Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ A Long Time Ago ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Dreams still written in italics. You know what? I think you get it by now. This is the last time I'll say it. A dream fragment begins each chapter, and they don't make sense right now, but I promise, (nearly) everything has a point and is done for a reason.

Disclaimer: I am really, really conflicted about going back to school on Monday…

Balance

Chapter Two: A Long Time Ago

Broken and lying in pieces on the ground, he took great pains to put himself back together. A quiet, pulsing noise echoed in his mind as he did, and he shook his head to clear it.

It would not leave.

Searching the vastness of nothing for the source of the sound, he saw only a small black crystal lying in the crevices of space. Drifting towards it, he reached down to pick it up, and unlike the light, which drew itself away from him, the jewel pressed itself to his hand as a magnet might to steel board.

He held the crystal to his ear to hear its thrum, but the noise grew no louder and no softer.

He wished to call out to something, anything, to find this noise, but found that as soon as the desire entered into his thoughts, he no longer wished it so. Rather, he twirled in slow, crawling circles, winding around and around himself.

He looked at the black crystal.

He had never been interested at all in geology, and how he recognized the shapeless sphere, he was never certain. But somehow he saw it and simply knew.

A black hiruseiki stone could only come from one place, though, and he knew nothing of the location of its source.

As far as he knew, or was concerned, Hiei had disappeared a long time ago.

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"This way! I'm sure of it!"

Kuwabara sighed heavily. Yuusuke had said that twice already, and he was beginning to think it would be a better idea to wait for Hiei and Kurama to come find them.

The air was heavy with the putrid scent of Makai, and a thin fog was rolling in from the invisible hole to Hell. It was all making him very uncomfortable. As such, he was too distracted to sense their companions' location for himself, and only followed his own companion in silence.

"Okay, this time I'm-"

"Oh, no you don't," Kuwabara interrupted. "Not again. We either wait until you really are sure of it, until I focus enough to sense them myself, or until they find us."

Yuusuke looked over, surprised at the openness of his friend, but nodded slowly and sat on the ground. "Okay… I guess, then, we'll just wait here."

Kuwabara nodded and sat beside him.

Twelve minutes passed in awkward silence.

"How long has it been?"

Yuusuke looked at his watch. "Ten minutes, give or take. Wh-wait a minute, hey! You're getting bored, aren't you? Aren't you!? Ha! I knew it!"

Kuwabara hurriedly waved his hands before his face. "No, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I just…eh…I…I'm…bored, okay? You're right. Just go rub it in my face, why don't you."

"Okay, I will. You said you-"

"It was a figure of speed, ahou."

"Mm-hmm."

"Baka."

"Yaro."

Kuwabara scoffed and closed his eyes, tilting his head arrogantly into the air.

"I'm above such petty verbal combat."

Yuusuke laughed aloud. "Pick that up from Kurama, did you?"

"Teme, I oughta…"

"Bring it on!"

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Kurama paced around the alley where he and his friend stood, his hands occasionally waving in the air around him to accentuate his point.

"I don't care how much you 'dislike' Kuwabara-don't give me that look, we all see the act you two put on-but we need to find them! Sooner, rather than later, because the faster we get to Koenma and tell him of this breach we've found-I bet Yuusuke and Kuwabara found one as well-the faster we do that, the better. And you want as little to do with Koenma as possible, correct? Plus, wouldn't it be in your best interest to get him to talk to Mukuro about your…lengthy absence?"

Hiei's gaze sharpened as Kurama touched on a fact he may have overlooked, and he nodded. "Quit your ranting. Let's go."

Gaping a bit, Kurama pressed a hand to his forehead, sighed, and nodded in return. "Yes. Let's."

Walking along the roads, they reached a strangely vacant intersection, and Hiei stopped short. Kurama walked a few steps beyond him before noticing, but then backtracked and stood beside him. The pair concentrated on locating their companions, and, finding the trace ki at quite the same time, darted off together without a single nod of acknowledgement.

"Pick it up," Hiei called over the sounds of his steps on the pavement. Kurama mock-glared at him, smirking at the challenge, and the two were off.

Hiei purposefully slowed himself to keep pace with Kurama, occasionally even slipping back behind him as they ran. Kurama, contrary to what Hiei may have believed, did appreciate his friend's taking into account that fact that Hiei clearly held the superior speed and they both knew it. In seconds flat, they had reached Yuusuke and Kuwabara, shrieking to a halt in the grass.

"What kept you?" Yuusuke asked companionably. Kuwabara was looking disbelievingly between the raven haired boy and his watch.

"Twenty minutes?" he asked. "That's being 'kept?'"

"It is in my book."

Kuwabara huffed.

"I don't see the problem, Kuwabara," Kurama said, smiling. "What did you two find?"

"A giant hole in the ground," Yuusuke supplied helpfully. "Filled with Makai bugs."

Hiei nodded, and Kurama shook his head, though he meant the same thing by it. "Mm… Yes, I thought as much. So did we. Rather-we found a crack in the pavement of a back street, but I suspect both lead to holes to Makai."

"So should we go talk to Koenma again?" Kuwabara asked. "Or should we get some more information first?"

Hiei shivered slightly at the mention of the toddler ruler, something almost imperceptible. Only Yuusuke noticed it, and he did not comment. Kurama, who was paying more attention to Kuwabara, shook his head again.

"Yuusuke," he said, turning to the man in question, "do you still have a method by which to contact Botan?"

Fishing around in his pocket, Yuusuke came up with the familiar looking pocket communicator. "I still have this thing-she gave me a new one for some reason when we told her about the bug infestation, I think she really likes them, so if she has hers, then I'm set."

"Try it."

Flipping up the compact's lid, Yuusuke tapped a few buttons and flipped a small switch, telling it to "Get Botan on the line, you stupid piece of crap!"

On the verge of giving up, Yuusuke even started to close the flip top when Botan's face appeared on the little glass screen. "What is it, Yuusuke? Did you find something important?"

"What took you so long? I thought you told me to keep this thing with me at all times, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes, but that isn't important right now. So did you find something? Yes or no?"

Yuusuke snorted. "Impatient, ne? Yeah, we think we found something. Two huge concentrations of Makai bugs that we think were coming from nearby holes to Makai. How about you, have you found anything?"

Botan shook her head despondently. "No. Reikai intelligence is working nonstop on this, but so far, nothing. I wish I could give you another lead, but…well, I can't."

Kurama nodded in the background. "We'll come up with something."

The compact shut down, and Yuusuke looked over his shoulder. "Something, eh? Like what?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure we'll come up with something eventually. Let's start by examining one of the holes; which is closer, yours or ours?"

"Ours is pretty close, only about two dozen meters that way," Kuwabara said, pointing. "How about you?"

"We ran about a kilometer," Hiei voiced. "We'll go to yours."

"Mm-hmm."

Yuusuke shrugged slightly as they walked. "Man, how long has it been since we last did this? Went on a mission together. I mean, Hiei, I haven't seen you in about six years!"

"I would say it's been about seven years since our last mission," Kuwabara said thoughtfully. Kurama nodded, smiling.

"Nostalgic, isn't it?"

"Yeah…"

Hiei snorted.

"Ch."

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Kneeling to examine the pile of cement and soil, Kurama carefully pawed some of it away to get to the hole. Digging about a meter down, he accidentally began to release more bugs, and replaced enough pavement rocks to stop the flow before it began.

The redheaded ningen turned, crouching before them, regally drawing himself up and fluffing out his hair.

"The hole is either underground, or not a hole at all, but simply a nest."

Yuusuke snickered. "One way to find out."

"Don't do anything rash-"

"Rei Gan!"

Kurama and Kuwabara each moved their arms to cover their faces, but Hiei only turned away slightly and closed his eyes against the dust.

As expected, the ki shot down at least a full kilometer, maybe more.

"Haha, there we go!"

Kurama looked up skeptically and spoke in a dry tone. "And now we know that if there is a hole, it's more than one kilometer underground, or X kilometers to the north, south, east, or west of where we are now."

"Eeto…right."

Hiei sighed. "You're no help…"

"I'm a hell of a lot more help than you!"

Kurama stepped between his two friends, one hand restraining each of them. "Now, now, children, I won't have this sort of meaningless fighting going on in my presence. Yuusuke, Hiei, you're both a help. Yuusuke, you just need to cool your head. Hiei, you need to…just try to be a little more accepting of our flaws."

"Right."

"Ch."

Sighing, he removed his hands. "Now that that's settled…who's up for a bit of dinner at my house?"

"Is it that late already?"

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Makai: Demon World, Hell

Ahou: fool, i.e. "dumbass"

Baka: stupid, idiot

Yaro: bastard

Teme: rude way of saying "you" akin to "you bastard" (FUNimation defines it as "Why, you...")

Ki: energy

Rei Gan: Spirit Gun

Eeto: errr…

Note: I'm using the metric system because it's what they use in the Japanese versions. I.e., from an episode recently aired on Cartoon Network, Genkai said "the shot" (an eraser fired at Murota by Sniper) came from five hundred feet to the right of where Sensui was standing. In the Japanese version, it was five hundred meters, which is roughly 1640 feet. A meter is approximately 3.28084 times the length of a foot.

Note: If I earlier said Kurama was in school still (which I may have, but I don't remember), and the six-year time period since Yuusuke last saw Hiei (which would be like this: end of Makai no hen >> three year waiting period >> end of series >> three year waiting period >> beginning of fic), then he's in college (after a break between the end of high school and the beginning of college) living off campus, and there's an excuse being made for his absence. It's not a major concern to the plot, so if some picky reader points that out, this is the explanation.