Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Unbalanced Pendulum ❯ Breadcrumbs ( Chapter 15 )

Hcolleen

Tbiris

Darksaphire

DashAway

Bluespark

LoversPastForgotten

CrimsonFox

Kodaijin Hiei

Kuranga108

Mhmartini

DragonRose888

Inexpressible

Draechaeli

All Things Anime

Kumori-hime

Faery Goddyss

 

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Unbalanced Pendulum

Chapter 15: Breadcrumbs

 

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Hiei's POV

 

Sleep peeled away from my eyes layer by layer until my eyelids lifted and exposed me to the morning light. I blearily rose up onto my side and saw the carnage I had wreaked the night before. Black ash wafted through the air, twirling in tight circles before dispersing into the sky with a deceptive happiness. Great char marks scarred the trees' trunks and many trees were simply gone. I had burnt a long, narrow clearing in the dense and ancient forest. How old and how thickly immersed in magick from the ghouls occupation must these trees have been? I suddenly realized how evil I was, I had murdered timeless beings carelessly. And though it did not affect me, to someone who was intimately linked with the earth…. I turned slowly, apprehensively to see the naked figure lying beside me. His back was towards me and his eyes were closed, but I knew he was awake. He probably hadn't slept at all.

 

My eyes were wide and my mouth hung open at what I saw. From behind I could see the ten deep scratches along the length of his back and the dark bruising at his hips and shoulders. There was dried blood on his lower back. Bites that I never remember giving were half visible on his left arm, the one not trapped beneath his body. Then I saw the bite at his neck. My stomach flipped dangerously, I was shocked. I couldn't have done that to him, not me…. The entire area was inflamed. Blood had spilled down his shoulders and dried to rusty brown flakes over night. Within the wound itself was grizzled flesh, only a few lines of muscle were still continuous.

 

I turned away, unwilling to look anymore. I looked down, trying to remember everything I had done last night, surprised to see my hands shaking. Events returned to me, one by one. Silently I remembered, each memory increasing my terrible distress.

 

“…Kurama…?” I whispered. He refused to acknowledge me, probably hoping to still fake sleep. “Kurama…I…I'm - ”

 

“Don't!” he said sharply. I was startled into silence. “Never feel pity towards your prisoner…” Kurama rolled over to look at me, “…Hiei.” Then he stood, his usual grace faltering only slightly, and walked away towards the small lake I had relied upon merely days ago to keep him hydrated and healing.

 

I would have been angry with him, and perhaps I should have been, for what he said, but it was how he said it that kept me from lashing out. There was very little bitterness to his words, only defeat and weariness. He had been kind and patient with me despite everything I had made him endure, why? And I had not only treated him when he had been hurt, I had nurtured and cared for him for reasons I didn't understand. Yet, I then treated him beyond vicious.

 

Suddenly my previous justifications of dominance, control, and maintaining an unwritten order were insignificant, and an emotion I was not familiar with was beginning to surface, guilt. What I had done was entirely overkill. Sickened, I knew that I was always one for the dramatics and not fond of what I deemed weak, half-assed attempts not fit for powerful demons with dark reputations such as myself. Still I stubbornly stood by my reasons, knowing that they had been important when I had conjured them. I wasn't completely ready to admit my faults, but they were as obvious as the bruises on Kurama's pale skin.

 

Kurama was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and too unbalanced to know what to do with me anymore. I had thrown everything in his face in an entirely nonsensical order and knowing this was making me feel…guilty. How does one negate this emotion? It hurt me. What was I supposed to do?

 

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Kurama's POV

 

`Has anyone ever spoken to you of Hansel and Gretel, Hiei?' In my mind's eye, I can see you in my arms right now. Your head rests back upon my shoulder and your shoulders rest against my chest. I stroke down your arms and whisper stories in your ear. I'm in the shadows of your mind and you heed my very thought. We are one in that place. There is no one and nothing floating in the dark but you and me. My legs are extended out and yours are curled in. One of your hands lazily grips my long hair, playing with it between your child's hands. I kiss your temple and you sigh.

 

`Hansel was a young boy and Gretel was his sister.' My hands reach your fingers and I slip mine in between, gently untangling that one from my hair. I could engulf you entirely if I chose. You are that small. But your hands lack the fat tissue of children. Instead they are rough and strong, man's hands. I hold them in mine.

 

`Their evil stepmother decided they could not be kept and their father bowed under her ferocity.' Your hair tickles my nose and I repress the urge to sneeze. I hold my breath and nuzzle the fuzzy strands of silk nap. When I pull away, your scent clings to me and I can breathe you in freely. A scent I have smelled many times before, but will never tire of. It's musky, a little like burnt wood and sweat. An undercurrent is detected and I am reminded of a spice, always the same one…cinnamon. I don't think I would ever forget that scent. The way you can only smell it up close, or the way it soothes and at the same time excites.

 

`And so Hansel and Gretel were led deep into the forest and there abandoned by their guardians, left to die.' He squeezed my hands reflexively, though I don't know why. I have never asked about the tragedy I see looming, ever present in his eyes. I squeeze back. I hug him as best I can with my neck and chin, pressing down upon his trapezius muscle and in against his neck. Would he tremble if I did not continue my story?

 

`But they were clever children and had left a secret trail of breadcrumbs behind them.' He scoffs lightly, still hopeful but unable to not mock human foolishness. `Yes, that wasn't very clever of them after all, was it Hiei?' I kiss his shoulder then trail a light tongue up his neck and behind his ear. I give his temple another quick adoring and protective peck. His heart beats against my chest. I cannot feel or hear my heart without feeling and hearing his. He leans to the side and looks up at me with dreading eyes. They are wide and add quite a bit to his youthful countenance.

 

`Crows ate those breadcrumbs, Hiei. They ate every single one.'

 

-

 

Water parted around my head in eerily smooth waves as I rose out of the water. Most of the blood had floated away as easily as droplets of water from wax paper. The rest I gently rubbed off. Last night was a lapse on both of our parts. We had been tired of following the rules, so to speak. We had both slipped and been whisked away from reason. I had no regrets. I never had regrets. Rather I adapted to new situations and took the longest remaining straw into my possession. Why had I let all of that happen? Because I had needed it, I had needed his brutality and every punishment he could deal me to restore my waning conscience and resolve. However, I was finding that I had gained many advantages from last night. He deemed me weak it would seem. I laughed silently at that thought. He felt responsible and sick with himself and I no longer felt as sorry for what I was about to do. I would pull at that guilt and lure it out from the depths of his fresh heart until I would get everything.

 

I had remembered the story of Hansel and Gretel, though I can't remember where it was I had first heard the ningen tale, while bathing. Breadcrumbs. The lifeline for those two unfortunate children was only secure because they believed it to be in their minds. In the outside world, however, what they believed didn't matter. Crows had only seen the bread for what it truly was, food, and ignorantly eaten every single crumb. Desperately, the children had then wandered into a house of sugar, but the witch had known what her house was from the start. The children only saw candy. The witch saw children.

 

Each level higher the story climbed, the more did one see inside the mind: from simplicity to innocence to treachery.

 

Young audiences are taught to think that the innocent children won (good conquers evil after all), but I see something different. For how innocent can a child be after being left for dead by their own guardians and then killing - no, they didn't just kill the witch, they cooked her alive. They copied her ways, learned what they saw, used what she had, and assimilated her treachery into their own hearts and memories only to later rejoin their twice betraying father, who had forsaken them and then their stepmother; they survived. Is it fair to question their methods? No, but it is a lie to call them innocents. Had they been innocent, they would have died in that sugar house.

 

So Hiei, who will I become for you? Will I be the ignorant crow, following a trail of breadcrumbs? Will I be the greedy stepmother with her ill-conceived plans, or the fickle father? Will I be the witch, whose scheming earns her only death in the end? …Or will I be the heroes of this tale, the children, and survive by any means necessary?

 

The tables were turning again.

 

I ran my fingers through my ridiculously long hair; forever vain enough to notice, even after centuries of wearing it, how terrifically fine it was. The tangles seemed to slip down and out of my hair with the most minor of nudges. It floated about my body and I thought that I must resemble a giant, white lily. My skin began to feel the cold and I knew it was time to leave the lake. Now what was I supposed to do about clothing? Hiei hadn't been too considerate last night, I thought with a tainted laugh. I looked at my disrobed form with annoyance. Unless Hiei was willing to find me new garments soon, I would have to make new ones for myself, something I really didn't want to have to be bothered with doing. I weighed my options rather lightly given my circumstances and decided that making my own clothing would as least occupy my mind.

 

Trying to sit down earned me a wince of pain. Grimacing in annoyance, I remained standing and called to the seed in my hair that I required. When I focused, I could feel its glow responding. I reached in and plucked it easily from my hair and tossed it to the ground. A simple corn kernel actually. What most people didn't know was that within the sessile flowers of the maize plant were many thin, small white threads called silk. While not actually being silk, they were adequate impersonators for the short term. It was straightforward to manipulate the plant's growth, forcing the buds to multiply and grow many times their normal size then open and reveal their bounty. The threads wove about in front of me like so many long and insubstantial tentacles. When I had grown a sufficient amount, I closed my eyes and envisioned the light sleeveless robe I wished for. At my level, I no longer needed to instruct each individual thread where to go and what to do. “Sewing” my own clothes would have been entirely too arduous had that been necessary. My energy wove into the threads, molding them and persuading them to merge with one another without my outright guidance. I dared not open my eyes, trusting my experience and instinct to do the work my mind could not. I sensed the robe's sudden completion ten minutes later. I plucked a kernel off of the newly grown corn ear and repeated the process to create myself a sash.

 

When done, I centralized my energy within the plant, returning it to a simple kernel and replaced it within the folds of my hair. Tiny vines, equal in mass to the hairs on a spider's legs, grew out form the exterior of the seed at my instruction and latched onto the my hair. I then slipped into the finished garments. They were completely white except for the places where stitches would have been on a normally constructed piece of clothing, which held a tint of yellow-green. The texture, however slight in appearance, was that of rough cotton. Incomparable to the cloth I usually chose, expensive light-weave silks - made in imitation of ancient Chinese silks - that would seem to float off of my skin at the slightest breeze. But this would do for now, especially since I was opting for a long robe with slits up the sides and a sash to hold it secure rather than a tunic and pants. This was simpler. I had managed to retrieve my shoes on my walk to the lake from where they had been flung last night. These I slipped my feet comfortably into.

 

I headed slowly back towards where I knew Hiei would be, readying myself to face him. I had last left him with a defeated comment. Now I was to see how well he believed me. My resolve was strengthened…right? I could feel that horrible, nagging sense of dread in the back of my mind. This affair was nowhere near as completed as I was desperately trying to convince myself it was. And I had nothing near the conviction I boldly told myself I did.

 

Only breadcrumbs, I said to myself, nothing more than breadcrumbs. But which was I: the child leaving them behind or the crow gobbling them up or both? Was I eating my own lies, filling myself with their substance, becoming what they dictated me to be?

 

Unbeknownst to me were the hungry, violet eyes watching both Hiei and I. Karasu…the crow…was growing impatient.

 

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A/N: Did anyone make the connection between the crow in the story and Karasu before I mentioned it in the last line?