Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Rock My World ❯ Exodus Into Shadows ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Dc-chan: Yo.

MCT: You’re energetic today…

Dc-chan: I suppose. The Romeo and Juliet play was a disaster…T-T

Disclaimed…no chance in hell would I ever own YYH.

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 18 of Rock My World

Exodus Into Shadows

Makai was definitely a miserable place. From the blood red sky that hung above them to the ground beneath their feet. If there was ever a prefect picture of what hell would look like, this place was it. Kira couldn’t fathom how anyone could live here for long and thought crossed her mind that this was Kurama’s and Hiei’s home. This is where they lived before Ningenkai. She could understand why Kurama was reluctant to come here especially under the circumstances that Kira wouldn’t tell them why they had to come.

Namiko walked out in front of them in a rather prideful way, taking huge strides with her head up. Kira fought the urge to kick her as she walked between Kurama and Yusuke with Kuwabara on Yusuke’s right and Hiei behind them frowning with displeasure at the situation.

“You brought mace?”

“Hai,” Kira nodded to Kurama‘s question vigorously, her pigtails bouncing up and down as she did so. She then reached her hand in her pocket and pulled the spray bottle out and showed it to him, “Doushite? It’s not like bringing it is a bad thing, right?”

The fox rubbed the back of his neck, “It’s nice to know you trust my abilities in protecting you…”

“Well, when you grow up in big cities Kurama it doesn’t hurt to take extra precautions,” Kira explained hastily. It wasn’t that she doubted he could keep her safe, it was just she knew Murphy’s Law too well. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Kurama eyed her wearily, “You didn’t have to wear a poncho either.”

Kira looked down at the pink poncho she was wearing with jeans then glowered at him, “What if it rains? You’ll be the one looking stupid.”

“Kira look at the sky.”

Her brown eyes slowly gazed upwards, not a cloud in sight. Just an endless sea of crimson above their heads. “Excuse me, if I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

She caught a few words he mumbled to himself in response to her, “Mace…poncho…baka…”

Kira sighed heavily and turned towards Yusuke while puffing her cheeks than whispered, “What’s with him? He‘s picking on me today, I know it!” She tried to contain her rage, but her blood was beginning to boil.

Yusuke rolled his eyes, “Isn’t it obvious?” His tone indicated something she didn’t know.

“Not to me,” She hissed in response with annoyance. How come everyone had to be so cryptic? Was being straight forward really all that hard nowadays?

Yusuke tugged on her arm to slow down her walking pace as Hiei brushed past them.. Kira and Yusuke lagged behind the others as they walked to continue their conversation without having the others overhear them.

Kira spouted questions when they were out of the earshot of the others, “What’s wrong with him? Did I offend him somehow?”

The teenage boy put his hands in his jean pockets, “I’ve told you the reason before.” He took a deep breath then plunged into the heart of the matter, “He likes you and you telling him that you can protect yourself is like me telling Keiko my job as Reikai Tantei isn’t dangerous?”

She pouted at this and grumbled, “So he thinks I can’t protect myself, is that it?” She put the mace back inside her pocket then folded her arms across her chest while glaring at Kurama’s back. She couldn’t imagine Kurama liking her the way Yusuke was implying it. They were friends…really odd friends that argued a lot and hardly ever had a unanimous agreements between each other. She became she submerged in her thoughts that she accidentally bumped into Kurama who had stopped in front of her. Kira looked up at him and mumbled out of the corner of her mouth while hiding her blush, “Gomen nasai.”

He gazed down at her, his emerald eyes tracing over her irritated expression in concern. Kira then went past him without a second glance to keep him from seeing her flustered face and caught up to Kuwabara as he stared after her. Now what did he do to get the cold shoulder from her?

Yusuke chuckled in amusement, “You two are hilarious.” He patted fox on the back as he walked past him as he laughed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kurama inquired curiously. He didn’t think it was hilarious when she acted like that towards him. He sensed Yusuke might have something to do with it, after all, he was the last one to have talked to her.

Kira fingered her necklace from which the obsidian stone hung from, if worst came to worst she could also use this stupid thing. She battled the inner desire to confront Kurama, the only reason she reacted like that was because she’s rather hear Kurama telling her that than Yusuke. Now wasn’t the time to pester him about that now, even she had that much sense despite what the others probably thought of her.

Kuwabara tilted his head to one side slightly, “You okay, Kamiyama?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly-too quickly. She wrinkled her nose, “Just moping is all.”

“Ano…” Kuwabara started very slowly, “Why are you moping?”

She was about to answer, but she held back. She couldn’t make it obvious to him that this was about Kurama, especially when Kurama was close enough to probably hear them. She instead tried to make her message foggy, but nonetheless she asked quietly, “What do you do when someone likes you, but you don’t think you’ll be able to return their feelings because…“ she wavered to finish, but she choked the last part out, “because…you just can’t?”

Kuwabara pondered silently for a few moments while Kira waited expectantly. “Is this a rhetorical question? Maybe you should ask Kurama.”

Kira wanted to bang her head against a wall in frustration or pull out her hair. She clenched her fists tightly. “Baka yarou,” she called him through grinding her teeth angrily. She put her arms by her sides in defeat as she clamed herself down and half closed her eyes.

Kuwabara studied her for a moment, “Something’s bothering you?”

“A lot of somethings in fact,” she answered almost sadly. For one your inability to help me, she thought bitterly. Why did this have to be so complicated? “Okay,” she told herself standing her ground, “focus on the task at hand! I shouldn’t be worrying right now!”

“Hn. I’d be worrying if I were you,” Hiei snorted, “talking to yourself isn’t exactly sane.”

She cringed inwardly at the sound of his voice, but stated, “Well at least I’m not as short as you.” She pointed out giving him a kittenish smirk. Kira loved being two inches taller than him. Sure, she herself was short, but getting over five feet was a victory all in itself.

“That has nothing to do with this,” Hiei scowled before returning to entirely ignoring her presence.

“Whatever you say,” she paused than added giggling insanely, “Hiei-chan!”

WHAM!

“Itai!” Kira cried as she clutched her head where Hiei had struck her with the hilt of his katana, “Hiei-chan, why do you have to be so mean? That hurt you jerk!” She was sat on the ground with tears forming in the corner of her eyes with her bottom lip trembling as her liquid eyes were fixed on Hiei.

“Kira, are you alright?” Kurama asked kneeling beside her with wide green eyes.

“Honestly,” she said rubbing her sore head, sniffling occasionally, “I’ve been better.”

Kurama grabbed her arm gently and pulled her to her feet, “Then maybe you shouldn’t call him Hiei-chan. I don’t think he likes it much. Why do you call him that anyway?”

Kira smiled and said esthetically, “Because it’s fun!”

The fox shook his head at her childish antics, but he couldn’t help but grin a little himself. She was arrogant, loud, overly dramatic and above all of her other qualities incredibly thick headed. He released her arm, “Your head sounded hollow when Hiei hit it, perhaps that explains a few things…”

“Oh shut it!” Kira scolded while punching him on the shoulder. She then looked past Kurama and at Namiko, “How much further? I’m going to go insane at this rate!”

Namiko arched an eyebrow and tapped her index finger against her cheek, “About another a day on foot or so…that is unless we run into any problems on the way. We’ve been pretty lucky so far, but something is bound to happen sooner or latter.”

“An entire day!” Kira yelled falling over onto the ground once more. “Gah! I hate this!” She rose when she realized how much she was embarrassing herself, “Isn’t there any way we could go faster?”

“Not unless you have a car and know how to drive, but in ningen years you’re all too young,” Namiko said rather pleased by Kira’s unwavering energy. (A/N: The driving age in Japan)

“Kurama, why can’t you be a year and a half older?” Kira whined at the fox loudly. She clung to his arm, “Walking is such a pain!”

“Quit whining,” Yusuke chimed in, “the faster we walk the faster we get there. Acting like a brat isn’t helping.”

Kira made a face, “I’m not whining, I’m arguing about the issue of faster transportation. This is like Lord of The Rings all over again. Instead of flying on eagles or something to Mordor they decide that they just have to walk all the way there.” (A/N: Apologies for the LOTR reference, I don’t own that either just in case you’re wondering)

“Because, it’s more worth while if you have to work for something instead of always using the easy way,” Kurama provided for her, though not saying he wondered the same thing when he saw that movie. Then again, maybe they didn’t take the eagles because they wanted to be discreet about heir voyage to the volcano to destroy the Ring of Power. He shrugged it off, now he was getting off topic in his thoughts.

“So you’re saying instead of Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Mary taking the faster way to the volcano they wanted to do it the hard way which put them incredible danger over just getting it over with?” Kira drawled on, being relentless on the issue at hand.

“Quit making LOTR references or I’ll give you another bruise on you head to match the other one,” Yusuke haughtily warned her.

“I’m just saying,” Kira claimed raising her hands.

Kurama chuckled lightly, “Sometimes I wonder how your logic works.”

The girl stuck her tongue out at him, “I wonder the same thing about you too sometimes.”

“Children,” Yusuke scoffed in a lighthearted voice, “behave yourselves.”

“Can’t!” Kira boomed, “I have too many emotions to keep them all under control!”

“Then show some restraint, but we all know you can’t keep your hands off of Kurama…”

Kira gave him the death glare and punched him without warning. He was sent flying into and skidded to a landing on the ground about twenty feet away from the group while Kira continued to fume at him from a distance, “I’ll keeeel you the next time to make such a stupid assumption punk!” Flames seemed to appear out of nowhere and made a satanic aura around her figure as she glared at him.

Yusuke stood up and stumbled back over to them while wiping the blood off of his lip, “That violence is part of your personality you need to restraint the most.”

Kira flipped him the bird, “At least I don’t have a spirit beast that looks like a demented blue penguin with bunny ears that flies around saying Puu.” She teased remembering when Keiko had showed her Puu awhile back unbeknownst to Yusuke, who was obviously embarrassed about his cute counterpart.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yusuke hunched his shoulders, “one day you’ll get yours. What goes around come around Kamiyama.”

“But until that day comes upon us…fear me!”

*~*

“Are we there now?”

“About half a day or so.”

“How bout now?”

“Iie.”

“Shimatte!” Kira kicked a pebble on the ground, “This is taking too long. I could be at home doing something productive with my time instead of here.”

“And what would you be doing at home?” Namiko chided the teenager coolly, “Killing brain cells by watching television or getting seizures from arcade games?”

“Neither,” Kira sighed then dropping her head a little, “I could be sleeping.”

“I apologize for you missing out on something as important as that,” Namiko retorted icily.

“Damn straight you should be!”

“Kira…” Kurama started, but held his tongue. He wasn’t in the mood to receive a verbal lashing from her right now. He had learned when to talk to her and when not to. She was most precarious when rallying an altercation with someone else.

“Nani?” Kira prodded turning her attention to him, “Why’d you say my name?”

“No reason,” he lied smoothly.

She cocked an eyebrow and put both of her hands on her hips while shifting her weight from one leg to the other, “You know I don’t believe you, right? You can’t lie to me Kurama. Just like me…you’re a horrible liar.” It was the truth of truths.

Kurama sweatdropped nervously, “What are you? A lie detector now?”

“Nope, only ningen with a little bit of youkai blood,” Kira noted dryly to him. Though she often forget this tidbit of information about herself a lot. There was absolutely nothing demonish about her that she could see outside or on the inside.

He seemed to be thinking along the same line as she, “I can’t understand how you can be a hanyou. I can’t even smell it on you.”

Kira’s eye twitched and she wrung her hands, “Eww….you’ve been smelling me? That’s just…eww….” She took a few steps away from him and added another thing to her mental list on Kurama’s quirks and unintentionally perverty habits.

“Ano…you do have a nice scent,” Kurama blushed.

Kira throw her shoe at him which hit him in the back of his head causing him to fall over, “No more sniffing me without me permission, got it hentai?”

“It’s hard not to when a ningen has such an alluring scent.” An eerily chilly voice cooed behind her.

Before Kira could turn around to see whatever had spoken, Kurama had already gotten up and pulled her out of the way. He then stood in front of her protectively along with the other Reikai Tantei while Namiko just sat cross-legged on a rock nearby with a dull look on her face.

A demon stood sneering at all of them less than three meters away. His skin a pale purple with red stripes along his limbs and the only article of clothing he seemed to be wearing was a brown loincloth. His eyes were wide like saucers with dilated black pupils and a single horn sprouted from his forehead. She could see the saliva dripping from his teeth as his tongue flicked in and out of his mouth like a snake’s. “Ningen flesh…is so tasty.” His voice was like sandpaper.

“Why does everyone want to eat me?” Kira asked sobbing into her hands. “Hasn’t anybody else noticed that Kuwabara and Yusuke are ningen too?”

The demon laughed cruelly and lunged at them, but apparently it was nowhere in league with Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara or Hiei who slaughtered it effortlessly in one swift movement. Kira hadn’t even seen it, it was over so fast. Blood sprayed like a fountain on the surroundings and pools of crimson were scattered about.

Kira carefully stepped over the blood pools and went next to Kuwabara, “That was quick. He must’ve been very low class compared to you guys.”

“Hn. That’s as basically as weak as they come,” Hiei growled while shooting his narrowed eyes at her. He disliked having her around if he hadn’t made that apparent enough. He didn’t get what about her made Kurama have a soft spot for her. Her psychic powers weren’t even commendable and he had never witnessed her ever using them. She was next to useless if anything in his eyes more so than Kuwabara and that’s why he loathed her.

“Namiko?” Kira noticed the demoness trying to wipe the blood off of her clothes.

“Nani?” Namiko asked shrilly.

“Are we there yet?”

*~*

Kira sat down in front of the little fire they had made for the night. She was extremely unwilling to fall asleep in a place like this though she trusted Kurama’s word that everyone would be safe. Namiko was already asleep as well as Kuwabara and nobody knew where Hiei went off to. Yusuke and Kurama had agreed on a night watch shift between the two of them because it would be so easy for a demon to capture anyone of them while they were sleeping.

“K-chan, you can go to sleep you know,” Kurama informed her.

“Uh huh,” she said staring at the flickering flame though it was clear her mind was elsewhere.

“Just don’t stay up too late,” Kurama requested gingerly, but he meant it as sort of an order. He didn’t want her to complain the next day about how she didn’t any sleep and be grouchy with was usually the case with any teenager deprived of slumber.

Kira nodded, but didn’t say anything. She leaned back on her elbows and tried to stifle a yawn, but there was no denying how tired she felt. Her eyelids felt droopy and her head ached. Finally she laid down on her side, ignoring the fact that Kurama was watching her and finally went to sleep…

Darkness met her eyes when she opened them and she cursed under her breath, “Not another dream…” She heard the whoosh of a figure flying and felt a flutter of wings skim over her. She knew who it was and sighed his name, “Kokuei…”

Kokuei smirked when he heard his name uttered from her and landed in front of her. She could faintly see him in the darkness, but she knew he was there watching her.

“Are you ever going to stop harassing me?” She asked impatiently. Kira would rather have a nonsensical dream right now that involved flying toasters and cows with ten heads than this.

He chuckled darkly and held her chin up so her eyes would meet his in the darkness, “Why would I? After all…you and I are bound to one another.”

Kira withdrew from him, “No we’re not!” How could she be bound to someone she hardly knew. She felt like he was playing games with her. Whenever she saw him outside of her dreams he was always nice to her and in the dreams he was exactly the opposite.

“Yes we are,” he remarked moving in closer to her and hugging her firmly, but gently at the same time. “You and I are tied to together with threads that you might not be able to see, but I can see them clearly. It’s inescapable Kira…no matter what you do to try to breakaway from it…I’ll always be around you, like a constant shadow.”

*~*~*~*~*

Dc-chan: The play was a travesty! In the middle of the balcony scene I just started laughing for no reason! The entire cast went quiet and just stared at me as I had like a five minute long laughing fit…it was horrible…and the audience…*groans*

MCT: I thought it was funny.

Dc-chan: T-T

Manga recommendation: Saiyuki (remember though…Goku is mine!<3)

Tomorrow is my b-day! Yay for moi.