Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Down to Earth ❯ Installment the Third -- Preparations ( Chapter 3 )

Yohko's Note to the General Public:

Wow. New chapter already. Ain't you loved and lucky. The more reviews I get, the quicker I'll be. Doesn't matter if they're positive or not...just review! I'm going to say this once and I probably never will again, but I love you guys. And I'll love you even more if you REVIEW. Thankyou, that'll be all. Oh, and something to remember: I have my own spellings for the words "thankyou" and "atleast". You think of them as two words and I don't want to hear about it. That's just the way I do things. Its like part of my signature. If you must know it because I've done it forever. I've never seen any good reason to split them into two words. So get over it.

PS: Ze Yohko eeza nota ownin YuYuHakusho, yah. She eez, howevah a ownin of ze Kura and a Kuga.

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Installment the Third : Preparations

They all ended up getting to the park around seven. Hiei, of course, had been there since they got back, high in a tree sleeping amongst the leaves. For some reason he had found no obligation to have to go back to the one he had adopted as his own and then have to come all the way back to the park. Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuga arrived as group, Yusuke seating himself on a park bench while Kurama and Kuga stood a few feet away, engaged in a quiet conversation tha tYusuke had been very careful not to take part in. The Spirit Detective felt unreasonably tired for some reason, as if Kurama's explination had been something fearsome he had been forced to endure. He knew plenty well this was all his own fault, but wasn't all too happy or willing to admit it at the moment. He sighed and let his head fall back, trying to take in all that had been said in the past few hours. But it was more difficult than he expected and eventually he gave it up, simply basking in the fading sunlight and drawing in all the sounds and smells from around him. Kuwabara got there in a few minutes and sat down beside Yusuke with a small "hey" and an unusual silence and lack of confidence surrounding him. Yusuke barely acknowledged his presence except for a muffled "mph", and then sunk back into the bliss he had been enjoying. Botan was the last to arrive, floating in on her oar graceful, silent and slow, as if it might be the last time she ever did it.

Yusuke lifted his head with a scowl and a sigh, and looked up at Hiei who hadn't moved a muscle since they'd been there. "Hey Hiei. Wake up get down here if you're coming. You don't, and I'll call the fire department, have em shoot you down with a hose." This earned him quite a glare from the little demon, who had apparently just been sitting still with his eyes closed. "My aren't you cranky? Too bad for you, cuz so am I. Most days I wouldn't mind so much, but just on account of the fact that this might be my last night alive, I really don't have time for it. Get down here on yer own accord or face the men in red coats. What's it gunna be?" Hiei rolled off his perch, and landed feet first, agitated. "Watch you're mouth, Detective," a spiteful Hiei growled. "I don't suggest you say things so hastily unless you've got a plan you'd like to grace us with. I, for one, am not in the mood for your insolent tongue, so do it a favor and stop working it so hard towards the impossible goal of saying something worth listening to. Otherwise, you might just find it missing."

"Please, no more arguing," Kuga pleaded. "Yes, Kuga's right," agreed Botan. "We have far too much to worry over already besides the two of you strangling one another. Just let it go. We're all a bit standoffish at the moment. Calm yourselves down. There are more important things at hand than which of you is more arrogant than the other."

"I think its a tie," came a familiar voice. Yusuke looked over at the entrance where Keiko stood, her hands behind her back. "I am NOT arrogant," Yusuke said with frown. "See?" Keiko said peering at Botan. Botan nodded and gave a nervous laugh. Keiko's small smile faded quickly. "It's getting late, you know. What're you all doing here?" she asked with worried eyes. "It'd take too long to explain it all," Yusuke answered uncomfortably. "Let's just say we're waiting to catch something and whether we do or not could mean the fate of this world and the next."

Keiko stood there for a moment and looked at him. "Doesn't sound too difficult or out of the ordinary for you guys," she said. She cast her eyes to the ground and after a minute or so of silence she walked passed the park. "WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!" Yusuke hollered down the street. "Genkai's," she called back over her shoulder. "I only came this way because I heard you and Hiei yelling at each other."

"WE WEREN'T YELLING!" he shouted after her, but she either ignored him or didn't hear him. Yusuke finally "hrumph"ed and muttered something about girls before planting himself once again on the park bench, pouting and slumped foreward. Kuwabara finally seemed to wake up and tried to stifle his laughter, disguising it as a series of loud snorts and chuckles under his breath. Yusuke whacked him in the stomach.

Kuga stared after Keiko with a sleepy kind of curiosity, the kind you might see in a very small child. After a short while she turned to Yusuke and then back to the street, a puzzled frown on her face. "Keiko, hm?" she pondered to herself, quiet but still so everyone could hear. "I wonder..." She suddenly shook her head vigorously as if she was trying to rid herself of an ear. "It can't be. This whole `physical' thing must be getting to me more than I thought."

"What's that?" Yusuke said looking up from a death glare contest he'd been having with Kuwabara. Kuga looked down at him with a small smile. "Oh nothing. Crazy thoughts is all. Anyhow-"she said quickly, looking up at Botan. "everyone is here correct? We can get started then."

"Started? With what?" Kuwabara said anxiously, hoping to God it wouldn't have anything to do with him.

"Finding Kura, of course. That IS what we're here for. Now...who is it that has the best spiritual awareness out of all of you?"

All eyes turned to Kuwabara. "What? Wait...NO. I don't wanna-" the red head quivered.

"Calm down. It's alright," Kuga said, taking a gentle but firm hold on Kuwabara and dragging him to a spot directly in the center of three blossoming cherry trees. "Okay, now can you see the North Star from here?" Kuwabara, still jittery and nervous squinted into the hazy night sky. The sun had JUST disappeared over the horizon and it was still rather light. But still: "Yeah...barely, but it's still there."

"Good, that'll make my job a little easier. The North Star is the portal to the Afterlife, you see. It can be seen from anywhere on Earth at any time of the year. The easier it is to find the more power I can tap into...atleast while I'm human," Kuga explained. "If we can't see it that means the portal is closed or backed up, and it's harder to tap into my powers, and my link to Kura. You see where this is going?" Kuwabara nodded. He was human, not stupid.

"So what do we do?" Yusuke asked, apprehensive and ready to do some good ol' fashioned ass-wuppin.

"What do I do," Kuga corrected. "We try to make a good solid connection with the Afterlife Power Basin...the APB. It's what's limiting my (and Kura's) resources. It's what's holding us back. So, it takes a certain amount of effort to bore a hole in it big enough to accurately tap into our power. The APB is so infinite such holes have no affect on its capacity or its ability to contain our powers. However, such holes DO leave behind traces of themselves. With the right aim and connection I'll be able to find holes that Kura's made recently."

"How'll that help?" Hiei broke in, irritably. "Just because we know WHEN she tapped into it doesn't mean we know where!"

"Yes we do. You didn't let me finish. The APB is so infinitely large that its scope is equal to the space of Heaven, the Underworld, and the Mortal Plane combined. Therefore, wherever the hole is made is where the power is used. So we WILL know Kura's last location, if I can tap in the APB correctly. Its all a matter of luck."

Circe had wandered back to her master, upset, confused and deep in thought. Yohko was alive...Yohko was ALIVE! How could that be? Kura had said he was dead...she had lied? Yes, that made perfect sense now that she heard his story. Kura had wanted her to avoid Yohko at all costs. What better way to do that than to say he was dead? But it wasn't like Kura not to finish such a job...even when it WAS dealing with her own students. Still, she had definitely liked Yohko. REALLY liked him. And he had betrayed her...that's gotta be hard on the heart. But she wouldn't tell Kura what she had learned on that topic. She would only blab what she needed to, nothing more. Circe was very good at shutting up at the right times, a skill that would become very valuable very, very quickly.

When the little black cat arrived on the premises she noticed the Ice Maiden that had called herself Yukina before. It seemed odd to Circe, as she made her way inside, that such a young Ice Maiden would be living all by herself. There must be someone else guarding this shrine, she supposed. Someone very powerful.

Circe found Kura sleeping inside, slumped against the wall, dressed in something obviously of her own creation: a small black dress caressed her form, with thigh-high black socks and an oversized dark jacket. Two biking gloves graced her spidery hands, and four silver bracelets made their presence known from where they jangled on her left wrist. A small black, silver-studded choker constricted her neck and the same type of belt hung, loose and lobsided, on her waist. Her head was propped up on her knees and the cross pendant was clutched in her right hand, her dark hair spreading every which way. Circe wriggled her way into Kura's chest and began licking her face in order to try and wake her up. It worked, in a sort of way. Kura woke up, but not really. She was far to spent from trying to make herself clothing as well as the escape, and only fluttered her eyelids for a while before shutting them and ignoring Circe's exhistance completely.

Yukina came in as the light disappeared from outside and spotted Circe. Her eyes went from cat to master and a puzzled look came over her face. `That's strange...she must have had other clothes with her. I know those aren't the ones she came in or the ones I gave her...how odd.'

When Kura finally did wake up it was with sincere reluctance. She blinked her eyes open and looked down at Circe, curled up on her lap. Relaxing her knees so they straightened onto the floor, she used the wall to prop herself up, cracking her sore joints as she went. Her movement woke Circe and the cats big eyes met her own, and they just sat there staring at one another for a moment or two. Only when they were certain Yukina was out of earshot did Circe speak.

"Mistress," she mewed. Kura gave a faint smirk and rubbed the cat behind her ears. "ooh...!" Circe purred. "Who are they Circe?" Kura said quietly. "Morons all of them, as you supposed. A human named Kuwabara Kazuma with no apparent valuable capabilities; two half-bred demons, one who's half human and half who knows what other rubbish named Urameshi Yusuke, the other is a runty ice fire demon cross under the protection of the Jagan (what he's called I'm not quite sure); the last is a demon I cannot classify, the brains of the group, who calls himself Kurama."

"Koenma arranged to have my sister assist them, did he?"

"But of course, Mistress."

"They'll be on my trail then."

"Indeed Mistress."

"Is there anything else we know?"

"Yes. The Urameshi fellow is seemingly the leader and very close to two people we have very close at hand."

"The Yukina..."

"Yes. And even more so to the young lady to whom we owe the honor of being in this shrine in the first place."

"Fascinating," Kura sneered. "So we already have two easily accessible and equally feeble hostages at our fingertips. Perfect. Absolutely perfect."

A sudden knock at the door called Yukina from the back of the house. She hurried forward, past the room where Kura and Circe sat, watching. She opened it gently to reveal a young teenage girl with brown hair. "Keiko!" Yukina exclaimed happily. "How are you?"

"Just about the same as I was two hours ago, Yukina," Keiko giggled. "And how's our friend?"

"Much better than you, I assure," came a silky voice from behind them. They turned to see Kura smirking at them from the doorway to the room she had been resting in. The black cat at her feet purred in amusement.

"Deon-" Yukina started, her voice calm but questioning.

"Kurami. Kura for short." She raised her hand, fingers spread, to aim at the two girls, a malicious smirk still filling her face with violent glee. "I suppose I must thank you for bringing me here. In fact, if you had left in the park those idiot Detectives might have caught me."

Keiko gasped, fear suddenly springing to her pale face. "It you! You're the one their looking for! You're that thing that could destroy the world!!"

"So true." Kura was really enjoying this. "And you're so much more helpful than you know. You see, I'm just not feeling like myself lately, and I could be easier prey for those fools than I like to think about. But you see...you two make it so I don't have to worry about that."

"And we thought it was perfect before," Circe purred, delighted.

Genkai had been out all day. Her faded gray-pink hair billowed in the slightly cold breeze and she sighed, troubled. She had been urged by Botan to stay the day at Koenma's office in order to help keep things in order. It hadn't been half as easy as it was to say; even SHE of all people was exhausted. And she was worried from the things she'd been hearing. Rumor had it that the Goddesses had gone human and Kura had recently escaped to Earth. Genkai cursed the fates for such luck. "Just what we need," she grumbled to herself. "Kura in the Human World...perfect, just perfect."

She walked up the stairs to the shrine, a relieved smile on her face. It was good to be home, away from that horribly busy office. Suddenly she shivered. The air had turned unreasonably cold. "That's interesting," she mumbled to herself.

"Yukina?" she called into the gloomy darkness. She noticed that there was no moon out tonight, and even so the sky was strangely cloudy. The stars she could see were unusually dim. Her smile faded into a concerned frown. She slid open the door to the part of the shrine that she called home. "Yukina?" she called again. No answer. THAT was frightening in its own rite. The kind-hearted little Ice Maiden always made her presence known one way or another.

Suddenly she felt somewhat of a pinprick at the back of her skull, alerting her of danger. She leapt to the side, avoiding a blast of youki and shielding her face with her hands. Genkai stared into the darkness, watching and listening as hard as she could.

"You've gotten slower Genkai," came a deep, syrupy voice from the darkness. Genkai clenched her teeth and fists. She knew that voice all too well. "What have you done to her Kura? What have you done to Yukina?!"

"Oh never you mind, old woman. She's alive for the moment. Much more valuable that way," dripped the concealed Goddess.

"I should of known you'd resort to such dirty tricks. You're afraid of them aren't you? That's pitiful Kura...that you have to rely on hostages to get you out of a situation where you have a chance of losing. You never were good with that kind of thing."

At once Kura appeared upside down, just above Genkai's head. "Mocking either," she snarled.

The old woman smiled up at Kura. "Go ahead, tap into your power. We all know how much limited control you have. And besides, it'll only lead them right to you."

"Wonderful."

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Okay, okay. Yeah, I know its short. I was actually supposed to go further with it, but I'm kind of lost on how to continue from here so I'll just do that in the next chappie. I also have sincere doubts that I'll be on anytime real soon. I've got to focus on school, probably even more so than anyone else. So, for anyone who's actually reading this: be patient. Thanksadoodle.