Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ Barren Plane ( Chapter 29 )

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

Disclaimer: d’you know how completely spectacular it is to be left home alone for two days straight? It’s pretty friggin’ cool.

Balance

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Barren Plane

Nothing but dirt! he wanted to scream. Nothing but hard, cold dirt! Nothing but little tiny chips of rocks from ages long since passed that I have never seen! I have nothing left but dirt and little pebbles!

Since he did not think to scream it, but only wanted to, it did not cross his mind and the man in the mirror did not know of it. His façade was back in place and things were right again.

But neither he nor the man in the mirror would be sated with rightness.

He stood off to the side, facing the endless plane of dirt that was not really endless, for what was that? That was nothing. Everything had a beginning, or it would not be, and therefore it had an end. The dirt did not move in some calm autumn breeze and the stones were not coated by some slick winter ice and there was no mirage caused by some unbearable summer heat and there was no nip in the air from a newborn spring. Everything simply…was.

‘What are you thinking?’

He looked back, feigning that he had been startled. The man in the mirror pretended to accept that.

Me? he asked softly. Thinking? He looked over then, a dim light in his eyes as though he had just realized something. Oh, yes…thinking…

I was only thinking that the scenery looks rather pretty for something so plain.

The man in the mirror walked over to him and sat on the ground. Yes, it was all rather pretty, he thought with sarcasm. Very pretty for something that means nothing to anyone.

‘Nothing to anyone?’ the man asked him quietly. He nodded once.

What can my mind mean to anyone? he asked. It is nothing to anyone. It has done no great good in the real world and it is nothing but a barren plane in this one. It means nothing to anyone and it means nothing to me.

The man looked out on it as well before he spoke.

‘You are not anyone?’

Oh, he said softly. I suppose I would fall into that category, wouldn’t I? It is my mistake, and I am sorry.

The man in the mirror scoffed at his politeness. ‘When did you decide to start lying to me?’

This was a foolish question. He had been trying to lie ever since he had come to this world inside his mind. He had been trying and trying, even when he realized he would not succeed. He could when he lied to himself, but Fear knew.

Fear always knew.

I have not lied to you, he said. I have merely told you what is going on throughout my own mind, what I am thinking. How is that a lie? How is that a matter for you to determine?

The man in the mirror let his eyes sharpen. ‘How can it be a matter for you to lie about? I can see your very thoughts, you know. You can hide nothing here. You have no second mind-the two you keep are the same.’

He smiled lightly. Pardon me, he said, but I have kept up my own pretense for many years, and I have never been questioned by those I fool.

The man in the mirror stood and chuckled. He had slipped and it would cost him.

‘And for whom do you put up this front?’ he asked. ‘For mere mortals. For idiot humans. For children of this world.

‘For no one.’
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“We already know she’s spying on us,” Yuusuke reiterated, “and we already know she knows how smart we are. She wouldn’t have left such a weird clue otherwise.”

“You mean she knows how smart Hiei and Kurama are,” Kuwabara added. Yuusuke shot him a dry glare, eyes large and narrowed in a strange combination. The taller man laughed weakly through an abashed expression and Yuusuke continued.

“But this new…thing, this whip replica, what does it mean? Hiei?”

The hiyoukai shrugged. This was Kurama’s question to answer, not his, and he wouldn’t be pretentious. He did, however, pick up the whip again and observe it from a few different angles. It was nearly perfect, from what he could tell. The consistency was stiff but gentle around the handle, the whip itself was pliant, the thorns were deadly sharp and he pricked his finger by merely grazing his finger over them… Miru had done her homework.

But what about this thing wasn’t real? It had been laced with a particular ki signal to make it feel as though it had been created spontaneously of another object, just like Kurama’s whips were laced with his own ki. It nearly radiated it…but not enough to be overdone. It smelled of the forest and a strange tinge that was like Kurama, but also quite different. Probably as close as Miru could get, all things considered.

It looked real, it smelled real, it sounded right when he snapped it against the ground… He would have tasted it if he knew how Kurama’s whips tasted, which he did not (nor did he care to find out).

But something about it…felt wrong.

Hiei glared at the whip, daring it to tell him otherwise. It glimmered up at him in the light through the trees, sparkling innocently under a sharply dappled pattern.

Wait… Wait, wait, wait…

That was it.

The consistency was not all perfect.

Kurama’s whips had a certain flawlessness about them, a sleek smoothness proving they had been created of one object at one time. With the light falling the way it was through the leaves overhead, the dappled pattern should have been smooth and blurred, but it was not. Little nicks were barely there, creating sharpness in the light. This whip had small, nearly imperceptible chips in it, little flaps of some material overlapping with another piece of it.

This whip was woven.

It was nothing more than tightly bound scraps of greenery, covered with some kind of wide, light plant life as a sheath. Hiei picked at one of the little imperfections in the reflection until it began to come off, tangibly overlapping with its neighbor.

Hiei smirked.

Another clue? Maybe. There was only one real way to find out.

“Hey, shrimp,” said a familiar throaty voice from over the hiyoukai’s shoulder. “Whatcha doin’?”

Hiei grit his teeth. “Not that it’s your business,” he stressed, “but I need to speak to Kurama.”

“Privately?” Yuusuke asked, winking suggestively. Hiei nearly recoiled at the man’s perverseness.

“No,” Hiei snapped a little too quickly. “You can sit around and stare at us, for all I care.”

Yuusuke and Kuwabara looked at each other understandingly.

“Okay.”

They pair settled down amidst a homemade bed of leaves, ready to watch.

Hiei huffed a small grunt.
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“What?” Kurama asked for at least the third time. Hiei showed him the whip again, pointing to the leaf that had been pried up.

As Kurama blinked at him, the hiyoukai sighed. He hadn’t known it would be so hard to simply persuade Kurama to talk about unraveling the clue. This was getting somewhat tiresome.

Yuusuke and Kuwabara appeared to be enjoying themselves enough. Yuusuke occasionally snickered, and Kuwabara had a nasty tendency to mutter to his friend about married couples or something equally ridiculous. Hiei refrained from snarling, as he was sure that would only convince them to speak louder and more often.

Hiei took a deep breath. “I need you to unravel this whip,” he said to Kurama, almost as though he was speaking to a small child. Kurama’s mouth turned down a bit, but he remained otherwise expressionless.

“Why?” Kurama asked this time. Hiei nearly sagged in his relief.

“I think it’s only right,” he replied. “You have more vested in this missions than any of us; you should be able to hide the clue if you want. The only way that can happen is if you see it first.”

Slowly, Kurama let his eyes rove over the whip. He spotted Hiei’s little flaw almost instantly, his eyes widening the slightest bit as he continued his scan. Finally he nodded.

“All right.”

Hiei sighed, relieved, and instantly handed over the collage of plants. Kurama took it less carefully that Hiei might have, but as he was intending to tear it apart anyway, it didn’t really matter. Rather than continue on with Hiei’s beginning, however, he held up the whip to the light shining down on them and inspected it further.

“Who d’you think is the wife?” Yuusuke asked quietly, recalling and tweaking an old line Botan had once used to refer to himself and Kuwabara as they argued over a sandwich. The taller man smirked and laughed under his breath, waiting for Hiei to glare at them and threaten their lives. No such thing came, and he wasn’t disappointed, but it wasn’t quite the same.

Long minutes passed.

Yuusuke and Kuwabara were running out of jokes.

Hiei was getting nervous.

Kurama didn’t stop examining the replica.

Finally, Yuusuke burst out with a loud yawn and Kuwabara leaned forward, his expression skeptical.

“You almost done yet, Kurama?” he asked, trying to keep the rudeness out of his question. This time, Hiei did shoot him a bitter glare, and Kuwabara recoiled instantly.

Kurama looked over without moving his head. “Almost,” he said softly, instantly returning to his work.

“Um…” Yuusuke began weakly. “What’re you looking for?”

Kurama looked over fully this time, lowering the whip as well.

“I don’t know, actually,” he said. “Anything. Explosives, paper, poison, clues…anything.”

Kuwabara shuffled anxiously in the grass.

“Find anything?”

“…no.”

Hiei smiled slightly. He didn’t think Kurama would find anything until he finally unwrapped the whip, but he wouldn’t speak. This was Kurama’s game to figure out, not his.

“Why don’t you finish unwrapping it?” Yuusuke asked. Hiei grimaced.

Kurama raised an eyebrow at his partner’s reaction, but chose not to comment. Instead he smiled at Yuusuke and nodded. “I will. Don’t worry. I only need to check over the actual thorns first.”

Kuwabara scrunched his face up in a picture of confusion.

“So what’s he been doing so far?” he muttered to Yuusuke. The smaller man shrugged, but Kurama smiled sagely.

“I’ve been checking over the wrapping for anything dangerous,” he answered the half-asked question. “And no, I haven’t found anything, and yes, I am about to look over the thorns, and yes, when I do that, I’ll be ready to unravel it.” He closed with an almost self-satisfied grin, oddly like the Cheshire cat.

Yuusuke nodded a few times with little of his own will. Kuwabara repeated the action a moment later, and Kurama brought the whip close to his eyes to carefully inspect the faux thorns. He mouthed things to himself, but as Kurama was the only one of the Tantei who could read others’ lips properly, it didn’t help much.

Yuusuke rolled onto his back and lay spread-eagle on the grass. Kuwabara lay similarly, at an angle to his friend. Probably sixty degrees or something like that. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered, really. Nothing had ever mattered, and nothing ever would.

Hiei watched Kurama closely. The fox was being thorough in his inspection, that was for sure. In fact, he was practically picking it apart with his eyes rather than his hands. The emerald orbs roamed to and fro, pausing now and then and drawing on their observer’s curiosity, laughing at the knowledge that he wouldn’t dare interrupt. It was quite frustrating for the little hiyoukai and quite entertaining (sadist, Hiei thought) for the elegant fox.

Longer minutes passed.

“…you done yet, Kurama?” Yuusuke asked after awhile.

“Hm?” Kurama looked over. “Oh, oh, yes, I suppose I am. It appears that the entire purpose really was for us to unravel it.”

Kuwabara yawned.

Kurama lowered the whip and found the little flap Hiei had started to tear. He cautiously tugged at it, trying to pull it off further. Hiei sat beside him, staring with rapt attention now that something was actually happening. Both Yuusuke and Kuwabara sat up, their gazes locked forward on Kurama’s hands and the fabric they tore.

Work was slow, but finally, Kurama had made a sizeable rip in the leafy cover. It revealed a stuffing of grasses and flower stems, maybe a few petals, and some odd-looking plants that were probably for smell. The fox nearly jerked back at such a horrible insult to his own whips, but quickly glossed over that and continued his work.

Nearly an hour must have passed before Kurama announced that he had found something.

“What is it?” Kuwabara asked. Kurama looked up; just as the spectators had lost track of time while they watched, he had forgotten about them.

“Paper, again,” he answered finally. He held up the little scrap for the others to see. Only one word was printed on it in almost-black green ink.

Essenes

Hiei peered over Kurama’s shoulder from some feet away, and the two spectators leaned forward to read it from the sidelines. Kurama, meanwhile, was gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut. Yuusuke started to crawl over to the fox, his face lined with worry.

He started to speak, opening his mouth, but Hiei held up a hand and shook his head. Kurama needed to calm himself down, or at least get himself to the point where an explosion of his rage would come in words, not plants. The smaller man nodded in shared understanding, and even Kuwabara seemed to get it. He wouldn’t try to speak to Kurama, at least, that much was for sure.

Meanwhile, the man of the hour was fighting down his own fury quite admirably. When his eyes finally opened, they were a glazed, frothy green, much unlike their usual bright emerald. Kuwabara winced and Hiei tilted his head. Yuusuke leaned back for a moment before rocking forward again, placing his hands on the ground to support his weight.

“Kurama…” Yuusuke began, thankfully having the sense to speak cautiously and without presumption.

“What does it mean?” Kuwabara asked, his voice lowered to a whisper. Kurama’s head snapped to the side, his eerie, off-color gaze fixed on the tall man. Kuwabara struggled not to recoil.

“It means she’s a horrid bitch,” Kurama growled, his voice low.

Hiei slid over to sit beside his friend. Kurama never used that sort of language, yet Hiei had heard him cursing a few times over the last few days. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the guards he had to keep up around his friends-his friends, the people he was supposed to be able to let himself shine around-maybe it was the emotional strain, maybe it was his past catching up with him, but whatever it was…Kurama was breaking.

If he wasn’t already broken.

Kurama didn’t seem to have noticed Hiei, as he seethed at the paper before him. Having no clue as to what it could possibly mean, Hiei read it over several times and tried to jog his memory. Essenes… Yes, he seemed to remember something involving a word like that… It was a name, a class…in the human’s history…thousands of years ago…

But what could it mean?

Kuwabara and Yuusuke were talking animatedly in their little corner. One seemed to recall the name, as well, and was desperately trying to recite the history lesson in which it had been mentioned. International history, maybe learned in a language course, but probably not… So then where, where, where had they heard that name before?

Kurama knew.

Kurama had to know.

So why wouldn’t Kurama tell?

Against his better judgment, Hiei reached out and laid an arm across Kurama’s shoulders. Tugging just slightly, he hinted that if the fox wanted to lean on him, he would be there.

Maybe surprisingly, maybe typically, Kurama did not break down in tears and sob all over his love. He barely even reacted except to slightly tilt when Hiei pressed him closer. That was not as odd as it seemed, considering the circumstances.

Only a few minutes later, Kurama released a feral snarl and brandished the paper in Hiei’s face.

“Do you even know what this means?” he snapped, waving the page. Hiei shook his head.

“It means she wants to go back to where this all began! That bitch!”

Hiei nudged him closer still, toying with the tips of his hair. “Why don’t you tell us about what it means?” he suggested softly. Kurama nodded a few times.

“It means she wants me to return to the forest in which we met. That’s where the next clue will be. Or…no, I’m sure of it. That’s where she will be waiting. She doesn’t like longer games, she’s not like me. She wants this to be over quick.”

“Who were the Essenes?” Hiei asked soothingly. Yuusuke and Kuwabara crawled over to listen, sitting up like little schoolchildren on the rug, waiting to hear what two plus two was.

“A religious sect, existing around two thousand years ago. Like most religious groups still do, they believed themselves to be ‘chosen by God’ as those who would be saved when the destruction of the world came about, as they supposedly knew it would.” Kurama snarled at the paper again. Yuusuke’s eyes became different sizes as his confusion grew, and Kuwabara cocked his head. What did that have to do with anything?

“And…?” Hiei prompted. Yuusuke and Kuwabara seemed to have dubbed themselves mute. Hiei was grateful, albeit a bit curious. They never stopped talking without a reason. Hell, they never stopped talking, period.

Kurama once again turned his frothy gaze away from the word before him. “And?” he asked, as thought the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. Kuwabara nodded.

“And, it means she wants to go back in time, back to the past. She wants me to feel as though I have a good chance, as though I may be helped by the gods themselves in defeating her.” He turned his gaze away again, then tossed it back, trying to appear rightly arrogant. Yet there was nothing to be arrogant for, as there was a strong chance Kurama couldn’t beat her, and there was no chance the gods would help.

No one mentioned this. It was all for the best. Kurama probably knew, anyway.

“So how far is this forest?” Kuwabara asked hesitantly.

“How many days will we have to run?” Yuusuke added, equally tentative.

Hiei only looked at his friend intently.

Kurama laughed hollowly.

“We’re sitting in it.”
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Ki: power
Hiyoukai: loosely translated as “fire demon”
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