InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Real Folk Blues ❯ Femme Fatal ( Chapter 9 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
Disclaimer: I don't own anything peeps! I will never own Yu Yu Hakusho and InuYasha, both series solely belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Yoshihiro Togashi and other big companies own it. I don't make cash out of this meager piece of writing.
Title: The Real Folk Blues
Author: Adorkablebanana
Chapter 9: Femme fatal
P.O.V.D: Yuusuke
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
- Anonymous.
You never really know how the real thing looks like once you see it. I did now. Now I knew.
Sure, I seen corpses here and there, some I caused with a precise blow or kick or blasting them with my spirit wave. Yet staring down at the piece of work that could never be mine (not my doing, I'm not heartless) set me in a different sort of place.
The naked body of a woman lay dismantled underneath buckets of blood that covered a good deal of the pavement surrounding her body. It was one disgusting sight. I'm surprised I didn't spill my guts like Kurabara did earlier. I didn't blame him. Who can look at a butchered body that was once a woman a few hours ago?
--Aside from Hiei and Kurama, but from that look of pity and disgust said pretty much they didn't like it either.
The body's tone of skin was a pale and yellowish color. There wasn't enough blood inside the body to create that bruised look that usually drains to the lowest point of the body; legs, hands, butt. Her midsection's pretty cut up and when I mean cut up, I mean mince meat. From the breast down there was nothing left over. It looked like a giant ice cream scoop dug her organs and fragments of bones out from her abdomen.
Flabby, bloody skin peeled back like the thin skin of a fruit where the big hole in the body stood. The rest of her looked pretty scratched up, I can't really say if she was a teenager or a chick in her twenties, her face was that much clawed up. According to what files Botan dug up she was an ordinary woman, in her late twenties, coming home from work at the Salon. Nothing out of whack to say she's connected to dirty business, the paranormal, or a grudge victim. The background check cleared her of any faults.
I really wanted to heave my lunch out looking at the thing. What's more frightening, ever since I tapped into my demonic powers, my senses were on end. You could say I'm a half demon. Yeah, yeah, I found out I am a descendant of a Battle-demon. It's complicated, but true. Let's not talk about it now.
What drawn my attention is my sensitivity. My skin crawled with the urge I sometimes rode on whenever immense amounts of blood and flesh reached my nose. The smell of blood and meat intrigued me, it even excited me in some form I can't say that it disgusted me. That alone was very disgusting.
Dammit, I'm a nasty degenerate! All part of having Toushin blood flowing through my veins. I shoved my hands into my pocket refusing to show how unnerved I am by doing something like rubbing my arms or any other habit people do in tight spots. Hiei glanced at me, flashing the wisecrack glint in his eyes that basically said he knew every little thought passing through me. He's probably reading my mind right now as we speak.
“What?” I said, with a reproachful snip I haven't meant to put there…okay I did. Why lie about it? Shorty has something to say, well, I'm all ears.
“You look ill. Go home.”
“Like I can after seeing that,” I pointed out. Not like I had a choice either if I wanted one.
Hiei tilted his head slightly, like he was just noticing me for the first time. The creepy and embarrassing feeling I was being read like a book showed, the way he just stood there regarding me just said it plain as day. “Than suck it up,” Hiei said, finally.
“Working on it.” I wasn't in the full swing mood to say piss off. I did want to go home. I haven't been home for a while and to finally get away from this shit is a welcoming change. No luck in that freakin' department, Koenma grouped us right before Botan opened the portal to take us home. An emergency report filed in coincidentally and right before we bitched he just had to show us what the emergency was about. My eyeballs won't ever recover. Well, until I see Mom with her green-goop facial mask again. Ick.
Seeing it up and close topped what Koenma's big screen flicked on for us back in the Reikai. I can't explain how smothering it is to see a woman ripped to pieces. No one deserves a death like this. Not even my worst enemy would deserve this—too many to name from the top of my head to name anyone specific. I didn't want to come, I bitched about it, but I dragged my ass here nonetheless. The thought of seeing a girl I know chewed and spit out like the dead woman on the ground made me come, made me want to investigate this.
Kurabara and a horrified Botan sat near but a good distance. Kurabara still looked ill, his complexion that pasty white and I know his ass is dying to go home. Teasing him about it would be low for me. Right now, I can later if I remember. Botan, herself, is in the same state of shock and everything readable in her far too wide eyes. To think the grim reaper's afraid of slaughter. Such irony. I think the fear connects with the unknown force behind it and sympathy for the woman.
Understandable.
Botan handed him a bottle of water, patting him on the back soothingly. Kurabara hunched over, breaking out in dotting beads of sweat. His reaction dropped a brick to my whirlpool of a stomach already. God. I'm betting on the worst where it concerns his sharp senses. Damn.
Right at the exact moment I wanted to check on Kurabara the familiar “Hmm…” destroyed that idea. “Kurama?” I looked back to find Kurama crouched down near the…thing. “What are you doing?” Dumb question but bending closer to the mess is interesting when the guy's not flinching, squirming or anything.
Kurama left my question hanging, why am I not surprised? Well, he's the brains' here; he's doing the piecing together and stuff. He just kept looking over the cadaver. Hiei too, and his silence was irritating tonight. “Koenma mentioned the body was abandoned here in the alleyway,” Hiei flipped off mute and spoke for once. “I don't sense any trace of youkai behind.”
“Nothing?” Kurama asked.
“No.” His nose twitched in that deep way when he was sniffing out something. I had smelled nothing other than pure meat and blood, not a trace of demon scent lingered in the air. I'd give anything not to have super-smell. Open flesh, blood, exposed organs and death swirled in that air, and it was intoxicating. I swallowed, reminding myself who the fuck I was and who exactly followed. I followed myself only, not these sickening temptations.
“Yuusuke?” Kurama than asked me.
I shook my head. Clearing my head. “Nope, just corpse.”
He sighed, calling me over to squat beside him. Ye-ah. Like I want to, but I did. He's not cruel and idiotic enough to shove me forward. I hoped not. I'm not ready for sick humor. “Hiei, mind checking the perimeter of the block? Traces of evidence may lie around unbeknownst to us.” Kurama shifted that stern sideways glance he often got in serious situations and that signaled the `this wasn't an entirely good sign' alarm.
“Hn.” Hiei walked off and disappeared in the usual blurring speed.
“Don't you think the police will come by soon? Someone was bound to have seen it or heard anything?” I said, narrowing my eyes with the possibility.
“Hasn't passed more than four hours. The police would have yellowed taped the area by now. Botan, come here for a second, will you?” Promptly, Botan left Kurabara's side with a regret I could read allover her face. “The kit, please.”
“Right.” She rummaged that…wait, since when did she carry a bag? No comment because she just fished inside the suitcase-like bag, setting out Ziploc plastic bags, two jars with a translucent liquid, and a box full of gloves. “What are you going to do, Kurama?” Botan asked rather interested, but the interest wasn't one of enthusiasm.
Kurama thanked her, leaving her answer to hang in the air too. “Botan, will you assist Yuusuke with the gloves?” She blinked, then nodded, pulling out two gloves just for me. Yippee. Gloves for me--Wait, I don't want to touch it. Nooo! I don't!
“Do I have to?” I had to ask incase the possible chance he'd say no existed. “I don't want to touch it.”
“Only safety precautions, Yuusuke.” Kurama slipped on his pair of plastic gloves, the kind Doctors use in hospitals with that powdery feeling inside the elastic latex. He slipped it on like he knew what he was doing and had done it a couple of times. I stubbornly protested Botan's help by snatching a pair and forcing it on only succeeding in slapping a finger with rubber as I tucked the latex on roughly, and ripping a hole through it in the process.
I grunted. Holding out my hands to a deadpanned Botan. “My bad, okay?”
“Oh, Yuusuke,” she said with a shake of her head. I hate it when she did that.
Kurama poked and touched the body here and there. I could imagine the fleshy feeling of it sliding through my fingers. I shuddered before I could stop myself. “The crime is fresh, no rigor mortis yet.”
“No soul either…” Botan lowered her eyes, the flicker of dread flashing through them. I looked at her, now interested.
“How's that?”
“You know I collect the souls of the recently deceased, when I came to collect the woman's soul it was gone. Vanished.”
“Huh? How?” Botan is spirit world's, The Reikai, ferry girl. She gathers the souls of the dead. She's the grim reaper and my assistant. Go me. What she said didn't make any sense. She always finds the soul of the newly dead. “Is that why Koenma rounded us up and hauled our asses here?”
She nodded. “Yuusuke, this hasn't happened before without a reason. A soul doesn't just disappear. The deceased soul either becomes a lost ghost or haunts the area of its troubles. There's no trace of any supernatural activities and that could only mean the soul is in trouble.” She's entirely serious and yet everything made sense.
“Was it even her time yet?” By `time' I meant her time of passing. Every human—I don't know about demons—has their `time' scheduled to pass into the next world. Botan shook her head. Yep, definitely a murder then. Great.
Koenma didn't bother to tell us why to come down here; he just threw the order and showed the flick without groundbreaking information to back up the story. Leave it to our `boss' to have a nervous breakdown.
“Shit.”
“We're in deep.” She hugged herself. The long sleeves of her pink kimono moved with the breeze.
“Something new, Kurama?” I urged him now more than before.
“She was murdered, evidently.
“I could have said that without the poking and prodding, fox.”
“Not a local murder, Yuusuke.”
"You sure? Cause even us humans can be kind of on the sick side. Serial killers are just oh-so creative, you know," I said, and that was a fact. There was that killer in London, Jack the ripper; that collected the organs of women after he mutilated them and one in good old Japan that collected the heads of his victims to put on display. Oh, and can't forget the infamous Takahashi Oden, a lady who took pleasure in poisoning and killing men. This could be another local psychopath this poor woman had the misfortune to cross.
"I am aware of that, yet I doubt our neighborhood serial killers have claws that could hack through steel in a single slash. Look here, at the edges" --he pointed out at the lining where the outer opening of her stomach peeled back--"the skin is torn like pieces of paper, not chunks, pieces. The slashes here scrapped the surface of her spine in hunks blades don't do. It's too messy to be a weapon made of blade. It would be more precise. There's no bullet here and guns don't nick either. That leaves out most weapons." Kurama put his hand in to show the gash markings pattern and I raised my hands up, waving them to make him stop.
"All right, already. I get it, you win." I surrendered. How can Kurama be so neutral and unaffecting and shit around this crap? He's more disturbing than I gave him credit for, geez.
“Which leaves the only option open. She was a sacrifice.”
“What? You mean she was purposely slaughtered? I mean, okay, she looks like a piece of work laid out and it must've taken its time but, God.” Why would someone take the pleasure to…? Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!! Fucking shit! “Dammit! I thought we cleaned out the city of demons? Well aside those three bitches still on the loose.” We haven't caught them yet. I pinched the ridge of my nose when a thought struck me. Oh fucking God…“They did it, right?”
“Perhaps. I hardly believe so. They may have partaken in the ritual, but clearly the woman was raped. Right between her legs semen is mixed in with the blood. Women, even demonesses, do not function as men do.” He pointed out. The new info just poked my disturbed stomach even more. Not only eaten alive, but raped and humiliated.
“Now you mention that detail. Shit.” I was angry already and frustrated. Wait till I get my hands on them. I don't care if these demonesses didn't have anything to do with it, if I can pin my rage on them I will with pleasure. Botan let out a breathy breath, the type a person releases right before they start weeping away. She rubbed at her eyes. I told her to go check on Kurabara, she had enough for a night.
Kurama picked and dropped some samples in the bags, encasing them shut while I watched on the grossed out end. I sucked it up and looked around. Just careless spills of blood. The search was in vain for the most part; I found nothing new to add. Hiei returned back with something interesting to go by. Finally, something!
His hand was blazing a purplish blue color that wasn't there before. It looked like the hand caught a terrible case of frostbite, rotting from the inside out. “What the hell happened?”
Hiei gritted his teeth, sneering down the hand. His eyes flashed that pissed off anger related to pain. “An unpleasant surprise left me with this.”
Kurama looked equally concerned, with reason no doubt. “Can you feel your fingers? Move them?”
“Barely.” He wriggled his fingers with pained force. I fetched Botan and Kurabara. Botan immediately set herself to amend what she could on the hand. Hiei looked displeased but chose to let her do what she could. Yukina isn't here to aid him; he'll just have to settle for what Botan can offer.
“What caused this?” Botan asked.
“A clay figurine,” he stated bluntly. “I found it around a rooftop, the thing reacted to my touch.” He sounded pissed at the fact and it must have had to do with his pride to have an injury of that degree by something measly as a `clay figurine.'
“Damn,” I said, whistling at what the baby did. That must've hurt like a bitch.
“We need to find it. Where was it exactly, Hiei?” Botan said, her delicate hands hovering over the purplish monstrosity spilling the light yellow glow of energy to drive away the injury. Thankfully the spread of his normal tone slowly worked down to the tips of his fingers.
“Two blocks down the right alley. The building with the fading gray brick.” Hiei indicated, stubbornly wearing that scowl of his. Then again, I'm not the one with my hand deep-fried.
Kurabara stared, for the first time tonight expressing another feeling other than appalled. He asked Hiei if it hurt and Hiei just about spat at him another one of his insults for asking stupid questions. Sheesh, he doesn't have to be such a brat. The little grump didn't like people fussing over him. I towed Kurabara away, sending the short demon a look. The calm-your-ass-down sort of look. “We'll go check it out. Kurama, you coming?”
Kurama slowly rose, discarding the blood stained gloves. He followed after us. We; Kurama, Kurabara and I, left Botan and Hiei to stay behind to find this figurine Hiei spoke of that managed to damage his hand temporarily. We found the building Hiei described and we climbed the stairs up to the roof. The building's pretty abandoned so the tenants didn't bother with who intruded. Easier for us and rather than kicking ass for no good reason. The roof's an empty, crummy little place with fading bits of stable brick along the ledge and rain scrubbed cement floor, except for the glowing figurine; it glowed a sharp green enough to force me to squint to see better and the rush of power contained in it crawled cold chills along my skin, like a sudden cold breeze concentrated in a flow in only particular spots.
Kurabara opened his mouth to say something, but his words seemed jammed in his throat like mine. The affect must feel as twice for him; his sensitivity for a spiritual calling is keener than mine in a way. More than mine I could speak for, I don't know about Kurama.
“A gris-gris, it's a demonic gris-gris,” Kurama said, shielding his eyes with an arm.
“A what? What the hell is a `gris-gris'?”
Kurama thought for a moment how to go about explaining it. Gris-gris,' which he managed to recognize, only few Japanese practitioners in the art of the craft could differentiate Shinto sorcery and Voodoo. Voodoo isn't normally practiced anymore since the spread of cultures in the east continents, but apparently a few taken it up. He explained it to me afterwards (yes, I actually listened), but for now left me with a simpler answer. “Bewitched items. Yuusuke we can't go near that. If we touch it we will end up fried like Hiei,” Kurama warned me with a look. “Our demonic blood won't permit it.”
“Now what are we supposed do?” This day wasn't going well, period. Demonic powers, why have you betrayed me? I'm not willing to turn into a life sized French fry.
Kurama pulled me back, tearing me from the line of power shining in my eyes. The power having the quenching effect to call my beast forward. I could hear the heavy pounding of blood hit my ears and the voices surrounding me dim. Voices I couldn't say have a name or an identity. I had to shake my head, to keep in what is craving a release. Kurama shielded me as I went to my knees, the whirlwind of an overpowering sensation overtaking me. “What's going on?” I shouted out.
I heard the barest hints of Kurama's voice. “Kurabara, you have to go close and cancel the force of the gris-gris. The magic is driving Yuusuke's demon side berserk. Close it!”
“Could you at least tell me how to do it? I never done that in my life!”
“Concentrate your energy in overwhelming the effect. Kurabara, you are fully capable of it, I have faith in you.” He said and meant it. I even fell for that tone of voice, but for any force that'll lift this shit off of me I'm willing to try.
I just hope Kurabara comes out fine. Hope is one lying bitch.
I strained to keep my eyes from closing and drowning in, whenever the change comes over me. Kurabara stepped up to the challenge, head high, stalking forward to the illuminating item. The closer he got the more the light shined around the thing and the more the power thickened. I'm a goner.
Goddammit, Kurabara! Do it!
He pushed through the wall of pressured power protecting the gris-gris, slow but making process and soon the crackling clash cutting through blazed. Kurabara cursed a few times, putting his all in topping the thing. Goosebumps prickled up my spine, the peak of power just there, just barely there. Then what I hadn't expected a flash of blinding light enveloped everything like an explosion. I ducked as Kurama did by my side. “Kurabara!” I could hear my voice shouting, but nothing could pierce through this fog of light. For a flying moment, I feared for Kurabara.
~…~
Kurama shielded the crouched form of Yuusuke as best as he could. The draw of their youki pulled at them. Kurama could feel the opening to release his inner demon, the Youko. Kurama controlled the tempting pull to fall in, he could suppress and curb the affect by willpower alone, he's capable enough to do that, and the Youko's compliance for a change helped.
The exploding light died down. Kurama carefully stood and peered cautiously through an arm. “Kurabara?” His narrowed eyes, strained from the sudden exposure to light, stared at the man and found relief. Kurabara still stood in one piece.
Kurama touched Yuusuke's shoulder, silently letting him know everything's clear and all right. “Are you all right, Yuusuke?”
The groan slipping Yuusuke's lips answered the question. Yuusuke took the hand offered to him and slowly moved to his feet. His balance felt unsteady and the sensation a car hit him—which he knew perfectly well how that felt—stiffened his body. Geez, what the hell?
Yuusuke muttered his discomfort, confused at the same time. “Someone mind telling me what the hell happened? I'm a little warped here.”
“Kurabara will provide the answer to that.” Kurama approached Kurabara, placing an inquiry on how Kurabara's weathering himself.
Kurabara took a moment to register what happened. Yuusuke urged him to answer quickly. The last transition of power sapped him a good deal of his strength and the feeling of it wasn't a pleasant party. Kurabara held his hand out, showing the little gris-gris, no longer shining with bewitching power. Kurabara's complexion toned down to a sickly pale and his eyes showed a lot of white.
“How are you feeling?” Kurama inquired, carefully pressed two fingers over the young man's racing pulse. The very subtle eerie chill of wind crawled up his wrists, but beyond that nothing else happened and as quickly as it came it disappeared. Kurama resisted brushing his hand. The gesture wouldn't make or do anything productive. “Kurabara, answer me and tell me if you feel all right.”
Kurabara exhaled a shaky breath, his tensed shoulders sagging a degree. He's thoroughly exhausted; nothing could mistake the heavy burden he withstood. “This little thingy's horrible. I haven't felt such a nasty sensation come over me in a long time. I thought my soul was going to be ripped out, just touching this thing before was…damn…” Kurabara shuddered in remembrance. Speaking of it covered his body with that icky buzz feeling.
“You sealed the channel of power spilling out.” Kurama, in his subtle way, complimented his teammate's accomplishment.
“Took every ounce of me to do it,” Kurabara laughed weakly, trying to make a joke, but the seriousness of the situation simmered the possibility. He wasn't in the mood for it anyway. He felt like bloody shit and where it could be a little funny it wasn't.
Yuusuke's jaw clenched. The feeling's mutual. “We better bring this back for Koenma to check out.”
Kurama nodded. *What do you make of it? I lack the reference to place it.*
*Reasonably so.* The Youko wrapped his attention round the new piece that may possibly connect to the little enigma they faced. *A baby like this, as Kuronue would have put it, is far too of old for any being under three hundred to bear knowledge of.*
Beautiful intrigue surfaced. Kurama implored his half to elaborate. Youko kept playing the inexplicable card Kurama quickly grew weary of. *Then far be it for me to accuse you of holding information from me.* His charming sarcasm offended the very idea where the Youko intended to get at.
Youko flashed a teasing grin close to a sneer. *I am getting to that, you impatient twit.*
*Then please have the decency to clarify. You lost me a good two conversations back.*
*And ruin the suspense? I thought we were having a ball playing 20 questions?*
*Playing games isn't the appropriate activity right now and the longer you stall the deeper in problems we will be in.*
A grumpy, but resigning sigh came and Kurama felt momentary relief to obtain the kitsune's willing cooperation. The charm of sorts looked by all recognizable terms, a black as charcoal little crusted lump that could have been molded in a giant fist. The three ruby red gleaming gems imbedded in and placed in a horizontal row lost the luminous shine that blinded all of them before. The gleam dimmed when Kurabara canceled out the effect.
The dry, grimy feeling made insides crawl with disgust. Kurama neither flinched as the normal person would. He carefully held the troublesome charm the size of a tennis ball. *And here I believed making charms out of demon limbs went out of style. This is my first time coming across one in the last 500 years.*
*A demon's hand?* with the thought in mind Kurama brought the charm close to take a quick whiff. His nose wrinkled, his repugnance clearly showing. *The amputation's recent.*
*By the size it could either belong to a child or a woman. I'm betting that belonged to a demoness.*
*And they crushed it right at the moment removing it from her,* Kurama said bitterly. The fact alone reminding him of a similar event that occurred in the past, a fellow student that attended his middle school caught in a mess she had no faults of encouraging. For a flying moment he thought the youkai ripped Maya to shreds when he dared showed him a woman's torn little foot. Luckily the youkai hadn't done her in yet and he managed to rescue her in a single piece.
The kitsune examined the charm. Cutting the power off was a big breakthrough, but the sensation of holding it unveiled another clue that added to the case.
The barest hints Kurama's brow rose up Yuusuke caught. “What's wrong now?” Yuusuke asked, the mixture of unsettlement and dread hanging suspended and anticipating another find to add would throw him off.
*The severity of the case increased tenfold, I'm afraid.* Youko concluded. The fresh pile of corpses to be found waiting for a discovery.
Kurama flicked eyes back at Yuusuke, a depth of disquiet that wasn't there earlier rising. “We found another young woman, except her hand is what we collected for the moment.”
“Wait, wait. You're telling me that this thingy—”
Kurama nodded. The solemn expression enough to rent Yuusuke's last remaining patience to smithereens. “Fuck.” Yuusuke had no other words to say the rest of the night, only his anger washing over in hot waves that Kurama found no reasonable way to simmer down.
Kurabara gone deadly quiet. The waxy pale color his skin drastically toned down to made him appear ill and ghostly. He sat down on the ledge, wiping dotting sweat off his brow. Kurama chanced questioning him, Kurabara looked anything but well. The better judgment and with an advise from his kitsune spirit half, he probed his teammate.
“Kurabara, what did you feel touching this?” Kurama didn't show Kurabara the charm, he already knew what he meant by and it wasn't necessary to keep pressing on the subject upsetting him and Yuusuke. “Kurabara?”
Seldom the young man remained quiet. The experience shaken him but the mystery is what did he experienced? Kurama and Yuusuke did not necessarily want to share the moment. It seemed that horrible.
“Power pulling me in and it burned like hell.”
“Is that all?” Kurabara nodded. “What about the woman?” Kurama continued to probe.
“The woman's body…I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing,” he started, his steely tone hiding the anger floating right at the surface.
“Nothing?” Yuusuke asked, and Kurabara cut him off before he could press another question.
“Nothing, like she wasn't there. Sure, her body is there, butchered up and all, but…her soul…I can't really explain it…but, it felt like something sucked it out of her,” Kurabara said, trying to explain for lack of better word. The sensation swimming along his skin downgraded the eerie `tickle feeling' he felt around loose spirits and specters.
“Koenma's going to have a cow now. This shit is more serious.” Yuusuke already could see the rise of horrors along the horizon.