Chapter 10

After

In some ways, the night on Hanging Neck Island felt like an evening back at the crossroads inn in the days when Nozumi and Sueko had both been young. For one thing, they were fighting about Hiei, and for another, they were each pretending the other didn't exist. Sueko had perfected the art of the cold shoulder a hundred times over, and whatever Nozumi had mastered, she'd learned directly from her little sister. She put it all to use as she built herself a fire and laid out her blanket far from the others.

It was almost funny to watch Sueko do the same on the opposite side of the clearing.

Almost. If only it didn't hurt her heart so.

The long abandoned hotel that had once housed the Dark Tournament's onlookers towered overhead, a gargantuan, lonely ghost. Its many windows—or at least, those that had not shattered when the stadium explosion rocked the island—were fogged and dusty. Its front sign had collapsed and hung across the broken front doors, illegible.

Nozumi lay on her back, her haversack beneath her head, studying the pocked face of the Human World moon. This plane was strangely quiet. The hum and chirp of its insects hid no looming threat, and its plants seemed… tame, nearly lifeless. There was no sign that a vine might curl about an ankle without warning, or that a hidden maw lurked amongst the greenery.

It was a peaceful place. Gentle. Even this island that had once hosted such senseless violence.

She couldn't fathom demons making a life in this world. Had Hiei lived here? For how long? And if he had, had it changed him? Softened him? The aching chasm in her chest wished to know, desperate to fill in the gaps in knowledge she'd so willfully insisted on forming regarding anything to do with the ex-Spirit Detective's adventures. If she'd not run so forcefully from any whisper of Urameshi and his team, perhaps she'd know what Yukina meant to Hiei. Perhaps she'd know what they all meant to him.

Her talons dug into the blanket beneath her, catching at the threads as she tried to wrest her thoughts away from Hiei. Tomorrow, she had to find Yukina. She had to put all this behind her. She had—

"You okay?"

She sat up and discovered Kuwabara milling about on the far side of her fire. "Mhmm."

He smudged a thumb along his jawline, not quite meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry about earlier. Kurama can be… Well, he's a fox. He gets wily when he's bored. And when he's frustrated. And… a lot of other times, too. You get used to it."

Maybe.

But she didn't plan to stick around long enough to find out.

Pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, she countered his apology with her own. "I'm sorry Yukina wasn't here."

"Nah. It's fine. We knew it was a longshot." He scuffed a foot over the gravel, then stuck out a glinting wrapper, offering it to her. "It's not much, but you didn't eat. Want this?"

Unable to turn this gentle giant away, she accepted. The wrapper crinkled as she tore into it, discovering a chocolate covered bar within.

"Protein bar," he offered as explanation, though that meant little to her. Then, after one cautious glance toward his friends, he sat down. "Gotta admit, I'm not sure I followed how you know Hiei. Not that I realized you did until Kurama pointed it out. I thought Hiei ran with a bunch of bandits when he was a kid. Were you one of them?"

An innocuous question without context.

But all she could think of was Hideo, and his abandoned grave behind the inn.

"No. Never." She bit into the bar, wrinkled her nose at its chalky taste, and set it down at her side. Unclasping the bandage on her right wrist, she begin to unwind it. "My family ran an inn near where his clan camped. He visited. Often."

"Oh." He rubbed his neck. "I never knew."

No surprise there. Of course Hiei hadn't spoken of her. People tended not to acknowledge the ghosts they'd abandoned in their past.

"I take it that it didn't end well?"

She started on her other wrist, freeing her dried, cracking scales. "Can we not? Please." She couldn't share their history, not with Kuwabara, not without crushing whatever hope he still possessed that they might find Yukina. When Hiei had disappeared for the final time, she'd searched for him, too. It had taken thirty years—and Hokushin's summons—to find him, and by then, she'd long since stopped looking. "Thank you for the food. Good night."

He took her cue without protest, mumbling goodbye and retreating to his friends.

Alone once more, she folded up her bandages and tucked them into her bag, including the one she'd wrapped around her midriff. Tomorrow's sachet of tea was already prepped, an opal a consistent weight in her pocket, and with nothing to do, she tried to sleep.

She failed.

Eventually, the chatter at the men's fire ceased. Not long after, Kuwabara and Urameshi's snores resumed their nightly duet. All the while, Nozumi lay on her blanket, listening as her fire burned itself down to ashes, the coals sputtering and cracking on occasion. She tried to count the stars, to find a single constellation that looked like home, but nothing here was the same. Never, in all her years, had she felt so lonely.

Like a shadow in the night, she rose, tucked the rest of the protein bar in her pocket, and slipped away, off into the forest. She had no destination in mind, but it wasn't long before she found herself retracing her steps to the stadium she'd investigated with Sueko, Kuwabara, and Kurama. The island was unfamiliar to her, only two locales on her known map, and of the stadiums, the one that hadn't been blown to smithereens seemed the better destination.

It was a fifteen minute walk through the moonlit trees. Crickets hummed. An owl hooted. But for the most part, the world was deserted, the island home to nothing more than ghosts.

A stretch of open land divided the stadium from the surrounding forest. Once, it might have been hard-packed dirt, but weeds covered it now, rustling in the faint breeze. She made for one of the dark tunnels that led inside, and as she slipped within it, she trailed a hand along the wall, grounding herself as the shadows consumed her.

On the far side, she emerged straight into the arena itself. Years ago, guards likely monitored that hallway, allowing only competitors beyond, but there was no one to hinder her now.

She paused in the overgrown ring surrounding the raised stage. A different demon—a fighter—might've leapt into the arena, eager to pretend themselves one of the powerful contenders who had waged battle here, but she was not that demon. Instead, she trekked to the wall that cordoned off the stands, grabbed the upper lip, and hoisted herself atop it. Dropping down on the far side, she surveyed the staggered rows, trying to identify the right seats—the ones she'd glimpsed Yukina perched in when she'd slipped within Kuwabara's memories.

"Where's your guardian?"

Nozumi locked up. Slowly, she turned to her left and discovered Hiei ten steps above her, hands deep in the folds of his black cloak, hair rippling in the wind. The moonlight smoothed the sharpest planes and angles of his features, and for a moment, he looked as though he were a memory come back to life.

She wet her lips and managed to find her tongue. "We aren't speaking, currently. Not that I need her. This island isn't exactly brimming with danger."

"She wouldn't do much good," he said, an undercurrent of bemusement running in his tone. Dryly, he added, "Her illusions are headache inducing, but not a weapon."

Nozumi laughed without a trace of humor. "Good news, then. I suspect the charade is over. She revealed the sham to both Kuwabara and Kurama today, so little point remains in keeping it up." Wrapping her arms around her tender middle, she added, "Now, since we've established I'm perfectly fine on my own, feel free to leave me be."

He didn't acknowledge her, and she didn't wait around for him to formulate his next barb. A third of the way around the stadium, she thought she'd spotted the correct silhouette of destruction in the stands. If she was right, if it was the seat Yukina had watched from, maybe she could glean some kind of connection to the girl, find some way to make her attempts at tracking more effective. Determined, she set off.

Hiei followed.

The silence of the stadium was eerie. In Kuwabara's distorted memories, she'd heard the crowd roaring, cheering for Team Urameshi's death. It shouldn't have surprised her. They were the upstarts. The team with the disgusting humans. Of course the demon audience had rooted for their demise. But knowing who they were now, the infamy and power associated with their names… it was hard to imagine—and it was harder still to picture this ghost town alive with that riotous calamity.

When she reached the spot she'd identified, she surveyed the arena below, trying to reconcile the angle with Kuwabara's memory. It seemed accurate enough, and she sat, hands upon her thighs, just as Yukina had a decade ago, then tried to extend her senses, tried to tap into whatever phantom of the ice apparition remained here.

"What are you doing?"

She cracked an open eye. "I could ask the same of you."

He didn't even hesitate. "I'm ensuring you don't run off with Urameshi's payment."

"Then you should be at camp, guarding my bag. Not here."

Hiei narrowed his eyes, the strip of cloth across his forehead growing taut. The Jagan. She hadn't seen it yet, but she felt its presence constantly. The weight of it, of what it had done to them, loomed over her. Inescapable.

"If you must know," she said, "I was hoping to attune myself to Yukina. I thought maybe I could find traces of her here. This place is so important to Kuwabara, such a part of everything he feels for her. I thought it might be the same for her. Like a conduit I could tap into."

"And is it?"

"You've not given me time to find out."

His nose furrowed, his lips pressing thin, but he said no more, opting instead to sit beside her. He braced his heels on the row ahead of them, then propped his elbows on his bent knees. Once she was sure he'd maintain his silence, she closed her eyes and sank into Kuwabara's memories.

He'd seen Yukina so clearly—a beacon of shining light amongst a sea of cruel, hate-fueled monsters. Casting herself out of her own body, Nozumi stood in Kuwabara's shoes, staring up from the arena at the source of his love, and then she lifted free of him, sliding up along his sightline, trying to find a place she could flip her point of view and settle into Yukina's perspective instead.

She couldn't identify one.

There was no connection. No spot where Kuwabara and Yukina met. Their eyes did, but their souls? If they had once, that bond had long since broken.

Eyelashes still shuttered, Nozumi asked, "She came here for her brother, didn't she? Not Kuwabara."

"Yes."

"Then I don't think this will work." She sighed and pressed the heels of her palms against her tired eyes, rubbing until spots swam across the back of her eyelids.

"Did you really think it would?"

No. She hadn't.

But she'd had to try.

She'd promised Kuwabara she'd try.

"I'm doing my best," she said to Hiei, to the wind—to herself.

"When—" He cut himself off. Started again. "Have you always been a tracker?"

"Yes."

"You never told me."

"I tried." Nozumi plopped her chin in her palm, tilting her head until he swam into view. He was leaning forward, all his weight braced on his elbows, the entirety of his powerful, muscled frame condensed into its smallest form. "I waited too long," she said. "I should've told you sooner. But I didn't think you cared, and by the time I tried, you truly didn't." She blew out an endless breath. "A self-fulling prophecy, I guess."

"That's where you went? All those times you were away? Off tracking?"

"Not at first. At the inn, I was still an apprentice. I went to school, Hiei. Studied. Took exams." She looked out across the stadium, trying to spot whatever glimpse of their past had captured his far-away focus. "Later, yeah. I started taking jobs. Had to pay our rent somehow."

"I had coin."

She shrugged. "You never offered it."

He balled a hand into a fist, then flexed his fingers open, then back into a ball. "Why tracking?"

"My father was a tracker. Hideo had wanted to be one, too, but Uncle asked him to take over the inn, so I apprenticed instead. When we lost him—" she blinked back tears she hadn't anticipated "—I came home." Met you. "I thought Uncle would want me to take Hideo's place, but he didn't ask that of me, and in the end, it's not like it mattered."

"Why not?"

"The inn doesn't need anyone to tend it. Not anymore." She swallowed, then forced herself onward. "It's gone. Destroyed."

At that, his gaze finally returned from the distant past. "Destroyed?"

"By the Brotherhood. They expanded their territory. It— We were in their way." Her voice barely trembled. Barely. But they'd both heard it. The scar across her left palm itched, irritated like the days when it had been new and pink and raw. "Sueko and I have been on our own ever since." Then, because anything was better than this, she said, "But enough of that. What about you? You've led quite the life since I last saw you."

He was slow to answer, and she wondered—almost too scared to believe it—if he was grieving. In his mind, the inn must've been right where it had always been, Uncle behind the counter, maps on the upstairs ceiling, gravestone in the garden. All of that was gone. She'd had twenty years to accept that fact. He'd had only seconds.

"How'd you meet them?" she prompted before the silence could stretch, thrusting her chin toward the distant hotel.

"A robbery."

"I should've guessed." After a beat, she added, "So? Did you get the treasure?"

"Hn. Yes. With Kurama. Then Yusuke stole it back." He scoffed. "He was a Spirit World lackey back then."

"And Kuwabara? What role did he play?"

"None. I was spared his noise until the Castle of the Four Saint Beasts."

That sounded like a story, maybe even one he was willing to tell, but even though she'd started them down this path, she suddenly wasn't so sure she could traverse it any further. Somewhere along it, Yukina waited. Yukina, whom she was quite certain Hiei loved. Yukina, whom Nozumi was beginning to hate.

"You got the Jagan," she observed instead.

He nodded. "I did."

She bit her lip, gnawing her teeth over the tender flesh. "Did you find it then? Your Hiruseki stone?"

Another nod.

"Congratulations."

He continued as if he hadn't heard her. "But not with the Jagan."

Oh.

"Mukuro had my stone. She'd had it for years." He tugged on one of a pair of leather strings about his neck, and it tumbled forth, the Hiruseki stone twinkling in the moonlight. It was beautiful and yet strangely underwhelming. In her memory, it had been far grander, a treasure worth rending apart everything that mattered. Now, up close, it struck her as a mere bauble, no more precious than the heap of gemstones buried in her bag. "The Jagan led me to other things, though. Allies. Power. Yukina." Fiercely—his gaze back in the past—he finished: "I was meant to possess it."

Nozumi barely heard him.

Yukina.

The Jagan had brought him to Yukina?

"I don't understand."

He straightened, teeth gritted as he repeated, "I was meant to possess it. I was meant for more than those Woods, that city. I—"

"No," she interrupted. "I don't care about any of that. You said it brought you to Yukina. What does that mean? How—"

In an instant, he was on his feet, back turned.

She rose, too. "Hiei."

"Never mind."

"What aren't you telling me about her? Why do you shut down every time I ask?" She reached for his hand, hoping to turn him around, but caught herself, remembering a night a lifetime ago, when he'd been poisoned, practically on death's door, and still chose to abandon her. "If you want me to find her, why won't you help me do so? What secret is so precious that you'd rather keep it than find Yukina?"

"Don't."

"Don't what? Care? Want to understand?" She laughed a tiny, broken laugh. "I always did that too much, didn't I?"

He whirled, his eyes ablaze. "You did. You pushed me. Constantly. What we had was never enough for you."

"Bullshit!"

The word reverberated off the staggered seating, echoing back from the far reaches of the stadium. It formed its own mantra, putting steel in Nozumi's spine.

"Bullshit," she repeated as the echoes died down. "I never asked for more than you would give. It killed me, but I did it anyway—and the more space I gave, the more you took. Don't blame me for that."

His response was wordless, nothing more than a flickering of emotion she couldn't parse.

She whispered the truth she could no longer bear to harbor. "You love her."

He didn't deny it.

The flickers in his gaze faded like dying coals.

Silent, he stalked to the stairs, descended, and hooked a right into a tunnel, never once glancing back at Nozumi. She watched until he was gone from sight, her accusation echoing in her ears. Then she sank into Yukina's long abandoned seat, wrapped her arms about her middle, and cried until she ran out of tears.