Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ Nothing But ( Chapter 28 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: KitsuneSilver 
That bitch.
Anime/Manga: Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.02.2005 | Updated On: 03.09.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 417 | Status: Completed
That bitch.
Anime/Manga: Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.02.2005 | Updated On: 03.09.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 417 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: history is the cause of all evil.
Balance
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Nothing But
‘The gingerbread man,’ said the man in the mirror. ‘What a notion. You think this is all a fairy tale!’
He turned aside and thought to shake his head. Something held him back; the man in the mirror saw his notion and caught it, crushing it between his fingers. There was no reason to, really. Examples of power were necessary, it seemed, and the man wished to impose authority.
Controlling…
I wish I had control…
The swing froze in its place. Trees stopped rustling, and leaves paused, midair, on their way down to the benches. Silhouettes, were there any to be found, were pinned in place behind windows full of artificial light.
The man in the mirror looked around at the changes to their surroundings and stood from the rock. At the difference in their heights that the stone created, it was not difficult for the man to tower over him.
He still did not look over as the man clapped slowly.
‘No control?’
He shook his head with a twisted smile creeping onto his face.
The swings disappeared, and with them, the grass on the ground.
‘That can be nothing but control.’
His lips parted slightly behind the smile as if to draw in a short breath.
The trees disappeared, and with them, the leaves and their benches.
‘You have trapped an entire world in a block of ice.’
He would not have needed to breath if it was not so natural to him.
The windows disappeared, and with them, the artificial light.
‘Nothing can move, not at all, until you give it your permission to.’
But he laughed.
This world? he cried. This world means nothing! This world has no meaning! I know I can control this world, but I can only do so in its appearance. I can freeze the swings, I can stop the trees and their wind, I can do anything I want to the appearance of this world. But what does it mean? Nothing! If I cannot understand the depths, the heart of this world, then it is no great triumph. And this world, indeed, means nothing to my troubles. They exist outside, amidst what is real. Not in this halfhearted bastardization of a park, this spinning ball of glass skies and mirror men.
I must know what is real to stop it.
The man in the mirror was not taken aback, though maybe he should have been. His stoic shading did not alter, and his poise remained undaunted by the declaration.
The man did not smile. He did not smile. They remained at rest, waiting for the other to react.
‘You wish to stop the reality,’ the man said finally. ‘You wish to freeze the world in place. You wish for everything to be flung into chaos to suit your desires.’
He stood with a grim expression on his face, devoid of emotion.
The rock disappeared, and with it, the greying sky.
They were left with nothing.
Nothing but dirt.
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Yuusuke paused amidst another “random” field, perking his head up and trying to sense…something. Kurama sniffed the air, and Hiei panned out his psychic vision. Kuwabara joined Yuusuke in sensing the surrounding area. They turned their gazes inward simultaneously.
“That way,” Yuusuke said, pointing off into the north. Kurama and Kuwabara nodded, and Hiei offered his assent in the lack of a withering glare. The troop walked off once more.
Stumbling and tripping over clues was nice, yes, and more convenient than trying to figure out on their own where they had gone wrong. But those clues were often cryptic-though in this case, not too cryptic-and annoying. They had made no effort to find the whip shop Kurama referred to from the start, and now they had lost their bearings in relation to their first starting point. Already, they had stormed two shops specializing in whips, only to find that one did not carry wire whips, and the other tailored more to customers with a taste for leather.
Kurama blatantly declined to ask Koenma or Botan for assistance. Why, it was not entirely clear, but Hiei suspected that it was, as Yuusuke or Kuwabara might put it, “a pride thing.” They all knew of their companion’s self-confidence, and in an issue as delicate as this one, it would not be a rare thing for Kurama to refuse their help, as well. The only thing keeping the band together was Yuusuke’s stark refusal that they would split up again, or to let Kurama continue on his own. He knew-they all knew that this was Kurama’s battle more than any of theirs, but each had felt it become a part of himself as the trek went on. Kurama’s own emotional turmoil was becoming their own, and they all wanted Miru to die. Slowly and painfully, if possible.
Hell, they would make it possible.
The whip shop couldn’t be too far off. They could all sense it, faintly, in their own unique ways. They couldn’t be wrong again, they absolutely couldn’t. Kurama was already losing his mind, and the others weren’t fairing all too much better.
The walked for what seemed like hours, but might have been mere minutes. It might have been seconds. It might have been hours. Who could say? One direction, two directions, three directions, ten. Turn left, turn right, no go straight, turn around we made a wrong move, when are we going to get there?
“I can see a small town over the crest of this hill,” Yuusuke offered.
“Yuusuke,” Kurama said irritably, “that might be more convincing if you hadn’t said it five times already.”
The other man chose not to comment. There had been five other times, to be truthful, but each time there had in fact been a town over the hill’s crest. But Kurama was irritable, not having found the town yet, so no one mentioned anything.
“I suppose we have no other option, though,” the redhead amended, “so…let’s hope for the best.”
No one else bothered to speak.
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Shops, stores, markets everywhere-the place was a freakin’ bazaar. How they could find anything, it was unimaginable…
Yet Kurama sniffed his way around-literally, though he did not take his fox form. Quickly, he located a cluster of weaponry houses, charging into the first one. The others followed willingly.
“I need-” he began, stopping himself short. Don’t be too brash. Don’t tell them why you’re here. Don’t give it all away before it can even begin.
“-a new whip,” he covered quickly. “I’m a master of the elegant arts, you see.” Why not flatter himself? It was characteristic of many youkai. “But my old tools are all worn out and torn up. I was in such a fight, and my opponent-though he did emerge worse for the wear, he was quite a brute. Can you help me?” He added some simpering to his tone and fluttered his lashes a bit to carry the point home. Hiei grunted and Yuusuke looked away politely, Kuwabara keeping busy by trying to contain his turmoil of emotion.
“A new whip?” the youkai behind what might have been a counter hacked out. “You want Pan, next door. He’ll help you out.”
He? Hiei wondered. How curious. Maybe his ancestors were Greek…?
Irrelevant. Kurama seemed to be getting them somewhere.
“Oh, thank you,” Kurama said meekly, flashing a small grin as the four companions exited.
The entered yet another shop, directly beside the one with the gruff counterman. Yet another surly man met them there, giving them what some might call an “evil eye” as they browsed around with faked interest. Each instantly spotted a sizable collection of whips along the far wall, more than a few of them wire, but only Yuusuke actually went to observe.
Not that he knew what he was looking for.
Kurama once again stepped up to speak. The others listened intently, pretending to keep their focus on the whips.
“Are you Pan?” he asked sweetly. The grizzly creature jerked his head slightly and didn’t answer. Kurama looked a bit put off, but tried again.
“Please tell me,” he whimpered. “I’m looking for a new set of whips and things to care for them, and I heard that you were the best man around.” He winked one emerald eye, a small but effective gesture. “You are, aren’t you? I can tell just by looking at you that you know what you’re talking about.”
The man appeared to be swayed, and nodded a bit. “Yeah, I’m Pan,” he said in a voice like sandpaper. “Who wants to know?”
Kurama had expected this far in advance. “Well, you see, I’m only visiting Yomi’s lands. I’m a resident of Mukuro’s, of course. But I’m on a business trip,” he said in a sickeningly pitiful tone, “and I’m afraid I don’t know my way around. It was quite lucky I should find your shop, here in this big bazaar. I’ve heard about you all over, and I was hoping I’d find you.”
Pan shuffled around a bit where he stood, coming up with a fine whip made of leather and laced with stringy bits of some sort of metal-iron, maybe? The handle was elegant silver covered in a rough fabric; good for gripping, but bad for blisters. Kurama’s disdain was evident. Apparently, he was eager to show off that he knew good whips from bad ones.
Pan seemed to subtly approve of his new “customer.”
Hiei’s calculating gaze darted over to the pair of them for a mere instant before he returned to the whips. Yuusuke let his own eyes wander to the pair, then to Hiei, wondering what the little youkai thought of his partner-romantic-friend’s flirting. Kuwabara tried to glance around the shop without being too obvious.
“Don’t like that one, eh?” Pan asked quietly. Kurama shook his head with disdain.
Pan nodded, mostly to himself. “I think that what you need is a very special whip,” he said. “You seem like that kind of person.”
With a playful gleam in his entire expression, Pan knelt importantly. Kurama’s expression took on a wary tinge, and Hiei’s hand slowly landed on his katana’s hilt.
“A nice young girl just dropped this one off here the other day, in fact,” Pan said conversationally. “Left something peculiar with it, too. She told me to give it to whoever I saw fit.” The burly creature drew himself back up, keeping his prize hidden. “’Course, I asked her how I’d know,” he continued. “She said I just would. And you, I think, are that someone.”
Kurama practically stopped his breathing entirely, it had become so sporadic. Hiei’s grip tightened on his katana. Yuusuke held his hands together as if to fire a Rei Gan. Kuwabara had his hands casually stretched out in the perfect pose to summon his Reiken.
The bulky creature withdrew, of all things…
A perfect replica of Kurama’s Rose Whip.
Kuwabara balked, Yuusuke withdrew his hands just a little too quickly, and Hiei, though releasing the grip on his hilt, made ready to dart over to the fox at a moment’s notice. Kurama appeared frozen in place for mere seconds before slapping down some sort of bizarre currency on the sill closest to him, snatching up the whip, and darting outside, his partners following closely.
Hiei flickered back, nearly invisible, and snatched the money Kurama had left, cramming it into his pocket as he trailed the fox.
Pan blinked at the door and thought himself insane.
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“Kurama!” Yuusuke screamed as the three fighters ran, completely hell-bent, after their friend. The fox in question only ran faster, the whip replica trailing after him as a thorny tail. Kuwabara was even managing to keep up, though he seemed to be losing an awful lot of ki in the process. Hiei put on an extra burst of speed, running invisible to the naked eye.
The small hiyoukai tackled his partner to the ground, pinning his wrists over his head and tearing the whip replica from his grip. Rather than toss it aside, he laid it carefully on the dirt, but still did not let Kurama up.
“You listen to me,” Hiei snarled into what had become his friend’s hair, as Kurama tossed his head to the side and stubbornly avoided Hiei’s gaze. “We’re not going to get anything done if you keep running off and panicking like this. You have to cool your head and you absolutely cannot let Miru get the better of you! Now calm down! Can’t you even look at me!”
Kurama turned back to face Hiei, and the hiyoukai was met with a most unpleasant sight.
Tears streaked down Kurama’s dirt-lined face and clods of the brown stuff matted his hair. His nosed was wrinkled against the dust kicked up by his turning head, and his normally brilliant green eyes were red and puffy. Hiei started at the vision before him, lightening his grip on Kurama’s wrists and leaning back slightly. The weakened man closed his eyes tightly and shook his head back and forth, mouthing random words and phrases.
Hiei rolled off of his partner and knelt beside him, instinct forcing him to cup Kurama’s swollen cheek in his hand and give the man a place to feel comfort and security. Kurama leant into it eagerly, his eyes still closed and his mouth slightly agape. Hiei let his own eyes soften, just a little.
Yuusuke and Kuwabara hurried over and knelt alongside the pair, Kuwabara panting for breath as Yuusuke only watched with concern. They pair did come forward, not willing to let Kurama’s anguish go unseen or untended by any of them. Hiei bit down on his bitter resentment; they were only trying to help.
“Kurama?” Yuusuke asked worriedly. The man in question rolled over onto his side, facing away from his friends. His hands raised to his face and Hiei laid an arm across his shaking shoulders.
“It’s all right, Kurama,” said Kuwabara softly. “I know it’s hard to deal with this all-I mean, I don’t know what you’re going through, and I won’t pretend I do. But if you want to talk…or something…we’re here.”
The redhead-more like the brown-and-redhead-nodded slightly, rocks scraping against his fragile skin and blood trickling down amidst the dirty tears. Hiei leaned over awkwardly to give his friend a hug.
Yuusuke watched the pathetic scene sadly, wishing there was more he could do than offer a simple “I’m here.”
“Is there…anything we can do?” Kuwabara asked, evidently feeling much of the same thing.
Kurama hiccoughed. “No,” he got out. “I don’t think so.”
Of course.
Yuusuke bit his lip. This wasn’t good… Not only didn’t they know how they could help, but even if they did, Kurama probably wouldn’t let them. So what could they do?
Well, there was always that creepy whip replica…
Kuwabara went over to pick up the wiry plant-like…thing. As he knelt beside it, however, an eerie glow overtook Kurama’s face and he growled viciously, trying to claw at the offender through Hiei’s re-tightened hold on his wrists.
“Don’t touch it!” he snapped. Kuwabara reared back and held up his hands, showing that he definitely wasn’t going to touch anything.
That was both creepy and going a little too far. Yuusuke crawled forward and sat at the fox’s head, tapping his skull to draw attention from Kuwabara to himself. Kurama’s eyes crossed a little as he looked up.
“Kurama, what’s your problem?” the shorter man asked in the blunt way he was so good at.
Kurama’s eyes widened. Shock? Maybe. It was rare for Yuusuke-yes, even Yuusuke-to speak so rashly to the far older man (though it was true, they did often forget that Youko dwelt within their companion). It was rare for anyone to speak so rashly to Kurama, for that matter. He commanded an aura of dignity that was hard to deny.
Fearing the hard glaze that was sure to come over those emerald eyes, Hiei reached over and snatched the whip back up, thrusting it in Kurama’s face.
“We have a task to attend to before you resolve your own issues, detective,” Hiei snapped. How irrelevant was that comment, exactly? Hiei wasn’t sure, but he was certain Kurama would be too distracted to notice, and as for the others, he didn’t really care.
“Kurama, what can you tell us about this replica?”
The older man nodded slowly. “It’s pretty exact, all right. The thorns are spaced well, and the number looks about right.”
The number?
Yuusuke balked.
Kurama didn’t actually know how many thorns were on each of his whips…
Dismissing the thought a bit faster than his half-breed friend, Kuwabara leaned over hesitantly, still a little wary of Hiei.
“So where could she have gotten this done, and what exactly does it mean?” the carrot-top asked. “I mean, obviously she knew we’d figure out her clue, so the location doesn’t really matter, right? But why is this whip so special? What’s it supposed to tell us?”
Yuusuke rocked back on his heels, hand to his chin in a stereotypically thoughtful pose. “We-e-ell…”
Hiei, though he rolled his eyes, wasn’t quite sure what the clue could mean, either. Probably only Kurama knew.
But why? Miru wanted to be found, didn’t she? She wanted to catch Kurama, she wanted to see him suffer, not just hear about it through some lackey. She had orchestrated everything, right down to Kurama’s insanity clouding his mind and slowing their progress. She was a sadistic bitch, that one. If Kurama knew any of her weaknesses, he wouldn’t be able to properly recall them if things came down to a fight. They would be at a disadvantage, trying to keep Kurama cooled down and relatively out of danger.
That bitch.
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Youkai: demon
Rei Gan: Spirit Gun
Reiken: Spirit Sword
Ki: power
Hiyoukai: loosely translated to “fire demon”
SUPER NOTE: some people may have forgotten that I am taking liberties with the series. This story DOES contain some AU aspects, although it is set after the series’ end.
Converting /tmp/phpMfJajG to /dev/stdout
Balance
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Nothing But
‘The gingerbread man,’ said the man in the mirror. ‘What a notion. You think this is all a fairy tale!’
He turned aside and thought to shake his head. Something held him back; the man in the mirror saw his notion and caught it, crushing it between his fingers. There was no reason to, really. Examples of power were necessary, it seemed, and the man wished to impose authority.
Controlling…
I wish I had control…
The swing froze in its place. Trees stopped rustling, and leaves paused, midair, on their way down to the benches. Silhouettes, were there any to be found, were pinned in place behind windows full of artificial light.
The man in the mirror looked around at the changes to their surroundings and stood from the rock. At the difference in their heights that the stone created, it was not difficult for the man to tower over him.
He still did not look over as the man clapped slowly.
‘No control?’
He shook his head with a twisted smile creeping onto his face.
The swings disappeared, and with them, the grass on the ground.
‘That can be nothing but control.’
His lips parted slightly behind the smile as if to draw in a short breath.
The trees disappeared, and with them, the leaves and their benches.
‘You have trapped an entire world in a block of ice.’
He would not have needed to breath if it was not so natural to him.
The windows disappeared, and with them, the artificial light.
‘Nothing can move, not at all, until you give it your permission to.’
But he laughed.
This world? he cried. This world means nothing! This world has no meaning! I know I can control this world, but I can only do so in its appearance. I can freeze the swings, I can stop the trees and their wind, I can do anything I want to the appearance of this world. But what does it mean? Nothing! If I cannot understand the depths, the heart of this world, then it is no great triumph. And this world, indeed, means nothing to my troubles. They exist outside, amidst what is real. Not in this halfhearted bastardization of a park, this spinning ball of glass skies and mirror men.
I must know what is real to stop it.
The man in the mirror was not taken aback, though maybe he should have been. His stoic shading did not alter, and his poise remained undaunted by the declaration.
The man did not smile. He did not smile. They remained at rest, waiting for the other to react.
‘You wish to stop the reality,’ the man said finally. ‘You wish to freeze the world in place. You wish for everything to be flung into chaos to suit your desires.’
He stood with a grim expression on his face, devoid of emotion.
The rock disappeared, and with it, the greying sky.
They were left with nothing.
Nothing but dirt.
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Yuusuke paused amidst another “random” field, perking his head up and trying to sense…something. Kurama sniffed the air, and Hiei panned out his psychic vision. Kuwabara joined Yuusuke in sensing the surrounding area. They turned their gazes inward simultaneously.
“That way,” Yuusuke said, pointing off into the north. Kurama and Kuwabara nodded, and Hiei offered his assent in the lack of a withering glare. The troop walked off once more.
Stumbling and tripping over clues was nice, yes, and more convenient than trying to figure out on their own where they had gone wrong. But those clues were often cryptic-though in this case, not too cryptic-and annoying. They had made no effort to find the whip shop Kurama referred to from the start, and now they had lost their bearings in relation to their first starting point. Already, they had stormed two shops specializing in whips, only to find that one did not carry wire whips, and the other tailored more to customers with a taste for leather.
Kurama blatantly declined to ask Koenma or Botan for assistance. Why, it was not entirely clear, but Hiei suspected that it was, as Yuusuke or Kuwabara might put it, “a pride thing.” They all knew of their companion’s self-confidence, and in an issue as delicate as this one, it would not be a rare thing for Kurama to refuse their help, as well. The only thing keeping the band together was Yuusuke’s stark refusal that they would split up again, or to let Kurama continue on his own. He knew-they all knew that this was Kurama’s battle more than any of theirs, but each had felt it become a part of himself as the trek went on. Kurama’s own emotional turmoil was becoming their own, and they all wanted Miru to die. Slowly and painfully, if possible.
Hell, they would make it possible.
The whip shop couldn’t be too far off. They could all sense it, faintly, in their own unique ways. They couldn’t be wrong again, they absolutely couldn’t. Kurama was already losing his mind, and the others weren’t fairing all too much better.
The walked for what seemed like hours, but might have been mere minutes. It might have been seconds. It might have been hours. Who could say? One direction, two directions, three directions, ten. Turn left, turn right, no go straight, turn around we made a wrong move, when are we going to get there?
“I can see a small town over the crest of this hill,” Yuusuke offered.
“Yuusuke,” Kurama said irritably, “that might be more convincing if you hadn’t said it five times already.”
The other man chose not to comment. There had been five other times, to be truthful, but each time there had in fact been a town over the hill’s crest. But Kurama was irritable, not having found the town yet, so no one mentioned anything.
“I suppose we have no other option, though,” the redhead amended, “so…let’s hope for the best.”
No one else bothered to speak.
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Shops, stores, markets everywhere-the place was a freakin’ bazaar. How they could find anything, it was unimaginable…
Yet Kurama sniffed his way around-literally, though he did not take his fox form. Quickly, he located a cluster of weaponry houses, charging into the first one. The others followed willingly.
“I need-” he began, stopping himself short. Don’t be too brash. Don’t tell them why you’re here. Don’t give it all away before it can even begin.
“-a new whip,” he covered quickly. “I’m a master of the elegant arts, you see.” Why not flatter himself? It was characteristic of many youkai. “But my old tools are all worn out and torn up. I was in such a fight, and my opponent-though he did emerge worse for the wear, he was quite a brute. Can you help me?” He added some simpering to his tone and fluttered his lashes a bit to carry the point home. Hiei grunted and Yuusuke looked away politely, Kuwabara keeping busy by trying to contain his turmoil of emotion.
“A new whip?” the youkai behind what might have been a counter hacked out. “You want Pan, next door. He’ll help you out.”
He? Hiei wondered. How curious. Maybe his ancestors were Greek…?
Irrelevant. Kurama seemed to be getting them somewhere.
“Oh, thank you,” Kurama said meekly, flashing a small grin as the four companions exited.
The entered yet another shop, directly beside the one with the gruff counterman. Yet another surly man met them there, giving them what some might call an “evil eye” as they browsed around with faked interest. Each instantly spotted a sizable collection of whips along the far wall, more than a few of them wire, but only Yuusuke actually went to observe.
Not that he knew what he was looking for.
Kurama once again stepped up to speak. The others listened intently, pretending to keep their focus on the whips.
“Are you Pan?” he asked sweetly. The grizzly creature jerked his head slightly and didn’t answer. Kurama looked a bit put off, but tried again.
“Please tell me,” he whimpered. “I’m looking for a new set of whips and things to care for them, and I heard that you were the best man around.” He winked one emerald eye, a small but effective gesture. “You are, aren’t you? I can tell just by looking at you that you know what you’re talking about.”
The man appeared to be swayed, and nodded a bit. “Yeah, I’m Pan,” he said in a voice like sandpaper. “Who wants to know?”
Kurama had expected this far in advance. “Well, you see, I’m only visiting Yomi’s lands. I’m a resident of Mukuro’s, of course. But I’m on a business trip,” he said in a sickeningly pitiful tone, “and I’m afraid I don’t know my way around. It was quite lucky I should find your shop, here in this big bazaar. I’ve heard about you all over, and I was hoping I’d find you.”
Pan shuffled around a bit where he stood, coming up with a fine whip made of leather and laced with stringy bits of some sort of metal-iron, maybe? The handle was elegant silver covered in a rough fabric; good for gripping, but bad for blisters. Kurama’s disdain was evident. Apparently, he was eager to show off that he knew good whips from bad ones.
Pan seemed to subtly approve of his new “customer.”
Hiei’s calculating gaze darted over to the pair of them for a mere instant before he returned to the whips. Yuusuke let his own eyes wander to the pair, then to Hiei, wondering what the little youkai thought of his partner-romantic-friend’s flirting. Kuwabara tried to glance around the shop without being too obvious.
“Don’t like that one, eh?” Pan asked quietly. Kurama shook his head with disdain.
Pan nodded, mostly to himself. “I think that what you need is a very special whip,” he said. “You seem like that kind of person.”
With a playful gleam in his entire expression, Pan knelt importantly. Kurama’s expression took on a wary tinge, and Hiei’s hand slowly landed on his katana’s hilt.
“A nice young girl just dropped this one off here the other day, in fact,” Pan said conversationally. “Left something peculiar with it, too. She told me to give it to whoever I saw fit.” The burly creature drew himself back up, keeping his prize hidden. “’Course, I asked her how I’d know,” he continued. “She said I just would. And you, I think, are that someone.”
Kurama practically stopped his breathing entirely, it had become so sporadic. Hiei’s grip tightened on his katana. Yuusuke held his hands together as if to fire a Rei Gan. Kuwabara had his hands casually stretched out in the perfect pose to summon his Reiken.
The bulky creature withdrew, of all things…
A perfect replica of Kurama’s Rose Whip.
Kuwabara balked, Yuusuke withdrew his hands just a little too quickly, and Hiei, though releasing the grip on his hilt, made ready to dart over to the fox at a moment’s notice. Kurama appeared frozen in place for mere seconds before slapping down some sort of bizarre currency on the sill closest to him, snatching up the whip, and darting outside, his partners following closely.
Hiei flickered back, nearly invisible, and snatched the money Kurama had left, cramming it into his pocket as he trailed the fox.
Pan blinked at the door and thought himself insane.
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“Kurama!” Yuusuke screamed as the three fighters ran, completely hell-bent, after their friend. The fox in question only ran faster, the whip replica trailing after him as a thorny tail. Kuwabara was even managing to keep up, though he seemed to be losing an awful lot of ki in the process. Hiei put on an extra burst of speed, running invisible to the naked eye.
The small hiyoukai tackled his partner to the ground, pinning his wrists over his head and tearing the whip replica from his grip. Rather than toss it aside, he laid it carefully on the dirt, but still did not let Kurama up.
“You listen to me,” Hiei snarled into what had become his friend’s hair, as Kurama tossed his head to the side and stubbornly avoided Hiei’s gaze. “We’re not going to get anything done if you keep running off and panicking like this. You have to cool your head and you absolutely cannot let Miru get the better of you! Now calm down! Can’t you even look at me!”
Kurama turned back to face Hiei, and the hiyoukai was met with a most unpleasant sight.
Tears streaked down Kurama’s dirt-lined face and clods of the brown stuff matted his hair. His nosed was wrinkled against the dust kicked up by his turning head, and his normally brilliant green eyes were red and puffy. Hiei started at the vision before him, lightening his grip on Kurama’s wrists and leaning back slightly. The weakened man closed his eyes tightly and shook his head back and forth, mouthing random words and phrases.
Hiei rolled off of his partner and knelt beside him, instinct forcing him to cup Kurama’s swollen cheek in his hand and give the man a place to feel comfort and security. Kurama leant into it eagerly, his eyes still closed and his mouth slightly agape. Hiei let his own eyes soften, just a little.
Yuusuke and Kuwabara hurried over and knelt alongside the pair, Kuwabara panting for breath as Yuusuke only watched with concern. They pair did come forward, not willing to let Kurama’s anguish go unseen or untended by any of them. Hiei bit down on his bitter resentment; they were only trying to help.
“Kurama?” Yuusuke asked worriedly. The man in question rolled over onto his side, facing away from his friends. His hands raised to his face and Hiei laid an arm across his shaking shoulders.
“It’s all right, Kurama,” said Kuwabara softly. “I know it’s hard to deal with this all-I mean, I don’t know what you’re going through, and I won’t pretend I do. But if you want to talk…or something…we’re here.”
The redhead-more like the brown-and-redhead-nodded slightly, rocks scraping against his fragile skin and blood trickling down amidst the dirty tears. Hiei leaned over awkwardly to give his friend a hug.
Yuusuke watched the pathetic scene sadly, wishing there was more he could do than offer a simple “I’m here.”
“Is there…anything we can do?” Kuwabara asked, evidently feeling much of the same thing.
Kurama hiccoughed. “No,” he got out. “I don’t think so.”
Of course.
Yuusuke bit his lip. This wasn’t good… Not only didn’t they know how they could help, but even if they did, Kurama probably wouldn’t let them. So what could they do?
Well, there was always that creepy whip replica…
Kuwabara went over to pick up the wiry plant-like…thing. As he knelt beside it, however, an eerie glow overtook Kurama’s face and he growled viciously, trying to claw at the offender through Hiei’s re-tightened hold on his wrists.
“Don’t touch it!” he snapped. Kuwabara reared back and held up his hands, showing that he definitely wasn’t going to touch anything.
That was both creepy and going a little too far. Yuusuke crawled forward and sat at the fox’s head, tapping his skull to draw attention from Kuwabara to himself. Kurama’s eyes crossed a little as he looked up.
“Kurama, what’s your problem?” the shorter man asked in the blunt way he was so good at.
Kurama’s eyes widened. Shock? Maybe. It was rare for Yuusuke-yes, even Yuusuke-to speak so rashly to the far older man (though it was true, they did often forget that Youko dwelt within their companion). It was rare for anyone to speak so rashly to Kurama, for that matter. He commanded an aura of dignity that was hard to deny.
Fearing the hard glaze that was sure to come over those emerald eyes, Hiei reached over and snatched the whip back up, thrusting it in Kurama’s face.
“We have a task to attend to before you resolve your own issues, detective,” Hiei snapped. How irrelevant was that comment, exactly? Hiei wasn’t sure, but he was certain Kurama would be too distracted to notice, and as for the others, he didn’t really care.
“Kurama, what can you tell us about this replica?”
The older man nodded slowly. “It’s pretty exact, all right. The thorns are spaced well, and the number looks about right.”
The number?
Yuusuke balked.
Kurama didn’t actually know how many thorns were on each of his whips…
Dismissing the thought a bit faster than his half-breed friend, Kuwabara leaned over hesitantly, still a little wary of Hiei.
“So where could she have gotten this done, and what exactly does it mean?” the carrot-top asked. “I mean, obviously she knew we’d figure out her clue, so the location doesn’t really matter, right? But why is this whip so special? What’s it supposed to tell us?”
Yuusuke rocked back on his heels, hand to his chin in a stereotypically thoughtful pose. “We-e-ell…”
Hiei, though he rolled his eyes, wasn’t quite sure what the clue could mean, either. Probably only Kurama knew.
But why? Miru wanted to be found, didn’t she? She wanted to catch Kurama, she wanted to see him suffer, not just hear about it through some lackey. She had orchestrated everything, right down to Kurama’s insanity clouding his mind and slowing their progress. She was a sadistic bitch, that one. If Kurama knew any of her weaknesses, he wouldn’t be able to properly recall them if things came down to a fight. They would be at a disadvantage, trying to keep Kurama cooled down and relatively out of danger.
That bitch.
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Youkai: demon
Rei Gan: Spirit Gun
Reiken: Spirit Sword
Ki: power
Hiyoukai: loosely translated to “fire demon”
SUPER NOTE: some people may have forgotten that I am taking liberties with the series. This story DOES contain some AU aspects, although it is set after the series’ end.
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