Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Yu Yu Hakusho Re-Written: Back to Basics ❯ Chapter Six - Alone Together ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter six - Alone Together.

Kat was one of the last people out of the field at dawn. Classes had been suspended for the next three days to set up the new ‘team’ system. On the third day they would finally get to cremating the bodies that Kat had stumbled upon. ‘I owe them.’ Kat thought. ‘I’ll visit them and ask for their forgiveness. Then I’ll find who killed them.’ She smiled and went towards the building they were housed in.

Juu followed her, wondering where she was going. What would Kat need at this hour of the night? ‘Day. It’s day now.’ Juu reminded himself. As Kat walked to the building nearest the infirmary Juu hid in her shadow. He was wondering what the building housed as it got closer and closer. Then it hit him. A small building attached to the infirmary, too big to be a shed, too small to be a recovery building. It was a morgue.

‘Why would she go there?’ He wondered.

Kat had finally reached the door of the morgue. She paused before opening it. As she did an icy cold air shot out and seared her skin. Kat bit down hard in response. She almost wished she’d worn her robes.

Kat walked in slowly, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness, keeping herself from running back out. ‘I’m a moron.’ Kat thought to herself. ‘I could just wait ‘till the cremation, but no, I’m a freaking moron who can’t wait.’ As she proceeded to mentally call herself names she found herself walking in.

The hair on the back of Kat’s neck stood up when she passed the thresh hold. She shivered from the sealing spell the place had on it. Due to necromancy attempts in the past all attempts to use reiki, mahouki and youki had been made futile in this building. Later the same spell had been applied to the infirmary. The moment someone walked past the threshold their magic -or any other supernatural force they had- was sealed until they left. The only people that could use magic were Samosa and those he’d cast a negate spell on. Too bad he hadn’t set one on me. She thought. When her magic was sealed it made her skin crawl.

Juu wasn’t immune either. He felt himself trapped in his shadow form..

Kat walked in further before closing the door and kneeling before the twenty plus bodies. She then began a small prayer. Juu watched, deep in thought. Kat finally stopped praying and stood, her head bowed. "I’m sorry if I disrupted your rest before your journey. I couldn’t wait to apologize for defiling your prior resting place. It was haunting me, so I hope you understand." Kat then raised her head and looked at each of the dead girls. They were dressed in white robes with black symbols over their hearts, as was mage tradition.

"Something’s not right here.." Kat said to herself. She slowly walked between the beds that held the bodies, examining each face. "Human, human, human.. Most of the females in the dojo are demon... Every last girl in here is human." She looked closer at each one. They all had distinguishing features that named them stand out from most other people. Most of them had Bright hair colors, rare and natural, others had unusually sloped eyes or ‘perfect’ face shapes.

Kat raised an eyebrow. These killings weren’t totally random. She took one last look at each one and headed towards the exit. She paused and turned to look at them one last time. "I’ll find who killed all of you, okay?" She then left the building and headed back to her room. She was going to train and go to sleep as soon as the sun went down.

-!-

Kat moved slowly as she trained her breathing as she’d been taught years earlier. She was grateful that she remembered her training before she knew about her magic. It had focused around manipulation of ones body and staying calm in a fight. Too bad it never worked when loud noises were involved. The bell on top of the main building rang five times to announce the sun had set and that the state of caution was still going. Kat found herself back-down on the ground, trying to catch her escaped breath.

She sighed and sat up. She was so jumpy. ‘I missed something.’ She thought. ‘Otherwise I’d feel more secure.’ She sighed and let herself fall backwards with a plop. "Okay, I really don’t want to go back there so time to bring up the details. First, cause of death, I’m assuming the acupuncture needles through the brain." She frowned. "No. Sometimes people who have been shot through the head are save able and go on to lead normal lives. Yeah, people can kill if they poke in specific spots but this guy wasn’t careful with where he put his needles. The death was sudden, not painful because none of the faces were disfigured or showed signs of tears." She rolled over onto her stomach. "I need paper.."

She got up an pulled some paper from her small table. She summoned up a broad tip marker from her hammer space. "Hammer space, I love you." She smiled and kissed the marker before grabbing more paper and going back to what she’d dubbed as her ‘thinking spot.’

She soon found herself writing quite a few things down. She wrote down an abbreviated version of her ‘brain plus needle equals not necessarily death.’ and drew some needles before writing ‘humiliation or just a distraction?’ next to them. She looked up. "Their positions were correct and exact." She thought as she remembered that the arms were crossed over their chest.

Kat then found it, a chill running down her spine. She put down her marker and held her right wrist to eye level, taking in the every detail of her new charm and bracelet. "They don’t match." She said after a few moments. The bell wasn’t silver, it was steel. But the bracelet was pure silver and it had delicate square links over the normal circular. "The bodies wore a charmless version of this." She looked at it and frowned, realizing she’d never get it off without help. "Screw it all, I’m going to bed." She said before going over towards the crystal that she used to light the room and ran her hand over it, making the light from it’s core dim and eventually die off completely. She walked to her bed and laid down, pulling her blanket over her shoulders. She was asleep in minutes.

-!-

Kat awoke to the sound of someone else’s breathing in her room. She almost moved her right hand but remembered about the bell just in time to stop. She instead, used her left hand to reach under her pillow and take out a summoning key. She clenched her teeth and stabbed herself in the thigh, going only deep enough to draw blood. "Lock!" Kat yelled, rolling of her bed as the key reacted to the word being said. It was slowly morphing. A large black shadow jumped right over her form on the floor and attacked her bed roll.

She didn’t’ have long to get into a standing position so she attempted to stand without any luck, her legs had tangled themselves in something. It didn’t matter what it was now, she’d never stand up in hr current position. She was on the ground, a large glaive in her hand, unable to get enough room to attach the shadow. The only bad thing about pole arms was their size and the inability to use them from the ground, too long to maneuver from the ground.

The ruby eyed shadow faced her and lunged at her, only blocked by a true wall of shadows that grabbed Kat by her hand and pulled her out of her room by blowing open the window and jumping out. as Kat ran behind this shadow, the one with ruby eyes followed out the window. It’s form was hardly human, but rather insectoid. ‘It’s a bloody preying mantis.’ Kat thought. It wasn’t actually a preying mantis, but it stood like one, it’s stubby hands were in a preying mantis position, too.

Kat let out a cry as she felt her airway slowly constrict, as if a hand were around her throat, squeezing it painfully tight. The shadow that was holding her hand -as well as slowly taking a human form- looked back at her and took a sharp left. Kat noticed her vision dim quite a bit. ‘I’m not going to make it.’ She thought as her legs slowly began to give. She fell.

Kat was truly surprised when she felt strong arms pick her up and strong legs pumping towards a destination. Kat took a sudden, deep breath as the pressure on her throat was released and she was put down on her feet long enough for a door to be slammed. Her sight returned, as did her ability to tell hot from cold, she hadn’t noticed it’d left. Kat was now in a freezing, pitch black room with something beating at the door and strong arms leading her somewhere.

"Juu?" Kat asked softly. The figure stopped and laughed a little. "Yeah. How’d you guess?" Kat smiled, feeling a great deal safer now. "I didn’t for sure, but logic dictated it was you, Samosa or Paturiku. Neither of the latter are shadow youkai to the best of my knowledge. I remember you saying that you were youkai, it’s just that you couldn’t keep it’s form properly, not in broad and blinding daylight. So logic told me it was either you carrying me or you chasing me." Juu snorted indignantly. "Oh, and how’d you know I wasn’t the one chasing you then." He was bitter. Kat figured he’d heard people calling him a murderer since he disappeared. "I Know you well enough to know you’re going to kill some one while they’re asleep and not let them get away. You have very shallow breath because you don’t need to breathe but need to act like you do or get caught."

Juu led Kat to a corner and sat down, bringing her with him. "You’re observant, and how do you know I don’t need to breathe?" Kat leaned closer to him in the cold. "I figured after you talked about your youkai form. I figured it wasn’t corporeal. Most demons, even in human form, that have non corporeal forms, don’t need breath." Kat smiled, knowing he’d see through the darkness that she was now adjusting to.

Kat shivered lightly. "Damn cold... I don’t like anything under sixty degrees, let-a-lone anything below freezing point." Juu looked at her and realized that she was in a tank top and jeen shorts, her version of pajamas. "You’re going to freeze to death." He frowned. "I take it you have a low tolerance to cold." Kat snorted indignantly. "Between that and lightning I’m not hard to beat." Juu frowned as he noticed her shivers becoming far more violent.

Kat closed her eyes and began to ask him questions. Before long he questioned her and soon after that they were sharing a semi-normal conversation. Kat learned that Juu was actually considered a military leader by some in the Makai, though over all he was more of a fear figure. He, in turn, learned that Kat was by no means as strong as he acted. He realized moments later that he didn’t care about that, or rather that he didn’t hold it against her. Whilst she wasn’t as strong as her show, she was still stronger than most.

Time passed and they were deep into their pasts, even Juu had some things to say about his life. It was an hour until dawn and Kat seemed to be fading as she spoke. Juu frowned. Her face was cold and pale as death. He realized that this somehow disturbed him. He slowly pulled her into his lap. Perhaps if he was able to keep her alive till someone found them, then maybe, just maybe she would make it.

-!-

Cli-fie. X3 Myeh. I’ll write more soon.