InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Phoenix Rising ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, etc., of Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit.PHOENIX RISING

Summary: Not everyone is happy when Enki wins the Demon World Tournament. A new darkness rises out of the east, threatening the fragile new kingdom, and our heroes find themselves thick in the fray.

A/N: I fast-forwarded a bit, as I’m anxious to get to the meat of this story. It’s also a little choppy, as I didn’t wasn’t to recreate the scenes already so well-written in the anime of YYH. The anime series also said that one week passed between the time Yusuke passed out and then woke up, but I chose to ignore that. Call it poetic license, or AU-ing the canon, LOL. (Side note - sentences in bold are taken direct from the animated version of YYH and are not mine.)

This chapter is dedicated to SangoIchimaru, who asked when I would post a new chapter to PR. Here ’tis, and thanks for all your sweet words. =)

Words

Buozo - idiot

Chapter Four

Propping a hip against the door jam, Shizuru said blandly, “And just where do you think you’re going, Kazuma?”

“Huh?” Startled, the big lug stared at her, a guilty flush creeping up his fair skin. “Um, what do you mean?”

“Well, since you’re currently drenching yourself in about ten gallons of perfume, a girl’s gotta wonder.“

“It’s not perfume!” Kuwabara vehemently protested. “It’s aftershave!”

Pinching her nose, Shizuru said, “Well, you’ve certainly used more than enough of it. Who are you trying to impress, hmmm?”

“Aw, sis…” Kuwabara scuffed the back of his head as he shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other.

Shizuru smiled. “Relax, bro, I’m only teasing. So who’s the lucky girl?”

“Well, you know.” Kuwabara got even hotter as he tugged at his shirt collar.

“Lemme guess,” Shizuru said, taking out her pack and shaking a cigarette free. “Yukina, right?”

“Uh…”

Lighting up, she inhaled lazily as she drawled, “Oh, come on, Kazuma, it’s obvious you have a crush on the girl. So where are you going on your date?”

“It’s not really a date.” Kuwabara’s broad shoulders sagged a little. “Just a movie, sort of, at Genkai’s. She’s got some show she wants us all to watch.”

“All of who to watch?” Shizuru asked sharply.

“You know. The new team. Me and Kagome and Inuyasha.” He fidgeted. “And since Yukina’s gonna be there, seeing as she lives with the old crone, I thought it couldn’t hurt to…um, you know. Smell nice.”

Snorting, Shizuru shook her head at her brother’s unease. Man, was he gone on that girl. “Well, you better cut down on the pheromones, bro, unless you want to knock her out from a mile away. The fumes alone canl kill her.” Squeezing past her hulking brother, Shizuru idly tossed her cigarette in the toilet. “Guess I should go get my jacket.”

“Huh?” Kuwabara stared at her in shock at he tried scrubbing off the cheap cologne.

“If you think I’m going to let you go alone, then you got another thing coming.”


“YUKINA!”

Sp ying the short figure awaiting them on the veranda, Kuwabara barreled up the steps with more enthusiasm than sense. Shaking her head, Shizuru slowed, giving her brother the space he needed to greet his avowed one true love.

Delicate and sweet, Yukina embodied all a sister might wish for their clod of a brother. Kind-hearted and shy---if a little dense---Shizuru liked her well enough. She knew Kazuma liked her more than enough. In fact, the big buffoon was head over heels in love with the pretty little demoness.

While other sisters might have objected to the whole “demoness” part, Shizuru had a pretty open mind. And Yukina, while fully demon, just didn’t act or look like a demon. Well, except for the claret eyes and mint-toothpaste hair. Clad in a demure pink dress and brown cardigan, her long hair caught in a loose braid, the young innocent blushed as Kuwabara all but swooned before her.

“Kazuma, it’s so good to see you.” The short demoness smiled, and Kuwabara went beet red.

“Really?”

“Of course, silly!” Yukina replied, giggling.

“Yukina, my love…” he began tenderly, but Yukina missed it, having spotted the tall woman coming up the overgrown walk.

“Shizuru!” she called, clasping her hands in genuine pleasure as Kuwabara’s face fell.

“Hello, Yukina,” Shizuru said, eying her brother with a little quirk of her lips.

“I didn’t know you were coming, too,” Yukina said, blithely walking past a forlorn Kuwabara to go and hug her friend.

“Yeah,” Kuwabara muttered darkly, glaring at his sister from behind Yukina’s back. Shizuru only smiled, enjoying her brother’s discomfiture.

“Been a while,” she said, returning Yukina’s hug. “You look good, Yukina.”

“Thank you,” the demoness said, warmly returning, “So do you, Shizuru-chan.”

Shizuru only smiled, knowing the demoness was just being sweet. A bit too sugary for Shizuru’s tastes, but then, Yukina was just like strawberry short cake, almost too good to be true. But then, she liked that about the young demoness. That sweet innocence and wholesome goodness was a good foil for her own cynicism, just as her brother‘s simple belief in others reminded her there was something worth fighting for. Shizuru vowed to protect that about both of them.

“I wish we had time to catch up, but we really shouldn’t keep the others waiting,” Yukina apologized. Shizuru shrugged as Kuwabara hastened to reassure her that it was okay---there’d be plenty of time to “catch up” after the movie. The thought made her baby bro positively euphoric, and he followed the two women inside the small shrine in a cloud of happy contemplation and stinky cologne.

A fact brought bluntly home by Inuyasha’s bark.

“God, what reeks?”

“Oh, hello, Kuwabara.” Kagome cheerfully waved before turning back to fussing with the VCR. Why Spirit World kept to such ancient devises mystified Shizuru, but then, Prince Koenma was a cheap ass. He certainly hadn’t ever paid any of his detectives.

“I should have expected you to come along.” Old Genkai grumped by way of a greeting, passing over the popcorn.

“Gee, thanks, Genkai!” Kuwabara swiped a double handful as the old priestess rolled her eyes and plopped down on the saggy couch in her “sitting room.” A converted bedroom off the old shrine, the room was sparsely furnished. Just a lumpy chair, the sofa, a rug and the old rabbit-eared TV with its jumble of electronics and video games. Genkai was an avid Xbox player.

“Gah! You stink, buozo.” Inuyasha pinched his sensitive nose, matching glares with the husky Kuwabara. “What the hell is that stuff?”

“It’s aftershave,” Kuwabara defended, and positively beamed when Yukina came to his rescue.

“I think you smell nice, Kazuma.”

“Thanks, Yukina,” he said, expression going all goofy and eyes all swoony. Ah, young love. It made Shizuru want to vomit.

“Well, I think you stink,” Inuyasha interjected, and only Kagome’s glare stopped the inevitable fight when Kuwabara bristled.

“Will you two lay off?” The miko stood, hands on her hips and ire in her eye.

Kuwabara looked abashed. “Sorry, Kagome.”

The hanyou’s apology wasn’t much of one---just turning away with his arms crossed and a “Hmph,” but that was a vast improvement over most meetings between the two imbeciles, who bickered as much as Yusuke and Kuwabara ever had.

“She handles them pretty well,” Shizuru murmured approvingly as she casually sat down beside the old priestess.

“She was a good student,” Genkai smugly replied, taking a handful of popcorn.

“So what, exactly, is all this?” Shizuru waved at the VCR as Kagome stepped back with the remote. The pretty miko distractedly dropped into the lumpy chair, Inuyasha sprawling beside her after snatching up the popcorn bowl. Yukina knelt serenely on the rug, and Kuwabara folded himself beside her, his bulk awkward next to her slender grace.

“A recap of the final round of the Demon World Tournament, Botan said, and some coronation speech.” Genkai shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. “Hey, dog breath, don’t hog all the popcorn.”

Inuyasha scowled, but Kagome’s elbow to the ribs stopped his bitchy reply. The hanyou dutifully passed the bowl back, and Genkai offered it to Shizuru, who shook her head, and wished heartily for a cigarette. The video finally clicked over to play and they all straightened a little as the familiar toddler appeared, looking too grave for such a fat baby.

“Hello, everyone.” Prince Koenma paused for dramatic effect, and then said, “I’m sure you’ve all been anxious to learn the outcome of the Great Demon World Tournament.”

The prince certainly liked to belabor a point. He took a good five minutes recounting why the tournament was so important, and not just to Demon World. At mention of the possibility of war, Shizuru sat up a little straighter. That was something she hadn’t known, and she stared at Kagome, who looked a little guilty and wouldn‘t quite meet her eyes. Inuyasha did, but he only shrugged and groused about Koenma taking so long to get to the damn point.

Right on cue, the Prince sighed. Knitting his fingers before him on the giant desk, he sat forward and gave them a frank look, so incongruous in one so young-seeming. “I explain this all so that you may understand why it was I had you preparing for what truly might have been a disaster of epic proportions. As it stands now…well.”

They all stared at the screen, startled by the faint blush that rose across the prince’s pudgy cheeks. His chagrin was rather palpable. “It seems I may have been a bit hasty…”

Genkai snorted. Like that hadn’t ever happened before.

“This tournament has been full of surprises…and, well, maybe I should just let you see for yourselves.” The baby impatiently waved at the hidden cameraman, and the picture abruptly switched to a strange panorama of oddly-colored sky. Fluffy purple clouds dotted a horizon of fuchsia and pink, white and yellow lights glinting like fireflies above rolling hills of emerald-green with odd protrusions jutting out here and there like half-opened umbrellas.

“Hey! That’s Demon World!” Kuwabara exclaimed.

Shizuru lifted a brow. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected, but what, really, had she? Fire and brimstone, maybe. Certainly not all that green. And despite the weird-looking sky, it wasn’t so bad. Certainly more open space than she had ever seen, raised in Tokyo’s closely-packed streets, where space was at a premium.

The picture honed in on the distant lights at a dizzying pace, the flying camera sweeping a wide curve around a squat grey mound that resolved itself into a half-open arena. The stadium was packed to the hilt, the crowds overflowing into the aisles and down the wide staircases. People (if you could call them that, since many of them looked like something out of your worst nightmares) were even hanging out the windows of the upper stories, and the noise was unbelievable, until the picture shifted, once again, to a more stable position on the ground.

A pretty face suddenly filled the screen, two cat ears swiveling forward above a stylish auburn haircut. Shuzuru recognized the cat youkai at once. It figured Koto would be in the thick of things. The catty announcer had cultivated quite the following while covering the now-defunct Dark Tournaments over the past twenty years. Typical of a demoness, she didn’t look a day over eighteen and was probably well over a hundred.

With her typical over-embellishment, Koto announced the end of the great tournament, thanking the fighters and committee and all that blah-blah-blah before taking a deep breath and saying grandly, “And so I present to you the winner of this tournament and our new, sole ruler of Demon World---Enki!”  

“Who?” They all exchanged startled looks, the name unfamiliar to any of them.

Uncertain cheers filled the stadium as Koto turned and handed the mike up to a large man who came into view as the picture panned to include him. Judging by the cat demon’s size, he was massive, easily upwards of eight or nine feet. He stood like a huge, unmovable hill beside her. A red hill, with horns.

“That’s the new king of all Demon World?” Inuyasha demanded in complete astonishment, echoing all their sentiment.

“Uh…he doesn’t look so bad,” Kuwabara said, trying as always to put a better face on it.

But he didn’t look good, either. In fact, he looked…well, rather un-kingly. A bit rough around the edges. Clad in scuffed work boots, grey sweatpants and a dirty wife-beater, he looked more like a construction worker than a world-wide tournament champion and future king of Makai. Funnily enough, he bore a superficial resemblance to what Westerners depicted as the devil---red-skinned and curly-haired, with two horns on either side of his head and the requisite goatee. But while Beelzebub was considered as someone handsome and a bit dapper, this guy was rather pudgy and well, mild. While clearly ill-at-ease with all the attention, he had a good-humored smile on his face, rather out of place for one who had won against such dire demons as Yomi and Mukuro.

Taking a deep breath, the future king of all Demon World said, “Well, here I am, by strange circumstance…”

“Got that right,” Inuyasha muttered.

“Shh!” Kagome waved at him, and they all listened intently as the deep, resonating voice went on to detail his plans to accept the leadership, but only for three years. Cheers rose at his decision; the crowds clearly approved. Speculations and mutters rose over who might be able to win the next tournament.

“Nice touch,” Genkai smirked, and explained at Shizuru‘s questioning glance, “winning them over.”

Ah, the carrot. She sat back, wondering where the stick might come in. This demon was clearly more than he appeared.

“I’m only enforcing one, great law…”

Silence reigned.

Enki coughed apologetically, and then said, “My law is: from now on, there’ll be no mischief in human world.”

Their frank astonishment mirrored the reaction of every demon in that stadium. While Spirit World had been hopeful that they might get a demon who would be willing to consider at least the possibility of a peace treaty, no one had expected such sweeping changes as what Enki proposed. And while fumbling through his explanation that he was honoring an old friend’s memory by enacting this law, and intended on creating a council within the week to figure out the particulars, it finally hit home to all of them that their worst fears had just been completely knocked out of the ballpark.  

“Inuyasha, do you know what this means?” Kagome whispered in awe, tears in her wide brown eyes.

“What?” Kuwabara was the one to ask, clearly not understanding the powerful significance of Enki’s Law. Shizuru could only shake her head.

“Peace, you idiot,” Genkai snapped, much to her amusement. The old priestess scowled at the knucklehead, who still didn’t get it.

“Peace, Kazuma,” Yukina suddenly said, her red eyes bright as she stared up into his. “Think what it means. There’ll be no more fighting between human and demon world…”

“Yukina?” Kuwabara questioned softly, taken aback as a tear fell with a clatter to the floor as it solidified into a hiruseki stone. The pretty demoness smiled tremulously as she took his big hands in hers.

“Think about what this means for us…I mean,” she blushed sweetly, not quite meeting his eyes, “for everyone.”

“Yukina,” was all he could manage, voice rough with all the unspoken emotions pent up inside of him.

But his broad, capable hands trembled in hers, and that was all that really needed to be said.

Shizuru’s eyes softened, and suddenly grew itchy. She swiped at them, blinking back the wetness as she watched the two young lovers.

“Damn dust,” she muttered.

Genkai hid a smile.



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