Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ Mockery ( Chapter 24 )

Disclaimer: my friend refuses to allow me to call the season "nondenominational," so in a bout of weak morals, happy festive holiday season.

Balance

Chapter Twenty-Four: Mockery

The man in the mirror tried to pity him. It was visible in his eyes that he tried. They glittered with all the screams he had ever kept back, all the sorrow which would never become tangible, all the tears which would never fall. It was almost sweet, in a way, except that the man in the mirror was made up of nothing but lies and hatred, and suddenly it became a horrible thing that he tried so hard. He wanted to ask him to stop; more than anything, he wanted to tell the man to simply turn off his eyes, shut them down and stop that ruby red, that terrible, terrible bloody color.

But that was impossible. Even in this world, some things could simply not be done. Turn off the eyes and he turned off the soul, but fear itself had no soul. It was only a manifestation of part of himself. He could not turn off his own soul. That would be too great a strain for any mere mortal, no matter how strong or how vicious. Or how tainted. Or how corrupt. Or how purely evil.

So please, he begged, for he knew the man in the mirror could hear his thoughts. Stop looking at me.

`You would rather run from your fears than face them? Confront them? Defeat them?'

He smiled again, sadly still. The man in the mirror shrunk back a bit at his mockery of cheer.

In a perfect world, no. But this realm is far from perfect. The world awaiting me on the other side is even farther. I cannot pretend to run from world to world searching for perfection when I know it is not awaiting me anywhere.

`You have lost hope in your life,' the man challenged. He nodded.

I probably have.

The man sat beside him then, carefully not touching him, but not too distantly. The man seemed to be trying again, trying to be comforting, to be open, inviting. It was frightening, really.

Their arms almost brushed up against each other, and the man instantly jerked back. What did Fear have to be afraid of? Itself, or so it seemed. His own fear feared him. He almost laughed, it was so bitterly ironic.

`Have you lost hope in yourself?'

He smiled. How could I not? There is nothing to be hopeful for. I am nothing without my life, and with no hope in my life, I am nothing to pray for.

`That was a joke.'

Maybe.

`I am your ally, you know.'

His smile became even more forlorn, but the man was looking out into the distance and he did not see.

Maybe.

But who am I to say?

`Well, I know who I am,' said the man arrogantly. He almost smirked before remembering that nothing warranted anything even close to a smile. Not in this realm.

And who is that?

`I am a slave to the night.'

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Hiei struggled within himself. He could ask Kurama what he needed to and did not know, thereby explicitly revealing that he had stumbled onto his friend's secret, or he could think further on the matter and try to decipher the details himself. Both choices had their pluses and its minuses. On the one hand, if he asked, he would gain the information he didn't have. On the other, Kurama could interpret the query as hostile or intrusive, since Hiei had obviously been dwelling on what might be considered a private matter. Kurama's history with Miru, or Kurokyoui, or any other youkai was really none of his business. And all of this was a gamble, now that he thought about it. There was no guarantee Kurama would tell him anything, catatonic as he was right then. But if he didn't ask, he might come to conclusions that had nothing to do with…anything, mere dead ends that he would count as progress and travel even further down the wrong path. Or he might answer even more questions, such as to what extent had Kurama's history with Miru gone, and exactly why was he so touchy about it? So frantic and vile, even?

Unless he was wrong and came to the wrong conclusions, thus assuming false details about the kitsune…

This was all so touchy… Hiei wanted nothing to do with it. Any of it. But he had an obligation to his friend, his partner, his companion, to help solve the mystery and cure him of his rage.

Wait…

Since when?

Hiei shook his head. All this emotion was screwing with his priorities. He paused, looking back over his shoulder-Kurama was certainly lagging behind. He was getting slower by the second, come to think of it. Were the memories weighing him down too much?

"Kitsune!" he barked, maybe a little more harshly than would do any good. "Is something troubling you? Why are you so slow?"

Hiei stopped where he was, nearly a meter from his friend. That may have been a tad bit too harsh, but Kurama didn't seem aware enough to really care.

"Hm?" he asked dreamily. Hiei's eyes drew into slits. Kurama was slowly digressing to something juvenile, immature. His fear was taking hold, perhaps, or his rage, or his desire to shut out the world, or his desires to run from his problems…or all four. That was something to be fearful of. Their most intelligent, their most poised, their most collected, their most sly, their most wily teammate was becoming a child all over again because of his emotions. Hiei barely gulped down a mutter of a whine.

"Kurama," he said softly, bordering on pleadingly. "Please tell me. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with all of this? What's wrong with me?"

Kurama's expression shifted slightly to match his wistful tone. "With you, Hiei? Why, nothing is wrong with you. You are a stoic warrior, a creature of the night who lives by his own honor code and his own means. You are not pained or in harm's way."

This was getting frightening. Hiei let his eyes widen of their own accord, almost childish enough to match Kurama. Regardless of what his head told him, he was helping his friend, partner, companion, Kurama. The man was in need and he was available, not to mention more willing than he might admit.

"Kurama, you're scaring me."

"Am I, Hiei? Or are you scaring you?"

While the question may have been suitably philosophical or deep, even meaningful under different circumstances, now it only served to further convince Hiei of Kurama's growing insanity and loss of a grip on reality. In a desperate effort, Hiei reached out and almost clung to Kurama's tunic before stopping himself, recoiling at the prospect of touching Kurama as though it would scald him.

"I need your help, Kurama," he said instead in a desperate banishment of his pride. The kitsune's eyes widened just slightly in response and Hiei plunged on in the hopes that he was reaching something deep inside Kurama that was still real and tangibly Kurama. "I…am afraid. I am afraid of you, I am afraid for you, I am afraid of what Miru will do to you, what will happen when we find her." Somehow hearing the words begun, actually speaking them and feeling them pass his lips made it easier to go on. He had heard such theories before, but never believed them until now. "I am afraid that she will murder you and destroy your corpse beyond recognition, but I am also afraid that you will murder her in such a cold fashion that there will be no doubt that your last shreds of humanity are dead."

Kurama's almost cutely confused wide eyes changed to bitter resentment and bewilderment. "I thought you wished for me to return to Makai as the cold hearted thief I once was. You are changing your mind?"

Hiei nodded slowly, thinking and making things up as he went along. "I suppose I have, in a way. I do not wish to be reunited with you in Makai if your form is that of a ruthless, emotionless bastard. I want to meet with you in Makai, but I want you to be who you are now. I want you to be my…friend-" he caught himself before saying "I suppose" "-and I want you to be…happier there than here. I want you to be stronger, I want you to be the way you once were, the way you are meant to be, but in strength and appearance only. I want you to be able to survive easily on your own, to have a certain degree of ice on your heart as I do, but I want you to be real. Not this falsified, hemmed-in creature you've decided to create, not someone incapable of feeling anything."

It all sounded so logical in his head, and in a way, when he said it out loud as well. But something still didn't click. Kurama's frigid gaze was only proof of that.

"You want all that?" Kurama asked in a matching tone to his eyes. "Do you?" Somehow he had become accusing, absolutely unrelenting, and Hiei didn't like it, but he nodded anyway.

"You are living in a world of dreams, Hiei," Kurama hissed. "A world where everything is perfect, everything is the way you want it. A world where everything is the way it should be. Well, Hiei, the real world, the one we're forced into, isn't like that. In the real world, in this real world game we play, no one wins. Some failures are better than others, but most are worse. Much, much worse. We all have our roles, things we must do and scripts we must adhere to because it is our way. You have no right to disrupt that, much less try to interfere with me in such a manner."

Hiei slowly overcame his surprise, blinking his eyes back to their normal size and letting his eyebrows crease in a furious glare. "Listen to yourself," he snarled. "This is not the Kurama I know. This is not the Kurama any of us know. Not Yuusuke, not Kuwabara, not even you, I don't think. Look here, I wish for you to return to Makai in the manner I described, but I do not hope for it. I do not think it likely, or even feasible. The Kurama I know would realize that, and he would not turn on me in such a way as you have."

In a spontaneous act, Hiei knocked Kurama to the ground, so quickly that the kitsune did not have the time to defend himself or block the cheap hit. "Now," Hiei bit out, kneeling slightly so as to press a knee to Kurama's chest and prevent his movement, "tell me.

"What is wrong with you?"

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Hustling through the halls, Yuusuke tried to push out his senses for any lingering traces of fresh youki. There was some on the floor below him, but breaking a hole through the floor probably wouldn't help anyone. Except that he had been looking around for how long? It must be nearly an hour now, and he had found no traces or even hints of a way to get below sea level without breaking the floorboards into pieces. An even if he did, what was the guarantee that he wouldn't have to excavate the dirt for another hour before finding the source of the youki? And what if it faded completely before he was done, and he couldn't find it at all? What then?

Yuusuke rolled his eyes at his own paranoia. Yeah, and what if the entire stronghold randomly went up in flames? What if they were suddenly overcome by an infestation of weeds and movement became impossible? What if the house suddenly collapsed on his head? What if demons swooped down and hacked his body into pieces and then ate his charred and bloody corpse?

Er…the problem, of course, was that none of those choices was all too unlikely.

Gulping and cursing his weak imagination, Yuusuke leaned against the wall. Maybe he should try to find Kuwabara and they could search together.

With a new determination and a new goal in mind, Yuusuke tuned his reikan to "Kuwabara" and scanned as far out as he could reach. There was definitely a trace nearby-seemingly right below him with the youki. Maybe his signals were getting jumbled.

But wait-there was a trail of the carrot top's reiki leading into the wall? About four meters to the right, there was definitely a line of Kuwabara's ki. A trail of it, yes. Into… Yuusuke peered at the wall to his right. Into a wall scroll (the scroll being circa eleventh century, if he remembered his art history correctly (which, of course, he probably didn't)).

Into a wall scroll? There had to be a passage behind it.

Oh, perfect-Kuwabara's ki was moving. Wait a moment, it has just stopped again, but it had definitely moved a few meters towards him. Yuusuke waited, one eyebrow cocked in confusion. The wall scroll-silk, he noted from the way it shimmered in the dim light-moved slightly, as though being pushed aside. Sure enough, Kuwabara stepped out from behind it and promptly yelped at Yuusuke's random appearance.

"Give a guy some warning, would you?" he berated as he recovered himself. Yuusuke smiled cheekily.

"Gomen ne," he said passively. "What did you find?"

Kuwabara pounding near his heart once for good measure, then straightened and looked at Yuusuke solemnly. He nodded towards the tapestry, still quivering slightly behind him.

"You should really look down there, Urameshi," he said darkly. "Careful-it smells really bad."

Yuusuke let his expression return to neutral for a moment before nodding, equally serious. Whatever was down there, Kuwabara thought it was important, not to mention tragic, and it warranted his full attention and sincerity. Yuusuke hesitantly pushed the scroll aside and felt his way down the dark stairs.

He pinched his nose. "You were right about the smell," he choked out. "What is that? It smells like dead rabbits or something."

Kuwabara was breathing through his hand. "Close," he muttered. "You'll see."

Yuusuke felt the floor, solid beneath him, and walked forward a few paces. Kuwabara had pinned the scroll back on a nick in the wall's plaster to let through the maximum amount of light, and Yuusuke stopped just short of the stacks of bodies. He leaned forward to examine them and reared back almost at once with a soft hiss.

"Why didn't you warn me?" he whispered in a short breath. Kuwabara shook his head.

"This is the kind of thing you just need to see to believe, Urameshi," he said, his head bowed again. Yuusuke nodded weakly, consenting despite his protest. He paced around the arty stacks and tried to perceive them from a relatively bird's eye view, trying to see if he could tweak his ki in such a manner that would help.

All was failed.

Kuwabara swallowed audibly as he watched Yuusuke walk around the stacks speculatively. Somehow this felt wrong, to be so analytical of such a tragedy without even a hint of remorse except for his own senses at the horrid stench of death, but he would not say anything.

"It's…an eye," Yuusuke said finally. Kuwabara nodded.

"I don't know why I would be surprised," the brazen youth continued. "This is Miru's house, of course. But still, to commit such an act for this, of all things… This isn't art. It's not even pretty murder. I don't know what the hell this is, but it's not acceptable."

How blunt, Kuwabara thought. It was better than nothing, but still, it was somehow disrespectful, somehow horribly insulting. Kuwabara half expected Yuusuke to comment on how well done the bloodstains were, how perfectly arranged for the purposes they served. That would be heinous and absolutely intolerable.

Instead, Yuusuke walked around to the eye's lashes and observed the dismembered bodies and limbs. He shook his head sadly. "They never had a chance," he muttered. "I bet they're all below C class, maybe even below D. Not at all suited for this kind of thing."

"Right," Kuwabara finally chipped in. "Now we'd better go. I'll leave the tapestry hung up like this as a mark, so we can show it to Hiei when we find him."

"And Kurama."

"…Right."

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Youkai: demon
Kitsune: fox
Makai: demon realm
Youki: demon energy
Reikan: the spiritual sense, the ability to sense spirits and ki
Reiki: human energy
Gomen ne: sorry

The so-called "filler" at the beginning of chapter twenty-three is less filler than it is meant to set up the drastic change in tone when Kurama sees Miru's mansion stronghold house thing. That said, it's not surprising that you couldn't see the connection between the dream portion and the text. I don't explain the links very well (that is to say, at all) and that one was particularly weak. Basically it was all about Kurama (we all know by now that they're his dreams, yes?) finally shouting about what was getting to him. The dream portion had him screaming to the man in the mirror about his friends abandoning him, the chapter text had him screaming to the other Tantei that the whole situation with Miru was so wrong in its unpredictability. If you can find a link between the two rants, then kudos to you and here's a cookie. If not, then I won't explain anything because you might think up something smarter than what I intended. Have fun with that.

Note: in general, the dreams (if you can't find an actual action connection) just set the tone for the chapter ahead. If Dream!Kurama is scared, then Text!Kurama should be scared, too. If Fear (the…thing taking Hiei's form (you might try calling it Dream!Hiei for clarity, but that's not quite correct; Fear is just a representative entity of the "Hiei" living inside Kurama)) is nervous or uneasy, then Text!Hiei will probably be uneasy over something, too.

Other note: the term "slave to the night" used in the dream sequence is used to refer to everything Kurama has to hide from other people in his life. His identity from his family and the rest of the realm, his past from his friends, his knowledge of Miru from everyone. It's said by Fear because Kurama is constantly at least a little afraid that one day he'll slip and say something damaging.

…MY WARPED LITTLE WORLD! Nyah!

Sub-note: as a great author (whose penname I cannot remember) once was not-exactly-quoted as saying (many of them, probably), the characters are far beyond my control and have long since been writing themselves. Hence Kurama's tone suddenly deciding, for no reason at all, to switch from "fury" to "panic" to "monotone" to "catatonic." Don't ask me, I don't know. My theory (that still doesn't mean I know!) is that he's slipped into that blind fury/panic/monotonous/catatonic blend that comes across as blissfully unaware (hence the "dreamy"). Kind of like how if you mix every color in the world, you get white. If you can find a better reason, here's a cookie. That's two if you found a link between the dream and the text.

Yet another note: this chapter brings about the first realization of all the dream talk of creating a perfect world or a place to run to when things get hard. I don't know if it will come about again quite so tangibly, but it might. Whether it does or not, know that it's a fairly constant theme throughout the piece, especially the chapters from maybe seven or so onward (the real, subtle, technical beginning, anyway; that's when they meet the first "victims," such as Makoto and Kira). Kurama gets all touchy because this is almost exactly what went on in his dream (as I said, we all know it's Kurama's dream by now) what with Fear taking on Hiei's form, and now he's having this conversation with the real Hiei, it's all a little over the top. He flips things around, too-rather than let himself be the one to propose the dream world where things are all the way they were before the group broke up, he's accusing Hiei of doing just that. Which he kind of is, but that's not the point. …Kind of.

The giant question pertaining to the notes I have just written: "But, wait, what about Kurama's rant just before about how everything is supposed to be? How can he go from that directly to telling Hiei that he's living in a world of make-believe?"

I have an answer for you, semi-loyal reader. In my warped little world (it really needs a name, now that I think about it), Kurama is subject to mood swings. He knows all the stuff he rants about not being true, such as the fact that Hiei doesn't really wish for things that can never be, that Miru probably won't be at the stronghold, that maybe they won't win in some random last ditch super special attack, that the world doesn't play by anyone's rules. But the point is that he's currently under a lot of strain (because of Miru, and no, I still don't have all the details of their prior relationship worked out; all I can guarantee is that they weren't a couple (I'm flattered that MikaSamu thinks it sounds like I know what I'm talking about)) and emotionally exhausted; most of his strength is used up in being so angry and frustrated.

Basically, he's tripping out on his own stress.