. "I wasn't aware this could turn into a sleepover."

"Yeah, ouch. My bad," I said, because it pretty much was. I'd forgotten to tell him, assuming he'd choose to go home. "But tell you what. I have some of Yusuke's laundry downstairs that should fit you just fine." As an afterthought I assured him: "Oh. And it's clean, of course."

He smiled. "If I could borrow something for the night, that would be ideal."

"Sure thing. Wait right here."

The stairs creaked under my weight as I skipped down them two at a time and headed to the utility closet at the bottom of the steps. Not a lot of homes in Japan had laundry facilities, but our stacked washer and dryer had been an upgrade purchased when the restaurants took off, my parents were delighted to no longer trek to the laundromat down the street every time they needed to wash something. I flipped on the closet light and poked around in one of our several laundry baskets, hunting for some of Yusuke's clothes (I was always grabbing dirty clothes from his house and lugging it home to wash, hence why I wound up wearing so many of his garments much to the chagrin of my mother). I quickly scared up a garish pair of purple shorts and a neon orange shirt, but I set those aside and kept looking for more neutral tones instead. Yusuke loved his garish neon, but imagining the stately and poised Kurama in bright orange—oh wait, he wore that horrible orange coat in the show, didn't he? Maybe Kurama wouldn't mind the neon. He's not the best fashion plate, truth be told, though in real life he was a bit better than his anime counterpart—

Even lost in my inner monologue as I was, I did not miss the creak of our front door opening in the restaurant's quiet darkness.

I knew that creak. I'd heard it too many times not to know it, and my hands froze over the laundry basket. For a moment I heard nothing more besides my heart thudding in my ears, pulse beating heavy in the roof of my mouth—but then three more creaks, slow and deliberate, the sound of feet crossing over our antique wooden floor. Dad had locked up though, right? So who—?

Hiei, maybe, looking for a place to sleep? Or a drunk customer wandering in after hours, not bothering to read the "closed" sign. Moving carefully, I tucked the neon shorts and shirt under my arm and stood up. The light in the closet was near the door, casting my shadow into the closet instead of outward into the mudroom by the backdoor. No sense giving away my position to… whoever it was. I slid my feet over the floor inch by inch, years of living in this space telling me where to step to avoid a creaky floorboard. Breathing deeply, trying to keep calm, I snuck out of the laundry room toward the kitchen, and to the arch between the kitchen and the dining area.

But no one was there when I peeked my head around the corner. Or at least, I couldn't see anybody. All the lights were out, one faint light from the kitchen and the light in the laundry room providing only the barest of illumination.

My skin prickled.

"Hello?" I said. The word came out a whisper; I straightened my back and summoned my nerves, repeating myself with more force. It wouldn't do to sound weak if someone was actually there, watching me, and my mind wasn't just playing tricks. "Hello? Is someone there? We're closed for the night, so if you're hungry you'll have to try the convenience store on the corner." I paused, but no one replied. I repeated: "Hello?"

No one spoke. Nothing moved.

I reached for the light switch on the dining side of the archway. My fingers slid over smooth wallpaper, dry rasp echoing in the stillness as I hunted for the light.

Something under my hand wriggled.

I snatched back my hand as if doused in chili oil, a squeak of shock escaping my mouth as I dropped Kurama's PJs on the floor. Reflexes took over, forcing me to turn in place, back toward the stairs and the people waiting for me at the top—

Instead of darting up them, however, I froze—because two enormous eyes stared out at me from a nest of deep, black dark.

The eyes didn't belong to anything human. They were too big, too 2D, too weird to be human, eyes almost sketched onto the wall opposite me beside the stairwell. A thick black outline framed stark white sclera and round pupils, and around them lingered deeper shadow in the vaguest outline of a humanoid head. But as disturbing as these eyes most certainly were, the fleshy pink mouth below them filled me with greater dread—because it looked pasted there, almost, growing from the wall like a mushroom made of flesh. And that by itself wasn't too bad or anything, except then it decided to move.

A tongue crept out of that mouth to lick its thick, chapped lips—and it grinned, teeth like tombstones gleaming bone white against the shadows of its face.

My lizard-brain took over at the sight. I took a step back, every fiber of my being screaming at me to run the fuck away from that goddamn thing, now!, fully intending to set aside all my pride and make a break for it just so I wouldn't have to look at that horrible tongue even a moment longer.

But it was far too fast, and I was far too slow with shock to escape.

It moved before I could even finish turning around. The thing slid down and off the wall, flat body streaking across the floor in a wash of shadow just a hint darker than the rest of the gloom suffusing my parents' restaurant. I saw it flash past and then I finished pivoting, a 180-turn completed just in time to see those eyes looking at me from the floor below, ogling me like a fucked up Furbie from hell, eyes somehow larger than before and growing larger by the second—

Or maybe they weren't growing larger.

Maybe I was just getting closer to them, because the floor had disappeared from beneath my feet, and I was falling.

My stomach almost flew out of my mouth as I made a sickening drop into empty space. Throwing out my arms, I managed to catch myself on something and arrest my momentum, crying out in pain as my torso swung forward and banged into something—but it didn't bang hard because whatever I'd grabbed undulated and rippled, soft and malleable but firm under my grasp, and then it lurched and bucked and I had to hang on for dear life to keep from falling again.

Something clamped tight around my waist.

I looked down—and this time, I managed to release a high, shrill scream.

My body below my waist had disappeared because the creature had caught me in its mouth, and the object I'd clung to to keep from falling—it was lips. It was huge, pillowy lips the color of bubblegum puckering around my midsection, holding me in place like a thick cigarette. I think I screamed again, then, but I'm not sure, because the mouth yawned wide and a black pit showed beneath my kicking feet, and then the lips spasmed. I lost my grip, slipping into that dark maw like a coin dropped into a well—

The last thing I saw as I was eaten by that living shadow was a circle of grey light, pale and distant high above me, and I fell into depths unknown.

Notes:

Very much an accident this cliffhanger occurs right as I go on hiatus, but there wasn't much I could do about it without throwing off all my planning. Sorry in advance for any "OMG NO" this might be causing. Truly was not what I intended.

So: See you in August! :) Hiatus begins now. The next chapter will drop August 4.

Many thanks to those who chimed in last week. It was the longest chapter of the story yet (though this one wound up being longer still) and I really appreciated your thoughts and comments: Unctuous, Not Quite a Morning Person, Roses Universe, Han, Eternalevecho, Everlastingice_277, brawltogethernow, kuramag33, Tewdrig, incrediblyincompetent, TokiMirage, Linnadhiel, atsuyuri_sama, Masked Trickster, Mage King 17, AxelFones, scallionite!

Chapter 76: The Belly of the Beast

Summary:

In which NQK... floats.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

For a long time, I fell.

I fell through nothing. I fell down and down and down some more into Alice's endless rabbit burrow, slicing like a thrown dart through darkness and through quiet—quiet cut by the sound of my own scream, of course, but that soon dwindled into silence as my fall continued unabated. My red dress flapped around me, my hair blew back off my face, but no wind streaked across my flailing limbs even as I plummeted. I descended, it seemed, through a vacuum, and even in my panic this struck me as odd.

But then, after a length of time untold, nothing became something.

I was not falling anymore.

It was like diving into a pool, like dropping off a diving board and into a body of unseen matter, momentum slowing and then stopping and then reversing, propelling me upward instead of down. It was as if I'd cannon-balled into liquid wearing a thick lifejacket, the way I bobbed upward like I did. I fell through nothing until I hit the something and felt it drag against my body, bouncing me back to the surface of… of whatever it was with odd, unexpected buoyancy.

When I dared to open my eyes (though only after the horrific lurching in my stomach stilled) I froze solid.

The stomach feelings came back.

Then and there, I had a panic attack.

Totally justified, that panic attack. You'd have one, too, if you were literally eaten by a horrible shadow-monster and then found yourself weightlessly floating in a big, black void, endless darkness dotted by rubble and garbage and floating chunks of debris. And I'd like to think that panic attack—all my huffing and puffing and sobbing and hyperventilation—was one of my more productive moments of anxiety, to boot.

Sure. The sight of what lay in the belly of the beast gave me a panic attack.

But it also gave me answers, and that's not nothing when you have very little else to your name.

Sweat on my brow, bile in my mouth, body quivering with tension, as soon as I was calm enough I spun in place and looked around (I wasn't yet sure how to move, since there was no ground and I was literally floating in empty space). My first impression held true upon closer inspection: Endless black void stretched in all directions, up and down and left and right, which meant there really wasn't a true "up and down and left and right" at all. The endlessness of it staggered. Off in the distance floated the desiccated wreckage of an office building, at least six stories of it, but at this distance I could cover its shape with my thumb. Houses, cars, slabs of concrete, empty cans, dead leaves and trees, scraps of shredded newspaper, it swirled around me like a galaxy of trash, disappearing against the void as it trailed off into the distance. Any normal person would panic at the sight of it, I maintain.

Few, however, would feel the impressions of weirdness and strangeness and creepiness dissolve into the sensation of familiarity. But as I floated there, not daring to look into the emptiness below my feet, that emotion filled my chest to bursting. It had started filling me even while I panicked, from the very first second I opened my eyes in this strange locale.

Against all odds—I knew where I was.

I knew what had happened.

Now the question was, why was I here… and what were the odds of me making it out alive?

My breath hitched at that last thought. The air tasted like dust, damp earth, and static electricity. Pulse fluttered in my wrists and in the roof of my mouth like a living, squirming worm.

I swallowed. I breathed deep. I tried very hard not to panic again.

I had answers, and that wasn't nothing. But it wasn't exactly something, either, considering the nature of those answers to begin with.

My mind raced in those first few minutes, as is only natural, but when time passed and nothing happened, I relaxed in spite of myself. Difficult to remain in a state of panic for prolonged periods, especially without stimuli to perpetuate that panic. It's too tiring to keep up in perpetuity. So I relaxed, and I just… floated there, on the wind of the void, weightless and directionless and still. Sometimes in the distance, bits of rubble struck with an echo like coconuts colliding on an ocean tide. Debris created interesting patterns as it drifted on a lazy, meandering current I couldn't quite pin down with the naked eye. Was this space endless? Did it have borders? Maybe looping edges that always put you back at the same spot? Or could I wander away from this spot, into the abyss, and never be found again?

Was it even possible for anyone to come and find me?

Had the others even realized I was gone?

That last hypothetical was too depressing an option to consider, so I did what anyone would do in my situation, I think: I wrapped my arms around myself, rolled onto my side, and slept.

It was late, after all, and I'd been up since dawn.

Over the sound of the wind in the trees and the songs of the birds on the branches, the din of a car alarm and the blare of a stereo reminded me that I was not, in fact, in the woods somewhere with Hiei, but rather standing in a bit of overgrown park in the heart of Sarayashiki. Ayame had just closed her notebook dossier, having reviewed my weekly report and found it up to her exacting standards, and she looked totally out of place in her kimono against a backdrop of tangled bramble. Sun shone hot on the back of my neck as tall grass tickled my knees beneath my skirt; I sneezed, pollen heavy on the air and making my eyes water.

(Dimly I knew I was not, in fact, in a park at all, and that this was a dream, but I did not choose to wrest control over it and go Lucid. Instead I let the dream play out, because watching a dream—or maybe this was a memory, of sorts—was better than being stuck in… well. In the place I had been before, nameless-but-totally-recognizable as it was.)

Ayame looked up from her notebook. Hesitated. Asked: "May I ask you a question?"

It wasn't like her to ask permission, first. She liked throwing me off balance. Ayame was nothing if not a lover of tests and games, after all, played behind her mask of unfailing social niceties. As a result, I quirked a brow at her, and I was rewarded with another moment of hesitation.

She soon got over it, though, and asked: "How is Sanada Kuroko?"

I didn't reply right away—too shocked, if I'm being honest. Ayame had knocked me off balance even with forewarning, but then again, who can blame me? It had been some time since I'd first met Kuroko. I'd been waiting for Ayame to allude to my trip to see the former Detective for quite a while, but the reckoning had never come. At some point I just had to assume Spirit World hadn't found out about my connection with Kuroko, but maybe since I'd introduced her to Shizuru…

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "So you know about that."

"Of course."

"How?"

"We have our methods," Ayame said, but she did not elaborate.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. Be that way. And to answer your question, she seems good. Has two kids. They keep her busy."

Ayame looked pensive. "Children. Yes. Their names are Kaisei and Fubuki, as I recall."

"That's right." I shot her a crooked grin. "What, you have your eye on them to replace Yusuke when the time comes?"

"No." Her tone firmed; I suspected she didn't understand I was just joking. "Sanada-san served Spirit World well. At her request, we intend to keep her and her family out of Spirit World matters."

I nodded—but then I hesitated, too, as Ayame had before. Ayame didn't appear to notice, though. She looked at her dossier again, flipping through the pages and jotting something with a pen she produced from the depths of her voluminous sleeves.

"Say, Ayame?" I said. She looked up from her book. "Kuroko is quite a bit older than Yusuke. She said she retired a long time ago. I did a little math, and… well." My hands twisted together, sweaty all of a sudden. "Did Spirit World really go so long without an operative in place?"

This was all hedging, of course. I knew damn well about Sensui—not that Ayame knew that. Hell, even Kuroko hadn't mentioned Sensui to me yet. My main hope here was to get Ayame talking about Sensui, scour information about him way ahead of his first canon appearance, prepare myself for something that was still months and months away. I'm an overachiever like that, courtesy of Keiko.

But, no dice. Ayame did not intend to indulge me. Instead she put on her very best impenetrable yamato nadeshiko face and asked, "Does it strike you as unreasonable for us to go without a Detective for any length of time?"

I gave her a Look. "You seem intent on monitoring Human World, so yeah, actually. It does."

Her smile was somehow both mocking and demure; Ayame has skills. "Perhaps you don't understand Spirit World as well as you assume," she murmured.

But I was not impressed. "I think I know you pretty well at this point."

"Hmm." Which was a total non-answer, of course. Very 'Ayame.' She shut her book and stowed it in her sleeve before she bowed. "It was pleasant chatting, Keiko, but I must be off."

A very Ayame-style goodbye, one I could not argue with. Trying to get Ayame talking when she didn't want to converse was like demanding directions from a brick wall. I sighed and turned on my heel, mentally preparing myself to wade through the brush and out of the clearing. "Till next week," I said over my shoulder. "And travel safe."

"And you, as well." But I heard her draw in a deep breath, and I didn't walk away. "Keiko?"

I looked at her out of one eye. "Yeah?"

Ayame did not immediately respond. I turned back around. She stood with hands folded inside her sleeves, their long, black trains almost brushing the tops of her white socks and bamboo sandals. She wore a red pin in her coifed hair today. It was shaped like a salmon leaping through water, cresting through the glossy folds of her black hair as if it swam through waves of ink.

"Yusuke is a…" She paused. "He is a free spirit."

"That's a nice way of calling him a ne'er-do-well punk, but sure," I said. "I'll take it."

Her eyes sharpened. "No. I don't mean that as a negative. Yusuke is…" Another hesitation. She spoke with care—with even more care than usual for my very particular Ayame. Every syllable resonated with intention as she explained, "Yusuke goes where the wind takes him. Aside from his death, resurrection, and his swift rise in power, he is in many respects a normal teenage boy."

"I suppose?" I said.

And still she hesitated. Her eyes dropped to her feet, then skated across the grassy ground to mine. Inch by inch her gaze climbed upward until she met my eyes. Smiled, but only slightly—and in that look, I saw something raw. A vulnerability I didn't understand, like perhaps she spoke without artifice at last, her walls and machinations stripped away to reveal true feeling lying hidden underneath.

"Don't let him lose that," she said to me.

I frowned. "What do you…?"

And her walls slammed back into place. Ayame's hands dropped from her sleeves and folded in front of her stomach as she bowed, face hidden behind her shiny hair and the glimmering comb upon it. "I mean only that between his assignments, I hope you will indulge him," that leaping salmon seemed to say. "Till next week."

"See you soon," I replied, though all I wanted was to follow as she turned and headed for the trees—

—but I didn't follow, because this wasn't a dream. It was a memory. It was a dream of a memory, and I had not followed after Ayame on that day in the woods. I had stayed behind and watched her leave, and if I followed her now, whatever came after would be a fabrication of my mind. A wish I made, and fulfilled, because this was my dream and I held all the power here. All my wishes in my dreams, I could grant.

Instead, I watched her go.

I let the memory-dream shred into shards of shapeless color.

My sleep became dreamless again, and when I awoke, I barely remembered the dream at all.

The distraction of dreaming only lasted so long, of course, and soon I announced to the endless void: "Well, this is utterly and completely boring, now isn't it?"

No one answered me. I hadn't expected anyone to do so. I'd awoken after a time (my watch said an hour, maybe an hour and a half) and found myself less panicky, though still dog tired. A long period of tense, silent floating followed my nap, during which I mulled over all the possibilities of escape from this horrible place. None were available to me, however, and soon I had to relax simply because it was too tiring to be tense anymore. My watch informed me it was 3 AM, after all. I'd been eaten by the monster around 1:15 or so. That meant I'd been here, floating, for almost two hours. Sleep threatened, eyes heavy once my thinking became too circuitous to sustain, but I didn't want to fall asleep again. No sleeping. No thinking. Just… floating.

And thus, I became bored.

"I mean really." My words didn't carry far in the endless emptiness, vanishing as if I'd spoken against wet cotton. "What's the deal—somebody's trying to bore me to death?"

Well. More like starve me to death. Thirst me to death? I'd die of dehydration before lack of food. But there was no sense in giving anybody ideas, so I didn't say that out loud.

Was anyone even listening?

I got the hunch at least one person might be. In truth, though, I was talking aloud as much for my benefit as for his. The silence was going to deafen me soon, I felt sure of it.

"This fucking blows." I laced my hands behind my head, leaning back against… well. Nothing at all. "Damn shadow demon could have at least swallowed a few magazines for me to read, but noooo. Instead I have to entertain myself like—like a zoo animal, or whatever." I sat up, sort of, managing a grin. "And a bored Keiko is a destructive Keiko. I'm like a border collie in an apartment, really."

With a flex of muscle, I swam (it was easy once you got the hang of it) through the abyss toward a pocket of debris. Moving through the void was kind of like flying in a lucid dream: If you just surged forward, eye on your destination, the momentum would come and carry you forward. I glided toward an eight-foot slab of shattered concrete and a cracked wooden door, at the foot of which lay a single, punctured tire and a bunch of cardboard boxes, plus a few loose bricks. I grabbed the tire with one hand (there was no weight here, which was interesting) and threw it like a shotput away from me, momentum sending me flying backward until I bumped the concrete block. The tire flew through space toward another lump of trash, colliding with it with a loud pop. The trash-lump disintegrated, bits of it spinning in myriad directions through the darkness until they vanished from view.

"And like any good zoo animal," I remarked to no one, "I will find a way to entertain myself."

It became a game, really. I tried to hit trash with other trash, a game of pool played without pockets or cues—so not like pool at all, I guess, but whatever, I was bored and please cut me some slack. I'd throw a piece of garbage (sometimes huge chunks of rock I'd never be able to lift outside of this space, which was fun) and try to shatter a cluster of debris. The game evolved so that if I could knock one cluster loose and make it shatter another cluster, I got an extra point. Though no one was keeping score, so…

No one was keeping score.

Unlike my New Year's games with my friends.

Friends who were either freaking out about my disappearance, or friends who hadn't noticed I was gone, and I wasn't sure which was worse.

Would they be able to find me, if they noticed I'd vanished?

Because we weren't at the right part in the Yu Yu Hakusho plot yet for them to suspect the right perpetrators, which meant they had no clues, nothing to go on, not a single damn iota of—

My lungs quaked. My pulse quickened. I inhaled, chest shaking, and ran my hands through my hair.

Calm down, girl. Just play your game, and try to keep the faith.

But when I looked around for a new bit of garbage to throw, I saw that I'd depleted the pocket I'd been picking from. I kicked off the nearest object and sailed to a new lump, chucking a brick at a far-off trash heap with frantic vigor. It connected with a pop; I reached to my left for a big chunk of concrete, hefting it above my head like a strongman lifting a weight.

I paused with it held over my head.

Beneath the concrete lay a skull.

It wasn't a human skull, by the look of it. For one thing, it was the length of my torso, and for another, few humans had four eyes arranged in a diamond above a fanged mouth and protracted, horse-like muzzle. Curled horns jutted from its forehead. The bone looked white, almost bleached, all of its former flesh stripped away. Beneath the skull lay a pile of bones, a ribcage fallen to pieces atop a curving spine and at least four arms, all of it bleached the same dramatic white as the skull itself.

With care I placed the concrete back where I'd found it. Reached for a different piece of trash. Flung it toward a garbage pile, only for it to miss and sail unhindered into the distance.

A bead of cold sweat trickled down my face.

My palms felt clammy, so I wiped them on my dress.

"I do wish you'd stop knocking things about," someone said. "My pet is developing quite a case of indigestion, the poor thing."

I'm not sure why I didn't scream at the sound of his smooth, articulate voice. Maybe the numbness building like ice inside my chest kept my lungs frozen, locked in place by dread and fear, rendering me voiceless. Whatever the case, I didn't even scream when I spun in place and found him floating not too far away, only just out of arm's reach at the edge of my chosen trash-pile. He regarded me with a small half-smile, arms crossing over his chest.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," I said.

He waited. Neither of us spoke. He wore human clothes, a leather jacket over a fitted white tee and tailored jeans, pale skin luminous in the darkness of the void. Despite his outfit, different than what I thought he'd wear, I knew who he was at first glance. The distant triumph that streaked through me at that realization (I was right, you see, all my predictions coming true in one fell swoop) didn't taste too sweet, though.

I was right, but being right wasn't necessarily a good thing.

For once in my life, I wished I'd been wrong—because his appearance shredded my hopes of rescue into tatters.

If I was getting out of here, it would be at his discretion, and no one else's.

Not that I had the time to indulge my feelings of despair. I had a role to act. I had a play to perform. So I knocked loose the ice in my throat and pasted on my best Stern-Keiko-Face, all no nonsense, Type A formality and righteous indignation oozing from every pore.

"Who the fuck are you," I said, "and where the hell am I?"

The cursing was all Not-Quite-Keiko and no Classic-Keiko, of course, but the man in the leather jacket didn't appear to mind it either way. He just smiled a little wider and inclined his head, silky hair falling in dark green curls around his shoulders.

"I am Itsuki, and we are in the stomach of a demon called the Uraotoko." Golden eyes looked me up and down, gauging my reaction (one which I squelched down as hard as I possibly could). "He is my pet, of a sort. His stomach is something of a pocket dimension, almost endless—but do be careful with him, I beg you."

And, yup—the truth of the matter, exactly as predicted, all spelled out in plain language: I was, in fact, inside the stomach of the demon that had eaten the boys while Yusuke and Sensui fought, the one Kuwabara broke them out of with his dimension-cutting sword.… but I hadn't expected Itsuki to be so forward, if we're being honest, and for a second I found myself too stunned to move.

I recovered quickly enough, though. "OK," I said, flipping my bangs out of my face. "Why I am here?"

His head tilted to the side, just so. "Interesting."

"… what is?"

"You don't flinch at the thought of demons, or at being swallowed by one. You took that information very much in stride, Yukimura Keiko." His smile got just a little bigger yet again. "I find that fascinating."

His scrutiny sent a shiver up my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself. "Yeah. Well. This isn't the first demon I've met." I paused. "First I've been in the stomach of, thank god, but you get what I mean."

He nodded. "Running in the same circle as the Spirit Detective likely puts you in the paths of many demons, I suspect."

Another wave of shock swept through me, but it dislodging the last of the ice in my throat. "You know I know the Spirit Detective?" My eyes narrowed. "Have you been following me?"

"My pet has." A hint of teeth crept into his smile. "A few of your friends felt him for the shortest of moments, but he slipped away too quickly for them to follow. Your friends will be powerful someday. But they aren't there quite yet, I'm afraid."

I wanted to make a snide remark about my friends being plenty powerful, thank you very much, but I bit the retort back at the last second. Itsuki was dangerous—and much though I hated to admit it, he was right. My friends weren't nearly on his level, let alone the level of Sensui himself (where was Sensui, anyway?). I'd encountered Itsuki way too early in the plot for my friends to truly pose him any threat. No use antagonizing him, in that case. Not if there was even the slightest chance of my friends getting hurt by this demon.

So, I opted for another approach. I spread my hands in a helpless shrug and grinned, wry and full of faux-insouciance. "Heh. This just isn't fair," I told him with a shake of my head. "Clearly you know all about me, but I know nothing about you besides your name." At that I crossed my arms over my chest, Keiko-Stare firmly in place. "I'm going to ask you again. Why am I here? Why did you abduct me?"

Itsuki's head tilted. "Abductions is such an ugly word."

I snorted. "Do you prefer 'kidnapping?'"

"More like… an invitation you can't refuse."

"You've been watching too much Godfather."

"Perhaps." It was his turn to shrug. "I do love human cinema."

A stray fact from YYH, one I had forgotten, floated to the forefront of my mind: Itsuki was a fan of human TV. Unable to help my curiosity, I asked, "What's your favorite genre?"

That seemed to please him, judging by the delighted glimmer in his gaze. "I enjoy dramas. Period pieces are my favorite."

"Because of the costumes?" I asked. "I love the costumes."

"I do, as well," Itsuki told me.

"You really should try Bride of the Water God." I mentally cursed myself for giving him TV recommendations, but I couldn't help myself. "K-drama, absolutely stunning costumes and set design. You'll love it."

"Thank you. I'll try to track it down." His eyes distanced themselves, staring far into the endless abyss. "But beyond the costumes, I enjoy the insight into human history. No matter the costume it wears, human nature truly transcends time and zeitgeists shifting, doesn't it?"

Shakespeare rolled off my tongue on reflex: "'We know what we are, but not what we may be.'"

At that he frowned—and for a second I feared I upset him. "I'm afraid I don't speak English," was all he said, however.

"Pity. It's a lovely turn of phrase." I shook my head again. "But you never answered my question. Why did you abduct me?"

Once again, he answered me without prevarication. "You've thrown quite the wrench into certain plans I have been seeing to fruition," Itsuki said—and at this vague mention of Sensui's plot, a chill clattered up my back. "I want to know why."

"Plans?" Playing dumb felt like my only option. "Sorry, but what plans are these, exactly?"

Finally Itsuki hesitated, no longer firing off answers like a machine gun—which was a damn shame. My brain shot off rapid-fire calculations of its own, darting this way and that through the realm of possibility, trying to determine how best to play out the verbal spar in which I'd found myself embroiled. It was imperative, I reasoned, that I get Itsuki talking. It was imperative I asked more than I answered. Clearly I couldn't say too much. Talking presented a clear danger, a danger that lurked in the line between what Not-Quite-Keiko knew about Itsuki and Sensui frim the anime, and what Yukimura Keiko could possibly know from her time spent in this world. I had to be mindful of that border. The more info Itsuki spilled, the more Yukimura Keiko would know, reconciling what Not-Quite-Keiko knew with what Yukimura Keiko had learned in this new life. The more Itsuki talked, the more I could say without arousing his suspicions… and the fewer lies he could catch me in.

Get him talking, then.

That was the key.

And it might even be the key to getting out of this place, if I played my cards right.

A plan. I only had the vaguest of plans, but if I kept him talking, maybe I'd have more time to come up with something good.

After a time, Itsuki finally spoke. "My business is nothing you need to worry about." At that he even looked a little apologetic. "The fact of the matter is that you've interfered, and thus, you must be investigated."

"You're going to have to be more specific." I drummed my fingers on my arm and lifted a brow. "In what way, exactly, did I interfere?"

I expected him to dodge the question, or answer it with a prepared statement about keeping identities private—finished by some subtle-yet-smartass comment about how I surely understood one's need for privacy. Instead, Itsuki surprised me. His eyes widened, white showing all the way around his golden irises like coins dropped onto snow.

"Do you not already know?" he asked.

"Uh." His surprised reaction took me aback, made me stumble just a little. "How could I?"

But Itsuki didn't reply right away. He put a hand to his chin, staring down at his feet as I watched, and waited. One long finger tapped his cheek.

"Interesting," he murmured. "Running in the same circle as…" His eyes flickered to me, pensive and perceptive. "And yet you know nothing. They aren't keeping you as informed as we anticipated, it seems."

"By 'they,' I assume you mean Spirit World," I said, because it felt like a safe guess. He'd been watching me; he had to know I knew about them. I shrugged, lips twisting in a grimace. "Sorry, but Spirit World gets off on being enigmatic and not providing people with critical information. It's annoying."

Itsuki chuckled, low and warm in his chest. "They haven't changed at all, then."

The statement, so short and simple, said far more than those six little words implied. I latched onto the meaning like a lamprey and sunk my teeth in deep. "You've dealt with them before," I said, not bothering to phrase that as a question. "And earlier you mentioned the Detective." When Itsuki's eyes widened, I couldn't help but smirk. "Can I hazard a guess you've had a run-in with one of Yusuke's predecessors?"

"In a manner of speaking." He wagged a finger at me. "You're a sharp one, Yukimura Keiko."

"Thank you." No sense telling him I was cheating, in a way, and that he was giving me too much credit. "But you should know something."

Another of his curious head-tilts. "And what is that?"

"My friends will be coming for me." I hoped so, anyway, and I tried to look confident about the possibility. "You haven't hurt me. You've been polite. I'm inclined to believe you don't have any intention of doing otherwise, provided you get what you want out of this conversation."

His mouth curled. "Sharp again."

"Thanks again," I said. "But my friends—and this isn't a threat, I promise. It's more like a word of caution." My hands came up, palms toward him in an 'I surrender' gesture. "I'm not being menacing, I swear."

If he appreciated the assurance, he didn't show it. "Go on," was all he said, eyes narrowing just a tad.

"OK." A deep breath filled my lungs. "My friends are going to notice I'm gone. They're going to try to find me. In an ideal universe, you'd return me to my home before they find wherever this is and things get messy—for their sake as much as yours." It took a bit of willpower to force a winning grin onto my face, but I did it, trying to look congenial despite the painful awareness that Itsuki held all the power here. "I'm totally willing to answer your questions, for the good of us both, if you'll return me to my home in short order. Don't want my buddies getting too worked up in my absence, y'know?"

Maybe it was my grin, or my friendly demeanor, or just the whole monologue I'd spewed, but Itsuki's shoulders shook as he laughed, eyes closing with humor. When he opened them again, he offered me another of his cool, bland smiles. "Well, now," he said, laughter still coloring his voice like paint. "How can I argue with such efficient logic?"

I stared at him. "I can't tell if you're patronizing me or not."

"Six of one. Half a dozen of the other." His smile grew. "You have no idea of the danger you're in."

He didn't make it sound like a threat. Just an observation, if of a dire nature—but I knew that Itsuki would not have said those words without reason. My pulse quickened. "Well. I saw the skull. I think that gave me a hint." I swallowed down the emotion in my throat. "You've left demons in here to starve to death, haven't you?"

Itsuki didn't reply right away. He just looked at me, looked and looked until I had to look away, toe kicking at an empty beer bottle as it floated by. Light glinted off the glossy glass in a rainbow shimmer—and just where was the light in here coming from, anyway? Did this thing have a bioluminescent sub-space stomach or something?

"I rather like you, I think." Itsuki raised his chin, smiling at my surprise with obvious satisfaction. "I wasn't sure at first, but I have just decided."

His fond stare was more than a little unnerving. Without thinking I blurted, "I'm not going to date until I turn 18, unfortunately."

He laughed. "Oh. Don't worry, Yukimura-san. You're not my type. But one doesn't have to be someone else's type to be friends."

I gave him my best 'excuse you, but aren't you forgetting something?' kind of stare. "Sorry-not-sorry, but friends also don't often abduct friends, so…"

He gave me a look of his own, full of comical admonishment. "Why, Yukimura. I thought we had established that I prefer 'offers one can't refuse.'"

"Oh, right." My eyes rolled like loose marble. "My mistake. I won't let it happen again. But while we're on the subject, what are your feelings on 'forcible relocations' or 'child-snatchings?'"

Another laugh, louder than the one before. "You're funny. I appreciate that." His humor was not meant to last, golden eyes tarnishing. "But in the end, I think I agree. We had best make this quick, hadn't we?"

"On that, we are in agreement." I kept my tone chipper, bright, and not at all reflective of how I felt inside. "Let the interrogation begin."

I thought he would, perhaps, react to the dramatic 'interrogation' the way he'd reacted to 'abduction,' but he didn't. Itsuki simply inclined his head, looked at me down the length of his chiseled nose, and said, "Why did you befriend Tsukihito Amanuma?"

My surprise wasn't fake, even if my question wasn't sincere. "Amanuma? You know Amanuma?" I said.

"Yes," came Itsuki's simple reply.

I floundered some more, stunned he'd name-dropped the kid so soon. "What do you want with a little kid?" I asked, because that was all I could think to say.

"Nothing untoward, I assure you," he said.

And that was all he said. He stood (well, floated) in place in silence, watching as I gaped and tried to form words and failed quite hard at the latter. I opened my mouth more than once to speak, but each time the words died before bubbling back up again. Itsuki's smile seemed amused, but he was hard to read—kind of like Hiruko, sort of, who never stopped smiling and thus was as easy to interpret as the patterns of birds in flight. Eventually, though, I managed to get my face back under control—and with that control came a realization.

Itsuki had handed me quite the opening, mentioning the kid like that, and I intended to take every advantage of this opportunity—even if some small part of me whispered that I should be careful, because this might very well be bait. But what could he be baiting me toward, anyway?

I told the little voice to shut up, and I summoned my courage instead.

"You're that friend Amanuma dumped recently," I said.

It felt gratifying indeed to watch Itsuki go still. He didn't move a muscle, eyes trained on me without flinching, chest even pausing in its steady rise and fall.

"Or… no. Not you." My head tilted, mimicking his motion from before. "But you know who that friend he dumped is or was. Or at least you know all about that situation."

Itsuki said nothing. He remained still as a statue carved from ice.

"If I had to guess," I continued, "I'd say you aren't acting alone tonight." My lips quirked. "And I don't just mean you had the help of your demon pet."

Once again, Itsuki didn't reply—but then, slowly, he raised his hands. Clapped them together once, twice, three times. The sound vanished into the abyss as my voice had, muffled like he'd clapped underwater. Even if I'd knocked him off balance before, Itsuki had calmed again, shoulders relaxing as his hands struck together, lips curving back into his serene smile.

"You have not ceased to impress me yet, Yukimura-san," he said, hands falling to his sides. "Tell me. How did you guess?"

"You said 'we' earlier." (And the fact that I'd seen the anime; I wasn't nearly as smart as he thought I was.) "So..."

"Ah. An unfortunate slip." Regret crossed his features, but only for a moment. "And the rest?"

"Not hard to figure out." Another shrug. "Amanuma told me he an adult friend who was asking him, um… foreboding questions, I guess you could say. I told him adults shouldn't need help from children, and then Amanuma said he cut that friend loose. And now you're here, an adult, asking about Amanuma." I held up my fingers, two on each hand. Bumped them together. Put two down on one hand and four up on the other, addition made visible. "Two plus two makes a very suspicious four," I said, waggling my digits.

Itsuki's brows lifted. "I see."

I crossed my arms over my chest again. "So let me guess. You're upset I warned him away from you, or your friend, or whomever. Right?"

"Right," he agreed. "It should interest you to know that found you through the use of pronoun analysis and basic math, as well."

My heart stuttered. "Oh?"

"Yes. When Amanuma… how did you put it?" He fought to keep a smile off his face. "When he 'dumped' my friend, Amanuma quoted someone. A 'she.' And you are the only 'she' he appears to know, aside from the mother who pays him no attention. Thus, you were not hard to find."

His expression—beatific, almost, and certainly serene—didn't falter even an iota at the mention of Amanuma's absentee mother. His lack of reaction grated on me, but only for a moment. Sensui had been the one to befriend Amanuma. Perhaps Itsuki didn't have any feelings about the boy at all, even if he'd literally abducted me (I won't cater to his euphemisms in my internal monologue, thank you) to ask questions about him. His poker face made it hard to say for sure. No matter how he felt about Amanuma, however, it was clear how I felt about the boy. Now how to word it? How to put it, both without lying and endangering myself as well as evading the inconvenient truth?

I squared my shoulders, dragging a breath of stale, demon-stomach air through my nose. "And now we're here," I said.

"And now we're here," said Itsuki.

"And you want to know why I befriended Amanuma," I said.

Itsuki's tone remained neutral—pleasant, even—when he said, "Yes."

"Well. I'm pretty sure my answer is going to disappoint you."

His brow knit, forest green hooding golden eyes. "Oh?"

"I did it because he was lonely." A shrug, one I hoped looked both natural and dismissive. "He was a lonely kid and he stuck to us like glue. At first I wasn't even sure I wanted him around. He grew on me, though, after a while." I studied Itsuki, looking for confirmation in his Mona Lisa smile. "You know he was at my party tonight, right?"

He didn't leave me to wonder, admitting "I'm aware" with an absent nod.

"Cool. Well, he gets along well with the rest of my friends. I just need to find him some buddies his own age, and he'll be all set." I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck before flapping my hands like embarrassed wings. "My friends call me an albatross, you know. Wide wings. I like to shelter people under them if they'll let me. So when he approached us looking like a kicked puppy—well. How could I not take him under these wings, right?"

I stopped flapping, hands falling to my sides when Itsuki didn't reply. His eyes traced the path of my hands as they descended. I couldn't tell if he believed a word I'd said, of course. He was too bland, too purposefully passive to give much away—not that there was much to see beyond what I'd said. Every last word out of my mouth had been true. Half-truths? Sure, but truths nonetheless. If Itsuki sensed deception, it was only in part, as I had told not a single lie. I had indeed let Amanuma shelter under my wingspan because he was lonely and I wanted to fight that loneliness. The whole "disrupt Sensui's plan" bit was just a side-effect. Would Itsuki even believe me if I told him how I knew about Sensui? "Hey, I'm from another world and I know about your lover's plans from a manga series aimed at teen boys" only sounded so plausible…

Itsuki did not lift his eyes from my hands (and his expression did not move even a fraction) when he asked, lips barely moving: "You befriended him… out of kindness?"

"I'd look pretty arrogant if I agreed with that." Another shrug, this one genuine; I meant what I'd said. "Yusuke befriended Amanuma first. I just tagged along. If that is or isn't kindness… well. Who's to say?"

His amber gaze flickered up to mine. "You understand why this is hard to believe," he said—a statement, not a question.

But I would not be intimidated. I did not let our eye contact waver when I said, "No, Itsuki-san. I don't."

And thus we stared at one another like a pair of cowboys facing off at either end of a boomtown's main street. Hands twitching toward the guns on our belts, air thrumming with tension as we sized one another up, each daring the other to talk next, strike first, really get this gunfight started. "Giddy up, buckaroo," I thought to myself—but when Itsuki's chin dipped, those hooded eyes glimmering under the shadow of his brow, my heart faltered in my chest.

Itsuki was pleasant enough to talk to. He liked movies. He could quip with the best of them. He wasn't calling names or intimidating me physically—but it would do me well to remember he was a demon (and a powerful one, at that) while I was just a girl.

A girl stuck inside his pet's impenetrable stomach.

A girl whose friends couldn't save her from this elusive place.

A girl who was entirely dependent on the whims of this demon for respite.

Sweat beaded on my temple. Rolled down my cheek in a cool trickle. Coursed over my neck and beneath the collar of my dress, catching on the chain of the necklace I wore beneath it. The metal rasped against my skin, scents of metal and salt collecting in my nose like sand in a glass.

"I don't sense deceit from you." Itsuki's words, murmured oh so quietly, nevertheless made me startle. For a second my heart lifted, but it dropped just as fast when he added, "But I sense evasion. As if you hold something close to your chest." He gave me the look my mother gave me when I hid a pleasant surprise from her. "You're not the only one who can read people, Yukimura-san."

I put on my very best look of skepticism. "Evasion? I'm not evading." Placed a hand on my chest. "Go ahead: Ask me anything."

And so Itsuki did. "What do you know of former Spirit Detectives?" he said, wasting not a moment. "Those who came before your friend Yusuke?"

"I've met Kuroko Sanada."

Itsuki stared. "And?"

"And, nothing." Another of my dismissive shrugs, one that hid the frantic beating of my evasive heart. "Ayame—that's the lady from Spirit World I talk to sometimes, as I'm sure you've figured out." I waited for his nod of confirmation before I continued. "Anyway. Ayame hasn't mentioned anyone but Sanada." Another truth. Ayame had never mentioned Sensui, even when I asked.

A beat passed. Itsuki said, "I see."

If he believed me, he wasn't going to tell me so. He did not say anything else and his face gave away nothing whatsoever. I should know. I stared at it for a lot longer than I want to admit before giving up with a sigh.

"Cryptic." I tutted. "Are all demons cryptic, or do I just keep meeting all the most oblique examples?"

At that he smiled. "Now, now," he said. "Do you really want me to ruin the surprise of that discovery?"

"What about ruining the surprise of what's going on behind the scenes?" I countered. "You've talked about Spirit Detectives, you're asking about them… why the interest? Do you and the 'we' you mentioned have something against Detectives?"

Itsuki stilled again, as he had before. For a brief moment I thought perhaps I'd said too much, had hinted that I knew more than I was saying—but, no. That was a logical leap to make. Itsuki was just being secretive again.

"I mean, the one I deal with is annoying as hell, so I wouldn't blame you too much." I grinned to show I was joking, trying to lighten the mood. "Mine's young, though. Still growing. Cut him some slack if he pisses you off, I guess."

My ploy worked. "Fear not: My friends and I have no intention of running afoul of the current Detective," Itsuki said—and despite his pleasant smile, it did not escape my notice that he'd said 'friends,' plural. All seven of Sensui, or Sensui and the recruited psychics? I couldn't be sure. Itsuki continued: "Meeting the newest Detective would be most inconvenient at this stage."

I tried not to look too eager. "This stage of…?"

But my attempt at fishing only earned me a smile full of scolding. "Come now, Yukimura. I'm not some villain from the movies who will spill their plans to the hero on a whim. You should know better than that."

"Heh. Worth a shot." But I looked at him with new and different interest. His language was, as always, telling. "Do you consider yourself a villain, Itsuki-san?"

"Everyone is the hero of their own story," came his smooth reply.

"Now who's evading?"

I thought, perhaps, we'd verbally spar again, my taunt dragging from him more of that easy amiability I found rather comforting—but Itsuki didn't move or speak. He gave me a level stare, empty and inscrutable, for a moment that turned to two, then three, before there came a faint ripple in the space behind his suspended body. Images of broken buildings and cracked concrete distorted like a heat mirage before a line of black sliced the air. No sooner had it appeared than did it expand, blooming outward like a flower of pure, undulating dark. Into this Itsuki sank, disappearing into the pit and out of sight, and then with the same abruptness it had appeared the darkness faded, leaving behind the unbroken view of the Uraotoko's ceaseless innards.

Itsuki's laugh, soft as a fist encased in velvet, stroked the air at my back, tracing up my nape like the tip of a cold hand. I spun with a curse, heart hammering against my diaphragm like a punch to the unwary gut. He stood only a few feet away, head tilted nearly at a right angle, one lock of thick green hair resting silken against his pale cheek.

"Yes," he said. "I do like you, after all." His eyes softened like he beheld the face of someone dear. "And I like what you will one day become even more."

"What I'll one day…?" I said, repeating him the only thing of which I felt capable.

He nodded. "Truth be told, Keiko…" He paused. "May I call you Keiko?"

It was all I could do to stammer a stunned, "S-sure."

"Wonderful." His smile blossomed. "Truth be told, I was told to stay away from you. But my friends can be so shortsighted at times, even in all their brilliance. They cast aside that which no longer benefits them without a backward glance."

"You mean Amanuma?" I managed to ask.

"Yes." Gold eyes darkened with odd melancholy. "In some ways, their willingness to sacrifice that which they deem unnecessary makes me wonder just how expendable I am. It makes me wonder if they care not because they value me, but because they value what I can give them." The melancholy faded, smile beatific once again. "But the mystery of that—the pure tension of it? The television dramas I enjoy cannot capture even an iota of that exquisite tension. And I will admit that nothing entrances me more."

"Doesn't exactly sound healthy," I somehow found the nerve to jest.

"As the most delicious things so often are." Itsuki continued to study my face, smile widening all the more. "Yes. Yes. I think my friends should meet you."

He meant Sensui. No doubt about that, no lack of clarity as far as this looming doom was concerned, nope, nooo, that was exactly what he meant, and I got the sense that by "friends" he might really mean all seven personalities Sensui himself. At this stage in canon, Elder Toguro couldn't have joined forced with Sensui quite yet, so unless he'd already amassed a few followers even before their Territories manifested… yeah, Itsuki probably meant Sensui and his many selves, a prospect of which I was well and truly fucking terrified. Itsuki gave me the wiggins, sure, but Sensui himself? That was death incarnate, and something told me he'd see straight through any games I tried to play. I should convince Itsuki it was a bad idea, try to put him off of making introductions, try to—

Unless.

It was unlikely Sensui would come here, into the stomach of the Uraotoko. Too informal a meeting place. Too undignified, maybe. This was Itsuki's bag, not Sensui's, and besides: Itsuki had implied Sensui didn't know I was here. Maybe Itsuki would take me to Sensui, and not the other way around.

Which meant Itsuki would escort me out of this prison.

Which meant my friends might be able to find me.

Which meant my half-baked plan to be saved, which hinged on persuading Itsuki to release me, might actually come to fruition… even if it meant facing Sensui himself.

It was tempting. It was so tempting to go along with Itsuki. But it was also dangerous, so freakin' dangerous to meet Sensui alone, so early along in the flow of canon, and with not a single one of my friends around for backup.

But if I stayed here, I'd end up like that demon. I'd end up a bleached skull and some scattered bones, alone and forgotten in the belly of shadow monster. And that was a fate I just couldn't stomach, if you'll pardon the atrocious pun—which left me with only one option, and one that I had to take.

This was, as Itsuki would say, an offer I couldn't refuse.

"Would you like to meet my friends, Keiko?" Itsuki said as I dragged my gaze to his. He showed his teeth when he smiled, drifting close enough for me to smell the oil on his leather jacket. "Meet my friends, and perhaps satisfy the curiosity I see building behind your eyes?"

I wasn't sure if he was just teasing or if my eyes really did reflect such curiosity. My heart beat too fast for me to think about it much. I licked my dry lips and threw back my head, hyperconscious of my pulse thrumming in the roof of my mouth and in the lines of my strained neck, of Itsuki's eyes on mine and the satisfaction I could already see brewing within them.

He knew my answer even before I voiced it.

"Well. What the hell? Why not?" I said, and I gave Itsuki a roguish grin that complemented the caution I'd just chucked into the wind. "Girl can never have too many friends, right?"

Itsuki seemed to agree, because he smiled back—and behind him another portal swirled darkly into being.

Notes:

And we're back.

Chapter 76. Wait. What does that remind me of? Oh yeah: "Seventy-six trombones hit the counterpoint, while a hundred and ten coronets played the bridge; to the rhythm of—" Ahem. Sorry. Burst into song, there. But Extra Special Brownie Points to whosoever should recognize those lyrics offhand. Any guesses? Eh? EH? EEEEHHH?

All Broadway references aside, some of you 100% guessed what was happening as soon as you read about the shadow monster at the end of chapter 75. The Uraotoko in the anime/manga is a short-lived bit character, making him easy to forget. I forgot about for a long while, truth be told, and only remembered just in time for the New Year's Story Arc. I was happy to get to use him for dramatic effect, lol.

During my hiatus I started writing and posting a fic for the Pokémon fandom (a Nuzlocke fanfic of a SoulSilver run I'm doing). Has SI elements but is veeeery different than LC. I'd love if you checked it out, if that's your thing!

SO MANY ENORMOUS THANKS for all of your support while I went on hiatus! Many of you checked in via PM, Tumblr, or reviews while I was away, and I can't tell you how much it meant to me to know you were waiting for when I got back. This is dedicated to all of you lovely folks: Everlastingice_277, mageking17, Gerbilfriend, Masked Trickster, Unctuous, Eternalevecho, SunShark, Not Quite a Morning Person, katsheswims, TokiMirage, KittyWillCutYou, guest, scallionite, Kuramag33, Vinlala, Tewdrig, actively apathetic, angelfish1214, TheInterim_VectorChaos, Sdelacruz, cosmosalone200, DragonsTower, MissZombie!

Chapter 77: The Poet

Summary:

In which NQK has no time for movies.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Although it meant my friends stood a greater chance of finding me, following Itsuki out of the belly of the beast posed a certain number of risks—the most obvious being the presence of Sensui and all the dangers his close proximity presented. However, it wasn't the former Detective's ability to hurt me I worried most about. Rather, I worried my friends were not strong enough yet to face him, and if they came for me, I feared far more for their safety than for mine.

Luckily for them, I had a backup plan that didn't hinge on the cast of Yu Yu Hakusho finding and rescuing me. That plan came with risks of its own, of course, but they were risks I felt I had to take to ensure the safety of my canon.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we stepped from the formless void of the Uraotoko's stomach and onto cold slate the color of tarnished silverware, my knees nearly gave out beneath me. I wasn't used to supporting my own weight. Stepping from abyss to terra firma felt utterly jarring, limbs much heavier than I recalled after hours spent floating in limbo. I staggered, but Itsuki's hand curled beneath my elbow and helped keep me upright.

"Careful," he murmured. "The transition from pseudo-space can take some getting used to.

Say what will about that demon, but in his own deranged way, he's almost a gentleman.

He'd taken me somewhere befitting of a gentleman, too: an open-concept high rise apartment of shocking square footage, an enviably appointed chef's kitchen blending seamlessly with an enormous greatroom, the length of the room lined with floor-to-ceiling windows running along one of the space's longer sides. These windows overlooked a skyline all aglitter with lights of every discernible color. I didn't recognize the skyscrapers beyond the glass, long though I blinked at them in the apartment's cold, dry air. Were we in Sarayashiki? Mushiyori? Tokyo? There was no telling, at least not from this height. We had to be, what, twenty stories up? I stepped toward the windows, to check and see if perhaps I could tell where we were—

Itsuki's hand closed around my arm. Not hard enough to hurt or anything. Just firmly enough to suggest I stop in my tracks, a suggestion I obeyed at once—but Itsuki didn't say anything to me. His face swung, in fact, toward the kitchen, and to the three black doors next to it that I guessed concealed pantries or bathrooms or bedrooms. Whichever. When his eyes narrowed I started to ask what was wrong, but before I could, one of Itsuki's misty portals cut the air before blooming into being.

"Apologies, Keiko, for this abrupt exit." He stepped toward the portal, pulling me along with him. "But we need to—"

The door nearest the kitchen swung inward into darkness.

"Itsuki?" said a sweet, lilting voice.

Itsuki stopped moving at once, golden eyes locked on the far-away door. Only a light in the kitchen illuminated the otherwise shadowy space, but I still managed to perceive the door swinging open wider, a face swimming from the gloom beyond like the visage of a ghost. Too dim to make out its bearer's identity, though.

"Itsuki," the person repeated. "Who's this?"

"No one," Itsuki said. His eyes cut to me, gauging my reaction. "We were just leaving." His fingers tightened on my arm. "Keiko, follow—"

"… a girl?"

Itsuki stopped again. Sighed. Allowed his hand to fall from my arm and to his side. He ran it through his hair after a moment, brushing silky green strands off of his pale face.

"Yes," said Itsuki. "She is."

The figure in the door said nothing—but then, inch by inch, they drifted forward into the light.

Only a single strip of fancy track-lights above a massive granite island illuminated the kitchen, but they case just enough platinum light across burnished copper skin, dark and narrow eyes, and chiseled cheekbones for me to determine the person's identity. My stomach dropped into my shoes and my eyes fluttered in the apartment's cold air, sapped of moisture just as thoroughly as my suddenly dry mouth. A bindi marked the space between his eyes like a nametag, and even though Itsuki offered no introductions, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

I beheld Sensui, at last—but something wasn't right.

"Oh." He took another step forward, looking me up and down with undisguised and inexplicably cheerful curiosity. He wore an oversized grey sweater over jeans, long sleeves nearly obscuring his tapered fingers. Said fingers travelled to his mouth, nails ghosting over his smile as he said, "She's pretty."

Words popped out of my mouth on reflex. "Th-thank you."

Another step closer. His voice was light and airy, like dandelion down drifting on a spring breeze, unexpected and pleasant and confusing. "I like your hair," said Sensui.

His hair wasn't slicked back like in the anime. It hung loose around his face, framing his features with long, black strands—like a bob, almost. "I like yours," I replied, because somehow the unexpected haircut suited him.

Sensui took a lock between his fingers, rubbing strands back and forth, back and forth, as he gave them a half-hearted smile. "I want to wear it longer, but they won't let—" He stopped talking, looking at Itsuki with obvious uncertainty. "How much does she know?

"Not that much," Itsuki said in a voice no louder than a whisper. His face looked gaunt in the half-light, eyes haggard with… was that worry I saw in his expression? No. It couldn't be.

"Oh." Sensui looked at his bare feet, waited a beat, and then looked at Itsuki with an expression so hopeful and eager and sincere it nearly took my breath from me. Sensui said, "I can keep a secret, Itsuki. I promise I can keep a secret. So can she stay just a little while? Please?"

"Naru." Itsuki stepped toward him, hands raised in supplication. "That isn't a good—"

Sensui's eyes widened, each the color of an infinite abyss. "Please?" he said in that same begging tone—and if I hadn't already been incapable of speech, the thought of Sensui begging surely would have rendered me mute.

It did the same to Itsuki, it seemed, because he paused. The silence reigned for a long while. Somewhere in the walls the A/C kicked on, a vent in the lofted ceiling overhead blowing icy air across my face. I blinked to bring tears back to my eyes, but it did little good, and my throat felt as dry as arid sand.

Soon Itsuki's shoulders sagged. "Fine," he said, once more passing a hand through his hair. "She can stay." And as Sensui started to smile, Itsuki lifted a finger and wagged it in Sensui's face. "But please let Minoru know we have urgent need of him."

Sensui rolled his eyes. "Spoilsport," he said, and one feet so light he almost seemed to dance, Sensui drifted across the floor, placed a hand on Itsuki's shoulder, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

Right then—as Itsuki looked into Sensui's face with open, honest affection—I understood.

One of Sensui's personality… she'd been a she, hadn't she?

At that recollection, everything clicked neatly into place, memories I'd almost forgotten flooding my head like rain filling a barrel. In the anime, Itsuki had said one personality was a woman. She was shy, and she wrote the most beautiful poetry Itsuki had ever heard. He and this personality were in love, he thought, and he valued this personality for her gentleness and kindness.

Which meant Sensui wasn't Sensui at all right now. He was—what had Itsuki called her? Naru. Yes. That was the name of this personality, the girl who begged and gave puppy-eyes and kissed cheeks with an impish giggle.

…well, now. This was certainly unexpected.

The pair of them, Naru and Sensui alike, ignored me as I watched, mentally assessing if my plans could stand up in the presence of Naru instead of Minoru or Shinobu. She (it felt silly to use male pronouns with Naru) seemed calm and sweet, not at all conniving or calculating or violent. Did that make her less dangerous than her other personalities? The anime merely mentioned her, didn't elaborate on her personality, so it was hard to say, but something in her open demeanor and innocent expressions made me suspect she wasn't quite as lethal as her kin. In fact, she looked almost childlike as she cocked her head to one side, put a finger to her chin, and blinked at the ceiling for one quiet moment.

"Hmm." She tapped her chin. "Minoru is sleeping. He doesn't wish to wake, it seems."

Itsuki scowled, but only for the barest of seconds before smoothing his expression. "And the others?" he said.

She shook her head. "None want to come play. And it's my time, anyway." She looked at me again, taking a step in my direction. "Your name is Keiko, right? That's pretty. How is it spelled?"

"Uh. 'Lucky child.'"

She beamed. "Mine is spelled with the character for 'truth.'"

"That's lovely," I said, because what the hell else could I say?

Seemed I chosen correctly, because Naru outright beamed at the compliment. "Thank you. I picked it myself," she said, and she broke out in a wide grin. "Keiko, can I paint your nails? I did Itsuki's yesterday and I'd love to do yours, too."

Well. That certainly explained Itsuki's black nail polish. I looked at him askance, but he tucked his hands into his pockets and out of sight. I looked back to Naru and said, "Sure."

She bounced on her heels, grinned widely, and grabbed my wrist to tug me after her toward the kitchen. Her touch (which I flinched from on reflex) was light and gentle, fingers warm and dry and smooth as she led me to the kitchen's large island and bade me sit in one of the tall chairs ringing it. Itsuki trailed after us and sat in the chair on my right.

"Be a polite host and offer our guest a drink, Naru," he said.

Her eyes popped wide. "Oh, right! Would you like juice, Keiko? I have a few kinds." She cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, "I like mixing them together, but Itsuki thinks it's gross."

A laugh came barreling up my throat at that, huffing out my nose and puffing my cheeks with a burst of humored air. Itsuki gave me a Look, but I just giggled. "I don't think it's gross. Why don't you make me a surprise?"

"Ha!" Naru tossed her hair with undisguised triumph. "See, Itsuki? I knew she was cool. And coming right up, Keiko; just a minute."

She bustled off toward the gigantic stainless steel refrigerator on the kitchen's far side and began removing various bottles from its interior. Naru moved with the grace of a deer, movements lithe and strong as she pulled glasses from under the counter and started to mix drinks. In spite of the danger of the situation, Naru fascinated me. I was getting a firsthand glimpse into an unexplored personality, a front row seat to hidden canon. How could I not be morbidly interested, despite the dangers here?

Still, though. I had to wonder if, perhaps, meeting Naru was some kind of setup. Surely Sensui's core personality, Shinobu, wouldn't willingly send sweet Naru to do his bidding… but Itsuki had frozen up when we came to this place. I had a hunch he'd sensed Naru in the other room and had been just as surprised by her presence tonight as I was. Itsuki had abducted me against Sensui's orders, after all. If they hadn't coordinated which personality would be present for this meeting, it was possible meeting Naru was just one giant mistake. But it was odd that people this devious could ever—

I felt his breath ghost across my neck before I heard him speak. It took everything in my power not to leap out of my seat, but somehow I held down my unsteady nerves.

"Do try to behave yourself," Itsuki murmured in my ear. "Naru is… special to me."

"Sure." I swallowed the lump in my neck and murmured back, "Split personality or a mind reader?"

It was a gamble, but it paid off in at least throwing Itsuki off balance. He leaned away so he could stare into my face. "Beg pardon?" he said, the barest flicker of surprise lighting his gold eyes.

"Split personality or a mind reader?" I doubled down.

Itsuki paused, but not for long. With grudging acknowledgement he murmured, "How did you know?"

"Wasn't hard." I shrugged. The clink of glasses and bottles colored the quiet night alongside the sound of Naru humming under her breath. Itsuki kept his eyes locked on her back as I said, "She was either reading a distant mind earlier or talking to someone in her own head. And that remark about not being allowed to cut her hair…"

"You have sharp ears," he said.

I started to make a quip about them being all the better to hear him with, my dear, but Naru turned around with a glass of juice in each hand. "Here you go," she said as she sat down to my left and set the juice before me. I swiveled in my seat to face her as she said, "Try to guess what's in it."

"OK." I took a sip, liquid cold, sweet, and tangy on my tongue. One flavor was obvious. "Pineapple, for sure." I lifted the glass to the lights above, studying the way the drink faded from pale yellow down to deep red at the bottom of the clear cup. "I think maybe grenadine explains the color. But…" I took another sip. There was something that tasted almost dusky on the back of my tongue, but when combined with the pineapple and sweet grenadine, I couldn't make it out. Defeated, I offered her an apologetic smile. "And there's another flavor I can't place. You win."

"It's apple juice." She took a drink of her own concoction and grinned. "Pineapple-apple-juice with grenadine."

She giggled at her own joke, but I paused. The Japanese word for 'pineapple' was basically a katakana rendition of the English version of the word, but 'apple' in Japanese was 'ringo.' She hadn't said 'ringo,' though. She'd said 'apple,' her pronunciation of the name of both fruits absolutely perfect.

"Do you speak English?" I asked, unable to help myself.

"I do," she said. She drained her glass and pushed it aside. "Now. What color do you want me to paint your nails?"

"What colors do you have?"

"All of them!" She looked proud of that, chest puffing under her sweater. "Let me show them to you."

Naru got up and disappeared into the room she'd come from earlier, returning in moments carrying a large zippered makeup bag brimming with bottles of nail polish. She spilled them onto the counter with a hundred crystalline clatters and began rifling through their ranks, organizing them into sections based on color. "See?" she said, gesturing at her trove. "I have everything."

"Way more than me," I said. "I think I have maybe three colors?"

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"My parents own a restaurant and I help cook a lot. Nail polish can flake off in food, so I can't wear it much." I winked. "Health code violations."

"Oh. That makes sense." She looked at her hands, but her smile faded. "I can't paint my nails, either, though not because I cook." Her cheeks flushed a bit. "I'm not actually very good at cooking."

I frowned. "If not for cooking, why don't you paint yours?"

She looked at Itsuki, then. "Um?" she said, and I turned in my seat to look at him, too.

"It's all right," Itsuki said. A muscle in his cheek twitched. "She knows, it seems."

Relief crossed Naru's face. "Oh, good." She raised her hands a wiggle her finger. "The others don't like it. I can't paint them since we share." She pointed downward. "But they let me paint my toes!"

Said toes were painted electric blue. "Great color," I said. I selected a red shade from the pile of lacquers. "As for me, I think this one goes best with my dress."

Naru's eyes lit up. "It's almost the same color!" She reached for my hands, took the bottle, and spread my fingers across the cool granite countertop between us. The tiny metal bead in the bottle rattled when she shook it. "Now hold still."

"Lay down a paper towel, first," Itsuki suggested.

"Oh." Naru flushed at the gentle laughter in his voice. "Right!"

With that, she got to work. Neither of us spoke as she coated my nails in a single layer of scarlet paint, progressing from right pinkie to left, then went back down the line and added a second coat. Naru was a bit clumsy with the paint. It splashed onto my cuticles and skin in places, and didn't quite reach the edges of my nails in others, but she smiled during the entire process. Eventually she finished with a layer of topcoat that got on my skin as much as it did my nails, and when she reached the final nail, she sat back with a satisfied smile.

However, when she beheld her handiwork from a distance, her smile faded a tad. Her sweater-covered hand crept to her mouth, covering it with soft wool.

"I know I'm not very good," she said, embarrassed eyes cutting to the floor.

Even if she shared a body with a villain, I felt badly for her. "Don't say that," I said, inspecting my nails. "I think they're perfect."

"It's just—I haven't been doing it for very long," she continued.

"Practice makes perfect." I had to encouragingly nudge her foot with mine since my nails were still wet. I smiled when she looked at me again, saying, "You just have to keep at it and eventually you'll be a pro."

"You're right." Her smile returned, eyes glittering in the dim kitchen. "And we're making so many new friends these days. Maybe some of them will let me paint their nails."

I started to say yes, I'm sure some of them would—but Naru's eyes dropped again. Her hands folded on her thighs. She looked down and away, staring at the floor with gaze hooded and bitter. The abrupt shift to her demeanor had me frowning and resisting the urge to reach for her hand.

Instead I opted for asking, "Are you OK?"

Naru shook herself, but her smile still stayed hidden. "Yes. I'm just…" She hesitated, then shook her head. "They're helpful friends. We need them. But I'm sad, because I won't get to know them for very long." Another shake of her head, slower and sadder this time. "That just means I have to treasure them while I have them, I think. But…"

Behind me, Itsuki said Naru's name—and in his voice I heard an undercurrent of warning, that urgency even secrecy can't hide. Naru sighed in response, shoulders sagging just a bit.

"Fine, fine." She bent to give my nails another look. "You're all done, I think." Expression uncertain, she said, "Do you like them?"

"I love them." I held them against my dress to really show off how well the color matches. "Thank you, Naru."

Her good mood came back like a flashbulb going off at the compliment; she practically glowed, bashfully looking at me from beneath her brows. "You're welcome," she said, and without even a second's pause she added, "Do you like poetry?"

The non-sequitur threw me, I'll admit, but I recovered enough to stammer, "I do."

"Oh, good! I write a lot of it." Her eyes fell to the floor again. "I'm not very good at that either, though."

But Itsuki wasn't having any of that. "You're wonderful, Naru," he said, pride and sincerity evident in every word. "Your work is beautiful, and you've worked hard to develop your craft. I wish you'd have more confidence in yourself."

Naru blushed at that. "Itsuki says that all the time, but he's biased." Something occurred to her, then, and she looked at me with renewed interest. "You're not, though. Biased, I mean."

"That's true," I said.

Naru opened her mouth. Closed it. Hesitated. "If only…" she said, trailing off with faraway eyes.

"Hey." This time I couldn't keep from grabbing her hand, because I knew that look. I'd seen it in the mirror a hundred times before creative writing workshops, had beheld that expression of anxious doubt every time I posted a chapter of an online work. Naru looked up with a small gasp at the contact, but I just smiled and squeezed her fingers in my own. "It's OK if you don't want to share it with me. Poetry can be so personal, sometimes keeping it private is just what you need to do."

Her gaze softened. "You understand me, I think," she murmured. "That's so nice."

"I'm glad you think so." Because the unease hadn't yet faded from her eyes, I asked, "You said you speak English, right?"

She frowned a little. "Yes?"

"I know a few poems, if you'd like me to recite something."

Once again, it was like flicking a switch. She pulled her hands from mind so she could clap them together, glee evident in every pull of muscle. "Oh, how wonderful! Please, please, go ahead!" She grabbed my wrist. "But this isn't the place. Come with me, come with me…"

She paved the way to the other end of the long greatroom, where a widescreen TV sat on a stand against the wall in front of a huge sectional couch dripping with cushions and blankets. As on the kitchen side, three black doors were set into the wall beside the TV, leading to lord knew precisely where. Itsuki followed at a sedate pace, flicking on a single lamp at the corner of the sectional as Naru ushered me to stand in front of the TV. She danced to the couch and sat in the middle of it, pillow held tight to her chest above her crisscrossed legs. She was the one bit of exuberance in this austere, nearly empty, and most certainly minimalist penthouse, I noticed. No paintings adorned the walls, and even the low glass coffee table between us bore nothing more than a single stack of agate coasters. How did a personality so chipper stand living here? No wonder she was eager to make friends with a visitor and have some entertainment…

Speaking of which. "What will you start with?" Naru asked.

"Um." I fidgeted where I stood, raking through my mental roster of poems. "Do you like Robert Frost?"

She did, she said, so I launched into his poems I'd memorized long before, in a life I no longer lived. "Birches, "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening," "The Road Not Taken" and "Fire and Ice" constituted the majority of my repertoire as far as Frost went (each one delivered with the theatrical panache I'd learned from my former father, who loved reciting poetry with all the flair of a Broadway actor). From there I dived into "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth and "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas. She was not yet satisfied, though, clapping and applauding after each recitation and calling for more, for encore after encore until my voice grew hoarse. I gave her Harold Hart Crane and Emily Lazarus, next, and some William Butler Yeats for good measure before diving straight into Emily Dickinson. Naru looked enraptured by it all, though Dickinson had her pillowing her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, remarking upon each poem with dreamy sighs and exclamations of admiration. Soon my library of poems neared its end (unless she wanted me to dive into the Shakespearean soliloquies my great uncle Harold with the fake Scottish accent had made me memorize when I was seven, so I could recite them at the Thanksgiving dinner table for his amusement). My brain echoed cavernous in my head, empty thanks to the glut of poems I'd spilled, and with one final burst of inspiration I managed to recall Dickinson's "Nature, the Gentlest Mother."

Naru loved it, perhaps even more than the others. When I spoke the final line she heaved a dreamy sigh. "That was so beautiful. I love the imagery, the extended characterization of Mother Nature. She truly had a way with words, Emily Dickinson. A hidden genius until so long after she left this world." She lifted her chin off her hands to ask, "How did those last stanzas go?"

Dutifully I told her: "When all the children sleep / She turns as long away / As will suffice to light her lamps; / Then, bending with the sky, / With infinite affection / and infiniter care, / Her golden finger on her lip, / wills silence everywhere."

Naru sighed again. "So lovely." Her neck drooped, chin on hands once more. "And so sad."

"It has that feeling of nostalgia to it," I agreed.

"No." Naru's voice came a little firmer, though it still rang with her soft tones. "It's sad."

I didn't say anything—both because I was tired of speaking, and because Naru's eyes had hardened. Not with anger. Not with malice. They'd hardened with… determination, maybe? It was hard to tell, but if softness can be hard, then in that moment, thus was she.

"Mother Nature," she said, and she shook her head. "We talk about her as if she's a human woman, but she's not. She isn't human at all, and soon there will be none left to call her as such, though. Soon it will be just birds and wolves and bunny rabbits, rampant squirrels and impetuous birds." She spoke that last line in English, borrowing descriptions from the Dickinson poem I had just recited for her; Naru had a quick memory, one belied by her earlier girlish charm. She scooted to the edge of the couch and peered at me with pleading eyes, begging me to understand something she hadn't yet had time to voice. "That's why I so wanted us to be friends, Keiko. I have to make friends with other girls before they all go away."

My voice was born in a whisper. "Go away?"

"Yes." The hard cast to her eyes melted, back into the sadness she'd worn before. "All the children sleep as nature, the gentlest mother, wills silence everywhere." And then that firm not-hardness returned, resolute and strong. "It's for the best, Keiko. It's for the best, even if I might be lonely afterward."

"But where will the girls go?" I said, although I already knew the answer.

And Naru told it to me, just as I suspected she might: "They'll go where the boys are going. Where all the humans are going." A sad, bitter smile. "They'll go away from here."

Itsuki—who had remained behind the couch to watch my performance—shot her a sharp look, one she did not see. "Naru, don't—"

But it did no good. Naru rose to her feet and padded around the coffee table, taking my hands in hers and holding them close, like she feared I might run, or might strike, or might not believe what she had to say. Her eyes (Sensui's eyes, a villain's eyes, the eyes of a man who wished to end the world) filled with tears and bored into my own, earnestness worn both like a target and a shield.

"I'm sorry," Naru said as a tear coursed down her cheek. "I'm so sorry about it. I'm so sorry. But it has to be done, you see." She lifted my hands and pressed her forehead to my knuckles, feverish against my cold skin. "You must believe me, Keiko. For the good of the rest of everything, all the children must sleep."

Bile rose high and hot and gritty in my throat. My instincts warred, telling me to run and to play nice with this delicate persona, and I found myself frozen against her hot flesh.

But then one instinct won over the other and I blurted: "I'm sorry—where's the bathroom?"

Naru lifted her head from my hands, hurt shining in her eyes. To the side, Itsuki lifted his hand, pointing toward the door to the left of the TV.

I fled.

The bathroom was a minimalist as the rest of the house. Sink, toilet, shower. That was all. Not a single toiletry other than a cake of soap next to the hot water faucet, which I cranked to max as I shut the door behind me and leaned my hands on the sink. My messy red nails stood out like blood against the white porcelain. Steam—hot and wet, the exact opposite of the cold, dry air outside—lapped against my face like the tongue of some affectionate beast, a dog soothing the emotions of its owner. I breathed deeply through my nose until the nausea abated, and then I switched the water to cool.

All the children must sleep, Naru had said, but she meant that in a way unintended by Dickinson. No. Naru meant "sleep" in a way that was utterly Shakespearean.

"To sleep, perchance to dream," as Hamlet said in his soliloquy.

And in Hamlet's soliloquy, "to sleep" meant "to die."

I cupped my hands, filled them with icy water, and drank down a slug of liquid, though I spilled most of it between my shaking fingers. I rubbed the excess water on my face and neck, the cold waking me up a little. Suddenly my eyes felt heavy, or at least I remembered to pay attention to them and note their ponderous weight. My dress's high neckline seemed to strangle out of nowhere; I unbuttoned the top two buttons and rubbed water on my chest, breath hitching in time with my pounding heart.

My hand rubbed across something warm and sharp, long and thin, that snaked against my skin like a living thing.

I froze.

I didn't have to move my hand to know what lay under it. It was the crux of my plan, after all—my plan to get out of here, and to spare my friends the burden of saving me from this place. My fingers scrabbled for the small metal object. Held it tight inside my fist. Felt the heat of it, warm from the glow of my skin.

My charade of being a willing captive had gone on long enough, I decided. I'd had my fill of this hidden canon. It was time, instead, to leave here, and to put my plan into action at last.

So: I did what needed to be done, and I left the bathroom.

Naru had joined Itsuki on the other side of the couch. They looked up and toward me when the door creaked open, but I caught a flash of their hands laced together atop the back of the couch, Itsuki tucking hair behind Naru's ear with more tenderness than I expected from the even keeled demon. Naru looked at me with wide eyes, but Itsuki murmured something in her ear that made her draw in a deep breath.

"I upset you," Naru said. She dipped an apologetic bow, hair swinging like a black curtain on either side of her face. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right." A lie, but she didn't need to know that. Still, Itsuki's eyes narrowed, so I knew I had to let something slip. I amended, "It was just a shock, the things you were saying."

Itsuki's eyes narrowed further. He stepped to the side and slid behind Naru, arms around her shoulders as he pillowed his chin on her shoulder.

"She doesn't even know the whole truth," he said, mouth twisting toward her ear, "but you could see it in her eyes, couldn't you, Naru?"

She tucked her hands over his arm, clinging to him. "Yes. I could. She's smart." Yet again, her eyes took on the weight of immense sorrow. "You think humans have good in them. Don't you, Keiko?"

"I—yes," I said. "Of course."

The weight grew heavier. Naru sighed, Itsuki's arms closing around her in time with her exhaled breath.

"I mean. Humans are all different," I said, though why I felt the need to defend my statement I wasn't sure. "Humans can be good. They can be bad. It's all grey, I think."

But Naru only looked sadder, and once more Itsuki whispered something against her ear. Her eyes fell shut, head lolling back against him.

"So naïve, Itsuki," she lamented, as if I wasn't even there. "She's so naïve, and she doesn't even know it. I feel so badly for her."

"Yes, Naru. As do I." His golden eyes fixed upon me, as if to sear me to ash where I stood. "If only she could be enlightened."

"If only." Her lids lifted, eyes glittering black beneath them. "And to think, she could have been such a good friend. It is so sad we met when we did and not sooner."

"Don't despair, Naru," said Itsuki. "There is time, if he finds her worthy."

My heart thudded into my stomach, bouncing off it like a trampoline and up into the column of my neck. Its beat rattled in my ears like drums—because there was no mistaking whom Itsuki meant.

Naru understood, as well. She twisted in his arms to look at him. "Worthy?" she said. "You mean you think he might want to make her one of our special friends?"

"Perhaps," said Itsuki. He curled her hair behind her ear, looking down into her face with undisguised warmth. "But you have to ask him, don't you? You have to ask him to look at her, and judge her."

"But… but it's so late," Naru said, voice the merest whisper. "We have so little time."

"Yes. But it is as you said, Naru. You must treasure the friends you have while you have them. Even a short time left together can be infinitely sweet." He turned her my way, arms around her once again. "Look at her," Itsuki said against her cheek. "Look at her, and see. I believe she could be useful." His lips curled, a grin that all but writhed across my skin. "I think he'll agree, if you only look."

"All right, Itsuki," Naru said. She relaxed a little in his grip. "I'll look."

The urge to step backward, to cloister myself inside the bathroom and out of sight, rose high and hot and strong inside my chest, but somehow Naru's stare kept me pinned cleanly to the floor. Her eyes distanced themselves, vacant but somehow intense, and then with a snap they focused again—and they focused directly on me. With a motion too sharp, too precise to truly belong to Naru, those eyes flickered up and down my body, gauging and assessing as my hackles rose and the hair on my arms prickled to attention.

When Naru next spoke, her voice deepened to a rich, smooth baritone, and at the sound I froze absolutely solid.

"You were right, Itsuki," said the voice that was not Naru. "She could indeed be very useful in the days to come. How silly of me, not to see it sooner."

And then the intensity cleared, delicate delight taking its place. It was Naru who said, "Oh, do you mean it? Do you really mean she can be one of our special friends?"

The intensity returned like a bolt of lightning. "Yes, darling Naru," he (because I am sure this was a 'he' who spoke) thundered. "She can."

Naru returned again. She shrugged Itsuki aside and rounded the couch with an exclamation of pleasure. "Did you hear that, Keiko! He approves!" I backed up a pace, but she caught me and grasped my hands in hers. "You're about to be one of our most special friends. Aren't you excited?"

"Uh. I mean." I tried to pull my hands away, but she held to them tight. "We're already friends, so—?"

"But we're not friends the way we could be." Regret flickered through her gaze. "But you're so nice. I'm sure you think this world is good, don't you?"

"I mean—like I said, I think that people are grey, and that—"

She blinked, then sniffled. She let go with one hand so she could wipe at her eyes, which had begun to fill with tears again. "My heart is breaking," she said, but she shook her head. "No. It's broken already. It's shattered like a mirror as it reflects your face, and soon I will see that reflection disintegrate into something new. But don't worry." She reached for me, cupping my cheek and giving one of her kindest, most earnest stares. "We'll make it better, soon."

"I—" I said.

She turned from me. "Itsuki. I think we need the video." And she looked my way before her words could truly sink in. "I'm so sorry, Keiko. But it's for the best."

By the time she finished speaking, her meaning caught up with my reality. Itsuki walked away, past us toward one of the doors and disappeared through it. I yanked my hands from Naru's, but like a striking snake she captured them again, regret and apology and kindness etched into her face like scrimshaw.

"I'm sorry." My words sounded clicking, mechanical. "I don't have time for a movie. I really should be getting home. My parents will be worried sick."

Naru shushed me, once more reaching for me face. "Don't fret. It'll be over soon, and I'll be here to hold you when it's finished." She stepped close enough to press her forehead to mine, bending to stare directly into my eyes with a wide smile. But the tears hadn't stopped falling, and the array of emotions on her face made me almost dizzy. "Don't worry, Keiko. I'm here for you. Because we're friends."

Over her shoulder, I saw Itsuki emerge from bedroom with a video tape in his hand.

The sight of it gave me the strength I needed to wrest myself from Naru's grasp. I yanked away and stumbled, backing up until I hit the windows overlooking the downtown skyline beyond. The lights of the skyscrapers cast red and blue and green prisms across my hands as I held them up, warding Naru and Itsuki away with all the strength of a newborn cat. "Itsuki, no, please no, I can't—"

Itsuki walked to the TV set. Turned it on with the press of a button. Cool eyes looked me up and down, their detached gaze not matching the smile on his mouth. "Interesting. You're scared of this little video cassette." He held it up, waving it at me, and laughed when I pressed my back against the windows. "One might think you already know what it contains."

He was no help, then. "Naru," I said instead, desperation cracking my voice like glass on pavement. "Please. Please don't do this to me. Please don't. If we're friends, friends accept each other, even their shortcomings, so please please please don't—"

For a moment, I thought Naru might actually listen. She pressed her fingers to her lips and looked at me, still crying, and did not move.

But then her head cocked to the side. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. A beat passed in silence.

Naru nodded, heeding the words of voices I could not hear, and strode briskly toward me.

Despite my pleas, my cries for mercy, my demands for them to respect my wishes, Naru latched onto my wrist and dragged me to the couch. Her nails dug into my wrists as she forced me onto the cushions, her arms possessed with strength I hadn't sensed in her before. She watched over her shoulder as Itsuki inserted Chapter Black—that video that would surely ruin me, that video that was sure to corrupt and degrade and destroy me from the very first frame—into the VCR below the television set. Naru gave a nod when the screen lit up with an odd black glow that hurt my eyes and lodged behind them like the beginnings of a migraine, and as Itsuki stepped away from the TV, she let go of my wrist.

This was a mistake on her part. The second she let go, nails easing backward out of my skin with her retreat, I bolted. I ran for the window and the amazing view beyond, air screaming in and out of my chest with every breath. I was already hyperventilating, and the video hadn't even started.

Naru made a sound of distress, but Itsuki pressed pause on the VCR and frowned. "You do," he said. "You do know what's on it. Spirit World has kept you more informed than I assumed."

"Don't—don't come near me!" I rasped. I held up a hand, the other braced against the icy window. "Don't touch me, I can't—"

"Keiko," Naru said in an attempt to soothe. "It will be OK, I promise. I'm your friend. It will hurt for a little while, like a vaccine first entering the bloodstream, but then…then the world will open. You'll see the truth." She stepped my way, sorrow in her eyes as I moved away and out of reach. "Truth isn't something to run from. It's something to embrace, even if you must swallow the dire pain of it, first."

"No. No!" I snarled. "I refuse, I won't, I will not watch that video, I refuse—!"

Naru didn't move—but from behind her, Itsuki lunged my way.

I screamed. I couldn't help it. Tension stretched inside me so tight I couldn't keep the sound inside, nor could I keep from babbling incoherent protests as Itsuki chased me down the line of windows, around the kitchen island, and back toward the couch. Naru watched our game of cat and mouse (because Itsuki was definitely treating this like a game, letting me run and tire before he pounced) with her mouth behind her hand, tears still slipping like gems from her dark eyes. Itsuki chased me back to the couch and then around it to the TV, and to get away from him I vaulted over the couch, his hand just missing the hem of my flapping dress. I hit the ground funny, though, and canted to one side, back toward the windows I had to once more brace myself against. Both hands pressed flat to the glass, the reflection of my terrified face filled my vision, frantic breath fogging the glass with every ragged exhale. City lights peppered the image of my face with diamonds. I squeezed my eyes shut when I saw the ghostly figure of Itsuki advancing behind me, but knowing this was no bad dream I could wake myself from with a thought, I forced my eyes to open again—but a shadow flickered behind the pale moon of my reflected face.

I looked past myself.

And I saw it.

It's funny, what happened to me when I saw that flash of electric gold. The wire inside me slackened, tension draining like water from a tub, and my breathing calmed at once. My heart ceased to stammer in my chest. My hands slid from the window and dropped to my sides, shoulders straightening and head lifting as the gold flash repeated once again. My chin inclined. I reached for the neckline of my dress and reached beneath it, grabbing the golden pendant that lay warm against my skin.

In the reflection of the window, the bauble pulsed bright pink in a steady rhythm, heart-shaped light beating in time with my own.

"I'm sorry, Naru," I said, eyes still locked on the world beyond the glass. "But friends don't treat friends like this."

"Oh, Keiko." She sobbed somewhere behind me, every word gummy with emotion. "Oh, Keiko. Poor Keiko."

"I'm sorry," I said. I turned to look at her and Itsuki both. For Naru I forced a smile, but when my eyes met Itsuki's where he stood (much close than I would have liked) I let the smile drop. "I'm sorry, but this is goodbye."

Behind me, the windows shattered.

Itsuki threw up his arms to shield his face, and Naru screamed, but I barely heard her or saw him thanks to the wall of glass that came exploding inward, carried indoors on a frigid and screaming wind. We were twenty stories up on New Year's Eve; the wind acted as such, threatening to suck me backwards and out of the skyscraper to the ground below, but just as I started to slide backward in the grip of the wind, I collided with something solid. An arm slipped around my waist, and in my ear a soft voice said, "May I have this dance?"

My eyes—which had shut as soon as the glass peppered my back with stinging shards—opened.

Sailor V stood at my side, one hand raised above her head, hand wrapped in the end of a golden chain that extended backward into the sky beyond. A wall of heart-shaped chain links of that same golden energy filled the space between Itsuki and I, floor to ceiling, a net of protection that would keep us from him. V's hair floated on the freeze, undulating and snapping with the beat of the wind, and when I saw her eyes flash triumphant blue, I couldn't keep from smiling back.

"Thought you'd never ask," I told her—but before she could sweep me off my feet, Itsuki moved.

We looked as one in his direction. He picked his way with dancer-like grace over the shimmering debris on the floor, a field of stars that did not deter him in the slightest as he approached the golden barrier filling the empty air. I tensed as he raised his hand, but when he brushed his fingertips over the shimmering strands, they brightened and let off a crackle of even brighter light. His fingers—now blackened at the tips—trailed smoke, and I'm certain they must've sizzled (though I couldn't hear for the roaring wind). He stepped back with a scowl, but I saw now more because Venus yanked on the chain in her hand. The light trailing from her fist pulled taut and then yanked us up and back out of the window; my stomach surely stayed behind even as a screech ripped from my lungs, and with startling clarity
I felt one of my shoes fly clean off my foot as we were wrenched skyward.

I'm not sure if I saw the stars above or the lights of the city as we sailed away from Itsuki's grasp, but there was really no telling. The world spun over on itself in a kaleidoscope of colors, lights, and intermittent darkness, wind buffeting every part of me at every turn, and to keep from falling ill I squeezed shut my eyes and clung to Minato (no, to Sailor V, that's who he—I mean, she was in this moment, per her long-ago request) as tightly as I could. It seemed we winged through space for a hundred years, but in only a few seconds we came to a jarring stop on solid ground. I'm sure I would've broken an ankle had V's arm around my waist not kept me aloft, her super powered legs taking the fall instead of my average human ones. My stomach struggled to catch up with the rest of me as we came to that thunderous stop; I breathed deeply, in and out, as wind struck through my hair and sent it flying.

"Keiko," V said.

I opened my eyes.

We stood on the edge of a skyscraper, staring down at a street full of rushing cars, headlights glancing off of slick windows and casting disco ball reflections like a sky of spinning stars. V lifted one gloved hand and up and pointed across this street, and for a second I wasn't sure what she meant to indicate—but then I followed the direction of her masked eyes and saw it. I saw the long stripe of shattered window across the street, midway up the adjacent skyscraper and only a few floors above our perch.

Itsuki, Naru tucked safely under his arm, stared down at us.

V wasn't interested in a staring contest, though. She grabbed my hand and tugged me after her with a cry of "Come on!"—but I pulled my hand from hers, and I did not allow her to move me.

It was curious, what happened then. The way Itsuki's voice wormed its way inside my skull, resonating in the depths of my brain as if he spoke directly to it. At first he only said my name, politely asking me to wait, to listen, but as V once more snatched my wrist and pulled me after her, his tone changed.

His tone changed, and he made a demand.

He made a demand I didn't dare acknowledge, or think about, because it was too terrible, too dangerous, too insane to comprehend—but in spite of the insanity, I felt myself nod. I felt myself nod, and through the unspoken connection we inexplicably shared, I heard myself tell him, yes.

Good, came Itsuki's reply, and he nodded back as V clamped down and pulled me after her into the dark.

Itsuki did not follow us.

He had promised me he would not.

Notes:

Those SOS beacon necklaces Minato gave to Kagome and Keiko weren't just for show. ;)

I was super excited to work with one of Sensui's lesser-known personalities, only alluded to but never shown in the manga and anime. Naru, the gentle poet personality, the one woman of Sensui's seven personas, and the one Itsuki loves most second only to Shinobu… but Shinobu did make an eerie appearance, which was fun. And finally, those random bits of poetry I've memorized became useful…

I forgot to mention it last week, but while on hiatus I wrote a one-shot for Children of Misfortune that showed the gang reacting to Keiko's disappearance (from Kurama's POV, no less). It's in chapter 12 of that collection, so please go check it out if you haven't already.

Also forgot to mention Children of Misfortune chapter 13, another one-shot I released during hiatus that shows another potential Switcheroo character from a certain 90s magical girl anime… and no, I don't mean Sailor Moon. Enjoy!

Many thanks to all those who came out and welcomes LC's return from hiatus! You made my day and I was so happy to know you were still here when I got back. Thank you endlessly for your comments and support; you make the time it takes to create these chapters each week worth it. I'm almost out of battery (updating on my phone) so I'll write out everyone's names tomorrow. :) Love all of you!

Chapter 78: Mini-boss, Misnamed

Summary:

In which NQK tells stories.

Notes:

Oh my stars there will be TYPOS in this one, but I'm rushing to get this out before midnight so fuck it, I'll fix them tomorrow or whenever, I have to get up at 8 and drive 7 hours to get home. GOODNIGHT.

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

Chapter Text

At the edge of the rooftop, Sailor V wrapped her arm around my waist and jumped. Her powerful leap ripped us from solid ground and sent us flying into space, over onto the roof of the next building where we sprinted to the another edge and made another mad dive in oblivion. Roof to roof, building to building, it seemed we'd crossed the whole of Tokyo (if that's even where we were) by the time V jumped down to ground level—an wild freefall that had me screaming absolute bloody murder. My shriek of fright didn't last long, however. We slammed onto the ground so hard the pavement cracked under V's red heels, and then V grabbed my hand and pulled me through an alley at a full tilt sprint before I could really get to wailing. The running halted abruptly, too, when we came upon a metal door festooned with inappropriate graffiti; in front of this V stopped, reaching into the pocket of her skirt to pull a handful of small metal crescent moons. What they were clicked in my head when she knelt by the door and stuck them to the corners of it: portal-stickers, or whatever she called them, her devices that could turn any door into a TARDIS portal and transport us from one place to the next. True to my prediction, when she wrenched the door open it showed not the inside of a skyscraper or warehouse, but rather a view of a supermarket aisle—specifically the frozen section.

"C'mon," V urged before shoving me through. When I stepped over the threshold, a blast of frigid air washed over my bare arms. We stumbled from a freezer of frozen foods that had somehow turned partially into an alleyway, and when V shut the door behind us, the view through the door's pane changed from dingy concrete to brightly colored TV dinners as light glinted off the glass, colors burring and then shifting like an odd trick of even odder light.

V left me no time to marvel, however. She grabbed my hand, and once again we started running.

We ran through the dimly lit grocery store and into the storage area in back, then out a door (one V kicked down with a distinct clatter of shattered lock) and into yet another alley. At her behest we ran down this alley, cold winter air slicing through my lungs, and through another of her portals. This one led into somebody's house. I tried not to think about whose as we vaulted over a couch and tracked dirt through the kitchen, out a back door into a yard, where V transformed the door of a shed into a portal to an empty construction yard. The door we came out of there was set in a freestanding wall not yet incorporated into the construction site. No one was there, thank my lucky stars, because I'm sure we would've confused the shit out of anyone who saw us come out that door. We were a blonde superhero and a girl missing a shoe wearing a wilted flower in her hair; an odd picture, to be sure. I wondered if V even thought about that as she led the way to a big backhoe rig and started sticking moons on its cockpit door. Probably not. She was quite single-minded in crisis, not dwelling on the dumb shit I couldn't get out of my brain.

"Ready," V said. She stepped back from the door and heaved it open, revealing the rise of a distant, snow-capped mountain inside the construction vehicle. "Let's go."

I marched forward—but with a hiss of pain I stopped, snatching my right foot off the gravelly ground and lifting my knee up nearly to my chest. Foot on fire, I reached under it and felt around until my fingers encountered the smooth but jagged jut of a piece of glass sticking from my heel. That's what I got for running around without a shoe, I guess. V's eyes widened behind her mask; she started to say something, but I shook my head and grabbed the glass. Deep inhale, no time for panic, I yanked the glass out on the air of my exhalation, pain lancing up my leg like a bolt of lightning in the bone.

Suffice it to say, V had to help my clamber up the ladder into the cockpit of the backhoe, because my legs had started shaking too badly to do it alone.

V's portal had taken us to a train depot in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. A big concrete slab sat beside a line of train tracks that stretched east and west until they disappeared into the dark. Snowy mountains loomed high above in all directions, evergreens swaying dark against their stark white sides. A tiny ticket booth, front window dim under the light of the distant moon, gleamed silver as we stepped out of the door beside it and onto the depot's breadth. A bench under an awning sat beside the booth; I collapsed onto it, head lolling over the backrest as air rasped from my chest. It was far colder here than it had been in the city, but I felt too hot with adrenaline and running to truly feel it. Pain wrapped my foot in heat, too, another barrier against the airy cold. I shut my eyes and opened them, squeezing tears back into their dry depths. Above me, affixed to the underside of the bench's shelter, hung a light. Moths flapped around it in circles, though I don't know how they survived in this bitter cold.

"Where are we?" I said when I caught my breath.

"North of Tokyo. Very north of Tokyo." V had pulled what looked like a tiny tablet computer from her pocket; she studied it, finger swiping over the screen as flickering blue light cast shadows over her face. "Leaving a trail they can't follow."

I shut my eyes. "They won't come after us."

"… what?" said V.

"They aren't going to chase us," I repeated.

"How do you…?"

"I just do." I cracked an eye and smiled at her, in lieu of proper explanations I did not want to give. "Take me home, OK?"

V nodded. Pulled more moon-stickers from her pocket and began applying them to the ticket booth's door. Her heels clicked over the concrete ground, echoing in the snowy, mountainous hush suffusing the still and quiet air.

"It's just as well," V muttered as she worked. "I doubt they can sense me, anyway."

I slid forward in my seat. "Oh?"

"I can't sense them, or at least I can't sense them well. I assume the same works in reverse." She stood and brushed off her skirt, mouth turned down in a troubled frown. "Their energy is on a completely different wavelength—like trying to detect shadows with sonar."

"Makes sense since you're two different power types, I guess. Two different canons probably don't play by the same rules." I considered that a moment, replaying the last hour in my head. "But your shield burned Itsuki, so that's something."

V nodded, eyes roving over the mountains. I started to get up, expecting her to open the depot door and get us running again, but she held out a hand and shook her head. Like myriad fireflies swimming from the darkness, golden light flickered and then blossomed into being around her body, a bright flash that faded to reveal the form of Minato beneath. Hair hung long and loose down his back, V's bright red ribbon vanishing in the wake of transformation. Minato gathered the hair and began to braid it, fingers methodical and quick around the strands.

"What took you so long, anyway?" I said, mostly joking. "They damn near almost made me watch Chapter Black."

"I was busy." Blue eyes cut my way. "Why me?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you call for me, and not your canon friends?"

I shrugged. "They're not ready for Sensui."

"And I am?" Minato said.

"Maybe. But either way, you were my best bet."

"Why's that?"

"Kurama can shield himself from prying eyes. Itsuki is strong—as strong, at least, but more than likely even stronger. I figured he could do the same. I didn't think even Hiei could find me if Itsuki didn't want me to be found," I said. I fished my necklace from my dress, the heart-shaped pendant blinking steady red. "But I highly doubted they thought to shield from GPS, or whatever this uses, so…"

His mouth curled in a small smile. "Heh. Quick thinking." Minato stopped braiding and held out a hand. "Give me that."

He took the necklace and, using his fingernail, made a twisting motion on the back of it. The pulsing light darkened and stopped, magical object a mundane gold pendant once more—only Minato didn't hand it over to me again. He stared at it, gold chain descending in a swinging arc from the sides of his palm, eyes luminous against his pale skin and glimmering hair.

"Why did you pause back there?" he said.

I jumped a little, startled by his whispered words.

"You stopped to look back, atop the skyscraper." His eyes moved from the pendant to my face, searching. "Why?"

I wanted to answer Minato. Really, I did. But the words lodged in my throat like food not properly swallowed, and I remained quiet. Still, my silence must have been telling, because Minato's eyes narrowed.

"He spoke to you, didn't he," Minato said—and it was not a question, despite the phrasing.

I laughed, looking down at my feet. Blood smeared the pavement; my laughter died. "Am I that easy to read?" I said.

"No. Yes. Sometimes." Minato shook his head. "You said they weren't chasing us. I deduced they must have communicated that intention to you now. My only question now is what, exactly, did Itsuki say to you?"

Again, and to my immense shame, I hesitated. It wasn't that I didn't trust Minato with that information—far from it. In truth, I didn't trust myself with what Itsuki had said to me atop the skyscraper, nor did I trust my ability to convey the nuances of all I'd had to promise him.

I needed time. Time to think, and to process, and to move past the horror hanging over my head like a sword suspended on a fraying thread.

Luckily Minato understood, or at least had the patience to wait for me to get the nerve to speak. He began to braid his hair again, securing it at the tip with a hair tie from his pocket.

"You're tired," he said. "We'll talk later."

I nodded, grateful, as he pulled scissors from his pocket and sawed through his hair. It hung in a severe sweep along the length of his jaw, sort of a bob style—like that one guy from Princess Jellyfish. In that moment I couldn't think of his name. Still, the comparison stood, and Minato put away the severed hair and his scissors with swift assurance.

"But later, Captain, we will have to trade war stories." He eyed me over critically. "I can see you have a long one to tell. That much is easy to read." And he looked at my foot again. "But for now, we need to get you home and get that wound cleaned."

I was so grateful, it was all I could do to nod and walk with him through the portal.

We came out in an alley, which I was starting to suspect was Minato's absolute favorite setting for a portal-door entrance. I'd seen enough alleys that night for a lifetime, and as we stepped from the mountain train depot to a city alley (the faint rush and occasional honk of a car horn giving away our new locale) I staggered. It wasn't the pain in my heel or the soreness in my back—rather, it was the transition from pure but bitter cold to slightly warmer air that stank of tar and trash that had me reeling. Exhaling icy air and breathing in merely cold air did something to my chest, tightened with the surprise of transition, sapping strength from my bones and placing exhaustion in my muscles. I listed sideways against the brick of the alley wall, one hand braced on the side of the adjacent building to keep myself upright.

Minato appeared at my side. "You're exhausted," he observed.

"Yeah. No shit." I breathed a heavy sigh and passed my fingers through my hair. "Been up since dawn, and it's nearly dawn again. Plus all that running, the adrenaline." A bitter smile crossed my mouth, my eyes burning like I'd smeared them with pepper oil. "I'm about to collapse."

"I see," said Minato. He started to speak, then stopped, and then he gave a curt nod. "Please excuse me for this."

I frowned. "Excuse you for—hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Minato, with the efficiency of a programmed machine, had scooped me up like a sack of grain, one knee behind my back and the other beneath my knees. Even though he was smaller than me, my weight didn't seem to bother him at all, his voice clear and without strain when he said, "You're tired and bleeding. I'm carrying you."

"Not like this, you're not!" I sputtered.

He frowned. "Why?"

"It's undignified!" I kicked my heels, resisting the urge to put an arm around his neck for balance. "I'm no princess!"

"Of course not," he said, "but you are injured and exhausted. This is the most logical solution to our current predicament."

"Minato—!"

He looked down at me with a scowl that bordered on a glare—and dammit, this was not the time to notice he had great cheekbones and that this longer haircut really suited him. Minato, dammit all to hell, was cute, and in a few years I got the sense he'd grow into his enormous eyes and turn into quite the heartbreaker. My cheeks flushed of their own accord; I looked down and away with a frustrated growl.

"I can walk on my toes and not hurt myself." I wriggled, trying to get him to drop me. "So put me down and I'll—"

"DROP HER, ASSHOLE, OR I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL MAKE YOU A PAVEMENT STAIN SO FAST YOUR HEAD'LL SPIN!"

Minato and I flinched as one, heads swiveling toward the end of the alley and the source of that brash command. My jaw dropped, of course, because not twenty feet away, silhouette unmistakable where it loomed in the alley mouth, stood one Urameshi Yusuke—and he stood with hand raised, one finger pointed straight at us.

"Shit," I said.

"Fuck," Minato concurred under his breath.

Yusuke's arm tensed, and then from above dropped a figure. It fell from the sky and landed next to Yusuke, rising to its full but unimpressive height like a striking snake, and then from the gloom beyond appeared two more figures wreathed in shadow—all dim, but I knew them at once.

Yusuke. Hiei. Kuwabara. Kurama.

Oh. Well.

This wasn't good.

"I said drop her!" Yusuke repeated.

"Calm down." I had a hard time seeing Yusuke's face since he was backlit by a light beyond the mouth of the alley, but I tried to meet his eyes just the same. "He's a friend, Yusuke."

"Yeah, I'll believe it when I see a receipt." Was it just me, or could I see the blue light building in his fingertip, faint but visible in the dark? "Put her down or I swear I'll—"

I swore again and bucked, telling Minato to let me go. He did so, making a sound of protest as I installed myself between him and Yusuke like a shield. Yusuke drew in an audible breath as I held out my arms, blocking his shot on Minato with my own body.

"Stop being prickly," I said. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "He's a friend, dumbass."

Yusuke ground his teeth. "Keiko—!"

"What, you gonna shoot me, too?" I said.

He made a noise like he wanted to strangle me but couldn't because there were too many witness. "If I have to, maybe!" he snarled.

"Well, tough shit, because I won't allow it." I raised a hand and pointed my very harmless finger at him. "We do not point dangerous fingers at friends in this household, dammit!"

Yusuke swore so colorfully I had to resist the urge to reprimand him, but after a minute, his hand dropped to his side like a very annoyed stone. However, at his side I saw Hiei step forward, cutting toward us through the alley at a fast clip. I started to greet him, but reflective red eyes flashed in the dark, Jagan glowing brilliant violet, and he blurred from view. At first I thought he'd just flitted away, made sure I was really back and then went on his merry way, but a thump came from behind me and Minato let out a muffled gasp. Hiei had grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back against the wall, glaring up at Minato (who was only slightly taller than the fire demon) with an expression of livid scrutiny.

Minato, meanwhile, appeared thoroughly unbothered by this, staring at Hiei as impassively as one stares at a weather report.

"You too, Hiei?!" I hobbled forward and grabbed onto his elbow, trying to drag him away. "Stop it!"

Brilliant scarlet flashed again. "Meigo—"

"He saved my life, dammit!" I hollered. "Let him go!"

Hiei, like Yusuke, clearly did not want to listen to me, and it took far longer than I would've liked for him to finally release Minato's collar and stalk off. I wheeled on the others as soon as he got out of striking distance, glaring at Kurama and Kuwabara in turn.

"Either of you want to take a shot? Make this four for four?" I said. "Because I really hate repeating myself and if you haven't gotten the picture by now, then—"

Kuwabara dashed toward me. I gave a small half-scream, thinking he was going to take a shot at Minato, too, but instead he ignored Minato completed and grabbed my shoulders in his massive, shaking hands. I started, taken aback at the tremor cascading down his wrists, as he looked me up and down with wide, desperate eyes. "I don't give a crap about him—are you OK?" Kuwabara said "Where the heck have you been, Keiko?!"

The concern in his voice, that undercurrent of panic too strong to be denied, had tears pricking at my exhausted eyes. I mopped my face and hung my head. "Long story. Even longer night," I told him. My smile probably looked harrowed, but I offered it, anyway. "But I'm all right."

"Are you certain of that?" came Kurama's smooth inquiry. He stepped to Kuwabara's side, looking me over as Kuwabara had—only his eyes remained cool, distant, and assessing. "You're bleeding."

"Yeah, I know." I lifted my foot off the ground. "I lost my shoe and stepped on some glass, and—"

"No. Not from your foot." He waved a hand in a circle. "I think your back is…"

My brow knit with confusion. I craned my head over my shoulder. My eyes widened; I spun like a dog chasing its tail, trying to get a good look at the utter carnage that had become of my dress. The back of my outfit had been cut to ribbons, blood oozing from a dozen shallow cuts I'd ceased to feel in the winter's cold. As soon as I saw them, however, they flared to life with stinging pain—pain I had mistaken for general soreness after running and jumping and evading monsters. That's adrenaline for you, I guess, but I wasn't bothered so much by the dozens of scraps no doubt caused by the exploding window at Itsuki's place. No, there was a much direr issue at hand, and upon realizing it I let out a shocked shriek.

"Oh my god, my dress!" I warbled. "We bought it special for tonight and it's ruined! My mom is gonna kill me." I spun again, trying to determine if my dress could be salvaged, and in the process I stepped awkwardly on my injured foot; my knee buckled, but the pain came secondary to my other source of foot-based agony. Staring in horror at my feet, I said, "And oh my god, my shoe, I lost my shoe, what am I going to tell my parents?!"

Hiei gave a grunt of disgust. "You disappeared from existence and you're worried about your footwear?"

Beside him, Yusuke muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "typical."

"Yes, I'm worried about my damn shoe," I retorted. "It was a really nice shoe, and I—wait." I blinked at Hiei. "I disappeared from what?"

"You disappeared, Keiko." Kuwabara's voice sounded absurdly small issuing from his large frame; he put his hands on my shoulders again, as if to assure himself I was really there. "None of us could sense you at all. Even Hiei—and Kurama said your scent went cold—" He swallowed, words thick with emotion. "We thought you might be dead."

On that last word, his voice actually cracked. He rubbed at his nose, turning his face away for a minute, and in my throat all attempts at language died a sudden death. I mean, obviously IO thought they'd be worried about where I'd gone and would have trouble sensing or finding me, but—but to think they thought I was dead, or didn't exist, or whatever? Holy shit.

"Oh my god." My hand covered my mouth. "Oh my god. That's. Wow."

Kuwabara just nodded in return. After all, there wasn't much else to be said.

Not that Yusuke got the memo. He swaggered on up and brushed Kuwabara aside, arms crossing over his chest as he glared at me nose to nose. "So tell us. Where the hell were you, exactly? Why are you all bloody and where's your shoe?" He glanced over my shoulder. "And who the heck is blondie over there?"

Kurama said, "His name is Minato, and he is one of Keiko's fellow aikido students."

Yusuke did a double take. "Wait. You've met this guy?"

"Once, and only briefly," said Kurama. He studied Minato like he'd study a plant, green eyes distant but undeniably present. "He struck me as a typical human child at the time. Now, however, I am not so sure."

"Huh?" said Kuwabara.

"He didn't balk in the slightest at Hiei's evil eye," Kurama delicately observed.

The bottom fell out of my stomach as I turned to look at Hiei more closely—and, yeah, he wasn't wearing his bandana, Jagan wide open and visible for the world to see. Rapid-fire calculations sparked inside my head, but my obvious play to solve this dilemma (playing dumb, pretending I hadn't seen the eye) wasn't Minato's style. He made no excuses, nor did he provide any explanations as everyone's gazes shifted to him. He got busy brushing off the navy coat he wore over a shirt and tie, and when he noticed he'd become the object of scrutiny, he merely lifted a brow at the world at large.

"And suddenly I'm popular," he said, adopting a polite smile. "But you're chasing the wrong rabbit, I'm afraid. I have no obligation to reveal to you my secrets."

It was almost uncanny, the looks of displeasure that crossed the faces of Yusuke and all his companions, but I was in no mood to laugh. "How do you know Keiko?" Yusuke said.

Minato waved at Kurama. "He just said—"

"Aikido, like Kurama said," I cut in. "We study under the same Sensei. But can we leave the interrogation for the morning? I'm about to fall over."

And this was true, even if I was more concerned with getting Minato out of here than I was finding my way into a cozy bed… for the most part, anyway. I stumbled to the side, walking carefully on my toes, and sat on a pile of deconstructed cardboard boxes with all the heaviness of a KOed prizefighter hitting the mat. My eyes and foot and back all burned, and with a sigh my head dropped into my freezing hands. The cold really set in, then, shivers igniting in my muscles with the insistence of a hive of bees.

'What time is it, anyway?" I grumbled.

"6 AM," Kurama supplied. "The sun rises in half an hour or so."

"Shit. And I'm supposed to go to the temple with Mom and Dad."

Yusuke snorted. "Fat chance of that. You look like a zombie."

"Can it, Yusuke."

"Make me."

I lifted a hand toward him, knowing it was covered in grime and dried blood. "I'll smear blood on your face if you're not careful."

"Enough jokes!"

My head jerked up. Everyone, Minato included, had turned to stare at Hiei after his outburst. He stood with hands in pockets, feet spread beneath him, teeth bared as he shot daggers from his eyes and tried to spear me with his red gaze.

"You faded from existence like a memory forgotten, and you trade jokes with the Detective?" he continued. "Where were you, Meigo? I demand you tell me, now!"

His anger blazed hot enough to warm the alley, cold air heating in time with Hiei's frustration. I lifted my hands up, trying to placate him as I said, "I will, Hiei. I will tell you. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just—I don't know where to start." My voice started to shake, breaths rattling down my throat like swallowed coins. "I don't know what to say. I need to sleep. Please, just let me sleep and I'll tell you everything tomorrow." I swallowed; tried to smile; failed. "Please?"

Kuwabara rushed to soothe, because that is who he is. He knelt beside me and put a hand on my knee, smile warm and comforting. "It's OK, Keiko. You've been through hell so you can have whatever you need." The warmth turned to hard determination when he looked over his shoulder at the others. "We can wait to ask question till later. Right, guys?"

Everyone exchanged a glance. It lasted for approximately ten seconds, and then Yusuke, Hiei, and Kurama sighed in unison.

"Fine," Yusuke grumbled. "Sleep first, questions later." At that a yawn broke through his peeved expression; he lifted his arms, stretching. "I'm dog tired, too."

"As am I," Kurama said, though of course he looked perfect and I couldn't tell if he was actually tired or just being nice. "She's back, and she's safe." His eyes traveled to me, as if promising to follow through on his next words. "I suppose that matters most, and the details can wait until her wounds have been tended to."

"Great. Wonderful. Lovely," I said. To Minato I added, "How far are we from my place?"

"A block or so."

"Good." I reached out. "Help me up."

He came forward to help, though natural Kuwabara grabbed my hands and helped me stand, too. I stumbled a little, legs wobbly, but Minato managed to snake an arm around my waist and hold me up. I looped my arm around his neck; he latched onto that wrist, supporting me in a fireman's carry past my friends and out of the alley.

The rest of them watched in tense silence, the low murmur of their malcontented and confused voices following us down the street, but I ignored them. Walking was hard enough as it was without Yusuke's kvetching dogging my steps—and besides. Getting home had turned into an enormous mess, and I needed time to think and sort this out. They knew Minato wasn't exactly normal. But what did they suspect him of? And how—

I yawned so hard my eyes watered.

Oh, lordy. I was in no shape to strategize, was I?

Luckily no one tried to interrogate me as we walked home. I'd never been so happy to see my parents' ramen shop, eyes watering for an entirely different reason as we entered its warm and dark interior. But eager to get to the haven of my bedroom as I was, I paused at the doorway, unwilling or perhaps unable to make myself move forward.

In the shadows near the stares, I swear I saw something move.

"What is it?" said Minato.

I jumped at the sound of his voice, and the shadows stopped their swimming. I'd been seeing things, I guessed, and to cover my unease I waggled my bad foot. "I'm gonna get blood everywhere."

We shared a look. I knew what he wanted, and I rolled my eyes.

"Fine." I rolled my eyes again. "I swear to Christ you were a knight in your past life."

He shrugged. "I don't think they make armor my size," he said, and he picked me up the way he had the first time. This time I let myself wrap my arms around his neck, keeping my body anchored to him as he toed off his outdoor shoes and began to cross the restaurant.

"H-hey!" said Kuwabara. "What are you doing?"

"Preserving the cleanliness of the floor," Minato said, and as he reached the stairs and began to climb them, I heard Kuwabara whisper: "How does he know where her room is, anyway?"

That was yet another thing I'd have to come up with an excuse for, but just then, I couldn't have cared less about explaining Minato's familiarity with my home. I let him cart me up the stairs and kick open my bedroom door, all but falling out of his grip as soon as we got near my bed. I fell face first onto the mattress and hugged my favorite pillow to my chest with a sigh, leaving my filthy feet to dangle off the edge of the bed. It was like being an exhausted little kid again, because the minute my head hit that pillow, I felt sleep begin to descend like a heavy curtain across my eyes.

But then there came a gasp from the doorway, and Botan said my name.

"Yeah," said Yusuke (I didn't bother to look and see where he was). "She's back."

I think I heard Minato move aside, but Botan's feet slapping across the floor drowned the sound very nearly out. Soft hands alit on my back as Botan babbled, "Keiko, Keiko, I was so worried—!"

I cracked an eye, head angled enough for me to see the barest glimpse of her tear-strekaed face. Blue hair frizzled from her ponytail like static dyed blue. "Hi, Botan," I mumbled against the pillow. "Do you know how to contact Ayame?"

She blinked at me. "Ayame? Why?"

"We'll need her tomorrow."

"Whatever for?"

I shook my head, or at least I tried to. I might have just flopped a little. "Can't. Too tired," I said. "But call her. Please."

Some distant part of me (the part of me still scurrying to do damage control) feared she might resist, but instead she came through in a clutch and was my personal MVP. Good old Botan. Team player to the core. Every fiber of my sleepy self sent her thank-you-vibes as Botan patted my shoulder (carefully avoiding any wounds), gave a brisk and determined nod, and turned away with hands on her hips. Voices murmuring near the door stopped talking, then, but maybe I was imagining it.

"Well, you heard her, everyone," Botan declared. "She's got sleeping to do, and we're not helping by standing around in here. We're all tired, too, and we could use some rest after tonight's excitement." I could just imagine her winking and giving everyone a chipper thumbs up. "Let's hit the hay and figure out the rest tomorrow. What do you say, hmm?"

If there were any dissenters, I didn't hear them dissent, because the murmur of voices dissolved like salt into hot water as sleep stole over me. Botan could take care of everything. She'd put everyone to bed and make them leave me alone, to sleep and to regroup. Yeah. Botan. I loved Botan so much. What a great friend. I…

As I drifted off, one final snippet of conversation floated through the impending haze of my dreams.

"Your hair," Kurama said.

Someone gave a wordless hum of inquiry in return.

"It was much shorter last time I saw you," Kurama said, "and it hasn't been long since we met."

"I'm blessed, I suppose," Minato said.

"Blessed, and evasive," returned Kurama. "If you—"

Worry cut through the mist of fatigue. Minato was alone with my friends, but… he was smart. He was capable. He could get out of this in one piece without me.

Right?

I didn't have time to worry overmuch, because before I could even begin to wonder how he would get himself out of this, sleep dragged me inexorably into dreaming.

A sob cut the darkness. A sniffle pierced the gloom. A single light shone from above, casting golden highlights on dusky skin and inky hair. Her body shook, wracked with sobs that tasted of salt and despair.

"Do you think she'll come back?" she cried, voice muffled against his shoulder. "Oh, oh, but do you think she'll ever come back here again?"

"I do," he said as he stroked her cheek. "She'll be back, and sooner than you think."

Her chest hitched, a sob catching in her lungs like thorns. "But how can you be sure?" she said.

He didn't look at her, then, although he wore a smile intended just for her. Hands on her hair, stroking and soothing and warm, his eyes lifted. Travelled the room as they searched.

They searched, and then they found.

His eyes met mine in a flash of gold, arresting and aware, pinning me in place as surely as any spear.

"She'll come back," he assured his companion. His teeth gleamed under the good of his growing smile, and then he smiled a smile meant only and completely for me.

"After all," he said, "she promised."

And then I was awake, and I saw that vicious smile no more.

Light streamed through my window, warm again my cool face. A groan escaped my mouth as my lashes fluttered on my cheek—and then the quality of the light, bright and streaming from straight above, sent panic skittering through my chest. I sat up and snatched my alarm clock off my desk, sheets and a comforter tumbling about my waist. The clock read noon, and although my parents always let me sleep in on New Year's Day, they never let me sleep this late because we had the temple to go to and we always ate lunch together first. Cursing, I swung my legs out of bed, but as soon as they slapped against the floor I yanked my right foot up again, hissing in pain from between my clenched teeth.

Clean, white bandages encircled my foot from my toes to my calf, bright and sterile in the afternoon light.

I remembered everything, then.

Sleep had reset me for a minute, sponging away the anxieties of the day before—though it could do little for the physical pains, nor anything for the sudden flood of "what ifs" and "what happeneds" coursing through my brain. I flopped back onto my bed with a sigh, belatedly realizing someone had changed me from my ruined dress and into a billowing pajama top. Hopefully Botan had been responsible for that. And speaking of Botan, where was she? And where were the others? My room was quite empty, door shut and chair by my desk unoccupied. Where the others asleep in the other room, or had they gone home?

Perhaps the note lying on my desk could give me a clue.

I spotted it as I returned my alarm clock to its place on my desk. A small sheet of paper, pale yellow with scalloped edges, sat beneath one of my pens. I didn't recognize the stationary, nor did I recognize the neat, even handwriting in which a message had been inscribed (in English, for whatever reason).

The note read as follows:

"I told them I was in the area after a New Year's party when I came upon you in your bedraggled state, and that I offered to walk you home shortly before they arrived.

Tread lightly, Captain. They're curious, and even friends are dangerous when asking questions.

I leave the rest to you.

Destroy this note."

Minato had not signed his message, but I had no doubt he'd been the one to pen it. Short and to the point, containing a warning… but it was brazen of him to leave a message out in the open where anyone could read it. And how had he even snuck it in here? I'd have to ask him when I saw him next, but the note was a good start. At least now my story could be straight with Minato's before anyone tried asking questions.

Questions.

Ones I wasn't at all prepared to answer, because just what the fucking hell was I going to tell people about last night?

I'd been able to leverage being tired and hurt (if you can even call "collapsing uncontrollably" an intentional con) to buy myself some time to prepare my explanation, but I'd fallen asleep too soon to really plan my attack. There had been barely time, if any at all, between escaping Itsuki and reuniting with my friends to think about what I'd experienced, giving me mere seconds to prepare myself for the interrogation that was surely about to come. The angle of "be so tired you can't talk" was both a lucky break and a blessing. Now, though, I didn't have that strategy to fall back on, and I needed to get my shit together fast. Speaking of: Shit, shit, where was everybody? How much time did I have to think something up and get my story straight? I'd asked Botan to get Ayame, because in my sleepy miasma I'd been able to concoct the barest bit of plan involving her. Ayame was basically a stalling tactic. Asking for her might buy me a little time since surely it would take a while for Ayame to show, but in the meantime how was I going to handle—?

On cue, someone knocked on my door.

Acting purely on reflex, I crumbled Minato's note into a ball, popped it into my mouth, and swallowed it with a vague prayer to the universe that the ink he'd used was nontoxic. Someone said my name, and as I choked down the paper I managed to grind out a strangled, "Come in!"

Yusuke opened the door, Kurama following a step behind, and true to their marching order it was Yusuke who came barreling in without preamble. "So you gonna tell us what happened, or nah?" he said. He flopped down onto the chair by my desk, sitting in it backwards to stare at me with his chin pillowed on the backrest.

"Uh. No?" I said.

A vein pulsed in his forehead. "Excuse me?"

"I—I don't want to say anything without Ayame here. Has Botan gotten in touch with her?"

"How should I know?" Yusuke whined. "And why the hell does Ayame need to be here, anyway?"

"Because I think she'll have answers," I said, and when Yusuke rolled his eyes I added: "And to be completely honest, I don't want to have to explain everything more than once."

It was a haphazard excuse to keep from talking, waiting for Ayame, but as soon as I said that I didn't want to tell the story more than once… well. That was actually sort of true. Getting eaten by that monster had been terrifying; having to describe that ad nauseam sounded like torture. Perhaps this showed in my face, because Kurama settled onto the foot of my bed with a frown.

"Are you all right?" he said. He reached for my knee beneath the comforter covering it. "You look pale."

"No," I said, opting for honesty in that moment. "It, it was just a hard night and—oh god." My eyes bugged out of my skull at a new realization, one that sent chills skating up my back like icy razor blades. "Oh, oh god, oh my god—!"

Yusuke leaped out of the way as I slid from my bed and grabbed at the phone on my desk, hauling the cradle into my lap so I could dial a number with shaking hands. The phone rang twice before someone picked up, and at the sound of a small, cheery voice a measure of relief swept through me—but it didn't last long.

"Hey, kid," I said, desperately keeping my voice even. "Doing OK this morning? Just calling to make sure you made it home safe last night."

"Yeah, Kaito walked me home. He was nice!" said Amanuma, chirping like a bird greeting the dawn. "We're going to go to the arcade next Sunday. I'm really glad we met! It's nice to have a friend who's good at games, y'know?"

His happy and enthusiastic babbling made me sink boneless into bed again. "Nice. I'm glad you'll get to hang out."

"Me too—but are you OK?"

"Who, me?" I said with a bright laugh. "Of course I'm fine; don't be silly! But sorry to cut this short, gotta run, Mom and Dad are making me go to the temple with them today and, yeah, talk to you soon, buh-bye!"

"Uh. OK? But Keiko—"

I hung up before he could say anything else, sagging once again into the pillows—but Yusuke cleared his throat, and at the sound I became uncomnfortably aware of Yusuke and Kurama's eyes on me. I sat up and composed myself, smoothing the bedclothes over my lap with a delicate cough.

Yusuke wasn't fooled by my innocent act. "What the heck was that about?" he demanded. "And was that Amanuma? Why'd you call him?"

"Um. I'll explain soon." I fingered the edge of my blanket without meeting his eyes. "We really, really need to talk to Ayame, though."

I think Yusuke was basically just done with me at that point. He threw his hands in the air with an eye roll so pronounced I feared he'd give himself a concussion. "Ugh, fine! Be annoying and cryptic," he said, shoving out of his chair and heading for the door. "I'll go bug Botan about it, though who knows where the heck she's run off to…"

He shut the door behind him with perhaps more force than necessary, but I didn't have the heart to chastise him. Instead I breathed a sigh of relief, because I'd breathe a hell of a lot easier without Yusuke breathing down my neck.

"And to think," Kurama mused. "Typically I'm the one accused of being cryptic."

He wore a smile, though it looked thin to me, like perhaps its edges might fray and tear at any moment. I ducked my chin with a wry laugh. "Heh. Seems I'm taking a leaf out of your book." My grin went crooked. "Pun intended."

He scoffed at the pun, but his smile thickened some. "I suppose it's nice to hear I'm an influence, at the very least." His head cocked to the side, garnet hair falling silken against his neck. "We're alone."

My heart skipped the tiniest of beats at that. As is my custom, I covered the awkwardness with humor. "Clearly," I said, brow lifting at the very empty room. "If you're trying to show off your powers of observation, try a bit harder."

"I'm not posturing," he said. "You're holding back from the others. Is there anything you can tell me now that we're alone?"

He waited, silent, as I mulled it over. Kurama was not as impatient as Yusuke, though as moment bled into moment, the smile faded from his lips. He eyed me with undisguised intensity, as if trying to read my thoughts in every pull of my mouth, every twitch of my eye. I was tempted to tell Kurama he was likely off the hook regarding Amanuma. The kid hadn't been recruited, Sensui was going to leave him alone… but I'd called in that fit of panic because I didn't trust Itsuki not to menace Amanuma in some way.

Itsuki's parting words to me, after all, had concerned Amanuma directly. There was no way to know how deeply the kid might or might not become involved in light of this. Thus, I could not give Kurama hope, in the event he had to kill the child, after all.

But what, then, could I even tell him?

I licked my lips. Took a deep breath. Said, every word a carefully chosen skirmish: "Things are happening out of order. It's… confusing. And weird. And I worry telling you too much now could throw things even deeper into disarray later—or end them before they can even begin."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

I wet my lips again, nervous. "What happened to me last night involved something you are meant to face later—much later. When you're stronger than you are now. I can't let you anywhere near it until you're ready."

"You worry for my strength?" One brow shot up, skeptical. "I assure you, Kei, that I can take care of—"

"You aren't strong enough," I said.

Kurama shook his head. "Kei—"

"No. Listen to me."

I spoke with no malice, no heat—just raw, cold logic, voice bereft of emotion and bias alike. Kurama fell quite quiet at the sound, staring at me from the foot of my bed in undisguised surprise.

"I'm not insulting you," I said. "I'm not being mean. I'm being honest when I say that neither you nor the others are strong enough yet, to face what I faced last night." A metaphor swam to the surface, thoughts of Amanuma's beloved video games coloring my perception. "It would be like sending a level one party against the game's final boss. You have some levels to grind before then, some quests to complete before you get there, some mini-bosses that will prepare you for the final fight. But if you went charging into the dragon's den today…"

I could not suppress the shudder that rippled through me, then. Kurama watched, alarm turning his eyes the color of cool and brittle jade.

"And you faced this alone?" he murmured.

"Yes." Another shudder I could not quash. "The threat wasn't even at full strength. It wasn't ready for me. I avoided antagonizing it—but even so, I barely escaped with my sanity intact."

The shudder turned into a tremble. I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned forward, head near my knees as I curled very nearly into a shaking ball. The tape—Itsuki had gotten so close to playing Chapter Black, had toyed with me as a cat toys with a mouse. The horrors of that tape were stuff of horrific, nightmarish legend. What would have become of me had I seen even a moment of its terrors? Would I have lost myself? Would I have become something, someone else? Abandoned my friends against all that I believe and tried to end the world at Sensui's side? What would have happened had V not arrived exactly when she did? What would—?

Kurama reached for me. He reached for my ankle beneath the covers with a murmur of my name, sliding closer across the breadth of my bed.

Before he could make contact, I slipped out from under his hand, out of bed, and away.

"Look away," I told him.

I trusted Kurama not to watch as I opened my closet and stepped inside. I put on shorts and changed into a fresh shirt, carefully keeping on my toes to avoid my injured foot. I didn't need other clothes, really. The ones I'd been changed into smelled of detergent. Still, I changed my clothes, hoping that the changes to my outside my change how I felt inside, too.

And to cover the fact I'd been about to cry.

Kurama didn't need to know either of those things, however.

I finished changing and turned to find him where I'd left him, face aimed carefully at the window. Platinum light from the noonday sun turned his hair the color of fresh blood, his eyes the hue of new shoots of spring. He looked so out of place in my bedroom, with its record player and rock posters and pink comforter and John Wayne flipping the bird, that I almost laughed.

I didn't, though.

I cleared my throat, and couldn't maintain eye contact when he looked my way.

"Anyway," I said. "Sorry I can't tell you more." I shrugged. "I just—"

"You have no reason to apologize."

My head jerked up from the floor. Kurama laced his fingers together, cupping them around his knee as his chin lifted high and proud.

"I've said before that to interfere in fickle fate is to court disaster," Kurama told me. "I am a proud demon, but I am by no means a demon who underestimates his opponents. Time is my ally, as I believe it is yours. I will face this threat when I am ready, and no sooner." The barest of smiles crossed his lips. "I trust you will help me determine when that day comes."

My throat thickened; I looked away, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I heard him hesitate, that breath drawn in and held as he decided if he wanted to speak. In the end he decided yes, and said: "Truth be told, Kei, when you vanished, I wondered if you had left this world much the same way you had appeared in it: without warning, without explanation, and with a thunderclap of enigma."

My hand dropped from my eyes. Stars and halos of light danced on my distorted vision, a million tiny sparkles wreathing Kurama in multicolored flame. The lights faded as swiftly as they'd appeared, but Kurama's expression—one of grim uncertainty, haggard determination, and an odd light I couldn't place—didn't falter.

"We wondered if we would ever see you again." He paused. Admitted: "I wondered if I would ever see you again."

My feet moved of their own accord, pushing me to sit next to him on the bed. "Kurama," I said, because I wasn't capable of much else.

He smiled, albeit tightly. "It isn't in my nature to display bald sentiment. Therefore, I will be brief." Kurama turned slightly in my direction. "I am glad you've returned, Kei. Lunch periods at school would be far less enjoyable if you stopped attending them."

My mouth quirked. "I wouldn't leave you alone with Kaito."

"How very thoughtful of you," said Kurama.

"What can I say? I'm a great friend."

"Yes. You are."

My eyes cut sideways at those murmured words. Kurama didn't flinch away, solemn as we traded a long, silent moment of… communion, maybe. I don't have the words for it. I was still thinking about what he'd said, about fearing never seeing me again—but he didn't need to fear that. Not getting to say goodbye, living in uncertainty, it would be horrible, but I'd never let it happen. Didn't he know that I'd never leave them, or him, hanging lost upon uncertainty? Didn't he know I'd never disappear into the night without telling him goodbye? He should know. He should know I'd never do that to him, and that no goodbyes would ever come without forewarning.

He should know. So I should tell him.

I didn't think about it too hard, covering his hand with mine, but I did it. His eyes widened the tiniest fraction as I opened my mouth to speak, to assure him I'd never allow such a nightmare to come to pass, only good dreams allowed in this household—but before I could speak, my bedroom door swung open. Our hands came apart as Kuwabara walked in carrying a tray; I smoothed my hair behind my ears, deep breath filling my chest until it nearly hurt.

Bad timing. Bad, bad timing, Kuwabara.

Still, the scent of food wafted off the tray on his hand, and in response my stomach loosed a ferocious growl. "That for me?" I said, trying to cover the horrific sound, but Kurama's eyes twinkled and I know he overheard.

"Yeah, it is!" Kuwabara said. He placed the tray on my desk and beamed. "Just some leftovers from last night but I think New Year's leftovers are always better the next day, y'know?"

I did know. I let him usher my off the bed and into the chair, where I began to shovel down food in a way I'd normally consider impolite, but to hell with it, I was hungry and this was an enjoyable way to cover the awkward moment that preceded it.

"We told your mom and dad you stepped on glass and probably shouldn't go to the temple today, so they're already there, which means we've got the house to ourselves to talk," Kuwabara said as he settled onto the bed beside Kurama. His small eyes went as wide as they could go, swimming with worry and a plea for understanding. "What happened, Keiko? Where did you go last night?"

"It's… complicated." I drank a mouthful of soup, not looking at him. "I don't want to tell you yet, if that's OK."

"Huh?" Kuwabara said. "But why not?"

"Yusuke isn't here. Neither are Botan and Ayame." I put the soup away to send him a look of apologetic regret. "Sorry, Kuwabara, but I want to tell all of you at once. I don't want to have to tell it again and again. It's just…" I shook my head. "It's not a fun story to tell."

Kuwabara appeared crestfallen by this news, but Kurama's eyes took on a knowing sheen, and he gave me a subtle nod—a nod that said he knew exactly what I was up to, delaying the telling of my story. 'Time is our ally,' indeed.

Kuwabara saw us looking at each other, I think. His head turned between Kurama and I a few times before he slouched and muttered, "You didn't tell Kurama anything either while you were chatting, did you?"

"I have been left quite completely in the dark, as have you," Kurama said.

Kuwabara looked at the fox demon askance, studying him from the corner of his eye, but Kurama's pleasant smile didn't waver. Eventually Kuwabara seemed to think Kurama passed some sort of test, because he shook himself faced me again. "Y'know, I get it. It can be tough to talk about not-fun-stuff a lot. So you just take it easy, and I'll be here to listen whenever you're ready. OK?"

His sincerity filled me with warm fuzzies. "Thanks, Kuwabara. I appreciate that."

"You're welcome." His hands knitted together atop his knees, fingers fidgeting as he slouched even further down. "But, um. I gotta know one thing."

"What is it?"

He stared at the floor. Gulped. Asked with cheeks that had caught flame: "Who was that boy who—?"

He meant Minato, but he never quite got that far, because there came a flash of blue from the doorway. Kuwabara bit back his words with the face of someone who had just tried to swallow a watermelon without chewing, cheeks puffed and red as Botan bounced into the room with a cheerily chirped "Hello, Keiko!"

Yusuke followed behind her with hands behind his head. "Found this one being creepy outside a hospital for some reason. But I got her like you asked, Grandma."

"I wasn't being creepy!" Botan protested. She put her hands on my shoulders and peered over my head at my food with a grin. "Good to see you up and at 'em after the night you had."

"Don't talk like you know anything about it, Botan," Yusuke groused. He flopped to the floor and leaned against the inside of my bedroom door, one leg propped lazily atop the other—a posture belied by the baleful look his sent my way. "You feel like talkin' yet?"

"Nope." To Botan I said, "Hear from Ayame?"

"Yes. I've gotten in touch with her using certain reaper methods I'd rather not divulge." She blanched and gave a nervous laugh. "It's… honestly better no one hears about it."

"… did you send messages through dead people?" I whispered, unable to help myself.

Too bad Botan just shook her head. "Trust me, it's best if you don't know. But I sent a message and I received a response in short order. Ayame is nothing if not prompt. She'll meet you this afternoon at this café." From her pocket she pulled a scrap of paper, which she handed to me. "Was a bit difficult to find something still open on New Year's Day, but leave it to Ayame to find a place. I peeked at the menu and it looks divine. I'll be sure to check it out once this is all said and done."

Yusuke groaned. "Not another café! I swear, ever since she came to stay in Human World, Botan's been obsessed with cafes. And movies, and painting her nails, and—"

"I want the full human experience, Yusuke!" Botan said, rounding on him with hands on hips. "That isn't so much to ask!"

"It is when it's my nails you want to paint!"

"Botan, are you not coming with us?" Kuwabara asked before she and Yusuke could really get into it.

"I'm afraid not." Her shoulders sagged, face falling just a bit. "It's best I don't see Ayame, I think. Even making this contact was risky."

Kurama nodded. "A wise choice, considering your current predicament."

She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "Agreed. I miss her dearly, of course, but… anyway." A smart shake of her head, ponytail flying like a powder blue flag. "Keiko, I should properly heal your feet, see to your back. Can I help you down the hall? I'll draw up a hot bath…"

Normally I'd balk at the idea of help with a bath, but I didn't protest as Botan kicked Yusuke away from my door and helped me hobble down the hall. A bath sounded good, better even than Botan knew, because bathrooms—where your thoughts and words could echo loudly off the tile—were the best places to think in all the world. And I definitely had a lot to think about. I'm happy to report that by the time Botan treated my feet and left me alone to bathe, the beginnings of a plan had budded in my head.

I just hoped that this plan of mine would… well. Go as planned, I guess.

We sat in a booth at the back of the café, hidden from view around a secluded corner near the busboy's station. Great place to talk, but too close to the doors to the kitchen to be popular with regulars—AKA, exactly what we wanted for our odd conversation with the head of the underworld's grim reapers. The entire group (minus Botan and the taciturn Hiei, of course) occupied the table, Ayame sitting in a chair at its head in her austere black kimono. She'd gotten a few stars when she walked in, but the fancy café hosted a few people in their New Year's Day best, so she blended in better than she would have any other day of the year. Ayame held a mug of tea in her pale hands and took an uncertain sip as it cooled. A small smile crossed her face afterward, like she'd just had the most pleasant surprise.

Maybe she had. Maybe she didn't eat much, being a grim reaper. Who was I to know?

But that wasn't why we were here.

"Who were the Spirit Detectives before Yusuke?" I said.

Ayame put down her cup, so gently it barely clicked against the saucer, but the careful motion told me everything I needed to know: The question had caught her off guard, and now her walls were up. Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara all looked at me in confusion at the question; Ayame merely patted her lips with a napkin and folded her hands primly atop the table. I'd waited until we'd received our drinks orders before speaking. I'd need something to drink by the time this was through, I was sure of it.

"Why, may I ask, do you want to know?" Ayame said. When I didn't reply right away, still watching for her reaction, she leaned almost imperceptibly in my direction. "I was under the impression you had things to tell me, not the other way around. Botan conveyed precious little regarding the nature of this meeting."

I took a deep breath. Ayame watched with the same calculating gaze I'd turned on her, and beside me, I felt Kurama tense. Kuwabara leaned in with hands balled into fists on the table, stare intent on my face. Yusuke just lounged in his seat looking like he didn't want to be there—but that changed when I finally spoke.

"Last night I was eaten by a demon called a Uraotoko," I said, "and for several hours, my friends thought I'd ceased to exist."

Yusuke bolted upright; in unison he and Kuwabara yodeled: "WHAT?!"

Kurama nearly dropped his teacup, catching it again just before it hit the table. "Beg pardon?" he said with subdued astonishment.

"It looks like an enormous living shadow in the shape of a humanoid silhouette, but with a corporeal mouth and eyes," I said, still addressing Ayame—she who had reacted with the smallest of gasps, one hand delicately covering her red lips. "It came into my home and ate me alive."

"What?! No way!" Yusuke stammered. He'd risen almost to his feet and seemed in danger of knocking the table over. "What the hell?"

"That's crazy, Keiko!" Kuwabara said. His look of horror faded into one of understanding after a moment, fingers tapping on his chin in thought. "Though now I see why you didn't want to have to explain that more than once."

"Yes," Kurama murmured. "Your reticence on this matter has suddenly become quite clear."

"There's a method to my madness," I said with a shrug. Taking another deep breath, I told them what I'd decided to tell them, rehearsed words rolling off my tongue like a memorized script (because that's basically what they were): "I sat in the creature's stomach for hours. I assume my friends couldn't sense me while I remained in that prison. There were… remains, in its stomach, of other creatures it had consumed. If I hadn't gotten out, I'm sure I would have starved to death and died."

Yusuke looked green. Kuwabara clapped a hand over his mouth, words muffled when he said, "That's awful, Keiko."

"Yeah, Grandma, are you even OK?" Yusuke added. He slapped back into his seat, staring at me as if fearing I'd catch fire any moment. "Because getting eaten by a freakin' shadow monster doesn't sound like something you should be OK with."

"I'm fine." Another shrug (but the memory of falling, of the creature's horrible mouth, filled my head to bursting, and I had to take a long drink of my tea to center myself again). "I got out, after all."

"And how did you manage to accomplish such a feat?" Ayame asked. Her hand had come away from her mouth, but her eyes gleamed with horrified comprehension. Suddenly this request for a meeting probably made a lot of sense to her.

"I got out by relying on someone else to spring me loose." My features twisted in displeasure. "I didn't know how to free myself physically, but the beast's master decided I was worth sparing after a convincing conversation."

"I see." She picked up her mug of tea again. "And this beast's master would be…?"

"A demon who goes by the name Itsuki." I kept speaking without pause, but I made note of how Ayame's mug stopped midway through its journey to her mouth when I dropped the demon's name. I continued, "Green hair, golden eyes. Handsome, well dressed. But very cold, and honestly, quite disturbed. He made multiple vague references to Spirit World and Spirit Detectives. He has either tangled with one or both before, or knows someone who has."

Ayame's hands still didn't move. Steam from her drink floated over her face, distorting her features the barest, most disorienting bit.

"Well, he's never tangled with me," Yusuke said. He slapped a fist against his palm with a growl. "And if he ever does, I'm gonna—!"

Kurama cut in before Yusuke could promise violence. "What did he want with you, Kei?"

"Information, mostly." I'd ordered bubble tea, which I sipped before once against addressing Ayame. "Does Spirit World often offer details of protection to spiritually unaware humans?"

She frowned, small furrows carved between her thin brows. "Not typically, no. Why?"

"Could they be persuaded to make an exception?" I asked.

"If the situation calls for it."

I nodded. "Then I would like for you to consider giving a protection detail to a boy named Amanuma Tsukihito."

That declaration earned me a round of double-takes and confused stares from the boys, of course; Ayame remained as stoic as ever, though her frown did deepen just a tad. "Amanuma?" Kuwabara asked. "Why?"

"Yeah, Keiko," said Yusuke. "What's this all got to do with Amanuma?" His eyes narrowed. "Does this have something to do with why you called him in a panic earlier?"

"Yup," I said. "Turns out Amanuma is the catalyst for everything that happened last night."

"He's what?!"

Yusuke and Kuwabara were shocked, obviously, once again speaking in startled unison. Kurama, however, shot me a sharp look askance. He knew what his future held concerning the kid, after all, and his wily fox brain wasn't about to let this go and refrain from making theories.

"Itsuki and an ally he refused to name had designs for Amanuma, apparently," I said, toying with the plastic lid on my bubble tea. "He did not reveal these designs to me, but apparently our friendship with Amanuma got in the way of their plans. He investigated us, realized I knew the current Spirit Detective, and kidnapped me to determine why we befriended the kid." To Ayame in particular I said, "I think he believed Spirit World was onto him and was interfering on purpose."

"But why was us making friends with the kid a problem?" said Kuwabara.

"You remember how lonely Amanuma was when we met him?" I said.

"Well. Yeah?" He scratched his cheek. "But what's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," I said. "I think they aimed to take advantage of his state of mind to manipulate him into… I don't know what, exactly, but it can't have been good." A mix of truths and lies, half-facts and total fabrications, but I'd practiced them all enough to sound convincing. "Our interference made Amanuma less desperate for friends, including those who might do him ill. And my interference in particular caused Amanuma to reject one of Itsuki's allies outright."

"Your interference?" Ayame asked.

"I gave him advice. I, uh… I do that sometimes."

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Understatement. Keiko lives to tell people how to live their lives."

My jaw dropped. "Hey!"

"What?" He dodged when I flicked my sodden straw wrapper at him. "Don't be like that! You know it's true!"

"Maybe, but you don't have to say it!" I put my bruised ego aside, then, only partially because people were watching and Kurama had started laughing behind his hand at my expense. I tossed my hair and pointedly ignored Yusuke when I said, "In any case. Amanuma referenced me directly, so this Itsuki blame me most for Amanuma splitting from him and his allies." Spreading my hands flat on the table, I leaned forward. "So, Ayame. I'll ask again. Who are the former Spirit Detectives, and did any of them ever run afoul of a demon who fits Itsuki's description? Or, alternatively, has Spirit World ever run afoul of this demon? Are the current and former Detectives in danger?"

"Oh jeez. Am I?!" Yusuke said. At my glare he corrected himself. "I mean, are we?"

"I don't know," I said. "Ayame?"

She remained silent for a time despite my inquiry, however, taking several long, slow sips of her rapidly cooling tea. We watched her in silence, Yusuke growing more and more disgruntled by the second, but eventually she set her cup back down and folded her hands across her lap.

"What else can you tell me, Keiko?" she said.

The fact that she hadn't answered my questions didn't bother me. I hadn't really expected an answer, anyway. Yusuke, however, bristled at the obvious change in subject, but Kurama shook his head and Yusuke settled back down again.

"Not much, I'm afraid," I said. "Although Itsuki interrogated me about Amanuma, he revealed little of his own goals or motivations. If this demon is a villain, he didn't fall for the whole 'movie villain monologues to the hero' thing, and he even referenced that trope as something he'd avoid." I mimed closing my mouth like a zippered purse. "Guy kept a tight lip," I said, flicking away an imaginary key.

"I see." Ayame paused to take another drink of tea. "How did you escape?"

"Like I said," I said. "He let me go."

But Ayame was too sharp for my evasive answer. "Not from the demon's stomach," she said. "How did you escape Itsuki himself, after you were freed from your first prison?"

Drat, but she was sharp. Even though she and I had recently gotten to be better buddies, I still needed to watch myself around her. Thus, I merely shrugged in response and kept my answer vague. "I ran when the timing was right," I said. "That's all."

Ayame's gaze darkened. "Is it?"

"I mean, yeah?" I shrugged again. "It's not like a regular human like me could've fought him off or something. Eventually a friend of mine happened to find me, and he helped me go the rest of the way home." I picked up my drink and used it to gesture, as if conducting an invisible choir. "All in all, Ayame… I got very, very lucky."

"You are extraordinarily well named," she remarked.

"Thank you."

The grim reaper studied me a minute, like she thought I might say more, but I did not. I sucked down a few tapioca balls and chewed them until she looked away and rose, standing with a small bow of goodbye. "Very well. I will take this to Koenma immediately."

"And Amanuma?"

"We will watch over him." Another bow as relief filled my throat to bursting. Ayame said, "The less you know, the better."

"And of Keiko?"

Everyone looked at Kurama, then, in the wake of this unexpected question. Shutters closed behind Ayame's eyes as she turned on her heel to face him. Kurama did not back down or flinch away, however. He faced her dark eyes head on, boldly meeting her stare with an unforgiving look of his own. I started to speak, to say his name in question, but he raised his hand and gave a subtle shake of his head.

"You have a question for me, Kurama?" Ayame said.

"Yes." He stood, too, expression polite but as firm as a slab of granite. "Keiko was targeted by a demon. Will you not afford her your protection, too?"

"I don't need—" I tried to protest, but this time Ayame shook her head.

"She runs with demons and a Spirit Detective. What more could we offer?" She smiled, but the curve of her lips looked like a honed blade. "Or are you not interested in protecting your friend?"

Kurama didn't rise to her insult. "I will safeguard her as best I'm able, of that you should have no doubt," he said, tone neutral but unyielding. "However, this is a demon of unknown origin and with unknown goals. It would be foolish not to afford her additional protection—don't you agree?"

Man, he was almost as good as a southern grandmother at packing his words with double meanings. If she disagreed with him, she's inadvertently agree with his claim she was a fool. But Ayame, clever as she was with double-speak herself, saw that tactic coming from a mile off. She chuckled, chin lowering demurely toward her chest.

"I will bring your concerns to Koenma as well." Dark eyes traveled to me, then. "Keiko has proven herself a valuable ally. We would not see her taken from us."

Kurama appeared unconvinced, and Yusuke and Kuwabara had no clue in hell how to respond to this oddly polite battle of wills—but I barely paid any of them heed. I only had eyes for Ayame in that moment. We stared at each other, speaking without words, the sincerity in her expression evident but indirect beneath the shrouding influence of her decorous expression. Eventually I gave her the briefest of nods, which she returned before turning from me and walking with short, quick steps out of the bright café.

Perhaps no one else had seen it but me, but as soon as I'd said Itsuki's name, her entire body language had changed. I had no doubt Ayame knew precisely who Itsuki was, and that despite Kurama's claims to the contrary, the reaper was well aware of the dire circumstances underlying my apparent kidnapped.

If memory served, Ayame had been Sensui's handler like Botan had been Yusuke's… and Sensui had been running with a certain green-haired demon long before his tenure as Spirit Detective came to its abrupt end. I just hoped I'd given her enough information to seem convincing in my story, but that I'd left enough unsaid not to derail the plot.

I hadn't trusted myself to make up a convincing lie. The boy would have sniffed it out in time, and if Spirit World hadn't been spying on our group during my abduction, surely eventually they would have gotten wind of it and come to me with questions. No, I'd decided that afternoon in the bath. Lying outright was not the best tactic, here.

Best to tell all truth, but to tell it slant, and hope I'd done the right thing.

Foot freshly healed by Botan's white magic, I had no trouble keeping up with the rest the group as we walked home from the café—and speaking of Botan, she appeared not long after we left, manifesting out of the downtown New Year's Day crowd like one of the ghosts she so often escorted to the afterlife. Breathlessly she walked ahead of us, but backwards, peppering our group with questions and demands for a recap. Lucky for me Kuwabara and Yusuke took the lead, filling her in with the story I didn't have the heart to repeat. In fact, I tuned most of the conversation out, eyes downcast as we traversed the crowds and made our way toward home. Kuwabara and Kurama flanked my either side, a pair of red-headed bodyguards I was fairly certain I wouldn't be able to shake for the next few weeks.

They'd stuck close to my side ever since we left the café, and I predicted I'd travel with a protective retinue for some weeks yet, now that the truth had come out.

Not that I minded. As Yusuke and Botan walked ahead, bickering and bantering as was their custom, I thought it might be nice to have someone nearby as I came down off the anxiety of meeting Itsuki. Night had begun to fall while we talked to Ayame, shadows lengthening as the sun went down, and in the depths of every one I kept thinking I spotted watching eyes or grinning mouths, though they always ended up being a bit of litter or a swirl in the pavement instead of the features of a lurking demon. How long would I be looking over my shoulder, afraid of every bit of darkness that fell across my path—

Kurama's hand closed around my elbow. Kuwabara stopped walking with a grunt of question. I looked up to find a crowd gathering ahead of us on the packed sidewalk, ringing a shopfront like perhaps something amazing waited behind its front window.

But then there came a crash, followed by a series of shrieks, and I got the sense there wasn't some killer sale about to go down, after all.

The members of our group exchanged a look or three, and then we walked in a knot to join the rest of the crowd. "Get back, get back!" someone was yelling, and as we swam through the onlookers to see the rest of the shopfront, I caught a glimpse of a few men in official-looking reflective vests and hardhats erecting caution tape around the front of a store, bright orange clothes peeking through the onlookers like hunting garb through brush.

"What's going on, d'ya think?" Kuwabara said in my ear.

"Not sure," I whispered back.

"Stay back!" one of the men shouted as a passerby got a shade too close. He waved a bright orange cone, the kind people wave when directing traffic. "Nothing to see here, people! Move along; this area is dangerous!"

"Well, that's certainly a set of mixed messages if I've ever heard one," Botan muttered. "Don't tell people there's nothing to see and then say there's something exciting and dangerous!" She squeezed her blue head between two people, then retreated backward toward our friends with a gasp. "Oh, my! What do you think could have done that, do you suppose?"

"Done what?" said Kuwabara.

Botan pointed ahead. "That, that! You have to see it for yourself!"

Kuwabara, human bulldozer that he is, had no trouble gently nudging people aside and clearing a path to the front of the crowd for the rest of us. We edged right up to the barrier of caution tape ringing the storefront, but when something fell to the ground with a cloud of dust and a loud thump, I worried we'd gotten too close, after all. Other people fell back with shrieks of surprise, but Botan gaped at the scene before us and clapped a hand over her mouth without retreating.

"What could have done this?" she said, eyes wide with horror.

Kurama, beside me, shook his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it resembles… but, no. There's no way."

"Resembles what, Kurama?" Kuwabara asked.

Kurama hesitated.

Reluctantly, he admitted: "It looks like marks left behind by a fist, almost."

To the right of the store stood a pillar. It, and pillars like it, supported the awning hanging over all the shops on this downtown street. They were made of concrete, covered in tiles polished to a mirror sheen, beautiful and functional at once—only the pillar surrounded by frantic construction workers had been robbed of both these qualities. An enormous, circular hole had been punched clean through the center of the pillar, and below and above the hole it appeared as if entire chunks had been ripped from the structure by enormous hands. Rubble coated the ground with bits of metal and concrete. The pillar buckled and swayed, awning above listing precariously forward; the crowd reacted with a series of screams, scrambling backward and away over the sidewalk in fright. On their tide we were carried away from the odd scene, made to stand near the curb some feet out of harm's way. Botan was babbling something about how we should leave, this was clearly not a safe place—but I barely heard her as I counted us off one by one in my head.

"Hey." My voice rose high above the murmuring of the throng. "Where's Yusuke?"

Everyone paused. Looked around. Looked back to me.

"Yes, Keiko, you're right." Botan planted her hands on her hips, searching the street with her bright eyes. "Where did that boy get off to?"

The tallest member of our clique, Kuwabara craned his head and peered over the mob, eyes screwed up in concentration. His expression cleared after a moment, though, and he lifted a hand top point as he said, "Oh, there he—" Black eyes flew wide open, white showing all the way around his irises. "Wait. That can't—?"

Standing on my tiptoes, I looked in the direction he had pointed. Keiko is short, but through a gap in the crowd I caught sight of a familiar, garish green windbreaker with orange lapels, its wearer standing way across the street on the opposite sidewalk. I started to speak, to call out his name—but then Kuwabara's hand closed around my wrist.

I looked up at him with a frown, but he wasn't looking at me. Rather, he stared at Yusuke, and before my eyes a bead of sweat formed on his temple despite the chilly New Year's Day. Muscles pulsed in his jaw like a visible heartbeat. But why—?

"Kurama." Kuwabara's gravelly voice cut through the din around us like a jackhammer through a pillow. "Kurama, take Botan and Keiko and you get them out of here."

Kurama made no move to obey, however, and merely frowned. "Kuwabara, what are you—?"

"Just do it, man." The sweat on his temple shuddered and fell, streaking down his cheek and over his jaw in a glistening trail, but still his eyes did not waver from Yusuke across the street. "Get them out of here," he growled. "Now!"

Kurama started to protest.

His eyes followed Kuwabara's.

His words died, and his eyes—they narrowed.

"Understood," Kurama said. An arm snaked around my shoulders, and with his other hand he reached for Botan. "Botan. You, too."

But she shied away from him. "Kurama, Kuwabara, what's gotten into you?" she said—and I would have concurred with her and demanded an explanation had the crowd not parted at that exact moment, revealing to me the unfurling tableau on display across the street.

Walking down the sidewalk, away from Yusuke where he stood with fists balled at his sides, I spotted the broadest pair of shoulders I had ever seen. The rose above the rest of the humans at an unnatural height, as obvious and unmissable as a gaping wound or an empty spot on a crowded shelf.

The bottom fell out of my stomach at the sight of them, a deathly drop into unending black.

I had seen him only once before, lying still and motionless upon the ground, but the moment my eyes connected with his olive trench coat and the slick sheen of his black hair—I knew. I knew him the way I seemed to know all canon characters on sight, the truth of his identity ricocheting inside me like a bottle rocket in a cage. Even before Kuwabara murmured his name ("No, no, it can't be him, we killed him, dammit!") I knew who he must be, as easy to recognize as Keiko's reflection in the mirror.

Toguro, the younger—in the flesh at last.

I couldn't keep the gasp inside my chest. It ripped from me as biting as a scream, and then Kurama steered me down the sidewalk with his arm tight around my shoulders. I clung to his hand, grasping tight to his fingers like a girl tossed by waves during a storm, afraid that if I let go (even for a moment) I'd be swept away into the distance and cast into depths of anxiety that could drown.

I'd told Kurama only hours ago that we had a side quest to complete before we faced the final boss. A mini-boss, if you will—only when I'd said that, I thought we had more time before the quest begun. I thought we'd have more time to grind up levels, to advance and to prepare before facing this misnamed mini-boss.

I thought there would be time, dammit.

But I was wrong.

The next battle was upon us—and much like Sensui, this man, too, was a dragon in his own right.

At this stage in the game, there was nothing "mini-boss" about him.

Notes:

Between migraines and travel (14 hours of driving this weekend, ugh), this had to be late. Necessary evil, plus it's a huge chapter. Hope you liked it.

Time to sleep and then drive 7 hours, uggghhh.

Chapter 79: Training Montage

Summary:

In which Keiko feels embarrassed. A lot.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Kurama looped his arm tight around my shoulders as we all but power-walked through the bustling streets of Sarayashiki's glittering downtown. If it hadn't been for the blue-haired woman walking backward ahead of us so she could frantically prattle out the story of Toguro (a story she didn't know I was already aware of), maybe someone would've mistaken Kurama and I for a couple walking close together to keep warm on a chilly winter day.

The dire expressions on our all faces probably shattered that pretty picture like a brick through rose-colored glass, though.

We reached the stoop of my home quicker than expected. The streets passed in a blur of colors and lights, scenery blending together on the whirring blades of my anxiety. Stray thoughts like "Toguro is here?" and Already? So soon?" had filled my head too full to notice the passing of time or streets. Kurama stopped a few feet from the door, pulling Botan and I close to the front windows of the restaurant so he could address us with low urgency. A few patrons walked past us and entered the ramen shop; some looked at us with raised brows, but no one said anything. We were just teens on the sidewalk, after all, gathered to socialize on New Year's Day. Nothing to write home about.

"Don't go anywhere," Kurama said to me. He'd released my shoulders, but his hand gripped my upper arm as if to keep me from flying away. "Stay inside, in your room. Keep away from the windows. Do you understand?"

It was all I could do to nod.

"Good." His eyes cut to the reaper huddled next to us. "Botan, with me. We need to check on Atsuko."

"R-right!" she said, and without another word or warning or well-wish, Kurama turned on his heel and walked quickly away into the descending twilight.

I stood on the sidewalk, motionless, until they disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. My heart beat like a battering ram against my ribs, but it started to slow as a feeling of surprise replaced it with bubbles in my chest. For Kurama to willingly leave me alone the night after my abduction, so soon after everyone panicked when I vanished—wow. That must mean he took the threat of Toguro quite seriously indeed, leaving me alone like this.

But thinking about that only brought back the anxiety-ram, so I shook myself from my stupor and headed inside.

Mom met me almost the minute I walked through the front doors and shrugged out of my coat. She carried a potted plant under her arm, leaves broad and shiny and a shade of deep, rich green. A purple flower with slender petals crowned the stalk jutting from where the leaves converged. She juggled it to her other side and kissed me on the cheek; as she did so, scent wafted from the plant in a wave of… something. Sugared mint mellowed out by an earthy smell I couldn't quite place. It was a pleasant scent, if not a little cloying.

"There you are!" she said with an enormous smile. "How's your foot feeling? They told me you stepped on something sharp. And Happy New Year, Keiko."

"Happy New Year to you too. It's fine. I'm all bandaged up." I pointed at the plant. "What's that?"

She transferred the pot to both hands and beamed. "Isn't it lovely? Shuichi-kun left it for us as a gift, as thanks for the party last night. He said it's from South America and if placed by the front door will bring us good luck. Isn't it lovely?"

My brow shot up. "Shuichi left it."

"Mmm-hmm. Though where he found a flower like this at this time of year, I haven't the faintest idea."

Mom didn't have any idea, but I sure had a few. As she placed the plant on the table by the front door, next to the lucky cat statue and a stack of menus, I considered that maybe Kurama hadn't left me alone, after all. Maybe that flower, like so many of Kurama's plants, possessed a function beyond looking and smelling lovely. I shot it an expression of "I know what you're up to and you're not sneaky" just in case Kurama could see me through its flower before going upstairs and collapsing onto my bed. The dark lit up with stars when I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and sighed. Although I still felt tired from the night before, being alone for the first time since my abduction had my mind racing in circles. Where were the others? Was Yusuke OK, talking to Toguro alone? Had Kuwabara followed or was he watching from afar, as he'd done in the anime? And where the heck was—?

I didn't have time to finish asking that last question; it was answered almost immediately. The sound of my window rattling open sent anxiety scattering, panic taking its place inside my chest—but as a cold wind ripped through the room and I sat up with a frightened gasp, a black-clad leg thrust its way onto my desk. Hiei crawled through the open window without once looking at me, shutting it behind him before he hopped off the desk and stood in the middle of my bedroom.

"Well? What's wrong?" He finally looked at me when I didn't reply and instead gaped at him in confusion and shock. His eyes flashed. "You're worried. I could feel it down the block. But why?"

"You could feel—?" My eyes narrowed. "Were you spying on me?"

Hiei turned away with a "tch," abrasive sound like sandpaper between teeth. "You really think I wouldn't keep an eye on you out after what happened last night?"

"Pun intended?"

He glared over his shoulder. "Quit making jokes."

"Fine, fine," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. "Oh, just so you know, last night I was—"

"I listened in on your conversation with Ayame," he cut in. "I know what happened and you're a fool if you think for one second I wouldn't—" He stopped and bared his teeth before taking one quick step toward the window. "Never mind. Forget it. I'm—"

"Hey. Wait." I scrambled off the bed and hooked a finger into his sleeve; he looked down at it and then up at me with a scowl, but the scowl faded a smidge when I said, "Thank you. I feel safer knowing you're looking out for me." A wry smile. "And frankly, I wondered why Kurama would leave me alone so soon afterward, and with what just happened downtown…"

Hiei's scowl returned in full force. "What happened downtown?"

"Toguro's back."

He bristled at once, hair standing even more on end than usual. "The thug who kept my sister—?"

"Yeah," I said, weight gathering leaden in my chest. "That guy."

But Hiei was not so easily convinced, or perhaps he was experiencing some shock of his own. "The Detective killed him," he said, as if in protest.

I nodded. "Yeah, well, apparently death didn't stick. It doesn't stick for so many in our circle, it seems." I sighed. "Anyway. He appeared and got to Yusuke after we finished telling Ayame about last night."

"But why is he here?" Hiei asked. Wheels turned behind his livid gaze. "For revenge?"

"Sort of. And that's why I was worried." My smile tasted as bitter as a lemon. "I was worried for Yusuke."

Hiei opened his mouth to reply.

Someone else replied first.

"Smart girl," they said. "You should be worried."

Hiei's eyes widened the barest fraction of an inch before he vanished, disappearing and reappearing with his back to me, both hands raised high and wreathed in bright, hot flame. It billowed orange and gold and brilliant red, singeing my eyebrows and drying out my eyes and skin with a wave of scorching heat. I staggered back and fell onto my bed with a cry, looking at Hiei through my fingers to shield myself from the fire. The shadows in my bedroom lengthened and deepened to darkest black in the light of that hot flame—and then one of the shadows in the corner rippled, drawing my eye to it like a magnet. This shadow warped and buckled and moved upward over my wall, and for a second my chest tightened because oh no, oh no, the Uraotoko was back and coming for me again—

"Meigo," Hiei said. "Calm down."

In stark contrast to the fire coating his hands, Hiei's voice was as cold as the icy wind outside, and at the sound of his calm words the nauseating rush of terror in my blood went quiet. I climbed back onto my feet, edging as near to Hiei as I dared while the shadow in the corner grew darker and darker still. Eventually it appeared to step forward, pushing off of the wall and gaining solid form. The shadow congealed into three distinct shapes—the shapes of three robed figures of varying heights, faces concealed beneath the hoods of their strange outfits. One was tall, head nearly brushing the ceiling; another was quite short, even smaller than Hiei; the last was about Yusuke's height. This one stepped away from the others with the brush of very solid feet against carpet. Not a living shadow, after all.

"Hello, Hiei," the figure said. "We've been looking for you."

Hiei brandished the fire in his hands with a low growl as the hooded figure approached, but seeing the fire, it stopped cold. The figure paused, hooded head tilting to one side as if studying the dancing flames. Hiei took one menacing step forward, but the figure did not retreat. "Stay back, or I'll—"

The figure held up a hand—a hand with skin tinted pale green, fingers tipped with hooked claws and possessing perhaps one too many joints to be human. "You can relax, demon traitor," they (he, she, it?) said in a light, nasal voice, one to which I could not affix a gender. "I'm not here to fight. Quite the contrary—I'm here to offer you a chance to fight." The hand disappeared as the figure folded its arms to perform a formal bow. "You are cordially invited to attend this year's Dark Tournament."

"Sorry," Hiei spat. "Not interested."

The figure straightened up with a snap. "Oh, my," they said with saccharine sympathy I didn't buy for even a second. "It seems you're rather uninformed."

"I know what the Dark Tournament is, fool," said Hiei. "It's a chance for humans to revel in demon blood sport and I want no part in it."

"Oh ho." Now the demon (because I'm sure that thing was a demon under their cloak) just sounded pleasantly surprise. "So you still hold some ill will toward humans, even though you shelter one behind you?" They shook their head. "Well. It's no matter. Your lingering resentment for the human race won't save you from this invitation." Another curious head tilt. "Did I mention it's compulsory?"

"You have a greater chance of winning a beauty contest, you ugly miscreant, than you do making me do anything," Hiei said in a voice dripping with venom.

The thing's head tilted even further. "Is that so?"

"No one makes me do anything."

"I see," the demon said with a long sigh. "Very well. I'm certain your sister treasures the steel of your spine."

The demon's silken words bore instantaneous effect. Hiei stiffened, the fire on his hands flickering as if in time with a frantic heart. I eased closer to him even though the heat made my hair fizzle, but I did not dare reach out to touch his shoulder—not even when the demon in the hooded cloak gave a laugh that made me shiver despite the heat.

"That's right," the demon simpered. "We know all about her. And if you refuse to comply… Well. You can catch my drift, I think."

I heard Hiei's teeth grind before he spat, "You bastard."

"Tut tut, Hiei," said the demon. "Save that aggression for the ring. You and the other demon traitor, Kurama, have been named guests of and by the Tournament Committee—along with those upstart humans Urameshi Yusuke and Kuwabara Kazuma, of course." That hand the color of sickly seafoam raised again, this time holding a small card between two fingers. "The details are printed on this invitation for your convenience."

"I assume you're threatening the other into participation, as well," Hiei said.

"We have our methods." With a flick of their wrist, the figure tossed the card onto the floor, and then it raised one admonishing finger in the air. "Don't try to think about running, traitor. Our reach is much longer than you might think." They stepped backward, rejoining the ranks of the two other cloaked creatures in the shadowy corner. "Until the Tournament, Hiei. We look forward to seeing you."

Hiei did not share their sentiments, apparently, and spat, "Fuck you."

"No, thank you," the demon said—but before Hiei could react to the polite joke at his expense, the featureless hole beneath the hood swung slightly to the side.

Toward me.

Even though I couldn't see the face of the creature that lay beneath the hood, I knew exactly upon whom their eyes had affixed. I knew even before their hand raised and pointed one many-jointed finger in my direction, and they said, "Oh. And you."

Hiei reacted with lightning speed, blurring out of sight and reappearing only inches from the robed demons. "Don't fucking touch her," he growled in a voice that sent an even greater chill through me. "Touch her and I'll—"

"I won't touch her," the demon said, as if Hiei were stupid for suggesting they might. "In fact, I was warned against it—provided she is indeed one Yukimura Keiko, of course."

My heart lurched. "She is." I kicked myself. "I mean, I am."

Hiei rounded on me with a snarl. "Meigo!"

"It's OK, Hiei." I took a deep breath to steady myself, and even though Hiei glared at me, I asked, "How do you know who I am?"

"A few ways." The demon held up two fingers. "Reason the first: You're one of the ones we hold over a barrel in the event your friends refuse to participate. Considering how this one guards you, I think their participation can been guaranteed." He put down one of the fingers and waved the other lazily through the air. "Reason the second: You have a friend on the Tournament Committee, you lucky child."

To say I froze solid is an understatement. Hiei stilled, too, but I'm the one who truly imitated a glacier just then. Only because I'd frozen with my mouth just slightly parted was I able to whisper the phrase, "I have a what?"

At my words, Hiei thawed. "You lie," he said with more heat than even the flames in his hands. "Keiko knows no one in the human underworld."

"Maybe." The demon shrugged. "But someone in the underworld certainly knows her. And he told me to tell her hello."

"Who?" Hiei took another step forward, so close I had to think he could see the demon's shadowed face. "Who told you to do that, damn you?"

Was it just met, or did I catch a faint glimpse of light glinting off rows of smiling teeth beneath the gloom of that concealing hood? Either way, the demon said, "I'm afraid I can't say."

But that wasn't good enough for Hiei. One hand lifted high, fire in it flickering—and at the threat of my room becoming a charred warzone, the ice around me melted. "It's OK, Hiei," I somehow found the will to blurt. When he looked at me with one red eye, iris reflecting a raging inferno in my dark room, I said, "I think I know exactly who he's talking about." To the demon I added, "Pink hair, blue eyes? Smiles to the point of looking like a gleeful serial killer?"

But the demon wasn't at all thrown by my joke. He, she, it, they just shrugged and said, "I'm afraid I can't say." Their body rippled, feet melding with the shadowy floor as they and their retinue faded into the landscape of the wall again. "Au revoir…" they said, voice distant and fading fast—and then the shadows returned to normal, and the demons disappeared.

Hiei and I waited a beat.

The fire in his hands went out.

I walked on legs that shook to my desk. I flicked on a light. Braced my hands on my desk. Sneezed as the scents of fire and smoke tickled my nose. Although the demons hadn't confirmed the name of the person who'd said to tell me hello, after what Yusuke had seen on the video feed at Tarukane's mansion, could there be any doubt about who—?

"That boy from your memory."

I snapped upright with an eloquent, "Huh?"

"Pink hair, blue eyes, a smile that never dims. That's the boy I saw in your memories the night we met," Hiei said. Although he'd let his summoned fire fade, he was all menace when he took a step in my direction, eyes lit from within like coals. "Meigo. Am I wrong?"

I passed my hand through my hair. Wondered if I should lie. Wondered if I should even bother hiding the truth from him.

Decided it didn't matter, and spoke the truth anyway.

"No," I said. "You're not wrong. That's the guy."

Hiei took my statement with a nod. He didn't demand I elaborate, and even if he tried to, I have no idea what I would have said—because even though I now possessed zero doubts as to whom Yusuke had seen on that video, I still had no idea what it all meant.

At that realization, a quiet dread filled my stomach, and it did not fade even after a good night's sleep.

Leaves crunched under the soles of my boots as I muttered, "These woods are lovely, dark and deep—but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

The rest of Robert Frost's poem, which I began with its proper opening line as a crow cawed in the trees above my head, rattled off my tongue like foliage falling from a barren branch. The words were born in puffs of vapor, chill January air turning stanzas to steam with every uttered syllable. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. Although I wasn't traveling with the goal of sleep, I did have promises to keep, and about a mile before I could make good on them.

The backpack on my shoulder tapped heavily against my spine as I navigated the tangle of roots and fallen boughs decorating the path through the woods. Winter had stripped the leaves from the branches above; bits of grey-blue sky showed behind the thick latticework of twigs, my path dim but not quite dark. It was only midday, after all, or very near it. Every shift of the backpack felt like the beat of a clock's swinging pendulum, counting down seconds one by one.

I wasn't sure I liked that feeling—that feeling of a clock ticking against my back. It reminded me that I wasn't the only one who'd made promises recently, and that mine were the least dire promises of all.

They crow, invisible amidst the tangle of limbs overhead, cawed once more.

"Oh, shut up," I muttered, and I quickened my pace.

It had been only a week since Yusuke learned of Toguro's resurrection—or rather, his original deception and playacting of death, but the semantics hardly mattered. However you want to parse it, the clock had begun its inexorable ticking the moment Toguro tracked Yusuke down and invited him to the Dark Tournament. Although "invited" is also another word you could argue the semantics of, but that hardly mattered, either. Time marched us toward our fate any way you care to slice it. I just felt lucky the boys had been given nearly three months to train for the tournament instead of the mere two weeks they'd been allotted in the anime. The Dark Tournament, whether by fate or by design, coincided with our spring break at the end of March. At least Yusuke wouldn't have to miss more school than he already was inevitably going to…

The crow cawed again. I scowled and glared up at where I thought the crow might be hiding, a telltale flash of oily black flitting between the trees, but my gaze jerked back down again as from up ahead there came a noise—a distant crash, like twigs breaking under a heavy weight.

On reflex I broke into a trot, thumping backpack counting seconds even faster now.

Soon I came upon a clearing, path ending in a large section of empty space amidst the greater press of looming forest. Kurama had something to do with the clearing's presence and clean borders, no doubt, and I suspected he'd been the one responsible for the uncommonly neat path through the woods, too. No game-trails were that easy to follow, and the forest was too remote (and unmarked) for a proper hiking path. I stood where path met clearing and didn't move, scanning the clearing for movement—but then to my right I heard another round of creaking, breaking limbs. I stepped to the side just as a shower of twigs and bark rained down from above, and then with a mighty thud Kuwabara came plummeting to the ground. He landed in a heap before rolling onto his back, barrel chest heaving with labored breaths. Despite the day's cold, he wore only a white tanktop and jeans, bare arms showcasing a network of scratches and scrapes, some of which oozed fresh blood. Eyes tightly shut, he mopped his face with a hand and then let it fall, lying spread-eagle on the ground as he tried to catch his breath.

"Wow," I remarked. "I didn't realize flying was one of your training goals."

Kuwabara's eyes popped open. He stared at me, blinked, then sat up with an enormous grin and a nervous chortle. "Oh, hi, Keiko! Is it lunchtime already?" he said as he rubbed the back of his broad neck.

"Near about." I pointed at the conspicuous hole in the twig-canopy. "But you oughtta look alive there, partner."

"Huh?" He glanced up, then scowled. "Oh. Right."

Above, perched on a thick limb, crouched Hiei. He peered down at us like an overgrown gargoyle who'd discovered Hot Topic, red eyes nearly glowing in his tanned face. He dropped from the trees and landed a few feet away, hands jammed deep in the pockets of his black cloak.

"Get up, oaf," Hiei said.

Kuwabara made a sound of growling frustration and scrambled to his feet. "I told you to stop calling me that, short-stack!" He extended a hand and curled his fingers; between them bloomed a pinprick of yellow light that burst outward from his fist like a lightsaber summoned by a cranky Jedi. Slicing the Spirit Sword through the air, Kuwabara shot Hiei a triumphant grin and said, "How do you like this?"

Hiei just sneered. Kuwabara turned a distinct shade of puce and leapt at him with a bellow, but Hiei blurred from sight and cut around behind him, aiming a swift kick to the back of Kuwabara's knees. Kuwabara yelped and stumbled, sword flickering in his grip, but it didn't disappear as he regained his footing and rounded on Hiei for another strike.

I stayed back as they dodged and leapt and attacked their way into the clearing proper, but I watched the fight as intently as I could from a distance. I'd seen Kuwabara's sword in passing once before this new round of training began, but in the past week I'd been able to see it up close for the first time. Its yellow-hued light and the sparks of power leaping from it were impressive, like he wielded a blade forged of lighting—but when I stared at it directly, I could see trees and rocks behind it, like it wasn't a solid object but instead some sort of insubstantial hologram. I wondered if what I saw was indicative of reality, however, and not a reflection of his strength. I wasn't psychic, and I suspected that someone with psychic powers might be able to perceive more about the weapon that my ungifted eyes could not. Maybe I should ask someone. All the boys were here, after all, and—well. All the boys but Yusuke were here.

At the thought of him, and specifically his absence, an ache opened in my chest like the gap left in the wake of a missing tooth.

My moment of melancholy didn't last, and of that I was glad. A heel crunched over a fallen twig at my back, Kurama perhaps intentionally signaling his approach. "Hello, Kei," he said with his usual smooth tones. "It's good to see you."

"Hi, Kurama," I said. Kuwabara shouted an insult at Hiei behind me; my lips twitched. "How's it going?"

"Well enough, I suppose." Green eyes narrowed. "But you needn't worry about our training, if that's what's on your mind."

I gave him the stare of a dead fish. "Asking me not to worry is an exercise in extreme futility and you know it."

"Perhaps," he said. He then changed the subject, not bothering with subtlety. "Thank you for bringing us lunch. Kuwabara will need a break before he begins his afternoon training with me."

"Ominous," I said. I slung my backpack off my shoulders and pulled the rolled-up picnic blanket from the straps keeping it in place atop the bag. "Well. Try not to kill him, I guess."

"I make no promises."

"Ha ha, very funny." Once I laid out the quilt, I unzipped the bag and drew out a thermos. "Soup?"

"Please."

He sat next to me on the blanket, long legs stretched before him across the blue and green-patterned cloth. We drank miso soup from cups and watched Hiei and Kuwabara spar—or rather, we watched Kuwabara chase Hiei around in circles and try to defend when Hiei lobbed a counterattack. Hiei had a clear edge in the fight, mainly because Kuwabara couldn't actually hit him, but were my eyes deceiving me or did Kuwabara seem to be a bit faster, a touch more agile since the start of their newest round of training?

"Do you think he'll be ready in time?" I murmured, hands tight around my cup of soup.

"We'll make every effort," Kurama said.

"Good. Keep me posted." My hands tightened a little more, plastic creaking under tense fingers. "It's just. Y'know. I worry. Especially since the stakes are so…"

"I know," came Kurama's soft reply.

We didn't need to say anything more on the subject. Not right then, anyway.

Kurama and I both knew what lay at the end of these three months, and what dangers awaited us at the end of that long road.

We watched the fight in silence until Hiei finally saw fit to grant Kuwabara a break. He lay on the ground recovering while I brought out the bentos (Hiei heated them with a blast of his power, bless the little rascal) and served our food. The scent of it revived Kuwabara in short order; he shoveled it down his throat in way fewer bites than seemed healthy, then launched into a conversation with Kurama about… something.

I confess my mind wandered to thoughts and questions and concerns about the upcoming tournament, and between wondering how canon might change and what Hiruko was up to, sending me a message the way he had, I quite lost track of the conversation. Not that Kuwabara let that oversight last.

"Keiko?" A hand waved in front of my face. "Hey, earth to Keiko!"

"Huh?" I shook my head, wincing at the look of amusement of Kuwabara's face. "Oh, sorry. What were you saying?"

Kuwabara laughed and launched back into the story he'd been telling, his points artfully embellished with waves of enthusiastic chopstick. That time I actually listened, catching the last bits of his tale before he reclined on the quilt with a sigh, dry winter grass crunching beneath his weight. Internally I resolved to stay in the moment from there on out. Lord knew I wouldn't be seeing much of Kuwabara once school started at the end of winter break in a few days..

"So." I set my bento aside and rearranged my legs beneath me. "How's the training going?"

"Oh, fine, fine," Kuwabara said with a dismissive shrug.

"Kuwabara progresses quickly," Kurama added. "We're quite proud of him, aren't we Hiei?"

Hiei rolled his eyes. Kuwabara glowered, but he smiled when he looked at me.

"Don't you worry, Keiko," he said. "I'm going to kick Toguro's butt six ways from Sunday at the tournament, you'll see!"

"Glad to hear it."

"Heh." Hiei smirked at Kuwabara over the top of a mug of soup. "You can't even kick my ass yet. What hope do you have of besting Toguro in a fight?"

"Hey, I did it before!" Kuwabara said. "I can do it again, too!"

"And yet he managed to come back from the grave. Seems you did a poor job exterminating him."

Kuwabara sat up, brandishing a fist. "Why, you—!"

"Now, now," Kurama chided. "Injuring our teammates hurts all our chances of survival."

Kuwabara hesitated, but eventually he lowered his fist with a grumble. "Fine. But I'll be strong as hell but the time the tournament comes." A glare he aimed at Hiei. "Just you wait and see, shrimp."

Hiei rolled his eyes. "I won't hold my breath."

Kuwabara started to yell something, but then he caught sight of Kurama's scolding expression and swallowed the aggression down. Instead he turned up his nose with a harrumph. "I'm going to ignore you now," he informed Hiei, and then he pointedly angled himself toward Kurama. "So, Kurama, you said we'll start our really special energy exercises soon. Can't we start today?"

Kurama shook his head with a regretful smile. "I think it's wise we continue to focus on the physical for the time being."

"But Genkai always started us off with energy and meditation training before physical training!" Kuwabara protested.

"Perhaps she did. I am sure her methods have their merits," Kurama (ever the polite tactician) said. "However, utilizing one's energy reserves during battle makes one aware of their own power, and of how it ebbs and flows. Perhaps becoming aware of your energy before trying to harness it could have benefits, as well." He smiled with kind confidence. "In any case, exposure to many kinds of training is no doubt beneficial. Perhaps you'll learn which works before for you."

"I mean, I guess," Kuwabara said, and then he grinned. "I mean, I'm not complaining. I'm just happy you agreed to help me train at all, y'know?"

Kurama nodded, offering a murmured affirmation of his promise to help Kuwabara train, but I barely heard him. I set down my food again and frowned. "Say, Kuwabara? Why didn't you go with Yusuke to Genkai's to train, anyway?"

"Easy—she said I shouldn't, and I'm not about to get on her bad side." He shrugged, looking at once regretful but also resigned. "Genkai helped me get way stronger and learn to harness my powers, but Yusuke is her true apprentice. She has to teach him what she knows, and if I showed up I'm sure she'd train me a little… but I don't want him to miss out on anything. He's the one Toguro is targeting the most." His fist clenched, resolution gleaming in the depths of his dark eyes. "I won't be the reason he doesn't learn every last scrap of what Genkai can offer."

His reasoning made sense, even if I was internally sad that Kuwabara wouldn't get to work with Genkai again—at least not right away. "That's good of you to keep Yusuke's needs in mind," I said. "You're a good friend."

Pink tinged Kuwabara's cheeks; he scratched his chin and looked bashfully to the side, smile breaking across his face like the sun through clouds. "Heh. Yeah. I'm pretty cool," he said—and his smile faded, jaw jutting in a look of blocky determination. "But if I wanna keep up with Yusuke after his super special awesome Genkai training, I'm gonna have to work twice as hard as I have been." He held up his hands and started ticking off fingers. "Let's see. Three, two… I wonder how many days a week I can take off of school before they make me fail a grade?"

I was shaking my head before he finished talking. "Nope. No. Nah. No way. You are not skipping school to train."

His hands fell like stones into his lap. "What?! But why not?!"

"Because you have to get into a good high school, that's why," I said. "You can't fail now, not with so few semesters left to impress. You only just got your GPA back up and whatnot!"

"I mean, yeah, I guess. But you don't see Yusuke getting all hung up on that stuff." Kuwabara ducked his chin toward his chest to grumble, "I don't think he's planning on coming back for weeks, and our winter break'll be over in just a few days."

"That's true," I said. "But unlike you, Yusuke has no desire to get into a good college someday, and he doesn't give a crap about going to high school, either." I picked up my food and took a bite with a sigh. "Sometimes I wonder if he'll even finish middle school, given how much he skips."

Kuwabara looked like he grudgingly agreed with me, but he said, "I'll probably wish I'd skipped more school and thought less about my grades if I don't get strong enough to survive the tournament…"

"And if you do survive and you've tanked your grades while training, you'll probably wish you'd died in the ring." I smiled a crooked smile. "Because that would probably be less painful than any punishment Shizuru could dish out."

"Eep!" He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes huge with horror. "I forgot about her!" And with that, he nodded so hard I feared he might break his neck. "I will be at school on Monday, like I'm supposed to."

"Good. It's settled." After a delicate bite of sashimi, I asked, "Speaking of which. Is your sister at home today?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

"Need a trim." I grabbed the end of my bangs between my fingertips and stared at them, cross-eyed. "It's amazing how often you need to visit the salon when you have a short style, and your sister is basically the only person I trust to come near me with scissors."

Kuwabara shuddered. "Me too. But only when she's in a good mood."

I hid a laugh behind my knuckles, but Kuwabara's grave expression didn't change. In fact, it just got a little darker; Kurama and I exchanged a look. He shrugged. I, however, had an inkling as to what was wrong, so to Kuwabara I said, "So, you still haven't told her about all of this?"

Kuwabara sagged like a balloon under the point of a needle. "No," he admitted to his knees. "I will later, I swear, but for now… she'd worry. So it's gotta be a secret, OK?"

He looked so sad, dejected, and conflicted that I could resist reaching out and patting his foot, offering him a sympathetic smile as he looked up at me. "I understand," I said, because I did understand what it was like to keep secrets for the good of your friends, and Kuwabara returned my smile with one of his own. I patted his foot and stood, shooing the boys off of my quilt once I saw they'd all finished their meals. "All right, then. I should probably head back. Was just here to drop off lunch, anyway." I turned around and leveled a finger at Hiei. "You play nice, you hear me?"

He just tossed his head with a smirk. "Sorry. Nice isn't in my nature."

"No, but eating is," I deadpanned. "Next time maybe there won't be a bento with your name on it."

His eyes popped open. "You wouldn't da—"

"Ha! Just kidding!" I stuck out my tongue; he glared at it. "See you tomorrow, huh?"

"Hmmph." Another head-toss as he spun on his heel and marched back into the clearing. "Kuwabara, with me."

"Ugh, do I gotta?" Kuwabara moaned, but he dragged himself after Hiei anyway. Walking backward, he waved at me and said in much, much happier tones, "Bye, Keiko! Thanks for the food. Can't wait to see your new cut tomorrow!"

"You're more into hair than I am," I joked as I raised my hand. "Bye!"

Another wave, and he was off clashing with Hiei once again. I knelt and gathered up the empty bento boxes and thermoses, and as I stuffed them back into my bag Kurama knelt at my side. He gathered up the rest of the cutlery and said, "Let me walk you to the road?"

Normally he just did it, rather than ask if he could, and when I met his eyes I saw in them a subtle light that said he was asking for a reason. I nodded, earning a satisfied smile in return, and once we packed up all of the dishes Kurama and I began the long walk back through the woods.

It didn't take him long to make his reasons for asking known, though of course he was very indirect about it at first; that's Kurama for you, I guess. "So," he said once the sounds of Kuwabara and Hiei fighting faded into the distance.

"So?" I replied when he did not continue.

"What are you doing after your hair cut?"

"Catching up with a few friends," I said, shrugging. "Nothing too interesting."

But apparently I was wrong. "Friends," Kurama repeated, and then his eyes narrowed. "That boy, Minato?"

"Maybe," I said. "What's it to you?"

I'd spoken with a hint of tease in my voice, but if Kurama noticed, he gave no indication. His reply was, instead, perfectly sincere when he said: "I'm glad you have a friend like him."

I blinked. "Eh?"

"One who must be even more of a peer than I am," he explained. "One you can undoubtedly confide in."

I stopped in my tracks, voice rising to a higher register when I yelped, "Eh?!"

"Yes." Kurama walked a few paces ahead before looking at me over his shoulder. When he saw my stunned face, he frowned. "He's like you, isn't he?"

"EH?!"

That was all I was capable of, after all: Standing stock still, knees knocked and arms akimbo, staring at Kurama as if he'd sprouted another arm from his chest, bellowing a sound of confused, aghast astonishment to the trees. Somewhere overhead a crow cawed, wings beating as it beat a retreat into the sky. Kurama, however, didn't appear at all perturbed.

"He's older than he looks, in the same manner as you, correct?" he said. When I only stared, pulse beating out of my chest, he frowned. "Was I not supposed to know?"

"Wh-what?" Stammered words squeaked out of my mouth syllable by syllable. "I don't—did he tell—how do you—?"

A range of emotions crossed Kurama's face, starting with surprise and ending with amusement. "No, he didn't tell me. I merely deduced. And to be honest, I thought you dropped a hint on purpose."

"Nope," I forced out from between my teeth. "No hints were dropped. None at all. Nope. Nooooope."

"I see," Kurama said in a grave tone that only barely covered the laughter building behind his eyes—and at the sight of that cheer, my cheeks flushed. I found myself stalking forward and past him on stiff legs, putting him behind me after a few quick steps.

"Where are you going?" Kurama called.

"You're too smart for your own good and I'm mad at you!"

At that he outright laughed. I kept walking, not stopping even when he called my name. Footsteps crunched over the twiggy ground; a hand closed gently around my arm, pulling me to a gradual stop. I wouldn't look at Kurama as he stood across from me, though, eyes fixed intently on his shoes as I tried not to let my head explode with embarrassment, shock, nerves—

"That night he helped you home—you told him he must have been a knight in his past life," Kurama said. "Was that not a message for me? To the others it seemed like a passing remark about his obvious chivalry, but in context…"

"It… it was more of a figure of speech than a hint. It's not like he was originally born in the 1500s or something." I groaned and covered my face with my hands, flesh heating even more beneath my fingertips. "Me and my big, metaphorical mouth."

"Kei," Kurama said, but gently.

"I chose too literal a metaphor and you and your stupid, enormous brain ran with it straight to the correct conclusion." I glared at him from between my fingers. "Isn't that just like you?"

"Well," he said. "Perhaps it will make you feel a little better to know that I didn't make the connection until a day or so ago."

I eyed him with outright suspicion. "Oh, really?"

"Yes. After you fell asleep that night, I spoke with him, but he was too discreet to let anything slip. And at the time I was too concerned with safeguarding you against further attack to truly dissect your language." A delicate shrug. "He seemed mature for his age, however, and he did not balk at the sight of the supernatural. Then, later, when I recalled what you said about a past life…" At that, a small smile graced his lips. "I further recalled that you were clearly nervous that day I met him unexpectedly at aikido. I doubted you would be nervous to introduce a friend of mundane consequence."

It was true. Damn him, every last observation and word of it was true, and at the sound of those truths my teeth started to grind. "Two and two makes an inconvenient four," I said.

"Indeed." Now Kurama looked at me with outright interest, scanning my face over again with glittering green eyes. "Is he another of our eventual allies or enemies met too soon?"

I covered my face with my hands again. It was with the greatest reluctance that I admitted: "Um. Kind of?"

Thanks to my unfortunate attempt at a too-real joke, Kurama had figured out almost everything. He didn't know about Minato's connection to another canon, mostly because Kurama wasn't aware there were other canons in this world at all, but his inconveniently gargantuan brain had still come to an alarmingly close conclusion. Should I tell him the real truth? Let sleeping dogs lie? Pretend he'd hit the nail on the head and just let him think what he wanted? Because telling him about Sailor V was probably a bad idea despite how nice it would be to just be honest, and—

Warm fingers curled around my wrist, finding that single stripe of exposed skin between the cuff of my jacket and the ends of my winter gloves. With only the barest suggestion of force, Kurama encouraged me to lower my hands and look at him, although I did an admirable job of avoiding eye contact (for the most part; every time we looked at each other, his mouth quirked like he wanted to laugh, and that made me cheeks heat up in an unending cycle of oh my god what the fuck do I do?). Kurama didn't pry, however, nor did he demand my honesty. Instead his thumb traced a single, comforting circle over my wrist before he let go of my arm.

"I know better than to press," Kurama murmured. "Tell him hello for me, however."

It was a reprieve and I knew better than to question it or to tempt his greater curiosity. I saluted with comical eagerness, trying to dispel tension with humor. "Will do, sir. See you tomorrow. I can walk the rest of the way, solo-mission style."

"See you," he said as I turned away—but before I could get far, he spoke again. "And Kei?"

I stopped and eyed him skittishly over my shoulder. "What?"

"I'm sorry for stumbling upon that secret."

Looked like he meant it, too, or at least was playing at pretending to mean it—although his expression seemed sincere enough, that wicked sparkle in his eye was hard to ignore. I sighed, shoulders sagging, and said, "No apologies necessary. It's not your fault you have a brain the size of Mongolia and I lack any and all semblance of self-awareness."

Kurama let out a sudden bark of laughter before putting a hand to his mouth to stifle it. He looked as surprised at the laugh as I felt; I grinned crookedly and trotted off with a wave, bolting away down the path with another shouted farewell before he could decide to ask more questions.

I was no match for Kurama's Einstein brain, but at least I could disarm him with humor.

Shizuru's strong fingers rubbed delicious circles across my scalp as she washed my hair. She'd invested in a proper beautician's chair and shampooing sink during the past few months, allowing her to even better run her business out of her family's home—and holy shit did I love that chair. The padded neck rest and seat were wonderfully relaxing, though of course they weren't as relaxing as the feel of Shizuru's massage or the scent of the shampoo she'd lathered through my hair. I probably could have gone another week or two before visiting her for a cut, but I needed to do something just for me, dammit, and a haircut and scalp massage were just what the doctor ordered. Hell, I deserved a full body massage after all I'd been through in the past few weeks. I'd have to ask Shizuru if she knew of a good place to visit for just such a treatment…

Eventually, as all good things must come to an end, Shizuru's ministrations came to a close. She rinsed conditioner from my hair with warm water before telling me to sit up and draping a towel around my shoulders. I stood and followed her into the kitchen, where she bade me sit in a swivel chair (another recent business investment) and don a smock. She unrolled a canvas bag of equipment on the counter and selected a comb from its contents, then moved to stand behind me and out of sight. I closed my eyes as she tugged the comb through my hair, enjoying the feel of the tines against my scalp.

Shizuru very casually remarked, "You gonna tell me where my baby brother's been getting off to every day this week?"

At first I thought I hadn't heard her right. Upon replaying what she said, I realized that, in fact, I had. My eyes snapped open and I breathed an eloquent, "Huh?"

One hand appeared over my shoulder. Between Shizuru's fingers was a small sprig of pine needle. "Found this in your hair." The hand retreated out of sight. "Kuwabara keeps coming home with them in his pockets."

"… does he, now?" I said, hyperconscious of the fact my ears had started to heat up and Shizuru had a perfect view of them.

"Yup." The comb passed over my head a few times. "And he keeps wearing turtlenecks."

I frowned. "Turtlenecks?"

"Yup." She whistled low between her teeth. "And I walked in one him getting dressed the other day. It's funny. It looked almost like he had a bruise on his neck."

"… a bruise on his neck?"

"Mmm hmm. So tell me." An impact reverberated through the chair as she kicked it around, spinning me to face her so she could lean on the armrests, nose to nose with me, expression absolutely ice cold. "Was it a hickey? You two been making out in the woods lately or something?"

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

One of Shizuru's brows lifted.

I went supernova.

"Oh, hell no!" I shrieked, voice at least three octaves higher than usual before I buried my face in my hands. "Shizuru, please! Don't be gross!"

From between my splayed fingers, I saw her stand up straight and shrug. "Hey, you never know. Maybe baby bro final developed some game." Her arms crossed over her chest. "But if it's not a little romantic rendezvous…"

"Uh." I let my hands drop, because now that she'd dropped the notion of me having secret trysts with her little brother (I will not date till I turn 18! I wanted to shout) I needed to supply an alternate theory. Kuwabara had only just finished telling me he'd tell his sister what was up eventually, but on his terms. Thus, I wracked my brain and eventually managed to blurt a hurried: "Study sessions."

Her brow lifted again. "Study sessions."

"Yeah."

"In the woods?"

"We're. Uh. We're studying leaves."

"You're lying," Shizuru said, voice completely blank. "And you wouldn't lie about something small, which means it's big. So…" She tapped her fingers on her bicep, scanning me from toes to teeth with agonizing indolence. "It's something about Spirit World, I'm guessing, because otherwise you'd probably just blurt it out."

I froze, shocked into it by her astuteness, but soon I forced a bright laugh. Channeling my inner Botan, I waved a hand in dismissal and said through a laugh, "Spirit World? Spirit World? Why in heaven's name would it be anything about—"

Shizuru reached into her pocket while I spoke. She pulled out a cigarette and lifted a lighter to her lips. "Hysterical laughter, right on cue." My words died as the lighter clicked, fire blazing into life. "Looks like I hit the nail on the head." She slipped her lighter into her pocket and took a long, slow drag. "So what does Spirit World want this time?"

I gaped at her, then buried my face in my hands again. Something I was doing quite a lot of these days, but what the hell else was I supposed to do when I got called out? "Oh god, Shizuru, please," I moaned. "I just got the whole psychanalysis bit from Kurama, so please, not you, too—"

"So you were with Kurama today, at the place with all the pine needles," she cut in, seizing at once upon my godforsaken slip of the tongue (and whoops, there went my big, enormous mouth getting me in trouble again). Shizuru continued, "If I had to bet, my brother was probably there, too. You kids tend to stick together these days. Damn teens." She took another drag, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke to the side because even when interrogating me, she knew I didn't like smoke in my face. "Pine needles, pine needles... somewhere remote, I'm guessing. Deep in a park, or maybe on the outskirts of town." Her lips curled when she smirked. "Judging by the color of your ears, I'm close."

I covered my face again. "I hate you."

"Liar." A third drag. Her hip cocked to the side, weight resting on one foot as she regarded the ceiling through cool eyes. "Spirit World, remote place, Kurama was there… which means this has past week has been a secret mission, or you've been out in the woods preparing for one." Satisfied by her own deductions, Shizuru cracked an understated grin. "Somebody's been training, it seems. Which I guess explains the bruises I mentioned."

"Oh, god." I flopped backward in the chair and threw my arm over my eyes, groaning. "Oh, fuck me sideways."

"Maybe when you're older," Shizuru said. She ignored my mortified sputterings and the scandalized cry of her name and asked, "So where's he been, kiddo? Spill."

"OK, look." I threw up my hands. "I specifically asked if he told you and he specifically said he didn't want to tell you yet." At Shizuru's look of cool murder I held up a frantic and pacifying hand. "Yet! Yet! Which means he will tell you soon. Um. He'll tell you eventually. Someday?" Rubbing the back of my damp neck, conscious of the wet hair clinging cold to my hot cheeks, I said, "And I really think you should hear it from me instead of him because betraying his trust wouldn't be a good look and then he'd never trust me again and you'll be out of a spy, so it's really in your best interests to not make me tell you. OK?"

Shizuru didn't reply right away. In fact, for a long time, she didn't reply at all. Her face bore no expression, brown eyes distant but assessing as we traded a look that lasted for much longer than I saw reason for. She stood there and stared at me until her cigarette burned down and she had to discard the filter in an ash tray. When its trail of acrid smoke went cold, Shizuru blotted out the cigarette and kicked the chair back around, once more going over my damp hair with her comb.

With my back to her, she spoke.

"I understand your heart is in the right place, here, but I'm his sister." Her gruff voice did not falter, did not stutter as she spoke. "Our mom's dead. Our dad's too busy providing to be around much. I'm all my baby bro's got, in some ways." A moment's pause, so slight as to be imperceptible. "There's been a tight feeling in my chest since New Year's Day. Like there's a weight on the air, and it's getting heavier every day."

I drew in a breath, sharp and short. Shizuru spun the chair around. Her face still bore no expression despite what she'd said to me, and it continued to remain blank and distant as she put down the comb and exchanged it for scissors. Shizuru used her pointer and middle fingers to comb through my bangs; she snipped at the ends of them with her other hand, transforming them from shapeless shag to punk-rock awesomeness with just a few clips.

"And baby bro… he thinks he can hide it, but he can't," she said, voice so low I had to strain to hear it. "I can see it in his face. There's something coming. A storm, maybe. Would explain that feeling in the air. Whatever it is, Kazuma knows what's on the way—and I want to know about it, too." She stood back, both to admire her handiwork and to better look me in the eye. "So, Keiko—I'm not asking you to betray his trust. I'm asking you to let me be there for him." Her mouth curled the barest fraction. "Baby bro has a good head on his shoulders. I just want to stand behind those shoulders to catch him if he stumbles."

She'd let her mask slip a little, talking about her brother like that. I could see it in her eyes, in their subtle shimmer of affection and exasperation, which betrayed everything she wasn't saying even after this admission. It was, perhaps, the most vulnerable she'd been in front of me, and it laid out everything she was feeling in just a few neat sentences.

Now, who the hell would I be to say 'no' after a speech like that?

An asshole, that's what. But even if I felt Shizuru deserved to know something, I still needed to honor Kuwabara's request for discretion. How to balance these things? What to do, what to do…

"OK." I took a deep breath to center myself, then looked Shizuru dead in her impassive eyes. "I'm not going to tell you anything. I'm just going to confirm that your guesses—well, that they were uncomfortably on point. So really I'm not giving anything away. You did all the guesswork yourself." Another deep breath. "You're right. It's Spirit World shit. And it's going to be the single most dangerous thing your brother has ever faced."

Her eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"We have till Spring Break, and then… they fight." I shrugged. "Until then, they train."

"Who's 'they?'"

"Kuwabara. Yusuke. Kurama. Hiei. Y'know, the usual crew. Oh, and a fifth fighter they haven't nailed down yet, but Yusuke has a lead."

"You don't say," she said, looking far less than even moderately impressed. "Too bad I've got even less faith in Yusuke than I do in my brother to pry favors out of people…"

She trailed off, one hand on her hip, the other hand hanging loose at her side with scissors dangling from her fingertips. It wasn't often Shizuru stared off into space, but just then that's exactly what she did, gazing past the kitchen and into some metaphysical distance beyond it I could not begin to fathom, nor one I could hope to follow. All I could do was reach out and touch her hand, to bring her back to the here and now and try to comfort her as best I could.

"They'll be fine, Shizuru," I said when she looked at me at last. "They'll be fine. I promise."

She shut her eyes and heaved a laugh through her nose. "Yeah, kiddo. If you say so—but forgive me if I'm not convinced."

Shizuru finished cutting my hair that day without saying much else, and without demanding that I give her more information. I left that day sporting a fantastic haircut, and I was followed out the door by Shizuru's quiet assurance she wouldn't let slip the fact that I'd blabbed when Kuwabara told me not to. Of course, I wondered what she would do with the information I had given her—but thankfully, I didn't have to wait long. A few days after my haircut, Kuwabara gave me a call and asked, "Hey, did my sister mention any plans to you?"

"Plans?" I said. "What kind of plans?"

"Travel plans, I guess? I woke up today and she was gone—not gone-gone like you were, though. There's a suitcase missing and she left a note."

"Interesting. What does the note say?"

Paper rustled over the phone line. Kuwabara pitched his voice high, mocking his sister's when he dutifully read, "'Gone to beauty school seminar in Hokkaido. Be back in a few weeks. Eat your vegetables. Will send pocket money.'" He heaved a sighed, paper crumpling again. "And that's fine, she can do whatever she likes, but I dunno, Keiko. It just seems weird for her to go running off without telling me first."

"Yeah," I said. "That is weird."

Weird—but I had a hunch I knew exactly where she'd gone. As soon as Kuwabara and I hung up, I dialed the phone number of the Sanada family, and I was not at all surprised to hear young Fubuki confirm that Shizuru was already in the mountains with Kuroko, training to face the unknown danger looming long and dark before us.

Soon winter break came to a close, and school started back up again.

To explain Yusuke's continued absence, Atsuko crafted a lie that Yusuke had mononucleosis and was too contagious to come to school. I, of course, made a joke about how no one would possibly believe that dweeb caught the kissing bug, let alone that he could find anyone to spread it to, but the joke wasn't nearly as fun without Yusuke around to react to it. Sure, he called every now and again to tell Atsuko he was still alive, but he never called me personally and I never seemed to be at the Urameshi residence when one of his occasional calls came through. Me being me, I couldn't help but wonder why I wasn't on his contact list. Genkai had never given me her phone number and caller ID wasn't really a thing yet, so I didn't know how to reach Yusuke short of marching into the mountains to confront him myself—and of course my pride refused to let me do that.

Figuring out why he'd left without saying goodbye to me would have to wait until he came back, much though that hurt to admit.

In his absence, I concentrated on school and on keeping Kuwabara's grades afloat as he balanced training and his studies. Kurama helped some with this, advising Kuwabara on his classes in between practice bouts and on the nights he wasn't meeting up with me. I carried on with my usual weekly parole meetings with Kurama and Hiei through visiting them at the training site most of the time, but Kurama and I enjoyed our weekly walks and dinners together and did not let them die despite the circumstances. When I wasn't watching them train or tutoring Kuwabara, I was at aikido. With fewer friends to hang out with, I had more time to increase my number of weekly lessons, something I felt I needed to do if I was to defend myself against demons at the tournament.

Hideki didn't ask about these increased lessons, of course. He was too private to pry. He merely commented that I seemed more focused than usual, and that perhaps having a new sparring partner in Minato (who now attended lessons with us regularly) had expanded my repertoire of fighting moves.

All in all, a new routine had emerged, one marked both by a change in my daily activities as well as my continued anxiety. Knowing what was coming, barreling toward us along the tracks of the passage of time like a runaway train, often kept me up at night, and often I had to force myself to lucid dream to keep the nightmares at bay. At first I had been happy we had more than a few weeks to train, but as the days crept by, I wondered if the extended timeframe was a blessing, after all. Two and a half months was a much longer time to (over)think about things and to get wrapped up in your own head.

Speaking of which, my thoughts remained chock full of various mysteries as the weeks went by. What did Hiruko intend to accomplish at the Dark Tournament remained chief among them, of course. Some secondary worries (how to get there, for one thing) and potential changes to canon given this extended training session also dogged my mental steps. I confess I spent pretty much all my time mulling over my myriad questions, endlessly tossing and turning at night as I tried to suss them out. They popped up when I watched the boys train, or when I daydreamed during class, or when my nightly dreams turned dark and boding. But what the heck was I supposed to do about it, other than wait for the answers to come as they would?

Too bad I hated waited.

Even when Hiei popped up for a random meal, the questions pestered me. We would sit on boxes in the alley in silence, him slurping noodles while I stared into space and thought endless thoughts, snake eating its tail in an infinite loop. During one of our first solo dinners after the Toguro incident and the night the robed trio invited Hiei to the tournament, I'd wondered if he might ask about the pink haired boy in my dreams and perhaps join me in asking my infinite questions, but he did not. He just sat down to eat without a word, and when I started to talk and ask him if he wanted to know something, he put down his chopsticks and glared.

"I said I don't want to muck about with fate, Meigo," he'd reminded me. "Do I really need to spell that out for you again?"

And so I'd let it go, and I continued to ask my questions on my own.

That's the state of mind he found me in about two weeks after school started, when he appeared in the alley on the night of one of our scheduled parole meetings. Without a word he sat down to eat (as was his custom), giving me a curt nod of recognition as we dug into our food. We ate in silence for a time, but the silence eventually began to weigh on me (mostly because I couldn't get my damned questions out of my head when it was quiet). I opened my mouth to talk, to just spout some random shit about my school day, but before I could get going, Hiei sat up straight. His eyes swung to his left, down the path of the alley toward the street beyond. I looked, too, only to feel my eyes widen when I saw someone standing there.

She walked forward with a nervous wave when she saw us looking at her. "Hello Hiei, Keiko," she said with a bright, but nervous, giggle. "It's good to see you both."

"Botan?" I put down my bowl of soup. "What are you doing here?"

Since Yusuke left, Botan had bounced around between the Urameshi, Kuwabara, and Yukimura residences at random. She often showed up at training sessions on weekends and evenings, and more than once she and I had hung out for a girl's night out (or in, if we weren't feeling too social). Botan loved to hang out, but while she was quite the social butterfly, it wasn't like her to show up unannounced. She always called first, ever the very careful and considerate houseguest—so why was she here now, standing awkwardly before us and fidgeting?

"You hungry?" I stood up and made a move toward the door to the restaurant. "I could make a plate—?"

But she was already shaking her head, so I sat back down. "No, thank you. I've already eaten. It's, ah…" She ducked her chin. "It's Hiei I want to talk to, actually."

"… oh." That was certainly unexpected. Wondering if I should leave or something, I picked my food back up and dug in. "Well. Go ahead."

Hiei, however, was not as welcoming. "What in the hell do you want?" he said, looking Botan over with a sneer.

She bore his ire with dignity and took a deep breath. "I think—I think I'm ready to start learning to master… well." She gestured at her forehead. "You know."

Hiei's face screwed up. "Why?"

"I want to be useful. And I think I can be useful if I master this, you see." The words burst from her mouth the moment he asked his question, as if maybe she's prepared herself ahead of time. Clasping her hands over her chest, she looked at Hiei with wide, bright eyes and said, "Hiei, I asked you before to teach me, and you were skeptical that I was serious. But I took your words to heart, and ever since then I have been working on developing my spiritual power. Kuwabara and Yusuke helped me learn the basics of power manipulation, you see. I was even able to take on a strong demon named Miyuki recently, while on a mission for Spirit World."

She seemed proud of that victory. Hiei didn't even blink, though: He just stared, eyes enormous and expressionless and reflecting eerie red in the dark. She gave another nervous chuckle and pulled her ponytail forward over her chest, fingers running down its length to soothe her nerves.

"I know I'm probably not going to be amazing," she continued with a chipper smile that only looked a little forced. "But I think I can be good. And with the tournament coming up, I think it's important I contribute to the team's well-being. I can heal, but I should also learn to fight, and better than I can now."

I bit the noodles hanging from my mouth and hurriedly swallowed them down. "Hey, Botan? You want to go to the tournament with them?"

She gave an emphatic nod. "I do."

"I mean. I support you, but is that wise?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe if they boys could ever use backup, and if I could be that backup…"

Hiei's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think we can't handle it on our own?"

Botan bit her lip. "I didn't say you couldn't, Hiei. Don't be silly. You're very strong. Just…"

"Just what?" he growled.

Botan shook her head, though what she was trying to deny I could not say. "The tournament is bloodthirsty. And you're being sent into battle so suddenly. If Koenma had never made the team tangle with the Toguro brothers, you never would have had to fight in the tournament. I knew that mission was a bad idea, and yet—"

She shook her head again. Hiei smirked.

"I see," he said, void resonating with a note of impish triumph. "So even Spirit World's own lackey can see their incompetence."

"I'm no one's lackey!"

I froze, noodles hanging from my mouth in a streamer. Without moving my head, my eyes cut between Botan and Hiei—Hiei, whose eyes had widened at Botan's outburst, and Botan, who stood with hand over her mouth, cheeks pink with embarrassment. Eventually she cleared her throat, hand balling into fists at her sides.

"After I was cut with the Shadow Sword," she said, voice soft and measured and thrumming with tension, "Spirit World locked me in what was, in no uncertain terms, a prison. And if they had the chance, they would drag me back and lock me away all over again. I need to be strong enough to resist them. But more than that—I want to help, because Spirit World…"

She trailed off. It wasn't often Botan wore anything besides a smile, so the haggard cast to her magenta eyes had my hackles raising in alarm at once. I reached out and hooked my hand into hers, gazing up into her face with a look of concern.

"What is it, Botan?" I said.

She shook her head another time. Drew in a breath. Let it go. "Koenma does his best. But there are rumblings of manipulation behind the scenes. I never used to believe the rumors, but…" She looked at Hiei again. "Hiei. You're gruff, sometimes, but you're a good person."

He nearly dropped his damn bowl of ramen, that took him so off guard, but he caught the bowl again before it could spill. "What in the seven hells are you babbling about, woman?" he snarled.

"You and Kurama both worked so hard to rescue Keiko the night she went missing," Botan said. "You've aided Yusuke at risk to your own well-being more than once. You aren't bad people. But some in Spirit World would have me believe that because you're demons, you can't be trusted. And those people would be wrong." Her neck drooped, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry for judging you before now."

Hiei just shook his head at the apology. "I don't care what you think about me."

"No. Of course not," she said with a sad smile. "And I don't suppose anything I said just now has any bearing on asking you to train me, so let me change the subject." At that she pulled her hand from mine and bowed, long and low and beseeching. Botan said, "Please, Hiei-san. Please consider training me to harness the powers of my third eye, so that I may aid you and my other friends in the battles to come."

But Hiei only scoffed. "Did you rehearse that little speech?"

Botan straightened up with a nervous chuckle. "Maybe?"

If that bothered him, he didn't show it. He just harrumphed under his breath and glared at her. "I asked you why you wanted to train, but tell me. Why should I want to train you?"

Botan stared, mystified. "Why should you…?"

"Why should I waste my time training the likes of you?" Hiei said. "You won't be at the level the tournament requires even with months of rigorous training. And why should I take time out of my own training to cater to you?" He shook his head and scoffed, turning from Botan as if to dismiss her. "I'm already training the oaf. You're a waste of my time."

"But Hiei—you have a third eye, yourself," Botan said, voice edged with pleading. "There's no one else I can ask!" When Hiei did not turn around or acknowledged her, she stepped toward him and put a hand to her chest. "I did what you said, Hiei. I trained my body and my mind just like you said I should. I showed initiative and I worked hard. But now I need specific help harnessing the powers of the Jagan, and you're the only person I can count on to help me!"

Still, Hiei did not budge. Desperation gleamed in Botan's eyes like molten silver.

"You don't have to train me," she said in a small voice. "You can just… you can give me tips, and I can show you my progress. That's all I ask."

"You ask too much." Hiei bared his teeth. "I have no interest in—"

"Only true masters of an art can teach it to another."

This came from me, slipping from between my lips like a cartoon character on a banana peel. Still, the quick murmur caught Hiei's ear at once, and he turned toward me atop his crate with a pronounced scowl.

"What did you say?" he said. "Do you have an opinion to share, Meigo?"

I shrugged. "Not really? It's just something my grandmother used to say." I held a finger aloft and used my best imitation of an old lady voice to clarify, "If you can't teach something to someone else, or explain how to do something in simple terms, you're probably not a master of that subject, yourself." The finger dropped. "That's about the gist of what she meant."

Hiei bristled like an angry hedgehog. "Are you suggesting I'm not a master of my evil eye?" he said, disdain dripping from every syllable.

"Oh, nah, nothing like that. It was just a quote that popped into my head, that's all. Although…" I shrugged again. "It would reflect well on your mastery of the subject if you were able to mentor a capable protégé. Make you look like you know what you're doing, y'know?" I hefted my bowl of ramen to my face and readied my chopsticks. "But that's all I have to say about that."

Botan shook her head. "It's all right, Keiko. You don't have to fight for me. Hiei's right. He has to prepare for the tournament, himself. If I were to distract him, and he went to the tournament unprepared and got hurt—"

And then Hiei was rounding on her with murder in his eye. "Are you suggesting I can't handle training someone else and myself at the same time?" he demanded.

Botan backed up a step. "N-no, Hiei, I'm—"

"I mean. She's right, though," I interjected. When Hiei's head whipped toward me I said, "Don't you have a lot of preparing to do in terms of your own strength? If you spend time on her and neglect yourself and lose a match…"

Hiei shot to his feet, ramen sloshing as he set it roughly on a crate beside him. "I will not lose no matter my handicaps!" he snarled at me, and then he raised one finger toward Botan. "You, girl. Meet me tomorrow night, at moonrise, here."

Botan did a double-take. "What? Really? You're willing to train me?"

"Did I say that?" Hiei barked. "No, you fool. I'm going to test you. If you pass, I'll think about training you, but don't hold your breath." He marched forward, finger still level with her nose, and she went cross-eyed to stare at his offending digit. "Heed this warning: Should you somehow pass, the moment I tire of you, or the very minute you annoy me, I'm gone and I will teach you nothing. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, of course," Botan said, nodding like a bobblehead on a bumpy road. "Yes, Hiei-sensei, I will do as you say!"

"Don't call me sensei!" Hiei snapped.

"Hiei-shisho!"

"Not that, either!" He flung a hand at the alleymouth and stalked away. "Get out of my sight!"

"Y-yes Hiei-sen—I mean, Hiei-san. Good night!" She dipped a bow to him, and then a bow to me. "And thank you, Keiko."

"You're welcome," I said, though why she was thanking me I wasn't exactly sure.

But then, as she rose from her bow… Botan winked.

As she ran out of the alley with a giggler, I had to wonder if her concern for Hiei's well-being was mostly an act, and if she hadn't been playing along with my attempts to manipulate his pride, after all.

Not that Hiei had noticed her deception. He returned to his crate and sat down heavily once again, grumbling into his soup, "She should be thanking me, not you."

I kept my eyes fixed carefully on my ramen. "Sure."

"I'm the one who's going to train her, not you."

"That's right."

"So the thanks should be—wait a minute."

Hiei stared at me through narrowed eyes. I whistled between my teeth, avoiding making eye contact. A low rumble of frustration bubbled in his throat after a moment of tense silence.

"Don't think for even one second you manipulated me just now—" Hiei hissed.

"Wouldn't dream of it." I pointed at his ramen. "Now eat your food before it gets cold."

Grudgingly, and only after watching me with outright suspicion for at least two minutes, Hiei began to eat again.

I picked at my food. It had been gratifying to help Botan get what she'd been after for so long, and for her to get what I'd tried (and failed) to help her get before, but knowing that she was about to start her own training regimen put the slightest of sour tastes in my mouth. Both Shizuru and Botan were now in training to help our ragtag little bunch, and here I was sitting on my ass getting regular old fighting lessons that would only help me beat the crap out of the lowest common denominator of demon. Sure, I had a few ideas about how to get powers and stuff, but none that I could pursue before the Dark Tournament rolled around. That meant everyone else was going to get their own lovely little training montage, their own moments to be Rocky Balboa, but I was just… I mean, what was his love interest's name? The fact that I couldn't remember tells you all you need to know about how pathetic my situation was. What a joke, right? I felt like an utter joke because I was as useless as a wet dish rag and—

"Stop that."

I looked up to find Hiei glaring at me. "Stop what?"

"Brooding," he replied.

It was my turn to glare. "You don't have a monopoly on brooding, Hiei."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I sighed. "Nothing."

"Thought so." But his triumphant smile soon turned to a look of longsuffering impatience. "Well. Go on," he said as he waved a hand in my direction.

"Huh?"

"Go on and—what do you call it? Vent?" He rolled his eyes. "Pitiful human custom, but it seems to be the only thing that ends your annoying brooding, which means I'll endure it if I must."

"How kind of you," I muttered.

He scoffed. "Now that's one thing I've never been accused of."

"Really? Never? But you're such a softie!" I crooned—and Hiei shot me a look of absolute murder and put his hand on his sword. My hands shot up between us at once. "OK, OK, I take it back, you're a mean ol' demon feared far and wide and you've never done a kind thing for nobody and your heart is as hard as a rock."

Hiei waited a beat, and then his hand eased off his sword.

"OK. As for venting, I'm frustrated," I said, grateful to express myself no matter what Hiei's justification for listening to me was. "I don't have a way to help the four of you. I can't train with you, I can't heal, I can't do anything useful," I said, ticking off the options on my fingers before throwing my hands into the air. "It's annoying and I don't like it."

"Yes," Hiei remarked. "You are remarkably useless."

"Oh, fuck off!"

"Heh." He pointed at me with his chopsticks and smirked. "That. Hold onto that."

"Onto—?"

"Onto the anger. Anger is useful. Forget the worry and focus on nurturing that fire, instead." He dug the chopsticks into his food. "Maybe we can find a use for you yet."

I stared at the floor as he took another bite. Wheels turning in my head, I swirled my chopsticks through my soup and watched the noodles dance, ropes tangling and untangling like threads winding around a spindle, until I worked up the gumption to voice the thoughts that had been rattling around in my head for days.

Thoughts Hiei had already told me he didn't want to hear.

I took a deep breath. Said: "Hey, Hiei?"

His dour eyes cut my way. "What?"

"I think I know of one way I could be useful to the team," I said, keeping my voice as casual as possible. "But… it's going to make one of us angry."

He set down his bowl and straightened up. "Meigo."

"And that person isn't me, sooo…"

"Meigo," Hiei repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"OK. Look." Another deep breath, and this time I looked at Hiei and smiled. "If I'm going to be useful, I'll need your help with something."

"My help?" he repeated, nose wrinkling with distaste. "First the oaf, then Botan, and now you. I'm not a charity!"

"I know," I said. "But I think you might be the only person who can help me be useful—"

"Now where have I heard that before?" Hiei muttered.

"—and the thing is, you're probably not going to like how you can help. Hence the whole 'one of us will be angry' thing. So. Um?"

"You know what's really making me angry?" Hiei said, every word laced with ire. "You dancing around whatever it is you want to ask me. Just spit it out and be done with it, Meigo, I insist."

"OK, fine!" I said. I set aside my ramen and stood, pacing back and forth as I spoke. "Here's the situation. I think I know a way to help all of you out. It's a small thing, but it might be… important? I'm not sure, but that's really whatever. Anyway." I shook my head, trying to get back on track. "In order to be of use, I need to remember something I have apparently forgotten, and I think you're the best person to help me knock some cobwebs loose."

His eyes widened as he began to catch on. "Meigo," he said, voice thrumming with danger. "You don't mean—?"

But I didn't let him finish. This was my request, and if I wanted to see it through, I needed to face the reality of what I wanted head on—not let Hiei beat me to the punch and do the hard work on my behalf. I held up my hand to silence him, and then I took another deep, deep breath while he looked on in silence, rising to his feet in a surge of fluttering black cloak. We stood face to face as a chill wind swept through the alley, teasing my hair like the fingers of some icy specter.

"Hiei," I said, "if you're willing, I could use your help remembering what death feels like."

And then I held my breath, and I waited for his answer.

Notes:

Having a really, really hard day today, supremely stressed, but this chapter was a perfect and welcome distraction from the other stuff that's bothering me. Thanks for reading and for making LC such a joy to write. You're the best; thank you!

Many thanks to all of you who chimed in this week and made my day a hell of a lot better in the process: cptkitten, Masked Trickster, Gerbilfriend, Eternalevecho, AngelFish1214, Atsuyuri_sama, Tewdrig, Unctuous, activelyapathetic, MageKing17, Kuramag33, EMMStAr, scallionite, amarielah, Laina Inverse, I Am Prism Cat, The Interim Vector Chronos, and kintinca!

Chapter 80: Know Your Enemy; Know Yourself

Notes:

Warnings: LOTS of talk about DEATH AND DYING AND CAR WRECKS. Some violent imagery and gore near the end. Please be careful reading this and skip to next week if you have trouble with this content. This chapter will affect stuff further down the line, but if you're really uncomfortable with talk of violent death, you can skip it for the time being. I'll write a summary of this chapter in the chapter notes for your convenience.

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

Chapter Text

Crumbs clung to Kuwabara's chin as he put his finger to it and asked, "Hey, Yusuke—can I ask you a weird question?"

Yusuke looked up from the cookie he'd been gnawing with one brow arched sky high. "What kind of question?" His brow descended, eyes hooded and dark. "It better not be pervy!"

"What?! No, ew!" Kuwabara shuddered. "I just. It's just?" A long paused; his gaze drifted to the tabletop between us. "Well."

At that point I'd put down my fork, and even Botan had set aside her cup of steaming tea to watch this odd interaction play out. We were at Botan's favorite café, one of the seventeen she'd dragged us to since gaining her Evil Eye and coming to Human World to live—permanently, we assumed, unless something changed about her situation, but we had no real suspicion that it would.

Botan and I sat across from one another. As Kuwabara hesitated, biting his lip and staring into his bubble tea like it might provide him answers instead of Yusuke, she and I exchanged a Look. It was a long Look, and neither of us seemed more or less confused than the other.

This scene at the café had happened long before Botan and I tag-team manipulated Hiei into training her, maybe even before we'd gone to rescue Yukina; I had trouble remembering the exact time, but as I asked Hiei to help me remember death, this is the memory that sat at the back of my mind like a persistently aching tooth.

"Um." Kuwabara shifted nervously in his seat. "So it's something I've been meaning to talk to you about for a long time now, and—"

But Yusuke had no patience for Kuwabara's explanation. He hunched in his seat with a scowl and shoved the rest of his cookie in his mouth, cheeks distending like a chipmunk. "Spit it out," Yusuke said in a spray of crumbs.

Kuwabara's eyes rose to meet his. "What was dying like?"

A moment of silence followed the question, and then Yusuke gave a sharp inhale—one that turned into a hacking cough as he inhaled crumbs of the treat still sitting in his mouth. I pounded him on the back as he guzzled water and tried not to die again, this time via choking.

Botan, meanwhile? She didn't move an inch. Her eyes merely narrowed, cutting over to carefully watch Yusuke as he choked. Sensing another death of his, maybe? Or just gauging his reaction? Either way, Botan's critical gaze did not escape my notice.

"Why the hell would you go and ask me something like that out of the blue?" Yusuke grizzled out once the threat of asphyxiation passed. "Warn me next time, dammit!"

Kuwabara bared his teeth. "Hey, I did try to warn you! And you told me to just spit it out." He crossed his arms when Yusuke grumbled that, oh yeah, that did happen. Kuwabara said, "I've met a lot of ghosts, but none who ever came back from the dead, you know?"

"And did you ask any of those ghosts, huh?" Yusuke said with an accusatory glare. "Or just me?"

"Who do you think I am? Of course I asked them! But none of them had much to say." He shrugged his broad shoulders. "They either avoided the subject or said they didn't remember much. So I thought…"

"Yeah, well." Yusuke hunched over the table like a dejected gargoyle. "You thought wrong, because I don't remember much, either."

Botan finally moved, then, sitting up a little straighter with a frown. "You don't remember anything?" she said with odd hesitance. Usually Botan didn't hesitate to say anything, at least not to Yusuke.

Yusuke nodded. He rested his elbows on the table and hunched over his cookies, encircling the plate with his arms. One of the cookies he took between two fingers, slowly crumbling the edge of it over the plate, confection disintegrating bit by bit. Although I sat next to him, I had trouble reading his expression, proximity offering no help when it came to deciphering the darkness brewing in his eyes like roiling storm clouds.

"I remember leaping into the road to push that kid, and there was a squeal of tires and the world sort of… spun?" He shook his head, eyes momentarily closing. "I think I was spinning and I saw the street and me and the car and the kid flipping like laundry in a spin cycle, but… that's all." Yusuke pushed away from the table with a shrug and wiped his crumbed fingers on his pant leg. "Next thing I knew, I was floating in the sky with Botan. I don't remember leaving my body or anything. Hell, I don't even remember any pain."

"Huh." Kuwabara put his hand on his chin again. "I wonder why you don't remember much else. Because it was a quick death?"

"Beats me. But I saw the coroner's report. They thought I probably died of internal bleeding."

"That doesn't sound fast," I observed under my breath.

"Yeah. Who knows, though?" Yusuke leaned back with a shrug, one arm lying along the back of the booth above my shoulders. "It's not like they went through with an autopsy."

As Kuwabara and I nodded, solemn as we considered Yusuke's words, Botan took a long drink of her tea. As the cup clacked against its accompanying saucer, she grimaced. I'm not sure why.

"To be honest, I'm not surprised to hear this, Yusuke," she said after a time. "Most ghosts don't remember the moment that they died."

Everyone at the table blinked in surprise, and it was Yusuke who found the willpower to say, "Really, Botan?"

"Yes." She sat up a little straighter, voice pitched low beneath the hum of the café's other chatting patrons. "Death is a traumatic experience for most. That moment when a heart stops, but the brain is active for just a moment longer as blood continues to circulate… and then the soul must peel away from its skin and leave the warmth of life behind…"

She trailed off, looking pensive—and perhaps a bit wistful? Kuwabara edged an inch or so away from her in the booth. "That's creepy, Botan!"

Magenta eyes rolled. "Oh, don't be that way. Death is perfectly natural when you get right down to it." She lifted a finger into the air and cleared her throat, clearly preparing herself (and us) for a nice long lecture. "Death is just as much a part of life as life itself. But when a soul has lived in human flesh for its entire existence, suddenly exiting can be quite a shock. Most ghosts I've met report a slight gap in their memory, between the moment they died and the moment their consciousness resolved itself into a ghost." She cupped her hands as if to protect and support a fragile egg, reverence showing clear on her pretty face. "Between those two states you exist as a naked soul, fragile and open to all the energies of the world. Humans who slip peacefully from life at an old age remember the process and that state of in-between, but ghosts who exited quickly or painfully tend to block the moment out."

"And that's what happened to me, huh?" Yusuke said. He forward across the table, frowning but clearly curious. "That gap between dying and meeting you, I can't remember because I was just a soul?"

"Either that, or because your death was traumatic and painful." Botan gave a thoughtful nod. "Both explanations account for your missing memory."

We absorbed this. Soon enough, however, Yusuke declared the entire conversation way too creepy and weird for comfort; he was alive now, he said, and could we please not talk about dying any more than we had to? Thus the conversation moved on, per his request, and we left the talk of death behind.

The subject took quite a lot longer to leave my mind, of course. And over the following weeks, as we rescued Yukina and lived our lives as best as we were able, the memory of that conversation appeared in the forefront of my thoughts with uncommon regularity.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the conversation echoed in the back of my head as I spoke to Hiei in the alley, when I asked him to help me remember what death feels like.

While I quite literally held my breath, Hiei regarded me in utter silence—a quiet broken only by the flap of his coat as it moved on the wings of the wind, not to mention the frantic beat of my heart. Soon enough, however, Hiei's wide eyes narrowed, the red in them almost completed obscured by his lowered lids. "You want me to what?" he said, voice a distinct rumble in his chest.

"Help me remember how it feels to die," I repeated, realizing too late it was probably a rhetorical question.

Hiei took a step toward me. "Meigo, if you're sick—"

He cut himself off, words lingering on the air, but I knew what he was getting at even if he couldn't finish his sentence. I tossed my hair and took a deep breath.

"I will admit I have mild suicidal ideation from time to time," I said with careful precision, "but I have no plans to die or any actual desire for my life to end, Hiei." A shake of my head to clear the cobwebs and get us back on track. "You remember the night we met, right? You burrowed your way into my brain using the Jagan and saw—"

"That you aren't what you seem, yes, I recall," he snapped. "You've made it exceedingly difficult to forget since you keep bringing it up."

I soldiered on as if he hadn't interrupted. "And of course you remember that boy with the pink hair—"

"Stop." Hiei shook his head as I bit my words back. "I have told you more than once that I want no part in whatever it is that makes you so attuned to the machinations of fate. I am not so foolish as to toy with destiny, Meigo. I choose to make my own." He delivered unto me a glare most pointed, nearly sharp enough to cut. "And so should you."

"Hiei, I'm not asking you to toy with destiny," I protested. "I'm asking you to help me remember something I've apparently forgotten—something you managed to uncover that night you rooted around inside my skull."

"And what does remembering death have to do with recovering your lost memories, I ask you?"

"Context. We best remember things through context." At his unmoved expression, one that said he either didn't understand what I meant or just didn't buy what I was trying to sell, I scrambled for an example. "Like—I don't remember the name of the girl who bumped into me on the subway last week, but I remember we had a long conversation about cake shops afterward and that she was wearing a green shirt, not to mention that her favorite band is Megallica." I spread my hands, trying to appeal to Hiei somehow. "Stories provide us with context. Psychology has proven that stories help us remember things. So, to better remember what I've apparently forgotten, I need context. I need story. Remembering death…"

A light sparked behind his livid gaze. "You died right before you met him."

"Yeah." I nodded emphatically. "So maybe if I get close enough to the thing that led me to him…"

Hiei nodded, too, understanding—but then a low growl built inside his chest and his nod turned into a shake. "But that thing is death, Meigo," he said, voice taking on an edge of mockery. "You think nearly dying will unlock something inside you? I guarantee that it will not. This is a terrible idea and frankly, I thought you were smarter than this."

I glared, fists balling at my sides. "I think it's a pretty good idea and that I'm still pretty damn smart, actually." At that I shrugged, trying to diffuse the situation with a bit of humor. "And besides, it's not like I'm asking you to stab me."

"Trust me, if you were asking that, I would have no problems acquiescing," Hiei said.

My jaw hit the floor before slamming back up again with a clatter of incensed teeth. "Hey! Rude!" I warbled.

"If not a stab of this sword, then what?" Hiei pressed. "Poison? Asphyxiation? Push you off a building and catch you at the last second?"

I pretended to look thoughtful. "Hey, that might actually—"

"Meigo. No."

"Gosh, Hiei, I was kidding," I snarked. "Can't you take a joke?"

I rolled my eyes, but when Hiei did not laugh or fire back another quip, I heaved a sigh and composed myself. If I wanted him to help me, I'd need to give him a good reason to do it—really prove this wasn't some lark I hadn't given great thought to over weeks and months of constant scheming.

And trust me. I had thought about this long and hard even after Hiei told me he had no desire to learn more about that boy from my forgotten memories.

"Like I said," I said, voice measured and even, "I don't have a deathwish." I paused. "Well. I mean. Technically I do, but I don't want to actually die, and that makes a difference."

"Get to the point, Meigo," Hiei growled.

"Fine." I drew myself up and said, "I've been thinking a lot about it in the past few days. When I say I want you to help me remember death, I mean that very literally. I want you to go back inside my head and make me remember."

Alarm lit his eyes like candles igniting. "Meigo."

"I want to relive my death," I continued. "I want to relive it over and over again until I remember what happened afterward. That's how you uncovered that memory, after all. You made it replay in my head, out of my control, and then—poof. The new memory happened." Before he could point out the obvious, I held up a hand to stop him in his tracks. "But I don't think just replaying the events in my head by myself will do it. I've done that on my own with no results. No—I need you to guide me, to make me remember the way you did last time, so I can't shy away from the pain of what dying must have felt like. Because that's why I think I can't remember anything." Remember what Botan had said of Yusuke's death, I told him, "Death was too much of a shock, and my brain blocked it out. You can help unblock it."

Hiei didn't say anything. He just stood there, staring at me, enormous eyes unreadable and on fire.

"I've gotten good at lucid dreaming, too," I added when the silence stretched too long and too thick. "I think with your help I can recreate the scene of my death and really get into it, really relive—"

"But why?" Hiei cut in. "Why do you want to do this?"

"Well. Like I said. I want to uncover—"

"I know what you want to do, imbecile," Hiei said. "I'm asking why you want to do it. What motivates you?"

It was a valid question, of course, and Hiei was right to ask it. Lucky for me he waited as I stood in place and fidgeted, trying to get my thoughts straight before giving him an answer. It would not do me well to misspeak in front of him—especially when the stakes were so high.

"That boy with the pink hair put me in this place in history, Hiei," I said when I found the words. "He did it for a reason. I don't know that reason, but I think I need to. He will be at the tournament, apparently. You heard what that demon said." My smile felt thin, and I'm sure it looked that way to Hiei, too. "Isn't it best to know as much about our enemies as we can?"

Hiei's eyes narrowed. "That boy is your enemy?"

I nodded.

"But he called you his friend. He smiled at you in your memory, and you were not afraid of him." His eyes narrowed further. "What makes him your enemy?"

Hiei was full of good questions—and although this was indeed an excellent question, one Kagome and Minato and I had discussed at length, I was not prepared to answer it. My mouth worked around empty air as I struggled for words, hands twisting restlessly together as I battled the nerves building in my chest.

I had begun to think of Hiruko as my enemy a long time before—because what else could he be but an enemy? But how could I make Hiei understand, when he had asked to not to know so much?

"I—I didn't ask to come here," I blurted.

Hiei pulled back, as if I'd struck out at him or something. "What?"

"To be here. To be Keiko. I didn't ask for this." I swallowed the lump in my throat, or tried to. "You saw that I was someone else before I was Keiko. The truth is that he put me here, into her body, and he… he keeps encouraging me to break the rules."

He only scowled. "What does that mean?"

"He wants me to intentionally waylay fate, and at the expense of the people I care about. You, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, everyone. He wants me to break the rules of destiny for his sake." Breath, when I took one, made my chest shudder. "If he doesn't care about you, about all of you—well." Another smile, this one a little brighter than the last. "That makes him my enemy."

Hiei did not reply. At least, he did not reply right away. He stood there and looked at me for what felt like an hour before slowly walking over to his crate and sitting down. I followed suit, sitting across from him as he reached once more for his ramen.

"I'll think about it," Hiei murmured, face partially obscured by the steam rising from his bowl.

"That's all I can ask," I replied, wondering what expression he read in mine.

We ate our dinners and parted ways, as we always did, but I didn't have the heart to admonish Hiei for stealing a bowl that time. I simply trudged up to my room and fell asleep, exhausted after our verbal battle and hoping, perhaps naively, that Hiei might show up in my dreams to begin the excavation of my memories.

But he did not appear that night.

I waited, but he never came.

The next night, I sat at my desk and did my homework, and at moonrise I looked from my window down into the alley. The radiance of the stars glinted off Botan's blue hair as she and Hiei stood in the alley, talking about who knows what, and soon they turned and walked away, out of sight into night's dark grasp.

He had not appeared to me, but he had kept his word to Botan.

Happy for her thought I was, my heart couldn't help but sink—because now, no doubt about it, everyone was training but me.

Minato's smooth, light voice brushed through the air like a fine-toothed comb. "And he still hasn't given you an answer?" he asked, each word a delicate needle against my skin.

Tracing the edges of my cake with my fork, I shook my head.

Kagome sighed. "I can't believe he's kept you waiting this long. What's the holdup, anyway?"

It was all I could do to shake my head again. Kagome ate a big bite of cake in response, chewing and glaring at the table as if she could make it give her an answer on Hiei's behalf. We hadn't gone for yogurt after aikido lessons (it had finally gotten too cold) and had instead opted for a warm café—coincidentally, one of the seventeen Botan had made me visit with her in months previous. Small world, I guess, or did we simply live in a small town? Well. It wasn't nearly small enough. I hadn't run into Botan but for once since she started training with Hiei, and as for Hiei…

"It's been three weeks since you asked him to help you," Kagome said. She put down her fork with a clatter. "Why is he keeping you waiting this long?"

"I ask him exactly that every time we have one of our meetings, but he always just grunts and doesn't say anything, or tells me he'll answer when he's ready." My voice couldn't help but adopt a certain whining quality. "I hate waiting."

Kagome, sitting next to me in the booth, sighed and leaned her head against my shoulder. "I feel ya there, girlfriend."

"I mean, we still have a ways to go before the Tournament, but it's better to get it done early so we don't rush at the last minute. Why wait, y'know?" I threw up my hands exasperated beyond measure. "And to add insult to injury, every few nights I hear Botan out in the alley and they just head off together to train. He's secretive about that, too. So's Botan. I think she's been avoiding me because I haven't been able to pin her down for a social hour in weeks." With pronounced aggressiveness I stabbed at my plate of cake with my fork. "I just feel useless. This is the one thing I can do to be useful and I've hit this roadblock!"

"Oh, Eeyore," Kagome said. She curled her arm through mine and squeezed. "I'm so sorry."

"As am I," Minato said. He drank coffee, black, and over the rim of his mug he said, "Although I admit that the delay isn't entirely unpleasant, at least for me. I have some reservations about your plan, as I have expressed."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "And expressed, and expressed, and expressed…" she muttered in my ear. At that I had to suppress a giggle. Minato had been as shocked by my plan as Hiei, and while he supported my efforts, he had not been shy about voicing his skepticism regarding my methodology. Like, not shy at all. Sometimes he sounded like a broken record, but in the end it just meant he cared.

He put down his coffee cup. "But regardless of my feelings, I see your reasoning, and I know remembering your death is a necessary evil."

"Thank you for understanding," I said.

He replied with a curt nod and a quoted proverb. "'If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.'" He took another drink of coffee. "I have never even met Hiruko. Neither Kagome nor I have uncovered evidence we are missing memories. It is only logical, therefore, that you should be the one to explore this facet of our existence in this world."

"Plus, neither of us has a handy-dandy-three-eyed-demon to ask for help," Kagome cheerfully observed—and then she sagged against me with a mournful half-wail. "Aw, man, Keiko. You get to have all the fun!"

Minato stared at her. "You think reliving death is fun?"

"Well, it sure beats sitting around on my ass all the live-long day," she replied. "Your canon as Sailor V is underway already and Keiko is going to go to the Dark Tournament in the spring and I'm here for another four goddamn years before anything neat happens!" With another dramatic moan she collapsed in her seat, one arm thrown across her forehead for good measure. "It's just not fair!"

Minato picked up his mug again. "Your taste is absolutely mystifying," he muttered, but his drink could not quite obscure the smile threatening his lips.

"Well, at least you have something to look forward to, Tigger," I said. "In four years you'll get to be a badass warrior priestess with magic arrows. And what'll I be?" I stabbed at my cake some more. "Normal. As usual."

"… oh." Kagome sat up, regret painted across her face. "I'm sorry, Keiko."

"It's OK. It's just hard to watch literally everyone but me get powers or get to train with an extra special sensei." My slice of cake had mostly been destroyed at that point, so I set about mashing the crumbs into a dense, flat patty. "Don't get me wrong. Hideki-sensei is amazing. It's just that from here on out, powers trump muscle, and I'm not getting powers anytime soon."

Minato's eyes narrowed. "'Anytime soon?'" he echoed. "Not never?"

Kagome perked up at his observation, too, hope gleaming in her dark eyes. Smile small and secretive, I explained: "I have at least one option I haven't gotten to explore yet. I'll get to try at the Tournament, but…" I shrugged. "We'll see. I'm not sure he'd want to work with me, anyway."

"Dare I ask who you're talking about?" said Minato.

"It's a secret," I said, putting a playful finger over my lips. "In any case, thanks for letting me rant about this, guys. I appreciate it."

"No sweat!" Kagome chirped. She leaned against my side again, beaming up at me. "What are friends for?"

"Captain." Minato pushed aside his mug and saucer, lacing his hands together atop the table. "If you feel it necessary, I'd be willing to supplement your training with Hideki-sensei with krav maga lessons, as well."

He looked serious, blue eyes unwavering on my face, but I wasn't sure if this was a pity-training offer or what. "Really?" I said, trying not to sound skeptical.

"Yes." He turned to the girl beside me. "And you're welcome to come too, Tigger."

She launched a fist into the air. "All right! I'm so down." She struck at the air, a series of quick one-two punches aimed at an invisible enemy. "Anything that can help me kick demon ass when it finally comes time to head through the well, I'm game for!"

Minato chuckled at her antics—and as he pulled his coffee cup back in front of him, I decided it wasn't a pity-offer, after all. Minato wasn't one for pity, nor was he one to offer something and not mean it. Minato meant what he said and said what he meant, straightforward and honest even to a fault. As Kagome kept punching the air and Minato made a comment about her form, I felt myself smile.

"What would I do without the two of you?" I said.

"Suffer and die, probably," Kagome supplied with a cheery grin, and at that Minato and I both burst out laughing.

We left the café shortly after that, when the proprietors began cleaning tables and stacking the empty chairs atop them. It was still cold, but as February came the weather got a little bit less frigid. We piled on our coats and hats and scarves and set out, carefully picking our way over patches of ice on the sidewalk. Kagome ran ahead and skidded over the ice, cackling with glee as she turned the roads into her own personal skating rink. Minato and I hung back and watched, laughing when she slipped and fell and popped back up again like a particularly exuberant jack-in-the-box.

"You know, Captain." Minato's words came in a puff of airy vapor. "I must admit I admire you."

I looked away from Kagome with a start. "Eh?"

"Your drive to learn. To grow. To help. It's admirable," he said. "Whether it's gaining a power, learning a new martial art, or simply unlocking a memory—you have ambition."

"Yeah, well. That's why the Sorting Hat put me in Slytherin, I guess."

His eyes softened, their color deepening to the color of the night sky overhead as he continued to watch Kagome slip and slide across the frozen ground. "My wife was a religious person. 'God helps those who help themselves,' she'd say, and you have a way of helping yourself she'd find commendable." Finally he looked at me, a smile tugging at his mouth. "I think the two of you could have been friends, in another lifetime."

Minato did not often get sentimental, and I recognized his words for the rarity they represented. Cheeks flushing against the cold air, I ducked my chin and hid most of my face in the coil of my scarf where he could not see.

"Thanks, Minato," I mumbled. "I—I really needed to hear that, I think."

He started to reply, probably to tell me I was welcome, but Kagome's voice rang out through the cold and echoing city streets. "C'mon guys, keep up!" she called, taking a running start at a long patch of ice.

"Perhaps you should slow down," Minato replied, and when Kagome hit the end of the ice patch and tumbled to the ground, he ran forward to help her find her feet again.

I hung back to watch. Minato pulled Kagome up; she grasped his hand tight and pulled him to another strip of frozen concrete. They skated across it together, nearly losing their balance at the end and clinging to each other to keep upright. Kagome cackled with glee while Minato grinned, and when she caught me watching them, she lifted her hand in a wave and shouted, "C'mon in, Eeyore; the ice is fine!"

And despite my reservations, I believed her. I took a running start at some ice with a shout of. "Incoming!"

We had fun that night, turning the world into a skating rink—but as I climbed into bed after all was said and done, it wasn't the happy memories of our cold slid-n-slides that I carried with me into sleep. No. I carried with me words, instead, spoken by Minato's wife back in another lifetime.

"God helps those who help themselves," she'd advised.

Even if I didn't believe in any gods, I knew wisdom when I heard it, and I knew better than to ignore a piece of good advice when it fell into my lap.

In the end, waiting around on Hiei just wasn't my style.

Minato's various proverbs had been the exact kick in the pants I needed to strike out on my own—and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'd gotten pretty dang good at initiating lucid dreams over the course of the previous months. I'm actually rather proud of myself, no false modesty to be had where my dreams are concerned. I could build whole worlds, fly, reconstruct places from both my old and current lives—you name it, I could basically do it. Dreams are like a gigantic canvases where you can be anything you want to be and create anything you want create.

Well. I could create almost anything, I guess I should say. I will allow myself no false modesty, but I will also not allow myself any false pride, either. It was difficult to make versions of people from my old life or my new one. I could create versions of them that were identical in looks, but there was always something… off, about them. Like the dreaming equivalent of the Uncanny Valley, if you know that term. They might have the same face and same voice as someone you know in real life, but the words they speak don't sound like something they'd say (maybe they were a bit OOC, to use a term from fanfics). Not exactly, anyway. The way they move isn't exactly how they'd move in real life, evidencing slight changes in body language you can't pin down by name but just feel wrong, regardless. And it always got a lot worse when you tried interacting with them, too. Just have them walking around, not really paying attention to you in the dream? Sure. That wasn't so bad. But trying to have a conversation with a dream-doppelgänger (a dream-pelgänger?) was absolutely disturbing, and after my first few failed experiments, I stopped trying to create them altogether.

Lucky for me, though, cars and highways don't have any personality to replicate.

Reconstructing the highway upon which I met my untimely fate wasn't terribly difficult. I'd driven down it a million times, and had even worked for a year in one of the four office buildings that stood in a knot near exit 741. That was right about the place where I'd died, as I recalled, so the night after I met with Minato and Kagome at the café, I set about recreating that specific stretch of highway in the landscape of my dreams.

It wasn't a difficult stretch of road to conjure up, although it was quite large and necessitated manifesting quite a bit of detail. Six lanes of highway on each side of the HOV lanes, plus shoulders, a four-lane feeder road lined with bodegas, noodle shops, that giant furniture store with the funny name, the derelict mall no one ever went to, at least three tattoo parlors, that one Brazilian restaurant and the army surplus store—this area of my home city represented a hodgepodge of cultures and walks of life, and I remembered as much of it as I possible could. I colored the sky a deep shade of orange, stars obscured by the glare of city lights and a haze of thin smog. Even at night my city had smog, inescapable as the air itself. I populated the road beneath the hazy sky with cars zipping north and south, occasional honks and the rush of wheels over pavement adding the texture of sound to my dream's tapestry. I stood on the roof of one of the office buildings by exit 741, the one I had worked at once, as I added billboards and road signs where applicable, stepping back to admire the scene I'd crafted with a low whistle of appreciation. The recreation wasn't perfect, small and unnamable details I couldn't recall nagging at the edges of my mind, but I pushed them aside as best I could.

"OK," I said as I hung the bloated supermoon in the sky and set the iconic downtown skyline against the distant horizon. I turned to the highway below with a grin. "And now for the finishing touch."

From the north, headed south, a red car rushed down the middle of the highway.

It wasn't difficult to remember my old car, a red Nissan I'd named "Rachel" after the character from 90s TV sitcom "Friends." I'd taken some obsessive photos of her back when she first became mine, and I'd seen her model ride past me on the street before. It was not difficult, therefore, to conjure her up and send her speeding down the road. I added a throb of bass, one that issued past her windows and metal plates, because I knew I'd been listening to music as I drove and was killed—but I couldn't recall which song I'd been playing, so I kept the tune a simple bass beat, no singing or melody in evidence. I watched Rachel fly down the highway and over the distant hill of an overpass toward the downtown skyline and out of sight, then hesitantly stripped all other cars off of the highway below. I adjusted the placement of the moon in the sky, to indicate the late hour.

I had been driving down a mostly deserted highway when I died. It had been so late, and I hadn't seen whoever had hit me coming. Still, even if I didn't know exactly how my accident had been triggered, I could replicate getting into one.

"Here's hoping this works," I muttered.

I summoned Rachel to the north again, but before she could go tearing down the road, I froze her in place at the top of an overpass. With a snap of my will I flew through the dream-air, and since this was my dream and my rules applied, I phased through the roof of the car as if it were made of mist and inserted myself into the driver's seat. It had been fifteen years since I last drove a car, but it had to be like riding a bike, right? As in, you never really forget (not the number of wheels, which is of course different)? And this was a dream, after all, so how badly could I fuck this up?

Taking a deep breath (sort of, considering this was all happening in my head; maybe it's best not to dive too deep into the particulars here) I put the car in drive and pressed my foot down on the gas pedal.

Rachel rolled forward down the highway at my command, responding as much to my actions in the dream as she did my unspoken will. The speedometer ticked up and up, the stripes marking the highway lanes steaking past faster and faster through the dark. I wasn't sure precisely where I should get into the accident, but did it really matter exactly where? If I just imagined the crash from my memory and set the car tumbling—

There came a thump from above me, and the car shuddered as if under a great weight.

My dream-heart started to pound; I gave a shriek, the wheel of the car jerking out of my control under my hands, which made me shriek all the louder—because I wasn't in control of this. I wasn't the one making the wheel twist about, the car sway from side to side as I slammed on the brakes and tried to stop, and I most certainly wasn't in control of the horrific metallic screeching coming from above. It wasn't even the same kind of metallic screech I'd heard the night I died, but if it wasn't that, then what the hell was it? I looked up in a panic to see the roof above me buckle, and to my immense horror the top of the car peeled back and was ripped off the lower chassis like the top of an aluminum can.

My screaming stopped.

There, atop the car and silhouetted against the bloated supermoon, stood Hiei.

He hauled me out of the ruined car by the back of my shirt, the seatbelt slipping around me like so much water, and then we were flying through the orange-dark sky to the office building where I used to work and upon which I'd perched to get a good view of my crafted world. Hiei dropped me in a heap on the gravel-covered roof; I sat there, breathing hard, until I found the strength to stagger to my feet and glare at him.

He was glaring at me right back—and not in the oddly muted way of one of my dream constructs, either. He wore a full-on, patented Hiei glare that contained real heat, heat that had me stepping back a pace, dangerously close to the edge of the fifteen-story office building upon which we stood.

This wasn't some subconscious manifestation of Hiei come to stop me from doing something I didn't want to do.

This was Hiei himself—and the minute I'd seen him on top of my car, I'd known him exactly for what he was.

"What were you thinking?" Hiei snarled.

I swallowed. "Hello to you too, Hiei."

"No jokes, dammit. What were you thinking, Meigo?"

"Oh, you know." I twiddled my thumbs. "Just thinking about death and dying and car wrecks, that's all."

Hiei took a step toward me, eyes absolutely ablaze. "You should not have done this on your own. You should not have—"

"—waited around on you for another month?"

Hiei stopped talking when I interrupted. For a minute he stood there with fists clenched, and then he ducked his head with an audible grind of teeth. "It hasn't been a month," he said, but some of the fire in his voice had abated.

"It's almost been a month," I said. "It's been three weeks since I asked and I was done waiting around on you, so I took matters into my own hands."

He just shook his head. "This is insane. Stop this foolishness at once."

"I will not," I countered. It was my turn to advance on him, and to poke him in the chest with the tip of one accusatory finger. "And you can't be around every time I fall asleep to bully me into stopping, either. I'm going to try and uncover my memories one way or another, with you or without you, so if you care about how I might be hurt by this—"

Hiei loosed a growl, but he said nothing.

"—if you care at all, you'll help me." At that I looked at his shoes, chin lowering as my voice dropped, too. "I need help, Hiei. I don't ask for it often." I met his eyes even though it was difficult, pride stinging with every admitted word. "But this time, I'm asking."

Hiei said nothing. We stood there on that imagined rooftop for what felt like an eternity, the hot and humid wind of the swamps of Houston washing across us in a wave of sodden air that barely cooled. Perhaps it was my subconscious mind that made the hem of Hiei's black cloak swirl on that breeze, but it did, undulating the same way it had moved that night I asked him for help in the alley.

"Fine," Hiei grunted.

I did a double-take, startled. "Really?"

"It's not like you left me much choice," he snapped. "Either I don't help and you traumatize yourself, or I help and mitigate the trauma where I can." Another of his growls cut the sticky air. "We'll see how it plays out."

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Hiei."

He just rolled his eyes, though. "Thank me once we've succeeded and you're not a traumatized wreck."

"Fair enough."

He harrumphed, hands jamming into his pockets. "So what's the plan?"

"Um…" I scratched my cheek and gave a nervous laugh. "Well, I don't know precisely how your Jagan works, so…" I waved a hand over the scenery below. "As you can see, I've tried to reconstruct the night I died, which I think is a start, but…"

He looked out over the highway, too, but frowned almost at once, Jagan flaring deep purple behind the bandana on his forehead. "It's not wholly accurate. At least, it's not accurate to what I saw in your memories of that night," he said. "The subconscious retains more than the conscious. And you didn't have a bird's eye view of your own death."

"No. My perspective was in the car." I couldn't keep the hope from my voice when I asked, "Think you could flesh this place out a bit?"

He didn't answer with words. Instead he just looked out over the highway, Jagan once again flaring bright—and everything shifted. It shifted like the moment you realize someone has played a prank on you and moved everything on your desk one inch to the left, and you move it back to its proper place again, only all at once instead of piece by piece. Exits on the highway moved north or south a few feet, and signs grew bigger or smaller, and the subjects of the billboards changed completely. A few of the shops I'd imagined traded places, and more of them sprang into being between the others. A pizza place, an abogado office, cash bonds and a pawn shop and a hair salon, they grew from the ground like plants and bloomed into themselves, fitting into my conscious memories with a subtle click of rightness I can't put into words.

I think I stood there with my mouth open, marveling, for almost a minute. Eventually I shut my mouth, swallowed, and managed to say, "Nice."

Hiei just smirked.

"Now, I think the next step is to just dive in and recall what happened to me that night." I hesitated, looking at him askance. "Can you make me relive it? And if I try to shy away, can you make me keep looking at the memory head on?"

He nodded—but before I could spring into action, he said, "Keiko. You want to recall that boy from your lost memory. What makes you think remembering your death will do that?"

"Like I said the night I asked," I said. "Context—"

"You remember things better with context and story, yes, I know," he interjected with obvious impatience. "But what makes you think reliving your death specifically will unlock memories of that boy? Perhaps that memory was from another forgotten place in your life. You can't know for sure."

He had a point, but he didn't know what I did about death. "It's… it's something Botan said," I told him, picking my words one by one. "There's an in-between state, after a human dies and before they become a ghost. It's a state people forget. It's too traumatic to stick in the mind for long, too naked and raw to be remembered. It's that state I want to remember, and it's in that state I think I met that boy for the first time."

"And you don't think this could harm you?" he said, brows shooting way, way up.

I shrugged. "It might. But I have to try. For the sake of everyone, I have to give it a shot."

Hiei considered this for a moment.

Then he harrumphed, raised his hand, and said, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

And with that, Hiei snapped his fingers.

I was back in the car again as if I had never left it, Rachel's roof intact as I speeded down the highway. Dimly I tried to call out for Hiei, but my mouth refused to move. I tried to look out the window, but my head did not turn from the sight of the road disappearing beneath the hood of my car, pavement like dark water under the hull of a boat, and—

Music.

Music blares from the speakers of my car, bright synthetic pop keeping me awake on the long drive home. Something by Nicki Minaj, fast lyrics pouring off my tongue and keeping my brain engaged with every quick syllable. I sing along and try not to glance at the bouquet of white flowers bound with blue ribbon sitting in the passenger seat.

I'd caught the bouquet at Denise's wedding.

Tom will laugh when I tell him, I think. Tom will laugh and kiss me and say well, of course you caught it. Because we just talked about the future last night, and marriage, and how neither of us wants kids, and how we're perfect together, and how the future looks so bright when viewed side by loving side. The bouquet is too perfect, too perfectly timed to be anything but a sign from fate.

A car with its brights on roars up the highway behind me. I adjust the rearview mirror. My face reflects back at me for just a moment. I see blue eyes, champagne-colored glasses, and loose brown curls falling against my red dress with the long sleeves, cheeks flushed pink from a night of dancing (my face, my face, my old forgotten face, not the face I have anymore but I can't think of that, the thoughts slip away at once). The moon reflects in the mirror, too, full to bursting next to my flushed cheeks. Denise had gotten married on the night of the supermoon, and I'd caught the bouquet she'd thrown.

I think of calling Tom, to tell him.

The impact comes before I can pick up the phone.

My spine undulates; my head snaps atop my neck. Soprano screech of metal on metal drowns out even my blasting music. A quick flash of dashboard illumination, sparks on the pavement lighting up my hands, and the world turns over and over again. I catch the barest glimpse of my terrified face in the rearview mirror again, features pale and glowing like that bloated moon before there comes a crunch and a flash of sharp, hot pain. I look down and see—

With a horrific wrench of willpower I pulled myself away from that memory, hard. A force like a magnet, invisible but undeniable, tried to hold me back and keep me in place, but I struggled against it and refused to look at the scene in the car—and it relented, water slipping between fingers of a lax hand as it released its grip.

Suddenly, I was on the roof again.

Hiei stood at my side. The highway below us stretched from south to north in an endless strip, disappearing into the horizon as the moon floated large and eerie overhead. No cars drove past. Quiet descended like a winter blanket, thick and heavy.

"You pulled away," Hiei said.

"Why'd you let me?" I said.

"I didn't let you." He sounded annoyed, like he'd explained this before or something, though of course he hadn't. "This is your dream. Try though I might to corral you, you are the master of this place. I couldn't keep you in there unless I exerted enough force to hurt you."

I shut my eyes.

Swallowed the nerves in my neck.

Said: "Then try that."

Hiei drew in a sharp breath. "Meigo—"

"I'm not made of glass, Hiei. I won't break. I need to remember past that point." I opened my eyes and smiled, hope and helplessness congealing in my gaze. "Please. Please, just hold me in place a little harder, and little longer the way you did that night in the alley."

It took him a while to reply.

Soon, though, he grunted, "Fine."

And I was back in the car again, stripes on the pavement disappearing under the hood. This time I didn't bother trying to call for Hiei, or glance out the window. Instead I leaned into it, leaned into the sound of the radio—

Music.

Music blares from the speakers of my car, bright synthetic pop keeping me awake on the long drive home. "Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj, fast lyrics pouring off my tongue and keeping my brain engaged with every quick syllable. I sing along and try not to glance at the bouquet of white flowers bound with blue ribbon sitting in the passenger seat.

I'd caught the bouquet at Denise's wedding. It has baby's breath and lots of greenery, a few gardenias standing out stark white against dark green.

Tom will laugh when I tell him, I think. Tom will laugh and kiss me and say well, of course you caught it. Because we just talked about the future last night, and marriage, and how neither of us wants kids, and how we're perfect together, and how the future looks so bright when viewed side by loving side. We'd talking about how since our families were from different states, we should just elope, and we were only half kidding when we said it. The bouquet is too perfect, too perfectly timed to be anything but a sign from fate.

A silver truck with its brights on roars up the highway behind me. I adjust the rearview mirror. My face reflects back at me for just a moment. I see blue eyes, champagne-colored glasses with the scratch on one lens, and loose brown curls falling against my red dress with the long sleeves, cheeks flushed pink from a night of dancing (my face, my face, my old forgotten face, not the face I have anymore but I can't think of that, the thoughts slip away at once). The moon reflects in the mirror, too, full to bursting next to my flushed cheeks. Denise had gotten married on the night of the supermoon, and I'd caught the bouquet she'd thrown.

I think of calling Tom, to tell him.

The impact comes before I can pick up the phone.

My spine undulates; my head snaps atop my neck. Soprano screech of metal on metal drowns out even my blasting music, Nicki's crooned "boom boom boom" sputtering with static as the speakers are damaged on impact. A quick flash of dashboard illumination, sparks on the pavement lighting up my hands, and the world turns over and over again. I catch the barest glimpse of my terrified face in the rearview mirror again, features pale and glowing like that bloated moon before there comes a crunch and a flash of sharp, hot pain in my ankle, bones compacting as something slams into the driver's side door and dents it inward, pinning my left leg in place with what feels like pure fire. The steering column in front of me buckles and breaks and my gut erupts in flames; I scream, but then my breath catches and the scream dies. I look down and see—

I tried to pull away again, to shy instinctively away from the pain and the violence, but the magnetic presence from before bore down like the great weight of the cold ocean and kept me in place, kept me fixed there, and I couldn't move.

—and see the fractured steering column speared through my stomach just below my ribs, spray of blood spattering against the windshield, which abruptly shatters and peppers my face with slicing glass—

I bucked and kicked to get away. The magnetic presence held on tight for one horrifying moment, but my mind snarled a denial and batted it aside, and then I was out of the car and flying whole and undamaged through the sky, back to the roof where Hiei waited with a dire expression on his face. He said nothing as I crouched next to a spinning A/C unit, breath heaving from my lungs, every nerve ending lit up with electricity.

"You," I somehow ground out. "You—you let me go again."

Hiei scoffed. "You didn't exactly want to stay."

"No. But I have to." I rose shakily to my feet. "Again."

But Hiei shook his head. "No, Meigo."

"Please, Hiei," I said. "Please. If I can just stay long enough to—"

He growled, fists balling up as his Jagan flared bright and dark at the same time. "I will do that one more time but I will not try it again!" he said.

And I was back in the car again.

I didn't look around. I didn't think of Hiei. I sank into the memory and let myself live and breathe its every detail, not thinking of what lay ahead, not thinking of what I was about to—

Music.

Music blares from the speakers of my car, bright synthetic pop keeping me awake on the long drive home. "Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj, fast lyrics pouring off my tongue and keeping my brain engaged with every quick syllable. I sing along and try not to glance at the bouquet of white flowers bound with blue ribbon sitting in the passenger seat.

I'd caught the bouquet at Denise's wedding. It has baby's breath and lots of greenery, a few gardenias standing out stark white against dark green. I can smell them, flowers sweet in my nose, I know my mother would make a joke about the baby's breath if she saw it.

Tom will laugh when I tell him, I think. Tom will laugh and kiss me and say well, of course you caught it. Because we just talked about the future last night, and marriage, and how neither of us wants kids (screw you, baby's breath!), and how we're perfect together, and how the future looks so bright when viewed side by loving side. We'd talking about how since our families were from different states, we should just elope, and we were only half kidding when we said it. Why piss off one side of the family when we could piss off both? The bouquet is too perfect, too perfectly timed to be anything but a sign from fate that we should go to Vegas just as we planned and get married by an Elvis Impersonator at the Little White Chapel. It's just hilarious enough to suit us, after all, and—

A silver F-150 with its brights on roars up the highway behind me, spitting smog from its exhaust. I adjust the rearview mirror, bracelets jangling on my wrist. My face reflects back at me for just a moment. I see blue eyes, champagne-colored glasses with the scratch on one lens, and loose brown curls that have fallen out of their style resting against my red dress with the long sleeves, cheeks flushed pink from a night of dancing (my face, my face, my old forgotten face, not the face I have anymore but I can't think of that, the thoughts slip away at once). The moon reflects in the mirror, too, full to bursting next to my flushed cheeks and smeared mascara. Denise had gotten married on the night of the supermoon, and I'd caught the bouquet she'd thrown, and all I could think of was Tom as a few single groomsmen tried to ask me for my number.

I think of calling Tom, to tell him I caught the bouquet.

The impact comes before I can pick up the phone.

My spine undulates; my head snaps atop my neck. Soprano screech of metal on metal drowns out even my blasting music, Nicki's crooned "boom boom boom" sputtering with static as the speakers are damaged on impact. A quick flash of dashboard illumination, sparks on the pavement lighting up my hands, and the world turns over and over again and tries to rattle me to pieces. I catch the barest glimpse of my terrified face in the rearview mirror again, features pale and glowing like that bloated moon before there comes a crunch and a flash of sharp, hot pain in my ankle, bones compacting as something slams into the driver's side door and dents it inward, pinning my left leg in place with what feels like pure fire. The steering column in front of me buckles and breaks and my gut erupts in flames; I scream, but then my breath catches and the scream dies because I've looked down and seen the fractured steering column speared through my stomach just below my ribs, spray of blood spattering against the windshield, which abruptly shatters and sends glass slicing across my cheeks—

Something descends onto the top of my head like the hand of some vengeful deity and dents it inward. I see this happen in the rearview mirror, which has inexplicably stayed affixed to the ceiling of the cabin. The oddity of that strikes me even as I see my head dent and my eyes bulge outward and I feel my jaw slam shut so hard my teeth break and sever my tongue in half like the blade of serrated carving knife. I try to breathe but I choke on broken teeth and my own bubbling, iron-rich blood as my visions darkens, the glow of the supermoon (or maybe it was a street lamp) turning livid red.

The car stops rolling, soon.

I lay there, broken and crumpled and in pain.

I feel my heart go out and my brain burn through the last of my oxygen like a bulb through a final twist of filament.

And then I die.

There is a moment of darkness.

And then, inexplicably, there is light.

All around me, now, is white. Brilliant, unending, ceaseless white, as far as the eye can see. There is no pain. There is only white like snow fallen on a world made of nothing. It hums with hush, with utter quiet, a stage before a riotous performance, forever-white-field stretching around me up and down and north and east and west and south into infinity—and beyond, Buzz Lightyear. The white goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON —

"Meigo," Hiei said. "Who is Buzz Lightyear?"

At the sound of his voice, something inside me jolted and snapped. I screamed and sobbed at once, falling to my knees and clutching my face as I heaved and vomited on the ground. Only the vomit was gone when I opened my eyes, endless whiteness descending unmarred into the pale infinity below. I knelt on nothing I could see, but in my mind's eyes I could not shake the image of my gut stabbed through like Wash from Firefly, shards of teeth spraying from my ruined mouth, my head caved in, stench of blood thick in my nose even now—

A hand touched my shoulder.

Hiei kept his hand there while I cried and screamed and heaved and wretched, for how long I do not know, but I'm sure it would have been much longer if it wasn't for his presence grounding me to that white space. I clutched at his fingers when the crying stopped. He gave my hand a light squeeze.

"Where is this?" I somehow choked out.

"This is the in-between," he said. Both his voice and mine sounded too loud in this quiet place. "This is the in-between place you wanted to find, between life and ghost." He drew his hand away to gesture at the bright abyss around us. "That blow to the head killed you. This is what you remember next. And it goes on forever."

I swallowed down the taste of dream-bile. "Where's Hiruko?"

"Not here." His hands disappeared into his pockets. "Like I said. He wasn't where you thought he was."

I was shaking my head before he even finished speaking. "No. No. That can't be. This can't—this can't be the only thing—"

"It is." His voice, hard as stone, was somehow not cruel when he told me, "Give it up, Meigo. Give up this quest of yours."

"No." I shook my head and shot to my feet, even though the motion made me stagger. "No, Hiei, no! I refuse to believe this is it! Not after I went through all of—"

I stopped talking.

Hiei stared.

I stared back.

I began to run.

I ran and I ran, dream legs incapable of getting tired if I didn't wish to feel my muscles burn. I ran for about a minute, frantic with arms flailing—but before even a minute past, Hiei reappeared as if I'd simply run around a circular track. I skidded to a stop and chose another direction and ran that way just as fast, but like before, I found myself beside Hiei once again. Loosing a scream of frustration to the white sky, I didn't stop. I just ran past him and kept running, until he reappeared, and I ran some more, past his frowning visage so fast I barely saw it—

"Meigo," he said. "Stop."

"No, Hiei," I threw over my shoulder. "I have to figure out—"

He disappeared behind me into distant whiteness, but then he was ahead of me again just as quickly, appearing from the depths so abruptly it hurt my eyes. He was too solid, coated head to toe in black, anathema to the white that hurt my eyes in a different way. I wasn't sure which hurt worse, but I suspected the latter even when Hiei grabbed my arm and dragged me to a halt.

"Meigo, stop!" he said.

I wrenched my arm from him. "What do you want?"

"This place—it should be as endless as your dreams, as depthless as your mind itself," he said with a wild wave. "And yet you run, and are back next to me in a heartbeat."

He blurred from sight, reappearing beside me in a flash of black that burned my retinas.

"This place isn't infinite," Hiei said, spinning on his heel to look around us. "It's much smaller than that."

My heart stuttered, and not because of my mad sprinting. "How?"

"Someone has—someone has taken your memory and repeated it, looped it," he said, and he bared his teeth. "Stitched it together at the corners in a circle. It keeps you here, trapped in this moment, so you can't move on." With a look of dawning realization, he met my eyes. "You have more memories past this, Meigo. You just can't reach them."

It was both a triumph and a defeat, hearing that from Hiei's mouth. I had been right: There was more to discover. But I had been foiled in my attempt, because this unnatural memory of mine barred my way to the truth.

But after everything I'd been through, I'd be damned if I let what was most likely Hiruko's interference stand between me and revelation.

My hands tightened into hard fists, like hammers made of skin. "Have you ever been in a hall of mirrors?"

Hiei frowned. "No."

"Mirrors are tricky. They can make it look like you stand in an infinite space, when really you're in a tiny room." I raised my hand high above my head. "But there's one thing a mirror illusion can't stand up to."

"And what is that?" Hiei asked.

"A sledgehammer."

Like a magical girl summoning her magical weapon of choice, the sledgehammer appeared in my hand in a burst of brilliant magenta light (because this was my dream, dammit, it was my fucking head and no one could stand between me and what was mine). I twirled it in my grasp with a flourish and spun, hurling the sledgehammer up and away like an Olympian flinging shotput. Hiei let out a hard bark of a laugh as it sailed, saying that would teach whoever did this to my mind who they answered to—and the sledgehammer hit something shortly after, colliding with the white that was not, in fact, as endless as it had first appeared. My dreamed-up sledgehammer froze in space, a huge network of black cracks blooming like a mirror hit by a hard brick. The cracks spread outward, racing away from the hammer as if trying to see who was fastest, snaking over the walls and then hitting a corner, changing angles and racing until it hit another corner, the cracks forming the shape of a huge square room around Hiei and I, cracks circling it and then converging behind us in a black web—

And then the white fell away, shards of the mirrored white room falling to pieces on the floor. Hiei and I stared in silence at what lay behind the white, neither of us able to speak as bit by bit the truth was revealed.

"What in the hell is this?" Hiei said eventually.

"I—I don't know," I replied.

Behind the mirrored white lay red. Thousands, no, millions of pulsing red thread the color of my spilled blood covered the walls, a web so thick I could not see through it, pulsing and undulating and keeping whatever lay beyond them from view. The air in the room turned the color of those threads the moment they appeared between bits of white, their movement like the sound of moth wings on the air, and as we watched them tangle and twist together, sometimes small gaps appeared between them.

I walked closer. Stared at the red threads from only an inch away, until a gap appeared.

Behind it gleamed black stone, hard and impenetrable as night.

I lifted my hand and reached for it.

"Don't," Hiei said in the voice of a dagger. "We will work on passing this another night."

My hand dropped.

Hiei was right. We'd try again some other time.

For now, I was far too tired—both mentally and emotionally—to continue past this point.

My jaw cracked as an enormous yawn climbed up my throat. Kaito set aside his half-eaten lunch and remarked, "You look terrible."

I yawned again, elbow on my knee, chin pillowed on my hand. "Shut up," I grumbled as I closed my bleary eyes, but it was no use.

"Bags under the eyes," Kaito continued, "sallow skin, limp hair—"

I cracked one eye and glared. "Way to make a girl feel pretty."

"It's a gift." His brows knit together above his glimmering glasses. "But in all seriousness, have you slept?"

Truthfully, the answer was "sort of." It had been a week since my first rendezvous with Hiei, and even though we'd been making attempts all week, we hadn't made a lick of progress unraveling the thicket of red threads blocking my memories—let alone breaking through the barrier of solid black stone beyond them. Even though I was asleep through the each night's ordeal, I always woke up feeling like I'd slept no more than an hour. We'd have to back off the attempts, or at least stagger them out a bit, if I wanted to not keel over dead from exhaustion.

And that's not even considering that thanks to my lack of proper rest, I wasn't on top of my mental game. I probably could've at least come up with a few more explanations for the red threads and black rock if I was running on a full tank of sleep. As it stood, my weary mind could only theorize that the red threads were a metaphysical block the red-wearing, thread-weaving Hiruko had woven around whatever truths he wanted to conceal from me. The black rock, though? I had very few explanations for that, meanwhile, and after a week of wondering, I had one single lead to go on.

The last time I had seen a smooth black stone, it had lain in the middle of a puddle of blood coughed up by a certain Fate.

Which made me think that even if I did manage to break through Hiruko's red tapestry and see what lay beyond the black rock—well. If I spoke of the truths I found there, would I cough up a fountain of blood and a smooth river stone like Cleo?

It was no use trying to use logic when my brain was too fuzzy to even come up with a snark-back to the prying Kaito. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and whined, wordless in my exhaustion. Kaito sighed.

"And you," he said, volume of his voice changing as he shifted his attention to Kurama. "You haven't heard a word I've said. Normally you're first to notice whenever Yukimura looks unwell."

I looked up in time to see Kurama—who had been staring into space as he lounged on the stairwell's steps—look at Kaito with a start and a small, contrite smile. "Apologies; my mind drifted," he said. "You were saying?"

"So I was right," Kaito said, not bothering to hide his displeasure. "You are distracted."

Kurama adopted a puzzled expression I knew damn well as an act. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," he said, eyes wide and innocent.

Kaito and I both snorted. Kaito didn't know about Kurama's constant training in the woods outside of town, but he was no idiot. Kurama was indeed distracted—something I was rather grateful for as I battled my sleepless nights. Having Kurama pry into my business would likely end in disaster, or at least the end of my foray into my blocked memories.

"Likely story," Kaito said when Kurama's innocent look persisted. He crossed his arms over his chest and glanced between me and Kurama in turn. "Well, spit it out, the both of you. What secrets are you keeping this time?"

Kurama and I spoke in unison: "I'm not keeping secrets, Kaito."

We looked at each other in shock. Kaito's fingers drummed against his arm, eyes narrowing in disgruntlement.

"Uh-huh," he said. "How very believable."

"Sorry, Kaito," I said. "I'm just exhausted. I'm taking dance lessons this semester and they've got me beat." A completed true statement, even if it wasn't the whole truth. "Plus with all this German homework, I'm just not getting enough rest."

Kaito harrumphed, but gave no indication he believed me. To Kurama he said, "And what's your excuse, Minamino?"

"I have none, I'm afraid," Kurama replied with another of beatific smiles. "Simply that I'm occupied by schoolwork, as is the regrettable fate of most high schoolers."

If Kaito hadn't believed my lie, he most certainly didn't believe Kurama's. His glasses slipped straight down his nose so he could glare at Kurama over the top of them unimpeded. "Oh, please. School comes as easily to you as breathing." He tuned the glare my way. "And you. You mean to tell me German homework has you up at night to the point of looking like some dreaded revenant from a horror story?"

My cheeks colored; I tucked my hair behind my ears, hands slapping back down against my thighs as I tried not to look too guilty. "Well. I—"

"Keiko?"

I stopped talking, my head (along with Kaito and Kurama's) swinging toward the sound of my name. Peering hesitantly up at us from the bottom of the next flight, one hand perched on the railing, was Amagi. She dipped a shy bow at Kurama, which he awkwardly returned from a sitting position, then she gave Kaito a nod, too, before looking at me. I waved; she waved back, eyes flickering once again to Kurama as she cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry to bother you during your lunch period," she said, "but I have a favor to ask."

"Oh, sure thing." I stood up and trotted down the stairs to stand beside her. "What's up?"

Her voice sank low, trying to be subtle. "Are you free Sunday?"

"Uh, yeah. I am. What's up?"

"I was wondering if you have any plans, and if not, would you be willing to accompany me on an outing?"

"Uh. Yeah, sure, I'm down." I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. "Do you want to invite—?"

She shook her head, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I was hoping it could be just the two of us, if you don't mind."

My spine stiffened at Amagi's whispered words, and I was unable to keep a blush from heating my ears beneath the short fringe of my hair. Somehow I thought maybe she'd want to invite Kurama since at one she'd had a crush on him, but—wait. If she wasn't asking Kurama, and she was asking me—?

Oh.

Oh boy, this was potentially a very awkward situation about to happen, I should probably cut this off at the pass and just say no, I can't—

But Amagi's huge, dark eyes had widened, liquid and black against her alabaster skin and midnight hair, and my heart gave a wee little pang inside my chest and my resolve crumbled like cake under a fire hose.

"Oh. Oh? Oh." I fidgeted in place and stared very hard at my shoes. "Um. Yes? Sure. Yes. That's fine."

"Good." I heard the smile in her voice even though I didn't dare look at her to see that expression cross her pretty face. "I'll stop by your place to pick you up. Is noon all right?"

"Uh." I looked at the ceiling. "Sure thing."

"Good. I look forward to seeing you." She moved, probably bowing at the boys behind me since she said, "Kaito. Minamino. I hope you're both well."

"We're fine," was Kaito's curt reply, and with another bow at me (one I only barely managed to return), Amagi turned and descended the stairs.

Eventually, far below us on the ground floor, a door shut. I only moved when its peal echoed up the stairs, turning back to Kurama and Kaito with a cool smile—one I hoped to hell didn't betray the fact that my pulse still thudded in my ears like a freight train.

Apparently my poker face betrayed me, though, because both Kurama and Kaito stared at me with brows lifted threateningly close to their hairlines. I coughed into my fist, ignored them both, retook my seat on the window sill and tucked dutifully into my lunch.

"So," I said. "Where were we?"

"You tell me," Kurama murmured.

"Indeed," Kaito concurred.

But I just shrugged, and didn't look at either of them—because I had no idea what Amagi wanted to do on Sunday, truth be told, and this was another bit of my personal business I wasn't keen on my friends interrogating me about.

Notes:

What's Amagi want? Find out next time!

We're in "Grand Tour/Reunion" mode as the Dark Tournament approaches. Need to check in with the secondary and tertiary characters before leaving them behind and focusing on the main cast. Kaito, Amagi, Ayame, Hideki, the other switch characters, etc. Basically just tying up loose ends before we lose the chance to address them and get stuck on an isolated island for STARS KNOW how many chapters.

Any predictions as to how long this fic will be in terms of chapters? Taking bets now!

I'm guessing we have two chapters (three if things veer off track) before we make it to the Tournament.

Next time on Lucky Child: "Amagi reveals to Keiko a glimpse of the future to come. A certain friend pays Keiko a visit. Keiko receives a badly timed phone call."

CHAPTER SUMMARY, AS PROMISED IN MY STARTING NOTE: Keiko asks Hiei to help her remember details of her death so she can unlock more memories of Hiruko, who appears to have messed with her memories after her death in her past life. Keiko meets with Minato and Kagome for support. At Minato's unwitting encouragement, Keiko tries to relive her death on her own, but Hiei intervenes to keep her out of trouble. With his reluctant help she relives her gory final moments and manages to see what happened afterward—sort of. Her memories appear to have been blocked off by some unnatural force, and Keiko has no idea what lies behind the barrier placed inside her head. It is clear, however, that her memories have been tampered with.

I was so grateful to everyone who reviewed last week. It was a tough week for me, and you made it better. Still figuring some stuff out but I'm feeling much better. Thank you so much to the following: (list will be up shortly)