...she could feel him slipping through her fingers like a handful of fog.
Okay. ::deep breath:: This is The Scene That Would Not Be Written, from the most recent section of Running With The Crow (draft 1). I still don't really like it, but to fiddle with it any longer would make it worse at this point, I think.
For those of you who are interested in reading through this, one question: does it move too slowly? If so, any suggestions (which I may or may not take) on how to fix it? Also, are there any parts that don't make sense, don't fit coherently together? (okay okay... so that's two questions...)
BEWARE: possible stupid typos and some grammatical errors ahead. Haven't proofread it all that thoroughly.
It actually took close to fifteen minutes, because Genkai hadn’t even bothered taking it out of the box, or storing it in a room with electrical outlets. But once it was up and running, it was truly impressive--sleek, silvery plastic exterior, flatscreen monitor, tall, thin speakers, and a scanner/copier/printer. It took another fifteen minutes to install all of its extra software, before Jiro could scan the picture.
Yuusuke watched impatiently as the kid measured out the points on the map and enlarged the picture accordingly, isolating the crow image and cutting out the background. Then Jiro darkened the lines and printed a copy. Taking the paper and the map, he taped the former on a window and then placed the map over it. The sunlight shining through the window made it possible to see the image of the crow overlaid with the map.
“Ta da!” Jiro tossed a triumphant smile over his shoulder.
Yuusuke moved forward, but Tekko beat him to it. She circled the area of the crow’s head with a fingertip, frowning.
“That’s about a square kilometer of space,” she said. “In the middle of the business district. It’ll take time to find anything there. And we don’t even know what we’re looking for, exactly.”
“We’ll know it when we feel it,” Yuusuke said, practically bouncing. It had been far too long since he’d done anything constructive and he was starting to get antsy.
“We can feel spirit-power fluctuations when we get near them,” Kuwabara explained before Tekko could ask.
“So…” The female police officer raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to follow your Spider Sense to find the bad guys?”
Yuusuke grinned, letting a hint of the demon shine in his eyes. “That’s the plan. Let me know if you think of anything better.”
She rolled her eyes, but relented. “All right, that’s fine for you. But how am I going to find anything? What do I look out for?”
Outside, the warm orange sunset light shifted suddenly into purple, and thick black rain splattered against the windows, clinging to the glass like tar.
“Um.” Yuusuke blinked, a chill shivering down his spine as his nervous energy compressed into alertness. “Things like that.”
The reiken lit in Kuwabara’s hands, its glow clashing in sickly colors with the strange light. The orange-haired man braced and scanned the room, looking for something to attack. But, besides the sound of oddly solid rain hitting the window, it was eerily calm.
“Urameshi? Where’s it coming from?”
Yuusuke stretched his senses. “I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint it.”
As Tekko pulled her gun out, Jiro reached out and hit a light switch Yuusuke hadn’t even noticed. The room was bathed in the white-blue glow of fluorescent lighting that was hidden along the beams in the wall.
“I can’t see anything,” Tekko hissed, as she tried to scan out the window. “Where is everyone else?”
“I’ll find them,” Kuwabara volunteered, moving cautiously to the doorway.
“No!” Yuusuke saw Kuwabara start at his sudden command, and blink at him.
“What…?”
The air was pressing in. Yuusuke could feel it, darkness hovering around his vision, full of sharp edges.
“Oh shit,” Kuwabara breathed, just before the edges coalesced and surged.
The taller man went down first, the reiken dissipating as he fell to his knees and clutched his head. Before Yuusuke could move toward him, a sharp sound pierced his eardrums like a thin wire, and then ripped open a black tear in his head that poured a frothing foulness. He was drowning in sound, a rising discord.
Yuusuke’s demon blood responded immediately, white fire burning up his veins, and driving back the dark enough that he could see men in black push their way into the room. They were armed with rifles. Sharp alarm made Yuusuke shove stubbornly to his feet, though his center of balance kept shifting as if he were standing on violent water.
It was difficult and painful to focus his reiki as he took aim, like pulling blood through his body backwards. Before he could call enough of it, one of the men raised his rifle and pulled the trigger.
The impact hit him with enough force to make him stagger. As he looked down at the small silver shaft and red feather sticking out of his chest, all he could summon was a vague sort of resentment. What kind of demons ran around with damned dart guns?
Then he passed out.
~*~
Keiko kicked her feet as she sat at the stool and pretended she was ten, and everything was simpler. Her parents’ noodle shop was a warm, bright haven around her, and the cold and dark outside made it all that much warmer and brighter.
She stirred her ramen with her chopsticks idly and listened to her parents squabble in the supply room, which was located through a doorway behind the cooking area. She expected Yuusuke would be back soon. Or, at the very least, in contact with her--if he knew what was good for him.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
Keiko put her chopsticks down and stared into her cold noodles, as if hoping she could divine through them. A persistent, uneasy feeling had dogged her all day. However, time and experience had taught her that such feelings were best ignored. In most cases, there was nothing to be done for it, and Yuusuke always came back.
And yet…there could be a time when he did not. And what would she do, then?
Keiko pushed her bowl to one side and stood up, suddenly incapable of sitting still any longer. She took the broom out of a corner and began to sweep the floor. The shop was near closing time, and all the customers were gone. A few muddy footprints marking their presence had dried enough that she could brush them away.
There was familiarity and rhythm in sweeping. There was a feeling of comfort and family in the room. There was a large black crow sitting expectantly in front of the glass-front door.
Keiko paused, and frowned at the creature. For all it seemed innocuous, there was something intrusive about its presence, as if someone had interrupted a conversation with a friend by shouting at her from across the street.
And just because that was the first analogy that sprang to mind, her eyes flicked to the other side of the street, and caught a flicker of movement in the alleyway. Then she remembered when she’d last seen a crow, which wasn’t a very common bird in Tokyo, and who’d she’d seen with it.
Impossible.
Still, there were so many things in her life that would seem quite impossible to someone else.
Keiko put the broom back in the corner, and grabbed her brown winter coat. She put her hand in her pockets, and felt the round, solid stick that fit just into her palm--to make her fist stronger, Yuusuke had said when he’d shown her how to throw a proper punch.
Opening the door to the winter night, she looked down at the bird expectantly. It cawed at her as if asking what the hell took her so long, and took to wing, feathertips brushing the ground as it arrowed its way to the alley.
Putting her hood up to ward against the wind, Keiko crossed the street, following the path of the crow. She kept her strides quick and easy, but eyed the dark corners of the street. She knew how easy it could be to confuse friend and foe sometimes, and kept alert.
Kurama smiled slightly as he stepped into the light, tentative, stance open and non-threatening. Until the moment she saw him, she realized that she hadn’t really expected to find him there. Not really. Not when he’d been gone for years.
Years! she wanted to shout at him, but pulled in a breath, held it, and managed not to do anything more than stare.
He stepped back into the darkness of the alley, and Keiko had a brief, somewhat hysterical thought of old spy films--conspiracies in the shadows. She followed him and managed not to giggle.
“So,” she began, and then couldn’t find anything else to say.
For a moment, they stood with bare inches between them, their frosted breath mingling in the air. She looked him over, some small part of her mind still waiting for him to vanish, as ghosts were supposed to do.
He was silent, waiting with a polite air, as if knowing she needed to collect her thoughts. And that, more than anything else, confirmed who he was. Kurama, always courteous, even in bizarre situations.
“It is you.” There was a strange quiver in her voice. She was almost embarrassed to hear it, and startled when her sight blurred around the edges, dampness freezing on her lashes.
“Don’t cry,” he said, sounding startled, eyes widening slightly.
She sniffed and gave him a reproachful look, controlling the knee-jerk grief before it could develop. “I’m not going to. I’ve cried enough for you already.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with genuine regret.
She gave a short laugh. “You are the only one I know who would apologize for dying. Even Yuusuke… All he ever said was ‘Hey Keiko. Long time no see.’”
“Keiko…”
She gave him a warm but impatient smile. “What do you want, Kurama? I’m sure you’re not just here for my health.”
He gave her a look caught somewhere between guilt and relief, and cut to the business at hand. “I’m looking for Yuusuke.”
She thought for a moment. “They’re not at Kuwabara’s?”
Kurama shook his head. Keiko felt the beginnings of worry tighten her chest, but staved them off with determination. “Have you checked Genkai’s shrine?”
Kurama blinked. “No.”
“Well, that’s my first guess,” she said, and added silently to herself, And if they’re not there, then I’ll worry.
He nodded and turned to leave. “Thanks, Keiko.”
Left behind again. Keiko couldn’t really blame him, didn’t really want to be involved in the nitty-gritty of what Yuusuke did, and yet, she couldn’t stop a moment’s resentment. “Kurama.” Don’t leave me here.
He stopped short and looked back at her. For an acutely embarrassing moment, she feared he’d somehow caught her stray thought. Then she steeled herself. She had the right to know some of the details.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
He turned and faced her squarely, the hesitation in his expression clearing into honesty. “I don’t know yet, Keiko.”
Which, she supposed, was the strictest of truth. “Keep me informed,” she said, tucking her hands into her armpits and hunching her shoulders against the wind.
“I will,” he promised.
She smiled slightly and then, impulsively, reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. “Don’t be a stranger.”
He smelled of winter wind and leather, and something else sweeter-roses, maybe. And even though he hugged her back, and was solid and warm in the cold night, she could almost feel him slipping through her fingers like a handful of fog.
“I’ll try not to,” he said, and it sounded like, “Goodbye.”
She let him go, stepping back and tugging her hood lower as she turned back toward the noodle shop. “Okay, then. I’ll see you around.”
“All right.”
She didn’t turn back around for that last glimpse as she walked back across the street, just kept her eyes on the lights shining through the windows and door of the noodle shop. Beacons back to her warm and comfortable complacency, where only the edges of the strangeness that ruled her husband’s life touched her.
For a moment, she imagined Yuusuke would be waiting for her when she stepped through the door, cheerily picking a fight with Kuwabara. She’d yelled at both of them and her parents would shake their heads indulgently behind the counter. Perhaps one of them could coax Kurama in from the cold. He was always so strangely hesitant around the three of them--Yuusuke, Kuwabara and Keiko--as if he feared intruding on something sacred.
But that was a ghost desire, stirred up from ghost memories, haunting the uneasy feeling that had only grown stronger in Keiko’s chest. She took a deep breath of freezing air and let the discomfort of it overshadow her restless thoughts. She would go back inside and ignore the pressing quiet, the sense of missing vital information. There was nothing else to do.
~*~
Kurama felt the darkness hit him long before he got to Genkai’s shrine. It curled around his ankles and slowed his steps, alive and hungry. He pushed on, regardless, worry tightening around him until it was nearly painful. Whatever was waiting for him at Genkai’s shrine was not what he’d been hoping to find there.
The palpable darkness made the journey up the steps seem longer. The cold air had an acidic quality, as if he were breathing in smoke. Memories touched him, sliding over his skin like oil.
-pretty bitch I like it when he squirms don’t cry-
He shook free of them, trying to hurry, knowing that the longer he lingered, the more likely he was to be buried alive here, in a nightmare. The power was familiar, now. Twisted with someone else, just as familiar, as hated. The crow was awake and hunting, but it couldn’t see, he couldn’t see.
-someone humming the first refrain of a lullaby, over and over again, and the rhythm sank into his bones, jarring him forward with every thrust and tearing pain he wouldn’t cry-
He fought his way free, running up endless steps, and the shadows became obscene things, tongues, flicking against his flesh as he fled.
Don’t panic.
But his heart was beating too fast, and his breathing just wouldn’t slow down, and the memories poured into his mind, unclean, cold.
-Hush little baby don’t say a word and he wanted to scream, but couldn’t, wouldn’t make a sound-
The top of the stairs almost took him by surprise. He sprang over the wooden plank entry and skidded to a stop in the gravel.
-Hush don’t cry-
He hadn’t.
“But you did.”
Kurama whirled toward the voice, lashing out with the edge of a hand, aiming for a killing blow. Darkness and nothing met his strike. He let the momentum spin him back toward the shrine and looked around, tense, waiting.
Rolled up prayers tied to the branches of a skeletal tree whispered like dead leaves, but everything else was still.
After a few suspended moments, Kurama straightened, and took a cautious step forward. The shrine was dark, abandoned. A cursory glance did not reveal any signs of battle.
The crow called sharply as it cut out of the dark like a knife with wings, banked, and perched neatly on a branch above a thin man leaning on the shrine well.
Kurama dropped back into his stance, sure that the man had not been there before. Though he stood half-concealed, and the shadows seemed to cling to him, Kurama knew immediately who he was. Between one moment and the next, lingering fear evaporated and his grass-blade sword settled into his hand. The figure’s name flared to life in his mind.
Mayonaka Tama.
And the dulcet, repetitive notes of a children’s song crystallized between them like frost. Kurama shivered, but the crow’s focus wouldn’t let him waver as he took a step forward, and then another.
White slice of teeth as Mayonaka smiled and the song stopped abruptly, mid-verse. “Come to kill me?” There wasn’t anything of fear in his voice or stance.
“Yes,” Kurama answered, taking another step forward.
“What if I said you had to choose?”
“Choose?” Kurama tilted his sword into a ready position. He wasn’t particularly interested in conversations with dead men, but that wouldn’t stop him from being polite.
“Kill me or save him.” Mayonaka turned to look behind him, toward the main building of the shrine.
Shadows evaporated, and moonlight fell like something solid on a form in the doorway, bound upside-down, arms dangling down, fingertips brushing the floor. Kurama stopped, attention split, the vengeance-bound rage momentarily suspended by cold dread.
“Shuichi…” he whispered.
A pale, long-fingered hand closed around Shuichi’s ankle, and slid slowly down his leg, to rest on his hip. Kurama felt his feral focus shifting toward whatever dared lay hands on his family.
Hatanaka eased into view, the sheen of his glasses hiding his eyes.
“So nice of you to join us, Kurama.”
Cold anger lit in the pit of Kurama’s stomach. “Hatanaka,” he growled softly against the wind.
Hatanaka nodded unneeded confirmation. “Good evening.”
The man stepped forward until the moonlight illuminated mad purple eyes, set in a face far too bland and normal. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, slightly rumpled, which made him look like just another salary man coming home from a long day at the office.
Kurama gritted his teeth, trying to see past the illusion. “Hatanaka, you…”
Hatanaka chuckled, and stroked Shuichi’s hip in an absent, almost loving gesture. “You know that isn’t my name. Why do you insist on using it?”
Kurama’s throat constricted for a moment. To speak the devil’s true name seemed to make it more real, but maybe, if he agreed to play this game, whatever it was, he could draw attention away from Shuichi.
Steeling himself, he looked into twisted purple eyes. “Karasu.”
“That’s better,” the demon answered, in a sickly sweet voice that made Kurama’s skin crawl. “We’re really past formalities by this point, aren’t we?”
One moment he was across the yard, and the next his warm breath touched the back of Kurama’s neck as he lifted the redhead’s locks and let them slide through his fingers. Kurama froze, startled by both the touch and the evidence of demonic speed. For a moment, his mind emptied of every thought but one: he could not beat Karasu.
Kurama had met and defeated Karasu once in battle, because Kurama had been dying and therefore Karasu had been arrogantly stupid. Karasu would not make the same mistake twice. So Kurama stood, indecisive and frightened beneath the caress of his adversary’s blunt, human fingers.
“I knew it would be you,” Karasu whispered in the dark, his hands settling on Kurama’s shoulders, loosely around his neck. “I knew you would be the one to make it back.” Karasu took Kurama’s chin in hand and turned him around, eyes skimming over Kurama’s features with a hunger that made the kitsune cold. “My beautiful Kurama.”
Kurama drowned in purple madness and lust, and the sound of a Karasu’s victims screaming in his ears. Karasu’s touch was searing, cloying, hooks in his skin, pulling him forward. Kurama gasped, but could not seem to get enough air.
His heartbeat sounded like the thundering of wings.
Wings…and the whisper of dead prayers…
Kurama, snap out of it!
Kurama jerked back, out of Karasu’s grip. The freezing air, the here and now, slammed into him.
“No,” he said, and his sword flashed as it took Karasu’s head off.
Karasu shrieked, a high-pitched metallic sound, and his body smeared into a black smudge as it hit the gravel and faded, leaving a fluttering ribbon of paper in its wake. Looking at it, Kurama realized he’d miscalculated.
Five more Karasus resolved out of the shadows, circling Kurama. The kitsune cut his way through them, trying to find the source, the end. But no matter how many he killed, more rose, indefinitely. He staggered as one flung itself at him and wrapped both arms around his waist, pinning his left arm to his side. He twisted, flipped his sword so it pointed down, and stabbed it through the top of the head. It crumpled, but the delay had been long enough that it gave the others an opening.
A blow to his temple made him stumble to his knees. The sword spun out of his hand, and was lost as he rolled desperately, lashing out at anything vulnerable in a mad scramble to get back to his feet.
One of the Karasus grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked back. Kurama looked up into the twisted visage of his step-father, and stabbed him in the temple with a crystallized lily leaf.
The creature dissolved. Overbalanced, Kurama fell, rolled as soon as he hit the ground, palms flat to push himself back to his feet, and something shifted under his hand with the sound of gritting dust. Kurama looked down and recognized the curl of paper with carefully scripted kanji on one side.
The rest of the imposters died in a spectacular spiraling growth of bamboo trees that shot up from the ground and impaled the remaining shadow-Karasus before arcing up into the sky. Kurama stood up as black leaves rained down and struck the ground like brittle glass. With the paper clenched in one hand, he summoned another sword.
The crow flew overhead, a dark shape among the black-crystal forest, and Kurama followed.
The shadows were writhing into shapes, but Kurama plunged through them before they could solidify. He slid to a stop in front of the prayer tree.
He put his entire weight behind the thrust that slammed through flesh and bone and sank several inches into the tree trunk.
Mayonaka Tama reappeared, the moon out from the clouds, as his illusions dissolved around him. His hands scrabbled ineffectually at the sword that pierced the center of his chest, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
He looked at Kurama with hate-filled eyes, and grinned, pink-tinged teeth against the smooth lines of his face.
Kurama stepped back, feeling the time he had left slipping through him like sand. His tie to the world would only last as long as Mayonaka remained alive, and that wasn’t going to be much longer.
The sword broke when he let it go. Mayonaka’s body hit the ground as he turned and stepped toward the shrine. He had enough time to cut Shuichi free. Once in the Reikai, he could speak to Koenma about finding the others, he hoped.
Shuichi was unconscious, which was a small mercy, he supposed. Studying the wires holding Shuichi up only long enough to discern that his reiki was stronger than whatever held them together, Kurama reached out to break them.
Someone grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pressed him up against the wall of the shrine.
Hatanaka smiled, mad eyes hidden by his glasses, though Kurama could still sense them. For a moment, his mind froze, unable to believe that Mayonaka had the power to keep one of his illusions functioning.
“Hello, Kurama,” he purred.
Then Kurama knew. “Karasu.”
And was unable to react fast enough as Karasu leaned in and kissed him.
Churning, boiling hate hit Kurama first, followed by lust twisted tightly in pain and followed closely by rage. He didn’t want the images that poured into his mind, hot and poisonous, didn’t want to know or see the things he was being forced to see and know. But he couldn’t stop it, didn’t have the strength, and the cacophony, the agony, was nearly enough to overshadow that sharp agony of
Karasu
stabbing him in the lung.
Time stopped, for just a moment, when Kurama realized that his power was dying with Mayonaka. He was dying with Mayonaka, not enough crow magic left to heal a wound so viciously deep.
The next breath he drew bubbled.
Karasu leaned forward and drank Kurama’s blood from his mouth with death’s stained smile.
“So beautiful,” Karasu whispered, lips tracing over the whorls of Kurama’s ear.
Kurama jerked, still trying to get away. His body shuddered, fighting the death it felt coming. His legs buckled, and Karasu sank with him, controlling their descent.
“This is how I have always wanted to see you,” the demon continued in spider-silk tones as he knelt on the wooden slats of the shrine’s floor. “We are never so alive as at the moment of death.” He stroked Kurama’s hair back from opaque green eyes. “And I will hold you in my arms, savoring the life and death of you.”
Hands fisted in Karasu’s suit jacket, ineffectual, residual strength trying to push him away. “No,” Kurama whispered.
When Karasu kissed him again, he shut his eyes and desperately thought of the one thing that might save him.
Hiei.
Karasu lowered him to the ground gently, and Kurama opened his eyes to watch him pace over to Shuichi, still strung up like a fly in a web.
“And this,” Karasu said, grabbing a handful of Shuichi’s hair and pulling his head back to bare his throat, “is my last gift to you.” The claws on his free hand gleamed as he drew them back.
No!
Kurama lurched forward, breath caught in his throat, but every other part of him screaming denial. His sight tunneled, but he rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward Karasu.
“To watch this precious thing of yours,” Karasu continued tenderly, “die before you do.”
No!
The claws flashed down, and Shuichi’s blood hit the shrine floor, hot and slick as Kurama’s own blood, soaking into ancient wood.
Mad purple eyes in moonlight, in a human face, hiding the demon smile that burned into Kurama’s mind.
I will not die.
It had been that simple before. It could be that simple again.
Kurama’s hands clawed on rough wood, splinters breaking under his fingernails. He willed his heart to keep beating. He willed hate to become like blood.
I will not die.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, his connection to the crow reopened. And Kuronue, halfway to wherever guides went when the journey ended, turned, and winged back.
I will destroy you.
Kurama dragged one leg up, and then the other, gathering them under him, finding his balance to stand. He pressed his hand to the wound between his ribs, still bleeding. It was still getting harder to breathe. Still mortal. Kuronue wouldn’t arrive in time.
Kurama stood up, anyway.
He ignored shaking limbs, dizziness, nausea, the freezing, stiffening, heavy cold of his limbs, and several instincts that screamed he shouldn’t move, much less pick a fight, and took a step forward.
Shuichi’s blood poured down his chin and face, into his hair, dripping to the floor. Karasu let Shuichi’s head go and lifted his hand to lick his fingers. Then he turned and smiled at Kurama, his expression bored but amused, his eyes bright.
The rest happened in heartbeats.
The air changed color, light refracting differently, going a sort of inky purple with light burning up from the ground. Lazy, glowing lines spread out from Shuichi’s blood, sliding restlessly over the wood floor, down the steps, over the gravel. Kurama placed a hand against a wall to catch his balance, and felt the night pulse, once, as if someone had plucked a very deep base cord attached to his sternum.
The lines brightened--dark purple into red, and took sharp turns, and fantastical curves, weaving into more defined designs.
The crow cried out defiantly as it broke through the light, and flew toward Kurama, who knew as he saw it that calling it back had been a mistake.
The next pulse, and gravity seemed to strengthen. Kurama had to lean against the wall to keep standing, panting and shaky, vision blurring. The crow landed hard, skidded, stumbled back to its feet.
Karasu laughed very softly, sliding his hands through the puddle beneath Shuichi and smearing his fingers down his cheeks as he meandered down the steps. Kurama straightened, and made to follow.
When Karasu placed his bloodied hands palm down on gravel, the ground beneath his feet screamed and ripped open, and Kurama knew--could see--that the lines had been tracing out a shape of a crow.
Flicker of black by the prayer tree. In the sudden light of the burning lines, Kurama noticed it, a moment of purposefully moving darkness where there should only be flickering shadows.
Hiei’s sword was so fast, that it was nothing more than another flash of flame. It cut through the air around Mayonaka, and the man, so nearly dead, fell into four separate pieces.
It took Kurama a moment to notice a difference, to realize that he wasn’t dying any longer. He didn’t pause to wonder why. He leapt down the steps and toward Karasu, and was nearly blinded as the lines flared into walls of fire.
Then everything was gone, and Kurama was left, standing stunned, in a silent shrine, the smell of blood and scorched earth slowly being blown away by the damp-icy smell of late winter.
He looked around wildly, casting with all his senses for any sign of Karasu. He turned and looked at Hiei, who stood cleaning his sword by the tree, then back at the door, where Shuichi’s corpse still hung, bleeding out slowly.
There was no Karasu, or any sign of him. He had nothing coherent to say to Hiei. He didn’t know what he was going to do with his brother.
He looked at his feet, at the white stones with bits that caught faint moonlight and sparkled. Then the ground was coming closer. He didn’t realize what had happened until his knees hit the hard rocks, and then he felt it best just to continue in the same direction.
He fell sideways, curled loosely, head on the stones. One arm crooked so his hand lay in the direct line of his site, and he stared hard until he could see all the tiny lines in his skin. For a long moment, there was no sound at all, just Kurama following the fine paths in his hand and letting himself think of nothing.
Footsteps broke the silence, not as intrusive as they might have been, because they were quick and light and sure, and stopped just next to Kurama’s head.
“Kurama, what are you doing?” Hiei asked, somewhere above Kurama’s prone body.
Kurama’s first, gut response was a vicious, Get away from me. I’ll kill you. Because, at that moment, if he’d had the ability, he would have stood up and gutted Hiei on the spot, if only to keep from having to do anything ever again.
Somewhere, he realized that this wasn’t a very rational response, and waited for his brain to turn over something better. There were sharp, grinding sounds as Hiei shifted his weight on the gravel and crouched down.
“Kurama?”
Light fingertips skimmed over Kurama’s bangs, and Kurama shivered as the touch sent a scattering of Hiei’s surface thoughts through him.
Kurama closed his eyes, absorbing exasperation, worry, and something gentler.
“Whatever grief you feel,” Hiei said, voice deep and soft and undeniable, “it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won’t bring anyone back.”
Kurama wanted to laugh, a laugh with hard edges, like the kind he could feel jostling about just under his skin, vying for space-all the hollowness filled with pain. Just as quickly it flipped to a desire to cry, to curl in a ball and let the tears fall and forget he had any other responsibilities.
Both responses required more effort than he could dredge up, so he did neither.
Then he felt Hiei’s hand settle on his head.
“I will help you with your brother,” Hiei said.
So Kurama stood up, because all other options seemed pointless in the face of Hiei’s simple but heartfelt offer. He cut Shuichi down from the doorway, not looking too closely at the body, because there was no way to clean away the blood, and he had better memories of Shuichi and didn’t want to mar them with a last look.
He kept his eyes averted, and felt the flare of heat from Hiei’s demon fire, grateful, in some distant way, for the lack smell or sound-the fire and everything it burned in Hiei’s tight control. There was silence, and when the heat faded away, Kurama turned back around.
Immediately, he searched for Shuichi, and then for signs of Shuichi’s remains, suddenly upset by his own cowardice, and suddenly desperate for a chance to say “goodbye.”
The night was lightening into a gray dawn and the air was damp with a promise of snow. Kurama stared out over the shrine’s gravel lawn and absorbed the quiet and soft sounds of Hiei’s coat flapping in the breeze.
“The others?” Kurama asked.
“Gone,” Hiei answer.
Something horrible tightened in Kurama’s throat. “Dead?”
“No,” Hiei said with a steady confidence that allowed Kurama to breathe again. “Just…missing.”
“Not…” Kurama tried to interpret that. “Not in the human world any longer?”
“Yes. I think…somewhere between.”
“A pocket dimension.”
Hiei said nothing, which was confirmation enough.
Kurama looked up at the flat sky. “Then there’s no way to find them.”
“Unless we ask for help.”
Kurama blinked, meandering thoughts focusing. He looked at Hiei and the fire demon looked back.
“Let’s go talk to Koenma.”
For those of you who are interested in reading through this, one question: does it move too slowly? If so, any suggestions (which I may or may not take) on how to fix it? Also, are there any parts that don't make sense, don't fit coherently together? (okay okay... so that's two questions...)
BEWARE: possible stupid typos and some grammatical errors ahead. Haven't proofread it all that thoroughly.
It actually took close to fifteen minutes, because Genkai hadn’t even bothered taking it out of the box, or storing it in a room with electrical outlets. But once it was up and running, it was truly impressive--sleek, silvery plastic exterior, flatscreen monitor, tall, thin speakers, and a scanner/copier/printer. It took another fifteen minutes to install all of its extra software, before Jiro could scan the picture.
Yuusuke watched impatiently as the kid measured out the points on the map and enlarged the picture accordingly, isolating the crow image and cutting out the background. Then Jiro darkened the lines and printed a copy. Taking the paper and the map, he taped the former on a window and then placed the map over it. The sunlight shining through the window made it possible to see the image of the crow overlaid with the map.
“Ta da!” Jiro tossed a triumphant smile over his shoulder.
Yuusuke moved forward, but Tekko beat him to it. She circled the area of the crow’s head with a fingertip, frowning.
“That’s about a square kilometer of space,” she said. “In the middle of the business district. It’ll take time to find anything there. And we don’t even know what we’re looking for, exactly.”
“We’ll know it when we feel it,” Yuusuke said, practically bouncing. It had been far too long since he’d done anything constructive and he was starting to get antsy.
“We can feel spirit-power fluctuations when we get near them,” Kuwabara explained before Tekko could ask.
“So…” The female police officer raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to follow your Spider Sense to find the bad guys?”
Yuusuke grinned, letting a hint of the demon shine in his eyes. “That’s the plan. Let me know if you think of anything better.”
She rolled her eyes, but relented. “All right, that’s fine for you. But how am I going to find anything? What do I look out for?”
Outside, the warm orange sunset light shifted suddenly into purple, and thick black rain splattered against the windows, clinging to the glass like tar.
“Um.” Yuusuke blinked, a chill shivering down his spine as his nervous energy compressed into alertness. “Things like that.”
The reiken lit in Kuwabara’s hands, its glow clashing in sickly colors with the strange light. The orange-haired man braced and scanned the room, looking for something to attack. But, besides the sound of oddly solid rain hitting the window, it was eerily calm.
“Urameshi? Where’s it coming from?”
Yuusuke stretched his senses. “I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint it.”
As Tekko pulled her gun out, Jiro reached out and hit a light switch Yuusuke hadn’t even noticed. The room was bathed in the white-blue glow of fluorescent lighting that was hidden along the beams in the wall.
“I can’t see anything,” Tekko hissed, as she tried to scan out the window. “Where is everyone else?”
“I’ll find them,” Kuwabara volunteered, moving cautiously to the doorway.
“No!” Yuusuke saw Kuwabara start at his sudden command, and blink at him.
“What…?”
The air was pressing in. Yuusuke could feel it, darkness hovering around his vision, full of sharp edges.
“Oh shit,” Kuwabara breathed, just before the edges coalesced and surged.
The taller man went down first, the reiken dissipating as he fell to his knees and clutched his head. Before Yuusuke could move toward him, a sharp sound pierced his eardrums like a thin wire, and then ripped open a black tear in his head that poured a frothing foulness. He was drowning in sound, a rising discord.
Yuusuke’s demon blood responded immediately, white fire burning up his veins, and driving back the dark enough that he could see men in black push their way into the room. They were armed with rifles. Sharp alarm made Yuusuke shove stubbornly to his feet, though his center of balance kept shifting as if he were standing on violent water.
It was difficult and painful to focus his reiki as he took aim, like pulling blood through his body backwards. Before he could call enough of it, one of the men raised his rifle and pulled the trigger.
The impact hit him with enough force to make him stagger. As he looked down at the small silver shaft and red feather sticking out of his chest, all he could summon was a vague sort of resentment. What kind of demons ran around with damned dart guns?
Then he passed out.
~*~
Keiko kicked her feet as she sat at the stool and pretended she was ten, and everything was simpler. Her parents’ noodle shop was a warm, bright haven around her, and the cold and dark outside made it all that much warmer and brighter.
She stirred her ramen with her chopsticks idly and listened to her parents squabble in the supply room, which was located through a doorway behind the cooking area. She expected Yuusuke would be back soon. Or, at the very least, in contact with her--if he knew what was good for him.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
Keiko put her chopsticks down and stared into her cold noodles, as if hoping she could divine through them. A persistent, uneasy feeling had dogged her all day. However, time and experience had taught her that such feelings were best ignored. In most cases, there was nothing to be done for it, and Yuusuke always came back.
And yet…there could be a time when he did not. And what would she do, then?
Keiko pushed her bowl to one side and stood up, suddenly incapable of sitting still any longer. She took the broom out of a corner and began to sweep the floor. The shop was near closing time, and all the customers were gone. A few muddy footprints marking their presence had dried enough that she could brush them away.
There was familiarity and rhythm in sweeping. There was a feeling of comfort and family in the room. There was a large black crow sitting expectantly in front of the glass-front door.
Keiko paused, and frowned at the creature. For all it seemed innocuous, there was something intrusive about its presence, as if someone had interrupted a conversation with a friend by shouting at her from across the street.
And just because that was the first analogy that sprang to mind, her eyes flicked to the other side of the street, and caught a flicker of movement in the alleyway. Then she remembered when she’d last seen a crow, which wasn’t a very common bird in Tokyo, and who’d she’d seen with it.
Impossible.
Still, there were so many things in her life that would seem quite impossible to someone else.
Keiko put the broom back in the corner, and grabbed her brown winter coat. She put her hand in her pockets, and felt the round, solid stick that fit just into her palm--to make her fist stronger, Yuusuke had said when he’d shown her how to throw a proper punch.
Opening the door to the winter night, she looked down at the bird expectantly. It cawed at her as if asking what the hell took her so long, and took to wing, feathertips brushing the ground as it arrowed its way to the alley.
Putting her hood up to ward against the wind, Keiko crossed the street, following the path of the crow. She kept her strides quick and easy, but eyed the dark corners of the street. She knew how easy it could be to confuse friend and foe sometimes, and kept alert.
Kurama smiled slightly as he stepped into the light, tentative, stance open and non-threatening. Until the moment she saw him, she realized that she hadn’t really expected to find him there. Not really. Not when he’d been gone for years.
Years! she wanted to shout at him, but pulled in a breath, held it, and managed not to do anything more than stare.
He stepped back into the darkness of the alley, and Keiko had a brief, somewhat hysterical thought of old spy films--conspiracies in the shadows. She followed him and managed not to giggle.
“So,” she began, and then couldn’t find anything else to say.
For a moment, they stood with bare inches between them, their frosted breath mingling in the air. She looked him over, some small part of her mind still waiting for him to vanish, as ghosts were supposed to do.
He was silent, waiting with a polite air, as if knowing she needed to collect her thoughts. And that, more than anything else, confirmed who he was. Kurama, always courteous, even in bizarre situations.
“It is you.” There was a strange quiver in her voice. She was almost embarrassed to hear it, and startled when her sight blurred around the edges, dampness freezing on her lashes.
“Don’t cry,” he said, sounding startled, eyes widening slightly.
She sniffed and gave him a reproachful look, controlling the knee-jerk grief before it could develop. “I’m not going to. I’ve cried enough for you already.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with genuine regret.
She gave a short laugh. “You are the only one I know who would apologize for dying. Even Yuusuke… All he ever said was ‘Hey Keiko. Long time no see.’”
“Keiko…”
She gave him a warm but impatient smile. “What do you want, Kurama? I’m sure you’re not just here for my health.”
He gave her a look caught somewhere between guilt and relief, and cut to the business at hand. “I’m looking for Yuusuke.”
She thought for a moment. “They’re not at Kuwabara’s?”
Kurama shook his head. Keiko felt the beginnings of worry tighten her chest, but staved them off with determination. “Have you checked Genkai’s shrine?”
Kurama blinked. “No.”
“Well, that’s my first guess,” she said, and added silently to herself, And if they’re not there, then I’ll worry.
He nodded and turned to leave. “Thanks, Keiko.”
Left behind again. Keiko couldn’t really blame him, didn’t really want to be involved in the nitty-gritty of what Yuusuke did, and yet, she couldn’t stop a moment’s resentment. “Kurama.” Don’t leave me here.
He stopped short and looked back at her. For an acutely embarrassing moment, she feared he’d somehow caught her stray thought. Then she steeled herself. She had the right to know some of the details.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
He turned and faced her squarely, the hesitation in his expression clearing into honesty. “I don’t know yet, Keiko.”
Which, she supposed, was the strictest of truth. “Keep me informed,” she said, tucking her hands into her armpits and hunching her shoulders against the wind.
“I will,” he promised.
She smiled slightly and then, impulsively, reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. “Don’t be a stranger.”
He smelled of winter wind and leather, and something else sweeter-roses, maybe. And even though he hugged her back, and was solid and warm in the cold night, she could almost feel him slipping through her fingers like a handful of fog.
“I’ll try not to,” he said, and it sounded like, “Goodbye.”
She let him go, stepping back and tugging her hood lower as she turned back toward the noodle shop. “Okay, then. I’ll see you around.”
“All right.”
She didn’t turn back around for that last glimpse as she walked back across the street, just kept her eyes on the lights shining through the windows and door of the noodle shop. Beacons back to her warm and comfortable complacency, where only the edges of the strangeness that ruled her husband’s life touched her.
For a moment, she imagined Yuusuke would be waiting for her when she stepped through the door, cheerily picking a fight with Kuwabara. She’d yelled at both of them and her parents would shake their heads indulgently behind the counter. Perhaps one of them could coax Kurama in from the cold. He was always so strangely hesitant around the three of them--Yuusuke, Kuwabara and Keiko--as if he feared intruding on something sacred.
But that was a ghost desire, stirred up from ghost memories, haunting the uneasy feeling that had only grown stronger in Keiko’s chest. She took a deep breath of freezing air and let the discomfort of it overshadow her restless thoughts. She would go back inside and ignore the pressing quiet, the sense of missing vital information. There was nothing else to do.
~*~
Kurama felt the darkness hit him long before he got to Genkai’s shrine. It curled around his ankles and slowed his steps, alive and hungry. He pushed on, regardless, worry tightening around him until it was nearly painful. Whatever was waiting for him at Genkai’s shrine was not what he’d been hoping to find there.
The palpable darkness made the journey up the steps seem longer. The cold air had an acidic quality, as if he were breathing in smoke. Memories touched him, sliding over his skin like oil.
-pretty bitch I like it when he squirms don’t cry-
He shook free of them, trying to hurry, knowing that the longer he lingered, the more likely he was to be buried alive here, in a nightmare. The power was familiar, now. Twisted with someone else, just as familiar, as hated. The crow was awake and hunting, but it couldn’t see, he couldn’t see.
-someone humming the first refrain of a lullaby, over and over again, and the rhythm sank into his bones, jarring him forward with every thrust and tearing pain he wouldn’t cry-
He fought his way free, running up endless steps, and the shadows became obscene things, tongues, flicking against his flesh as he fled.
Don’t panic.
But his heart was beating too fast, and his breathing just wouldn’t slow down, and the memories poured into his mind, unclean, cold.
-Hush little baby don’t say a word and he wanted to scream, but couldn’t, wouldn’t make a sound-
The top of the stairs almost took him by surprise. He sprang over the wooden plank entry and skidded to a stop in the gravel.
-Hush don’t cry-
He hadn’t.
“But you did.”
Kurama whirled toward the voice, lashing out with the edge of a hand, aiming for a killing blow. Darkness and nothing met his strike. He let the momentum spin him back toward the shrine and looked around, tense, waiting.
Rolled up prayers tied to the branches of a skeletal tree whispered like dead leaves, but everything else was still.
After a few suspended moments, Kurama straightened, and took a cautious step forward. The shrine was dark, abandoned. A cursory glance did not reveal any signs of battle.
The crow called sharply as it cut out of the dark like a knife with wings, banked, and perched neatly on a branch above a thin man leaning on the shrine well.
Kurama dropped back into his stance, sure that the man had not been there before. Though he stood half-concealed, and the shadows seemed to cling to him, Kurama knew immediately who he was. Between one moment and the next, lingering fear evaporated and his grass-blade sword settled into his hand. The figure’s name flared to life in his mind.
Mayonaka Tama.
And the dulcet, repetitive notes of a children’s song crystallized between them like frost. Kurama shivered, but the crow’s focus wouldn’t let him waver as he took a step forward, and then another.
White slice of teeth as Mayonaka smiled and the song stopped abruptly, mid-verse. “Come to kill me?” There wasn’t anything of fear in his voice or stance.
“Yes,” Kurama answered, taking another step forward.
“What if I said you had to choose?”
“Choose?” Kurama tilted his sword into a ready position. He wasn’t particularly interested in conversations with dead men, but that wouldn’t stop him from being polite.
“Kill me or save him.” Mayonaka turned to look behind him, toward the main building of the shrine.
Shadows evaporated, and moonlight fell like something solid on a form in the doorway, bound upside-down, arms dangling down, fingertips brushing the floor. Kurama stopped, attention split, the vengeance-bound rage momentarily suspended by cold dread.
“Shuichi…” he whispered.
A pale, long-fingered hand closed around Shuichi’s ankle, and slid slowly down his leg, to rest on his hip. Kurama felt his feral focus shifting toward whatever dared lay hands on his family.
Hatanaka eased into view, the sheen of his glasses hiding his eyes.
“So nice of you to join us, Kurama.”
Cold anger lit in the pit of Kurama’s stomach. “Hatanaka,” he growled softly against the wind.
Hatanaka nodded unneeded confirmation. “Good evening.”
The man stepped forward until the moonlight illuminated mad purple eyes, set in a face far too bland and normal. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, slightly rumpled, which made him look like just another salary man coming home from a long day at the office.
Kurama gritted his teeth, trying to see past the illusion. “Hatanaka, you…”
Hatanaka chuckled, and stroked Shuichi’s hip in an absent, almost loving gesture. “You know that isn’t my name. Why do you insist on using it?”
Kurama’s throat constricted for a moment. To speak the devil’s true name seemed to make it more real, but maybe, if he agreed to play this game, whatever it was, he could draw attention away from Shuichi.
Steeling himself, he looked into twisted purple eyes. “Karasu.”
“That’s better,” the demon answered, in a sickly sweet voice that made Kurama’s skin crawl. “We’re really past formalities by this point, aren’t we?”
One moment he was across the yard, and the next his warm breath touched the back of Kurama’s neck as he lifted the redhead’s locks and let them slide through his fingers. Kurama froze, startled by both the touch and the evidence of demonic speed. For a moment, his mind emptied of every thought but one: he could not beat Karasu.
Kurama had met and defeated Karasu once in battle, because Kurama had been dying and therefore Karasu had been arrogantly stupid. Karasu would not make the same mistake twice. So Kurama stood, indecisive and frightened beneath the caress of his adversary’s blunt, human fingers.
“I knew it would be you,” Karasu whispered in the dark, his hands settling on Kurama’s shoulders, loosely around his neck. “I knew you would be the one to make it back.” Karasu took Kurama’s chin in hand and turned him around, eyes skimming over Kurama’s features with a hunger that made the kitsune cold. “My beautiful Kurama.”
Kurama drowned in purple madness and lust, and the sound of a Karasu’s victims screaming in his ears. Karasu’s touch was searing, cloying, hooks in his skin, pulling him forward. Kurama gasped, but could not seem to get enough air.
His heartbeat sounded like the thundering of wings.
Wings…and the whisper of dead prayers…
Kurama, snap out of it!
Kurama jerked back, out of Karasu’s grip. The freezing air, the here and now, slammed into him.
“No,” he said, and his sword flashed as it took Karasu’s head off.
Karasu shrieked, a high-pitched metallic sound, and his body smeared into a black smudge as it hit the gravel and faded, leaving a fluttering ribbon of paper in its wake. Looking at it, Kurama realized he’d miscalculated.
Five more Karasus resolved out of the shadows, circling Kurama. The kitsune cut his way through them, trying to find the source, the end. But no matter how many he killed, more rose, indefinitely. He staggered as one flung itself at him and wrapped both arms around his waist, pinning his left arm to his side. He twisted, flipped his sword so it pointed down, and stabbed it through the top of the head. It crumpled, but the delay had been long enough that it gave the others an opening.
A blow to his temple made him stumble to his knees. The sword spun out of his hand, and was lost as he rolled desperately, lashing out at anything vulnerable in a mad scramble to get back to his feet.
One of the Karasus grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked back. Kurama looked up into the twisted visage of his step-father, and stabbed him in the temple with a crystallized lily leaf.
The creature dissolved. Overbalanced, Kurama fell, rolled as soon as he hit the ground, palms flat to push himself back to his feet, and something shifted under his hand with the sound of gritting dust. Kurama looked down and recognized the curl of paper with carefully scripted kanji on one side.
The rest of the imposters died in a spectacular spiraling growth of bamboo trees that shot up from the ground and impaled the remaining shadow-Karasus before arcing up into the sky. Kurama stood up as black leaves rained down and struck the ground like brittle glass. With the paper clenched in one hand, he summoned another sword.
The crow flew overhead, a dark shape among the black-crystal forest, and Kurama followed.
The shadows were writhing into shapes, but Kurama plunged through them before they could solidify. He slid to a stop in front of the prayer tree.
He put his entire weight behind the thrust that slammed through flesh and bone and sank several inches into the tree trunk.
Mayonaka Tama reappeared, the moon out from the clouds, as his illusions dissolved around him. His hands scrabbled ineffectually at the sword that pierced the center of his chest, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
He looked at Kurama with hate-filled eyes, and grinned, pink-tinged teeth against the smooth lines of his face.
Kurama stepped back, feeling the time he had left slipping through him like sand. His tie to the world would only last as long as Mayonaka remained alive, and that wasn’t going to be much longer.
The sword broke when he let it go. Mayonaka’s body hit the ground as he turned and stepped toward the shrine. He had enough time to cut Shuichi free. Once in the Reikai, he could speak to Koenma about finding the others, he hoped.
Shuichi was unconscious, which was a small mercy, he supposed. Studying the wires holding Shuichi up only long enough to discern that his reiki was stronger than whatever held them together, Kurama reached out to break them.
Someone grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pressed him up against the wall of the shrine.
Hatanaka smiled, mad eyes hidden by his glasses, though Kurama could still sense them. For a moment, his mind froze, unable to believe that Mayonaka had the power to keep one of his illusions functioning.
“Hello, Kurama,” he purred.
Then Kurama knew. “Karasu.”
And was unable to react fast enough as Karasu leaned in and kissed him.
Churning, boiling hate hit Kurama first, followed by lust twisted tightly in pain and followed closely by rage. He didn’t want the images that poured into his mind, hot and poisonous, didn’t want to know or see the things he was being forced to see and know. But he couldn’t stop it, didn’t have the strength, and the cacophony, the agony, was nearly enough to overshadow that sharp agony of
Karasu
stabbing him in the lung.
Time stopped, for just a moment, when Kurama realized that his power was dying with Mayonaka. He was dying with Mayonaka, not enough crow magic left to heal a wound so viciously deep.
The next breath he drew bubbled.
Karasu leaned forward and drank Kurama’s blood from his mouth with death’s stained smile.
“So beautiful,” Karasu whispered, lips tracing over the whorls of Kurama’s ear.
Kurama jerked, still trying to get away. His body shuddered, fighting the death it felt coming. His legs buckled, and Karasu sank with him, controlling their descent.
“This is how I have always wanted to see you,” the demon continued in spider-silk tones as he knelt on the wooden slats of the shrine’s floor. “We are never so alive as at the moment of death.” He stroked Kurama’s hair back from opaque green eyes. “And I will hold you in my arms, savoring the life and death of you.”
Hands fisted in Karasu’s suit jacket, ineffectual, residual strength trying to push him away. “No,” Kurama whispered.
When Karasu kissed him again, he shut his eyes and desperately thought of the one thing that might save him.
Hiei.
Karasu lowered him to the ground gently, and Kurama opened his eyes to watch him pace over to Shuichi, still strung up like a fly in a web.
“And this,” Karasu said, grabbing a handful of Shuichi’s hair and pulling his head back to bare his throat, “is my last gift to you.” The claws on his free hand gleamed as he drew them back.
No!
Kurama lurched forward, breath caught in his throat, but every other part of him screaming denial. His sight tunneled, but he rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward Karasu.
“To watch this precious thing of yours,” Karasu continued tenderly, “die before you do.”
No!
The claws flashed down, and Shuichi’s blood hit the shrine floor, hot and slick as Kurama’s own blood, soaking into ancient wood.
Mad purple eyes in moonlight, in a human face, hiding the demon smile that burned into Kurama’s mind.
I will not die.
It had been that simple before. It could be that simple again.
Kurama’s hands clawed on rough wood, splinters breaking under his fingernails. He willed his heart to keep beating. He willed hate to become like blood.
I will not die.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, his connection to the crow reopened. And Kuronue, halfway to wherever guides went when the journey ended, turned, and winged back.
I will destroy you.
Kurama dragged one leg up, and then the other, gathering them under him, finding his balance to stand. He pressed his hand to the wound between his ribs, still bleeding. It was still getting harder to breathe. Still mortal. Kuronue wouldn’t arrive in time.
Kurama stood up, anyway.
He ignored shaking limbs, dizziness, nausea, the freezing, stiffening, heavy cold of his limbs, and several instincts that screamed he shouldn’t move, much less pick a fight, and took a step forward.
Shuichi’s blood poured down his chin and face, into his hair, dripping to the floor. Karasu let Shuichi’s head go and lifted his hand to lick his fingers. Then he turned and smiled at Kurama, his expression bored but amused, his eyes bright.
The rest happened in heartbeats.
The air changed color, light refracting differently, going a sort of inky purple with light burning up from the ground. Lazy, glowing lines spread out from Shuichi’s blood, sliding restlessly over the wood floor, down the steps, over the gravel. Kurama placed a hand against a wall to catch his balance, and felt the night pulse, once, as if someone had plucked a very deep base cord attached to his sternum.
The lines brightened--dark purple into red, and took sharp turns, and fantastical curves, weaving into more defined designs.
The crow cried out defiantly as it broke through the light, and flew toward Kurama, who knew as he saw it that calling it back had been a mistake.
The next pulse, and gravity seemed to strengthen. Kurama had to lean against the wall to keep standing, panting and shaky, vision blurring. The crow landed hard, skidded, stumbled back to its feet.
Karasu laughed very softly, sliding his hands through the puddle beneath Shuichi and smearing his fingers down his cheeks as he meandered down the steps. Kurama straightened, and made to follow.
When Karasu placed his bloodied hands palm down on gravel, the ground beneath his feet screamed and ripped open, and Kurama knew--could see--that the lines had been tracing out a shape of a crow.
Flicker of black by the prayer tree. In the sudden light of the burning lines, Kurama noticed it, a moment of purposefully moving darkness where there should only be flickering shadows.
Hiei’s sword was so fast, that it was nothing more than another flash of flame. It cut through the air around Mayonaka, and the man, so nearly dead, fell into four separate pieces.
It took Kurama a moment to notice a difference, to realize that he wasn’t dying any longer. He didn’t pause to wonder why. He leapt down the steps and toward Karasu, and was nearly blinded as the lines flared into walls of fire.
Then everything was gone, and Kurama was left, standing stunned, in a silent shrine, the smell of blood and scorched earth slowly being blown away by the damp-icy smell of late winter.
He looked around wildly, casting with all his senses for any sign of Karasu. He turned and looked at Hiei, who stood cleaning his sword by the tree, then back at the door, where Shuichi’s corpse still hung, bleeding out slowly.
There was no Karasu, or any sign of him. He had nothing coherent to say to Hiei. He didn’t know what he was going to do with his brother.
He looked at his feet, at the white stones with bits that caught faint moonlight and sparkled. Then the ground was coming closer. He didn’t realize what had happened until his knees hit the hard rocks, and then he felt it best just to continue in the same direction.
He fell sideways, curled loosely, head on the stones. One arm crooked so his hand lay in the direct line of his site, and he stared hard until he could see all the tiny lines in his skin. For a long moment, there was no sound at all, just Kurama following the fine paths in his hand and letting himself think of nothing.
Footsteps broke the silence, not as intrusive as they might have been, because they were quick and light and sure, and stopped just next to Kurama’s head.
“Kurama, what are you doing?” Hiei asked, somewhere above Kurama’s prone body.
Kurama’s first, gut response was a vicious, Get away from me. I’ll kill you. Because, at that moment, if he’d had the ability, he would have stood up and gutted Hiei on the spot, if only to keep from having to do anything ever again.
Somewhere, he realized that this wasn’t a very rational response, and waited for his brain to turn over something better. There were sharp, grinding sounds as Hiei shifted his weight on the gravel and crouched down.
“Kurama?”
Light fingertips skimmed over Kurama’s bangs, and Kurama shivered as the touch sent a scattering of Hiei’s surface thoughts through him.
Kurama closed his eyes, absorbing exasperation, worry, and something gentler.
“Whatever grief you feel,” Hiei said, voice deep and soft and undeniable, “it will change nothing. It will save no one. And it won’t bring anyone back.”
Kurama wanted to laugh, a laugh with hard edges, like the kind he could feel jostling about just under his skin, vying for space-all the hollowness filled with pain. Just as quickly it flipped to a desire to cry, to curl in a ball and let the tears fall and forget he had any other responsibilities.
Both responses required more effort than he could dredge up, so he did neither.
Then he felt Hiei’s hand settle on his head.
“I will help you with your brother,” Hiei said.
So Kurama stood up, because all other options seemed pointless in the face of Hiei’s simple but heartfelt offer. He cut Shuichi down from the doorway, not looking too closely at the body, because there was no way to clean away the blood, and he had better memories of Shuichi and didn’t want to mar them with a last look.
He kept his eyes averted, and felt the flare of heat from Hiei’s demon fire, grateful, in some distant way, for the lack smell or sound-the fire and everything it burned in Hiei’s tight control. There was silence, and when the heat faded away, Kurama turned back around.
Immediately, he searched for Shuichi, and then for signs of Shuichi’s remains, suddenly upset by his own cowardice, and suddenly desperate for a chance to say “goodbye.”
The night was lightening into a gray dawn and the air was damp with a promise of snow. Kurama stared out over the shrine’s gravel lawn and absorbed the quiet and soft sounds of Hiei’s coat flapping in the breeze.
“The others?” Kurama asked.
“Gone,” Hiei answer.
Something horrible tightened in Kurama’s throat. “Dead?”
“No,” Hiei said with a steady confidence that allowed Kurama to breathe again. “Just…missing.”
“Not…” Kurama tried to interpret that. “Not in the human world any longer?”
“Yes. I think…somewhere between.”
“A pocket dimension.”
Hiei said nothing, which was confirmation enough.
Kurama looked up at the flat sky. “Then there’s no way to find them.”
“Unless we ask for help.”
Kurama blinked, meandering thoughts focusing. He looked at Hiei and the fire demon looked back.
“Let’s go talk to Koenma.”