Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ Demon in Disguise ( Chapter 23 )

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Balance

Chapter Twenty-Three: Demon in Disguise

He looked up into the eyes of the man in the mirror.  Nothing but glass, glass and mercury and a red stain…only a mirror staring him in the face, showing him a part of himself he had never known existed.  The red stain might as well have been blood, it shone so brightly.  He was staring at himself, at the parts of him he hated…at the parts of him that were stained with blood.  At his innermost core.  At who he really was.  At what he really was.  A cracked mirror stained with blood.

That was all.

He was nothing but a demon in disguise.

I want to leave and never return.

'Why are you crying?' asked the man in the mirror.  He blinked and the tears did not pause.

'Are you sad because of me?  Are you sad because you have finally realized what you truly are?'

I am crying because I have realized that life is not worth living.  His voice was flat, almost preprogrammed.  The man in the mirror cocked his head.

'We are all demons in disguise, you know.  Each and every one of us.  Every person desires something dastardly, to do something wicked because it is wrong.  You have done nothing more than express these desires and allow them to come true.'

I have done horrible things, he said in a voice of wood.  My hands are stained with blood.  I do not know why I can still see them through all the red.

'Because all was done in the name of good.'

In this form, perhaps, he said, but not before.  I wanted life to go back to before, but not too far.  Everything comes with regulations, with criteria and laws that sometimes we forget to mention.  I wish for life to return to the way it was, but only if it will follow my rules.  And life follows no one's rules.  I am asking for things impossible.

'We all ask for things impossible,' said the man in the mirror.  'That is what makes us real.  We desire things out of our grasp.  We spend our lives begging for that which we cannot have, setting goals for ourselves which will never be reached.  That is why the human works, that is why the demon kills.  He is struggling for something he has long since lost sight of, but working and killing has become all he knows, and so he continues to reach for something he cannot have in the only manner he has learned.  We do not change as life goes on.  We grow and our innermost desires and our innermost needs and teachings remain the same.  We only add to what is already there.'

Then the man knelt down and locked eyes with him.  Green and gold sparkled in a wondrous blend as they met with the red glass of the mirror.  Something passed between the colors, though neither man really knew what, nor did they care.  It didn't really matter, after all.

'We all spend our lives trying to forge new shells, but only a few of us succeed.  And is it best?  I do not know.  You do not know.  It cannot be known, because once we have forged that new shell, we can never go back to the way we were, and remaining with those who can do no more than try, we know nothing of the world beyond our grasp.  It is a tenuous balance between what we know and what we think we know, what we want to know so badly that we believe we do know it.  No one can know both worlds they ways they claim to, and no one can do any more than lie.

'Whose life is a lie?  Everyone.  No life is not.  Every secret kept, every word not spoken, all of it forms the lies which make us who we are.  Some are riddled with more lies than others, but in our souls, in our very cores, we are all lies.  We are all secrets, and every secret is a lie to add to the walls we build.'

But a secret is not truly a lie, he argued.  It is merely a word not spoken.

'And what is that but a lie?  All that deserves to be said, that deserves to be known, but is not, all of that is a lie.  Many lies on top of each other.  Before making a choice, a person deserves to know all that he can of any consequence, and any consequence that can come of any action.  Yet someone will know something he does not say, and what is that but a lie?  The unspoken questions are known to all, and some are answered while others are not.  Those not are no more than truths concealed.  Things that mislead.'

Stop being right…I beg of you…  Please, leave me alone in my soul and in my mind, and let me live the lies I was meant to.

'Are you happy living these lies of yours?'

I only want things to be normal again…

'And what is normal but a state of being?  A person cannot define how things are meant to be.  All things are normal.'

Stop being so right…

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Hiei looked over at Yuusuke in the slightest bit of surprise at the apt diversion.  He had mentioned clues, yes, that was true.  Now, of course, he needed to do some quick thinking to come up with what they might be.

"Ki traces," he said suddenly, hiding the fact that he was pleased with himself at the equally apt (not to mention believable) response.  "Any items we might find around here.  We know Miru used to live here as a child, and if we assume her obsession with the eyes of God can be traced back that far, it explains the eye on the door."  At this, Kurama snorted his disbelief, but it went unmentioned.  "See if there are any clearly more recent signs of her arrival aside from the freshness of the silver ropes' power."

Yuusuke and Kuwabara gave sharp nods, each running off in entirely opposite directions.  Kurama nodded slowly as he walked off, clearly contemplating something.  Hiei gave him a second or so head start before his hand snapped out to grab the redhead's wrist.

"You are coming with me," he said firmly.  "I don't want you…going all spastic on me again, even worse that you should do it when no one is around to calm you down and get you back in your head.  And, if I can, I will find out what is making you act so absurdly."

Kurama smiled forlornly and nodded, not so much to Hiei as it was to the wall or to the floor, or even to himself.  Hiei spit on the floor and cursed under his breath in a strange blend of Makai dialects that Kurama didn't even try to understand.

"Yes," said the kitsune softly.  "Very well.  All right, then.  That's good.  Let's go.  Which way?"

Hiei raised an eyebrow at Kurama's less than eloquent response.  Well, he already knew something was wrong with his friend.  It was only a matter of figuring out what.

"Which way?" Kurama repeated in the same even tone.  Hiei nodded down a hall different from the ways Yuusuke and Kuwabara had gone.  The pair started off and Hiei let Kurama direct them, neither of the two speaking for any reason.  There was really no need to, after all.

Padding slowly so as to keep pace with the lagging redhead, Hiei looked over at his companion and frowned.  What was wrong with the kitsune?  He was being so drastically out of character, and in such a manner…  Something was wrong more than what Kurama was willing to tell them.  If, Hiei amended to himself, Kurama was willing to tell them anything at all.

It had been sparked at the sight of the cavernous house, Hiei remembered.  They had been playing beforehand, and as far as Hiei knew, their chases didn't spark any sort of hatred in Kurama, and hatred was certainly what this was all about.  Or at least, a part of it.  Then after the sparking, it had been intensified at the door when Kurama had seen the magnificent golden eyes and silver ropes.  Silver ropes like fur, Hiei remembered.  Now that he thought about it, the golden eyes and the silver ropes quite made him think of Kurama's kitsune form, Youko.

His head snapped back and red eyes flew wide as Hiei stopped short.

That was it.  That was the secret to Kurama's horrible hatred, to Kurama's connection to Miru.  He had answered the main thrust of the mystery.

But Kurama himself still needed to fill in the blanks.

And there were blanks, to be sure.

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Yuusuke paced through corridor after corridor, and he couldn't keep from wondering if Hiei's suggestion of looking for clues had been meant to distract Kurama more than to gather information.  This hideout had been abandoned for years, as far as he could tell.  Nothing looked or felt fresh or new.  The youki was stale and weakened from what it had been when first left, like paintings on a wall that had been long  smudged by rain and then covered with layers of soot and dirt.

Opening yet another door, walking into yet another room, Yuusuke paused to look it over and hold his nose against the oncoming sneeze from the filth of the room.  The sensation ebbing away, Yuusuke took on a bored expression and walked across the dust-covered floor.

Wait…

The floor had no dust resting on it.  How very odd.  Otherwise, this room was no different from the others he had been to; not in terms of architecture, at least, nothing special to keep dust away.  There were no fixtures on the walls, no tarps on the floor, not even a broom for a caretaker (not as if there were one, anyway).  So what could have happened here that hadn't happened anywhere else?  Curious, Yuusuke turned up his youki just a little bit.

Suddenly an overpowering ki slammed into his senses, and Yuusuke, unprepared for the stir, was nudged back a few steps and tossed up his arms out of instinct before realizing he was alone in the room.  But the sensation felt so fresh, so…recent.  And so identifiable.  What was that all about?  It seemed to almost have a distinct air about it, clearly youki, but with another flare attached.  Somehow familiar it was, too.

Slowly, as he paced around the room, Yuusuke came to a realization.  Maybe it was the blood on the floor-wait, blood?  That was different.  Anyway, maybe it was the blood on the floor (that was probably most of it, come to think of it), maybe it was the familiar tinge to the aura in the room (which he had finally placed, though it took him far too long), maybe it was what he knew of Miru's character (precious little though it might have been), but whatever it was, Yuusuke recognized the ki floating around him.

Remembering scraps of the various youki he had felt at the previous locations of youkai and adding it to his recognition of the aura's tint, plus the blood, Yuusuke decided what must have caused the odd ki.  It was torture, most plainly, but not only that, it was weak youkai being tortured and made to bleed by Miru.  She had most likely pinned them to the floor, based on the fact that there were no bloodstains on the walls, and held a knife or some such thing to their bodies.  Most likely their throats, based on what Yuusuke knew of her sadistic tendencies.

But maybe she had whipped them, though that would lead to blood marks on the wall, wouldn't it?  Not if they had been pinned to the ground, necessarily.  That would account for her sadism, her preferred weapon, and the odd ki.

But if that were the case, and Yuusuke now strongly suspected it was, then Miru had to have been in the stronghold only a few days before, two at most, by the sensation of the ki.  So there should be dead youkai piled up in the mansion somewhere.  Hopefully they had already been found, but if they hadn't, and Yuusuke couldn't take the chance in assuming that they had, then they would need to be.  And who better to find them than the one who had deciphered their existence?  Kurama, maybe, but he was not in his right mind.

Tantei Yuusuke was on the case.

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Kuwabara wandered through the abandoned halls of the stronghold, his senses turned on "high" and his eyes out for anything abnormal.  Well aware that the entire "search for clues" side mission was probably meant only to distract them from Kurama, the ningen was not deterred.  He would at least try.  Something was telling him that there were clues here, if only he could find them.

His reikan spiked suddenly, prodding at him as he passed an old wall scroll.  It was a pretty thing, yes, but why had his reikan reacted to it so?  Warily, Kuwabara edged forward and tugged back a corner of the cloth.  Silk-but why should he be surprised?

Oddly enough (or maybe it was only to be expected, but whatever the reaction), the tapestry fell aside to reveal a hole in the wall.  Kuwabara gulped and looked down into the abyss, seeing a staircase waiting there.  It appeared to be the source of his reikan acting up…but he didn't particularly like dark, dank passages into the basement of some stronghold he and his friends were invading.

Time to take one for the team.

Holding his breath to block most of the disgusting smell of the passage, Kuwabara walked slowly down the steps, careful to feel for loose boards or stairs before putting his weight on them.  Finding none, he walked somewhat more quickly down to the opposite side of the room where he could see the faintest outline of a light switch, illuminated by the hall light behind him.

Flipping it on, Kuwabara inhaled, choking on the breath he had been trying to hold and bending at the waist.

Bodies were up to the ceiling before him, all artfully stacked in the center of the room.  Some were decapitated, others had lost limbs, and the rest were just horribly caked with dried and fresh blood and covered in gashes.  They seemed to be arranged in a pattern of some sort, partially designated by their bloodstains or missing body parts.  Kuwabara steeled his nerve and edged forward, gulping slightly as he began his examination.

Fresh blood…?  So Miru had been at the mansion recently.

It took only moments for Kuwabara to see the design, and he cursed himself for not guessing it right away.  This was Miru's mansion, wasn't it?  This was only fitting.

The bodies were carefully placed in the pattern of a large eye, the pupil and retina colored by the various bloodstains and the eyelashes placed with limbs and the bodies they should have been attached to.  Kuwabara felt himself begin to retch, kneeling to stop the bile from rising out of his stomach.  The smell was horribly overpowering.

Take it for the team, he scolded himself, suck it up like a man.

Teetering back to his feet, Kuwabara lowered his head and clasped his hands before him, paying quick last respects for the youkai before him.  Murmuring a prayer over the piles of bodies, he quickly scanned the room for any more clues and found none, then walked back to the staircase by which he had entered.

Padding up the stairs, Kuwabara looked back over his shoulder once more and smiled sadly.

How many lives did Miru have to ruin to get her way?  What would it mean if she got her way?  What would happen to the four tantei?  Would the be able to stop her?

All valid questions, of course.  Questions they had all probably asked themselves, time and time again.

But, like so many other things…

They would have to wait.

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Ki: power
Kitsune: fox
Youki: demon energy
Youkai: demon
Tantei: detective
Ningen: human
Reikan: the spiritual sense, the ability to sense spirits and ki

Note: remember that au contraire to what you might think, the man in the mirror really is in a mirror.  Mirrors are compositions of mercury and panes of glass, which gives them their reflective quality.  The "red stain" indicates the man's red eyes (remember, also, that the man in the mirror takes on Hiei's form); it may be a mirror, but glass can be colored.

Note: I actually looked up the dictionary definition of "lie" to write the dream portion of this chapter.

verb

1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression

noun

1 a : an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive b : an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker
2 : something that misleads or deceives

I utilized definition number two of the verb definition, and numbers one a and two of the noun definition.

Note: the animé states that Yuusuke does, immediately after his second rebirth, emit youki.  I don't know if that means his ki is nor permanently youki or not, but remember, I don't keep to all the facts here.  It's youki because I said it was, so there.  Nyah.

Sub-note: remember that it's hard to sense ki that's very weak, and in a low-power state (i.e., a low class demon), it's hard to sense very powerful ki.  This is another of those "I say it, and it is so": Yuusuke, in his not-fully-powered-up state, is too weak to sense Miru's considerable youki or her…victim's low ki.  Turning up his power a little gave him enough of a boost to sense them both. (They aren't expecting anyone to be in the house, so Yuusuke isn't necessarily walking around fully powered up.)