Chapter 81: Pants on Fire

Summary:

In which NQK realizes her friends have inconveniently sharp eyes...

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After the fire that destroyed her home and nearly burned her comatose son alive, Atsuko had gone apartment hunting.

At first they'd simply needed a place to live. They moved into a standard apartment building, the one the insurance agents said she could afford after a modest payout. One bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, and small bathroom—less than what they'd had before, but perhaps in a better part of town. However, six weeks later I came to check on Yusuke and found her small apartment beset by movers, possessions squirreled away in boxes that were placed dutifully into the back of a large truck. The truck took them to an even better part of town and deposited them in an even better apartment, one with two whole bedrooms (without a doubt a luxury in Japan) plus a living room, a dining room, and a bathroom with a separated shower and full-size tub.

It was well beyond what Atsuko could afford, of course.

But upon seeing the men with full sleeves of traditional Japanese tattoos driving the suspiciously unmarked moving truck, I knew better than to ask questions. Atsuko's connections were mysterious at best and downright alarming at worst. Thus, I kept my mouth shut, and I accepted a key to Yusuke's new place without comment.

After school on the day Amagi asked me to accompany her somewhere as mysterious as Atsuko's connections, I used that key to let myself into Yusuke's house. Atsuko sprawled across the couch in the living room, air hazy with smoke from the cigarette dangling between her lips, beer bottle hanging precariously between too loose fingers. The TV blared some sitcom or another, one I didn't recognize at first glance. She didn't even bother looking away from it when I walked in and shut the door behind me.

"Hey there, Keiko," was all she said. She waved her bottle at the doorway to the dining room, "Yusuke sent a new packet for ya."

Atsuko mostly used the dining room, and the long wooden table within it, as a depository for her unopened mail—and she had a mountain of it. It covered nearly half of the table; the other half I'd cleared away myself the last time I sorted out her bills. The packet Atsuko mentioned sat in the middle of the clear side. Waiting for me, more or less. Atsuko hadn't bothered to open the thick manila envelope marked with her address in bold black letters, so I tore into it and found the usual assortment of worksheets, photocopies of lecture notes, and syllabuses that filled all these packets. Yusuke had been sent one every week since he'd gone training in the mountains, his school dead set that their worst student not fall behind while he was gone.

Talk about futile, though.

Even before I opened the packet, I knew what I'd find: half-finished worksheets marked with random answers, blank essay sheets, and the most pitifully half-hearted short answer questions imaginable (when they weren't totally snarky, of course). The handwriting matched the penmanship on the envelope, sloppy but bold enough to be legible. The school sent Atsuko a packet, Atsuko mailed it off to Genkai's compound, and then Yusuke sent it back completed—well, sort of completed, I guess. As I spread the work out before me and fetched a pen from my book bag, I couldn't help but wonder if Genkai had to stand over Yusuke brandishing a crowbar to get him to do even this paltry amount of homework. Something told me he wouldn't touch it without proper motivation.

Pressing my fingers to my temples, I heaved a weary sigh. Normally I'd turn up my nose at the idea of looking over Yusuke's work for him, but after the day I'd had, it was kind of a nice distraction.

And besides.

This glimpse of his blocky handwriting was the only contact I'd had with him since he left. Was nice to know he was still alive and well enough to write bad jokes into the margins of his worksheets…

A few minutes after I'd started working, Atsuko wandered into the room and put a hand on my shoulder. "How'd he do this time?" she asked, craning her neck to look at the worksheet before me.

"Not great. But that's normal." I eyed the mountain of mail on the other side of the table. "Were there any other packets?"

Atsuko's hand left my shoulder; she sat in the chair next to mine and shook her head, brow knit in a questioning frown.

"There's a gap in the makeup work." I slid two worksheets toward her and pointed at the dates at the top. "Just a few days' worth, but I was wondering if maybe they forgot some stuff and sent another packet…"

"Nah." She shook her head. "That's it."

"Hmm." I tapped my pen against the table. "Either he forgot to put something in the envelope, or the school must've forgotten something."

Atsuko laughed. "He's missed so much school, that's not surprising. Pretty sure you're the only reason he'll pass this grade."

"Probably," I agreed.

Yusuke's work was undoubtedly F material, but with my help his grades got within an acceptable range—AKA, I doctored his answers just enough to earn him a D or even a low C grade in lieu of failing outright. I didn't dare give him better answers than that, though. Teachers wouldn't believe it if he got anything higher than a low C, and that was honestly pushing it. Best to stick to the D range, was my thinking, and I stuck as dutifully to it as I could.

"You told them what I said to tell them, right?" I said, gesturing at the packet. "About the handwriting?"

Atsuko took a swig of beer, then clasped her hands atop her chest and fluttered her lashes. "Sweet, loving, responsible former student Keiko is writing for Yusuke as he dictates, taking control of the pen whenever he becomes too weak to hold it." She gave another of her harsh laughs and grinned. "Even if that one teacher hates you, the rest of them bought that story hook, like, and sinker."

"My reputation lingers, it seems."

"I'll say." Her grin widened. "They think him getting sick is the best thing that's ever happened to his grades. Takenaka assumes you're tutoring him while he's bedridden, and that's why his grades aren't at the bottom of the gutter."

It was nice to know Takenaka still thought well of me—but my smile faded as I considered he might be the only one who did. I couldn't help but grimace when I asked, "You hear from Yusuke much lately?"

Atsuko shrugged. "He called a few nights ago. He's alive, but he sounded beat to hell. No telling when he'll actually put in an appearance at home, but that's Yusuke for you."

"Yeah." I stared at my hands. "Atsuko?"

"Hmm?"

"Has he, ah." I lost my nerve and had to take a moment to compose myself, running my fingers over my bangs to self-soothe. "Has he said anything to you? About me, I mean."

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "Why do you ask?" Atsuko said.

I swallowed. "He—he left without saying goodbye," I said, unable to look at Atsuko when I made that admission. "Hasn't called me once. Makes me wonder if he's pissed or something, but…"

But Atsuko only laughed, a harsh bark of hard humor that drew my attention at once. "Ha!" she said, slapping a hand on the table. "All the times you've stuck your neck out for him, if he's pissed at something you did, he can go kick rocks!"

Her eyes glimmered with too much mirth for me to think she was taking me seriously. "Atsuko, I'm serious," I said.

"So am I," she countered. She crossed her arms again and nodded, stubborn and certain as a mule. "Right before he left I told him to go tell you goodbye and he said no, you'd just feed him lies again, but I said that you'd done nothing but look out for him since you were kids and if you told a lie, dollars to donuts it was for a good reason."

My stomach shot into my shoes. Carefully I pulled my hands into my lap, so Atsuko couldn't see them shake, and so I wouldn't dot Yusuke's homework with my nervous sweat. "And did he buy that?" I managed to grind out despite the weight lodged firmly inside my chest.

"You bet your ass he didn't," Atsuko said (the weight in me got heavier). "But I smacked him upside the head and said to get over himself." She leaned across the table to check me on the arm, her fist hard against my bicep. "Oh, cheer up; you look like I told you he died again or something. Whatever it is, Keiko, it'll pass. Yusuke doesn't have the attention span to stay mad at you!" Another of her merry cackles. "He's got the attention span of a goldfish, and you know it!"

Atsuko seemed confident about that—but I wasn't so sure. If Yusuke was mad at me (and now I finally had confirmation that he most likely was) I hadn't heard the last of it. Though to be honest, the fact that he was angry and had left without a word on purpose was the least disturbing thing about what I'd just discovered.

Yusuke thought I'd lied to him about something.

Too bad I'd told him so many hundreds of lies over the years, I hadn't the first clue as to which one he'd managed to catch.

The question of which lie he'd picked up on dogged my steps after I finished doctoring his homework, bouncing around the case of my skull like a song stuck in your head. I went home and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to play back all of my most recent interactions with Yusuke one by one. He hadn't seemed suspicious or weird in any of them, though. So which one had he—?

Growling under my breath in frustration, I rolled onto my side and grabbed my phone off my desk. Operating on feel alone, I managed to dial a number without looking at the keypad.

"Hey, Kuwabara," I said when the line engaged. "It's me."

"Oh, hi Keiko," he said. "How you doin'?"

"Fine, fine." I took a deep breath. "Just—"

He interrupted me before I could get going. "Wait, hold on a sec." Something rustled, probably a hand covering the receiver, and in the distance I heard Kuwabara call, "OK, Dad. Bye!" Another rustle and his voice came through clear again. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

I had lost my nerve, unfortunately, and changed the subject. "Was that your dad?" I asked. "He's not normally home this time of night."

"Yeah." A hint of annoyance crept into his tone; I could imagine him glaring at his bedroom door, shooting daggers at his tight-lipped father. "He got off a bit early today, but I don't know where the heck he's going at this hour." His tone cleared. "Anyway. Enough about him. What's up?"

"Um. Well—" But again I lost my nerve, and I didn't ask what I most wanted to. Instead I said, "I won't be able to make it to practice this Sunday. I already told Kurama but I wanted to let you know to bring your own lunch, too."

"Oh." A pause. Then, brightly: "Well, if it can't be helped, then it can't be helped! No worries, Keiko, promise!"

He almost chirped when he spoke, chipper and friendly and light—not at all disappointed that I we wouldn't get to see each other like we normally did on Sundays, when I took Hiei, Kurama, and Kuwabara lunch during their training session. I'd kind of thought he'd react glumly, and for a moment his happy reaction bereft of any disappointment rendered me mute. He'd been warm and friendly and nice with me at practice, not to mention when we got together to get some studying in, never once distant or weird or cold or suspicious that maybe I'd lied about something… but maybe I was reading into it. Kuwabara wasn't Yusuke, after all. I was clearly just being oversensitive. That was it.

"Well. Cool, I guess." Taking another deep breath, I said, "Say, Kuwabara?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"Have you heard from Yusuke much?"

It was much harder to ask that simple question than it should have been, words eking from my mouth with undue effort. After I spoke there followed a moment of silence, some rustling on the other end of the line signaling that perhaps Kuwabara had sat up in bed, or sat down, or something similar.

"Yusuke?" he repeated, as if he hadn't heard that name in a while. "Uh. Well." Another pause. "Why do you ask?"

"He left without saying goodbye. And I haven't heard from him at all since he left, either." I had to swallow in order to keep talking, nerves a lump in my tense neck. "Not even a phone call. And of course no letters. He hates writing." Even though Kuwabara couldn't see me, I shrugged. "I know, I know, he's busy. But—"

Kuwabara snorted. "Well, he doesn't call me on the phone, either, if that helps."

"It… actually kind of does." In fact, the weight in my chest lessened quite a bit, the nervous lump in my throat easing up a little, too. "Thanks, Kuwabara."

He cleared his throat. "Ah. Don't mention it, Keiko, really."

I giggled. "Well, anyway. Want me to bring you some rations for the rest of the week?" Shizuru was the main cook in his family, and in her absence I'd been bringing him food pretty often. "Let's see. I can make—"

But Kuwabara stammered something, cutting me off before I could make an offer. "Nah, nah, that's OK, I'll be fine," he said with odd haste. "Don't want you to come out of your way or anything; Dad and I can survive just fine and besides, I don't want to trouble you. So I'll see you next week for tutoring? Yeah?"

"Uh. Yeah. Will do"

"OK, great!" he said. "See ya then!"

He hung up the phone before I could tell him goodbye.

Per her instructions, I met Amagi outside the train station. On Sunday the place was crowded, but it didn't take long to spot her standing off to the side by a ticket kiosk, out of the way of the rest of the foot traffic on this busy weekend. I stopped short when I saw her and stared, a bit surprised by her appearance. It was rare to see Amagi in something other than a uniform, her cream-colored cashmere turtleneck, brown corduroy pants and tan trench coat looking unexpectedly elegant, or even timeless, as she waited for me. Next to her I felt a bit silly in my jeans, Megallica shirt, and puffy red jacket. Honestly, between Amagi's conservative haircut and my rocker bangs, we didn't look like we should be running in the same circle of friends at all, as different as earth and sea.

However, it wasn't just her outfit that stopped me in my tracks.

The bundle of red carnations tucked against her side is what really did the trick.

She spotted me about the same time I spotted her, smiling her delicate smile before walking in my direction. "Keiko," she said as she came within earshot. "I'm very glad you could make it."

"Me, too." I swallowed, unable to keep my eyes off the flowers. "So. What's the occasion?"

"You'll see." She turned toward the train station. "Come with me."

We scanned our passes at the turnstiles and boarded a train, standing toward the back of a crowded car full of people headed out on a weekend getaway. Amagi made no move to hand me the flowers, not even acknowledging their presence beneath her arm; at that realization, I calmed a little. If she'd handed me the flowers I would've had to put my foot down, ruining whatever this day was about before it could even begin—and frankly, I was glad not to have to do that. Amagi was a good friend at this point. I'd hate to lose that over something as fleeting and innocent as a teenage crush.

… but if the flowers weren't for me, who the heck were they even for?

So focused on that question was I that I didn't quite remember to note which train we boarded, only registering that we were bound for a destination outside of Sarayashiki once we had to change lines—a line marked with a big sign that said "Mushiyori City," in fact, and at that name my stomach did a few flips. Once we entered a new car and found a place to stand, way at the front next to a window, I looked at Amagi sidelong with a frown.

"Mushiyori, huh?" I said, keeping my voice whisper-quiet in the crowded car. "What's out there?"

She smiled. "The reason for our outing today."

I stared at her.

She stared at me, smile unwavering.

"You're not going to tell me what it is until we get there, are you?" I muttered.

"That's right." She concealed a laugh behind the high collar of her sweater. "I admit, it's almost fun watching you squirm."

"Sadist."

She laughed again, and I had to look away as my cheeks flushed and my ears heated—but my eyes wandered to the window next to us, where our images stood reflected side by side. Amagi was two years my senior, but we looked practically the same age in that window pane. In fact, we looked like peers. Classmates. Friends, albeit from different social circles, a pretty preppy chick and her grungy rocker friend out for an afternoon of shopping on our day off. Seeing us side by side like that, my face reflected next to hers, set a certain feeling of disquiet in my stomach—especially when I saw a woman and a man in their late 20s standing behind us. That, I reminded myself, was my real age, no matter what my face looked like in the mirror when I woke up each morning. Associating so much with other 15 to 17 year olds, who treated me like a peer and who wore faces the same age as the one I saw every day in the mirror, it was sometimes tough to remember who was and was not really my peer. The damn teenage hormones certainly didn't do me any favors in that department, either. But inside I was an adult, far more experienced than anyone Amagi's age, and the ability to use that experience to manipulate a young person… well. It was pretty gross, now wasn't it?

In the end, I felt more than a little relieved those flowers weren't for me. My unwanted teenage hormones were a mere annoyance I'd have to ignore for the foreseeable future, no matter how loudly they liked to remind me of their existence.

Eventually the train pulled into Mushiyori, and upon disembarking we found ourselves in a swanky shopping district complete with high-ride buildings covered in banks of shiny glass, late winter sun reflecting off their glossy surfaces in shades of platinum and pale gold. Amagi began to lead the way down these city streets, but before we'd managed to walk even a block, she stopped. Frowned up at a tall building above us, eyes narrowing into glimmering crescents of liquid black.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Yes," she murmured in a voice I could barely hear. "But we'll go the long way 'round today, I think."

"I mean. If you say so?"

She gave a curt nod, turning on her heel and heading back toward the station. I wanted to ask what that had been about, but when I tried, she shook her head.

"It was nothing," she said. "Someone just walked over my grave, that's all."

I fell quiet, and I did not press for details.

After doubling back and boarding the train again, we rode it to the other end of town and then took another line in another direction. No idea where we were going, of course, but judging from the map painted onto the ceiling of the car, we'd traced almost a complete circle around the edge of the city by the time Amagi said we could leave the train and start walking. This time we walked for quite a while through a suburb, passing a park, some local businesses, and a blocks full of nice houses and apartment buildings before coming upon a sprawling, mansion-like villa with many wings set far back off the street. A long driveway led to the front of this Western-style facility, and the enormous lawn out front (a bit brown with the season, of course) hosted a score of topiary animals on its manicured surface. I stopped in my tracks when I saw it, taking in the pink brick and sparkling windows with my jaw dropped. It was not normal to see a place like this in Japan, where real estate was so expensive—but the stone arch above the long driveway gave me a clue, at least, as to what it was.

Mushiyori Elder Care & Retirement Facility, the sign read.

"Amagi." When she stopped and turned, I asked (perhaps redundantly), "What is this place?"

At that, she smiled—but there was something brittle in it. Something I could not put my finger on, and sent a chill through me I could not blame on the blustery weather.

"There's someone I want you to meet," Amagi told me. "She has something I think you need to hear."

She didn't tell me anything else. She kept walking, boots clacking lightly against the cement driveway as the trees casting shadows on the pavement swayed on a cold winter wind.

The front doors of the place—tall, painted white with glass insets to let in light—opened onto an airy lobby filled with couches, coffee tables, and easy chairs, with an enormous wooden desk along the back wall. A nurse in scrubs stood behind the desk; as we entered he put down the phone he'd been speaking into and looked up. When he saw Amagi, he smiled.

"Hello there, Amagi-chan." His eyes travelled my way. "Who's your friend?"

"Her name is Keiko," Amagi said. "Does she need to sign in?"

"Yes." He held out a hand. "May I see some ID? Your school ID is fine."

I gave it to him and filled out a form he handed me, clipping a visitor pass to the front of my shirt when he proffered one. Amagi politely rejected his offer of an escort, instead leading the way herself past a set of swinging double doors and down a long hallway that honestly looked like the inside of a swanky apartment building, welcome mats lying in front of tall wooden doors embossed with golden numbers, peepholes, and small knockers. It smelled the littlest bit like a hospital, the scents of cleaning supplies the most notable aroma in the place, but it wasn't a bad smell or anything. Amagi didn't seem to notice it or mind, after all, as she led us to a door labeled with the number 106. She knocked three times, but when no response came, she tested the doorknob, pushed the panel inward, and vanished inside. I didn't follow her, mostly because she came back out again after only a few seconds.

"Out in the garden, then," she said to herself, and then to me she added: "This way, Keiko."

Amagi forged ahead down the hallway, turning left at a fork before taking another right. Soon we found ourselves at another set of double doors, these glassy like the front ones; through their clear panes I saw a large flagstone patio with a fountain in the middle, patio ringed on all sides by tall plants and a high brick wall. The plants were all grey and scraggly from winter, of course, but even from indoors I could tell it would look quite pretty come spring. I had only a moment to think about that, though, before Amagi opened the doors and strode outside.

A cold wind wrapped around us as soon as we stepped over the threshold; I huddled in my puffy coat, zipping it up as Amagi walked forward toward the two people standing in the winter-grey garden. The first was another nurse, tall and wearing blue scrubs under a black coat; the other sat in a wheelchair with a quilt spread across her lap, a long braid of grey hair hanging over her shoulder like a length of thick rope. The nurse spotted Amagi and gave her a quiet nod, stepping away from the wheelchair and heading back inside with a curious look at me; I nodded back with a hesitant smile, as confused by my presence here as he was. Amagi ignored that exchange, however, and knelt at the elderly woman's side.

"Grandmother," she said. "It's me."

The woman—who had been sitting with her head slightly bowed—looked up. She had a craggy face, skin spotted with age marks and lined with deep wrinkles, but her eyes were kind and warm when they lit upon Amagi. "Oh," she said, voice like wind through thin reeds. "Hello." Her dark eyes traveled to the mass of red carnations peeking out from under Amagi's arm and promptly lit up. "Are these for me?"

Amagi's smile widened. "Of course," she said, handing them to her grandmother. "They're your favorites."

"Are they?" she replied, sounding lightly puzzled—but as her eyes lingered on the flowers, something in them solidified, certainty taking place of confusion. Looking at Amagi, she smiled and said, "Chise. Chise, you always bring me flowers, don't you?"

Amagi nodded. "Yes."

"Chise?" I said.

Amagi looked up at me; I clapped my hand over my mouth, embarrassed that I'd just blurted that name out loud instead of using my inside-the-head voice like I'd meant to. To my relief, Amagi just gave me a nod.

"My mother," she said. "And this is my grandmother, Yumie."

Her grandmother was not distracted by our conversation; perhaps she hadn't quite heard it. "Chise," she went on as if we hadn't spoken. "I wish I'd known you were coming. I would have baked you something."

"It's OK," Amagi said. "I'm just glad to see you."

Grandmother Yumie nodded, fingering the flower petals on her lap with her gnarled fingers. The last digits on them were crooked, just a little, nails discolored but neatly trimmed. They reminded me of my grandmother's hands, back in my old life, strong but warped by time and hard work. She reminded me of my grandmother even more when she started to hum some tuneless song under her breath, lost in thought as she stared at her flowers.

I couldn't help but ask, "Does she not recognize…?"

Amagi hesitated, gently tucking the quilt closer to her grandmother's legs. "No. But I don't mind," she eventually admitted. She adjusted her grandmother's hair and the collar of her coat, face softening. "She doesn't know who I am, but when she looks at me, she can feel that she loves me. So she assigns me whatever name she can remember that fits that feeling—in this case, my mother's."

Her grandmother smiled again. "Oh, Chise," she said, putting a hand to Amagi's cheek. Spotted skin stood out against Amagi's even complexion, age contrasted starkly against youth. "Oh, Chise, how I've missed you."

"And I've missed you, too." Amagi leaned down a bit, catching her eye and holding it. "Now, Grandmother. Can you remember what you told me?"

Yumie's face screwed up, eyes nearly disappearing in their nest of wrinkles. "What I…?"

"Yes," said Amagi with tender patience. "What you told me last week." When her grandmother did not react, Amagi hinted, "I wore a yellow sweater and you…"

She hesitated—but then one of her hands lifted, fingertips touching Amagi's shoulder. "Brushed off your shoulder," she murmured, miming the action.

"Yes," Amagi said. "Do you remember what was there?"

For a moment, she only stared at Amagi in wonder—but then her eyes darkened, lip jutting out and trembling before she shook her head. I thought, perhaps, she would not give Amagi and answer, but soon she began to speak.

"It's so dark, Chise," she said in a mournful warble. "It's so, so dark. A yawning pit of ink that wants to swallow us whole." She shuddered, clutching at Amagi's hand. "It's tiny now, but it feels so big."

Amagi smoothed her hair, trying to comfort her with a murmur of, "Grandmother, it's all right." To my surprise, she extended a hand my way. "This is my friend Keiko," Amagi explained as she looped an arm around her grandmother's thin shoulders. "She's a good person. She protects people, and so do her friends." Looking into her eyes, Amagi smiled and said, "They can help. They can help make Mushiyori right again."

"Please. Please, Chise," she said, shaking her head back and forth, back and forth. "Can they do something about those awful bugs?"

"Yes, Grandmother," Amagi said. "They can."

When I shivered, it wasn't because of the cold air. "Bugs?" I said, unable to keep the alarm from my voice. "What do you mean, bugs?"

Yumie shuddered again, leaning her head against Amagi's neck. "The most horrible bugs," she said. "No one can see them but me—and Chise, too."

"At first she just saw one," Amagi explained in a whisper, locking eyes with me over her relative's soft hair. "I thought she was seeing things. But then…"

"More." Yumie closed her eyes, breath catching in her reedy throat. "More and more. More every day."

Amagi cupped her hand around the side of Yumie's head, holding her closer but also muddling her ear. "I know she's an old woman, Keiko," Amagi said, pleading with her eyes for me to understand. "But please, you must—"

"I believe her." With a grunt I knelt on Yumie's other side, touching her arm to draw her attention. "Are the bugs here, now?" I asked.

Yumie shook her head. "They come at night and they leave by morning."

"Scouts," I muttered, word slipping from between my clenched teeth unbidden.

Amagi frowned. "What?"

"Oh. Nothing, Amagi, I was just talking to myself." Which was true, even if this wasn't actually 'nothing' at all. Far from it. Giving her a nod of promise, I said, "I'll tell my friends about this, I swear."

Relief filled her eyes to the brim. "Thank you," she said. "Grandmother, did you hear—?"

But Grandmother Yumie had fallen asleep in her chair, the gentles of snores coming from her open mouth. Amagi stopped, paused, then rearranged her grandmother's blankets and smoothed her hair before pressing a kiss to the old woman's forehead. "I'll go get the nurse," she said as she stood up.

"I'll wait here."

"Thanks," Amagi said, and she went inside.

I stood up, too, turning my back on Yumie as I threaded my hands through my hair. Even though I knew I wouldn't be able to see them, I couldn't help but look around for bugs—for the monstrous and demonic insects that had plagued Sarayashiki thanks to Suzaku's Makai Whistle. For the monstrous and demonic insects that would creep through Sensui's fledgling portal to Demon World just before hell descended onto Mushiyori City. To think the bugs were already here in some capacity, that a portent of what was to come had already—

A cool, dry hand with soft, papery skin slipped into mind. I flinched, but it was only Grandmother Yumie, roused from her nap and peering up at me through her dark eyes. She cast about for Amagi for a moment before looking to me again, confusion evident on her withered face.

"You. Girl," she said. "Where…?"

"It's OK, ma'am," I assured her with a smile. "She'll be back soon."

But Yumie shook her head. "Where did you come from?" she asked. Her hands curled around the bouquet of red carnations, their petals the brightest spot of color in the otherwise dreary garden.

"I came here with Amagi. With Chise," I explained. I knelt at her side and patted her hand, trying to sound reassuring. "She'll—"

"No," Yumie interjected. "No. I mean before that."

If I wanted to move away from her as she reached for my face, to cup it between her wizened palms and hold it softly in place, I found within moments that I could not. A swift wind streaked through, but Yumie did not flinch, did not allow herself to shiver as the silver flyaways ringing her face trembled and shook on the breeze. The air beside her smelled of sweet carnation and baby powder, clean linens and vintage perfume.

"I see death behind your eyes," said Grandmother Yumie. Her voice did not sound reedy or thin like it had before. The strength of conviction stilled its cadence, turned it measured and even even as she spoke in a voice no louder than a whisper. "Death, and new life, and death again—over and over, death and life, a spiral stretching deep into the distance of your being."

Still, I could not move, even though within her eyes there hardened something as sharp and unbending as steel. Still, her mouth curved in the saddest of smiles, and her hands on my face remained as light as spun gossamer.

"You are more than you seem," she said, "but you are also exactly as you appear." She pressed her forehead to mine, gazing into my face from no distance at all. "And someday, you will be something else entirely."

My mouth had gone bone dry, but still I managed to say, "Ma'am, I—"

"Amagi sees things as they are." Yumie kept talking as if she had not heard me. "She inherited her eyes from me, as her mother before her—but I wish she hadn't." Her eyes that saw so much closed, then, mouth thinning with internal pain. "These eyes bring peril and sleepless nights. I wished for her a different life, but it was not meant to be." When her eyes opened again, then held even steelier conviction that before, the immutable quality of stone glowing bright and hard behind them. "Promise me, girl. Promise me you will never let her dreams turn as dark as the world she sees while waking." Her fingers curled, nails digging bluntly into my skin. "Please. Please. Vow to me that."

"I promise," I said, because it was all I could do.

And it was enough, it seemed, for Yumie. "Good," she said, hands slipping from my cheeks. "Good," she repeated, slumping back into her chair once more—and after she shook her head, she looked around with an anxious frown, her look of iron will fading into memory. "Where is Chise?" she asked, voice warbling and tremulous as before. "Where did she…?"

As if summoned, the door to the courtyard opened, admitting a nurse and Amagi at his heels. The nurse gave me a nod before wheeling Yumie inside, stopping long enough for Amagi to bid her grandmother a final goodbye with a kiss upon her cheek. Before they managed to leave, Yumie had fallen asleep again, hands clasped loosely around the flowers on her lap.

"You inherited your powers from her."

Amagi's eyes cut sideways, lingering on me as the train rocked and swayed around us. In the middle of the afternoon, there weren't as many people in the car as there would be once night fell, affording us a touch more privacy (as well as spots to actually sit down) on this leg of our journey. Still, Amagi kept her voice low when she responded, her hands folded neatly atop her thighs.

"Yes," Amagi murmured. "Though she saw more than I ever could, before the dementia…"

She trailed off. "She still sees a lot," I offered, trying to comfort her. "Sharp eyes."

And Yumie's eyes weren't the only ones. Amagi inhaled, held her breath, and said, "What did you mean when you said 'scouts?'"

I had looked away, staring at the train's black floor, before she even finished speaking. "Um," I said, unable to form more words than that.

Amagi waited for me to go on, but I didn't say anything, and soon the train slowed to a stop. We disembarked, Amagi leading me out of the underground station tunnel and to the streets above. I didn't recognize the area, but it was cute, with lots of shops and restaurants filling the streets outside the station.

Amagi didn't take me to any of these, though. We stood in the square outside the station, a clock suspended up high on a pole ticking above our heads, while she spread her hands and indicated the bustling crowds and glittering storefronts. "Have I ever told you that I grew up here?" she said.

"No," I told her.

"My parents moved to Sarayashiki so I could attend a better middle school, and later, a better high school. But Mushiyori is where I'm from. It's where my mother is from, and where my grandmother is from." A small smile lit her face like a candle flame in a paper lantern, eyes tilting up to the wintry sky overhead. "I spend my summers here, most years. We would catch fireflies down by the river and always go to summer festivals together to watch the fireworks." Her look of nostalgia faded into one of understated urgency. "This city is precious, to me, Keiko. You understand that, don't you?"

I did understand, though I could do no more to express that feeling than nod. I had spent summers with my grandmother growing up, too, catching fireflies and attending events side by side. Those were the best times of my life. I knew what it meant to value a city for the memories it housed, though I knew not the words to convey that to Amagi.

But somehow, she understood. "Then you understand why I want to protect this city," she said. "Not just for my sake. Not just for my grandmother's. For the sake of all the other children who might spend their summers here." She wrapped her arms around herself, head shaking. "Those bugs. They are a prelude to darkness. You warned me of them before those teachers nearly tried to kill us—and now they're here, in my hometown." A dark-eyed glare pinned me in place, resolute and demanding. "If you have any idea of what's to come, I must know."

It was my turn to shake my head. "Amagi, I can't—"

She took one quick step toward me. "You showed me that video tape," Amagi said. Voice low and full of darkness, she murmured, "Don't you dare tell me I can't know, or that I'm not already involved."

That—that was a side to her I'd never seen before, that willpower bordering on outright ferocity. It nearly made me take a step backward, away from her, but somehow I refrained from withdrawing from her unblinking stare. I matched it with one of my own, instead, a bead of sweat forming on my temple, hyperconscious of the press of the Sunday crowd swirling around us through the square.

"I can't see the future," I blurted.

Amagi frowned—and although my words confused her, as soon as I spoke them, I knew what I needed to say. Amagi had already deduced something was coming. She knew about Spirit World and demons and evil bugs, and she was right: She was already involved. I had made the choice to offer her that involvement. And now, I felt, it came to me to prepare her—at least in some small manner—for what was to come. To deny her would be to lose her trust.

It would be to lose her eyes. Eyes that could see what mine could not.

Amagi was, in a word, too useful to lose. Far more useful than I was, at any rate. And I could always rely on my good only friend "half truth" when real truths just weren't an option.

"I can't see the future," I said, each word a slow exploration, "but I know certain things about it. And things do not always match what I've been shown." When her eyes widened, I put a hand on my chest. "I'm here to make sure things progress… correctly. And correctly isn't always the same thing as good."

"What does that mean?" Amagi asked.

Again, I chose my words with care. "Your hometown will face an immense darkness, and soon." I held up a hand before she could talk, before she could voice that look of panic brewing in her eyes. "But that darkness won't reach its fever pitch for a while yet."

"When?" Amagi breathed.

"I don't know," I admitted, because that was the truth. "But not till after Spring Break, at least."

She was too smart for her own good. "What happens on Spring Break?" she asked.

I winced, but I knew better than to deny her at least a hint. "Like you said. A prelude," I said. "But its arms aren't long enough to reach you here, and when their reach extends—" I hesitated, shaking my head as I met her eyes and swore, "I won't let anything happen to you or this city that you love. I promise you that."

She waited a beat. Studied my face, her deep and lovely eyes sweeping over my face once, twice, three times. Eventually she said: "You aren't going to tell me what's going on, are you."

It wasn't phrased as a question, and she didn't ask it like one, either. Knowing she already knew the answer made giving it much easier. "I can't," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Well." She sighed, but she did not argue, and for that I was grateful. "I'll be here if that changes."

"Thank you," I told her, and I meant it.

We stood there for another moment, silent as the crowds of Mushiyori swirled and whirled about us in an endless, infinite dance—a whirlpool, of sorts, one we stood at the center of, arms spiraling outward in an depthless typhoon of descending fate. None of the people chattering around us, aside from the odd psychic or two like Amagi and her grandmother Yumie, knew what was coming—but I did. I knew that the fights faced by my friends held stakes that went beyond Yusuke and his crew of friends. They affected every person in Mushiyori City, in Japan, in the world. My outing with Amagi had reminded me of that.

If my friends failed to save this city, how many children would be without homes? Without families? Without grandmothers to spend their summers with? Destiny was bigger than me, my friends, our battles. It was as big as the winter sky above, arching over the city of Mushiyori in an infinite wash of pale blue.

I could only hope my presence here had not rewritten history, or Amagi would not be the only one to suffer the loss of her beloved hometown.

Mom met me at the door almost as soon as I walked through it. "Keiko, dear," she said, head jutting from the kitchen doorway. "Your box is in the fridge—did you forget to take it today?"

I frowned at her. "My box?" I said, and then I slapped a hand to my forehead. "Oh. That. Right."

It was Sunday, and every Sunday for the past almost-two-months, I had taken the boys a gigantic set of bento boxes for their mid-training lunch break. I'd been careful to warn Kurama and Kuwabara about my impending absence, but I'd completely forgotten to tell my mother about it, and she'd gone out of her way to cook food for me because of it. Of all the things to forget—

She frowned, coming out of the kitchen completely. "Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing, Mom," I said. "Just spaced."

As I took off my shoes and hung up my jacket, the question became thus: What the heck should I do with all that food? There was lots of it, and I didn't want it to go to waste…

"Well," Mom said. "Better late than never."

I blinked at her. "Huh?"

"Better late than never," she repeated, adding a chipper smile to the mix this time. "He might've had instant ramen for lunch, but at least he can have a nice dinner, right?"

"Oh. Right," I said, getting it at last. "Yeah, that's true. Great idea, Mom!"

Mom beamed, excusing herself when one of the other cooks called out a question. The cover story for these big bento boxes was that I'd been taking them to Kuwabara each Sunday afternoon, providing him with several days of meals since his sister was travelling ("To beautician school," I'd told Mom); Mom knew that Kuwabara's sister was the main cook in the house and that he'd be eating crappy food without her. And even if I'd lied about what I was doing with all that food each week, about the food today Mom was right: Why not take it to Kuwabara so he could have something good to eat? He'd turned down my offer earlier that week, but there was no way he'd reject food we'd already made. Yeah, Mom was brilliant even when she didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle. Imagine how brilliant she'd be with all of them? Oh, well. Too bad that could never happen. No way was I telling Mom that the food was really going to a two demons and a human in the woods while they were training for a vicious fighting tournament that might wind up killing them all—though speaking of which…

"Hey, Mom?" I said as I walked into the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator.

"Yes?" she said, red-faced as she stirred an enormous pot of broth.

"This spring break I was thinking of going camping with friends. Maybe out in the mountains?"

"Hmmm." She looked at me over her shoulder. "Who with?"

"The usual crew," I said, trying to sound casual as I removed the bento stack from the icebox. "And Shizuru already said she'd chaperone, if that helps."

"It does a little," Mom admitted. "She seems the responsible sort."

"Cool. We haven't picked a spot yet, but it would be fun." I walked backward out of the kitchen with a wave. "Anyway, I can get you more details when I've got 'em."

"That'd be good, sweetie. See you later."

"Bye!"

Whistling to myself, I put back on my coat and shoes and headed for the door, proud that my preemptive cover story had gone off without a hitch. Lying to Mom was never fun, but in this case it had to be done. The Dark Tournament was set during Spring Break, but there was no way I could just skip town for a week without telling her where I meant to go. Camping with Yusuke and the others was a perfect excuse; she couldn't call me in the mountains and verify where I'd gone, and I was sure that Shizuru would go along with the charade if I asked her to do so. Yeah, the camping excuse was a great idea, and the sooner I planted the seed for that cover story, the easier it would be to get away with it. A month and a half in advance would do nicely, I reckoned, so it was with a spring in my step that I left home and headed for Kuwabara's house.

Too bad my good mood only lasted until I reached the sidewalk at the end of his short front lawn.

It was night by the time I reached his house, twilight having fallen during my trek over. Still whistling, still walking with a spring, I spotted his house up ahead and quickened my stride, all but skipping the rest of the way in my haste to reach his front porch.

—but then, just as I reached the edge of the lawn, a light flickered on in the front room.

I stopped cold.

It took me a minute to find the will to move again, but I did it. One foot placed itself doggedly in front of the other, step by step until I reached the front door. I thumbed the doorbell and stood there, silent, until the door opened with a creak. Kuwabara's broad face peered through the gap between door and jamb, skin draining of blood in the space between seconds.

"Oh, h-hi, Keiko," he said. His eyes darted to the side and back to me again. "Why are you—?"

I put my hand on the door, shoved it open, and then thrust the stacked bento boxes at his chest. "This is for you," I said. "Now: Where is he?"

Kuwabara swallowed. "Couch," he admitted.

"Thank you."

I walked in as wooden as a nutcracker, Kuwabara on my heels, and made me way to the living room. True to Kuwabara's word, I found him on the couch. He had his eyes closed and he lay on his stomach, one arm cast over the side side with hand dragging the floor, hair hanging loose over his forehead instead of shellacked into place by his usual and copious amounts of gel. "You get me that soda yet, Kuwabara?" he said when he heard me coming, but when I did not reply, he cracked open one incredulous eye—only to do a double-take and rocket upright, scrambling across the couch to sit with back pressed against the armrest, hands held up to ward me off.

"What the?!" Yusuke yelped, and then he turned a glare on Kuwabara. "What the hell, Kuwabara! What happened to covering for me?"

Kuwabara, standing at my side, gave a wordless cry of frustration and threw up his hands. "Aw, hell, Urameshi, I already covered for you on the phone a few nights ago and you know damn well I've had a tummy ache ever since! I wasn't about to lie to her face, too!" His shoulders hunched as he turned my way, small eyes wide as he pleaded. "Keiko, I swear, I hated doing it but I really wasn't lying when I said he never called me, either!" It became his turn to glare, this time at Yusuke himself. "He just showed up one day out of the blue expecting a place to crash—"

"I don't care." I turned away as Kuwabara sputtered, voice emotionless and flat as I said, "Yusuke—"

But then the words died. I stood there in silence, Yusuke and I trading a long stare while I faltered and failed to find the language I needed to describe the ten thousand emotions vying for dominance in my chest. Only then did I see the bandage on his cheek and the bruises on his arms, evidence of where he'd been these past months, but even the shock of that couldn't pry words from my cold mouth.

Eventually Yusuke had it with my silence. He huffed and stood, jamming his hands into his jean pockets as he slouched past and headed for the door. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he grumbled just as he neared me. One hand lifted. "See ya round."

"Wait. But where are you going?" Kuwabara said.

"I'm escaping whatever lecture she's about to give me, that's where." He grabbed his coat from a peg by the door and shoved his feet into the muddy tennis shoes lying scattered beneath. "Don't wait up, Kuwabara. I'll find somewhere else to lie low."

"B-but!" said Kuwabara, but Yusuke was already out the door.

My feet came unstuck from the floor a moment later; I trailed after Yusuke without a word, waving Kuwabara back when he tried to follow, too. Yusuke wasn't walking fast, and I caught up to him by the time he reached the sidewalk down by the street. "Yusuke, wait," I said as I walked a few steps in his shadow. "Can we talk?"

"Nah," he replied.

"Yusuke!"

He rounded on me. Opened his mouth to say something, eyes blazing with the kind of fire I usually expected from Hiei—but then his mouth clacked shut. He looked at the ground, nose screwing us as he grimaced.

"What did I do?" I said. "Why are you acting like this?"

He just huffed, frustration evident in every line of his tense shoulders.

"Can we at least go somewhere and talk?" I implored.

He huffed again, but after a beat he grumbled, "Fine."

We said nothing on our way to my parents' restaurant. The wind and our footfalls created the only accompaniment on our travels, though of course the moment he entered the building, my parents let out twin screeches of operatic delight and pounced on him, dropping kitchen utensils with unsightly splatters in their haste to envelop him in a group hug.

"Yusuke, there you are!" my mom yodeled. "Are you no longer on the verge of death, again?!"

"Back from the grave another time, looks like!" Dad concurred as he clapped Yusuke on the back. "And about damn time. We've missed your face around here!"

Yusuke rolled his eyes, but he had to try very hard not to smile and to look peeved, instead. "Hi, Yukimuras," he grumbled into my mom's neck. "Long time, no see."

Mom pushed him away so she could look him over. "Feeling any better?" she asked.

Dad nudged at Yusuke's ribs with his elbow, eyebrows wagging. "Atsuko told us you were sick with mono, you sly dog."

Yusuke rolled his eyes even harder. "Yeah, yeah, I'm doing OK. Would feel a lot better after a little ramen, though."

"Of course. Coming right up!" Dad said.

"We're backed up at the moment, so it'll be a few minutes if you want to sit down," Mom added.

"Sure," Yusuke said—and when he caught my eye, any trace of the smile he'd given my parents vanished entirely.

I swallowed.

This wasn't gonna end well, now was it?

Yusuke didn't wait for me to decide where we'd talk. He parked himself at a table near the back and plopped into a seat by the wall. I sat across from him as he leaned backward in his chair with shoulders braced on said wall, balancing precariously on two chair legs with his toes only barely scraping the ground, hands in the pockets of his neon green windbreaker. It wasn't the ideal place to talk and he wouldn't look at me, not even when I cleared my throat to get his attention, but at least most of the other patrons were sitting closer to the kitchen and weren't completed within earshot. Had to be grateful for small favors, I told myself, because I was pretty sure I wouldn't be afforded many once we really got going.

Carefully folding my hands atop the table between us, I said: "So."

Yusuke's eyes darted my way, then away again. "So."

"You've been avoiding me."

"Really, Keiko?" he snarked. "I hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, well, I have, and it fucking sucks." I leaned forward, trying to look him in the eye, but he turned his face away. "Yusuke, please. Please just throw me a bone, here. I can't fix it if I don't know what's—"

"You're a liar."

He didn't speak in anger, or with any particular emotion in his voice at all. It was simply… a statement. Like he'd done nothing more offensive than describe the weather. Like he hadn't just called his oldest friend something awful—even if, perhaps, the accusation was deserved.

Still, deserved or not, it caught me off guard, and a stammered "What?" was all I could think to say.

Yusuke didn't like that. At last he looked at me, face snapping in my direction with a pointed glare. "You're a liar, Keiko," he said, voice thrumming with accusation. "And the sorry thing is that you're bad at it, but you keep doing it anyway acting like no one notices." He looked away again, crossing his arms with a slap of fist against bicep. "Yeah, well, I notice. I notice, and I'm not letting you get away with it anymore, you hear me?"

"Yusuke." I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself—trying to come up with any tactic at all that could help me navigate this sticky situation, which had just become ever stickier than I had first assumed. "What, precisely, do you think I have lied about?"

A growl of frustration built in his chest. "I don't know."

"Then what, pray tell, are you—?"

Like a striking snake, the legs of his chair slammed onto the floor, sound accompanied by the smack of his hand against the table. "You're literally doing it right now, dammit!"

People chatting at the nearest occupied table fell silent; I didn't need to look over my shoulder to know they'd started staring at us. I shushed Yusuke, but he shook his head, fist balling up so hard it shook.

"You are literally doing it right now!" He spoke through his teeth, hunched and spitting and hissing and glaring like he might launch himself over the table at any moment. "You think you're so smart, doing what you're doing, but you're just—"

I slammed my hand on the table, too, hunching over it to look him dead in the eye. "I haven't said anything, Yusuke!" I hissed. "In the past five minutes I haven't made any assertions I could possibly be lying about! I haven't made any claims that could qualify as lies!"

"See?" He jabbed a finger at my nose. "That, that right there! Dodging around what I'm trying to say and confusing the topic with big words instead of just being straight with me!"

"Yusuke, I don't—"

Yusuke was on his feet in half a second of raw, physical fury. "Stop doing that!" he yelled. "I know what you're doing, so stop it!"

Behind me, the entire restaurant quieted. That time I couldn't help but look over my shoulder, just in time to see Mom pop her head out of the kitchen and look our way with a panicked scowl. Yusuke saw her and sank back into his chair, looking at once apologetic and combative as a bull poked with a stick.

"Let's go upstairs," I whispered.

"Fine," Yusuke whispered back.

I let him lead the way, mostly so I could mutter an apology at the kitchen staff (not to mention my parents) and then shut the door to my room behind us. Hand on the knob, I tried to compose myself with a few deep breaths—but before I could do more than three, Yusuke cleared his throat. I flinched and turned to find him staring at me, one foot tapping against the floor with unrestrained impatience.

"Let's start with something simple." I kept my voice as light, airy, and controlled as I possible could. "What lie did I tell you that you're so pissed off about?"

Yusuke's foot stilled.

He took a deep breath.

He said, in accepted but understandable almost-English: "Yippe-kai-yay, motherfucker."

I did a double-take. "Excuse me?"

He scowled, teeth bared and gleaming. "Yippy-kai-yay mother fu—"

"No, no, I get it," I said, cutting him off before he could curse again. "But why are you quoting Die Hard?"

"Because you quoted Die Hard," he shot back.

"Uh. No, I didn't?" I said, because I most certainly had not. "What the hell are you—?"

Yusuke threw up his hands and paced, moving back and forth between my desk and my bedroom door like a lion caught in much too small a cage. He was glaring at me, though—he was laughing, laughing with teeth on full display and eyes shining with manic glee. "You don't even remember, do you?" he said through that wry, hard laugh. "You don't even remember that. You tell so many lies, they all blur together for you, don't they?" Another laugh, this one louder than the first. "Ever since the day we met under that stupid bridge, this is what you've been like. And you think I'm too stupid to notice!"

"I don't think you're stupid," I said, not letting myself raise my voice. "But I have literally no idea—"

"Cut the fucking crap. I'm not an idiot, Keiko." He stalked up and pointed at me, finger poking into my sternum once, twice, three times. "You may be the one doing my homework, but I'm not stupid!" At my stunned look, deer caught firmly in the glare of oncoming headlights, he stabbed at my chest again. "We were in the first grade and you were correcting the teacher's grammar in English lessons and I know you aren't enough of a genius to have learned English on your own. You're smart, but you're not that smart. Somethin' funny was going on and I know it, Keiko!"

Every word he spoke struck my heart like a dart, sharper even than the finger striking my chest. Still, despite the truth flying from his mouth, I tried to lie to him. I tried to obfuscate, prevaricate, do what I'd been doing since the day we met under that bridge, exactly as he said. "Yusuke, you can't possibly believe—"

"Oh, great. Here it comes," he drawled. "More lies, right?"

"—what you're saying. We were children!" I shook my head, loosing a derisive laugh of my own. "Don't you think maybe you might be misremember—?"

"Don't do that!" he snarled; I stepped back, shoulder blades hitting the door with a smack, but Yusuke held his ground and stared with utter lava in his eyes. "Don't you dare try to tell me I didn't see what I saw! I know I sound like an idiot, Keiko, I know that. I can't put my finger on anything and I can't figure out how to tell you what I've noticed, I just don't have the words because it makes no sense, I get that what I'm saying sounds crazy. But I know what I know: You sure as hell aren't telling me the truth, even when you're not telling outright lies, and—"

The phone rang.

Yusuke looked over his shoulder. I looked over his shoulder, too, as the ringer blared its tinny alarm from its spot on my desk, loud and shrill and totally unwanted in the otherwise quiet room. It was probably Kuwabara, came my distant assumption, checking in on me after I'd followed Yusuke—and maybe I did want the phone to ring, after all. It certainly gave me a minute to regroup and steel myself for what would surely follow the minute it fell quiet.

Yusuke—he'd noticed so much more than I'd ever given him credit for. Of all the things I'd prepared for, this conversation wasn't one of them, because I just… I'd underestimated him? Is that what I'd done? Is that the enormous mistake I'd made that led to this?

And if it was, what the heck was I supposed to do about it now?

The phone stopped ringing before I could figure it out, and Yusuke dived right back into it.

"It's not just how you always seem to know things," he said the second the last ring faded. "It's how you always have the answers even when you shouldn't. It's the way you… react." His face screwed up. "Or don't react, sometimes. Either way, it never makes sense."

"B-but," I stammered, "what does that…?"

"The Tournament," he immediately snapped back. "I came to tell you what had happened and you just said yeah, you already knew."

"Um, yeah?" This was my chance; I could explain this away, no problem, so I looked at him with a 'no, duh' face and crossed my arms. "You know this, Yusuke. Some demons came to invite Hiei when he was with me, so—"

He shook his head, unkempt hair flying. "No. No, I don't mean—" He gave a small, growling scream of utter frustration and stalked away. "See? See?" he said when he rounded on me again. "This is what's so frustrating! It's not that you already knew I'd been invited to the Tournament, it's that when I told you, you didn't freak out about it. And Keiko, even if you knew what was going on through Hiei, you're wound tighter than a noose. You always freak out, even if somebody warns you ahead of time."

"Yeah, well," I said, "maybe I'd freaked out before you got there, with Hiei—"

"No!" he interjected. "This wasn't you after a panic attack. This was you just, just coping with it. Like you'd already wrapped your head around the Tournament and all that crap, but you don't adjust that quickly." He looked at me like I was an alien in human skin, but tentacles had begun to poke out of my ears. "You've never adjusted to anything overnight. You hate change. You didn't have time to be OK with what was happening, but you were still acting like you'd totally accepted—"

Now I was the one throwing up my hands, stalking toward him with a wild shake of my head and a growl in my throat. "OK, Yusuke, so I didn't freak out enough for you? That's it? And that somehow makes me a liar?"

"Yes!" he barked, but then he bit his lip. "No! I don't know!"

"So you've ignored me for a month and a half because you can't make sense of my personality?" I pushed. "Well, gee, Yusuke, how nice of you. Y'know you could've talked to me about this sooner, right? Instead of ignoring me for almost two months, right? Why didn't you just ask me what I—"

Incensed, he cut in, "What, and let you lie to me again?"

"I haven't lied to you!"

"Yes, you have!"

"Oh, well, when?" I said. "You said it yourself, you can't put it into words, so how is it fair to hold me responsible for—?"

"It's not that you always lie!" he protested. "It's that it feels like you leave stuff out and I can never be sure when you—"

The phone rang.

Once again we both turned and stared at it, but this time I walked over, picked up the receiver, and dropped it back into the cradle with a resounding clatter. We were going at this a mile a minute, a frantic rush of frenetic ranting and raving, and no way were we losing momentum because Kuwabara couldn't mind his fucking patience.

"OK, Yusuke, let's get to it." I rounded on him and slapped my hands onto my hips, feet spread for support, glaring with all my might. "What do you want from me? Right now, in this moment, confronting me, what do you want?" I changed tactics and held out my hands, supplicating, begging him with my eyes to cooperate. "Tell me and I'll give it to you, Yusuke. Tell me and I'll—"

"I don't know what I want," he said,

"Then why are we even—?"

"You make no fucking sense, Keiko!"

His words—roared with all the rage of the lion he in that moment was—reverberated through the tiny room, resonating in my stunned ears so hard they began to ring. A deathly hush descended in the wake of his roar, but Yusuke wasn't done, even if his volume dropped when once more he began to speak.

"You don't make any sense at all," he repeated, words no less fierce for their understated tenor. "That night you vanished, I felt like—" He stopped. Swallowed. Forged ahead. "And then you were just there again, acting fine. With that guy? With that gaijin with the blonde hair? And you said he just sort of found you, but he didn't even blink at Hiei's gross eye." Accusation dripped from every syllable, from every gleam of his pointed glare. "And he lied to us, too. He did exactly what you did, and acted normal, but it was too normal. He acted so normal it wasn't normal at all. And that's what you do, all the time. Every word you say is so planned out, so careful, it makes every single thing you do seem fake." Yusuke lifted and dropped his hands like a set of unbalanced scales. "When I think you're going to overreact, you don't react. When I think you'll be fine, you break down. Ever since we were kids, nothing about you has made a lick of sense, and since I became Spirit Detective, it's only gotten worse."

My words came out in a whisper. "It's gotten—?"

"You saved Kurama's mom without knowing how, and said you got lucky," Yusuke said, a deluge of allegations pouring one by one off his tongue. "You prepared your school for a warzone, and said you got lucky when Suzaku's goons attacked. You got eaten by a shadow monster and got away by being lucky. Found an ally who can withstand a look at a Jagan by being lucky." A quick step in my direction sent me stumbling backward, where I sat heavily on my bed. "You really expect me to believe that? You really expect me to believe you're that lucky?" He shook his head, teeth bared. "Even if your name is lucky child, no one is that lucky, Keiko. Nobody."

He fell silent.

I said nothing.

I'm not sure how long we stared at once another, but as the seconds ticked their way toward minutes, Yusuke's expression… it changed. The anger in his eyes didn't vanish, or cool, but it did thin out, revealing a bedrock beneath made of…

Of hurt.

He was still glaring, brimming with anger like a rain-glutted stream, but behind his eyes, hidden deep under swagger and bravado, I could see it. I could see the hurt there, the betrayal, that raw nerve open to even more hurt depending on whatever I chose to say next. It wasn't often Yusuke made himself vulnerable, but right now, in this particular moment, he was choosing to—

No. That wasn't right.

Now was not the only moment he'd made himself vulnerable to me, was it?

Because he was right, of course. I was a liar. Oh, sure, I made excuses for myself and liked to pretend half-truths were somehow more morally justifiable than outright fabrication, but that was just wishful thinking. I was a pants-on-fire liar of the highest order, even if I wasn't very good at it, and I'd hurt Yusuke more times than I could ever, ever hope to count—because the day we'd met under that bridge, as night fell and I chased off those older bullies, Yusuke had made himself vulnerable by trusting me.

He'd been vulnerable with me since the day we met, and I had taken advantage of that at every turn.

It's like I'd told myself earlier that day with Amagi: I was not a child. No matter how I looked, I had the mind of an adult, and the capacity to hurt and manipulate any child around me using the experience that I had and they lacked. No matter how well-intentioned I'd been with Yusuke, he was not an idiot. He could sense that I'd been manipulating, gaslighting him and lying to him for years, underestimating at every turn how sharp his eyes could be.

But even realizing that today, what could I say now? What could I do?

Should I tell him?

The thought popped into my bed as if someone had whispered it into my ear, and once the thought was entertained, I couldn't get it out of my head. Should I tell him everything? Spill my guts? Lay it all out there and let him accept or reject me as he saw fit? He certainly had every right to reject me if he wanted. But if he did, how would that affect the events to come? How would that rewrite history, change fate, alter the path of—?

His stare bored into mine like the claws of some great beast, but one with its leg caught in a terrible trap, anger and pain at war with the hurt and pleading in his eyes.

Standing there that night in my bedroom, something in my chest broke in half, and I knew that I couldn't keep doing this to him.

Even if he couldn't put his finger on my exact deceptions, he could still detect their presence in every line of my being. He might not be able to name my manipulations for what they were, but he damn well knew when I wasn't telling him the entire truth.

As quickly as something inside me broke, something else inside me stilled, and I knew what I had to do.

"OK." I ran my hands through my hair. Patted the bed beside me. "Yusuke. OK. Just." I patted it again. "You should sit down."

His brow furrowed, but he did as I asked. He sat next to me with tension in every muscle, ready to leap off the bed at the first sign of deception.

But I wasn't intending to lie, or even to tell a half truth, now was I? We were past that, now.

It was time to tell the truth.

I wasn't sure if he'd let me take his hands in mine, but he did, although he looked at me like I'd gone nuts when I did it. I placed my thumbs over the backs of his hands and offered him a smile, every ounce of my being devoted to hope I dared not let myself acknowledge.

"The truth is—" I paused. "And this is going to sound immensely crazy, for the record. Like. You're not going to believe me. And that's why I haven't told you before now, because it's just—it's just utterly, completely, inconceivably—"

"Get to the damn point, Keiko," Yusuke ground out.

I took a deep breath "The truth of the matter is that I haven't always been this lucky. Literally and figuratively." I met his eyes and tried to smile, but I know I failed, because the intensity in his gaze made smiling impossible. "Yusuke. The truth is, I have not always been—"

The phone rang.

Our heads lashed in the direction of the ringing, and while Yusuke just glared, I could not help but give an outright shriek of impotent frustration at the sound. I scrambled off the bed and snatched the phone off the cradle, slamming it against the side of my face to snarl, "Dammit, Kuwabara, I'm—"

I stopped talking, because someone else had begun to speak.

That someone was not Kuwabara.

It was a very different voice that greeted me when I put the phone to my ear. They spoke simply, and with assurance, and it was all I could do to stay quiet and listen, uncomfortably aware of Yusuke's eyes boring into the back of my skull as I reached for a pen and paper.

"Where?" I breathed into the receiver.

They answered. I wrote the answer down.

"Yes," I said. I put the paper in my pocket. "I'll be there in an hour." Placed the pen back in a drawer. "Bye."

I hung up the phone.

When I turned around again, Yusuke looked positively livid—but also resigned.

He knew what was coming before I even said it.

And yet, I said it anyway: "I have to go."

He was shaking his head before I finished talking. "Don't you dare, Keiko."

"Yusuke, I'm sorry." I backed away, heading slowly for the door, begging with my eyes for him to understand, to forgive me, please. "I'm sorry, I just have to—"

"You aren't getting out of this, Keiko." He rose slowly to his feet, hands balling into tight fists. "You aren't."

"I know that," I said, still pleading, still begging. "If you wait here, I'll tell you everything." I felt behind me for the doorknob and held it tight in my shaking hand, words spilling out in an incoherent babble. "I'll tell you everything just as soon as I get back, I swear, you have to believe me, please believe, please please—"

"No, Keiko," Yusuke said. He pointed straight at me, glaring down the length of his incredibly dangerous finger. "If you walk out that door, so fucking help me—!"

I twisted the knob. "I'm sorry, Yusuke."

"Keiko, wait!"

It was a turnabout from when I'd chased him down at Kuwabara's house, and much though I wished I could honor him and stay—I couldn't. I just couldn't. And it wasn't because I didn't want to go through with my decision to tell him the truth, or because I'd lost my nerve. Far from it.

The horrible truth was that I just didn't have a choice.

I took the steps two at a time, pelting down the so hard I tripped at the bottom and careened into the wall beside the kitchen. The noise drew my Mother from the room as I scrambled into my coat and shoes, but I didn't dare to look at her as she approached. No time, no time, there just wasn't any fucking time—

"Oh honey, perfect timing," she was saying. "Yusuke's ramen—"

I didn't listen to the rest. I had to go; I didn't have the concentration to pay attention. Her face flashed past, and then it was just her voice ringing after me as I slammed through the door to the side alley and into the cold night beyond.

All I could do while I ran was hope to find Yusuke where I'd left him once I returned home.

If I returned home, that is—because given where I was headed, there was a chance I might not.

Notes:

There will be a "Children of Misfortune" chapter soon that addresses Yusuke's "Yippy kai yay motherfucker/Die Hard" comment in great detail—because yes. There is something Keiko has forgotten, and Yusuke has been wise to her antics for much, much longer than she assumes. Unreliable narrators FTW!

Really busy weekend, hence this late posting (it got posted on FFnet late last night and I've only had the chance to post it here just now). As always, I made an announcement about it on my Tumblr, so please check in there if I'm ever late. I typically always warn you if I'm late. Username is "luckystarchild" because someone else took "Star Charter" before I could, waaahhh.

Lots of parallels about sharp eyes, lies, and truth between the Amagi and Yusuke scenes. Hope you liked it.

Many thanks to all those who reviewed this past week; you made my day: EternalEveCho, Unctuous, Actively Apathetic, Han, Gibbeum, Not Quite a Morning Person, Gerbilfriend, dytabytes, EMMstAr, katsheswims, MageKing17, Laina Inverse, Kuramag33, musiquemer, nomyriad, Masked Trickster, MrJengaBlock, Permanent One, DragonsTower, Cptkitten, Roses Universe, and Tewdrig!

Also, to a reader named Genesis, I got your message and I agree with it! I'll be more careful in future and I really appreciate your excellent points. You rock my socks!

Chapter 82: Friendship and Forgiveness

Summary:

In which time passes, goodbyes are said, and NQK waits.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Pavement, wet from a random gout of late-winter rain, slid precariously beneath my heels as I skidded to a stop in front of the café, breath like fire as it hissed in and out of my heaving lungs. Golden light bled from the windows of the cute French bistro before me, staining the damp pavement the color of wet platinum beneath the street lights. A few passersby stared and whispered behind their hands, but I refused to pay them any mind as I consulted my watch and double-checked the address I'd jotted on a scrap of paper.

Two minutes to spare. Perfect. But I'd be damned if I wasted time celebrating and wound up late. It had taken quite an effort to even get here this close to on time…

I probably would've found the café cute if I hadn't been in such a hurry, not to mention if I hadn't been so frantic in general. I barely had time to admire its brick patio, planters of greenery, and sunny yellow umbrellas before I shoved my way inside. A bell tinkled above my head and a young woman wearing an apron proclaimed a greeting from behind the counter; I paid that little attention, too, instead scanning the dozen or so tables scattered about the warm, airy eatery. Only a few of the tables were occupied, and none by the people I was here to meet. I frowned on reflex, noting the scents of fresh bread and French onion soup as my breathing evened out at last. I was only barely on time, so where the hell were—?

The bell above the door tinkled behind me, and a cold wind brushed across my back.

"Keiko!" That light, smooth voice called my name with undisguised excitement as I turned. "It's wonderful to see you!"

In had walked Itsuki and Sensui—well. Itsuki and Naru, judging by the latter's relaxed hairstyle, kindly smile and creamy turtleneck. Naru clung to Itsuki's arm, eyes furtive once they peeled away from me and started perusing the café with ill-concealed excitement, not to mention nerves. Still, even with Naru distracted as she was, I couldn't help but bristle at the sight of them, eyes locked on Itsuki. Though he wore a smile, bland and nonthreatening, it was impossible not to go on edge. What he'd said to me on the phone, and what he'd said to me the last time we'd met, could not be forgotten with only that bland smile for encouragement.

His smile didn't falter as he looked me over. "You're on time. Good."

The words "That makes one of us" brewed in my mouth like a whirlpool; it took most of my willpower to successfully bite that retort back. He'd been very specific about when and where to meet, consequences for tardiness fully outlined, and yet he'd been late? I, meanwhile, had run my ass off to get here. How was that even fair?

But then again, I hadn't had a choice about any of this. Itsuki held all the power here, and (tonight, at least) he was making all my choices for me.

Making me wonder if he could read minds, at that thought I saw Itsuki's smile widen.

Naru either didn't notice when I bristled further, or she was too distracted by the sight of the café to care. She held Itsuki's arm a little tighter as she said, "I've always wanted to come here in person. I love their food, but I've never…" A light shake of her head, glossy hair swinging beside her chiseled cheeks. "Do you like French cooking, Keiko?"

"… yes." I had in my past life, at least.

Relief crossed her face. "That's wonderful. I was afraid that you…" Another head-shake, accompanied by a hopeful smile. "Never mind. Let's get a table."

And so, we sat, at a table near the back and an old armoire the waiter told us was actually an antique from France. Naru spent a few minutes admiring the patterned china inside the cabinet while we ordered drinks. Itsuki ordered for her, even when it came time to choose our entrees. I had a quiche; Naru got a crepe with vegetables; Itsuki ordered duck, roasted with potatoes. Naru seemed to notice us again when I placed my order, listening to me with a small smile.

"I couldn't help but notice you didn't order meat. Are you a vegetarian, Keiko?" she asked when the waiter left.

It was odd to converse with her the way I was, so casual and friendly despite the horribly not casual and not friendly call that had brought me here. I had to gather myself for a second before finding the nerve to say, "Um, sort of. I'll eat my parents' cooking because I don't want to put them out, but if I have a choice, I go veg."

Naru clapped, steepling her fingers in front of her lips as she grinned. "We have so much in common! I'm a vegetarian most of the time, too. The natural world, the creatures in it—they're so beautiful. I couldn't stand to eat them all the time." She looked at Itsuki askance and nudged his side with her elbow. "Unlike someone I know."

This seemed to be an old, good-natured disagreement between them, if Itsuki's wry smile was any indication. "You know I don't believe in denying myself," he told her, tone undeniably teasing.

"You never have," Naru agreed. She covered her hand with his. "But I value that in you."

The waiter returned, then; Naru snuck her hand back under the table, fiddling with her napkin and not meeting the waiter's eye as he deposited our food and drinks before us. The food looked and smelled delicious, but although the sight of a fragrant quiche would normally set my stomach rumbling, just then I didn't have the ability to do more than pick at my slice and take a few exploratory nibbles. Dutifully I ate, eyes downcast, until Naru put her fork onto the table with a rattle of metal on wood. I looked up to find her staring, expression glum, her own food likewise untouched.

Itsuki frowned. "What's wrong, Naru? Are the crepes…?"

"They're delicious," she said, not taking her eyes off me, and then she swallowed. "Keiko, I have something I need to say."

"Oh. Um?" I put down my fork, too. "OK. I'm all ears."

She took a deep breath. "I owe you an apology."

I blinked. "An apol…?"

For a moment, I wasn't sure I'd heard her right. But Itsuki stiffened, and Naru favored me with and expectant stare, and I realized with a start that I'd heard her correctly, after all. Still, even with this realization I found myself quite unable to speak—because holy shit, right? Of all the things I'd expected when Itsuki called and demanded my presence, or else, this was most certainly not one of them.

Naru waited a beat, but when I merely gaped at her, she took a deep breath. "It was wrong of me to try and make you watch… well." A regretful smile. "You know."

I swallowed, but no words came. Naru looked from my face down to my slice of quiche and then back to me again.

"You and I have many things in common," she said. "That's why I wanted to see you, why I had Itsuki call—because I think we could be very good friends." A resolute nod, shoulders tense under the fluffy sweater covering them; her voice sounded small despite her confidence. "But we can't be friends until I clear the air and make right what I've done wrong."

"… I see," I somehow managed to grate out.

My words, short though they were, seemed to encourage her. "You and I have many things in common," Naru repeated, voice gaining new strength. "But we differ in some very large ways. Watching that tape likely wouldn't have changed your mind. It would only have made you tortured. It would have made you hate me." She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. "I should have kept your wants in mind when I tried to make you see it. And so, to that end—" Naru raised her eyes to mine, and in them I saw nothing but sincerity. "I am sorry for what I did that night, Keiko, and I promise I will not try to do it again."

And then Naru fell silent, tense but hopeful, and she waited.

To say that her apology was unexpected is probably the biggest understatement of the year, if not the decade. I couldn't help but glance at Itsuki, search his face for some clue as to just what the hell was going on, but he kept his expression carefully placid—a look of serene acceptance belied only by his hand, clenched tight as it was atop the table. Did he approve of Naru's apology? Had he even known she was going to give one to me? His tone on the phone had been nothing if not harsh, demanding, grave—and here Naru was, supplicating and repentant.

But Itsuki said nothing. He did not intervene. He was not intimidating me, nor was he chastising her actions. So…?

"I—I appreciate that," I eventually managed to tell Naru. "Thank you."

Her eyes lit up from the inside out, catching gentle fire in an instant. "Does this mean you forgive me?" she said, voice climbing high in its register. "I would love to be friends, Keiko. Just friends. Not potential allies, but just… friends." Here her smile turned wistful. "I'd like to have another woman to get dinner with. Someone to talk to, to paint nails with. Someone I can share gossip with, maybe."

She picked up her fork again, picking at her food with its tines. I watched in silence as she moved the vegetables spilling from her folded crepe around in circles. Naru seemed fixated on them, staring with lips slightly parted, hand moving with slow, steady assurance.

"I don't have much time," she murmured, not looking at me. "I'd like to cherish a friendship while I'm able… but only if you're willing."

She didn't have much time?

At first I thought she referred to the end of the world she and the rest of the Sensui personalities wished to bring about—but Itsuki's eyes cut to her sidelong, golden color giving away their movement like a verbal declaration, and I remembered the other truth: that Naru was dying. That Sensui was dying, gripped by a terminal illness from which he could not escape.

Naru was a dying woman requesting friendship in her final days. Who was I to deny her that, even if her other selves were bent on the destruction of the world?

But also—why me, of all people?

It bore thinking about, of course. I was a nobody on my own, only exceptional when you looked at the important company I kept. Was this overture of friendship and forgiveness a ploy to spy on my other friends—friends who might stand in Sensui's way in the days to come? And when you got down to it, this overture of Naru's was kind of laughable. I hadn't come to meet her just to meet her. I'd come because of what Itsuki had threatened; he hadn't alluded to Naru's intentions at all. Itsuki had made it very clear that if I didn't show up, he'd make good on his threats—the ones he'd made that night before I managed to flee with Sailor V. How could Naru ask for friendship with one breath and bid Itsuki to dole out threats with another? How could she claim to value my consent one minute and blackmail me the next? Did she not see the fundamental contradictions at the heart of her words and Itsuki's actions?

But as I sat there, wondering, Itsuki's eyes drifted to me, and he smiled. It was a small smile, secretive and subtle, accompanied by the shrewdest shake of his head.

… why did I get the sense, suddenly, that Naru wasn't a hypocrite at all, and that she was not aware of the methods Itsuki used to get me here?

Naru mistook my silence for rejection, I think. Her shoulders sagged; she stopped picking at her food. "If you don't want to be friends, I will respect—"

I spoke as much to Naru as I did to Itsuki, who sat beside her. "It's not that you're not great," I said, and her head came up with a snap. "It's that I'm going to have a hard time trusting this situation for a while. I met you after being kidnapped, after all."

"That's true," Naru said, voice soft with thought. Then her eyes gleamed; she latched onto the sleeve of Itsuki's leather jacket. "Itsuki, promise you won't do that again," she demanded.

Evenly, he replied: "I promise not to do that again."

"That's better," Naru said. "And Keiko, if it makes you feel better, we can hang out in public. Like this. That way you have nothing to fear."

"… uh-huh," I said, more than a little taken aback.

"And Itsuki would never betray a promise he made to me," Naru continued. She took the aforementioned by the arm and smiled at him, expression sweet and trusting. "Would you, Itsuki?"

"No," he replied, looking at her. "I would never."

And that, apparently, was that. Naru looked at me with eyes shining, hopeful expectation radiating from every pore. It was all I could do to swallow down my perplexed nerves and paste on a smile.

"Well… that's comforting, I suppose," I said.

Naru's hands clapped together and clasped over her head. "Then it's settled," she said. "How about we go shopping after we eat? There's a lovely boutique around the corner I want to visit, if that's OK."

She looked so blissfully happy (and Itsuki looked at me with such cold, pointed eyes) that I didn't have the heart to tell her no.

Before appearing in the world of Yu Yu Hakusho, I read (and wrote) quite a bit of fanfic for it.

I read and wrote mostly OC fanfics, because apparently the irony of dreaming of living in and then actually living in that world was too delicious for Hiruko to ignore. Many of the fics I read and wrote contained the same clichés—or, more generously, the same tropes from fic to fic, haunting each story like very persistent ghosts. One of my ubiquitous favorites was sending an OC shopping with a member of the canon cast. Oh, these shopping trips always involved OCs who fell into the YYH world without any changes of clothes, and a wardrobe is inevitably purchased for them during a spending spree with the help of Koenma's limitless credit card

So, yes. Going on a shopping spree with a member of the YYH cast was pretty cliché.

But at least very few fics, if any, featured an OC going on said shopping spree with Sensui (or Naru, rather) and Itsuki. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Sort of?

Anyway. What commenced after dinner might be the single most bizarre experience of my life thus far. We walked a few blocks to a very swanky boutique, one with Kurama-worthy fresh flowers in myriad vases and complimentary champagne and staff wearing clothes straight off a runway, and I was shoved unceremoniously into a dressing room and told to undress. A cascade of clothing flew over the top of the dressing room door, and at Naru's behest I donned a dress with a price tag that made the blood drain straight out of my face. I didn't have the heart to lower my arms as I donned the garment, afraid I might muss the many expensive ruffles adorning the tiered bodice, and with ginger steps I left the dressing room so Naru could inspect me.

I might have been too nervous to have fun, but Naru didn't share my feelings in the slightest. She screamed when she saw me in the first dress and gave a rousing thumbs up, shooing me back into the booth to try another, and then another, bidding the shop girls to get me matching shoes and accessories so I could walk the runway in a complete look. There was a three-way mirror on a platform outside the dressing room like you see in bridal shops; Naru nursed a glass of champagne and giggled as I stood on the platform and twirled for her, my face schooled into an admittedly frantic smile of confusion mixed with unbridled anxiety. Itsuki sat on a chaise lounge and watched us, giving his opinions from time to time when Naru asked for them. He seemed almost like a guard dog, sitting there with a glass of untouched champagne held loosely in one hand, but sometimes, when he looked at Naru, a soft smile crept across his features. Maybe he was having a good time, after all. Hard to say. He had a world class poker face, that was for sure…

Eventually I got a little tired of functioning as Naru's living Barbie doll. "Don't you want to try on anything, Naru?" I said from inside the dressing room between outfit swaps. "They've got a lot of cute stuff here."

"No." Her reply came quick and sharp, but then she laughed to soften it. "I don't think the store would appreciate that. And they wouldn't appreciate it, either."

There was no question about who she meant; her loaded tone said it all. Standing in the dressing room in nothing but my underthings, I clutched the dress I'd just taken off to my chest and hung my head. I'd really stepped on a rake, judging from her subdued voice. It didn't feel sufficient, but even so I told her, "I'm sorry they don't let you…"

"It's all right," she said. "I know my measurements. I can buy clothing without trying it on. Sometimes they let me get away with it at home, but out in public…" Her wistful tone firmed. "No. I'm afraid that isn't in the cards." There came a rustle, accompanied by a merry giggle. "And that's why I have to live vicariously through you!" A dress floated over the top of the dressing room door. "Here, try this next!"

Per her instructions, I tried on more. I will admit it was fun to goof off with her, especially as she drank another glass of champagne and got even gigglier, but I couldn't help but wondering what the heck I was doing and why I was even here at this point. Itsuki had barely said a word ever since we started the night's fashion show, too, leaving Naru to guide the festivities as she saw fit. Even though Naru seemed like she was having fun, Itsuki's watchful guard-dog-gaze had me on edge and asking if this was really just a play-date? A girl's night out, with a demon chaperone? He had held his threat over my head so I'd come to do this? I'd expected him to ask me to do something morally questionable, not hang out and play dress-up.

To think I'd abandoned Yusuke in the middle of our Very Important Conversation, and for this? I could only hope to find him in my bedroom when I got back, waiting as I'd ask to pick up where we left off…

A few minutes later I left the dressing room wearing a knee-length cocktail dress, red with gold trim on the neckline and plunging back. It felt wildly too grown-up, too sophisticated for a teenager, but Naru gasped when she saw me and downed a slug of champagne almost on reflex. The little end-table next to the lounge she and Itsuki occupied was littered with empty glasses, shimmering in the rich overhead lights.

As Naru drained her glass, the door to the dressing suite opened to admit on of the shop girls. How she walked in the thick gold carpet I can't say, because she wore six inch stiletto heels and didn't wobble even a bit as she made her way toward us.

"I apologize, but our store will be closing in fifteen minutes," she said with a low bow. "May I help you ring up any purchases, or perhaps put garments on hold if you're still considering?"

I started to say no, we wouldn't be getting anything, but Naru waved her empty glass and interrupted.

"One more of these for the road, and we'll take…" She looked at the pile of dresses to which she'd given thumbs ups and nodded. "Those three, please! And the one she's wearing now." Naru leaned forward and cooed, fingering the hem of my skirt. "The color is so nice with your skin!"

"Wait, what?!" I stammered, remembering the outrageous price tag on all the dresses. "Naru, I can't. These are much too expensive, and—"

She lightly smacked my arm. "Don't be silly, silly; I insist!" Naru hiccupped as she leaned back against the chaise. "Consider it compensation for pain and suffering. I'm making up the other night to you!"

"You don't have to do that," I protested. "You really don't have to—"

"I do, though. I do!" she shot back, head shaking left to right and back again. "These are gifts, freely given, so don't you worry about a thing, my good-good friend." She lurched off the chaise and shepherded me into the dressing room. "Now get changed again, please. No dawdling; they're trying to close!"

I stripped out of the red cocktail dress and back into my own clothes at warp speed, noting with a growl of frustration as the dress disappeared over the top of the door. Was there a way to stop this purchase? I did not want to be in Naru's debt, even over something as mundane as a dress! In my haste I exited the dressing room with my top slightly askew, but even though I hurried, I was too late. I exited to find Itsuki signing a receipt, which the shop employee took back from him with a bow and a very formal expression of thanks.

Formal, and quiet, because Naru had fallen asleep on Itsuki's shoulder.

I waited for the shop keeper to leave before looking at Itsuki and whispering, "You really didn't have to do that."

Itsuki shrugged, but with only one unencumbered shoulder. "Naru wanted to." It was a dismissal if I'd ever heard one, and without further ado he gently jiggled Naru's knee. "Naru," he murmured against her hair. "Naru, wake up."

She stirred, golden brow wrinkling beneath her thick black bangs. "Hmm?"

"The store is about to close," Itsuki said, and he reached up to curl a lock of hair behind her ear.

OK, so maybe playing dress-up with Naru wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened: Watching them be domestic took that crown. Naru sighed and cuddled closer to Itsuki, trying to go back to sleep, but he chuckled and gently shook her knee again. Naru frowned, grumbled something unintelligible, and sat up, rubbing at her eyes with her fingertips. Itsuki and I both reached to catch her when she stood, swaying precariously, but she sat back down with an "oof" and a small laugh.

"It's time to go, Naru," Itsuki said.

She shook her head without opening her eyes. "I don't want to walk all the way back, though."

Itsuki shook his head, smiling at her expense. "You drank too much champagne."

"I did." Naru nodded with a giggle. "I did—oh." Her eyes cracked, looking at me blearily. "Keiko?"

"Yes?" I said.

She beamed sleepily. "You look so pretty in your new dresses. We'll go somewhere fancy next time so you can wear them."

"Ah—all right?"

"I'll see you next time." She nodded, almost to herself. "This was fun, wasn't it?"

"Um. Yeah." I stepped closer, reaching for her shoulder. "But what—?"

Naru gave an impish giggle and covered her mouth with her fingers. Then Naru's eyes closed. Her face relaxed. Then it tensed, features screwing up tight, and she hunched forward over her knees, fingers winding tight into her hair as she gave a low, long groan.

"Well, well, well," grumbled the person who had once been Naru. "She did it again."

I snatched back my hand with a gasp.

Their voice was nasally and a touch abrasive, a far cry from Naru's smooth and ladylike speech. The man—because this was definitely a man now—sat up with a scowl, glaring at me down the length of his thin nose. The expression was hawkish and sharp, like a razor turned human, so alien to Naru's soft smiles that he looked almost like a different person entirely despite inhabiting the same body. I had to suppress another gasp when he dragged his hands through his hair and pushed it back over the top of his head, that severe style favored by Sensui in the anime.

"She always does this when she drinks," he muttered in that same nasal tone; his upper lip curled into a sneer. "That brat enjoys the best part but as soon as the going gets tough, she goes to sleep and leaves me with cleanup."

Itsuki scooted an inch away from him across the chaise. "Hello to you, too, George," he said, an amused smile tugging the corner of his mouth.

'George' only harrumphed before eyeing the litany of discarded champagne flutes on the side table. "I should have known better than to listen to her," he lamented, but the kind of lamentation that said he thought the whole thing was horribly stupid and regretted ever being born, in a sarcastic kind of way. "I should have known what she was planning the moment she ordered that damn vegetarian crepe." Here he eyed me over, even more derision sneaking into his voice. "Not that she's one for making smart choices."

"George," Itsuki said, a note of warning in his voice.

"Consorting with humans," George continued unfettered. He tossed his hair with an even more hostile sneer. "Feh! Isn't that just like her?" He shook his head. "Well, at least she didn't eat any meat tonight. If she'd done that, made me puke up putrid flesh—but she knows better. I have to clean tomorrow. I have to cook for the week. Without me, that lovely clean home of ours would—" He paused. The sneer faded. He hung his head and muttered, "But that's my job. My role. What I was created for. What I was—"

The personality called George stood. He held steadier than Naru when she'd tried to drunkenly climb to her feet, movements clipped and methodical and efficient and maybe even stiff—a far cry from Naru's lithe dancer's grace. He held himself differently than Naru had, too, weight distributed in different ways, leading with his slightly lowered head instead of his chest. I couldn't help but stare as he walked slowly toward the door; he looked absolutely like a different person, and when the shop-keeper walked through the door and held it open for him, her jaw dropped in confusion. Seems I wasn't the only one who noticed the difference a personality made…

The shop employee recovered after George disappeared through the doorway; she carried over a hanging bag full of dresses and handed this to Itsuki with yet another bow, and then she ushered us (politely) out of the private dressing area and into the front of the store. We passed display cases of jewelry and other accessories on our way to the door, where we caught up with George in time to walk together onto the outside sidewalk. The workers bowed at us in our wake, and as soon as we crossed the threshold, they shut the front door and turned off the lights behind us.

It had indeed gotten late, after all. The downtown streets of Mushiyori City were nearly deserted, only the barest number of pedestrians walking down the sidewalks beneath the sparkling skyscrapers above. George stared up at these and scowled before rubbing his temples, muttering something I couldn't hear. He looked pained, almost, but maybe he just didn't like being drunk.

Still, I was worried for him. "George?" I said, but Itsuki put his hand lightly on my arm and shook his head.

"Forgive him," he murmured in my ear as George began to meander down the street, still rubbing at his temples. "He's less sympathetic to the human race than my Naru." Itsuki slung the bag of dresses over his shoulder, staring after George through narrowed eyes. "Truth be told, George and Naru are much alike. They both adore the natural world here, but Naru has sympathy for humans where George does not."

I vaguely remembered something about that from the chapter notes of a YYH volume—that the female personality pitied humans, whereas another who loved the natural world did not. Must've been George, then. I filed that away for future reference and asked, "What did he mean by his role?"

"All of them have a role." Itsuki shrugged. "Naru is the outlet for creativity and kindness. George handles the daily drudgery none of the others wish to undertake."

"And the others?" I said.

Itsuki merely smiled. "I won't give up information that easily." And yet, despite the admonishment, his eyes softened. "I owe you a debt of thanks."

I blinked. "Huh?"

"Naru was distraught over the night you met. She was so desperate to see you again, and to make the wrongs right." Again he looked after George, this time looking troubled—but no less affectionate, even if Naru had left in favor of letting George loose. "I worry for her mental health, but I think, with the aid of a treasured friend, she will be…"

"You ass."

Itsuki stepped away, taken aback by my hissed words. "Beg pardon?" he said, looking at me as if I'd just vomited on his shoes.

I wanted to do much worse than that, though. My fists clenched, breath like dragon's smoke on the cold air.

"Don't make me out to be some sort of gregarious saint," I spat. "'Treasured friend?' What the hell are you even talking about?" My head shook like a dog trying to rid its ears of fleas. "Don't thank me like I made some selfless sacrifice to be here. Don't act like I chose to be here! You know I wouldn't have come if you hadn't—!"

"Threatened the boy?" A low laugh. "I confess I was not sure if that would work. You haven't been friends for long, after all."

Words failed. When I'd fled from Itsuki that night we met, he'd managed to whisper in my ear that Amanuma would be the cost for refusing Itsuki's next summons—that if he had need of me, and I refused to come to him, the boy's safety could not be guaranteed. And this too was what he'd promised on the phone when he summoned me to that café. He hadn't mentioned Naru, of course. I thought I'd be accessory to some horrible crime, but instead there had come that overture of friendship—and yet here he was acting as if I'd come simply because I was Naru's friend. Well, that might have been the lie he told her, that I'd come of my own volition, but that just wasn't true. I hadn't come for Naru. I'd come because—

My eyes cut to George's retreating back.

To the back that was also Naru's, that sad and sweet girl who was dying and merely needed a friend to lean on in her final days.

My fury cooled. I stood there, as useless as a fizzling firework, while Itsuki looked me over the way a butcher sizes up a cut of meat.

"I suspect that next time I call," he said, delicate as razor wire, "I might not need to resort to threats to guarantee your presence."

I hated that he could read me that well, or read minds, or whatever it was he was doing to know what had happened in my head in the last five seconds. I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and turned away, chin buried deep in my scarf to hide my scowl. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm more of a saint than you know," I muttered. "But whatever. No way would I let you hurt a little kid. He doesn't deserve to be used the way you used him. Amanuma didn't do anything wrong."

"I suppose that's true, in some senses," Itsuki said, words maddeningly calm. "But to throw a wrench into our plans is sin enough."

"Then blame me for that, not him," I said. "He didn't know any better."

Itsuki rounded on me, staring me down nose to nose from merely an inch away. "I do blame you," he said, golden eyes gleaming like gilt poison. "Naru, however, does not. So I bite my tongue and do as she bids."

"You love her."

I'm not sure what made me blurt out that observation, but whatever had compelled me to speak that truth, it guided me well. Itsuki's eyes simmered; he pulled away, staring at me as his brow furrowed.

"So blunt," he said under his breath. "But, yes. She is precious to me. As you would make sacrifices for that boy, so too would I make sacrifices for her. And for all that she is, deep down." Again his eyes drifted to George's back, far away now on the sidewalk. "She would prefer it if you were allies, for all her pretense of mere friendship. You would be useful. She knows this. But she is soft, and she wishes you happiness, even if she sees what you will become."

"That's the second time you've said that."

Itsuki seemed to come back to himself, looking at me with a subtle start. "Hmm?"

"What I will become," I repeated. "You've alluded to that before. What do you mean?"

His eyes widened. "You mean none of your friends have noticed?" he said, with surprise that seemed nothing less than genuine.

I glared. "Noticed what?"

He didn't reply. He passed his hand through his hair, gaze distant and looking past me, not at me. "So not even the operatives handpicked by Spirit World…" He chuckled, lips lifting in a smile. "Perhaps they are incompetent, after all."

My teeth showed. "Hey, don't you talk about my friends like—"

Itsuki took a swift step in my direction, eyes intensifying; I fell quiet at once. "No. Not incompetent," he said, once more searching my face for something I could not name. "Merely blind. Blinded by notions preconceived, unable to see you for what you truly are."

He wasn't trying to intimidate me, and yet that is exactly what he did. The intensity of his stare, so assessing and perceptive, rendered me frozen in place on the sidewalk. But soon his gaze softened, this time with… was that sadness I saw in his expression, bitter and warm like a shot of stinging whiskey in the throat?

"Oh, my poor, dear Keiko," Itsuki said. "Your friends must think so little of you, not to see the truth so plainly writ across your face."

Our stares held a moment longer.

He passed the garment bag of Naru's gifted dresses to me, and I took hold of them on reflex.

Then, without a word, Itsuki walked down the street after George, and the two of them vanished into the shadows as one—leaving me no choice but to go my own way home, desperately curious but utterly impotent to act upon that curiosity.

My confusion faded into grief, however, as soon as I reached home.

Yusuke was not there.

I tried call, but it was no use. Kuwabara did not know where he'd gone, and Atsuko said she hadn't seen him. Yusuke had vanished like Itsuki into the night, unwilling to wait for me and my delayed explanations.

He would not return home again at all, I realized eventually, and would go straight to the Tournament from Genkai's.

Coincidentally, Kuwabara and I had one of our usual study sessions the day after Yusuke pulled his disappearing act. He let me into his house like a shamefaced dog about to get a scolding, head hanging low as we headed for the kitchen table, and I wasted no time starting in on an interrogation. He'd lied to me, after all, and call me a hypocrite for being mad about it if you want, but my grief from the night before had turned quite swiftly into anger and I wasn't in the mood to pull punches.

"How long was he in town before I found out?" I said, voice deathly hushed as I set my book bag on the tabletop.

"Just a few days." The words poured from Kuwabara like an overglutted reservoir; I sensed he was in no mood to mince words, either. "Came by to drop off some stuff for class and get some notes. Also his clothes got torn all to hell during training and he needed to pick up new ones." A scowl, annoyed and crabby. "Left me with most of his laundry, that asshole."

The notes struck a chord—I'd noticed he was missing a few homework assignments. Maybe he'd been in town, unbeknownst to me, and had picked them up himself. No way to know, though. If Kuwabara wasn't mentioning previous visits from Yusuke, odds are he'd only gone to Kuwabara once.

"I'll do it. I do most of his laundry anyway," I said, my ire cooling a little. "Not that he's grateful."

Kuwabara hummed and murmured a thanks, but then his expression darkened. "Say, Keiko? Why are you two fighting, anyway?"

I sighed. "So you noticed."

"I mean, it was kind of hard not to?" he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Normally he pesters you with laundry and school crap, not me, but there he was, showing up on my doorstep without even calling first." He threw up his hands in exasperation. "I told him to go see you or to go home to his place, but he wouldn't. Said he didn't want to see you. But why would he not wanna do that?" Kuwabara looked plaintive, then, eyes huge with worry. "I know you two are close. You're basically siblings. Remind me of me and Shizuru, more or less. So why?"

My blood ran a little cold in my chest, chilled by adrenaline and Kuwabara's searching gaze. "He… it's hard to explain," I said, words lame even to my ears.

Luckily Kuwabara wasn't the type to pry. "Well, the good news is that I'm not gonna pressure you into explaining when it's hard," he said, crossing his arms and nodding with matter of fact assurance. "Just come talk to me when you're ready, OK?"

"Thanks, Kuwabara. You're a good friend."

He beamed, though he tried to hide it. "The best, even?"

"The best," I assured him.

"Heh." He rubbed a finger beneath his nose and grinned, chin thrust high. "I mean, it comes naturally, but thank you for the compliment." And with that he pulled out a chair and opened up his book bag. "Now, about this English homework—"

I sat beside him at the table, but I didn't look too hard at his books. "Kuwabara?" I said, voice low with worry.

He picked up on that worry at once. "What is it?" he said, angling himself toward me in his chair. "Are you OK, Keiko?"

"You, uh…" I swallowed. "What would you do if you had to keep a secret from Shizuru, and she found out? Not what the secret is, just the fact that you have one. Would you tell her the secret?" My voice dropped even lower as Kuwabara's eyes widened. "Even if telling her could hurt her?"

But he didn't have to think about his answer, even with that corollary. "That's easy," he replied at once. "I'd tell her what the secret is. Shizuru can take care of herself and she'd kick my butt if I kept my mouth shut." He put a finger to his chin, eyes moving skyward. "But I guess if Shizuru is Yusuke in this equation… is it some Spirit World stuff or somethin'?"

I winced. "More or less."

"Hmm." He tapped his chin a few times, then met my anxious eyes with a reassuring smile. "Siblings are tough. You want to protect them, but they can be stubborn. Yusuke and Shizuru have that in common." For a second he hesitated, but then he nodded at me. "Whatever it is, I think I'd tell him. Or her? Or however this metaphor is supposed to work; oh, you know what I mean!" He shook his head to get himself back on track. "Shizuru and I fight a lot, but she'd be there for me if I needed her even if we were fighting. Yusuke I think would do the same for you." He leaned in close, puppy-eyes on full and watery display. "But Keiko, you gotta make it right at some point. He's not the patient type, y'know? So the longer you wait, the worse it'll get."

I hated that he was right about that and had to resist the urge to yank out a fistful of my hair. Instead I just sighed and looked at the tabletop, dejected. "Yeah. I agree." But I made sure to look at him warmly, so he wouldn't think I was mad. "Thanks."

The warmth was exactly what Kuwabara wanted, I think, because he beamed at me again. "Heh. Any time," he said as his cheeks turned pink. With a cough he opened up his book and tapped the bottom of it against the table. "Well, we gotta hit the books. I've got a test tomorrow!"

He had a test to take, and so did I—though mine had precious little to do with school.

As soon as my study session with Kuwabara ended, I went home and pulled out the stationary set my mother had given to me as a New Year's present. I stared at it for perhaps longer than I'd like to admit, but eventually—after an internal war that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning—I took a deep breath and reluctantly put pen to paper.

The minute the nib hit stationary, the words all but exploded into being. It was like falling into a trance, writing the letter, and when I woke up again I found myself with an aching hand and a stack of paper a quarter of an inch thick, all of it covered in my spidery scrawl. I had to go back and edit it when I was done. There were some tricks in place I needed to finesse, tricks that kept the truth from eyes not meant to see it. Tricks and traps set, with shaking fingers I folded the papers and placed them in an envelope, and upon the front of that envelope I scrawled a short note.

"This is the truth," I wrote. "Once you read it, there's no going back. I leave the decision to you."

"You are the closest thing I have had to a brother in this, or in any, life."

"I'm sorry. And I hope you can forgive me."

I stared at the envelope that held my fate, my truth, for many minutes.

Then I tucked it inside a large envelope, affixed a stamp, and scrawled Genkai's address across the front.

But don't think I was that brave just yet. Of course, then I had to grapple with the idea of actually mailing the damn thing, and that's a feat much harder said than done, lemme tell ya.

The next day before school, I found myself standing in front of a mailbox a block or two away from the school gates. I stared at it, at that dark slot on the front where I could place my envelope, like a gladiator eyeing the gate that would release a lion into the arena. My hands shook, creasing the heavy packet of paper and streaking its front with sweat. I avoided touching the address on the front in fear of smearing it, holding the envelope by the edges like someone holding a venomous snake by the back of the head. Despite the chilly day, damp from the oncoming springtime, sweat beaded between my shoulder blades and on my forehead. To drop the letter or not drop the letter. To place it in the box or to take it home again, to stew on it and leave it in my drawer, or—

"What are you doing?"

I flinched and stifled a small scream, but it was only Kaito standing behind me on the sidewalk. I put a hand to my heart and fanned myself with the letter, leaning on the mailbox for support.

"Oh my god, it's just you," I said as his brow hefted dangerously close to his hairline. "Hi, Kaito."

"Hi, yourself," he said. "I will ask again: What are you doing?"

"Who, me?" I laughed, then heaved a weary sigh. "Just trying to be brave, is all."

Kaito frowned. "Brave?"

"Yup."

He stared at me. I stared at him. He looked at the letter in my hand. He looked at the mailbox. He looked at my face, my features arranged in a sunny, fake smile.

"… you aren't going to elaborate, are you?" he said.

I grinned harder. "Probably not."

He considered this a moment. "Well, then," he said.

We stood in silence.

Then, quick as a striking viper, he plucked the letter from my hand and dropped it in the mailbox.

I was too stunned to move, but as he turned on his heel to march away, the spell of shock he'd cast upon me crumbled. "Hey, wait a second—what in the flying fuck was that for?!" I screeched as I dashed after him.

Kaito just shrugged, not bothering to break his stride. "You were overthinking it, whatever it was," he said. "Oh. And you're welcome."

"I didn't say thanks."

"No. But you were thinking it." Another shrug. "Or you would've thought it, eventually. Which is the same thing in my book."

I started to tell him he was a douchebag and I hated his guts—but I didn't, because it wasn't true, and because he was probably right. If he hadn't intervened, there was a chance I would've squirreled the letter away in my desk and procrastinated past the point of no return, just avoided what I needed to do in hopes the situation would go away on its own sans my intervention.

But there was no avoiding this situation, but now that that letter was in the box, I had faced it head on. With a little help from Kaito, of course.

"Yeah," I grudgingly admitted as I fell into step beside him. "I guess I probably would have."

"Harrumph." He shoved his glasses up his nose and smirked into the folds of his thick scarf. "Let's go. No sense being late."

We weren't late to school that day.

I just hoped my letter wasn't too late, too, for all the effort I'd put into it.

The next few weeks passed in what I can only describe as a cliché flash—but also at a slow crawl, paradox as maddening as it was utterly inexplicable.

Twice a week or so, I'd catch sight of Botan leaving the alley with Hiei, her blue hair flashing in the floodlights from the view of my bedroom window. She sometimes crashed at my place afterward, and sometimes I'd find her passed out at Atsuko's covered in bruises with her hair fanned and tangled across the pillows. I didn't see much of her (though I did finally pin down the pattern of where she liked to crash on which nights of the week), but truth be told I was too busy with my own training with Hideki-sensei to pay Botan's lessons much attention. Minato had become a fixture at our weekly lessons, and afterward Kagome, Minato and I would go out for dinner or a snack to catch up and chat. Other nights I met with Kuwabara for our lessons, and still other nights I'd make dinner for Hiei under the guise of our weekly parole meetings (and sometimes he'd still try to help me break through the red walls in my mind, though in that venture we had little success to speak of). Ayame, too, slipped into my schedule to collect my reports on the boys, but I had scant little to say each week beyond outlining their training progress and telling her they weren't falling apart emotionally with the dread of the impending Tournament. We were all too busy, myself included, to really dread its approach. Attending the weekend training sessions and bringing the boys (aside from the ever-absent Yusuke) lunch each week also marked the flow of time, the above events blurring into one another like a movie reel played at hyper speed.

And then night came, as it always did, and passed like that same movie slowed way the fuck down.

Kurama was the first one to notice how tired I looked as the weeks trickled and sped by. We were attending one of our weekly parole meetings—meetings we only barely pretended weren't excuses to simply hang out with each other and commiserate—when he brought it up. "You look tired, Kei," he said, studying the bags beneath my eyes with obvious concern. "Are you sleeping well?"

In truth, I wasn't. I could distract myself during the day with training, homework, meetings, study sessions, but at night? Unless Hiei came around to help worm into my own memories, I was alone and idle, and idle minds are just as much a devil's playground as ones hands. Night meant time for contemplation, and time for contemplation inevitably led to uncontrollable fixation and obsession, which caused undue anxiety, which snowballed and tied my stomach into tenterhook-addled knots of pain and anguish, lying awake and wondering when the penny would drop and Yusuke would read my letter and call me in a fury, or maybe he'd feel betrayed, or maybe he'd hate me and—

I explained, in terms both halting and desolate, what had transpired between Yusuke and myself. Kurama and I had gone to our usual hangout in the Sarayashiki square to watch the lindy hoppers, sitting at our favored table over a plate of shared food and cups of tea while I told him the whole story. Although telling him what happened wasn't exactly pleasant, it wasn't exactly unpleasant, either. The tension had been driving me nuts, and talking to Kagome and Minato about it wasn't enough to ease it all. They weren't close to Yusuke like Kurama was. Kurama was both a Switcheroo person in his own right, and he knew all parties involved in my plight. Talking to him was like letting loose the stopper at the bottom of a bathtub, tension draining from my chest with every word.

"So you sent him a letter," he murmured when I was through.

"Yeah." I nodded, slumping bonelessly in my seat. "It explains everything." Or at least it told him where to go to get said explanations; I scowled at nothing in particular, hoping he'd figure it out. "No idea if he'll read it or burn it, though…"

"I'm surprised. You seemed intent on carrying your secret to the grave," Kurama observed.

"Yeah, well. Something had to give." I shifted in my seat, tracing the rim of my mug with a finger. "You know everything. Hiei knows a good deal of it from reading my mind, though he refuses to let me give him the whole story. Yusuke apparently picked up on all the crap I pull, and since it's come between us this badly…"

"And Kuwabara?"

I looked up with a frown to find Kurama staring at me, his head tilted to one side. His hair looked black in the half-light of the café, eyes also dark instead of their usual luminous green. We traded a long look before I took a sip of tea and set it carefully aside.

"He'll be the last to know," Kurama said, "if Yusuke reads that letter."

"Yes," I admitted. "That's true."

"And he would be hurt, to know he had been left out."

"Yes," I repeated. "That's also true."

Kurama's head tilted the barest fraction to the side. "Why haven't you written him a letter, then?"

I hesitated, and Kurama gave me the space to explore that hesitation, find my words and loose them one by one like guided arrows. "I worry," I began, but then I stopped and shook my head. "It's hard to admit, but I didn't have a lot of friends in my past life. I mean, I had friends, but not a lot of them. And not very many that I made as a kid lasted to adulthood." It was tough keeping a grimace off my face. "So I guess I just… I value the ones I've made in this life. I want them to last. And I guess I thought if I told them the truth, I'd lose them." That last part was the hardest to admit of all; I did not dare look at Kurama when I said it. "But if Yusuke calls me screaming about the contents of that letter, I'll tell Kuwabara right away."

Kurama said, "I'm tempted to think you're merely avoiding the pain of a potentially rejected confession."

"Like a schoolgirl with a crush." I snorted. "How ironic, all things considered."

"Ironic, indeed," he replied. "And like a confession of feelings, it will only be more difficult to reveal the truth the longer you wait to do so."

"I'm aware of that, too."

He picked up his mug. Took a sip. Set it down again. "Then I won't lecture you," he said, folding his hands neatly atop the table.

"Thanks," I said.

"But if you'd like to practice what you might say, I volunteer my services."

I couldn't help but grin. "Kurama's Improv Class for Reluctant Liars. Nice. I'll let you know."

He laughed, a low chuckle deep in the back of his throat, and took another sip of tea before turning the topic of conversation elsewhere.

That moment with him at the café bled into many others we shared as time marched inexorably toward the Tournament, though I reflected upon it often in the days that followed—days that I filled with more fighting practice of my own, plus a few forays to the library to research ways to become psychic. Obviously I found none that worked, though there was that one incident Kagome and Minato helped me with that involved getting covered with mud and glitter and bathing in moonlight in the middle of a river while drinking blessed green tea upside down, and the cops saw us and we had to dash dripping through the streets—

Anyway.

We were in a holding pattern, more or less, one characterized my scheduled meets and training and the regular perils of being a teen, and this pattern lasted for weeks and weeks—until one day, I got a phone call that changed everything.

Kuwabara was the one to place that call. "Hey, Keiko?" he said, voice pitched high with panic and confusion when I picked up the line. "Was my sister really at beautician school?"

"That's what she told me," I said, careful to avoid a lie. "Why?"

"Well, she just stumbled through the front door and she's beat to hell, that's why!" he warbled. "So unless beauticians have also started moonlighting as professional wrestlers—?!"

"Oh," I said, trying to sound suitably concerned. "Well, that's certainly weird!"

"I'll say! Her arms are black and blue!"

I pretended to act shocked; Kuwabara didn't appear to notice my deception, probably too distracted by his sister's condition to care, and that worked in my favor very well.

I couldn't look too eager, now could I? No. That would tip Kuwabara off, and that was something I just couldn't risk.

For the next week—one of the final weeks before spring break arrived and the Dark Tournament began—Kuwabara called her every day to report on Shizuru's wellbeing. I called him when he forgot, cloaking my calls in the veil of concern to keep my true motives at bay. Per Kuwabara, Shizuru was grouchy and she slept almost all day, only appearing to cook and eat food before retreating to her room to go to bed again. Her naps were coma-like in their intensity, he said, but eventually he called to tell me that Shizuru had awoken for more than five minutes at long last. "She's on the couch getting caught up on her soap operas," he fretted, "but she still won't tell me how she got all those bruises, and I'm really, really worried!"

"Well, it's like you said," I told him. "She's tough. She can take care of herself. She'll tell you when she's ready, right?"

Kuwabara grumbled an affirmative—and when Sunday rolled around, when I could rest assured that the boys were in the woods training and I wouldn't be disturbed, I walked to tough-as-nails Shizuru's house and knocked on the door. She opened it after a minute, brow lifting in subtle greeting when she saw who'd come to call.

"Hi, Shizuru. Welcome back," I said. "Do you have a minute?"

"Sure," she said. "Why?"

"Not here. Follow me."

Her brow lifted even higher at that, but she grabbed her shoes and did as I asked without argument. Good ol' Shizuru, am I right?

Botan seemed to agree. Based on her sleeping patterns, I'd predicted we could find her at Atsuko's place, and she did not disappoint me. She answered the bell when I rang it and opened the door with a gasp, grinning ear to ear the moment she spotted Shizuru standing behind me. Atsuko snored on the cough in the living room, out of sight but sawing logs around the corner.

"Shizuru, you're back!" Botan squealed, and she threw her arms around Shizuru in delight. "I'm so happy to see you!" She stopped, pushing away from Shizuru to blink at me. "But wait. Keiko is here, too." Her ponytail whipped around when she looked between us. "What's going on?"

"Yeah, kid," Shizuru said with a dry glance in my direction. "I wouldn't mind a girl's morning out, maybe a nice mimosa over brunch, but what gives?"

I couldn't help but grin, though I quickly squashed the expression with one of comical gravity. "Shizuru. Botan," I said, favoring each woman in turn. "Now that we're gathered in one place, I think it's time."

"Time for what?" Shizuru groused.

"Yes, Keiko, please do clue us in!" Botan concurred.

A warm spring wind blew by, then, a reminder that winter had come and gone at last—bringing fate to us on its temperate zephyrs. At the feel of it on my skin, I couldn't help but grin again.

"Two weeks from today, the boys are leaving to face nearly certain death in a certain Dark Tournament," I said. "They have spent weeks planning their attacks in the woods, training with each other or with Genkai. And that means… well." Again I looked to each of them, gratified when understanding dawned one by one. "I think it's time the Girl Squad planned its attack, too."

There followed a moment of silence.

Shizuru rolled her head atop her neck; it gave a series of pops, loud and aggressive and full of promise.

"Well, don't just stand there," she said. "Let's get this show on the road, huh?"

Botan jumped in place, clapping and smiling and bouncing on her heels. "Oh, I know this might sound weird, but this is exactly what I've been waiting for!" she said, and without another word she beckoned us both inside.

And then, faster than I thought possible, the fateful day finally came.

It came without fanfare, without ominous foreboding, without even a big sendoff to mark the whole occasion. I don't think anyone wanted to jinx the road ahead by making grandiose promises or by suffering protracted farewells. The crew gathered to bid one another goodbye—everyone minus Yusuke—and then we went separate ways on the stoop of my parents' restaurant. The goodbyes hinged on the idea of not seeing one another until the tournament was through and everyone had made it home alive (or home in a casket), but even so, we kept it light. Breezy. As if impending death and dismemberment weren't held above our head on a single fraying thread. There were promises of safety, requests of care and caution, of course—but my smile stayed in place, confident and assured, and I made more jokes that expressions of dour doom.

"Acting chipper to keep up morale?" Kurama murmured just before we parted, and at that assumption I could only nod.

Little did even that sharp fox know that my smile wasn't an act at all, and that I felt as chipper as I looked.

Little did he know he'd be seeing me much sooner than he thought, and that this goodbye was only temporary.

Notes:

Surprise! Some of you guessed right that it was Itsuki/Sensui/Naru calling (and that other personality, George, who was once more outlined in the YYH manga notes at one point but never seen on-screen), and now you know what she promised and what he said to her when she was fleeing. He holds Amanuma's wellbeing over her head, blackmailing her cooperation in exchange for his safety. Not a great way to start a friendship, though…

Will Yusuke read Keiko's letter? Will she manage to get herself to the Tournament in a timely fashion? Good question. We'll find out soon.

Now: We need to talk about hiatuses.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I'm taking a hiatus in November, since I always go on hiatus in November to participate in NaNoWriMo. Additionally, I will also be taking two weeks off in October because I will 100% overwork myself if I try to update on October 6 and October 13. I have back to back artshows those weekends and just won't be able to handle the stress of updating AND producing/selling pieces and running a show. Thus, there will be three more updates before my November-long hiatus kicks in. They will fall on September 29, October 20 and October 27.

I will be taking all of the Saturdays in November off, as I always do. Buuuut December first is on a Saturday and I'll have been working on NaNo until the day before that (the 30th), and because I don't think I'll be able to write a chapter in a day, I'm taking December 1 off as well. If I finish NaNo early there's a chance I could have a chapter ready on December 1, but I don't want to risk making promises I can't keep.

Updates, therefore, will resume on December 8 once my NaNo-November hiatus ends.

Thank you everyone for understanding my need for this time off. I have only skipped one weekend update in almost two years (not including my scheduled hiatuses) after the death of my uncle, so the two additional hiatus weeks in October aren't really asking for much in the grand scheme of things. Please understand.

I am also still feeling very, very delicate right now regarding the death of my uncle. There was some drama at the funeral and it hurts. Many thanks to all of you who wished him/my family well during this difficult time. The funeral was on Friday and I spent the time driving out to the service writing this chapter. It was a wonderful distraction, but given how busy I am and how busy I'm about to become (I have a friend visiting from out of state next weekend, followed by two weekends' worth of art shows, and then I'm moving to a new apartment in November), I will need a break to go be by myself for a while. The November hiatus is very well-timed in that regard.

Many thanks to all those who reviewed chapter 81, and to those who wished my uncle and his family well. You sincerely shed light on a dark hour, and getting your well-wishes has meant so much more to me than I can possibly express: amarielah, Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, Eternalevecho, incrediblyincompetent, katsheswims, yaomomo, SunShark, Nollyn, Unctuous, Tewdrig, Kuramag33, DragonsTower, musiquemer, MageKing17, KittyWillCutYou, Masked_Trickster, drmsqnc, Jaffar_Toufan, Gerbilfriend, D_Ravenheart, Kit_Kat_Kate, EMMstAr, Just 2 Dream of You.

Chapter 83: The Eel's Eye Wharf Pleasure Cruises & Private Parties

Summary:

In which the title of this chapter will make sense in context, I swear.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As my fist collided with the bag's smooth leather surface, the chain above it rattled; Minato made a face, blue eyes narrowing in consternation with every blow. I ignored him even when one of my swings went wide and veered dangerously close to his hand. "Easy," he muttered, and I corralled my stance and tried to slow my erratic breathing.

Kagome, a few yards away, was doing stretches with some of Hideki's other students. She flipped up onto her hands with a giggle and walked on them in a circle, coaxing a laugh from the milling crowd of maybe eight young fighters. More students had joined Hideki's class as of late, the warehouse dojo livelier than ever.

I ignored them as best I could. I threw another punch. Minato made another face.

"So you leave tomorrow," Minato said.

I tore my eyes from Kagome and swung my hand at the punching bag before spinning into a low kick. "That's right," I grunted as my knee struck the bag's heavy center.

Minato rocked a little in place, absorbing my strike and holding the bag steady. "What time?"

"Night." Another kick. A feint. A punch. "Botan says the boats only leave at night."

"I see."

Movement flickered in my periphery. "Man, I sure am glad she knew how to get you to—um. To where you're going, that's for sure," said Kagome as she walked up. She carefully avoiding naming the place outright, eyes flickering warily toward our classmates.

"Well…" I hesitated; it was best not to get into the particulars with so many uninitiated ears about. I breathed deeply and just smiled, lobbing my fist at the punching bag again. "Me, too."

"I'm gonna miss you, though." She moved to stand over Minato's shoulder, arms crossed and smile rakish. "And so will Minato."

But Minato's eyebrow merely rose. "She'll only be gone a week, Kagome."

"Yeah, a whole entire week! And it's spring break!" Kagome protested. "Think of all the waterparks we could be hitting up!" Her eyes rolled. "But no-oh. You gotta go to the Tournament, dontcha, Eeyore. Bah!"

I grinned. "You could always stow away in my suitcase, if you think you'll miss me that much."

"Sorry, girl. I only fly first class."

Minato ignored our antics, pinning me in place with a hard stare. "You'll be careful, of course."

"Oh. Natch." My swing went wide again, a trickle of sweat sluicing down my temple. "But I'll be honest. It'll be tough without you both." I delivered a flurry of punches before backing off, hands hanging limp at my sides. "I'd've gone crazy these past few weeks without our get-togethers to see me through."

The pair of them smiled, each a bit ruefully (though Minato hid his emotions better than Kagome, mostly because the latter didn't bother to hide hers at all). They knew they had kept me sane these past few weeks, and that without them, I'd be a raving ball of manic worry. Yusuke's accusations, the letter, the conspicuous absence of any phone calls berating me for hiding the truth—I'd been in knots over it, and they had been the ones to hold my hand and make sure I didn't chew off my fingernails during that long wait.

That's why they had met me at my house and walked me to aikido practice, after all.

The boys had left that morning, and both of them knew my anxiety would have reached critical mass in the hours that followed.

I went through the motions of the night's lessons with half a heart, I confess. When I wasn't on the mat myself to demonstrate to the newbies some of Hideki's lessons, I watched Minato and Kagome with what was probably unsettling intensity—though I wasn't trying to be a creeper, I swear. I watched them and appreciated them and memorized their faces as they sparred and joked and socialized, committing to memory the friends I wouldn't see for at least a week. Something told me the memory of their faces would keep me afloat during the Tournament. Sure, I could always call them to vent (depending on the phone situation and the absence of eavesdroppers), but…

But what if I didn't make it home again?

No. Stop it. Don't be dramatic, girl. It was preposterous to think I'd get myself killed at the Tournament. Of course I'd make it home again.

Unless a demon murdered me or I fucked up and got myself killed or was trampled when the stadium started to collapse—

"Stop that," I muttered to myself, and I pinched my own thigh tightly between my fingers. Kagome would tell me to stop being so fatalistic. Minato would tell me to ignore the voices in my head and carry on. So that's what I'd do, I told myself. The memory of them would keep me sane in the week to come, so I might as well start listening to their advice now.

Might as well do that, and might as well savor every last second of the night's activities while I still could.

I pushed the worries to the back of my head and tried not to let my mind wander. It was tough, but I succeeded, and in doing so the lesson passed much quicker than I would've liked. Soon Hideki was telling us to gather our things, saying that he'd see us next week, and calling out the problems with our forms and stances he'd observed as we fought. Kagome rolled her eyes at his criticisms of her ("Stop giggling so much, dammit!") as we wiped the sweat off our faces and grabbed our bags from the pile in the corner, and when he called my name, I braced myself for the worst.

But the worst never came. He just called me name again, and when I turned to face him, he gestured for me to follow him across the warehouse.

It was never any use arguing with Hideki-sensei, so I didn't waste my energy and try. I just dogged his steps as he led the way to the cluster of broken and cracked practice dummies in the corner near the warehouse's main door. I gulped a bit when I realized that was where he wanted to go; it was where he always took me, or any of his students, when he wanted to say a word to them in private. So either my form tonight had been especially bad and he didn't want to embarrass me and berate me in public, or…

I honestly wasn't sure, so I kept it casual and grinned when we came to a stop on the center of the cluster of dummies. "Sup, sensei?" I said.

He spared no time for pleasantries. "I have a message from a certain mutual friend of ours."

"Cutting to the chase. I like it." We only had one friend in common, so I didn't bother asking for her name. "What'd she have to say?"

His glare was as hard as flint and nearly the same color. "That if she doesn't see you at a certain Tournament, it was nice knowing you."

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I swallowed. "That's… Um."

"Morbid?" Hideki shrugged. "Given where she's headed, I'm not surprised she'd call for a goodbye—even one as terse as that."

And he was right, of course. That kind of farewell was very much Genkai's style and her destination was indeed perilous… but it was even more perilous that Hideki assumed, and not because she was headed to the Dark Tournament itself. It was Toguro, not the Tournament, who presented Genkai the truer danger—but also, hey. Wait a second. Hideki knew about the Tournament?

I suppose the question showed on my face, because he nodded, a lock of greying hair falling onto his swarthy forehead. "Never seen the fights, myself. But I keep my ear to the ground." A brittle smile crossed his mouth, teeth bared and gleaming. "The rumor mill churns, even among stoic martial artists."

"I'll bet." It didn't escape my notice that he, too, avoided naming the Tournament outright. "Well. Thank you."

But he didn't turn to leave, nor did he wave me off like he normally would. He just stared, slouched with hands deep in his pockets, waiting until I started to fidget before speaking. "Yukimura."

I fidgeted some more. "Hmm?"

Another long stare—and then his lips gave the barest of quirks. "She also made sure to mention she has every intention of seeing you at the fights—mostly because you're a nosey brat if she's ever seen one, and she doesn't think you'll have the self-control to stay out of the fray for long." He held up his hands when my mouth fell open. "Her words, not mine."

It was all I could do to sputter an incensed, "I'll bet they were."

Hideki gave a dry chuckle, but he sobered quickly. "You gonna disappoint her?" he said, eyeing me over critically.

There was something in his look that gave me pause. My feet squared and my shoulders straightened on reflex. "You gonna try and stop me if I say no?" I said, eye contact bold and challenging.

We found ourselves in another staring match, at that point. It lasted a good, long time, moment bleeding into moment until it felt like a few minutes had passed—and judging by the way my unblinking eyes burned, I'm guessing the elongated time-sense wasn't entirely inaccurate. But soon Hideki harrumphed, and turned from me, and took a few brisk steps away into the dark.

I thought I'd won the staring contest (and the right to go to the dangerous Tournament without a lecture about my safety) but he returned from the dark just as quickly as he'd entered it. Upon his return he carried a big box in his hands, a plastic storage container with a clasp on the lid; this he set at my feet and opened without a word. I didn't have time to glance at its contents before he lifted something out of it and passed it my way. I took the object on reflex, staring at it with jaw slack as Hideki rummaged in the crate for something else.

He'd handed me a bandolier of throwing knives—a match for the one he'd gifted me months previous.

I started to thank him, but he shook his head before I could push the words free. He handed me another object (a roll of more knives) and then another (a shoulder holster with, you guessed it, more knives), and when once again I tried to speak, he shook his head again. I slung the belts and holsters over my shoulder as he handed me a jointed bo staff, and then a garrote, and then a set of brass knuckles I was pretty sure were illegal in Japan. Following that came yet another belt of backup knives and a pair of goddamn nun chucks I had no earthly clue how to wield, but Hideki didn't seem to care. He just survey me up and down—my hands precariously full of weapons, shoulders draped in armaments—before nodding once, motion as sharp as the blades in my grip.

"Uh," I said as he stood up. "Thank you?"

He didn't waste time on a 'you're welcome.' "Don't get killed," was all he said, and then his eyes glittered. "Oh. And take photos, would ya?" Another small smile, crooked and impish. "Always have wanted to see that contest for myself."

I saluted, nearly dropping the nun chucks in the process. "Roger that, sensei."

He harrumphed yet again, bending to grab the weapon cache off the ground and return it to its hiding place in the shadows. I pivoted on my heel to go, walking with care because I could feel the brass knuckles slipping through my sweating hands as I walked out of the crowd of practice dummies and back toward my friends—

Something collided with my shoulder. I staggered back with a small cry, startled, but it was only Ezakiya standing at the edge of the knot of dummies, hands outstretched as he caught one of the brass knuckles when it fell from my grasp. "Sorry, Eza," I said as I tried to heft the weapons higher in my arms. "Didn't see you there."

He gently placed the weapon atop the others with a small smile, brown eyes large and reticent. "Oh. Yeah. I suppose you didn't." He craned his neck to the side, looking around me and into the shadows beyond. "Sensei, do you have a minute?"

Hideki didn't reply. Eza frowned and walked around me, heading into the dummy-crowd with another call of our teacher's name—and since their business did not belong to me, I left them behind and headed back toward my friends.

It was time to savor their company for one last night, before we were separated and I was forced to run the full gauntlet of fate on Hanging Neck Island.

And let me tell you, we made the most of it. We got dinner, and ice cream afterward, and when we had our fill of food and laughs, we went back to my place. Minato and Kagome helped me pack for the week ahead, Kagome handling my wardrobe while Minato (who had very specific ideas about how to pack weaponry) handled the sordid and sundry rest. Most nights I wouldn't have enjoyed them micromanaging my suitcase like this, but that night, I was just grateful for their company. Every time I delved into my suitcase in the coming week, I would see a little bit of them in the folds of my shirts and the secretive placement of weapons throughout my bag.

When it came to comfort in the face of potential dismemberment and death, I'd take whatever little things I could get.

Ayame's deep eyes swept over the breadth of my report like a spill of ink, liquid and dark. For a moment she did not speak. When she did finally deign to talk, her eyes didn't lift from the folder of papers in her hands. "You'll be bored this week," she murmured.

Standing across the clearing from her, I frowned and shifted from foot to foot. "Hmm?"

"Without the Detective. I imagine you won't have much to do in his absence." She closed the folder of my reports with a snap and tucked it beneath her arm, eyes now sweeping critically over me, instead. "Well. Allow me to amend that statement, as you've been without the Detective for some time. What I mean is, the others are gone now, too. Without all of them to occupy your time in the coming week…"

She trailed off in that way people trail off when they knew you knew exactly what it was they weren't saying—that meaningful, slow lapse into silence (accompanied by sustained eye contact) that said as much as it withheld. I rubbed my upper lip with a finger and sniffed, teeth clenching together tight. I'd met with Ayame many times since Yusuke left, our usual meetings not stopping even with the threat of the Tournament looming. No rest for the weary, even in times of crisis. How very governmental of Spirit World to keep sending her to collect my reports, thin as they'd become in the absence of Yusuke and his cases as Spirit Detective. And now that all the boys had left to attend the Tournament, that report in her hand was quite slender indeed.

When Ayame didn't say anything else, just looked at me expectantly, I shrugged. "Nah. Them being gone'll be like a vacation, as far as I'm concerned."

"Indeed." A smile ghosted across her red mouth. "Perhaps I should let you take off our weekly meeting, in that case." She rapped the folder with the back of her hand. "You won't have much to report, parted from them as you'll be."

"That's true."

She studied me a moment, eyes going hooded and even darker for that shade. "So you'd like the time off?" she asked, voice characteristically delicate.

"Well. Yeah?" I shifted from foot to foot again and this time rubbed at the back of my sweating neck. Springtime sun beat down from above, sun unobscured by cloud. "Of course I would. Getting up this damn early on a Saturday isn't my idea of a good time…"

Ayame studied me another moment—and then her chin ducked, a light, pretty chuckle building in her throat. "And to think," she said with the smallest of smiles, "I assumed you'd try to follow them into the mouth of the lion's den. You've surprised me, Keiko."

My heart jumped when she said that, of course, not to mention when she trained her depthless eyes on my face once more—and this time something new edged her gaze, a razor blade of intention that belied her casual smile. She watched me without blinking as I forced a smile of my own. As always, I needed to be very careful regarding my reaction here. A traditional Japanese beauty Ayame most certainly was, but imperceptive? Don't make me laugh.

I kept it neutral and opted for a joke. "Gotta keep you on your toes, I guess," I said. And as for my reply, well. Less is more. Deny too much and I'd look guilty as hell.

And Ayame seemed to buy my dispassion. "I suppose you do," she said, voice thoughtful and mild. She tucked the reports under her arm again and bowed; when she rose again, her smile was warm. "I see no reason to extend this meeting, I believe you'll be relieved to hear. Enjoy your holiday. On behalf of Spirit World, I grant you a week's vacation time."

I grinned back and turned to leave. "Thanks." I lifted a hand. "See ya round, Ayame."

She hummed, noncommittal but affirming, as I walked through the clearing's tall grass toward the edge of the forest—but just as I lifted a hand and placed it on the bark of the nearest tree, preparing to wade through the brush, her voice called out to me over the springtime wind.

"Be careful, Keiko," said Ayame, voice as soft as dandelion down. "Please."

I looked at her over my shoulder—and strangely, my heart didn't kick up a fuss at what those words implied. It beat on at its stolid pace as usual, even when my eye met hers and I saw that the pretense had vanished from her face. Worry clouded her vision, cast thin lines over her powdered brow, made a thin line of her normally voluptuous mouth. It wasn't like her to be so raw.

What that said about her thoughts on this dire situation, I didn't quite want to think about.

So, I didn't. I just gave her a deep nod of farewell, and I forced a smile, and I hoped that those things would be enough for ease her troubled mind before I let myself vanish into the woods beyond the clearing.

Shizuru picked me up from my house late that afternoon, as we'd arranged ahead of time. I had packed a duffle and a backpack, and I wore my hiking boots and a flannel shirt to really sell my alibi to my parents. Shizuru, however, made no such efforts, wearing her normal tailored menswear and shined dress shoes as was her custom. Dad lifted a brow at that when she appeared at our back door bearing a duffle of her own, scanning her from bottom to top once and then twice over.

"You're gonna go hiking in that?" he asked.

"What can I say?" Shizuru tossed her hair. "These clothes just suit me. Ready?"

She's said that last part to me specifically, and in response I hefted my bag a little higher. "Yeah. I am."

"Now, you be careful, dear." Mom came out from behind Dad and clasped my shoulders. "It's odd that you're leaving so late in the day, but I guess since the goal is good stargazing, it can't be helped. Call us if you need anything and we'll come get you."

"All right, Mom."

"Thank you for agreeing to chaperone the camping trip, Shizuru." Dad elbowed her arm with a conspiratorial smile and whispered, "Let me know if you need a break from the brats though, eh?"

"Heh." Her mouth curled. "Now you're speaking my language."

"And tell your father hello from us next time you see him," Mom told her.

"Will do." She gave them a nod and turned on her heel, marching smartly off down the length of the alley. "C'mon, Keiko. Train'll leave soon."

"Right!" I gave my parents each a swift hug before trotting after Shizuru. "Bye Mom! Bye Dad!"

Mom waved her hand back and forth over her head like she was directing air traffic. "Be careful, honey!"

"We'll miss you!" Dad added, and then I rounded the corner of the restaurant and lost sight of them completely.

I tried not to let it show on my face that the thought of never seeing them again had crossed my mind as they vanished. I fear I did a bad job—but Shizuru still had her back to me, walking a few feet ahead down the sidewalk, and she didn't see me wipe at my swelling eyes. In fact, she didn't turn to look at me until we were several blocks away. She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit up, exhaling a plume of grey smoke into the afternoon air. "They bought it hook, like, and sinker, huh?" she said. "That bullshit about a camping trip in the mountains for spring break?"

I gave a grim smile as I fell into step beside her. "Years of being a good girl finally paid off."

"Seems that way." She looked at me askance. "You remember the address? I can dig it out of my bag if…"

"Nah. I remember."

I'd burned the spot, and the route to get to it, into my brain over the past few days, committing every turn to memory so we wouldn't risk getting lost. We walked through the city streets on sure feet as we made our way to the train station, and then onto a certain train line, which we rode out of Sarayashiki and into Tokyo without saying much. A few line changes followed, diverting us around the heart of Tokyo and then southeast down the line to Yokohama and the coast. We rode mostly in silence—but just as we passed the Tokyo Aquarium, its light visible from the window we stood near, her voice murmured close to my ear.

"Calm down," she said. "It'll be fine."

I shook myself. "I'm calm, I'm calm."

She snorted. "Calm, my ass. You're about to gnaw your own lip off."

And so I was. My lower lip burned, chapped from chewing and the dry air of the train car. I kept my eyes locked on my reflection in the window and tried not to fidget (or start babbling out of nerves) as we neared our stop. Eventually we disembarked at a station located in the middle of an industrial district full of warehouses and dingy office buildings. The scent of cool, salted air greeted us the minute we stepped onto the station's platform; the scent grew stronger as we walked down the street, past gutted old shopping centers and boarded-up businesses. The address Botan had given us was through here, through this dingy bit of Yokohama, the smell of lingering garbage, rotting fish and motor oil not quite drowned out by the scent of the nearby sea. I hated cigarette smoke most days, but Shizuru's bad habit at least helped dull the scent a little, and I stuck close to her elbow as we reached the coast.

There on the coast of Tokyo Bay lay a network of warehouses and docks, crumbling and rusted and partially abandoned for the newer sections of developed coastline to the north. The border between land and sea had been shored up in a series of concrete walls, a tangle of piers and jetties jutting off the barrier and into the dark, choppy water beyond like a basket of spilled yarn. Some of the docks crumbled away into the sea, falling to pieces in disrepair. Boats with dingy, patchwork hulls bobbed on the waves; only some of them looked seaworthy, I noticed, but lights burned in a few of their round portholes like perhaps vagrants had taken up residence inside. As we looked north and south down the line of the coast, standing near the metal railing that kept us from a stark drop into black water, I reminded myself to watch my step. I had no idea what lurked in the water below, and even though my past-life phobia of dark water hadn't followed me into this life with its former intensity, the thought of a shark brushing against my thigh as I fell into cold, deep saltwater—

Shizuru made a sound of warning in her throat (and a good thing, too, because that horrifying mental image of teeth sinking into flesh and water rushing into screaming lungs had grabbed hold of me tight). Yanked from my dire daydream, I looked at her in time to see her nod south down the length of the seawall.

Three men, old as my father but with smiles far more predatory, eyed us from the mouth of a dilapidated old fishery.

My heart jumped into my throat. Shizuru, however, did not appear perturbed. She stalked away and muttered at me to follow, and when we came abreast of the men, she delivered unto them the single coldest and sharpest glare I'd ever seen grace a human face.

At her look the men blanched, turned, and vanished into the depths of the fishery in comically timed unison.

Shizuru and I walked down the length of the seawall for a time after that, passing piles of empty shipping crates, barrels of collected rainwater, a small mountain of torn fishing net, and a pile of gutted fish carcasses and bones that stank too much for Shizuru to mask with her smoking. We edged past that with hands over our mouths and noses until the seawall came to an end, dropping off sharply into the brine without so much as a warning sign. There was no rail there, either, and the concrete was slick with the spray of the nearby waves. I held back from the edge as we came to a stop, heart beating a little faster as the waves picked up and came close to the top of the wall itself.

Shizuru flicked her cigarette butt toward the water. Twilight had fallen during our travels, the butt a thin red ember streaking through the gloom before it vanished into the quenching waves. Even the sunset looked muted on this dock, casting only the vaguest of pink streaks across the sooty clouds above. "This the place?" she said as she reached into her pocket for another cigarette.

Distracted as I'd been by the reeking fish and the leering men and the threat of cold, dark water, I had to take a minute and look around to be sure. Hanging like an afterthought off the edge of the seawall not too far from us was a small, rickety pier made of rotted wood; over the entrance to the pier stood a rudimentary arch, comprising two metal poles with a wooden board connecting them at the top. "The Eel's Eye Wharf" a sign hanging from that horizontal slat proclaimed in peeling letters. Beyond that archway at the end of the precarious pier stood a wooden hut that had been painted white, once, but now looked the same color as the smoky clouds overhead. An old tugboat had been moored alongside the shack, smokestack lacquered an oddly vivid purple amidst the rest of the gloom. A few people loitered near the hut, standing around what looked like a barrel, maybe. Tough to tell from a distance what they were up to, though.

"Yeah. We're here." I lifted a finger toward the sign. "That's what Botan called the place, anyway."

Shizuru eyed the hut, the sign, the people loitering in the distance. "So what now?"

"We wait, I think." I looked around, but no handy benches or places to sit availed themselves. We stood in the weak yellow illumination cast by a single floodlight on a pole beside the pier; there was little else to speak. "Botan said she'd be here—"

"Keiko! Shizuru!"

We both turned to find Botan jogging toward us down the seawall from the north, one arm waving frantically above her head. I called a greeting as she skidded to a halt in front of us, heels sliding perilously across the slick pavement. Shizuru's brow lifted as Botan bent at the waist and braced her hands on her knees, breathing hard like she'd been running for quite some time. Blue hair matted to her forehead with sweat, actually. Maybe she had been running a bit, after all.

"Hey, Botan," Shizuru said. "Where's the fire?"

Botan straightened with a gasp and cast a look over her shoulder. "Oh, it's behind me!" She danced from foot to foot and wrung her hands, face pulled taut with worry. "I'm so very sorry, girls, but I couldn't help it and she heard everything and she insisted she should come along and you know how she gets, I couldn't stop her so you really can't blame me, and—"

"Slow the hell down," Shizuru said. "Who insisted she should come along?"

"That'd be me," said a voice. "Hello, ladies."

We had gathered near a small collection of buildings, like some old fishing businesses and the wharf's leasing office, all now empty and disused. In the shadows between two of the buildings I saw movement, but as I clenched my fists and moved into a defensive stance, Botan heaved a wordless groan of frustration. I shot her a look, but I needn't have. A moment later the shadows moved again, and then from between the buildings appeared a figure I knew very well indeed. She grinned as she strolled into the light, her mouth curled in a rakish grin. On reflex I put my fingers to my temples, closing my eyes with a long sigh.

"Hi, Atsuko," I said. "What brings you here?"

I opened my eyes when I heard her feet move across the pavement. She stood with hip cocked, arms crossed defiantly across her chest. "What, you really think I'm gonna let my precious son run off to fight in some demon-infested Tournament without his mother to cheer him on?" she said with a toss of her long black hair. Her grin widened, arms uncrossing so she could punch one hand into the other with a smack. "My baby boy's gonna kick demon ass, and you can bet your ass I'll be watching every second!"

Shizuru rounded on Botan and gave her a stare that promised utter annihilation, looking more like a grim reaper than Botan ever had (barring that one time during the Saint Beast incident, but that's not the point). Botan hung her head and muttered something about how she tried to warn us, but Shizuru was having none of it. With another glare she growled, "You mean told Atsuko about—?"

"Nah. You all told me," Atsuko cut in. "That night you came by to organize the Girl Squad? Yeah, totally wasn't asleep." She chortled as I face-palmed. "I can fake-snore so good, I deserve an Emmy."

Shizuru's glare abated, a look of dry resignation taking its place. "So it would seem," she muttered after a long, slow drag on her cigarette.

Botan starting hopping from foot to foot again. "Oh, I told her it was a bad idea to come along, but she just wouldn't listen! She's been lying low and hiding that she knew everything for weeks now, because she knew we'd try to leave without her if she said something and tipped us off! But last night she saw me packing my bags and then this morning she was sitting in front of the front door, blocking my way out!"

"And good thing, too, because this little devil was trying to sneak away!" Atsuko said with another loud laugh. "But nobody gets the jump on ol' Atsuko, that's for sure."

Botan groaned. "Atsuko, please…"

"Listen, Atsuko." Shizuru tossed her cigarette (burned down to the filter since she'd been puffing on it in the last two minutes) into the water with a grimace. "I get you wanna cheer on Yusuke. But this Tournament is dangerous, and—"

"Let her come," I said.

Shizuru stopped talking. She and Botan both rounded on me, mouths parted in shock. I just shrugged, though, as Atsuko looked on with a frown.

"I'm a regular human. So's she," I said. "So if you're gonna tell her it's too dangerous for her to come along, you should be telling me the same thing." I shrugged again, giving them a rakish smile of my own. "And anyway, Atsuko will just pitch a fit and steal a boat and chase after us if we leave her behind. Best avoid a grand theft marina charge, eh?"

Atsuko threw her head back and laughed. "Damn straight, that's what I'd do!"

Botan did not look convinced, however. "But, Keiko…"

I shook my head. "We're already here. No sense turning back now."

Botan bit her lip, expression uncertain. She tried to look at Shizuru for backup, but Shizuru just shook her head and sighed before lighting up again. Botan sighed, too, defeat evident in every last line of her face. In Atsuko's face, however, there was only triumph. She marched up and clapped me on the back, grinning so hard her eyes turned to thin crescents in her face.

"Keiko, you're a pal," she said. "I knew you'd have my back!"

I smiled and shrugged. She gave me too much credit. Atsuko had gone to the Tournament in the YYH manga, so there was canon precedence for her presence in this timeline—which meant I didn't feel unduly worried that she would be joining us this time around. It was canon; where was the problem? And to be completely honest, I was far more worried about bringing Shizuru to the Tournament, but now was not the time to dwell upon the reasons why.

"Yup, you're definitely my best girl," Atsuko was saying. She flexed, familial resemblance to Yusuke never more apparent than when she kissed her own bicep. "Now let's get this Girl Squad show on the road and kick some slimy, smelly demon ass!"

Right on cue, a shadow fell across us, and a gravelly voice groused: "Who you callin' smelly, you pitiful human wench?"

I think everyone in our little band gave a small scream of surprise (except for Shizuru, who grunted in alarm) before wheeling around to face the enormous, hulking figure that had emerged from the shadows of the abandoned leasing office. He stood only a few feet away from us, and this proximity made him appear even larger than he already was—and let me tell you, he was fucking gargantuan. Well over six feet, maybe even pushing seven, he wore a threadbare shirt and a pair of holey jeans, shoes tattered with laces untied, milky skin almost luminescent in the flickering floodlight above. He was bald and had a neck like the trunk of a tree, one that blended nearly seamlessly with his jawline. It gave him the look of a muscular seal that had traded its tail for thick legs and its flippers for biceps like hams.

The man also had glittering black eyes set under a hooded brow and on either side of a squashed, misshapen nose. These eyes swept over us without blinking, and then he sneered and gave a short, hard laugh like the bark of a displeased dog. Botan shrank back, nearly curling herself around my elbow as she slipped her hand in mine. Atsuko and Shizuru, meanwhile, stepped in front of us with a click of shoe against concrete, the pair of them staring the man down like bullfighters in the face of a charging steer.

The man laughed again, but he did not smile. "Well, well, well. So the humans have teeth as well as insults. I'd take offense if I wasn't in such a good mood." He leered at us one by one. "Now get outta my way. I've got a ticket to purchase."

And with that, he shouldered through our group and kept walking, passing beneath the Warf's signage and onto the decaying dock beyond. We watched him walk away in silence; his footsteps made little sound, like he weighed less than someone of that size in all fairness should. And what was it he'd called us two separate times?

It wasn't hard to pick up the pieces and fit them together. I looked at Shizuru and muttered, "Was that man a…?"

"A demon." She dropped her cigarette and ground the butt beneath her heel. Yeah."

"Really?" Atsuko looked as surprised as she sounded. "He looked human t' me."

"Botan and I can see things you normal humans can't," Shizuru said. "Like the horns sprouting out of that guy's misshapen skull, for instance."

Botan shuddered. "Not to mention the teeth. And his aura, it was absolutely foul!"

Atsuko looked after the man with wide eyes. "Maybe we should have a code word or something?" she said. "Like, you say 'swordfish' and that means whoever we're looking at is somebody to watch out for?"

Shizuru harrumphed, but she admitted, "Not a bad idea."

"See?" Atsuko's chest puffed out. "I'm paying my way along already."

"He mentioned tickets," I said.

Botan perked up at that. "Yes, he did!" she said. She ushered us to come closer and waved her hands through the air, gesticulating with every enthusiastic word. "Now, as you all know—well, maybe not you, Atsuko, so let me sum up. Over the past weeks I've been hunting for a way to reach Hanging Neck Island, the site of the Tournament. Normally only demons can make it there through small portals they set up between Human and Demon World, but there are some demons who've already made it here to Human World and are lurking among human populations. They're low-level, the type Yusuke sometimes has to hunt, but anyway. I knew there had to be a way for them to reach Hanging Neck from here, a way that uses mundane methods we could take advantage of—and, ta-dah!" Her hands spread, indicating the wharf at large. "Here we are!"

Atsuko looked impressed. "How'd you manage to track this place down, anyway?"

For a moment, Botan looked awkwardly at the ground—but then her mouth quirked and a devious giggle spilled past her lips. "I knocked more than a few heads and promised more than a few harmless demons my silence in exchange for information, if you must know. They might not know I'm not longer under Spirit World's employ, but that doesn't mean I can't use my old job to my advantage."

Now Shizuru looked impressed. "So threats and extortion, huh?"

Atsuko clapped Botan on the back. "Wow, girl! Didn't know you had it in you!"

"Yeah," I said. "Nice job, Botan."

"Thank you!" She preened and pointed at the boat bobbing next to the shack on the pier. "That boat there will take us to Hanging Neck Island tonight, provided we can get a ticket."

"I mean… that dude said he was going to buy one." I shot the hut a wary look. "So I guess we just walk up to that house, and…?"

Silence followed. Glances were exchanged. Shizuru lit another cigarette.

"Why," I said, "does this seem entirely too easy?"

"Because it probably is." Shizuru took a long drag, stuck the cigarette between her lips, and thrust her hands into her pockets. "Well. If someone is about to spring a trap, there's no sense keeping them waiting. Let's go."

It was not a pleasant thought, that mayhap we were about to walk into some human trafficking situation or whatever other horror you can concoct, but… she was right. Standing around here only delayed the inevitable. We followed her beneath the wharf's signage and onto the pier, which creaked under our weight with every footfall. I skipped over some cracks between boards that were wider even than my feet, keeping careful footing as we approached the shack. The men I'd spotted from afar, the ones gathered around a barrel, looked up as we neared; they had been playing a game involving dice, I was finally able to see. One of them started to say something, mouth full of broken teeth, but Atsuko shot him a look befitting a mafia bruiser and he shut up, fast.

The shack had a sign over the door: "The Eel's Eye Wharf Pleasure Cruises & Private Parties." Shizuru snorted at the name, but she pushed open the rickety wood door beneath it and strode in without even a moment's hesitation. We had no choice but to do the same, bundling inside and standing by the door in a knot, blinking in the dimly lit shack until our eyes adjusted. When mine finally did, I couldn't help but stare. I'd been expecting… well, I don't know what I'd been expecting, but this wasn't it. We stood in a bare room with a bar across from the door, like maybe this had once been some kind of seaside retreat; behind the bar was an open door with a little string of rope stretched across it to keep people out (though what a rope would do against demons I couldn't exactly say). Near the edges of the room sat a few tables and chairs, one of them occupied by the thick-necked man (or demon, I suppose) we'd spoken to at the end of the pier. He snorted when we made eye contact, but he said nothing.

In front of the bar, meanwhile, stood a man we didn't know, and behind it sat another man we also hadn't seen before. The man in front of the bar slid a stack of cash bound in a rubber band across the counter; the man behind the bar took it with a quick lash of his hand, the exchange casual and made without eye contact. Mr. Behind-the-Bar then slid a single rectangle of cardstock across the counter—a ticket, probably, booking passage on the boat outside? One could only assume as such. The buyer certainly seemed to find that bit of paper precious. He stuffed it in the pocket of his coat with nimble fingers before stalking off to one of the nearby tables; he sat at this with his back to the wall, eyeing the room's occupants with open hostility.

The man behind the counter proceeded to do the same. When the ticket-buyer walked away, the man behind the counter finally noticed us. As soon as he caught sight of our group, he frowned in our direction with undisguised disgruntlement, arms crossing over his thin chest as his fingers tapped an irritated rhythm on his bicep. He had a shock of pure white hair over a craggy face the color of an old walnut, one eye milky white, the other a brilliant green visible even in the shadowy shack. A skinny and seemingly frail old man, but his fingers were wiry and long, gnarled and calloused and not to be underestimated. You can tell a lot about a person from their hands, my grandmother used to tell me. His hands spoke volumes indeed.

Botan grabbed my arm. "Well," she whispered in my ear. "Go over there!"

I did a double-take. "Me? Why me?"

"Well, I most certainly don't want to do it!" Botan said.

Atsuko grabbed my other arm. "Yeah, Keiko. Go talk to him!"

"But why me?!"

"Because you're good with people, that's why!"

Shizuru shook her head. "You're all pathetic. I'll go."

Brave Shizuru. Bless her. She strode up to the counter without another word and leaned an elbow on the counter, casual as you please, before reaching into her pocket and offering the ticket-seller a cigarette. He stared at her, wary and not bothering to hide it. She stared at him right back, expressionless and calm, hand steady around the pack of cigarettes—and then he relented, grudgingly accepting the proffered offering with a grunt I think was his version of thanks. Shizuru then held out and flicked the wheel of her lighter, letting him ignite the cigarette from her hand. I stared at this exchange with my mouth open, I will admit, because—wow. Cool. Shizuru was a very, very cool customer, wasn't she?

She was also a tactician, of a sort, because she waited for the man to take a long drag before saying, "Four tickets to Hanging Neck Island, please."

He blew out a plume of smoke. "Wuh-ell now." His eyes swept first over her, and then over us. "What do four little humans like—wait." He paused, eyes narrowing at Botan. "Make that three humans. I'm not sure what she is."

Botan's chin jutted upward. "None of your business, I assure you."

"Humph!" The noise sounded like both a laugh and a grunt at once. He took another drag and exhaled it at Shizuru, smoke billowing into her face. "Well, I ain't giving you tickets no matter what you are."

"And why the hell not?" Atsuko said.

His expression said he thought she was an idiot for even asking. "Cause you'll get yerselves killed, that's why." Another drag, longer than the others. "That place ain't no place for humans, I'll tell you what."

"Funny." Shizuru blew a plume of smoke at him, then. "I wouldn't think a demon would care about the lives of a gaggle of humans."

That earned her a grin, and a view of his very white teeth. "Aye, that's a fair point. But if Spirit World got wind of some humans dyin' because I took 'em somewhere dangerous on my boat, there'd be hell t' pay, and I'm not about t'—" He looked past us as the door creaked open, expression changing to one of familiar ease. "Welcome, friends."

I looked over my shoulder. Four men, looking like typical humans in windbreaks and jeans and t-shirts, had walked through the door. The one in front wore a baseball cap; he tipped this in the direction of the man with the white hair and blind eye, lips curling in a smile.

"Morrie," he said to the man behind the counter.

"Rat," Morrie replied. "Passage for you and your friends?"

"Of course." This man called Rat didn't spare our group even a glance; he just walked past us and slapped money on the counter. "I have money on Team Masho this year."

Morrie took the money and placed four of those cardstock slips on the bar in its place. "May the wind fly in your favor, in that case. We depart in an hour."

Rat nodded. "See you then."

Again, Rat spared us not even a glance; he and his three friends just left. Botan made a frustrated sound in her throat and went to stand with Shizuru at the counter, one hand coming down onto it with a slap.

"Now you listen here, sir!" Botan said. "I am an emissary of Spirit World, and I demand—"

"At least tell us what your price is," Shizuru cut in. "Maybe we can work out a—"

Morrie listened to their attempts at haggling without looking at them, leaning his back against the bar as he enjoyed his cigarette. Rather than watch this (more than likely doomed) exchange, I turned and stared at the shack's door. So that man. Uh. Demon? That guy named Rat, he'd just purchased how many tickets, exactly?

Atsuko's voice spoke softly in my ear. "Say, Keiko," she said. "You clock the number of those jerks?"

"Four of them." I dropped my voice low to add, "And four of us. You thinking what I'm thinking?"

She grinned. "Already there, kid. Follow me."

We left our backpacks and duffle bags quietly at Botan's feet and slipped out the door unnoticed, Botan and Shizuru too deep in conversation with Morrie to pay attention. Rat and his pack of cronies had only just reached the end of the pier as we stepped outside; they slipped into the shadows between the leasing office and a fishing operation center shortly thereafter. Atsuko and I trailed in their wake, and when we reached the mouth of that dark alley, we crouched down and peered around the corner into the depthless shadows. For a minute we saw no one, but then a familiar voice drifted to us through the gloom.

"Rumor has it they're strong," Rat was saying, "but no way are they beating Masho."

Atsuko smirked; she gave me a nod before slipping into the dark of the alley, and I followed using the walk Hideki had shown me once, where your steps fall quiet and your breathing turns slow and only the sharpest of ears can hear you. We stole toward the end of the alley and other corner, crouching low behind a stack of shipping crates draped in broken fishing net. Ahead, sitting on a ring of crates and passing a cigarette between them, were Rat and his small band.

"I dunno, Rat," said one of the others. He took a drag; the embers lit up his face, highlighting the crook of his long nose. "They're saying they took out the Demon Triad, and you know those are some tough customers."

Atsuko didn't react, but I felt my blood run a touch colder at those words. The Triad—Yusuke beat the Triad. So they were talking about—?

But Rat wasn't as impressed by this feat as his companion. He snatched the cigarette in a flurry of red sparks. "Pfft! The Triad ain't nothin' compared to the Shinobi," he said, punctuating each word with a jab of fire. "They're from the depths of Demon World, strong as hell and tough as nails. Not like us scrubs hiding out in Human World." He look a puff and grinned, face lit from below by unsteady and faint fire; even in my mundane eyes, he looked demonic just then. "No, they're powerful, all right. And they're gonna make me rich."

Much though I enjoyed eavesdropping (who knew what else they'd say about Yusuke, the Shinobi, Team Masho?) Atsuko was less interested. She caught my eye and delicately picked a dirty old beer can off the ground. She mimed throwing it; once I understood and gave a nod of confirmation, she chucked the can over the gathered demons' heads and into the shadows behind them. The effect was instantaneous: They bolted to their feet as one and turned, putting their back to us as they squinted into the dark from whence the sound had come. The cigarette dropped from Rat's hand and lay there, smoking and faintly glowing, on the ground.

"The hell was that?" Rat said.

"Who's there?" another called.

Atsuko grinned and bolted forward. "Your worst nightmare, of course!"

Only one of them managed to spin and see us coming, we each moved so fast—and honestly this fight wasn't fair at all and I kind of feel sorry for the poor guys. I swept the nearest's legs out from under him and got him in a choke, cutting off blood flow long enough to send him to a peaceful sleep. Atsuko punched another in the face, dropping him instantly, and then she jumped on a third; while she pummeled him with a series of wild whoops and howls of thrill, I went after Rat. He babbled something about paying us money, whatever we wanted, he was going to be rich soon, and he didn't even try to fight back as I knocked him on his ass with a palm-strike to the gut and then put him in the same hold I'd used on his buddy. Within a few seconds he was off to dreamland. He'd have a killer headache when he woke up next, but Hideki had been careful to show me a few types of chokes that wouldn't leave lasting damage. I wanted to steal this dude's tickets, not kill him, after all.

Atsuko went quiet shortly after I pilfered said tickets from the inside of Rat's coat. She brushed herself off and gave one of the downed demons a kick to the side while grinning; a scratch on her cheek said one had gotten in a good hit, though of course neither could match her rough-and-tumble attitude.

"Wow," I said with a low whistle of appreciation. "Didn't know you could scrap like that, Atsuko."

"Heh." She wiped at the scratch on her cheek, grin growing ever wider. "Who do you think taught Yusuke to throw a punch?" She laughed when I gave her a 'well, yeah, of course' look. "Get the tickets?"

I held them up. "Yeah."

"Can I see them?"

"Sure."

I handed them over. Atsuko beamed and gave them a little kiss before stuffing them into her cleavage. "Now c'mon, Keiko. Better beat it before these dumbasses wake up again."

Confidence colored our gait as we walked back to The Eel's Eye Wharf Pleasure Cruises & Private Parties shack. Atsuko whistled an off-key ditty, unable to keep the grin off her face, and when the men playing with dice by the shack stared at us with brows raised, she tipped an imaginary cap at them. Such a display of bravado scared them back to their game in short order; we went inside unimpeded and found the interior of the shack exactly as we'd left it. Botan and Shizuru were still trying to browbeat Morrie into giving us tickets, but when we walked through the door, Botan rounded on us and put her hands on her hips.

"There you are!" she said, glaring (though she likely didn't mean it and just stressed after dealing with Morrie's stubborn behind). "I was just telling our friend Morrie here—"

Atsuko flipped her hair. "Hang on a sec, doll. I got this."

Botan stopped talking as Atsuko skipped across the room and leaned against the counter. She batted her eyelashes at the confused Morrie, reached into the top of her shirt, and pulled forth a fluttering fistful of tickets. Botan's eyes bugged clean out of her head. So did Morrie's, in fact.

Shizuru, though? She just smirked, and rested and rested her elbow on the bar, watching the proceedings with a glint in her eye.

Atsuko fanned herself with the tickets. "So, Morrie. Where did you say the gangplank was?" she said in a voice like syrup. "Or the boardwalk? Or whatever it is you use to board a boat?" She winked.
"I'm ready to get going, ya see, and I have tickets for me and each of my friends here."

"Atsuko!" Botan sputtered. "Where did you manage to find those?!"

Shizuru chuckled. "So that's where you went, huh? I'd been wondering."

Morrie took a bit longer than them to find his wits, but eventually he managed to shut his gaping mouth and speak, too. "Where the hell did ya get—?" he said, echoing Botan's question, but then he made like Shizuru and figured out the truth, too. His pointed chin ducked close to his chest; he stared at Atsuko for a minute in silence, looking between her, the tickets, and the door to the shack in turns. "Oh, I get it," he eventually grumbled. "Rat and his boys didn't stand a chance against you lot, did they?"

"Seems that way," Shizuru said. She leaned next to Atsuko on the counter, the pair of them staring at Morrie from only a foot away. "You said earlier you'd get in trouble if we got ourselves killed. But I don't see that happening, do you?"

"Yeah! Two little humans took out four demons. And you haven't even seen what trouble these two can cook up, either," Atsuko said, jerking her thumb at Shizuru and Botan. "Four of us together? Now there's a real party."

For a minute Morrie just looked at them, like he couldn't quite believe the sight of the tickets and their devious smiles—but soon he tipped back his head and laughed. Botan and Atsuko exchanged an uncertain glance, but Shizuru kept her eyes steady on him until he went quiet again. "Well, color me convinced," he said when his mirth (but not his smile) dissipated. "No, I ain't the type of demon who cares from which world you hale. If you can hold your own, you can hold your own, and your specie don't matter a lick. That's the way of Demon World, after all. The strong eat, and the weak are meat. And you four ain't no hocks o' ham, that's for sure." He dipped a low, flourishing bow from behind the bar. "For yer most demonic show of spunk, I'm giving you four the first class treatment."

Botan started. "You are?!"

"Indeed I am," Morrie said. Still grinning, still chuckling under his breath, he lifted a hinged portion of the bar away, creating a gap through which we could walk. "Now, you lot. Welcome aboard The Eel's Eye. Head through the door and up the gangway—and remember t' watch yer step, o' course."

Botan (having forgotten her beef with Morrie, apparently) spun an overjoyed pirouette in place and snatched her bag up off the ground. "Wonderful! Well, this seems to have worked itself out quite nicely, I think." She struck a pose and pointed toward the door behind the bar as Morrie took down the rope. "Well, Girl Squad. Onward ho and follow me!"

And so we did, Botan leading our cavalcade past Morrie and through the arch beyond like the grand marshal of a parade. Shizuru went next, and Atsuko went after her, leaving me to bring up the rear. Before I could make it through the doorway and out of the bar, however, Morrie moved to block my way. I stopped walking. He held up a single gnarled finger, both eyes—even the milky blind one—trained hard and unflinching on my face.

"A word o' warnin', girlie," Morrie said. "You'll be in the vast minority on this island, and not all the demons there are as congenial toward humans as myself. Some hate humans on principle, much though the practice rankles. Watch your step in all the ways you can."

"Thanks." It was no small thing, this word of warning he gave me, and I knew it. "You know, for a demon you're pretty nice."

He didn't react. At least, not at first. Soon, though, his lips curled back over his teeth—and suddenly he had too many of them, long and curved and wicked and white, far too big for any human's mouth.

"Aye," Morrie said, "Aye, human. I wouldn't be so sure."

And for a moment I couldn't move—but then he winked, and I got the sense he was just trying to make a joke. I laughed and winked back, gratified to see his teeth return to normal again, and I left the hut to join my friends outside.

We stood on the prow of Morrie's ship not long later, the four of us, our intrepid Girl Squad. We stood on the prow and watched the boat cut the waves, sailing off into the night with the chug and rumble of engines kept out of sight below the deck. Botan looked invigorated. Atsuko, jazzed. Shizuru, cool as usual while she smoked, flicking smoldering butts over the railing and into the darkness rushing past below.

Only once did I look back to the glittering lights of Tokyo, where home and safety waited. Shizuru saw me do it. She glanced at me sidelong and closed her hand around my elbow, leaning close to my ear to say, "You ready, kid?"

I swallowed. The cold salt air blew the hair from my face, drew the moisture from my eyes—but I refused to close them. I stared ahead unflinchingly, hands gripping the railing tight.

"A bit too late to be asking that, I think," I muttered.

And Shizuru replied, "Fair enough."

—and she replied as such because we were already here. Because it was too late to go home again. Because the time for training and second-guessing and questions of preparedness had passed, leaving room for only soldiering on ahead. It was pointless, therefore, to ask each other if we were ready, or to even court the notion of that we might not be as prepared as we might like.

Best not to think about such things. Best not to shed light on such anxious suspicions.

Better, instead, to look ahead, out into that vast and roaring dark, and keep one's head held high.

We had found passage on board The Eel's Eye, after all.

We were on our way, and there could be no turning back.

Notes:

We never see how the girls make it to Hanging Neck Island in the anime/manga. They just demand that Botan take them there, and then they show up at the Tournament like they teleported or something. Wanted to fill in that gap and take this opportunity to explore what canon did not.

Atsuko went with the girls in the manga. Since I often pull from both canons, I didn't feel right leaving her behind.

There's a countdown on my Tumblr profile, BTW. We're at 11 today. What'll happen when the countdown hits 0? There's a surprise coming, so keep an eye out.

Thanks to those who chimed in last time. Those who reached out in have a special place in my heart now. It was very, very hard to update last time given the grief I was experiencing, but those who reached out made the extreme effort worth it despite the funerary circumstances that shrouded my life: Laina_Inverse, Gerbilfriend, Eternalevecho, katsheswims, Unctuous, Legate, Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, Tewdrig, EMMstAr, DragonsTower, AngelFish1214, MageKing17, Masked_Trickster, TokiMirage, goldenthyme, Just 2 Dream of You (DezzyDoesThings), chaosdreamingsiren, musiquemer, Still Need an Account on Chapter 82!

Chapter 84: Hotel Kubikukuri

Summary:

In which the girls play hotel shuffle and meet an unexpected someone.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Morrie stared forward into the yawning black of night with eyes both sharp and distant. The world beyond the glass of the enclosed bridge resembled the inside of a cave: fathomless in its darkness, landscape untouched by light, a place of blind shadow I was helpless to identify. The stars and moon above did nothing to brighten our way through dark waters, their light as fitful and indistinct as the illumination of scattered glow-worms as we sailed forward into the night. I found myself wondering, as we stood with Morrie on the bridge, if we had sailed into some abyss—some portal to another place or time, the path to it forged in the choking vacuum of dark, empty space.

Morrie's hand stayed true upon the ship's wheel, however. His blind eye, milky and pale, remained affixed on the unseen waters ahead, his head tilted just so. Perhaps the eye was not quite as blind as it appeared. I did not dare to ask, though.

"So, ladies." His age-roughened voice cut clear through the thrum of the engines beneath the deck, as loud as a crashing wave. "Your first time at the Tournament?"

Botan, who stood near the door to the bridge, nodded. Morrie's green eye flickered to her reflection in the window as she said, "Yes, that's right."

"We don't exactly fit the usual audience demographic, I suspect," Shizuru quipped.

"Aye, that ye don't," he said. I stood behind him, my face a fawn moon in the glass; upon this his green eye fixed. "You," Morrie said to me.

I blinked. "Me?"

"Stop yer fidgeting." His eye moved to my hands, then, as they stopped their wringing and fell limp to my sides. "I control the waters round the ship. Ye've got little to fear." But then his eyes, both of them, glimmered, moving down to the deck spread below the bridge's front window. "Any o' them give ye grief, I'll give 'em hell. No violence on my vessel, unlike others I could name."

A dozen demons lounged on the deck. It was them he'd indicated, of course. They looked human enough to my eyes, but Botan and Shizuru had hissed a chorus of "swordfish" in my ear when we passed, following Morrie up here to the bridge to spend the journey away from the dangerous crowd. "First class treatment" apparently meant getting to stay with Morrie in the dingy, splintered bridge and avoid mingling with the demons—plus, Morrie said the demons would probably be soaked and freezing by the time we made port on Hanging Neck Island. Sea spray and all that. Much better to stay in the bridge. I just hoped the demons wouldn't get too uncomfortable and try to enter the bridge themselves.

That wasn't why I'd been wringing my hands, though.

Like Morrie had said: This boat would see no violence, unlike a certain other boat currently sailing to Hanging Neck Island—a boat upon which my boys were currently stuck (so far as I knew, anyway). Here we were, safe and dry on the bridge, while they were fighting both for their lives and for their right to fight for their lives in the Tournament itself. What an irony. It's no wonder I wrung my hands not for myself, but for them. After all, Morrie had turned out to be… well, "nice" wasn't the word. But he wasn't outright evil or trying to hurt us, which I'd half expected all the demons on this trip to be and do, and that was a check I could place firmly in the "Win" column.

Part of me felt a little guilty about that expectation, I had to admit. Hiei and Kurama were demons; they certainly weren't all bad. They were my friends—and yet I'd feared the demons on this boat and expected the worst. Seemed Spirit World propaganda affected even me, despite all my outside knowledge…

"Now." Morrie rocked the boat's wheel to one side a hair. "Tell me, you lot. Where do ye plan on staying during the fights?"

Botan perked up at that. "One of the hotels on the island, of course."

"Aye," said Morrie. "But which one?"

Botan's face screwed up. "The. Um." She put a finger to her chin. "Let's see. I know the tickets come packaged with a room. The demon I took them fro—I mean, the demon who gave them to me said they did." She smiled, mouth a bit twitchy at the corners. "One moment?"

Morrie chuckled as Botan turned away, facing the wall of the bridge as she reached into the inner pocket of her coat. From it she pulled out a white envelope; I saw this as I moved closer to her and watched as she peeked inside, staring at the Dark Tournament tickets within before swiftly hiding them away again with a furtive glance at Morrie. He made no move to grab the tickets from her, though, and she relaxed once more.

Botan then threw a finger into the air. "I remember now!" she said, pretending she hadn't just checked the tickets in her pocket. "It's called the Inn of Remiss."

Morrie grimaced. "You'll not want to stay there, I reckon. It's where the demons all stay."

Botan's eyes widened. "It is?"

"If we shouldn't stay there, where should we go?" Shizuru said, leaning against the boat's control panel next to Morrie.

"Yeah." Atsuko leaned against it on Morrie's other side, women flanking him like a pair of mafia muscle-men. "You got a suggestion, buddy?"

Morrie was not intimidated. "Not particularly," he said, shrugging. "I sleep on the boat."

Botan's jaw dropped. "Don't offer criticism of our lodging if you can't offer an alternative, sir!"

"Yeah," Shizuru said. "Fat load of help you are."

Morrie's green eye rolled; the white stayed fixed in place somehow. "Aye, fine. Listen well. There are three hotels on the island: One for those fighting in the Tournament itself, one for the Tournament's human backers, and a third for the demons who fill the stands to watch the fights." He shook his head. "Obviously the hotel for fighters ain't an option, but I wonder if ye lot could even get into the hotel for the backers. It's posh, and exclusive, but you'd be safest there."

Atsuko's ears pricked up (metaphorically speaking) at the word "posh," but I couldn't keep a scowl off my face. Even if that hotel was safer than the Inn of Remiss, we shouldn't stay there. We needed to keep away from the boys until a certain pivotal moment of the Tournament. Staying at the same hotel meant risking seeing them ahead of canon's schedule—but wait. Where had the girls stayed in the anime, anyway? Same hotel? And who had gotten them a room there? Koenma? I couldn't remember seeing a second hotel in the anime at all. And if they had indeed stayed in the same hotel as they boys, why wasn't the risk of running into the boys addressed? Canon-Keiko had wanted to keep away from Yusuke as much as I did, even if it was for very different reasons.

Ugh. Plot holes. You're killin' me, smalls.

Oblivious to my reluctance, Atsuko leaned in closer to Morrie. "Posh," she said with an exaggerated brow-waggled. "As in… expensive?"

"Imagine so," said Morrie.

Botan whispered to me, "Did you think to bring much money?"

"Some. But not enough for a week's worth of fancy hotel nights," I muttered back.

"Same."

"Damn."

Morrie heard my curse somehow and tossed a look over his shoulder. "Damn is right. If you have to stay where the demons live, keep your head firmly down."

"What about the guest team?"

Morrie looked at Shizuru, who'd spoken, askance. "Hm?"

"The guest team." She didn't look at Morrie and reached into her back pocket for a cigarette. Her casual, restrained movements betrayed little of the tension I saw in the set of her shoulders and in the precise way she thumbed the wheel of her lighter. "Which hotel do they stay in?" she asked, flame illuminating her face with a burst of warm orange.

Morrie's chin tucked close to his chest. "Ah. So it's like that, eh?" he muttered. "I'd heard the guests this year were human. Some of them, anyway." He looked at each of our reflections in the window in turn. "So you four are…?"

Shizuru let herself bristle, annoyance flitting across her impassive face. "None of your business."

Morrie lifted a hand from the wheel in surrender. "Fine. Far be it from me to pry." His hand descended to the wheel again. "The guests stay in the hotel with the backers. It's called Hotel Kubikukuri—"

("Real literal name," Shizuru muttered.)

"—and the idea is to give the guest team room service and swanky digs before they meet their makers," Morrie continued. "Or at least that's the Tournament Committee's thinking."

He spoke with such nonchalance, it took Botan a moment to realize she should be shocked by his bland statement. "Don't say that!" she said with a gasp of horror.

"Yeah, man," Shizuru said, blowing out a plume of smoke. "Harsh."

But Atsuko wasn't incensed. She looked Morrie over like she was seeing him for the first time, dark eyes narrow in her golden skin. "You seem to know an awful lot about this Tournament," she said.

Morrie's thin chest puffed out. "Only been running a ferry to it for a century. You pick up a thing or two in all that time."

I blinked. "Wait. The Tournament is that old?"

"Even older." He laughed like a creaking rope in a high wind. "Always surprises me, how little humans know about their own world." The laughter died. "But then again, I'm one to talk. Been running a ship for a century, but I haven't been home in even longer than that."

Home. For Morrie, that had to be Demon World—and as that through sank in, a lance of pity struck my heart straight through.

I hadn't been home, to my first home, in fifteen years. I thought that was bad, but Morrie? He had me beat in a big way, now didn't he? Still, he knew more about this world than I did, and he was right: despite living in this world for fifteen year and loving the anime based in it for even longer, there was still so much I, and the others, simply did not know.

I just hoped that deficit of knowledge didn't get us killed.

We arrived at Hanging Neck Island a little after midnight, on the south side of the island at the foot of a dark forest. Morrie told us, as we pulled up to one of about a dozen docks stretching away from the rocky shore, that the island rose up and up as it went north, plateaus and cliffs and bluffs stacked one on top of the other until a crooked column of stone rose up to pierce the sky. That stone column gave the island its name, he told us. You could hang a man off the edge of that stone spear; watch him dangle and kick until his breath gave out and his neck broke under his own weight. We saw none of this, of course. It was too dark, the landscape invisible in the night's gloom, a layer of clouds covering the stars and moon like a burial shroud.

Morrie has a knack for disturbing metaphor, it turns out.

We docked in short order. Before Morrie lashed the boat to its mooring, the demons began vaulting over the bulwark, peeling away from the docks to vanish into the forest—a forest barely visible past the scant lights illuminating the docks. A path wandered into these woods like a bit of spilled yarn. Morrie pointed at this after he lowered the gangplank, finger long and spindly.

"Yer hotel is that way," he said. "Take the path to the fork and go left. The hotel for the backers is to the right at the fork. And those tickets ye got from me are round-trip, now. Come back here the day after the Tournament ends. Ship departs at sundown." A pointed glare. "I will not wait for you if you're late."

"Good to know," Atsuko said.

"Thank you, Morrie," I added.

"Hmph. Just don't get yerselves killed." He shoved his hands in his pockets as we walked across the gangplank and onto the dock; once we disembarked, he tugged the gangplank back on board the ship and stalked back off toward the bridge. "Devil forbid I have the lives of four weakling humans on my conscience," he said as he walked away, not bothering to keep his voice low.

"We love you, too!" Atsuko called after him; Morrie flipped her off over his shoulder, but that only made Atsuko grin. Her grin faded, however, as we stood there on the dock in silence, a light on a pole overhead giving off a high pitched, tinny whine.

"So what now?" Botan eventually murmured.

"I think we should try the human hotel. The fancy one," Atsuko said at once. "I've slummed it in places that'd make your hair curl, but if I could avoid bunking next door to a pack of slobbering demons—and besides." Here she grinned again, hand on her jutted hip. "We can always crash the boys' party. Why should they have all the fun?"

Shizuru opened her mouth, to protest or support I could not say, so I opened my mouth, too—but definitely so I could protest. Lucky for me, though, I didn't have to concoct an on-the-fly argument against staying at a safer place, because Botan did that for me. She was shaking her head as I started to speak, blue ponytail flapping about the shoulders of her black jacket.

"No," Botan said. "We should go to the Inn of Remiss."

Shizuru's mouth dropped open, endangering the wellbeing of her cigarette. "That's not what I was expecting you to say," she said. "What gives?"

Botan did not flinch at Shizuru's hard stare. She merely lifted her chin and said, "Koenma might be with the team."

A moment of silence followed this declaration—one punctuated by Atsuko's confused frown, Shizuru's knowing sigh, and my wince. I'd forgotten in all the excitement that Koenma would be here, and Botan… well. She was still on Spirit World's Most Wanted List. Botan squared her feet under herself as the silence continued, face suddenly resembling a statue carved from stone.

"It's unlikely he would stay away, with Yusuke in the Tournament," she said, voice brisk and leaving no room whatsoever for argument. "Therefore, I need to stay as far away from Yusuke as possible. At least for the time being."

"I don't get it." Atsuko crossed her arms, brow hitching. "What's the problem if we run into him? Isn't he your boss?"

"You still worried he'll cart you off to Spirit World jail?" Shizuru said.

Here Botan hesitated, stony face cracking just a bit. "Well," she said. "Not exactly."

"So what's the problem?"

She hesitated again, searching for words as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "It's not him I'm worried about," she eventually let slip. "It's his father who wanted me incarcerated when this happened." Botan started to reach for her forehead, but she refrained from touching it and shoved her hand into her pocket. The stone returned to her face, eyes like chips of sharpened garnet. "Koenma cannot disobey his father's direct order. That is why Ayame refuses to see me; if Koenma found out, he would have to tell his father, his own feelings on the matter notwithstanding." A toss of her hair, defiant and proud. "And besides. This Tournament is dangerous, and Koenma is still a prince."

"You think he's under surveillance?" I said.

"Undoubtedly. And by people who would not hesitate to act if I'm discovered here." Her eyes glimmered, stone etched now with worry. "I fear that if they find me here—"

Shizuru held up a hand. "Say no more. I get it. We'll lie low."

Atsuko sighed. "There go my posh daydreams." A shrug accompanied her wry grin, as did a sly wink. "Ah, well. Sleeping in a seedy motel is more my style, anyhow."

Botan's face buckled, gratitude cracking her mask to bits. "Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry to impose, but…"

"It's not a problem, Botan," I said, offering her a smile. "We'd rather you be safe than sleep on Egyptian cotton, for what it's worth."

Botan looked adorable as she ducked her chin and thanked us, overcome with shy gratitude Atsuko was swift to tease her for. As the four of us gathered our bags and started down the path into the forest, I figured that I'd truly lucked out here. I didn't have to make a single excuse with Botan around… though I did feel a little badly that her perilous situation was working out in my favor, but I digress.

The path through the forest was nigh invisible in the night, but the ever-prepared Minato had insisted I pack a flashlight; I dug it out of my bag and used it to light the way, Botan's hand in my belt, Atsuko's hand on her shoulder, Shizuru's fingers hooked into the strap of Atsuko's pack. We walked mostly in silence, the wind carrying a hint of salt that slowly faded the further inland we trekked. The trees rustled on the breeze overhead, sending an occasional smattering of leaves falling on our heads. Even if there hadn't been cloud cover, we wouldn't have been able to see the stars thanks to the canopy above—a canopy that rustle, once or twice, out of sync with the persistent wind.

Shizuru stared at the rustling spots when they arose, eyes hard and penetrating, and at once the rustling ceased.

Eventually the path indeed forked, as Morrie had said it would. We veered left, as Morrie had told us to, and walked through more dark forest until the trees began to thin. Soon the path exited the forest, and before us at the foot of a tall cliff sat a building—or rather, a whole slew of buildings standing in a ring, well-lit at last by stadium lights mounted on tall electric poles. The buildings looked almost like apartment complexes or a series of motels that were each several stories tall. Doors to rooms opened onto open-air corridors, staircases zigzagging up the buildings' corners to grant occupants access. The structures were all sort of dingy, the presence of chipped paint and raw concrete persistent, but they didn't look on the verge of being condemned, either.

"So this is where the demons stay," Botan said as I switched off my flashlight. Her eyes gleamed almost crimson in the near-dark. "So many rooms!"

Shizuru nodded ahead of us. "Apparently not enough of them to go around, though."

I followed her gaze to the foot of the dozen or so buildings. People who were probably demons, dozens of them, wandered about the hotel buildings. Campfires winked in the distance between the roving shapes of the Tournament's spectators; I spotted a few tents here and there, some makeshift lean-tos constructed out of plywood and tarp. Seemed like a small city, almost, had spread around the base of the demon hotels, housing those demons not lucky enough to get a proper room.

"Don't go walking in the woods alone," Shizuru said in a low voice. "I get the feeling you can't walk two feet without stepping on a demon."

Botan nodded and gulped. "Roger that. Let's get inside."

We headed for the nearest of the multi-storied motels, walking past a few pockets of people gathered around bonfires as fast as we could, not daring to make eye contact or even look at them closely for fear of drawing attention. A few of them called out to us; we ignored them, bustling into the hotel's main doors beneath the sign marking it as "The Inn of Remiss Registration Office." We breathed a collective sigh of relief once the glass door shut at our back, but just as quickly we tensed again. The front room of the hotel was huge, wall to wall tile and concrete (easy to hose blood off of, was my thinking) and the entire left wall had been lined in desks. People in crisp red uniforms sat behind these desks next to large computers, typing away as the people (could I even call them that?) standing in at least seven separate lines shuffled forward and presented paperwork. Atsuko and I stared with our mouths open, tracking the length of the long lines (it had to be fifty, sixty feet-worth of these folks!) in silence. Too stunned to say a word—at least until I gulped and forced a laugh.

"Dorothy, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," I said.

Atsuko frowned. "What?"

"Oh." So that story didn't exist? Or had she just not heard of the Wizard of Oz? Either way, I shook my head and shrugged. "Never mind." I shot Shizuru a look. "So, uh?"

"Yup." She lit up another of her cigarettes. "Swordfishes, the lot of them."

The demons here were not bothering to hide themselves, and even my mundane eyes could tell that I stood in a room full to the brim with creatures who could probably eat me for breakfast. A rainbow of skin tones, faces with beaks and pincers, teeth extending past the chin, horns on almost every head, some humanoids, some animal-shaped, one with eight legs and no arms and a face like a pig—they were the demons who had filled the stands in the YYH anime, wild and varied features on full and overwhelming display. Atsuko and I could not keep from staring, and just as I wondered why the heck I could see these demons and why the ones on the boat had looked human, the door behind us whooshed open once again. I turned as two human-looking men in large overcoats walked inside; they looked around and grinned at each other

"Finally!" said one. "Thought we'd never get here."

The other lifted his hands toward his collarbone. "Now I can finally take off this stupid disguise!"

He hooked his fingers beneath his chin and wrenched them upward. The flesh on his jaw peeled up and away, bright blue skin showing through rends and tears in his previously human flesh. I watched in awe as he peeled his face entirely away, demonic features like enormous teeth and spiral horns blooming out from under whatever very convincing mask he'd just been wearing. He was bigger than his human disguise, swelling like an inflated balloon from beneath the costume as his demonic face revealed itself. He mopped his hands over his face, sloughing off the last lingering shreds of human skin, and then he grabbed at the backs of his hands and pulled sheets of tawny flesh away from them, too. Claws erupted from beneath false human nails, and when he dropped his true hands back to his sides, he let his discarded mask drop toward the floor.

To my astonishment, the false human flesh evaporated into mist before it even hit the ground.

"That's better!" he said, stretching his arms (which had lengthened considerably) over his head; beside him, his companion shredded his own human face away to reveal a beak and seven winking eyes. "Now c'mon. Those lines are huge!"

My group exchanged a glance, and without a word we huddled together and followed those demons to the back of the shortest line. The pair of them had both shot up in height, blue-skinned and feather-coated calves now jutting out from beneath the hems of them large overcoats. As we queued up behind these demons, my brain stayed busy trying to put together the implications of what I'd just seen. Morrie had looked human until he showed me his teeth. Those demons had removed actual, literal disguises (made out of who-knows-what) that restrained their demonic features. Was I unable to see demons because I wasn't psychic, or because they were capable of disguising themselves both physically and even, perhaps, with their own energy? I wanted to ask Botan about it, but as the doors opened and a few more undisguised demons stood behind us in line, I kept my mouth shut. There would be time later, and I didn't want to pull focus onto us.

Neither did anyone else in my party. We instinctively stood with our backs together in an outward-facing ring, shuffling forward every time the line inched up, clutching at our bags as we simultaneously avoided looking the demons in the eyes and kept a close eye on any possible threats. Luckily none of the demons picked on us (though I did catch a few looking at us through narrow eyes, confused by our presence there) and we made it up to the counter without incident.

The women behind the counter wore the same pressed uniform I'd observed from the door: a red coat and pencil skirt with a blue tie, very smart and polished. She didn't bother looking at us as she pecked at her computer's keyboard—maybe because another woman prowled the space behind the desk, going from station to station and looking shrewdly over the shoulders of the workers through the lenses of her thick glasses. She had one the same uniform as the women behind the computer, but on her breast glimmered a golden pin. The office manager, probably, and they both looked human to my untrained eyes.

Botan didn't seem scared of them, so I guessed I was probably right. She danced up to the counter as the manager wandered off, beaming. "Hello! I have a room reserved as part of my Tournament ticket package, and—"

The worker (whose nametag read 'Fujie') held out her hand without a word. Botan stopped talking. Fujie wriggled her fingers; Botan hesitated, then fished out her Tournament tickets and handed them over. From beneath the desk Fujie pulled a handheld barcode scanner; she passed its red beam over the tickets until the machine beeped, at which point she turned to her computer and began to type. Botan stared, clutching the edge of the counter between them, as Fujie typed for an oddly long time, fingers flying over the keys with a series of energetic clacks.

The manager meandered back over as Fujie typed; she looked over her underling's shoulder at the computer screen and frowned, then glanced up at us. Botan gave her a brave smile and a small wave, but the manager's eyes passed over her without pause. They perused Atsuko, and Shizuru, and then myself with that same fleeting look—and was it nerves making me imagine this, or did her eyes widen just the tiniest bit when they saw my face? My skin prickled, but she looked away without even a second's pause. Probably just my imagination, then.

But if that look had been my imagination, why did the manager grab Fujie's shoulder and whisper something in her ear? Fujie stopped typing as her manager spoke to her, listening intently; when the manager pulled away and walked off with a cluck of high heel on tile, Fujie looked at Botan for the first time—and with a smile, no less, even if it look a touch apologetic.

"We're sorry," Fujie said, "but it seems that we've given your room away by mistake."

No shocked silence followed; instead, Atsuko, Shizuru, Botan and I all shouted "You've WHAT?!" in perfect unison, our hands slapping down onto the counter with a sound like thunder.

Fujie winced, but her smile did not falter. "This happens with the ticket packages at times, I'm afraid. The high volume of—"

"Spare me the excuses and just tell me what you're gonna do to make this right, buddy!" Atsuko hissed.

Fujie's smile turned to one of pure delight. "Luckily for you, we put customer service first at the Inn of Remiss. This blunder makes you eligible for an upgrade at Hotel Kubikukuri."

Atsuko scowled and crossed her arms. "Which hotel is that, exactly?"

Fujie's smile thinned a tad. "To be perfectly frank, it's a hotel at which your group will feel far more comfortable, if you catch my meaning."

"I don't, sorry."

Botan cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, "She means the hotel for humans, I think."

Atsuko's eye widened. "The one where the Tournament backers stay?"

"Yes," said Fujie. She reached beneath the desk and pulled out a rectangular brochure, which she slid to us across the desk, along with our Tournament tickets. "Here is a map. My manager has called a car to take you to the proper hotel."

"A car?" Botan said.

"See? What'd I tell ya?" Atsuko threw back her head and laughed. "Swanky!"

"Indeed," Fujie said. She looked back at her keyboard and started typing, not sparing us another glance. "Enjoy your stay, ladies."

We faltered, not quite sure what to do, but then there came the sound of a throat clearing. The manager had come out from behind the desk wearing a huge smile; she shepherded us toward the door, heels clicking with ever step, and when we exited through the big glass doors we found… well. It wasn't a "car," exactly, but rather a stretched golf cart with a canopy erected over several rows of seats; the kind of thing you'd ride in while getting a tour of a movie studio lot. A young boy in a suit jacket wearing a chauffer's cap sat behind the wheel; he hopped out when we neared and trotted up to us, taking our bags with a huge smile (he was missing on front tooth) and loading them onto the final row of seats. He came only up to my waist; how did he even reach the cart's pedals?

I didn't have time to ask, because fingers pinched the edge of my sleeve. Botan had sidled up next to me, eyeing the cart with worry in her eyes. "I don't like this, Keiko," she said in my ear. "I don't like it at all."

"Me, neither." I looked around; spotted what I was looking for; pried Botan's arm off my sleeve. "Wait here."

"Oh-okay."

The manager had only just reached the hotel's doors. I broke away from Botan and darted over. "Hey, you!" I said, lifting a hand. "Wait up!"

The manager looked over her shoulder at me with a frown. "Yes, miss?" she said, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "What can I do for you?"

I didn't bother mincing words. "I know you're not out of rooms. What gives?"

She looked quite thoroughly taken aback. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said with another glasses shove, and with that she reached for the door. "Have a good ni—"

I wasn't about to let her run; I stepped swiftly between her and the door, cutting off her escape at the pass. "Cut the crap," I said, glaring. "You looked us over before saying we couldn't stay here. Is it because we're human, or what?"

It was her turn to scowl. "We at the Inn of Remiss aren't so gauche as to discriminate, Yukimura-san. We simply gave away your room and wished to make amends for our oversight."

I crossed my arms. "Is that so?"

"Yes." She bowed. "Have a pleasant evening, miss."

She held the bow for a long time, looking at me from under the shelf of her thick grey bangs. Hair in a bun, those half-moon glasses, her uniform pressed and no-nonsense… I couldn't read much from her other than good customer service vibes. If she was hiding something, she was very good at it, and I got the sense I wouldn't be squeezing much out of her even if I tried. So, I passed my hand through my hair and sighed, nodding and muttering an abrupt "You, too" as I turned away and walked back to Botan.

Botan had been watching us, it seemed, because she looked at me with eager eyes, hoping for answers. When I shook my head, she sagged, crestfallen in the face of uncertainty. But Shizuru and Atsuko walked up before Botan could say anything. "Don't suppose this is about to turn into a human trafficking situation, do you?" Shizuru said around her cigarette and with a nod at the stretched golf cart.

"I mean. It's a glorified golf cart." I shrugged; the cart had no doors, just little metal railings you could easily slip past. "They try anything funny, we just jump out, right?"

"I guess?" Botan said.

"Seems safe enough," Shizuru concurred.

Atsuko lifted her arms over her head with an overstated yawn. "Well. I don't know about you girls, but I'm beat enough to risk it." She grinned and headed for the cart, hopping into the back row of seats and slumping down onto the vinyl cushion. "Wake me if they try anything funny, would ya?"

Botan and I exchanged and look and giggled. Shizuru sat next to Atsuko; Botan and I slipped into the seats just behind the young driver. He indeed couldn't reach the pedals with his feet, his shiny black shoes at least a foot off the cart's floor after he climbed into the driver's seat—but then a long, furry tail snaked from around his hips and hovered over the brake. I stared with my mouth open until he noticed me, but he just smiled his toothy smile and tugged at the brim of his chauffer's cap.

"Anything I can do you ya, miss?" he asked.

"Oh. Um." I laughed, rubbing at the back of my neck. "Actually, yeah. I don't suppose the hotel has a back entrance we can use instead of the front one, does it?"

His grin widened. "You fancy going incognito, miss?"

"I do."

"Very well then, miss." He twisted the key in the cart's ignition and pointed forward into the night. "To the service entrance, it is!"

Botan clapped and gave a delighted laugh, one that turned into a shriek when the boy slammed onto the gas and sent the cart lurching down the bumpy gravel road. We left the Inn of Remiss behind at a breakneck pace, Botan yodeling in fright as we careened through the dark and over the bumpy ground. Atsuko snored peacefully in the back, unperturbed, while Shizuru laughed and tried not to bite her cigarette in half. We left the Inn of Remiss with such speed, it wasn't until we checked in Hotel Kubikukuri, sneaked up to our room, and climbed into gigantic feather beds that I had a chance to realize something. Something about the Inn of Remiss I didn't notice in time to question.

I had never told the manager my name—and yet she'd somehow known to call me Yukimura-san.

The next morning, we awoke to the sound of fireworks and a gigantic western breakfast fit for a gaggle of queens.

We ate at the restaurant on the hotel's bottom floor—one of three such restaurants dotting the hotel, because true to Atsuko's word, this place was swanky indeed. The food was even complimentary, which Atsuko had crowed about when the women behind the front desk delivered that bit of good news. We'd come downstairs to eat after the fireworks roused us from our beds, and only after flagging down a member of the housekeeping staff to ask if the Guest Team had left for the day. Once we'd gotten a "yes," the coast was clear for a royal breakfast indeed

Of course, we were the worst dressed people in the whole place. I really mean it when I say it was a royal breakfast. All the other diners sat at tables in sparkly dresses or suits, perfect complements to the crystal glasses, fine silverware, white linen tablecloths, golden chandeliers, and rich marble flooring of this sophisticated eatery. They shot Atsuko major side-eye as she downed her fifth mimosa of the morning and let out a satisfied belch, but Atsuko just asked for another drink with a wink; she took great delight in scandalizing the upper crust. Botan, meanwhile, was just plain oblivious to the snooty people watching us, because she shoveled back waffles coated in syrup and strawberries without a care in the world given to those ogling her table manners.

I had eaten my food quickly so I could scour a map of the hotel; a brochure had been provided by the front desk when I asked for one. Printed in gold ink on elegant cardstock, the map showed me at least four ballrooms, the three aforementioned restaurants, a spa (also complimentary, we'd been told), several pools, and what even looked like a nightclub for partying in some distant wing of the sprawling resort of a hotel. Very, very swanky indeed—but I was more interested in finding the emergency exits over the spa or nightclub.

Zombie survival preparedness depended on knowing all the routes in and out of a place, after all, as did avoiding people you didn't wish to see who were staying at the same hotel. If we needed to duck away from the boys at some point, wouldn't hurt to know where to run to.

Atsuko burped and leaned back in her seat, patting her belly with a smile on her face. "Damn this was good."

"Agreed!" said Botan through a full mouth.

"Everything tastes good when it's free," Shizuru said. She tapped her cigarette into the ash try on her knee; the 90s were still pretty lax about smoking in restaurants, and at this behavior the ritzy patrons of the restaurant didn't balk. Some of them were smoking cigars, after all. Hashtag-90s-culture, I guess.

A waiter appeared just as Botan cleared her third plate of waffles. He wore a tux, a white cloth draped over his arm in the most cliché portrait of a fancy waiter you can think of. "Will you be requiring anything more, madam?" he said as he stood over Shizuru's shoulder.

She stubbed out her cigarette and passed him the smoldering ash tray. "Nah."

An annoyed look flashed across his face before he pasted on a smile. "Very good, madam," he said with a bow. "I'll leave you to it. Have a wonderful day watching the fights."

"Sure," she said. When he walked away, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded brochure—the fight program we'd been given that morning. She waved it at us and said, "We've got about an hour. Wanna walk over, take in the sights? Arena isn't too far away."

Botan patted her mouth with a napkin. "Sure!"

"Yeah, let's go," Atsuko said.

I folded the hotel map and put it in my pocket, joining them as they stood and headed for the restaurant entrance. Light music drifted from the grand piano in the corner, soothing and serene and totally out of time with our clattering footfalls. More waiters bowed as we passed, murmuring well wishes and pleas to return for our next meal—and honestly, it was a little creepy. I wasn't used to anything this fancy, in this life or my previous, but I had to wonder if it would be creepier to hang around these subservient (but safe) humans or the potentially dangerous demons at the stadium.

At that thought, my hand wandered to my thigh on reflex, fingertip running over the handle of a knife strapped to my leg. Having my knives certainly gave me a little comfort, and—

Wait.

I stopped walking. "Hold on a sec."

The others stopped walking, too. The piano from the restaurant trickled from the golden archway, indistinct but pretty. "Sup?" Atsuko asked. "You not eat enough waffles?"

"It's not that." I pointed at my leg. "I have a second knife bandolier, but I forgot to put it on. Can I go grab…?"

Shizuru snorted. "Paranoid, much?"

Botan just giggled. "We'll wait at the front door, scatterbrain."

"Thanks!"

Botan laughed aloud as I took off at a run for the elevators; a few hotel employees shot me disapproving looks (as did some guests who were wearing formal attire at nine in the fucking morning; so who cares what they think, right?) but I ignored them and jabbed impatiently at the ivory "up" button. When the elevator doors dinged, I boarded and pressed the 5 button, leaning against the mahogany paneled back wall with a sigh as the carriage bore me upward to my floor. My eyes lingered on the button panel; there were some buttons, for the floors labeled 13 and higher, that couldn't be pressed unless you had the key that went into the keyhole next to said buttons. VIP areas, the hotel map had told me, but even after this room upgrade, we weren't allowed access to them. Atsuko had been pissed, but c'est la vie, I guess.

I slipped out of the elevator doors as soon as a gap large enough opened up between them. Our room wasn't too far from the elevators, just a minute's quick walk, and since I was running the distance passed in a flash. The hotel rooms had old-fashioned metal keys that turned in the lock with a satisfying click; my door creaked open to reveal a sumptuous living area with attached, full-service kitchen, appliances brand new but furniture luxuriously antique. I passed all of that and headed for one of the two bedrooms off the living space, the one with the two four-poster canopy beds with the satin coverlets and mounds of fluffy pillows. My duffle lay tucked in the bottom drawer of the giant wooden dresser with clawed feet; I pulled it out and fished out the second bandolier of knives Hideki had given me, which I strapped to the bare thigh beneath the hem of my blue dress. I wore a light jacket over the dress and a pair of comfortable but dainty leather shoes, and to anyone who didn't know me, I probably looked like a sweet little schoolgirl. Unless someone knew where to look, they'd miss the shoulder holster of knives hidden by said jacket, not to mention the dozen knives strapped just out of sight below my skirt's hem and the garrote wrapped around my waist beneath a white sash.

In a moment of indulgent whimsy, I went into the bathroom and twirled in front of the full-length mirror, gold taps and clean white porcelain gleaming in the image behind me. I looked… cute. Cute, and not at all deadly. This innocence was a calculated risk, the way I saw it. Better to be underestimated by the demons at the Tournament than to challenge them, make them want to fight me, or—

From beyond the bedroom door, there came a low, slow creaking sound.

At once I ducked into the space behind the bathroom door, heart beating like mad in my chest. I held my breath as light footsteps creaked their way across the living room floor before coming to a quiet stop. Was it one of my friends come to check on me? No, they would have called out, asked me where I was. Feet like a leopard's on a forest floor, I stalked out of the bathroom and to the space behind the open bedroom door. Peering through the crack between door and frame showed me nothing but a sliver of velvet couch, however—but then, muffled and distant, there came a high-pitched sound, ragged and distressed.

A shriek. A pained shriek, stifled like someone had put a hand over a screaming mouth.

I reacted without thinking, darting out from behind the door and into the living room, hand tight on the knives at my thigh. I slipped into a throwing stance and swept the room over once, looking for the threat, seeking out whoever had screamed and whoever it was who'd made them make that sound.

I spotted them at once.

My hand on the knife loosened.

For a minute, I could only stare. Soon, though, I leaned against the frame of my bedroom door and crossed my arms over my chest, debating what to do as the intruder carried on about their business. On my couch, I might add.

Eventually I took a deep breath, and I spoke.

"You know," I said (and at that she jumped off the couch with a squawk), "sometimes I scream into pillows when I'm stressed, too."

The woman—because it was a woman who'd come into the suite uninvited, and who had sprawled across my couch, and who had been screaming into a pillow to relieve stress—wore a dark uniform with rows of gold buttons up the front, collar white and starched and stiff against her deep russet skin and coal black hair. She backpedaled across the room until the backs of her knees bumped into a chair; this made her lose her balance, and she sat down heavily, hands still clutching the velvet pillow into which she'd been screaming. Black bangs fell like a curtain across her forehead, framing her huge brown eyes as they blinked up a panicked storm. She tried to stammer something, tucking her long, lush hair behind her ear with a single shaking finger, but the words died before she could voice them.

And speaking of ears. Hers were inhumanly large, almost batlike, sprouting off the sides of her head to fly outward in a sweeping arc of eye-catching flesh. When she tucked her hair behind the, the motion revealed more of her cheek—not to mention the rash of bright pink scales that stood out against her skin like jewels.

A demon, then. Definitely, definitely a gorgeous demon wearing the uniform of a hotel employee screaming into a pillow in the middle of my living room. Of all the situations I'd expected today, this was absolutely last among them.

"I-I'm sorry," she eventually stammered. "I'm, I'm so sorry, I didn't think the room was occupied." She stood up and took a step toward the door, then remembered she was still holding the pillow and doubled back to put it down. "I'll be going now, so very very sorry again that I—"

"Oh, it's OK." I held out a placating hand. "We checked in really late last night, if that helps."

She stopped short. "Oh. I see. Well. Um." She tucked more hair behind her enormous bat ears; her eyes flickered between me, the door, the pillow, and me again. "I'll be going, then. I have to, uh, get back to, uh—"

"It's OK," I repeated, and this time I gave her a knowing grin. "You escaping a shitty boss or what?"

It was an attempt at a joke, just to lighten the mood, because honestly she looked like she was about to throw up and I was worried about having to pay for the expensive carpet—but then her face fell, and her lip jutted out with a pronounced quiver, and to my extreme discomfort she sat heavily in the chair and snatched up the velvet pillow again. Two tears slipped from her eyes before she pressed her face into the cushion and screamed, an outburst that turned into a muffled sob as her shoulders began to heave and shake.

I panicked. I full-on, outright panicked at that point, feet pedaling beneath me like a cartoon character as I headed first for her, and then for the bathroom, and then for the kitchen. "Oh my god, oh my god, tissues, tissues, let me get you some tissues!" I babbled as I scrambled into the bedroom and back to her again with a box of Kleenex in my hands. I knelt at her side and shoved a tissue at her fingers (which still had a vicegrip on the pillow). "Here, here, please don't cry I'm so sorry I didn't mean to make you—!"

She grabbed the tissue and lifted her face, which had puffed up a little with stress and tears. "It's" (she hiccupped) "It's not your" (another hiccup) "It's not your fault!" She blew her nose and grimaced. "My boss is just so mean!"

For a minute I thought she might go off on a good, cleansing rant about said boss, because a fire lit in her deep brown eyes and her teeth grit tight with anger—but the fire doused, and the anger cooled, and she buried her face in the pillow again with another sob. I had no idea what to do, of course, so I just sat there holding the box of tissues like a bump on a log, wondering what the heck I'd gotten myself into.

"Oh, I get it," I said after a while. "Have you been using this room as a private escape when stuff gets bad at work, or something?"

She sniffled, face lifting off the cushion a fraction. "Uh-huh," she said, glum as a cemetery in October. "It's been reserved for weeks but nobody ever checked in, so I thought…" Her lip trembled. "I'm so sorry, please don't tell my boss, please please please don't—"

"I won't tell," I was quick to assure her. "We all need a place to go when our bosses start acting terrible, after all."

An emphatic nod. "Yes, we do." She dabbed at her nose with the tissue and heaved a sigh. "And, oh, it's not even just my boss. These horrible humans have been so utterly terrible, it's a wonder I—"

I suppose something showed on my face when she said that, because she stopped talking. She looked me over. Her face contorted with embarrassed horror and she recoiled, scooting away across the chair with eyes as wide as saucers. "Oh!" she groaned. "Oh, I'm so so sorry, I had no idea that you were—" She pressed her face back into the pillow. "I'm so embarrassed, I just—"

"Hey, hey, please don't cry!" I said. "Humans can be awful. Especially the rich ones."

Her face lifted once again. Although she looked uncertain, she needn't have; I meant most of what I'd said. Humans could be The Worst, and the levels of snooty in this hotel were very high indeed.

"Rich humans can be the scummiest ever, in fact," I went on. "I don't blame you one bit for needing to complain about them." I offered her a hand to shake. "I'm Keiko, by the way."

She eyed the hand with skepticism (as if wondering if it could bite?) but eventually she took it. "I'm Otoha," she said. "I work at the front desk."

"Oh, cool. Well, Otoha. It's nice to meet you." I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away, offering her the tissue box with my other hand. "I, ah. I dunno if this is weird to say, but we're all girls here in this suite, and we're all pretty nice. So if stuff gets bad at work again, you can come back here." I chanced a grin. "Just knock first so you don't scare anybody, OK?"

Otoha looked at me in silence.

She blinked. She sniffled.

And she burst right back into tears. "Why are you being so nice to me?" she wailed, pressing her hands into her eyes.

"Uh. I dunno? Because that's what you're supposed to be toward crying people?" I blurted. When she didn't stop crying, I gently put my hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Is this job really so bad?"

She looked at me with a nod, eyes screwed up with disgust. The anger crept back into her eyes as a scowl crept across her lips. "It's a nightmare," she said, taking a shuddering breath to wrest back control. "An absolute, total nightmare."

"Could you quit?" When her eyes widened in shock, I babbled, "I know we just met and all, but I can tell the job is giving you a lot of grief, so if your mental health is taking a huge toll, maybe you should…"

But she shook her head. "N-no. I can't. I have to stay."

I frowned. "Why do you have to…?

Otoha heaved a heavy sigh and wound her fingers through her bangs. "It's a long story," she muttered. Then panic flashed across her face; she stood up, nearly knocking me over, and began to hastily brush the front of her rumpled dress. "And I need to be getting back to work or my boss will be even worse to me!"

"Oh, uh." I stood up; Otoha was about six inches taller than me, I noticed, willowy and tall. "Sure."

She tossed up her hands. "Ugh, manners!" Otoha swept me a curtsy, wobbly but efficient. "I'm very sorry for barging in and I'm grateful at your offer of a place to come when things get, um, overwhelming." She scrubbed at her face with her hands and smoothed her hair, the very portrait of an overworked employee trying not to look like she'd just been crying in the supply closet. Talking almost on autopilot she said, "Please call the front desk and ask for me if you need anything at all, and I will be happy to oblige." She fluffed out her hair and took a swift step toward the exit. "So if you'll excuse—"

"Actually," I blurted. "There is one thing, if you're offering."

She paused, halfway to the door and looking as shocked as I felt. I hadn't meant to speak, but the words had just come out. One of her brows hitched; she took another deep, shuddering breath, and even though her voice cracked a little, I sensed she was done crying for the day. "Wow," Otoha said, looking just the littlest bit impressed. "Didn't expect you to take me up on that offer so fast."

"What can I say? Humans are enterprising." I held up a single finger. "One second."

She crossed her arms over her chest, head tilting curiously to the side as I headed for the roll top desk in the corner of the living room. A pad of hotel stationary and a pen lay upon it next to a phone and the room service menu; I picked up the pen and scribbled a note, which I tucked inside an envelope from a box in one of the desk's drawers (fancy hotel, fancy complimentary amenities, I guess).

"Do you do any work in the hotel where the fighters are staying?" I said as I taped the enveloped shut. "Or do you know anyone who does?"

"Yes, but why would a human—?"

I cut her off before she could ask; I didn't intend to give her answers if I could help it, anyway. "Could you deliver this note to someone for me?" I said.

She blinked. "That's all you want?"

"Yeah."

Otoha looked at me in silence, but then she put her hand to her forehead with a laugh. "And here I thought you'd go asking for something big," she said. "But you humans. You're unpredictable, aren't you?" She shook her head, still laughing. "OK, sure. I'll deliver your note. Why not?"

"Perfect!" I scribbled the name of the recipient across the envelope and handed it to her. "I hope this is OK."

She took the envelope; her brow shot up when she saw to whom it was address. "Wait. You know him?" she said, sounding thoroughly incredulous.

"Oh. Well. Not really, no," I admitted. "But I'm hoping to make an introduction. Thanks for your help."

"Of course." The envelope disappeared into a pocket on her skirt. "I'm just—sorry again about, you know." She rolled her eyes. "Crying all over your pillows and calling humans names, and suchlike. Really, I swear I'm a lovely demon, first impressions notwithstanding."

I couldn't help but grin. "Any time. It was nice meeting you."

Otoha looked a tiny bit surprised at that, but she just laughed. "Humans really are strange," she muttered to herself, and she tapped the pocket containing my note. "I'll let you know if there's a reply."

"Thanks. See you later?"

Another eye-roll. "Yes, I imagine I'll be invading your room again if my boss keeps this up." At that she jolted, leaping a few inches straight into the air with a yelp of wild dread. "Oh, crap! I really am going to be late at this rate!" she squeaked, and she turned on her heel and marched swiftly for the door. "Goodbye, Keiko! See you later!"

"Bye, Otoha!" I called after her, but the door had already shut in her frantic wake. I stared at the door for a minute after she left, shaking my head, and then I cleaned up the discarded tissues lying strewn about Otoha's chair. The pillow was soaked; I left it on the window sill to dry in the sun. Otoha had come into the room like a whirlwind, but despite the small disaster she'd left behind, I hoped I'd be hearing from her again soon.

That note I'd given her was another of my calculated risks, like looking innocent and sweet among a throng of vicious demons—only if that note had its desired effect, and if I got what I want, the results would be far more useful against said demons than the knives strapped to my thigh.

I just hoped the note made it to its intended destination, and that the demon to whom I'd addressed it was feeling generous.

"Now," Botan said, looking at each of us with stern solemnity. "Remember the rules?"

We nodded in unison. Above us loomed the dome of the stadium, fireworks (well, more like smoke bombs launched high into the sky, but they made the same sound) going off far above our heads. Demons loitered and milled about by the hundreds, a thick gaggle of them moving in and out of the stadium's many entrances and exits. A few vendors here and there hawed merchandise, trinkets, and food; some demons in long coats hissed about scalped tickets as they passed, offering passage in to see the fights at wildly marked up prices. Huge TVs set into the sides of the stadium displayed the inside of the dome, but right now no one occupied the ring. The matches hadn't yet begun for the day, but demons were already too distracted by the theatrics of the Dark Tournament to care about the four women (three humans and one… unknown) walking through their midst.

Honestly, the whole spectacle reminded me of a sports match. Scalpers and souvenirs, crowds and clamor, the smell of buttery popcorn and the sound of cheering fans… if it hadn't been for the odd anatomy of the spectators, I could've mistaken this hullaballoo for the Super Bowl when it was hosted in my city in my old life, but that's neither here nor there.

Botan waited for us to answer her impatiently, tapping her foot against the ground as she looked around at the nearby demons. Shizuru chuckled and took the cigarette from her mouth, holding it loosely between two fingers with hip cocked out beneath her hand.

"Keep our heads down," Shizuru said.

"Hang back whenever possible," I added.

"Do not engage!" Botan reminded us.

"And kick ass should the occasion call for it," Atsuko said, punching her fist into her hand with a wicked grin.

Botan groaned. "Atsuko-oh…!"

"What?!" she groused, eyes rolling skyward. "Yusuke can't have all the demon-fighting fun, now can he?"

Behind her, someone laughed. "I should think not," he said—and beside me, Botan paled.

We turned as one to face the newcomer, and all at once the world seemed to grow louder—louder the moment I saw him, as if the world wanted to drown him out and spare us from something we'd wanted so badly to avoid. Botan appeared to feel the same way as the scents of food grew stronger and the crowd seemed to roar around us, the movement of their passing rising nearly to a wind against my suddenly electric skin. Botan's hand crept into mine, gripping my fingers tightly in her own; she shrank into my side with a tiny gasp, eyes huge and vivid against her skin and contrasting hair. "Y-you!" she stammered, clinging to me even tighter. "Y-You're—"

"Here?" he said, tossing his brown hair. "Of course I'm here. And hello to you too, Botan. It's good to see you after all this time."

"B-but." She stopped speaking and swallowed. She looked this way and that, "B-but, sir, I—"

His eyes moved to the rest of us, then. "And it's good to see the rest of you in the flesh for the first time." He smiled. "Let's see. You're Urameshi Atsuko, mother of Urameshi Yusuke."

Atsuko did not look amused by this show of insight. "Damn straight," she said between her teeth.

He kept talking before she could snark at him. "And you're Kuwabara Shizuru, elder sister of Kuwabara Kazuma," he said, turning to her as his smile widened.

"So they tell me," Shizuru grunted, unimpressed.

He nodded at her, pleased—and then he turned, at last, to me. "And you're Yukimura Keiko," he said. "Local busybody and civilian liaison to Spirit World, correct?"

My eye twitched; if Botan hadn't been holding my hand, I'd be tempted to swing it at him. "Wow," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm flattered."

He preened. "I aim to please," he said, and as he opened his mouth to speak again, Shizuru stepped toward him.

"Well, this isn't fair." Her tone held no accusation, merely neutral observation—but her eyes were hard, like she wouldn't hesitate an instant if he threatened us. "You know who we are, but I'll be damned if I've ever seen you before."

"Yeah!" Atsuko stepped up next to her with a sneer. "So just who the hell are you supposed to be, huh?"

His eyes shut briefly; a smile touched his mouth. "Apologies. Where are my manners?" he said.
"It's been a while since I've had the chance to socialize, but that is no excuse. Allow me cut to the chase."

Botan's hand clenched around mine so hard, her nails dug into my skin. Her mouth moved next to mine, whispering his name before he could even begin to say it—but she had no idea that I knew his name, too, and that she was not the only one among our number who felt threatened by the presence of this man.

Well. This toddler pretending to be a man for the sake of appearances, but you get what I'm trying to say.

He drew himself up, red cape swirling about his ankles as he struck a prideful post. Brown eyes gleamed nearly gold in the light of the morning sun as he tossed his hair again, the tattoo upon his forehead stark and inky black amid the strands. The blue ogre behind him rolled his eyes, but the toddler-man did not notice, and he continued his theatrics unopposed.

"I," he declared with relish, "am Koenma—Prince of the Underworld and sponsor of Team Urameshi." He dipped a low bow, smile wide and eager on his lips. "And let me just say, I am very pleased to meet you."

Notes:

Thus, Koenma enters the picture. And we're, what, only… (glances at watch) 700k words into this? YEESH.

NaNoWriMo begins Nov. 1, so my regularly scheduled November hiatus effectively begins now. See you on December 8 with chapter 85!

Meanwhile… keep an eye out for the end of the countdown on October 31. We're only 3 days away from finding out what that countdown is all about. I think you'll like it.

Here's a hint for ya: Let's just say that even though LC will be on hiatus during November, you'll be hearing from me rather a lot in the weeks to come… mwa ha ha!

Also, "Hotel Kubikukuri" is not a name I made up; it's the name of the hotel in the anime. It was spelled in English and not with Japanese characters so translating it was a bit weird. But "kubi" can mean "neck" and "kukuri" can mean "tightly," so I'm guessing it translates to something at least a little close to "Hotel Hanging Neck." Very literal way to name the hotel, indeed…ALSO I SWEAR TO GLOB that the hotel had a different name in the manga (Hotel Za or something) but I can't, for the life of me, find it. The name of the hotel isn't displayed when they first arrive in the manga (which is where it's displayed in the anime). If anyone knows, please let me know!

One more thing: The DT stadium is HUGE. Where do all those demons stay? Where do they get food? My city hosted the Super Bowl a few years ago and preparations started YEARS in advance. Cities that host the Olympics prep for even longer. I personally find it interesting to explore these small realities of the Tournament, because the anime/manga really did gloss over them.

Many thanks to all those who came out last week. I know people have a hard time picking the story back up after I go on hiatus but that just means I'm especially grateful to those who found the time to read the chapter. You're rock stars: Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, Gerbilfriend, AngelFish1214, BatsuGames, EMMstAr, SunShark, TheInterim_VectorChronos, Kuramag33, , Eternalevecho, DragonsTower, Masked_Trickster, Just 2 Dream of You, nomyriad, musiquemer!

Chapter 85: The Dutch Arbitration Gambit

Summary:

In which NQK dusts off an old skill.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I suppose, as the demonic crowd eddied and swirled around us, that we must have all frozen in place—Botan out of fear, Shizuru and Atsuko out of shock and surprise, and me out of… well. I wasn't exactly sure. Maybe I was shocked, too. But whatever the case may be, Koenma snorted at our combined reaction and tossed his hair out of his eyes.

He had beautiful eyes, I couldn't help but notice. They were almost gold, a perfect complement to his tanned skin and chestnut hair. He'd clearly chosen his teenage form based on its looks, which I got the sense had been engineered for maximum prettiness. His features were perfectly proportioned, chin delicate but chiseled, nose refined and proportional to his face, eyes almond and ringed by thick lashes. His bronze skin, lustrous and smooth, looked like it had been airbrushed, pores tiny to the point of oddly familiar invisibility—

I glanced at Botan. She had skin just like Koenma's, even if of a different shade. I'd noticed it the first time I saw her, how perfect and unblemished her skin was. Both of them were like dolls, almost, too perfect to be real. Whatever device Spirit World used to make physical bodies for its incorporeal residents, it had the market cornered on nice skin.

Koenma spoke eventually. "Oh, don't look at me like that." Somehow he managed to grin around the bulbous blue pacifier in his mouth. "Did you really think I'd let Spirit World's finest detective come to this dangerous tournament without me, his team's illustrious owner?"

Botan shrank back, halfway hiding behind Shizuru—and then Shizuru shrank back a little, too, though not because of Koenma. A tall demon with blue skin and enormous tusks had stepped up behind Koenma, arms crossed over his broad chest. He wore a fedora and a long trench coat, features below the hat blocky and fierce—but when he uncrossed his arms and began to wring his hands, tusked jaw jutting forward in an anxious pout, I realized who he was: George Saotome, ogre and Koenma's aid. Seemed like the gang was all here.

Botan clung to Shizuru's arm. "B-but, Lord Koenma—" she said, eyes darting from him to the milling crowds and back again. "You can't—I mean, I can't—"

He talked over her like she hadn't spoken. "No, of course I wouldn't." His eyes narrowed when he smiled. "That wouldn't be very princely of me, would it, Botan?"

"No." She let go of Shizuru and backed up a pace, nearly colliding with a demon with purple scales. "No, Koenma-sama, it—"

His smile softened at the edges. "It's all right," he said. "We're fine to talk, at least out here."

Botan's fearful expression shifted to one of surprise. "W-we are?"

"I'm not being watched." Koenma paused, then laughed. "Well, most of the time I am, but in this rancorous crowd I'll be impossible to spot."

"I find that hard to believe."

This came from Shizuru. She stared down the length of her nose at the prince of the underworld with undisguised skepticism, halo of smoke from her cigarette framing her long hair and sharp eyes. Koenma looked her over, but when her intense gaze didn't falter, his smile faded somewhat.

"I assure you, I'm not wrong," he said. "My father is too busy monitoring the activities of the tournament's human backers to pay attention to me."

She appeared unconvinced. "Uh huh."

Not that that affected Koenma. "What can I say?" He shrugged. "I've been a good son lately."

George, meanwhile, looked just about as skeptical as Shizuru. He leaned down (he was quite a bit taller than his boss) and cupped his clawed blue hand over Koenma's ear. "You really think that's right, sir?" he said, hand not muffling his deep voice in the slightest. "Is it true that your father really isn't watching you?"

"I have my ways of knowing," Koenma said, chin raising with undisguised pride—but then he saw Botan's eyes regain their former fear, and he smiled at her again. "And besides," he said, voice lower and more soothing than before. "He certainly has more on his plate than finding one runaway reaper—and he didn't think you'd be so reckless as to appear here, anyway."

Atsuko, standing at my side, crossed her arms and scoffed. "That sounds like a fancy way of calling us stupid."

"Far from it. It was clever, really, to do something so unexpected." A bit of pride entered his expression. "Hiding in plain sight like this is a brilliant—"

"Don't you dare compliment me!"

Koenma stepped back as if struck; Atsuko and I did much the same, though Shizuru held her ground well enough to turn and look at Botan with one brow lifted artfully high. Botan hadn't moved an inch, except for her fists, which had clenched, and her eyes, which had gone the lengthy distance from scared to infuriated in an instant.

"You." She glared at Koenma, the word quavering in her mouth like the metal of a sword struck again stone. "I haven't heard from you in months, and you think it's all right to be nice to me?" She stepped forward, fists shaking at her sides. "You have been absent ever since I was—since I was—"

One fist unclenched. She touched her forehead beneath her bangs almost on reflex. Koenma tracked the motion with his eyes, but otherwise, he did not acknowledge it.

"Botan, please," was all he said. He put up a hand. Started toward her. "Be reasonable."

But that was the wrong thing to say. "Be reasonable?!" she repeated. "You want me to be reasonable, after everything you did?"

"What I did was keep you safe."

"What you did was lock me in a prison and leave me there!" she countered. "You never even visited me! Only Ayame, and George—" She put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, George."

The aforementioned smiled. He doffed his hat and bowed. "Hello, Botan."

She only had eyes for him, then, her ire at Koenma momentarily forgotten. "Oh, George," she repeated with wobbly cadence. "I'm so sorry for what I did. But I had to get out, I had to, I—"

He nodded. "I know you did." George had a nice, rumbly voice, and he gave Botan a kindly smile—one that held apology as much as it did affection. At the sight of it, Botan drew in a hitching breath that sounded suspiciously like the birth of a sob. George said, "I understand, and you don't have to apologize. A bump on the head is a small price to pay. It was terrible the way they kept you—"

Koenma rounded on his assistant and glared. "Hey! Whose side are you on?"

George yelped and danced backward, as if scared Koenma might lash out at him physically—and at the sight of this, not to mention George's yelped "I'm sorry, sir!" something inside me cracked viciously into place.

Something inside Botan apparently did the same. She blinked, banishing her welling tears, and loosed a literal growl. "Don't yell at him!" she rumbled at Koenma. "You treat him just the way you treated me—like we're disposable and unimportant! Well, Koenma, I am not disposable. I am important, even if you don't see it that way." She shook her head, ponytail flapping. "Even if you haven't tried to help me again since I spoke with Ayame so many months ago."

"I never said you weren't important, Botan." Koenma sounded wearily patient, like a preschool teacher on their last legs amongst annoying students. "On the contrary, I—"

Botan wouldn't have it. "You left me in Human World, alone, and you still haven't cleared my name!" she said. Accusation filled her magenta gaze. "You haven't done a thing to bring me back, have you?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "I thought Ayame explained this," he muttered. "Botan, the situation is complicated."

She shook her head again. "No, it isn't." Her voice climbed higher, and higher, with every word she spoke, fists clenching and vibrating in time with her rising tirade. "If you cared, you would've found a way to fix me. If you cared, you would've found a way to prove I'm stable. If you actually cared about me, Koenma, you would have made sure that I can—"

Something sizzled. The scent of ozone filled the air, and from the direction of Botan's hands came a noise like sausages frying in a pan. She gasped and gave a pained groan, clutching her left wrist to her chest. On this wrist glimmered a dainty gold watch. Its face glowed bright blue, illumination turning Botan's pinched face the color of aquarium light. Golden sparks, nearly invisible in broad daylight, skittered up and over her arm, spitting and popping like burning firewood.

"Dude," Atsuko said in my ear. "What the fuck?"

I didn't answer her. Neither did Botan. Now was not the time to explain that that watch, gifted to Botan by Ayame, was a shock collar meant to keep Botan's newfound and violent demonic impulses at bay. Botan took one deep breath, and then another, in through the nose and out through the mouth, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The watch's bright glow lessened, then went out.

"I would not have instructed Ayame to give you that watch," Koenma said when the light died completely, "had I not desired to keep you safe."

Botan's head snapped up, eyes popping open wide. "You told her…?"

He grimaced. "Perhaps 'instructed' is generous. Truthfully, I mentioned that the inhibitor watch existed in her hearing. She stole it and delivered it to you, as I hoped she would." As Botan's eyes widened, he stepped toward her, one hand raised as if to touch her shoulder. "And Botan, Ayame told you all of this already: that I can't bring you back of my own power. That your condition is irreversible. You have to master your powers and earn your place in Spirit World without my help if you want to come back home again."

Botan listened without moving, eyes locked on his face. His fingers skimmed her shoulder—but then he pulled them back, lips thinning into a grim line.

"I know who you are," he said, soft words nearly swallowed by the crowd still washing around our party like a river current. "I know you haven't changed no matter how many extra eyes you've grown." His grimace deepened. "It's my father you have to impress."

Her chin ducked. "Impressing Enma seems impossible."

"Difficult, yes. But not impossible for our best ferry girl." When she didn't reply, or even look pleased by his flattery, Koenma looked her over with a frown of a different nature. "Have you not been—?"

She didn't let him finish. "Of course I've been practicing," she grumbled. "It's just hard, that's all."

"Uh… should we be having this conversation here?"

This query came from George, who hovered at Koenma's elbow like an ironically hesitant bodyguard. Koenma looked over his shoulder at the ogre and opened his mouth, brow knit like he intended to berate George for the question, but then his mouth clamped shut.

"Probably not," Koenma admitted. He reached into the front fold of his blue robe and removed something from it. "Botan. Here."

She reached for his hand and took what he held between his fingers: a small plastic case with a lanyard on it, like the case for a bus pass or something. "What's this?"

"A Team Trainer pass in your name." He smiled when she looked shocked, lips curling behind his ridiculous pacifier. "You might think I don't value you, Botan. But you know that all of your other friends do, and with that, you can be closer to them while they fight. You can support them." Regret flickered in his gold gaze. "The way you supported me for so long."

Her eyes brimmed with tears again, not that I blamed her; this was probably something she'd been wanting to hear from him for a long time. "Lord Koenma…" she said, voice no louder than a whisper. "Thank you."

He nodded; pain, soft and urgent, flashed across his face. "My hands are tied regarding your return to Spirit World. But that doesn't mean I haven't been trying to—never mind." He shook his head, tone turning brusque. "We'll talk again privately, later. Be expecting me, all of you."

Botan said: "No."

She didn't say it loudly, still speaking in that small, desolate whisper—but somehow her voice still carried, and on it I heard an edge of steel that set my shoulders right to tensing.

Koenma tensed, too. "No?" he repeated. "What do you mean, no?"

"I—it's best if you stay away. Like Ayame said." Botan offered him a brave smile, even if it shook, some of her usual bubbly attitude bleeding through again. "You could get in trouble for helping me."

"But Botan—"

She ignored Koenma's protest, instead dipping a low bow in George's direction. "I'm sorry I hit you to escape, George." She turned her bow toward Koenma. "And thank you for the pass, Lord Koenma, but it's better if we keep our distance. I'm sorry."

And with that, she turned and ran. She bolted into the crowd, blue hair obvious even amidst the brightly colored demons she moved between. I started to call out to her, but Atsuko beat me to it. "Botan, wait!" Atsuko bellowed. She tried to follow the reaper, but two large demons blocked her way and she backpedaled toward our group. "Botan, you come back here right now and—"

Shizuru put her hand on Atsuko's arm. "Don't. Let her have her space."

She shook Shizuru off. "It's not that!" Atsuko tried to follow again, but a thick knot of demons chose that moment to walk past, blocking her way. Atsuko threw up her hands and screamed at the sky, "Botan! Botan, wait! You have all our tickets!"

At her words, I gasped.

Shizuru dropped her cigarette.

Koenma put his hand over his face, and George Saotome sighed sighed.

By the time we all caught up to Atsuko's realization, let alone by the time we tried to follow Botan, it was too late. The sight of Botan's blue hair had disappeared, reaper vanishing into the demonic crowd like so much dissipating smoke.

It was cold, and the line was long, and Christa had made me wear high heels—and that, more than anything, was probably why I was in such a shit mood.

Bass thumped past the golden walls of the nightclub before us, loud and heady and dense enough to feel in the roots of my teeth. It was purple, that bass—at least according to my synesthesia—and it clashed terribly with the club's architecture. Christa didn't seem bothered by the noise or architecture. She just muttered to herself as we stood in line, one we'd been in for at least an hour at that point, but we were finally at the front and her muttering had taken on an excited tenor. Justin Bieber had been to this club the night before (… great…), and getting to tag herself here would look great on her Instagram. It was not the first time she had dragged me and Michelle to a nightclub for the sake of her Insta. It probably wouldn't be the last, either, unless visiting a club made famous by Justin Bieber was on the top of her bucket list or something. "Too bad she's not a sick kid who can do Make a Wish," Michelle muttered in my ear as we huddled together for warmth at the front of the line. "Then they'd have to let her in."

The man in the fancy suit who walked up to the front of the line, cut in front of us, and was let into the club right as Michelle spoke certainly didn't look like a Make a Wish kid, either, but that's beside the point.

Christa's jaw dropped when he breezed past the bouncers. We were at the front, had been at the front for ten minutes, had been told by the two gigantic dudes in suits that there would be a long wait to get in, and then that man in the fancy clothes had just… cut in line and waltzed on past us? Christa didn't need to speak for me to know just how upsetting she found this turn of events. Her clenched fists and the way she tossed her carefully straightened hair said it all—and then she said it all as she marched right up to the bouncers, bare legs covered in gooseflesh below the hem of her faux fur coat.

"Really, guys?" she said, glaring. "Really?"

The first bouncer, bald-headed and tall, shrugged. "He's on the list."

"What list?" She stared at his empty hands. "I don't see a list."

"I have it memorized."

"I don't believe you."

The bouncer shrugged again. "He's VIP."

Christa glared, but she backed down. Hard to stand up to a guy at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than you. She sulked back over to our group of friends and grumbled at the ground, painted lips pursed tightly enough to crease her lipstick. And sure, I felt for her, but if this wasn't a sign that we should just give up the ghost and head to House of Pies for a late-night bite and then head home to her apartment for movies (and non-heeled shoes, not to mention pajamas), then I didn't know what was.

Christa sighed. "I really wanted to go here tonight."

Michelle shrugged. "Probably overpriced anyway."

"Not helping." Christa opened the top of her fuzzy jacket and stared thoughtfully at the top of her dress. "Think if I flash him my tits, he'll let us in?"

I voiced a firm "No" at the same time Michelle said "Worth a shot."

Christa rolled her eyes and closed her jacket back up. "I'm kidding." She aimed a thoughtful look over her shoulder at the bouncers. "Maybe if I sweet-talk him a little, though…?"

"Can't hurt to try it," I said.

At once, her jacket opened back up again; Christa shoved her hands into her bra to readjust her boobs. "Let me just fluff up the girls, and…"

Michelle laughed and confirmed that Christa's makeup was still on point when Christa asked, and then Christa injected her walk with so much swagger and panache it was a wonder the velvet rope blocking the way into the club didn't melt into a puddle before her. She put her hand on the bouncer's arm and said something, and then she laughed, but the bouncer remained unmoved.

I leaned over to Michelle. "Hey. Call me on your phone from in your pocket."

Michelle cocked one carefully plucked brow. "Why?"

"Just play along."

Michelle hid her confusion well; she knew when to play it cool, even if she had no fucking clue what was going on. She slid her hand into her purse and felt around for a minute, muttering something about lipstick for effect before pulling out a tube of the aforementioned cosmetic. A few seconds later, my phone started to chime; caller ID showed Michelle's name in bright letters.

I turned to Michelle and waved my glowing phone at her. "Sorry, I gotta take this." I climbed over the velvet rope that kept the club line contained and strode a few feet away—toward the front of the club, where the bouncers stood talking to Christa. I stuffed a finger in one ear and held the phone to my other. "What?" I yelled into the phone, feigning a bad connection; through the line I heard my own voice, distant and shrill, and the sounds of the thumping bass. I pretended to look peeved at what the fake person on the other line was saying. "Oh, fuck off, Jeremy, I'm busy." A beat. "Oh, so now they wanna talk?" I gesticulated for dramatic effect and spun on my heel, affecting agitation so I could sneak a glance at the bouncers. One of them was looking in my direction; I turned away with a stream of curses. "Look, Jeremey, I don't know what to fucking tell you. The Russians rejected Dutch arbitration two days ago and if they really wanted that trade deal to go through without completely fucking over current supply routes—no, I'm not going on hold so you can call them!" I held the phone away from my face and yelled into it, "No, I don't fucking care if I start another goddamn Cold War! You can tell Vlad's little cronies that if they have a problem with their export lifeline, they can call me on Monday. During American fucking business hours, none of this goddamn middle of the night bullshit. Now fuck off and bye."

I hung up with a flourish and cursed again, not bothering to keep my voice down, and eventually I turned back to the club entrance. People were staring, as I'd hoped, and one of the bouncers was whispering in the other's ear. No one was laughing or mocking me, either; seems they'd bought my little fiction, for the most part, which was nice. I'd tried this before with much less success. I kept my feeling of triumph off my face and turned a baleful eye on the bouncers.

"Look, man, are you letting us in our not?" I rubbed a temple and did my best to look exhausted. "Because much like my asshole friends in Moscow, I could really use some cheap fucking vodka to help deal with this fucking—"

The bouncer reached for the velvet rope. "Space just opened." He jerked his head at my friends. "You three, c'mon."

I smiled. "Thank you."

Christa had the good sense not to stare at me with her mouth open, but as soon as we went indoors and found ourselves by the dark coat-check station, she socked my arm. "Girl, what the shit was that?!"

I shrugged. "So it turns out that if you mention Vlad and Russia and the word 'arbitration' in close proximity, it makes you sound important and it tends to scare people into doing what you want and whatnot, so…"

Michelle laughed. "You're a first class liar, y'know that?"

"Oh, I wasn't lying." I took out my phone and started typing, trying to pull up the article I'd published on the subject the week prior. "Russians did actually reject Dutch trade arbitration last week; I had to write this big report at work on it and now—"

"And you use it to get into clubs now," Michelle surmised.

"And to make them work faster at the pharmacy, probably, though I haven't tried that." I beamed. "It has a lot of good practical applications." I held up one warning finger. "But be sure to practice first because I tried to use it to get a table at that new sushi spot downtown and they just laughed at me."

Christa snickered. "Think it'll work at my bank? Gotta go this week."

"Try it and see with my blessing."

She promised to do so, and to let me know of her success. We went into the club itself shortly after that, where Christa took a thousand photos for her Instagram story and made me dance despite how hard it was to walk in the heels she'd lent me. It ended up being a fun night, especially once we had some of that cheap vodka I'd mentioned to the bouncers, but the best part was ending the night at House of Pies for their famous cinnamon rolls and a plate of fried eggs. I ended up not regretting the night out, for the most part, even if after that Christa always insisted I go with her to high-class clubs just in case she wanted to bypass the entry line.

The "Dutch Arbitration Gambit" didn't always work, though.

I'm not nearly as good a liar as Michelle seemed to think I was.

Forest ringed the Dark Tournament stadium, trees edging right up to concrete walkway that surrounded the arena. We picked a specific tree as a meeting spot and then split up to look for Botan, agreeing to meet a half hour later whether we'd located her or not. I just hoped she hadn't gone into the stadium without us, but after 25 minutes of fruitless searching, prospects looked grim (pun unintended, because I was in no mood for jokes). I headed back to the entrance closest to where we'd talked to Koenma and sidled up to the two guards standing on either side of the entrance. They were huge, blue guard uniforms stretched taut across their broad chests and thick bellies, buttons nearly about to burst. Both had horns, but one was purple and the other an alarmingly acidic shade of green. I approached the purple one; the color seemed safer to me for some reason, maybe because it was closer to Botan's hair color and she was the person I was going to ask him about.

"Blue hair?" He had a deep voice, like rocks grating together as they fell down a mountain.
"Yeah, I think I saw someone like that." As my heart leapt in my ribs, he leered at me—or, more specifically, at my chest. "But if you want more information, it'll cost ya a—"

I glowered. "Not on your life, buddy."

He just laughed. I thought about threatening him with bodily harm but decided against it. He'd at least halfway confirmed what I suspected: That Botan had gone inside, and with her, all of our entry tickets. Best not to pay this asshole another minute of attention.

The others had all reached similar conclusions. I found them waiting at the meeting tree, looking disgruntled as they discussed what they had (or, more accurately, hadn't) found during their respective searches. George in particular looked quite distraught, wringing his hat in his large hands as if to squeeze Botan's location from the cloth.

"She has to notice eventually, right?" Atsuko was saying. She'd tied back her hair, in full get-down-to-business mode as she glared up at the stadium with hands planted firmly on her hips. "Like, she'll have to take out her ticket and she'll find the others in her pocket and put two and two together. She has to."

"Who knows?" Shizuru, leaning against the meeting tree, blew out a puff of grey smoke. "She seemed pretty worked up. Obviously wasn't thinking clearly."

Atsuko growled, then wheeled to Koenma. "Hey. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of prince?"

He raised a brow. "Last time I checked."

She lifted a finger toward the stadium as if accusing it of a crime. "Then pull some strings and get us more tickets, huh?"

"Sorry. I'm afraid it doesn't really work like that," Koenma replied with clipped efficiency. "The Tournament has been sold out for months, and even a prince can't make tickets materialize out of thin air."

"Fat load of help you are."

The words slipped out of my mouth unbidden, but even though I'd muttered them, Koenma's ears were sharp. He turned on his heel to stare at me, brow lifting higher and higher with every passing second. "Excuse me?" he said. "I must have misheard you, because I could have sworn you just—"

"Oh, you heard me." It was too late to back down now, or so I felt. I squared my feet and tried to look at him down my nose despite his height. "Can't help Botan, can't help us—what good are you?"

Atsuko blanched. "Uh, Keiko?" she said, sidling up beside me. "Remember he's royalty?"

"Yes, royalty!" George stepped forward and frowned, meaty arms crossed again. "You must address Lord Koenma with proper respect and reverence!"

"Or what?" I said. "Respect is earned, last time I checked, and this sorry excuse for a prince hasn't done anything to earn mine."

Atsuko hissed something at me that sounded suspiciously like a "shut up," and beside Koenma George's face turned a startling shade of incensed navy. Koenma himself, however, appeared unperturbed. He merely sighed, as if tired by my very presence.

"Ah, yes," he said. "Ayame has told me you aren't a fan of mine."

"To put it mildly."

"And what is it, pray tell, that I've done to offend you so severely?"

"You send children to war on your behalf without apology, for one thing."

George gasped. Even Atsuko reacted, doing a double-take at me like I'd grown a second nose between my eyebrows. Only Shizuru didn't react, taking a slow and steady drag off her cigarette without flinching. Koenma himself pressed his lips into a thin line, lines etching across the perfect skin of his smooth forehead.

"Need I remind you," he said, words like a razor's edge, "that I also engineered the return of a certain child to life?"

"Only so he could fight demons for you and put that returned life on the line again and again to serve your daddy's sordid goals, but OK, sure," I snarked. "Whatever you wanna say to make yourself feel better, that's fine."

It was Koenma's turn to do a double-take. "My daddy's—?"

His surprise grated on my nerves; I bristled on reflex. "Yeah, your morally bereft asshole father's—"

A hand alit on my elbow. "Calm down, Keiko," Shizuru said in a puff of smoke-tinged breath.

"I will not calm down." I wrenched my arm away; Shizuru put her hand in her pocket and went back to leaning on her chosen tree. "He's basically abandoned Botan, he's the entire reason your brother and your son" (here I looked at Atsuko) "are both fighting for their lives, and—"

Shizuru shook her head. "Kuwabara and Yusuke can handle themselves. They'll be fine."

"Yeah, Keiko," Atsuko concurred. "Don't worry so much." She flexed, although her muscles remained invisible beneath her coat. "Our boys'll kick demon ass, you'll see."

"Agreed," said Shizuru. "So calm down, OK?"

It was tough to remain agro in the face of Atsuko's carefree grin and Shizuru's unflappable calm. I looked between them once, twice, and then a third time, but the anger leeched from my chest with every passing moment. Eventually my shoulders sagged, and it was all I could do to mutter an irritated, "Fine."

Koenma looked pleased. "Thank you for defending me, Shizuru, Atsuko. I knew you could see reason."

Shizuru's hand, halfway to her mouth, paused. "Oh, I'm not defending you," she said in a voice like a winter wind. "I agree with Keiko completely."

"So do I," said Atsuko. She marched up to Koenma and jabbed a finger at his chest, not caring when he jumped back a pace and tried to dodge her jab. "You mighta brought my kid back to life, but don't think for a second that I'm not gonna interrogate Keiko and Botan about just how deep of a shit-hole you've buried my Yusuke in just as soon as I get a chance." She fair loomed over him, the specters of beaten-up boyfriends past practically floating over her head as she gave her very best Yakuza-intimidation leer. "And if that shit is too damn deep, Koenma…"

The threat lingered on the air, clear as day, even before she slapped one fist into her other hand and twisted her knuckles against her palm, grinning a grin that did not touch her eyes. Koenma eyed her fist and gulped, opening his mouth to deny the presence of any Spirit-World-induced shitpiles.

Before he could, though, Shizuru straightened up and looked around with a frown. "That'll have to wait for later," she said. "Demons are starting to stare, and we already stand out as it is."

And she was right (which wasn't surprising; Shizuru was most always right). A few knots of demons standing about near the edge of the concrete walkway that surrounded the stadium had started to eyeball our little group, most of their gazes (some with many eyes, some with as few as one, all of them strange colors set in stranger faces) trained on Koenma. Seeing this, he harrumphed and straightened his shoulders, sending his red cloak swirling about his calves in a cascade of scarlet fabric.

"Time for us to part ways, it seems," Shizuru muttered.

"Yes. A prudent decision." Koenma bowed, manners as expected of a prince. "I'll be seeing you ladies later."

Shizuru's eyes narrowed. "If Botan wants that, you mean."

Koenma started to protest, but Atsuko shook her head and punched her fist into her hand again. "She's our girl," she said with a pointed glare. "What she says, goes."

"Seconded," I chimed in.

"Thirded," said Shizuru.

Koenma looked perturbed, but only for a moment. He adjusted his cloak again and smoothed his hair from his eyes. "I… I see." He dipped another bow. "Very well. I commend your loyalty, if nothing else."

"Hmph. How diplomatic of you." Shizuru flicked her smoldering cigarette butt at his feet—a clear dismissal if I ever saw one, which she punctuated with a flippant, "See ya round."

With that said, Shizuru turned on her heel and walked away. Only she would have the cool to turn her back on a demigod and march off like he didn't matter to her a lick. I watched her leave with a smile, and when Atsuko started off in Shizuru's wake, I made to follow the pair of them away through the crowd.

But that wasn't meant to be, because before I could take two steps, Koenma said, "Keiko. Wait."

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "What?"

"What did you mean when you mentioned my father's sordid goals?"

His stare had the quality of a laser pointer, steady and bright and unflinching. Under its weight I felt my neck prickle with nerves, but I held steady and merely shrugged.

"Nothing," I said. "I didn't mean anything by it."

He remained unconvinced. "You have never met him. You hadn't even met me until today," he pressed, taking one smart step toward me. "Yusuke is ignorant of Spirit World affairs. To what were you alluding, and how in the three worlds could you possibly know about it?"

Another shrug, even as my heart stuttered a bit in my chest. "Educated guesswork, mostly." Pointedly, so I wouldn't have to lie further, I turned away. "But that's a story for another time. Gotta go."

"… fine." He sounded unsatisfied, but he didn't push. "Take care, Keiko."

"I will."

I fully intended to walk away after that. I intended to walk away, follow Shizuru and Atsuko through the crowd, and leave Koenma—with all the things I didn't like about him, not to mention the awkward questions he was asking—behind me.

But at the last second, I paused.

"Oh," I said, without turning around. "And thanks for the upgrade."

A pause followed. Koenma said: "Upgrade?"

"Our room. It got upgraded." I chanced a glance at him when he did not reply, looking askance over my shoulder with just one eye. "I just assumed…"

His chin ducked closer to his chest, golden eyes hooded beneath his perfect bronze brow. "Your educated guesswork isn't so impressive after all, it seems."

My heart stuttered again. "What?"

"I didn't upgrade anything." His cloak swirled when he turned and walked away, George trotting at his heels. "Be seeing you."

Atsuko and Shizuru had to double back for me. I was frozen to the spot, too scattered to remember that I needed to follow them and not get lost. Thank my lucky stars they have better memories than Botan and didn't accidentally leave me behind. Atsuko muttered something in my ear about not looking like such a tourist as she tugged me along, over to one of the stadium entry gates and the TV area beside it. A gigantic patchwork of screen displayed the arena within, which was currently occupied by fighting demons I did not recognize.

Even if the TVs had shown images of my friends fighting, it's possible I wouldn't have had the wherewithal to pay attention to them, either.

If Koenma hadn't upgraded our room, the alternative responsible parties were ones I didn't like to think about.

Shizuru didn't give me time to ponder the possibilities, however. We stood near the trees again, the TV watching area spread out before us, the entry gate over to our right, the curve of the stadium extending off to our left. Demons clustered around the TV and cheered as punches flew; a few pockets of demons sat on the ground by the trees near which we'd gathered, but Shizuru paid them no heed as she looked at Atsuko and me and said, "So what now?

"Beats me," Atsuko said. From inside the stadium we hear a loud cheer, punctuated by an ecstatic exclamation over some kind of booming speaker system. The voice was high pitched and feminine—Koto, I assumed, commentating on the game, her voice echoing out of the stadium's open top and into the air beyond. Atsuko looked up at the sky and frowned as Koto gave a delighted scream. "Don't suppose they'd let us use their PA system, huh? Call Botan out for leaving us?"

"Doubt it." Shizuru lit up another cigarette, that ever-present accessory she was rarely seen without. After a long drag she said, "If only we had some way to call her, tell her to come back."

I resisted the urge to make a crack about investing in Apple stock; what I wouldn't have given for an iPhone just then, even if I was more a Samsung girl myself. "Yeah," is what I settled on saying. "Too bad we didn't think to bring the communication mirrors. They're back in the hotel."

The stress of all this was too much for Atsuko, it seemed. She made a wordless sound of frustration before plopping onto one of the concrete benches at the edge of the stadium patio and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Shizuru sat beside her, the pair of them puffing like a pair of chimneys until the air around them turned blue with smoke. I edged away and out of the smoke field as best I could, over toward a group of three demons playing a dice game on the ground. They glanced up at me when I neared, but I guess I looked both nonthreatening and not tasty, because they went back to their game without a word.

Shizuru eyed the top of the stadium and sighed. "Ironic that out of all of us, it's Botan who can fly."

Atsuko did a double-take. "Botan can fly?"

"Oh." Shizuru knocked some ash off her cigarette. "Yeah, she can."

Atsuko bolted to her feet. "Why didn't anyone tell me? That's crazy!" she said. "Think she could teach me, huh? Bet it beats sitting around in traffic!"

I frowned, because that was a bit of YYH lore I wasn't sure I'd thought about before. "I don't know, actually, if that's a learned skill or something all reapers can do. She's got this oar, and—"

"Wait. Reaper." Atsuko scowled. "I heard Koenma call her that, too, but Yusuke never mentioned it. Botan was always just his assistant."

I blinked. "Did he really not explain this when Botan came to stay with you?"

"You really think Yusuke would give me details? That kid, the destined middle school dropout?" She laughed at her own joke before getting serious. "I knew something shady was going on ever since he came back to life, but I knew better than to ask questions." (I wanted to ask if she learned that from her Yakuza associations but demurred.) "All I knew was that Yusuke was part of something fishy, and then I overheard that my kid was about to go fight demons on an island and that Botan was in on it. That's all I got." She gave Shizuru and me a dead-fish stare. "You wanna fill me in on everything?"

Shizuru sighed, but without complaint she launched into the basics—Spirit World, Koenma, Botan, grim reapers, demons. She kept it simple but comprehensive, and I'm frankly glad she took point because I wasn't sure where I would've begun if the explanation had been left to me alone. It was a lot of information to digest, and I'd forgotten Atsuko hadn't been clued in on a lot of it, but I was happy to note that she took it all in with her trademark devil may care style and a grin. She and Shizuru finished their cigarettes and lit up another round, Atsuko asking the occasional question as Shizuru explained the finer points of spirit energy, who the members of Team Urameshi were, and sundry.

I wandered a bit further off as they talked, because Shizuru had it on lock and I was in danger of secondhand smoke asphyxiation. The demons who'd gathered around the gigantic TV were still cheering, but the crowd there had lessened, peeling off and drifting to our left to gather in a big bunch that blocked the entire path around the stadium. Demons peered over each other's heads, leaning on each other's shoulder and trying to scramble forward through the crowd with various grunts and verbal threats of violence if they didn't get out of their goddamn way. I scanned the crowd with interest; maybe the green-scaled scalper demon from the anime had arrived and was selling tickets. I sure would like it if the crowd had gathered to see him. Hell, I know I'd be glad to see him. We'd only need one ticket to get in and find Botan, after all.

Botan. I sighed and rubbed my temples at the thought of her. Botan had seemed more optimistic about her situation regarding her eye when we'd first talked to Ayame after Botan escaped Spirit World, but she had blown up on Koenma badly enough to send her running into the stadium without us. I hadn't realized she was so upset by her situation. She must have been lonelier than I realized, to react that way—and maybe this was unfair of me to say, but I had never thought of Botan as the type to be good at hiding her emotions. How had I missed how badly she was feeling? How had I not noticed her fragile state of mind?

Shit. Some friend I was, huh?

From behind me, several yards away, I heard Atsuko's voice drift through the sounds of the crowd; I turned back and wandered toward my friends again. "And so what was Botan talking about, not being able to go home to Spirit World?" Atsuko was saying as I drew close. "Yusuke just told me she had to stay with us because she had no place to stay, and I've been a homeless teenager before, so…"

"She got cut by a demonic sword," said Shizuru. Her voice remained remarkably unemotional as she explained, "It started to turn her into a demon. Now she's halfway between demon and reaper, by the looks of it, and they're afraid of her in Spirit World."

Atsuko winced. "That shit sucks. Was it even her fault?"

"No. An accident."

"If anything, the fault is mine."

It was turning into a banner day for me to speak without thinking. Atsuko and Shizuru looked up at me in surprise. I put my back to them at once, face heating up on reflex.

But it was no use. Shizuru said, "What do you mean, it's your—?"

Whatever she said next, though, was drowned out in a tidal wave of sound. The crowd that had gathered over to our left had begun to roar, its mass churning and bucking as demons tried to climb over one another in an attempt to get at—well, at whatever they were gathered around to look at; it's not like I could see it from where I stood. It didn't help that a demon ran past me and collided with my shoulder, too, nearly knocking me to the ground in his haste to join the others.

"Hey!" Atsuko yelled after the demon. She bolted to her feet and shook her fist after him. "Watch where you're going!"

The demon kept running, but his reptilian face turned over his shoulder so he could scream back, "You watch it! I ain't lettin' nobody stop me from seein' Team Masho up close!"

"Team who?" Atsuko said.

"Another set of fighters, I guess," said Shizuru.

Atsuko stared at the crowd with renewed interest. "Here to check out the competition, eh?"

"Probably."

I barely heard either of them, though. I, too, had begun to stare at the crowd with renewed interest, because while the name of the team meant nothing to them, it meant a hell of a lot to me.

Team Masho, huh?

Well, now. This was about to get interesting.

Not that I dared try to get a closer look at the shinobi, though, given the way crowd was continuing to grow in size as more and more demons came pelting down the walkway. Shizuru grabbed Atsuko and I and pulled us over to the bench, out of harm's way, where we sat and watched the crowd swell and scream and punch each other for a better spot. If the crowd hadn't been full of gigantic demons, it would've looked like girls swarming a boy band for autographs.

Atsuko clapped her hands over her ears. "I can barely hear myself think!"

"Team must be pretty popular," Shizuru said.

"Favorites to win, according to some."

The voice came from nearby; the three dice-playing demons from before had likewise moved out of the path and nearer to the tree line, sitting just a few feet away from our bench. The one who'd spoken was a big furry guy with a face like an Anubis hound, black ears standing straight upright atop his domed skull. He tossed a fistful of dice up and down as he looked at the burgeoning crowd, canine face arranged in an expression that resembled human annoyance with surprising accuracy.

"Damn," said the dog-demon to himself. "Not getting close to them today, that's for sure."

I smiled. "You hoping for an autograph?"

He looked at me, then did a double-take that looked quite odd on a dog's face. "A human, here?"

"Try three of them." I jerked a thumb at my friends. "What's it to ya?"

He grinned. "Not much. Just surprised, is all. It's not often you see humans all the way out here to watch the—"

Before he could finish, there came a shout, and we looked as once over to the crowd again. A weird crackle of black light shot up from beyond the throng, arcing into the sky with a sound like thunder. A few demons flew upward and back, some vanishing into the forest while others smacked against the side of the stadium above the crowd. The crowd went silent at once; when the demons how'd hit the wall fell down again, I heard the meaty thump of their bodies against pavement even from where I stood.

Then, amidst the silence, someone boomed: "OUT OF OUR WAY, MAGGOTS."

The crowd parted like water before Moses. It was so quiet, the only sound the muffled roar of spectators inside the stadium, that you could hear the heavy footfalls of the demons in dark robes who came waking out of the divided horde. The crowd watched in tense silence as these demons walked through and then out of the mass, steps slow and unhurried despite their violent request for a clear path forward.

"Heh." Atsuko crossed her arms and smirked. "Showboating a bit, huh?"

The dog demon we'd perhaps befriended nodded. "Maybe. But they're strong enough to get away with it."

They certainly looked intimidating enough to get away with it, in their black robes with the pointed, conical hoods with colorful symbols painted on the front. The one with the gold ring on his hood I knew was their leader, Risho, but the others I had to identify based on what I remembered of their heights and builds. The huge guy with the yellow stole had to be Bakken, the guy with the upside down triangle was probably Gama… or was that Jin? The green circle hood and the triangle hood were about the same height, and those hoods were not helping matters at all when it came to determining build. Plus, I couldn't remember if Touya or Gama was taller, but I thought Touya was the shortest, which meant he had to be the one wearing the hood with the creepy cross on the front…

Well. It probably didn't matter. The demons kept a respectful distance from the hooded fighters no matter who wore which hood, murmuring amongst themselves as the fighters passed. "Shinobi," I heard someone say in hushed tones. "Shinobi, all the way from the depths of Demon World…"

A wind stripped by, then, ruffling my hair. Something about that wind stirred a memory, and with a jolt I looked from Team Masho to the top of the stadium and back again—and then I glanced at Shizuru.

"What was it you said?" I muttered. "Ironic that Botan is the only one who can...?"

And that's when I remembered the Dutch Arbitration Gambit. The memory hit me like a brick to the face. I gaped, staring at Shizuru with eyes bugging, until she noticed me and scowled.

"What?" she said.

"I. Uh." I swallowed. "I have a plan."

Her brow lifted. "A what?"

"Just go with it, OK?"

She stared at me, mystified, but I didn't let her skepticism deter me in the slightest. Instead I put my back to Team Masho and backed away from Shizuru a pace or two, out into the middle of the path near where Team Masho, still a dozen yards away, would soon be walking. I heaved a heavy sigh and clasped my hands over my chest, giving a low moan of disappointment just for good measure as I did.

"Dangit, Shizuru, isn't this just all the rotten luck!" I said with another weary sigh. "Now I'll never get to see Jin fight!"

"Uh…" She took a drag on her cigarette and crossed one leg over the other, not bothering to look sympathetic. "That's too bad, I guess?"

Atsuko frowned. "Wait a minute. Who's Jin?"

I gasped and put a hand over my chest. "Who's Jin, you ask? The Wind Master?" I let my voice climb to theatric heights before throwing up my hands in aggravation. "Atsuko, I'm shocked! He's only the best fighter on Team Masho—and the cutest demon at the tournament, to boot!"

The dog demon, still standing near us, stepped toward me with hands raised (and he, bless him, looked interested in what I had to say, not confused the way my friends did). "The cutest?" he repeated, doggy face amused. "Most girls say Shishiwakamaru takes that prize, don't they?"

"Well, not to me!" I thrust my nose into the air, disdain dripping from every syllable when I said, "Shishiwakamaru is a pretty boy, sure, but Jin—he's got abs of steel and great hair! Not to mention those big blue eyes of his." I made sure to heave a wistful sigh and clasp my hands under my chin. "What I would've give to see those eyes up close. And he can even fly, y'know? How cool is that!"

Sighing yet again-again, making sure to bat my lashes just in case, I turned around to lob a wistful stare at Team Masho—but to my chagrin, they'd walked past while my back was turned, heading without stopping for the gate over to our right. I said a few more complimentary things at their retreating backs, playing up just how great and strong and cute Jin was—but they never turned around, and soon they entered the stadium and disappeared from view. At that I heaved a real sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose in annoyance.

"Dammit," I said. "There goes that head-canon."

"That what?" Shizuru asked.

"Oh, nothing." I threw up my hands and whined. "Dammit, I really thought that would work!"

"Thought what would work?" Atsuko said. "Seriously, what were you trying to do just now?"

"And how do you know the names of the Team Masho fighters?" Shizuru added after a moment's pause.

I froze. Atsuko and Shizuru stared with twin expressions of skepticism mixed with dour curiosity. Even our new dog-man friend was looking at me funny. Beneath their gazes I could only fidget, unnerved and nervous, because I had only had a minute to enact my plan and that minute had not been enough time to consider the consequences of The Dutch Arbitration Gambit: Dark Tournament Edition in full, let alone concoct some kind of excuse as to why I'd known details about Jin the Wind Master without ever actually see him fight or—

A shadow, cool and dark, flashed over the ground at my feet. A wind picked up hard enough to send my skirt to tossing; I held it down with a yelp, and when I looked up again and smoothed my messy hair back into place, I saw the dog-demon staring up at the blue sky overhead with a frown.

"Did you three just see…?" he said.

"Psst!"

As the dog-demon turned toward the stadium, looking for the source of the shadow, that hiss came again from the trees at my back. Atsuko and Shizuru hear it, too, looking around for the source—and then a single hand thrust itself from around the nearest tree trunk and crooked one finger at us.

"Oi!" came a low, hushed voice. "Over here!"

I blinked.

Atsuko and Shizuru stared.

Slowly, I lifted a hand and pointed at myself. "You, ah." A beat. "You talkin' to me?"

"Yes, I'm talkin' t' you!" The finger crooked at me more frantically. "Quick like a bunny, now, 'afore I'm spotted!"

It was, of course, the sketchiest thing that had ever happened to me in my life, being asked to walk into the dark woods by a disembodied voice and an insistent finger, but after trading a long look with Shizuru and Atsuko, the three of us shrugged in unison and threw caution to the collective wind (pun most definitely intended, as you will soon see). We picked our ginger way past the bushes lining the stadium's concrete and into the trees beyond, finding ourselves in a little clear pocket in the woods where warm light filtered through gaps in the trees above. It took my eyes a minute to adjust, but soon enough I saw a silhouette standing partially behind the trunk of a nearby tree. I tensed on reflex at the sight, but soon my shoulders relaxed.

The light had caught on a strand of bright red hair, and at the sight of it, I couldn't help but feel at ease.

"'Ello, love," he said, still standing hidden in the shadows. "Was it you who was talkin' about good ol' Jin the Wind Master, eh?"

Shizuru's hand closed around my elbow. "Keiko. Who's this?"

The man behind the tree laughed. "Keiko, eh? Lovely name for a lovely lady, if you don't mind my sayin' so."

"Yeah yeah, dude." Atsuko appeared at my other elbow, glaring at the silhouette like she intended to set it on fire with her eyes. "But who the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?"

"What, ain't it obvious?" One hand thrust forward, and from it dangled a bit of black cloth—cloth marked with a little white triangle that looked quite familiar indeed. Unperturbed by Atsuko's stare, he said, "Or maybe it's not that obvious after all, walkin' 'round with hoods o'er our 'eads all the live-long day and such. Risho ought to be re-thinkin' our uniforms because, oh sure, they be a-hidin' our faces well enough, I suppose, but walkin' through crowds is a right conspicuous affair in this getup, no two ways about it, and isn't that the exact opposite 'o what he wants?"

"… anybody ever tell you, you talk a lot?" Shizuru observed.

"Oh, it's been mentioned a time or two, as I recall." He laughed like wind chimes on a breeze, musical and merry. "If Bakken wasn't such a bleedin' coward—because he is exactly that, and a big ol' fraidy cat on top o' that, too—he'd tell me to shut up all the time. But he is afraid of me so he doesn't tell me to shut up, because he knows I pack a mean ol' wallop and—"

His good-natured tirade came to a halt as the bushes behind me rattled. From them stumbled our dog-friend, whose dark eyes lit up as they caught sight of us. "Hey, you three. Did you see—?" But he froze before he finished, one paw coming up to point at the silhouette we still had not seen clearly. Still, the dim lighting didn't confuse the dog in the slightest, because in a voice quavering with certainty he said, "Y-you! It's you!"

"Oh good, someone who might actually end the suspense," Shizuru griped. Her head jerked toward the man in the trees. "You got a name for Mister Mysterious over there?"

"O-of course I do!" He gulped before declaring, "That's Jin! That's Jin the Wind Master!"

The figure in the trees laughed again, and just as musically as before. "Aye, that I am!" he said. "And ol' Jin here's fair giddy to know that he's got fans all the way out in Human World!" he declared—and then he stepped, grinning, into the light.

Notes:

This was supposed to come out yesterday, but there was a family emergency I don't have the heart to discuss yet and it kept me from updating. 2018 has been rough. I had a long note about my hiatus prepped for this chapter, but instead I'll just be brief.

I have a headcanon about Jin that IDK if everyone agrees with, but it's one I'll be exploiting (um, exploring) in this fic. More on that, next time.

We now enter biweekly update territory. I'll see you again on Dec. 23 (Sunday; it's the fic's birthday and I want to post the next chapter on its birthday for the fun of it). Will update on biweekly Saturdays after that.

Over my break, I started posting chapters of The Ghost in You, the KuwabaraxOC fanfic I've been hinting at on Tumblr for months. It's also going to have biweekly updates, alternating weekends with Lucky Child, so you'll have something to read from me each week no matter what. I hope you check it out.

Many thanks to those who reviewed while I was away on hiatus; I really enjoyed hearing from you:

Chapter 86: PRETTY REFEREE KOTO'S FIRST CLASS FAN CLUB

Summary:

In which NQK interferes.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Jin looked for all the world like a fire demon, and the fact that he was not some distant relative of Hiei's absolutely blew my mind.

It wasn't just the hair that evoked the image of burning fire, though of course that's the thing you notice about Jin first. His skin looked as if he'd spent time on a warm beach somewhere while the sun kissed his skin to golden. His eyes, rich and electric blue, were the hearts of intense flames, radiating warmth and the fluid lick of fire. He even moved like a flame, dancing from foot to foot between moments, never still, never ceasing. But then a cool wind blew through the clearing and set his hair to tossing, and he laughed like a spring breeze, and his connection to air and zephyrs became as obvious as his long, pointed ears and the pearly horn jutting out of the fiery riot of his mane.

He looked more like a fire demon that the dark, brooding Hiei ever had.

Also he was super tall (like even taller than Kuwabara). Yet another reason he and Hiei looked nothing whatsoever alike. Distant cousins my butt.

And like the flame he so resembled, he danced right over to me with a huge grin on his face, putting out as much light and heat as a kerosene lamp. "Ello, love," he said, beaming in a way that undermined his height; it would be very easy for the tall, muscular Jin to loom, but he wasn't intimidating in the slightest thanks to his cheerful grin. "So did mine ears deceive me, or are you a fan o' ol' Jin like I thought you were, eh?"

"Oh my god." The words slipped out of my mouth unbidden, but the next ones were quite intentional. I backed up a pace and smacked Atsuko on the shoulder without taking my eyes off Jin. "Oh my god. Atsuko. Shizuru." I let out a giddy screech and rocked onto the balls of my feet. "It's really him!"

The aforementioned women looked at me like I was nuts—until I put my back to Jin and winked, overstated and conspiratorial. Shizuru caught on first with a slight narrowing of her eyes, but it was Atsuko (being the one with the most dramatic personality and the smallest attachment to dignity) who actually deigned to play along once she caught my drift. She had no idea where said drift was headed, of course, but Atsuko is nothing if not a good sport.

"Oh my god." Atsuko put her hands to her cheeks and gasped. "It is him. Wow!" A spark caught in her eye as she looked Jin over. "And man am I glad to see him up close, because those are some abs if I ever saw any."

Jin preened; his widened smile revealed a set of pointed eyeteeth, long and sharp and… oh. Now he finally looked a bit intimidating, although Atsuko didn't seem to mind. She only had eyes for the chiseled muscles decorating his abdomen, chest, and absolutely ripped arms, all of which had been placed on prominent display by his uniform. It was his famous anime uniform, white pants held up by a belt and two cloth straps crisscrossing over his chest—which means he was basically shirtless, much to Atsuko's delight.

And to mine. I'm not ashamed. Jin was an absolute freakin' treat to look at, and as he crossed his arms behind his head and flexed with a rather lascivious wink, I got the sense he damn well knew it, too.

I didn't let myself lose focus, however, or get distracted by his… um. Charms. With an exaggerated sigh, I hung my head and cupped my face in my hands. I barely had time to make myself look sad before Jin nearly teleported to my side, enormous blue eyes anxious as they peered down into my face.

"Aye, now. What's the matter?" he said. "Pretty face like yours has no business lookin' so long, that it does."

I sighed again. "I'm sorry. I really am excited to meet you, I promise. You're a legend. But…"

His eyes opened as wide as they could go. "But what, eh? You can tell ol' Jin."

"It's just—I was so looking forward to seeing you fight later, but our friend has all our tickets and she went inside the arena without us. So we can't get in to see you fight, and it's…" I sniffed; because crying on command is hard and I wasn't sure if I could handle it, I ducked my chin and hid my face behind my bangs. "It's just not fair, is all."

Crocodile tears were enough to work on Jin, I was pleased to find out. Large hands descended onto my shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. "There there now, don't go cryin' o'er spilt milk, wee lamb." Jesus, it was weird hearing someone speak Japanese through a thick Irish accent; WTF, the dub actually got that right? But Jin with his accent didn't pause to let me adjust to his odd speech patterns. He patted my head and gave me a huge grin, encouraging and sincere. "I don't go on until later in the afternoon, I'm happy to let ya know. Mayhap your friend'll come lookin' for you n' yours before then, hmm, and you ken get inta the stadium on time?"

My head snapped up. "Eh?"

"There now, see?" He beamed some more, apparently convinced he'd placated me. "Nothin' to cry over. You'll see ol' Jin fight yet. Just be patient and ye ken—"

"N-no!"

He blinked. "No?"

"No." I shook my head. "I—?"

His perplexed expression had his head tilting to the side, long ears twitching as he waited for me to continue on—but I couldn't, because I'd been counting on my sad-cute-girl act to get me what I wanted, but instead he'd pointed out a flaw in my logic I hadn't counted on. Crap. It had also pointed out that my scheme to get inside the dome had way more to do with wanting to meet Jin than it did getting our tickets back from Botan. Double crap. Was I being selfish, grabbing his attention and trying to ask for his help instead of just waiting for Botan to come back out, which was arguably way more logical a tactic than the fiction I'd been spinning for Jin?

… or was it?

I mean, sure, we could wait for Botan to realize her mistake and come back to give us our tickets… but she'd fled from Koenma very much on purpose. What if she'd taken the tickets with her intentionally, to buy herself some time alone? Farfetched, sure, but it was possible. And there was also the possibility that she just plain wouldn't realize her error for another hour or three, or that she'd mistake our absence for us respecting her wish to be alone. If we missed seeing our team fight over something silly like that, that'd suck.

So, no. Standing there and looking at Jin, I privately decided I was doing the right thing. No sense taking chances; if I could control the situation somehow, that could only be a good thing. Especially if I got to meet one of my favorite characters in the bargain.

I opened my eyes as wide as they would go until they started to water. "She's alone, my friend," I said, allowing my voice to shake most pathetically. "She had a fight with another friend of ours and I'm just so worried…"

Jin's eyes widened, too. "Well, now. Why didn't ya say so? That sounds awful!"

"Yeah, it totally was." I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and heaved a forced sob. "Her name's Botan. She was in a terrible state and now she's all alone, the poor thing."

Atsuko appeared at my side. "Maybe she's gotten lost and she's scared out of her mind," she added with somber helpfulness.

I nodded. "And she was distraught when she ran off."

"Definitely not thinking clearly."

"Definitely not!"

Jin's head whipped between us as we traded observations about what a state Botan had been in, how worried we were, how alone she must feel. Shizuru took to leaning against a tree to watch the show, pulling long drags off her cigarette as her brows climbed up and up toward the edge of her hairline. Just as we really started in on all the horrible things that could happen to Botan when she was alone, however, the dog demon (oof, I'd forgotten he was here) stepped forward.

"I, uh." He looked at Atsuko and me in turns. "I don't know about any of that, but Jin—would you mind an autograph?"

Jin did a double-take. "Och, I've got demon fans, too?" He took the pen and paper the demon had proffered with a laugh. "What fun! Just give it here and… hmm." He frowned at the paper for a minute. "Do I sign like this, or…?"

The dog-demon must have been thrilled by the autograph, however Jin chose to sign it in the end, because he walked off with a giggle back toward the stadium. Jin watched him go before turning my way—but as he looked me over for a second, he paused. He put a hand to his chin, blue eyes narrowing just a smidge in his boyishly handsome face.

"Although… say now." One finger lifted toward my face. "How'd you hear about me, anyhow?"

"…eh?"

"You're a human, near as I can tell." He seemed pleased with himself for making that observation. "Even in Demon World, information about the shinobi is scarce, that it is. So how did ya…?"

It was an excellent question I hadn't had the time to prepare myself for, so I did the only thing I could think of and just laughed—and put a hand on his arm for good measure. "I'm just a really, really big nerd about this stuff, I guess!" I said, batting my lashes up at Jin (the act made me feel utterly ridiculous, but I put that feeling aside as I tried to look genuine). "And that's how I know it's dangerous for my friend to be all alone, sad and distracted, in this crowd!"

He hummed thoughtfully. "Ya've got a point there, that ya do."

"And can you keep a secret, Jin?" I leaned up toward him to whisper, "She's like me—in that she'll stand out from the crowd, because she's not exactly a demon."

Jin covered my hand with his and gave a nod of affirmation. "I see now why you're worried! But without tickets, you've got no chance of finding your friend."

"That's right. And I hate to ask this of you, Jin, but…" I looked at him from under my lashes and bit my lip, playing up the part of a woman very much in need of assistance. "Is there any way you could possibly find it in your very handsome self to help us find our friend?"

He didn't even think about it. "Well, when you put it like that, how could I ever dream o' sayin' no?" he chirped, and it was only partially an act when I squealed and pumped a fist into the air in grateful triumph. Atsuko cheered, too, while Shizuru managed to look grudgingly impressed against her chosen tree. But soon Jin put a hand to his chin again, blue eyes rolling to the sky from which they'd stolen their brilliant color.

"But wait just one minute, now, while I figure out how I can be o' help." His lips pursed, though how they managed that feat around his teeth I can't say. "Hmm. I dunno what she looks like, this wayward friend o' yours, so finding her on your behalf is out, and besides—I'll be needing to show up to the pre-tourney seminar, that I will. Don't got all the time in the world even to spend on pretty girls, shame though it might be to admit that ugly truth."

I pretended to look upset. "I see. Shoot." And I pretended to think about an alternative, glad Jin hadn't just offered to go look for her; that wasn't what I was after. "Do you think you could just get us into the stadium so we could look around for her? Once we're past the guards, not having tickets probably won't be a problem."

He snapped his fingers and grinned. "Aye, now there's an idea! I've got free reign to enter the stadium since I'm one o' their top fighters, if I do say so myself—but am I allowed to bring a guest?" His hand went back to his chin. "Maybe I shouldn't have slept through the opening ceremony, after all, but that man on the stage droned on for so long I just plain couldn't keep my eyes open…" He glanced at the black cloak hanging from his elbow, the same cloak I'd seen him in before he met me here in the woods. "Could probably smuggle you in under my cloak, if it came to that, but we'd have to cuddle quite close, that we would, and we only just met."

His eyebrows waggled. I giggled, possessed by a lightning strike of boldness. "Take me out to dinner sometimes and we'll talk?" I said, barely even believing the words as they came flying from my mouth.

Not that Jin was complaining. "Ah, so the human is sassy," he stated with relish. "I rather like that, if ya don't mind my sayin' so."

"I'm supremely likeable, so that comes as no surprise."

"Aye, I'll say you are—but let's put a pin in that for just a mo'. I'll earn that admiration, mark my words." A wink followed his statement, and then he went back to brainstorming. "No, the cloak is out like last week's leftovers, methinks… but if I can't sneak ya in the gates, and I don't have a spare ticket to me name, and I can't look for your friend myself…" He rolled his eyes. "And Risho told me I had to lie low, if you catch my meaning, and gettin' the whole lot o' ya inside would draw attention like a siren at midnight…"

"What if it was just me?"

Jin's head cocked. "Just you?"

"Yeah. Y'know." A thrust my hand through the air like a rocket and made a zooming noise between my teeth. "Woosh. Over and up. Just me?"

His eyes traced my hand on its upward journey. "Over and…" He grinned, eyes lit from within with understanding. "Och, that oughtta work, and it'd be quicker n' a flash, too!"

Atsuko, who didn't enjoy being left out, crossed her arms with a scowl. "What'll be quicker than a flash, now?"

"Yeah. What're you two planning?" Shizuru concurred. She dropped her depleted cigarette and tamped it out with her heel, eyes trained heavy on my face. "And Keiko, how are you and Jin—?"

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what she was about to ask me, but judging by the shrewd look in her eye, it wasn't a question I wanted to answer in front of Jin. "Remember how you said you wished you could be like Botan? With her oar and whatnot?" I cut in instead.

Shizuru's scowl deepened. "Yeah. Why?"

"Botan's not the only one around here who can fly."

Jin laughed. "Oh, so your missing friend can fly, now can she?" His ears bounced. "Now I really want to help ya find her, that I do!"

The eagerness in his voice was a fine complement to the eagerness in my chest when I turned his way, ready to negotiate how we'd take to the skies and in what manner I'd prefer he carry me, but he didn't wait long enough for me to start talking. Something told me Jin wasn't one for talking much at all. He scooped me up with no more preamble than a giddy laugh, and as I reclined in his arms with a shriek, he stared down at me with the single most enthusiastic grin I'd ever seen. I latched onto his neck on reflex when a wind kicked up, because I knew what would follow even though Jin hadn't seen fit to give me warning.

And then, it happened: That sick rush as we rose upward, the wind buoying Jin aloft just a few sharp inches above the forest floor. Flying. Flight. It was only a few inches up, but we'd done it. I yelped into the broad expanse of his chest, but my head jerked back up again when Shizuru called my name.

"Keiko!" she said above the rush of the wind. Her hair whipped around her face in coppery strands, dark eyes growing darker still with worry. "Keiko, are you sure you can trust—?"

"'Course I can!" The words burst from my mouth like fireworks. "'Course I can trust him!"

Somehow, even above the sound of the wind, I heard Jin laugh. Maybe I felt the laughter in his chest, close to it as he'd clutched me. I looked up and found him grinning, blue eyes glowing like liquid heat, fangs on full and joyous display—but they didn't deter me in the slightest from grinning back, and laughing in return, and tossing Shizuru a grin so carefree it surprised even me.

"'Course I can trust him!" I repeated. "He's Jin!"

Jin laughed again—and without another word, he took to the air and flew.

Jin launched like a missile skyward, a vertical leap out of the clearing that arched through the air and toward the stadium as if guided by GPS. For all the terror of the takeoff, however, we touched down with surprising gentleness, a cushion of air slowing our descent to the top of the stadium. The open-air stadium, with its conspicuous lack of roof, had a lip around the upper edge, an overhang protecting the uppermost level from the direct glare of the sun. It was upon this Jin landed, where we stood next to one another on the sloped roof overlooking the ring and seats below.

Took me a second to catch my breath, and while I did it, I tried to get a good look around. From below drifted the cheers of the spectators, now completely unobscured by the stadium's walls; it roared like the ocean in my ears, inescapable and sibilant. To my surprise, we weren't alone atop the stadium. Dozens of other demons, mostly winged and feathered, crowded the edges of this roof to stare into the ring like watching gargoyles. Fliers like Jin, it seemed, who perhaps didn't even own tickets but for whom obedience to gravity was merely a suggestion. I stared at them until a voice boomed above the ocean-like rush of the crowd. The voice came as clearly as a bell, another sound no longer blocked by the bulk of the stadium itself.

"Now I know you're impatient, you beautiful bloodthirsty fans," (Koto, clearly; she had a lovely voice, excited but with excellent diction in spite of her chattered words) "but if you'll be patient just a moment longer while we repair the ring—"

Jin said, "If you mind my arm, just let me know."

I looked at him. "Eh?"

"My arm." Said appendage, which he'd looped around my waist, tightened, fingers drumming playfully against my ribs. "Our footin' ain't so sure and I wouldn't want ya to fall, but if it's a bit too much, we can always hold hands instead."

"I see," I said, matching his flirtatious grin with one of my own. "Glad to know you're so flexible."

Jin preened like the birds whose flight he imitated. "I'm a lot more than that if you'll gimme a chance to prove it."

"Tempting. If you don't die in the fights, we'll have to go out sometime."

"Oh, posh. With a good luck charm like you on my arm, I'll win the whole bloody Tournament." When I blushed, he grinned and shaded his eyes with his hand, peering down below into the stands. "Now let's see. What's this friend o' yours look like, eh?"

"Light blue hair, bright pink eyes. Human-ish." I eyed the demons crowding the rooftop. "I'd say she'll stand out, but…"

The multi-colored crowd wasn't nearly as drab as the typical human population in mainland Japan. Indeed, Botan's usually outlandish coloring blended right into the myriad colors and shapes of the milling demons; as I scanned the crowd, it became obvious that she wouldn't be nearly as easy to spot as I'd assumed. There were dozens of powder-blue demons scattered throughout the stands, but just as I started to mention this to Jin aloud, Jin grinned. The hand shading his eyes dropped; he stooped to pick me up again, hefting me in his arms like I weighed absolutely nothing. Those muscles were absolutely not just for show, even if they put on a very tempting one.

"Never doubt the eyes of a Wind Master, Keiko." His ears jumped in place, twitching as he smiled. "Now let's get you to your friend!"

Jin's glide was gentle, and I wondered if we looked a bit silly as he stepped over the ledge and let himself sink sedately through the air until his feet hit the uppermost level of the stadium—a walkway around the very top of the structure below the partial roof, separated from the seats below by a handrail. The section we flew to was mostly deserted because a large swath of the seats had been reduced to rubble, smashed by the competitors in early fights (or so I had to assume). The rails at the front of the section were just gone, seats crumbling away into nothing halfway down the broken section. Demons in construction uniforms bustled around the smashed area, roping it off from access with caution tape and signs warning against entering the area at your own risk.

Botan had no qualms with taking said risks, apparently, because she sat dangerously close to the broken pie-slice of stadium, alone on one of the concrete slabs that served as bleachers on this level. When Jin pointed her out, it took all my willpower not to shout her name and tell her to get away from there. Even if she could fly, seeing her sitting so close to a chasm set my teeth on edge.

Jin landed us a ways away from her, up on the walkway at the top of the section. "She looks blue. And I don't just mean the hair," he muttered as he put me down. "An ill wind blows round that one. Methinks she wouldn't want to fly, even if she could. Not with an air like that about her."

"Yeah." Botan sat with her head low, one leg held to her chest, back slumped. I sized her up for a second, then said to Jin, "You mind hanging back here a minute?"

"O' course." His game smile faded a rad. "But I'll hafta be gettin' back to my team here shortly, dontcha know."

"Right. Just wait one minute?"

"Will do, Keiko."

He leaned against the wall under the overhanging roof, arms crossed over his muscular chest. I shot him one last grateful smile before heading down to Botan. Luckily an aisle between the sections of seating remained intact, with a handrail; I held fast to it as I picked my way over scattered rubble toward Botan. Even though the drop-off into space lay many feet away, the yawning pull of it kept my hair on end. I felt the nearby drop in my teeth, intrusive thoughts of pitching myself over the edge singing an opera in the back of my head. Setting my jaw, I told the thoughts to take a hike, distracting myself from them with a quick glance around Botan's chosen spot. There weren't many demons around up here. The seats on the opposite side of the stadium on this level were full to bursting, but the demons seemed to have fled away from the collapsing section. Maybe that's why Botan had picked this spot to sit, I reasoned. She wanted to be alone, and this part of the stadium was certainly lonely. The only demons nearby were a gaggle of six, small ones of various shapes and sizes who sat in a little knot maybe fifteen feet away from her. They all wore pink shirts (stretched over their inconsistent anatomy and threatening to tear in places), and they fought over a pair of binoculars with frantic swipes of their clawed hands and loud shouts of indignation.

Somehow, Botan heard my coming over the noise they made. The moment I set foot on one of the concrete seats a few rows above her, she said, "Leave me alone, Keiko."

She didn't even turn her head to see me. I stopped walking down the stairs and put a hand on my hip. "I knew you had an extra eye, but not eyes on the back of your head."

The joke fell flat. Botan only clutched her knee more tightly. "I can… sense things," she said. "More than before."

"Oh." I clambered down the last few rows and sat beside her, leaning forward to see her pinched face. "I'm sorry, Botan."

She shook her head, brilliant eyes closing. "It's all right. It's not your fault. Seeing Koenma was…"

"Not that." A deep breath before I took the plunge. "I'm sorry for getting you into this position." When Botan looked confused, I added, "If it weren't for me, Hiei would never have…"

But Botan wasn't having it. "For someone so smart, you sure can be dense," she said, sitting up straight with a stern glare. "You didn't bring me there the same night Hiei came to you. You didn't make him use the Sword on me. And I don't even blame Hiei for what happened. He had no clue the Sword would affect me the way it did."

My guilt refused to accept Botan's reasoning, logical though it was. "Still…"

"Still nothing. It's no one's fault."

"Even so, Botan—I didn't know you felt this way."

The sudden change of subject left her blinking her gorgeous eyes in confusion. "Huh?"

"You're always so chipper. So happy. I thought you had adjusted to life in Human World. To your new eye. So I wasn't worrying about you much, because you looked so well-adjusted." I swallowed a lump of aching nerves. "Do you… do you put on that face to keep us from seeing that you're hurting?"

Seemed I wasn't the only one feeling guilty. Botan looked sharply away, down at the ring (a mere postage stamp at this distance) in the center of the stadium. Hurt slashed through the livid hue of her eyes like a razor's cut.

"I do the same thing," I whispered, heart aching. "Wear a happy mask when I'm hurting but when I know someone else has it rough, too." Botan's expression edged toward surprise; I smiled, trying to provide comfort, solidarity. "When others have it rough, it's instinctual to try and bury your own problems to protect them."

She looked away again, back toward the oh-so-distant ring. Her words were no louder than a whisper when she said, "I don't want to be a burden."

"You're never a burden." But when Botan didn't acknowledge me, I put a hand on her shoulder. Finally she had no choice to meet my eyes, though she did so with obvious reluctance. "Botan, I care about you. We all care about you. And if you're feeling down, or angry, or upset, I want to know about it. Even if I'm going through my own rough shit, I want to know how you feel."

Her features tensed. "Keiko—"

"That's what friends do." I soldiered on unhindered. "And we are friends, Botan. I know you're closer to Yusuke, but… I just want you to know you can always count on me to listen." My conviction was not an act, and it was with nothing but sincerity that I promised her: "I might not be able to help, but I can listen."

Botan's tension drained away, replaced by the slack blankness of astonishment—but then her eyes well with tears, and she covered her face with her hands.

"Go away, Keiko," she said, voice muffled under her fingers. "I'm not being mean. I just—you can't see me like this!"

I winced. "I can't go."

"Keiko, I mean it." She glared from between her spread digits, a cat unsheathing its claws. "I know you're trying to be nice, but right now—"

"Botan—"

"—and that's admirable, truly, but you need to—"

"You have all our tickets."

"I—" She stopped. Looked at me. Blurted: "What?!"

"You've got our tickets." I shrugged, trying not to look or sound accusatory. "We're… locked out."

"But you." Her mouth worked. "You're here, though?"

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Jin. "I hitched a ride to get in."

Botan turned in place to stare at Jin. She blinked a few times, then dove into her pockets and began to rummage. From one pocket she pulled a single ticket, which she looked at in confusion—and then she reached into a different pocket and slowly withdrew three more. At the sight of them she hung her head and heaved a defeated sigh. "I can't even go be alone correctly, can I?"

I winced again out of sympathy, and although I thought about patting her back to show support, I decided against it. "The tickets just slipped your mind, that's all," I eventually settled on saying. "Happens to the best of us." Gently I took three tickets from her; she did not protest. "Wait here, OK?"

Botan didn't answer. She just stared, moody and depressive, down at the arena so far below as I got up and picked my way back up the steps toward Jin. I waged a brief internal debate with myself as I walked over, wondering of Jin was really trustworthy when it came to this next bit, but when he saw me coming he pushed away from the wall and waved. His smile burned eager and bright, and my worries blew away like so much dust on the wind.

"I'm terribly sorry to ask," I said when I reached him, "but could you—?"

He had already plucked the tickets from my hand. "Aye, I'll take them back to your friends," he said, waving them back and forth with his mega-watt smile still affixed firmly in place. The smile dimmed, however, when he glanced over my shoulder at Botan. "She might want otherwise, but ye really shouldn't be leavin' that one on her own, for safety and for spirit alike."

I didn't quite catch the meaning. "For safety and for…?"

He nodded in her direction. "A somber wind blows round that one's weary shoulders. I don't need to know her as a friend to feel its wintry chill. "

"Perk of being the Wind Master, huh?"

"Aye, I reckon so." He regarded me in silence for a second, but although his smile grew smaller, it was no less warm. "A kindness, that you did."

"A what?"

"You did that girl a kindness, saying what you said to her." Jin leaned down until we were nose to nose, at which point he softly popped my nose with the tickets he carried. "Friends like you are rare indeed, or so it seems to me, and that girl is lucky to have you watchin' her back, that she is."

My lips twisted into something resembling a smile. "So those ears of yours are good for more than just looking cute, huh?"

"The wind bends to my will, and voices often carry far upon it," he confirmed with a rather roguish grin—but once again, he sobered. "For all my merry chatter, Keiko, I do mean what I said. Ya did her a kindness, that ya did, and I get the sense you're a nice human at the heart of it. The wind round her blows somber, but you lifted her spirits like a breeze in spring." Once more he leaned in close, close enough for me to see he had eyelashes that a makeup model might envy. These he batted at me with another charmingly lopsided grin. "In fact, one might say you walk in beauty, bright spirit meeting in your aspect and your eyes."

It was a somewhat mangled quote repurposed for flirtation and flattery, but even through his oddball accent and Japanese translation, I recognized the line. "Lord Byron?" I said, brows shooting up of their own accord.

"Aye, ya know 'im?" Jin bounced up onto his heels, grinning wider than ever. "Fancy that! I've a certain predilection for human things. Drives Risho a fair bit batty, if we're tellin' all truth, but—" He cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, "Demons don't oft write poetry, and what they do write stinks like an old cheese. But don't go tellin' anyone I said that, mind ye now."

"It's our secret." I couldn't help but look him over, top to bottom, with new understanding. "Though I have to say, this explains things."

Jin's head tilted. "Hmm?"

"You like human stuff. And you seem to like me…" I paused as Jin winked. "It all makes sense now."

His head tilted so far I feared he might topple over. "Aye, but what was causin' you confusion, I wonder?"

"Just that most demons aren't fond of humans, is all. And I wondered why you were different."

Jin blanched. I shrugged—but I meant what I said. Jin's interest in a mere human girl and his apparent and unanticipated love of poetry jived with what I knew about him from the anime. He had wanted to live in Human World so badly, along with Touya, and it made a certain degree of sense that he'd want to learn about Human World before winning Hanging Neck Island as his tournament prize. I had to wonder what other human pastimes he favored—and whether or not I'd get the chance to find out for myself.

Jin had no idea how much about him I already knew, though, let alone what I knew about demons at large. "I suppose they're not fond of humans in general, but they're silly old brutes if they be a-thinkin' that way, if ya don't mind my sayin' so." He jerked a thumb at his chest, which swelled with pride at his open-mindedness. "Me, though? I am a gentleman if there ever was one, and I keep my promises through thick and thin—especially promises made to pretty girls." He snatched up my hand and curled his fingers around it, the tickets pressed between his palm and my knuckles. Holding our hands to his chest, he stared into my eyes and dramatically avowed, "I'll guard these tickets with my life, Keiko, it's a solemn promise, and ya can wail on me all ya like if any harm comes to them whilst they're in my care!"

He was so earnest, so genuine over something so small, that I couldn't keep from giggling. "I believe you," I said through a spate of chortles. "Thank you for your help."

His blue eyes sparked sly. "Ah-ah-ah. Not so fast," he said, wagging a finger. "I haven't ask for payment yet."

"Payment, huh?" My lips curled. "Be gentle with me, Jin; I'm a delicate flower."

"Oh, somehow I doubt that's true." But he still looked immensely pleased with me, with himself, with the entire situation and our banter as it unfolded around us. "The price for my aid is dinner together, just as I said before." He batted his lashes again, leaning close enough for the tips of his bright red hair to fall silken against my cheeks (which promptly turned a shade of red to match that hair, judging by the heat in them). "Where ya stayin', lamb?" he said, voice pitching quite low.

I swallowed, and when I looked shyly to the side, it wasn't because I was playacting the part of a blushing fangirl. Keiko was canonically pretty, but I'd never really reconciled that description of her with how I felt about myself. Keiko's prettiness wasn't mine; I did not lay claim to it, and having someone as attractive as Jin take an interest in me, of all people, was disconcerting.

As was Jin's sheer presence, of course.

Remember how I said Jin looked like a fire demon?

That's partially because he's fucking hot.

I swallowed again, eating my nerves until I could talk again. "Hotel Kubikukuri," I managed to mutter as my ears went supernova.

He grinned harder. "Which floor?"

"Sixth."

"And which room?"

"Now, Jin." I tugged my hands from his and stepped away, injecting my voice with a fair amount of tease. "Is a lady supposed to give out her room number to every Tom, demon and Harry who asks?"

"Aye, I suppose not—ooh, so it's to be a hunt, then!" His ears twitched up and down, up and down, eyes delighted blue crescents in his golden face. "Wicked girl; what a thrill!" He grabbed one of my hands again, holding it tight as he promised through an mammoth smile, "But mark my words, Keiko: My ears are certainly impressive, make no mistake, but I assure you I've got a nose like a bloodhound and a—"

"Jin."

The name floated out of the omnipresent sounds of the tournament crowd, cutting through it more cleanly than such a soft voice had any right to do. Jin, however, didn't gasp the way I did. He just turned his grin to the side, where a figure stood in the shadows of the stadium overhang, blending into them so completely I'm sure I would've walked right past him had I not seen the direction of Jin's smoldering gaze. The figure wore a black cloak with a conical hood, and on the front of that hood—

"So this is where you ran off to," the figure said, voice issuing from behind the white cross decorating his robes. He had a smooth voice, light and airy, and judging by his slight build I had a good idea who might be under that shroud. The figure's head turned the slightest bit in my direction. "And who is this?"

"A new friend o' mine called Keiko." Jin darted behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, leaning forward until we were cheek to cheek. "Isn't she pretty, Touya, my ol' friend?"

There followed a pause I think was supposed to be insulting. "I suppose she is," Touya said after a time, and then he changed the subject. "Risho isn't pleased."

Jin snorted. "Risho's never pleased, that grump-a-whump."

Touya paused again—a long pause. A pause too long to be a denial. Eventually the pause ended in a delicate cough, and Touya said, "Regardless, you should return to the group. Risho dislikes being kept waiting, after all."

"Pfft!" Jin stepped to my side, though he kept an arm around my shoulder as he rolled his sky-tinted eyes. "For a ninja, Risho certainly isn't the patient sort, now is 'e?"

Once again, Touya said nothing. Conspicuously. I suppressed a giggle.

Jin plowed on ahead, not bothering to analyze Touya's silence. He drew me to him gazed earnestly into my eyes. "Now, parting can be such sweet sorrow, that it can—but fear not, my dear Keiko, for this will not be the last time we meet if I have anything t' say about it."

I adopted the giddy fangirl act again. "You mean it?" I said, putting one hand on his chest. "I'm just so happy to have even met you at all. Even if this is the last time we ever see each other, I'm a very lucky girl."

"And I'm a lucky demon, to have met one such as fetching as yourself." He grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it, eyes locked on mine all the while. "Until we meet again, my dear!" he said when he let my hand go. Without looking behind him, he moved toward the edge of the walkway. "And I'll get these tickets to your friends, lickety split!"

"Thank you, Jin," I said, and I would have said more had he not hit the railing at the edge of the walkway and gone tumbling over it. I shrieked as he fell backward, but before I could lurch toward him and try to catch him before he fell, he shot up through the air and soared away, a streak of red and white and coppery skin against the brilliant blue of the cloudless sky.

As quickly as Jin had entered my life, he had vanished from it.

I held onto the railing and stared after him with my mouth open for a minute, of course, even after he disappeared from view. Jin was a whirlwind of a person. A nice guy, though, even if he was flirty as hell—but then again, I'd been counting on that when I tried to get his help. I'd always head-canoned Jin as a flirt, and now I had confirmation that I wasn't off the mark. The thought made me smile, but that smile faded when I caught myself wondering if I really ever would see him again. Would he seek me out for that dinner he mentioned? Or had that exchange of ours been nothing more than a passing diversion? And how would my friends handle this when they found out? Would this affect Jin's fight with Yusuke, or—?

Touya cleared his throat. I flinched, spinning on my heel to face him. Jin's dramatic exit had made me forget Touya entirely.

But Touya had not forgotten about me. "What did you say your name was?" he asked with clipped efficiency.

I shifted from foot to foot, unnerved; it's weird talking to someone when they're wearing a literal mask. They can see you, but you can't see them, and that's not an even playing field by any stretch—and applying that feeling to Touya only made the situation worse.

Touya was, in short, an enigma to me, and not just because of the hood he wore. Touya's character was subtle. He had so little screen time in the anime, I wasn't sure if I had a good handle on his character's nuances. He wouldn't be as easily predictable as other, louder characters like Jin. I'd need to tread carefully around Touya. Whether or not he was as tolerant of humans as the amicable Jin was anyone's guess, and I didn't want to end up on the wrong side of an ice sword.

I told him only what Jin had already revealed, in the end. "It's Keiko."

He processed this for a second. "You came with the human team, I take it."

"Yeah." A nervous laugh. "Is it that obvious?"

Another of his pauses. Then: "You… have a way about you." His hooded head turned a single increment to my left. "You should see to your friend, I think."

"See to my…?"

I pivoted in place. Down below on her concrete seat, Botan had pulled both legs to her chest, head resting dejectedly atop her knees. The demons with their pink shirts and binoculars had moved down a few rows, too, sitting just two risers behind her unwitting head. Botan was no slouch when it came to her personal defense, and the demons weren't paying her any attention, but I still didn't like how close they'd gotten to her.

"Oh, shoot. Gotta go." I gave Touya a hasty bow of goodbye and thanks, which was probably silly of me, but old polite habits die hard. "Will you thank Jin again for his help?"

"Certainly," said Touya (who was actually pretty helpful for a demon who barely had a personality in the anime, I was learning). "I will tell him."

"Cool," I said, and then I winced at the pun I was certain Touya wouldn't appreciate. "Uh, I mean, thanks. Nice meeting you!"

He returned my bow. "And you as well, Keiko."

I hesitated for a second after he said that—and then with one final, awkward wave, I walked away from him and down the steps toward Botan.

Midway to her, I turned back.

Touya had vanished, like Jin, just as swiftly as he had appeared.

The demons in the pink shirts were still squabbling over their binoculars when I sat beside Botan again. Botan didn't look up when one of them squawked, and she didn't acknowledge me when I announced my return. With a sigh I leaned back and propped my weight onto my hands, gazing up and out over the stadium to get my bearings. I'd been too caught up in Jin, the tickets, and Botan to really take a good look at the state of things—which is a shame, because if I'd been more thorough, I would've seen the an indication that I'd royally fucked up the Dark Tournament much sooner than I thought I had.

Or rather, I would've had more time to process and believe what I was seeing, because at first glance, I almost thought I'd started to hallucinate.

"What the—?" I sat up ramrod straight as my eyes caught on the huge scoreboard tacked above the seats on the opposite side of the stadium. "Kuwabara won his match?"

Indeed, the scoreboard had place a triumphant white O next to Kuwabara's name at the top of the board, which declared the current fight to be between Team Urameshi and Team Rokuyukai. Rinku had a small X next to his name, denoting a loss—a loss that should never have happened.

Heart in my mouth, I stood up and craned my neck down into the pit of the stadium below, toward the ring lying like a forgotten penny on the ground so far away from my seat beside Botan. We were truly in the nosebleed section, figures walking on or near the far-off ring no more than mobile dots at our vantage point. I thought I maybe saw a hint of dark red on one of the blobs (Kurama's hair, perhaps?) but I couldn't exactly be sure. Still, too far away to see or not, the scoreboard was huge and unmistakable.

Kuwabara had won.

Rinku had lost.

"I don't believe it." Threading my hands through my hair, I repeated, "I just don't fucking believe it!"

Botan lifted her face off her knees; her pale forehead bore two red dots, blood pooling where she'd pressed face to leg. "Your faith in your friend's fighting ability is remarkable, Keiko," she said with a deadpan glare.

"Since when did you learn sarcasm?" I grumbled back. "And that's not what I meant. Just…" I shrugged. "I heard that Rinku kid was strong, is all."

"Oh, he is strong," said one of the demons behind us. "But that human kid was stronger."

Botan and I both turned. The pink-shirted demons had quieted, all of them sitting with arms crossed as they stared (with obvious resentment) at Botan and me.

"I didn't even know humans could do what that Kuwabara guy did," one of them, who had a large beak for a mouth and a pair of ram horns on his head, said. "That took finesse."

"Sorry, can I ask?" I said. "I didn't see—how did he manage to beat him?"

One of the other demons (this one with slits for nostrils and the triangular head of a snake) hissed, tongue flickering through his lipless mouth. "Through trickery!" he growled. "Rinku fights with the Serpent Yo-Yo technique. He pumps his energy into the strings of the yo-yos and controls them as extensions of his own body."

"The human copied the technique!" another demon, this one with a furry cat face, chimed in. "First he made his energy sword bend and move like a yo-yo, but when that wasn't enough to beat Rinku—"

"Rinku had Kuwabara locked down tight in his yo-yos, but the human pushed his own energy into the yo-yos themselves," the first demon interjected. "He took control of them! Managed to throw them back Rinku's way and get the kid out of the ring long enough for a 10-count to grab him the win."

My jaw dropped. "That's… that's wild." And completely unexpected, for the most part.

"I'll say." The demon's head lowered, beak nestling into the nest of violet feathers spilling from the collar of his shirt. "And I had good money riding on that match, too."

The gaggle of demons began to squabble amongst themselves again; Botan looked back at the ring, her morose aura lightening a little as she smiled at the scoreboard and evidence of Kuwabara's victory. I propped my chin on my hands, my elbows on my knees, and stared at the board, too. I knew Kuwabara could manipulate his sword, but actually adopt another fighter's strategy mid-fight and use it to his advantage? That change to canon was, as I'd said, absolutely wild.

… and now that I thought about it, this change wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Right?

My knee-jerk reaction was to think of all changes to canon as bad. I was the only variable different from canon YYH, so when things deviated from canon and went horribly wrong, I was almost always to blame—but this time, stuff had gone right.

… had I had a hand in that, or was to assume as such an act of supreme arrogance?

Call me naïve, or call me overproud, but I had to wonder if this might actually be quite advantageous. With an extra win to add to Kurama's and Hiei's eventual victories, Yusuke might not even have to do the death match with Chu! (Though he probably still would; that boy was incorrigible when it came to fisticuffs.)

"Yes, it was an impressive fight," Botan said from her spot beside me. Her pink lips curled into a small smile. "Kuwabara has improved by leaps and bounds over the past months. Let's just hope this is the start of a winning streak and not a bit of dumb luck."

I looked at her askance. "Oh, so now who has faith in our boy?"

One of the demons behind us gasped. "Your boy? You two are with the humans?"

Botan pulled off her earrings in one swift motion; we turned to the demons in unison, my two-eyed glower overshadowed by her three-eyed glare as the eye on her forehead flashed pure violet amid the curtain of her bangs. "That a problem, mister?" we said at the same time, voices ringing in a clamor of discord.

The demons recoiled. "Uh. No," said the one with the horns. "No, it is not."

Botan and I turned back toward the ring in a huff. Botan put her earrings on without looking at me; her eye faded from view as soon as she clipped them into place. I started to ask if the earrings still worked for Botan OK, but before I could figure out a way to put my query delicately, Koto's voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, demons and devils alike, I hope you liked that last round because we've got another one of the way, and it promises to be a doozy!" she proclaimed. "Let me hear you make some noise!"

The crowd went wild, their cheers and screams nearly deafening—and none more so than those issued by the demons behind us. They leapt to their feet with screams of delight; I shoved my fingers in my ears and turned to glare again, but their T-shirts were right on level with my face and instead I could only gape.

The front of their pink shirts were emblazoned with a photo of a young woman. She held a microphone in front of her lipsticked mouth, green eyes narrowed in a mischievous smirk. Her honey-colored skin coordinated brilliantly with her fluffy brown hair, and the first impression I had of her was that of a pretty human girl with confidence a mile wide.

This girl wasn't human, though.

The catlike whiskers adorning her smooth cheeks, not to mention the pair of furry ears jutting from the top of her head, told me she was anything but human—as did the words written above and below the image of her face in thick purple letters.

PRETTY REFEREE KOTO'S FIRST CLASS FANCLUB, they read.

I stared at the shirts, agape, as one of the demons (the snakelike one with the forked tongue) jumped up and down in place and squealed. "Oh Koto, you do so have a way with words!"

"Shut up, I can't hear her!" said ram-horns.

Koto's voice rang out again, enthusiasm dripping from every syllable. "This next one promises blood, bruises and a bare-knuckled brawl if we get lucky—it's Kurama vs. Roto." Her deep breath echoed through the stadium like a gunshot before she screamed, "Let the match, begin!"

My heart leapt into my throat at the sound of Kurama's name, but squint though I might at the fighting arena, I couldn't see much more than a couple of blurry blobs standing on the distant dot that was the ring. Luckily there were massive TV screens suspended above the stands at regular intervals; these displayed various shots of the match from eye-level, but to my disappointment the cameras were shaky and inconsistent, not always catching a good angle, and I couldn't see much. I shaded my eyes and squinted at the ring some more, but I saw no blobs that resembled cameramen or similar. What sneaky demon tactics were they pulling to get their subpar footage, anyhow?

Not that the bad shooting bothered Botan. She sat with her arms around her knees, staring at the ring, barely even watching. Maybe she just didn't care about the match, or maybe her third eye had granted her super-sight; it was hard to say. In the end I had to rely on Koto's boisterous narration to figure out what was going on… but even though I knew what was about to happen in the match below, every last one of Koto's exclamations was so passionate, it was hard not to get sucked into the drama of the match in spite of myself.

"Kurama has been rendered completely immobile!" she bellowed into the mic, every syllable resplendent with glee. "What deliciously dastardly technique did Roto use to subdue the wily Kurama, I wonder? Oh heck, it hardly matters I guess, because it'll lead to blood and I gotta say, I love it!"

"Wow," said a certain scratchy voice. "She's certainly cheerful for someone describing horrific violence, isn't she?"

To our left on the stairs between the seats stood Atsuko and Shizuru. Atsuko looked winded, standing with hands braced on her knees as she sucked down great gulping breaths of air. Shizuru smoked a cigarette, apparently not at all stressed by what must have been a lot of stairs climbed to reach this upper level. Sanada's training paid off, no doubt.

I lifted a hand. "Atsuko. Shizuru. Hey. You sure found us fast."

Botan didn't bother to look at them. "Hello, girls," was all she said.

"Hey, Botan." Shizuru sat down next to her with a grunt. "You still feeling down?"

Botan shrugged. "You might say that."

Still panting, Atsuko walked on the row behind us and climbed down to sit next to me. "Thanks for sending Red down with the tickets, Keiko," she said between labored wheezes. "He told us what section and level to find you in, too. Seemed pretty nice for a demon." She took a few deep breaths, measured and slow, to get her breath back under control; hair clung to her forehead and sweaty strips. "Wasn't sure at first, but looks like you've got good instincts about people, huh?"

"I mean, I'd certainly like to think so."

Shizuru looked at me over the hunched back of Botan, who sat between us. "Slick move you pulled down there," she said.

"Thanks."

She blew out a puff of silver smoke. "So where'd you say you'd heard about Jin from?"

"Oh." I smiled, because I'd been thinking about that and had an answer prepped, thank my lucky-ass stars. "When Atsuko and I stole our tickets back at the wharf? One of the demons was talking about the shinobi team." I nudged Atsuko in the ribs. "Remember, Atsuko?"

Her face screwed up—but then it cleared. "Now that you mention it, that sounds familiar."

Well, it should sound familiar, because it was true. One of the demons at the wharf had indeed talked briefly about Jin and Jin's team—but the keyword here was "briefly."

"Yeah," I said. "They mentioned the cloaks and stuff—"

Atsuko frowned. "They did?"

"—and talked about Jin in particular, so I just took a flying leap of faith and went for it." I laughed. "No pun intended."

Shizuru's face remained impassive. Atsuko cupped her chin and stared skyward, muttering to herself about her shoddy drunken memory and not remembering as much about that overheard conversation as apparently I had. Exactly what I'd hoped from her. Atsuko wasn't the most observant person, and she trusted me to be the opposite, so this cover-up was ideal. I felt badly about using her, but it felt like a necessary evil in context.

"Anyway." I shrugged. "I didn't feel like I had anything to lose by trying to play to Jin's vanity, so I went for it. Just glad it worked out, y'know?"

Shizuru's face revealed nothing, but she didn't try to argue with me, either. "So am I," was all she said, and she waved her cigarette at the scoreboard across the arena. "Now how's the fight going? I see my baby bro managed to score the team a win."

Botan said, "Something's wrong with Kurama." She gestured. "He's not moving."

Indeed, Koto was ranting about how he'd seemed to give up on the fight, allowing Roto to beat him black and blue without quarter. Shizuru's brow knit as she stared down at the ring in consternation. I tried to look worried (a harder feat than you might think since I knew full well Kurama could handle the situation without breaking a sweat) but Atsuko made my efforts moot by attracting all the attention to herself. Good ol' Atsuko.

"He's WHAT?!" She bolted to her feet and looked around, dark eyes lighting up when they spotted the binoculars clutched in the talons of one of Koto's fan-demons. "Give me those!"

The poor demon tried to fight her. Really, he did. But Atsuko cannot be denied when she wants something, and soon she had wrested the demons into submission by snarling such a lurid threat at them, all the ones who had skin on their faces turned the color of milk. It helped that Botan glared at them, too, and Shizuru cracked her knuckles loud enough to hear above Koto's voice. Cowed, the demons watched in silence as Atsuko scanned the arena below and pumped a fist into the air.

"Hey, Kurama! Fight back, you lazy buttmunch!" she shrieked—but then she fell silent, a beat passing as she trained the binoculars elsewhere. "And speaking of lazy butt-munches, my idiot son appears to be taking a powernap." Her fist launched into the air again; she bellowed even louder that time. "Hey! HEY YUSUKE, YOU IMBICILE! Get on your feet and earn your keep; mama didn't raise no layabout freeloader!"

But in spite of Atsuko's "encouragements," apparently our friends did not obey. She paused a moment longer before falling back into her seat, at which point she returned the binoculars to Koto's fanclub without bothering to thank them for their use. Not that the demons cared much, mind you, because Koto was screaming and they were yodeling their approval to the skies.

"And now Roto is making Kurama hurt!" Koto cheered. "The blood, the savagery, it's exactly what you came to this tournament to see, people! Now give Roto a big cheer and tell him to go in for the kill!"

Atsuko, Shizuru, and Botan tensed. On the screen there came a flash of Kurama's face, blood sluicing from two cuts crisscrossing over his cheek, green eyes brilliant against his skin and hair—but they weren't the eyes I'd come to know over the past months. His eyes were cold, colder than I'd ever seen them, and although they had only appeared upon the screen for a moment before the shaky camera lost sight of them in favor of an arresting shot of the arena floor (sarcasm) a chill trickled into the well of my blood. Kurama would win this fight, of that I had no doubt, but those eyes, the blood… no matter how self-assured I felt, it still wasn't pleasant to look at. Koto's demands for Kurama's death weren't helping matters, either.

Plus, I wasn't sure which was worse: Seeing Kurama's blood, or having to pretend I was worried when I really wasn't, and feeling guilty about that lack of nerves.

"This is horrible to listen to," I said, and I meant it. I stood up and stretched. "Anybody need anything? Gonna go hunt down water."

Atsuko's brows lifted. "You're leaving at a time like this?"

"You want me to come with?" Shizuru asked.

"Nah. I'll be fine." I lifted the hem of my skirt, revealing the bottom of the knife belt strapped to my thigh. "Came prepared."

"Right." Shizuru turned her face back to the match. "Scream if you need us."

"Will do."

Before Atsuko could tell me to stay put, I darted off and up the steps, back toward where I'd hung out with Jin beneath the shade of the overhanging roof. No one was around up there on account of how terrible the view of the arena was, but that suited me just fine. I leaned my elbows on the railing and sighed, mopping my face with my hand. Up here, alone as I was, I didn't have to pretend to be worried if I wasn't, or pretend not to be worried if I was. I could take it all in without having to monitor my reactions, tailor them for the conveniences of my companions.

Up here, alone… I was just me. And it was nice.

What wasn't nice was listening to Koto yammer on. "And what's this, people—now Roto can't move?" she was warbling to the skies, her voice taking on an air of desperation. "What a reversal! But what the heck caused it? Either way, looks like Kurama's in control and now—"

I sighed again, this time out relief. Kurama had done as predicted and taken control. Excellent. Canon was preserved. The camera caught sight of Kurama's face for a moment, his smile satisfied and cold before the camera made an abrupt shift onto something colorful. Flowers exploded across the frame, rioting into being with a burst of radiant petals as the camera panned out, and then our further still.

When the camera stopped moving, it lingered on a vision of Roto lying dead on the ground under a heavy mass of blossoms. Kurama retreated into the distance in the background, hair just as brilliant as the flowers he'd produced.

"Well folks, I think it's pretty plain to see that Roto isn't getting up again—and that means Kurama is the winner!" Koto cried.

Boos filled the air at once.

Fire filled it, and the entire ring, immediately after.

A blistering column of flame,the width of the ring and stretching nearly out of the open roof of the stadium, shot up from the arena like the granddaddy of all fireworks. It billowed many yards away from me, but still I felt the heat of it on my face as the brilliant golden tower blasted skyward. If Koto said something about the flame, I didn't hear her. I just shielded my eyes as they dried out and then began to water, trained as they were on the whitehot source of the fire standing in the center of the ring.

Zeru.

This had to be coming from Zeru.

As if it read my mind, the screens at the top of the stadium cut to an image of a man with severe features and a shaved head of blonde hair. The camera cut to the side, fixing on a short figure in black as it leapt over the side of the ring and strode confidently forward. Looking down at the arena, I could only just make out the tiniest of black dots walk across the battlefield, striding confidently toward the column of fire without a care.

Hiei.

That had to, of course, be Hiei.

Poor Koto didn't stand a chance at narrating this fight, because it started before she could even call out an official declaration to begin. Fire shredded off the main column of flame, tearing off and sparking in the air as the black dot on the ground blurred in and out of sight—Hiei dodging Zeru's blasts of heat, I guessed. The black dot flickered out of sight and then reappeared, a bit bigger than before as it lifted off the ring and came infinitesimally closer to where I stood. The fire followed, black flicker rising and darting about as the flame pursued it higher and higher into the air, Hiei leaping heavenward to avoid Zeru's attacks. I grinned in spite of myself as Hiei managed to leap to supernatural heights above the ring, the black smudge of his body growing bigger, and bigger, and wait a second Hiei was now too large to cover with my thumb, just how fucking close was Hiei getting to me as he—?

A flash of black blotted out my vision of the stadium. I stumbled backward until I hit the wall, far back in the cool shadows of the overhanging roof, as Hiei blurred into view. He sat crouched on the railing where I had just been standing, facing the arena, one baleful scarlet eye glaring at me over the rise of his black-clad shoulder.

Hiei wasted no time on pleasantries. "Why are you here, Meigo?" he barked. "Tell me, now."

I pushed away from the wall and dusted myself off. "Well, hello to you, too, Hiei. It's nice to see you."

"Why are you here?"

"To support the team; duh." I crossed my arms and scowled. "How did you even know I was up here, anyway?"

Bright purple flashed behind the bandana on his forehead.

"… oh."

Overhead, the speakers let out a high whine of feedback as Koto screamed into them, demanding to know where Hiei had gone and if Zeru had successfully reduced him to a pile of ash (a tactic of which she approved, she was sure to state, but one she favored less than bloodier options like flaying an opponent alive; girl loved her blood and guts). As Koto debated whether or not she should start the count, because she wasn't sure if Hiei was actually out of bounds somewhere or if he'd learned to fly in the last five seconds, Hiei bared his teeth.

"Go home, Meigo," he commanded. "It's not safe for the likes of you here."

I just rolled my eyes. "Oh, don't tell me what to do."

His eyes blazed hotter than Zeru's fire. "Meigo—"

"Hiei. It's fine. It'll be fine." I pinned him with my sternest Mom Stare, comforting but firm all at once. "I'll be fine. I promise."

If this provided him any assurances, he didn't let it show. He turned his face away and harrumphed, hands gripping the railing under him a little tighter. The speakers nearby boomed as Koto began her 10-count, but Hiei didn't flinch as the numbers wiled by.

"It's sweet that you're worried for me, though," I said.

"I am no such thing. Your presence here is merely annoying."

"If you say so." I gestured at Zeru, still a brightly burning coal in the arena. "But get back in the ring, Hiei, before you—"

He was already gone.

A moment later, Koto ended her count as a small black speck reentered the ring—but then she screamed her delight to the sky as Hiei's dot burst into flame like a miniature supernova. The demons in the stadium went crazy, cheering their bloodthirst as Koto crowed her delight regarding Hiei's untimely demise at Zeru's hand.

Far below, I saw Botan press her face into her hands.

I didn't mourn, though.

I moved backward until I hit the wall, and then I stuffed my fingers in my ears.

Koto's call, I knew, had been uttered prematurely—and when the sky darkened overhead, and lightning crashed through the sky above, and Dragon of the Darkness Flame surged into being like the birth of some dark star, my lips stretched in a grotesque grin born of both excitement and total, livid terror.

The Dragon isn't subtle. Few things about Hiei are, really, the Dragon least of all. It is darkness incarnate, heat like a hundred dark suns radiating off its body as it burst forth from the dot-that-was-Hiei and streaked across the arena toward Zeru's column of flame. Violet electricity haloed its form, hissing and snapping and filling my hair with static even from the distance at which I stood. Its heat put Zeru's fire to absolute shame, and even though the Dragon stayed farther away from me than had Zeru's fire, I still felt it singe the skin on my face as if I'd stepped into the heart of a forge.

The Dragon is petrifying, and it doused Zeru's fire the way an ocean drowns a candle.

As it had in the anime, the Dragon killed Zeru simply. It needed no fancy tricks or frills to perform its murderous work. It merely streaked out of Hiei and toward Zeru, and Zeru's fire went out, and it drove Zeru back toward the stadium wall and fucking obliterated him against its concrete expanse. I was far too far away to observe the details of this obliteration, but when the Dragon disappeared in a dazzling flash of black fire, I tasted ozone and burning meat on the charred and heated air.

For ten tense seconds, nothing but silence reigned.

And then, voice trembling, Koto declared Hiei the winner—because of course he was the winner.

Nothing could stand up to the Dragon.

And it would only get stronger as the tournament wore on, now wouldn't it?

That fact boggled the mind. It was all I could do to stumble forward and brace myself on the railing, but the metal had heated from the Dragon's flame; I snatched back my hand with a pained hiss of breath drawn between clenched teeth.

If the Dragon could do that to the railing from a distance, I didn't want to see what kind of mincemeat it had made of Zeru in close quarters—if it hadn't simply reduced Zeru to ash as it had in the anime, of course.

The crowd began to boo again, though tentatively this time, too afraid of Hiei's Dragon to really put much heart into it. They didn't know he'd been maimed by the Dragon himself. They didn't know he would temporarily lose the use of his right arm for attempting this feat. They only knew to fear him, as they should, because he commanded a beast so monstrous it could never accomplish anything less than total, complete and awe-inspiring annihilation.

Hiei had won.

Hiei had won.

Because of course he'd won. Hiei never did anything but win in this tournament. Hiei and his Dragon were unbeatable, its presence an indicator of total victory, and through the use of the Dragon canon would be preserved until—

Above the din of the crowd, the PA system chimed.

The crowd quieted. "Huh?" Koto said into the mic, but the voice that echoed over the PA speaker did not acknowledge her at all.

"Due to referee error," a woman's cool, smooth voice proclaimed, "the Tournament Committee is handing down an amended ruling to the most recent match."

"Excuse me?" Koto said into the mic, aghast. "What the heck do you mean, 'referee error'?!"

One member of her fan club screamed into the ensuing silence, "Koto doesn't make mistakes!"

"Yeah!" bellowed another. "Get your head out of your asses! Koto is—"

"Combatant Hiei exited the ring's official boundaries prior to the start of the referee's ten-count." The woman carried on as if Koto had never spoken, each word as cool as a gold coin—and each just as heavy as they lodged, one by one, inside my suddenly heaving chest. "Because he was out of sight of the referee during that time, his out-of-bounds status was unknown to the referee at the time of her ruling, and could not be factored into her real-time decision to declare victory. But video footage has revealed that combatant Hiei touched down on solid ground for the entire length of a ten-count, even if said count was not commenced in a timely fashion."

Koto was obviously incensed by this. "Not commenced in a timely fashion?!" she shrieked, loudly enough to make the mic start ringing in protest. "Oh, that does it. I demand to see this alleged footage, because I do not make mistakes and I insist that we—"

The play-by-play screen flickered.

From its black depths, an image swam into view—one that showed Hiei crouched on a railing, eyes locked on the battlefield below.

His feet and hands were perched on solid metal.

On solid ground.

I was not visible in the shot. I stood too far back, in the shadows, to be seen. But even though no one else could see me, I knew I was there—and I knew, in a rush of heady premonition, exactly what the woman who represented the Tournament Committee would say even before she said it.

"After taking these facts into account," the woman's cold voice stated, "the Tournament Committee is reclassifying the match between Zeru and Hiei a draw." The PA system chimed again. "Let the record show…"

If she said anything else, I didn't hear her. No one heard her, I think. The cheers that rose from the demons, elated that the demon traitor had been cheated out of a win, drowned whatever she said out—but they did nothing to dull the sight of Hiei's winning O and Zeru's losing X changed to matching minus signs upon the scoreboard. I could only stare, numb and cold and horrified, as the truth of what had happened sank home like a knife through flesh.

The truth was that Hiei hadn't won his fight.

His match—fated for total victory—had instead ended in a draw.

Hiei hadn't won.

Hiei hadn't won.

And it was all my fault.

Notes:

Flashbacks to the time she almost killed Shiori, anyone?

And, well, fuck. Looks like the Tournament Committee is screwing them over from the outset instead of lying in wait for a few matches to pass…

Hiei still 100% smashed Zeru the way he did in the anime, so please let it be known that IN NO WAY has Hiei's power been nerfed. This outcome is literally 100% just because the committee is being an asshole. I know some of you might not like that Hiei's Tournament record gets marred in this version of YYH, but Kei can't always have positive impacts on the world around her. Here is the first negative impact (possibly first of many more) she could have on the fights. Moral of the story is that she needs to tread carefully in the arena, and for more reasons than just the demons wandering about.

Also my headcanon is that Jin is an enormous flirt, as you so plainly saw. We have not seen the last of him, mark my words.

And with that… HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LUCKY CHILD! LC turned two today. They grow up so fast… (*sniffles*) How many of you have been with this fic since the start? How long have most of you been following this story? Would love to know!

I'm enormously grateful to all those who made LC's return a magical one. I very much appreciate your comments and kind words, and I loved hearing from each of you. See you on Jan. 5 with the next chapter, and a very happy holiday season to the following: Masked_Trickster, whereverimayfindher, lliania, Tactile, Nollyn, atsuyuri_sama, RosesUniverse, DeusVenenare, Ms_Liz, DragonsTower, MageKing17, Gerbilfriend, Eternalevecho, Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, activelyapathetic, katsheswims, T, sirisderp, Kuramag33!

Chapter 87: I Want to be Useful

Summary:

In which pancakes are consumed and drinks are imbibed. Not necessarily in that order.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The pool area, dimly lit and secluded, was quiet at night. Cupped by the sprawling wings of Hotel Kubikukuri and blockaded from access afterhours by a few tall fences (ones I had scaled with ease), the pool remained hidden from view by tall palms and other potted trees, keeping it out of the eyes of any trespassers—or would-be skinny dippers, probably. I kept my clothes firmly on as I sat on one of the wicker lounges beside the pool, the cushion on its surface sinking gently beneath my weight. Odd aquamarine light, cast by the lights beneath the expansive pool's glassy surface, played over my face and hands as a chill breeze whipped billowing gouts of steaming air off the water. I was just glad I'd worn a sweater. It was spring, but the air off the sea possessed a chill, and at night the chill sought to creep into my bones and lodge there like a tenacious toothache.

I fiddled with the box in my hands for a few minutes after settling in, snapping and unsnapping the plastic catches on its front in time with my heartbeat. No one was around. In the distance I heard voices and laughter, hotel guests at a party or something, but the area around the pool (including the swim-up bar at the pool's far end) remained hushed but for the sound of wind in the trees and the faint lap of water at my feet. Although I could not see anyone, I got the sense I was quite obviously visible for anyone who knew to look for me.

And that wasn't a bad thing.

That was, after all, exactly what I wanted.

I took a deep breath and said, "Hiei?"

He appeared before me in an instant, even though I'd prepared myself to call him over and over to get his attention. I'd half-thought he might ignore me entirely. Perhaps he'd been watching me all evening. There was no way to tell; it wasn't like Hiei would provide an answer. No, the hard set in his livid eyes told me he was not in the mood for providing clarity. He stood between me in the pool, glaring, eyes doing their animalistic reflecting in the dark, two scarlet discs that flashed like furious lightning through the night. I couldn't quite tell if he was glaring on purpose, or if that was just the way his face fell and his eyes just were—not that it mattered.

I knew Hiei was furious no matter the state of his eyes.

We stared at one another. The aquamarine light from the pool coaxed sapphire from his hair, but with his back to that source of illumination, he was little more than a looming, red-eyed silhouette in the dark. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to find the will to speak to him, phantasmal as he was.

"I'm sorry," I said.

It took him no time at all to reply. "You should be," he said, and I winced. "You should be sorry, Meigo."

I breathed deeply. "I know."

"What in the three worlds possessed you, coming here like this?"

"I wanted—"

"I don't care what you wanted."

"—to help."

"You are incapable of helping." Now his teeth flashed, too, pricks of silver aggression in the shadow of his face. "You are a powerless weakling human busybody. Useless. You are useless, Meigo, and there is no place for you here." His voice, harsh as sandpaper, became even harsher still. "I lost because of you."

"You didn't lose," I protested. "You ended the match in a—"

"Anything other than a clear cut win might as well be a loss when the stakes are this high, Meigo, and you damn well know it." Hiei put his back to me with a flourish of black cloak. "Go home. There is no place for you here. You aren't wanted."

My throat ached. "That stings, Hiei."

"Good. That was my intention."

"If you're trying to chase me off, I admit it's working."

"Good." His left hand lifted, pointing away into the distance. "Leave. Go home, Meigo. For all our sakes. Your presence here will damn us all."

His words grated on my feelings, but chief among them was my pride. "Hey, now," I said, sitting up straight. "I'm not the one who made you leave the ring. You did that on your own, and yeah, I admit I distracted you, and I'm really really sorry about that, but I didn't think you'd spot me and even if you did spot me, you could have waited to talk to me until the match was—"

This was the wrong thing to say.

Hiei whirled in my direction, and before I could even blink, his left hand (only his left, alone, and not his right) slammed onto the lounge beside my leg. Nose to nose we stared at one another; I was too frightened even to flinch, my heart leaping into my mouth with the agility of a star gymnast.

"Could I have, though?" The question was absolutely rhetorical, Hiei's thunderous tone brooking absolutely zero room for argument. "Could I have, with you mothering and smothering me like a parent towards a child? With you worming into my head the way you have since the very minute you called for me, that day I met you with the Sword?"

A series of pops drifted from the direction of his hand, his fingers clenching so hard into the cushion they punctured right through it. It was his eyes that held me captive, so furious and heated I felt they might burn me alive—but it was his words that did the real damage, each one aimed with pinpoint accuracy to hurt and maim and wound me.

They succeeded.

"I am no child, Meigo," Hiei growled into my face. "I need none of your protection, pitiful as it is. I do not need your help, because nothing you can offer is of any use to me. I do not need your mothering, your feeding me, your affection. I do not need anything from you. I do not want anything from you." His lips curled; laughter bubbled in his chest, but it was cold. "You think you're important to me, Meigo? You think you matter? If you think that, then you're wrong, because you're not, and you don't. I don't want you here. I don't need you here." Somehow he managed to come even closer, my vision overtaken by the sight of his inflamed and furious eyes. "I. Do. Not. Need. You."

We held that look for what felt like an eternity. Wind blew by, sending my long bangs fluttering; they brushed Hiei's cheek, he was so close, and at that touch he finally withdrew. Once more he stood by the pool, gazing down into its depths, his back put very purposefully toward me—but he didn't leave.

Why wasn't he leaving?

I took a series of deep breaths. With every word he'd spoken, the ache in my throat had intensified, tears welling in my eyes until they threatened to spill over. Something told me Hiei was in more pain that I was, though, the sting of his verbal lacerations notwithstanding.

Hiei… Hiei had lost his match. And losing was something he hated. Something that undermined his views of his own strength. Something that was anathema to his view of himself and his abilities. No wonder he was snapping at me. He'd come away from his match wounded both physically and mentally. No wonder he bristled and sought to wound me in return. He had checked in on me during the match, acted on whatever emotional tie he had to me, and it had cost him dearly. Hiei was the kind of person who viewed emotional ties as weaknesses to exploit, I was certain, and the day's events had probably proved (in his eyes) that he was right to hold that view.

Valuing me and my safety had cost him.

If he needed to place the blame on me to feel even the littlest bit better, I was happy to be his punching bag.

I took another deep breath, and then I patted the lounge chair next to mine. "Sit."

Hiei didn't bother turning. "No."

"Please?"

"Why?"

"I want to help you."

One baleful eye shot red sparks over his shoulder. "Are you deaf? Are you delusional?" he spat. "I said—"

"I know you don't need my help." Somehow, my tone stayed measured. "And to be honest, I doubt this'll actually help you. It's for me, mostly." My chin ducked on reflex. "It's so I don't feel as useless as I am."

Hiei's visible eye widened. In increments he turned my way, aquamarine stripes turning his eyes very briefly violet.

"I know I'm useless, Hiei." It wasn't fun to speak that truth aloud, but I did it anyway. "I know I'm weak. But I… I'd like not to be." I smiled. "So, sit. Please? For me."

It took him a long time—but eventually, he sat. He didn't look like he wanted to, but perhaps curiosity got the better of him as I started to unpack the little plastic box in my hands. Out of this first aid kit I removed ointment and bandages, but when I pointed at Hiei's right arm (hidden carefully within his cloak) and gestured for him to let me see it, he scoffed.

"Useless again," he mocked. "Those medicines won't help."

"At all?"

He glanced down and to the right—toward his hand. "This is a wound of spirit as well as flesh, and arguably more of spirit than of flesh. Your bandages and salve will only go so far." A humorless smile twisted his mouth. "Skin deep, you might say."

I considered this. Said: "OK. Then let me at least help with that much."

For a moment, Hiei said nothing.

Then, eventually, he muttered: "Fine."

When I saw the state of his arm, I wished he had said "no."

It was horrible. There can be no sugarcoating it. I smelled his arm, first, as he removed it from his cloak. It gave off a scent like burning meat and cinnamon, undercut by the distinct aroma of decay, putrid and disgusting. Black and twisted like a slab of meat left too long on a grill, Hiei's skin had been absolutely mangled by extreme heat, twisted and discolored and as crisp as dehydrated bone. Cracks and rivulets had opened in the horrific mess of his skin, and through the cracks wept clear plasma and sluggish blood—blood that came out dark, like Hiei's skin was more ash than healthy flesh. I did my best not to react to the sight of his twisted fingers and desiccated arm, but I couldn't keep the slightest of gasps from eking between my lips. Hiei's lips only curled at the sound, and he looked at his arm without flinching.

He flinched when I gingerly took his arm into my hands, though. His face spasmed like he'd been electrocuted, but within an instant he composed himself, face reverting into a state of complete neutrality. He did it so fast, I had to wonder if I'd only imagined his discomfort, but… no. There was no way this arm wasn't killing him with pain. It felt hot beneath my hands as I cleaned it with vials of saline solution (solution that ran black onto the tiled ground between us), like a fire burned within it and continued to sear Hiei's arm from the inside out. When the saline ran clear (and when I finally dared to breathe through my nose again), I dressed his arm in salve, and then I wrapped it from top to bottom with clean white bandages—but within seconds some of the bandages turned pink with blood and plasma, wounds open and leaking beneath their protective cover.

Bandaging Hiei up gave me some comfort, though. Burns were especially prone to infection if not cleaned regularly. I'd dressed my father's kitchen burns enough times to know how to safeguard them. A childhood spent in a restaurant kitchen teaches many lessons—but not enough of them to tell me if I'd done Hiei any good or not. His wounds were worse than any my father had ever incurred. If I didn't already know the future, I'd tell Hiei to sit out of the next fight, or even out of the rest of the tournament. Let Yusuke carry the weight, next time—if his Spirit Gun wasn't locked, of course. Provided that bit of canon stayed constant.

Speaking of Yusuke: His fight Chu had certainly matched canon. Yusuke had woken up and fought him in the knife-edge death match, just as canon dictated… although I hadn't seen but the last half of said match. Had been too busy having a panic attack and throwing up my breakfast in the bathroom to watch the start of the fight. I'd crawled out of my hidey-hole in time to see only the end of the fight, and it had gone mostly to plan. Yusuke still won with a head-butt, but he almost won a few times before that by using Chu's larger mass against him, dodging out from under Chu's attacks to make the warrior stumble and nearly topple forward. I didn't remember Yusuke doing that in the anime, but maybe the anime had just skipped that part. His moves had been slick, and I had to wonder where he learned them… not that it mattered. Yusuke had won his match against Chu and the team had still won, despite Hiei's draw. That was all I cared about.

Well. Almost all I cared about. Hiei would be even more eager to prove himself now that he'd lost. I knew that like I knew my own (adopted) name. But with that said, would he stick to canon and miss the start of the Ichigaki fight, too in pain to make it on time, or would he endanger himself in his eagerness to correct the stain on his fighting record?

Softly, almost under my breath, I said, "I have a lot to offer, you know."

Hiei snorted. "I doubt that very much."

"It's true." I didn't let his barb get to me. "It's unconventional, but… I know a lot of things I shouldn't, Hiei. You knew that already, but here, in this place, my knowledge can be of use." I met his eyes with a smile I didn't really feel inside. "I can be useful. I promise. With what I know, I can help the team."

"With what you know…?" Hiei repeated, and then he fell quiet. But something sharp sliced through his gaze, and he raised his eyes to mine as he said, "Will I recover?"

Words failed me—because Hiei was not one to ask such direction questions. I'd meant that I could help the team more generally, somehow, or guide them from the shadows to victory, but…

Hiei's gaze didn't falter. I swallowed down my nerves and curled my hair behind my ear. Gently, item by item, I picked up the gauze packs and saline vials and stowed them away in the first aid kit.

"You once said you weren't so stupid as to mess with fate," I muttered. "Do you really want an answer?"

"Would you give it to me?"

I couldn't look at him. "I think I feel so guilty about today that I'd do anything you asked of me right now."

It was the honest truth, but Hiei's eyes widened so far, I might as well have declared I was actually an alien from Mars. He recovered quickly, though. He stowed his bandaged arm away inside his cloak and stared at my hands, as if they might give away what he should say next.

"Do not tell me how," he said eventually. "But tell me." His eyes cut, once more, to his right side. "Will it ever be what it once was?"

I spoke simply and without hesitation: "It will be more."

Relief flickered through his features. "In time for the fights?"

"Some of them."

Relief became indignation in a snap. "Some?!"

"Hiei. Listen to me."

His ire cooled. I shut the first aid kit and snapped the catches on its front into place. The stars above burned cold and distant, like the eyes of some indifferent pantheon watching without interest from afar.

"Do what you need to do to heal," I said to Hiei, enunciating every word. "Fight and scratch and claw to heal yourself, and to gain control of that Dragon." I looked into his eyes and held them fast. "Do whatever it takes. Go to every extreme. You will not heal unless you go to every extreme." And then I paused. Lifted a single, warning finger. "But know this."

I took a deep breath. Hiei said nothing, hanging on my words, eyes like smoldering coals as the pool's turquoise light played across them.

"Soon you'll get… a push," I said, thinking of Ruka and her force fields. "Not a big one. But it will be a push that will help you heal more quickly than you realize." I wagged my finger. "Make no mistake. Healing will be hard work. Do not doubt that for a moment. Do not let up for even a moment. Do everything in your power to grow strong again. But just know… this isn't the end. And your arm will not remain like this forever." I smiled. "And that push is coming sooner than you think."

"Hmmph." Hiei ducked his chin, burying it in his scarf. "Could you be any more cryptic?

"Probably, Chandler Bing."

"… what?"

"Nothing."

He just scowled at me. I smiled and swung my legs over the edge of the lounge, lifting my hands over my head in a stretch. I hoped I looked casual, because I certainly didn't feel that way inside. As with all my conversations with those canon characters who knew the truth of me (or at least some of it, as Hiei did) I walked the frightening border of saying too much and keeping too much in check—but with Hiei, I couldn't keep it all a secret. What I'd said to him was true. I felt too badly for what happened today to hold back, especially when his question was so personal. I just hoped my warnings to never let up, never get complacent, had their desired effect. If I simply told him that he'd heal, he might leave his arm to fate and not actively TRY to heal. His efforts to heal were key. I couldn't let him fall victim to a supposed self-fulfilling prophecy (not after I'd already caused other problems for him), and thus my warning lecture had been born.

When I finished stretching, I opened the first aid kit again. "Oh. You should take these."

He eyed the bottle of pills I handed him with distrust. "What are they?"

"Pain relievers. We should probably change that dressing on your arm tomorrow, too. If you want to meet me—"

He stood up, bottle creaking in his hand as he clenched. "You mean you're not going back?" he said. "Back to your city?"

My head shook. "No. I can't. I have to—"

"I don't want to hear it," he interjected. "Go away, Meigo."

I reached for him, though I don't know what I intended to do if he let me touch him. "Hiei, I'm not—"

He pulled away before I could grasp the edge of his cloak. "I meant it when I said you are not wanted here," Hiei spat. "You just get in the way no matter how much information you offer. So go."

And then he vanished as completely as smoke on the breeze.

I stood there in silence beside the pool as the wind set its water to rippling for… I don't know how long.

Then I picked up my first aid kit and headed back into the hotel.

My feet scraped over the brilliantly polished tile as I walked toward the nearest elevator, morose. Hiei meant what he said, I sensed, and that depressed the shit out of me—but I also sensed that Hiei, fiery demon that he was, was in a place of unrest. Of turmoil. Perhaps his emotions were still in flux, and with time, he might come around to me again.

Or maybe he wouldn't.

All I could do was wait, and be there for him if he returned.

Atsuko opened the door to our suite as I fumbled with my room key. She'd been waiting for me to get back, I surmised, an assumption she confirmed when the first words out of her mouth were: "Hey, Keiko. Where'd ya go?"

"Out for some air. Did you know there's a pool?"

"Really? Good thing I brought my bikini." She grinned. "No fights tomorrow; we'll have to do some sunbathing."

"Sure."

Inside the suite, Shizuru stood in the kitchen soaking soba noodles and sautéing something that smelled suspiciously like shrimp in a pan (no idea where she found fresh ingredients; I'd packed my duffle full of boil-ready meals like noodles and whatnot, but nothing I brought smelled like whatever she was cooking). Botan sat at the bar that overlooked the kitchen, watching Shizuru work, in silence. She pillowed her chin on the marble countertop, hunched over nearly in half. Didn't look at all comfortable, which was odd, because the suite's opulent couches and cushioned chairs were only a few feet away in the living room. That's where I most certainly would've chosen to sit, and that's where I headed as I walked inside—but before I could take a seat, Shizuru lifted a spatula at me from across the bar.

"Where've you been?" she asked around an unlit cigarette (even a chimney like Shizuru wouldn't smoke while cooking).

"Getting air." I sat in one of the bar chairs beside Botan, who didn't move or greet me. "What's for dinner?"

"Soba. We need to talk."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Now that Koenma knows about Botan, we need to discuss telling the others we're here."

As my heart stuttered, Botan sighed. "I suppose there's no harm in it now." Without sitting up, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a colorful badge on a lanyard. "I could put this team trainer pass to good use if we revealed ourselves," she said, eyeing the badge with another sigh.

"I… disagree." The words popped out unbidden; everyone looked at me with a mixture of shock and confusion. "About revealing ourselves, I mean."

"What?" Now Botan sat up, expression perplexed. "Why?"

"Don't you want to see Yusuke?" Shizuru said. "And the others."

"Yeah." Atsuko sat in the chair on my other side and leaned her elbow on the bar. "You and him had a fight, right? Shouldn't you try to make nice? Or are you avoiding him?"

"It's not that." A deep breath. "I have a confession to make."

Shizuru frowned. "Hmm?"

"I wasn't just getting air. I… went to go see Hiei."

Botan blinked. "Hiei?"

"Which one's that?" Atsuko asked.

"Short guy in black," Shizuru said. "Angry look on his face."

"Scary dragon goth boy, got it," Atsuko said. "But Keiko, why'd you go see him?"

"Yes, Keiko. Why Hiei?" Botan concurred. "He isn't the social sort. I've been training with him, and even I don't get close unless I have a good reason."

I took another deep breath, this one harder than the first. "I went to go see Hiei," I said, "because his match ended in a draw because of me."

I explained the whole thing in a rush, not daring to look any of my friends in the eye. My head hung low by the time I finished; no one interrupted me as I spoke. I think they were too stunned to figure out what to say.

"They don't have a match tomorrow," I said when I finished recapping. "They need to stay focused and prepare. Hiei made it clear he doesn't want me around, and Yusuke and I are already fighting. I don't want to distract them by showing up out of the blue, y'know?" I carded my hands into my hair and pulled them away again, and none too gently. "Because clearly if I distract them, it can have dire consequences."

A moment of silence followed. I didn't dare look up to read their faces, but soon Botan sighed.

"I get it," she said, voice soft. Her hand alit comfortingly on my knee. "We'll lie low, Keiko."

"Yeah. We will. And besides." Atsuko grinned. "I'd like to lounge around by the pool tomorrow, and explaining to Yusuke why the heck I'm here might take all day. Best put it off a while if I'm to get my pool time."

Botan giggled. Shizuru, meanwhile, regarded me thoughtfully from within the kitchen, arms crossed beneath her breasts. I half worried if Shizuru might call my bluff, because while everything I'd said about not wanting to be a distraction was true, I'd left out the most pressing reason why I wanted to remain a secret from the boys. We needed to reveal ourselves when we had Yukina in tow, during Kuwabara's painful match with Risho. Threads of fate hung themselves on that moment, spiraling off into the distance of destiny, so I felt I had to at least keep the option of that big moment safe in my pocket. For now, at least, if it looked like we would need it.

If Shizuru sensed any deception from me, she said nothing. She just turned back to the stove, looked at her bubbling pots and pans, and announced: "Food's ready. Let's eat."

And so, we did. We ate, three of us at the bar while Shizuru stood in the kitchen, and we chatted about the matches, and we discussed amongst ourselves how we wanted to spend our fight-bereft tomorrow. Botan didn't say too much, but she did giggle when Atsuko mentioned that Chu would make for a good drinking buddy. Could we track him down at one of the hotel bars, she wondered? It wasn't like he had a fight to get to anymore, and mama needed some man to tide her over while we're stuck on the island.

That got Botan to outright laugh. "Atsuko! Gross!"

Atsuko winked. "Honey, you ain't seen nothing—"

She stopped talking when someone knocked three times upon our door. A moment passed, and then they knocked again. Shizuru, Botan, Atsuko and I exchanged a series of looks, each more nonplussed than the last.

"You don't think Chu has demon hearing and is making a special delivery of his abs, do ya?" Atsuko said under her breath.

"Probably not." Shizuru set down her bowl and headed for the door. "Sit tight. I got this."

Tense silence, punctuated only by her footfalls on the plush carpet, followed. Botan and Atsuko looked wary, but my pulse beat a tattoo against my ribs at the thought of it being one of the boys. Maybe Hiei had ratted me out, or perhaps Koenma—

I didn't have to wonder for long. Soon the door creaked open. "Hi." Shizuru said. "And you are?"

"Is…" A sniffle, pitiful and wet, cut the quiet air. "Is Keiko here?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," Shizuru said. "I'll ask again: And you are…?"

She needn't have bothered repeating the question, because I was already off my chair and trotting to the door. "Otoha?" I said as I rounded the corner—and sure enough, there she stood. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, but they were red and puffy with tears.

"Oh, Keiko. Thank god," she said. "Is that offer of a girl's night still open?" She held up a six-pack of beer and an entire fucking handle of vodka and promptly began to bawl. "Because I need one so bad!"

Otoha, it turns out, was in dire need of a drink or five, and she had the shittiest boss in the world.

She waited only for me to tell her that yes, the offer was still open before swanning in, collapsing on our couch, loosening her necktie, and shotgunning a beer while the rest of us looked on in stunned silence (except for Atsuko, who just looked impressed). I barely had time to hiss out an explanation as to why this pretty demon woman thought it was OK to waltz into our suite unannounced before Otoha launched into a rant about the aforementioned boss—and what a rant it was.

"He's horrible!" she said as soon as she downed the last drop of her beer. "He makes us wear these stupid frilly dresses and if we're even a minute late, our pay gets docked! And the human rich guys are so gross and they make their rooms a horrible mess and they laugh when we clean it up and our boss just tells us that that's what we get, that's what we signed up for, that's why the pay is as good as it is, even though that one human upended a bottle of wine on the carpet I had just finished cleaning and he laughed and laughed and—"

She picked up another beer, popped through the metal near the bottom with her finger (holy shit, she was strong!) and cracked the tab. Atsuko actually applauded as Otoha chugged this one, too, but Otoha appeared not to notice. She just wiped her mouth with her wrist and snarled at the ceiling, hands flying upward so hard her beer can went soaring.

"And he's just so smug!" she warbled as we took tentative seats on the chairs and couches around her. "Thinks he knows better than everyone about everything and he made two of the other girls cry." She looked at each of us, enunciating each word with horrified gusto. "He. Made. Them. Cry! Because their uniform didn't fit right because Kaori gained just a little weight, and—!"

Botan put her hands over her mouth. "He sounds terrible!"

Otoha nodded and hiccupped, her coppery cheeks darkening a tad. Interestingly, the pink scales on her cheeks had darkened to a vivid magenta, too. I cut in to say, "Hey. I thought you were a front desk worker, not a maid."

Her liquid brown eyes blazed. "I am! That's the problem! If he doesn't like you—and he hates me because I called him out for being a massive butthole—he makes you do all the jobs no one wants!" She looked at us, seeking validation. "Just to get back at you! Can you even believe that?!"

"Girl, that's awful." Atsuko raised a fist. "Need me to punch him?"

Otoha reached for a beer. "Yes, please."

"Cool." Atsuko stood up. "Where do I find 'em?"

Otoha cackled with glee—but then she did a double-take as Atsuko walked toward the door. "Wait, no!" she shrieked, launching off the couch. She staggered, though, falling to her knees, but that didn't deter her from wrapping her arms around Atsuko's waist in the slightest. "I'd love seeing him with a fist upside the head, yeah, but I need this job," she said, voice muffled against Atsuko's side. "No punching, no punching!"

"Aw, damn," Atsuko lamented.

"Why do you need this job so badly, though?" Botan asked. "Especially with such a horrible boss to report to."

Where she'd earlier reacted with gusto, here Otoha hesitated. She unwrapped herself from around Atsuko and sat on the couch again, where she began to fiddle with the cap on the handle of vodka. I steeled myself to interfere if she tried chugging that, too, but she didn't. She just sighed, and set it aside, and then she put her head in her hands. Silky black hair fell in thick waves around her face, lustrous and shiny.

"Need the money," Otoha grunted. "But I'm not the biggest fan of humans, and—" She caught herself, glancing up with a hangdog look. "I mean, you seem nice, all of you here in this room, but the rest of them are—"

"Rich assholes?" Atsuko suggested/

Otoha's face cleared. "Right," she said, nodding. "And they're the only humans I've ever really met. Aside from you. So my overall impression of humans isn't really…"

"Don't worry about it. I don' like rich assholes, either," Shizuru said. She reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. "So you said you need the money?"

"Yeah." Otoha heaved another sigh, sagging back against the couch. "I might not be a big fan of humans, but Demon World can be hard to live in. My family… we're not the strongest of demons, y'know? And we're not the richest. We get by, of course. We've got our skills that make us useful. But if we had money, we could move somewhere safer. To a bigger city."

My curiosity reared its head. "It's safer in Demon World in cities?"

Otoha nodded like a bobble head, and before I could stop her, she swigged straight from the vodka bottle. The scales on her cheeks turned even darker, nearly purple now. "Out in the badlands, the strong eat. The weak are meat," she said, words slurring just a tad. "But in the city, demons work together. Strength in numbers, and not just lone wolves trying to survive. So that's where we need to go, but…"

"Why can't you just pack up and move?" Shizuru asked.

For a second, Otoha looked at Shizuru like she'd said something really, really dumb—but then a lightbulb went off. "Oh. Right." Even through the haze of alcohol, she managed to appear thoughtful. "Humans don't know much about Demon World, do they?"

Nope. Nope, we most certainly did not, and I was most definitely eager to correct this oversight and get the inside scoop. Luckily Otoha delivered, and I didn't even have to prompt her.

"A lot of the bigger cities are surrounded by high walls, right? Like, for defense?" She flopped onto her side and lifted a hand, tracing it in patterns through the air. "And they're ruled by strong demons. To be let in, you've gotta be useful. And even if you've got abilities that're useful, usually you have to pay a toll. And taxes after that, too." Something about that made her scowl, but I suppose that's understandable; having to pay for safety isn't exactly a pleasant prospect. Otoha continued, "Human money isn't worth much in Demon World. We trade, mostly, instead of using money like humans do. But while I'm here, I can use that money to buy gems. Gold. And that's worth a lot in every world you care to visit." Ambition glittered behind her giant brown eyes like the flare of a brilliant precious stone. "If I get money, I can get gems and gold and cloth and all kinds of things, and we can use that to buy our way in to a big city. We can use it to be safe."

That made sense. With so many territories in Demon World, having one consistent currency wouldn't be easy. I wondered if Mukuro, Yomi, and Raizen ran cities like the ones Otoha described, or perhaps their entire land was a safe space… but I couldn't exactly ask that outright without revealing that I knew the names of Demon World leaders. Nuts. I'd have to ask Kurama sometime, instead.

Otoha hefted the bottle, but she hiccupped and put it down again. "And that's why I gotta keep working and not punch people in the face," she said. One hand descended onto the coffee table in the middle of the couches; she slapped it with vicious enthusiasm. "I need cash, dammit, cold and hard and clean, so I'm keepin' my cool no matter what! No punches! Not even if my boss has a stupid, big smug face!"

I couldn't help but giggle at the insult, but Botan's eyes started to well up for no reason whatsoever. She got up from her seat and sat beside Otoha on the couch, grabbing the demon's hand in hers with a soft smile on her face. "Otoha, dear, I admit I was confused when you showed up at our door, but now that I've heard your story, I understand you completely."

Otoha blew her black bangs from her eyes with a noise like an elephant. "Eh?"

"I, too, need to earn my way into a better life. I, too, have to do things I'd rather not to prove my worth." Botan's smile turned bitter. "And I, too, have a boss I have to tolerate on my way to achieving that goal. Otoha, you and I—we're sisters."

Now it was Otoha's turn to look teary. "Sisters."

"Yes. Soul sisters." Botan clutched her hand tighter, solemn and sincere. "And if you need anything, anything at all, you come back here at once and we will help you. That's a solemn promise."

Otoha looked at her in wonder. "Sisters who help each other." Her eyes welled up so much, it was a wonder she didn't start bawling again. "I only have brothers in Demon World."

"Then can I be your adopted sister on your stay in Human World?" Botan asked.

"Of course you can!" Otoha said, but then she looked confused. "Oh. But. Um. What was your name again?"

"Botan."

"Botan." Otoha clutched Botan's hands in hers, reciprocating the gesture with a sniffle. "You're so pretty and nice. You're all so pretty and nice." She snatched up the rest of the six-pack and began distributing drinks. "Here, here, drink. Drink with me! You're all my sisters now and you're all so pretty!"

"Thank you, Otoha." Botan hesitated, but then she cracked open her beer and grinned. "A drink sounds like exactly what I need!"

Atsuko, predictably, looked absolutely jazzed by this turn of events. "Now you're talking!" she said. "Anybody got a pair of keys? Let's bust these bad boys open!"

Shizuru wordlessly handed over a set of keys from her pocket, laughing when Atsuko immediately shotgunned her drink. "Yeah. I'll join in, too," she said. She shot me a sidelong glance. "Think you can keep us out of trouble?"

I saluted. "Just call me your designated driver."

Otoha was raising her beer high. "To sisterhood!"

"To sisterhood!" Botan concurred.

"Cheers!" Atsuko said, and they downed their drinks. I watched with a grin as Botan coughed and sputtered, unaccustomed to the taste of beer, and Otoha offered to make her a yummier concoction with the vodka and any juice we might have in the fridge. Booze wasn't exactly the healthiest way to deal with one's problems, but if it gave Otoha an escape and an outlet from her poor employment situation, I was just happy to be of help.

And it turns out Otoha wasn't the type to take help without reciprocating, because that night, she helped me out in a bag way, too.

The next morning, I woke up early to find Atsuko snoring on the floor, Otoha asleep in a chair, Botan passed out in the bathtub, and Shizuru safe in her bed. Shizuru, it seemed, was far too dignified to ever crash somewhere embarrassing, but somehow I figured even she wouldn't be immune from the raging hangover they'd all no doubt have when they woke up.

Well. Everyone but Atsuko, probably. She spent most of her days drunk; she'd probably wake up and just keep drinking. "Can't have a hangover if you're still drunk," is most likely her motto.

As quietly as I could, I placed glasses of water and packets of painkillers next to all of my friends, and then I wrote a note saying I'd left to go look for hangover breakfast foods for them. I left this note on my bed, weighted down by a hair barrette on my pillow. Hopefully they'd find it before worrying about me too much. The note was for them, after all.

The other note, stowed safe and secret in the pocket of my jeans, was for my eyes only.

Otoha had slipped the note to me midway through the drunken bacchanal of the previous evening. It happened around the time Atsuko literally tried to swing from the chandelier (Botan and Shizuru just cheered her on, unhelpfully; whoever had got us this room would have one hell of a bill by the time the Tournament ended, that was for sure). I went to the kitchen while Atsuko did her best lemur impression to look for salty snacks to feed her, to get her to sober up and drink water and whatnot, but as I turned around to bring the peanuts I'd located back to the others, I found Otoha leaning precariously against the doorframe.

"Hey," she slurred. "Hey, you!" She slipped a hand into her top and pulled a small white card from her bra. "This is for you, you beautiful angel-bucket."

"What is—?" I started to ask, but then I spotted my own handwriting on the front of the card and snatched it away. I knew exactly what that must mean. "Oh," I said, surreptitiously shoving it into my pocket as I shot a glance into the living room. No one was watching; my secret was safe. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

Otoha giggled and leaned in close, hand cupped around her mouth to whisper, "Got one of the maids to leave it in his room. She found it the next day with instructions on the back." Another vodka-scented giggle. "Still dunno what you want with him, but it looks like you knew exactly what to say to get his attention, huh? You smart little waterbuffalo of joy."

"Yeah." It appeared that I did (and also that Otoha was really good at weird compliments). "Thanks again. Really. I mean it."

She waited a beat, but when I didn't say anything else, she lifted a finger and pointed it at my face. "You're a cagey one, ain't ya? A little paranoid squirrel-nut with a cute lil' tail, that's you," she said, all of her weight propped against the kitchen door as she laughed. "Don't worry, though. I won't tell anyone about it."

"Thanks for your discretion."

"Sure." Another of her giggles, this one accompanied by a tipsy wink. "I'm drunk, not dumb!"

I tended to agree with that assessment. Even when drunk, Otoha knew how to be subtle, and for this I was grateful. I watched her from inside the kitchen as she stumbled back into the living room to egg on Atsuko's exploits, smiling all the while. Otoha was shaping up to be a valuable ally, not to mention a pretty nice friend.

But then she told Atsuko to try and hang from the chandelier with her feet, and I had to put my musings aside until the next morning, when I bid everyone a whispered goodbye at the suite's door and headed downstairs for breakfast.

The breakfast I was after wasn't for them, though, as my note had claimed.

The note Otoha had delivered told me to go to one of the many restaurants scattered throughout the hotel. This one was near the back of the building, where it provided a stunning view of the ocean from the top of a wide, airy veranda left open to the sky and sun. The tux-clad maître d' stood before a pair of enormous glass doors that provided access to this veranda, but the restaurant must've been kind of exclusive because that door appeared to be the only way to reach the tables beyond. I approached him with a smile, but he looked me up and down with a look of undisguised disdain. I wasn't nearly as fancily dressed as the people eating breakfast at the tables, shaded by umbrellas and sipping cocktails from tall glasses. I looked as out of place as a bull in a ballet studio.

But I didn't let his Judgey McJudgerson act keep me from being polite. "Hi," I said as I walked up. "I'm here to meet—"

The moment I proffered the white card in my pocket, his expression cleared. "Ah. I see. He's been expecting you," he said. "Right this way, miss."

Now that was more like it. He led the way through the doors and onto the veranda beyond without any more mean looks, this time treating me like an actual guest instead of a pesky fly he'd like to swat. His steps carried us toward the edge of the veranda, which overlooked a sheer drop to a rocky shore below, not to mention the azure sea stretching wide and far beyond it. The springtime sun made it warm, but the sea breeze kept it from being overly hot, as did the large parasol over the small table near the balcony's edge. As we neared this table, I spotted a grey head wearing a black cap, a fringe of long grey hair falling down the back of the person sitting there. Nice. He had his back to me. So I was getting a jump on him, huh?

Or maybe not.

We were a few feet away when my breakfast partner turned, ever so slightly, and looked straight at me through a single, narrow eye.

He said nothing, of course. I didn't really expect him to. Whoever breaks the silence loses the advance, right? He waited in silence as the maître d' pulled out my chair and helped me to sit like I was an actual high-society lady or something, watching me through silent and assessing eyes whose color I couldn't quite discern. Something about that detail unnerved me, though I couldn't quite articulate why.

The maître d' bowed after placing a napkin across my lap. "May I bring you a drink, miss?"

I debated asking for something fancy but decided against it. "Water, please."

"Very good, miss."

He walked off. For a minute, neither I nor my breakfast companion spoke. When I dared look him fully in the eye, his thin and wrinkled mouth curled into a smile rendered almost invisible by his long, bushy mustache. His smile stayed in place as he spoke—so, no wonder I couldn't make out his eye color. His eyes scrunched up too much for me to really see it. Other than that, though, he wasn't particularly remarkable looking. He was all long grey hair, voluminous eyebrows, a pointed chin set below a face as wizened and brown as a walnut, and stooped shoulders (he was actually a bit smaller than I expected him to be, honestly, but mostly because of his hunched back). If it hadn't been for his pointed ears, he'd look like a kindly grandfather.

I knew better to believe that, though. Appearances, especially with this demon, were very much deceiving.

"Well, well, well." His voice, thin and reedy, trembled the way most elderly people's did—but the quaver in it was somewhat regular, more like trained vibrato than an uncontrollable shake. "Out of all my predications, I can't say this numbered high among them. A human, asking to speak with the likes of me? Wonders never cease." His head tilted to one side, highlighting the length of his pointed ears. "You've caught me quite by surprise, miss...?"

"Yukimura Keiko."

"My, what a lovely name. But I don't suppose you need to hear my name in return, do you?" His wavering voice evened out a touch, almost imperceptibly. "You seemed to know it very well, after all."

Seemed like a fine time to take my note—or rather, our note—from my pocket. The old man eyed it for a moment, and when he spoke again, the tremble had returned to his voice.

"I admit it gave me quite a shock, receiving that note." A beat; he pretended to fumble, as if remembering something he'd forgotten, but I was pretty certain this was all part of his act. "You are the one who sent it, I take it? I suppose I should confirm before making assumptions."

I smiled. "Yes. I sent it."

He let a laugh creep into his voice. "Right, right. Forgive an old man his forgetfulness in his advanced age."

"I think we both know you don't need to keep up the act, 'old man.'"

His smile dropped. For a moment, he didn't say anything—but then he sat up in his seat. His shoulders moved back, spine lengthening as his posture turned ramrod straight. Now he was actually tall. Far taller than me as we sat across from one another.

"No," he said. "I suppose not." His eyes were plain old brown; I could see this now that he'd stopped smiling, and his voice no longer held any trace of its earlier quaver. "And speaking of acts? You certainly put one on to pique my interest. That name you borrowed most definitely does not belong to you." His eyes narrowed again. "And I should know."

The note disappeared from my hand and reappeared in his. I couldn't keep from flinching (that speed!), but the man before me did not appear to notice. He simply cleared his throat, lifted the note before him, and began to read aloud.

"To the demon known as Old Man Onji," said the demon known as Old Man Onji.

"I am in need of your assistance. As such, I'd like to meet you—sooner rather than later, if possible. I mean you no harm whatsoever, though I do not doubt that you will doubt the truth of that assertion. Please pick a public place and time and I will do my best to meet you wherever and whenever specified. Return this note to its deliverer with your instructions.

I look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

The Beautiful Suzuka"

He paused a second. His mustache twitched. His eyebrow did, too, as he read the postscript.

"P.S…"

"I'm not clowning around."

I chortled. Onji glared. Apparently he didn't find me nearly as funny as I did, and he made that very clear when he said: "Nothing sincere about the way you signed that, I feel compelled to note, nor about that obnoxious pun. But it certainly got my attention. For that, if nothing else, I commend you."

I tried to stop laughing. Failed. Onji's glare intensified.

"Now tell me." He crossed his arms over his chest as his voice became all haughty Suzuka, not a trace left of the jolly old Onji he liked to pretend to be. "What's this all about? What a human like you could hope to gain from a demon like me, I really have no idea—even if I'm a particularly fine specimen of a demon, of course." He certainly liked to hear himself talk, because even though he'd asked me a question, he kept talking without giving me a chance to answer. "You're a brave little thing, I suppose, coming to me the way you did and with such an audacious ruse, but it will take more than that to impress me. Did it ever occur to you that borrowing my true name might make me angry? Might make me come after you? Hunt you down and slaughter your pathetic human self like a common dog?"

"You like to pick on dogs?" I deadpanned. "Not a good look, bro."

Call me a fool if you want, but knowing that Suzuka was a pompous blowhard beneath his mask made it really, really tough to take him seriously—even if he was still strong enough to squash me like a bug. Luckily for me, he didn't take my joke too hard (but anybody who wears a clown suit recreationally ought to have a good sense of humor, methinks). He started, and then he threw back his head and laughed—though I got the sense it was mostly at my expense. Laughing at me, not with me. That sort of thing.

"Well, at least your impertinence is as amusing as it is laughably harmless." He rolled his eyes and sighed, as if weary of me already. "No. I suppose picking on weaklings like you would do my reputation no favors." He waved a hand through the air, imperious and dismissive. "Very well. You're safe… for now. Provided you don't offend me over breakfast."

I would've made another snide crack of some kind, but a waiter appeared to list the breakfast offerings. I picked pancakes; Onji (or should I call him Suzuka?) opted for black coffee. Weird flex, but all right.

"You don't seem scared of me," Suzuka observed when the waiter left. His voice took on an air of arrogant command. "Tell me. Are you merely too foolish to recognize true danger when you sit in its immediate and intimidating presence," (holy fuck, what a blowhard!) "or do you simply think you know something I don't, inconceivable an idea as that might be?"

"The latter," I said.

He looked derisively unconvinced—but then he seemed to reconsider. "Hmm. Perhaps that's true, keeping in mind the fact you know my secret." He scowled. "A secret I buried quite expertly, if I do say so myself. Are you in a sharing mood, or is asking how you know who I am a fool's errand?"

I shrugged. "I keep my ear to the ground."

"Ground I buried my name very deep below."

"I've got good ears, I guess."

"Oh, I doubt that very much. Humans are notorious for their poor senses."

"And yet I knew your name," I pointed out, "and what you intend to wear when you stop wearing this disguise. Funny how that works out."

His scowl returned, deeper this time. "That outfit I've kept even more secret than my name." A pause followed, in which he looked me over yet again. Pensively he murmured, "You seem like a normal human to me. But then again, I've met very few of them and therefore have few points of comparison. Perhaps all humans are this… inscrutable." A smirk. "Not to mention irritating."

"Nah," I said, grinning. "That's mostly just me."

His eyes rolled. "Just my luck, in that case." Once more he waved as if shooing away a particularly bothersome gnat. "Well, don't leave me in suspense. Out with it, pitiful human wench. What is it that you want with me, the Beautiful Suzuka?"

Finally he stopped talking. I thought he'd never let me speak. With a cough I folded my hands atop the table and said, "You are a purveyor and inventor of… devices. Devices that can be used to enhance the abilities of the wielder, or provide a technique to someone who lacks it. Correct?"

He had the decency to look impressed, albeit grudgingly. "An ear to the ground, indeed."

"I'd like one." When he didn't react, I added: "I'd like an item that can make me spiritually aware, I mean. Psychic. That sort of thing."

Still he appeared not to understand. "You'd…" he said, and stopped.

Studying his blank face, I wondered if, perhaps, a demon like Suzuka was as ignorant about humans as most humans were about demons. "Not all humans can sense energies or manipulate their psychic senses," I explained, figuring it didn't hurt to clarify for him. "The humans who back this tournament are probably a mix of both. You don't need psychic powers to enjoy bloodsport, after all."

(That got him to snort, though I wasn't quite sure why. Maybe he felt as resentful of those backers as I did. Tough to tell, but it hardly mattered. I soldiered on.)

"The human team this year are all… awakened, if you'll pardon the phrasing," I said. "I'm not. I'm as spiritually aware as a potato. But if there's one thing I think you can understand, it's ambition." I smiled, though I'm sure the gesture looked as bitter as the cup of coffee he'd ordered. "I'd like to be more than I am, you see. I'd like to feel useful. And I think you could—potentially, and depending on how magnanimous you feel today—help me with that."

It was a good speech, I suppose, but it didn't appear to have any effect on him. Suzuka just stared, unresponsive as a sheet of paper, until I felt compelled to shrug.

"It's fine if you can't help, or if none of your inventions can accomplish what I ask," I said, hoping to nag at his annoyingly boundless pride just a little. "If you can't or won't help, I'll go on my way without a word, and you'll never hear from me again. But you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and I refuse not to at least try." I beamed and spread my hands flat atop the table. "So, Beautiful Suzuka. What say you?"

Maybe it was my sparkles-and-sunshine stare. Maybe it was the eager way I leaned toward him across the table. Maybe it was my gung-ho, can-do attitude or the way stars and unicorns were basically shooting out of my butt. Maybe it was none of these things, or maybe it was all of them, but whatever the case may be—Suzuka cracked. He sighed, put a finger to his temple, and sagged in his seat under the weight of my enthusiasm. Score.

"I say that if I can help—and I'm not saying that I can, even as undoubtedly brilliant as I most assuredly am, so curb your expectation somewhat. But if I can help you… what's in it for me?" He preened like a cockatoo in front of a brand new mirror. "My talents are far too valuable to waste on mere and undeserved charity, after all."

My reply came instantaneously. "I can offer information."

One diaphanous brow lifted. "About…?"

I beamed at him again. "The person you're trying to kill, of course."

That sure did throw him for a loop, though why he was surprised at this point I honestly can't say. He grumbled under his breath and rubbed his temples. "So you even know about my grand ambition, then."

"Yup!"

"I never told anyone about that. And I highly doubt he did, either."

"Yeah, well. You don't really brag about defeating someone you consider beneath you, right?"

Suzuka's gaze hardened. His hands dropped into fists atop the table, heavy enough to make the silverware rattle. I gulped in spite of myself, because in his Onji disguise, Suzuka was actually kind of intimidating… in a "don't disappoint your grandpa" kind of way. Oofa doofa…

"Apologies," I said, holding up conciliatory hands. "I'm just eager to prove I have knowledge. I didn't mean to insult you."

His glare eased. "First sensible thing you've said all morning," he muttered. "You are wise to correct yourself in front of me, for the Beautiful Suzuka is not forgiving."

He probably would've gone on a tear about demanding respect since he was too beautiful for anything less than unwavering devotion, or something similarly vomit-inducing, but the waiter appeared with my pancakes and his coffee just in time to keep the lid on that garbage can of a rant. I dug into my food at once, stuffing my face with syrup and pastry without another word.

Suzuka sipped his coffee as I ate. "How do you know about my history with… him?" he said when the waiter disappeared.

I spoke (as vaguely as possible) with my mouth full. "I am privy to many channels of privileged information," I said without looking up from my pancakes.

Suzuka was not satisfied. "Define 'privileged.'"

"Define why you're asking me to define terms."

"Define why you need me to define why I asked you to define yourself," he countered, and then we stared at one another in tense silence.

I swallowed my pancakes. "I am not," I said while daintily blotting my mouth with a napkin, "going to tell you my secrets."

He sipped his coffee, smug. "Then I won't help you."

I shrugged. "Then we're at an impasse."

I don't think he was expecting me to just… let things go like that, but I did. I cut another bite of pancake, ate it, and then cut another. He watched in silence as I ate my way steadily across my plate. One of his fingers, gnarled and wrinkly in its disguise, tapped against the side of his mug. It tapped slowly at first, and then it tapped faster, and then faster still. The tempo of my pancake-eating, however, remained unchanged.

"… why aren't you leaving?" Suzuka eventually asked. "A declaration like that demands a dramatic exit."

I just shrugged again. "These are good pancakes." I stuffed some into my mouth to illustrate. "Why aren't you leaving?"

He shrugged, too. "Because you're a puzzle, and I have never encountered a puzzle my renowned intellect couldn't solve."

I chewed. Stopped. Swallowed. "… you do know that comparing people to objects is as bad of a look as abusing dogs, right?" came my deadpan commentary.

Suzuka didn't reply. He just sat there, and when a waiter walked past, he lifted a hand to flag him down. "Waiter?"

"Yes sir?"

Suzuka pointed at my pancakes. "I'll have what she's having."

I almost spat out my breakfast. Hacking and coughing, I reached for my water to clear my throat. Suzuka looked at me like I'd gone insane and asked, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing." I lifted my silverware again. "Nothing at all."

He watched me eat in silence (for once; I thought he'd never stop talking) until the waiter delivered Suzuka his own plate of pancakes. He poured syrup on them and dug in without complaint. Apparently they had pancakes in Demon World, or else he was just copying my eating technique. What I'm saying is he was familiar with this type of food, and that kind of surprised me. But, whatever. No skin off my nose.

"I'm trying to decide why you came to the Tournament." He held up one finger in warning, syrup dripping from the end of his fork. "Don't bother giving me a hint. I won't need one."

I laughed and gestured for him to carry on. He ate another bite before speaking, careful to keep syrup out of his mustache.

"You're not here with the human tournament backers, even if you're staying in this hotel," he said.

"Oh?" I tried to look demure. "How do you figure?"

"Your shoes are scuffed and you patched a hole on the elbow of your sweater. Rich humans would buy their daughters new clothes if they got torn, not tell her to apply an elbow patch." He smirked. "And they'd buy their daughters far more fashionable clothes than you seem to be wearing, too."

"Maybe I'm just not concerned with clothes." I hefted a fist. "Down with the 1%!"

My antics didn't distract him as I'd hoped, though. "No," he said. "It's more likely you're here with the human team participating in the fights." And I suppose guilt showed on my face, because he started to grin. "Oh. I'm right, aren't I? Brilliant." He tossed his hair. "I told you I wouldn't need a hint."

I stabbed at my pancakes a little too aggressively (because I was imaging they were Suzuka's face). "I'm not telling you how to beat them so do not ask, OK?"

He blanched. "Ask how to beat humans? Me? The Beautiful Suzuka, ask for help to defeat humans?" He threw back his head and laughed, full-throated and deep. "Oh, please, Keiko, you are far too much! I need absolutely no advice when it comes to the likes of them." He gestured wide with one hand and placed the other on his chest, smug and prideful and humorous all at once. "As if I, the Beautiful Suzuka, need help besting two pitiful humans and a handful of demon traitors? Don't make me laugh! That truly was the funniest thing you've said to me thus far, Keiko, and you have been quite an amusing diversion this morning."

"… fine." His pride was a neat barrier to my worries, but then again, I'd counted on it to act as such. I stabbed my pancakes again. "And they don't know I'm here, so don't go telling them we've met, would you?"

The request gave him pause, one brow rising high. "You trust me to keep your secrets?" he asked, as if I were stupid for doing so.

"Sure." I shrugged. "You're here to gain glory and become famous. If you wanted to kidnap or kill me to get at the human team, it'd look bad. You said it yourself: You need no advantage to beat them, so you won't do anything like that. You value your reputation too much." I grinned. "Am I right?"

It was Suzuka's turn to stab his pancakes like he wished they were my face.

"Thought so," I said with a satisfied giggle. "And besides. It's not like you'd pick on people weaker than you, as discussed."

More stabbing occurred. "You think you have me all figured out," he said through gritted teeth.

I tried to look innocent. "Don't I?"

"Far from it. I'm only humoring you." He pointed his fork at me. "So don't get any big ideas."

I only giggled, though, which made him grumble and go back to eating. A few minutes later, I ate the last bite of my pancakes and leaned back in my seat with a sigh, hands resting lightly on my stomach.

"Ah, I'm stuffed." I grabbed my napkin and placed it on the table, then stood. "Guess I'll be going, then. See you round, Onji. Suzuka. Or whatever name you'll be using next."

But before I could walk away, Suzuka put his fork down. "Wait."

I gave him a Look. "Hmm?"

He waved, that same gesture he'd given me before, as if granting me, a lowly commoner, permission to address him, the highborn king. "Well. Out with it," he said, nose thrust high into the air. "The information you possess. Give it to me."

"Greedy demon." I sat down again with a huff. "Are you going to give me what I asked for in return?"

"Depends on how valuable your information is."

"Oh, it's good." Deciding I should tempt him with a taste, I tapped my finger on the tabletop. "The elder Toguro can manipulate his biology. He can move around his organs, his bones, veins and arteries, everything, so if you want to kill him, you have to smash him or pulverize his whole body at once, and honestly… even that probably won't do him in."

Suzuka slowly set down his silverware, eyes lighting up as he looked me over with new respect. "I admit, that is good. He hasn't fought much in this Tournament and has yet to show the full range of his abilities." A hand cupped his withered chin. "To manipulate every aspect of his physically down to his arteries is…"

"Insidious?"

"That's one way of putting it."

"Yeah." I nodded vigorously. "Best bet is to incapacitate him long enough to keep him down and get a 10 count. Use the Tournament's rules to your advantage if you fight him."

"Solid strategy," Suzuka muttered, eyes a million miles away. "Yes… solid strategy, indeed."

I couldn't help myself. "You thinking of which item to use on him?" I said, leaning forward again. "Which technique?"

Suzuka harrumphed. "That's for me to know and you to never find out."

"I mean, I have an opinion if you'd like to hear it."

"I wouldn't." Another faux-magnanimous wave. "Now go on. The others."

"Your loss." I crossed my arms and gave him another Look. "But before I continue, tell me. Are you gonna give me what I asked for?"

"Maybe." He didn't bother to sound convincing. "But I need more to be persuaded."

"Ugh. Fine." Either he'd give me an item or he wouldn't; I had little to lose, aside from the bargaining chip of information, and I wasn't putting too much faith in this whole Suzuka-give-me-powers scenario to begin with. "Bui is a tough bastard. His armor isn't for protection, but for keeping immense power contained. Brute force is the only way to win—at least as far as I know." Suzuka started to ask a question, but I held up a finger to buy for time. "Oh, and he can fly, and he can swing that ax way faster than you think, so watch out."

"Interesting." Wheels turned behind his eyes, clicking strategies into place. "And the demon with the long, dark hair?"

"Karasu uses invisible flying bombs and his mask is a lot like Bui's armor—a power restrictor," I said. "His hair turns blond when he takes it off and the bombs aren't visible to the naked eye unless your power level is high enough." I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of that sadistic demon. "Another monster on a team chock full of them."

Suzuka said nothing.

Then, slowly: "And what can you tell me about the most monstrous of them all?"

We didn't need to speak his name. We both knew who he meant. Suzuka's entire storyline was predicated upon a past encounter with Toguro, after all, and he and I both knew it. A chill swept through me that had nothing to do with the cool ocean breeze, and I wrapped my arms around myself for… warmth? Security? Both? It was hard to say.

"Unfathomably strong," I said. "No true weak points. He scales his power up by increasing muscle mass in tandem his spiritual pressure. Uses percentages to denote how much force he's exerting."

"I'd surmised as much."

"I figured you had. You've developed a mimicked version of the technique, right?"

"Yes, that's—" He did a double-take. "Who are you?"

"No one of consequence," I chirped, but before he could sputter out a question, I forged right on ahead. "Anyway, here's something you might not know about him. When Toguro fully powers up, his aura will vaporize the demons near him. Weak-ish ones, anyway. And he can absorb their energies to power himself, too." I shivered again. "To kill with one's aura alone, and then to cannibalize it… blood-curdling. But it creates too much collateral damage. That's why he never lets himself power up that much."

His eyes flashed. "If he never lets himself power up, how do you know what happens when he does?" Suzuka said, pouncing on the opportunity to figure me out. "Surely his aura would have turned you to ash in an instant. How do you, a mere human, know these things when I, the most Beautiful and Powerful Suzuka, do not?"

I only smiled. "One hears rumors. And all those rumors are remarkably consistent." My smile couldn't keep from fading. "You kill him, or he kills you. 100% power is… shocking. But he can be beaten."

That was a kernel Suzuka actually cared about, the puzzle of my knowledge paling in comparison. "How?" he asked, angling forward in anticipation. "How can he be beaten?"

I hesitated. "Piece of advice?"

Suzuka scoffed. "From a human like you? I'll pass."

"I mean, I'm a human who knows more about that team than you do, so…"

It was an irrefutable fact and he knew it. "Fine," he said after a longsuffering sigh. "I'll keep humoring you." He lifted his fingers and liberally applied air quotes when he said, "What 'advice' can you give me, hmm?"

"You cannot beat him without conviction."

Whatever he'd expected me to say, it wasn't that. His hands dropped at once, confusion painting even more wrinkles across his craggy face.

"You think brute force and fancy techniques are all you need, but they're not." I toyed with the fork on my plate, tracing designs in the syrup. "To defeat Toguro, you need staunch determination. It isn't enough to be strong. It isn't enough to be skilled. You must be unwavering. You must not flinch. And you must approach the fight with the kind of conviction that could carry you through a typhoon."

"Lecturing me about conviction?" Suzuka scoffed. "You dare suggest that I, inventor of a thousand techniques, am not committed to my ideals?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong. You have conviction in a lot of things." I ticked off said 'things' on my fingers. "A desire for fame, for advancement, for notoriety and admiration… but you fight only for yourself." When he looked confused again, I added: "There are other combatants in this tournament who fight for more. They fight for every last one of their friends. For the wellbeing of their families. And in the face of that conviction, you won't win."

He considered this. Said: "Something tells me you aren't talking about Toguro."

All I did in reply was smile.

"The humans, then?" Suzuka rolled his eyes, lips curling in a mocking smile. "Too bad their so-called 'conviction' won't see them to the final round."

"So you say."

"So I know. I saw their first round." He counted on his fingers, too, team member by team member. "The one who wields that dragon could grow into trouble, but not in time to pose a threat to me. And the red-haired demon is a strategist, but his power levels aren't worrisome. And don't even get me started on the pathetic humans." Scorn dripped from every syllable even as he gave some concessions. "I'll admit, the head-butt was flashy and the boy with the sword has tricks up his sleeve, but they pose zero threat to one as magnificently inventive as myself." He gave a moan, like this was too pathetic to even waste time discussing. "And that masked fighter has the power level of a worm!"

It took every ounce of my willpower not to smile. He had no idea what was coming, especially concerning the masked fighter, and if I hadn't already known pride would be his downfall, I'd certainly guess as such after listening to that remarkable display of hubris. I didn't argue with him, though, and merely said, "I see." Once more, I spread my hands atop the crisp linen tablecloth. "So what now?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I told you what I know. You gonna hold up your end of the bargain?"

"Bargain?" Suzuka said, feigning confusion. "I don't remember committing to giving you what you asked for."

At once, thunder clouded my face. "So it's like that, huh?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that. To be honest, it's not because I don't want to do what you asked." He grinned in a way that made me think of sharks, and the people who hunt them. "You seem the cutthroat sort. I wouldn't mind it if you got a little stronger. Could be interesting to see how you handle all that power, and a feather in my cap if you used it to do impressive things." And then he looked annoyed. "But unfortunately, even if what you've given me is useful, and in spite of my vast intellect and incomparable abilities—I simply do not know what I could possibly offer you." He spread his hands on either side of his body, as if seeking divine blessing, and even through his extremely convincing disguise, the real Suzuka came shining through. "My inventions either operate independently of their user's power, or they act as a magnifier of it. For someone who has no power at all, the latter would do nothing. Zero times a thousand is still zero."

"Gee, dude," I groused. "Thanks for calling me zero. Way to make a girl feel special."

"Flattering, perhaps not, I but don't hear you arguing with my logic. And as for the former category…" He looked me up and down for the umpteenth time. "Giving you an item that could simply hurt your enemies isn't what you're after, I presume."

"Yeah. It's not." I considered things for a moment. "Well. Shit!" I lifted a hand. "Waiter?"

The one walking nearby came trotting over. "Yes, miss?"

"Dessert menu, please. Or better yet, surprise me with something off it." I caught his sleeve before he walked away. "Oh, and bonus points if it's got peanut butter!"

Something in my delivery got him to smile, lips twitching in spite of themselves. "Very well, miss," he said, and he walked off with the smallest of chuckles.

Suzuka just looked at me, skeptical. "Peanut butter?"

"I used to be allergic," I explained, "but now I'm not and I'm making up for lost time." I grabbed the mint leaf garnish off my empty plate and gnawed on it like an overly aggressive camel. "Especially when I'm disappointed."

"That makes no sense, but I honestly don't care enough to ask questions," Suzuka deadpanned. He regarded me in silence for a second before saying, "You don't seem as upset as I thought you might to have your plans denied. Rather even keeled of you, for a human."

"To be honest, I kind of thought this might happen," I grumbled around my minty chew toy (which was rapidly disintegrating between my teeth; I'd need to floss later). "Every time I try, I just hit a brick wall."

He didn't appear at all shocked by this. "So this wasn't your first time trying to broaden your spiritual awareness."

"Nope. And, oh." I pointed at him with my fork. "Don't let this sunny attitude and eagerness for peanut butter fool you, by the way. I realize you fucking used me to get information with no intention of following through on the deal and I am not going to forget it."

His mouth quirked. "Well. You might be annoying, but at least you're not stupid." Suzuka stood—but as he did, his posture shifted. The stoop came back to his shoulders, and when he spoke again, it was with that elderly warble he'd used when I'd first sat down. Just like that, it was Old Man Onji, not Suzuka, who said, "Enjoy your dessert, Yukimura Keiko. I hope it has peanut butter like you wanted."

"Oh. Are you leaving already?"

"Engaging as this soiree has been, I have duties to attend to." His eyes turned to crescents when he smiled. "And an old man needs to make time for an after breakfast nap, too."

I rolled my eyes. "And so the mask goes back on."

"Yes, yes. Old habits die hard, I suppose." One gnarled hand lifted in farewell. "Take care, young lady. And the next time you want to talk to me, try picking up the phone instead of sending cryptic notes, eh?"

"I'll try my best." I waved back. "Best of luck in the Tournament, Suzuka."

"Best of luck becoming more than a useless human, Keiko."

"You bet," I said—and I think Suzuka would've said something else, but a waiter arrived to place a small white ramekin before me on the table. "Oh my god!" I said, delighted. "Is that crème brûlée?"

"Of the peanut butter variety, miss," the waiter said.

"Fuckin' sweet." I grabbed my spoon. "Hey Suzuka, you want a bite of—?"

He was already gone.

More for me, I guess.

Over dessert, alone at my seaside table, I supposed it didn't much matter that I'd given Suzuka details regarding Team Toguro. He would never fight Team Toguro, after all, and would instead lose to the humans he so looked down upon. Now that he'd talked to me, he'd probably be too busy preparing his tactics for taking down Toguro to prepare to beat my boys. It was even possible that giving Suzuka that information might actually distract him so much, it would give my team a huge advantage in their fight against Suzuka and his underlings. Ironic, that, though I doubt he'd see it that way. Suzuka had a sense of humor, but probably not where his grand ambitions were concerned. Later on, Suzuka might pass the information I'd given him about Toguro to my boys (probably at the same time he'd give them those objects from his collection, if I had to guess), but there wasn't a whole lot of harm in that as far as I could tell. It would just give my boys an advantage, and since I didn't want to reveal the truth about myself, I'd rather Suzuka pass along that information instead of me.

No. The only real risk I ran in meeting with him was if he decided to tell my team I was here (or, y'know, murder my dumb ass, but he hadn't murdered me so it was a moot concern), but he had no reason to do that. And if for some reason he did decide to out me, I'd just think of a lie to cover my tracks concerning why Suzuka and I knew each other. There was plenty of time to prepare a story, after all. Easy-peasy, lemon squee—

My hand froze, spoon loaded with delicious peanut butter custard pausing just before my open mouth.

A lie, I'd thought.

I'd just think of a lie to cover my tracks.

How easily that had come to me, the thought of lying to my friends.

Disturbed, I didn't have the heart to eat the last few bites of my dessert. I got up, thanked the waiters who had helped me, and walked out of the restaurant with head low. Eyes on the floor, I barely saw the hotel as I passed through one wing of it and then another, cutting through a large courtyard between two wings that overflowed with blooming flowers. The garden smelled pretty, but I didn't look up to admire it as I passed beneath a trellis of creeping vines. Call me delusional, but in that moment I didn't really deserve to look at any pretty flowers. People who lie to their friends so easily don't deserve nice things. "This is why you can't have nice things, Not-Quite-Keiko," I muttered to myself as I walked past a rose bush, the scent of it assailing my nostrils with its undeserved aroma. "People who manipulate and lie and scheme don't deserve to—"

"Kei."

I stopped walking.

I looked up at the flowers around me—and in the span of two seconds, I went from somewhat delusional to outright hallucinating. Because surely that's what was happening, seeing him standing not fifteen feet away, still and quiet beside a bank of blooming hibiscus. Surely I wasn't actually seeing him, of all people, amid this rioting garden. A garden he'd love, after all, because it overflowed with flowers of a hundred different kinds and shapes and colors, each leaf just as green as the eyes looking at me from across the cobblestone path—

Kurama took a step in my direction. The hibiscus bush brushed his sleeve, leaving behind a streak of brilliant yellow pollen.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

I wasn't hallucinating after all, was I?

Kurama stopped walking. "So it is you," he said, voice as musical as the wind. "I thought so."

"How—? Oh. Oh. Um. Hey?" Vigorous jazz hands ensued. "Uh… surprise?"

Kurama only scowled, however. "I had hoped I was mistaken. But here you are."

"You hoped you were—?" I puzzled the implication together. "How did you know I was here? And to come look for me?"

"Hiei," Kurama said, simply.

"He told you?"

"He didn't have to."

Once again, I had to piece together an inference. I backed up a step. "Is this… is this a fox thing?" I whisper-screamed, tapping the side of my nose.

He looked uncomfortable, though not embarrassed. "Yes."

If he'd been standing close enough, I'd have swatted his arm, I was so thoroughly scandalized. "Ew! Kurama!"

And I think he would've swatted me right back, judging by the tired look on his face. "I'm not one to deny my nature, Kei."

"Yeah, I know, but still." I sighed and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars. "Did you tell the others?"

"No. I wanted to confirm my suspicions, first."

That was a relief—but wait. Did he say 'first?' In two seconds I had crossed the courtyard to latch onto his sleeve. "Kurama, you can't tell them I'm here," I said, staring up into his awfully, oddly cold green eyes. "You can't. Promise me."

"Are you asking me to withhold information from my teammates?" he asked, voice as smooth as a flower petal.

"Yes." My grip on his arm tightened. "That's exactly what I'm asking."

"That isn't fair, Kei." Under his smooth voice, I sensed steel—or perhaps thorns. "Neither to me nor to them."

"But you saw what happened with Hiei," I protested. "Surely you know he spotted me and it distracted him and he lost."

Seemed Kurama didn't know, because understanding dawned behind his hard gaze. "So that's what…" He trailed off with a shake of his head. "But your assessment is inaccurate. He ended his match with a draw."

"To him it's the same thing and I think it is to me, too," I said. "I can't distract the rest of them, like I did Hiei, Kurama." My head shook hard enough to hurt my neck. "I just can't!"

Kurama remained unmoved. "It's too late for Hiei," he countered, silken voice infuriatingly measured. "And for me, too, now that I know you're here." His chin lifted. "Where am I in all of this, I ask you? Where is Hiei?"

"I'm not going to go incognito forever." Panic set in, tearing at the edges of my composure like brambles tear a stocking. Frantic, begging him with my eyes to understand, I said, "You just have to wait a little while, that's all. There's a specific point in the future where Keiko is supposed to—"

"You are not her. You're you." At last his tone turned ragged, fraying in time with my pounding heart. "Events in your lives are not the same—or, at least, they do not have to be." His hand descended onto mine like a vice, bruising in its grip. "Not if you don't want it to be the same."

"No, but there are certain beats, certain plot points that need to be maintained—"

"Does Yusuke understand that?" The ice in his voice stopped my protests cold. "He came to me about you, Kei. He understands that there are things about you he does not have the context to understand. And he understands that you have avoided a clarifying conversation."

"No." I shook my head again, even harder this time. "No. No. That's not accurate. I tried. More than once at this point." Kurama's gaze, so hard and cold, stung like nettles on my skin; I looked away, eyes roving across the garden for something, anything that might provide me strength. "I have tried, but things just keep getting in the—"

The words died in my mouth. Not because I didn't believe in them, or because Kurama's hand on mine felt as cold as his burning eyes.

No.

I stopped speaking because I spotted him.

But Kurama did not know that. "In the way?" he said, ending my sentence for me. "We're friends, Kei, but I sometimes wonder if you're blaming outside forces when the true obstacle is—Kei?!"

I had wrenched my hand from his. I had pulled away and moved past him, carried on currents of (of fate? Destiny? Delusion) of something I could not name, away from our conversation. Kurama didn't understand why, of course. He followed at my heels, speaking words I did not have the mental bandwidth to hear, as I bolted into the depths of the garden toward—

The hem of a garment, scarlet as blood, sweeping around the edge of a bush of blooming lavender.

I broke into a run.

He was not there when I reached the lavender. I spun in place, ignoring Kurama as he asked what was wrong (because he was too smart not to see that something horrible had happened)—

Yards away, a bush rustling, but there isn't any breeze.

I ran again.

Behind that bush stood doors, tall and glassy and glimmering, leading to a wing of the hotel. I didn't pause; I ran at them and pushed them open, feet slapping against the polished marble floor. But the lobby there branched in many directions, toward rooms and restaurants and lounges, and as I spun in place in the center of the opulent atrium, tournament backers in ball gowns and tuxedos openly stared, whispering about me behind their hands with the sound of a million moths' incensed and flapping wings—wings matched only by the creatures flapping in my stomach, seeking escape out my dry and terrified mouth. I ignored the whispers as I had Kurama, though, searching with my eyes for any sign, any signal that I had not lost my mind and concocted a vision of—

Pale petal pink, soft as a murmur, swishing swiftly around the corner.

I didn't run, then.

I sprinted.

Kurama kept up as easily as breathing. "Kei, what are you—?" he was saying, but over the sound of his words I heard a bell ding, and I put on a burst of speed as I rounded a corner into a narrow hallway. Wildly I looked around, seeing dozens of elevators lining the hall on either side—

There, at the end, two doors coming together, meeting in the middle, sliding shut with another dinging bell.

I didn't sprint. I damn near teleported, I ran to that elevator so fucking fast—but just as I skidded to a stop before it, the doors finished closing. They finished closing on an opulent elevator carriage trimmed in gold and velvet—and on a vision of a red-clad back over which a long, pink braid did snake. A vision of shoulders, broad and elegant, over which a single eye (as blue as the ocean, as blue as the sky, as blue as blood seen below the skin) watched me.

That eye.

I knew that eye.

I knew that eye that glittered with the light of a familiar, eternal smile—and I knew, instinctively, exactly to whom it belonged.

And then the doors shut completely, and they blotted that eye from view.

"Kei?" Kurama's voice in my ear and his hand on my elbow almost hurt, they felt so real, and they brought me back to my body (which it felt like I had floated out of sometime in the not-so-distant past) with a jolt. "Kei. What is happening?"

I ignored him. Not because I wanted to, but because the dial—that old-fashioned dial above the elevator doors, an arrow that moved between numbers to show to which floor the elevator travelled—had begun to rise. The numbers climbed one by one, ascendant, until they reached the top.

Floor 14, the arrow told me.

He had gone to floor 14.

Kurama gripped me tighter, oblivious. "Kei," he repeated, voice urgent in my ear. "What's wrong?"

"He's—" (I swallowed, and I became aware that I was holding onto Kurama as much as he was holding onto me, my hands winding tight into his shirt, strands of his dark hair wrapping tight around my fingers.) "Kurama, he's here."

"Who's here?" Kurama said.

"Hi—Hiruko." The name came out in gasps, stolen breaths in stolen lungs, lungs the man—the adult man, the man with the bluest eyes I'd ever seen—had given me. "Kurama," I said, desperate for him to understand. "Hiruko is here."

Inconvenient though meeting Kurama in that garden might have been, I'm lucky he found me when he did—because right there, before that elevator, my knees buckled, and I fell. If Kurama had not been there to catch me, perhaps I'd have lost my lucky second life by hitting my head on the cold and unfeeling marble floor.

Notes:

Writing Suzuka was honestly even more fun than writing about Jin and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. He's such a buffoon, he's just… UGH. HE IS VERY "UGH" BUT I LOVED HIM? I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS! This is the longest chapter of the fic thus far and I had fun with just about every single word. Hiei, Otoha, Suzuka, Kurama, the Hiruko sighting… I dunno, guys, but it was great for me on my end, and I really hope you liked it, too.

See you on Jan. 19 with the next chapter!

MANY THANKS to those who chimed in since the last time I updated, which was technically LAST YEAR. How time flies. You rocked my world and helped get my 2019 off to a FANTASTIC start, so please know that the following lovely wonder-mongooses have every last ounce of my love and affection: Gerbilfriend, Nollyn, Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, NerdyQwerty, Kit_Kat_Kate, Masked_Trickster, NellaHex, Kuramag33, Chaosdreamingsiren, Ms_Liz, brawltogethernow, DragonsTower, Altered_karma, musiquemer, Just 2 Dream of You (DezzyDoesThings)!

Chapter 88: Girls Protecting Girls

Summary:

In which NQK makes enemies and friends.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Condensation beaded on the outside of the can, running over Kurama's long fingers in beads like rounded diamonds. I don't know where, exactly, he'd managed to find a can of pineapple juice in our swanky-ass hotel, but he had found one, and I took it from him without a word. The can felt like a block of solid ice against my fingers, but in spite of my shaking hands I was able to pull its tab and take a sip that was as brightly flavored as it was cold.

Satisfied, Kurama sat beside me on the wooden bench. He said nothing. The bench, secluded beneath an arched trellis dripping with flowering morning glory vines, was hard and uncomfortable, but it had been the closest private spot we could find after—

After—

I took another sip of juice. Swallowed. Grimaced at the sweet taste.

Somewhere in the distance, someone laughed. A woman by the sound of it. Maybe she was in this sprawling garden, too, under less stressful circumstances than Kurama and me. Or maybe she was inside the hotel, and her merriment was too great for a quiet laugh. I didn't really give a shit, to be honest. I just drank my juice until my hands stopped shaking. When I set the can on the bench with a hollow clink, Kurama finally spoke.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah." I thought about the past five minutes—my knees losing their strength, Kurama catching me by the elbow, Kurama dragging me out here and then vanishing, only to inexplicably reappear with pineapple juice—and I nodded. "I'm actually feeling quite vindicated."

Kurama frowned. "Vindicated?"

"Yeah." I thought about the past five minutes some more. My cheeks colored. I picked up the juice can again, to fiddle with it out of nerves. "Sorry I went all noodly on you by the elevators." I braved a smile. "Ten thousand pounds of destiny came crashing down back there, and my knees just couldn't…" A deep breath, bracing and smelling of morning glory. "It was too heavy to keep standing, I guess."

"Kei."

He spoke my name simply, catching my eye as he uttered that single syllable—but that was all he needed to say to get his point across. His eyes said everything his words did not. The intensity in them, brightening the green of his gaze to the color of distilled envy, said he coveted the truth. He wanted me to talk to him. Clue him in. Give him all the answers so his brilliant mind could unravel my words down to their very bones.

In that moment, I was glad to comply.

"He's the entire reason I'm here." I jerked my head in the vague direction of the hotel. "That man in the elevator."

"That man…?"

"That was Hiruko."

Kurama understood the gravity of the name at once, even though I had only spoken of Hiruko one time in his hearing. "The boy who isn't a boy, who placed you in the role of Keiko against your will," Kurama said with confident certainty. His expression clouded. "But he looked—"

"Like an adult?" My hand clenched around the pineapple can, dimpling the metal beneath my fingers. "Yeah."

He studied me. Said, "You don't seem surprised at this turn of events."

"That's because I'm not."

A long silence followed. How long it lasted I cannot say. My mind wasn't present just then. It was… elsewhere. Somewhere quiet. No thoughts raced or fought for dominance in my head. The landscape of my mind was simply silent. Or silent but for one thought, at least.

Hiruko.

Hiruko was here—just like I thought he'd be.

I'd told Kurama I felt vindicated, and I had spoken the honest truth. Knowing Hiruko was indeed present validated all of my recent decisions, and in the face of the Hiei disaster and Yusuke's continued anger, I needed all the wins I could get.

Kurama tired of the silence before I did. "Must I ask why, or can I trust that you're going to tell me?" he said with silken sarcasm.

I wasn't sure where to begin, but Julie Andrews whispered an old refrain in my ear, and I found the thread of my beginning. "That mission in the mountains. Rescuing the ice maiden from a greedy human," I said.

"I remember," said Kurama. "But what does that have to do with…?"

"Botan and Yusuke saw a certain man on a TV screen alongside members of the Black Black Club. He had pink hair. Blue eyes. A smile that could light the world." Another deep breath, deeper even than the first. "They said his name was Hiruko. And the man he stood alongside, Sakyo, was one of the tournament backers." I shook my head, though I wasn't sure what I was denying. "They didn't know that at the time, that Sakyo would be a backer of this tournament—but I did. And with Hiruko beside him, that could only mean…"

Kurama understood. "You suspected Hiruko would be here. In the flesh."

"Yes."

I'd only ever seen Hiruko in dreams. In dreams, he could run away. He could leave whenever he wanted, before I'd wrung answers from his smiling mouth. And when I'd finally wrested control of my dreams away from him, he had stopped visiting me entirely. If I wanted answers or information, I would have to find Hiruko in a place outside my mind. I'd have to find him in the real world.

That was my reason for being here, in the end. Sure, I had other reasons. Keiko had come to the tournament in canon, and changing that part of canon had felt wrong. If I came to the tournament, I could make sure canon stayed on track despite the changes I—or, perhaps, Hiruko—had wrought in it. If I came to the tournament, I could protect my friends from threats they were not even aware existed. More selfishly, seeing the Dark Tournament up close was my fangirl dream. But the most important reason for being here was, in a word, Hiruko. The moment Yusuke and Botan told me they'd seen him with Sakyo, coming to Hanging Neck Island had become an inevitability—even if it had taken me a little while to realize it.

If Hiruko was here, in Human World, he had to have a body. He was trackable. Findable. Punishable. There would be no more running away and fleeing through the landscape of my dreams. I'd corner him in the flesh, where he couldn't escape my questions. The tournament was my best chance to confront that man who'd done this to me.

The man. Not the boy from my dreams.

"Did you know Koenma is here?" I said. "At the Tournament?"

Kurama took my non sequitur in stride. "I wondered if he would appear, but I had not yet been given confirmation," he said, tone even and contemplative. "Why?"

"Well, he won't look like you think he will. He looks your age. Maybe a few years older." At Kurama's surprised expression, I smiled. "He can wear a disguise that ages him. No idea how that disguise works, but I figured Hiruko might be able to do the same thing and look older than he appears in my dreams. They're both deities, after all."

"The logic tracks," Kurama said after a moment's consideration. "But Kei—what do you intend to do if you find Hiruko?"

"Ask him why he did this to me." My smile thinned, but it did not disappear, and in my fist the juice can crushed with a creak of tortured metal. "And depending on his answer, I might try to kill him."

His surprise turned to shock, not that I blame him. It wasn't often he saw me well and truly angry. My hands had not been shaking out of fear or weakness. My knees had not turned to jelly because I was surprised to see Hiruko. I had counted on him being here, after all—and there he was, right there in that elevator, staring at me with his enormous, taunting smile. Just as I'd told Kurama, ten thousand pounds of destiny had crashed onto my shoulders when Hiruko and I locked eyes and he flashed his maddening smile—and with that moment had come unspeakable, white hot rage.

That's why my knees had buckled, in the end. That's why Kurama had to keep me from falling. That's why he had to support me as we lurched toward this secluded bench. I had been so full of rage, vision tunneling and chest tightening and body quivering with unacted-upon wrath, I had been unable to keep upright. I had been rendered paralyzed under the crushing weight of raw fury.

The can in my hand made a pitiful whining sound as I squeezed it again, fist clenching of its own accord. My teeth clenched. Anger bubbled in my chest like magma, hot and searing and solid enough to burn.

Killing Hiruko was no idle threat. If he forced my hand, I knew deep in my gut that I wouldn't hesitate to do my worst.

"He did this to me, Kurama," I said from between my teeth. "He put me here without my consent. He's the reason my life is so complicated. Why every day is a battle between truth and fiction. Why I can't just be me. Why every waking moment of my life I must fight to keep balanced on the edge of a knife—one that cuts me every time I have to lie to the people I care about." Hiruko's smile flashed in the depths of my mind's eye; my hand began to shake, but I kept speaking. "Even though I lie to protect them, I'm still lying, and that just makes them hate me. I'm hated by the people I love. Do you understand how that feels?"

Kurama did not reply. I inclined my head, staring out at the garden before us. A fountain in the center of a mosaic mural bubbled and sparkled in the sunlight. Flowers swayed on a gentle breeze. I smelled morning glory and thought of Yusuke's angry face, betrayed and hurt and lashing out. I thought of Hiei's spat words and cutting insults, telling me I wasn't wanted and should just leave—and then I thought of Hiruko's smile again.

My teeth began, once more, to grind.

"But let them hate me," I ground out. "Let them despise me. So long as they're safe, so long as I can protect them, I will bear that hatred gladly. I'll shoulder it for as long as I'm able, because Hiruko wants me to break the rules at your expense, and I refuse to let any of you get hurt due to my actions." I turned to Kurama, searching his face. "Did I ever tell you he suggested that I kill Yusuke?"

His eyes widened the barest of fractions. "You did not."

"He told me to take Yusuke's place as Detective. To just let him die." I scoffed, putting aside the mangled can so I could run my hands none too gently through my hair. "He said it so casually, Kurama. Like Yusuke wasn't even a person."

Kurama… I think he didn't know what to say to that. He said nothing, tearing his eyes from mine to look at the fountain in the courtyard before us. What he was thinking, I couldn't say—but I knew what I wanted to say next.

"Hiruko—I don't know his exact goals," I said, looking at the fountain, too. "I don't know what he's planning or to what end he did this to me. But he does not care if you live or die, and that means he is my enemy. And that's why I'm here." I wanted to crush another can, or perhaps a certain pink-haired demigod's smug face. "I won't let him win. I can't let him win. And I will do whatever I have to, even draw blood, to protect you from him."

Kurama looked at me again, brows knit above his piercing eyes. "Protecting us is a noble goal," he said. "But do you think we need your protection?"

More subtext. He was too polite to call me a weakling to my face, but that's what he meant. What could little old Kei do to protect the big, strong demons and psychic humans she called her friends? Only not as mean-spirited as that, because Kurama had too much tact to be so cruel. To me, anyway.

"I think you need to focus on winning the fights," I said once I found the words. "Dropping Hiruko onto Yusuke could be deadly at this point." I swallowed; a lump had gathered in my throat at the thought of events to come. "Yusuke has trials ahead. These trials will determine if he lives or dies." But although Kurama looked at me with understated alarm, I did not pause to explain what I meant. I simply said, "In light of that, Yusuke doesn't need distraction. Not right now, and certainly not on my account." I raised my chin, trying to look confident. "I will handle Hiruko in the shadows. And that's why I haven't told Yusuke I'm here."

"I see," Kurama said.

Another long silence ensued. The conversation about Hiruko had cycled neatly back around to what Kurama and I had been talking about before Hiruko's appearance—and perhaps I'd done that on purpose. Perhaps it had been an accident. Either way, Kurama placed his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together, leaning his chin upon them as he studied the courtyard and the splashing fountain. A blossom from the morning glory vines above us drifted down on a gust of gentle wind. I traced its path through the air as it fell, landing on the mosaic tile of the courtyard without a sound.

Morning glories. They had a meaning, I was sure, but I could not remember what it was.

Kurama cleared his throat. "There is a case to be made that Yusuke is already distracted by his distrust of you, and thus distraction is not a valid reason to keep your secrets."

"I tried to remedy that," I said, wincing. "That letter I wrote him—it told him everything."

But Kurama looked skeptical. "It did?"

"Yes. Which means I don't think he read it, if he's still mad. Or maybe he didn't read carefully." My face spasmed. "Or maybe he didn't even get it." The thought was too terrible to entertain; I soldiered on. "But whatever the case, the moment for truth passed by. Now is not the time to burden him with Hiruko. The letter didn't work, and the charade continues."

Kurama mulled this over. Chin on hands, eyes forward, he said, "To reveal yourself means revealing you know his destiny, and if you reveal too much, you could undermine how hard he fights to win." He sat up straight so he could look me in the eye. "I take it you've weighed your options, Kei. You believe keeping him in the dark, distracted by your deceit, is preferable to distracting him with the truth."

"At this exact moment in time—yes."

"In a future moment, could your feelings change?"

"Yes."

I answered him without hesitation, because it was true. At this exact moment, I saw nothing but distraction in revealing the truth to Yusuke. In the future, though? Who was to say telling him the truth of my existence couldn't someday become a good idea?

I was tired of lying, after all.

I was so, so utterly tired.

"I owe you an apology."

I blinked. Kurama had spoken with blunt assurance, face unlined and poised, hands curled into loose fists atop his knees. I curled my long bangs behind my ear, out of my eyes, and quirked a brow.

"Well that was certainly a non sequitur," I said. "And also, what for?"

"Yusuke came to me about you," Kurama said. "It isn't often he speaks of his emotions, but he knows that you and I are close. He didn't ask questions, so I was not forced to lie to him, but…" Kurama didn't smile, but his face seemed soft, somehow, as he said, "That letter you sent, Kei. He received it.

My heart tried to displace my tongue inside my mouth, but I still managed to say, "And?"

Kurama didn't give me an answer, instead trading question for question. "What did the letter say, Kei?" he merely asked.

"Like I said. It told him the truth."

Somehow Kurama's next question didn't sound like an accusation. "Did it?" he said. "Did it really tell the truth?"

"Yes."

"You're sure."

"Yes."

Kurama didn't speak for a moment. Soon, though, he nodded. "Yusuke seemed to take the letter as more obfuscation—as more distraction from the truth than a true admission of it," he explained. "He was angry you did not speak plainly."

I sighed. "Did he show you the letter?"

"No."

"Did he describe what I said in it?"

"No. He simply said it did not make sense."

"Fuck." I ran my hands through my hair again, painfully aware of Kurama's assessing eyes locked on my face. "I had to be careful. If someone intercepted the letter, I didn't want the truth to be obvious. Some parts of it were coded, but I thought Yusuke would be able to…"

Like clouds on a high wind, Kurama's eyes cleared. "It seems he wasn't able," he said, but gently. "Wise though taking precautions was, it tangled your intentions. And this why I must apologize." His smile, too, was gentle, not to mention penitent. "I admit that I believed him. I believed that you prevaricated and dodged telling him the truth intentionally. And that led me to believe that you had lied to me, too, when you first told me your letter would reveal your secrets."

"Irony, that," I muttered. "You're one of the few people I don't lie to much these days."

"And under the weight of Yusuke's persuasive passion, I forgot that fact." He didn't look particularly pleased with himself as he admitted the truth, but he kept speaking, anyway. "Speaking with you now, and him then… I think his ire toward you can be blamed on simple miscommunication."

It was a good explanation for what Kurama had said to me earlier and the accusations he'd lobbed before Hiruko interrupted, but it was also disheartening to the nth degree. "Great." I put my head in my hands with a groan, slumping forward in my seat. "Just great."

His hand alit softly on my shoulder blade. "I'm sorry, Kei."

"Don't be," I said into my hands. "I lie so often, it's no wonder people don't think I tell the truth."

"No. I know you too well to doubt you. I promise it will not happen again." He paused. He repeated: "I will not doubt you again."

The quiet emphasis on the negative brought my heart back into my throat, though for different reasons this time. "Thanks," I muttered, voice thick. Because crying was embarrassing as hell, I mopped a hand down my face and rubbed at my eyes until I felt OK enough to talk. "What should I do now, do you think?"

"I don't think there is any easy answer to your situation." His lips thinned, green eyes nearly grey with inner storm. "I certainly don't think there is a correct one."

"Same." I slumped, leaning my head back over the edge of the bench until all I could see were morning glories. "Shit sucks."

"Indeed," he said, voice tinged with the barest shade of amusement.

"It's just—" I paused and breathed deeply for a minute, organizing my thoughts. "Will you tell Yusuke to look at it again? To give the letter another chance? I think if he reads closely, he'll understand."

"I will try."

"Thank you."

For a few minutes, neither of us talked—and it was actually sort of nice after the excitement of the past hour. Kurama was one of those people who knew how to enjoy a good bit of quiet, how to recognize what needed to be said and not ruin things by pushing for more. His steady, calm presence was a balm for my nerves, too, quieting the last lingering vestiges of anger still thrumming through my chest. When the final strings of rage inside me cooled (for the most part) I sighed and stood up. I stretched my arms over my head until my shoulders gave a satisfying pop, and then I let my hands drop heavily to my sides.

"I should get back," I said.

Kurama's lips curled at one corner. "You aren't going to secretly attempt to murder Hiruko on your own, are you?"

"No. Even I know that's a terrible idea."

"Good. You should go straight back to your room. Wherever that is." He lifted his chin and smiled in a bland fashion, one that suggested (if I didn't know him any better) that he was sleepy. "And I would like to be a part of that hypothetical attempt, anyway. If you'll let me, of course."

Ah. Not sleepy at all, then. Just sly, and hiding it. "I'd appreciate the help," I said with a wry chuckle—but then I bit my lip and cursed. "So. Uh. You won't tell…?"

He knew what I was asking, but rather than give me an answer, his head listed to one side. "What was it you said before?" he asked. "There is a moment in our future that you're trying to preserve?"

"A grand entrance, actually," I said, thinking of Yukina. "One that could save lives."

"I see. Then I will keep your secret." He paused, considering something. "And I feel I should mention that Hiei hasn't come back to our suite since last night, so you have nothing to fear from him, either."

This was as much a cause for celebration as it was concern. "Check on him, if you can," I said in a fit of worry. "His arm…"

"I know," said Kurama, eyes grave. "And I will."

"Right."

We stared at one another. Kurama rose slowly to his feet. Although his movements were somewhat languid, or at least casual, a certain tension tugged at the corners of his mouth and the set of his broad shoulders. This tension abated the slightest bit when he smiled and lifted one hand in farewell, stepping past me and out from under the shade of the trellis overhead. "

"I'll be seeing you after you grand entrance, Kei," Kurama said as he walked past. "Take care."

"Right. Bye."

He took another step, and then another, my gaze locked on his back. He wore a white button-up shirt and pressed slacks, professional even at a deadly tournament—and when the thought of his fastidiousness made me smile, I found myself stepping toward him. "Kurama."

He turned with a ripple of silken hair. "What is—?"

I don't think he was expecting me to hug him around the waist (and to be honest, I wasn't expecting to do that, either), but that's what I did. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, one born of surprise (and hopefully not revulsion), but he didn't pull away. It took him a minute, sure, but soon he looped an arm around my shoulders, chin resting lightly atop my hair. Damn, Keiko was short—short and in dire need of a hug from the one person who knew my secrets and wouldn't betray them without my consent. Running into Kurama at random had been quite a shock, but it was honestly for the best.

I'd need to borrow just a little strength from Kurama, moving forward. I needed all the strength I could get.

"Thank you," I said into his sternum. "For… you, I guess."

"I—" He stopped; breath drew into his chest, long and slow. "Kei. Do you—?"

But he stopped again. I pulled away (because suddenly I felt like and utter and complete dork for needing a random hug and I needed to beat a hasty retreat lest I combust from sheer embarrassment). Since comedy had historically buoyed me through most embarrassments, I clicked my heels together as my hand came up in an overly formal salute. Kurama looked bewildered, but also amused. A win in my book.

"You'll be hearing from me again soon," I said. "Good luck in the match tomorrow." I let my hand drop. "Bye!"

And with that, it was my turn to walk out from under the trellis and across the mosaic courtyard. Kurama didn't follow, and when I turned to look at him one last time over my shoulder, he hadn't moved an inch. When our eyes met, however, he raised his hand—into a salute to match mine, though he didn't affect the stiff-legged stance I'd so comically adopted. No. He just looked rather elegant, standing there beneath the morning glories with his hand shading his brilliant eyes, but even in the shade I saw how brightly and how greenly they glowed.

"Goodbye, Kei," Kurama said, voice carrying on the flower-perfumed wind. "And good luck."

The suite's door shut softly behind me, door hitting frame with only the gentlest of clicks under the guide of my steady hand. The lights were off, the curtains drawn, the barest slivers of daylight eking in where the cloth overlapped. For a moment I simply stood there, breath held, as Atsuko snored somewhere on the living room floor—right where I'd left her, if I had to guess. It was too dark to tell for sure, but her snores sounded like that came from that direction. Were the others still asleep, too?

A low moan filtered through the darkness, muffled by distance and still air. Putting a hand on the wall, I walked carefully through the dark and into one of the bedrooms, then into the attached bathroom. Another groan cut the quiet when I flicked on the light above the vanity near the door (this place was so fancy, all the bathrooms had an actual literal vanity mirror ringed by lightbulbs in them, setup complete with a velvet chair). She lay on her back in the large tub, head cushioned by a pillow and body covered in a blanket. I'd given them to her after she fell asleep in the tub; seems she hadn't moved since the night before. Probably not a bad thing. Botan wasn't used to drinking and therefore had no business wandering off to drunkenly careen about the hotel.

I sat next to the tub on the cold marble tiles. "Botan. You all right?"

Her bright eyebrows knit together above her pinched face; she looked pale, skin slick with sweat, powder blue bangs slicked against her forehead. Her hair had come undone in the night, hanging in sky-colored tangles around her elbows. When I repeated her name again, she cracked open one bloodshot eye. "Keiko?" she said. "Is that you?"

"Yeah. It's me."

"Oh, dear," she moaned as she lurched upright. Botan put a hand to her head and blinked, squinting as though the light from the vanity bothered her. "What time is it?" Her eyes drifted downward; they widened. "And why am I in a bathtub?"

"That's where you passed out. Also, noon-ish. Feeling up to breakfast?"

"Breakf—oh." All traces of color leached from her pale skin, leaving her looking even deathlier than normal. "Oh dear."

I knew what that wild look in her eye meant; I scrambled out of the way as she vaulted from the tub and dashed to the toilet. Vomiting ensued, obviously. I'll spare anyone reading this the gory details—because trust me, they were gory indeed.

"Oh, honey," I said as she wretched. I had been a sympathetic vomiter in my old life, but luckily Keiko's stomach was strong enough to not start heaving, too, at the sound of Botan's misery. Instead I went for Botan's bag of toiletries sat on the sink; inside I found a scrunchie, which I used to pulled Botan's hair into a low ponytail, stroking her back and murmuring comforts as she rid her stomach of the alcohol still lingering inside it. When Botan eventually started to dry heave, nothing left in her but vodka-scented air, I fetched the cups of water and the little plate of painkillers I'd left next to the bathtub that morning. "Try to take these when your stomach settles, OK?"

Botan didn't reply with words (too busy heaving) but she did lift one hand in a shaking thumbs up. I left the bathroom shortly thereafter. I hated it when people watched me throw up, even from something as innocuous as a hangover, and I figured Botan would want the same privacy.

Plus, I had something else I needed to take care of before the others woke up.

The note I'd left, stating I had left the suite to find food for us, was right where I'd left it on my pillow. I crumpled it up and ate it (shut up; it was more secure that putting in the trash can). Didn't want them asking questions about where I'd gone. Once I'd tied up that loose end, I went into the living room to check on the others. I saw Atsuko sprawled on the carpet after my eyes adjusted to the dim, seemingly fine as she snored. Otoha didn't look too bad, either. She was where I'd left her, too, sitting in a big, plush chair in the living room, head lolled back against the cushions. Atsuko looked dead to the world, but Otoha frowned as she slept. I knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," I said, rubbing softly at her arm. "Hey, Otoha?"

Otoha must have been a light sleeper, because her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright. "Keiko?" she said, blinking at me. "

"Yeah. Do you have work today?"

"Work?" she repeated—and then she seemed to wake up mentally as well as physically, because her eyes snapped wide open and her mouth dropped into a horrified gape. "Oh god, work!" She tried to stand, but her knees buckled and sent her right back into her seat. "What time is it?!"

"Noon-ish."

And at that, Otoha's shoulders sagged. "Oh, thank god," she said, relief dripping from every syllable. "I'm on the late shift today. Starts at three." She put her hands to her face, thick black hair falling all around her as she slumped forward. "My head is killing me."

I'd left water and painkillers by her chair that morning, too. "Here," I said, searching for and handing them to her. "Take this."

Otoha looked pained and grateful at the same time. "You're my favorite, you know that?"

She washed the painkillers down with the water, then began to chug the glass entirely. I watched without speaking, and when she handed the glass back to me, she burrowed down into her chair with a contented sigh.

But I couldn't let her take a nap just yet. "Hey, Otoha?" I said. "What's on the 14th floor?"

Otoha's eyes opened. "Eh?"

"Of the hotel. What's on the 14th floor?" When she frowned, I explained, "I was in the elevator yesterday, and I noticed you need a key to get up there."

Kurama had told me to go back to my hotel room and not go after Hiruko alone, and I had listened to the latter part of that message—just not the former. After leaving Kurama in the garden, I took a quick detour to the elevators where I'd seen Hiruko vanish, doubling back and pressing the call button as surreptitiously as possible. My heart danced a jig in my chest as I waited for an elevator to arrive. I half expected Hiruko to be there, smiling at me as the doors opened, but when an elevator finally came, the carriage was totally empty. I darted inside and found the "Door Open" button, holding it as I surveyed the written legend above the buttons that described what each floor accommodated.

Suspiciously, the 14th floor had not been included on the information plaque—and when I looked at the button for the 14th floor itself, I saw that it sat above a keyhole. Large and surrounded by a brass scratch plate, the keyhole looked like you'd need a large, classic skeleton key of heavy metal to turn the lock. I suspected I knew exactly what would happen if I pressed button 14 without a key inserted in that lock, and when I experimentally pressed that button, my hunch was proven right. The button did not light up under my touch the way all the other buttons in the elevator did—and yes, I pushed all of them like a devious little kid before leaving that elevator car.

I knew where Hiruko had gone. I just didn't know how the heck to get there.

Over one hurdle, running into the next. Provided Otoha couldn't help me out a little.

Otoha looked like she didn't quite know what to make of my request. She brushed her hair out of her face and studied me, but eventually she heaved a sigh that seemed to say oh well, whatever. "It's a private club for the Tournament backers and team owners," she said. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "Just curious, is all."

Otoha didn't look convinced—but then she grabbed one of the throw pillows behind her and pressed her face into it with a groan, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "That vodka was a bad idea."

The scent of acrid cigarette wafted toward me, heralding the arrival of our group's most avid smoker. "I'll say," Shizuru said as she appeared in the doorway of her bedroom just a little to our right. She looked unaffected by said vodka, though, leaning against the doorframe with lit cigarette in hand and a bored look on her face. "So you're awake. Thought I heard voices." She nodded toward the prone Atsuko. "Hard to tell over the snoring, though."

"Hey, Shizu," Otoha said, lifting her face from the pillow with a suspicious glare. "You look annoyingly well-rested."

"Yeah. I know my limits, unlike certain people heaving their guts out in the bathroom."

Otoha, Shizuru and I all looked, in unison, toward the doorway to the other bedroom, through which drifted the sounds of Botan's misery.

Shizuru nodded at Otoha. "You. Think we could get some hangover food brought up?"

"Yeah. And for free!" Otoha said, eyes flashing with glee. "This is a comped suite."

Shizuru grinned. "Menus anywhere?"

"Try the kitchen."

"Thanks. Maybe I'll order some champagne and OJ." Shizuru looked happy about that idea as she walked away from us and into the kitchen. "Hair of the dog might be in order…"

Otoha, meanwhile, looked horrified by that idea, burying her face back into the pillow with a dejected sigh. For a minute I let her sit there, relaxed against the pillows as she waited for the meds to kick in and chase away her headache. As soon as Shizuru went back into her bedroom to call the front desk, however, her voice muffled beyond the door to her room, I leaned over the armrest of Otoha's chair and spoke softly in her enormous, bat-like ear.

"Hey, Otoha?"

"Hmm?" she said into her pillow.

"You said this room is comped. How'd we get such a nice place to stay, do ya think?"

She raised her head and frowned at the ceiling, lower lip jutting out. "You said you got upgraded because your room was overbooked?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's certainly weird. They normally don't give out a place like this for that kind of thing." She thought about it for a little while, but then she shrugged. "You just got lucky, probably."

"Really?"

"Only reason I can think of, yeah."

She slapped her face back into her pillow again. I hesitated, wondering if I should push further—and curiosity, in this instance, was hard to control. I'd had a hunch about who had given us our room from the moment we got upgraded, and now that Hiruko was confirmed to be here, I suspected my hunch was right… but I needed to know for sure. I needed to know how far his influence in the physical world reached, and how closely he might be monitoring me.

Provided Otoha hadn't been sent to talk to me on purpose, potentially on the orders of Hiruko himself.

Because oofa doofa, that'd suck. I really liked her as a person (er, demon)—but even if she had been sent as a spy, Hiruko now knew that I knew he was on Hanging Neck Island. If she reported back to Hiruko that I was asking questions, that wouldn't give much away or tip him off to anything he didn't already know about. And if Otoha wasn't a spy, I only had advantages to gain. And I could always start feeding her misinformation if it seemed like she wasn't on the level…

I huddled closer to her. "Could you… keep a secret?"

Otoha laughed into the pillow. "Well, I'm already keeping one for you. The note and stuff," she said, voice nigh inaudible through the kitchen. Her head lifted. "Though out of curiosity, what exactly is it?"

"Could you investigate who gave us the room?" I whispered. "If anyone pulled strings and whatnot."

Her brows lifted; she huddled closer to me, too, conspiratorial and secretive. "So you think somebody pulled strings?"

"Maybe."

"Your mysterious benefactor got a name?"

I froze. "Ah…"

"Hey. You don't have to tell me." Otoha grinned. "I can just look into it, no problem."

It was nice of her not to push, and that respect of boundaries didn't seem like something a spy would be careful to maintain—and when I thought about it further, it didn't really matter if I told her Hiruko's name. If she was indeed his spy (something I didn't find likely; there had been no evidence suggesting she was anything but herself) he knew I knew he was here; hiding his name accomplished nothing.

"Hiruko." The name slipped from my mouth almost unbidden. At the sound of it, Otoha nodded. Her face betrayed no other emotions that curiosity, so I continued with: "Sometimes he goes by Ebisu. He has pink hair and blue eyes. Tends to wear a lot of red and never stops smiling." I leaned as close as I could, voice barely even a whisper. "I know he's here. I think he gave us this room. But I'd like confirmation, just to be sure."

"Hmm…" Otoha scratched her chin, regarding the ceiling again. "Well, that name's not ringing any bells, and I don't remember anyone who fits that description. But I'm just a desk worker. The maids and serving staff probably would know better than me, though they won't be able to confirm a name."

"Why not?"

"Uh. Because this tournament is kinda sorta completely and highly illegal in Human World?" Otoha said, as if it were obvious (and I suppose, in retrospect, it was). "That's why it's on an island, and I've even heard rumors this island isn't officially recognized by any human governments. It's a secret island. And they don't keep many backers' names on file, if you get my drift."

"Pseudonyms to protect their true identities."

"Basically. Don't want involvement leaking to whatever kind of authority would frown on this sort of thing." And then she looked rather hopeful, or at least eager. "The FBI?"

"That's just for Americans."

"Oh." Her lips pursed. "Where are we in Human World, anyway?"

"Japan-ish."

"Is that near America?"

"Not at all."

"Huh." She thought about it a little, but soon she just sighed and shrugged and sagged against her seat. "Oh, well. Human geography is weird; I've seen your maps and they make no sense whatsoever." She pulled her legs inward and sat cross-legged in her chair, pencil skirt dangerously close to riding up; I averted my eyes, and she tugged her blanket back over her with a laugh. "Anyway. What's the deal with this Hiruko guy? He a friend of yours?"

"Definitely not," I said, suppressing a shudder. "The opposite."

Otoha looked intrigued by that, but before she could ask any questions, Atsuko gave a loud, aggressive snort and sat up, hair a wild mess around her sleepy face. She looked at us and smiled, yawning and stretching her arms above her head until her shoulders gave an audible and mildly horrifying crack.

"Hey." She yawned again and smacked her lips, face serene, like she'd slept like an absolute baby. "Sup?"

My brow quirked at her casual tone. "Are you not hungover at all?"

"Takes more than three beers and half a handle of vodka to keep me down, honey," she said, rising on steady legs to her feet. "Now what's for breakfast?"

Behind her across the room, Botan appeared in the bedroom doorway. She clung to the frame, legs wobbly beneath her, and gave us a shaky smile.

Atsuko, who hadn't noticed Botan appear, said with absolute gusto: "I could eat a horse!"

Botan gasped. She clapped her hand to her mouth, turned around, and ran right back into the bathroom to be sick again.

In the daylight, it was hard to believe the hotel pool was the same place where Hiei had chewed me out the night prior. Gone were the dreamy reflections of blue light against the trees. Out now were myriad colorful parasols, which shaded chaise lounges and beach chairs beneath their protective cover. Gone was the quiet stillness of the night, replaced instead by humans—older human men, mostly, and young human women in small swimsuits, all of whom laughed and talked and flirted as they sipped colorful drinks from tall glasses topped by little paper umbrellas. Some women (demon women, mostly, dressed in sarongs and flower crowns) carried trays of drinks and food between the lounges and gazebos ringing the pool. It looked like something out of a very ritzy resort in the Caribbean, complete with a swim-up bar and pool floats shaped like swans and diamond rings. Tropical-sounding music even played through hidden speakers to set the mood.

Our little crew didn't quite fit in. I wore board shorts and a t-shirt (both stolen from Yusuke at some point) over my school-issue one piece swimming suit. Shizuru wore her usual suit and vest and tie, complete with her wingtip shoes; she read through a beauty magazine, circling haircuts and makeup looks with a ballpoint pen. Botan napped in the shade beneath an umbrella, still dressed in her pajamas. Only Atsuko, who sunbathed in a criminally tiny bikini, looked like she belonged. She wore a wide-brimmed sunhat and sunglasses as enormous as her swimsuit was teeny, skin oiled to a glossy sheen as she turned herself over and over like a rotisserie turkey on a spit. More than one of the older dudes by the pool eyed her over as she passed; Atsuko appeared not to notice, or if she did, she didn't give enough of a shit to tell them to get lost.

The pool area was, in short, super relaxed. Super casual, despite the number of women wearing diamond jewelry into the pool. It was a place of relaxation and merriment, booze freely flowing and not a care in the world to be had.

And it drove me fucking nuts.

It made no sense, us sitting in place like this while visiting such a dangerous island. I couldn't shake the knowledge that not too far away, demons were fighting for their lives in the arena for the benefit of bloodthirsty human assholes. They fought for their lives while we sat around sipping margaritas (or a virgin strawberry daiquiri, in my case, which was almost too delicious for comfort). I was glad Atsuko was enjoying herself and all, but I couldn't keep from fidgeting upon my chaise lounge. The air smelled like chlorine and tequila and suntan lotion, like summer distilled, and summer was a time for fun and happiness and laziness but we were here, at the bloody Dark Tournament, and yet—

Deep breaths, Keiko.

But it didn't help that from our spot, the hotel's main building loomed high and white above us, windows shining in the midday sun. I hadn't been able to keep from counting the floors when we sat down. One by one I counted them, climbing all the way up to floor 14, which I stared at as I reclined on my lounge sipping drinks. Was Hiruko up there right now? Was he looking down on us and laughing? Could he tell how keyed up I felt after seeing him? Was he standing in one of those windows as we speak, grinning ear to ear at my futile situation and—

On the lounge beside me beneath the shade of a blue parasol, Shizuru muttered, "Simmer down, kid."

My hand, which had clenched tight around my daiquiri glass, relaxed a little. "Eh?"

"I can feel you tensing up from over here." She circled another haircut in her magazine, not lifting her eyes from its glossy pages. "Our boys don't fight until tomorrow. Relax."

I harrumphed. "Hard to relax when tomorrow—"

"Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Repeat that word a few times until it sinks in."

"But—"

Finally her eyes cut my way. "Either they'll win or they won't, Keiko. No use worrying today about what might happen tomorrow." She looked at her magazine again. "Live it up while you still can."

She had a point. Too bad it was one that didn't fit with my worrywart personality. I stood up, kicked off my flip-flops, and stripped out of my t-shirt. The water in the enormous pool felt cool against my skin as I waded into the shallow end (it had an artificial beach, though without sand, concrete sloping downward from one of the pool's edges so people could walk right into the water without worrying about steps). Taking a deep breath when I reached waist-deep water, I dived in and began to swim a neat breaststroke, swimming between people floating about on pool toys on my way to the swim-up bar. I ordered another virgin daiquiri (basically a strawberry smoothie; delish) and sat there drinking it for a few minutes before I got restless. I swam around some more after that, back and forth from one side of the pool to the other, just to pass the time. I was hoping to tire myself out enough to take a nap, which would make the day pass a little more quickly.

I'm not a person who does well when I have nothing to do. I need something practical to work toward, or else I get antsy in my boredom. This day off from the fights was exactly the kind of day I detested, but the problem was that I didn't really have an alternative to lounging around the pool with my friends. The anime hadn't show how Keiko and the others had spent their day off between the boys' fights with Team Jolly Devil Six and Team Ichigaki (and the ninja team, by extension). Sure, the anime had shown how the boys spent their day off, but it hadn't given any insight into how the girls faired. And that meant I had nothing to do, or work toward, besides sitting around the pool sipping strawberry juice.

As I swam, I tried to recall how the boys had spent their day. I think Kuwabara and Yusuke had just gone to watch the Ichigaki fights, maybe? I certainly recalled a few shots of Hiei down by the ocean, trying to grip a sword with his burned hand and crying out in agony beside the crashing surf. Should I go to him? Try to help or provide comfort? Maybe wrap his arm? Or would he resent being—

I came up for air with a splash, standing in the shallow end with water up to my waist, just as someone beside the pool gave a short, strained laugh—the kind of laugh someone uses when they don't like a joke someone else just told them, but they're too polite to say so. I rubbed water from my eyes and looked around, spotting an old man in flower-patterned swim trunks and a tailored suit jacket standing just a little too close to a young woman in a long trench coat and striped headscarf (conspicuously not pool attire, that). He reached for her arm, but she dodged away and gave another of her tense laughs.

On reflex, I began to wade through the pool toward her.

"Hey, come back," the man said with a big grin. "I'll play nice, I promise."

She danced once more out of his reach. "Sorry," she said. "But I'm not in the mood to play."

I waded a little faster, pushing hard against the water's drag. I knew that tone of voice she was using, not to mention her body language. This guy is getting too close to me and he won't take a hint body language is universal girl-speak, that's for sure.

And this guy appeared to be the opposite of fluent when it came to girl-speak. "Aw, honey, of course you're in the mood," he said with a dismissive laugh, reaching for her yet again. "You're—"

The woman in the coat, who wore large black sunglasses that covered most of her face, stood her ground this time. "I said back off!" she barked, batting his hand aside. "Leave me alone!"

"Now, now. Don't be like that." He latched onto her arm, tight. "After all, I am the one who signs your paychecks, right?"

She tried to jerk away. He held onto her tight. The woman twisted and tossed her head, snarling at him to get off of her—and when she did, her headscarf slipped back and off her head. The slippage revealed something familiar, and when I spoke, my surprise was genuine indeed.

"Koto?" I blurted. "Is that you?"

I'd gotten all the way to the edge of the pool by then, standing at their feet in the clear blue water. Koto looked down at the sound of her name with a start; the man just looked upset, glaring at me for interrupting his gross little game.

"Oh my god, it is you! It's been ages, girl!" I clambered out of the pool with a cascade of drips, not caring when I splashed the douchebag who'd been manhandling her. Ignoring him completely, I pretended to look thrilled, bouncing on my heels as I stared into Koto's eyes. "I tried to see you after the fights yesterday, but oh my god, did you know you have a fanclub? Couldn't get through them to see you!"

The guy in the jacket and shorts didn't like being ignored much, though. "And who the heck are you?" he said, letting go of Koto so he could square up and look down at me with a sneer.

"Koto and I trained as refs together," I said, trying to think on my feet. "I didn't get my lucky break, unlike this gorgeous girl." I turned back to her with a giggle. "Ugh, it's so good to see you!"

I hugged her, though lightly, and she stiffened under my touch—or at least she stiffened until I hissed "Just go with it!" against the side of her head. Her ears weren't in the typical human spot, instead crowning the top of her auburn head, but still she must have heard me speak. Her arms went back around me at once, hugging me tight exactly the way an old friend would.

"Oh, for real though, girl!" Koto said. She pushed me away so she could look adoringly into my face, like she really was just pleased as punch to see me. "It's been, what… two years, three?"

"At least three!"

"What have you been up to? I want details!"

"Not anything nearly as cool as you, by the looks of it. How the heck did you even get this gig? It's amazing! Did you—?"

We chattered back and forth, eager and animated as we made shit up and traded fake anecdote for even faker anecdote. Koto must've been taking improv classes on the side or something because she played along beautifully, dropping hints and names that I could pick up on to spin a believable tale. Eventually Koto looped her arm through mine and gently pulled me along after her, still talking a mile a minute, toward the gates to the pool area. The man who'd gotten handsy with her protested weakly that he would like to see Koto again soon, but we ignored him as we left the pool and started walking back to the hotel.

As soon as we left the gates, shaded by the large palms and flowering plants beyond it, Koto removed her arm from mine. "Thank god that's over," she said, swiping off her sunglasses. "These creepy old dudes are just the worst."

I'd seen a photo of Koto on the front of her fan club's t-shirts, but it had been grainy—too grainy to capture the exact shade of her aquamarine eyes, bright and brilliant against her golden skin and the shimmering auburn of her fluffy bobbed hair. She had an ageless (she could have been 18 or 28 or anywhere in between) heart-shaped face with a few silver cat whiskers arcing off the smooth plain of her high cheekbones; they twitched when she talked, catching the eye and your attention like a firework on a dark night. The ears atop her head were pointed and fuzzy, twitching and rotating in different directions in reaction to different sounds filtering through the trees. I found myself gaping at her in awe as she smoothed down her glossy hair and ran her hands down the front of her jacket. Hey eyes flashed when she looked at me, glinting in the sun like they'd been faceted by a jeweler with an eye for the most beautiful gems. And next to that deep golden skin of hers, dewy and smooth and gorgeous, and her lips painted a glittering bright pink—

I swallowed, hard. Koto was super-duper attractive, and it was honestly kind of upsetting how fucking pretty she was. I felt altogether messy and unkempt in front of her in my stolen board shorts and school swimsuit, not to mention my chlorine-clogged hair.

If Koto took any issue with my appearance, she didn't voice it. Hell, she barely even looked at me, eyes flashing as she glanced toward the entrance to the pool with a fierce scowl. "It's like they think just because I work for this Tournament, they can just do whatever they want," she said. "But joke's on them. I'm here for blood, not a sugar daddy."

"Respectable life choice in my book," I said, but when her eyes stayed locked on the pool gate, I had to ask, "Are you OK?"

She shook herself as if waking from a nap. "I am now." Koto grabbed her scarf from around her neck and began arranging it over her tall ears. "How come the richer they are, the harder it is to take "no" for an answer?"

"Male entitlement exacerbated by a complete lack of boundaries due to the influence of too much money?"

"Truth," she said with relish—and then she looked me over as if seeing me for the first time. Her arms crossed, one hip more prominent than the other, exuding sass from every pore. "So. You know me, but I don't know you."

"Oh, right. Sorry." I gave a little bow. "I'm Keiko."

"Keiko." She didn't return the bow. She just raked over me with her gorgeous eyes. "You're human."

I swallowed again. "Don't hold it against me?"

"Will try not to," she muttered. Koto slipped her sunglasses back on and suddenly looked like a disguised dame from a noir detective flick, or a Hollywood starlet trying to go incognito in the most cliché way possible. "Well. Thanks for stepping in the way you did. Human or not, I guess us girls have to stick together, huh?"

"I'd say so." She started to walk off, but I said, "Can I ask something?"

She tugged her sunglasses down her nose and stared over the top of their frames. "If it's for an autograph, I'm afraid I forgot my pen."

"No, not that. Just—what were you doing down here?" I asked. "At the human hotel, I mean. And in a disguise, no less."

Koto heaved a sigh and patted the silk scarf that obscured her ears. "The disguise was to dodge my fans. They can get a little too enthusiastic sometimes, y'know?"

"Right. The t-shirts," I said, remembering Koto's fan club and the way they'd fought over the binoculars just for a right to see her up close.

"Comes with the territory of being famous, I guess. But as for why I was down here? Part of being the main commentator for these fights involves schmoozing." Koto snorted, scorn evident in every derisive word she spoke. "Least favorite part of the job, but if you don't make nice with the tournament backers between the fights, they'll pick another pretty demon girl to ogle. And even if the geezers are gross, I love my job." Her eyes blazed like the heart of a superheated flame, more scalding blue now than calm green. "I don't intend to lose it over something as stupid as refusing to bat my eyelashes."

I wasn't sure what to say, honestly. Her determination was admirable, but having to endure the unwanted attention of gross rich dudes who don't understand "no" couldn't be easy. Was the job worth all that grossness?

Koto didn't give me time to find out. "Anyway," she said, pushing her glasses higher up her nose again. "You watch your back." She turned away with a roguish smile and flipped a peace sign over her shoulder as she walked away. "It's not just the pretty demons these old farts like to menace, after all…"

And with that, Koto disappeared down the tiled path back to the hotel. I stared after her for a few moments, but when it became apparent she had left for good, I headed back to the pool and my waiting friends. Botan was still asleep, but Atsuko and Shizuru both sat up when I approached. Atsuko pulled off her sunglasses and jerked a thumb toward the entry gate.

"Was that the referee from the fight yesterday?" she asked.

"Uh. Yeah." I rubbed the back of my neck. "She looked uncomfortable, so…

"Well, I'm glad you stepped in." Atsuko sat back against her lounge with a glare at the man who'd menaced Koto; he was at one of the swim-up bars now, sidling up to the pretty demon bartender without a care in the world. "I was two seconds away from busting faces when I saw what he was up to."

Shizuru went back to looking at her magazine, but she said "Same" with such deadpan force, it sent a shiver down my spine.

"Really?" I hadn't known they were paying attention, but it made me happy to know they'd had my back. I sat on my lounge with a grin. "I'm glad. Girls protecting girls is a beautiful thing."

"I'll say." Atsuko grinned at me in return. "Y'know, I'm glad we didn't tell Yusuke and his friends we're here. It's nice to have a girl's day out. What do ya say we get dressed up when we hit the restaurant for dinner, huh? Make a whole thing out of it."

"Sure," I said.

Shizuru nodded. "Sounds fun." She glanced at Botan, who was still snoring on her chair. "Let's just hope she feels well enough by then."

Atsuko laughed and said something about a hangover cure of dubious origin, one that involved raw eggs and hot sauce and a secret ingredient I was too scared to ask her to reveal. As she and Shizuru chatted about hangover cures and told drinking stories, I lay back against my lounge with a sigh, happy to get to spend a little time with them. Girls protecting girls was indeed a beautiful thing. My friends were good people, and even if I felt utterly useless sitting poolside while the boys geared up for the next day's fights, at least I had these women at my side. I just hoped I would be able to protect them when the rubber really hit the road. No doubt Hiruko, wherever he was, would throw as many obstacles into our path as he could muster, just as he had so many times before.

Despite the heat of the day and the inner warmth inspired by my friends, a chill swept over me. What was Hiruko really planning here? And why had he appeared when he had? Was he trying to rattle me?

Well. If that was his purpose for that show on the elevator, he'd failed. I refused to stay rattled for long. I had my friends to protect, and come high water or hell, no way would I let Hiruko get the drop on me again.

Lying on my plush lounge, I stared up at the hotel. I lifted my hand and shaped it into a gun. I closed one eye. The gun I aimed at the 14th floor, and when my finger aligned with that floor's gleaming windows, I muttered "bang" and pulled my mental trigger.

"I'm coming for you, Hiruko," I promised him—and myself. "Just you wait and see."

"I can't believe we're going to be this late!"

Atsuko, far from cowed, glared at Botan over the kitchen bar. She stood at the kitchen sink brushing her teeth, toothpaste foaming at her mouth like she'd turned rabid. Botan stood in the living room with arms crossed, tapping one foot impatiently against the carpet while Shizuru, on the couch, breathed a longsuffering sigh. Atsuko and Botan had been battling it out all morning, and Shizuru was clearly sick of it.

Me, though? I was too distracted to pay their antics overmuch attention. There was a lot riding on this day, not to mention on the next few hours—and once those hours were past, Yusuke would know I was here. I hated to think how that revelation would go. My foot, like Botan's, tapped against the carpet, but it wasn't with impatience. My tapping was due to nerves, tapping in time with the thoughts racing at breakneck speeds through my head. First we'd need to find Yukina in the crowd around the stadium, and then we'd need to decide that she should come with us into the arena. That would lead to us fighting our way into the stadium trying to use Botan's team trainer pass as a placeholder for an additional ticket, and if we timed our entrance just exactly right, we'd help the severely injured Kuwabara win his match against Risho, and—

Shizuru scowled at me. "What are you muttering about?"

I flinched. "Oh. Uh. Was I muttering?"

Her scowl turned into a glower. "Yeah. You were."

"Sorry."

"Really, Atsuko!" Botan was saying, oblivious. "Drinking again last night? It's a wonder you didn't die in your sleep with all that alcohol running through your blood!"

"Relax," Atsuko grumbled around her toothbrush. "We'll probably just miss some opening ceremony or something, that's all."

"The opening ceremonies were on opening day, Atsuko!"

"Oh. Right." She spat into the sink and wiped her mouth with a dish towel. "Probably should hustle then, huh?"

Botan threw up her hands with a wordless shriek of frustration. "That's what I've been saying!"

I laughed in spite of myself, stifling the sound when Botan shot a glare over her shoulder. She'd been on a warpath ever since discovering that Atsuko had turned off our morning alarms (she wanted to sleep in, apparently, at the cost of missing the first parts of the day's matches). But this was in accordance with canon, as far as I could recall, so I didn't worry. I'd just woken up and decked myself out in all my usual weapons, which I'd concealed about my person as discretely as I could. I just hoped I wouldn't have to use too many of my weapons when we inevitably fought our way in past the guards later. I'd never killed anyone, human or demon or otherwise, and I didn't exactly want to start now.

Not unless I absolutely had to, or unless the person had pink hair and blue eyes…

I replayed my mental agenda for the day over and over as we finished getting ready, headed to the elevators, and made our way across the lobby to the front of the hotel. I let the others lead the pack; I had other things to think about, after all, that were far more important than following the well-marked path to the stadium.

A voice, however, soon cut through my thoughts about the upcoming day. "Good morning," a concierge attendant called from behind the information desk near the revolving glass doors to the outside. "Are the four of you attending today's matches?"

"We are." Botan glared at Atsuko and the clerk in turns. "And we're late."

But the clerk was all smiles. "Not to worry, miss. We keep transportation on hand for all the guests of Hotel Kubikukuri in the event of a late start."

Botan's mood turned on a dime at once. "Now that's more like it!" she crowed.

"And would you fancy breakfast, miss?" said the clerk.

"Boy would I!"

From behind the counter the clerk produced a fruit and muffin basket, which Botan took as if accepting a basket of golden eggs, and then he led us outside. Half a dozen covered carts like the one from the night we arrive sat in a neat and orderly line, engines idling as their drivers waited for passengers from the hotel. And speaking of the cart from the night we arrived, the first cart in line contained a familiar face: the young driver with the smart-looking cap and pressed uniform, prehensile monkey's tail snaking down to reach the pedals beneath his polished black shoes (which hovered at least six inches off the floor due to the kid's short legs). The boy waved when he saw us, and at the bidding of the concierge, we climbed aboard.

"Why, hello!" Botan said, settling in beside him in the front seat. "Nice to see you again."

The boy beamed. "To the stadium, miss?"

"Of cour—AIEEEE!"

Botan's happily chirped response ended in a shriek as the boy slammed the gas pedal, careening down the road to the stadium with the same wild driving as he'd shown us all before. Botan clung to the muffin basket for dear life as Shizuru, Atsuko and I did the same to the metal bars supporting the cart's roof. Despite the somewhat deadly circumstances, I was glad we had a ride to the stadium. It wasn't a far walk or anything, but the wild ride was a nice distraction from my planning for the day—at least at first. Despite his crazy maneuvers behind the wheel, I soon found myself hoping we didn't beat Yukina to the stadium and miss her entirely.

Eventually we skidded to a stop, one Botan greeted with a distraught "I'm alive!" aimed at the heavens. She practically fell out of the seat while our driver giggled; Atsuko high-fived him. Shizuru leaned forward from the backseat and tapped his shoulder.

"Say, kid," she said. "What's your name?"

"Tobi, miss." He reached into his jacket and produced from inside it a small silver whistle. "Call me any time in the event you need a lift."

Shizuru raised a brow at the whistle. "You know there's no phone number on that, right?"

"Yes, miss." He lifted his hat, revealing two small, round ears jutting from the top of his head. Botan gave a delighted gasp when she saw them, cooing over how cute they were. "Phones aren't necessary where I'm concerned."

Shizuru took the whistle with a chuckle. "Thanks, Tobi."

He donned his hat so he could tip the brim at her. "Of course, miss."

He left us with a smile and a wave, and Botan amended her thoughts about him as he drove off. "He might need more time in driver's ed, but he is definitely quite polite," she said, smiling after him.

"And he got us here in record time," Atsuko said. "We're barely even late thanks to him!"

And she was right: A glance at my watch told me we weren't, in fact, all that late after all, but while that bit of news cheered Botan, it didn't do much for my short nerves. It would be exceedingly easy to head inside the stadium without finding Yukina at this rate…

Not that I could say that to my friends, though. I followed along behind them as we headed toward the crowds of demons at the foot of the enormous stadium, scanning the crowds for a shock of mint green hair—but the crowd was already so colorful and vibrant, spotting her wouldn't be easy. Hundreds of demons milled about talking or brawling or jeering at the big screen TVs hanging from the stadium's outer walls. Food vendors hawked wares from carts with colorful signage; demons wearing guard uniforms stood at attention at every entrance to the stadium, keeping careful watch on the bustling crowd. We were mean-mugged a little as we made our way toward a stadium entrance, but Atsuko shot them glares of her own and most of the demons were sent slinking off with their tails (more often literal than not) between their legs.

We were walking past one of the viewing areas beneath the big screens when Shizuru paused, gaze swinging upward to the image displayed across it. "Bro," she said, eyes narrowing. "What are you doing?"

Botan looked, too. "Is Kuwabara fighting, Shizur—oh dear!"

Kuwabara lay face down on the ground, unmoving. Behind him dodged Yusuke and the masked fighter, our friends nimbly dodging the attacks of three men moving with similar alacrity across the ring. The three men (one shirtless with brown hair, another short with a mop of carroty hair, and the third with a long black braid down the back of his purple martial arts uniform) were immediately recognizable to me, even if Shizuru and the others watched the scene in complete confusion.

Botan curled her hand around Shizuru's arm. "What happened to him?"

"Easy." Shizuru lit up a cigarette, exhaling a long puff of blue smoke above the heads of the demon crowd. "He got his ass kicked."

"Ugh." Atsuko watched the screen with undisguised revulsion. "Check out the troll on the sidelines."

The camera had cut to the edge of the ring, where a short, broad demon in a white lab coat stood laughing. He had the ugliest face I'd ever seen, bar none, with enormous pointed ears, a long chin and gigantic, bulbous forehead, between which were position two beady little eyes and a fanged mouth stretched wide in a sadistic grin. Balding with a fringe of mossy green hair around the back, he looked every inch the disgusting demon I knew him to be. His face suited his personality that way.

Atsuko seemed to agree. "Does he have an ass for a face or what?"

"Definitely an ass for a face," I concurred. I'd certainly rather stare at someone's ass than behold him for even a moment longer.

Lucky for me, the camera cut away from him soon enough, training back on Yusuke as he dodged and dipped around the three mind controlled fighters opposing him. I studied the image to see if I could spot more people on the sidelines, but Hiei and Kurama appeared to be absent—which was actually a good thing. Everything was going according to canon's plan, including Kuwabara's (temporary) defeat. Soon Genkai would use the Spirit Wave and then the committee would be a jerk and start the next match too soon. Our boys wouldn't like that, sure, but I knew it was for the best. Canon, at least on their end, had been fulfilled.

Which meant only I had my end of the bargain to keep up. Suppressing a victorious smile, I scanned the crowd around us with renewed vigor. It was important I spot Yukina soon, before we went inside.

Even more luckily for me, Shizuru seemed in no hurry to move us into the stadium. "Those fighters," she said, studying the screen. "They look human, don't they?"

"They do," Botan said with undisguised surprise. "Those devices on their backs; what do you suppose they're for?"

"Dunno," Atsuko said. "But they're creepy. Maybe they're demons, after all."

"No." Neither Shizuru's eyes nor her voice quavered an inch, she was so certain. "They're human. And there's something… off about them." Her lips thinned, eyes hardened with worry. "There's something very, very off about those boys. A sadness."

"A sadness?" Botan repeated.

"What the heck does that even mean?" Atsuko said.

"I'm not sure. I just know—those boys don't want to do this. They didn't want to hurt my brother." She puffed rapidly on her cigarette, then exhaled an avalanche of smoke. "Even from here, I can feel that. They're not in control."

Even more that fell in line with canon! Wonderful. But I had bigger fish to fry than watching the match on the screen.

The screen and its attached observation area sat in a sort of alcove along the stadium's outer wall, cupped by outcroppings of architecture and surrounded by several half-circle rows of concrete benches. I wandered to the edge of the nearest outcropping, standing by a plain metal door with no handle (likely a maintenance access panel for the TVs or something; wasn't like I cared). Peering around the outcropping afforded me a look at another section of the stadium crowd, one that watched a different set of TVs. I scanned these new demons for Yukina some more, but no mint-green hair availed itself.

"Perhaps they're not eager to fight," I heard Botan say from behind me. "But whether or not that's true, they still appear to have mangled your poor brother! We should go inside. I think it's high time we provide our friends a little encouragement, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Atsuko said. "About damn time we show our faces. Think so, Keiko?"

My stomach lurched upward in alarm. I turned on my heel to face my friends, wheels spinning in my head to find a reason that could persuade them to stay put for just a little longer—but although Atsuko was looking at me, Botan was not. Instead she stared behind me with her mouth hanging slightly open, eyes screwed up in concentration.

Soon Botan's eyes opened wide, though, in time with the movement of her arm, which swung upward in a point. "Wait a minute," Botan called out. "I know you!"

Botan ran. She ran past me around the edge of the little outcropping with the door, shouting out a bewildered "HEY!" to someone I couldn't see. Atsuko called Botan's name and ran after her, and with a weary sigh Shizuru followed suit. I lurched to the side and looked around the corner, eyes frantic as they searched for—

Pale blue-green, the color of iced mint leaves, floating through the crowd above the palest of blue kimonos, slipping delicate and deft through the crowd of rough and tumble demons.

I grinned. I grinned as I watched Atsuko and Shizuru run after Botan as she chased after the girl with the pale green hair—because this was it. This was canon in the making. This was destiny coming to fruition right before my very eyes.

This was victory.

I had won.

Whether or not I could take credit for it was beside the point. I just grinned and started after my friends, mentally crowing a crow of celebration to the heavens.

But I was celebrating too soon—because behind me there came a click, and a creak, and then a darkness that smelled of burlap descended over my head.

I fought it, of course. I fought and I screamed, kicking and lashing out as the burlap sack cut tight around my throat and strong hands (four of them, I counted) closed around my arms. These hands hauled me backward; I heard a shout that might've been Shizuru's, one of alarm and anger, but the shout cut off when a door slammed with a boom of metal on metal. The cold, scaly hands on my arms gripped tight as they hauled me down what I assumed was a hallway. They were taking me somewhere, I knew in that vague, dim sense one knows something when one is sufficiently panicked. John Mulaney had told me the dangers of being taken to second locations, too bad for these kidnappers, so I kicked to the side as hard as I fucking could, grinning as my toe collided with something solid.

"Oof!" said a deep voice to my right. The hands on my right arm gripped even tighter than before, nearly cutting off my circulation. "He didn't tell me she would fight!"

"Shut up and help me, dammit!" said a voice to my left.

"Who the hell are you?" I yodeled. "Let go of me, let go, let me fucking go or I swear to Christ I'll—"

A hand lifted from my left arm and descended onto my mouth, pressing through the burlap sack they'd tied over my head, clamping down with impossible strength that had me seeing stars. The remaining three hands grabbed me tighter still, then lifted in unison to hold me clean off the ground, my feet kicking in the empty air beneath my flailing body. Soon I heard a ding, and then we lurched forward. There came a sliding sound, and then my stomach told me we had started to move upward—an elevator. We were in an elevator.

I stopped struggling and sat very, very still.

The two demons (because I got the sense these were demons, given their impossibly strong hands) set me on the floor again. "Heh. That's more like it," said the one to my right. "No sense fighting. She learns quick, at least."

I suppressed a deranged laugh. I hadn't learned anything, chump; I was just conserving my energy. Even if I managed to escape, I'd just be trapped in an elevator with nowhere to run once these goons recovered. Much better to spend this elevator ride regrouping than to waste energy fighting inside a closed coffin.

"Let's just get this over with," muttered the one on my left. "I can't stand being trapped in here with all this human stink!"

"Ass," I said from behind his crushing hand.

He hissed. "Human bitch."

One of the two hands on my right arm lifted; something sharp pressed against my throat just below the edges of the burlap "Move and I'll cut you. You understand?" said the one on my right.

I shut up.

"Like I said," one of them chuckled. "She learns quick."

The elevator ride took a lot longer than I liked, or perhaps being trapped in a dark bag made my perception of time a bit wonky. Whatever the case, eventually the elevator stopped moving; another bell dinged, doors sliding open with a whoosh of air against my bare skins. The demons shoved me forward, frog-marching me down what I had to assume was a long hallway—and then we turned, and walked some more, and turned again. I made sure to memorize each corner we took as best as I was able. Soon we stopped, though, and I heard a door creak open before us. The demons carried me through this without a word.

I let them go forward a few steps before taking a deep breath and wrenching my legs to the side, hard, where I hooked an ankle around the back of one of their knees. The demon screeched and went down; I went down, too, and that dragged the other demon to the floor right along with us, and in order to catch their falls both of the demons let go of me. As soon as we hit the floor (my hit cushioned by the body of the demon on my left, which was just desserts in my book) I got my feet under me and darted away, wrenching the bag off my head and spinning around to face them as I drew a knife from my thigh holster. The demons on the floor both looked like lizards, one blue and one green, and behind them stretched a long, bare wall interrupted only by one set of metal double doors. The ones we'd come through, I guessed. I saw no other exits, though it wasn't like I'd had the time to look behind me yet or figure out where they'd taken me or—

"Now, now. There's no call for violence here, I assure you."

I spun to the side, keeping the demons in my periphery as I sought the source of the voice. Turns out the room was long, but shallow, the back of it lined with floor-to-ceiling observation windows overlooking the bulk of the stadium and the cheering crowds below. I could hear these crowds through the glass, the roar of them muffled but distinct. A series of high-backed chairs sat before these windows, and to my surprise, one of these chairs began to turn.

When I saw who sat in it, my mind went very, very blank.

He smiled at me over the rim of his wine glass, swirling the liquid in tight circles as the demons clambered to their feet. I was too stunned to fight back as they latched once more onto my arms, but something told me that the man in the chair was far more dangerous than the lizard-men keeping me contained. I just stood there, gaping, as the man smiled and stood up.

"Apologies for the rough treatment," he said, setting his glass on a table near his elbow. "My associates can be a little… overzealous." At the aforementioned associates he waved a leisurely hand. "You may go, but please wait outside."

"Yes sir," the demons said. They let go of my arms at once, walking out of the double doors without protest. Only when the door shut behind them did the man in the dark suit and blue tie speak again.

"Now, where were we?" He had a rich voice, musical and hinted with the barest traces of amusement. "Ah, yes. Introductions."

I didn't speak. He waited, but when I continued to say nothing, he gave a low, throaty chuckle. Soon he bowed, and smiled—and at the ice in his eyes I felt my blood run cold. Perhaps he noticed this somehow, because once again he chuckled.

The ice in my veins ran even colder still.

"Very well. I suppose I'll start." He bowed, one hand in front of his midsection like a British butler. "My name is Sakyo," said Sakyo, owner and sponsor of Team Toguro. "And you are Yukimura Keiko, I presume."

At my dazed expression, Sakyo could only smile—and it was all I could do to wish, silently, that those lizard demons would bust through the doors and haul me away again.

Notes:

Dun dun DUN! Things never go quite as planned for Keiko, do they?

Migraine delayed the chapter this weekend. Thanks for your patience! Hope you liked it.

Many thanks to all of you who left a comment last week. You consistently make my day, and I couldn't do this without your support: Not_Quite_A_Morning_Person, Gerbilfriend, Just 2 Dream of You (DezzyDoesThings), Chaosdreamingsiren, DragonsTower, Kuramag33, SirisDerp, Ms_Liz, Sdelacruz, musiquemer, lliania, AngelFish1214, Vinlala, Masked_Trickster, jlol, SarcasticallyDances, NerdyQwerty, Nollyn!

Chapter 89: An Alternative to Pain

Summary:

In which NQK has an interesting conversation.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Upon careful reflection, it was pretty apparent that I only had myself to blame for this mess.

Because let's be honest: I should've known things were going far too well to stay that way for long. My name is not an indicator of fate's opinion of me, as we're all aware. I shouldn't have counted on fate following the script. I should've been more cognizant of my surroundings, been more attuned to the ebb and flow of the crowd and the danger lurking just out of sight, but I'd been so distracted by the tantalizing taste of victory (because canon had started, for that brief and shining moment, to go to plan) that I forgot to keep an eye on the very dangerous tournament swirling all around—and that was saying nothing of potential Keiko-nappers.

Yup. Far as I could see it, I had no one but me to blame.

No but one but me and Hiruko, that is—but I'd discover that soon enough.

It was all I could do to stand there, stunned and staring, as Sakyo took his seat again and bade me do the same in the chair to his left. "Best seats in the house… provided you actually like watching the fights," he said when I didn't move, and when I didn't reply one way or another, he just shrugged. "Suit yourself," was all he said, subtle smile not faltering for even a moment, and he spun his chair back around to observe the match.

Now that I was standing still enough to notice, panic slowly calming into a sense of quiet dread, I saw Sakyo's face reflecting back at me in the enormous glass window in front of him. He didn't look at me. He indeed appeared to be watching the fights, crystalline blue eyes trained on the arena far below us in the stadium's far-off center—and for the first time, there in that solemn quiet, I noticed just how handsome he really was. His coppery skin, his strong jaw, the neatly cut black hair falling long and thick over his shoulders, it all combined to create a striking image of an absolutely gorgeous Japanese man. The scar over his eye only made him roguish, and intriguing, especially against the backdrop of his impeccably tailored suit. And when his eyes flickered to mine in the window, mouth curling just the littlest bit more at the corners—

A shiver went down my back.

Even though he smiled, there was something indescribably cold about Sakyo. Like his smile was blade made out of solid ice, almost.

Speaking of.

Way down below in the arena, Kurama was fighting.

It was Koto's voice, broadcasting clearly but at low volume through a speaker hidden somewhere close by, that tipped me off. I kept an ear on her eager tones as I walked stiffly to the window and stood beside Sakyo and his supervillain swivel chair. Sakyo's private observation box must not have been too high in the stadium, because I indeed had a clear view of the proceedings in the arena. Kurama's red hair looked like a flag of blood as he darted across the arena, keeping pace with a pale figure wearing a loincloth and a head wrap—Gama. He was fighting Gama. I couldn't make out many details given we were still pretty high up, but it wasn't hard to figure out what must be happening. And that meant it must've taken longer to haul me up to this box than I'd realized. Kurama hadn't been fighting when I got snatched, had he?

I supposed it didn't matter. All that matter was that Touya, with his sword forged of razor-edge ice as cold as Sakyo's smile, would soon be making his scheduled appearance. And that meant Kurama would infect himself with the Deadly Vetch plant after being immobilized by Gama's blood, and—

As I wrapped my arms around myself, keeping a shudder at bay, Sakyo said: "Oh. That's right." He smiled at me sidelong, wine glass poised below his lips. "It's your friends' turn to fight now, isn't it?"

I sat in the chair beside him with a huff, arms and legs both crossing in unison. "Oh, come off it. Don't act like you're just remembering."

One thin brow lifted. "Oh?"

"Well, it's unlikely you kidnapped me at random, given you knew my name when those demons dragged me in here. Couple that fact with the fact that I got snatched while my friends are fighting for their lives, and it's all just much too coincidental for a random abduction." I looked at him sidelong, too, trading his glance for one of my own. "I assume you're the backer of a rival team?"

Sakyo, to his credit, didn't bother denying it. "Team Toguro, in fact. I'm told they're your friends' arch enemies," he said with a satisfied smile. "Clever girl."

"Don't patronize me."

"So you have a backbone, too." His smile only grew. "And to think, I thought you might cower in front of me."

That got me to look at him full on. "Cower?"

"Well. I did have you abducted off the sidewalk, after all." The tenor of his smile, then, made it seem like he thought he had told a funny joke—and y'know. He sort of had, actually. If I didn't already know he'd spent a good portion of his childhood torturing animals for fun, I got the sense he might be a rather witty guy. What was the difference between psychopathy and sociopathy, again?

I knew better than to wonder that aloud. "Well. Thanks for not resorting to euphemisms, at least," I muttered, slouching in my seat.

Sakyo's head tilted the barest centimeter to the side. "Oh?"

"This isn't my first kidnapping." I rolled my eyes, thinking of Itsuki and all his bluster. "What did my first kidnapper call it? An 'invitation I couldn't refuse?'" When Sakyo appeared mystified, I explained, "He didn't like the word 'abduction.' Having my abductor speak plainly is actually quite refreshing."

Sakyo chuckled. "You make a habit of getting kidnapped, then."

"It's not like I try."

"So you're just talented that way?"

"I bear the honor with dignity."

My sarcasm got him to laugh, somehow—and when he turned away to watch Kurama fight again, it was almost anticlimactic. I'd been expecting… well, I hadn't really been expecting anything (this had been a big surprise for me, lemme tell ya), but this outcome was one I'd not-expected least of all. He was being friendly, and not-pushy about whatever-the-fuck he wanted, in a big way.

What did he want, now that I was thinking about it?

Unsettled, I tried to focus on Kurama, but despite Sakyo's claim that these were good seats, the view wasn't actually that great. The box was probably built underneath the stadium's lowest balcony or something, way at the back of the orchestra section (or whatever the Tournament Committee had named it; fuck if I knew). The big TVs that showed the action close-up were out of sight in this box, but there were small screens set into the wall below the window in front of me. Tournament backers probably used those to watch the fights over the box's natural view. Too bad for me the screens were switched off at the moment, though. Would Sakyo turn them on if I asked, or would he prefer them to stay off to avoid distraction?

But distraction from what?

What the hell did he want?

I flinched when the aforementioned man spoke. "May I get you anything to drink?" he said, smile as friendly (and as cold) as ever.

I gave his as much side-eye as I was capable. "Y'know, you're awful hospitable for a kidnapper."

"I try my best."

"If you wanted to spend time with me, all you needed to do was ask."

"I'll keep that in mind. Now about that drink?"

"Not thirsty."

"Pity. I have an excellent orange juice at the bar. Leftover from a friend of mine, but I don't think he'd mind sharing."

OJ. So, Toguro? Was he territorial of his OJ, or was Sakyo's offer safe? Better not risk it. "I'll pass, thanks."

Sakyo nodded, but he didn't appear disappointed or mad or anything. "Very well."

Silence fell over us again. Koto's voice issued again from a speaker I suspected might be hidden in the same bit of wall that housed the switched-off observation screens. Through the glass before us came the roar of the crowd, too, distant like the sound of the ocean echoing through an empty seashell.

The back of my neck prickled.

I looked up.

Sakyo was staring at my reflection in the window.

When our eyes met, he smiled.

I looked away.

Sakyo chuckled.

The chuckle wasn't devious or anything. It was just… cold. Amused, but still cold, and something in its wry amusement told me that Sakyo was playing a game. A really, really mean game, granted, but a game nonetheless. But what—?

Oh. So that's what he was getting at, not coming at me with what he wanted. He was trying to rattle me by staying silent. He was trying to stress me out, get me to crack and… and do something that would give him an advantage.

Well, fuck you too, Sakyo, but I didn't have time for this crap.

I uncrossed my legs, feet hurting the floor with an abrasive slap. My chair spun smoothly, like the hinges had been oiled, as I turned to face him. "You wanna tell me why I'm here?" I said, bold as brass, "or are you enjoying impersonating a sphinx?"

Sakyo smiled (good lord, this guy was almost as bad as Hiruko in the smile department, wasn't he?). "In good time," Sakyo said. "But in the meantime, would you care to take a guess?"

I jerked my head down at the ring. "If you want information about my friends down there, I'm not talking."

Sakyo paused. Considered. Said: "Loyal, then. Interesting." His eyes didn't waver as they locked like a missile guidance system upon my own. "But it's not your friends down there I'd like to discuss."

I played dumb, because I knew where this was going the minute he put emphasis on that preposition. "You mean you aren't looking for a quick way to win against them?" I said, feigning surprise.

"I'm afraid not," Sakyo said. "When it comes to this tournament, my victory is assured even without inside information. My team needs no help to win, and I see no point in stacking the deck in my favor." Now his smile appeared genuine, ice melting the smallest iota. "Betting isn't much fun if there isn't any risk involved."

Sakyo was a gambling addict. Of course he didn't want to stack the deck—but I couldn't let him know I knew so much about his hobbies. "Uh. OK. Then what do you want?" I said, drumming my fingers on my chair's leather armrest. "Enlighten me, would ya?"

But Sakyo only smiled, channeling a sphinx once more. "It's like I said," was all he told me. "I'm not interested in talking about your friends down there."

And this time he actually nodded at the arena below, just in case I hadn't heard his particular emphasis the first time. But I had heard it, and I'd jumped to the most obvious conclusion. Sakyo wanted to talk to me about Hiruko, because Hiruko was literally the only other associate Sakyo and I had in common—

But, wait.

There was one other person he could mean, now wasn't there? But they shouldn't have met yet. There hadn't been time. If she and Sakyo met at all like they did in the anime canon, they would have to meet sometime today while we fought our way into the stadium, and that hadn't happened yet… had it?

My stomach churned. Did Sakyo have his eye on her already? They didn't ever meet in the manga; their meeting had been an anime-exclusive invention, a relationship that had always been gross to me, reducing Shizuru to some pining love interest mooning over a man she just met and knew nothing about, and—

I suppose some degree of recognition (or maybe just distress and disgust) showed on my face, because Sakyo's lips curled. "So you do know who I'm talking about."

"Maybe. Maybe not." I shrugged. "I have a lot of friends here."

But I said nothing else, and although Sakyo waited for me to continue, I did not indulge him. Eventually I just turned back toward the ring, pointedly ignoring Sakyo as he stared at me. Soon enough he chuckled, dry sound like falling leaves beneath the not-so-distant roar of the tournament crowd.

"I can see you're not going to give up the ghost just yet." Sakyo set his wine glass aside, movements methodical and concise. "In an effort not to waste too much of your time, I'll cut right to it."

I blinked, turning toward him on reflex. "You mean you'll let me go?"

"Well, I certainly can't keep you here for very long." He gestured at the room, eyes crinkling. "There's nowhere to sleep."

Dammit, he was funny, and I couldn't hold back the snicker at his dry observation. I took a mental note to remind myself that Sakyo was evil as heck and wanted to flood the human realm with demons just to get his rocks off as I said, "Forgive me if I look surprised. Most kidnappers don't release their targets after an hour's friendly conversation." I hesitated. "I'm assuming this won't take more than an hour?"

"I should hope not. But let's not risk it." His hands tightened on his chair, leather creaking under Sakyo's grip. "I want to know anything you can tell me about the man who calls himself Hiruko."

And there it was: Hiruko ruining the party, again—though I couldn't help but feel relieved that Sakyo hadn't asked about Shizuru. Perhaps it was relief, now, that showed on my face instead of surprise or revulsion, because once again Sakyo looked pleased.

"So you do know him," Sakyo mused. "But that much I suspected. The real question is how. How does Hiruko know you?"

I shifted in my chair, which suddenly felt quite uncomfortable despite the amount of plush hiding beneath the leather. "What, and reveal my hand too soon?"

But the reference to games was too much; Sakyo perked up, perfect posture even more perfect (if that's even possible). "So this is a poker game, is it? You're lucky that I like a good gamble."

"I see." Time to act breezy. I pasted on a smile and tossed my hair, grinning. "Well, Sakyo. How 'bout it?" I resisted the urge to wink. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

It was a bold move, in my estimation, inviting him to set the stage for whatever happened next—but I didn't fancy the idea of walking into this blind. If he gave up any information at all about his relationship with Hiruko (not to mention what he knew about my connection to Hiruko, which I guessed wasn't a lot if he was abducting me to ask questions) I'd have an advantage… but would Sakyo actually give anything away? He'd been playing with me before, but now I was putting him on the spot, reversing our roles and demanding he speak first. A risk, maybe, or perhaps this was a bluff he would easily call, but—

Sakyo surprised me, as he had a habit of doing. Eyes briefly closing, he smirked as his chin tucked close to his chest, a chuckle building in it like the beginnings of an avalanche. "Very well," he murmured, and without preamble he spoke to me quite plainly (another of his habits). "Hiruko is a benefactor. He's provided me with critical information that has proven useful time and again, and he has never asked for anything in return."

My brow quirked. "Well that's highly suspicious."

"Indeed," he said with a wry grin. "Which is why I was curious when, after months of partnership, he finally asked for a favor."

It finally clicked, then, that last piece of the puzzle unlocking the rest of the picture, and I knew what he would say before he even said it.

"He asked that I upgrade the room of a certain guest of the Dark Tournament," Sakyo continued. "It was as easy as making a single phone call to the front desk upon arrival here. But for a man who asks for nothing, even that small desire speaks volumes." Now his eyes were curious, assessing me from tip to tail as they raked over my face. "And that desire involved… you, for reasons I would very much appreciate to find out."

I swallowed. "I see."

"Well," Sakyo said.

I swallowed again. "Well what?"

"Time to uphold your end of the deal, I suspect." The ice in his smile looked playful, at least. "Unless you're backing out now?"

I shook my head. "No. I'm not. I'm just—" A pause followed, wherein I debated the merits of caution with the merits of digging. Eventually I settled on the rather open-ended: "What do you want to know about him?"

And once again, Sakyo remained perfect direct. "Why he's interested in you," he said. "What he wants. What his goals are."

But that wasn't the answer I wanted. "Crap," I said, leaning back in my chair.

"Hmm?"

"I was hoping you could tell me those things." It was hilarious in an infuriating kind of way that I'd been eager to dig the truth from Sakyo, but of course it couldn't be that easy. "Truth be told, Sakyo, I don't know what Hiruko wants—with you, with me, with this Tournament, with anything." The irony of that stung; my hands clenched into tight fists. "He—"

I stopped talking when Sakyo looked more than a little interested for me to continue. I'd been about to vent, truth be told. Apart from Kurama, who I still had to keep some things from, I hadn't had a chance to vent on this island, and dammit, I needed to vent. The need was so great, I'd almost started to blab my frustrations regarding Hiruko for the world to hear. Was it Sakyo's association with Hiruko that had made me so momentarily eager to blab?

Why was I so eager to blab?

Sakyo didn't understand, of course. "Still hesitant, I see," he said when the silence stretched thin. "Would it comfort you if I promised not to tell anyone about what you say?"

"Pinkie promise?" I snarked.

And yet, he took me seriously. "More like a solemn oath. One make upon my own name." He wasn't smiling now. He looked sincere, utterly so, when he told me, "And I am not the kind of man who backs out of a deal."

Oddly enough, his words did comfort me somewhat, and in total spite of myself. But simply blabbing the truth to him was the exact opposite of prudent. Anything I told him would need to be carefully weighted, traded truth for truth and not given away without reciprocal knowledge.

And perhaps Sakyo understood that. "I told you my team needs no help to win," he said—and finally, as his expression softened, I understood why so many allied themselves with this psychopath. Why perhaps anime-Shizuru had developed feelings for him. His voice was soft, persuasive, charismatic as he gave me one solemn assurance after another. "Whatever you say will not leave this room, nor will I choose to leverage it against you." He ducked his head, deferent and humble. "You have my word."

In spite of myself—I think I believed him.

But that didn't mean I should let down my guard, even if being honest with Sakyo could work to my benefit. Now, to play this right…

He waited patiently for me to begin, and when I did, the solemn cast to his expression cleared like parting clouds. "Hiruko started whispering in my ear some years back," I said, drip-feeding information word by word, searching in every line of Sakyo's face for recognition, sympathy, something. Pitching my voice high, I flapped my hand like a yakking mouth and rolled my eyes. "'These things are going to happen, Keiko, and you shouldn't let them,' he'd tell me. Or 'These things need to happen Keiko, and you need to help them along.'" I let my hand drop. "But I never know if what he tells me is true or not, and he's not always helpful to me the way he is to you."

Sakyo nodded. He said nothing. I soldiered on.

"I'm sorry to say it, Sakyo, but I have no idea to what end he wants me to do his bidding, nor why I'm the one he pesters to do it," I said—and that was the truth, even if it left out Fates and threads of destiny and rebirth in fictional universes. "He's been nothing but a very enigmatic thorn in my side since the day I first laid eyes on him. At least for you he's offered helpful information, but for me?" I scoffed, and I sighed, and I sagged into my chair. "Nothing but headaches and bad dreams."

"And an upgraded room," Sakyo reminded me, helpfully.

"That, too." I looked at him sharply. "Did he say why he upgraded it, by the way? I had a hunch it was him—or him via you, I guess—but I still don't see why he did it."

"To keep an eye on you, is my best guess."

"Mine, too."

"My question is why. Why you?" He assessed me for what felt like the millionth time, as if he could divine my secrets from my appearance alone. "You're a human, and not a powered human like your friends."

"I wish I knew," I confessed. "And I wish I could tell you more about what he's after, but I'm afraid you've kidnapped me for nothing." I eyed him askance. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me what he's helped you with."

Sakyo smirked. "This and that."

"Oh, c'mon."

He merely shrugged. "If you don't have anything more to trade, I see no reason to give you my secrets. I value quid pro quo, you see." Another of his searching glances. "Unless there's anything else you can offer…?"

Again, I debated the merits of honesty. If Sakyo did indeed have information to trade, I wanted it. But if he didn't, and I gave him information for nothing…

Was there any information I could give him about Hiruko that wouldn't adversely affect my friends or this tournament? If what I told him could help Sakyo hurt or derail Hiruko's plans, that was a good thing. But what could I tell him, and what would be worth a trade…

Sakyo's stare stayed, unwavering, upon my face. I licked my lips.

"He's ancient," I said. Speech was like trying to pry open a locked door. "Don't be fooled by whatever face he wears. He is ancient, and he is determined, and that determination is backed by years of dedication." I traded Sakyo a hard stare of my own. "Do not tangle with him lightly, Sakyo. Though his motives remain a mystery, I know better than to underestimate the power of his will."

"Well." He mouth curled at the corner. "Lucky for me, I've always been the willful sort."

"Same." I blew out a breath through my nose, glaring at the ceiling in lieu of Hiruko's absent face. "He's fucking with the wrong damn girl, that's for sure."

Again, Sakyo laughed, apparently pleased by my profanity. "I will admit, you don't look like much at first glance," he said. Before I could bristle, he held up a hand. "But something tells me that you're right. Whatever his end goal might be, I do not think you'd play into his hand quietly."

"Damn straight," I said, but while Sakyo's compliment (roundabout as it was) felt nice, it did little to lift my mood. Eye on the ring below, watching as figures dash and leapt across its grey expanse, I murmured, "Hiruko is a manipulator. Whatever he did to help you, Sakyo, I absolutely guarantee that it also helped him. Tread carefully."

He didn't reply. He angled himself toward the window, too, in silence. For a while he only stared without seeing at the crowds of demons that filled the stadium. He regained his glass of wine and swirled it slowly in one hand. The red liquid caught the light in time with the motion of Sakyo's wrist, pulsing and beating like a steady heart.

"Ancient, you say. I see," mused Sakyo. "Hiruko came to me months ago and told me about Gonzo Tarukane's captive—a young demon who cried gems." Blue eyes flickered toward me in the reflection of the window. "You know about that, I trust?"

"I do."

"Good." His gaze returned to the battlefield. "Hiruko pointed me in Toguro's direction not long later. Though Hiruko himself inscrutable, his information is typically trustworthy… though I always do my due diligence and verify before acting upon anything he says." The barest of smiles. "I'm nothing if not thorough, and I confess I distrust an enigmatic ally even more than I distrust an enigmatic enemy."

"Wise policy."

"Indeed." Sakyo sipped his wine, then set it aside. "He has dispensed critical information whenever I need it most, and he possesses a disconcerting habit of appearing whenever I seem to need him." The smooth cadence of his voice had an odd lulling effect, hypnotic and strange. "I admit that I'm disappointed you couldn't shed more light on his goals, but his origins are telling."

I frowned. "They are?"

He smiled again. "Yes."

"… care to share?"

His smile widened. "No."

"Damn."

Sakyo laughed. He stood. "Well, Yukimura-san. I think I've heard everything I need to hear." He held out a hand to help me up, black hair falling lustrous over his cheek as he bent. "It's high time I return you to your friends, I think."

I blinked, rising without taking his hand. "Really?"

"Of course." His hand vanished into his pocket.

"Just like that?"

He sounded amused. "Were you expecting bamboo beneath the fingernails?"

"Or some light waterboarding, at least."

"Sorry to disappoint. Where applicable when gathering intelligence, I believe in applying an alternative to pain." He looked pensive—somber, but not disappointed. More like a cool version of satisfied, tempered by poise, and under his clear-eyed gaze I found myself fidgeting. "It's clear that he's as much an enigma to you as he is to me. You might have held a few details back, but I doubt they're of enough consequence to interest me." He affixed me with a slightly more stern expression, though still he smiled. "Yes, I know you didn't tell me the whole truth. You're not a very good liar, I'm sorry to say."

"So they tell me," I said, and paused.

Sakyo said nothing for a time. I said nothing, too. We regarded each other without speaking, Sakyo wearing an amused smile while I shifted from foot to foot, uncertain and unsettled.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Like I said," he said. "It's time you returned to your friends."

"Think we'll see one another again?" I asked—because bamboo shoots or waterboarding or none of those things at all, getting let go as easy as that seemed… wrong. Or at least anticlimactic. Not that I was complaining, mind you, but the point stands. I'd been expecting torture and interrogation, and instead…

But Sakyo just kept smiling. "I get the feeling this won't be the last time we meet," Sakyo said. "But, for now, I suppose our momentary partnership is—"

He never got to finish. Just then there came a bang from our right, over by the door to the big observation room. Someone shouted, and then there came a second bang, followed by a third and a protracted period of utter silence (silence made somewhat less foreboding because Koto screamed loudly about just how much she adored blood in the middle of it, but I digress). Sakyo and I stared at the door, Sakyo unflapped and I mostly certainly well and truly flapped as all heck. But before I could whisper and ask him if he knew who had been yelling, the door to the room flew open and banged, hard, against the wall, leaving an impression of the doorknob in the wall's now cracked and crumbling plaster.

Shizuru stood on the door's other side. She stalked through the open portal dragging one of the lizard demons by his collar, and when she got about halfway across the room, she stopped walking. Let the demon drop to the floor. Plucked her broken cigarette from her mouth, tossed it, and ground its smoldering wreck under her heel.

"Fuckers broke my damn cig," she said—but she didn't look bothered by this. Only bored as she said, "Keiko. Get over here, now."

But she wasn't looking at me.

She was looking at Sakyo, who stood with his hands in his pockets, silent as they traded stares as cutting as a sword. I meekly trotted to her side, and when I reached her, she tossed her hair.

"And you." Scorn dripped from every syllable when she addressed Sakyo. "Don't try anything funny."

But Sakyo remained unflapped. "Wouldn't dream of it," was all he said, and he raised a hand in farewell. "It was nice chatting with you, Keiko."

"Uh." I waved back, feeling awkward. "Yeah. You, too."

And this was the wrong thing to say, because Shizuru's head whipped around so hard toward me I feared she might give herself whiplash. "Wait." Her head whipped back toward Sakyo. "What's going on here?"

"Apologies. Allow me to introduce myself." Sakyo bowed, pleasant smile a perfect complement to his polite mannerisms. "My name is Sakyo, and I wanted a word with your friend here."

"'Wanted a word,'" Shizuru repeated while giving him massive stink-eye. "That's a funny way of saying you kidnapped her off the street."

I piped in. "Actually, he's not all that euphemistic."

"No. I did indeed abduct her," Sakyo admitted. "But I've gotten what I wanted, so she's free to go." His mouth twisted a little with understated humor. "Unharmed, I feel obliged to note."

And this was once again not the right thing to say. Shizuru's narrow eyes narrowed further still; her fists clenched by her thighs, and she took one quick step in Sakyo's direction. "Gotten what you wanted?" she repeated, lines carving deep furrows in her agitated brow. "You bastard, if you—!"

I grabbed her arm. "Shizuru, it's OK," I said, but she looked unconvinced. "We just talked. That's all."

She studied my face for a few seconds that felt like minutes—and then she sighed, rubbing at her forehead with her fingertips. "Fine," Shizuru grunted. "Let's go."

"Your name is Shizuru?"

It was Sakyo who made this inquiry, of course. He looked Shizuru over with the same assessing stare he'd earlier used on me, and she met his assessment with assessment of her own. Her eyes swept over him in a long, slow meander, and her dry expression said she didn't find him impressive at all—a fact for which I felt grateful.

I had never liked their relationship in the anime, as previously discussed. But that was neither here nor there.

Eventually Shizuru's weight shifted onto her left foot; she crossed her arms over her chest, brow lifting. "Yeah. And what's it to you?"

"It's nice to meet you." He lifted a hand toward her. "That's all."

She eyed his hand. He didn't let it drop. For a minute there I thought she'd just laugh at him, reject that handshake and march out of the room without a word—but she surprised me. She took his hand and shook it once, hard enough that I fancied I heard bones crunch, but Sakyo's face didn't betray any pain. Quite the opposite, in fact. When Shizuru let go, he wordlessly reached into his jacket's inner pocket and removed a carton of cigarettes. One of these he offered to Shizuru, but she eyed this with the same skepticism she'd given his hand.

"Consider it a reimbursement," Sakyo said when Shizuru didn't take the cigarette. He nodded at her mangled cigarette on the floor. "For property damage."

Shizuru's deadpan glare made my skin crawl, but Sakyo didn't flinch. Maybe that impressed her, because eventually she reached out and plucked one cigarette from the package with two fingers. "This isn't poisoned, is it?" she asked, looking it over with expression most critical.

"Not really my style," Sakyo said. He stowed the package back in his pocket, then proffered a gold lighter. "If I wanted you dead," he said as he struck a flame into being, "I'd just kill you myself."

He spoke that silken promise like it was nothing. The flame from the lighter placed dark hollows in his cheeks and danced red in his cold eyes. Shizuru, however, was not intimidated. She just stuck the cigarette in her mouth, leaned down, and ignited it from Sakyo's hand.

He looked satisfied by that—and that made my skin crawl even worse than had Shizuru's glare.

But Shizuru wasn't one to disappoint. "Well. At least you're straightforward," she muttered, and she blew a massive plume of grey smoke straight into his smiling face before turning on her heel with a ripple of her glossy hair. "C'mon, Keiko. We're going."

"Sure." I waved at Sakyo again. "Bye."

He nodded. "It was nice meeting you."

He wasn't looking at me, though.

Up until the very moment the door swung shut behind us, he stared only at Shizuru.

The other lizard demon lay sprawled in the hallway outside the observation box, facedown and unmoving. Shizuru stepped over his unconscious form without a word, leading the way down a long hallway toward an elevator. She said not a single word until the elevator doors closed us into the wood-paneled car—but the moment those doors did shut, she rounded on me, and the smoke from her cigarette filled the car with a cloud of acrid fumes. "You wanna tell me what just happened in there?" she asked, voice utterly devoid of emotion—but she didn't need to inject her words with proper inflection for me to feel the tension coiled in her shoulders like a snake waiting to strike. The blaze burning in her eyes said it all.

I took a deep breath. "He wanted intel."

"About our team." She bared her teeth, thumbing one of the floor buttons in the elevator without looking at it. "You didn't—?"

"No. He said he didn't need tricks to beat us."

She put two and two together at once. "So if he didn't want to know about our team, then what did he want?"

"Intel about…"

Oh, shit—what the heck was I supposed to say, exactly? As the elevator car shifted, dropping steadily downward toward the ground floor, Shizuru watched me without speaking, eyes locked on my face as I racked my brain for something, anything I could tell her apart from the truth—because if I started telling the truth, even in part, I wasn't sure how much of it I'd be capable of holding back. The word-vomit I'd almost given Sakyo—

Shizuru said, "This is about the room upgrade, isn't it?"

I froze solid.

"I'm right, aren't I." She phrased it like a question, but it didn't sound like one. Shizuru sighed and crossed her arms, turning to look at the elevator doors. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"You—you don't want to—?" I stammered.

"You're weird, kid." Her dry intonation sounded like dead leaves on the wind, uncaring and dispassionate. "Always have been. Since that day you showed up on the playground to build that dirt volcano for my baby brother, you've been weird. And you've only gotten weirder since then."

"I—"

Her eyes slid toward me, though she didn't turn her face. "You knew about Kuroko, somehow. You know when I should train. You know when danger is coming, when things are quiet." Her eyes slid away again. "You aren't psychic. I can see that. I've always known that. But you've always known things you shouldn't be able to, and I'm not blind." After a deep breath of cigarette, followed by a long exhale, she said: "I just know that sometimes, especially with you, it's better if I just don't ask."

Struggling to understand left me reeling. "You mean you—?"

"Aren't going to ask exactly how weird you really are? No." As the elevator came to a smooth stop, a bell dinged overhead; the doors parted with a swish of whirling gears. She stepped through them with a mutter of, "And at the rate you're going, I'm sure I'll find out sooner rather than later, anyway."

So stunned was I that I almost forgot to follow her out of the elevator. Only when the doors started to close did I remember to stumble through them, trailing in her wake like a duckling after its mother. "Shizuru—thank you," I blurted at her back. "I mean it."

She stopped walking. I almost ran into her, backpedaling to avoid a collision.

"Don't mention it." One cool eye regarded me over her shoulder. "But Keiko?"

"Yes?"

"You should know something." She whirled in place, turning on me as abruptly as a cyclone. "The reason my fist isn't halfway down your throat right now is because you're on our side."

My jaw dropped. Shizuru took a step toward me, cigarette bobbing so close to my face I felt the heat of it on my skin.

"You've always been on our side," she said, and though her voice rose no louder than the barest of murmurs, I felt every word like a punch to the gut. "That's why I don't ask questions. That's why I don't say anything when you get weird. It's because you care about my brother, about me—about all of us."

The cavern of my mouth felt as dry as a burned forest. "Th-that's right," I rasped.

Shizuru stepped closer still. "But if I get even a hint that that's changed. If I catch even a whiff of stink off of you…"

I gulped. "Thin ice."

"Yeah."

We stared at one another. The only thing I saw in her eyes was determination—a vow that she meant what she was saying, and that our friendship meant little when it came to protecting her brother. In her eyes I read only promises. Sincerity. That glimmer of inevitability one only sees in the eyes when one is truly, deadly serious. That's what I saw in her eyes just then.

I have no idea what she saw in mine in return.

"Yeah," I eventually said. I nodded at her, hoping I didn't look as sick as I felt inside. "Yeah. I know."

"Good," Shizuru said. She turned away. "Let's go."

I watched her move farther and farther away without a word, numb. Soon Shizuru noticed. She stopped, looked at me, and lifted a brow.

I began to walk.

I only wished I knew what to say as well as I knew how to keep moving forward, into the unknown, as I always did.

The hallway on what I assumed was the stadium's ground floor was mostly devoid of doors, making the large metal door at the hall's far end all the more eye-catching. It was to this door Shizuru led me, and when we reached it, she grasped the metal handle on its face and turned to me. "Stay," she commanded. "Open it when I knock three times."

"OK," I said.

She turned the handle and pulled the door open, then shut it again. "Oh." She tossed her hair, glaring. "And if anyone asks, I kicked major ass to free you from that guy in the suit."

I nodded.

She slipped through the door and was gone.

As soon as she disappeared, I leaned heavily against the wall, pressing my back to it and sliding down its expanse until my butt collided painfully with the tile floor. Elbows on knees, I wound my fingers into my hair, squeezing my eyes shut so hard I saw stars. The past hour had been a whirlwind, and that moment in the hallway represented the first time I'd been given any amount of time to process it. Sakyo knew of me because of Hiruko, and Shizuru knew there had to be some reason Sakyo had wanted to meet me, and she knew I was weird, but she—she wasn't going to ask about it? When so many others demanded to know why I made the choices I made, she just wasn't going to ask?

It defied comprehension, but then again, Shizuru often bucked expectations… and honestly? I was relieved. While she would definitely kick my goddamn ass if I stepped a toe out of line, to know she wasn't going to pry like Kurama or demand answers like Yusuke or actively reject the truth of myself like Hiei—that was a relief. She didn't accept me or anything. Her willingness to put me in the dirt if I betrayed everyone spoke volumes in that regard. And yet, to know she wouldn't make me do anything I didn't want to was a gift, even if I needed to watch my back around her. I just needed to figure out what to tell the others once Shizuru brought them back here, because that's probably where she'd gone, and something told me Shizuru wouldn't likely tell lies on my behalf. Not pry? Sure. But tell lies? That just didn't seem like her style. So what should I—?

I didn't have a lot of time to reflect, because soon enough three sonorous knocks sounded against the metal door beside me. I scrambled to my feet and wrenched it open, blinking as sunlight poured into the hall and revealed two familiar faces. "Hey, you two," I said, squinting and grinning in the glare. "What's—?"

"Keiko!" Botan flung herself at me at once, arms wrapping tight around my neck in a hug. "We were so worried!"

"What the hell happened back there?" Atsuko said as she walked inside. Behind her, Shizuru stood in the doorway, holding the door open as she watched us and smoked her cigarette. "One minute you were behind us, the next we hear you shriek and somebody throws a bag over your head like an old school Yakuza shakedown!"

Botan pulled away from me so she could stare, nonplussed, at Atsuko. "The fact that you know what said shakedown looks like concerns me," she said, "but now's not the time for that!" Her arms went back around my neck again. "Oh, Keiko, are you all right?!"

"Was it an old school Yakuza shakedown or wasn't it?" Atsuko demanded.

"It was something like that and I'm fine," I said. "But enough about me; are you two—?"

Botan giggled in my ear. "Two? Try three."

"Three?"

"That's right!" She let me go and stepped back, waving at the doorway with a flourish. "Ta dah!"

Atsuko also stepped aside. So did Shizuru.

Behind them stood Yukina.

I promptly forgot how to breathe.

Perhaps it was time that had dulled my memory of her. Perhaps it was denial that anyone could ever be that fundamentally beautiful that had made me forget just how heart-stoppingly, jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly gorgeous Yukina was to look at. Whatever the case, to look at her after so long apart was an exercise in sheer survival, because to be reminded of Yukina's utterly perfect face was to be reminded of what instant and paralyzing asphyxiation felt like. From her otherworldly hair color to her petal pink lips to the ruby facets of her eyes, she was stunning—even if she looked uncomfortable while Shizuru shepherded her through the doorway and into the hall. She moved with the smallest, daintiest of steps, her carriage at once proud and timid and lithe and deft, kimono like the embrace of winter itself when wrapped around her slender shoulders. And when she bowed uncertainly at me, pink blossoming in her cheeks under my stare, the breath snatched out of my lungs all over again.

Botan looked between Yukina and me in turns. "Oh, dear," she said, worried. "You do remember Yukina, don't you, Keiko?"

What an absurd question that was. As much as time had made me forget Yukina's prettiness, it had been impossible to forget her entirely—but I was too flustered to say as much aloud. It was only when Shizuru nudged me in the ribs and gave me a Look that I managed to cough into a fist and clear my throat, spell broken as a hectic flush suffused my cheeks. Aw, shit. I'd been staring! How embarrassing!

"Oh. Um. Yeah. Of course," I stammered, bowing at Yukina in return. "It's, ah, good to see you again." Heat traveled into my neck and ears, too, skin prickling with swear. "I don't know if you remember me—we only met for, like, six seconds, and then I was gone and you were gone, too, and um, well—"

Yukina said, "I remember. And I'm so glad to see you're all right."

Her voice sounded like wind through icicles, musical and soft and cool, and the words died on my tongue. She had an oddly ageless face, now that I had found my wits just enough to study her more closely. She could've been in her late teens, or she could've been 30, or maybe she was my age. Somehow she managed to look older than Hiei, that bug-eyed wild child. No wonder their family resemblance wasn't obvious at first glance…

Botan looped her arm through mine; I tore my eyes from Yukina and looked at Botan intently, not letting myself get trapped in another spell. "We already explained it all to Atsuko, too," Botan said. She reached into her pocket and handed Yukina a long slip of glossy paper. "Now Yukina, take this. It's my ticket to the tournament. You hold onto it, and I'll hold onto my trainer pass if anyone asks us why we're here."

"Thank you." She held the ticket to her chest, crimson gaze anxious. "But are you sure this is all right? If we're caught by the guards…"

"Oh, it'll be fine!" Botan assured her—and then she paused. Thought about it. Laughed. "Well. It'll be fine so long as we don't get caught, at least!"

"We tried using the trainer pass to get Yukina in the door before, but no dice," Atsuko told me. "Guards had major sticks up their asses, that's for sure."

"And we couldn't let Yukina wander around here alone, could we?" Botan said. "Human World is dangerous for her, and some of those Black Black Club members are surely skulking about. If they saw her, and recognized her…"

Apprehension flashed through Yukina's beautiful eyes. My heart gave an immediate pang at the sight, but Shizuru stepped forward to stand at Yukina's side.

"Best she stick with us," Shizuru said, and Yukina's anxiety eased a fraction. "Don't worry, kid. We'll keep you safe."

"And I'm not sure we need to worry quite so much, either," I said—wait, what the fuck was I even saying? Despite a little voice in my head screaming that I should shut the hell up, the desire to see Yukina's worries disappear made keeping quiet impossible. Grinning, I told her: "It's always better safe than sorry, but the Black Black Club has bigger fish to fry than kidnapping a demon at this Tournament, I promise. And that means you have nothing to worry about."

But instead of looking happy, her brow only furrowed. "But what do you mean, Keiko?" she asked.

"I was old-school-Yakuza-kidnapped by a guy from that club," I said, voice inside me now practically yodeling that I shut up, but I didn't listen. "A man named Sakyo, and he didn't seem at all concerned about finding you."

"Sakyo?" Atsuko said.

Botan put a hand on her chin. "Wait. I know that name—oh!" She snapped her fingers. "The man from the television screen at the manor in the mountains!"

Shizuru frowned. "Long hair, scar over his eye?"

"That's the one." Botan's eyes widened. "But what did he want with you, Keiko?"

"Information." I held up a hand, afraid to look at Shizuru (though I felt her eyes burning a hole in the side of my head). "Don't worry. I didn't tell him anything about our team. I think he was just trying to scare me. Or scare the team, rather, showing off that he knows who we are and that he can grab us whenever he wants." The lies rolled smoothly off my tongue; thank my lucky stars I'd had a minute to prepare them. But when Botan clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified, I hastily added: "Which is why you can't tell the boys about what happened to me, OK? Don't want them getting distracted from the fights over this."

"But Keiko—"

"I'm not going to let my guard down again. Neither should any of you." I looked at each of my friends in turn, glossing over Yukina as fast as I could for fear of freezing up again. "But now that we know Sakyo knows about us, we can defend ourselves better. This won't happen again, I swear."

Botan didn't look convinced. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't tell…"

"No. Keiko is right." Shizuru swiped her cigarette out of her mouth with a grimace; it had been smoked down to the filter. "They've got enough on their plates as it is."

Our eyes met.

In hers, I read clear and pointed warning.

It flew over everyone else's head, of course. "Maybe," Botan said, still unconvinced—but she shook her head and snatched up my hand with a small, indignant shriek. "But now is not the time for a full recap of your little adventure! Oh, Keiko, it's just horrible! The Tournament committee pulled an absolute joke of a tactic." Her eyes nearly looked as red as Yukina's, teeth grinding between words as she told me, "They've already started our team's next matches, without any time to recuperate from the last fight! They sidelined Hiei and the masked fighter under false pretenses, pretending they're too hurt to fight, and with Kuwabara actually out of commission, it's up to Yusuke and Kurama alone to carry their teams!"

"Kurama managed to take down two of them, but they were tough customers," said Atsuko.

Botan nodded, hard. "He passed out on his feet after the second fight, and he was still in the ring, so they committee called for the next match to start without letting him leave the arena!" She threw up her hands with another yell of frustration. "What an underhanded, backstabbing, unscrupulous set of absolute assho—"

Yukina soft voice cut in before Botan could finish. "The committee didn't lift a finger to stop another fighter from attacking Kurama," she said, lifting her sleeve delicately to her mouth. "It was awful."

My teeth clenched. "Who did it?" I said, lips barely moving and although I already knew the answer.

"Big guy in a loincloth." Shizuru smirked. "But his mouth was bigger than his muscles."

"I'll say. Loincloth guy went down fast after Yusuke got in the ring, at least." Atsuko put her hands behind her head and winked. "What is it I always say? The bigger the mouth, the smaller the dick?"

Botan shrieked, "ATSUKO!"

"What?!"

Shizuru rolled her eyes as Botan and Atsuko began to bicker; Yukina looked amused, though she blushed the color of sakura blossoms in the heart of spring. Amazing how a being of ice could look so warm and lovely and—

Not now, Keiko. Get a goddamn grip!

"Anyway." Shizuru fished another cigarette from her pocket as I tried valiantly not to be a creep and stare at Yukina even more than I already had. "That puts us two to one. It's up to Yusuke to defeat three opponents in a row, but the loincloth loudmouth was easy pickings." Her brow furrowed. "The next fight, though…"

Botan's eagle ears picked up on what Shizuru was putting out. "Oh, dear. Do you wanna tell her or should I?" she said.

"Oh, let me do it!" said Atsuko, and she looped an arm around my shoulders. "Keiko, guess what? The second team is Team Masho—which means your new pal Jin is about to go up against your old pal Yusuke."

I clapped a hand over my mouth, pretending to be shocked. "Oh, wow!" I said. "What're the odds?"

Her arm pulled tight. "You gonna have trouble rooting for the home team, toots?"

"No." I sought out Shizuru while I said, "Jin's great, but Yusuke's family."

Perhaps it was too blatant an attempt to suck up to her. Hard to tell; her expression didn't change as she lit her cigarette and took a drag, stowing her lighter in her pocket with steady fingers. "Glad to hear it," was all she said, and then she gave a low harrumph before walking away down the length of the hall. "For your sake."

Atsuko watched her go with face screwed up tight. "What's she mean by that?" she asked me.

I shrugged, hoping she couldn't feel the way my heart had started beating. "No clue." I extricated myself from her grip, eager to talk about anything but this. "Now c'mon. We've got a fight to watch."

We found our way out of the labyrinthine innards of the stadium just in time to watch Jin, in a blur of white and red, go sailing into the upper levels of the stadium and fall crashing through the crowds, a fountain of rubble marking his quick descent. Demons roared and booed so loudly, I couldn't make out what Koto was screaming into her microphone. However, Atsuko (who stood at my side) came through loud and clear as she hollered her approval of the proceedings. Botan and Shizuru looked likewise elated as we made a beeline for the nearest TV display, shaky camera tracking Jin's path through sky and stadium stand alike.

"Good show, Yusuke!" Botan bellowed, pumping a fist into the air.

"That's my boy. My son!" Atsuko bellowed, too. "You inherited your mama's right hook, that's for damn sure!"

The camera panned back to Yusuke, who stood with hands braced on his knees in the center of the ring. Weary, bruised and sweat-streaked with hair falling out of its typical shellacked style, Yusuke nevertheless looked nothing but triumphant as he fought to catch his breath, brown eyes glittering with unbridled joy. He didn't need to smile for me to see that joy in every line of his trembling musculature—and that comment Keiko had made in the anime suddenly made sense. Watching him on that screen, I could see exactly why OG!Keiko thought Yusuke was having fun out there, even when he wasn't laughing or smiling, and why she hadn't wanted to interrupt his time in the Dark Tournament. He indeed looked at ease out there, battle worn but comfortable and comfortable in his own skin in a way he rarely was at school or home.

It was hard not to feel, looking at him, that everything was going right again. That in spite of everything that had gone wrong, and all of the day's decisions were the correct ones since they had led to this moment—this moment, where Yusuke looked so undeniably happy.

But perhaps, yet again, I was celebrating far too soon. No sooner had Koto declared Yusuke the winner of the fight, prompting thousands of boos from the watching demons, than did a musical chime sound over the stadium PA system. I knew what was happening before the others caught on. I stepped back and watched Botan, Atsuko, Shizuru and Yukina listen to the spokesperson of the Tournament Committee declare Yusuke ineligible to keep fighting, blaming this abrupt disqualification on Koto delaying one of Yusuke's ring-out 10-counts.

As my friends all began screaming in unison, I only clenched my fists. This, I reminded myself, was what was supposed to happen—but that knowledge couldn't keep my heart from hammering in my chest.

We were really in the crunch period now, weren't we? But luckily Yukina was with us, and we could run down and see Kuwabara as he fought Risho, and—

Cool fingers touched my wrist. I flinched, but it was only Yukina. She peered up into my face as she grasped my arm, worry etching lines across her smooth forehead. "I don't understand," she said. "How can this be?"

I tried not to think about how she smelled like pine and clean, fresh snowfall, but it was difficult. "It's the Tournament Committee," I explained, trying to focus on that, instead. "They want our boys to lose, so they're changing the rules on the fly." Actual ire speared through my thoughts of Yukina, roughing my voice a little. "When you've got power like that, rules are more like guidelines, anyway."

"I see." Yukina covered her mouth with her sleeve, eyes downcast. "If my brother is fighting in this tournament, as I sense he might be, I can only hope that he…"

She trailed off. I didn't need her to finish that statement, though. She could only hope that her mysterious brother wasn't being targeted by the Tournament Committee, too—and the grandest of ironies was that that's exactly what her brother was facing at this exact moment, way down in the arena below.

Poor Yukina. Poor, poor Yukina—

Koto's confident voice cut through my distracted haze like a heated blade through chilled jello. "As an experienced officiator and as a lover of this tournament, I must object!" she declared, and I could all but picture her flashing eyes in my head. "You tell me to delay the ten-count! You can't just—!"

"The committee's ruling is final," the cool-voiced announcer replied over the PA system. "If no one from Team Urameshi can compete in the final match—"

"This is bad," Shizuru said, eyes locked on the screen. It still displayed Yusuke, who looked positively livid. "Very bad."

Botan's face was the color of spoiled milk. "If they lose this match, they'll be…"

Her implication hung heavy on the air—and then a wave of ozone scent washed over us. The image on the screen shifted, showing a white tent with a red cross on the front, canvas panels flapping in a vicious breeze. Hiei and the masked fighter stood in the shadow of this tent, of course, dark power even my mundane eyes could see cascading off Hiei's body in ripples of scintillating purple and black. The camera shook too much to get a clear picture, but if I could taste that power even at this distance…

A few nearby demons made comments about, perhaps, rooting for Hiei just in case he broke loose, but Koto's voice drowned them out when she began to declare Team Urameshi the losers due to a lack of eligible fighters. Regret and reluctance weighed her voice as she bowed under the authority of the Tournament Committee—but before she could fully make her declaration, she stopped speaking with a gasp.

Voice echoing distantly through Koto's mic, Kuwabara cried that he would fight Risho and carry his team to victory.

"Can it be?!" Koto screamed, voice blasting through the speakers like a bomb going off. "Kuwabara isn't dead! He's on his feet! He's walking into the ring—and looking like he'll keel over any minute, of course but still! He's—"

Shizuru tensed. "Bro?" she said, and as if hearing her call, the image on the screen cut to Kuwabara.

Frankly, it was a wonder Kuwabara was even alive, let alone up and walking. His face a constellation of purple bruises, his chest a road map of crossing lacerations that wept streaks of blood, he appeared as a mishmash of injuries barely held together by skin and pure, unadulterated determination. His glorious crown of hair stuck to his scalp, matted with blood, orange color obscured by dirt and grime as he staggered his way into the arena.

Shizuru's face paled. "No," she said, voice low but clear in the din of the crowd. "You can't—you can't just—!"

Her cries for him to stop fell on deaf ears, however. He came to a stop in the center of the ring, and then a figure in black blurred into the frame and punched him, sending Kuwabara flying backward—but he stood up, rising on trembling knees to his feet. Koto squealed a hasty "Let the match begin!" as the figure once more knocked Kuwabara down, and without warning my best friend started to get pummeled.

My best friend.

My Kuwabara—!

I grabbed Yukina's hand. From the corner of my eye I saw her look up at me in surprise, but I didn't have the time to acknowledge the way my heart began to pound. I just yanked her along after me and broke into a run, answering Yukina's questioned cry with a call of, "Just run and follow me! Now!"

She stumbled; I pulled her upright and kept going, weaving through the demonic crowd. "But where—?" Yukina said.

Over my shoulder I told her, "If he's determined to get himself killed, he'll do it with a cheering section."

Shizuru fell into step beside us. "And I'll be waiting to murder the son of bitch who takes my baby bro from me!"

Imagine, if you will a scene of utter chaos, but chaos tightly controlled and aimed at the bullseye of the ring in the center of the stadium. Shizuru took point on our procession, knocking back demons left and right, which opened a path ahead of us, cutting through swaths of apparitions like an arrow flying through the air. We were up on a mid-tier balcony by the looks of things, but soon our frantic steps carried us to a set of stairs, which we thundered down with all the ferocity of a crashing summer storm.

Koto's voice reached us even in that stairwell. "And Kuwabara is down—but no, he's up again!" she yelled, narrating the blood fray. How can this injured human stand up to Risho's brutal assault? Is he a machine?"

"He's a Kuwabara!" Shizuru yelled back—though for Koto's benefit or her own, I'm at a loss to say.

It was with amazing speed that we made it down to the lowest level of the stadium, but the going from that point wasn't easy. Demons clustered thickly at the tops of the steps that led down to the seats nearest the arena, clustered around for a better view of the fights that their actual seats did not. Shizuru and Atsuko had to take a minute to knock these demons back, kicking and fighting and punching while I glared at the demons who eyed Yukina and Botan. A few attempted to speak to us; these I chased off with fists and throwing knives alike, keeping one eye on then and the other on the set of observation screens nearest our position. When they were out of sight, Koto's voice kept me in the loop.

"And Risho summons his battle armor!" she was saying as we fought our way through the horde. "How can Kuwabara ever hope to—?"

"There!" Atsuko screamed. "I can see him! Through there!"

I grabbed Yukina again, following Atsuko and Shizuru as they cleared a path and burst through the gathered demons, sprinting headlong down the steps toward the arena. The steps here were shallow, much less steep than on the upper levels, threatening to send my feet out from under me with every step, but somehow I kept my footing at the grass surrounding the arena got close and closer, the concrete of the arena itself growing larger, and larger, and larger still, like we were a dart thrown at a target coming swiftly ever closer—and then we were actually there, slamming against the concrete barrier separating the stands from the grass surrounding the ring. The concrete hit me in the gut; I nearly toppled over it and onto the grass, but Botan slammed into me from behind and held me in place. The wind knocked from my lungs, but I didn't pay any attention to things as mundane as breathing, raking my eyes across the ring in frantic search of—

Kuwabara, bloody and bruised but standing, occupied the center of the ring, standing perpendicular to us so I could see the line of his craggy profile. A red-wreathed figure, glowing and enormous, drove Kuwabara back across the ground, hovering off the ground as his bright energy kept him aloft. This was Risho, I could only guess, enveloped in stone armor and the light of his power, dive-bombing Kuwabara to force him out of the ring—

I threw my hand behind me until I found cool skin. I shoved Yukina forward, pulling her to the concrete barrier beside me with a murmured apology.

Shizuru beat me to the punch, though. "Kazuma!" she screamed, hands braced on the barrier as she bellowed. "Hey, Kazuma!"

But he didn't look, and when I glanced beside me, Yukina was watching the match with her hands over her mouth, face tense and horrified—and silent.

Which meant it was up to me. "Kuwabara—Kuwabara look, goddammit!" I roared.

And he obeyed.

It was hard to see from many dozen feet away, but I saw it. I saw his head whip around as Shizuru and I kept screaming. I saw his eyes widen, spots of white in his tan face. I saw his legs tense, and Risho's driving force slow a fraction, and then slow entirely as Kuwabara's legs caught beneath him.

"What's this?!" Koto shrieked. "Is Kuwabara really—?"

Whatever she said next drowned out Kuwabara, who yelled something I couldn't quite make out, but it didn't matter what he said. It didn't matter because in an instant, he pushed Risho back and sent him flying with a single, monstrous punch to the demon's face.

As Risho soared away, skipping across the pavement like a stone before falling over the ring's far edge, my heart sailed with him—up, up and away, elation singing like bubbles in my blood.

YES!

"Unbelievable!" Koto called. "Kuwabara knocked Risho back and out of the ring with one blow! Where has this sudden surge of power come from?"

Kuwabara didn't stop to answer her. He just ran, sprinting in our direction with a spray of blood, vaulting out of the ring and dashing to where we stood as if he hadn't just been barely holding on, as if his wounds weren't bothering him, as if he couldn't feel the pain that had kept him prone outside the ring for so many matches prior. He just dashed over and skidded to a stop on the grass below the barrier, staring up at us with mouth hanging open.

"Shizuru?!" Kuwabara said, rough voice higher than I'd ever heard it before. "Keiko?! Botan—Yukina? Wait, Yukina?" He leapt backward and pointed one dramatic finger up at us. "What the heck are you all doing here?!"

"Us?" Shizuru said, leaning over the barrier to try and swipe at her brother, who danced out of her reach with a yelp. "What the heck do you think you were doing in the ring, huh? You could've been killed!"

Koto's voice over the announcement system said, "It seems some lady friends of Kuwabara's have come to witness the brutality…" Annoyance crept into her tone. "Although they seem to be engaged in small talk right now…"

Kuwabara ignored her, as did the rest of us. "Yeah yeah, Shizuru—but wait a minute!" His eyes turned my way, and they looked positively horrified. "Keiko!"

"Hi." I performed jazz-hands at the demon beside me. "Look! It's Yukina!"

"I mean, yeah?! I see her?!" He shook his head, drops of blood flying from the weeping gash on his chiseled cheek. "But Keiko, my sister and Botan and even Yukina I can understand, but you—you shouldn't be here!" His heels clicked together, standing ramrod-straight as he pointed up and out of the arena with a pointed glare in my direction. "Go! Go home right now! Get on a boat and go home!"

"Hey!" I said, incensed. "I have just as much a right to be here as anybody!"

He pointed harder at the sky. "No, you do not!"

"Yes, I—oh shit, incoming!"

Behind him, Risho (oily black hair, oily black clothes, pointed nose, beady eyes and all) flew once more across the ring, body clad in armor made of hard stone. Kuwabara spun when he saw the frightened look on my face, but his shoulders showed nothing but annoyance, no fear at all, as a faint yellow glow suffused his torso. He looked down at his hands with a grin as Koto's voice began a measured 10-count.

"Hey, my energy is back!" he said, holding on hand aloft. "We know what that means!"

We did. Risho, however, did not, and he flew directly into the path of Kuwabara's glowing Spirit Sword like a fly into a bug zapper. The Stone Master shrieked as he was sent flying, like Jin before him, out of the ring and into the stands, a baseball driven into homerun territory by the bat of a powerful cleanup hitter.

I couldn't help it: I started screaming, hopping from foot to foot and in a circle, joy fountaining uncontrolled from every pore.

Koto remained a bit more objective, however. "5, 6!" she counted. "7!"

Kuwabara gave an "EEP!" of fright and running away, sprinting across the green and scrambling up into the arena proper just before Koto finished her count, at which point all of my friends started screaming with joy, too.

And this time, Koto joined in on the celebration. "Kuwabara is back in the ring!" she said, with perhaps more satisfaction than one wants in an objective referee, but this was probably vindicating for her, dammit, and I didn't fault her one bit—especially not when she declared: "Kuwabara is the winner!"

If I hadn't been going nuts before, I certainly went nuts them, and my friends joined in even as the rest of the stadium started booing. Botan and I clung to each other, jumping in place for joy, and soon we parted ways so we could throw our arms around other people, trading off between Atsuko and Shizuru until everyone had been hugged and congratulated and—

From across the arena, my eyes met someone else's, and I froze.

Yusuke stood ringside with his arms crossed, brown eyes burning like banked coals against the tan of his scowling face.

I gulped. The skin on the back of my neck prickled—but even Yusuke's icy stare, with all that it implied, did nothing to dull the wild joy building in my chest.

Even if he wasn't happy to see me, and even if Kuwabara's reaction to Yukina wasn't exactly as it had been in canon (a fact I did not have time to ponder now), the fact remained that we'd won. That I'd won. That we hadn't lost. That I hadn't fucked up entirely.

All things considered… the day could've been worse.

And that, to me, was a win.

Shizuru had clambered halfway over the barrier by the time she remembered to consult with us. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she said, gesturing at the ring. "An invitation?"

All right. So maybe she didn't "consult" so much as "shame us into following her lead," but now I'm just splitting hairs.

With wooden legs I clambered over the barrier after her, and with equally wooden hands I assisted Yukina over the barrier, too. Tough to move in her kimono and whatnot. Once Botan and Atsuko came over, too, we walked in a gaggle toward the ring, where Kuwabara lay collapsed in a heap upon the stone. His energy had only lasted long enough to beat Risho, it seemed, leaving him lying snoring in a restorative nap now that the heat was off.

And boy, did he need restoration. He was in even rougher shape that I'd first suspected, a fact evident once I saw him up close. Pretty sure he had some cracked ribs, judging by the bruises littering his muscular sides, and it was these Yukina tended to first. She didn't even wait to ask if she should. Caring to a fault, she folded into seiza position at Kuwabara's side and held her hands over his ribs, eyes closing as her hands began to glow with subtle blue radiance—a radiance I was certain would be more impressive to someone with psychic sense. It was certainly still pretty to me, but for someone with more advanced or an even just plain existent sixth sense, it was bound to be as beautiful as Yukina herse—

"You're here."

My heart vaulted into my mouth.

I turned.

Yusuke stood behind me, glaring.

The roar of the irate demons fell to nothing around us. I was too focused on Yusuke to hear them anymore. All of the unspoken joy I'd seen on the TV monitors was gone. In its stead I saw tension deeply etched in the lines of his shoulders. Hands jammed in his pockets, eyes hooded beneath his lowered brow, he regarded me with all the disdain one usually reserves for invasive weeds in a well-tended garden—and the fact that I'm using a garden metaphor on him instead of Kurama is a clue as to how much the sight of that disdain unsettled me.

"Hi, Yusuke," I said after a moment. "I—"

"I don't want to hear it."

His response was flatter than week-old soda. I shrank back, but his eyes didn't lighten even the slightest, and suddenly the roaring crowd sounded as loud as it had before. Louder, even.

Luckily I didn't have to face him alone. "Now, that's no way to treat a friend, Yusuke." Atsuko walked up behind him and put him in a headlock, ruffling his messy hair with tough fingers. "And Keiko came all this way to cheer you on, too!"

Yusuke gaped up at her, red-faced and stuttering. "M-Mom?!"

"In the flesh."

Botan bounced out from behind Shizuru. "And me, and me!" she said, ruffling Yusuke's hair. "I'm here, too!"

"Botan?!" he choked out, airway severely restricted in Atsuko's crushing grip. "All of you are here?!"

"That's right! Even Yukina came all the way from the ice world to cheer you on." Botan beamed and turned a spirited pirouette, humming happily with ever motion. "It's me and your mother and Keiko and Yukina and Shizuru and we—wait." She paused, staring at the spot Shizuru had been standing, which was not conspicuously empty. "Where is Shizuru?"

From our left came an indignant squawk, followed by three earsplitting booms from the stadium speakers—and then a very familiar voice echoed through the speakers, too. "Hey. This thing on?" that voice said, and the speakers shrieked with sudden feedback. "Sheesh. Sorry I asked."

As one, we turned to see her.

Shizuru stood beside Koto. It had been her voice over the speakers, and in her hand she held Koto's microphone—a microphone poised just below Shizuru's mouth, cigarette in danger of burning a hole in the fluffy pop-catcher covering the mic's round head. She glared up at the sky like it had personally wronged her, hand in a fist at her side as she spoke into the mic.

"Hey. Tournament Committee," she said. "You listening, or do I have to come up there and put a request in writing?"

"Shizuru?!" Botan said, aghast. "What are you doing?!"

I could've (and probably should've) asked the same question—and yet I couldn't move. Could barely even think to wonder what the fuck Shizuru was up to, and why the heck she was trying to address the unscrupulous Tournament Committee out of nowhere.

Soon she (and the rest of us, too) received an answer. A musical chime sounded over the PA system, and then a woman's smooth voice said, "Return the microphone to the official tournament announcer at once."

Shizuru spat onto the arena floor, and glared. "Make me."

The demonic crowd instantly fell silent.

The Committee spokesperson, did not. "Failure to return the microphone to the designated tournament official will result in—"

"You like blood, right?" Shizuru said.

If any demons had still talking, those finally stragglers shut up. Seeing a crowd that large and that loud go that silent that fast is a surreal experience, but Shizuru wasn't fazed. She simply tossed her hair, took the lingering silence over the PA system as a "yes," and got right down to business.

"Because I happen to very good at spilling it," she said, tone dispassionate and dry and scary as heck. "And I can't help but notice that Team Urameshi isn't actually conforming to certain Tournament rules. Since you seem to love rules as much as you love bloodshed, I have a proposal to make." She smirked. "I promise it'll satisfy both your needs."

There came a pause.

Then the Committee rep said: "You have our attention."

Shizuru didn't waste time celebrating that fact. "Team Urameshi is incomplete," she said, voice unwavering. "It's missing an alternate fighter. Right?"

"And you're proposing…?" the Committee rep asked.

"What do you think I'm proposing, genius? I want to be that alternate." She took a drag of her cigarette. "Now shut up and make your decision. I haven't got all day."

And with that, Shizuru held out the microphone—and she dropped it.

My heart followed suit, freefalling in a deathly plummet to the floor.

Notes:

Well folks. I started a new job last week (!) and it completely threw off my update schedule! Between lunch meetings and "welcome to the company" events, I didn't have any time to write. I also had to prep and set up an art display and stuff on the weekend I was supposed to write/update, which consumed all of my free time. In short: Sorry this was delayed a week. My update schedule is going to shift around a bit to accommodate all the new stuff happening in my life, but never fear. LC updates won't stop just because I hit a road block. Expect the next one probably around Feb. 23rd, or sometime that weekend.

I've been so eager to reach this bit with Shizuru. That training with former Spirit Detective Kuroko Sanada wasn't for nothing, but will we see the benefits of Shizuru's training in action? Find out next time in chapter 90 (HOLY SHIT, 90 CHAPTERS, WTF) of LC!

Also: I started the dumbest and most ridiculous crossover fic this week. It's YYH meets Scooby Doo. It's… well, it's somethin', and if you're in the mood for a completely nonsensical mess of a crossover, please check out "Scooby-Doo, Where are Yu-Yu?" on my profile.

Also in the works is the next chapter of Daughters of Destiny, which I aim to post this week sometimes. Did I also tell y'all I wrote about NQKagome in the most recent chapter of Written in Ink and that there was a Yusuke POV chapter in the latest Children of Misfortune post? Lots of stuff to check out if you haven't already.

As always, those of you who found the time to leave a comment make my world go round. It was a stressful time, parting ways with my old job and starting work at my new gig, but you helped me along with your kind words and support. You are the greatest, and I am lucky to have you in my corner: junebird, intergalacticGlacier, Chaosdreamingsiren, Sdelacruz, Ms_Liz, DragonsTower, rosethornli, QueenBufo, Nollyn, Keeters, scallionite, Gerbilfriend, TokiMirage, SirisDerp, musiquemer, thatoneperson!

Chapter 90: She Puts on a Delightful Show

Summary:

In which asses are kicked.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As roar of the crowd swelled into a confused crescendo, my feet carried me forward toward Shizuru in a daze. Koto grabbed the mic off the ground in my periphery, but I paid her little mind. I only have eyes for Shizuru—Shizuru and her wild abandonment of canon that had knocked me for so hard a loop, it was a wonder I'd managed to stay standing. My knees shook as they carried me forward, but somehow I kept upright.

When I reached her (though I wasn't sure what, exactly, it was I planned to do or say upon arrival) Shizuru smirked. "Hey," she said. "Good thing my baby bro is sleeping, huh?"

"Shizuru," I said, because her name was all I could manage.

"He wouldn't like this much." She shrugged, stoic as ever. "Oh, well. Payback for him coming to this tournament in the first place, I guess."

"Shizuru!" I said, with more force that time.

And behind me, someone else joined in. "Shizuru, honestly!" Botan said as she trotted over to stand at my elbow, glaring at Shizuru with livid magenta eyes. "What are you thinking, making a request like that?"

Shizuru shrugged again. "I'm thinking it's about time we put the committee on the defensive, instead of the other way around."

"That's all well and good, but this tournament is dangerous, and you just—"

"I can fight, Botan."

Botan stopped talking. She stared unblinking at Shizuru without a word, and somehow the bellow of the crowd around us fell away. It might have been my imagination, but I swear I heard footsteps approach at my back just before Yusuke and the Masked Fighter drew near. Vaguely I noticed Hiei standing off to one side, too, watching Yukina as she patched up Kuwabara, and even more vaguely I wondered where Kurama had gotten off to, but I didn't have time to voice the query aloud.

"I know you can fight, Shizuru," Botan said, rubbing at her temples. "But this tournament is—"

"Is not out of my paygrade," Shizuru cut in. "Trust me. I can handle whatever they throw my way."

Yusuke asked, "You're sure?"

Shizuru nodded, reaching into her pocket for a cigarette. "Wouldn't have volunteered if I wasn't," she muttered as she lit up.

"Because we could use all the help we can get," said Yusuke with a roguish grin. "And from what Kuwabara's told me, you don't sound like a slouch—but I guess that's what happens when you train with a former Spirit Detective."

Botan dropped a fist into her opposite palm. "That's right!" she said, clouds behind her eyes clearing just a tad. "You trained with Sanada Kuroko! And I suppose that does make me feel a little better, but—"

She didn't get to finish. Just then, the PA system gave a musical chime, and the same cool voice from earlier said, "Request denied."

The effect was immediate—at least on everyone but me. I was already having an out of body experience, so the crowd's sadistic jeering sounded as distant as the moon from where I stood. Botan's exclamation of shock and Atsuko's curse of surprise were like far-off cicada chirps; it was only Yusuke's incensed yodel of "Say what?!" that sounded any degree of near.

Shizuru, like me, stayed silence. Her eyes only narrowed as they trained on one of the speakers suspended above the stadium, the cigarette hanging from her mouth trailing thin, wispy smoke.

"Team member selection took place prior to the start of the tournament, and that selection process included selecting a team alternate," said the woman over the PA. Her voice betrayed no emotion, instead leaning on a calm and impartial tone that somehow grated on my nerves. "Since no alternate was chosen for Team Urameshi during the official selection window, we will not allow you to retroactively select—"

"Great," Yusuke said, glaring at the sky. "They're trying to fuck us over again, aren't they?"

"—a backup fighter. To do so would be to give Team Urameshi an unfair advantage over their competitors, which would make a mockery of the rules of this tournament."

Yusuke did a double take. "Make a mockery of the—?" He shook his fist at the sky. "But you were just messing with the rules to screw us, you hippo-chips!"

"Hypocrites," I muttered.

He rolled his eyes, but he didn't take them off of wherever he imagine the committee to be sitting amongst the clouds. "Whatever they are, it smells as bad as last week's underwear!"

Shizuru made a sound of displeasure from between her teeth. Turning on her heel, she walked away from our knot of friends toward Koto, from whom she grabbed the microphone—but Koto didn't appear to notice the theft. Her eyes were screwed up tight, fingers resting on her temples, mouth moving as if she murmured something under her breath. She didn't react at all as Shizuru raised the mic to her mouth once more.

"On the contrary," Shizuru said, voice booming through the speakers overhead. "I think it would give your precious tournament committee the advantage over us."

Whatever I'd been expecting her to say, that ranked below the bottom of the list. The others appeared to feel the same way, because just about all of our heads whipped toward Shizuru in shock. She held firm, though, staring at the speakers without expression as the roar of the watching demons subsided into shocked quiet.

"You don't know my last name, do you?" she said, voice cold and dispassionate. "Don't worry. I won't make you guess. My full name is Kuwabara Shizuru—sister of the fighter on his back over there." She jerked a thumb at the aforementioned Kuwabara before shoving her hand into the pocket of her slacks; the demons in the stands began to murmur, the thrum of their voices like ten thousand thrumming bees on the sweet spring air. "Think about it," Shizuru said with a smoldering grin, one I didn't understand. "How frazzled do you think my little brother will be, knowing I'd be just one death away from entering the ring with all these big, bad demons, huh?"

Silence reigned, and to hear a crowd as large as the one around us fall silent is surreal indeed. It felt, just then, like we stood at the epicenter of the earth, the whole of existence pivoting around our single point in space and time—like the arena was the crux upon which the whole world turned, all its weight bearing down around us in the form of watching eyes and silent lips. It was dizzying, but Shizuru merely smirked, and in the process she showed every one of her straight, white teeth.

"I'd say appointing me the alternate would upset the entire balance of this team," she said, and her lips lifted into a subtle, mocking smile. "So how bout it? You gonna take this advantage by the balls, or are you gonna let it slip through your fingers like a bunch of cowards?"

More silence followed.

And then the demons began to scream.

The screamed that the committee should kill the human fighter's sister. They screamed for the committee to let her become the alternate so someone could kill Shizuru in the ring. They screamed hundreds of terrible things, each overlapping to form a thunder of malice and bloodthirst so chilling the hair on the back of my neck began to rise—but surely even the low-level demons here weren't so stupid. Surely they didn't think the Tournament Committee would rise to Shizuru's obvious bait. That's what she was doing, after all. She was baiting the Committee into doing what she wanted, but there was no way that they would—

The Committee's spokeswoman spoke again. "Regardless of our feelings on the matter," she said, perfunctory as always, "there is no precedent for allowing the appointment of an alternate midway through the tournament proceedings."

The mic lowered, dropping away from Shizuru's thin lips as her hand fell to her side. Yusuke cursed as Botan began to rant about how unfair this was, but I hardly heard her. The things the Committee rep was saying didn't make sense. In the original canon, Sakyo allowed Koenma to become the team's alternate and take Genkai's place after she died just before the final match, and they'd made no mention of registering him as their official alternate ahead of time. That meant it was possible to appoint an alternate late into the game… but Koenma's appointment had been at Sakyo's behest, now hadn't it? Which meant that so long as a high-ranking Dark Tournament official gave their approval, the late appointment of an alternate was possible. But who would give that approval to us now? Unless Sakyo or someone else high up like that signed off on Shizuru's appointment, her wishes were DOA.

The Committee rep's voice took on an air of command, soldiering on without delay. "In light of this," she said, "our final ruling on the matter will be—"

I flinched as a blur of motion rushed past, and then Koto was snatching the mic from Shizuru and bellowing into it, "Wait just one minute, now!"

To my shock, the rep fell quiet. The demons watching fell quiet, too, though a few of them screamed their appreciation for Koto in the lull. Her fanclub, if I had to guess. Koto paid them no mind, though, as she raised the mic to her mouth and pasted on a huge, bright smile.

"In the 1952 Dark Tournament, Team Onigumo had an alternate appointed midway through their third match," she said, one hand flinging out in time with her cheery speech. "The fighter in question was appointed after both the Committee and the adopting team in question witnessed this fighter spar with the remaining members of another team during a ringside brawl, one initiated when the members of one team insulted the tactics of another, resulting in—"

"Officiator Koto," the Committee rep boomed. "Get to the point, please."

"The point is that there is precedent for the retroactive appointment of an alternate after the official appointment period during the Tournament's opening ceremonies," she said—and then her expression sobered, determination setting her jaw quite firm. "To deny the request of Team Urameshi is acting in defiance of Tournament tradition, not in accordance with it. And as a lover of this tournament, I feel compelled to point that out." And then she was grinning again, hand flinging out once more as she declared, "Furthermore, Section F, Article 12 of the Tournament's official rulebook states that the eligibility of fighters, both alternate and principle, is established not through paperwork and regulations, but rather through the blood and sweat they accumulated during the bone breaking rigors of training!" She preened as the demonic crowd roared its approval of her words, waiting for the cacophony to die down before continuing. "It's worded in a rather archaic fashion, I'll give you that, but the meaning is clear." One finger swung toward Shizuru, as theatrical as it was swift. "The only thing Kuwabara Shizuru needs to do to qualify herself is prove that she can hold her own in martial combat! So whaddaya say, folks? If you wanna see this lovely lady bust some faces, let me hear you make some nooooise!"

And with that, she threw up her hands like a rock star egging on her audience. Koto worked the crowd like a true professional, every one of her movements and every word of her speech choreographed for heightened drama and maximum effect. It was no wonder the crowd roared anew at her command, soon picking up the chant of "Let her fight! Let her fight! Let her fight!" in unison. As the entire stadium echoed with their demand, Koto tossed the mic and caught it again, grinning with satisfaction before shooting our little group a sideling look.

"There you go," she said. "They'll deliberate a minute, but it's tough to deny the roar of ten thousand angry demons." A wink, charming and flirtatious. "They'll give their ruling soon, promise."

Yusuke could only stare at her. "Koto…"

"Don't sweat it." Another wink, this one just for Yusuke. "Thanks for sticking up for me earlier with Risho. You're not bad, for a human." And then she winked at me over his shoulder. "Now we just need to sit tight, and—"

"We have our ruling."

I froze—because the words that thundered from the PA did not belong to the smooth-voiced Committee rep from before. And they did not belong to Shizuru, either, or even Koto. These words were cool, the voice masculine—and familiar.

Very, very familiar.

"Koto presents a compelling case." The speaker chuckled, a smile evident in his voice even without seeing him. "And since this tournament exists to facilitate fights, who are we to deny the public what they're here for?"

"Keiko." Shizuru didn't look at me, eyes fixed on the speakers above. "Is that…?"

"Yeah." I gulped. "It is."

Unable to hear us, Sakyo kept speaking. "In ten minutes' time, Kuwabara Shizuru will face five fighters—members of beaten teams looking to redeem themselves in the eyes of the tournament."

Yusuke's jaw dropped, "Five?!"

Botan paled. "Five?!"

Atsuko pumped her fist into the air. "All right! Five!"

"Heh." Shizuru grinned to herself, chin lowering. "Easy."

"If she can beat them all, she will be allowed to fight alongside Team Urameshi as their alternate. Best of luck to her in the next round." Sakyo chuckled again as the demons roared their approval. "And, as always, concessions are available in the lobby. I recommend the popcorn." One final chuckle for the road before the PA switched off with another of its chimes. "Something tells me this round will be to interesting to go without."

As Botan and I fell into twin existential crises, each of us standing in horrified silence at the way Shizuru's actions had played out, Shizuru ran her hands through her hair, flipping out the ends with an understated flourish. No tension entered her shoulders, eyes as lazy and sardonic as they always were—and I wasn't sure if her casual reaction to being informed she'd need to beat five freakin' demons in combat was a good thing or a bad thing. Confidence and overconfidence walk a fine line, as it were.

"Five on one, huh?" Shizuru eventually said. "Even better."

Botan gaped. "How is this better?"

"Well, just getting appointed the alternate would be boring, wouldn't it?"

Botan's expression of horror intensified. "Shizuru, it was bad enough to ask to be named the alternate, but to have to fight for that right? Are you crazy?"

A beat passed as Shizuru thought about it.

And then she just shrugged. "Meh."

"Meh?" Botan repeated. She threw up her hands with a screech of, "What do you mean, 'meh?!'"

Normally I'd get a good laugh at Botan's freak-out (she had the most comical way of overblowing things, the most anime-like of all of the anime characters who'd come to life in this world) but just then, all I felt was ill. I stumbled away, legs buckling as I turned my back on Botan and Shizuru and marched away from them across the ring.

"I mean 'meh,'" Shizuru said, voice following after me like a ghost hell-bent on haunting my ass. "Bout time I got a chance to stretch my legs. And besides. Not too long ago, I saw a certain technique I'd like to try out."

"You don't mean one of the ones Sanada Kuroko taught you?" Botan tentatively asked.

"Nah." A wicked smirk colored Shizuru's voice. "Let's just say something from the last round got me inspired…"

I marched faster.

However, walking away didn't end up putting distance between me and my troubles, as I'd hoped it would. All it did was send me over toward Yusuke, who looked pointedly away when I drew near and our eyes couldn't help but meet. He crossed his arms and put his back to me, which sent a stab of pain through my gut. I wondered if I should try to talk to him, but the thought of initiating a confrontation here, in front of everyone, made my throat clench with sudden nausea.

I muttered a "hello" at him and kept marching.

But the fun wasn't over once I got past Yusuke. The Masked Fighter and a shirt-bereft Hiei stood at the periphery of our group of compatriots, and when I nearly bowled straight into Hiei in my haste to get away from Yusuke, he shot me a red-hot glare and stood his ground. I backpedaled like a cartoon character and gave the pair of them a friendly, if not awkward, wave. The Masked Fighter's headwrap hid Genkai's face and eyes from view, but Hiei's eyes stared boldly into mine like a set of smoldering coals keen on an uncomfortable staring contest.

"Meigo," he said.

I waved again, resisting the urge to ask him where his shirt had gone. "Sup."

"I'd ask why you're here, but we've danced that dance before." He stepped close, hands (including his burned right hand) shoved out of sight in the depths of his pockets. "Instead I'll ask you this: Why is she here?"

He meant Yukina, of course. He stared at her over my shoulder as she tended to the unconscious Kuwabara, his face set in a pinched expression of pronounced displeasure. At Hiei's look I couldn't help but wince. I stepped nearer to him, pitching my voice to a volume barely louder than a whisper. Despite the noisy crowd around us, I didn't doubt he'd be able to hear me when I said, "She's looking for her brother."

Hiei's face spasmed, settling into a mask of anger and bared teeth. "So you brought her right to—?!"

"Shh." I put a finger to my lips. "She's here alone, and the same Black Black Club who kidnapped her is running this tournament. Didn't feel right letting her wander around without an escort."

His ire cooled, if only a little bit. "No. I suppose not," he said—but even though he'd stopped showing me his teeth, ferocity still burned in the pits of his scarlet eyes. "But not a word, Meigo. Do you hear me? Not a single—"

"Word. I get it." I made a show of zipping and locking my lips as I walked backwards away from him, tucking an imaginary key into my bra as Hiei looked on in perplexed silence.

"Where are you going?" he called after me.

"I need a break, all right?"

I didn't wait for him to reply before taking my leave, heading for the edge of the ring so I could jump over the edge. The grass around the ring was about four and a half feet down, maybe, so when I sat with my back against the concrete edge of the arena, I was tucked very neatly out of sight of my friends. The demons in the stands could see me, so I wasn't totally alone, but I was alone enough to put my elbows on my knees and thread my hands into my hair, sighing and closing my eyes in a lame attempt to relax in privacy—and I really, really needed to relax, because the past few minutes had been a horrible rollercoaster ride of emotional whiplash, and I deserved a break. First Kuwabara had won, which was a huge victory, but he hadn't reacted to Yukina properly, and that was a big question mark. Yusuke was mad at me, and Hiei was resentful of me, and Shizuru was both angry at me and ruining canon with her madcap desire to help us win—something canon dictated she didn't need to help us with in the first place! And to make matters both worse and way more creepy, Sakyo was apparently intrigued enough by Shizuru to help influence a Tournament Committee ruling in her favor (provided she didn't get herself killed against the upcoming demons, oh god oh god oh god please don't get killed against the upcoming demons) and—

"Kei?"

I looked up.

A few dozen feet to my right, back against the wall separating the stands full of demons from the grassy ring around the fighting arena, sat Kurama. He hunched low, lying like a shadow in the shade cast by the wall itself, and he raised a hand in greeting after getting my attention. I probably wouldn't have spotted him had he not waved. His dark hair and low stance made him blend in with the dark wall at his back, but once I knew he was there, relief spread through me like a cool drink on a blistering day. He was basically the one safe person I knew at this tournament, so without a thought I rolled to my feet and jogged in his direction, smile breaking out across my face.

When I neared him, however, and the details of his condition swam into clear focus, I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Dude. DUDE." I pointed at him, jaw hanging low. "There's a plant in your arm!"

He looked down. Looked back up at me again. Said in a dry, unamused tone of voice: "So it would seem."

Somehow I'd forgotten what he'd do to beat Touya, which meant I hadn't at all prepared myself for the sight of a swath of green vines sprouting from his bare forearms. They peeked through gaps in his flesh, leaves bright green and spotted in red blood, their stems parting Kurama's skin like scalpels that had burst from inward out. I clapped a hand to my mouth as I stared, wide-eyed, at the plants curling around his wrists and forearms, unable to form coherent words as Kurama waited in longsuffering silence for me to find my wits again.

"Jesus." I mopped a hand over my face. "I mean, Jesus Christ."

He gathered up his arms, folding them closer to his chest. "I can cover the vines if you—"

"Holy shit I think they moved."

Kurama sighed and tugged on his tattered sleeves, using them to hide the exit wounds from view. When they disappeared, he nodded to his side, and I sat next to him with ginger hesitance—mostly because I was trying my damndest not to stare and getting closer to him made that super difficult. Kurama, normally so put together and clean, was an absolute mess. Shoes scuffed, hair tangled, face dirty, pants ripped, every last part of his ensemble had suffered today, a fact made even more apparent since he was wearing white and every stained showed up like neon. His shirt splayed open to the waist, revealing a chest streaked with rust-colored grime that looked suspiciously like dried blood… probably because it was dried blood, used to remove Gama's power-restricting paint from his skin. For a minute I tried to hunt for the demon markings Gama had afflicted Kurama with, tracing the curve of his pectoral muscle and the cuts of his toned abdomen with my eyes and—oh. Oh, shit, Kurama was actually pretty damn ripped, now that I was looking closely. Not like the gym-nut Jin or anything, but still. How had I not noticed his muscles before? I suppose he didn't lose his shirt with the same zest that Yusuke and Hiei seemed to lose theirs (those drama queens), but…

Kurama cleared his throat.

I cleared mine, too, and averted my eyes with a nonchalant hum.

"So tell me." Kurama nodded toward the ring. "Kuwabara. Is he still unconscious?"

I carefully didn't look at Kurama, eyes trained on the sky. "Last time I checked, yeah."

"Good. He's been through enough today. To watch his sister fight on his behalf…"

"Yeah. He'd throw a fit."

"Not that I blame him."

"Same." I curled my knees to my chest again, fingers carding deep into my hair at the thought of Kuwabara. "Oh, fuck."

Kurama, clever fox, read my mood quite deftly. "I take it things haven't gone exactly to plan today?" he asked, the barest of smiles lightening his voice.

"Not remotely," I grumbled. "But that's what I get for prioritizing girl power."

"For prioritizing…?"

I sighed. "Nothing."

Out in the middle of the ring, the rest of our friends gathered in a knot to talk. I could only see their heads and shoulders from my low vantage point (and I couldn't see Hiei, Yukina or the Masked Fighter at all since they were shorter than the others), but Yusuke looked to be giving Shizuru pointers or something—he was air-punching a lot, probably fighting off imaginary enemies. Shizuru herself seemed calm enough, smoking her cigarette and watching Yusuke with a lazy smile on her face… but when I looked close, something about the set of her shoulders belied her surface attitude. She looked like a spring coiled beneath the lid of a jack-in-the-box, almost. Like she was waiting for someone to open the lid so she could strike, all potential energy ready to pop off.

Just then, Yusuke's head turned in my direction.

From across the arena, our eyes met.

The shared look didn't last, though. He made a show of stretching his arms over his head and sweeping his eyes across the entire stadium. Trying to cover that he'd just shot me a glance, was my best bet. Too bad I saw right through him.

"How's Yusuke seem?" I asked.

Kurama shrugged, but carefully, mindful of the foliage coiled on his lap. "Like Yusuke, as is his wont. Why do you ask?"

"He won't look me in the eye." I carded my fingers through my bangs. "Not that that's unexpected, but…"

Kurama only smiled. "He'll come around."

I lifted a brow. "Did you…?"

"Speak with him after our chat? No." His eyes glittered when he smiled. "But I may have dropped a few subtle suggestions that he ought to be grateful for the support of his friends when his life hangs in the balance, as that only makes sense."

"You're a pal, Kurama."

He hummed, still smiling. "Yukina's with you, I couldn't help but notice."

"Yeah," I said, still staring moodily over toward Yusuke. "We found her outside."

"And yet you don't seem happy about running into a friendly face."

"Oh, no. Finding her was great. All according to plan." My expression soured along with my mood. "But everything that's come after, not so much."

"Care to elaborate?" Kurama said when I didn't continue speaking.

I thought about it for a minute—and then I sighed. "Remember that conversation we had on the train, when we came back from the mountains after the Yukina case?"

He nodded. "I do."

"That bit of plot I thought I'd made happen appears not to have happened." I tugged on my bangs, shoots of pain lancing through my scalp at the thought of Kuwabara's lackluster reaction to Yukina. "Like most things, it's my fault, and I have no idea how to fix it beyond egregious meddling."

"But I'm confused." His gorgeous eyes were as guileless as they were green. "Isn't egregious meddling the norm for you?"

I scowled, but it was more of an effort to fight back a smile than any true show of displeasure. "I'd sock you in the arm if you didn't have an entire greenhouse growing out of it," I threatened with a melodramatic shake of fist.

"Apologies," he said, although his smile wasn't apologetic at all and instead told me he was enjoying the ribbing immensely—and was probably just trying to cheer me up a little, knowing him. "I'm only joking."

"Yeah, well, I'm not," I said, eyeing his arm as if hunting for a spot to strike.

Kurama just chuckled, but then he winced. "Stop that."

"Hmm?"

He gestured at the plants. "It hurts when I laugh."

"Does it really?" I said with faux innocence. "This is a total change of topic, a complete non sequitur, but come to think of it… do I know any jokes?" I stroked my chin, leaning into humor to distract myself from my own mental anguish, while Kurama heaved a heavy sigh. "Oh, that's right. I do know some jokes! Hot diggity doo; how about a knock-knock joke?"

"Kei," he said, glowering.

"Nah, a knock-knock joke won't cut it. How about this: What do you call a fox with a carrot in each ear?"

Kurama's glower turned into a look of blank skepticism, and then he grudgingly told me, "I will admit to being morbidly curious, so… what do you call a fox with a carrot in each ear, I wonder?"

"Whatever the hell you want, cuz he can't hear you." I rolled onto my knees so I could clap my hands over his ears and hiss into his startled face, "You're a sarcastic piece of crap, fox-boy, and mark my words, I will have my revenge."

For a moment, Kurama just stared up at me in silence—but then he ducked his head, pulling out of my hands with a laugh he tried valiantly to turn into a cough. I settled back into my spot at his side with a grin as he alternated between laughing and wincing, the vines piled on his lap undulating in time with his mirth. Perfect. After this, he'd be too distracted to make me think more on the Kuwabara conundrum, and—oh, shit. There I went, thinking about it again. Oh, for the love of—

"You two having fun?"

We looked up in unison. Yusuke stood on the edge of the arena nearest us, toes poised over the drop down to the grass below. When he knew he had our attention, he dropped to the ground and walked over, hands jammed into his blue pants as he stared us down.

Was he actually glaring, or was I just projecting how I felt onto him? I had to wonder, because Kurama's smile didn't falter even a little under Yusuke's weighty gaze.

"We're having a pleasant enough conversation, I suppose," was all he said. One green eye regarded me askance. "Isn't that right, Kei?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure." I tried to grin, though the action felt a little wobbly. "Hi, Yusuke."

Yusuke didn't greet me back. He walked without a word and sat on Kurama's other side, blocked from view by the bulk of Kurama's tangled hair. I tried to lean forward and catch his eye, but he stared carefully ahead, not looking in my direction.

Kurama said, "What do you need, Yusuke?"

Yusuke nodded forward, toward the ring, where Shizuru stood talking to Botan and Atsuko (who had taken over mock-punching the air; like mother, like son). "You think we're doing the right thing?" he asked, and he didn't need to specify further than that for Kurama and me to catch his drift.

"It's not up to us." Kurama's mouth quirked. "And something tells me that Shizuru would not cleave to the idea of us ordering her down once she sets her mind to something."

"That's what I thought you'd say." Yusuke slumped, resting one ankle on his other knee with a scowl. "Never gonna hear the end of it once Kuwabara wakes up."

"I don't think you'll have to worry," I piped in, though I regretted it when Yusuke's baleful eyes slid in my direction. Timidly I added, "He's even more scared of Shizuru than we are."

Yusuke slumped further. "I mean. I guess?"

He didn't elaborate. The resulting silence was, in short, super-duper awkward as fuck. Kurama looks pointedly up at the sky, a pleasant smile plastered on his face. Yusuke stared at the ground, lips pressed so hard together it almost looked like he was pouting. I tried not to stare at him as the silence lengthened and got heavy as a coat made of lead, but soon the hefty silence started weighing on my nerves. I hate awkward silences—mostly because I can't seem to keep quiet when I find myself trapped inside one.

"So. Uh. How are things?" I blurted after an agonizing minute or two.

Yusuke's eyes flickered toward me. "They're fine." They flickered away again. "You?"

"… fine."

A beat or two passed.

Between us, Kurama began to hum a little tune.

Yusuke scratched the back of his neck. "So. Uh. Keiko?"

My head whipped toward him like Indiana Jones' weapon of choice. "Yeah, Yusuke?"

"Uh." He scratched his neck some more, not looking at me. "I gotta ask."

My heart leapt into my mouth. "Yeah?"

"During one of my fights." He dug his finger in his ear, face screwing up out of what was most definitely the thin awkwardness stretching like overtaxed rubber between us. Yusuke said, "Um?"

I tried on an encouraging smile. "Go on."

Yusuke took a deep breath, sucked his teeth, then took another deep breath. "Did you," he said, picking his words with more care than I'd ever seen him devote to the act of speech. "Did you meet somebody who—?"

He didn't get to finish, because just then, a booming noise echoed across the arena. Yusuke was on his feet in seconds, feet spread beneath him in a fighting stance, and I joined him in my own a moment later. It was just the PA chime that sounded next, though, and soon Koto's voice came blasting through the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, slow and measured words laden with gravitas. "On my left I present to you some faces I know you're just dying to see more of." Her voice ramped up a little, faster and faster as she built to a crescendo. "You know them, you love then, so give 'em a hand as they come back for more of the delicious bloodshed that made them famous! Introducing, again, the demons known as—"

The match was starting, it seemed. Yusuke and I had the same idea: We both launched forward toward the ring, running headlong for Shizuru and the others, but then Kurama cleared his throat behind us. We skidded to a stop, sharing a Look and rolling our eyes at Kurama's teacher-like admonishment—but then Yusuke remembered he was mad at me and looked away in a huff. Without a word we doubled back and helped Kurama up, carrying him in tandem to the edge of the ring as Koto introduced Shizuru's foes on the other side of the arena.

Botan and Shizuru, in a coincidental mirror of Yusuke and me, had carried Kuwabara in tandem to the edge of the ring (though they carried him by his arms and legs, whereas we carried Kurama in a slightly more dignified fashion under his arms). We released Kurama and let him lean against the edge of the ring so they could hand Kuwabara down to us, and once we got his snoring self settled on the grass, we helped Yukina over the ring's edge, too. Botan, Atsuko, Hiei and the Masked Fighter all followed, leaving Shizuru alone atop the concrete. She gave us a nod before turning her back on us as Koto finished introducing the fighters. I didn't recognize any of their names; they must have been bit characters from teams Yusuke never fought in the anime, but I still stared at Shizuru with worried eyes as she stripped out of her coat, handed the garment down to Botan, and cracked her knuckles. She cracked her neck, too, stretching out her arms and legs before starting forward toward Koto in the center of the arena.

I lunged over the side of the arena before she got too far away, hooking a finger into the ankle of her slacks. "Wait."

Shizuru stopped, scowling with one brow raised high. She didn't particularly look like a fighter in her button-up shirt, vest and tie, but the expression on her face spoke volumes—volumes that namely promised that if I didn't let go of her leg, she'd probably break my fingers. Shizuru's Resting B-word Face speaks volumes.

"Be careful, OK?" I said, easing my hand out of her hem. "Just get a ring-out if they're too much."

Both of her brows shot up. "Kid, I know you're as psychic as a bag of wet hair, but..."

"But what?" I asked.

She opened her mouth, and then she closed it again. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Nothing," she said, and she pivoted away from me. "Seeing is believing."

I frowned as I watched her go. Yusuke stood near me, leaning over the edge of the arena as I was, but he looked away when I tried to catch his eye. Hiei stood near my elbow, though, so I turned my eyes his way.

"What's she mean?" I asked.

Hiei scoffed. "How should I know?"

I sought out Kurama. He leaned against the wall beside me, uncertain on his feet but holding steady thanks to the wall's support. He smiled when our eyes met, but they glittered in that way they did when he was being tricky, and I suspected he wouldn't give me any answers, either.

"I think she wants you to simply observe," he said when I stared at him (and, yup, no answers from this guy after all). "I won't risk angering her by ruining the surprise."

I scowled. "Don't make me bust out the knock-knock jokes."

Kurama chuckled and winced. Atsuko, behind me, put a hand on my shoulder and leaned forward.

"Ooo, we telling jokes?" she said. "I've got a great one about the girl from Nantucket."

"That's a limerick, not a joke, and also inappropriate for teenagers, Atsuko."

"You and I were very different teenagers."

Botan shoved between us, tucking herself against the wall between Yusuke and me. "Enough with the banter, you two," she said, peering anxiously into the ring. "Shizuru needs our support."

I'm sure we looked quite silly, the heads of Botan, Atsuko, Kurama, Yusuke and me peeking over the edge of the arena like birds sitting on a telephone line. Hiei and the Masked Fighter stood back a ways since they were too short to see over the edge of the ring up close; Yukina stood near them, watching Shizuru walk toward the middle of the ring with her hand pressed to her rosy lips. The five demons Koto had introduced were way over on the other side of the fighting platform, making their way toward Koto in the middle just as Shizuru was.

They were tough customers, these demons, though not any more so than the demons Yusuke had faced so far. They were all humanoid, for one thing. The first was small and scrappy with green skin and a pink mohawk. The second was tall and thin, and he would've looked passably human if not for the furry tail and ears on his ass and head, respectively. The third was short but muscular under metal plate armor, skin as blue as the sky overhead, and the fourth had the beak of a bird in place of a nose or mouth but was of average height and build. The fifth was the biggest of them all, both tall and broad and covered in muscles, and his bright red skin was rivaled only by the horns jutting from his skull in terms of sheer eye-catching quality. All of them carried weapons (swords, daggers, a claymore, gloves with clawed fingers), and they each wore armor scratched and dented but in good repair. Like they'd seen and lived through a lot of fights, or something like that, their eyes hardened and battle ready as they came to a stop near Koto.

When they reached her, and began eyeing Shizuru over with undisguised disdain, Koto began speaking to them. Words were exchanged between Koto, the demons and Shizuru, and as Shizuru gave a small nod, the demons' faces all adopted a look of abject surprise. Koto raised the mic to her mouth, her face arranged in an expression of disbelief, too.

Shizuru, though? She just flicked out the butt of her stubby cigarette and lit up a fresh one, casual as you please.

"The terms of battle have been decided," Koto said. She thrust a hand skyward, "Somehow, and in flagrant defiance of self-preservation, Shizuru has agreed to fight a battle royale!"

A beat passed.

Then my entire group of friends bellowed: "She's WHAT?!"

"Not that we're complaining, right everybody?" Koto continued, ignoring us (though she did shoot an amused glance in our direction). "Maximum bloodshed is what we crave, and this match is sure to deliver! It's five on one until one team or the other is beaten, dead, or tossed out of the ring." She lowered the mic, and from across the arena I saw her turn to Shizuru and ask, "You sure about this?"

Shizuru didn't say anything. She just blew out a plume of smoke, which hovered around her on the air like the choking miasma of an opium den. The smoke didn't immediately dissipate, and Shizuru didn't wave it away, either, which was weird—but I got the sense she was putting on a show for her demonic opponents, who were eyeing her uncertainly after her confident request for a battle royale. Shizuru was intimidating even at her most casual, but now her stance spoke of confidence unmeasured.

Not that the big demon, the red one wielding the claymore, was phased.

He hefted his sword over his shoulder, grinned, and spat on the ground at Shizuru's feet.

Koto eyed the drop of spit with a grimace. "You're really sure about this?" she asked again.

Shizuru's hands disappeared into her pockets.

She blew out another plume of smoke.

She nodded.

Koto nodded, too. "Very well. Then let the match—"

She raised her hand into the air.

"—BEGIN!"

And her hand came down, like a guillotine, through the air.

The demons Shizuru faced were at least somewhat honorable, I was elated to note (but subconsciously, because my heart was pounding far too hard for me to actually formulate a cogent thought just then). They backed off and scattered instead of leaping into a dogpile, spreading out into a circle around Shizuru as Koto retreated, scampering out of the way even as she kept an eye on the fight and described the actions of the demons into her microphone. It was a wonder the demons didn't gang up on Shizuru, but maybe her intimidation tactic (or her ballsy request for a battle royale) had actually worked? It was possible, because they just stood in that circle for a minute, watching as Shizuru huffed and puffed on her cigarette, smoke tendrils drifting in lazy circles around her body like a carcinogenic aura.

Eventually, though, they had enough of reconnaissance. One or two of them started yelling stuff at her, though I couldn't make out what they were saying. Something about telling her to come at them, maybe, and when she didn't summon a weapon or go on the offensive, the demons traded a series of perplexed looks with one another. What was this human doing? The question showed plain as day on their mismatches faces, and one by one they drew their various weapons and settled into fighting stances.

Then the big red demon raised his hand.

The rest of the demons tensed—and when the red guy's hand came slashing down, the five of them leapt toward Shizuru with matching bellows of aggression.

At my side, Botan yelped and snatched up my hand, holding it tight for support as we watched the demons descend—and when Shizuru didn't move, didn't prepare to dodge, staying frozen in place as the demons bore down upon her, Botan let out a screech of, "Dammit, Shizuru, move!"

Shizuru moved.

Her head turned, and she looked over her shoulder at us and smiled.

Just as the demons neared her, weapons in range of a hit, the smoke haloing her body undulated. For a second I thought it moved with the force of the demons' approach, but it didn't move away from them. Instead it rippled and shifted, coiling into tight ropes before lashing outward like a flurry of diaphanous whips. Four of the demons managed to reverse in time, dodging backward and out of range of the smoke, but the muscular blue demon with the metal armor couldn't quite make it out in time. A tendril of smoke lashed right around his neck, dragging him backward like he'd been straight-armed by a pro wrestler, and then other whips of smoke redirected and joined their brother around his throat. He clawed at the smoke, back arching and body bucking, but his fingers passed through the haze and his weapon arced harmlessly through the vapor with only the barest of distortions to mark its path. He struggled and writhed for a few moments, but soon his thrashing weakened, and before long he went limp upon the arena floor.

Botan dropped my hand, staring wide-eyed as Shizuru tossed aside her spent cigarette and began to light another.

For a minute, none of us spoke.

Then: "What was that?" Yusuke said.

"The fuck was that?" Atsuko concurred.

"You bitch!" one of the demons screamed.

"I can hardly believe my eyes, people!" Koto yelled into her mic. "Shizuru has unveiled an absolutely insidious technique out of nowhere! She's injected her cigarette smoke with spirit energy and used it as an extension of her own body—amazing and bloodthirsty and cutthroat, I love it!" She paused. "But it's awfully familiar…"

"It is familiar," Kurama murmured, cupping his chin as his eyes took on a far-off look of contemplation. "But where…?"

The crowd of demons, shocked by what they'd seen, were awfully quiet just then—quiet enough for me to hear Shizuru's words when she began to speak, Koto's mic picking up the majority of what she said and projecting it from the speakers overhead. "He's not dead, if that's what you're wondering. Just choked out, is all. Smoke only holds together for so long." Shizuru took a drag and exhaled, air around her body filling with snakes of acrid ether. Smile lazy, fingers loose around her cigarette, she said, "But if you get near me, you'll have to tangle with it—and trust me." She pointed her cig at the nearest demon with a grin. "Only experienced smokers need apply."

My eyes widened. "Bakken."

"Hmm?" said Botan.

Kurama's eyes widened, too. "You're right, Kei. It is Bakken's mist technique, repurposed."

Atsuko looked at us with mouth agape. "Wha…?"

"But she only saw that technique used once, and from a distance!" Botan said.

From behind me, Hiei let out a harsh laugh. "Underestimate this human at your own peril, it seems."

Yusuke spun in place to stare at Kuwabara, still snoring on the grass. "So that's where Kuwabara gets it," he said, turning back toward Shizuru with light shining in his eyes. "It runs in the family."

"Shizuru!" Botan watched her in awe, fists clenching atop the arena's concrete surface. "I can't believe—"

"Shizuru, you badass!" Atsuko screamed, throwing herself halfway over the edge of the arena.

"You beautiful, badass babe!" I screamed, throwing myself up there, too. "Get 'em, Shizuru, fuckin' wreck 'em!"

"Break their kneecaps!" Atsuko added.

"Yes, Shizuru! I agree!" Botan threw herself halfway into the ring as well, slamming her fists on the ground. "Shizuru, smash!"

And from across the arena, Shizuru shot us a grin and said, "Lucky for you, girls, your wish is my command." She turned back to the knot of four demons staring at her from a few dozen feet away. "But this little smoke experiment won't earn me the win, I think. It's time to get serious."

She extended her hands. Her opponents, still shocked that the little human woman across from them had choked out one of their allies, watched in silence as the tips of her fingers began to glow with a faint yellow-orange energy. The light was vague and translucent, the same way all spirit weapons appeared to my unsighted eyes, but even my mundane vision could track the light as it gathered and spread over her knuckles, wrapping around them in jutting spikes before extending off the underside of her fist like she held a knife ready for a downward slash. When the energy stopped moving, the ghostly outline of a weapon filling her hand, it looked to me like she'd donned spiked brass knuckles while holding a dagger—a deadly combination if I had ever seen one.

Yusuke was slightly more informed than I was about Shizuru's weaponry. "Is that a trench knife?" he yelped, hauling himself halfway into the ring on his elbows alongside Botan, Atsuko and me.

"Is that what it's called?" I asked.

"Yeah; I saw it in a manga once." Like Botan, Yusuke stared at Shizuru with his mouth open, excitement and appreciation radiating from every pore. "Holy shit, though." He paused, lost for words. "She's…"

A grin split my features wide open. "She's cool."

Cool as a cucumber and wielding her glowing trench knives, Shizuru dropped into a fighting stance, hunkering in place as she raised her weapons to the ready. Like someone in a kung-fu movie, she lifted one hand toward the knot of watching demons and curled her fingers, beckoning them over with the smallest of smirks on her face. The effect was immediate; the demons broke into a run, finally attempting to dogpile on her as I'd first expected them to.

But Shizuru wasn't so easily overwhelmed. Her weight shifted, and when she darted forward, she moved so quickly I lost sight of her, and then she was on top of the demon with the bird-beak-nose and taking his feet out from under him with a sweep of her long leg. He let out a yell as he fell, but before he could hit the ground, Shizuru spun in place like a dancer turning a fouette and kicked him with bone crushing force in the middle of his face.

Bird-boy flew through the air on impact—and he flew straight toward us.

We scattered with a collection of screeches and curses, Yusuke managing to grab Kurama and move him to safety as the demon flew through the air right where we'd been standing. Like a tossed stone he crashed outside of the ring and landed in a heap on the grass. For a second we just stood there, staring at him, but then Atsuko scampered over and knelt at his unmoving side so she could look into his face.

She lifted her hand in a firm and gleeful thumbs down position.

Our group erupted into cheers.

"And Shizuru makes quick work of her second opponent—but what's this?" Koto cried. "The others have her in a pincer maneuver!"

We swiveled in time to see the remaining three demons charging at Shizuru, two from the front as the red demon with the ram horns circled around from behind. She still had her cigarette in her mouth, and when the ones in the front came close, she blew out a breath of white smoke. The smoke tangled around the twin daggers of the scrappy demon with the green skin, holding him at bay, but the tall demon with the animal ears dodged the vapor and came at her with a curved sword. This she blocked with her energy blades, holding them in an X to stay the downward blow aimed at her by her opponent. Her legs bent under the force of his strike, but I was much less worried about him than I was by the demon approaching her from behind. The red demon with the claymore moved with surprising speed for a creature his size, and he aimed an arcing swipe of his sword at her unprotected back as she dealt with the other two demons before her.

But Shizuru wouldn't be caught off guard like that, no matter how much I feared she might be cleft in two when she didn't immediately dodge, instead waiting until the last possible second before moving. With the grace of an acrobat she spun out of the way, letting the animal-eared demon fall forward from the force of his own attack—and straight into the path of the claymore.

Let's just say his demise was… messy.

Though that didn't faze the red demon, who looked at his fallen ally with nothing but raw contempt upon his face as he shook the blood from his sword.

Even though it was a demon who'd got got, the demonic crowd started screaming their approval of the bloodsport. Koto did, too. "In a quick-thinking reversal, Shizuru has cut her number of opponents in half—literally! I love it!" Koto screamed into her microphone. "So much blood, everybody, and even if you're not rooting for the human, even you have to admit she puts on a delightful show!"

And Shizuru aimed to please, because as soon as the red demon pulled his claymore from his fallen comrade, she went on the offensive, streaking toward him with trench knives at the ready. He met her head on, her blades and his gigantic sword flying in a glittering conflagration of attacks, metal glancing off of spirit energy with sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. For a minute it seemed like Shizuru had the upper hand, short blades much more easily wielded in close combat than the bulky claymore, but the red demon grinned and pressed back at her, manipulating his enormous sword with enough dexterity to clip the glowing cherry off the end of Shizuru's cigarette. She spat out the butt with a streamer of smoke and pushed back at him, eyes narrowing as she was finally put to the test and they exchanged a flurry of blows even more deadly and dexterous than the last. But soon the red demon danced backward, making her come at him if she wanted to reach him, his sword arcing between her slashing arms in an attempt to gore her, taking advantage of her weapons' shorter reaches to goad her into getting into close range—

The red demon waited for her to get close, then sidestepped her attack and came around behind her as her hand arced wide on the follow-through of her blow, body left wide open to attack—

Shizuru's weapon glowed. The blade of it shot outward, quadrupling in length out of nowhere, and on the backswing of her slash, she cut the red demon's head off—and it fell to the ground with surprise written on its face, body crumpling beside the severed head with a meaty and sickening thud.

"AND WE HAVE A DECAPITATION!" Koto shrieked as the crowd went nuts. "She lulled him into a false sense of security, making him think her blades had a static length, but then she extended them out of nowhere and went in for the kill!" Her joy chilled a bit when she said, "And that just leaves…"

Far on the other side of the ring stood the last demon, the final of the five who had failed in their mission to kill Shizuru: the scrappy demon with the green skin and pink mohawk. Shizuru turned toward him and stood her ground, lengthened blades glowing—one of them dripping blood—at her side.

The scrappy demon turned and ran.

As demons began to jeer, Shizuru heaved a sigh. She banished one of her blades, reached into her pocket for a cigarette and lighter, and tried to light her cig. The lighter sparked a few times without igniting. She sighed again, muttered a curse, and began to slowly walk after the fleeing demon while still attempting to light her cigarette.

The demon looked over his shoulder, saw her coming after him, and shrieked before running faster.

That's when Shizuru finally got her lighter to catch. She stopped walking and held the end of her cig in the flame, puffing until it lit and she could take a big drag. Ribbons of thick smoke poured from her mouth when she exhaled, streaking across the arena to tangle with the legs of the fleeing fighter. He tripped and fell, gibbering and clawing at the smoke as it dragged him backward by the ankles across the ring—straight to Shizuru's feet.

He wasn't a dumb demon, at least, because he knew damn well he couldn't stand up to her alone. No. He flopped onto his stomach and covered his face with his hands, yelling about mercy as Shizuru stared down at him without expression.

Then she turned and walked away.

The demon froze—but just as he peered up to see if she was really letting him go, Shizuru kicked the red demon's severed head in his direction. It skipped on the pavement like a stone on water, leaving splotches of green blood in its wake, before skidding to a stop just before the scrappy demon's face.

He screamed, and honestly? I don't blame him one bit.

But Shizuru wasn't quite finished. Stride measured and even and not at all hurried, she walked over to the green-skinned demon (who had recommenced begging for his life on hands and knees) and squatted in front of him. Her hands dangled between her knees as she watched the demon beg, taking drag after drag on her cigarette in silence.

Then: "Hey. You wanna forfeit, or should I give you a haircut to match your friend here?" She put out her cigarette on the red demon's dead, slack face. "I'm a beautician, but even I take a little too much off the top sometimes."

Mr. Scrappy didn't miss a beat. "I FORFEIT," he yelled over at Koto, both hands raised in surrender. "YOU HEAR ME, KOTO? I FORFEIT!"

Shizuru smirked. "Smart move."

And Koto leapt into action. "And you heard it here, folks!" she said, dashing to Shizuru's side. She grabbed her hand and lifted it high with a triumphant scream of, "SHIZURU IS THE WINNER, AND NOT ONLY THAT—SHE IS NOW THE OFFICIAL ALTERNATE OF TEAM URAMESHI!"

The peal of sound that followed that declaration was absolutely deafening. Demons jeered and cheered and booed in turns, and against all odds, some actually sounded happy as they screamed, won over by the blood and guts in this unexpected fight—but I ignored them all as I, not to mention the rest of my friends, surged upward and into the ring, sprinting for Shizuru so we could mob her with screaming and cheering so loud, we damn near almost drowned out the rest of the crowd. Her back was probably patted black and blue, we pounded it so hard, and as we celebrated Shizuru's victory in a little jumping knot of happiness, I swear I heard Kuwabara mutter a very sleepy "Wuz happenin'?" from his spot outside the ring. But like the demons in the crowd, we ignored him in favor of celebration.

"Holy shit!" Yusuke crowed as he beamed at the red demon's severed head. "Alternate? No way! We need you on the team itself, Shizuru!"

"How unexpected." Even Hiei had joined us, standing at the edge of the group with a smirk. "Looks like I'd gladly trade the oaf for his sister, after all."

"A truly impressive performance, Shizuru," Kurama called from the ring's edge (we'd forgotten to bring him along in the excitement, but judging by the smile on his face, I don't think he minded much).

"I'll say," Yusuke agreed, and he extended a hand toward Shizuru. "Welcome to the team, big-sis-Kuwabara."

Shizuru took his hand and shook. "Thanks for havin' me," she said as she put another cigarette in her mouth—and when she clicked her lighter a few times with no results, she gave a rueful smile. "Don't suppose any of you have a light, huh?"

Atsuko did. She lit Shizuru's chosen vice, and as the demons began to file out of the stadium around us, Yusuke clapped Shizuru on the back again. He laughed, long and hard and full of relish, and so did Botan. So did Atsuko, and Kurama, and even Hiei had a chuckle as we stood together and watched Yusuke enthusiastically rehash all of Shizuru's moves for the sheer joy of it.

It was wonderful, being there with them like that, high off of victory and adrenaline.

It was wonderful, and for one, glorious, golden moment, everything was good.

Notes:

This chapter is 1000% an unapologetic wish-fulfillment fantasy on my part: To see one of the YYH girls kick ass at the Dark Tournament, and to see Shizuru fulfill some of her great potential as a fighter. I REGRET NOTHING; I HAVE WANTED THIS FOR YEARS.

New job is a ton of fun, but it's a way higher difficulty level than the old gig. Not as many lunch breaks where I can write, TBH. Sundays are a bit more doable than Saturdays since it gives me more time to work, but just know that when I saw I'll update again two weeks from now, it'll be the weekend of February 9/10. Can't promise the exact day, but…

Let's see, any housekeeping I need to do? Hmm… well, "Scooby-Doo Where are Yu-Yu?" is progressing very nicely, so that's fun. Should be finished in a half dozen chapters or so. And the next "Daughters of Destiny" chapter is almost done, so stay tuned!

These magical peeps made my day with their kind words. Couldn't do this without you: rosesandlion, FaiaSakura, Ms Liz, Not Quite a Morning Person, jlol, rosethornli, Sanguinary Tide, Actively Apathetic, anon, red coconut curry, Nerdy Qwerty, Gerbil Friend, Jest Wine, musiquemer, Momma, fightme, Star Fire 91 and Numinous Scribe!