InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Ultimatum ❯ Chapter 10 ( Chapter 10 )

Ultimatum

Chapter 10

Boxing King

 

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Ok, if you want the PAIRING of the story, go to my BLOG under QUESTIONS ANSWERED and find out. The LINK is in the last chapter and on my profile.

 

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Ok, sorry this took so long to get out. I got in a slump and have yet to really get out. I won't be abandoning any stories though. If you want to keep updated and see if I'm writing, or even just alive, go to my blog. Thank you madmiko for your support, I hope I was able to help you out on the next chapter. Read and Enjoy. And pretty please review. Please…

 

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Kagome hugged the wall as she walked down the deserted street. What had she done? What was she going to do? She had just run away from her salvation, from the one person that had cared for her.

 

But it wasn't like she could just stay. That life had been a joke, and was especially so now. She had been living a façade, where she tried to squeeze into Yusuke's life, Yusuke's friends, Yusuke's hope. She had hoped that by being so near him, that by being like him, she could change. She wanted his attitude, his courage, his strength. Back in the alley when she had tried to release her spirit powers, she had had that. Or she thought she had. She thought she had changed, had become someone new that was willing to fight and could actually win. Turns out she didn't. She had failed.

 

Kagome hugged herself, protected from the weather by a thin sweater she had grabbed on her way out the window. She felt a shiver pass through her at a particularly strong wind, but she didn't really care.

 

She was back to being pathetic. And to top it all off, she had lost her powers. They were gone. While sitting in Yusuke's bedroom, she had tried vainly to find them, meditating and searching within herself for them. But it was hopeless. Kagome had taken the chance when there was a knock on the door to escape, climbing carefully out of the window and swinging down to the alley behind the condo. From there she walked.

 

She was completely silent as she walked. She needed to figure out what she needed to do with herself. She couldn't go back to Yusuke, and she certainly couldn't go back home. She had failed everyone. She closed her eyes as she walked. She couldn't face them with the shame so naked on her face.

 

With a shudder, Kagome collapsed in a corner at the end of the alley. Head buried in her arms, a tear slowly leaked out the corner of her eye. Maybe she had been wrong to survive in the hospital. Maybe she should just try again, except succeed. Kagome stifled a sob. She couldn't even kill herself properly. Her life was nothing. She had failed in the past; she had failed in the present. Where did that leave her? She couldn't exactly go to the future.

 

Another tear slipped out, and before she knew it, her body was wracked with wrenching sobs.

 

This was how Yusuke and Kuwabara found her. Alone, dirty and cold, crying in an alley.

 

When Yusuke came upon her, a weight was lifted from his shoulders. He had thought the worst when their room had turned up empty. His mind had sabotaged him with guilt and worry, slowly dragging him down. It was a tremendous feeling to find her ok.

 

He and Kuwabara had picked up a faint trail of her in the alley and simply followed her here. He was amazed that she hadn't been attacked, not exactly being in a decent part of town. He had stopped so short when he saw her that Kuwabara nearly ran into him.

 

Yusuke tuned out the grumblings of his friend to take stock of his cousin. From what he could see, she was ok. Granted, he couldn't see much, and she was crying, but she wasn't bleeding, and damnit she was alive. That was better than they had expected.

 

“Kagome…” he whispered. She didn't hear him over her sobbing. “Kagome,” this time more forceful, stronger.

 

Her cries hesitated, growing quiet.

 

“Y-Yusuke,” she whispered.

 

Kagome clenched her eyes shut tight. Let it be true. Let him have come for me. Somebody cared enough to look. She opened her eyes.

 

Yusuke slowly walked up to her and knelt down. Eyes grave, posture stiff, he spoke.

 

“You IDIOT!” Kagome jerked. She looked at him aghast. “What, you think we wouldn't notice?” Where the hell was sweet, caring, sensitive Yusuke? “Hello, empty bedroom!” Yusuke was glaring at her. “Do you realize what you put me through? You deciding to run off in one of the seediest parts of town? We thought you were KIDNAPPED! We thought that you had been TAKEN! ABUDCUTED! What the hell were we supposed to do? And all because you were DEPRESSED!” Yusuke put his nose right in front of her face. “I thought we had beaten the urge to die out of you.”

 

Kagome's eyes flashed. How dare he talk to her like that! “Yusuke,” she gnashed out between clenched teeth. “I'm not some child you can just criticize like that. How dare you-”

 

“How dare YOU!” shouted Yusuke. “Are you so stupid to think that nobody cares about you in this world, Kagome? What would your family think? You think Souta wants a dead sister? YOU PROMISED HIM YOU WOULD COME BACK! Does that mean nothing to you?”

 

He's right, she realized. Here she was, breaking promises, crushing people again. All over again.

 

Like hell could he just bring everything like that back up again.

 

Kagome leaned back, drew back her fist, and punched Yusuke square in the jaw.

 

“Oooow!” cried Kagome. Yusuke remained as unmoving as stone, not even flinching from the hit.

 

Kuwabara shook his head in the corner he had retired to to watch the fight. Like cousin, like cousin.

 

“Feel better?” Yusuke asked.

 

“NO! Now my hand hurts.” She began rubbing her abused knuckles, glaring at him from the slits her eyes had made. “You had no right to say that. I - I didn't think - It' wasn't supposed to hurt them. This was supposed to be the easier way. For them.”

 

Yusuke snorted. “Yeah, right, easier for them. Death is always easier on the dead ones, Kagome, not on the ones that have to deal with the sudden loss. Your family would be heartbroken. Already, they have lost a husband and father. You want to deprive them so purposefully of their daughter and sister too?”

 

Kagome looked away. She could feel the shame rising. He was right… again. Damn him. But he was right. She fell back down to sit. If she had killed herself, it would be her worries that disappeared, not those of her mother, brother, or grandfather. The only problems she would solve would be hers. How very selfish of her.

 

Yusuke watched her sit in silence for a moment. He grunted and squatted next to her to lean against the wall, side by side. He stared straight ahead. “You know, this self pity that you have gotten into needs to stop. Your life isn't that bad, Kagome.” He felt her stiffen next to him. “Why, you have somebody who cares right next to you, willing to help you through anything at all. I can help you, and so can others. We can help you through whatever it is you are dealing with.” He turned his head to look at her. “You just need to let us in. Let us know what is going on. Unfortunately, not all of us are psychic and we don't know what the hell you're thinking.” He snickered. “Especially `cause you're a girl.”

 

Kagome tilted into him playfully. “Shut it, Yusuke.” She stared down the same alley as he was, just as fascinated. “Maybe, maybe when all this blows over a bit, and we get home and grab some food, I'll tell you about what's bothering me. That is, if you want to listen. It's a long story. You might not be up to it, short attention span and all.”

 

Yusuke continued to look forward. “If not, wake me up when we get to the critical part.”

 

Kagome smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.

 

“I'm glad you cared, Yusuke.”

 

He smiled.

 

Kuwabara grunted and put his head in his hands. Oh yeah. They were definitely related. Idiots.

 

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Hiei awoke to Kurama sticking some obnoxious plant under his nose. The stench drifted up his nose, and he snarled while sneezing.

 

Kurama leaned back onto his haunches relieved.

 

“You're awake, Hiei. I was getting worried,” he said in a relaxed tone.

 

Hiei's eyes snapped to the Fox's. “What the hell just happened?”

 

Kurama was watching him carefully, analyzing his every move. “I don't know, Hiei. I came to ask you a few questions and you were blacked out on the floor, unresponsive to everything else I have tried.” He blinked one long, slow blink, letting the gold color emerald. “Maybe you should tell me. What do you remember? Was it an attack?”

 

Hiei looked at Kurama carefully. “What do you know of out of body experiences, Fox?”

 

Kurama quirked an eyebrow. “I'm assuming you aren't talking about typical bodily pleasures.” He mock sighed. “It's too bad. You have an even greater reputation than myself of avoiding anything remotely close to a relationship.”

 

Hiei tensed. If he only knew what he had been thinking earlier, to the beat of some frisky drums.

 

Kurama continued on. “I know quite a bit about drug-induced states of such mental displacement, but I don't sense any of the lingering effects on you. You would have had to been hit with a large does of such a drug due to your increased metabolism, and obviously some pertinent family history would have had to been known for anything to even remotely have a chance of working on you. I don't sense any lingering feel of the Makai on you, Hiei, so it wasn't a plant from the Makai - which would be the only kind that could affect a demon of your stature.”

 

Hiei looked at him for a moment. “A simple no wouldn't have sufficed?”

 

Kurama smirked while standing. “Careful Hiei, you are beginning to sound a lot like Yusuke.”

 

Hiei rolled his eyes. Damn Fox. “So if it wasn't from a plant, then how did it happen?”

 

Kurama studied him. “I need to know what we are talking about. Astral projection of any kind is too broad of a subject.”

 

Hiei grunted and sat up, rubbing his forehead. “I woke up in some other land. I looked different, and whatever I wanted to say didn't come out - it was like a programmed script. I think I was taking the place of someone else.”

 

Kurama say the tensing of Hiei's shoulders, the pinching around his eyes. “Did you know anyone, Hiei?”

 

“Hn. No. I would have said so. It would have let me know what was going on, in any case.” Hiei had no idea why he kept quiet about the girl.

 

Kurama nodded. “I have no idea. If you didn't know anyone, it can't have been some kind of psychic connection or impression that would have been heightened by the Jagan and its capacity of psych. I don't know of any living demons that could have done such a thing to you.”

 

Hiei stood and stretched. “I thought as much.” He looked at Kurama and let an ominous void fill his eyes. “We will keep this from everyone else.”

 

Kurama looked insulted. “Of course,” he said, a slightly haughty tone to his voice.

 

Hiei nodded. “I need to release some tension.” He curved his head and slanted a look at the Fox. “Want to spar?”

 

Kurama's face went grim with a smile. “Of course,” he practically purred.

 

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Koenma had a hand against his head, holding it up from the tremendous pressure he was getting from a headache born of tedium. He had been reading through minor journals of previous monk, priests and priestesses of the last thousand years. It had been one of the last caches of written material in the library that they had yet to read. He had been going through them for the last fourteen hours, trying to repress the stress he felt from not getting an update form Yusuke on his cousin. Damn the tardy boy. He could at least care enough about other people to keep them informed. And Kuwabara was just as bad. He hadn't come back yet, either.

 

Koenma let out a big gusto of air. He turned one last page in the journal, preparing to shut the damnable thing before it drove him insane. This monk was all about the health of the people, and only barely concerned with any demon sightings. He doubted that he would find the clue behind the spider in here.

 

And that would be when he saw the word spider.

 

He nearly had a heart attack at the surprise it caused. It was the first mention of a spider anywhere! Koenma had no idea why no one would take to the spider emblem again. It wasn't like it was claimed.

 

He focused in on the journal, trying to read the smudges and faded ink as best as he could. “Spider… Jewel… War… Demon…” mumbled Koenma. He sat back in his chair with an audible thump.

 

What a load of baloney. War, treasure, demons - the usual. Only one small mention of a spider, one measly word, and the man can't go into any more detail. If this was anything of what they might be facing, it wasn't new. For cripes sake, it wasn't as if they didn't face this all the time. This was utterly useless.

 

Except for the word spider, the first in the last four hundred years. There had to be a reason for that. And if nothing else, he had found the right time period. Maybe he wouldn't have to give Hiei that favor after all.

 

Koenma leaned back pensively, hands steeped in front of his face. He gazed at the small, dead spider lying on his desk. There had to be a connection.

 

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Ok, finally got this out. Not as much of a filler as the other chapter I stated as such, but it follows that pattern. And no cliff hanger. Dang. I'm losing my touch. ; D This chapter was a bit hard to do, but once I got a flow going it went well. So, here is to the reviews. May they be plentiful in the coming year. *chug* ~ BoxingKing