Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘’ This is the place. This is where it happened. Are you ready to hear ? Are you ready to know ?’’

“We are ready to hear. We are ready to know.”

“You will not turn away. The eyes that are open, shall never close.”

“Our eyes are open. Our eyes shall never close.”

“Once there was a girl. Her name is forgotten. Her face faded away”

“Her name is forgotten. Her face faded away.”

“Only her hair remain. Her silky hair, her joy, her pride.”

“Her joy, her pride.”

“She shall always get more. She will never be satisfied… Okay, Hideto, if you’re not gonna take this seriously, you can just leave.”

“Sorry, sorry ! You just have to admit, it’s hard to say all this shit with a straight face ! Come on !”

“Just because you can get in the spirit – pun intended – doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for everybody else.”

“I’ll be quiet, promise ! Let’s just finish the chantey thing and get to the good part !”

“But no more interruption or I’ll stop.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Okay, let’s go from “her silky hair, her joy, her pride.””

“Her joy, her pride.”

“She shall always get more. She will never be satisfied.”

“Never, never, never, never.”

“She will get a taste of your hair. She will slurp it through her teeth.”

“Through her teeth, her sharp teeth.”

“It will never be enough. She will take more.”

“More, more, more, more.”

“She will pluck your hair, one by one. At first, you will not notice. You will lose your hair, slowly, as if it had been falling off.”

“One by one.”

“And the day you turn around, and see her dangling by your hair… She will open her mouth and swallow you whole.”

“Slurp slurp slurp slurp.”

“Okay, who has the hair ?”

“I got it. Put it in a zip bag, hope it’s okay, that thing’s kinda gross.”

“Where did you even get it ?”

“The gym locker-room, after she showered.”

“Ew.”

“Hey, what was I gonna do ? I wasn’t gonna pull it from her head, I’m not a creep.”

“It’s fine, people. Let’s just put the hair on the altar and get this over with.”

“I’m not touching it.”

“Then leave it in the bag ! Makes no difference !”

“Kay, here we go.”

“We offer you this meal, you who roams hungry for hair. Taste it, and find your next victim.”

“Protect us, as we feed you.”

“Feast and leave us be. Take the black sheep and cleanse the herd.”
“We offer her to you. We offer her to you.”

“We offer her to you, Kedama-otome.”

“Okay, now blow the candles.”

“Aaand we’re done.”

“Cool, cause I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t started studying for the geography test tomorrow.”

“Urgh, thanks for reminding me.”

“Why do we even need to learn geography ? It’s like, here’s a mountain, here’s a sea, congrats, here’s your diploma.”

“I know.”

“Stop complaining you nerds, I know you’re still gonna pull an all-nighter to ace this thing.”

“Guilty. Blame peer pressure.”

“Totally ! Hey guys…”

“Yeah ?”

“”Do you believe she might actually die ?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Pork ramen, Urameshi, if you please.”

“You know you can’t pay me in markers, right ?”

“Fear not, I brought my heard-earned Japanese money. And if that takes the pressure off, I’m actually not here for the ramen – although I heard you’re not so bad on that front.”

“What pressure ? You can’t grade me anymore, Take, have they told you that ?”

“Your oil is fuming.”

“Shit.”

“As I was saying, I was hoping to get to talk with you about your… other trade. I heard you can help people for a price.”

“Okay, two questions : one, who told you about this, and two, how malleable is their face ?”

“It will become clear eventually. First, let me explain to you what lead me to seek your help.”

“You want that in a bowl or a plate ?”

“Bowl, thank you Urameshi. So as you know, school started again a few months ago at Sarayashiki junior high, and like every year, I’ve been putting together the tutoring program for students who are struggling, either mark- or behaviour-wise.”

“Ah yeah, Keiko did that before leaving for college. If it’s about getting her info…”

“Well as it happens, this year I’ve decided to do something a little… different. Instead of getting students who were already exemplary when they were with us – like, say, Yukimura – to tutor our troubled elements, I wanted to try a different approach : getting students who were themselves in a difficult position when they were in middle school, but have since strived and achieved their goals.”

“You mean getting people these kids might actually connect with instead of your usual goody-two-shoes ? Woah, what a revolutionary approach, Take, are you ready for that Order of the Rising Sun ?”

“Do you want to feel smart or do you actually want me to get to the end of this story ?”

“If that’s about recruiting me for your little afterschool program, answer’s no. I wouldn’t want to do it if you paid me… it’s not a paid gig, is it ?”

“No.”

“Rats.”

“Indeed, I thought of you at first. But I actually reached out to the more obvious choice first, and he confirmed me that you wouldn’t be interested. Salt ?”

“On your right. That idiot. Of course he’d enjoy something like that.”

“Kuwabara was very enthusiastic about joining the tutoring program. I’m very impressed with his success. He turned into the exceptional kid I always knew he could be.”

“Which brings us back to the age-old question : why the hell are you here now ?”

“As I said, I wasn’t going to contact you for the program. But a month ago, we got our first one.”

“On the edge of my seat here.”

“Youkai monster. I mean – demon. I… don’t know how you’re supposed to call them to be polite. Everything seems designed to be offensive.”

“Wait. You got a youkai student ? At Sarayashiki ?”

“First one in the district. She enrolled in February, our board made quite a fuss about it. It was in the local papers.”

“Aw, that’s why I missed it, I only read international news.”

“The point is, I think she’s a sweet… person. But she’s not doing so great. Grades are fine, but she keeps to herself, she’s completely isolated, and keeps getting into… incidents. With the other students. Teachers, including myself, have tried to engage with her, but we’re getting nowhere. It’s hard to know what she understands or not.”

“That was actually offensive.”

“Don’t be daft. You know what I mean. I don’t know if she’s fine or not with the way things are. From a human’s perspective, she’s being shunned and bullied. But she doesn’t seem to want to react, and she’s not talking to anyone. I was hoping… you could give it a try.”

“The other students are being assholes, so SHE’s the one who needs tutoring ?”

“Knowing you, there would be very little tutoring done in the process. All I want is for her to have someone she’s comfortable sharing with. There’s a lot of fear and ignorance going around, and most of it is on us to fix. But she has a part to play too. She can’t just show up and expect everyone to accept her if we don’t even know who she is and what she wants.”

“Have you considered she might just want to be treated like everybody else ?”

“But she isn’t like everybody else, is she ?”

“…”

“And neither are you. You never were. Listen, Urameshi, I might not know much about her, and youkai, or whatever they are, but I know teaching. I know students. I know “troubled” is often just a mixture of lonely, scared, and misunderstood. I wasn’t wrong about you then, and I’m not wrong about her now. But I’m not the right person to reach out to her, just like I wasn’t the right person to reach out to you. I want to believe you are. Will you do this, Urameshi ? Will you do this one thing for me ?”

“Geez okay, I’ll do it, else I’m afraid next you’ll propose to me or something.”

“Thank you. I knew I could count on you. Where do I put the bowl ?”

“Leave it, I’ll take care of it.”

“Tutoring is every Tuesday at three. You remember where the study rooms are. The student’s name is Fuyumi. She’ll be waiting for you. I must be going now. And Urameshi ?”

“What now ?”

“Those were some excellent ramen.”

The sound of Takenaka’s footsteps were lost to the night. Behind his stand, Yuusuke watched his red-painted awnings flutter lightly in the evening wind. Oil was still sizzling on the metal pan.

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck.”

The building wasn’t much to look at. It was a solid hour away from the beating heart of the city, and despite harbouring a definitively eighties flare, it was already looking on the side of decay. A pathetic attempt at a communal front lawn with only a few twigs in pots and a not exactly green grass patch to show for itself was welcoming the tenants. The security meanwhile was decent. This, she had insisted on. You make things change, you create something new, not everybody is going to be happy. You won’t always be there to guard the place. I need to feel safe in my own home. So now he had this stupid badge thingy he always misplaced, which some nights left him with no choice but to scale the side of the building and gently tap on the living room window hoping she would be home. He sometimes wondered what normal people did in this situation. Funny how he had lost the ability to put himself in a normal person’s shoes. He stepped into the lobby. Well, “lobby”, with quotations marks as big as the decorative pillars designed to make the entrance look impressive, but just made it a hassle to get a couch inside the elevator. He could still see the etchings on the side of the pillar from when he’d decided he was too annoyed to be delicate with the furniture. Up to the third floor. Down the hallway with the orange – or “ochre” as the designer had certainly called it – carpeting that wouldn’t have marred in the Shining. Left door. Open. Close. And there it was.

Home. His home. His first home.

“Hey there.”

She was hunched over the living room table, books and papers everywhere, and she hadn’t looked up to greet him. After taking off his shoes and putting them in the entrance cabinet - why are we getting a furniture whose whole purpose is literally the same as the floor ? Because it will look nice in the entrance, it will be inviting for the guests, and I will be able to tell people that even if he brushes elbows with the scariest monsters in creation, only I can get Yuusuke Urameshi to buy a shoe cabinet ! - he stepped on the wood flooring and made his way to her, then placed a kiss on top of her hair.

“I made a cabbage salad, tasted it, it was terrible, I threw that away, found some teriyaki sauce and beef so I made that. Help yourself, I have to finish annotating this course.”

“I keep telling you I could simply eat at the stand.”

“And I keep telling you I need to learn to get by in a kitchen somehow, and there’s no one except you I can subject to my cooking.”

“Because I’m your boyfriend or because I’m a near-immortal being ?

“Go eat, you idiot.”

He circled around the countertop that separated the open kitchen from the rest of the living room and found the plate covered with aluminium foil on the stove. Looking up from this point in the room, he had a sweeping view of the entire apartment. Across the countertop, the living area was occupied by a corner sofa whose short arm was against the bar and longer arm against a wall which they had decorated with vintage posters they’d found for sale at an arcade. The couch had been their biggest spending ; the rest of the furniture, from the glass coffee table to the dinner table that was really just a plank propped on two trestles, to their bed even, were either donations from friends or second-hand thrifts. But they’d gotten the big couch for the same reason they’d gotten the shoe cabinet : it made it look like a real place, where people really lived and received their friends. Which, when you were young and clueless about how to be an adult, was pretty much what you aspired to. In front of him, a ceiling-high window opened on a small balcony that had been left bare for the time being – neither him nor Keiko being particularly dedicated gardeners – but Kurama had sworn to swing by sometime to remediate this inacceptable state of affairs. On his right, first was the entrance space, then immediately on the left the door to their room, and then another door, to another room. He would not have admitted it to Keiko, but this was really the thing that had made him say yes to this place, even though they could barely afford it with Keiko’s scholarship and his revenue from the ramen stand and various dealings. They had visited smaller places that would have fitted their needs fine, but there was something about having a second room that just appealed to something deep within him. He’d never lived in a house where they had a second room. Even in the fancier place his mother had eventually moved into, he’d always taken the one room, and she would sleep in the living space. And now look at that ! He could have someone stay for the night and they would not have to sleep on the couch ! They could sleep in a real bed, in a real room ! Because it was his house, and in his house, they had a second room ! Yes it was small, mostly used for storage, and the bed they’d gotten for that room was Yuusuke’s old bed, which had never really recovered from Sensui’s Reyko-Reshuken blast and still exuded a deliciously crispy smell, but it was a second bed, dammit, because in Yuusuke’s house, that was the life they led. That was the life he wanted to lead.

“What are you thinking about ?”

Keiko had propped her head on her hand, still holding a pen, and was looking at him, smiling.

“I got a visitor at the stand today. Takenaka.”

“From middle school ? How is he ? What did he want ?”

“He’s old. And he wanted me to tutor a youkai student for some stupid program he came up with.”

“Did you agree ?”

“Yeah. And I seriously have no idea why.”

“Oh Yuusuke.”

She was outright grinning now.

“You agreed for the same reason you ever agree to anything. Because that’s actually what you want to do, and you’re just waiting for someone to ask you so you can act as if they forced you to do it.”

“Why would I want to pep talk some young version of me into making stupid friends and getting good grades at a school I hate, like it’s a good thing ?”

“I’m not the one you have to ask that to, am I ?”

“I never got tutored when I was in school, and I did fine.”

“Isn’t this exactly why you’re doing this ? Because there’s some part of you wondering if things could have been easier for you at that time if you’d actually gotten someone like you to talk with ?”

“I hate it when you get all deep with me.”

“Look, all I know is that you’re great with kids, and like it or not, you’re actually not bad a teacher. This kid could benefit from meeting you, and you could use some time away from the stand. How much is Takenaka paying you ?”

“Shit, I didn’t ask.”

“Well, talk to him about it, maybe it will help you see this all this like a job. It’s not all winning tournaments and saving the universe, sometimes it’s just helping a young youkai getting themselves together.”

“I like bad guys who want to blow up the universe. It’s simple with them.”

“And I’m sure one will turn up soon. But in the meantime, that’s what you get.”

“Hm. I’m going to bed, you’re coming ?”

“In a short bit. Just finishing up here.”

“Don’t stay up too late, I don’t want to have to shake you awake in the morning again.”

“That was one time !”

“And I will make sure you never forget about it ever.”

She threw her eraser at him. He raised his arm in mock protection.

“I love you.”

“Me too, me too.”

“Will you marry me ?”

“Nice try.”

He opened the panel to his room, still plunged in darkness. A ray of artificial light penetrated the space between his feet. With one last glance at her, he slid the panel shut.

Some places are just bad. Not unpleasant, not dismal, just plain bad. In the sense that nothing good could ever come out of frequenting them, being in them or living in them. It was at least what Yuusuke was thinking when he crossed the threshold to Sarayashiki Junior High School for the first time in some four years. It’s not that he had been afraid to pass by the place, it’s just that he never had the occasion ; why would he need to come back there ? In any case, the place was just as unpleasant, dismal and bad as he remembered. A rectangular building with a mosaic façade that just made the entire thing look like a bathroom wall, a central clock whose stone had turned grey even by the time Yuusuke was in school, and a concrete playground with almost erased markings for gym class. The only element of note in the yard was a rather luxuriant camellia tree on the right whose branches reached almost to the second floor of the school. Keiko’s favourite spot to read during break, Yuusuke recalled. He had been more of a roof man himself, the proximity of nature always somehow making him feel like he was in enemy territory – and even more so since he had met Kurama. Aside from that, the place was utterly devoid of charm. This was no one’s dream middle school. No parent wistfully told tales to their children of the time they were in Sarayashiki junior high. No, this was the kind of place you stayed in until they told you you could leave. And for Yuusuke, that had been the second he had had his diploma in hand.
Study rooms were near the library, on the second floor. Right pass Yuusuke’s old homeroom, because of course they were. Yuusuke straightened his neck, ready to pass by without even a glance inside. There was the spot he’d shot his first Reigun at Iwamoto. Funny, when he thought about it, that his grand debut had been to get back at an asshole teacher and not against some life-threatening demon. Almost prophetic, in a way. When they’d met to discuss compensation, Takenaka had told Yuusuke Iwamoto had left to teach in a private school when it had been announced public schools would be accepting youkais. It was comforting somehow to know that some assholes were just assholes in every way.

“Urameshi ! I knew you’d come !”

Oh. Right.

Watching Kuwabara wave at him from the entrance of the study, Yuusuke if he had been too harsh thinking nothing good had ever come of him attending Sarayashiki. Some part of him, however, replied that he and this idiot would have crossed paths somehow ; as if their meeting was inevitable. But he didn’t know how much that part of him was trying to reassure itself.

“When Takenaka told me the problem he had with his new student, I told him I was sure you’d accept to give him a hand ! And I was right !”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, you moron. I wanted nothing more than a reason to come back to this place.”

“You know it’s weird, you always see people in shows going back to their school and thinking how small it looks, but I think it looks as dreadful as ever.”

“A shithole remains a shithole, no matter if you’ve taken a bath or not.”

“Yeah, but I mean, it’s more than that. Last time I was there, my powers weren’t that developed. But right now, lemme tell you, this place is absolutely crawling with spooky energies. No wonder a youkai would feel comfortable here.”

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think I’m gonna talk to her about that.”

“Wait, it’s a girl ? Damn, I should have said yes when Takenaka asked me to tutor her.”

“You mean he asked you first ?”

“Alright, tutors.”

Takenaka appeared in the hallway.

“The students you’ll be accompanying are installed in the study, with enough space to give you privacy to talk. If I can give you a bit of advice, most of these kids see us as enemies. Just remember what you would have wanted to hear from us when you were in their place.”

Yuusuke, Kuwabara and a dozen other people entered the room at Takenaka’s command. When Yuusuke passed him by as he was holding the door, he whispered to him :

“Last student on the right.”

He shouldn’t have bothered. The second Yuusuke saw her, he knew.
She was inhumanly beautiful. Her black hair were cut to her shoulders, and lightly stuck up at the extremity. Her pink lips were posed like a budding rose on her pale skin. Her hooded eyes were a profound red, but unlike Hiei or Yukina’s identic eyes, this was not an inviting, expressive red, but something secret, hidden, and protected. If you only gave her a passing glance, she did look the part of an ordinary fourteen years old. But any once-over would immediately give her away as something else. The school uniform seemed something she could shed at any moment to reveal her real skin. And for all he knew, she might. This would not be easy.

“Hey.”

She raised her eyes to meet his, indifferent and almost lordly.

“I’m gonna assume Take already gave you the usual pep talk, offered you tea or some shit and told you he knows you can do great here. I gotta admit something : I have no idea if it’s true. Maybe you’re just a shitty kid, or maybe you’re gonna have a shitty childhood for no other reason that you’re shit out of luck. I dunno. But I know that if there’s some shit you actually want to talk about, I can listen. I’m usually better at talking. But I can try.”

“You say shit a lot.”

Her voice was exactly like her. A breeze whose origin you couldn’t quite determine, that rustled you lightly and made you feel perpetually on edge.

“Well, tough shit. And since we’re on confessions : I have no idea how this tutoring thing is supposed to work. I can barely learn things on my own, I certainly have no idea how to teach them to someone else. My girlfriend says I’m a great teacher, but I mostly teach people lessons by pummelling at them.”

“What is your girlfriend like ?”

“She’s really smart. Kind of a smartass too, but without being mean. Proud. She takes no shit from anyone. She still refuses to marry me.”

“Why ?”

“Wish I’d knew. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like doing things just because she’s told to, or maybe she’s afraid I’ll leave again at some point.”

“Will you ?”

“No.”

“Good. Things shouldn’t leave the place where they belong.”

“Where do you belong ?”

“I’d like to think I belong here.”

“When did you move from Makai ?”

“Six months after the passage opened. My family passes as human, so our relocation happened pretty quickly. It’s harder for those with prominent demonic features.”

“And why on earth would you want to go to school ? And more importantly, why would you want to come to THIS school ?”

“Because Urameshi Yuusuke went there.”

He had been unprepared. Kurama had told him his name was more closely tied to the new world order than he liked to think, but he rarely encountered tangible signs of his fame.

“Lemme get this straight. You went there in hopes of meeting me ?”

“No. I had no idea they would ask you to come talk to me.”

“Then why…”

“The morning I first went to school, there were parents at the gate. Holding signs. Shouting things. Eventually, the parents left. But their children stayed. Shouting at me. Writing on my desk. Because I’m the first one. Because “I don’t belong”. But then I walk these halls, I sit at those desks, and I tell myself, I’m not the first one. Because Urameshi Yuusuke went there. And I feel better.”

Her expression had barely changed as she was talking. There was no trace of emotion in her eyes, no sign of the effect everything she described had on her. This painted an eerie portrait, as if a movie had ended up with the wrong subtitles, and you were simultaneously trying to make sense of what was said and what was on the screen.

“Takenaka said he didn’t know if what was happening was affecting you or not. I guess it does, but I’m not sure there’s anything more I can do. You seem to have it covered.”

“They are affecting me. But I’m also affecting them.”

“What do you mean ?”

“Don’t you feel it ?”

He remembered Kuwabara’s words. This place. Crawling with spooky energies. Hardly a surprise.

He slightly jolted. She had placed her hand on his wrist.

“Things belong where they belong, Urameshi Yuusuke. But sometimes they don’t belong together.”

Her eyes were very close now.

“Find what does not belong. Before it takes them all.”

“You have to give me a little more than that to go on…”

“I don’t have anything else. There’s poison in the water, infiltrating the soil. Impossible to tell where it comes from, yet you feel it everywhere. And soon nothing will live.”

“And you’re saying it’s here ?”

“Yes. I don’t know what it is. I only see its effects. Humans bear the symptoms. But I don’t know the disease, therefore I don’t know its cure. Maybe you’ll have more luck than me, detective.”

“You lied. You knew I’d come here.”

“I know the sunflower finds the light. I know you’ll find the trouble. After all…”

She stood up and got a hold of her bag.

“You are Urameshi Yuusuke. You made this world.”

Chapter Text

“So ?”

Takenaka barely waited before they were out of the room before eagerly asking him about the meeting.

“What do you think, does she need help ?”

“According to her…”

Yuusuke closed the door with the back of his foot, in a gesture remindful of his time between these walls.

“You all do.”

“What ?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk ?”

“Err… my office. We can have some tea.”

Takenaka has spent the better part of Yuusuke’s middle school trying to make him come to his office for some tea and a talk. Yuusuke couldn’t remember if he’d ever succeeded, but every part of Takenaka’s office looked achingly familiar, but a sort of familiar that had nothing to do with memory, and everything to do with the kind of space you imagine a certain person in. It was as if Takenaka has sprouted fully formed out of this room, with all his accessories to play with. Comfortable leather chairs. Regal bookshelves populated by thick volumes. A perpetual smell of green tea. As Takenaka was sitting down on the other side of the mahogany desk, Yuusuke noticed for the first time how much trouble he seemed to have to move. He huffed heavily from the effort of bending his knees.

“Hey, are you old person-tired or…”

“Brain aneurysm. Got diagnosed two years after you left. I’m lucky, it was caught early. I just have episodes of weakness, and some troubles to see. It hasn’t affected my work. And like you said, it’s nothing that an old person like myself doesn’t have to face eventually.”

“That’s still shitty.”

“Yes. It is still shitty.”

Takenaka lost himself for a moment in the contemplation of his hands. Yuusuke caught the sight of something that looked like a bird feeder outside the window.

“So ? The kid ?”

“She’s weird. But she’s got her shit together. Most youkais are weird. That’s not what I wanted to talk about. Did you notice anything strange at school lately ?”

“Urameshi, since there’s a demon girl coming to my geometry class every Monday, it’s hard to know what is supposed to be weird or not.”

“The normal students. Have they been acting out of the ordinary ?”

“Well, there is quite a violent climate a school right now, but I attributed it to the state the world is currently in. I think everyone feels a bit lost.”

“Anything more specific ? Something that would make you say, “is that a new urban legend or something ?””

“I haven’t heard anything. But I wouldn’t be the one to know about this kind of hubbub. You’d have to ask the students. What is this about ?”

“Fuyumi says something is affecting the students. She thinks her presence in the school awoke it. She’s afraid it might hurt someone.”

“As a matter of fact…”

Takenaka opened a drawer and started burrowing through some suspended files.

“Someone did get hurt, very recently.”

He extirpated a file and opened it on the desk.

“Kisaki Maho. Third year. I didn’t think to mention it because it didn’t happen on school ground. Apparently she was getting out of the subway and her hair got caught in the door. She was dragged on a couple of meters before they stopped the train. Her hair got partly ripped off her head.”

“Apparently ? Did anyone see it happen ?”

“That’s the thing. It seems the people in the train didn’t realize what was happening before they heard the screams. Which seems strange if her hair was really caught in the door.”

“Could definitely be something. You know if there’s any way I can talk to her ?”

“Not right now, I’m afraid. Her family went to the countryside to wait until she’s recovered.”

“Okay, Take, I’m gonna make this simple. Youkais rarely bullshit us if there’s no reason to. That’s a human thing. So either Fuyumi is right, or she wants something. Either way, as much as it kills me, I think I’m gonna need to stick around for a while.”

“Obviously, if you think that’s necessary, I’m at your disposal but… this is still a school. They’re not going to let any adult simply roam around and talk to the students.”

“So… what am I gonna do ?”

“I have an idea. You’re going to hate it.”

Kuwabara was waiting for him by the school gate.

“So ? How did it go with cute youkai girl ? My student is a goddamn little shit. I do not have a “banana face” !”

“The girl’s surprisingly fine. It’s this school that isn’t.”

“Oh… that spooky energy wasn’t just the result of some demon’s difficult digestion, was it ?”

“No. It’s something bad.”

“Some things never change, eh ?”

They were walking side by side in exactly the same fashion they had, four years ago. Lounging the school gate, they remained silent for a few seconds. Finally, Kuwabara turned toward his friend.

“We gotta do something, don’t we ?”

“I don’t “do something” anymore. I’m just doing this one thing. And then the thing after that. I don’t make the world.”

“Hey… are you okay ?”

“No, I’m not okay. I’m a teaching assistant.”

There it was again. The sound. It was like an aspiration, but not exactly. Something like a tongue going inward. Lips puckering. A slurping. Something like one of those animals that ate ants with their long tongue. And it went on. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. And every time, she felt it. The slight shock of pain on her head. As if someone had pulled a single hair from her scalp.
It had started annoying. But she had migraines, so it could have been that. Then it became preoccupying. It happened even in class, distracted her, sometimes visibly jolting her off her seat. And then it became scary. While brushing her hair the other day, she had found something that looked like a bald spot, right behind her ear. And the skin was red and sore.
Even now, as she was walking down the street, she could feel the slight pull backwards, pushing her slightly out of balance, as if something didn’t want her to move forward. So she’d walk even faster. Try to outrun this thing. Her best friend who was into new age stuff told her she was cursed. She was afraid she had some kind of disorder. She’d heard that some brain tumours could cause changes in perception. She had begged her dad to get her an appointment at the hospital. She didn’t believe in curses. Her mom was an engineer. Her dad was an ophthalmologist. She trusted science. So she’d walk faster.
Her long hair was floating behind her. It was as if something was clawing at it. And there was that sound in her ear. Slurp. Slurp. It was so annoying, she just wanted to tell whatever was loose in her brain to stop, find its rightful place and leave her alone. Slurp. Slurp. It was even louder now somehow. Slurp. Slurp. It was almost making her trip. Slurp. Slurp. So annoying, she just wanted to turn around, and…

“Er… So… Hi, everyone.”

“…”

“So I’m not a teacher. In case that wasn’t fu… super obvious to anyone here.”

“…”

“Name’s Urameshi. And I’m here because your esteemed professor Takenaka thought it would be a good idea for someone to come here and answer your questions about Youkais, Makai and generally any weird stuff that’s going around. In this school. And in the world. But more specifically in this school.”

“…”

“So… shoot.”

“…”

“Really ? No one ?”

“…”

“I ain’t gonna eat you.”

“…”

“Sorry, that joke’s funnier if you know that I’m a youkai.”

“…!”

“Hey, almost got a reaction here. I don’t actually eat people. Just a little something about me. So ask your questions to the nice non-people-eating youkai who came all this way for you.”

“…”

“Okay you know what, I’ll start, cause if I wait for any of you to grow a spine we’re gonna be here forever. So. Demons. They’re a thing. We’ll call that lesson one… Yes ? You, on the right, with the face ?”

“How do we know you’re really a demon ?”

“Oh, here we have our first smartass. Well, smartass, if you look at my teeth, you’ll notice they could rip the spiral off your notebook. Chee ? Chee how pointy vey are ?”

“Could totally be false teeth.”

“Okay, let’s try something else. See the lunch bag on your desk ?”

“Yeah.”

“No you don’t.”

“Holy crap !”

“Yeah.”

“Did you just shoot at my lunch ?”

“I’m proving a point, there are no rules. So, if smartass is satisfied, if you guys have any questions… Yes ? Third row ?”

“Where do you come from ?”

“Youkais in general, they come from another universe called Makai. Me in particular, I come from five streets down the Daimaru Umeda department store on V avenue.”

“Huh ? How come ?”

“Well, some youkais were actually born and raised in our world. My story is a teeny bit more complicated. Basically, I was born human, but since one of my faraway ancestors was a youkai, when I went through some shit, I suddenly became a youkai. Sorry I said shit.”

“You said it again.”

“Do you want me to shoot at your bag next, smartass ?”

“How do we know if our ancestors were youkais ?”

“Great question. No idea.”

“Have you ever killed a human ?”

He paused to look at the author of the question. Impeccable hair. Dress code honoured to the letter. He wondered if his parents were holding signs and shouting things the first time Fuyumi had come to school.

“So ? Or are you scared to answer ? Scared that it’s gonna ruin your cool-guy image and reveal what a monster you are.”

The class had fallen silent. So, this was one of those moments. Those moments when the teacher gave a rousing speech about differences, the irrationality of hatred, and everyone left the room with inspiration in their heart. A moment he was absolutely gonna fuck up.

“What I’d like to know, he started, is why you’re asking me this question. Because if it’s to know if you should be scared of me, I’ll save you some time, you should. I’m an objectively scary dude. But guess what ? So is everybody else. I’ve fought giant ogres, masters of the elements, muscle monsters, literal war gods, and you know what ? It didn’t make me less scared of everybody else. You, every single one of you, are fucking scary. Because at any moment, you can turn to someone who happens to be weaker than you at that second and make their life hell. And to them, you’ll be just as scary as a giant ogre or a war god. And no matter how powerful I am, at that second there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to stop you. And that’s terrifying. So you wanna know if I’ve ever killed a human ? Yeah, I did, once. And this dude, he wanted to kill all humans. You know why ? Because he couldn’t stop humans from doing bad things at every second, even though he was much more powerful than them. And I could just do that. I could wake up one morning, and do exactly that. Because being scared sucks. I don’t know what else to tell you. It sucks. So…” he raised his shoulders. “We’re all just gonna keep being scared. Because there’s no other way. Sorry I said fucking.”

A blank.
Then a hand rose near the window.

“Yeah ? Smartass ?”

“What’s a muscle monster ?”

He smiled.

“Teacher ?”

“You take that back.”

As the students were exiting the classroom, he turned to see the confused face of a teenage girl.

“Sorry. What’s on your mind ?”

“I was wondering… Do some youkais use curses ?”

He gave her a second look. Pentagram necklace, dyed hair, pierced ears, black socks. Great.

“What kind of curse are you thinking about ?”

“My best friend, Matsuno Chie, she’s been troubled lately. She says there’s constantly something tugging at her hair, like someone was pulling it.”

“You know, even though the world’s pretty messed up right now, the simplest explanation is still the most plausible. It could just be something itching, or a false impressions.”

“That’s what I thought too, but she didn’t come to class this week. And I called her home, and they don’t know where she is. I’m scared.”

“Did you talk to Takenaka about this ?”

“I was going to today but… I thought maybe I’d tell you. Maybe you’d know what to do.”

“I never do. But most of the time I still do it anyway. Thanks, …”

“Erina. Well, I prefer Raven.”

“I’m sure you do. Well thanks Erina, I’ll look into it.”

As the girl was hurrying out of the class Takenaka stepped in – had he been standing in the hallway the whole time ? – with his ponderous gait.

“So ? How’s the class from the other side of the bench ?”

“I’ll say this with all my heart : fuck you, and fuck your stupid ideas.”

“You seem to have handled it remarkably well. The students seemed really enthusiastic in the hallway. You know you could actually be doing that full time ?”

“I’d honestly rather die. And I died twice.”

“Have you learned anything ?”

“Maybe. Do you know a girl called Matsuno ?”

“I was just about to talk to you about it. Last night, one of our students, Matsuno Chie, was found unresponsive in the street. She had been… scalped.”

“Scalped ? Like old-movie-Indian scalped ?”

“Yes. But instead of a knife, it’s as if someone had ripped the skin of her head off.”

“Sounds a lot like what happened to the other girl.”

“That’s what I thought too. But the damage’s much worse this time. The girl’s on life support. Her days… aren’t numbered, but it’s going to be a while before she’s… she’s able to talk.”

Takenaka suddenly flopped over the desk. His breathing was heavy.

“Hey Take, maybe you should rest or something.”

“No, Urameshi. I shouldn’t “rest or something”. I shouldn’t even be talking about mutilated students. None of this should be happening. This is a nightmare.”

“Look, one of my friends is coming by to get a look at the school. I’ll ask him to give you something to relax. You’ve done enough. I’m handling it now.”

“Yuusuke ?”

“What ?”

“You too, became an exceptional kid.”

“He’s fine now. Mostly, he needs to rest.”

As Kurama closed the door to the infirmary behind him, Yuusuke got off the wall he was leaning on.

“What was it ? His aneu… something ?”

“It can act up under stress. For certain types of aneurysms, there’s not really a cure, so it’s mostly Band-Aids.”

“Nothing I can do. Got it. Let’s get to work.”

“Yuusuke.”

“Yeah what ?”

“Someone you’ve known a long time is in a delicate position. It’s okay if you want to take a moment…”

“You heard yourself. Stress is causing this. So the best I can do right now is to find whatever is behind those attacks, so I can get out of here and never come back.”

Kurama sighed.

“If you say so. What do we know so far ?”

“According to Fuyumi, something is influencing the behaviour of the students. Something that was awakened by her presence here. And that’s probably tied to two attacks in which girls from this school got their hair yanked so hard it ripped out part of their head.”

“That doesn’t help us much. Almost every C-class youkai would be able to pull off such an attack. Singling out youkais who can control behaviour only barely narrows it down.”

“Here’s what I don’t get : why would it need to control the students if it’s just gonna attack them anyway ?”

“It could be the other way around. Maybe the attacks are necessary for it to gain control.”

“There’s also what Erina said. She believed Chie was cursed, and something was constantly pulling at her hair.”

“Hair does seem to be an important piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, adding curses to the mix even widens the net. Putting youkais aside, a simple human could cook up a curse that would result in the attacks we’ve seen so far.”

“So we basically have nothing.”

“We’ve done with much less. Here’s what we can do. I’ll go to the hospital to take a look at Chie. If she is indeed cursed, there’s bound to still have some evil energy around her. Curses don’t let go of their victims that easily. Meanwhile, maybe you could talk with Erina again. She might know more about that so-called curse.”

“So it had started.”

They both pivoted on their feet. Fuyumi’s footsteps hadn’t made a sound.

“Just like I told you. It’s taking them.”

“Ah, Fuyumi, meet Kurama. He’s a specialist of all things youkai.”

Green eyes met red ones.

“You won’t find anything at the hospital”, she said. “It is done with them now. It is prowling for a new prey. I don’t think it has chosen yet.”

“You seem to know a lot for someone who doesn’t know anything.”

Kurama’s gaze was as cutting as Hiei’s blade.

“I cannot fight. I cannot run. But I can feel. This is all I can contribute. This is where I belong now. I won’t leave it to something else.”

She waved an icy goodbye and turned around.

“Yep, she’s a grower.”

Yuusuke turned to Kurama. He seemed deep in thought.

“That girl… I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere.”

She needed to stop. It had started to show. She knew people were talking about it. Or maybe they weren’t, but they should have. She felt like it was glaring them in the face. Her dad, she could see his confused and concerned gaze on her when she left the room. Her friends – or were they really her friends ? – they didn’t see it yet, but they would soon. She just left so much behind. There were so many signs. Were they blind ? How was she supposed to stop ? She knew she had to, rationally. Yet again and again it was like a click, and then her hands started moving on their own. And when she emerged, she had done it again. It should have been enough. There was so much everytime.

But it was so soothing.

It was so… delicious.

“Are you fucking serious ?! We’re not doing it again ! Matsuno’s in the hospital !”

“That’s why we can’t stop. We know she’s real now. And she’s going to choose another target. If we don’t give her someone, who knows who she might pick. Might be me. Might also be you.”

“No. No way. I’m out. This isn’t a fucking joke. We need to tell someone.”

“And who would you tell ? That TA ? You’re going to tell him what you did too ?”

“…”

“Yeah. Look, you don’t want to do the ritual again, it’s fine. But you can’t blow this for the rest of us. We’re all scared. We need to protect ourselves.”

“Just… leave me alone from now on, okay.”

“Got it. Don’t worry. Hold on…”

“Ouch ! What ?”

“Bee on your neck.”

“Whatever. I’m going back to class.”

“Yeah. I won’t be long either.”

The other disappeared in the building. Still standing in the courtyard, she looked at her hand. A thin black thread was dangling between her fingers.

“No. Not long at all.”

When he got home, there was a message from Kurama on his answering machine.

Hello Yuusuke. So, there was no energy around the girl at the hospital. Fuyumi was right. I examined the wound however. Her scalp wasn’t “ripped off”, it was more as if it had been sucked upwards. There’s something else. On the part of the scalp still present around her ears, the skin was completely devoid of hair. Like it had been plucked out. That concords with what Erina told you. Meaning whatever attacked this girl was gnawing at her well before yesterday. Now that’s strange. I don’t know of any youkai that feeds on hair. So it’s looking more on the side of curses. But if there’s no more energy around the last victim, it means it has a moving target. We might have another attack very soon. Anyway, have a good evening. Call me when you have more.

He plopped down on the couch and closed his eyes. He thought he might just fall asleep right there. But then the answering machine beeped again.

Um…hi, Mr. Urameshi… it’s Raven. I mean Erina. I got your number from Mr. Takenaka. I, um… I heard about Chie. I just… There was a bit of crying there. I wanna know if we’re all going to be okay. I shouldn’t have called. I’m so sorry. Click.

Why did he think it would be a good idea to give Takenaka his number ?

Keiko wasn’t home tonight. When she had a late class, she crashed at one of her friends’ at the college dormitory. Maybe they should have moved to Tokyo when she got accepted at Yotsuya like they’d discussed. Far away from Sarayashiki, far away from this town. But there were his friends. And his mother. And the dozens of monsters that had come to his hometown as if it’d been a pilgrimage. They came here looking for acceptance, and they ended up with pretty much the exact same deal as everybody else. He didn’t know how to tell them that his presence didn’t have the power of making the world around him magically better. There was nothing to do except wait, and stand watch. That was Koenma had told him the last time they’d met. The only way to care for a changing world. This new equilibrium, Yuusuke, is so fragile, a simple fillip can throw it all out of balance. There are so many powerful forces at work that benefit from things remaining exactly the way they were. And so many others that will try to slither in the crack created by the friction we caused. We cannot be another one of these forces. We have to protect, without imposing, and stabilize, without weighing down. We have to be the subtle breeze that holds the entire edifice into place. Will you help me ? There was absolutely no job Yuusuke would be worse at. He’d said no.

He turned on the TV without much conviction. As usual, Koto and company were on. He turned if off again. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the couch. Sighed a couple times. Then he raised his hand in a posture of giving up, grabbed his jacket and shoes, and exited the apartment.

Once, when he was thirteen, his mother had brought home a guy. Not a horrible guy, just a guy. He drank, he shouted, he had tattoos, but so did his mother. And so they drank together. Yuusuke had just started middle school. And every afternoon, he’d come home to them drinking. One day, as he was stepping out the school gate, he had just stopped. And turned around. He’d went back into the school. Found himself a closet. And waited. Waited until everybody had left. And then it got dark. All the doors were closed. The school had fallen silent. Yuusuke had opened the closet, and had roamed around the empty halls and classrooms for hours. He’d picked the lock to the infirmary and settled on one of the beds. Then he must have fallen asleep. When he had woken up the next morning, someone was carrying him in their arms. He was put in a cab. He turned his head, and the teacher he would come to know as Takenaka was sitting next to him. “Did you sleep well ?” he said. “None of your business” Yuusuke had answered. “You need to go home now.” “Are you gonna tell ?” “Do you want me to ?” “No.” “Then no.” They’d pulled over in front of Yuusuke’s house. Takenaka made a movement to get out of the cab. “Don’t come in.” “I must meet with your mother. She must be worried.” “I don’t want you to come in.” “Then I won’t. Just make sure you don’t get yourself locked up in the school again.” The car had driven off. Yuusuke had opened the door to his home. His mother and the guy were both sound asleep surrounded by empty bottles of cheap sake.

In one movement, Yuusuke jumped over the school gate. The school at night was still the same mixture of gloom and peace. He walked around the building and found a backdoor with a lock he could pick. His footsteps resonated in the floor of the empty hallways. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for – or indeed if there was anything to look for in the first place – he just knew this was where he needed to be. He slid the door to his old classroom. Here, in the back – his desk. Exact same one, too. That was public school for you. He sat down. Kuwabara was right. Nothing looked smaller. It just looked older.

A sound awoke him from the half-sleep he was falling into, his head on the desk. Someone was trying to move some desks around – quite clumsily too. He followed the sound that seemed to come from the other hand of the hallway. Chemistry classrooms, if memory served him right. When he was certain he was in front of the door to the room the sound was coming from, he silently put his handle on the handle, and slid it open brutally.

“Hello hello hello ! What do we have here ?”

Oh, the delightful look of surprise on the teens’ faces. He could really get used to this teacher thing. But there was something else. At the centre of the magic circle, or coven, or whatever they probably called it – a lock of hair.

“So… who wants to start with the explaining ?”

“We didn’t start it !”

The guy on the left who had started talking was holding out tears. Badly.

“We weren’t going to get into it, but then the journalism club told us they were gonna offer one of us ! So we had no choice than to do the ritual before them !”

“Back up. What ritual ?”

The teens looked at each other, an expression of their face like someone who realized right before delivering the punchline that the joke isn’t that funny.

“Kedama-otome.”

Chapter Text

Here was the story, as much as Yuusuke could piece it together from the moping teenagers’ words : some ghost, monster, or creature, with no face, some big teeth, and a fuckton of hair, called Kedama-otome was roaming around the school looking for hair. By doing some wacky ritual, you could actually sic her on a victim. She would eat their hair one after the other, until she just ate the entire scalp. Or head. It was unclear. No one knew who had given her the two girls who had been hurt but surely, it must have been someone, I mean, just look at what had happened to them. So now, the entire school was racing to steal each other’s hair to offer them to Kedama-otome, in fear that they might be next if they didn’t offer her another victim first. How did the urban legend first started ? It was that girl in first year. No, she’d heard it from that guy in the basketball club. Then whom did he hear it from ? Wasn’t it from the guy who had that motorcycle ? Who heard it from his girlfriend ? Anyway, it had probably started the same way any spooky rumour starts, with some manga shit and a dare, until it had spun out of control to where they were today.
The kids had given him the names of all the other people they knew who may have partaken in a ritual, and pretty much everything he wanted after he’d promised them he wouldn’t tell their parents. After shouting them out of the room, Yuusuke leaned down to grab the lock of hair. Mid-long. Black. Unidentifiable. He blew out the candles the kids had installed around the circle – rose-scented bathroom candles – and directed his gaze outside the classroom window. The school ground created a circle of darkness inside the illuminated city. The branches of the camellia rustled in the night breeze. A minuscule movement against the school wall attracted his eye. Something small. A silhouette. A flash of pale skin. Fuyumi.

By the time Yuusuke had gotten down the building, she was gone.

“No, never heard of her.”

Sitting around Yuusuke’s dinner table, Kurama and Kuwabara were looking at him.

“That’s impossible, you know everything.”

“She doesn’t sound like any youkai I know. But you know how urban legends are. By the time they are fully-formed, they often don’t have much in common with the youkai they’re based on. There’s something else.”

Kurama poured more tea into his cup.

“I looked into Fuyumi, like you asked. The address she gave the school is fake. So are her parents’ names. No one heard of this family among youkais. Either they really like to keep to themselves, or she’s trying to hide something. Maybe you could follow her, see where she goes after she leaves the school.”

“Here’s the thing, I don’t think she leaves the school at all. I saw her there last night. She was still in her uniform.”

“I talked with Akio, the boy I tutor. He pretty much confirmed what the kids told you last night. He doesn’t have any idea who started with the rumour either, but he added something : apparently, that Kedama-otome cannot get very far away from the school ground. That’s why, after the first girl got attacked and moved away, she didn’t come back for the rest of her hair. Otherwise, she doesn’t get off a victim until she’s gotten every single last one of their hair.”

“So Fuyumi could definitely be responsible. What I don’t get is what she told me about the whole thing in the first place. The most convenient thing for her would have been to keep it all to herself.”

“Could have been a gamble. She knew Takenaka had asked you for help. Maybe she thought it was only a matter of time before you heard about the Kedama-otome story, she wanted to take your suspicions off her.”

“Um. In any way, we’re due for a little talk. Kuwabara, do you think there’s any chance you could pick up something on school ground ? Like, who’s the next victim ?”

“Maybe. Your “class” is tomorrow, isn’t it ? I could accompany you.”

“And Kurama, maybe you could meet us up after school, and we’ll go see Fuyumi.”

“Sounds like a plan. And Yuusuke… do you have any idea what you’re going to tell the students ?”

“Heh. I already told them I was fucking scary, didn’t I ?”

“Let’s talk about Matsuno Chie.”

“…”

“And Kisaki Maho.”

“…”

“What are they like ? What’s their favourite show ? Do they wear makeup ? Do they belong to any club ?”

“…”

“I know for a fact some of you were friends with them. Does anyone want to share a memory of those two ?”

“…”

“Personally, I’ve never met either of them. I don’t know if they were nice girls or fucking harpies. But I know that whatever they were, they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

“…”

“And you know how I know that ?”

“…”

“Because when there’s someone I don’t like, someone who really pisses me off, I don’t get with my merry group of friends to steal their hair and curse them through some bullshit ritual. I go see them and we deal with it face to face. Pummelling may or may not be involved. But I don’t offer them to some creature that’s going to rip their hair away and suck their head off.”

“…!”

“Oh, sorry, was that too much for you ? Guess what, I don’t give a crap. Because I wouldn’t even be talking about this if not for you snotty idiots and your stupid, stupid games.”

“…”

“So now we’re all gonna sit here until every single one of you gives up all the hair you’ve stolen from each other. Which, by the way, creepy much ? Yeah, smartass ?”

“How do you know we’re not just going to take more ?”

“Great question. The answer is, starting today, if I catch any one of you with a bunch of hair, we’re going to have one of these face-to-face explainings I was just talking about. So get them all out, this is your one amnesty moment. Starting… now.”

No one dared move at first. Then one hand timidly reached for their drawer. A small plastic bag of hair appeared on the table. Eyes wouldn’t meet his. Wouldn’t meet each other. Then another bag appeared, on another desk. Then another one. And another one. It wouldn’t stop. Soon the entire class was looking down on their desk at these small balls of hair, like so many cockroaches crawling on the tables. All but for one desk.

“Erina ? You get that this is your one chance, right ?”

“I… I don’t have any, teacher, I promise.”

“Oh, so you won’t mind if I take a look inside your drawer ?”

“I’m telling you I don’t have any !”

“Fine, let’s check out how much not hair there is in there shall we ?”

“No !”

She was gripping her desk so hard Yuusuke was afraid he’d hurt her if he tried to pull her away from the drawer. So he did the opposite and grabbed the desk, flipping it over so the drawer would empty its content on the floor. Erina screamed.
It was filled to the brim with hair.

“It’s called trichotillomania.”

As they were sitting in Takenaka’s office, Kurama held an oolong tea can over his head.

“It’s a form of self-harm in which you compulsively pull your hair out, and often eat it.”

Yuusuke absent-mindedly grabbed the can and opened it with a flick of the thumb.

“All the hair in her drawer was hers. We know because they were dyed. We’ve interrogated her friends, and they’ve seen her repeatedly pull hair from her head. They just thought it was a weird tic.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think I’ve traumatized her ?”

“Try to get your mind off that. You couldn’t have predicted what would happen. In any case there’s definitely a link between her disorder and the Kedama-otome. The two are way too similar.”

“I have to talk to her. What on earth am I going to say ?”

“Yuusuke…”

“I was supposed to be the grown-up here. I was supposed to… I don’t know… I acted like a fucking kid.”

The door opened on Kuwabara. Kurama shot him a gaze that said “I’m getting nowhere. You give it a try.” Kurama stood and got through the door Kuwabara was holding.

“I’ll try to get a hold of Fuyumi. We’ll meet later.”

The two friends were left alone in the room. Kuwabara leaned on the desk.

“So what’s really the problem ?”

“Sorry, did you miss me monumentally fucking up in every way possible an hour ago ?”

“Yeah, sure, like that’s gonna work on me. You’ve been out of it ever since Take came to see you. You accept to tutor here, to teach some kids, you come back here at night… What’s up with you and this place, dude ?”

“I don’t belong.”

Kuwabara eyed his friend.

“I didn’t belong anywhere for a long time. And then I… remade the world so there would be a place for me. Literally jumbled two universes together to get to that result. And now, I come back here and I find… I still don’t belong. So what was the point of all of this ?”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“What did you say, fuckhead ?”

“You heard me. You “remade the world” ? The world was already an awful fucking mess long before you showed up. You just made it a different mess. And we’re still all trying to figure it out. Just because you still don’t feel right doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth making it that way. It just means there’s still more work to do.”

“Heh. No rest for the heroes, is that it ?”

“You said it.”

“Well, I’ve got to fix that mess first.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

“It’s not your fault. Part of me wanted someone to finally find out. I’m not strong enough to stop on my own.”

“Why do you do it ?”

“I don’t know. I started when I was little, after my mom died. It was like a way to occupy myself. Then it became a reflex. And now it’s like I can’t do without it.”

“You know I have to ask. Did you take part in one of those rituals ?”

“Never. But… it’s still my fault.”

“What do you mean ?”

“Kedama-otome… I created her.”

She reached for her bag and opened a notebook full of drawings. She searched for a page and handed it to Yuusuke.
The girl did have talent. Taking an entire page, there she was. Kedama-otome. Stringy, covered from head to toe by black hair that winded around her arms and legs, a gigantic mouth taking most of her torso, with sharp teeth edging forward like those of a rat, and a lizard-like thin longue that protruded out of her mouth and reached for the hair around her, ready to suck it in.

“Not sure I get it.”

“She’s just a character I created. It was sort of… cathartic, I think that’s the word ? Like, I’d imagine myself pulling my hair, and then I’d imagine that instead it was some kind of monster who was sucking it away. Like, this way, it wasn’t really me hurting myself. It was the monster.”

“So how did we get from a page in your drawing book to something ripping of the hair of your comrades ?”

“I have no idea ! It’s like I conjured her. But I didn’t do anything, I swear ! I like candles and herb potions and stuff, but I’m just playing. I see people like you who really have power. And I know I’m not like that.”

“How did the other students learn about Kedama-otome ?”

“Maybe someone saw me draw her. I doodle her all the time, it’s like something I do instead of pulling my hair. It’s my own ritual. And I don’t even actually call her Kedama-otome. I don’t know who came up with that.”

“What else can you tell me about her ?”

“The way I imagine her, she’s invisible, and she pulls the hair out then catches it with her tongue. The way I do with my hair. But she was never meant to hurt anyone else. I’m so, so sorry.”

“She shouldn’t be hurting you, either.”

The scent of the camellia tree was thick in the air. It was only march, but the tree was already adorned with red rosacea of enlaced petals. There was something magical about this tree that unveiled its beauty in the middle of winter, painting the white sky of specks of red and pink.

“I knew I had seen you before, I hadn’t imagined it was right here.”

Branches bristled around the trunk. Then a white hand ghostly spawned out of the centre of the wood, followed by the reedy figure of a teenage girl.

“Furutsubaki no Kei. Spirit of the camellia tree. Beautiful.”

The body of the girl who was calling herself Fuyumi finally detached itself completely from the trunk, and she gauged the man through her blood-coloured eyes.

“Kurama. I knew it was a risk showing myself to a master of plants. Maybe I wanted to see how long it would take for you to understand.”

“Why the comedy ? You’ve never been to Makai. You have always been there. You grew from that tree.”

“My territory was being invaded. There was nothing I could do bound to the ground. So I created this human replica of myself, and I pretended to enrol in this school.”

“Why not just tell the truth ? We would have helped you anyway.”

“When invaders come to your home, you don’t plant your roots on the ground. You pretend to be an invader as well and you take back what was already yours.”

“We haven’t invaded anything.”

“No ? You, and all the other demons who come from Makai, take our land, and call it peace. And we, the youkai who have lived in Ningenkai all along, have no choice but to join you and hope to gain the right to remain in our own land.”

“This world belongs to humans.”

“They spawn from their kin like birds in a nest. I grew from the very soil of this earth.”

“We’re not going to help you drive away other youkai.”

“But you will help me save these humans. Our goals converge. I tolerate them walking on my land like ants on a trunk, but I will not accept a parasite eating away at my soil. I am no danger to humans. Unlike whatever has come to trouble me.”

The door of the building opened on Yuusuke who walked across the deserted courtyard.

“Fuyumi ? What…”

“She’s not Fuyumi. She’s a Furutsubaki no Kei. A spirit born of this ancient tree who took human form. She was trying to defend her territory by telling us of the creature.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. The Kedama-otome is not real. Erina invented her, then some other students picked up on it and it became a legend in the school. Meaning we have no idea what’s really attacking the students. And we can’t trust them to actually stop with the rituals.”

“Maybe we do not know what it is…”

Fuyumi brandished a hand with nails sharp as razors. Then she clutched a lock of her hair.

“… But we can know where it will go next.”

“Do I really have to…”

“Yeah. Sorry. You told us the ritual is supposed to be four people. It would be a giveaway if Fuyumi was part of it when it’s her hair we’re gonna use. You have to help us, Erina. We need to do this last ritual. And then I promise you’ll never hear of Kedama-otome again.”

“I understand. I’ll do it. For Chie.”

“Thank you. So, walk us through it. What’s this ritual like ?”

“Every group kinda made their own. I think we need to invoke Kedama-otome, offer her the hair, then blow the candles.”

“Okay, seems simple enough. I’ll do it, if that’s okay by you guys.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Here we go. Kedama-otome, Kedama-otome, you’re ugly as a fuck’s ass…”

“Yuusuke, teenager present.”

“I don’t mind.”

“She doesn’t mind. Kedama-otome, I don’t know why you’re so into hair, that’s literally the least edible part of the human body. Not that I would know about that. Again, not a people-eater. Kurama ?”

“Let’s not go there.”

“Okay, so it’s common wisdom that hair is better on someone’s head. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume I’d want to eat hair. Then I’d definitely want this one. That’s some first-grade hair right here.”

He placed the lock on the centre of their circle. Even the feeling of Fuyumi’s hair reminded him of the touch of a leaf.

“So uh… knock yourself out. Dinner is served. Or whatever. Urameshi out.”

“Beautiful.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Okay now we have to blow the candles.”

“Done.”

“And now ?”

“You go home to your dad. We wait.”

At night, seen from the ground, the camellia tree was even more impressive. The multiple branches of its trunk twisted on themselves before reaching up, like a deformed hand opened on the sky. The ground under the foliage was completely obscured from the light of the moon. The three men were waiting, immobile, under the tree, scanning the leaves. Yuusuke didn’t know how long they had been out there. None of them talked. Until Kuwabara broke the silence.

“It’s here.”

They raised their head. Without a sound, a leaf detach itself from the foliage. Slowly, the leaf floated down until suddenly, it disappeared mid-air. Another leaf fell. And disappeared. Followed by another one.

“Does anyone see it ?”

“I feel its presence all around, but I’m hindered by the aura of the tree.”

The leaves were disappearing much faster now.

“I’m gonna have to hit blind. If it finishes up eating the leaves before we get it, we lose our chance !”

“Yuusuke, wait ! You can’t risk hurting the tree !”

“Then give me a general direction !”

“Hold on… What we need is to know exactly where to wait for it. We need to orientate the branches.”

Kurama’s hands started describing a circle. Soon, a strong wind came bending the leaves upward, until they were all grouped in a single space. Another leaf fell.

“Now, Yuusuke !”

The shot that came right for it never hit the trunk. Before it could touch it, something else came to intercept the hit, something invisible that landed against the trunk in a violent thump and materialized. Then it was over.

The men approached the creature. It was stringy, had long hair and an immense mouth ornate with teeth. Then its contours blended, took the form of a teenager wearing the school uniform. Then its face slowly vanished until its head was nothing but a smooth, blank circle of skin. Kurama kneeled down near the creature.

“A bakemono. A shapeshifter.”

“Well, that’s…”

“Yeah.”

“Two youkais. One from our world, the other from Makai, who had both taken the appearance of students to fight for territory.”

“According to my friend, this kind of bakemono is highly suggestible. It will take the appearance of whatever it comes in contact with. First, that was a student. Then, it came across the Kedama-otome story and it… became the Kedama-otome. Bound by the legend the students had created.”

Takenaka got up and reached for the teapot. He served them both abundantly.

“Urameshi, there is so much of what you’re saying that I don’t understand. And I don’t know how much comes from how bizarre the world has become, and how much from the simple fact that I am old, and I can hardly handle any kind of change.”

“You’re being hard with yourself. You did the right thing here. You tried to be open to youkais, you came for help when you needed to, and you barely freaked out the whole time.”

“That wasn’t out of understanding, but out of recognizing my own incomprehension. I told you, one of the most undervalued skills in this world is knowing when you’ve reached your limits. When you’re not the right person for the job. Then you just have to find someone who is.”

“That reminds me of something someone I knew said once.”

“Was it the right person to reach out to you back then ?”

“Yeah.”

As Yuusuke was about to cross the school gate one last time, a slim white figure came to block his view.

“Will you be going back, then ? To where you belong ?”

“Change of plan. I don’t care where I belong anymore. I’m just going where I want to be.”

“Urameshi Yuusuke. A tree without roots, with branches growing in every direction. I fear for this world you’ve created. ”

“You mean you fear for your world.”

“Of course. Pretend as they may, no one really cares for what is out of their world. Your world just happens to be larger than mine.”

“Tell me something. You risked your life to help us kill that bakemono. But it wasn’t threatening you. So why ?”

“I love this school, Urameshi. I love this courtyard, I love the sunlight nourishing me in the afternoon, and the water soaking me when it rains. I love hearing the children run around and laugh, I love when they come under my branches to read and play between themselves. I love those fragments of life that get caught in my foliage like nutrients in the grassy soil. This is my world. I will never let anything destroy it.”

“Same for me. I won’t let you or anybody else threaten my world.”

“Then one day you and I may have this chat under much less fortunate auspices. Until then, Urameshi Yuusuke, I wish you good luck in protecting your world. If you can ever find out what it is.”

In a rustle, she was gone.

The heavy mechanical door opened on the busying toddler.

“Koenma. Do you remember what you asked me last time ?

“'Stop barging into my office without an appointment' ?”

“You asked me if I wanted to participate in building this new world. I said no.”

“And I accepted it. You’ve done more than your share, Yuusuke. The least I can do for you is let you live your life as you so choose.”

“I changed my mind. I want in.”

“May I ask the reason of this turn-around ?”

“World’s a fucking mess. We have work to do.”

“That’s… a nice surprise but…”

“Let me make one thing clear. I’m not going to sit around tables and figure how this is all going to work. I’m not going to be a leader of anything.”

“Then what are you going to be ?”

“A detective.”

“Hey there. There’s some curry on the bar.”

He sat in front of her. It was a moment before she actually raised her head to look at him.

“I’m not going to leave again, you know.”

“Right, right.”

“No, I need you to hear me. I’m not. Going to leave. Again.”

She detailed his face, trying to detect any falsity.

“Okay.” She finally said, softly.

“Will you marry me ?”

She smiled. Then reached his hand with hers.

“One day.”

Chapter Text

All this. For this.

All this plotting and backbreaking labour. All this backstabbing and privations. To hoist oneself onto the pinnacle of the world only to find the world you knew shift and disappear beneath your feet. There was an allegory for the harsh mistress that was glory if there even had been one. And now ? Back on the ground, with the rest of them. Better for them, maybe. Better for him ? He smiled. Trying to decide what you wanted was so much more fun when you weren’t sure if you could get it.
He reached for the liquor cabinet. Humans did at least that right. Who knew how much he’d wish he had drunk more when it would all start tomorrow. He had thought it would be easy. Now, after briefly meeting them, he wasn’t so sure. Facing a giant, puny insects would always find a way to worm their way under its skin. Another life lesson for the greats of the world.

The door to the adjoining suite opened. A smaller version of himself appeared on the doorstep. The boy was troubled. Something was wrong.

“Yes ? What is it ?”

“Dad… I think I did something bad.”

Ring. Rrrrring.

Rrrm. Phone. Where was that damn phone ? Fumbling in the dark, he finally managed to grab the receiver and mumbled a “what”. Only silence welcomed him at the other end of the line. Then what the fuck was still ringing ?
He turned on the lamp on the nightstand and followed the sound. Which seemed to come from deep within his storage closet. Pushing blindly between months-worth of unsorted clothing, he got a hold of a handle. Which came out of the closet followed by a briefcase. Yuusuke stared at the ringing suitcase as if to convince himself it was real. Then, he settled it on the bed and opened it. Inside was a large screen currently being occupied by a tiny toddler.

“Yuusuke ! Remember when you walked into my office, told me you wanted to be a detective again and then I haven’t heard from you in a month ?”

“Huh ?”

“Get your ass on the very first train to Tokyo. Or better yet, run the whole way here. Go up to the Mandarin Oriental hotel as discreetly as you can. I need your help.”

He had never been to Tokyo. This was corny, but he always had this idea of first going there for his honeymoon. Shibuya. The Skytree. Rolling his eyes as Keiko was dragging him through Ginza and making him carry her purchases. Of course it was Keiko. It had never not been Keiko. But what that meant for the time being, was that he had no idea what qualified as a normal Tokyo ruckus. He had to believe this wasn’t one.

The night was cut with camera flashes like a surgeon’s laser through flesh. Under the neon-coloured rain, hundreds of moving trench coats and umbrellas clogged the pavement. The hazy pouring gave it all a feel of unreality, the way a movie looked if you blinked very fast while watching it. The rhythmic noise of the windshield wipers of the cars lined up on the concrete, the moving reflections of the light on the pavement, everything hit him at once, and for a moment he just stood there, unable to process this deluge of information.
Then he briefly closed his eyes, and the world settled back in place. He pulled down the hood of his drenched sweatshirt and made his way to the foot of the Nihonbashi Mitsui tower. From down there, it seemed to run its mirrored walls from earth to sky.
Armed military-type guys were surrounding the entrance. There was no way he could get in through the main gate without attracting the attention of the crowd that seemed to intently wait for anyone to step in to strafe them with their flashes. Eyeing the tallest building adjoining the tower – which still barely reached out to its tenth floor – he swiftly jumped on its roof then, walking back to gain momentum, projected himself onto the higher tower. He landed on the edge on an unlit window and, after checking there was no one in the room inside, broke in and strolled the hallway in search of an elevator, which took him a good five minutes of walking around the luxurious hallways – why did rich people like beige so much ? The hotel occupied the top nine floors of the tower, Koenma had told him. He pressed the highest available button inside the copper-platted elevator. When the doors opened with a melodious ding, he found himself nose to nose with another guard dog, this one considerably more packed than the ones at the foot of the tower.

“Hotel’s closed to the public, sir.”

“Okay, one, call me sir again and I’ll make you swallow your submachine gun. Two, his royal binky is expecting me.”

“I am sorry to insist that you go back downstairs, sir.”

“Look, people often try to get me not to go where I want to go. Usually does not end up well for them.”

“The entire hotel has been reserved for the event. There is no available room.”

“I’m gonna make space then. What room are you occupying ?”

“Or, you could just give the guard your name, seeing as that’s obviously what I communicated him.”

He hadn’t seen Koenma approach on his right. The armed mountain straightened up as the human version of the toddler walked up to Yuusuke.

“Took you long enough.”

“Had to look up directions at the station. It’s not like there’s a device that would give me directions to whenever I want to go at any given time.”

“Less elucubrating, more walking. Come with me.”

They walked around the entrance lounge with its illuminated waterfall pouring uselessly behind the black wood desk that costed probably more than a year of his rent, and made their way to yet another glass door that seemed to end on some sort of lobby.

“I hope you’ve got a good reason to drag me out here in the middle of the night.”

“I called you at nine thirty.”

“When I do a night shift at the stand, I take a nap beforehand. You have no idea how many people suddenly want ramen at two AM.”

“Good, then you’ll be well rested.” Koenma said as he pushed the doors.

“Again, and sorry if you’ve heard this one, but what is this abou…”

They were everywhere. In the room traversed by an inexplicable chill, dislocated puppets spread on the floor, above the stairway’s ramp, on the sand-coloured sofas, tainting them with red. Most weren’t all there. For some, it was hard to believe they’d even been together at all, forming some sort of cohesive whole. How many were there ? Forty ? Fifty ? Hard to tell. Some were pouring on each other, like melted ice-cream. Some had fallen on the spot. Others had been dragged by various parts across the room, in a sharp smear of red paint. A few had come crashing against the panoramic windows, and were now forming a curled up mess under them.

“Who…”

“That’s what you’re here to find out.”

Yuusuke slowly walked around the room, leaving Koenma behind. He was taking in whatever was remaining of those faces.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence but… between you and me, you know I’ve never been a detective-detective, right ? I fight stuff. This is an actual crime scene. Shouldn’t some actual detectives be here ?”

“Trust me, if I had any other choice, you wouldn’t be here. But unfortunately for both of us, that’s where we are.”

Yuusuke kneeled down near one of the corpses. Head had been ripped off. No… bitten off.

“A youkai did this.”

“Or someone worked really hard to make it look like it.”

“Are you finally gonna tell me what’s going on ?”

The prince exhaled loudly. Yuusuke noticed the circles around his eyes. That was the first time in a long time he’d seen him so beaten up.

“You don’t read the news much, do you ?”

Koenma sat down on one of the sofas that had been miraculously spared from the carnage.

“Tomorrow at seven starts the first round in a series of negotiations between humans and youkais on everything from passage between Makai and the Human world, to integration, to even trade opportunities. Ambassadors from the UN and the Makai presidency respectively will be kicking off the discussions tomorrow in this very hotel. The goal is to reach some level of harmonizing between all the individual measures that have been taken by Makai and human countries in order to adopt a global sense of direction. If this goes well, we could be seeing official passageways to Makai hatch all around the globe in two to three years. I’ve been designated to act as a mediator between the two parties.”

“I’m guessing this little sideshow right here wasn’t part of the plan.”

“After the ambassadors arrived at seven pm, the hotel went on lockdown. Military surveillance as well as barrier spells. As far as we can tell, no one went in or out. A security round at nine found nothing suspicious. A little after that, one of the ambassadors discovered… this. In the entire hotel. The only people who weren’t killed were myself, and the four ambassadors.”

“What about my friend Fido back there ?”

“All the guards who survived were positioned in the lower stairs. We had to make a few of them come up here to keep assuring security.”

“Are you certain no one could have slipped out ? I mean, I think I could have done it pretty easily.”

“If it had only been the security we’d installed, I would have agreed with you. But we have someone else here whose word bears a lot more weight.”

“Urameshi.”

He pivoted. It had been a while since he’d seen him last. In fact, he could remember the exact moment. He was on the stage, announcing the winner of the Makai tournament.

“Yomi ! You’re the ambassador from Makai ?”

“It is a pleasure to meet you again. Your face has healed, I can tell.”

“After the beating you submitted me to last time, I was the first surprised.”

“It seems we were destined to converse atop a pile of human corpses eventually. It was only a little later than I expected.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d agree to do something like this. Aren’t humans just food ?”

“The wind had changed, Urameshi. For now, Enki’s word is law. After that… we will see.”

“So you’re saying no one came in or out of the hotel to take a bite out of the staff ?”

“Yes. I sensed no change in the energies that surrounded those floors from seven until you came in here.”

“Yomi was the one who found them.” Koenma added.

“I was in my suite with Shura. The smell of blood became overwhelming.”

“Shura ? He’s here ? Is it take your son to work day ?”

“He begged me to come. He wanted to see the human world.”

“Okay, one last thing, and sorry if I’m being blunt, but you’re kind of a lying son of a bitch. How can we trust you’re telling the truth ?”

“That’s the thing, Yuusuke.” Koenma cut in. “In this particular case, it wouldn’t make sense not to trust him.”

“What do you mean ?”

“Think. You said it yourself, these attacks look like the work of a youkai. At the moment they happened, Yomi and his son were the only youkais in the entire hotel. Tomorrow kicks off a wildly-publicized negotiation that might determine how the world perceives youkais in the foreseeable future. If there’s the slightest hitch, it will throw a wrench in the relations between the two worlds for perhaps decades. Imagine what will happen if in ten hours, journalists and officials from the whole wide world open the doors of this hotel… to this.”

“So you think this is a setup ?”

“The UN ambassadors were the only humans left untouched. We have multiples people confirming that no one came in or out of the hotel. And now we have two youkais supposed to represent their entire race, and seventy-four humans murdered.”

“That’s why you said you believed Yomi… He had no interest in insisting nobody came in or out.”

“I see no point in lying. If someone is trying to sabotage this meetup, it is better to nip it in the bud.”

“Now you understand why I can’t involve anyone else, Yuusuke. As sad as it is, this isn’t just a crime scene. This is also a symbol. If we do not shine a light on what really happened here tonight, what we see right now will be but a fraction of the disaster to come. We need answers, we need proof, and we need them by tomorrow morning. Your word carries weight in both worlds. Humans, the ones who matter, know what you did for Earth, just like demons know what you did for Makai. They’ll listen to you.”

“And if I can’t find who’s responsible ?”

Koenma and Yomi remained silent.

“Geez, I get it. It’s gonna be a long night.”

“Don’t trust Yomi.”

Koenma and Yuusuke were walking down another luxurious hallway of warm-toned wood and ceiling-high windows.

“I thought it didn’t make sense not to trust him ? Also, you realize he can probably hear you, right ? Guy’s got like three pairs of ears.”

“I’m smart enough not to trust him anyway. And he’s too smart not to know I don’t trust him.”

“So you think he did kill all those people ? He’d sabotage his own negotiations ?”

“You said it yourself, he’s a lying son of a bitch. If this gets out, the entire power dynamic in Makai might get turned upside down. Enki has made peace with Earth the mantra of his reign. But Yomi and Mukuro remain the two major military forces in Makai. If war breaks out, Yomi will be in the forefront of his world again.”

“So if that’s what you think, why am I here ?”

“I don’t know for sure. Some things do not fit. Why not kill the ambassadors too ? And why remain here if you’re going to make yourself look like the main suspect ? And most importantly, why make yourself the culprit when you could use a pawn ? That places him in the difficult position of being the one responsible for conflict breaking out. The other youkais might not follow him after that. I need to see more clearly. That’s where you come in. You can help me look for alternative explanations, while also buying us some time to figure out a plan B.”

Yuusuke caught the prince by the arm.

“Okay, stop. Koenma, I told you I wanted nothing to do with all this political stuff !”

“You also told me you wanted to help. This is how you can help.”

“This requires being subtle and diplomatic and a bunch of other things I probably suck at. What if I do more harm than good ?”

“You underestimate yourself. No one knows both the human and the demon mind like you do. And like I said, I was out of options.”

“Fine, I get it. So, what’s the plan ?”

“The UN ambassadors want to meet you. Getting them to agree to call you wasn’t an easy sell. They only know you as a youkai. You have to convince them you’re on their side.”

“I’m not on anyone’s side.”

“Then find out what happened here, or you’ll have to pick one very soon.”

Koenma pushed another door. How on earth could he tell all these identical doors apart ?

“Yuusuke, meet Amelia Bancroft and Rohan Singh, the negotiators for the UN.”

He saw her first. It was hard to miss her. Model-tall and thin, with wavy Venetian blond hair flowing freely to her waist, a healthy Californian tan and a long balloon-sleeved white evening dress slightly pooling at her feet, she looked like what you’d get if you asked any random fourteen years old boy off the street to imagine the next cover of Vogue. This was the kind of woman to whom men said “you have bewitched me” when really, she was just obviously really hot, in that conventional way that landed straight between a man’s fantasy and a women’s inspiration. In either case, not a real person. The only hint that she hadn’t indeed been made on purpose in some kind of lab was an impressive set of freckles that covered her nose and cheekbones, like residues of an eraser over a perfect drawing.
As for him, he looked like her clone from bizarroworld. Only as tall as Yuusuke, but considerably older, he would have bet there was some article out there describing him as having “an air of quiet dignity”. He was dressed entirely in black, with a formal Mao jacket complete with a white pocket square. The only other speck of white on his person was his elegant moustache and gelled to the side hair. He actually looked the part of a lifelong diplomat, in that same kind of too-obvious-for-the-role way that she did a lifestyle model. If there was a lesson there, it was that most people looked exactly like you’d think they would. Or maybe the job was turning them into what others thought of them.

“So here is the man of the hour ! His highness Enma speaks very highly of you.”

Of course, she spoke flawless Japanese.

“He’s twenty inches tall. He speaks very highly of everyone.”

“Do you speak English, son ?”

And he called everyone son. Just perfect.

“Not really. But if you want I can nod really hard when you talk so it looks like I get it.”

“You’re funny. Rohan, he’s very funny.”

“Um. Do you find what happened here tonight very funny, son ?”

“Of course he doesn’t. Yuusuke is here to help.”

“Don’t answer for me, Koenma. That’s the best you can do, I-already-forgot-your-name ? On a scale of one to ten, how funny do I find human murder ?”

“I see nothing to convince me that such a test is not necessary.”

“My fist on your face is starting to feel very necessary.”

“Oh, stop, both of you if you please.”

Her tone was tentative in the same way a mom’s with her four years old was. Only giving you the illusion of a choice.

“We are already on a deadline here. So maybe we should let dear Yuusuke get to work, no ?”

‘Dear Yuusuke’ would have gladly continued his little explanation with Moustache, but she was right. The longer he dawdled, the longer it would be before he could get out of there.

“What can you tell me about what happened ?”

They briefly exchanged in English. They weren’t shy about excluding him from the conversation.

“Very little, unfortunately” she finally said. “The last time we saw another human soul was when we were brought room service in my suite. It must have been fifteen minutes later that Enma ran into the room to make sure we were unharmed. We did not hear anything go down. Which is curious, such a massacre, you would think it would have made quite a peep.”

He couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to speak with a slight British accent.

“Did you… see the remains ?”

“We did. I assisted on quite a few UN peacekeeping missions. I’ve never… seen anything like this.”

“In your opinion, son, could a human have done this ?”

“Oh ! Deadline !” the woman exclaimed as if she’d just shocked herself by putting her finger in a socket.

He turned to her with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Deadline ! And there are all these dead people around ! This was so insensitive of me to say that !”

“Err… To answer your question” Yuusuke said after electing to ignore the remark, “it does look like the work of a youkai. But at this stage, nothing is certain.”

“We’re going to have to do much better than that. We are under the unblinking eye. What looks like it happened is what did. We should stop wasting time. And son ?”

“What ?”

“The world is counting on you.”

”So that’s the situation. I checked every floor, didn’t feel any kind of energy anywhere. Nothing left on the corpses either. I’ve got no idea what to do next. And everyone is twiddling their thumbs waiting for me to miraculously solve everything.”

Kurama’s chuckle was warm on the other side of the line. Yuusuke would never understand anything to his sense of humour.

”So you’ve called me to solve another one of your cases in your place ?”

”That happened once. And sorry if I’m calling one of my friends for help.”

”Don’t get upset, I was joking. In my opinion, there aren’t that many possibilities. Either the culprit is still in the hotel, or he isn’t. If he is, there is an unneglectable chance that it might be Yomi. If he isn’t, it means Yomi lied. Either way, I’d say you should talk to Yomi again. One to one. He respects you. And perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t understand you. Someone like you, who has power but doesn’t want domination, is something that is profoundly foreign to him. Which renders you quite unpredictable.”

”Why do I feel this is just an elaborate way of saying he can’t outsmart me because I don’t actually think ?”

”Whatever you feel comfortable with. Keep me updated.” Click.

There was something comforting in knowing he wasn’t the only one whose night had been ruined. He put back the receiver from the lobby desk, then asked his new best friend Fido the guard for directions to Yomi’s suite. When he entered, Yomi was facing the panoramic window, a drink in hand.

“There are not that many times I regret having had the light stolen from me, but this is one.”

“If that makes you feel better, the view’s not that impressive. It’s mostly squares of light on squares of black on a bigger square of black.”

“You are lying, aren’t you ?”

“Yeah. It’s fucking gorgeous.”

“From my point of view, this is just an ocean of invisible waves. Sound, heat, movement, all slowly coming and receding from me in an unending tide of boiling life.”

“Where’s Shura ?”

“Confined in his room. This is the first time he comes in contact with the smell of human blood. It is disturbing for him. I think we should try to avoid any further incident.”

“Yomi, you need to tell me you did not do this.”

The former king turned to face the man who had refused to be king.

“And what would telling you I did not actually accomplish ? If I was culpable, I would have no reason to tell the truth, and even if I was innocent, you would still be a fool to believe me.”

“I’m a fool anyway. Koenma and Kurama suspect you because it’s rational to. But I’d rather trust what my gut tells me. And my gut tells me you didn’t bring your fucking son to this damn meeting so he could watch you fuck it up on purpose.”

“You would trust me over your friends ?”

“I’d trust myself.”

He could almost see Yomi’s exquisite mind at work.

“Let’s say I did kill them. What would you do now ?”

“I’d wonder why you’re lying.”

His gaze shifted to the door leading to the adjoining suite.

“And I think I just figured it out.”

Yomi’s aura had changed.

“Careful, Urameshi.”

“This isn’t the answer. We can figure it out.”

“I told you. I killed them. Go report to them.”

“For someone so smart, you can be a terrible liar.”

He had started walking toward Shura’s door.

“Urameshi !”

The image of someone so powerful, feeling powerless. There was nothing scarier. The doorknob clicked.

The young prince was sitting on his bed, holding his knees. His face was still drenched in blood.

Chapter Text

“So you don’t remember any of it going down ?”

“No. Like I said, I was in the hallway, there were all those people around, and they all smelled so delicious. And, and then they were all dead. And there was their blood on me. And I could taste it in my mouth. And so I ate more. Dad, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, Shura. It’s my fault for not thinking before I brought you here. When you’ve been eating humans for a long time, you forget what it’s like to smell them for the first time.”

“My dad said he’d fix it. He told me to stay in my room and try to wash the blood off. But I tried, and it wouldn’t come off. And it still tasted so good… But now you found out, Yuusuke, and that means more people will find out…”

Yuusuke eyed the shivering kid. Then the clock. Only eight hours left.

“Yomi, can I talk to you in the other room ?”

“So ? Are you going to report to them ?” asked Yomi after closing the door on Shura.

“No. For now, nothing gets out of this room.”

“Really, Urameshi ? You would do this for him ?”

“They didn’t ask me to give them the truth. They asked me to give them a solution. We’ve got eight hours to figure one out.”

“Shura cannot be held responsible for any of this. That is my one condition. If push comes to shove, I will be the one to take the fall.”

“You really care for this kid, don’t you ?”

“We are on shifting waters. I cannot risk him taking a stand now. He is my legacy.”

“So you’re sure he’s the one who did this ? Even if he doesn’t remember actually killing those people ?”

“I admit it seems strange. Blacking out in the presence of food is something only lower-level youkais are known to do. When he told me he did eat part of what was left of the humans, I suppose I thought he was trying to alleviate his guilt by pretending not to remember killing them.”

“Okay, let’s go about this the other way. Let’s say it was a setup. How would they have bypassed both security and your heightened senses ?”

“It would have been difficult. But not impossible. You know as well as I do there are always forces you do not suspect gravitating around you until comes the moment they reveal themselves. Normal people barely emit any energy, so I localize them via heat, smell and sound. Meaning it took me a few seconds to realize these people weren’t alive anymore. But if there had been any ruckus linked to killing, I would have at least picked up some of it. Essentially, if someone did kill them, he did it very quickly, without emitting any energy or making a noticeable movement.”

“That sounds like any youkai you know ?”

“Your friend, Mukuro’s right hand, is as fast a youkai as I’ve ever witnessed. But there is no way someone of that calibre would not have left some energy trace in his wake.”

“So it’s like the guy who did this was both so insanely strong he could kill and bunch of people all at once, and so weak you didn’t even notice he was here.”

“Again, provided Shura isn’t the one responsible. You are grasping at straws and neglecting the obvious.”

“Why are you so keen on believing he did this ?”

“You have grown among humans, Urameshi, and you have never tasted one. You do not know what a true demonic hunger feels like. There is nothing quite as invincible and exhilarating.”

“And now that the two worlds are supposed to be at peace ? Are you gonna keep eating humans ?”

“Supply and demand apply to each and all things. You have more dead than soil to bury them. What do you think these negotiations are about ?”

“Earth is going to trade… bodies ? For what ?”

“Technology. Know-how. The earth has an incredible untapped spiritual potential. It just does not have to tools to harness and utilize it.”

“So we’re going to see more and more humans with spiritual powers.”

“It seems likely. Why else would they send one to negotiate with us ?”

“What ?”

“Haven’t you noticed ? That man. The second he starts talking to you, you enter his territory. A conversation in which you cannot lie.”

“Rohan, I can’t seem to get this blasted thing open. Give me a hand ?”

“Isn’t this your second bottle of rosé ?”

“I feel in a ditzy mood tonight. All those dead people. It’s really sad. It’s my first time to Tokyo ! I wanted to visit Shibuya ! And the Skytree ! And do some shopping at Ginza ! Things took such a grim turn. It’s the same wherever I go.”

“Comes with the territory, kiddo. You haven’t got a mean bone in your body. It’s bound to take a toll on you.”

“You haven’t been very nice to the young man who came to help.”

“I am never nice to anyone. I am being truthful. I expect the same of them.”

“So, was he ?”

“No way to know for sure. My power compels my listener to be true to their actual thoughts, it does not reveal whether or not they would have expressed them without my intervention. He certainly has a temper.”

“A little anger is good. I never get angry. I wouldn’t know how.”

“That’s why you make such a good person. And a good negotiator. But if he is to play a role in that scene of ours, he must learn to keep a cool head. I’ll be sure to mention that to the organization.”

“I still don’t understand why they want us to report on our meeting with him. I don’t like feeling like I’m spying on people. I don’t understand why the organization would make me feel bad like this.”

“What about you ? What did you think of him ?”

“He seems like a lovely person.”

“You said the same thing of that youkai negotiator.”

“Who was also quite lovely !”

“Heh. And what about the boy’s power ?”

“Oh, that.”

Her eyes flashed. A smile danced on her lips.

“He’s very strong.”

The bottle of wine popped open.

“I wonder if I can beat him.”

“Still nothing ?”

“No. Same as with the three hundred other rooms. I told you it would be useless to check them individually. If I didn’t feel anything from my suite, getting closer will not help.”

“Well, I’m out of ideas. You ?”

“We are losing valuable time. It took us half an hour to sweep the entire hotel. You should be preparing what you’re going to say to the ambassadors and the spirit prince.”

“Screw that. I’m going to call Kurama again. The two of you, you’re sure to figure something out.”

“Will you tell him ? About Shura ?”

“You don’t trust him ?”

“He is perhaps the person in the world I should trust the least. With all due respect to your friendship, you do not know him like I do. If he senses you may prejudice him in some way, he will turn on you immediately. You do not live as long as he has without putting self-preservation above all else.”

“People change. You’re a prime example of that.”

“Have I changed that much ? Sometimes I wonder. Maybe I simply adapted. There is nothing more resilient than the ego. But I doubt you understand that before you have a couple centuries behind you. Change comes and goes. In the world and within yourself. The core remains the same.”

“Still not sure I wanna live that long.”

“What does that mean ?”

“Shuddup. It’s ringing.”

Only a handful of seconds passed before he heard Kurama’s composed tone on the other end of the line.

”Yuusuke ? How are things ?”

”I’m with Yomi. We got part of the answer. Shura was the one who took a bite out of the staff. But we still don’t know if he killed them. He says he blinked, and suddenly all the people around him were dead. Yomi still thinks it might be him, but I’m not so sure. One of the human ambassadors has powers. Maybe Yomi isn’t the one who’s trying to sabotage the negotiations. We checked every room again, nothing.”

“Yomi ? So you are helping Yuusuke, eh ?”

“You know better than I do how convincing he can be. You believe I may still be lying ?”

”As a general rule, I assume you’re lying. But strangely enough, I agree with Yuusuke. This isn’t your style. If you wanted to influence the negotiations, you’d have gotten info on the ambassadors and threatened their loved ones. Or something in that vein. You are not the bombastic type.”

“You are quite genuine when you know you are safely on the other side of a line.”

“Okay so everyone agrees, nobody’s being a lying murderer this time. Can we move on to discussing solutions ?”

“You said one of the ambassadors had powers. Do you know more ?”

“Unfortunately, I think it’s an entirely non-lethal ability. It seems to be a compulsive-type power that influences what you can say. I was unable to lie when I met him. Yuusuke didn’t even notice something was going on.”

”Sounds just like you. You are always honest, a power like that changes nothing to what you would say. What about the other one ?”

“She’s weird. Or maybe she’s not that weird, but she’s weird for a negotiator. But I didn’t feel any energy coming from her.”

“I agree with Yuusuke. On both fronts.”

“We only have seven hours left. We’re running out of options. So if you’ve got some magic bullet somewhere…”

”Seven ? I thought the meeting was at seven am.”

“It is. It’s midnight.”

”No… it’s not. It’s one am.”

“What ?”

Yuusuke glanced at the clock on the wall of the room, then at the watch Keiko had gifted him. The first one read just a few minutes past midnight, and the second one a quarter after that. He grabbed a remote a turned on the high-end TV. Weather channel. And on the corner of the screen… Ten past one in the morning.

“Kurama… This is gonna sound stupid but… At what time did I call you last time ?”

”Let’s see… It must have been around a quarter to midnight.”

“Not here it wasn’t. It was barely eleven thirty.”

”And now you’re saying you’re offset almost an hour ? How did you not notice the clocks were wrong ?”

“It’s not just the clocks from the hotel. My watch is also offset, only about a quarter less. It’s like it started going wrong when I entered the hotel.”

”And you didn’t feel like more time had passed than what the clocks were indicating ?”

“No ! And for once I’ve actually had an eye on the clocks since I started here because of the deadline. So I would have noticed if they had suddenly started dragging. It’s like we’ve been moving slower than the rest of the world.”

”….Suke ! Yuusuke ! Answer me ! What’s wrong ?”

“What are you talking about ? I was just answering you.”

”No. You went dead silent for about two minutes. So did Yomi.”

“That’s impossible, I haven’t moved.”

“Hold on, Urameshi. Kurama, what time do you have right now ?”

“Thirteen past one.”

“Urameshi, what does the clock on the wall read ?”

“Eleven past midnight. We’re offset two more minutes. It’s as if the entire hotel had gotten frozen for two minutes.”

“Maybe it’s not as if. Maybe it’s exactly what happened. Think of the murders again. Shura said he didn’t move, and suddenly everyone around him was dead. I didn’t feel any of it going down. As if…”

“Time had just stopped.”

Yuusuke closed his eyes. Breathed out slowly. Then opened them again. This indescribable sensation that was gnawing at him since he’d entered the hotel. That’s what it was.

“We’re on somebody’s territory.”

“Okay first off, we need to turn on all the TVs we see. We need to know if time got frozen again.”

“If it’s on a screen, I will not be able to perceive it without a device. That also explains why whoever is doing this managed to slip by pass my radar. It must only have been moving while everything and everyone else was frozen.”

“So you think that’s how his power works ? Freeze everything in a perimeter except himself ?”

“If it had been just that, I would still have been able to detect him. He must also have an ability that renders him completely invisible to me.”

“Let’s recap. Guy gets into the hotel unnoticed, freezes everyone, goes around and kills them, unfreezes them, and hides in a hole until the clock runs out ? Then why still use his power after that ?”

“Remember we did a sweep of the rooms. We must have gotten close to where he was hiding at some point. He needed to use his power to get out of there undetected. Then he just had to go to a room we had already checked. Also, everytime he freezes us, it’s as if we’re losing time. Little by little, we would have been caught in the morning by surprise.”

“Makes sense. He’s playing for time. Damnit !”

He gave a kick to an aluminium wastebasket by the bed.

“But how do we catch him ? Everytime we get close, he’ll just freeze us and move somewhere else.”

“We know his power is limited. He cannot keep everything in place longer than a few minutes at a time. We have to find a way to keep track of his movements.”

“I may be watching too many morning cartoons but… I think I have an idea. Do you know if there’s a kitchen in this place ?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“It’s what I do.”

“When you said we would not have enough flour to cover the entire hotel, I didn’t think you’d just go back and use… literally everything else.”

Yomi lifted his foot, on which tomato sauce was starting to coagulate.

“Turns out I didn’t have enough even with that, so I used feathers from the pillows in the room and every product I could find in the bathrooms. I call it ‘Abstract path of a time-freezer’.”

“Again, he does not freeze time, he freezes everything else.”

“You’re just jealous of my talent. Oh well, I knew coming in I would be trashing this hotel at some point, just didn’t know under which pretext.”

“Pretext ?”

“No time for talk ! We gotta sweep this hotel again !”

Trying to leave as little imprint in the unholy melange Yuusuke had displayed on the floor of the hallways as possible, they resumed their search. This time, it wasn’t long until some shoeprints that weren’t theirs found their way onto a pool of mayonnaise-perfumed pool of shampoo.

“These leads to this room. He must be inside.”

“Then I’ll stand guard at the door. Even if he uses his power, he won’t be able to exit the room without going through me.”

“Sounds good. Here I go.”

He closed and locked the door behind him. The room looked just like every other one in this damn place. He made a mental list of all potential hiding places. Bathroom. Closet. Under the bed. No. Too obvious.
But just as he was thinking that, the sound of someone desperately trying to hold in a cough came out from under the mattress. Yuusuke approached the bed as silently as possible, kneeled down, and with a snap pulled on a foot that was protruding from under there.

“Hey ! Watch out ! You have no right !”

He took a look at the guy that followed the foot. Japanese. Very scared. A big-ass camera attached by a strap around his neck.

“I… I have a right to be here ! I’ve seen what you’re trying to hide !”

“You’re the one who’s been playing hide and seek for five hours, pal.”

The man was squirming trying to get himself out of Yuusuke’s grip. This was the guy who had made them run around an entire evening ? This ?

“You’ve got some explaining to do. So you can either start now or I can get all those high-and-mighty ambassadors in there and you can take your chances with them.”

“Wait a second, I know who you are ! You’re that kid who did the thing ! You’re a monster too !”

“Bold words from someone who just killed seventy-five people.”

“What are you talking about ?”

“Oh. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

In one imperious gesture, he sat the guy on the bed.

“Dead people. Everywhere. Killed when everyone else was immobilized by your power. You’re telling me you have nothing to do with this ?”

“I’ll be handling the questioning, thank you Urameshi.”

Rohan Singh unceremoniously closed the door after he had entered, and pulled a chair in front of the intruder.

“So, son, might we know why you are here ?”

“I’m Hayaki Ichiro, I’m with the Tokyo Times.” The man blurted out before looking at the ambassador in shock.

“Good. And might we know how your powers work ?”

“I… I call it the Capture, I can freeze everything except myself within my territory for a maximum of three minutes, and make my presence undetectable to the senses, so I can move around and take pictures of my subjects without them seeing me coming…. Damnit man, how are you doing this ?”

“So what was your goal in killing all those people tonight ? Scandal ? Panic ?”

“Wha… I didn’t do anything ! I was just here to report !”

“You expect us to believe it’s a complete coincidence that the entire staff was killed at the exact moment you were using your power to immobilize them ?”

“I didn’t know, okay ! I didn’t know they were going to do that !”

“They ?”

“Look man, I met these black suits at the foot of the tower and all they told me is that if I got in the hotel and used my power there, I’d get the scoop of a lifetime ! That’s all I did ! I was doing my job !”

“Your job ?”

Rohan stood up and put the chair back where it was.

“Your job, son, is to bear witness. No more, no less. To be true to the facts and even more so, true to yourself. I was there in Berlin the day they built the wall. I was in Hué during the Tet offensive. I have seen many trying to control what happened not on the ground, but in the minds, by trying to control what I was writing about it. History is made twice, son, always. When it is created and when it is told. But you, you have betrayed your purpose. You have seeped yourself into the flow you were supposed to capture undisturbed. Think hard, son, before you dare call yourself a journalist again.”

He closed the door to the room, leaving behind him two very stunned men.

Chapter Text

“So what now ?”

Yuusuke exited the room to find himself face to face with Yomi and Rohan in the middle of a discussion they had cut short when he'd pushed the door.

“Amelia is going to remain with our intruder friend to make sure he doesn’t play a trick on us again, started Rohan. Meanwhile, you need to figure out the rest of the puzzle. No one can lie on my territory. He may have frozen the victims, but he did not kill them. But he was also sincere about the way his power worked. If everything on his territory but himself gets frozen, that means the killer couldn’t have been in the hotel when he froze time. So that means he would have waited outside the territory, waited until everything froze, gotten into the hotel, murdered everyone and gotten out until time restarted again, all in under three minutes.”

“That’s not impossible but… That would require knowing exactly when he started using his power. I asked him a few questions after you left, turns out the guys who sent him up didn’t leave any other kind of instruction. No contact, no signal. Then how the hell did they know when to act ?”

“That is your job to find out, isn’t it ?”

“No matter how much I deliver, you’re never gonna be satisfied, aren’t you ?”

“You misunderstand. I came here with a mission. Either I succeed, or I fail. No one is done working until they have completed what they had to do. No place for half-victories.”

“I can actually get behind that.”

“Good. Time is running out. If our theory is correct, the killer is likely long gone. What we need is a clue as to his identity.”

“About that… there’s something I need to check out. Yomi, can you come with me to the main lounge ?”

“Do you expect to find something else on the bodies ? They have been tainted, due to Shura.”

“What does that mean ?”

“We’ll discuss that later, Mr Singh.”

“No, it’s something else. I feel like there’s something I should see that I didn’t. So maybe I need the help of someone who sees differently.”

“Your logic, as always, is inscrutable.”

They made their way back to the entrance lounge. As they opened the glass door, the festering odour that had started settling around the corpses seized him at the throat.

“Let’s try to find a body that hasn’t been too much munched at.”

The lucky winner was sitting in one of the sofas, his pierced head hanging miserably between his legs, his arms by his sides, as if it was taking a particularly powerful nap.

“Look at this one. No other injury, except the back of his head and his face look like they completely imploded. It’s likely the impact came from behind. But it doesn’t look like his head’s been bashed in...”

“Hold on. There is something further down this exact trajectory. Under the opposing sofa. Can you check what it is ?”

Yuusuke knelt down, further covering his jeans in dubious substances.

“I can’t see anything… Wait. That’s…”

He stood up, the tiniest object in his hand.

“That’s… a gravel. Or maybe even a fragment of a gravel. I would never had found it if not for your heightened senses. Could have been carried here under a shoe, or… Wait. I need to check the windows.”

“You are thinking bullet ? We would have seen the holes.”

“Not if the “bullet” had been a tiny rock, going through it with incredible speed and force. There’s a chill in this room, I felt it the first time I came in here. I assumed it was the AC or something. But…”

He passed his hand over the class. Under his fingers, the lights of the city seemed very far away. The pulp of his index came in contact with a deformity on the perfectly smooth surface. There was a small feeling of aspiration on his skin.

“Holes. There are tiny holes all over the glass.”

“The closest skyscraper is almost four kilometres away. I don’t know anyone who would have been able to shoot from such distance.”

“I do.”

The waiting was always the worst part. Not the waiting before the shot, where anticipation was climbing, but the waiting after, the sticking around, the dull kind of waiting, the one with no payoff. He had read in a health magazine, one time he was idling at the airport, that getting bored easily was a common trait among psychopaths. Well, he guessed he was a psychopath then. As if getting bored with this world wasn’t just common sense.
He adjusted his binoculars to the window once more. In the lit lounge of the hotel surrounded by two circles of black, Urameshi Yuusuke had his hand on the glass window. He looked good. Adulthood suited him. It truly had been a while since he’d crossed paths with him. At the time, he had sent a whole truck after him. It was before he’d learned that subtle and invisible beats powerful and bombastic everytime. He was pleased his new employers saw it that way as well.
Time to hit one last target then. And disappear. Again.
God, this job was awesome.

“I’m going down there.”

“Let’s be realistic, he probably left a long time ago.”

“Then I’ll… Look for clues ! I dunno ! I can’t just stay here !”

“Yuusuke !”

Amelia Bancroft ran into the lobby, holding Hayaki Ichiro by the hand.

“Something pierced the window of the room where we were staying ! It was charged with spirit energy and aiming straight at Ichiro !”

She opened her hand in front of his face, revealing a playing die.

“How did you stop it ?”

“I caught it.”

“You caught it ?”

“Watch out !”

A dozen of small rocks came fracturing the window, letting a powerful wind engulf the room. Yuusuke and Yomi easily got out of the way, while Amelia dived down, pulling Ichiro on the ground with her. The rocks came straight for the back wall, but before they could hit it, they swerved mid-air and came back in the other direction, right toward Ichiro.

“Amelia !”

The young woman held out her hand. A light appeared in her eyes. In a flash, all the rocks exploded into gravel and fell on the ground. Yuusuke ran toward Ichiro before the next wave could hit and opened his shirt with a snap, sending the buttons flying.

“Hey, what the hell man ?”

“Shut up.”

On the man’s torso, two small red targets glowed as if they’d been burned into his skin.

“What… Eh ? What the hell is that ?”

“Miss Ambassador, Yomi, take him to the other side of the building. Close all the doors. Careful, he can send anything flying.”

“What about you ?”

Yuusuke eyed the building from which the projectiles had likely been shot.

“I have a score to settle with an old acquaintance.”

Hagiri Kaname sighed. Hayaki had vanished from his sight. Nothing was ever easy around Yuusuke. Oh well, getting rid of the journalist was just a bonus anyway. He preferred making the messes to cleaning them.
He put his binoculars back in his jacket and dusted off his jeans. The door to his unlit room opened in a crash.

“Not fast enough, sniper.”

“You’re the one who’s gotten way too fast, Urameshi.”

“And you’re shit at masking your energy at close distance. No wonder you holed up safely in here while raising hell over there.”

“We all have to learn from our mistakes. You’ll tell your black clad friend I still have the souvenir he left me.”

“You can tell him yourself after I beat you up and drag your ass to literal hell so you can tell us everything about who’s pulling your strings this time.”

“Mmh no, I think I’ll pass, thank you. Good luck with the PR disaster at the hotel.”

“You’re not going anywhere, pal !”

Hagiri took a step back toward the open ceiling-high window. Yuusuke armed his reygun. The other kept walking back.

“You’re never happy, aren’t you ? When I helped opening a tunnel to demon world, you were the first to try and stop us, and now that I’m helping reinstate it, you’re still here on my heels.”

“I could say the same of you.”

“There’s no mystery about me. I go where the fun is. You ? I don’t think you know yet.”

Hagiri’s hair was rustled by the wind that hit his back.

“Don’t make another move.”

“See you, Urameshi.”

His body tipped over the edge of the window and plunged head first in the void. Yuusuke rushed forward to catch one of the legs that was disappearing before his eyes. When he leaned outside the window not even a fraction of a second later, there was no trace of Hagiri, not here, not below.

When he entered the hotel lounge again, Koenma and the three ambassadors were waiting for him.

“Hagiri ?” asked the prince.

“Gone. Hayaki ?”

“Safely unconscious in one of the rooms.”

“Oh, this is very bad, isn’t it ? Now we don’t have a culprit.”

“Yes Amelia, it is bad. If we have nothing to show for it, this entire investigation was basically for naught.”

“Hey, we still have Hayaki, that counts for something !”

“I told you, son, you can only fail or succeed. And now, if you and the prince could excuse us, the three of us have to start doing what we should have started doing six hours ago.”

“Which is ?”

“Damage control.”

“Damnit, they’re taking forever. If they don’t need me anymore, I should just go home.”

“That’s politics for you. One second to do things, two hours to talk about it.”

Koenma and Yuusuke had retreated in one of the rooms that had been spared both by Hagiri’s killing spree and Yuusuke’s artful tracking system. The prince was sitting, hands politely folded on the table before him, while his former detective was sprawled on the bed, socked feet against the bedhead.

“I still don’t understand why you would willingly dip a toe in that shark pool. You’re the ruler of your entire world, just enjoy it.”

“You would be wrong to think such tensions are foreign to the Spirit world. My father’s partisans are still everywhere, trying to topple my regime.”

“Then all the more reasons to leave the troubles of worlds that aren’t yours alone.”

“I have a responsibility, Yuusuke. I alone decided to lift the spell that separated human and demon world. If this encounter between the two worlds ends in carnage, the blood is on my hands.”

“That’s bullshit. If we’re too stupid to manage to get along, that’s our fault, not yours. Plus, there’ll always be someone to come along and break spells that shouldn’t be broken. I’m friends with one of them.”

“But the dead that came before, all the demons slaughtered under false pretence, all the humans that could have been better off had we not appropriated the human world’s reserves of spirit energy for our own use, all the lives ruined by gifts that could have saved them, that’s on me. Now and forever.”

“Is this about Sensui again ? Dude, you’ve gotta let it go.”

“What if I don’t want to ? What if I don’t deserve to let it go ? What if it’s my responsibility not to let it go ?”

“I know you’re not gonna help anyone by torturing yourself.”

“Just like you can’t help anyone by backing out everytime you’re asked to do something that goes beyond simply punching who I tell you to punch. We saw where that lead us.”

“I stayed here tonight, didn’t I ?”

“But I need to know that you’ll stay the next night. And the night after that. Because there will be a next night. This is a rocky road all the way up. This is the kind of help I need right now. The world is complicated. If you’re going to be my detective again, we need to be clear about this. You will have to make difficult decisions. You will have to take a stand. Nothing is ever neutral in a rolling river.”

“It’s not my place to make decisions for this world.”

“You think it’s theirs ? The world belongs to the ones who take a chance at guiding it and hope no one opposes them. The only legitimacy is in the conviction of legitimacy. In the end, if you have power, whether or not you’ll have a voice is a matter of choice. I need to know that you’ll be ready to make it.”

“I don’t know, Koenma. I really don’t know. I just want to protect what’s important to me. I just came to realize that includes more than I previously thought.”

“Then maybe you ought to protect everything, until you figure it out.”

“How am I supposed to do that ?”

“I try to help my way. But I’m sure you can find yours, and that it will be quite different from mine. Until then… you’re welcome to stand by my side.”

The door opened. Rohan entered, sombre, followed by an inscrutable Yomi and a visibly distraught Amelia.

“We’ve come to an agreement.”

“So ? What are you gonna say ?”

“Nothing. Because this never happened.”

“What ?”

“None of what transpired here tonight ever happened. We have a little more than an hour before the hotel opens to reporters. When they come in, all trace of the murders will have disappeared.”

“But… You can’t do that.”

“They can, with my help and yours if you will, Urameshi” Yomi cut in. “This is the only move that will preserve the status quo. My son couldn’t resist humans, but a human did this. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even. All that’s left to do is erase the slate.”

“Miss Bancroft, you are okay with this ?” asked Koenma softly.

“I don’t… love it, but it seems like the price to pay… It will save so much more… I’m sorry for those people but…”

“Well I’m not okay with this. I’m stupid, but people aren’t. They deserve to know what happened. If we start burying everything that goes wrong while trying to make cohabitation happen, we’re no better than what the Spirit world was doing before.”

“I admire the principles, son. But they come at the worst possible time.”

“And what happened to you, Mr We-have-to-bear-witness ? I thought we had to be true to the facts ?”

“And that would be true, if any of us was a journalist. But we’re not. We create history, before it is told. And this is how it is to be told.”

“What about Hiyaki ? He can tell the story. We have a witness.”

“Too little, too late. If you had come back with the perpetrator, it would be a different story, but right now, if we enter the lion’s den with nothing but the word of a double-faced pen-pusher, they will eat us alive.”

“Wha… Koenma, help me out, here ! You don’t agree with this, do you ?”

The prince silently probed the eyes of everyone in the room. Then, with one last look at Yuusuke, he spoke.

“We have to erase it.”

“Oh come on.”

“I’m sorry, Yuusuke, but they’re right. We have no time. We have no culprit. This is the path of least damage.”

“You’re pissing all over what you were saying right before.”

“I’m taking a stand. Feel free to do the same. If not, you can let us get to work.”

Amelia’s blue eyes were avoiding his. Rohan held his stare behind his outmoded glasses. Yomi harboured a small smile - how long had he known things would end this way ? Koenma’s wistful gaze reminded him of the one he had had before using the Mafuukan in the cave, all those years ago. Yuusuke took one sharp inspiration.

“You have a detective.”

“Excuse me ?”

“You said you have no time. You have no culprit. But you have a detective.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Tomorrow, you’re gonna go stand in front of all those microphones and cameras, and you’re gonna tell them exactly what happened. You’re gonna tout your witness. And then you’re gonna announce that as per your negotiation, the three worlds have appointed a special detective to investigate threats again the peace between the worlds.”

“Are you suggesting we let you handle all the obstacles we will face during the conciliation process ?”

“Right. You can form a committee or some shit. Spirit world, the Makai presidency and the United Nations. You’ll give me cases that involve the three worlds and are too delicate to give to your own authorities. If anything comes up, they’ll know someone is taking care of it. They’ll know who to ask questions to. Just like I’m gonna go in front of all those fucking cameras tomorrow and answer all their fucking questions. That will sate the lions, right ?”

The four others exchanged gazes. Finally, Amelia clapped her hands and looked at him with a delighted smile on her face.

“I think this is a brilliant idea ! It will buy us time, and all these people will have justice !”

“Yuusuke, are you sure ? There will be no coming back from that kind of exposure.”

“You asked me to take a stand. That’s the only thing I can do. So shut up and let me do it.”

“I think Enki will see no problem in entrusting you with Makai’s problems. And for what happens after his presidency is over, there will always be room for… adjustment.”

“Mr Singh ? What do you think ?”

The old man crossed his gaze again. There was no warmth inside them, just cold calculation.

“This is an excellent idea, son. And since it seems we have reached an agreement, we should all try and get ready for the morning conference.”

As Yuusuke was exiting the room, Koenma put a hand on his shoulder.

“Yuusuke, you have to understand…”

“The crazy thing is, I think I do understand. And that’s exactly why I think you should leave me alone. For now.”

He let go.

“Nervous ?”

Amelia had the engaging smile of someone who had never been turned down by anyone, ever. Lucky for her, he didn’t feel like being the first one to do so. Not today. He detached his back from the pillar he was leaning on and spared a glance for the army of mics on the other side of the glass door. He could only see Rohan’s back on the podium, perfectly unflinching under the incessant cameras flashes.

“Yeah, a little. Once stood before an entire legion of youkais come to fight me, that was somehow less stressful.”

“It’s the mics, I think. When I speak in them, I always feel like there are twenty people in front of me offering me foam-covered black ice cream. And I think : “I can’t eat that !” And also : “even if I could eat them, there are way too many ! I’ll never be able to eat them all !””

“Uh… Sure. Listen, thanks for backing me up out there. I wanted to say it.”

“You’re very welcome. Diplomacy is so depressing, it turns out. I thought I would be solving conflict, but most of the time, we’re trying to figure out the least terrible of two options. Rohan says it’s about the smallest victories. He’d know better than I, I just started as a representative.”

“You don’t say. But hey, they chose you for these negotiations, you must be doing something right.”

“You’re the one who did something right today. I’m sure all these people will see it the same way.”

“Mr Urameshi, you’re up.”

Fido the guard gestured toward the podium on the other side of the glass.

“Here goes nothing, I guess. Any advice ?”

“Don’t eat all the ice creams.”

He walked through the door and was immediately blinded by the flashes.

“You’re the last thing I expected to see when I turned on my TV this morning.”

“I’m sorry. I should have checked with you first. I don’t know what our life is gonna look like now.”

”I’ll manage. I knew this quiet life of ours could only last for so long. You’re too important for that.”

“I meant it, you know, when I said I was done with all that world-saving stuff. I liked the quiet life.”

”So did I, honey. But that’s just not who you are. And who I am is someone who wants to be with you. So… that where we are.”

“So tell me, how terrible was I ?”

”You were perfectly fine. Your charisma is inversely proportional to your eloquence anyway. And you were scary enough that none of them dared to push it with the follow-up questions.”

“Rohan said I’m expected at the UN headquarters next week to meet with the dignitaries and be officially appointed. He made an estimation of my salary, I almost punched him in the face.”

”Ha ha, you should buy a nice suit while you’re still in Tokyo.”

“Actually, I was wondering if maybe you could join me there ? They wanted me to stay at the other hotel they reserved for the conference since the first one became an active crime scene, but I turned them down so they gave me the equivalent of two nights in cash. I’m going to settle in some mid-range hotel somewhere in Shibuya and do some sightseeing. I’d like it if you could come with me.”

”That’s a great idea ! I can only arrive in the evening though. I have some work to finish up here at the university.”

“It’s fine. There’s something else I need to do today.”

”What ?”

“Sleep.”

Chapter Text

The delivery truck was probably her best chance. They checked inside and under, but they only did it once, after they’d loaded it. If she could somehow sneak under just between the moment they opened the gate and before the truck started, then maybe she’d have enough of a window before they checked it again to roll away somewhere deserted enough. It was narrow. But it was still definitely the best option. The main door was out of the question. It was actually two doors, and they only unlocked one once the other was locked again. Plus, they were underground. Who knew what kind of security they had upstairs. In the three weeks she’d been here, she’d almost mapped out the entire floor. There was no other exit. A passing thought had her wonder what would happen if a fire broke out, how they would organize their escape. The rational part of her distractingly answered that they wouldn’t ; they’d simply let them all burn down there.
Then there was the option of trusting one of the customers. She had thought of it. They’d all thought of it. One had tried. They’d hung the remains of her body over the door in the room where they’d been parked to sleep for a week. Every once in a while, something would drip out of it and spread on the floor under the movements of the sleeping girls. They’d wake up sticky and covered in a brownish substance. If it was not shower day – too bad. The passageway to the truck unloading hangar was heavily guarded, but once she was inside, there were a lot of blind spots she could hide in to wait for a departure. She’d seen them the first time they had brought them here from the back of the armoured truck. They avoided making deliveries on a regular basis, but there was still some kind of schedule. In three weeks, she’d about worked it out. Once every four days, the truck came in right after the headcount, meaning if her presence was noted right before she went for the hangar, they wouldn’t notice her absence until at least a little while. The problem remained how to sneak into the hangar while the delivery was going on. The rocks that had been sewn in the soles of her feet meant she could barely walk properly, much less outrun the guards. What she needed was a diversion. And so she came back to the fire. There was no mattress in the sleeping room or the main hall where they were given food. Remained the rooms where they met the customers. Curtained bed out of cheap fabric. Customers were asked to empty out their pockets before coming in. But some of them kept a lighter with them so they could smoke afterwards, or put it close to their toy’s skin to see if they’d scream. She could tear off a bit of sheet and steal a lighter out of a jacket. They were stripped naked and washed with a water jet after each time, so that meant she’d have to hide them both in her. She could swallow the lighter. She could try. She had to try something. Already she felt the light fade in her own eyes. Breathe. And think again. So she sneaks the lighter and the sheet with her. Then what ? She would have to start it in a time and place where it wouldn’t be noticed and put out immediately. That meant somewhere that wasn’t too fire resistant. Their dorm room was the most obvious choice. The walls were made out of cheap panelling, the door wasn’t iron-plated. It could spread. But it needed a starting point. Something bigger than a piece of fabric. Something with fat in it. Something…
She’d just have to make sure she was the last one to exit the room. She could put the flaming fabric in the body’s mouth. No one would notice. It would spread to the wall. It could get through the door. By then, they would have been assembled and counted in the main hall. Then the news of the fire would break out, hopefully. She could help start a panic wave. Then sneak away unnoticed. Then… she’d improvise.

But what if the fire wasn’t strong enough ?

What if it was too strong ?

The other would be trapped.

They were already trapped.

They’d never let them escape.

So she had to escape on her own.

They would burn, because of her.

She would rather burn.

Maybe they would, too.

“Come on, come on, daddy needs a pair of… DAMNIT !”

“Haha, in your face Urameshi ! Draw !”

“Why am I even playing with someone with psychic powers ?”

“Yuusuke, the phone…?”

“Let it ring. It’s probably a reporter again. We should just disconnect it.”

“No, we absolutely should not.”

“You said you meant to get a cellular anyway.”

“We have to wait for your pay check from the UN to come in first. By the way, did you finally go and see with the bank ?”

“Tsh, yes, mom.”

“Yuusuke Urameshi with a bank account. Well done, Keiko.”

“Yes, I’m an undergrad who’s already been published, but this is my greatest accomplishment.”

“Kurama, don’t encourage her, next thing you know she’s gonna try to make us get fire insurance for the flat.”

“You mean you… don’t have…”

“And another pair of kings ! Cough up, you guys ! Did you see that, miss Yukina ?”

“Does anyone want something else from the fridge ? Kazuma ?”

“Err… Ice tea, thanks.”

“Beer for me, thanks Yukina…”

“Yuusuke, I swear if you make that joke one more time…”

“…And ice cold, please.”

“YUUSUKE !!!”

“So what’s the deal ? Are you dating or not ?”

Kuwabara swiped clean the plate Yuusuke had handed him while throwing a discreet look behind him at the living room area in which Keiko showed Kurama and Yukina the pictures she’d taken in Tokyo.

“Keep it down ! I told you, I’m waiting for the right time to ask her.”

“Dude, she’s been living at your place for over two years. The right time is now, before either of you moves out.”

“You don’t get it, it has to be perfect ! It’s the story we’ll be telling for the rest of our lives ! What will you tell your children about you and Keiko ?”

“I don’t know, that we were the only two beings in existence who could deal with each other ?”

“You’re the least romantic person on Earth. But don’t worry, I have a plan.”

“Oh, pray tell.”

“You know how the whole reason Yukina and I met was that she left her territory to look for her brother ?”

“Slightly overlooking the years of kidnapping and torture that directly led to your encounter, but okay.”

“Well, I got a lead on a demon who has a Jagan eye. And since Hiei won’t help for some reason, I want to track him down so I can ask him to find Yukina’s brother. I reunite them, and boom, I ask her to be my girl. So she finds her old family and a new one on the same day. It’s symbolic.”

“Wow, that is terrible in ways you don’t even know about.”

“What do you know ? None of you assholes ever even tried to help her find her bro !”

“Does she know you’re doing all that ?”

“If so, how would it be a surprise ?”

An annoyed thumping at the door interrupted them. The two friends looked at each other.

“Reporter ?”

“If so, it’s late enough for me to have an excuse to be inappropriately violent.”

The door opened on a pair of drenched yet admirably regal black suits with sunglasses for eyes.

“Mr Urameshi. We are here on behalf of the Committee for the Advancement of the Unity of the Three Worlds. Is there somewhere we can talk ?”

“Yeah, the phone.”

“We have been trying to reach you for the past hour. There might be something wrong with your device.”

“Probably.”

“Do you mind accompanying me downstairs so we can talk in the car ?”

“No dice. I feel like I’m the appropriate amount of soaked, which is not. Drop the secret defence bullshit, you can talk in front of my friends.”

“Very well sir. The calcined bodies of around forty demons have been discovered in a hastily dug mass grave near Shibata in Miyagi. We have reasons to believe the victims are linked to a vast cross-dimensional trafficking network. The Committee has elected for you to investigate.”

“Ah !”

Yuusuke spun on his heels to look at Yukina, who was holding her hand in front of her mouth and whose complexion had gone even paler than usual. The room froze. The Ice Maiden snapped on her feet while mumbling an apology, rushed to the bedroom door and closed it behind her. Yuusuke turned back to stare down at suits #1 and #2.

“Good job, pal. A little delicacy ? No ?”

“You instructed me to speak freely.”

With a glance at Keiko and his friends, Yuusuke entrusted them to check on Yukina, then jumped on his shoes and stepped out of the apartment.

“Fine, I’m behind you.”

“The bodies were uncovered by locals who were bothered by the smell. From the preliminary autopsies, the deaths couldn’t have occurred earlier than two days ago.”

Yuusuke was watching the buildings go by through the tainted windows. The one of the two suits who seemed to be in charge had refused to talk until they were on the highway.

“So what exactly do you need me to do ? Find out who killed them ?”

“Actually, no. All signs point to these deaths being unintentional. These persons’ captors, if they survived the fire, did not intend for them to end this way. Besides, if there was a culprit, this is a matter for police officials. Your mission statement concerns the bigger picture. The newly formed committee is looking to tackle unregulated activity between the worlds. Human and demon trafficking has been a blight on safety in Ningenkai and Makai since well before the Spirit World took down the barrier. People disappeared without a trace in ways that left authorities powerless. Using your first official mission to address those concerns will no doubt resonate with the public.”

“So this is a good PR move, is what you’re saying.”

“I am not in liberty to express myself as freely as you do, sir.”

“Ok, so first off, I weirdly like you, what’s your name…”

“Tadami, sir. I personally do not care for you.”

“Right. So what exactly am I aiming for here, and where am I supposed to start ?”

“The trafficking business operates the way a hydra would. Shut down a network, another one comes to take its place in the months that follow. The truth is as long as there will be demand, interested parties will always find a way to supply it. And law enforcement will always manage to weed out the most visible parts of the system, paradoxically leading to network operators getting smarter and more discrete. It is the natural circle of criminality. However, we believe that some individuals are tilting this order of things to make the work of law enforcement as inefficient as possible. Some powerful manna who has infiltrated every trafficking ring and organized them in a way that makes it impossible to pick up the treads. In recent years, the Spirit world forces made almost no significant bust. They have managed to wrap up clients, but not high-level distributor. And no one who will talk.”

“You know way too much about this to be a fetch monkey.”

“I am a chief inspector at the criminal affairs bureau of the national police agency. When it was formed two months ago on your suggestion, the Committee decided it best not to limit itself to one detective, and instead to set up a full investigative service made up of qualified elements from all three worlds to share and analyse data. My experience is of course with human trafficking, but I have been detached to the committee investigative services when it was formed and given access to their intelligence.”

“So you think this case will help you identify who has taken control of the networks ?”

“This incident is the biggest slip-up since these new players have seized power. On top of trafficking victims, many of the low-level operators of this cell probably perished in the fire as well. Meaning this entire branch had to be quickly erased and operators exterior to the branch were requisitioned. These cells are meant to function in autarchy. People from different cells know as little as possible about each other to limit the risk of leaks. This goes to explain why the cover-up was botched, and why there might be traces leading back to other cells, or even up the chain of command. Ideally, we’ll pick up some fund activity. This isn’t much, but it’s more than we’ve had in years.”

“And you got all that from a bunch of bodies in a ditch ?”

“One of those bodies was still alive.”

The car stopped in front of Yokosuka Naval Hospital.

“As for where you should start, I suppose you might want to talk to her.”

The form was immobile on the bed on the other side of the glass. The rare patches of skin visible under the heavy bandages were scratches of charcoal over the immaculate sheets. Each breath, punctuated by the rasping of bottled oxygen hurtling down a plastic tube into the mouth it was taped to, painfully raised up the girl’s torso, the only visible proof of life besides the stubborn beep of the machine. Yuusuke turned to Tadami, who had taken off his glasses when they’d entered the hospital, either out of respect or protocol. His undecipherable gaze reminded him of Kurama.

“Can she even talk ?”

“No. the smoke she inhaled, added to the soil from when she was buried alive, obstructed her lungs almost completely. But she can write, albeit slowly. A pad and a pen were left for you on the nightstand. She said her name was Ama.”

“You’re not going in with me ?”

“This is a semi-sterile room. What is left of her skin tissue is raw and exposed to bacterial infection. We have to limit the number of visitors. I will be waiting for you here. Tap on the glass if you need anything.”

Yuusuke reported his gaze on the bed. He tried to think of what you’d want to hear after having been kidnapped, enslaved, burned and buried alive under a pile of corpses. Coming up short, he took an inspiration and grabbed the handle. After an air shower that smelled of disinfectant in the entry lock, he pushed the second door.

The scraping of artificial breath against the walls of her trachea were even more impossible to ignore from this side of the glass. From time to time, a drop of condensation somewhere in that arachnidan circuit found its way onto the torched desert of the girl’s throat, causing an ugly, unending cough under the medical tape. The sounds of a devastated body clinging onto life filled the room.

It took Yuusuke a few seconds of contemplation to realize the girl was looking at him, her eyes black and sunken between the white gauze that almost covered her face. A little embarrassed of having been caught staring, he hurriedly sat down on the side of the bed and grabbed the pad.

“Hey. Ama, right ? I’m Yuusuke. I’m the one tasked with finding who took you and the others and rip their face off.”

The fingers moved, twitchy and frail. He fumbled for the pen and set it in her hand, and put the pad under her palm. He watched trembling black ink speckle the paper.

don’t know much

“I don’t need much. Just something, anything to point me in the right direction. I work with very smart people. We can figure it out. You see that guy in the hallway ? He’s got a stick up his butt the size of the Great Torii, but I think he knows his stuff. And me… I’m really good at the face ripping part. I’ll send you the pictures. Ok, but for example, where did they grab you ?”

He cringed at the way her wrist painfully bore the weight of her hand moving onto the page. Yes or no questions, Yuusuke.

Makai. Kar-Meresh

Before asking his next question, He gently pried the pen from her hand, drew two squares on the page and wrote “yes” over one and “no” over the other, then gave her back the pen.

“Did they bring you and the others directly from… something-something to the human world ?”

don’t know

She then hastily – or as hastily as she could - wrote under : blindfold. Woke up in truck

“Ok. Were the people who took you are the same as the people who were holding you prisoner on earth ?”

no.

“That’s a start. Since there’s no official police in Makai, they might have been less careful when covering their traces. Thank you, Ama.”

He stole a glance at the window. Tadami was looking at him impassibly while sipping in a plastic cup that had materialized in his hand.

“Look, these guys will probably have more specific, educated questions. About the kidnapping and the accident. Don’t hesitate to tell them to fuck off if you need a break.”

As he was getting up, her fingers brushed against his sleeve in a travesty of a grab. The pen scoured the paper again.

no accident

He sat down. His eyes followed the movements of the charred hand.

someone set it. casualties.

“You mean your guardians set it up - but you weren’t supposed to get hurt ?”

no.

“Who then ?”

prisoner

“One of you ? Why ? To escape ?”

yes.

“So there’s another survivor out there ?”

no.

“They didn’t make it ?”

The hand seemed to hesitate.

she did

The hand gripped the pen. She looked directly at him. Slowly, a tear that was torture on her raw flesh slid on the bandages of her cheek.

please don’t tell

The dropped pen rolled on the pad.

Yuusuke took in her face one more time.

“I won’t. I promise.”

The tear was lost amidst the bedsheets.

“Anything interesting ?”

“Tadami, no offense, but fuck off. I need some air.”

He didn’t even take the time to enjoy seeing for the first time a dumbfounded expression on Tadami’s face before leaving him behind him to walk up the hallway. He followed the neon light of the exit signs he caught on the corner of his eyes on autopilot before finally making it to the entrance. The morning light slightly blinded him – he hadn’t realized they had driven all night. The summer storm had calmed and only a few lazy drops still fell on the pavement from time to time. He crossed the parking lot and reached a paved park adorned by several off fountains. Behind it, a slick sea rustled slightly, and the smell of salt was in the air. The sight gradually calmed him. He noticed a phone booth a few feet from him. After a full minute fumbling for the correct amount of yen, he dialled a number and put the receiver to his ear.

“Kurama ? What do you know about a place called Kar-Meresh ?”

It would be deeply wrong to assume Makai didn’t have its own version of scholars, historians, and generally specialists of all things old. Simply, while human historians had, at best, a century-long window to access live accounts of any notable event, witnesses to millennia-old occurrences in Makai were aplenty, meaning that most of the time, if you were curious as to what had happened on a particular date, there was really no need for suffering through pages of rigorous cross-checking of accounts and physical traces in overpriced books, when you could just turn to the guy eating hairy shrimps at the table next to yours and ask him : “Hey, were you at the camp party we threw after Raizen won the battle of Ganzo a thousand and seven hundred years ago ?”
What this meant for writers of said overpriced books was that if they wanted a subject that did need actual scholarly work, they didn’t just need something old, they needed something incredibly old. For them to study something in the same conditions human scholars studied the 19th century, they needed to go back several centuries before what amounted to the birth of Christ on Earth ; a couple of living witnesses, plenty of physical evidence, and a good general idea of how we had gotten from then to now. But once they had reached this point, things went downhill very quickly. The exceptional devastating power of youkais and the harsh living conditions all across Makai meant that the kind of contemporaneous records and delicate objects humans could find about civilizations dating back six millennia had had the time to go through several complete annihilations in Makai. While their colleagues on Earth could retrace the typical day of an early Minoan, Makai historians would not have been able to tell you if their ancestors of the same era used carving tools or just banged their heads on cave walls really hard until they’d obtained a rock the shape they needed.
Thus, when there were traces of a genuine, established civilization, historians pounced on it like a swarm of bees on the poor bloke that had disturbed their nest. And among these hotspots of demonic archaeology, was the city of Kar-Meresh.

Despite demonic historians’ vehement insistence that their pure passion would have been enough to drive them to the enigma of Kar-Meresh, the fact that king Mukuro had, over two thousand years ago, elected the city as the capital of her realm was probably the real cause of this cerebral infatuation. This unfortunately gave every research on the topic a definite political bend : Mukuro controlling the oldest modern demonic settlement could only add to her legitimacy as the rightful leader of all Makai. Historians on all sides horned in to confirm or challenge this narrative.
To tell the truth, the reason Mukuro had chosen the city as her stronghold had very little to do with its cultural radiance and everything to do with its military value. It was indeed quite difficult to lay siege to a city you couldn’t see.
Among the many things that confused historians about Kar-Meresh was the reasons that could have driven early demon settlers to take root at the very heart of a deserted region of rocky wilderness where any vegetation that might at some point have existed there had long given way to miles and miles of red dust. Really, there was nothing in these inhospitable canyons and perilous rapids that begged to be colonized by those first settlers, whoever they were ; nevertheless, they had and that was why after days of an unpleasant journey through the wilds, one could finally lay eyes on the mountain of Kar-Meresh.
It wasn’t that high a peak. Most people, when they first reached the city, were disappointed. If tales designed to peddle Mukuro’s power made it to be some towering mountain high over the entire region, in truth it was barely visible from outside the crater where it was nested – it was more of a big hill, really. But the outside of it was not the part that mattered anyway. Yes, a few buildings and technological installations were perched on the rocks, but if one was to look at the city from a vantage point, it would not be what would have caught their eye. All over and around the hill, black spots covered the red earth. A closer observation revealed these spots to be not soil, but tunnels – entrances to the real city. Kar-Meresh stretched not over the Rocky Mountains but underneath, like the reflection of a town on a lake. How big exactly was Kar-Meresh ? Almost no one knew. This information, just like everything regarding Kar-Meresh’s specific geography, was confidential military intel of the highest level, jealously guarded by Mukuro’s intelligence services. Some said the city was almost an empty shell, barely a command centre for the king’s operations. Other said it stretched over the entire region, and the second one put the foot over the red dust of the canyons, one could feel the vibration of city life underneath. And what went for the city’s width went for its depth ; some said Kar-Meresh had reached so deep underneath the earth they had stumbled upon some rare material that was the secret of Mukuro’s power. Aside from those tales, it was however certain that there were people living there, a lot of them, their homes nested in natural and artificial caves linked by large tunnels. This underground network was what fascinated historians the most, for a large segment of it, just like the name of the city itself, seemed to predate the arrival of the first demon settlers. Were they the work of an ancestral race of prehistorical demons ? Who were they ? What was their purpose ? Had there been a catastrophe of some sort ? Did they need to take cover ? Had they gone extinct ? How come no trace of them living here could be found ? All questions that didn’t have an answer, and for all complaints of Mukuro obstructing research for strategic purposes, questions that would probably never get one.
In any case, if sheer intellectual curiosity was not Mukuro’s strong suit, this didn’t subtract anything from her military genius. Countless supplying and escape routes, unknown layout and harsh terrain made Kar-Meresh virtually unassailable. After he’d finally reached a level that would allow him to challenge both Mukuro and Raizen, Yomi was recorded saying to one of his aides : “as of now, there aren’t many things that could ruin us, but trying to take Kar-Meresh is one”. Even today, as Mukuro barely spent any time in her city, preferring the constant movement of mobile fortresses, Kar-Meresh had kept its reputation as the safest city in Makai.

“Seems like an odd place to grab someone” Yuusuke mumbled, readjusting his jacket after the thorough search he’d been subjected at the main entrance control point.

“This isn’t the only way in and out” Kurama remarked. “Part of this place’s strategic draw is the number of passages to the surface all over the city, and all of them are made to be invisible from the surface.”

“Have you been here before ?”

They were now descending a seemingly endless tunnel whose walls had been armour plated with a metal unknown to Yuusuke. The light of the surface had long run extinct behind them. The ceiling was lined with coleopteran-like lamps that gave off a slight iridescent green vibe.

“Not as often as I would have liked. This is a fascinating city. I could lend you some of the works I’ve been collecting on its history if you’d like.”

“And a telling silence follows that offer.”

“Heh. As for trivia that actually might interest you, this is indeed a strange choice. Mukuro’s management of her territories has never had that strong a bend toward policing, that’s more Yomi’s thing. But she’s known for her hatred of traffickers. Supposedly everything and everyone that comes in and out of here is checked and inventoried. It’s necessary for the city’s survival. That they did not hesitate to target a very inhabitant of the most well-guarded city in Makai speaks to their confidence and to the level of the organization of their network.”

“Or they have a man among the guards.”

“Possible as well. We should learn more by talking to officials. Maybe other victims were taken from here. The Spirit World must have been able to communicate with their souls by now. What did Koenma say ?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t seen him.”

“So… still, huh.”

“What’s that ?”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Look, better you talk to the city command centre. I’ve had my fill of bureaucratic nonsense for the foreseeable future. I’ll try to find Ama’s place and…”

The tunnel had opened on a cave the size of Shibuya. The path went on a suspended bridge made entirely of the same reddish stone as the walls of the cave. Under their feet, above their heads, all around the tunnel they’d been walking in, massive interconnected grapes of buildings were dug in rock, defying gravity, holding on to the ceiling of the cave seemingly out of sheer willpower. Streets of stone linked all of them together like one giant videogame maze. The same overgrown beetles that bathed the walls of the tunnel of their green light were now flying freely all around them in a buzzing waltz of spots all around the city.

“… Wow.”

“I know.”

It didn’t take him long to find a patrol guy who knew where someone named Ama lived, which let him thinking Kurama might have been a bit generous regarding the state of policing of the city. Or maybe Makai had a different standard. He wondered what it meant for Mukuro to still run her former capital like a fortress under siege in supposed time of peace. Or what it meant for peace at all.
Soon enough, the large caverns disappeared, the beetles made themselves rarer, and the boroughs actually started to look like what you’d imagine living in a cave would be like. Crudely dug holes served as doors and windows to living quarters in which no one batted an eye at your arrival. Mattresses laid in the dust around settlements of fortune. At first, Yuusuke was quite satisfied with himself for not losing his way around all those identical tunnels, until he realized his good streak might not have been entirely accidental ; everytime he turned his head, he caught sight of a different city guard scrambling to look like he was doing something else than following his every move. If instructions about him hadn’t circulated when he’d first entered the city, they certainly had now.
Ama’s warren was no different from the hundreds of others he’d come across, except for the rustic door that had been drilled in the stone. He dealt with the lock with one fillip. Despite no source of light reaching to the end of the cavity, it only took him a second to understand it wouldn’t matter : the place was completely empty. Had Ama done this ? Or the people who’d taken her ? As he exited and closed the doors behind him, the small dozen of youkai present in the cave resumed their activity of pretending to not have noticed him. He gave them all a once-over, then started walking toward the one youkai who turned their back the slowest.

“Hey. Did you notice something going on around Ama’s house ?”

They were among those youkais whose demonic features made it impossible to identify their age, gender, or even if they had one : a bony skull, no visible eyes, flattened nostrils and a string of mouths going all around their head, a long tunic that covered the rest of their body. The packet wrapped in linen they were carrying exuded a powerful smell of decay.

“Why should I speak to you ?”

“Look, whatever you think I am, you’re wrong. Something bad happened to her. Might have happened here. I just want to know what you saw.”

“I don’t see a thing, ever. But Ama was a nice girl. She brought me meals when my legs weren’t doing so good. I was sad when she left.”

“Leave ? Did someone tell you she had left ?”

“She told me herself, even asked me if I wanted to take in her old furniture. See, nice girl.”

“Wait, I’m lost. She left of her own volition ?”

“To move to Earth, yes ! She was so happy when she found some people who were willing to help her cross without anyone noticing. You said something happened to her on Earth ? That’s too bad. You have all those youngsters nowadays, they hear all those tales about how life is so much easier and safer on Earth, they want to move away from Makai, and then you hear they got in danger there as well. Can’t say I’m surprised. Youkais in Makai, that’s the way it’s always been. We know how to get by here. On Earth, that’s the unknown. But when you’re young, I suppose that appeals to you.”

Sensing we were approaching old person rant territory, Yuusuke was about to thank them, when the guard who hadn’t taken his eyes off him the whole conversation walked in their direction.

“Urameshi Yuusuke ? You friend is looking for you.”

He handed him a strange device that looked like a cellular, only with the requisite creepy organic appearance of demonic technology.

“Yuusuke ? There’s bad news. The press has gotten wind of the investigation. There was a TV in the command centre, the story about the grave is playing on every Japanese channel and on a few demonic ones as well. I just received word from your liaison at the committee, “Tadami”, right ? They’re expecting you on Earth as soon as possible to handle the media attention.”

“Shit. We don’t have anything to show for ourselves yet. And if we give out what we have, we might spook the people we’re trying to track down. This is going to complicate everything.”

”I said the same thing to Tadami. He said something unflattering about your level of discretion, and told me to tell you he’d be happy to help you review your talking points beforehand. He is his particular brand of unpleasant and helpful.”

“You think so too, eh ? Okay, I’ll just meet you back at the entrance of the tunnel. I’m sure the guards who’ve been glued to my snickers the entire time – he had a pointed look for the youkai – will be happy to show me my way back. We’ll talk when we’re out of this damn mouse trap.”

He shoved the phone back in the hands of the guard.

“Alright, let’s go !”

The guard was either graceful or conscientious enough not to pick up on his sneer. They started walking up the tunnels. Yuusuke could still feel eyes on him from different corners of the caves they’d cross, but at this point he had already accepted there was nothing he could do in this city without being watched.

If he hadn’t, maybe he’d have noticed the silhouette tailing him while remaining always just out of view, with self-possession that should have concerned him a lot more than one of a few city guard dogs.

Chapter Text

“At this early stage, for the safety of this investigation, we are not in ability to reveal more details. We simply advise all youkais to keep their calm and act with caution. We will give out more safety recommendations when we know more.”

The words sounded foreign in his mouth. And in all fairness, they were. There’s no shame in using a script, Tadami had insisted. Reporters know perfectly well how investigation protocol works. You’re not doing a bad job by sticking to it. They’re all just fishing for any additional information that might slip up. Play ball, answer a few easy questions, and let them arrange all of it in a neat bow of deference and indignation for the general public. There’s nothing useful you can do at this stage, all you want is not to do any damage. The second a period landed at the end of his sentence, an ocean of hands raised. One of them was attached to a familiar cat-eared face. So she was still technically a journalist, huh.

“Yes, Koto ?”

“For Darkness News, Mr. Detective, we have received some information that these deaths would be linked to demon trafficking . Can you confirm it ?”

Oh yeah, Tadami had told him they’d have a few plants with scripted questions to give him the opportunity to make the committee look good. Emphasis on the “technically”, then.

“This is a strong lead, and we’re exploring it. The Committee for the advancement of unity of the three worlds – he gave himself a mental pat on the back for getting the name right on the first try - is set on tackling the scourge of traffickers and this might give us some capital information on where to begin. Yes, on the right ?”

“Kacho, for Mainichi Shimbun. Are you concerned the culprits may also be targeting humans ?”

“There weren’t any humans among the victims. That said, personally, I don’t think someone who’s ready to let forty people burn to death is someone I’d want in my neighbourhood, even if I’m not their type. Yeah, second row ?”

Demon, human, demon. He felt like he had a good thing going.

“Ijika, for Channel Black. According to our sources, some of the victims would have been kidnapped as they were trying to cross to Earth. Can you confirm that you are looking into traffickers based in Kar-Meresh posing as smugglers to Earth, and as a follow-up question, is it on the committee’s agenda to establish an official immigration procedure so that demons would not be left vulnerable to this type of exploitation ?”

Aaaand… shit.

“I can’t confirm this information at this stage, and I don’t know what’s on the committee’s agenda.”

“So you are saying this information is to be confirmed further down the investigation, because you are indeed looking into it.”

Damned be real reporters. Damn them to hell.

“I’m saying I’ll get back to you on that when I get back to you on that. Anyone else ? Yes ?”

“What is currently being done to protect potential victims ?”

“Well, we don’t know who these potential victims are, so we can’t be behind every single youkai.”

“Do you actually have any information regarding this case ?”

“Do you actually want me to catch whoever did this ?”

See, Tadami ? I’m playing ball. Just very badly.

“Okay, no more questions. I need to get going.”

And now I’m running away. And today of all days.

No. Don’t think about that.

“Sir, when can we expect more news ?”

“That’s your job to know, not mine.”

He closed the door on the podium.

“So not great, then ?”

“I don’t think great was even possible. I’m just happy I didn’t have to take the train after people see my face on the news. Bless your driver’s licence, honey.”

“I thought you were getting your licence soon.”

“No, I said I would be learning how to drive. Those two things are not equivalent.”

“Oh my god.”

She fiddled with the tape player which had just been emitting static since the recording of the Sugarcubes’ Life’s too good had ended. Last year, Keiko had made friends with an exchange music student from Scotland and they’d kept in touch. Ever since, Yuusuke had been kept sharply informed of Avery’s ever evolving musical tastes. We seemed to approach the end of the post-punk phase, thankfully.

“So what are you going to do now ?”

“Tadami said he’d try to figure out who leaked our information to the press. Me and the guys should follow up on our lead from Kar-Meresh.”

“Do you even have a chance of finding the smugglers Ama was supposed to meet with ? I was listening to Kurama, and apparently before the Spirit World lifted the barrier, every demon knew at least one person who could help them cross through.”

“Well these guys wouldn’t actually be getting anyone across. There’s bound to be at least one person who noticed them.”

“Promise you’ll try not to work during the ceremony ?”

“I honestly just want a break right now.”

“Good. We’re here.”

The car pulled in front of an escarped mountain road surmounted with a series of Torii. Spell parchments were bristling in the light wind with the foliage surrounding the passage.

“I made a terrible mistake. We should just have razed those stairs and installed a tarred road all the way up when we got the deed.”

“But I kind of like that this is as far as you go on wheels ! It feels like you’re leaving the weight of modern life behind.”

“After you have a drink up there, I have a feeling that’s your weight I’m going to feel on the way down.”

She threw a pine cone at him.

The mountain was just as quiet as he remembered. As a teenager, he’d found it oppressing, so much so that he’d taken up the habit of sing-songing words to himself while he was training ; surely he was now known to all the forest animals for his classic tunes “I can’t feel my leeegs”, “I’m about to die again, oh yeah again”, and of course his greatest hit, “screw you old crone”. Coming back now, maybe he could start to see the appeal of it. My head is overflowing with the past, you moron. Do you think I want the world outside to be as noisy as it is within ? The breeze went through the trees as if they were breathing. Soon, he found himself reflexively synchronizing his own breath with the movement of the leaves.

“I never really got to know her, now that I think about it” Keiko said, breaking the silence, her voice slightly hitched by her effort to keep up with him as they were climbing the unending stairs. “Even during the dark tournament, as I got to know your friends, I never talked to her alone”.

“Don’t beat yourself up. She was too busy bossing my ass around to sit and chat.”

“I’m not. Actually I think… I made it happen. In a way I wanted her to stay at a distance. At the time, I rationalized it in not wanting to disturb you, but looking back, I think I was a bit jealous.”

“Of Genkai ?!”

“Look at it from my perspective. I was always the one closest to you, to one who understood you and believed in you more than anyone else did. And suddenly there’s this different person with whom you share something that you can never share with me, and who helps you reveal your potential in a way no one else ever could. All I hoped for you growing up was someone who’d help you see how exceptional you were. I guess I just always sort of thought… that person would be me.”

“…Well, for what it’s worth, I think you two would have really hit it off. She always reminded me of you more than she reminded me of me. Same strength.”

She chuckled. Taking a leap step, she lightly bumped her head against his shoulder.

“Finally, we’re here.”

The temple hadn’t changed either. He thought bunches of youkais going in and out of it while waiting for settlement would be the end of the historical building in one year top, but all the guests had been surprisingly respectful of their surroundings. Just like they apparently had had no problem clearing up the premises for the day so friends of Genkai would have the place to themselves. Still, there were a great deal more people than he had expected. The old cook always had had more friends than she’d let on.

“Urameshi ! Yukimura !”

Kuwabara and Kurama had apparently agreed on formal wear, while Yukina had busted out the old kimono for the occasion. Yuusuke couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in that thing, but she definitely looked quite younger than the rest of their gang back then ; seeing her in the exact same outfit now made him realize how much she now looked the part of another young adult. Kurama had told him demon growth was all over the place, it was another thing to witness it first-hand. His mind floated back to Hiei ; it had been two years since he’d seen the diminutive youkai. Had he gone through the same growth spurt ? He and Kurama had tried to reach him to invite him to this reunion, to no avail. And we were in Mukuro’s turf just a few days ago. I’m really shit at having friends. As soon as the thought appeared, the rational part of his brain revolted vehemently against it. He was happy where he was, and in all probability, Hiei was happy where he was. Two friends could be happy in different places, in different ways. And still be friends.

“Nice effort with the outfit, Urameshi” Kuwabara said, pointing at his washed-out jeans.

“Those are my nice jeans. Plus, I distinctly remember the word casual being pronounced during the preparations, asshole.”

“That’s how you recognize gentlemen. They go the extra mile.”

“Two seconds in, they’re already bickering. How are we friends with them, Keiko ?”

“I don’t know, Kurama. We’re just that generous, I guess. Well, let’s go in, and hope at least one of them makes it out alive.”

“Hey ! Wait for us !”

The inside of the temple was packed. The cushions that had been disposed around the long dinner table were clearly not matching the number of attendees, so most of them had elected to stand. Before Yuusuke could pretend to mingle, someone rang a bell to obtain silence. Yuusuke and the others managed to worm their way in direction of the sound.

“Good afternoon, everyone. If we haven’t been introduced, I am Kuroko Sato. Thank you so much for coming.”

Yuusuke was of the opinion that Kuroko was one of those people who just never grew old. By his calculation, she was now pushing forty, had had three children – he had received the announcement card for little Miwa last winter – yet her face was lit up in such a way that he felt almost indecent giving her an age. As if she’d transcended that concept. This was what plenitude looked like. There was certainly a lot to aspire to – yet Yuusuke could not imagine himself in her life. Some people are built for stillness, kid. Others thrive in change. The vast majority of people constantly oscillate between the two, wanting one when they have the other. You have to learn to appreciate what you have in the present. That’s all anyone can do.

“Anyone who knew Genkai knew how much she hated palaver. So I’ll keep it short. The reason I wanted to organize this little ceremony to mark the two years of Master Genkai’s passing was that I only recently realized, just as I suspect many of you have, just how much of an influence our meeting, however brief, has had an influence on my life. Some people are like lighthouses, giving direction and guidance when you had none, never pulling, simply offering you the possibility to calculate your own path. And this agency, this sense to make of the world, lingers long after their light has gone. Genkai was one of those people. She was also one of those people who’d never let you thank her. But each of us here deserves to be able to say thank you. So I say… let’s just do that.”

She raised her sake.

“To Genkai.”

“To Genkai” echoed the room. Yuusuke emptied his cup.

“Yuusuke…” Kurama had approached them with his usual complete silence and an expression that meant there was something to discuss.

He gave Keiko a quick look.

“It’s okay, go. I wanted to catch up with some friends, anyway.”

The two men holed up in a corner of a room, away from a maximum of ears.

“I followed up on the entry log they showed me in Kar-Meresh. We had theorized the smugglers would have disguised their cargo and reason for exiting the city, so I tried to narrow down the possibilities, and I found something strange.”

“Kurama, I was really hoping not to work today.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but this is a time-sensitive case. The longer we wait, the more time they have to wipe their traces.”

“Just… let’s get this over with. What did you find ? And… wait a second, this is your handwriting. Did you memorize the whole thing ?”

“Yes, why ?”

“… Nothing, moving on.”

“Most of the exits that day were by people who didn’t have any baggage in which to hide a person. Those that did went through an entire inspection by the city guards.”

“You sure there aren’t ways to get them to look the other way ? I mean, they could skim a little at the top and let shipments through.”

“Unlikely. They’re more afraid of Mukuro than they’re hungry for some easy coin. But I had the same instinct and got in touch with shops and businesses in Kar-Meresh and their outlets outside the city, then looked for discrepancies within the merchandise they logged in and out.”

“I feel like I have to warn you we’re approaching math territory, and I might have involuntary reactions.”

“Relax. The bottom line is, I do not think one of those shipments could have been loaded with something other than their regular products. For someone to have been smuggled through those shipments, the number of people who would have had to be involved in covering it up would mean something would have come up. None of the people I’ve talked to sounded like they had anything to hide. Any way I look at it, it’s like Ama and her kidnappers just…”

“Never left the city.”

“Exactly.”

“So that means the passage they would have used to get to Earth would have been inside the city.”

“I came to that conclusion as well. The problem is, no such passage is supposed to exist within the city limits. That would represent a huge strategic risk.”

“Supposed to is the key word I’m hearing. Somebody could have created a new one. Like that tunnel guy whose name I’m not sure I ever learned ? He could do something like that.”

“You’re right, except the probability of a yaminade being involved in this trafficking ranges from insignificant to inexistent. One would never expose their abilities for something as trivial as that. It’s much more likely that the smugglers used a stabilized, permanent passage like the one the Black Black club was using to capture youkais, or the one we used to get to Demon city. They’re not that uncommon, and they’re actually relatively easy to obtain for an advanced mage. Mostly, what they take is time to create and maintain. Only, this is a passage city officials apparently don’t know about.”

“So we go back to Kar-Meresh and find it ?”

“That’s a possibility. If they’re arrogant enough, they won’t have closed it when their trafficking ring was exposed. Now the secrecy surrounding the layout of the city will be a problem. I’ll map out the city arteries I know about so we can split our research…”

“Yeah, we’re going to do that. Only…”

“Yes ?”

“Maybe not here ?”

“…Ah, yes, sorry. I can do this later. Just go enjoy yourself, I’ll get back to you.”

“Kay. And Kurama… Are you, I don’t know… bored ?”

“What do you mean ?”

“Ever since we did that last mission in the spirit world, any time I needed the slightest help from you, you instantly dropped everything to come accompany me in whatever dumb shit I was on. I know you say you’re having fun working a regular job, but like… you’re a thousand years old demon. This has to get boring.”

“Yuusuke, one thing I became better at when I became human was understanding what I cared for, and why. I used to look for power and riches because I thought it made me safer. But in the end, there’s no point in being safe if you’re not living the life you want.”

“And you’re living that life now ?”

“I think so. Don’t worry yourself with me. I wandered for too long not to enjoy resting."

“Do you think you’ll leave one day ?”

“Will you ?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

“I thought you had come to hate that kimono.”

“I know that’s what I said, but… when I was choosing my outfit for the ceremony, I remembered something Master Genkai told me… “You don’t have to let go to start anew. You can just transform.” So I thought I’d wear it, for her. Maybe just one last time.”

“How are you, really ? With Yuusuke’s case, it’s clearly stirring some things up.”

“You’re very kind to check on me, Keiko. Everyone has been so considerate around me these last days. I don’t really know how I am. But I know things will be fine eventually. That’s all that matters.”

“I may be about to say something awful, but… Have you thought of maybe talking to Yuusuke about your own experience with traffickers ? It might help them. And it might help you to feel like you’ve helped them.”

“I have, actually. But the second I mentioned it to Kazuma, I thought he was going to explode from shock. I don’t want to make him worry.”

“You know you can push him away when he becomes overprotective, right ?”

“I’m pushing him away enough as it is. I’m not blind. I know he wants us to be ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ as humans say. But he hasn’t asked me yet because I never leave him any openings to do so in a normal way. The more it goes on, the more pressured he feels to find some grand way to do it.”

“Oh, so you know about him looking for your brother... Yuusuke told me.”

“Of course. Have you seen Kazuma when he’s trying to keep a secret ?”

“Fair point.”

“He’s my best friend. But I don’t actually know if I want to be more than friends with him. I don’t know if I want to be more than friends with anyone for now. And if I were less of a coward, I would simply tell him that instead of letting him torture himself in order to buy me more time to sort out my feelings.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re not a coward. You left your entire world behind in order to find your brother. You resisted a sadistic asshole for years. If you’re a coward, then there’s not a single brave person in the world. Second of all, if he’s not asking, he’s not asking. And maybe one reason he keeps pushing back asking you is because he is afraid to know the answer. And you’re not asking him either. So if your relationship is this unclear for the both of you, then maybe there’s a reason nothing is happening.”

“I just want to spare both our feelings. I’m so afraid things will end up ruined between us.”

“Kuwabara might be a ‘soldier of love’, but I’ve never seen him leave a friend behind. It will be fine. Trust me.”

“He still wears the headband when he’s preparing for class.”

“Of course he does. Listen, don’t keep all that stress to yourself, alright ? You can talk to me. And Shiruzu. And Yuusuke, when he doesn’t have idiot goggles on. We’re all here for you.”

“Yes. All here.”

“Yuusuke ! My man ! How are you doing ?”

“Suzuki…? Is this the reunion of friends of Genkai or the one of people she punched in the face ?”

“Wouldn’t you be admitted in both ?”

“Touché.”

“Honestly, what that lady said earlier ? About the influence you only realize after ? Genkai absolutely torching me at the dark tournament was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“…Really ?”

“I know she didn’t do it out of kindness, yet it did feel…kind, in a way. Liberating. Getting humiliated and my face absolutely ruined on TV. It was my worst nightmare. I mean, that was literally the nightmare I was having every night during the tournament. But then it happened, and I survived. She was big into lessons, wasn’t she ? Maybe that was hers to me. Things happen, yet you survive. You can try to be invincible, untouchable, but it won’t work. You’re never so big that you cannot be hit. But that’s life. And that’s comforting, somehow.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s why my personality is now one of a more down-to-earth, positive influence, and why the viewership of Morning with Suzuki on Hell TV keeps growing ! You should watch me sometime.”

“Do you have animal guests ?”

“No, but we have guests on and make them dress like animals.”

“Even better.”

“I know.”

“Hey, while I have you here, you know everything about news channels, right ?”

“I pride myself as a connoisseur of entertainment, yes.”

“What do you know about something called Channel Black and one of their reporters named Ijika ?”

“Never did an interview with them, but of course I know of them. Biggest “independent” channel in Makai.”

“Why do I hear quotation marks around independent ?”

“Well, before the all upside-downing of recent years, thank you for that by the way, independent really meant independent from the three kinds influence game. Pretty much every channel had some kind of allegiance, even if their viewers didn’t necessarily know about it. It was hard to compete with other outlets without funding from one of the kingdoms. So, Channel Black stood out for being independent from them, even though there was always word that someone else was doing the funding.”

“Who ?”

“The Spirit World.”

“Huh ? Why ?”

“To spread their narrative about themselves and the human world. Keep the kingdoms’ conflict in a deadlock. Like in a war, when you shower enemy lines with newspapers telling them their side is losing. But Channel Black always had relatively trustworthy reporting nevertheless, so they were a lot of demons’ go-to news outlet. I don’t know how things are like there now that the Spirit World has changed leaders. But these kinds of influence don’t disappear that quickly. As for the reporter, I don’t know her. But you can be sure that if she’s learned something, her network knows about it too. Makai is not exactly a bastion of freedom of the press. My morning show can’t have costumes of blind animals on, because the network is afraid it would be seen as making fun of Yomi.”

“All these layers of propaganda are making my head hurt.”

“I guess you’ll have to learn now that you’re a public figure. Nice work on the interview by the way.”

“Ha-ha.”

“No, I’m serious ! Look, I would be the first to know what it’s like to badly lose control of your narrative right in front of the cameras. Taking your ball and going home is not how I handled things, but in retrospect, maybe that would have been the better solution. You’re not me, you just want to do your job, you don’t care whether or not there’s someone to see you do it. So just do your job, and in the end, there’ll always be someone like me, who’s handsome and telegenic, to do the telling for you. Everyone’s either a hero or a villain on camera. And you were never interested in being either.”

“Heh. What am I then ?”

“You are whatever Genkai was.”

“KEIKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !”

“BOTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN !”

“Shhh.”

“Ah ! Yes. Commemoration. We’ll be quiet. Sorry…”

“I missed you so much ! You never visit anymore.”

“I know sweetie, but with the upheaval in the Spirit world, everyone has to work twice as hard to compensate for defections, and I don’t want to let his highness Koenma down. But I don’t want to talk about that ! How are you, how’s university ? I bet you’re still doing amazing !”

“One of my professors want me to accompany him for a series of conferences. I published another paper.”

“What is it about ?”

“Oh, it’s… it’s a really specific field. It’s not interesting. I mean, it interests me. But it’s not interesting-interesting… why am I still talking ?”

“You’re so coy, everytime the conversation brushes on your interests, instead of the boys’ stuff.”

“Their stuff is easier to talk about. It’s so… important. What they’re doing is really important. But it’s also not my problem, in a way. Given everything we’ve been through, I live an incredibly normal life. I’m a student, I live with my childhood sweetheart, I’m renting a starter apartment… My life is everything I imagined it would be when I was a kid. Ordinary. Except I’m the only one in it who’s ordinary. So this stuff is important, just not important to me. Because all I can do is wait for them to care for it, since there’s nothing I can do.”

“So what do you care about ?”

“Well, I care about Yuusuke, and you, and the rest of my friends… I care that we live in a good world. And I care that the world is even better for my children, one day.”

“Yes ! I want babies Yuusuke and Keiko ! They would be so cute ! Can I be their godmother ? I should be their godmother. Can you talk to Yuusuke about it ?”

“You need to stop spiralling everytime I pronounce the C-word ! I told you, we’re not there yet.”

“Is that why you want to be a teacher ? To make things better, at your own level ?”

“I suppose. I’ve seen so many horrible people being the ones we were supposed to look up to as kids. People who’d hurt Yuusuke, and Kuwabara, and even me. How can we hope to make the world better if everyone who might make a difference is belittled and pushed away from it ?”

“Hehe, tricked you.”

“What ?”

“You’re talking about your interests now, aren’t you ?”

“Wha… Botan !”

“That’s not so bad isn’t it ?”

“… I guess I need to get better at talking about me.”

“Yes ! So what’s your paper about ?”

“It’s a comparative study of four Asian countries on how different pedagogic methods of learning ideograms are taking into account the growing pre-eminence of the Western alphabet.”

“Wow, that’s… not interesting.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me everything about it.”

“Yuusuke.”

“…”

“Can we talk ? About your case.”

“I feel like I made myself crystal fucking clear, binky boy.”

“Be reasonable. We need to communicate somehow.”

“Oh, so this is the place you chose ?”

“I have as much a right to be here as you… where are you going ?”

“Out. Need some air.”

“That scene was unnecessary.”

“Did I ask you to follow me ?”

“Look. Either I keep running after you for the rest of the afternoon, or you give me ten minutes to take stock of the case with you, then I leave you alone.”

“… Ten minutes ?”

“Ten minutes. Only work. I promise.”

“Ten minutes. Start talking.”

“We localised the souls of some of the other victims of the fire. A lot of them are still at large. Such a traumatic death, many are bound to wander as lost souls before we manage to retrieve them. All the ones with whom we’ve managed to talk have the same story as Ama. They come from Kar-Meresh, they were contacted by people posing as smugglers offering them passage to the human world. Once they left with them, they were knocked out and they woke up in a truck on Earth.”

“Any idea where they went from there ?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Apparently they move their prisoners around quite a bit. One never spends more than three months in the same warehouse. They go in and out by armoured truck disguised as delivery trucks, from one warehouse to another. Prisoners and dates of transportation are chosen randomly. Can be one person, can be ten. I imagine part of the interest of this system was psychological. Make them unable to make plans, to know their surroundings, to bond with other captives or clients. Or even to keep track of time. One of the people we spoke with said he hadn’t seen the sky in over a year.”

“Any more specifics on what these trucks might look like ?”

“They change all the time. Every warehouse has a different layout and inside appearance. Apparently one smelled like an old fishery, while another looked like it might have been a cabaret at some point. Who knows what those places might look like from the outside.”

“We’re fifty nuances of fucked, is what you’re saying.”

“Have you made any progress on your side ?”

“Kurama and me are looking at the other end of the problem. We think we know how they get their victims on Earth. We’re still fuzzy on the where and who. Good thing we don’t have the press on our asses. Oh wait, we do. Thanks for that.”

“Pardon me ?”

“Channel Black. Was that you ?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Suzuki told me the Spirit world had them on a leash in the time of your father. And now, lo and behold, one of their reporters got her hands on information I’ve only shared with the committee. The one you’re on, remember ?”

“Look, I’m not saying someone from my world isn’t involved. But it wasn’t me. I’ve been trying to clean up shelves, but there are still a lot of my father’s partisans working under me. I didn’t know about those contacts with Channel Black, I certainly don’t know who else in my kingdom might know about it. I would never have put you on the spot like that.”

“…”

“You don’t have to trust me. But as a member of the committee, I have to ask you if you know what you’re going to do next. With the case.”

“I think I have an idea. Like a lot of things lately, it involves doing something I know I’m gonna hate doing. But it’s an idea.”

“That’s all I need.”

“Good. Ciao, then.”

“Yuusuke, wait.”

“Ten minutes up, Koenma.”

“You have to know, the committee has installed a vote-based system for attributing you cases. I have one voice, Earth and Makai representatives each have two. The vote was three to two in favour of giving you this case. Both Makai representatives voted against it.”

“The fuck ? How can they not care about their own people ?”

“I think they do care. They care that youkais are still able to come to Earth undetected. Cracking down on trafficking inevitably means taking a dip in the world of smuggling and illegal crossing. The next Makai tournament is less than a year away, and Enki will have to hand things over to whoever wins. The configuration of Makai and its relations with Earth could change overnight. We might be on the verge of mass emigration, invasion, all-out war… I’ve been pushing to start working on an immigration system, but there’s been resistance from all sides. Everyone’d rather ignore what’s happening in their own backyard. And your case is bringing it to light.”

“So this is the same situation all over again, isn’t it ? One small step out of line from me and everything goes to shit ?”

“Actually, the opposite. Make as much noise as you want. Things need to move. We need to start searching for solutions instead of covering our eyes.”

“Oh, so this time, that’s what you want to do ?”

“You want to talk about the hotel ? Let’s talk about the hotel. I did what I thought was right. You disagreed. It was your prerogative. But if you’re waiting for me to apologize, you can keep waiting, because I don’t think I was wrong. And for the record, neither did anyone else present that day.”

“I don’t give a fuck about them ! I don’t know them ! But I thought I knew you ! And I thought you were someone who’d stand by me. I worked for you for… shit, I don’t know how long. And I never once got the impression I couldn’t count on you to have my back. I guess I just kind of thought it would be the same now.”

“… Maybe that was our mistake to begin with, Yuusuke. You have a team, and they’ve proven time and time again they’ll follow you to hell and back. But I’m not part of your team, and I never was. You have no idea how much I wanted to be, but I wasn’t. I was your boss. And that’s who I am again now. Your boss. The only thing I should stand by is what I think is right. Even if that means you’ll disagree. Even if that means you hating me. And that… sucks, because I really wanted to be your friend. I don’t have many friends. But maybe that’s just not possible right now.”

“What if I don’t like it ? I could just quit.”

“That is also your prerogative.”

“…”

“…”

“… Just don’t fucking lie to me.”

“I’m sorry ?”

“All those committees, those representatives, those brown-nosers and politicians, and there’s not a single one who will be honest with me. How will I know they’re doing what they think is right ? How will I know what they think at all ? I need to know there’s at least one person who won’t lie to me. Someone who will put their life on the line for what they think is right. Maybe you can’t be someone I can count on. But you gotta be someone I can trust.”

“… Deal.”

“Ok then.”

“Please don’t quit.”

“I won’t.”

“…”

“… Hey, can you, like, fuck off now ? I’m tired of talking.”

“Sure.”

“…”

“Hey, Yuusuke ?”

“What ?”

“For what it’s worth, you have proven at the hotel you don’t need me or anyone to stand up for you. Genkai would have been proud.”

“…I never asked, how did the two of you meet ?”

“Finals of the dark tournament, fifty years before you were born, she took a blow to her chest during her match, and legally died for a full six minutes. Ferry girl brings this four feet tall fighter to my office, I’m about to process her, and she says “don’t you worry kid, I’m not staying”. I say, “Yes, you are”. She says “try and stop me then”. Next thing I know, her soul disappears right before my eyes. And she wakes up again.”

“So, she lost her match then ?”

“No. Tied. She knocked her opponent cold as he was inflicting her the blow. Both survived.”

“Heh. Surviving was her favourite thing to do.”

The night descended on the mountain like the sake in the bottles, slowly at first, then bottoms up, and the dark came to surprise the guests of the temple. Someone found prayer candles in one of the drawers, and they planted them in the ground outside in the courtyard and lit them up. The pack of guests gradually got thinner, and those who stayed talked louder to carry conversations over the noise of cicadas, invisible amidst the tree trunks. Kuwabara and Suzuki were sound asleep in one of the rooms, and Yukina had changed into a yukata to carry blankets and water to inebriated guests. Botan and Koenma had said their goodbyes earlier and flown off on Botan’s oar. Kurama had slipped away once again. Yuusuke sat on the engawa, his feet lightly kicking small clouds of white dust off the ground, Keiko’s head resting on his lap. Nocturnal butterflies circled around the light of the candles, reminding him of the beetles of Kar-Meresh.

”You stubborn old lady ! Why aren’t you still in the hospital ? The doctor told me you got out against medical opinion. You think a heart attack isn’t serious ?”

”I think it’s very serious, you dimwit. That’s why I needed to get home as soon as possible. To prepare for the end. Go home before I kick you out.”

”If you didn’t want me to know, you shouldn’t have made Kurama your emergency contact.”

”A young man like you needs death to be the last thing on his mind. We failed you, Koenma and I, in that regard. This world has failed you so many times, Yuusuke. And yet…”

“Woah ! Careful ! You almost slipped !”

”Help me up the stairs, will you ?

“You’re ready to go ?”

Keiko’s drowsy eyes looked at him from his lap.

“Are you sure you’re good to drive ?”

“Yeah. I barely had one cup. I was just resting my eyes.”

“Good. I’ll just go say bye to Kuroko.”

“Yuusuke ?”

“Mmmh ?”

“Can you carry me on the way down to the car ?”

“…Sure, honey.”

The lights of the temple behind him got dimmer with every step he took. The early afternoon breeze had fallen, and the noise of the cicadas coming from the woods was deafening. Keiko’s regular breathing on his neck was very warm in the July evening. People were going to sleep, and the forest came alive.

”You can’t go yet.”

”Oh ? And why, pray tell ?”

”Because I say so.”

”You selfish little twerp, you think I’m gonna stick around to wipe your ass ? When will you finally grow up ?”

”I don’t fucking know ! That’s the point ! I died when I was thirteen years old ! And then I died again ! I’m older now than I ever thought I would get. And I’m going to get so much older than I ever wanted, without ever changing. My mom, and Kuwabara, and Keiko, they’re all going to fucking die, just like you, and I’m gonna remain the same. I don’t want to keep living and living and living and never knowing when it will end. I don’t want my children never knowing quite what they are. I wanna… fuck, I wanna grow old like you, and have grey hair, and be an old bag like you living in the woods that young people make fun of, and whine that I don’t get modern slang, and be tired when I walk up the stairs, and fuck you for leaving me a second time, you crone !”

”You finished ?”

”…Yes ma’am.”

”Yuusuke, your life has taken so many turns. And I can guarantee it will take a few more before I’m even gone. There are so many roads you could have taken, easier roads, roads that didn’t require you asking the kind of question you’re asking yourself today. But you didn’t take them, because these turns made you who you are. And around one of these turns, you stopped needing me, and I stopped being able to help you. You just haven’t realized it yet. I don’t have an answer for you, my boy. Our roads have already diverged.”

”What am I supposed to do then ?”

”You can either keep whining or you can pick yourself up and keep walking. And sometimes, that means leaving people behind.”

“…”

”Choice is yours. It always is.”

”…Kurama’s waiting in the car. Do you want me to help you get to bed ?”

”It’s fine. Just get the lights on your way out.”

”… I’m gonna miss you, you know.”

”Don’t. The dead should not obstruct the path of the living. If you ever find yourself thinking of me, just empty a good bottle of sake and go to sleep.”

”Are you sure you don’t want me to stay ?”

”Go. Your life is waiting.”

Chapter Text

“So I just pin it there…?”

“Yes. Make sure the mic part is on the outside.”

“Kay.”

“Are you comfortable ?”

“As comfortable as I’ll ever get.”

“Alright, let’s roll. This is Ijika for Channel Black, and today I’m sitting with the newly appointed detective of the three worlds, Urameshi Yuusuke.”

“Hey.”

“Detective, I guess my first question to you is, why this interview ? Until now, you have always refused requests for one-on-one conversations. Is there a link to your recent press joint ?”

“You could say that. Our case requires people to be vigilant, and for that we need them to be aware. So I’m just… raising awareness.”

“Well, that’s a noble goal. But mine would also be to get to know you a better, do a profile of some kind. Humans only know you for your recent appointment, but in darkness, you first got in front of the cameras during the dark tournament six years ago, and then again during the Makai unification tournament, yet no one ever got to sit with you and get to know you as a person instead of a participant to these events. Would you agree to do that with me today ?”

“…Ask away.”

“For starters, we are sitting today in your own apartment, are those documents about your case on the table ?”

“Don’t break your neck. They’re research papers, and they’re my girlfriend’s.”

“That would be… Miss Keiko Yukimura, a second year student and assumptive valedictorian at Yotsuya university, a Japanese college. How long have you two been dating ?”

“I’m not answering questions about her.”

“Alright, let’s go back to that dark tournament. Now you were only fourteen back then. Did participating in that event intimidate you ?”

“’Intimidate’ is a nice way of saying I was shit-scared, and ‘participating’ is a nice way of saying I was forced to compete.”

“Do you still resent demons for that ?”

“Only people I should resent were the organizers. And one, they’re humans, and two, they’re dead.”

“So this event was quite straining for you, yet years later you sort of replicated it to create the Makai unification tournament. What do you make of that ?”

“Demons like fighting, I like fighting, and the way I see it, only the people who have agreed to fight should do the fighting. No casualties.”

“I can’t help but noticing you didn’t include yourself in ‘demons’, even though you are one, ever since your demonic ancestry was revealed, years ago.”

“Maybe. You don’t have to be all gotcha about it. I was raised human, and I haven’t really gotten to know Makai well. I still haven’t figured that shit out, and I don’t have any problem admitting that.”

“From what I understand, this multiple ancestry of yours is one of the reasons you were attributed the function you occupy today. Do you think your dual human and demonic origin really helps you taking on cases unbiased, given you yourself admit you know very little about the demon world ?”

“What would I need to know, for example ?”

“Would you call the life you had on Earth easy ?”

“Is that another gotcha ?”

“Because from what I can tell from my info, you benefitted from shelter, a living parent and an education, up until your adulthood. Would you care to guess how many children in Makai enjoy the same comfort ?”

“Alright, that’s it, I’m tired of this. Why don’t you tell me precisely what’s your problem with me ?”

“You have no idea what growing up in Makai is like. The hunger, the fear. For centuries, escaping to earth was the only hope of weaker demons. And the Spirit World turned a blind eye, because they were focused on the strong ones. But now, everyone knows about us. Everyone fears us… You think you’ve made things better just by showing up and having a jolly good laugh with your S-class friends ? Nothing has changed for us. Except escaping has become so much harder.”

“I don’t think anyone should have to escape where they live. No one should have to choose. Everyone should be able to come and go between worlds the way I do. That’s not possible unless we actually get shit done, together.”

“It’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who will get hurt. We are.”

“Who’s ‘we’ ? Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re sitting here with me all proper on Earth, while a youkai is laying on a hospital bed half-burned for having wanted the same thing.”

“And you think you can help her ? I’ve been following your little investigation. It’s smokes and mirrors and PR. You found nothing. Things are happening right before your eyes, and you’re sitting here with me.”

“What sort of thing ?”

“… We’ve gotten off track.”

“You have. I’m exactly on the track I wanted to be on. See, I’m not good with speeches and cameras. But I know when someone is trying to play me. So I’d rather we cut it out and get to the part I want to know, which is the part you know.”

“Why should I help you ? When you clearly set this whole interview up to try and extort information out of me instead of digging it up yourself.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I have this fatal flaw that when someone pisses me off, I stop giving a shit about anything else. So as long as I have trafficked youkais to care about, I’m gonna keep ignoring this public image crap. Kind of what you’re doing, in reverse.”

“I care about these people just as much as you do ! More, even ! I’m just thinking of the larger issues.”

“Yeah, everyone’s thinking about the larger issues. Everyone has big plans. I feel like the only moron who can’t see further than forty bodies in a ditch. That’s all I’ve been seeing, all week. Forty bodies in a ditch. And everyone, from the people I’m supposed to answer to, to you, just sound like they buried them all over again to make room for their big plan.”

“What do you even want from me ?!”

“Something. Anything. Anything that might help me put an end to this. I know you have your sources. And that you’re probably way better at this investigative stuff than me. I’m not asking you to tell me everything. I’m asking you to help.”

“Just like that ?”

“Just like that.”

“You’re not even going to try bribing me with exclusive access or info ?”

“No. I’m not forcing you either. I’m asking, that’s it. That’s what I do when I’m stuck, I just ask.”

“… We got word of a truck making a ‘delivery’ to one of the traffickers’ cache, tomorrow morning. A new youkai they caught in Kar-Meresh.”

“You have more ?”

“I have a road and a time.”

“… Just out of curiosity, what were you planning to do with that ?”

“… Public image stuff.”

“Accuse the investigation of being a sham, flaunting your own findings around ?”

“Something like that.”

“… Well, I should be off.”

Before exiting, he turned toward the reporter once more, his hand on the door frame :

“You can air the profile if you want, I don’t really care. You can even make me look bad if you want to. But for the record, I’m no one’s enemy. I just deal with people I don’t like. You’re not one of those people. Just so you know.”

When he got out of the building, the heavy July warmth felt as fresh and breezy on his face as a Spring morning.

“So here’s the road the truck will pass on, according to Ijika’s source.”

Positioned on each side of Yuusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara were leaning over the map on the table of the latter’s room in an almost perfectly symmetrical fashion. Despite the tense circumstances, there was a palpable atmosphere of relief to the room, the one that comes after a whole bunch of running in place, when the shot is fired and you can finally dash forward.

“So do we follow the truck or do we intercept it ?”

“I think the two have an equal risk/reward ratio. Intercepting the truck is easy, but there’s no telling what the drivers might know. If we follow it, we might get spotted, but we can hope to get to one of the warehouses and keep the element of surprise. But neither plan guarantees us a way inside the warehouse.”

“You want me to burst out the dimension-slashing sword again ? Old style ? Like we did during the hostage taking in the Spirit world ?”

“Back then we knew the layout, and we had Hiei with us to keep track of the guards. If we do the same thing here, we’re going in blind. No information on security or surveillance. That’s a gamble, not necessarily for us, but certainly for the captives. These guys have already proven they’ll let them all die if there are any complications. Really, ideally we’d need to use the delivery to infiltrate the place without anyone noticing something’s wrong.”

“So, like, let it take place ? Kurama, if we go near that truck and there’s a kidnapped youkai in there, I’m not letting them go within a hundred yards of whatever place they’re bringing them to.”

“I know. If one of us could convincingly pass as a kidnapped victim, then on of the other two could take the place of the driver, and we’d have our way in. But I don’t think they would buy any of us as harmless captives. And that’s not even counting your face being on TV just yesterday.”

“I’ll do it.”

Three heads turned toward the door.

“M…miss Yukina ! What are you saying…”

“They would buy me as a kidnapping victim, right Yuusuke ?”

“I…”

“Like there’s even a point in asking ! Don’t worry miss, we’ll never put you in such danger !”

“Yukina, are you aware of what you’re offering to do ? Given everything in your past ?”

“Kurama, what the f… How can you even be considering this ??”

“He is considering it because I am considering it. I want to do this, Kazuma. I want to help.”

“… Despite your past ?”

“Maybe because of my past.”

“… Yuusuke ?”

He stared silently at her. Her eyes didn’t really look like her. They looked like Hiei’s.

“We can’t make any promises about what you’ll see, or the danger you might be in.”

“I understand that. Please, Kazuma. I will do this whether you approve or not. But I would hate to do it knowing you think this is a mistake.”

“… I’m sticking with you, every step of the way. The second we go in, you never leave my sight. That’s my one condition, and you take it or leave it, guys.”

Yukina smiled.

“I would not want to do it any other way.”

The minutes were peeling away agonizingly slow. Above the hill that overhung the deserted road bracket, Yuusuke distracted himself by trying to make out the contours of the trees in the half-darkness of the early hours. Kurama had suggested they’d all try to sleep as long as possible, yet Yuusuke had found himself unable to follow that suggestion for more than a short hour. That had surprised him ; he had long learned to sleep through fear and anxiety. Was he excited ? Maybe. It had been a while since he’d gotten to do anything remotely dangerous, or at the very least, dangerous for him. He found his own excitement to be a bit indecent. This wasn’t a friendly tournament. Lives were at stake. Once again, a voice from a side of his brain he didn’t normally use whispered that lives were at stake during his friendly tournament too. They were just easier to ignore.
A hand laid on his shoulder. Yukina bended her knees under her as she sat beside him. She was wrapped in the large baseball jacket he’d seen Kuwabara wear earlier.

“Thank you for letting me do this.”

“Are you kidding me ? We’re the ones who should be thanking you. Honestly, I… don’t know if I’d be able to do what you’re doing right now.”

“Well, I don’t know if I can do it either.”

He detailed her face. Small bags under her eyes, calculated breath. A brave smile. Daring, almost. He chuckled and turned his gaze to the trees once more. She laughed reflexively.

“What ? What is it ?”

“Man, what is up with the women in my life ? How do you all get to be so fucking strong ?”

“How do you ?”

“Guess I have no choice.”

“Maybe it’s the same for us.”

As he was about to answer, his smile dropped.

“It’s coming. Wake the others.”

This proved unnecessary. The vibrations in the ground had Kuwabara and Kurama on their feet in seconds. The four of them laid on their front at the edge of the hill, all eyes on the road. In the complete silence, the low purring of the engine grew stronger and stronger, until wheels appeared on the asphalt around the bend of the road.

“It’s going really fast. I don’t know if my vines can catch it at this speed.”

Yuusuke extended his arm and aimed at a pine tree further up the road. A bare snap of his fingers delivered a blast powerful enough to make it snap at the base. The trunk fell heavily, but early enough for the driver to hit the brakes in hopes of avoiding a collision. The truck was sent spinning. Before it could go off road, Kurama murmured a few words, and tentacular green liana suddenly grew from each side, wrapping itself around the metal carcass with each rotation, slowing it down more and more, until it came to a halt only a few feet away from the trunk of the tree which landed on the road with a thump that got muffled by the needles.

“Go. Go.”

The three men followed by Yukina hurtled down the hill. Yuusuke reached the driver’s seat first.

“Empty ! Where’d he go ?”

“There !”

The poor guy had barely had the time to make it a few feet into the forest on the other side of the road. Before any of the men could move to pursue him however, he somehow blinked out of view. A loud clang resonated on the roof of the truck. All heads turned in direction of the noise. The driver was unconscious, probably from having been bashed head first into the steel roof. Holding him by his collar was a hand that belonged to a small man dressed in black.

“Someone wants to explain what she’s doing here ?” said Hiei.

“We kinda needed that driver, you know ! And how did you even find us ?”

With broad strokes of the hand, Kurama was retracting his vines to free the truck. Hiei had gotten off the roof and let go of the driver who now slept spread on the asphalt. That growth spurt, by the way, had not happened.

“With your oh-so discreet sting in Kar-Meresh, you should rather be surprised half of Makai hasn’t been able to trace your steps. Answer my question.”

His gaze had not left Yukina since he’d appeared. Hers was inscrutable.

“Screw you, m an, if you’ve been following us all this time, you know the case. She’s helping us with the infiltration, taking the place of the captive.”

“Which one of you morons came up with that idea ?”

“I did, like a big girl. And we should really proceed.”

“No way. Not happening.”

“I did not hear Kazuma’s dissent, I am certainly not going to hear yours.”

“Who’s Kazuma ?”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME, MIDGET ?!”

“We’re carrying on as planned, Hiei. If you had objections, you should have bothered to show instead of lurking at a distance.”

“Hey, ease off, Yukina. You don’t sound like yourself. Hiei can help us. He can follow the truck with me and get us information on the layout.”

“No. I’m going, but I’m going inside with the truck.”

“No way, short shorts ! There’s only room for one driver, and the position is taken. By me.”

“I’ll hide under the truck. Whatever dumb plan you have in stock for when you get inside, one man will not be enough when it predictably goes wrong.”

“WHAT…”

“Then we’re all in agreement, and if we aren’t, tough luck, because I say we are and we need to roll. If the delivery is too late, they’ll get suspicious. Kuwabara and Hiei go in with Yukina in the truck, Kurama takes care of the driver and the girl, brings her to safety, and I’ll be following the truck. Kuwabara, anything about the route in the front ?”

“There’s an itinerary in the glove compartment. Plus something that looks like an access code.”

“Kurama ? Are you done with the lock ?

“All ready here.”

“Okay. Open it.”

The suspiciously heavy steel-plated door on the back of the truck screeched open. Somehow, Yuusuke only just realized then the truck’s side had “Tsuchi refrigerated transportation, for quality meat” painted on it, in big red characters. The detail made him unconscionably angry.
The steel of the truck was just as bare inside as it was outside. There were neither seats nor handles. The youkai girl on the metal floor seemed like she’d been thrown around quite a bit in the forced stop. As she was trying to get up, Kuwabara rushed inside to give her support. She flinched as he placed a hand on her arm.

“Hey, okay, it’s okay, we’re friends. You’re safe. What’s your name ?”

“Sh…Shina.”

“I’m Kuwabara. Look, we’re going to get you out of here. My friend here is going to take you to the hospital, and you’ll never see any of this hell, ever again. Sounds good ?”

“… Yes.”

Kuwabara only let go of her once he was sure Kurama was supporting her. Yukina handed him Kuwabara’s sweater so he could cover her.

“They took her clothes and shoes. Yukina…”

“Understood.”

She took off her snickers and socks, then slid her short-sleeved T-shirt over her head and unbuttoned her jeans. Barefoot on the asphalt, covering herself with her arms, she walked up the two metal steps that led inside the truck. After crossing the door, she turned around to face the three men who were all looking away.

“Kazuma ?”

Kuwabara was pale as a sheet.

“Remember, you promised. You’re not letting me out of your sight.”

Slowly, he finally turned to meet her gaze and found her smiling. He grinned.

“A man’s word is sacred. I’m with you, every step of the way.”

She gave him a nod. With one last look at her, he grabbed the handle. The steeled door closed on Yukina’s face.

Turning around to hide his flustering face from his friends, Kuwabara stomped to the driver’s seat.

“Let’s go. The idea of every second she spends in that thing makes me sick to my stomach.”

Hiei gave Yuusuke a penetrating gaze.

“You better pray nothing happens to her in there, detective. Otherwise…”

“Nothing’s gonna happen. I got you on the case.”

Hiei scoffed and slid under the truck. The keys turned in the ignition. The wheels resumed their motion. Yuusuke turned to Kurama as the truck drove off.

“He looks good.”

She felt every jolt in the road in each of her bones. Holed up in a corner of the empty armoured chamber of the truck, she tried to stabilize herself by scrapping at the walls, yet every turn threatened to throw her against the hard metal. She could see, in her mind, with remarkable clarity, Kazuma trying desperately to drive as smoothly as possible, cringing everytime he hit a pothole. He’d only gotten his driver’s licence to help his dad with his delivery business, a few months ago. Made it on first trial. She and Shizuru had baked a cake. She flattened her back onto the wall at the front of the chamber. This way, she was only separated from him by one plate of metal. One plate. It was nothing. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply after every turn.

The driving eventually slowed down, and she got the sense they were getting inside a building, and driving down. The truck came to a halt, and for a while, there was only silence, punctuated solely by the sound of her own blood in her ears.
A slam against the metal wall of the truck made her blench and sent her heart speeding. A second slam hit the panel. A third. Someone was walking beside the truck, ever closer to the door. The handle turned.

“You. Out.”

Should she obey immediately ? Should she resist ? What was the most credible reaction ? How had she acted the first time ? She couldn’t see Kazuma outside the door. Did they notice something wrong about the delivery ? Had they been made ?

“I said out.” The man took support on a step and leaned inside the truck. Behind him, she saw orange hair peering. Some of the tension in her stomach dropped. She hesitantly made her way to the exit of the chamber. The man’s skin was sickly pale, and he smelled of canned fish. When she reached him, he grabbed her by the arm and made her roughly climb down to the ground. Two murderous energies flashed simultaneously in the room. That man would never know it, but he had never been as close to death as he was in that single moment. Yukina’s eyes searched Kazuma’s. She found them waiting for a word, for the slightest gesture on her part, to pull all the stops and get her out of here forever. She made her gaze as commending as possible. Stand down. I’m fine. For now. The tension known to them only broke.

“You, through there. You, with me, we’re gonna go through the listing before you drive back.”

Everything happened too fast. He entered a number in the digicode panel near a door, and Yukina was pushed inside, the door closing on the hangar and Kazuma.

On the other side waiting for her was a woman about her height and age, with dark skin and turquoise hair that leaned to green. These details barely registered as her brain was suddenly flooded with the realization that she and Kazuma were getting separated. She felt herself freeze into place.

“Hey. Shina, right ? Let’s move.”

Her legs refused to respond. Kazuma was just on the other side of that metal door. One door. It was nothing. The plan needed to continue. She couldn’t fail. She couldn’t…

A surprisingly warm hand landed on hers. Green eyes that matched the woman’s hair came close to her. There was kindness in them. And fear.

“Look, if you don’t obey, we’ll all be in trouble.” She hastily whispered, and threw a discreet glance behind her, as if there were people in that very wall watching them. “They get angry.”

It was faint, but the woman emitted you-ki. Was she also a captive here ?

“Come on. My name's Ayesha. Let’s get you something to wear.”

“It’s better if you don’t talk unless asked to. If you have a problem, you’re supposed to come to me. But also, if you want to live, don’t have problems.”

The inside of the building looked like the staff part of a deserted hotel. They’d made a first stop in a laundry room, where she’d been given a short white dress, and a slice of bread, “so you’d stop shaking”. The doors closed and opened and the hallways went on, bringing her always farther from Kazuma. Hiei ? Who knew where Hiei was. She couldn’t trust that he’d managed to follow her inside unseen. Ayesha stopped and unlocked another door.

“Wait in here. My boss is gonna want to see you.”

Flashes of another prison went before her eyes. She grabbed Ayesha’s arm.

“Please. Please don’t leave me alone.”

The other woman gently peeled her fingers away.

“You’ll be fine. That’s not the part you need to worry about.”

She closed the door as a pit of fire landed in Yukina’s stomach.

Chapter Text

Panic was rising in her throat with each passing second. Her cheeks were burning to the touch. Don’t cry. If you cry, they’ll find hiruseki stones. The nightmare will start again. Kazuma was close. He’d never let anything happen to her. Yuusuke was just outside. And Hiei… She noticed the walls. White papers were hanging from all corners. Binding spells. Familiar spells. She felt something wet run down her cheek.

“Let me out ! Let me out of here !”

Under her fists, the door was not budging. She could hear her screams carry in the hallway. Finally, footsteps. For a moment, she felt relieved, before it dawned on her. You’re making a mess. Remember what would happen when you made a mess. She stepped back, eyes wide in panic, fixated on the door. The back of her knees came to hurt the frame of the rattled bed in the back of the room and she fell back. The handle rotated.

“I told them it was a bad idea.”

Nothing registered as Hiei closed the door behind him. As her gaze crossed his, he seemed to realize she was not all there.

“Hey, hey. It’s me. Calm down. It’s me.”

Yukina’s erratic breathing got quiet. Her eyes slowly focused on him. They stared at each other silently. Until finally, finally, she was able to break into tears.

He approached her cautiously until he was right in front of her sobbing form sitting on the bed, but he didn’t do any gesture in her direction, nor did he say anything.
After a while, Yukina’s fingers crossed the space between them to come pick out the leather cord that hung at his neck. She pulled at it, revealing at the extremity of the necklace a stone identical to the ones dispersed on the floor.

“You still haven’t given it back to me.”

“You haven’t asked.”

“It felt right to let you keep it.”

“I already told you, Yukina, I am not your brother.”

“No, you’re not, aren’t you, Hiei ? You made that very clear.”

Her hand dropped. She inhaled sharply and stood up.

“What kind of brother would you be, lurking around me, knowing how much it meant to me to find you, how much I sacrificed to try and meet you, yet never telling me who you are ? If you truly were my brother, I would not have been alone when I woke up every night screaming because I had dreamt I was back in Mr Tarukane’s mansion, I would not have been alone when ran away from my world with nothing, and I would not have been alone after I was banished from my tribe.”

“What ?”

A rare air of surprise filled Hiei’s traits.

“You… you got banished ?”

“Yes. Cast away from the Ice Country and forbidden to ever see any of my kind again. They did not even let me visit my mother’s grave one last time.”

She picked up a stone and threw it against a wall.

“Your friends in the human world welcomed me. I made a new home on Earth. Their kindness saved me. Yet I could never bring myself to tell them what had really happened. And the one person I felt like I could tell, the one person who might know what I was going through, wasn’t there for me.”

She turned to face him.

“So you see Hiei, you are lucky you’re not my brother, because if you were, I don’t know if I could forgive you all those years of pain and loneliness, just to seek someone who does not care to be anything to me.”

She thought he might say something. Apparently, so did he. Footsteps resonated between the two of them. Hiei drew his sword.

“Get under the bed.”

In one second, Hiei was behind the door as it creaked open. As he took a step inside the room, the newcomer’s throat only found the sharp side of a blade welcoming him.

“Close the door. Make a sound, any sound, you die.”

It seems quick thinkers were rare among traffickers. The man opened his mouth, but before a scream could come out, his skull came in contact with the handle of the sword, and he fell backward. Yukina crawled out of her hideout to find Hiei swearing between his teeth.

“… I know that guy. He was one of Mukuro’s goons when I first joined her.”

“What does that mean ?”

Exclamations from the hallways cut the conversation short. They ran outside, only to find themselves among a group of panicked youkais.

“Fire ! A fire has broken out in the laundry room !”

Smoke was already accumulating under the low ceiling of the hallway. Yukina felt her eyes sting and had an urge to cough. The sight of the other captives stopped her. They were all wearing versions of the basic white outfit she had been given ; they were dirty, malnourished, and had the exact same hunted look in their eyes. Animals in cages. The woman from earlier came running toward them.

“Did one of you do this ? Do you have any idea what they may do if one of you did this ? And… and who’s that ?”

Yukina used the second the woman stared dumbfounded at Hiei to cut the interrogation short :

“Ayesha ! We need to get to the hangars ! We have to get out of here !”

The other seemed to come back to the present situation.

“I… The boss told me the code to the door once. He told me it was a secret. That he was only telling me because he knew I was too smart to try and leave. I could… try that.”

“Good. Let’s go, quick.”

Yukina soon realized this was easier said than done. The others could barely walk. It took her a moment to understand why ; their feet seemed to have been weighted with something. She strapped the arm of one of those who seemed to be struggling the most over her shoulder. After a bit of hesitation, Hiei and Ayesha did the same.
The fire had started engulfing the walls and entire panels of wood and stone were crumbling around them. They had to walk lower to avoid the smoke.

“The door’s just at the end of this hallway.”

When they turned around, they were greeted by an alley of fire.

“I can go through that” Hiei observed. “They can’t.”

“No” Yukina firmly responded. “We all can.”

Around them, the air went cold. Condensation formed. A sphere of icy atmosphere surrounded their group. The flames receded.

“Quick. I don’t know how long I can hold it.”

Ayesha rushed to the digital panel and entered the code. An angry electronic sound answered her.

“What ? It’s… it’s the code he told me, why won’t it…”

“They… left us here ?” someone in the group whimpered.

“Alright, I’ve had enough. Stand back, I’m going to cut the door open.”

“Hiei, wait ! We’re several floors underground ! The whole structure is going to collapse !”

“It’s already collapsing. I’m getting you out of here.”

Before he could draw, another blade slashed in front of them. It was a blade that came from nowhere and cut reality in half.

“Miss Yukina ! This way !”

Kuwabara and Yuusuke peered in the crack. Yukina gestured for them to help get the others through the tear, until only she and Hiei were left inside the hallway. As Yukina was grabbing Kuwabara’s hand, she looked back in shock.

“Ah ! The man from the room ! We need to go get him !”

“It’s too late” Hiei said behind her. “If he’s not dead, he will be by the time we get to him.”

“But… he might know something !”

“Yukina, we are not going back.”

She looked at him and gulped. Then she took Kuwabara’s hand and climbed over to the other side.

The remains of the building were still smouldering. Yuusuke and Kuwabara were wrapping together the last of the unconscious henchmen. Right after Yukina had passed the door, Kuwabara had dealt with the people in the hangar, but was unable to do it before one of them put the rest of the building on lockdown. Because of the protection spells, he hadn’t managed to localize Yukina before they’d went up in flames. The mere two people who had managed to escape the hangar in a truck had run right into Yuusuke who had been looking for another entrance into the building. It had indeed revealed itself to be a condemned hotel in an almost deserted seaside station. Thankfully, there were no adjoining structures. No one knew how the fire had started.

Yukina was going through the former captives, healing minor burns and injuries. Ambulances were just arriving at the scene, accompanied by Tadami who was hoping to take statements as soon as possible. It took Yuusuke getting menacing for him to agree to meet with the victims after they’d been driven to the nearest hospital. Hiei and Kuwabara were quiet, both observing Yukina.
She finally reached the one person she hadn’t administered care to. Ayesha was still looking at the smoke atop the collapsed building, while holding her injured right arm. Sensing the young woman approach her, she turned around. There was no relief in the green of her pupils.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

The dumbfounded nurses at the small countryside hospital reacted with an exemplary professionalism to seeing a horde of thirty injured nonhuman creatures barge into their emergency unit, escorted by two very loud men and one quiet one, who was nevertheless the most frightening of the lot. Room was found, inflatable mattresses were put everywhere available, and by midday, the nearby restaurants owners rounded up by Yuusuke on UN dime had come in to provide sustenance to the newcomers, who were in sore need of it. After a quick surge of panic from the human patients, who mostly consisted of older citizen in for their gout or rheumatism, they had acclimated to their new bedfellows and seemed to regard the whole event as a grandchildren visit, going from youkai to youkai, asking them if they’d be interested in a game of go and inquiring about their parents’ job. It had taken the former captives a bit of time to reintroduce themselves to normal conversation, but now they deflected all requests from the elderly just like any normal twenty-something. Yuusuke silently raised his plastic hospital goblet to toast this prime example of racial harmony.

“Urameshi, if we wanna have a chance to talk to her before this Tadami guy returns…”

He followed Kuwabara down the lime green lino hallway. Hospitals were the most interchangeable places in the universe.

Due to the severity of her burn, Ayesha had to be put in a separate room. When the men entered, she was looking out the window. She hadn’t touched her food plate.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” She said, without moving an inch.

“What ? Saving your life ?”

“Dying in a fire is a clean death, compared to what’s waiting for me. I let an intruder into the hideout, a fire happened on my watch, and now the assets all escaped.”

“They can’t get to you anymore. We’re here. You’re safe.”

“Am I ? They told me, long ago, when they took me. They are everywhere. They see everything. They will find me anywhere.”

“That’s just bullshit they made up so you wouldn’t try to escape.”

“Do you even know who ‘they’ are ? Businessmen and politicians, gangsters and demon brokers. I saw them go in and out of those places. You could tell they were not the kind of people you can touch. They were people to whom everyone says ‘hello sir’ and ‘will that be all sir’, and I don’t even need to know who you work for to know that among those people, there is someone like that, who gives orders and holds doors for people and then goes out at midnight to come spread acid on a young youkai girl. Power is always the same, no matter what side you’re on.”

“I don’t work for them. I work for me. And if I need to take out every single one of these bags of trash so you can feel safe, then I will do it. But you’ve got to help me. Right now, you’re our only link. The only one who might have learned something. The drivers never set foot inside the houses. We couldn’t find any member of the staff or client exiting the place. We know there is a passage to Earth in Kar-Meresh. We know one of Mukuro’s former men worked within the ring. Maybe there are others.”

“I can’t. I won’t. They’ll find out I talked. You’re going to leave and then I’ll be all alone. They will come for me. You should have let me die.”

“You do know something, then.”

She buried her face in her bandaged hands. When she resumed talking, her voice came out muffled, and so very distant.

“They cut us, down there. When we first arrive. Scar it into a big smile. They say it makes playing easier. I think it marks us. No matter where we go, we just have to look down, at our own body, and there they are… laughing at us. They are part of us.”

When she turned to them, everything but her eyes was crying.

“Can you save me from that ?”

As Yuusuke was about to answer, a sign from Kuwabara ordered him quiet. His friend hadn’t said anything since they’d entered the room. Yuusuke watched as he approached the bed. In his movements, in his face, there was this gentleness that Yuusuke knew he’d never possess, and that he sometimes envied. There was a reason people opened up to him.
He didn’t sit on the bed, nor did he touch her. Yet, he was close to her, like reaching across an invisible bridge everyone thought long collapsed.

“You know, my friend, she was crying earlier. But since I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her cry once. She’s been taught to hate something she is, and all this time, she’s been terrified. She can never be sad for herself. But she was crying earlier, with the other youkais we saved, just crying with them about everything that happened to them, everything that happened to her, everything. And it may be weird, but it wasn’t sad. It was freeing. When she first told me she wanted to help us, I didn’t get it. But I think I do get it now. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to feel the way the two of you feel about yourselves. But I think retreating further within isn’t the answer. You have to help, you have to cry, you have to trust. I understand that you can’t trust us yet. But you have to try and trust yourself again. Otherwise, they win.”

Ayesha looked at him, then raised her bandaged arm and seemed to contemplate it for a moment.

“The nurses said that if your friend hadn’t cooled it down immediately after the fire, I might have lost my arm.”

“Yeah. She does that.”

“Do you think it will heal ?”

He smiled at her.

“I’m sure of it.”

The woman dropped her arm.

“My boss drinks. And when he drinks, he talks. And he also likes to have me around when he drinks. To entertain. There is an old dimensional tunnel in Kar-Meresh that was started on King Mukuro’s order as part of an invasion project. Then, she ordered for the tunnel to be shut, but her lieutenant responsible for the project secretly kept it open. A few years ago, he repurposed it for this traffic. He’s the one who runs things. My boss was bragging about how smart they all were. Doing this right under the nose of the most powerful woman in the world. ‘If she can’t stop us, what chance do you think you have ?’ That’s what he said. I believed him. I still do.”

She looked away.

“That’s all I know. Thank your friend for me. I don’t think I have the courage to face any of those youkais outside.”

“Thank you, Ayesha. I mean it.”

The two friends exchanged a look, and walked toward the door.

“’Kuwabara’, right ?” asked the woman.

“Yeah ?” he turned.

Her smile looked just as lost as the rest of her.

“What am I supposed to do now ?”

“There are good men out here. I promise. You just have to find them.”

“… Men like you ?”

“I hope so.”

“We need to go back to Kar-Meresh. We should be able to find the boss now.”

“You need to go back to Kar-Meresh. I’m taking Yukina home. The police has arrived, it should be safe for us to leave the hospital.”

“The flat-faced moron is right, Yuusuke. I’ll go with you to Kar-Meresh.”

Yuusuke didn’t waste time on Hiei’s trademark out-of-nowhere entrance.

“Still willing to help ? I thought your input began and ended with Yukina’s involvement.”

“What, does he have a crush on Yukina or something ? You really think you have a chance, midget ?”

“Stop talking before you swallow my fist, idiot. I need to go back to the city anyway. If you don’t want my help, fine by me. I was done babysitting your ass a long time ago. I’ll meet you back at the entrance of this rat hole.”

Exit Hiei stage right. Oh-so-little had changed in two years.

“Is Yukina gonna be alright ?”

“I think so. She won’t tell me what happened in there. But she said it was something she’d needed to do for a while now. She’s strong, you know.”

“Yeah. I know.”

He pointed to Ayesha’s door with his head.

“What about her ?”

“Maybe. Some day.”

“They broke her pretty good, didn’t they ?”

“Yeah.”

“I am going to fucking break them.”

He’d attributed the perceived length of the tunnel descending into Kar-Meresh to his unfamiliarity with the place. Surely, it couldn’t have been that long. But on second visit, he could confirm that indeed, it was. And Hiei’s persistent silence was nowhere near as distracting as Kurama’s conversation. It only aggravated the curious sense of dread that had started filling his stomach ever since he’d left the hospital and that he couldn’t explain. As if something bad had been triggered a while ago, just in the corner of his eye, and he had been too focused on his task to see it. And now, there was no chance to stop it.

“So… Mukuro, huh ? You two still lovey-dovey ?”

“Is that the place you chose to die, Yuusuke ?”

“Sorry, sorry. But seriously, how have you been man ? We had a party for Genkai a few days ago. We tried to send you an invite.”

“I know. I received it.”

“You could have come.”

“We were never that close.”

“You could have come to see us.”

“…”

“Unless you don’t think we’re that close either.”

“You haven’t come to Makai either.”

“Yeah, I guess not. This place still doesn’t really feel like home.”

“It is your home.”

“If it’s important to you, I’ll try to come and visit.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I will.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I get that.”

“Do what you want.”

“Sorry we got Yukina involved without telling you.”

“It was her decision.”

“Still.”

The silence that accompanied the rest of the walk was of a more comfortable nature.

As the tunnel transformed once again into the giant illuminated cave from his first visit, as he already dreaded combing the city in search for Mukuro’s palace, that’s only when he understood it. The thing, at the corner of his eye.

Former king Mukuro was standing over a body on the ground, in the middle of the main place at the end of the bridge, surrounded by a group of bystanders. Well, body wasn’t the right term. It was something that used to be a body. That seemed absurd now. That this pile of flesh from which torrents of blood had dripped from all parts, could have once contained life, intelligence, a structure, or anything besides its pure matter, the very thing that it was, this atrocity of concreteness.

“Yo, son of Raizen. I have to thank you for helping find this scum, finally. I’ve known someone was cookin’ something in my city for a while now, but I was never able to know where it came from. Good job too, Hiei. You just never disappoint, don’t cha ?”

Yuusuke turned to Hiei, who held his gaze without yielding. Why should he have ? He’d never pretended to be still on their team.

“So that’s it, then.”

Yuusuke was laying on Kurama’s couch. He’d kept his shoes inside. Kurama seemed to have chosen to ignore it.

“Man, I am so fucking tired, and I barely did anything.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. We’ll call it a group effort.”

“And for what ? We didn’t get any clients’ names and the trail in Kar-Meresh went dead cold thanks to Hiei’s new best friend. This is exactly why I’d rejected Koenma’s offer at first. This shit’s too complex for one person, and it’s fucking out of space for me.”

“We might get more as things unfold. And we helped people. Quite a lot of them. And it’s true we didn’t get all the bad guys, but we still put an end to this specific network. Mukuro is brutal, but she is thorough. I don’t think we’ll see anyone trying to touch the youkais in Kar-Meresh for a while. If this isn’t success, I don’t know what is. You’re right, things are more complex now than they used to be, when it was just us and one bad guy. But that means we should learn to enjoy smaller victories. In my opinion.”

Kurama had that embarrassed look of someone who has a bad news to deliver when things are already pretty down.

“… Tadami and his men raided the other holding places the drivers we captured knew about today. They’d been completely emptied, which wasn’t a surprise, given the noise our raid made in the news yesterday, they would have wanted to clean up shop. But there’s something strange.”

“You always think there’s something strange.”

“I’m just trying to help, Yuusuke.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Tell me.”

“… If they emptied the places after they heard a number of drivers had been compromised, that means they would have had less than a day to clean up. We should have been able to find at least something, if they had been in such a rush. It’s as if those places had been emptied out for a bit longer than that.”

“Which means ?”

“I don’t know. I keep going back to your raid. Not a single guest was present when you infiltrated the place. Aside from the woman who gave you the intel and the drivers, we couldn’t find any member of the ‘staff’ either. And she was technically also a prisoner.”

Yuusuke stared at his friend, his head upside down on the arm of the couch.

“You always notice the kind of stuff that I missed. I would have never gotten to the end of the three last cases I had without you. Fuck, you should be the detective, and not me.”

A look of surprise passed on Kurama’s face, washed away by an unreadable smile.

“… If I were the detective, Yuusuke, there would be no detective. Because back at the hotel, I would have sided with Koenma and the others. Hell, I would even have sided with Yomi and simply believed Shura was responsible. Koenma, Yomi and I, we are the kind of people who thrive so much in the world that surrounds us we are unable to see when this world has stopped making sense, and when it’s time to change it. Everything we take for granted, everything we accept at face value, because it is simply how things are supposed to be, are things you’ll brush aside without a second thought if they’re not to your liking. No matter how complex it gets, you will never let this world trap you. You are the one who consistently notice what I’ve missed, because I am not even looking for it. People like me, we need people like you. We need you.”

Kurama suddenly seemed to realize Yuusuke was still staring at him, head upside down, unused to such outbursts from his friend. To hide his embarrassment, he pursued :

“Speaking of that woman, Ayesha, I received a call from Kuwabara. Apparently, she ran away from the hospital. She left a note for him saying she was sorry.”

“Kinda was to be expected. Kuwabara is Kuwabara, but it’s definitely gonna be a while before she gets to trust anybody again. I just hope she’ll be okay. She was convinced they’d never stop until they find her.”

“She might not have been wrong.”

“Heh. That’s why we can’t stop either.”

“I have a door, shorty.”

“And you have a face, you want me to knock on that too ?”

“The hell do you want ? You‘ve literally never come to my place before. One time, Koenma gave you a video for me, you dumped it in the garbage bin at the end of my street with a note that said ‘you left the door open’.”

“Is Yukina here ?”

“Uh, yeah, why ? You really do have a crush on her or something ?”

“I have information. About her brother.”

“You…? Er, man that’s awesome, I… I really thought I was the only one who gave a damn…”

“I guess not.”

“… Well, you should go talk to her, her room’s down the hallway.”

“I know.”

“I’ll go out for some groceries, give you some privacy.”

“…”

“Wait, Hiei… It’s not, like, bad news, is it ?”

“I don’t know. She’ll be the judge of that.”

“Well, you lucky I happened to need some gas ! No one goes through that road anymore since they opened the highway to Kosaka. How long had you been out there anyway ? And at night too.”

“I didn’t know that. Thanks for taking me.”

“Are you kidding, I’m thankful for the company ! Been driving all the way up the coast since yesterday. The radio, it gets old quick.”

“You often take hitchhikers ?”

“As often as I can ! Though I don’t think I ever got one as cute as you ! Girls usually don’t want to be stuck in a car with a stranger. Can’t blame them. So many weirdoes out there.”

“Are you a weirdo ?”

“Last I checked, no ! Hey, your arm okay ? Looks hurt pretty bad. Do you need me to drop you at a hospital or something ?”

“I was in the hospital. I’m okay now. Can you drive faster than this ?”

“You in a hurry ? I like to take my time on the road. Enjoy the scenery, you know.”

“It’s the first time I see the ocean.”

“Really ? You oughta take a vacation in this region sometime. Go and take a swim.”

“I’d rather go as far away from here as I can.”

“Ah, leaving things behind ? Starting over and stuff ?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re not in some trouble, are you ? Cause you’re raising a lot of red flags right now.”

“Can you just drive me as far as you can ?”

“Got it, I won’t ask more questions. But you oughta think of talking to the cops or something.”

“There was the sign to Kosaka, you missed it.”

“I know another road. It’s faster.”

“…”

“So that’s an unusual hair colour you got there. Is that the style in America ? You mixed, right ?”

“Is it considered weird out here ?”

“Well, in any case, I like it ! Gives you flavour. Makes you look a bit racy.”

“… Can you turn up the radio ? I like that song.”

“No, I mean it ! A lot of Japanese folks say dark-skinned girls look vulgar, but I think you’ve got style ! You should be proud of it.”

“...”

“Can’t take a compliment ?”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, no need for that tone ! I’m sorry, okay.”

“This really doesn’t look like the right road.”

“You calling me a liar ?”

“I think I want to get out the car.”

“So now you don’t need to run anymore ? You’re really so high-and-mighty that you rather take your chances with whatever you’re running from than have a little banter with me ? I’m worse than that ? That what you’re saying ?”

“No. I just need some air.”

“Then roll down the fucking window.”

“Can you please stop the car ?”

“And then what ? You’ll walk ? You think anyone else will take you with the way you look ?”

“Stop the damn car !”

“Oh I’ll stop alright. You think you can talk to me that way in my own car ? You the fuck do you think you are ?”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Stop screaming ! You just love giving orders, huh ? Stuck up bitch. There’s just me here ! The road’s deserted ! Who do you think is gonna come for you ?”

“…’Good men’…”

“The hell are you talking about ?”

“Nothing. I was just remembering something funny.”

“… Yeah, you should hold on that for now. We need to lay low right now. I know you’re pressured to balance the losses from the Kar-Meresh venture, but we gotta focus on resettling all the assets we had to move around because of this shitshow… Hang on.”

“… Can you hear me now ? Sorry, I got blood on the receiver. I was saying : you tell your little friends to hold on new investments until I confirm we’re in the clear. This was my gambit from the start. I won’t have one of those old pigs swoop in at the end and fuck up my odds because junior really wants that extra yacht.”

“… Then just tell them that next time their Cuban cigars gives them cancer, instead of cutting off the infected cells and replacing them with the lungs of a twenty years old from Cambodia, I’m gonna let this crap fester in their flabby chest until they look like they’ve been puked by a petri dish. When part of a body is corrupted, you carve out that shit, and you cauterize the wound. This Kar-Meresh network was a liability from the start. Someone would have noticed eventually.”

“… But the stuff that matters didn’t. With what we’ve given them, they have no money trail, no other distributor, and the whores we had to set free were the ones so used up and diseased we were gonna have to dispose of them ourselves within a month anyway. They’re gonna flaunt their investigation results all around the press, and before they realize their catch goes nowhere, there’ll be nothing more to find. Controlled purging. That’s what it was about.”

“… Huh-uh. But on the plus side, this has been a great way to stress-test the network. One little fire at a whorehouse had us sacrifice the entire vein just to avoid contagion. This can’t happen again. I need every single distributor to make sure their whole operation is air-tight. If I have to burn my own fucking arm again because one of those mouth-breathers thought it would be funny to provoke an S-class demon on her own turf, the next thing I’ll be burning is gonna be something they miss.”

“… I told you, I had to go myself. I needed to meet him. The new Golden Boy of the Three Worlds. My job is to solve your problems. He’s become your fucking problem. Or wasn’t Tokyo enough for you ?”

“… Don’t know yet. I had to throw them fewer lines than expected. Mostly I fed them the info via the journalist, and they put the rest together themselves.”

“… Yeah, we all make mistakes. I would have liked to assess that Kurama guy too. I’d assumed he’d be part of their little raid as well. Didn’t account for the other one showing up. Hadn’t planned for them to try being subtle either. Guess everyone grows up.”

“… More like next week. I’m finishing rounding up things here. Just dealt with the driver who thought it’d be smart to skip work yesterday. Lazy bastard. Then I have one more stop to deal with that bitch from the first fire and we’ll call it a day.”

“… No, I’m not afraid she might know more than anticipated.”

“… Because no one escapes. Not on my watch.”

Chapter Text

On the fourteenth day, it rained.
It was not one of those rare rains of the bountiful months back home when the wind that rises from the sea comes to break against the mountains at the heart of the peninsula to fall down on the forest as nourishing torrents. It was one of those human rains of thin blades piercing you from head to toe, soaking the pelts, and being not much else than a distraction. We did not pay it much mind.
But as the sun was descending, the rain turned grey. Then, it turned black. My Lord stuck out her tongue and swallowed a drop. She said it tasted like ash.

The low, humming sound of the centipede engine room was slowly lulling him to sleep. The skin-like texture on the ceiling of his room contracted and relaxed rhythmically on par with each crawling step of the fortress. Curiosity was, in his opinion, one of the most annoying sins one could have, yet he hadn’t resisted asking Mukuro once : “So is this thing alive or not ?” He had felt her smile under her bandages, then she told him he was asking the wrong question. He hadn’t given her the satisfaction of asking what she meant.

The giant machine that maybe wasn’t one came to a halt right as he felt himself drift into slumber. Steam was stridently released somewhere in the building as the armoured door cut in the carapace opened to let its proprietor in. Mukuro’s energy trace was unmistakeable. During his first year at her side, he had spent a fair amount of time spying on both Yomi and Raizen, who both expertly concealed their true power even from his Jagan eye. Mukuro, meanwhile, balanced her perpetually hidden face by strolling around coated in her deadly force, her youki dancing around her in a saraband of tension and warning. “Like having war itself as a boss”, he once told Kurama. “That’s an apt comparison” the other had replied, “in a human religious book called the New Testament, the apocalypse is announced by four riders, Conquest, War, Famine and Death. If Mukuro is war, then Raizen would be famine and Yomi would be conquest.” “Then who’s the fourth one ?” he had snorted in response. “I guess we’ll see” Kurama had smiled.
However, today’s dance of energy spun furiously enough to give him pause, as did the hurried steps of Mukuro’s lieutenants to get away from her path. Bunch of babies. He waited until the door of the room next to his had properly slammed shut before lazily making his way to his own door and in Mukuro’s room under the grateful gaze of the attendants. Each time, he had half a mind of letting the first person on the fortress who had to interact with Mukuro to fend for themself instead of playing the sacrificial victim everytime the former king came back from a council meeting, but it was too much fun teasing her.

The lady of the house was slouched over her sprawling four poster bed, face down, head buried in a pillow. Hiei went straight for the coffee pot on the nightstand and poured himself a cup. He didn’t offer her one.

“Your minions are wondering when it’ll be safe to approach you again.”

A series of muffled sounds emanating from the pillow answered him.

“Why do you even keep going to these things if you can’t stand them ?”

“Force of habit, I guess. And stuff.”

She pivoted her head to look at him reclining on the table.

“This right here was my fucking land, my fucking army, my fucking subjects.”

“You haven’t met with one of your subjects the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Never said I liked them.”

Suddenly cheery again, she sat up on the bed, legs crossed.

“Enki wanna be a good king when he still has to prove he can be either of these things. He wanna shoulder all of Makai alone, let him. But I’d sooner spread acid on the rest of my face than let Yomi be his biggest influence. He’s already setting Gandara to be the permanent centre of the presidency, no matter who’s in charge. I gotta make an attendance notice, at least. ”

“You two are ever going to be done with your quibbling ?”

“Rich coming from you. And no. He’s an asshole. And it’s even worse now that he’s happy. You should never let assholes be happy, it’s distracting.”

“You could be the biggest influence if you wanted to. You just don’t care enough to make the effort, you jerk.”

“Hm. Hand me some coffee.”

Hiei turned the pot over and a single drop fell onto the nightstand. They stared at each other with quizzical smiles.

“… The things I let you get away with, man.”

One brief brawl and a copious amount of coffee later, the two of them were laying on the metal roof of the fortress, watching the quiet forest below under the night sky. Out of sheer convenience, Makai had adopted the same hourly system as Earth, despite having no day or night to speak of. Some claimed there were some tiny changes in the angry motley clouds of the Makai sky from which you could tell day from night ; Hiei mostly thought it bullshit. It was night when you slept, and day when you didn’t.

“And one day, all of this will be yours, Simba.”

“…”

“It’s from a movie.”

“You enjoy stupid human trivialities too much.”

“You don’t enjoy them enough. You don’t enjoy anything enough.”

“I would if you’d shut up from time to time.”

“Nothin’s stoppin’ you from leaving.”

Mukuro’s head was resting on her arms, lid half-closed, humming to herself in her low, coarse voice. Leaning against the gargantuan antenna-like transmitter, Hiei listened to her, his eyes on the forest.

“Hey. What’s that tune from ?”

“Old South East rhyme, from way before your time. Haven’t heard it in a while.”

Smiling at nothing, she started singing :

My lover took my hand
and never let it go
across the Howling Sand
to the Blinded Grotto

Her steps were large enough
to carry us both through
and when the soil went rough
from her back two wings grew

My lover took my hand
and never let it go
and how she made me wish
that my core could follow.

“When I was a kid” Mukuro grinned, “I thought the girl in the rhyme had cut her lover’s arm off and was just strolling around holding the severed arm. My fa… Chikou told me the real meaning eventually. But I still prefer my version.”

Her unblinking eye twitched a bit, like often when she was laughing. “That’s a damn shame” one of his subordinates had whispered to him once, ”because you know she’d be really beautiful without… y’know, the thing”. ”That’s a stupid thing to think about” Hiei had snorted. Her hand went to tease the remnants of hair she had under her headband. It was a stupid thing to think about. Mukuro without her scars wasn’t Mukuro. It was like calling kindling a beautiful fire.

“Any word from your sister ?”

“…No.”

“Ah, well. You made her wait seven years, you can wait a month or two.”

“I’m not waiting on anything. Said what I had to say, it’s done now.”

“She said to give her some time to think, right ? She’ll come around. You’re like a dirty street cat, everyone says they don’t like you, but they all let you in eventually.”

“Hmph. Who are you, then ?”

“I’m the old lady with seventy-eight street cats.”

“She’s done. You weren’t there, you didn’t see her face. She’s done.”

“Yknow whatta think ? I think you’re miffed that she called you out on your bullshit act. You’d have told her eventually, you just wanted to make a big scene out of it. Falling in each other’s arms and all that jazz.”

“What’s that ?”

“Ya heard me.”

“No, what’s that”

Mukuro sat up and followed his gaze. For a moment, she saw only the crown of the trees cutting the reddened sky. Then one of them fell to the ground. Then another. And another. Slowly, on the horizon, something that looked like a cloud of dust was growing, then started drawing closer, tearing off the trees in its path. Only shortly after seeing it, they heard it, a cacophony of metal and organic sounds, an obscene mix that seemed to beg you to stop whatever had spawned its existence. Hiei’s headband was already undone.

“…It looks like one of your bug fortresses. A crappy version of it, at least. Well, crappier.”

The mobile building was now close enough for Mukuro’s naked eye to detail it.

“It’s an older model. We haven’t used one of those in…”

Hiei eyed Mukuro’s furrowed brow. He didn’t like this habit he had formed of waiting on her.

“… Take Kirin and Baku with you and go set up an outpost six miles from here in their direction. The speed they’re going, they should reach you in the next hour. We gonna have to tinker with our radio system a bit to reach them on their old system, but I want them to identify themselves before going further. Keep your intercom open at all times.”

“We’re taking the offensive ?”

“Only if necessary. And Hiei ?”

“…”

“Unless I give you the all clear, they do not go through you.”

“Got it.”

The other fortress was very close now. The air had an iron tang to it, the sound of ripped branches filled the silence of the three youkai set up on rocks over the clear.

Baku’s breathing was screeching under the protective skull that surrounded their organic tissue, while Kirin cracked his bone-plated fingers. Many among Mukuro’s loyalists had their face hidden in some way or another. ”I like bein’ literal”, Mukuro had said. ”The mask is on, the masks falls. Until we are truly naked in front of one another”. ”I don’t wear a mask” he had remarked. ”If it were true” she had answered, ”then it would be even worse.”

The trees at the breach of the clear fell on their side. On reflex, Hiei’s hand descended to find the handle of his sword. Metal legs toppled the sweet grass of the clear. Kirin threw Hiei a glance, then when it became obvious the latter had no intention of taking the initiative, the former right-hand held his arm in front of him.

“Stop right here and identify yourself !”

Steam escaped from all parts of the cuirass. Rowing legs slowed, and the metal edifice immobilized a few feet from the three demons. But no one came out.

“I’ll not repeat it !”

Damn, this thing looked shitty. It was a far cry from the slick machinery of sliding plates Hiei was used to. On top of the antiquated design, it was covered in dust and moss, humidity seeping in the outer articulations, making them creak with every movement. Kirin turned to Hiei.

“Are we moving ?”

Hiei felt slightly uncomfortable under the fortress’ unseeing eyes.

“We’re moving.”

He unsheathed his sword.

“Wait !”

The familiar voice came not from the intercom he was keeping at his belt, instead emerging remarkably clear from behind him.

“Stand down, all three of you.”

“Mukuro, do you know…”

“I said wait.”

As Mukuro passed them by, a metal plate detached itself from the side of the machine and fell on the ground. Footsteps cut through the steam.

The youkai was maybe four times Hiei’s height and twice his width. Her heavy armour that went over her neck and up to her nose allowed very little of her to be seen ; white slanted eyes without pupils were like deep cuts on her icy blue skin. Stylized tattooed ideograms covered her entire otherwise bald head. On her back, two scimitars were hanged.

“An Aoikama” murmured Baku.

As she stepped forward, both Hiei and Kirin almost did the same to intercept her before she could reach Mukuro. The passive energy the latter emitted prevented them from acting on their impulse.

The youkai walked up to Mukuro until they were face to face. Slowly, her knee bended under her.

“My Lord” she said, head bowed. “I have returned.”

“Sumjir” Mukuro smiled. “It’s been a long time.”

“Seven hundred years, my Lord.”

“I’ve missed you.”

Hiei was pacing. Hiei never paced. That was Mukuro’s fault, too, somehow. It was Mukuro’s fault that Hiei had a room to pace in, to begin with. He’d never even wanted the damn thing. ”What are trees for ?” “Trees can’t hold your stuff.” “I don’t have stuff. Fuck stuff.” “Take the damn room, Hiei, before I bury you in it.” Mukuro and the blue giant had locked themselves in the master bedroom as soon as they’d boarded back the fortress. Mukuro never locked her door.

Hiei exited to the hallway, mostly because there was nothing else to do. He wasn’t listening at the door. He wasn’t having anyone thinking he might be trying to listen at the door.

The men were chattering like cicadas in a wood. Hiei leaned against the wall, as was his habit, close enough to listen to what was said, too far to be considered part of the conversation.

“Who’s she, anyway ?”

“Yeah, Kirin, tell us !”

“I don’t know much, alright ? I was barely an egg when she left. At that time, my grandfather was Mukuro’s right hand. I mostly know the history of her army through him. I think she’s the state general who led at the battle of Uli.”

There were whistles.

“That’s like, in the top three of Mukuro’s victories.”

“There’s a ranking ?”

“But that was some thousand years ago, right ? Why was she away so long ?”

“I don’t know. Seven hundred years ago, that’s the time of the Turning. Yomi emerged, and Raizen retreated militarily. There was a lot of shuffling around in Mukuro’s camp as well. My grandfather told me that’s when the Makai of today really started taking shape. That Sumjir person was part of the generation that built it, but when it kicked into gear, she disappeared. Maybe she just fell out of favour with Mukuro. I mean, that happens with every single one of her seconds, eventually. She gets bored.”

His rapid glance at Hiei was anything but incidental. He considered it his cue to unstick his back from the wall and cut right through this crowd of nuisances to head for the woods. He needed to cut something in half.

“You made our crawlers quite beautiful.”

Mukuro paused her browsing of her closet to look at her general admire the ramifications of the fortress inner walls.

“We found a way to polish the steel at extremely low temperature, gives it that slick look. But underneath, it’s still all your designs.”

“We won wars with this.”

“Not for long, though. Everyone copied us, made it better, we looked for something else. Cycle of invention. Still, I’ll always remember when you crashed into my room, some book about a human general in hand, screaming ‘we need our elephants !’”

Chuckling, Mukuro triumphantly emerged from the closet, a dusty bottle in hand. Sumjir smiled under her armour.

“Peach eau-de-vie. You remember.”

The cap popped as Sumjir undid her armour. Both women settled on the bed, a drink at hand.

“Seven hundred years, and so little changes in Makai. Humans, they need everything to change so fast. They’re never satisfied with what they have, and by the time they have something else, they’re not satisfied with that either.”

“Some things change here too.”

“Ah, you’ve got yourself a new project ? Let me guess… The teignous one in black ? He’s your style.”

“He’s a friend.”

“He’s a child.”

“You weren’t much older when I first found you.”

“People in wars age so much faster.”

“Till they stop aging at all.”

“You like war.”

“I like fighting. Only realized recently that the more war there was, the less fighting I was doin’.”

“Well, you’ll be fighting a lot more soon.”

“You don’t mean…”

“They’ve moved. Finally. Just like you said they would. So I came to let you know. Just like you said I should.”

“You know why ?”

“Who cares ? Can’t be good.”

“Sumjir, Raizen is dead.”

The general took in the news. Mukuro waited, eye closed.

“Are we sure ?”

“I am. I’ve been on his grave.”

“Then who’s…”

“His son. For a pinch. Things are different now.”

“Did we… win ?”

“There’s not really a ‘we’ anymore. There’s only I. I do what I want. So does everyone else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. But that’s all I owe it to you to tell. The rest, you can fill in with the men. Spend the night in, we’ll see to the rest tomorrow. I’ve got to make some calls to who’s in charge now. Your room is taken, though. You can stay in mine.”

“I wouldn’t dare to…”

“Sorry. But the one in your usual room needs it more than I do mine.”

The tree combusted. It didn’t burn, didn’t erupt in flames, it became cinder before it could even be said it had caught on fire. Hiei watched the wind carry away the ashes. The feeling of her presence, leaning on the tree behind him, cut short whatever pleasure he’d reaped from martyrizing the vegetation.

“… The ‘crawler’ ? Seriously ?”

“We workshopped a couple names.”

“It blows.”

“She’s not replacing you, ya know.”

“Replacing me as what ? We’re nothing for each other.”

Mukuro didn’t dignify this with an answer. Instead, she let herself fall on the fungi covered rock next to Hiei and waited for his question.

“Tell me.”

“It’s a boring story.”

“…Tell me.”

“Some seven hundred years ago, we fought Raizen and his army on earth. Me and Sumjir. That was before this whole barrier business. Almost got the bastard too. But as they retreated, Raizen split from his army. Never found out why, but we had a choice to make : do we go after him, or his entire army ? We chose the army. Chased them off on frozen land in the middle of fucking winter. They started losing men. So did we. Armies tire up quick. Eventually they holed up in some glacial caverns in the mountains. What neither of us knew was that they were volcanic mountains. Before we knew it, it started raining fire and other volcanic crap. Their chances of survival were slim, so were ours if we decided to follow them. Another choice. We decided to retreat to Makai. But I ordered Sumjir to stay behind, in case Raizen’s men ever emerged from the mountain again.”

“And she actually stayed there ? For seven hundred years ?”

“Yeah.”

“So if she’s back…”

“Yeah.”

“… You’re right, it’s a boring story.”

She elbowed him, smiling.

“So what now ?”

“We dine. We sleep. We don’t do anything we don’t wanna do. That’s the deal.”

“What are you gonna do with Sumjir ?”

“Drink a lot, I hope. You’re a lousy drinking buddy, ya lightweight.”

“You don’t think it’s risky to be drunk around her ?”

“Why ?”

“A lot can happen in seven hundred years.”

She stood up, dusting the ash from Hiei’s outburst from her shoulder, and walked toward the fortress.

“Keep one eye opened at all times if that what you wanna do. That’s what ya’ve always been good at. I’m havin’ a party.”

Smoke from the massive bonfire was caressing the darkened sky as it rose in greyed wisps above their heads. Joyous screams from the fortress residents resonated far across the forest, imparting it all with an intimate atmosphere which, try as he may, couldn’t help but affect Hiei as well. Leaning back a few feet behind Mukuro, still holding his first tankard, he watched the men sing and tumble around, a diffuse warmth in his gut. The mood was conducive to nostalgia, evocative of days long gone by, of a past only told of in tales and legends to most of them, and that seemed even farther away to the few who had lived it. The air smelled of fire and remnants of rain in the air and beer, and for a night the present receded to let what was forgotten seep into the minds. Hiei let his vagabond to a not-so-distant past of invitations never honoured, of games disdained, of laughter and parties observed through a window.

Mukuro was conversing, looking strikingly normal, and that very fact seemed to confuse her subordinates more than any outburst would. The fire that lit up her face each time captured an emotion, as fleeting and elusive as she was, yet somehow altogether painting a picture of happiness where there should have been nothing but black on the canvas for a long time.

Sumjir came, in a simple tunic but her weapons still on her back, and held her hand over the fire, taking in the heat. Mukuro stood up and handed her a drink.

The night wasn’t ending.
His eyes closed, feeling intoxication penetrate his brain, he was at that state when he was comfortably aware of his entire surroundings, Mukuro’s husky laughter, the men stomping their hands and feet on the ground, encouraging each other to drink, and Sumjir…

Sumjir hadn’t touched her cup. From the other side of the fire, he saw her, her eyes fixated on Mukuro, stand up, and violently throw her drink in the fire. It roared in response, flames licking close to Hiei’s face. The joyful noise was shattered into silence like the shards of the glass.

“What is this ?!” Sumjir bellowed.

Mukuro stood up, in this calm manner of which Hiei had perfected an imitation without ever feeling it for himself.

“I’m not sure whatcha mean.”

“This. All this. This is all wrong. What are you doing, drinking and partying with common guards ? Why aren’t we marching toward Raizen’s army now ? What happened to you ?!”

“It’s bein’ handled. Just not by me.”

“How could… How could you let this happen ? The Mukuro I knew would have never put our fate in the hands of somebody else !”

“Your fate is your own, Sumjir. I ain’t responsible of anyone here.”

“You told me when you asked me to stay behind on Earth. You told me they’d never get away from us, no matter how much time, they would find us right here when they got out.”

“It was a hundred frozen, starved men. Ours were frozen and starved too. What could I say to them ?”

“Then why would you ask me to stand watch if it wasn’t important, why would…”

Mukuro held her gaze.

“… Were you getting rid of me ?”

The blade was on Mukuro before Hiei could see Sumjir unsheathe it. Just as quickly, the former king’s hand came to intercept it. Swaying her arm, she sent her attacker flying against a nearby rock, on which the general bounced and using her momentum, came back at Mukuro from the air.

This time, Hiei was ready.

Too far to have a chance to intercept the general himself, he plunged his hand in the fire before him and breathed in his you-ki. Orange turned to black as a pillar of scorching fire appeared between the two women just as Sumjir was about to strike again. She recoiled, more out of surprise than fear of real harm.

As the curtain of flames cut them from view, Mukuro held her hand toward Hiei, ordering him to stand down. Did Mukuro want the fight for herself, or was she concerned that he might come to harm facing the general, he didn’t know.

Two blades sprung up around Mukuro’s neck, clamping her on the spot. She avoided the blow by letting herself fall down, as a few red strands of hair fell prey to the cleaver. Hitting the ground, she rotated on her hand and swept Sumjir’s legs from under her. She was expecting it, however, and used the opportunity to plant one of her blade on the ground and return the favour, kicking Mukuro in the jaw.

What the hell is she doing. She’s not fighting. Hiei knew all too well the uncomfortable feeling that seeped in his mind. The feeling of giving it your all against someone who’s just trying to teach you something. Someone who can’t even pretend to lower herself to your level. It was even worse if you happened to land a hit. Like the stupid human kid you let win at every game on their birthday. He couldn’t help but feel offended on Sumjir’s behalf. Her frustration was painfully obvious.

“Fight me ! Be angry ! Be Mukuro !”

The other had the audacity to wink.

“I don’t wanna.”

He distantly wondered if Mukuro felt any alarm at the you-ki that was suddenly accumulating around Sumjir’s blade. This wasn’t his fight. This wasn’t a fight at all.

The scimitars danced around Sumjir and a spark appeared on the edge of each blade. When she swayed them in front of her, she wasn’t anywhere near Mukuro, yet the air seemed to be severed on several meters, reaching Mukuro who very nearly avoided the hit. Behind her, a mass of trees was neatly cut in half.

Mukuro’s left hand reached to her robotic arm, undoing the casing, then described a circle before her.

That’s the technique she used against me. In our fight, she waited almost an hour before resorting to it.

The shockwave hit Sumjir square in the chest, leaving her breathless. Before she could get herself up, Mukuro had her pinned to the ground, her hands on the other’s wrists, immobilizing her.

“I gave you everything ! I gave you seven hundred years ! How could you…”

“Because you gave me everything !”

Slightly breathless, Mukuro struggled to regain her composure for a moment.

“Every day, I could see you disappear. On your mind, in your eyes, there was nothing but me. Your world was shrinking until it was all me, only me. I didn’t want that. I never wanted that. I could barely stand havin’ one of me around.”

He could see Sumjir squirm lightly. Her wrists looked very white under Mukuro’s grip.

“Of course I was getting rid of you ! And if you hadn’t been so intoxicated with me, it wouldn’t have taken ya seven hundred fucking years to realize that.”

The men had scattered during the fight. Only Hiei found himself unable to move. Mukuro sighed, let go of Sumjir’s wrists and held her hand to help her back up. After a hesitation, Sumjir took it.

“So what now ?” asked the general.

She looked like the floor had been robbed from underneath her.

“Go. Live your life. Or rather find a life to live. Do what you should have done seven centuries ago.”

“…I can’t guarantee I won’t end up hating you.”

“I’d prefer it.”

There was no sunrise to mark the transition between the events of the bonfire and the moment Hiei found himself back in Mukuro’s room, helping her bandage her slightly bruised shoulder – her organic tissue always taking a toll when she used her robotic part, a secret few were privy to – yet it did feel like a new day. Sumjir had left a little earlier, with no goodbye to anyone. She had taken the old crawler – damn, Hiei would never be able to get that name out of his head.

“All done ?”

“It would if you stopped moving for a sec.”

“What about now ?”

“You’re worse than a child.”

“Says the guy who let himself bleed internally for two days rather than ask his sister to heal him.”

“Why do I tell you things ?”

With uncalled for roughness, he slapped the last bit of adhesive on her.

“There. Now we’re done.”

“Thanks. But we’re not. Not just yet.”

She grabbed the liquor bottle forgotten on her nightstand since the day before.

“What ?”

“You can’t stay here anymore, Hiei. You gotta leave too.”

“… What ?”

“I’ve tried sayin’ it about a hundred different ways, but we’re runnin’ out of time. I’d have liked if you’d gone on your own, but it wasn’t happenin’. Which is exactly my point.”

“That’s nonsense. I can leave any time I want.”

“But ya ain’t. Over the last two years, you left the fortress three times. Three times. Did ya even realize that ?”

“So what ? It’s not like there’s anything happening. And why do you even want me to leave in the first place ?!”

“Why do you wanna stay ?”

“BECAUSE IT’S MY…”

He stopped, in shock. She sighed on her fist.

“Hiei, I love havin’ you here. But you’re too much like me, or maybe I’m too much like you. I don’t challenge you. I can’t seem to push you away. You’ve made yourself comfortable by my side, and little by little, the walls have closed in on ya. And now it’s so hard for you to get away anymore, that ya simply stopped altogether.”

“… I do leave. I left for that stupid mission last time.”

“Yeah. A mission. That’s what I’ve gotta resort to so you’d spend a little time with someone other than me. Give ya a mission. And what did you do with that ? You didn’t even tell them I’d sent you.”

“Don’t put that on me ! You ordered me not to tell them !”

“Since when do you take orders ? Since when do you lie to your friends ?”

Hiei closed his eyes for a long time.

“… I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go either. But you’re not really staying here if you can’t leave.”

“Where would I even go ?”

“Don’t ask me. Explore Makai. Go back to earth. See your friends. See your sister. Live your life. It’ll all be waiting for you when you come back.”

“Like it waited for Sumjir ?”

Their eyes challenged each other for a while. Mukuro yielded first and sat down on the bed.

“Hiei, I am old. I don’t look like it, but I am. There ain’t much more to who I am than what I am now. But you’ve barely lived two decades. You don’t know who you are yet. And who you are can’t be all about me.”

“… When can I come back ?”

“When you want to come back without needin’ to.”

“I was so much better off back when I didn’t need anyone.”

“You’re never better off with a lie. Go, Hiei, before the walls close in again.”

He left the fortress without any goodbyes. The content of his room barely filled the single bag on his shoulder. As he passed by the engine room, he noticed how loud the machinery were. It filled his head like a blur. He wondered when he had started mistaking this constant buzzing for silence, and if he’d ever stop.
A TV was blaring to cover the engine sound. As he exited the hallway, he only caught the last sentences of the report.

”… and while we have been living on Earth in the caverns of what humans call the Kamchatka volcanoes for seven centuries, our people are youkais. This is our land. And we are demanding this territory be recognized as part of Makai and placed under demon law.”

Chapter Text

”…and that just strikes me as awfully convenient, you know, the timing of it all, suddenly a long lost tribe of demons reappears right as we’re in the middle of negotiating immigration rights… I am not saying this was planned, but at some point you really have to wonder…”

“Hey man, can you turn that down ?”

“Sorry. We got poli sci students from Tokyo U here as well, they want to hear the report.”

The bartender had barely looked at him to answer, the way most people barely looked at him. And what was that, “from Tokyo U” ? He could have been from Tokyo U as well.

”…The Russian government has declared through its spokesman that under no circumstances it would consent to what it considers to be an attack on its sovereignty. The Japanese government has stated monitoring the event extremely closely due to the unique strategic situation of the Kamchatka peninsula regarding the Chishima Islands conflict between the two nations…”

Kuwabara sighed. His concentration quota had been maxed out already anyway. It was the third time he read the same sentence without anything imprinting. He packed his books and parted with the sum of his bill with no small amount of reticence. Bar tabs were his only expendable expenses, but since his school library was under repairs, he’d had no choice than to study in cafés when he didn’t have time to make it home and back before class. He had yet to find one that wasn’t filled to the brim with pretentious pricks with a fancy degree from a fancy university.

His own alma mater was a respectable Institute of technology whose cachet in its field still vastly outshined its actual funding. He doubted this was many people’s dream college, but fuck it, it was his, it was nested right at the intersection of schools he could be proud of graduating from and schools whose bill his family could actually foot. Or so they said. He saw his father come home two hours later than he used to, and Shizuru’s earnings from the salon go entirely toward his tuition instead of opening her own place like she always talked about. His sister brushed it off everytime he brought up the subject. ”You’re the first success this family has had, like hell my stupid dream is gonna get in the way of that !” He didn’t like to hear her speak that way of herself. It reminded him quite a bit of how she used to talk about him, before. The way their mom used to talk about them. It made it even harder to stomach when every midterm, he came dangerously close to having to repeat the semester, thus losing his scholarship.

On the train back home, the peninsula was all everyone talked about, meaning no one really knew what they were talking about. Some people still didn’t understand the difference between youkais and aliens. It amused him, until he realized how little he himself knew of the situation. He’d been sitting by the phone since the news had broken out the day before, waiting for Yuusuke to give him the juice, but the detective had apparently vanished from the surface of the earth, either literally or figuratively. He wasn’t at the ramen stand he still manned despite his new gig, and Keiko had told him he hadn’t come home the night before. How blasé she sounded on the phone was a testament to the way they managed to make their relationship work in spite of everything separating them : by asking only as many questions as was necessary.

He announced himself to an empty hallway. Taking off his shoes, he winced at the smell ; since everyone at home worked extra, they’d been a bit behind on laundry as of late. Yukina usually insisted on paying off her rent in house chores, but her head hadn’t been into it the last month, for obvious reasons. What he was getting at was, it was Hiei’s fault if his feet stank. A lot of things were Hiei’s fault.

As he passed by Shizuru’s room, he caught snippets of a conversation that had known many repetitions over the past month.

“… It’s not that he knew and didn’t tell me, you know ? I knew too, in a way. It’s that if he knew and didn’t tell me, it was because knowing I existed was only as far as he needed me. And that hurts, because I on the other hand needed him so much more than that.”

“That’s not really true. God knows how many times I thought I’d felt his energy lurking around the house. I didn’t connect the dots back then, but now I know that was him attempting to have a relationship with you, however one-sided it was. He’s clumsy, most of all.”

“But he knew well enough to threaten everyone not to tell me. And everyone just went along with it, like it was some sort of game. But it wasn’t, not for me. I want to be understanding, but everytime I try, I just feel so angry instead. So I avoid thinking about it. But then, I don’t make any progress at all, and I’m just going in circles. Have you talked to your boss about me ?”

“I’m working on it. I’m still technically new at the salon, so I don’t have many favours under my belt. It’s already huge that they hired me when I didn’t have formal training. But don’t worry, I should be able to get you a cleaning job, at least.”

“Good. I need something to take my mind off it all. I’m going stir-crazy, staying home all day.”

I used to be the one she’d talk to about that sort of things. He hated that this was his first thought. Yukina needed consolation, wherever it may come from. His feelings didn’t come into play. He’d realized that in the clearest possible way, when he’d come to her room to see her collapsed on the bed after Hiei had left.

”I can’t, Kazuma, I just can’t.”

”It’s okay. I know he’s not the dream sibling, but it’s better to know, right ? You must be at least partly happy.”

”I don’t mean just him ! I mean you too ! I can’t bear the pressure of having to be this ideal of a girlfriend you have, just like I can’t be his ideal of a sister ! I can’t just be waiting around for either of you to be ‘ready’. I’ve been doing that for years. I just can’t anymore !”

It was like a dam opening.

”It’s okay, you’re emotional right now, we can deal with that later…”

”No, we can’t deal with it now. You were all so concerned with whether he or you were ready, no one even asked themselves whether I was ready ! I don’t want to be with you right now, Kazuma. If I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know. Let the two of you wait on me, for once.”

So they hadn’t been talking much lately. He didn’t want to believe that he was actually that petty, and that part of it came from Yukina. She needed distance, he could understand. He just wished the whole thing hadn’t been this messy. He didn’t do well with messy. Put that on Hiei too. Thanks a lot, asshole. The second she’s your sister again, she becomes as hurtful as you. There it was, another ugly thought. He didn’t do well with rejection. And unlike the midget, he’d been pretty clearly rejected.

Closing the door of his room behind him, he threw his bag next to the desk and took out his Walkman. Half a Megadeaf album later, he was deep in his homework, and didn’t realize something was wrong until an oar came in contact with the hardest part of his skull.

“I have been. Calling. From your window. For five. Minutes !!”

“Botan ? What the hell ? How did you get in ? And… that hurts !”

“Do you know how much it’s raining ? And that’s my good kimono too !!”

“But wait, if you’re here… You guys need me, right ?”

“Yes. Get in spirit form and jump in, quick.”

It was only once on the oar that he realized he didn’t even warn the girls that he’d be gone a while.

The glistening contours of the Sanzu River were dancing way down below. Gripping Botan’s waist – they had had a few close calls while diving through the clouds at the edge of the kingdom – Kuwabara was taking in the view. Damn, to think he got to enjoy it in his lifetime. It was good sometimes to remind himself how blessed he was.

“Hey ! Wouldn’t it be simpler to regroup on Earth ?”

“Don’t ask me ! Lord Koenma doesn’t tell me anything anymore. He’s been really closed off lately. And it’s been even worse since he had that fight with Yuusuke.”

“Oh yeah, what was that about ?”

“My opinion ? Child bickering.”

“Haha ! Exactly !”

They landed in front of the titanic door. As Botan rang the goofy-sounding doorbell, he fleetingly realized this was the first ever time he passed that door. When they’d invaded the palace last time, they came and went via his dimensional sword. He couldn’t help but feel the majesty of the moment.

However Botan soon escorted him far from the gaudy, well-lit hallways and to some crumbling area toward the bottom of the building. Humidity – from where ? – was seeping under the wallpaper. She soon stopped in front of a metal-platted door that read “ARCHIVES 1900-“ in big, aggressive ideograms.

“You’re not coming in ?”

“Sorry. Need to know only. But I’ll be resting at the ferrygirl cafeteria later, if you want to join !”

“Sorry Botan, duty first !”

He opened the door to find himself in an ocean of paper.
The room consisted of a seemingly endless hallway whose walls were covered from floor to ceiling in shelves bending under the weight of immense binders ; in its middle section, an uninterrupted white line of paper piles waiting to be sorted cut the space in half. However, this working order seemed to have found its limits a good while ago as unsorted piles were now speckling the grey linoleum up to the door.

In one of the alleyways the separation wall created, a toddler in human form was sitting directly on the ground, surrounded by yet more paper.

“Koenma ! You turned the batsignal on ?”

He turned toward Kuwabara, and for one second seemed to forget why he was here.

“Ah. Yes. Kuwabara. Thank you for coming.”

“So what’s the plan ? Are the others on their way ?”

“What others ?”

“Well… the gang ! Team Urameshi ! The brothers in arms ! Where are they ?”

“Well, let me see… Hiei is on patrol duty in Makai, Kurama’s in Tokyo to assist with diplomatic negotiations, and Yuusuke must be landing in Siberia right about now.”

“Huh ? …Then why did you call me here ?”

“Because of this.”

Without a glance, he threw a newspaper on Kuwabara’s feet. On the first page the title read : “STRANDED DEMONS FROM RAIZEN’S LOST ARMY RESSURFACE IN SIBERIA” and then under it : “How demons stuck on Earth after a barrier was installed have laid claim on human land seven hundred years later”. The paper was the Yomiuri Shinbun, the one Kuwabara only ever saw in the hands of salarymen in the subway.

“So ? Am I also on team Siberia ? Does Yuusuke need backup ?”

“No. This info. They shouldn’t have it. It’s classified. Have you watched the interview given by the representative of these “stranded demons” ? They never mention the circumstances that brought them on earth, or why they stayed here. Info on this case has been leaking all morning to the press. Info that could only come from one place : here.”

“Wait, so you knew about those demons ?”

“It was before I was born, but yes, we knew about it. The battle Raizen and Mukuro fought on Earth was one of the reasons we erected the barrier in the first place. Too much destruction. Have you heard of the Patomskiy crater in Siberia ?”

“Uh, yeah, in geology class.”

“There you have it. But we were convinced these youkais were long dead. There hasn’t been any sign of life emanating from those mountains ever since the eruption that stuck them inside. Who knows how they managed to survive all this time in those caves.”

“That’s great, but I’m still not sure why I’m here.”

“These leaks have become a primary concern since Yuusuke’s last case. Now that the topic of Makai is in the public eye, we can’t afford not to control what gets out. These around you are all intelligence files from the recent century. I have here the list of every leak we indexed. We need to find all the dossiers that have been leaked and who accessed them recently. Your help would be much appreciated.”

“But… don’t you have other people here who could that better than I can ?”

“Everyone here is a suspect. I was short on options. And like I said earlier all the others were busy.”

“Oh… So this is what you need me to do.”

“Is there a problem ?”

“… Let’s do it then.”

What seemed like hours later, Kuwabara eyed the minuscule pile he’d managed to sort through. His rhythm felt pathetic compared to Koenma, who only needed a few second to scan through a page before discarding it. The whole thing didn’t seem sensibly different to when he was studying at his school’s library, taking an hour to complete a chapter when he saw his desk neighbours fly through the whole section.

As he was finally setting aside the pile he’d completed, he got up to grab another huge-ass pile of boring, when a small casing on the shelf attracted his attention. The cover was entirely black, and the whole thing emitted a faint yet persistent aura. He opened it to find a DVD inside. The disc was completely black as well.

“Hey. What’s that ?”

Koenma looked up for the first time since he’d sat down, clearly annoyed by this breach into the studious silence.

“Don’t you recognize it ? You almost died because of it.”

Kuwabara squinted.

“The Black Chapter ?”

“Bingo. We carry it through from century to century, in every archive room.”

“But wasn’t it a tape ? said Kuwabara while instinctively letting go of the cursed thing.

“It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that this isn’t an actual tape. The Chapter Black existed long before electronic support did. It used to be a book, and before that, a tablet. Its physical manifestation changes form as technology evolves, according to what mode of viewing is the most convenient at the time. It’s almost like it wants to be watched.” Koenma mumbled, almost to himself.

“But I thought Yuusuke had given it to Hiei in exchange for his help.”

“He is not completely heartless. He gave it back to us. Just heartless enough that he made us pay for it. And not cheap, either.”

“Where does this midget keep all his money anyway ?”

“Not money. He sold it in exchange for acquittal.”

“Hasn’t he reached the end of his rap sheet by now ?”

“He has. It’s acquittal for future condemnations.”

Koenma dove back in the open dossier on his lap, considering the interlude over.

“Hey.”

“Mmh ?”

“Have you considered… just not having that around ?”

“The Black Chapter ?”

“Yeah.”

Koenma frowned.

“You speak as if I had a choice.”

He slapped another file on the pile.

“And even if it was a choice, I am quite sure I’d make it.”

Not knowing how to answer, Kuwabara went back to his own files.

“Hey.”

“What now ?”

“What does the number on the bottom right corner of each file mean ?”

“That’s the source reference. All intelligence sources are anonymized, so we keep track of them through a classification system. The files only have an initial and a number on it, and the index list is in a protected safe. Why do you ask ?”

“It’s just… that I keep seeing the same number. R39. Must be one hell of a deep throat.”

“…That’s weird. The classification only has five letters. H, Y, A, D, O, for Human, Youkai, Agent, Deceased, and Other, respectively.”

Koenma frowned and scooted over to Kuwabara to peer at the file he held.

“See, here. And on this one too. It’s on almost one out of ten files after 1993.”

“Any of them match with the list of leaked info ?”

“Uh, yeah. As a matter of fact.”

He handed Koenma the relevant files.

“So that guy could be the leak, right ? We should go check out who it is !”

“It doesn’t work that way. I’ll have to put in a consultation request with the intelligence committee. That will take a couple months.”

“This place has more red tape than my college. And they once made me fill a form to request another form to get more book request forms in the library.”

“Good administration is crucial to the survival of any society. When the individual falters, the system carries through.”

“Uh… well, if you’re putting in the request, you might as well ask to check this other weird one. It pops up a lot in older files. HA2.”

“No need for that one. Human Agent 2. That’s Sensui’s identification number.”

“Ah.”

Koenma went back to his own file pile.

“So, Urameshi was HA3 ?”

“That’s how logic goes, yes.”

“Hey, do I have a number ?”

“Of course. H2258116.”

“…Why not HA4 ?”

“Well, you were never technically an agent.”

“…Felt a lot like one, though.”

“Hence ‘technically’.”

There were a few minutes of silence.

“Hey.”

Koenma curtly closed the file on his lap with an exasperated sigh.

“If this is how you cram for all your exams, I’m not surprised your grades are only so-so.”

“How do you know that ?”

“Shizuru told Botan, who told me.”

“… Shizuru knows ?”

“On principle, Shizuru knows a lot of things.”

“Let me guess, she has a number too ?”

“H2258036.”

“How is her number earlier than mine ?!”

“Seems to me she hides from you just as much as you hide from her.”

“You don’t know anything, ok ? She’s working all day long to put me through college. If she knew how bad I’m doing…”

“You don’t give her enough credit. Much like you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“What would you know ?”

“Family is complicated. I know as much.”

Koenma had his nose deep in a file and his face hidden from Kuwabara’s view.

“Hey.”

“Kuwabara, I swear to me…”

“You know what’s this cramming session is missing ?”

“A studious silence ?”

“Anpan. How are we supposed to think straight without anpan ?”

Koenma let out a small chuckle.

“A relevant interruption, for once. That can be arranged.”

He got up and dusted his knees.

“Keep reading. I’ll be back in a pinch.”

Kuwabara watched the door close on the prince. Tough nut to crack, that one. He could manage it.

Smiling to himself, he opened another file and scanned its content. His smiled disappeared.

Koenma held the door open with his hip as he entered carrying a large place of golden buns. He didn’t register immediately how much Kuwabara’s face had closed.

“There. Now his highness can get down to business…”

“Cut the crap.”

Koenma rectified his posture.

“Excuse me ?”

“Why do you have a file on me ?”

He threw the dossier at the prince’s feet.

Koenma set the plate on a nearby pile.

“You were, as we discussed, an agent in all but name. It stands to reason that we would want to monitor you…”

“Bullshit. These reports, they date back from before I even met Botan at Genkai’s. Before I even met Urameshi. And in the corner, ‘A566’ that’s one of your agents. Were you spying on me ?”

“You were psychically aware. We keep track of humans like you.”

“More bullshit. There are pictures too. Of my family. And notes. Lots of notes. My grades. My mom’s new address. The name of her other children…”

“I understand that…”

“You don’t understand a thing ! Is this how you get your rocks off ? Spying on other people’s life to make yours feel less shitty ?”

“I wasn’t spying !”

“Then what ?”

“I was… prospecting.”

Koenma bent down to pick up the file.

“… Before Yuusuke’s accident, you were slated to become the next spirit detective.”

“I was…”

The words died in his throat. No air was passing through his lungs. Koenma waited for him.

“… Then how come you didn’t choose me ?”

“It wasn’t an easy decision, you know.”

“The hell ? You said it yourself, I was spiritually aware way before Urameshi. And Urameshi… He was Urameshi for god’s sake !”

“I know all that. It made all the sense in the world to nominate you. But after Shinobu, I wasn’t keen to trust sense anymore.”

“I’m nothing like that asshole !”

“Aren’t you, though ? There’s that same light in your eyes. The belief in an idea, in the role you are expected to play. Maybe that role was different for you and him. But you believed it all the same. Ultimately, we did need someone like you. Urameshi needed someone like you. That you found your way to us on your own proves that enough. But we couldn’t give you that role. I couldn’t be held responsible for telling you you were right all along to believe what you believed.”

“I…”

“Besides, did you even want to be a spirit detective ?”

“I wanted to be… something. For someone.”

Koenma sighed and sat down, encouraging Kuwabara to do the same.

“I’ll tell you this. Urameshi was a gamble, but I had one certainty about him : he needed us. He needed us as much as we needed him. But you… In all my time knowing ‘Team Urameshi’, you were the only one I never worried about. I was never scared of what you might become. I never stayed awake all night wondering if I was responsible for turning you into a monster. We needed you, Kuwabara. But… you never needed us.”

“What if I needed someone, though ? What if I needed someone to tell me I was special ?”

“But you are. You are in the rarest of ways, because you will remain special no matter if anyone sees it. It’s not a bad thing, Kuwabara.”

“Maybe not. But it sucks, sometimes. Not to be seen.”

“Trust me, I know.”

Slightly embarrassed, Koenma fiddled with a pile.

“I’m really sorry I asked you to come here without considering what you might find. Your help was really appreciated, but I understand it’s not the most exciting task. You should leave. I’m half certain this is a fool’s errand anyway. All those leaked files have different checking out dates and requesting names. Even if we cross-reference all of them, I doubt we’ll find the leak.”

“About that, I was thinking… it’d be pretty damn risky to come here everytime you want to leak some info and put your name on the checking out list. The leak would have to be someone who already had all these info.”

“The sources ? But we can’t find out who they are before months.”

“What about the agent who logged the files in ? They’d know as well. They might even know who the sources are. Can we find out who logged them in ?”

“Um… yeah. Hold on.”

He scurried through the pages of the files they’d put aside.

“Holy hell. It’s the same agent everytime.”

He showed Kuwabara the pages.

“’Jiju’ ? Who’s that ?”

“I have no idea.”

The ogre closed his drawer and aligned his pencils on his desk. He was always the last in the office to leave. There. All ready for tomorrow. For another day of sitting at a desk, taking the form on the right pile, stamping the form in the little square – not more than 10% out of the square, or the machine couldn’t read it properly – and putting the form on the left pile. It made sense. It made all the sense in the world.

A hand slammed on the desk, messing the parallelism of his pencils.

“Mr. Jiju. How nice it is to finally meet you.”

He raised his head to meet the gaze of the prince. Even sitting, he overhung him by a good foot.

“Your highness. I don’t see what you mean. I see you every day when you pass by this office to go to yours.”

“Jiju the ogre, I know. It’s Jiju the traitor I’m not acquainted with.”

Jiju rectified the pencils. Some people did not understand the value of a well-organized desk.

“There is one traitor here, ‘your highness’, and it’s not me.”

“Are you one of my father’s loyalists ? Did you act on his order ?”

“Your father is serving time in the Kingdom’s prison, thanks to you. I do not need his order to know right from wrong.”

“And what would that right be ?”

“The way it’s always been, your highness. Before you.”

“That’s not true. The past you speak of doesn’t exist anywhere else than in your head.”

“Things will go back to the way they should be soon. The Siberia scandal is the catalyst. You cannot disrupt the natural order.”

“Who’s R39 ?”

It was the other one, the human, who had spoken. He was fiddling with his lamp. Bunch of office terrorists.

“Wouldn’t you like to know ?”

A hand came to seizen him by the collar at stupendous speed.

“Listen you asshole, you may be big, but I just spent an entire afternoon looking at files and I have a lot of pent up energy. So if you don’t want to suddenly shorten by half, I suggest you start speaking now.”

“Is this is ?”

“129th hallway on the 52nd aisle of the 741st basement level. This is it.”

“… I don’t think I’ve ever even seen this area before.”

“You really don’t know your own kingdom much, do you ?”

“129th hallway on the 52nd aisle of the 741st basement level, Kuwabara.”

“So this source is another agent of the kingdom after all ?”

“I’m not sure. Jiju said he never went in person. He received the reports by tube.”

“Look at those doors. R35, R36, R37…R39, that’s it.”

Koenma decidedly grabbed the handle.

“Hold on Koenma. And the red tape ?”

“Screw the red tape.”

Kuwabara smiled back at him.

“That’s the spirit !”

He pushed open the door. As soon as they stepped in the room, they froze into place.

“That’s impossible.”

“Welcome, gentlemen. It’s been a while.”

“I sentenced you to hell. I walked you to the door myself.”

Sakyo exhaled from his eternal cigarette.

“Ah. Yes. But see, as one door closed behind me, another one opened in front of me, and I ended up here.”

“How ?”

“Shouldn’t you be the one to answer that ? I suppose someone else in this palace saw the value of keeping me in-between worlds a little longer. A month of postponing my sentence for every information I give on my former operations and colleagues. I get this room, I get smokes and as many card games as I want. All and all, not a bad deal. Certainly the best I could hope for in my situation.”

“He would have told me. I would have known.”

“But didn’t you ? All this precious intel, all these insider tips, you must have known they were coming from somewhere. You didn’t think your intelligence services suddenly became efficient.”

“Something like this… It goes against everything we are supposed to stand for.”

“Come on, prince, in life there is what you believe and what is necessary. Those two things rarely coincide. I would expect this kind of naiveté from your goon over here, not from you.”

“You know what the goon tells you ?”

“The system works, prince. What do you truly have to lose by providing me this “existence” instead of whatever is waiting for me behind those doors ?”

“I…”

“This is not mercy. This is pragmatism. I’m already dead. There is nothing to gain by discarding my soul and every benefit to capitalizing on what I know. Are you familiar with game theory ? If you are, you know the most advantageous outcome to both partners in any situation is the one that results from negotiation.”

“Koenma, can I talk to you outside ?”

As soon as Kuwabara closed the door, he turned to Koenma, a shocked expression on his face.

“This is wrong. You know this is wrong.”

“I… You’ve got to admit he has a point. The benefits could be tremendous. And it’s not like he’s going anywhere. There’ll always be time for him to suffer later.”

“This isn’t about that !”

He gave a slight kick to the wall.

“Yes, he’s an asshole, and if anyone deserves to go to hell, it’s him. But that’s not even the point. He deserves to move on. He deserves to pay his debts and be reincarnated. Just as much as anyone else. Look around you, Koenma. Look at this place.”

Koenma did as told. The doors stretched further than the eye could see.

“That’s not what you want to be. That’s not what you want to stand for.”

The prince briefly closed his eyes.

“… You’re right. There’s no discussion. You’re right.”

“So you’ll send him to hell ? You’ll send them all where they got to be ?”

“Yes. I’ll do it immediately. You should… you should go home now. It’s been a long day and your body’s cycle will start going out of sync.”

“Uh, yeah. You sure you’re gonna be okay ?”

“Yes. It’s what needs to be done. And Kuwabara ?”

“Yeah ?”

“Thank you for being here. I am glad you were the one I called.”

“… No problem, man.”

“Are you a gambling man, prince ?”

“Not in a million years. You’re going to hell, Sakyo.”

“Aah, but you bet with me, once. Your life, on the success of one teenager. You quite liked it, too.”

“A mistake.”

“That’s what I’ve often been called, yes. But most of the times I find our mistakes much more instructive about who we truly are than our successes. See, prince, I think you are a gambling man. And I’m willing to bet that you’ll be very interested in what I have to tell you.”

“There is nothing you can offer that will make this right.”

“I can save this young man’s life.”

“Bluff.”

“If the Siberia demon colony was exposed, it means he’s behind it. And if he’s behind it, that means she already got to work.”

“…”

“Ah, he warned me she was ruthless. He warned me she liked games. That Kuwabara is exactly her type.”

“… Who are you talking about ?”

“Now I wonder… what would you be ready to do to find out ?”

“Hey little bro. You got mail. I put it on your bed.”

“Thanks.”

“I looked at your textbooks. You got a genetics exam coming up, right ? Tough stuff.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You’re gonna ace it.”

“What if I don’t though ?”

“You always ace it.”

“… That’s really not true.”

“Bullshit. Of course it’s true. None of these other students had to do with what you had. None of them grew up in this shitty home, with our shitty mother and went to shitty schools. You put everyone else in your shoes, you’d be top of the fucking class.”

“… Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

He grabbed his dinner plate from the microwave and climbed back the stairs. The hallway’s lamp had been fried for months now. He fumbled around for his door. Another one slid, letting out a ray of light.

“Ah, good evening.”

“Hey, Yukina.”

“…”

“…”

“… Well, I should leave you to eat…”

“… Why not medical school ?”

“I’m sorry ?”

“Look, if you wanna work at Shizuru’s salon, you should totally go ahead. But if you’re trying to get your mind off things, you might as well do something you’re actually passionate about. I’ve been living with you for a while now, and I’ve never seen you look more fulfilled than when you’re working on healing someone. So why not medical school ?”

“But… there’s no way they would actually accept me.”

“I don’t know if we could make it official at first, but my molecular biology teacher also teaches at Gai Med School, and she’s really into youkai inclusion. Maybe she could get you to attend classes as a spectator. Plus, in the long run, human and demon medical science are gonna have to mix, right ? They’re gonna need people like you. I think that’d be pretty cool if you went into this field.”

“… That would be amazing.”

“I’ll talk to my teacher. She’s one of the few who actually likes me. And, Yukina…”

“Yes ?”

“Your bro is buddies with the best surgeon in Makai. Maybe you should get him to introduce you.”

“… Maybe I should.”

He nodded at her and opened his door. She put her hand on his arm.

“Kuwabara ? Can we stop avoiding each other ? It’s too sad when we don’t talk.”

“… How about you give me a little more time. A little more time, and then we can be best friends again. I just need to deal with things.”

“You’ll tell me ? When you’re done dealing with things ?”

“You’ll be the first person I tell.”

It had been a while since he’d seen her smile like that. God, she was beautiful.

As he was about to throw himself on his bed, he was reminded of the letter that waiting for him there. Throwing his clothes onto the chair, he distractingly grabbed the envelope and ripped it open. A postcard fell out.

He frowned at the image. This was a touristic picture from a seaside town up north he’d never been to. He turned it to read the text.

Dear Kuwabara, I hope you’re well. I’m spending some time by the sea. It’s beautiful up there. So quiet. But I still haven’t found any good men. I’ll keep looking. But maybe there’s only you. Yours, Ayesha.

He fished the envelope from the trashcan he’d thrown it into and turned it around. And smiled.

There was a return address.

Chapter Text

The city scintillated at his feet. Softly, he blew over the window, blurring the view with condensation, then put his index on the cool glass and distractingly traced the outlines of the skyscrapers that cut the night sky. On the other side, the heavy, persistent spring rain only answered him by tapping harder against the glass. He didn’t turn when he heard the door open behind him.

“Ready ?”

“Mh-hm.”

As the other was pushing the door open for him, Kurama slammed it shut and turned toward him.

“Let’s set some ground rules first. I am not here in any official capacity. I am here because neither Enki nor I trust you to handle these talks with the general interest in mind. And I am certainly not here so we can settle our past slights.”

Yomi chuckled.

“It is adorable that you think what either Enki or yourself want would matter if I did decide this was the place to rehash petty quarrels. Fortunately for you both, I agree that it is not.”

“No unnecessary conflict, then ?”

“Trust me, when you meet them, you’ll realize we already have much to do with necessary conflict.”

He opened the door again and with a sign of the head invited Kurama to go before him.

This hadn’t been his idea. It was, in fact, quite the opposite of his idea, which was not to have anything to do with Makai for the next three years following the tournament. And possibly beyond that. Now that the future of Yuusuke’s tournament seemed secure, his participation did not feel necessary, and had the potential to fuel rivalries that were best left to simmer in peace. I really need to learn to say no to you, Yuusuke. His friend’s unwavering faith in him was usually heart-warming, but this was one of the rare times where it felt encumbering.

”I’m telling you, Yuusuke, he and I in the same room is a bad idea.”

“Are you ever gonna tell me the reason for that weird-ass relationship you two have ?

”Why don’t you ask Yomi ? The two of you seemed to be hitting it off last time.”

”Got a feeling that’s something I might want to hear from you.”

”You might not.”

The situation was partly his fault. When he had refused the ambassador position Enki had offered him, he knew where things were headed. The truth was there simply weren’t a lot of Youkais with the connexions and the know-how to fill such a role. Mukuro had made pretty clear her involvement in the new world order would not go beyond what was necessary to maintain her status. Yomi was to be involved, one way or another – be it only because his views on dimensional relationships were those of a still-thriving large minority of youkais, who would not have consented to the new rule of law if they hadn’t felt themselves represented. He supposed this was a case of keeping your enemies closer. He just wished they hadn’t been so close to him.

“No Shura today ?” he asked, more to distract himself than anything else as they were walking the panoramic hallway.

“After last time ? Not a chance.”

“This whole incident rather worked in your favour, though. Certainly more than you deserved.”

“I’m not talking about the incident.”

“What then ?”

“Oh, you’ll see” the other winced. “You’ll see”, he whispered again as two figures approached.

“You really didn’t have to wait for me to board the plane, Rohan, I would have joined you as soon as Shabbat was over !”

Yuusuke hadn’t lied, the woman was objectively gorgeous. Objectively. Objectively, but not much else.

“Nonsense. You know how much we need you here.”

“Yes, Miss Bancroft, your contributions would be sorely missed.” interjected Yomi, with suspicious cheerfulness.

Her smile was as exuberant as it was sincere when she turned to him.

“No little one this time ? Oh, that child of yours is just adorable ! You will tell him hello for me, alright ?”

“Sure.”

“That reminds me, I saw a demon on the telly the other day, he had a horn just like your son ! Are you two related ?”

“… We are not.”

Kurama felt Yomi slowly clench and unclench his fist next to him. Supposing he felt charitable, he extended his hand to the other one to cut short the small talk.

“Ah, so you are Yomi’s plus one for this session ? Rohan Singh, nice to meet you. If you don’t mind, are you also a youkai ?”

“I do mind.”

He blinked. He was sure he’d felt it. A jolt, somewhere in the back of his head when he had answered. Territory. Of course. Rohan frowned behind his glasses.

“Ah. Well. There is no need to probe for truths that will reveal themselves on their own, isn’t there. Shall we ?”

He opened the door situated at equal distance from the ambassadors’ suite and his. He remembered something he’d studied in class. During Marie-Antoinette’s wedding with Louis the 16th, the two had to walk an equal distance between their two realms to marry on an isle on the Rheine. History and its repetitions. He walked in.

”Mother, I didn’t know you had a friend over ! Shall I make you some tea ?”

”That would ne adorable, Shuuichi.”

”Oh, Shiori, you son is so serviceable ! I wish my sons were like that !”

”Yes, I’m very lucky, aren’t I ? It’s as if there’s one perfect son in the world and I was the one lucky enough to be his mother.”

”Oh yes ! He’s the image they would show you to convince you to have a son ! Like…”

”The showcase model ?”

”That’s right ! The showcase model !!’

“I just think everyone deserves a place to live. But why can’t they simply be Russian ? It would be so much simpler if they were Russian.”

“But again, Miss Bancroft, it would mean imposing Russian law upon them. You would not enjoy living under demon law, would you ?”

“Well, I don’t know anything about demon law.”

“And they do not know anything about human law.”

Kurama glanced at his watch. Two hours already. Having to recap every point made for the sake of Amelia was proving to be quite time-consuming. The young woman had the advantage of boiling down every argument to its simplest conceit, forbidding either Yomi or Rohan to bury their point under dialectical frills, which they would have been more than happy to do. She reminded him of Yuusuke in that way, but a Yuusuke who would have remained blissfully unaware of the complexity of the world. A Yuusuke who wouldn’t have died. A Yuusuke he would never have met. That was an unpleasant thought.

“And what does your colleague think about that ? In your experience, is it possible for demons to acclimate to human law ?”

The jolt. Again.

“…Absolutely.”

“So, given that your participation was a bit of a surprise, we are only just now receiving the results of your background check.”

Rohan had approached him as he was pouring himself more tea at the bar that had been procured for the talks. Behind his shoulder, he could see Yomi trying his damnedest not to have to spend the break talking to Amelia.

“It wielded some interesting results. Apparently your social security number seems to match one of the employee of an export company in Sarayashiki.”

“I made very clear that my participation to this event was subservient to being granted total anonymity.”

“I’m assuming your entourage doesn’t know about your… nature ? No, I apologize, do not answer that. I do not need to know about your situation as long as it’s irrelevant to these talks. Friendly warning, though. In this circle of ours, nothing remains irrelevant for long.”

“It just doesn’t end, does it ?”

He turned to see Amelia pressing her nose to the glass window next to him. It seemed she had given up on getting small talk out of a clearly annoyed Yomi.

“I’m sorry ?”

“These talks. I find them so long everytime. Sometimes it’s like the more we talk, the farther we get from the solution.”

“… Why did you decide to become a diplomat ?”

“Well, my father is the British ambassador to Israel – he’s really good – and I always wanted to make the world a better place, so this seemed like the way… What about you ?”

“Ah, I’m not a diplomat.”

“Really ? But you’re so good at it ! And you’re really nice, too. Your friend is not as nice.”

He’s not really my friend either.

“Maybe I’m nicer because I’m not a diplomat.”

“That’s not true. I really think there is a way to do this without going at each other’s throat all the time. We have so much to learn from each other !”

Kurama straightened up a little and smiled at her with frowned brows.

“… I guess we do.”

In his pocket, his phone started vibrating.

“… Excuse me…”

He paced to his suite and closed the door.

“Mother ? Is something wrong ?”

”Shuuichi ! No, I got a bit worried when I found your room empty but then I listened to your message ! Are you having a good time in Tokyo ? I never even knew you had friends there.”

“Yes, they’re high school friends who got into university there. You remember Kaito ?”

”Of course. Such a studious young man. Is he with you now ? I would love to say hello.”

“Sorry, he went out to the convenience store.”

”At this hour ?”

“One of the guests spilled juice on the couch.”

”Well, be careful on the road. There seems to be another one of these negotiations in Tokyo. Roads might get blocked.”

“Really ? I didn’t read anything about it. Thank you, I’ll be careful.”

”I love you”

“I love you too.” Click.

“What did you use to say about long games ? Ah, yes. ‘Either victory or defeat is on the horizon, but there is no fork between the two on the road ahead’.” said a voice behind him.

He turned around irritated to see Yomi leaning on the countertop.

“If you think I am seeking your input, you are greatly misunderstanding the nature of our relationship.”

“I just do not understand your endgame here. Do you plan on lying to this woman till the rest of her days ?”

“Does Shura know the truth ? About what he is ?”

“Of course. I told him the day he was born.”

“What about the other truth ?”

“…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I gave him a name, did I not ? That’s more than what was ever done for me.”

“… Have you heard of a human mythical creature called the changeling ?”

“I am not interested in human lore. It so often is just a crude caricature of the youkai it is based on.”

“The changeling is a magical creature from the British Isles fairies would put in a crib to replace the toddler they stole. It looked and acted like a human infant, but it was a fairy, and it would eventually disappear if it could not be exchanged for the human child.”

“… Your point ?”

“My point is I don’t even know why I indulge you.”

“That is indeed worrisome. You were supposed to have friends.”

Sighing with annoyance, he blew past Yomi and headed for the door.

“Kurama !”

“Any more advice ?” he mocked.

“You cannot just keep lying until the truth is forced out of you.”

“I was talking about the negotiations.”

“…So was I, Kurama.”

“… See, the problem with that is Resolution 1514 was adopted in the context of mass decolonization. The UN simply cannot caution an amputation of land the same way it could a rightful restauration of supremacy.”

“But the right of a people to self-determination goes beyond the paradigm of decolonization. Isn’t it why your organization felt the need to define that right in Resolution 2625 rather than consider that notion self-contained in Resolution 1514 ?”

Yomi had done his homework, that much was obvious. To his mind, human law must have felt like an amusing Sunday newspaper puzzle. But just like any puzzle, once you got lost in it, you fell prey to the illusion that following its rules would assuredly mean solving it eventually. You lost sight of its intent. Of its reason for existing. Which was to waste your time.

“Mr… Kurama, is that right ? You’ve been very quiet. Do you agree with your colleague that it is a matter of self-determination ?”

“… I think placing ourselves in the realm of human law is an assumption that pre-emptively excludes the very idea these youkais defend, which is the possibility of demon law applying to a part of earth, and that you’ve led us on that discussion field on purpose in order to shift the paradigm we would need to support that idea.”

He’d really tried not to answer honestly. But with that man’s power, it was impossible. Hopefully, Yomi could tell he wasn’t undermining him on purpose. This time.

“… Let’s take a short break.”

Apparently not.

He followed Yomi to his suite under Rohan’s ironic gaze. His studied walk didn’t let anything transpire of his murderous energy. Kurama caught the door shut with way more force than necessary and closed it, allowing Yomi to start walking in furious circles. On the wall, the clock read midnight approaching.

“I would really appreciate it if you shared your thoughts before they can be used against me.”

“Despite what they or you might think, I’m not here as your colleague.”

“Oh, trust me, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, seeing how you behave in there.”

“I’m not on their side either.”

“Then how about you stop handing them ammunition for ending the negotiations ?”

“You’re too caught up in this verbal spar. Pay attention to the bigger picture.”

“Which is ?”

“They don’t know where they stand.”

Yomi’s frown invited him to elaborate.

“Russia is one of the most important members of the UN. But it’s been left in shambles by its implosion ten years ago. Now it’s a nuclear power with at its head a former secret service agent looking for a quick way through reconstruction. These UN diplomats, for the better part of this century, Russia was their enemy. That’s a difficult logic to leave behind. They are still hesitant. Favouring a youkai takeover of the strategic Kamchatka peninsula would be a great opportunity for them to undermine this reconstruction by focusing Russia’s energy inward. I refuse to believe you missed that.”

“Of course not. I was just…”

For the first time, he noticed how much Yomi’s ears were twitching ever since they’d entered the hotel.

“Hey, are you okay ?”

“I could ask you the same thing, how can any of you humans think with all these electronics just buzzing constantly…”

The former king briefly raised his fingers to his temple until his traits smoothed out.

“Look Kurama, until we find a way to circumvent his power, we will not go anywhere with these talks. Whichever side you consider yourself on, that cannot be your objective. But your presence here means he can get a reading on whatever strategy I may put forward without ever using it on me, which would dour the negotiations.”

“… About that. There may be a very simple way to work around this ability. But then again, I’m sure you already thought of it.”

“… Then I am sure you know why I will not use it.”

“I will, then.”

“About the woman…”

“No, I haven’t a clue why she is here either.”

“Good, it’s not just me.”

“Back to it, then ?”

Yomi raised his palms with a genuine half-smile that said : ‘that’s what we are here for’.

“Let’s be frank, Mr Singh, since it is your preferred method. How much enforcing power does the UN really have on this issue ? How will your stance matter beyond a possible symbolic condemnation of Russia’s attack on the Kamchatka youkais should they refuse annexation to Makai ?”

“I could ask you the same question. Would they respect the Makai presidency’s wishes if it refused to support their cause ?”

“… Probably not.” Yomi winced.

“What about you, Kurama ? What do you think ?”

He smiled.

”Well, it really depends on whether they are sincere in their wishes to be placed under Makai law… this can happen with or without official recognition.” he answered in Korean.

Rohan frowned. Bingo. His power compelled the listener to tell the truth, it didn’t guarantee he could understand their answer. You just had to talk in a language he didn’t speak. Yomi couldn’t have missed this loophole. But Yomi didn’t know any other language beside…

“Are you gambling on such disobedience, Yomi ?”

”… Course I am. These talks are for show. There’s gon be war, for sure. We just dunno between who.”

E-kyu. The slang of Makai. No one really knew where E-kyu came from. Some said it was a bastardization of Japanese so trite it had become unrecognizable. Others said it was the remnants of the true language of Makai lost to time before demon world became so heavily influenced by earth culture. Whatever its true origin was, it didn’t resemble it now either. E-kyu was a tongue carried on the wind in the steps of a thousand youkais displaced by war, moulded in the squalid waters of makeshift camps, ever-changing, ever-absorbing the tongue of the new name of misery, ever-reduced to its poorest and most practical form. E-kyu was devoid of symbolism and interpretation, a language that rang of constant urgency, and whose poetic nature wasn’t good for anything other than bawdy songs. It was the tongue of the reprobate and the downtrodden, an unpleasant series of sounds that made people raise their eyebrows and lock their doors.

In fact, the first thing Kurama had done after assembling his band of thieves was to impose the use of proper Japanese among all his men. E-kyu would get you noticed in taverns and in the streets. E-kyu couldn’t get you inside a fancy residence. E-kyu was unfit of someone with the ambition to be king. Eventually, all his men had complied. Except for one. ”I talk the way I talk, boss. And there ain’t no reason to change that.” Yomi’s refusal to work on his Japanese had been a stumbling block between the two of them for the entire duration of their collaboration. The last straw had been when he’d discovered Yomi was encouraging the men to speak in E-kyu whenever Kurama wasn’t around.

He had assumed Yomi had forgotten everything of his first language. E-kyu’s accent was a nasty one to kick off, and ever since their reunion, he hadn’t heard Yomi speak anything other than distinguished Japanese. The only reason himself could understand him now was how insultingly simple a language E-kyu was. And everything on the former king’s face told how humiliating having to resort to this form of communication felt.

“… Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Could you repeat in Japanese ?”

”Sure I could. But I ain’t gonna. And just so ya know, when ya phoned your wife earlier and she told ya she was alone at home, she was lyin’. Big time.”

Kurama hid his chuckle behind a cough.

Rohan sighed, the benefit of his power having clearly run its course.

“…How about a short break ?”

”Oh, this child !”

”What is it, mother ?”

”It’s your brother. He came home late again. He keeps disobeying his father and I. He has such character. He’s not like you at all.”

”…You’re smiling.”

“I just received news from detective Urameshi Yuusuke. He’s made contact with the stranded youkais and is now inside the mountains. He’s accompanied by a translator.”

“We have to hurry, or whatever we may decide might end up being moot.”

“You don’t trust the kid, Mr. Singh ?”

“I trust his instinct. Much less his temper.”

“Are Russian forces already gathered around the mountains ?”

“I don’t see why they would be, given the situation has been placed in our hands.”

“Please. I may not have your ability, but do not be insulting.”

“Shouldn’t we just pick things up in the morning ? It’s already two. We’ve been at it for hours. I keep stifling yawns.”

“Patience, Amelia. You’ll sleep on the plane back to New York…”

Everything got dark. The electronic recorder next to the table stopped its constant murmuring.

“Ah ! What’s happening ?”

Rushed footsteps were heard outside. The door opened on a security guard holding a lamp torch.

“Sorry, lady and gentlemen. It seems like there’s a power outage. The entire block is in the dark.”

“Should we be worried about intentional interference ?”

“No, as far as we can tell, it’s just a technical difficulty. But it will be maybe two hours before we restore power. It’s very late to find an electrician.”

“No, it’s fine. Amelia will be able to take a nap and we’ll pick things up in two hours. Does that suit you, Yomi, Kurama ?”

“Perfect.”

As the two ambassadors closed the door behind them, Yomi turned to Kurama with a playful smile.

“Technical difficulty, eh ? I believe that about as much as I believe in the Buried Mother. What did you do ?”

“Me ? Nothing. It’s not my fault if their generator room was invaded by fungi. They should really clean up from time to time. How are your ears ?”

“… Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you, though. I couldn’t stand these talks one second longer…”

He directed his attention to the sleeping city under his feet.

“… I feel like breaking into something. You coming ?”

Yomi raised an curious eyebrow.

“… A fine arts museum ? Really ?”

“I said I wanted to go check out priceless artefacts. You took your chances.”

The silent, obscured dome of the Mori Art Museum with its inverted pyramid felt otherworldly among the city night drenched by rain. It was like being caught in an air bubble in the middle of a waterfall ; so peaceful and empty, so close from raging chaos. He breathed in this respite.

“Here, there’s a vernissage tomorrow in gallery 2. ‘Capturing the soul : the new age of photography’.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Not for the pictures, idiot. Vernissage means reception. And reception means appetizers and champagne.”

“… Lead the way.”

A plate of canapés from the raided buffet near him, Kurama was laying on the artistically shaped sofa, a hand under his head, the other holding the edges of a champagne flute hanging from the cushion. Yomi was sitting on the ground, his back to the couch, sipping the bubbly liquid. The atmosphere was relaxed, if not comfortable. On the ceiling above them was plastered a mosaic of photographs themselves composing the bigger picture of a crying woman. He glanced at the title card. ‘A thousand cuts’ by Yuya Edama. Real subtle, Yuya.

“Mh, no, it’s final, I prefer black and white.”

That earned him a chuckle from Kurama.

“You don’t have museums ? In Gandara ?”

“We do. We call it ‘treasure room’.”

“I quite like the idea of museums. Some things are too priceless to be owned by one person.”

“… But not priceless enough not to be bought by said museums for the price of a building capable of housing three hundred people in order to fuel a secondary market of only the richest owners.”

“… You keep doing that.”

“Doing what ?”

“Dismissing human culture seemingly out of hand, only to reveal later you’ve thought more about the issue than most humans probably ever will.”

“There is no benefit to denial. Inspiration has no smell.”

He grabbed another canapé while a companionable silence settled.

“Will you partake in the next Makai tournament ?” Yomi mused, without turning to him.

“… Will you ?”

“You seem unsure.”

“Last time, you thought you might win. This time, you are almost sure you might not. It is bound to change your outlook on the whole idea.”

“This tournament may have started as a power play, but in the end, it brings something to Makai far greater than my reign alone ever could.”

“What is that ?”

“Order. Abiding. A common sense of direction. All those are crucial if youkais are to survive things to come.”

“Makai is at peace for the first time in millennia. What is there to prepare for ?”

“What has been coming at us for centuries. Decline.”

“I admit that Makai is far from thriving, yet the innovations Mukuro and you have engendered…”

“But at what cost, at and what pace. It was merely fifty years ago that we finished the classification of the basic genome of our species, using youki-sensitive energetic materials. Human did the same thing this year, using only their rudimentary technology. Fifty years. That’s what our head start had been reduced to.”

“We could learn from humans, as much as they can learn from us.”

“Aye. But I fear we may have already learned too much. The language that we speak, the way that we dress, the very name that we call ourselves, are human. We were never to be ‘youkai’, this gross reduction of what we are. We are ‘the other’, even to ourselves. Our culture is but a pale mirror of the human one, flavoured with some remnants of what we once were. On that, Mukuro and I are in agreement. But she’d rather we go back to our dark ages, than use the tools that have been imposed on us to set ourselves on our own path.”

“… Is that why you’ve agreed to play the role of the negotiator ?”

“All these petty countries, with their petty laws and their petty conflicts, they bear the very seeds that could bring humans to their knees without us even needing to dirty our hands. This is why unity, however it may be achieved, is preferable to any kind of inner conflict within Makai. Yuusuke’s tournament is not my preferred path, but it is an efficient one.”

“Why won’t you even consider the possibility of harmony between the two worlds ?”

“Oh, Kurama, that kind of naiveté does not suit you. The only way harmony is achieved between two discordant parties is if one sets the tone for the other. I’d rather it be Makai. Do you truly want this to be your entire life ? Is this as far as you want to be allowed to look ?” he said while encompassing the entire city view in one broad arm gesture.

“Is that why you’re defending so fiercely the possibility of youkais controlling part of Earth ? Is that a foot in the door strategy ?”

“It’s a winning strategy either way. If we cannot have consideration, at least we will sow conflict. You’ve seen the way they treat us. We are amusing to them up until the moment we become a threat. After all, is it not why you refuse yourself to live as a youkai ?”

“Don’t drag me in the middle of this.”

“In the middle of this is exactly where you put yourself, Kurama.”

The young man didn’t answer, and instead sat up in order to drain his cup.

“… Do you mind telling me what time you have ?” asked Yomi, confronted with his persistent silence.

“… 3:50 AM. We still have a bit of time before having to go back.”

“That’s… 9:30 PM in Gandara. I need to make a phone call.”

He stood up and headed straight for the adjoining room, not realizing that in the process he stepped over another installation that was laid directly on the ground. Kurama watched his back disappear, before taking out his own phone. He started texting.

“Everything alright ?” he asked as Yomi sat back down against the couch.

“Of course. I just promised Shura I would call him before his bedtime.”

“I didn’t take you for that kind of father.”

“He doesn’t like the dark.”

“… Ready to go back ?”

“If we must…”

“I’ll be right behind.”

He emptied his cup and headed out. Kurama remained laying there a little longer, studying the details of the different photographs on the ceiling. On one of them, the woman from the bigger picture was holding a camera in front of a mirror, photographing herself.

Kurama waited until all three ambassadors were seated, before doing the same with the tinge of a hesitation.

“So” started Rohan Singh, “shall we pick up where we left off ? On potential borders ?”

“Actually, we will not be picking up anything.”

Three heads turned toward him. He drew one sharp breath.

“I contacted president Enki. He officially waives all pretention on the territory currently occupied by the stranded youkai, and recognizes it as part of Russia.”

“What ?!” roared Yomi.

“Since there is nothing more to discuss, Mr. Singh, I trust you will communicate the result of our negotiations to the UN. Miss Bancroft, I wish you much success in the future…”

“Ah. Err, yes, you too…”

“Kurama, what have you done…”

“I’ll be taking my leave. I have a train to catch. Pleasure to meet you both.”

He walked out with more determination than he actually felt. He could almost see Yomi, still at the table, dumbfounded, hesitating between running after him and staying with the ambassadors to attempt to smooth things out. Finally, he heard footsteps behind him and started walking faster.

”Oh, Shuuichi ! Come look at the TV ! Isn’t that your young friend Urameshi ?”

”… That’s him. He’s just been appointed special detective.”

”They say he’s a demon now. How strange is that ?”

”Strange, yes.”

”Can you imagine how his mother must feel ?”

He heard the door slam while he was packing his bag.

“Why ?”

He sneered and turned to face his old ally.

“Why ? You’re the reason why. You and everybody like you. We cannot let youkais claim part of earth. Because even if Yuusuke’s tournament continues, at some point, someone like you is going to win that tournament. That’s not pessimism. That’s statistics. And at that moment, if youkais have be it a fragment of earth, no human will be safe.”

“So you would sacrifice these youkais ? For the sake of your precious humans ?”

“They can relocate. Measures will be taken. They were not made to live among humans, under human law. That’s not me talking, it’s them.”

“You think they will abandon their land ? Have you forgotten everything of who you truly are ?”

“You know nothing of who I am.”

Yomi seemed taken aback, but quickly his expression hardened.

“You know Kurama, you’re right. Back in the days, I used to think you did not care about anything. But now I see, you do care. You care more than anyone I have ever met. You care so much about your little garden, with the handful of people who managed to matter to you, that you will sacrifice anything and anyone to preserve them. You will defend your territory until that is all that remains of green.”

“Don’t act like you are any different !”

“Oh, but I am. You may not agree on my method, but at least I do believe that what I am doing is for the greater good of all youkais.”

“And you were ready to sacrifice your own son for that goal. Tell me, what will happen if he doesn’t live up to your expectations ? Will you simply make another one ? Do you even know how many of your own ‘brothers’ are out there ?”

“Don’t pretend you understand anything about my son and me when you’re not even sure you can be yourself and still have a mother.”

“He’s not your son, he’s your vanity project.”

He knew the words were a mistake the second they left his lips. They were unfair, they were false, and they were not a reflection of the person he wanted to be. And they were gone all the same.

For a second, Yomi seemed too shocked to respond. But when the response came, it wasn’t a roar, or even a deserved punch, but a chuckle, followed by a hearty laughter.

“Yomi, I’m…”

“It’s alright, Kurama. I’m relieved, actually. I just understood where I went wrong. All these betrayals, and yet I kept forgiving you, kept believing the person who gave me my name couldn’t possibly be wrong. All this time, and I was questioning your loyalty to me, when I should have been questioning my loyalty to you.”

“Please, I just…”

“You’re right, I was selfish. Selfish to trust you again and again, simply because you used to matter to me. But you chose your side. What you are today is a danger to youkais, and a danger to my son.”

The laughter stopped.

“Do not worry, Kurama. I am done being selfish. I will not end your life right now, as order and rules matter more to youkais now than you ever could. But know this…”

He opened back the door and walked outside.

”..ya better pray we never face off in that little tournament of yours, cuz I’ll bury you so deep no light will ever touch your bones again.”

In E-kyu, there was no place for metaphors.

Remaining alone in the room, Kurama closed his eyes and tried to fight off the reflexive wave of panic threatening to invade him. Counting his breaths, he took out his phone and started typing a number.

”Hey, this is Urameshi Yuusuke and Yukimura Keiko, we’re not here at the moment, if you’re a friend, leave a message, if you’re a reporter, fuck off…”

A tired smile appeared on his face at the cheerful tone of Yuusuke’s voice.

”Please leave your message after the beep.” continued an automated voice.

Beep.

“Yuusuke, it’s me. I…” screwed up. “I’m about to leave Tokyo. The negotiations… Something happened, and… you should probably get out of here. Come back to Japan. Things are about to get… messy. I wouldn’t want something to happen to you.”

He bit his lips.

“Yuusuke, when you come home, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you… Do you… Do you think I could stay in your spare room for a while ? I’m not really… comfortable at my mother’s house right now. It’d be just for a week or two, the time for me to get my own place… Yuusuke… do you think it’s possible to ask for more when you already don’t deserve what you have ? I… Can we talk ? When you come home ? Please.”

”You have reached the end of your message. If you wish to listen to your message again, press 1. If you wish to erase your message, press 2. If you wish to re-record your message, press 3.”

Beep.

” Yuusuke, it’s me. I… I’m about to leave Tokyo. The negotiations… Something happened, and… you should probably get out of here. Come back to Japan. Things are about to get… messy. I wouldn’t want something to happen to you… Yuusuke, when you come home, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you… Do you… Do you think I could stay in your spare room for a while ? I’m not really… comfortable at my mother’s house right now. It’d be just for a week or two, the time for me to get my own place… Yuusuke… do you think it’s possible to ask for more when you already don’t deserve what you have ? I… Can we talk ? When you come home ? Please.”

”You have reached the end of your message. If you wish to listen to your message again, press 1. If you wish to erase your message...”

Beep.

Chapter Text

Summits and pastures were flashing by the tinted window. Half out of his seat, he was shamelessly gluing his face to the glass to take in as much of the views as possible. He caught a glimpse of the driver eyeing him with an indulgent smile in the rear window.

“Hey, is it like that all year ?”

“It’s whiter in winter” the other answered in broken Japanese, “and greener in summer.”

He caught himself grinning like a little kid. This was the first time he’d ever left Japan.

The car went off road a mile farther, and started climbing a small hill whose grass had already been well-worn by the comings and goings of the visitors. They parked in a large space delimitated by pickets and invaded by military-looking vehicles. This sudden plunge in a universe of black and grey briefly shattered the magic, until he opened the car door and put his feet on the sweet, damp grass. His old Converse didn’t leave much between his and the humidity of the soil, which would have annoyed him in other circumstances, but after three hours of flight in a cramped light aircraft from Tokyo to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – he’d memorized the name just because Kurama had bet him he couldn’t when they had separated at the airport – and three more in an unmarked car, the sensation brought him a welcome grounding. Not paying any mind to the military personnel gathered in-between the cars, he ran up the rest of the hill.

At his feet, a lake of the clearest water he’d ever seen glimmered with a perfect reflection of the white peak above. All around him, snow had already melted, embracing the crystal mirror with a rich green tint. Around the summit, the sharp edges of the ices blurred in the softest of clouds, a solitary spot on the clear blue sky. Taking one deep breath, he almost felt like choking on the purity of the air after spending his entire life in a cloud of pollution, like one coughs after emerging from under water. He kneeled and cupped his hands to splash his face with a bit of water. The coldness bit his skin.

“Holy shit.” He murmured to himself.

“It’s beautiful, no ?”

Yuusuke turned to find himself face to face with an older man in a kaki raincoat and furry hat.

“Colonel General Magomed Fedorov. I am in charge of the Russian surveillance forces.” said the man before Yuusuke could think of a joke.

The man then extended his arm, too fast again for Yuusuke to make a mock military salute. Mourning over this loss, he shook his hand.

“I would love to talk in private.” Added the colonel.

“Uh, yeah, I love to talk too. In private or otherwise. But since I don’t answer to you, and I haven’t come here to negotiate with Russia, I’m just gonna go this way now. Ciao.”

He walked past the dumbfounded colonel, grabbed a flat rock and sent it ricocheting over the lake before heading in direction of the darkened spot at the foot of the mountain. One day, Yuusuke, you’re gonna have to address your issues with male figures of authority. How cool is it that this day is not today, though ?

The outpost was buzzing with kaki agitation, sometimes cut by blue agitation from the UN soldiers. He jumped the security cordon and followed the blue dots until he located something that looked like the alpha tent. He pushed the thick fabric and entered, his face inundated by a wave of hot air coming from the tent’s heated interior.

“Detective. Right on time.”

Three people, two demons and a human, were hovering over a table covered in maps. On their isotherm vests was the drawing of three intertwined circles – the official logo of the three worlds committee.

“In time for what, though ? As I already said to your colleagues when they handed me the mission, don’t see what much more I can do here. You seem to have it pretty much covered.”

Some sort of snow leopard youkai signalled him to approach and pointed to a spot on the map.

“See, the entry they pierced into the mountain flank is on this side, here. But that’s not where their colony has settled. According to heat signatures we’ve been able to trace, their camp is actually situated about 50 meters under ground level on this side of the mountain. Between there and the entrance, as far as we’ve been able to tell, there’s a long tunnel that goes under the entire mountain.” His finger drew a line between the two sides of the map.

“So there’s only one way in or out ?”

“Correct, unless we blast our way through. But these summits are volcanic and active. If we provoke an impact of this magnitude, it might generate an eruption that could bury the entire valley. So our only point of contact with the people inside is through that tunnel.”

“What’s that red line at the entrance ?”

“Well that’s… the potential border.”

The human was the one who had spoken.

“The youkais inside claim that their territory – and thus, potentially Makai – encompasses everything over and under the mountain. So when you step in the tunnel – and thus, inside the mountain – you enter that territory… And thus, contested land.”

Someone had been gifted a word a day calendar for Christmas.

“Meaning, if a human steps over that line, from their point of view, it’s an invasion… And if a youkai steps over the line, from the point of view of the Russians, it’s an annexation.” Continued the snow leopard.

“The youkais have retreated inside when the Russian forces arrived. We haven’t been able to re-establish contact.”

“Not that contact had been that great to begin with.” Intervened the second youkai. “Damn fossils.”

“As my colleague so… elegantly put it, we’ve been having some communication problems. These youkais speak a Japanese dialect unique to the North of the kingdom of Tourin called Ashai, but one which hasn’t evolved for seven hundred years. I’m from Alaric, and my colleague is from Gandara. None of us is particularly familiar with Ashai to begin with. Someone from modern North Tourin might have more luck but…”

“They seemed to speak Japanese fine on TV.”

“That’s indeed strange. One of the many things you’ll have to elucidate if you accept the mission.”

“Which is ?”

“Enter the mountain. Find the youkais. Re-establish contact. Russian forces are getting antsy. We need to situation to settle down at least long enough for the UN negotiations to carry through. You are the detective of the three worlds. And right now, you are the only person here who can cross this line without triggering a war.”

“What do I do about the language barrier ?”

“You hope sign language gets your point across. You only need to persuade them to come back to surface level. Someone from Tourin is on their way. You’re playing for time.”

“Yeah, I find I’m doing that a lot working for you guys.”

“Technically, we are working for you.” Muttered the other youkai. Their abundant hair hid their face from view.

“Can I fire you then ?”

“Wouldn’t do you any good. The committee has had enough trouble finding a willing team. I’ve worked for years on monitoring the Gandara/Alaric border. I specialize in border crossing situations in demon culture.”

“Well, you still sound like a dick.”

“And you’re still a kid, yet here we are. Crisis makes for strange bedfellows.”

“… Can I go see it ? The red line ?”

“Sure. This way.”

The more you approached the foot of the mountain, the more guns and barriers you saw. A deluge of overheard Japanese, Russian, English or Chinese assaulted him as he walked across the outpost. They reached a half-circle of empty space ; at the end of it was a wall of rocks behind a metal barrier.
The entrance was small. More of a hole than anything else. Above it, the mountain flank sprawled upward, almost vertically, as half-frozen crevices in the stone dripped rhythmically on the ground. The cold air of the tunnel was felt up to where he was, as if the earth itself was breathing onto them.

“Urameshi !”

A call to his right pulled him out of the quasi-trance he was falling into. It took him a second to connect a name to the white-haired black woman whose pointy ears did not leave much doubt regarding her nature.

“… Ijika ?”

“Who is that ?” asked one of the committee envoys.

“Can I talk to you for a bit, detective ?”

“You know I can’t give you an interview.”

“This lady is a reporter ? We’ve been very clear that members of the press were not to go past the perimeter barrier.”

“And yet here I am ! Weird, uh ? But I promise you it’s not that. Can you spare two minutes of your time, Urameshi ?”

“…Sure.”

“You’re not going to agree to…”

“You work for me, remember ?”

He signalled Ijika to follow him in a tent that revealed itself to be a storage space.

“How did you guys learn to come here even before I did ?”

“Leaks.” He and Ijika answered at the same time.

She chuckled and kicked snow off from the end of her boots.

“I thought a lot about what you said last time.” She said.

“And ?”

“I’ve decided you’re not my enemy either.”

“Good. I’ve got enough of those.”

“So do I. In fact I think I can be rather useful to you…”

“Here we go. Look, I can’t get you an exclusive. I’ve got an old grumpy Indian and a baby who would kill me. How would you help me anyway ?”

“Maybe I happen to be from North Tourin, and Ashai is my first language.”

“…You were listening.”

“I can’t help it if I’m good at my job. What do you think these ears are for ?”

“Not sure having a member of the press coming with me inside is a good idea.”

“Is it a better idea than going in alone with no means to communicate ?”

“How do you say ‘touché’ in Ashai ?”

“You don’t. That’s a stupid word.”

“Charming as ever.”

“Right back at you. Look, we want the same thing, alright ? You want this mess to be solved, and I want a story to tell. You take me in there with you, and I swear I won’t write a word of what happens in there for a hundred years. I just… want to know. Want to be able to tell one day.”

“… I’m gonna need that in writing.”

“Already done.”

She handed him a signed paper.

“I’ll have to check if it’s okay with the committee guys.”

“You are the committee guy. Just deputize me.”

“Trust me, I wish I could. If all those guys were like you, they wouldn’t need me at all.”

“Detective. Are you ready to go in ?” said a voice from outside.

“Yeah. I got myself an interpreter too.”

“That’s not what we…”

“I got one principle” he cut while exiting the tent. “The guy whose skin is one the line decides of the rules. She’s coming with me. As mandated by the special detective of the three worlds. ‘Thus’ me.”

“… You should prepare yourself to go down there. What you’re wearing is not going to be enough inside.”

“Pal, you wouldn’t last a minute against what these shoes have been through.”

Silence had fallen over the camp. It seemed to get heavier with each step Yuusuke took toward the entrance. Around the barriers defining the half-circle, he could see at the corner of his eyes Russian military forces, UN soldiers and committee envoys, all neatly compartmentalized, and all looking at him. Next to him, Ijika kept her neck straight. Nevertheless, he could see her bat-like ears twitching lightly.

“Detective” called the voice of the snow leopard behind him. “I want you to think about it one last time. Phones won’t work in there. Past that barrier, whatever happens to you, no one will come to your aid.”

He was maybe a foot away from the line now. After one last look behind him, he took another step and jumped over the barrier. He landed on the other side. Ijika landed beside him. The ground under his feet didn’t feel any different.

Without a word, they both stepped inside the tunnel.

Fifteen minutes into the tunnel, the light coming from the surface had completely vanished. Yuusuke grabbed the torch suspended at his belt and turned it on. After doing the same, Ijika lit up the stone forming the tunnel and passed her hand over the irregular yet smooth surface. Multiple drips seemed to have solidified on top of one another, forming the entire wall.

“This place isn’t artificial” she remarked. ”That’s a lava tunnel.”

Yuusuke suddenly felt very aware that there were miles of stone above him, and miles of fire under.

“Hey, what would you say is the worst death ?”

Ijika seemed to maul it over.

“Being forced to drink acid. There was a time, that’s what Mukuro’s army did to prisoners of war. They don’t do that anymore. Well, officially. Why ?”

“I was trying to decide between being crushed to death or burned. Thanks for adding a third terrifying option.”

“Why did you accept to take you with me ? They were right, it’s risky.”

“You just never stop investigating, do you ?”

“One of us has to.”

“Tell you what, I’ll answer if you tell me the real reason you wanted to come down here.”

“… You’re actually quite sharp, you know ?”

“You’d never agree not to report on a story. Not if you weren’t after something else.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still bitter about that profile ? I could have been a lot harder on you, you know. I think I was pretty fair.”

“Yeah, you weren’t the one who had to deal with a screaming toddler for an hour on the phone.”

“I said some nice things too.”

“I know, my girlfriend recorded it.”

“That’s cute.”

“Why did you want to come down here ?”

“… There’s no real mystery here. I’m from North Tourin. Like pretty much everyone there, I knew someone who was in Raizen’s lost army.”

“Who ?”

“My grandmother.”

“Shit, do you think she could be alive in there ?”

“No. My species, we don’t have that long a lifespan. Three hundred years at best, if you eat human flesh regularly.”

“What species is that ?”

“Risunakai. The ones who listen to words on the wind. You know, if you’re going to protect us, you could really stand to learn a little bit about Makai, here and there.”

“Yeah, you’re right. One of my friend is such a specialist, I never needed to know things myself. But since I’ll have to work a lot more on my own…”

“My turn. Why do you agree to let me come with you ?”

“You answered your own question. I felt like you had another reason for wanting to come here.”

“… That’s it ?”

“That’s it.”

“That reason could have been anything ! I could have been working against you !”

“But you weren’t.”

“… That was completely irresponsible.”

“Trust always is. And yet is always gets me out of trouble. Go figure.”

“… I stand by what I said in my profile, you know. The world would be a better place if more people in charge were like you, but unfortunately they’re not.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to be like them.”

“Doesn’t it, though ?”

She fiddled with her pendant, some sort of ornate claw.

“Damn, this tunnel just doesn’t end.” Complained Yuusuke.

“Well, you know what they say, the most direct way through a mountain is right through it.”

“They say that ?”

“They do. Well, the mole tribe from Junai in West Tourin does. The rest of us, not so much.”

“Well, that’s perfect, then. In the meantime, you can teach me a bit of Ashai.”

“… Are you serious ?”

“There’s nothing else to do. And we’re in this together.”

“… I guess.”

The path branched off about three hours later. One path went up while the other seemed to open on hell itself. Yuusuke turned to Ijika.

“Don’t repeat it, but I suck at guessing games. Up or down ?”

The Risunakai closed her eyes and let her ears wriggle for a bit.

“… Up. Down seems to be ending on some lava pit.”

As Yuusuke stepped over the stone, Ijika seized his arm. She was frowning.

“Urameshi, there’s life up there. I can hear it. There’s… Damn, they must be at least five hundred people in there.”

“… I see.”

He sighed and chuckled lightly.

“Well, let’s go introduce ourselves !”

Before Ijika could protest, he ran forward what looked eerily like a man-made staircase carved in the stone. Thirty feet farther, the path suddenly shrunk to a tiny opening in the wall. There was light on the other side. Yuusuke cautiously squeezed through. It opened on a large volcanic cavern moulded by lava in the same fashion as the tunnel. Black stalactites relied the ceiling to the ground like deformed pillars. In-between those, hundreds of small shacks of stone and soil were coiled up, on every level of the cave. Far off right, he noticed something that looked like culture terraces. All around the cave, torches were bolted to the walls, lighting the small village. The whole place was empty, and silent.

“… Where is everybody ?” he asked as Ijika was catching up to him.

She looked around.

“There !”

Behind a hut, a small figure was peeking. A child.

“Hey ! Hi ! Er…’Umie’ is that right ?” he said, turning to Ijika for her to correct him. She nodded.

”Hi small one, there’s no reason to be afraid… We’re here to meet you...” she started before abruptly looking up, worry painted all over her face.

“… Yuusuke.”

On the ceiling above them, over a hundred youkais were hanging from the stone. As they dropped down, encircling them, Ijika jolted back. Yuusuke put his hand on her shoulder and placed her behind him.

The assailants were silent, looking at them, their eyes a black sclera with in its centre, a glowing red dot. One broke the circle and stepped toward Yuusuke. On instinct, he adopted an attack stance. However, before he could move, the youkai dropped to their knees and reached out toward him with both hands.

“… Toshin.”

Another one dropped to his knees. Another one. Until the entire circle was on the ground, chanting, brushing against his arms and legs.

“Toshin.”

“Toshin.”

“What’s going on ? Who’s Toshin ?!” yelped Yuusuke to Ijika, as he felt a mild panic rise to his chest.

She looked around at all the kneeling youkais, a desperate smile on their face.

“That’s… you, I guess.”

The youkais, chatting and laughing, singing cheerfully in a language he didn’t understand, hustled them to the ends of a cavern, where the stone closed on itself. From a hundred, they had become two, then three, then it seemed the entire cavern descended on them from nowhere. There, carved into the ebony stone, four gigantic ornate fangs surged from the ceiling and the ground, two on each, closing on a menacing bite. Behind the fangs was a large stone table covered with bones and sculpted blades. One of the youkais spoke in Ashai.

“… They want you to bless their altar.” Translated Ijika, her eyes still lost on all the faces.

“I… What ? Tell them I don’t understand what’s happening !”

“… Just go through with it ! I’ll explain after.”

“How am I even supposed to do that ?”

“I don’t know ! … My parents used to bleed their game on it.”

Gulping, Yuusuke approached the altar as silence fell on the group. Uncertain, he held his arm over the stone table, then in a swift movement, opened a small cut in his flesh with his nail. A few drops of blood fell on the altar. All the youkais fell to the ground and bowed their heads in apparent prayer. As they softly chanted, one of them approached Yuusuke and spoke to him.

“He is the chief of the battalion, Mamuri.” Said Ijika. “He’s telling you to ask him anything you might need.”

“Tell him we need to rest in private for a while.”

After they were shown a hut, Yuusuke let himself fall on the soft space of soil that probably formed the bed.

“What the hell ? Who do they think I am ?”

“… They don’t think, they know. And they’re right. Damn, how did I not think about this…”

“Ijika…”

“… You are Raizen’s son. You are Toshin.”

“Who’s Toshin ?”

“He is… it’s complicated to explain. Humans would call him a God, but it’s not really that…”

She inhaled sharply.

“Toshin is our King. Always was. Always will be. Even before Tourin was Tourin, Toshin was king of it… Raizen was Toshin, for a while. But then he stopped eating humans… And for some youkais, that meant he stopped being Toshin. But now that he is dead, you, as his son… You are Toshin. For those who believe, at least. Toshin… He is victory in battle, He is the spilled blood of enemies, He is our claws and our fangs… For the people of my country, He is the incarnation of what it means to be a youkai. And we are destined to live by His word.”

Yuusuke noticed Ijika was again fiddling with her claw necklace. The pattern on it matched the one from the altar.

“… Do you believe ? That I’m Toshin ?”

She noticed the movement of her own hand and put her arm to her side.

“… I don’t know. My fathers… They really believed. I mean really believed. I grew up believing. But then, when I started moving into younger circles, there was a lot of pressure to stop with the worshipping of Toshin. Many said it held us back as a nation. We were lagging behind Alaric and Gandara because we adhered so strictly to those old principles. But at the end of every moon, I still wash my teeth and nails in blood, because that’s what Toshin commands.”

Yuusuke passed his hands over the nape of his head and breathed heavily.

“… What do I do ? I don’t know anything of how they feel. I know that’s not how I feel, but what gives me the right to tell them that ? But I can’t lie to them either.”

“… Maybe you don’t have to find an answer to that right away. There’s no reason you shouldn’t stick to your given mission of encouraging them to communicate again. And leave them to believe what they believe.”

There was a knock on the door and Mamuri pushed away the rudimentary door and addressed Ijika.

“He would like to show you around the village. You can ask him whatever you want in that time.”

“Uh… alright. And Ijika…”

“What is it ?”

“Do you know if Raizen thought he was Toshin ?”

“… I don’t know what Raizen thought. No one has known what Raizen thinks for centuries.”

Mamuri guided him to the fields, where a strange maroon crop was growing.

“What’s that ?”

“Hamun crops, from back home. Lucky we had some with us when we got to earth. They’ll grow anywhere.” Answered the chief via Ijika’s translation.

A few children were hanging behind them, running in circles and trying to get Yuusuke to hold their hands. He lifted one of them and put her on his shoulders. Gasping in shock at first, the children soon all asked for their turn. Mamuri watched him, an indulgent smile floating on his lips.

“It is such a blessing to have you back. Not that you ever really left us. Our tribe kept growing strong following your principles. We care for and nurture this land. We were hoping to offer it to you one day.”

“… Don’t you want to go outside ? Or to go back to Makai ?”

“I was born on this land. So was my mother. It is the only life I’ve known. The only life all of us have ever known. You always said that any land youkais would set foot on and on which they would carry your offerings was to be our land.”

“Then why ask to be attached to Makai at all ? And why now ?”

“Your prophet has descended upon us, told us you were incarnated to rule us again. We had to welcome you.”

“Prophet ? What do you mean ?”

“When King Raizen strayed from your path and your spirit left him, we knew you would find your way back to us. We found refuge here, we evolved, and bid our time. She appeared one day, and we did not question it. We never question your will. Guided by her words, we found a way to pierce through to the surface and claim our land.”

“Ijika, do you think…”

“Yes. It sounds like they were set up.”

“… Don’t tell them that.”

“Even if I did, I’m not sure they would believe me. Their faith… our country hasn’t know faith that strong in centuries. And I can’t even imagine what seven hundred years confined in this mountain could have done to them.”

“Would it please you for us to throw you a feast to celebrate your return ?” interjected Mamuri.

“That’s not really the time. Do you know what’s happening outside ?”

“Ah, yes. Humans have gathered around the mountain, looking for a way in. They want back a land they did not even know existed. They will break themselves against your will.”

“Look, I don’t want for any of you to get hurt. There’s a real chance this might get solved without any bloodshed. But you have to show yourself back to the surface. Having you holed up in here makes them nervous. When people are scared, bad things happen.”

“With you by our side, we know no fear.”

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna write you a note, and one of your guys is gonna carry it outside and give it to the guy who looks like a leopard…”

“A Hyogatora ?” cut Ijika, rolling her eyes.

“Whatever. You give him the note so they know they’re not in any immediate danger. That they can continue their talks in peace. That you want this sorted out as much as they do.”

He could not stop Mamuri from bowing again as he went to carry out his orders.

“That’s kind of impressive. In a way. What they managed to do here just because they believed you were with them.” Mused Ijika.

“You mean Toshin ?”

“… Yes.”

Yuusuke swung his legs in the air above the small hill on the edge of which they were sitting side by side. On the floor below, children were playing in the mud.

“Hey, why is it so important that youkais eat humans ? Cause that was their problem with Raizen, right ? And… that’s your problem with me.”

“You want the philosopher’s answer or my answer ?”

“How about both ?”

“… We don’t know what we are. Youkais, I mean. So much of our history was lost to war and time. Humans, they know they come from apes. They know these apes comes from mammals. That those mammals came from the ocean… They can trace back to the origin of themselves. We don’t know where we came from. We don’t know if our world has always been what it is. We don’t even know if it has always been our world. The only thing we are sure of, as far as anyone can remember, is that we need human flesh to live. We need it not to suffer. This is how we are. So that must be who we are. For someone, for our God to tell us that it’s not…”

“Leaves you with nothing.”

“… Yeah.”

Yuusuke frowned.

“There’s something I don’t get. The chief guy said they were the third generation in those caves. But they haven’t had human flesh since they got stuck in here. So according to you, each generation shouldn’t have been able to live that long… That doesn’t add up. Raizen lived seven hundred years without eating humans, but he was the most powerful youkai in the world.”

“… Yuusuke.”

Ijika was looking straight ahead. Her eyes were wide. She was pale.

“… They’ve shown us the entire village. They have everything a society would here. We’ve seen a school, a tribal hut, fields… You know what we haven’t seen ?”

“What ?”

“A graveyard.”

Now he was the one dragging behind Ijika as she ran down to Mamuri and seized him by the collar.

“You ate them. You ate all of them. Your fathers. Your mothers. Your elders… That’s how you survived so long down here.” she spit in Ashai.

Mamuri raised his hands in sign of non-aggression. Ijika let go of him.

”We followed the word of Toshin” the chief answered. “’The body of the weak shall nourish the will of the strong’. We had no choice.”

”That’s heresy ! Your own blood…”

Yuusuke watched Ijika’s face crumple with anger as their incomprehensible conversation carried on. Finally, he put himself between the two of them and put his hand on Ijika’s shoulders.

“Come on. Remember what you told me during the interview. I have no idea what’s it’s like to grow in Makai. And we have no idea what’s it’s like to live here all those years.”

“I… They ate her, Urameshi. My grandmother. My blood. And she let them. They fed on each other, like wounded beasts. We weren’t supposed to be like this. We weren’t supposed to be… this.”

“…Yeah. It’s fucking awful. Or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know anymore. But it’s done. You can’t do anything about it.”

She gently pushed his hands from her and let herself fall on the ground.

“… What now ? Even if they get this territory, this would just continue… Are you okay with that, Urameshi ?”

“It’s not my decision to make.”

“Isn’t it ? Isn’t it always your decision, in a way ? You are the one with the power. You could destroy this entire cavern. You could wipe out the army outside. You could be their God.”

She turned to him. Her face was awash with black tears.

“All these choices, all the time… It must be exhausting.”

“… Sometimes.”

“Toshin ! Toshin !”

The youkai that had gone to deliver his message came running toward them. He handed Yuusuke a note. Yuusuke’s mouth opened slightly as he read it.

“Urameshi ? What’s going on ?”

“… The negotiations are over. Makai won’t recognize this land as its own. The Russian army is ordering all youkais to leave its territory before the day ends. After that, they will storm the cave.”

“What do we do ?”

“I…”

“Obviously, we fight” said Mamuri after Ijika had translated the news on Yuusuke’s sign. “This land is yours, my Lord, with or without Makai’s approval.”

“Urameshi, even a small troupe of youkais like theirs could do some serious damage to humans. But the arsenal outside… It will be a bloodbath on both sides. You have to stop it.”

“HOW ?!” Yuusuke hadn’t been able to control the volume of his voice. The group stilled.

“How am I supposed to stop this ? No, seriously, tell me. All I know how to do is to cause more harm.”

“You could… talk to the committee.” She said without much conviction.

“That wouldn’t change a thing and you know it. This is bigger than them. Nothing I’ll say will matter.”

“Then talk to the youkais right here. Maybe you can convince them to leave without resisting. They’ll listen to you. You are Toshin.”

“No I’m fucking not ! Maybe Raizen was. But then he had to be a fucking idiot and die. And he left me like this…”

He turned a weary face to Ijika.

“… I’m not a god, okay ? I’m not a fucking god.”

He walked away from them as if blinded by light.

When he finally came down from the hill he’d been sitting alone on, Ijika was still conversing with Mamuri. All around them, villagers were hurrying children inside, gathering utensils and weapons. Ijika went quiet as he approached, trying to decipher his expression.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do ?”

“I need you to translate something to Mamuri. Word for word.”

“… Okay.”

“Tell him I don’t think I am Toshin. I can’t fight with them. I can’t fight against them either. I’m sorry.”

He let Ijika translate. Mamuri’s expression fell as her voice did.

“… There’s one thing I can do for them. It’s an awful thing. But it’s the best I got.”

The chief listened to his proposal. He closed his eyes.

“… You are an honest man. I accept your offer. We have to prepare. I will guide you down there myself. I cannot risk the life of my troops.”

“Ijika ?” reprised Yuusuke. “What do you think about all this ?”

“… Why are you asking me ?”

“Because they’re your blood. And you will be the one to tell the story.”

“I think everything sucks.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

The heat was staunching. As the three of them descended in the bowels of the volcano, Yuusuke felt drops of sweat run down his back. Around them, the stone had started to take a copper tint.

“Watch you step” instructed Mamuri. “The ground is fragile here.”

They entered a vast cave cut in half by a large crevice. Smoke was emanating from the cracks in the ground.

“Here. We are just above the magma chamber.”

“Okay. You and Ijika go back up to the tunnel. It’s gonna happen pretty quick.”

Mamuri signalled to Ijika he needed something translated.

“Thank you, Urameshi Yuusuke. I am glad you were brought to us.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“Don’t be. You may not be Toshin, but you are His instrument, same as the rest of us.”

“I’ll come find you again. When the world has changed. I promise.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself. Toshin will come to us, when the time is right.”

“What if he doesn’t ?”

“He will. You needn’t believe something for it to be true. But we believe.”

Mamuri waved him goodbye and helped Ijika back up on the path. Yuusuke remained alone in the cave.

Slowly, he held his finger toward the ground. Closing his eyes, he felt his energy gather on the tip of his index. It was as natural as breathing. He pulled the trigger.

As she was climbing back to the tunnel, Ijika felt the earth shift under her. It was but a small tremor, barely enough to throw her off balance. Mamuri had disappeared in the village behind the crack, which was now sealed by a heavy rock pushed against the other side. Another tremor. Gravels detached themselves from the ceiling. Yuusuke sprang from the overture in the ground.

“Hurry up ! We gotta get out of here !”

He caught her hand and started running toward the entrance. The path that had taken them three hours the first time was scurried in half an hour. Behind them, a bright, red substance had started pouring into the tunnel.

As they emerged from the mountain, the camp was caught up in the panic. Half the material has vanished. The committee envoys spotted them at the entrance.

“What did you do ?!”

“What I had to. Come, we gotta all get to higher ground.”

The eruption had started. Dark smoke rose from the summit as lave streams slowly descended on the flank of the mountain. Large patches of snow and ice were falling to the ground or melting in a thin powder snow as they were falling.
Russian and UN forces had retreated on the nearby hill, away from the dangers on the ground and in the air. Yuusuke and Ijika joined them uphill just as lava streams were reaching the bottom of the valley. He let go of her hand he hadn’t realized he was still holding and they turned to see magma erupt from the tunnel, plugging the entrance. Soon, the entire flank was painted red.

Yuusuke couldn’t tell how long they remained there, side by side, watching the mountain close on itself, their hair floating slightly in the hot air emanation and black powder from the summit, falling on them in a fine ashen rain.

Then it was all over.

Lava hadn’t reached farther than the ends of the valley, filling up the lake, and had started blackening as it was solidifying. Yuusuke sighed with relief that he had managed to contain his power.

“You…”

He turned. The Russian general was walking up to him.

“It was you, wasn’t it ? You had no right. This is our land.”

“It’s over, okay ? They’re confined back in there. They won’t bother you. Just leave them alone.”

“It isn’t about that. It’s about principles.”

“Listen pal, the only reason I didn’t take their side is that I happen to care about all your stupid lives. Don’t make me walk back on that.”

“As soon as the lava cools down, we will start drilling again. Put these things back where they belong.”

“You’ll have to go through me first !”

“Detective Urameshi !” interrupted a voice in the crowd.

Rohan Singh in a thick parka cut through the spectators, accompanied by Amelia Bancroft in yet another flowy summer white dress. She did not seem cold.

“We boarded the plane as soon as the negotiations ended” Rohan continued. “With you around, trouble was predictable. But detective, you are not going to stand in the way of a sovereign nation. That is not your role.”

“Just try and stop me !”

“You misunderstand. You are not going to stand in their way. She is.”

Amelia stepped between Yuusuke and the Russian forces.

“The UN considers the matter resolved and this status quo satisfying.” Rohan went on. “The youkais in that mountain are considered Russian citizen. By launching an attack against them, you are causing violence against your own people. The UN will not endorse such behaviour.”

Light poured out of Amelia. Her feet slightly rose from the ground. Her long hair floated behind her, moved by an invisible wind. Her lids opened on golden eyes. A wave of luminous energy traversed the entire camp.

“What’s… what’s happening ?”

The colonel general fell to his knees. Soon, all his men imitated him, pushed by a force so majestic you couldn’t help but revere it. But none of them could understand that. None of them had ever faced Seikoki before.

“Go back to your base, colonel general. It’s over.” Concluded Rohan.

Amelia looked behind her shoulders and offered Yuusuke a sweet smile.

“… How long have you had it ?” he asked.

She chuckled, fluttering her golden eyes.

“… I have always had it.”

On the plane halfway to Tokyo, Yuusuke eyed Ijika. She had fallen silence since they’d emerged from the volcano. He had to insist that she came back to Japan on his flight. The youkai was looking at the window at the immobile ocean.

“… I think I’m going to quit my job.” She finally said.

“What ? But you’re good at it.”

“I don’t mean I’m going to quit being a journalist. I’m going to quit my job at Channel Black. And… apply to a human channel.”

“… Why ?”

“These people, as soon as they hear youkai, they get scared. And their news, their anchor men, they don’t tell them otherwise. They don’t know anything about us, and they don’t know who to ask. And you said it yourself. When people get scared, bad things happen. If there are people like me to explain us to them… Maybe everyone can start being a little less scared.”

“… Well, if you need help getting the job, tell them they’ll get themselves an exclusive with me.”

“That’s nice of you. But I already got offers, actually. As a reporter for News Watch 9. I’ve just been ignoring them.”

“Good luck, then. Tell me whenever you’re on, I’ll give them a watch.”

“What about you ? What are you going to do now ?”

“Probably the same as always. Open the stand, wait for missions. But there’s something else I need to do too. Someone’s fucking with me. Someone has been fucking with me ever since the attacks in Tokyo a couple months ago. And now again, with this prophet crap back in the caves. I’m gonna find who it is, and I’m gonna make her pay.”

“Mind if I help ?”

“Not at all.”

“Yuusuke ? What hap…”

Keiko opened the door to their apartment for him, worry all over her face. Yuusuke held her tight and put his head on her shoulder.

“Just… stay like that for a while. Please.”

“Okay. Take as long as you need.”

He exhaled slowly on her neck. She was just out of the shower. Finally, she pulled him from the hallway into the apartment, and closed the door behind him with her free hand.

“… Do you want to talk about it ?”

“Maybe later. For now, I just want to lie on the couch and eat a buttload of unhealthy snacks.”

“Before you collapse, a couple things. Kuwabara called to say they caught whoever was leaking info to the press. I think he’d like it if you called him back. And also… follow me.”

She led him to the door to their spare room and to Yuusuke’s surprise, knocked.

“I told him he could stay here for a while. I hope that’s not a problem.”

When no sound answered her, she slid the door.

On the railing of the small balcony to the room, a small dark figure was perched.

“Yuusuke. This bed smells like burnt crap. I’m staying here for a while.”

Yuusuke squinted to make sure he wasn’t imagining Hiei sprawled at his window.

“… What ?”

Chapter Text

Do I have to ?

You do. The time is now.

But I don’t want to. Why would I want to ?

Because it is my will.

“Oh, Ryan, honey ! Come say hi to our guest !”

Go. Now.

No. Stop.

“Ah, Megumi, you remember Ryan ! Come on Ryan, sit with us !”

“Oh, young man, so polite ! You don’t have to bow !”

“.. Ryan ?”

“Oh my god !”

“Ryan, what are you doing !”

“It hurts !”

“Let go ! Let go of her ! What is going on with you ?!”

“What is he doing ? Is he…”

“Oh god.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

“That’s it ! I’m calling the hospital !”

“…Mom ? What’s happening ?”

“Get away from me you little…”

“… Mom, there’s blood in my mouth… Mom, what do I do ?”

“Stay back !”

“… Mom… Help me.”

He gripped the handlebar through slippery sweat. As his vision blurred from withheld tears, he pedalled harder and pushed his wheel over to the sidewalk. His chain made an angry noise.

“Ssshoot !”

He put his hand in front of his face just in time to prevent his bike from falling on top of him. Pushing back the vehicle, he got up from his knees which now sported two sore red spots, and dislodged the gravel inlaid in his other palm. He surreptitiously looked around for witnesses to his embarrassing fall. No one.

“Shoot ! Shoot !!”

He kicked the innocent wheel so hard one of the wheel spokes came undone. He breathed in and out slowly, just like the doctor Hagumo had taught him. As he felt himself coming down from his anger high, he checked the address scribbled on the back of his hand once again. Right street, three blocks down. He eyed the tormented bike, then the darkening sky. After one last ashamed sigh, he started to put the spoke back in again.

“Yuusuke, can I have another Kirin Lager ?”

“You sure ? That’s your sixth of the evening. You usually don’t drink that much.”

“Do you really want to alienate the business of your only paying friend ?”

Giving in to the argument, Yuusuke extracted a can from the mini-fridge under the counter and slid it to Kurama who opened it with a flick of the thumb.

“Rough week ?”

Kurama gulped down his first sip with a wince before answering.

“Just a bit tense at work. I’m still “the boss’ stepson” so there are frictions with older employees.”

“Knock ‘em dead.”

“Heh. That’s not the solution to everything, you know ?”

“Try it, and then we can rule it out.”

“What about you ? How are things with your… guest since he moved in ?”

“He wasn’t talking then and he’s not talking now. I’d really rather he threw one of his temper tantrums, having him dead silent like that on what happened kinda tells me it’s serious. Did you get anything out of him ?”

“Only what I could deduce. I think Mukuro threw him out. But I don’t know why. And what I really don’t know is why he doesn’t seem angry at her. What does Kuwabara think ?”

“Haven’t seen him. But with exam season, I barely saw Keiko, and we live together.”

Kurama stood up tediously, his hand leaning on the counter for support.

“You’ll give her my love.”

“You’re leaving ? Are you sure you’re safe to drive ?”

“I’ve been drinking for a lot longer than you have, Yuusuke.”

“I know, just… take care, okay ?”

“I am.”

He watched the back of his friend turn the corner of the street, then dug something from his pocket. He sighed as he contemplated the car keys in his hand.

“Kurama, Kurama, Kurama… If I can steal something from you, things have really gone off the rails.”

The doorbell rang right as Keiko had started kneading the sauce onto the cabbage bowl. Gritting her teeth, she shouted behind her shoulder :

“Hey, can you get that ? I’ve got my hands in the…”

Realizing mid-sentence the futility of her query, she exhaled through her nose and extracted her hands from the kimchi, then pressed them upon the nearest dishcloth. The doorbell settled into an angry pace. Really, this was her fault for trying to do something a little different with dinner.

“Coming, coming.”

She tried to mitigate the damage by turning the handle with her elbow and ended up spreading sauce on the door.

“Yuusuke, I swear to god, if you forgot your keys again…”

The young boy in front of her looked barely less shocked than she did. Under his mop of black hair, large brown eyes that had clearly been crying surmounted a still-sniffling noise. She instantly recognized the uniform : St Francis Xavier private middle school. Half of her fellow students’ former school, the other half’s top choices for internships. The pants were scratched at the knees. She unconsciously straightened her back in order to adopt the posture of an adult in front of a child.

“Yes ?”

The young man seemed to suddenly remember he was supposed to talk.

“Urameshi Yuusuke ?”

“Who’s asking ?”

“I need to see him. I’ve got a problem.”

“We’ve been very clear. Requests and jobs have to be discussed at the stand. Not at our home. How did you even get this address ?”

“Look, it’ll just take a minute, alright ? Just let me see him.”

“He’s not here right now. You’ll have to go to the stand. With your parents if possible.”

“I… know him, okay ? I know him. Can I just wait for him ?”

“Well, I don’t know you. I can’t let a stranger into my apartment. If you really know Yuusuke, you know that.”

She moved to close the door. His hand came to roughly intercept it, slamming it against the wall, further deepening the dent Yuusuke and his more enthusiastic friends had contributed to create. He put a foot in the flat, gaining on her personal space. Teenagers these days got taller with each generation.

“I’m not leaving until I see him.”

She sighed.

“… I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

“Wha…”

He blinked. When he opened his eyes, a black-clad figure had appeared between him and the woman. Under his throat, he felt something smooth and cold.

“Get your foot off that floor. Get your hand off that door. Now, brat.”

He felt something drop from his chin. He wanted to obey the strange, short man who had materialized before him, but he found his body incapable of moving. The blade kept pressing against his skin, threatening to break it. This had all been a mistake. Was this how he was going to die ? Was this…

A hand fell on the edge of the sword. He followed the arm to the woman’s face. She didn’t look terrified. Only mildly irritated.

“Oh, cut it out, both of you. Hiei, thanks, but I got this. He’s just a kid, for god’s sake.”

The other wasn’t relenting.

“That could just be a façade. You know you can’t trust appearances. He could be an assassin.”

“Then he must be the world’s dumbest assassin, popping in while Yuusuke’s not here and you are, only to find himself with your sword on his neck before he’s even through the door. Come on, drop the blade, there’ll be plenty of time to run him through it later.”

On his face, you could clearly see she had won this round. On principle, the other bargained.

“… He gets out of the apartment first.”

The woman shifted her attention back to him.

“You heard him, young man. Take a step back, then we can talk.”

She gave him a small, indulgent smile. It was this, more than anything, that finally seemed to give his body the strength to move. He retreated back in the hallway. The small man sheathed his sword with a pointed look at him.

“Good. Now, you’re going to apologize to me and to my friend for trespassing in our home.”

“Why do I have to…”

“Because I don’t talk with people who disrespected me or my friends. So you apologize, and we can start over.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And to my friend too.”

He reluctantly pivoted on his feet to face the diminutive man.

“… I’m sorry.”

The other barely spared him a snarl.

As soon as he was done apologizing, he watched her expression change. Her face softened into an attentive and inviting look.

“Good. Now tell me, how do you know Yuusuke ?”

“I…”

The words wouldn’t come out. She mistook his silence for embarrassment.

“You don’t have to lie, you know. If you need help, Yuusuke will help you. Doesn’t matter whether he knows you.”

“No, I do, I know him, I…”

He bit his lips.

“… My name is Noguchi Masaru. When I was five years old, I almost got hit by a car. Yuusuke saved me.”

“Here.”

Keiko set a fuming cup in the front of the teenager who was gripping the edge of the chair as if he was scared that at any time she was going to change her mind and drag him out.

Knowing Hiei would not deign get off from the balcony rail to take his cup, she put it on the dresser near the window and trusted he would grab it when no one was looking, as was his habit since he’d moved in. When she had understood “for a while” was to be counted in months instead of weeks, she’d resigned herself to learning to navigate the youkai’s complex set of self-imposed rules, most of them apparently designed to make his life among others as tedious and difficult as possible in order to cultivate the appropriate image. She’d learned early on not to bother doing any sort of cleaning up in his designated room, as Hiei was clearly more comfortable knowing no one was penetrating his space. In accordance with their tacit agreement, he kept his room acceptably clean, and she never set foot in it. The shared space had been more contentious. Hiei had no problem whatsoever with high temperatures, and detested the smell of conditioned air, meaning she would go home in the scorching summer heat, hoping to find the place fresh, only to be met with a wide open window, and furniture so hot you could barely touch it. She had to have Yuusuke intervene so Hiei would circulate between his room and the balcony through the outside of the building, and leave the main window closed during the day. But all and all, she found their guest to be mostly agreeable, and readier to compromise than she’d expected – certainly more than Yuusuke, who after two years of shared life still mistook the bathroom floor for his personal drawer. They didn’t talk much – not in the way most people would consider talking – but he’d formed the habit of settling on the couch, looking at nothing, while she studied on nights Yuusuke came home late, so she’d feel a presence with her. She wondered what it meant for Hiei to have noticed her uneasiness at staying at home alone better than Yuusuke had.

As she was stepping back from the balcony, a sign of the head from Hiei held her in place.

“I still don’t think you should have invited him in.”

“He’s young, it’s late, he’s clearly got something on his mind, and he’s hurt. I’m not sending him back out at this hour. Be it only so I can call his parents myself.”

“You’re soft.”

“Only as far as rationality permits it. I trust your ability to prevent something bad from happening in his house. Don’t you ?”

A sneer. She turned away from him and came back to sit at the table, in front of the teenager who had finally decided to cup his mug of tea, but seemed unsure where to go from there. She shuffled some papers around and resumed working. It only a moment before the boy timidly asked :

“What are you doing ?”

“I’m preparing a syllabus. I’m starting an internship at a middle school when the holidays are over.”

“Which school ?”

“Omotogari junior high.”

“Isn’t that like the worst school ?”

“That’s what people say.”

“Why would you want to go there ?”

“Just because it’s the worst school doesn’t mean it has the worst students.”

“It kinda does.”

“Only if you give up on them.”

He cranked his neck to read the first lines of her bibliography.

“’The Canterville Ghost’ in the original text ? You really think they can understand it ?”

“I think they have no reason to try if I don’t. Have you read it ?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Did you have fun ?”

“Sure.”

“There you go.”

“… Can I… help you with something ?”

She raised her eyes to scan his face. He blushed.

“I mean… so I have something to do until Yuusuke arrives.”

She bit back an amused smile.

“Let’s see… You can go through these lesson plans and tell me if you think they’re entertaining.”

“Yes. Yes, I can do that.”

“Good. I’m going to make us more tea.”

When Yuusuke entered his home, he was greeted with the view of his girlfriend kneeling next to the couch, tucking in an unknown teenager who seemed to be sleeping the best sleep of his life. On the balcony, Hiei was draining a steaming cup of tea, which came to join a neat pile of mugs on the dresser next to him. Keiko put a finger to her lips to order him quiet, before walking to him on the tip of her toes to avoid making the wood creak. She greeted him with a brief kiss – perhaps mindful of Hiei’s ever-watching presence – and whispered to him.

“I went through his wallet. Don’t worry, I called his parents to let them know he’s sleeping here. You’ll never believe who this is.”

The first thing that stirred Masaru out of the deep sleep he’d fallen to around three in the morning was the appetizing smell of cooking, followed by the sound of something sizzling. He sat right up like a coil, trying to blink the blur of sleep away. First came into focus the back of a white t-shirt surmounted by unkempt black hair. This combination belonged to the person expertly flipping something over a pan. For an instant, he remained the only one aware of his own consciousness, as the other concentrated on his task.

“Oh, you’re awake !”

As he pivoted to notice the woman who’d welcomed him in closing the door to her room – the short man in black was nowhere to be seen – the person at the stove pivoted as well. Masaru turned again, and they were face to face.

There he was.

“Urameshi Yuusuke.” He mouthed.

He was older – of course he was. Masaru had no idea why he still expected him to look fourteen. The surprised expression on the other’s face only lasted an instant.

“Hey, brat. Hope pancakes are okay, cuz that’s what I’m making.”

He jolted himself out of his trance.

“Uh… yeah, pancakes are fine.”

Yuusuke flipped the circles of batter a couple more times before sliding them on a plate. He and the woman carried utensils and cups to the table and sat down, encouraging him to join them. He hesitantly dragged himself out of the comfort of the covers, and came to sit between the two of them. Yuusuke eagerly dug in his share of pancakes, while Keiko serenely poured them all tea. The normalcy of it all was only matched by Masaru’s growing panic. Should he start talking ? Should he eat first ? Should he…

“Uh… I…”

“Eat up” interrupted Yuusuke, a mouthful of pancakes, “You’ll tell me all about what brought you here later.”

Wrong option. He’d picked the wrong option again. He just wanted to disappear down a hole. Instead, he carried a pancake to his plate and started chewing silently. They tasted good. He could barely feel it.

The sound of the doorbell interrupted the quiet breakfast. Yuusuke got up, making his napkin fall from his knees in the process. He opened the door on a red-haired man harbouring a closed-off expression.

“Keys” said the man dryly, holding his hand open in front of him.

“Uh… yeah, wait a sec” replied Yuusuke, digging into one pocket, then the other. He handed the man the requested keys with a clinking sound.

The other disappeared in the hallway without a thank you. Barefoot, Yuusuke walked after him.

“Hey Kurama, wait !” Masaru heard as the figures had vanished from sight.

“I don’t have time to sit and chat, Yuusuke.” Echoed the other’s voice. “I’m late for work, thanks to your little stunt.”

“Come on man, you know I didn’t mean…”

“I’m saying this in the least confrontational way possible. Do not interfere with my life unless I ask you to. Take care.”

There was the sound of an elevator closing. Yuusuke reappeared in the rectangle of the door, scratching his head.

“He’s going to have to talk about it, eventually.” Mused Keiko as Yuusuke sat back down.

“It’s Kurama. Guy’s more stubborn than I am.”

“You’re trying too hard to provoke him into confiding. Just let him come to you.”

“It would help if I knew what the hell is even wrong with him. I thought he was doing fine.”

“You know what they say about still waters… Masaru, what’s wrong ?”

Yuusuke turned toward him to see the cause of Keiko’s alarmed face.

“Shit, are you okay ?”

Masaru went from one face to another, looking for the cause of their sudden concern. He raised his hand to his cheek only to find it wet to the touch.

“Uh, yes, I’m fine, I’m just… I just… I…”

Inhale. Exhale. Just like doctor Hagumo taught you. Don’t let the tension overwhelm you.

“I really wanted to talk to you. Can we please talk ?”

Yuusuke seemed to evaluate his options, then turned to Keiko.

“Babe, do you mind doing the dishes ?”

She shook her head with a smile.

“So it’s been a while.” Remarked Yuusuke as they settled back on the couch and Masaru dried his tears. “Have you learned not to play in traffic ?”

“No need. Mom never let me play outside on my own again after that.”

“So what’s on your mind ?”

“It’s about a… friend of mine. He’s in trouble.”

“Someone wants to hurt him ?”

“Not exactly… At least they don’t think they are.”

“Let’s start from the beginning. Is this a school friend ?”

“No… I know him from… the hospital.”

He said the last word as quietly as possible. Yuusuke still frowned.

“Were you injured ?”

“It’s not that kind of hospital. It’s…” he bit his lips, keeping the word in as long as possible. “A psychiatric hospital.”

“Oh. Oh.”

“I’m not crazy or anything !” he hastily added as he saw the other’s face drop somewhat. “I was just, like, really sad and stressed for a while, and I couldn’t function properly. So my mom sent me there for a few months, and I’m all better now.”

“… When was this, if you don’t mind telling ?”

“… Last year.”

“So what about your friend ?”

“He’s called Ryan Taira. We were hospitalized at the same time and we’re the same age, so we sort of bonded and we kept in touch. He called me last month, he was finally out of the hospital, he sounded really happy. But when I called his parents the other day, they told me there had been an incident, and they had to send him back… He bit someone.”

“He what ?”

“He bit someone. A family friend who had come over. He just walked in the living room, bit their arm, tore part of their skin and started… chewing it up.”

“Okay… I see why that would be a cause for concern.”

“But… That’s not him ! That’s not how he is. I know him. He’s not crazy… Well, maybe he’s a little crazy, but it’s not that sort of crazy. Sometimes when he walks down the street, he thinks people are whispering things about him. He’s convinced there’s a voice in his head who can tell him when bad things are going to happen. It’s all harmless. He’s never hurt anyone. When we were at the hospital, he started crying when another kid tried to smash a frog with a rock and went to tell the nurses. But they sent him back to the hospital, and now that they think he’s dangerous…”

“It’s not gonna be a vacation.”

“They put it in a locked ward. I saw what those looked like when I was at the centre. There are bars to the window, the rooms are all white and empty. They cut yours nails short so you won’t try to cut yourself with them. There are straps on the beds. Once, I heard someone bang against the door to his room asking for water for two hours. No one came.”

“… Were you in one of those ?”

“No. But when we misbehaved, the nurses would take us to that ward to show us where we’d end up if we didn’t get better.”

“… Shit.”

“I don’t know when they’re going to let him out. They won’t put him on the phone with me. I don’t know if he’s going out at all. Whatever is wrong with him, they’re going to make it much, much worse… They won’t stop, because they think they’re curing him.”

“So you think if we manage to find out what brought him to take a bite out of a guest…”

“Look, I know we don’t actually know each other, but… You helped me once. Without seeking anything in return. You were the only person to ever do that. I was hoping you could do it again… I’m really sorry I walked into your home and was disrespectful to your girlfriend.”

“I trust she handled that all by herself.”

“If there’s any chance I could help get him out of here… He was nice to me. In a place and time where it mattered so much and it was so rare. You don’t understand how much it means.”

“… Maybe I do.”

“So where do we start ?” eagerly shouted Masaru as he struggled on his broken down bike to follow Yuusuke who was cruising through traffic on his.

“We start by you going home. You’ve been gone all night, kid. Don’t you think your mother deserves a word about it ?”

“No, please ! You can’t tell her about Ryan. She was so happy we were done with this whole hospital business. She doesn’t even know we kept in touch.”

“Don’t worry. Keiko phoned her yesterday, she was cool with you staying at our place. You still have to go home. She must have been worried.”

They stopped in front of an upscale building as Yuusuke fished out a crumpled note out of his pocket to double-check the address. Without waiting for him, Masaru held his keys over the digital reader and the heavy door clicked. Before they entered the main hall, he turned toward Yuusuke with a concerned gaze.

“Hey… Promise you won’t freak out, okay ?”

“Why would I freak o…”

Yuusuke’s eyes opened wide as they penetrated what looked like the hall of a deluxe spa. The obligatory useless fountain was pouring over an elaborated pile of rocks. All around the marble flooring, a fake zen garden was circling the hallway.

“Oh, okay. So you’re rich.”

“… Ma parents are rich.”

“No offense, but that’s exactly what a rich kid would say.”

They rode the elevator to the twelfth floor and rang at the only door of the hallway. When it opened, Yuusuke barely had time to place a word before a woman came to throw her arms around his shoulders and fiercely hug him.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Er… You’ve welcome ?”

He slightly patted her back as Masaru looked at him with an embarrassed smile.

“Come on mom, let him breathe !”

The woman jumped back, all smiles and small wrinkles around her eyes.

“I’m so sorry. Please, come in.”

Moments later, as they were sitting in a traditional tea room, the woman was still smiling. She served him abundantly with hand-whipped green tea.

“I hope Masaru didn’t bother you or your wife too much. He sometimes gets strange ideas. You didn’t have to indulge him.”

“Really, it was no problem.”

“Since his father’s passing three years ago, and with his elder brother leaving for college, he’s had a hard time coping. I am glad he went to you still. I had to opportunity to thank you in person, after all those years. So how have you been doing, dear ? Masaru told me you hold a ramen stand ?”

“… Among other things, yeah.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t get to go to college. But you’re still of age.”

“Never really was a study guy, to tell you the truth.”

Mrs Noguchi threw an embarrassed look to her son who’d been keeping quiet :

“Sweetie, do you mind going to your room so I can discuss something with Mr Urameshi ?”

The boy seemed more than happy to vanish. Mrs Noguchi took a sip of tea before gently setting the cup on the table.

“Yes, I am quite glad you found your way to our door. It gives me the opportunity to reiterate the offer I made to your mother directly to you. I urge you to take it. It would mean so much to me.”

“Sorry, what offer ?”

“Did she not tell you ?”

She seemed genuinely surprised.

“After your… well, what we thought was your passing, I contacted your mother and offered to bear the funeral fees, as well as allocate her an annuity until the rest of her life.”

“Wha…”

“She refused. But I am quite surprised she did not contact me again when you got better. I would have taken care of everything, your school fees, your rent… I hope I’m not offending you by saying the two of you didn’t seem particularly well off.”

“No, it’s okay, but it wasn’t so bad that we needed to take your money.”

“Please understand, Mr Urameshi, I am a very rich woman. I have not needed to work in a long time. Even after my husband’s passing, my children will never have to worry about money. The only thing that matters to me are my children. I was almost deprived of one of them. Thanks to you, I wasn’t. Please allow me to express to you how much that means to me.”

“I really don’t need it.”

“Maybe not you, but what about your children, some day ? This would be enough to get them a jump start at life. At the very least a safety net.”

“… I kind of like to think I’d be able to care for my own children.”

“Please, do not be offended. I overstepped. But please, just… think about it.”

She foraged in her purse and handed him a business card. The white rectangle stood between the two of them.

Masaru caught up to him in the hallway.

“Wait ! I’m so sorry about my mom. She’s…”

“She’s looking out for you. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

“… Depends of the way you’re doing it.”

“You’re not your parents, kid.”

“So you’re still going to help me ?”

“Obviously.”

“No. Not obviously. It’s never obvious.”

The kid bounced from one leg to the other, lost in the contemplation of his feet.

“… You know, I wasn’t always grateful that you saved me. Sometimes, I was really mad at you. Like something went wrong that day. That is was supposed to be it. But it kept going, and that’s why it never felt right after that.”

“Why you telling me this ?”

“I guess… I wanted to explain why I haven’t thanked you yet.”

“I don’t give a shit whether you thank me or not. You lived, I died. We both have to live with that.”

“…Have you figured out how ?”

“Not sure.”

Chapter Text

Yuusuke's phone rang right as he was exiting the building. He wedged the device between his ear and shoulder to unlock his bike.

“Yeah ? Tadami ? Did you get anything ?”

”Nothing conclusive, I’m afraid. We had a homeless man in Tokyo bite a police officer, but the man was alcoholised and known from the local station for his outbursts. This is hardly a surprise, though. Depending on the context, this sort of thing would likely go unreported.”

“Well, thanks anyway. Call me if you have anything.”

”Urameshi. I hope you’re not thinking of substituting yourself to a proper police investigation. Supernatural or not, this is still a state of law.”

He swerved to pass a pick-up truck.

“You ain’t ever gonna warm up to me, are you ?”

“No.”

“Okay, tell you what. The second I feel I can safely hand things over to you, I call.”

”I’ll take it, for lack of a better way.”

“Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.” Click.

He jingled his keys in order to find the right one – the downside of having a place with things actually worth stealing in it - and entered back his apartment. Keiko was hanging laundry on the balcony, tinting the entire room in the soft mauve colour of the bedsheet.

“So ?”

“So, nothing. No similar events have been reported. I hate to say it, but if this kid’s really got a couple of cogs loose, it might really only be that.”

“Maybe. Occam’s razor would suggest it. Yet, you were never the one to ignore gut feelings. You’ve never been wrong before.”

She handed him a box filled with clothespins so he could pass one to her when requested.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I know where to go with them. I was thinking of contacting Ijika to see if she’d heard some rumours, but I think media attention might make things worse.”

“Wait a second.”

He saw her frown, her hand immobilized over the line, then open her eyes wide.

“If you were normal – don’t laugh, I’m going somewhere with this – if you were normal, and you’d witnessed someone you know bite someone, would your first instinct be to call the police ?”

“Fuck no.”

“Who would you call, then ?”

“… The hospital, I guess.”

“Exactly. And when medical professionals hear “someone bit me”, their first instinct would be…”

“Rabies.”

Nodding, Yuusuke fished out his phone and dialled the last used number.

“Tadami ? It’s me again. Do you have access to hospital records, like entries and stuff ? Cool. Can you tell me if there’s been any suspected cases of rabies recorded lately ? …Uh-huh. Hold on, I’m getting a pen.”

When Yuusuke hung up, there were two addresses on the sheet in front of him. He tore it in half, and walked up to Hiei’s door.

“Hey man, time to pay your rent ! You need to go check on some kid aaand… he’s not here.”

Keiko went and joined him in contemplation of the empty room.

“So ? Call Kurama or Kuwabara.”

“Kuwabara’s not answering my calls. And Kurama is actively hating my ass right now.”

“…Alright, I’ll go then.”

“Okay… Wait, what ?”

She snatched one of the addresses out of his hand and started putting on her shoes.

“Err, wait Keiko, are you sure this is a good idea ?”

“This isn’t a venture in Makai, this is just checking on someone at the hospital. I can handle it, don’t you think ?”

“…Okay. But you take the cellphone.”

He threw her the device. She caught it with the confidence of the volleyball national champion she used to be. She glared at their shared phone.

“It’s ridiculous. We can afford a second cellphone.”

“But honey ! That means more people will be able to talk to us !”

She looked around her for something to throw at him, but coming up short, she just shut the door behind her as Yuusuke was laughing out loud.

She hadn’t been in a hospital since her mother had collapsed again three years before. Her parents were as hard at work as ever, despite Keiko being out of the house and on a full scholarship. Maybe that was just who they were. She sometimes wondered if there was something to who they were beside work. She wouldn’t have known – her earliest memories of them had them flipping a pan or pouring noodles in hot water, while she doodled on a colouring book, installed on the counter. Her father had been more enthusiastic the first time she’d managed to make ramen on her own than when she’d announced him she’d been accepted at Yotsuya. That time, he’d looked at her with concern, before asking : “but you’re still going to do real work, right ?”

She peered over the welcoming desk to a bored-looking nurse.

“Excuse me, which room is Otsuka Taiyo ? I’m his substitute teacher, I’m here to drop him the homework ?”

She flashed a smile and the inside of her briefcase, filled with school papers. The other looked like she couldn’t have cared less if Keiko had told her she was here to assassinate him for a yakuza gang.

“Second floor, room A7. It’s a containment room, so you can only speak through the glass. Just drop the homework with one of the nurses upstairs.”

“Thanks.”

The other exploded a bubble of her gum.

Keiko climbed the stairs and knocked on the designated room before entering. On her side was a small space with a couple of chairs. On the other side of the glass that went from the ceiling to her waist was a white room with a barred window. The bed, table and chair were soldered to the floor. The place was empty. She pressed her face to the glass, trying to make out the edge of the covers to determine if the boy was under them.

“Boo !!”

A figure sprung right on the other side of the glass from the part of the floor that was hidden by the half-wall. Keiko screamed and startled back in reflex. When her senses settled back into place, a boyish face on the other side of the glass was laughing, before harbouring a disappointed look.

“Oh… You’re not nurse Saiki.”

He seemed to relativize his losses.

“Well, I still got you !”

Keiko shook her head to hide her relief.

“Yeah, you got me. But you don’t have rabies.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling them ! They won’t listen, they do all those tests, and they always come back negative ! I feel fine ! If this hadn’t been for that one moment…”

“And what do you make of that ?”

“Oh, I’ve got a theory. Do you want to hear it ?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, so you know how there’s not enough food to feed the planet ? They keep doing reports on it. So just like in this movie, Soylent Green – my parents didn’t want to let me see it, but I snuck in my brother’s room and took his tape – our only solution is to start eating human flesh. So maybe – that’s my theory – the government is broadcasting secret radio waves to push us to eat humans ! Bam !”

He mimed dropping something. She chuckled.

“You really believe that ?”

“Makes as much sense as anything else.”

“What really happened ?”

“Pretty much what I told you, minus the sci-fi stuff. I was at school – well, I was in detention – and that other kid was making noise with his pencil – you know, the clicky stuff – and suddenly in my mind, there was that thought – well, not really a thought, like a universal truth. Like that was what was happening, whether I wanted it or not. And then, I was up, and walking toward the guy, and gnap ! in his arm.”

He demonstrated the bite, showing a range of perfectly normal teeth.

“Are you part of the acting club, Taiyo ?”

“How did you know ? So you’re really a reporter ?”

“Of sorts. But you have to keep quiet about talking to me. I can’t quote you directly since you’re a minor.”

“Makes sense. When is the story coming out ?”

“When I know more about all this. Say, you don’t seem really worried that this is all happening to you.”

The boy put crossed his arms behind his head.

“Well, you know, if I didn’t make a joke of all of this, I’d probably be really scared. So… I think this is better.”

“… Take care of yourself, Taiyo. I promise I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here. Oh, and…”

She extracted a pile of papers from her bag.

“I kind of had to tell the nurses I was dropping you homework in order to talk to you. So I hope you like geometry.”

She closed the door, chuckling as a groan was still resonating from behind it.

Yuusuke vaguely wondered if it was fate that Keiko had left him with the address located in his old neighbourhood. Navigating the streets from memory rather than looking at the paper, he quickly made it to a decrepit corner building he must have had passed a thousand times as a teenager. The main entrance wasn’t locked, and the apartment was on the ground floor. Making his way through the unlit hallway, his knocked on the last door.

“Yes ?” asked a voice behind the door.

“Er, Mrs… Imada ? I’m from the hospital. Here to check on your son Daichi ?”

“I’ve already told you people ! My son doesn’t have rabies ! Just because we’re poor doesn’t mean we carry diseases ! Leave us alone !”

“Right, that’s… the reason I’m here ! We’re exploring other options. We think it might be… something that’s affecting several kids.”

The door lock turned and a small head whose voice hadn’t dropped yet peered in the opening. The hand gripping the metal trembled.

“… Really ? You know what’s wrong with me ?”

“… So that’s really it. I remember all of it, as if it’d been me doing it, and it was me doing it… But also not.” Whispered the teenager in order not to wake up his mother who was snoring on the couch as he was pouring his guest some tea.

“Has it happened again since then ?”

“No. But I got so scared that I holed up in my room. Since it’s my brother that got bitten, nothing got out. The only reason the hospital even knows about this is that some neighbours heard the screams. You said it happened to other people ? So it’s not really my fault ?”

“I don’t think it would be your fault either way. Look, don’t talk to anyone about this yet, okay ? I’m gonna find out who’s behind this. Then you won’t need to be scared.”

“You think it’s a ‘who’ ?”

“… Take care, kid. It’s not your fault.”

As he exited the building, he instinctively started walking right instead of left. When he noticed it, he sighed.

“… Fine.”

He walked a couple more blocks and climbed another set of stairs. As usual, the door wasn’t locked.

“… Hey, mom.”

Her hair were sprawled over the table, several empty bottles in front of her. He passed her by and went directly for the fridge. He grabbed a pan and broke a couple eggs in it. Under the brown mass, something moved.

“… Yuusuke ? What are you doing here ?”

“Lunch.”

“I ain’t a child.”

“If only.”

When the eggs were properly grilled, he slid them onto a plate which he slammed in front of her.

“Soak it up.”

“For fuck’s…”

She grabbed the chopsticks and pushed the eggs into her mouth like she was in an eating contest.

“There. Happy ?” she asked, her mouth full and grease going down her chin.

He watched her silently for a few seconds.

“… Why didn’t you take the money ?”

“What money ?”

“The money from the car accident.”

“… Oh. You found out.”

“Yeah, I found out.”

“Look, if you want a trust fund so bad, go see Miss Richie rich, I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to throw doe at you…”

“I ain’t asking why you didn’t take the money for me. I’m asking why you didn’t take the money for you.”

“… Get me another bottle.”

“No.”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“Why didn’t you take the money ?”

“Cause what was the point ?!”

She held her heavy head with her hand, slurring her words

“What was I supposed to do with it, after ? Live my… Live my life ? What have I done that would deserve it ? What could I possibly do that would be worth putting some zeroes on a line to match what you did ? You were the only thing worthwhile I’ve ever done. What happens after I’ve spent everything that’s worth ?”

Yuusuke closed his eyes. He then stood up, grabbed a bottle from the closet and put it in front of her. He walked to the door.

“Yuusuke ?”

He turned to see her looking at him through the vapours of alcohol, almost tenderly.

“Don’t come here anymore. I already told you. You’re out, stay out.”

Wandering the streets, Yuusuke entered the first telephone company shop he could find and bought a cellphone on the spot. He took the newest one with a camera, just because he could. He dialled the only number he knew by heart.

“Keiko ? How are things going on your side ?”

“Same story with this kid. Like he’s been manipulated by a voice inside. Should we ask around to our more demonic friends what might cause this ?”

“No need. I already know.”

“Huh ?”

“There’s an S-class demon fucking with them.”

“Are you sure ?”

“Dead certain. The sensation they described, like it was them despite not being them, the voice in their head from inside of them, that’s exactly what I felt when Raizen took control of me in Makai.”

He downed his coffee mug under Keiko’s disapproving gaze. Despite the late hour, the sun wasn’t out yet.

“So I was right !” triumphantly added Masaru, before darting his eyes back on his cup, regretting his outburst.

“But why this ? And why them ?” Keiko mused. “These kids have nothing in common. One is from a rich Okinawan family, this other from the bad side of town, the third one’s from Matsue… They never met, their lives don’t intersect… Do you think… they might all be Mazokus ?”

“Wasn’t one of you enough, Yuusuke ?” said a voice from the balcony.

Hiei leaped from the railing and into the living room. Masaru instinctively nudged his chair a few inches away from him.

“Man, do you have like a sixth sense that tells you when I want to ask you something ?” complained Yuusuke.

“I do have a life outside of your shenanigans, detective.”

“You do ?”

“Boys.” Keiko cut in with an exasperated sigh. “Productive bickering only.”

A stubborn silence answered her.

“… Did you feel any energy coming from the guys you met ?” finally asked Hiei.

“None.”

“That’s a hint in the other direction. I don’t think you can go from zero to Mazoku just like that.”

“You think or you know ?”

“If you want things dropped on you lap like indisputable truths, just call Kurama. I don’t have to indulge you.”

“Ah, come on, don’t be like that. What do you know about Mazokus ?”

“… Not much more than everybody else. They’re like albinos in the human world. You hear about them a lot, and you know they exist, but you very rarely see one in the flesh. You’re the first one I’ve ever met.”

“Do you know if there’s a way to tell who’s a Mazoku ?”

“If there was, demons wouldn’t have had half as much fun making them as they did.”

“Huh ?”

“You realize what was the point of creating Mazokus in the first place ? It’s like a sleeper cell. You sow this seed, and generations later, you activate it, and suddenly there’s another S-class walking among humans. It’s a great way to fuck with them.”

“Wait, back up. You ‘activate’ it ? It’s not random ?”

“That’s what I’ve always heard. But it might have just been youkai bragging. Wouldn’t you be the one to know ? What did Raizen tell you ?”

“Not much, the old bastard.”

“Did you feel any different… like, before ?” timidly asked Masaru.

“Doesn’t every teenager ?”

Masaru seemed to become one with his chair.

“The kids we’ve met with clearly had no idea what had happened to them.” remarked Keiko.

“So whoever’s doing this knows who he’s looking for, but we don’t. Awesome”

“If it’s the same person, then it’s that they all have the same ancestor. Otherwise he couldn’t manipulate them like that. It’s in the blood. It always is.” Sternly replied Hiei.

“But how are we gonna find him ?”

“… What about family registers ?” said Keiko.

“What’s that ?”

“It’s a national registration system recording family events like weddings, births and deaths.”

“You humans are really begging to be treated like cattle, aren’t you ?”

“Point for you, I guess, but it’s a good idea all the same.” Decided Yuusuke. “But even if records date back that far – and I ain’t sure of that – it would take us weeks to get through them.”

“Oh, Yuusuke, your appreciation of the average skills of a university student is vastly underestimated.”

“And of the skills of a middle schooler !” added Masaru.

Three heads turned toward him.

“I mean… Like, I can help.”

Yuusuke smiled at the ceiling.

“So where do we find those records you speak of, milady ?”

“Are you cool with that ?” Yuusuke asked Keiko as they were sneaking through the back of the Civil Registration building of the prefecture.

“You can’t access them without authorization anymore. I guess breaking in is the best option.” Keiko winced.

Yuusuke put his arm around her waist.

“Ah come on, cheer up ! Here you were complaining we weren’t going on enough dates.”

“I just wanted you to take me to a movie or something” she whispered hurriedly to him, eyeing a passer-by on the other side of the street.

It took Yuusuke all of ten seconds to pick the lock and get them all inside.

“Gee, it’s a good thing there’s only the entire town’s records in there.”

“How is our species the one declining ?” wondered Hiei, dismayed.

“Quiet, everybody.”

Keiko swooped the signboards on the walls of the hallway with her torch lamp.

“In there. Masaru, with me.”

After the teenager had entered the room, Keiko turned to the two men.

“You two stand watch. Don’t think you could contribute much inside anyway.”

“Whaa ? Come on…”

“She’s right, I would be absolutely no help in there.”

“…”

“See, one of you has the courage to acknowledge it. See you later…”

“Keikoo…”

The door slammed in his face – or would have if not for their obligation to keep quiet. Yuusuke turned to see Hiei already settling to take a nap against the wall. Yuusuke sat down, before quickly standing up again to walk in circles. Hiei observed him for a moment before his extremely low bar for annoyance was reached.

“Can’t you just sit down ? You’re making me nauseous. More than usual, that is.”

“Man, give me a break. That’s my girlfriend and a kid I feel weirdly responsible for in there, doing something extremely illegal.”

“Why would you feel responsible for any of them ? They chose to be here.”

“Cause they trust that I can protect them.”

“The only person you’re ultimately responsible for is yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a dark loner, we all know. You still hang around the flat on nights I’m not home so Keiko will feel safe.”

“…”

“What, you thought I didn’t know ? Why do you think I feel confident doing more late nights since you’ve moved in ?”

“I’m simply repaying my dues. I don’t like owing anyone.”

“Yeah, if you’re living, you’re never completely debt-free. There’s always something that tethers you to others.”

“Not me. People have always been very clear about that.”

“What people ?”

“People. Shut up. You’re annoying me.”

“Isn’t that the beautiful foundation our friendship is built on ?”

“How does Keiko even put up with you on a daily basis ? I’ve been here two months and already I want to throttle you.”

“Aw, you guys talk about me ?”

“You are an endless source of consternation.”

“Come on, what she said, what she said ?”

“Why do you insist on talking about your lover with me ?”

“Not much of a choice, you won’t talk about yourself.”

“… That’s enough talk period. I’m going to sleep.”

“Hey, come on…”

The second he closed his eyes, regular breathing started emanating from Hiei.

“… How does he do that ?”

“So ?”

“I’m sorry, miss Yukimura. It looks like the records only go back to the late 18th century, when the three families moved to Sarayashiki. Maybe we’d have more luck in their respective places of origin, but…”

“Well, we were expecting it. Get down from the ladder, I don’t want you to fall.”

Masaru carefully stepped down as Keiko was holding the ladder while lighting him up with her other hand.

“So all we have are those.” He concluded, pointing to three organized piles of papers on the nearby table. “Should we go tell the others it’s a bust ?”
“Nah, give them a few more minutes. These two are due for a talk.”

“… Do you look out for all of them ? All of Yuusuke’s friends ?”

“They look after themselves. I just try and make it so that they don’t forget to do something else from time to time.”

Through the half-penumbra, Masaru offered her a smile.

“I would have loved to have a big sister like you. My big brother… We’re really not close.”

“I’m sure that’s not…”

Keiko froze mid-sentence, long enough for Masaru to ask :

“Are you okay ?”

She spun on her heels.

“Open back those registers again. Let’s align them on the floor chronologically. I want to check something.”

After they did so, Keiko asked again :

“Do you see it ?”

“… No ?”

She kneeled and traced a line with her fingers along each family tree. Masaru’s mouth felt agape.

“It’s too big to be a coincidence.”

“Yes. But as to what it means…”

There was a knock on the door.

“Guys ! Are you done ? I think a night watchman is coming.”

“Be right out.” Keiko said, as she gathered the registers and put them back on a shelf in a manner of order.

They were out of the building right as the light of a lamp swooped over the back door.

Chapter Text

“So ? Did you find something ?” asked Yuusuke to Keiko as she was closing the door to their apartment behind her and Masaru was running to the kitchen to quench his thirst after running through the summer night.

“It’s not what we wanted” she started, “but it’s definitely something.”

“Spill it.”

“All three kids. They’re all second sons.”

“That doesn’t sound that much of a coincidence.”

“But their fathers were also second sons. And their grandfathers. And every single one of their direct line ancestors as far back as the registers went.”

“What did you just say ?”

Hiei’s eyebrows were frowned under his mop of hair.

“…They’re second sons of second sons of second sons…for generations. Ryan, Taiyo and Daichi.”

“What ? Does that sound familiar ?” asked Yuusuke, catching onto Hiei’s expression.

“Yeah. But it would to anyone in Makai.”

All three of them just looked at him dumbfounded, before Hiei rolled his eyes, and grumbled.

“It’s a tale. The tale of the Second Son.”

“Huh ? And what does it say ?”

“There isn’t much to it. Long ago, a powerful lord had two sons, and so his kingdom was to go to the eldest and the youngest wasn’t happy. The usual horseshit. But instead of killing his brother, the second son decided it would be much worse if his first born died. So he seduced the wife of the first son, and she gave birth to a second son, who had the mission to kill his older brother. Except this second son had the same idea as his father. So he seduced the wife of his brother and she gave birth to a second son… who had the same idea as his father. And so the cycle just continued.”

“Weird story.”

“A lot of those in Makai are like that.”

“Sort of reminds me of the Cain and Abel story.” Keiko mused.

“Maybe there’s syncretism between Earth and Makai mythologies ?” chanced Masaru.

“Yo, nerds.” Interrupted Yuusuke. “Focus. So we have a story, and now we have kids who are manipulated into eating humans by their supposed ancestor ? How does that track ?”

“Vengeance.” Finally said Hiei.

When it became obvious no one was going to save him from having to elaborate himself, he continued :

“Vengeance, that’s what the story is about. Someone wanted revenge against his brother and he decided to take inspiration from an old wife’s tale.”

“But that’s not exactly the same as the story” Keiko remarked. “It’s several families.”

“It doesn’t have to replicate the story. It just has to speak to whoever’s orchestrating this.”

“Still, why use more than one child ?”

“Cause he doesn’t know.” Said Yuusuke.

He started walking in his trademark circles.

“Remember what Hiei said earlier. There’s no way to know who’s a Mazoku. We assumed the only person who knew was the demon ancestor, but what if he didn’t ? What if there’s no way to know if your descendant is going to be a Mazoku ?”

“You’d want to better your odds.” Keiko muttered. “You’d make several lineages.”

“And then you’d wait until it all sounded like your little bedtime story. That’s what he’s making them eat human flesh. He’s trying to know if one of them got the X factor. Trying to awaken something in them.”

“But that didn’t work.” Masaru remarked.

“Of course it didn’t. Being a Mazoku isn’t like changing diet. You have to be reborn.” Hiei said.

“What does that mean ?” insisted the kid.

“You have to die.” Yuusuke said reaching for his shoes again. “That bastard is going to kill them.”

“He doesn’t have to.” Hiei corrected. “He can simply manipulate them into killing themselves. Works like a charm on simple humans.”

Yuusuke’s hand was already on the handle when Keiko’s came to fall on his arm.

“Where are you going ?”

“To the kids’ places, duh ! We need to protect them.”

“For all we know, there’s a dozen others we didn’t find out about. We need to involve the authorities. They can go through the registers much faster than we can, and with a computer.”

“You think their forces can stop hypnotized kids ? Come on ! Who knows how much time we have ?”

“Then you call Tadami, and I’ll call as many of our friends as I can. Everyone will be ready to go as soon as we have the names.”

“… Are you gonna call Kurama ?”

“Of course I’m going to call Kurama. Come on, get to work.”

When Tadami called back three hours later, the early morning light was peering through the window, tickling Keiko’s cheek as she finally put down the receiver. Masaru was fighting off sleep, as Hiei had finally decided making his own tea wasn’t beneath his dignity.

Yuusuke finished noting the names onto a paper, then asked Keiko :

“So ? How many ?”

“No problem with Kurama, but I still can’t reach Kuwabara. Chuu and Linku are in the Tokyo area, Suzuki and Shishiwakamaru are in town for a show, Zin’s back in Makai but Touya was in Kansai. Everyone’s waiting for instructions.”

“With me and Hiei, that makes eight. Damn, I’ve got nine names, we’re one person short.”

“Then I’ll go.”

“Keiko, do you think you can handle it ?”

“I’ll take Ryan. This way, it’ll be me plus the entire hospital personnel.”

“I’ll go with you !” announced Masaru, suddenly fully awake.

“Okay. I’ll take Daichi. Hiei, you can take a kid called Date Ena from the F district, here, I’ll draw you a map…”

Hiei snatched the paper out of his hand as soon as the pencil was off it and disappeared out the window.

Yuusuke looked at Keiko one last time before walking out.

“Baby…”

“Yes, I’ll be careful. I’ll call you as soon as Ryan’s safe.”

He nodded and ran through the hallway to the stairs.

Yuusuke didn’t even bother to check if the door was unlocked before knocking it out of its hinges.

“Where’s Daichi ?” he asked to the woman painfully standing up from the couch.

“Whaa…” was her only answer. Coked up, Yuusuke diagnosed.

He went to her and shook her firmly.

“Your younger son. Where is he ?”

“You’re hurting me.”

“Answer me !”

“Aah ! On the roof, dammit ! He said he was going to the roof !”

He was out of the apartment before she had landed back on the couch.

The building wasn’t high – three floors at most. When Yuusuke stepped out on the paved roof, accumulated heat hit him like a wave. He scanned around before noticing a small back almost perfectly hidden by the net all around the roof.

“Daichi !”

The other didn’t respond. He didn’t make a move either as Yuusuke carefully walked toward him. Once he saw his face, he understood why. The kid wasn’t all there.
Yuusuke reacted before he even saw the body lean forward. Jumping the net, he landed next to him and put his arm between the boy and the void. The other kept pushing against him with surprising force, moved by an invisible force. Finally, Yuusuke kicked the net down and dragged both of them safely on the floor of the roof. The other contorted under his hand, trying to get back to the edge. Yuusuke held.
Gradually, the spasms stopped. The boy immobilized. When he opened his eyes again, they were no longer empty. The tears came right after.

“He… he almost made me…”

“And you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t.”

Keiko and Masaru jumped out of the car.

“Through there ! It’s faster !” guided Masaru.

The pavilion was at the far end of the clinic. Keiko spared a look to the building, an old brick house covered in ivy. It looked almost serene.
Without waiting for her, Masaru entered the hall and knocked forcefully on the opaque glass window of the desk. The small room sported only a couple seats and a heavily locked door.

“Please ! It’s an emergency !”

The window slid to reveal the annoyed face of a nurse on the other side.

“What, little Masaru ? I didn’t know you were back at the clinic !”

Keiko slid to his side.

“I’m sorry, but this is an emergency. We have reasons to believe Ryan Taira is in danger.”

“Who are you again ?”

“Look, I’ll connect you to the police, they can explain, but we really need to get to Ryan.”

“Oh, I see what this is. You’ve been telling stories again, Masaru ? Get yourself a new crazy friend ?”

“We’re not making it up !” screamed Masaru.

“Right, right. Where have I heard that before ? What block are you in, sweetheart ?”

“My name is Keiko Yukimura. I’m not a patient, and even if I was, I’m telling you Ryan’s in danger.”

“Yeah, they’re always in danger. I’m calling reinforcement, let’s get you both to your units.”

Keiko’s hand slammed against the glass.

“Listen to me carefully. There’s a kid in there, under your care, who is about to hurt himself. If anything, anything happens to him, I will hold you personally responsible.”

Yuusuke’s phone rang as he was waiting with Daichi for a police vehicle outside the building.

“So ?”

Keiko’s voice was heavy with adrenaline.

“He’s okay. He’s okay. It was a close call, but he’s okay. He was about to hang himself with his sheets. We strapped him to the bed, and he’s calm now. I called for a car to take them. Let’s get him out of here.”

The phone vibrated against his ear.

“I’ve got another call. See you at home.”

He juggled with the keys a bit before putting the phone to his ear once again.

”Everything okay here. Taiyo is safe.”

“Thanks. And Kurama… same time at the stand tomorrow night ?”

”… Sure. See you then." Click.

He smiled as he saw his screen light up to signal him several entering messages from various demonic sources.

Hiei frowned, more and more disturbed. The kid wasn’t moving. He could see him clearly through his window, sitting at his desk, doing some homework – well, fiddling with his pen and pretending to do homework.

“Ena !” he heard his mother call from the other room. “Are you making progress ?”

It was definitely the right kid. So why…

His attention was drawn to a picture over the kid’s bed. Two people. He squinted. Two people…

His eyes opened wide.

Seconds later, Ena stared in shock as a short man came crashing through his window.

“Are you crazy ??”

“Shut up. Who’s younger, you or your brother ?”

“The hell ?”

“Answer me !”

“We’re twins, it’s doesn’t matter ! We’ve never cared !”

“Who ?”

“… My brother, my brother is !”

“Where is he ?”

“At the station, he’s got an early train ! What is this about ?!”

The man disappeared as quickly as he had entered.

Hiei was running. Humans on the street must have barely noticed a small wind agitating their clothes as an invisible blaze was passing them by. There they were. The station’s doors. Without even reading the signboards, he followed the flow of passengers, jumping from wall to wall to avoid the crowd. When he touched the ground, he was in front of the train tracks. On the other side, a small silhouette identical to the one he’d just left in the room was standing on the edge of the dock. His eyes were empty.

A rumble from the tunnel announced the arrival of a train. Hiei dashed forward. He saw, with incredible clarity, the body of the teenager fall forward onto the track, just as his own feet left the ground of the other dock.

He lunged forward, his arm extended.

The train separated them.

Tadami barely looked up as he finished writing down Yuusuke’s statement.

“Right. I’ll send you the address of the safehouse the kids are being taken in. From what I’ve heard, they’re a bit shocked but in good shape. They’ll be under constant surveillance until everything is resolved. Now, if I could get his statement…”

With the eraser end of his pencil, he pointed at the figure sitting on the balcony railing. Yuusuke shook his head.

“That’s not gonna be possible. I told you everything he told me. You won’t get anything more.”

“Very well. I’ll be in touch.”

The officer stood up, carried the cup of tea Keiko had offered him to the kitchen sink, and went for the door. Yuusuke caught up to him.

“We did the best we could, okay ?”

“I don’t dispute it. But this is what happens when power is in the hands of the very few, under no direction or organization. This is not the way we move forward. Not that you can do anything about it.”

Tadami quietly closed the door behind himself. Yuusuke spun on his feet to look at Hiei, who seemed lost in thought.

The other didn’t budge when Yuusuke came to lean against the railing and lit up a cigarette. They remained silent as Yuusuke exhaled a few times.

“… It’s not your fault, okay ? You couldn’t have known.”

“… Coward.”

“What ?”

“Coward. The Second Son. He’s a coward. That’s the point of that story. And so is that guy. He’d rather have some kids do his dirty work than take revenge himself. When you find him… When you find him, Yuusuke, show no mercy.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“It was… like a voice from underground ?”

“More like from a cave.”

“Was it a man’s voice ?”

“Definitely.”

The others nodded in agreement. The eight boys, despite given separate futons in the old dorm room they’d been placed into, had apparently decided to push all of them together, creating a large sleeping area covered with disparate pillows, mangas and schoolwork. They now chatted and laughed like childhood friends. Yuusuke smiled. The resilience of children was something to behold.

“He kept saying : ‘it’s my will, it’s my will’ all the time” Daichi said. “As if he wasn’t sure.”

“He talked about time a lot too.” Taiyo loudly added. “Like he was on a schedule or something. We had to do this fast, because there was no time.”

“He said we wouldn’t really die.” A third boy continued. “We’d just be reborn. Better. The way we were supposed to be.”

“Did he say anything else that could point to his identity ? Or his location ?” Yuusuke asked again.

“… His brother is about to die.” Ryan said.

Yuusuke turned to him. He was sitting in the far corner of the futons, as if afraid he didn’t belong here. He hadn’t said a word since Yuusuke had gotten there.

“Yeah ? How could you tell ?”

“He told me. Well, I don’t think he meant to tell me. I’ve been hearing him for years, muttering to himself. I wasn’t meant to hear it. But I hear so many voices, all the time, I thought he was just another one. But it was the same voice. That’s why there’s no time. His brother is about to die, before he can kill him. Before he can take his land for himself. We were supposed to help him.”

“That’s helpful. I’m going to find him, kids.”

“About that” Daichi started. “We’ve been talking and… when you see him, could you tell him something for us ?”

“Sure.”

“Tell him… ‘nice try, fucko’.”

The wall to the throne room exploded. The figure sitting on the imposing chair didn’t move.

“Hey, Suris. Your kids have a message for you.”

The large, scaly body stood up before the detective, who was readying his guard.

“Do you even know who you are talking to, child ?”

“Some kind of… weird fish ? I’m not sure.”

“This land is mine. This land should all be mine.”

“Cut the crap. If it’s yours, take it. Don’t use fucking kids.”

“You don’t know what he did to me. He deserves to die.”

“Yeah, I actually don’t give a shit ? I don’t give a shit about whatever sad story you’ve been telling yourself. After what you’ve done, it doesn’t matter.”

“You think you can beat me ? I can smell half-breed blood from here.”

The colours of the scales started changing. Soon, the demon had disappeared entirely. Yuusuke heard his laughter echo against the walls of the chamber. There was a wind. A cut appeared on his cheek, red falling down his neck. He chuckled.

“Do you find your death funny, child ?” asked a voice from nowhere.

“No, it’s just… my friend was right about you. You’re a coward. And there’s nothing more predictable than a coward.”

“You’ll regret these words !!” the voice roared.

Without looking, Yuusuke armed his reigun, and as a shadow he couldn’t see ran toward his back, shot behind his shoulder. There was an ugly noise. Something landed against the back wall.

“Nice try, fucko.”

“So it’s over ?”

“They gonna have to explain to the families what the fuck’s been going on. Some of them might not handle it well. Ryan is going to need you.”

Masaru pursed his lips.

“… So none of them was a Mazoku ?”

“There’s no way to know for sure. Not until they die. The risk is too big. Plus, after everything, I don’t think any of them is particularly interested in finding out.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“You don’t seem satisfied.”

“It’s just… If you were really meant to be something else, wouldn’t you know it ? Wouldn’t you feel it, somehow ?”

“I don’t know, kid, I really don’t know. Part of me thinks that destiny as a whole is bullshit. Just a series of choices and coincidences. You’re never really anything you want or were meant to be. You just are.”

“Well, thank you.”

“For the case or for the other thing ?”

“For the case, definitely. For the rest… There are days I don’t know.”

“…Take care, kid.”

“You too.”

Yuusuke watched Masaru close the door behind him, then went to the kitchen and flipped the switch of the electric kettle.

A minute later, the mug made a clinking sound as it was set on the railing next to Hiei. After a hesitation, he took it without waiting for Yuusuke to turn his back.

“All in a day’s work, huh ?” Yuusuke said between two sips of his own mug. The water was crazy hot.

“…How do you do it ?” Hiei asked downing a significant portion of his cup.

“Whatcha mean ?”

“How do you manage to be needed, all the time ?”

“I guess… I’m not afraid to show that I need others too.”

“Weakness.”

“Maybe. But I’d rather be weak than forget why I became strong.”

“Did you mean it ? What you said earlier about destiny ?”

“Why ?”

“Destiny is comforting. Otherwise, it means who you are is just the result of crappy choices. Choices that might not even have been yours.”

“I think destiny’s just another word for the shit we have to deal with. It just makes it sound like there’s no reason to fight it.”

“Yuusuke.”

Hiei’s eyes had gone wide.

“The kid. You need to go after him.”

“What ? Why ?”

“Just go !”

Yuusuke jumped in his shoes and ran out the door. The kid was on foot. He ran two blocks before finally noticing him. Masaru was standing perfectly still on the edge of the sidewalk. Lost in thought. His eyes were following the cars passing him by. Finally, one arrived that seemed to go fast enough. The kid’s body edged ever closer to the concrete. He closed his eyes and fell.

He felt himself roughly pulled back and found himself lying on the concrete, a powerful hand forbidding him to move.

“Let me go ! I have to do it ! I have to make it right !”

“This won’t make anything right !” Yuusuke roared. “Do you think it’ll change anything ? Even if you have demon blood, everything will stay exactly the same !”

“That can’t be it ! That can’t be how I’m supposed to feel ! If I’m not a demon, then… Then why do I still feel like shit ?!”

The tears flowed through his fingers. Yuusuke helped him sit up and sat next to him. They remained there a long time, on the burning pavement, as perplexed passers-by walked around them, silent, waiting for something to happen.

Keiko’s fingers in his hair tugged and separated the gelled up strands. He allowed himself to feel the weight of his own head on her lap. The TV was playing on mute as he wiggled his toes against the cushion at the end of the couch. Hiei had been gone all evening.

“Is this what it’s going to be like for our kids ?” she asked, obliviously continuing to play with his hair.

“You mean you’d still want some ?”

“Of course. It will just be harder. Like everything always is. What about you ?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“… You know, I’ve decided.”

“What about ?”

“When we’re going to get married.”

He stood up and looked at her in shock.

“For real ?”

“Hold your horses. I’ll marry you… when we can have a wedding in Makai.”

“What ? But Keiko, you can’t…”

“I know. That’s why I’m making this a condition. I don’t want us to get bound when we don’t know if the two worlds will be. When everything is at a point we can have our wedding in Makai, and only then… That’s when I’ll marry you.”

Amazement was all over his face.

“… That could be quite a while.”

“You’re a patient man, aren’t you ?”

“Like hell I am.”

“Then you’ll better get to work.”

“…Yeah.”

As they kissed, the doorbell rang. Keiko eyed him suspiciously.

“Did you steal Kurama’s keys again ?”

“Swear I didn’t.”

He walked to the door and opened it to meet the distressed eyes of Yukina.

“… Is he here ?”

“Who ?”

“Kuwabara ! Is he here ?”

“No, I haven’t seen him.”

She was out of breath and close to crying. Yuusuke straightened up.

“What’s going on ?”

“I don’t know, I… He’s been distant lately. At first I thought it was because of me, so I didn’t want to intrude, I wanted to give him space… Yuusuke, he’s been gone a week. No one knows where he is. Shizuku and I have been searching at his college, at friends… We can’t find him. Yuusuke… You have to help me.”

Chapter Text

Sleep, my child, sleep
In my arms, strong and tender
Lost in dreams, utter no peep
Lest your night turns to nightmare
Run, my child, and keep running
While they hunt and snare and rove
And you’ll sing, my child, you’ll sing
Voiceless in the Ivory Grove.

- Old Makai lullaby

“… Is he here ?”

“Who ?”

“Kazuma ! Is he here ?”

“No, I haven’t seen him.”

She was out of breath and close to crying. Yuusuke straightened up.

“What’s going on ?”

“I don’t know, I… He’s been distant lately. At first I thought it was because of me, so I didn’t want to intrude, I wanted to give him space… Yuusuke, he’s been gone a week. No one knows where he is. Shizuru and I have been searching at his college, at friends… We can’t find him. Yuusuke… You have to help me.”

Yuusuke turned on his heels and swept the entire apartment with his eyes, as if expecting a wild Kuwabara to appear out of thin air.

“Err… Okay, okay… Gimme a sec.”

He slid the window open and putting his thumb and index between his lips, let out a resonant whistle in the night as Keiko was guiding Yukina to the couch. It was only a few moments later that an angry figure dropped on the balcony.

“Did you just dogwhistled me here ?”

“Yeah, we got an emergency.”

“Fuck you and your…”

Hiei seemed to register Yukina’s presence and was stopped in his tracks. Yukina’s face had instinctively closed itself off a little at his view.

“Kuwa’s missing. I figure a little Jagan magic will save us a lot of time.”

Uncharacteristically for him, Hiei undid his headband without a word and exited the window to climb back on the roof.

“… What is he doing here ?” murmured Yukina after Hiei had disappeared from view.

Yuusuke and Keiko exchanged a quick gaze before the latter responded :

“He’s been living here for the past two months.”

“… You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know how you would react. With school and all, you seemed to be doing better… I didn’t want to throw you off.”

“For crying out loud ! I’m not some fragile crystal ! I’m not going to break apart if you people just tell me things !”

“Found him.” Hiei said as he landed back on the balcony.

“You did ?!” Yukina exclaimed, jumping out of the couch and sinking an equally restless and hopeful gaze into Hiei’s.

They both realized seconds later neither of them was prepared for direct eye contact, and they both averted their gaze at the same time.

“He’s not in town anymore.” Hiei said to regain his countenance. “He’s about 300 miles north of here.”

Keiko took a map out of a drawer and laid it on the table along with her faithful ruler.

“That’s… in Yamagata, near the coast.”

“The hell is this idiot doing up there ?”

“If you can’t reach him, it’s highly probable he’s not there of his own volition.” Hiei remarked.

“Hiei !” Keiko hissed between her teeth, pointing him to Yukina with her head. “Seriously ?”

Suddenly conscious of his gaffe, but unable to apologize, Hiei settled on awkwardly leaning over the map to follow Yuusuke’s fingers tracing out highways.

“You said it was straight up north ?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s no train going in that direction.”

“Kurama has a licence.” Keiko reminded him. “And a car.”

After a slight hesitation, Yuusuke fished out his phone out of his pocket and started dialling his friend’s number. Hiei headed toward the window.

“Hey ! Where do you think you’re going ?” Yuusuke interrupted.

“You seem to have things covered.”

“You think ‘300 miles in that general direction’ is gonna cut it ? We’re gonna need you to guide us to him.”

Hiei let himself fall on the couch, mumbling obscenities under his breath, but he stayed nonetheless. After a brief phone call, Yuusuke announced :

“Kurama’s picking us up at the foot of the building in twenty minutes.”

“I’m coming with you !” Yukina immediately said.

“No, you’re not !” was Hiei’s immediate response, paling at the perspective of hours stuck in a car with her. “No she’s not” he added, turning to Yuusuke in a tacit plea for support.

The latter scratched his head for a bit.

“He’s kind of right, Yukina… I’m not gonna sugar-coat it, if Kuwa’s been up there a week and is not responding, it could be bad. And your presence means another thing we have to take into account. Look, if you wanna come, I’m not gonna stop you. But I’m pretty sure Kuwa would kick my butt if he learned I exposed you to danger in order to help him.”

“… I just… can’t stand not knowing.”

“… But you do know.” Hiei said.

Yukina dared eyeing him in search for an explanation.

“… You know he’s coming back. Because we’ll be bringing him back. I… promise.”

Yukina searched his eyes. Finally, nodding, she turned to Yuusuke.

“Yeah, me too. I promise.”

Views were flying by the windows. Well, not exactly flying as much as they were trotting behind the glass polished by the years. The old Toyota Camry, which had been Kurama’s stepfather’s car before he’d gifted him to the young man for his twentieth birthday, was in a relatively good state for its age, yet Yuusuke couldn’t help but find himself sorely missing more modern conveniences, first of which air conditioning. The metallic parts of the car were so hot that anyone who wasn’t Hiei had been playing an elaborate version of “the floor is lava and the walls and the ceiling also” for the last six hours. The fresher hours of the night, if they could even be called that, had long come and gone, and now Yuusuke was feeling his face steadily burn around his sunglasses.

“Do I still go north ?” Kurama asked Hiei over his shoulder, as he had every now and then since the beginning of the trip.

The other briefly sat up from the back seat to glance at the windshield.

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh yes or uh-huh no ?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kurama drove through another crossing, leaving behind yet another larger artery for the smallest possible alternative. The vehicle headed between two portions of woods of the greenest green Yuusuke had ever seen. High pines provided them with welcome umbrage while smaller plants diffused their perfumes through the car’s ventilation system. Yuusuke briefly rolled out his window to breathe in the forest. The smell of moss filled the interior. When he turned back to the inside of the vehicle, he surprised the tiniest of smiles scintillating on Kurama’s lips, lighting up his tired traits. Yuusuke gave him a hearty one before digging into yet another bag of snacks. They’d visited no less than five gas stations on the way, Kurama each time letting him go wild with the novelty consumables on his dime. In exchange, Yuusuke had spent the last six hours pretending he hadn’t noticed the pack of beers hastily crammed under his seat.
He foraged in the metallized bag of shrimp crisps to extract a tiny figurine of a shrimp wearing a cowboy hat and holding a gun.

“Jackpot ! We didn’t have this one yet !” he exclaimed, referring to the tiny pile of figurines at Hiei’s feet, which was already featuring a cosmonaut shrimp, a samurai shrimp, two rocker shrimps, and inexplicably, a shrimp carrying a plate of fried shrimps.

When his enthusiasm wasn’t reciprocated, he held the figurine close to Kurama’s face.

“Kurama ! Look !”

“I’m driving.” The other responded, getting as far away from Yuusuke’s hand as the cramped vehicle allowed it.

“You can drive with your eyes closed ! Why would you need that much concentration ?”

“How about some music ?” Kurama asked with forced cheerfulness, turning the radio on.

Only static intercut with the muffled voice of an announcer answered him. Sighing deeply, Kurama turned the device off.

“No radio signal ?”

“… No radio signal” Kurama confirmed. “We must be too far into the woods.”

The sky was now completely obfuscated by the high up foliage, as the surrounding got more and more irregular, the ground deformed by large rocks and deep, tentacular roots. The woods seemed to get denser, swallowing the further scenery from their eyes. A mile ahead, the dirt road ended abruptly, a barrier of rocks signalling the end of the line. Kurama stopped the car, a little too late, as Yuusuke distinctly heard the hood bump lightly against the rocks.

“… I guess this is as far as we go on wheels.” Kurama said as he extracted himself from the driver seat.

“What now ?”

Hiei slid from the backseat where he’d been resting and undid his headband once again.

“He’s not far away now. A couple miles into the woods.”

“Can you tell if he’s alive ? If he’s hurt ?”

“All I know is that I can feel his energy.”

“Well, I guess we continue on foot, then.”

After Kurama had locked the car, they started climbing up the small hill and ventured deeper into the forest.

Following along what must have used to be a beaten path, but was now invaded by weeds, the three men resumed the silence they’d observed for most of the car ride. Kurama was carrying his head a little too low, Hiei his a little too high.

Kurama suddenly stopped, and frowned.

“Yuusuke, did you phone ring ?”

The other fished the device out of his pocket.

“Nope.”

“I could swear I heard something ringing.”

“It’s the woods.” Yuusuke grimaced. “There’s always some fucking noise in the woods.”

Half an hour into their climb, the sky finally peered again behind the foliage. It seemed this part of the forest overviewed the rest of the wooden valley.

“… We should be seeing him.” Hiei said.

Yuusuke quickly looked around.

“There’s fuck all here. You sure your third eye doesn’t need glasses ?”

“Wait” Kurama tempered. “Over here.”

He pointed to some deeper shades of wood hidden behind a curtain of trees. Almost disappearing in the environment, a small cabin was nested on the edge of the slope. Reflexively, the three men reduced the noise of their movements as they moved to approach the habitation. Hiei silently pointed to the side of the house facing the valley. A veranda window had been left open. One after the other, they slid into the opening. The rustic interior was silent. On his flank, Yuusuke saw Hiei sniff out the air.

“Smells of blood.” He whispered.

Yuusuke nodded and readied his stance. A noise was approaching. Rustling. Huffing.

“Hey ! I got beef ramen this time, I hope that’s okaaaay WHAT THE WHAT ??”

The three men spun as the cry of surprise came from behind them. Halfway through the window opening, a plastic bag in his hand, Kuwabara was staring at them, eyes wide.

“Guys ? Wh-what are you doing here ?”

All three of them seemed to have turned into living statues. Yuusuke was the quickest to recover.

“What are we doing here ? WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE ?! We were looking for you, idiot ! A week you’ve been gone, and you didn’t think to call ??”

“Oh yeah, sorry… Phones don’t work up here.” Kuwabara scratched his head as he entered and put the bag on the wooden table.

“That’s not the point ! How could you leave like that without even a word ? Yukina was worried to death !”

“Hey, I’m an adult, I’m on break, I can go wherever I want.”

“That’s something a dick would say. You’re not a dick.”

“Oh come on, don’t play dumb, guys. You know Yukina blew me off. Maybe I just needed a little time away from her.”

“… I don’t buy it. You wouldn’t run away from that. You wouldn’t run away ever.”

“Maybe I needed some time away from you as well, have you thought about that ?”

“Kuwabara, stop.” Said a soft voice behind them.

Yuusuke turned to face a small figure in the embrasure of the door to the bedroom. Vibrant green eyes met his.

“He came here to meet me.” Said Ayesha.

As he blinked in surprise and initiated a gesture toward her, she retreated further into the opening. Kuwabara hurriedly came to place himself between the two of them.

“Be cool” he whispered into Yuusuke’s ear. “She’s got trouble with proximity.”

“Er… Sorry.” The latter threw above Kuwabara’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. Kuwabara is being protective. I’m okay.”

Throwing a glance to his side, Yuusuke noticed Kurama was staring at the woman, his face undecipherable. He took a step forward and extended his hand.

“We haven’t met.” He said.

“No” Ayesha answered, digging her nails further into each of her arms. “We haven’t.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s Kurama !” Kuwabara interjected. “You know, the one I told you about ? Kurama, that’s Ayesha, the girl we met during that trafficking case. She helped us a bunch.”

“She did, didn’t she.”

“Sooo… How have you been ?” Yuusuke asked, more to rupture the silence that had settled in than anything.

“Here, mostly. Hiding. I’ve been with them so long. The world is different outside. Fewer rules. Or maybe people just don’t say them out loud as much.”

She didn’t seem to want to get out of the hallway. Her face hidden in the semi-penumbra highlighted her almond eyes, dug in quite deep behind high cheekbones. Her thick, curly hair was assembled in a single messy braid going down over her shoulder to her elbow. Full chapped lips into which teeth were biting between each sentence were pulled slightly down at the extremities, mirroring the bags under her eyes, which as a whole gave the impression her entire face was slowly falling off itself. Her oak-coloured skin had a slight green and sickly undertone to it, adding fragility to her already small frame floating in an oversized black polo and loose jeans. Realizing he’d been staring for too long, Yuusuke turned to his right and left, hoping either of his partners would take over the awkward conversation.

“Why does it reek of blood here ?” Hiei asked, apparently deciding what the conversation needed was more awkwardness.

“The hell is with that tone ?” Kuwabara riposted immediately.

“It’s not here” Ayesha cut softly, yet commandingly. “It’s everywhere.”

Kuwabara turned to her, his gaze questioning hers. She shook her head, then cautiously traversed the living room, walking as far from each man as she possibly could, and slid the veranda window fully open. A hot wind engulfed the room, heavy and putrid to the point even Yuusuke could smell it.

“Down there.” She murmured. “There is something down there.”

She closed the window and turned to them.

“That’s why I asked Kuwabara for help. I came here because it smelled like home. But there is too much of it. I didn’t want… I want to be a good person too. Like Kuwabara. So I called him here.”

“Ayesha’s still on the run from the traffickers” Kuwabara added. “So we had to do everything on the down low. With your new functions, everything you do is public, Urameshi. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”

“So why the week-long stay ?”

Once again, Kuwabara seemed to silently check with Ayesha before answering. She chose to do it for him.

“It’s my fault. Everytime he leaves, I…”

“The point is” Kuwabara cut, “now that you guys know everything’s fine, you can go back. Tell sorry to Yukina for me. But someone really needed my help.”

“Dude, are you kidding ? If there’s really something down there, then you’ll need all of us to…”

“’If’ ? Are you saying you can’t feel it ? And why would I need you guys ?”

“You know, like… We need each other.”

“Oh ? When was the last time any of you needed me ?”

“Never.” Offered Hiei.

“Shut up Hiei.” Offered Kurama and Yuusuke simultaneously.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Kuwabara concluded.

Yuusuke exhaled deeply. Without missing a beat, he lunged forward and grabbed Kuwabara by the shoulder. Passing Ayesha by, making her hastily step back, he dragged him outside and closed the window behind him with his foot.

“Okay, what the fuck ?” He said, throwing his taller friend in front of him.

“That’s my line, man. You guys stumble in here, scare the hell out of a traumatized girl, then tell me I’m not strong enough to handle my own shit ?”

“This isn’t like you. The old you would never have gone on his own like that.”

“Maybe it’s just that the old you wouldn’t have let me.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean ?”

“You tell me. Is it so hard to handle that someone thought I was the hero for once ?”

“… Is this what this is about ? You wanting an ego boost ?”

“This is about someone who needs help. And turns out I’m the one who can help. Sorry if that’s such an outlandish idea for you.”

“Okay, you know that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, Urameshi ? Cause from where I’m standing, sounds a lot like you really need me to need you. Maybe I’m not the one who wants that ego boost. I mean, last time you acted on your own, how many people did you bury under a volcano again ?”

Yuusuke kicked off a small rock with his shoe.

“Fuck you, dude. Fuck. You.”

Yuusuke hurriedly opened the window as Kuwabara turned his back to him.

Hiei turned to Kurama as Yuusuke slammed the door behind him and Kuwabara.

“Should we do something ?”

“What for ? They’ll figure this out. They always do.” Kurama replied, staring pointedly at Ayesha as he was saying the last part.

The woman unclutched her arms.

“Why are you looking at me like that ?”

“No reason.”

She sighed.

“Play your games then. But I won’t. I’m tired. I’m tired enough for a lifetime.”

She started sorting out the groceries, alternatively putting them in the fridge and on the shelves.

“Do you know what we got out of what you told us, back at the hospital ?”

She barely paused.

“Nothing, I suppose. Or just enough to make you believe it wasn’t nothing. For a time.”

“Precisely.”

“Most evils are built on a pile of little nothings. Sometimes you barely need a something to hold it all together.”

“How long were you in their hands ?”

“… I don’t know. Probably less than I think.”

“… Where do you come from ? In Makai ? Perhaps we could get you back there.”

“You could, but you can’t. Rashâ. It’s a desert now. It wasn’t always one. But it’s what it is now. I think I’m done answering your questions, as it’s not really what they are.”

“You’re sharp.”

“Or you, less than you think. But certainly a lot more than you need to be. I told you, I’m tired of games. I’ve played with worse men than you and I’ve always lost. Because it’s never about how good you are. It’s about what the strongest one believes. So tell me what you believe, Kurama, and let’s be done with it.”

“… I believe you’re smart. I believe you might have been manipulating us from the beginning, at the brothel. I believe you could very well have driven a wedge between Kuwabara and us on purpose. I believe you may be using whatever is down there to lure us into a trap.”

“And do you plan on acting on that belief ?”

“I plan on not dropping my guard.”

“… I think I would like it if people thought like you. If they thought I was dangerous. No one has ever found me dangerous before. Maybe if they did I wouldn’t have to be afraid.”

She closed the fridge and turned to him.

“But I’m the one who has to be afraid of you. Afraid of how smart you are and how strong you are. That’s the reason you said the things you said, so I’d be afraid. But it’s okay. I’m already afraid. I’m always afraid. I got pretty good at it.”

She slowly made her way to the hallway door. Halfway through, she stopped between Hiei and Kurama.

“… Sorry. Could one of you move ? Whenever I get too close to someone I think they’re going to grab me.”

Kurama stepped aside, and Ayesha disappeared down the hallway. Hiei turned to him :

“What do you think ?”

Kurama frowned.

“… I don’t know. I… Do you think I was an asshole just there ?”

“As opposed to ?”

The veranda window brutally opened behind them.

“Hiei ! Kurama ! We’re leaving !”

“What ?” Hiei voiced for them both.

“Fuck him. We’re leaving.”

Yuusuke stomped away from view as Kuwabara climbed up into the house and passed the two men by with as much dignity as he could. After a second of shared hesitation, Kurama and Hiei followed Yuusuke outside, as he was angrily walking along the edge. Hiei caught up to him first.

“What do you mean, ‘we’re leaving’ ?”

“Exactly that, genius.”

“But… We can’t. We promised Yukina, remember ?”

“Yeah, well, sorry if things don’t align with your perfect family reunion fantasy.”

Hiei was about to say something, then decided to cut to the chase and punch Yuusuke in the face. The other took it, but didn’t replicate. Kurama caught up to them just as Yuusuke was spitting reddish matter on the ground.

“That idiot can drag himself back home on his own, if he’s so smart. I’m done.”

The three men remained silent as Yuusuke lost himself in the contemplation of the woods below. They were so densely green you couldn’t see the ground under them. All around the valley, rocky cliffs much like the one on the edge of which they were standing ensnared the verdant island in a metallic circle. A lonely wind populated the silence. The late afternoon sun was slowly descending upon the facing hill. Yuusuke briefly closed his eyes.

“Screw it. Screw him.”

Yuusuke jumped down and landed on the rocks thirty feet below. Taken by surprise, Kurama and Hiei leaned to witness the detective make his way down the almost vertical slope.

“What… What are doing ?” Kurama exclaimed, his voice echoing on the rocks.

“Isn’t it obvious ?” came the response.

“Yuusuke ! This could be a trap !”

“Traps is what we do. You guys can go home if you don’t wanna. I’m not forcing you. I’m not forcing anyone.” Yuusuke’s voice echoed, more and more distant.

Hiei and Kurama quizzically looked at each other. Hiei jumped down first.

“Hiei ! Don’t indulge him !”

“No more danger means no reason to stay. We all go home. I can work with that.”

“… You guys do what you want. But I hope you’ve ordered a taxi, because I’m not hanging around.”

“You sure you couldn’t use the sobering up time ?”

Piqued, Kurama landed next Hiei. They started cautiously making their way down in pursuit of Yuusuke who had disappeared under the trees.

Chapter Text

When Hiei and Kurama landed on the ground after letting themselves slide down the rocks, they found themselves in sudden darkness in contrast with the reflective brightness of the cliff. The woods were even denser there than on the hill, the trees and their roots twisting around each other, creating a labyrinthine design on the ground. Hiei sniffed the air.

“The woman was right about one thing. The smell definitely comes from down there.”

“Good.” Replied Yuusuke who’d been punching the nearest tree waiting for them. “We find out what’s going on, we whoop him, we all go home, Mr. Chivalry continues to play house up there. Perfect plan.”

“Quiet.” Kurama ordered. “Do you hear that ?”

The three men remained silent, long enough to pick up what Kurama’s ears had detected.

“… What is that ?” Yuusuke wondered.

“Sounds like… bells.” Kurama chanced. “Like something tinting. Maybe that’s what I heard back in the forest.”

“Can you tell where it all comes from ?”

“Sounds like it’s all around. The wind carries it.”

Yuusuke started walking again, deeper into the forest.

“The valley’s not that big. We should have it covered before the night comes.”

“We should be careful not to get lost.” Kurama reminded them. “I don’t think we can see the house from down here.”

The three men headed down, trying not to slip on the moss.

Kuwabara carefully passed his head through the bedroom door, and only entered after Ayesha smiled at him from the bed where she was lying down.

“Hey. Sorry about all that. My friends… They’re good people, just… a little insensitive.”

“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have forced you into this position.” The woman mused.

“No ! No… It’s not, trust me. We have some stuff going on. Well, maybe I have, and they haven’t noticed. Anyway, they’re gone now.”

“They left ?”

“… I think they went down there.”

“Without you ?”

“That’s… how they are.”

“Maybe you should go join them.”

Kuwabara jolted, then examined the lying figure, Ayesha’s hand clutching the side of the pillow with unnerving tightness. He shook his head and cautiously made his way to the chair next to the bed.

“… No. No. I’m staying with you. I’m not leaving you until you fall asleep.”

Her eyes filled with gratitude.

“… Thank you.”

Insofar as a forest could be completely silent, this one was. Every now and then, a gulf of summer wind found its way down under the foliage and swept the woods, carrying with it the thick smell of rotten blood and the curious sound of bells. None of them was saying much. Yuusuke was still visibly fuming, yet was gradually calming down as the solemnity of the environment slowly won him over.

“Heads up.” Hiei said. “What’s that ?”

Yuusuke followed his gaze to something that was dangling from a low-hanging branch. He walked up to it. Tied by simple twine, a small doll was wrapped in red, dirty fabric, so only its head would emerge from it. Yuusuke undid the noose and showed the item to his comrades.

“Looks like a toy. Maybe some children play down there.”

Hiei and Kurama exchanged a look.

“That’s not a toy.” Kurama started. “That’s an icon.”

“Huh ?”

“… That’s the Buried Mother.”

Kurama took the object from his hand and carefully examined it.

“The buried mother ? What’s that ?”

“Horseshit.” Contributed Hiei.

Kurama threw him a glance before answering.

“She’s a legend from Makai. The first legend, you could say.”

He breathed in sharply.

“Long ago, there were only the gods. But gods feed on worship. So they created a woman, the first woman, with the mission of engendering a race of mortals to worship the gods. The woman did so and so humans were born. But as her children grew old and died, the woman felt crushed by sadness. She questioned why her children couldn’t be immortal just like the gods. And so she decided to create children that would be equal to the gods. However, when the gods realized it, they instructed the humans who worshipped them to kill their mother. They butchered her and buried her in the deepest grave in the entire world, wrapped in fabric dyed red by her blood. However, the woman’s pain and anger were so strong that they remained in death. And so, in her grave deep within the earth, so deep in fact that it opened on hell, her corpse gave birth to new, immortal children. Youkais.”

Kurama fiddled with the figurine.

“The Buried Mother is worshipped all over Makai” he explained. People make these sorts of statuettes to pray and repel bad luck.”

“So some youkais definitely passed this way.”

“That’s probable, yes. Come on, we should hurry up. Night’s not far away.”

Yuusuke didn’t comment when he saw Kurama pocket the figurine.

As the evening settled in, the forest came awake, as they often do. Sounds of chirping and rummaging filled the air, as the nearest bush always seemed to have something hiding in it as the three men’s footsteps were approaching. In the half penumbra, the twists and turns of the roots covered in deep green moss took a sinister appearance, as if deformed arms reached for them, waiting to swallow them into the earth.

“Smell’s getting stronger.” Hiei said.

“So is the sound.” Kurama added. “Can you hear that ? It’s like rain on crystal.”

The men paused to pinpoint the direction of both. A voice raised behind them.

“Guys ! Wait up !”

They turned to face a Kuwabara making his way over the roots. The embers of Yuusuke’s anger reignited.

“What are you doing here ?”

“I… Look, guys, I’m sorry, okay ? I… you’ve been making your way on your own for so long, I wanted to make my own… So when you showed up like I can’t deal by myself, it was… It was kind of a shitty thing to do, too.”

He stopped a few feet away from Yuusuke and scratched his head, waiting for his friend’s response. Yuusuke seemed to mull it over.

“… Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry, too.”

They exchanged hearty smiles. Yuusuke closed the distance separating them.

“Come here, you idiot !”

Yuusuke gave him a noggie that was more affectionate than violent, then looked down on his feet in embarrassment as they parted.

There was something red on his shoe.

Yuusuke stumbled back as he put his hand to his stomach, where a large slash was caking his shirt in blood.

“Wh-what ?”

Kuwabara’s face convulsed into an large smile, as he looked back and screamed overexcitedly :

“Dad ! Dad look ! I got one !!”

“That’s great, sweetie.” Replied a voice from somewhere in the trees. “Now come back here, we need to secure the catch.”

Kuwabara hopped away without a glance at Yuusuke, whose mouth was filling with blood dripping down his chin. Hiei reacted first.

“You bastard…”

He lunged forward, sword drawn. He slashed across Kuwabara’s neck and to his surprise, found nothing but air. The image of the other man dissipated as a smaller one replaced it near the ground. When Hiei landed, he found himself face to face with a young girl. As he was readying himself to attack again, something long and sharp came at him from above. He narrowly avoided it as the thing pinned his coat to the ground. The girl sauntered away before he could react. Kurama waved his hand toward the branches in order to snuff out whoever was hiding there, only to harbour a sudden expression of surprise.

“The trees… They won’t obey me.”

“Then they can serve as fuel.” Hiei said between his teeth, sheathing his sword and readying himself to invoke black flames.

But nothing came. As Hiei threw Kurama a confused look, a deluge of wooden arrows came from the above.

“Take cover !”

Hiei ripped part of his coat as Kurama threw Yuusuke’s arm over his shoulder and helped him away from the clear and behind a large root. Hiei looked at Kurama in mild panic.

“My you-ki won’t come out.”

“… Mine neither.”

“You’ve seen how many are out there ?”

“No.”

“What do we do ? Do we run ?”

Kurama threw a glance at Yuusuke, who was ripping parts of his shirt to help stop the bleeding. He looked back at Hiei decidedly.

“We run.”

“Do you have any… four ?” Kuwabara cheerfully asked.

Ayesha exhaled and hung her head.

“How do you do that ? I’ve got three of them ! I was close !”

She handed him the three cards.

“Book !” announced Kuwabara, laying all fours on the bed.

“You win. Again.”

“Sorry… I should have been a gentleman and let you win.”

“No. That’s the same as lying. You don’t lie to me. That’s what I like about you.”

Kuwabara offered her a smile, and almost reflexively looked in the direction of the valley.

“… Are you thinking about them ?” Ayesha asked.

“If they’d found anything, Yuusuke would have barged in gloating by now.”

“Do you think they might need help ?”

“… Nah. Plus, you need me more.”

“But I can’t need you forever.”

“Baby steps. You don’t have to force yourself.”

Ayesha hesitantly lifted her hand, unclutching her fingers, then slowly, hesitantly, covered Kuwabara’s hand with hers. They both looked at the contact, then lifted their heads to smile at each other. Kuwabara told himself her hand was softer than anything he’d ever touched.

“You’re right.” Ayesha said. “Baby steps.”

“Did they follow us ?”

“I don’t think so.” Kurama huffed, letting go of Yuusuke and helping him sit on a nearby root.

“What the hell ?!” Hiei exclaimed. “It’s not just attacks, it’s everything ! I can’t see them, I can’t react in time… It’s like I have no you-ki left.”

“One thing at a time.” Kurama replied. We’ve got to tend to Yuusuke’s wound. If we don’t have access to our you-ki, then he doesn’t either. It’s going to be complicated to heal.”

“I’m fine.” Yuusuke interjected.

Kurama glared at the open wound still dripping.

“Okay, so maybe I’m not fine, but I will be. I’ve taken hits way before I had the energy I have.”

“Nevertheless, we need to stop the bleeding. There should be medicinal plants somewhere in this forest.”

“That’d take too long.” Yuusuke replied through a cough. “You guys need to help me cauterize it. Old style.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Hiei still has his sword. And I’ve got a lighter.”

“Making a fire is risky. We have to assume they’re after us.”

“Once my wound is closed, we’ll be able to move after. I say it’s a risk worth taking.”

Kurama nodded and quickly assembled a pile a wood. With a tinge of hesitation, he caught the lighter Yuusuke had thrown him.

“… With how dry the last days have been, the fire might spread.”

“I hear an underground current under there.” Hiei said. The moss is still humid.”

Kurama carried the flame to the pile and it quickly ignited. Hiei held his blade into the flames until the metal whitened under the heat.

“Ready ?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Yuusuke joked through gritted teeth.

Hiei put the blade to the flesh. An ugly burning sound rose to the trees.

When Yuusuke started breathing again, Kurama let go of his friend’s hand he hadn’t realized he was holding. Yuusuke tentatively stood up and examined the melted flesh covering the cut.

“Good as new. Thanks man.”

Hiei nodded in acknowledgement and sheathed his sword. The three men allowed themselves a small moment of relieved silence.

“… Do you hear that ? It’s that sound again. It’s close.”

They scanned the trees. Hiei pointed to a branch.

“There !”

Kurama cautiously approached the object. Small white pieces tied by wires were dangling in the breeze, a large one holding together smaller ones from which an eerie sound was coming out.

“… A wind chime.”

“What’s that ? Painted wood ?” Yuusuke squinted.

Hiei approached and brushed his thumb against one of the pieces.

“… That’s not wood. That’s a vertebra.”

Yuusuke’s eyes opened wide.

“Uuh… Guys ?”

Without a word, he pointed them deeper toward the woods. Along the path, hundreds of wind chimes were adorning the trees.

Slowly, gradually, like ink spreading on paper, the night had fallen on the forest. Tiny footsteps resonated with the wind chimes as two small frames appeared amidst the trees.

“See ? Fire ! Told ya !”

The girl stuck out her tongue to the young boy next to her while giving a slight kick to the pile of cinders before her.

“It’s your fault, you didn’t go deep enough with the knife.”

“Is not !”

“Is so.”

“Esa, Sunea, enough.” Came a voice from behind them.

A man in camouflage wear emerged from the bushes. A tactical bow was fixed on his back.

“Daaad ! Sunea keeps messing with me !”

“Sunea, be nice to your sister. She’s still learning.”

The man kneeled down and followed imprints on the moss with his fingers.

“They stayed together and went in direction of the east façade. When they’ll realize they can’t climb back up, that’s when we do what, Esa ?”

“Force them to split ?”

“Very good. Remember, those are fighters, not easy prey like before. As long as they know they’re at a disadvantage, they’ll work as hard as they can to avoid being cornered. Let them come to you. Esa, follow the river path to the Leopard Rock and set up there. Sunea, I want you off the ground ; stay in the trees, and wait for my signal. Questions ?”

A hand rose.

“Yes, Sunea ?”

“Can I go pee first ?”

“Sure. Alright children, let’s get them !”

“There, I can see the cliff.”

Yuusuke looked behind him to the darkened woods.

“Are we sure we want to just get up and leave ?”

“You’re hurt, and night is here. Whoever these people are, they know the terrain well. We can’t use our powers. Once we’re up there, we’ll be able to wait out and form a plan.”

Kurama put a hand to the stone façade, before abruptly pulling back, wincing. Tiny bursts of energy ran around the stone where Kurama had touched it.

“Ouch.”

“Problem ?”

Kurama took a few steps back.

“Hiei… Look above.”

He did as told, his eyes tracing the tears over the façade.

“… Fuck. They all like that ? How didn’t we notice ?”

“The discoloration must have been less visible during the day.”

“Hey” interjected Yuusuke, “someone feel like explaining what’s going on ?”

“Look at the cracks in the stone.”

“They look like… an ideogram ?”

“A rune. This entire valley is one giant kekkai barrier. Damn it !”

“Is that why we can’t use our energy ?”

“A force field of this magnitude. I didn’t even know that was possible. And we jumped right into it.”

“Kuwabara could tear through it.”

“But Kuwabara’s not here. And cellphones don’t work.”

“What then ?”

“Someone has to be maintaining the power of this barrier.” Hiei remarked. “These are not self-sustainable.”

“Right. So we find him and we knock him out. That should do it.”

“… Yuusuke ?”

“Yeah Kurama ?”

“What do we do if it’s that child ?”

“… We’ll deal. For now, we need to be ready. They’re after us for sure. And we don’t know how many there are.”

Kurama had a toothy smile.

“Heh. Let’s show them what a real predator looks like.”

When the young boy reached the façade, everything was silent at its foot. Carefully, he went from branch to branch, reducing the noise of his movements. As he spotted something on the ground, he froze. A figure was laying against a trunk ; a man clutching his stomach. Sunea reached the tree right above him. He slowly pulled out a small blowgun and loaded it with a thin dart, careful not to touch the pin. As he put it to lips, a hand fell from above and immobilized his.

“You shouldn’t play with that sort of things.” Said a red-haired man hanging upside down above him.

Sunea gasped as the man secured his grip. At the foot of the tree, the man stood up with a grin.

“... Got you.” The child smiled.

Before Kurama could react, a noose materialized around his neck. And tightened.
Despite suddenly lacking air, Kurama did not let go of the child. Putting a hand to his own neck, he looked to loosen the cord.

“Kurama !’ Yuusuke yelled.

Only a wave of arrows coming his direction answered him. He rolled out of the way and behind a trunk, only to feel his leg pulled back. Looking down, he saw another noose tying him to the ground.

“Yuusuke ! Stop moving !”

Hiei fell from above, blade drawn, and cut the cord.

“Let’s move !”

“But Kurama…”

“I’ll catch up with you !” breathed Kurama in a strangled voice. “Go !”

After a hesitation, Yuusuke followed Hiei into the woods.

“Dad !” screamed Sunea, still wrestling to get out of Kurama’s grip.

“I’m after them, stay put.” A voice answered.

After a moment, only the rustle of Kurama and the child were heard. Kurama felt the noose tighten, and reflexively let go of Sunea to use both his hands to pull the cord away. That was what the latter was waiting for. He quickly armed his blowgun and aimed at Kurama’s exposed arm. The dart penetrated the skin. Kurama’s hands dropped, and soon his entire body felt from the tree. Sunea sighed with relief, and climbed down to examine the motionless body. As he reached down to recover his dart, a leg swept his own. He landed on a ground with a thud, and found both of his hands pinned down behind his back.

“Playing the prey” Kurama mused, “is ultimately just a variant of playing dead. Isolating your opponent while limiting the range of possible actions for them in order to counter them. Now unless you want a taste of whatever’s on that dart, I suggest you don’t try anything funny with your nooses. Because those are yours, right ?”

“B-but how…” started Sunea trying to look behind his restrained shoulder.

Kurama raised his punctured arm to his lips and aspired the blood from the wound, before spitting it on the ground.

“Common hawthorn. It grows everywhere around here. Slows down blood circulation, avoiding further spreading of toxins. Now talk. Who is maintaining the kekkai ?”

“Filthy youkai. I won’t say a thing !”

“Trust me, you’d better. Because if we cannot get out of there, my friends and I will have to eliminate the threat here. Meaning you and your family. Do you really think you stand a chance ?”

“Do you think you’re the first youkai to think that ? They didn’t escape and neither will you !”

“Last chance” Kurama warned as he approached the dart from the boy’s neck. “Where are the others ?”

Hiei turned to Yuusuke who’s been trailing behind him.

“That’s far enough, I’d say. Enough time for Kurama to work his tricks.”

Yuusuke exhaled loudly.

“How’s your wound ?”

“No time to worry about that, the other one is coming.”

“Let me handle it, you’re in no position to fight.”

“Yeah, right.”

The two of them readied their stance, aware of every single movement in the trees. Suddenly, Yuusuke pushed Hiei away.

“Behind !”

An arrow came at them, grazing the ground. Hiei had already lunged in the direction of the archer. But when he climbed the trees, he found nothing. He turned to Yuusuke just in time to yell :

“On your right !”

Yuusuke plunged again to avoid the shot.

“Damn it ! Where is he ?”

A deluge of arrows fell on the clear from above. The two men jumped back and started running again.

“Did you see him ?”

“No. I didn’t see anyone.”

“He must have been right above you !”

Yuusuke’s eyes went wide.

“I didn’t see anything, because there was nothing to see. That guy’s not shooting the arrows. He is the arrows.”

In the centre of the clear, an arrow unstuck itself from the ground. Slowly, all the others around came to congregate, forming the silhouette of a man. Smiling and singing to himself, the man put the bow back on his shoulder.

“Run run run, little demon, run run run away… That’s my favourite part !”

Chapter Text

“Is he following us ?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Guys ! Over here !” called Kurama’s voice.

“Did you find out where to go ?” Yuusuke asked as they ran to their friend.

“Yes. They have a cabin, down the river, toward the heart of the valley.”

“Which way is that ?”

Kurama slid down the root to Hiei and pointed him between two trees.

“See ? There, behind the Leopard Rock.”

“What ?”

“Hiei ! Watch out !’

Hiei jumped back to narrowly avoid the image of Kurama lunging at him, a knife in its hands. The blade slid across his right arm all the way to the elbow, cutting the dragon tattoo in half.

“Ha ! I got you good this time !” Eructed the image, morphing back into the figure of a small girl.

“You little…”

He tried to unsheathe his sword, but his hand was trembling too much. Red was dripping all over the bandages and black ink.

Yuusuke started running to him, only to hear him yell :

“Not me ! The kid ! Quick !”

Yuusuke ran toward the escaping form. Despite his injury, he managed to catch up to her, seizing her by the arm.

“Ouchie ! You’re hurting me !”

“Well, you started it, so deal with it !”

He rose his arm so the girl’s feet barely touched the ground. She retaliated by trying to kick him in the shins, but fell literally short.

“Okay, enough playing around. I don’t know who told you people were fair game, but I’m gonna unleash protective services on their ass. Now you’re gonna guide us to that cabin of yours.”

“Never !”

“No need, Yuusuke” Kurama said as he approached, Sunea’s blowgun in hand. “What she told you, combined to what Sunea let out, we should manage without them.”

He got a dart out and carefully pricked Esa’s neck with it while she struggled. The girl gradually slowed down, before falling motionless in Yuusuke’s hand.

“Don’t worry” Kurama said as an answer to Yuusuke’s silent question. “It’s a tranquilizer. I recognized the smell. What of the father ?”

“We lost him a mile from here.”

“We should hurry up and reach the cabin. If there are others, they’ll be there. Let’s meet up with Hiei and be on our way.”

“Hiei ? He’s right…”

Yuusuke pivoted. On the ground, only a small pool of blood bore any trace of the youkai’s previous presence.

“Where the hell is he ?”

The smell of herbs awoke him. Groggily opening his eyes, he instinctively reached for his sword, only to be reminded of the throbbing pain in his arm. He sat up, white bars cutting his vision.

“If you’re looking for your weapon, it’s over here.” Said a voice belonging to a figure leaning over a fuming pot.

As Hiei’s vision cleared out, he realized he was no longer in the woods, but inside a rudimentary hut. Trying to stand up, he only fell back again. Blood loss, his confused mind reminded him.

“As it turns out, the bones of youkais make the best defence against youkais” remarked the figure. “Maybe with your you-ki, you could have cut through that cage but as it is… you better just stay quiet.”

The figure turned to reveal a middle-aged woman in a traditional apron, hair tied in a messy bun. Hiei’s face hardened.

“I’m going to give you one chance to open that cage. Don’t, and you’ll pay it with your life.”

“Ah, but that sort of threat would be much more effective if you weren’t in that cage in the first place, wouldn’t it ?”

“How did I end up here ?”

“I summoned you back.” The woman said while stirring the mixture. “The blood of a wounded animal, it listens to me.”

She raised the metal spoon to let him see the brownish liquid. A strong astringent smell came from the pot.

“Family recipe.” Proudly said the woman. “Melts fat tissue right off the bones. You’re going to be so pretty and clean. I wonder what sound you’ll make ?”

“Are you the one maintaining the kekkai ?”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Makes no difference to you.”

She undid a rope descending from the ceiling from its hook on a wall.

“Now be quiet. We try to do this the humane way, but if you struggle, I’ll have no choice but to bleed you while you’re awake.”

Hiei realized both his feet were tied together by a thick rope attached to the ceiling inside the bars of the cage inserted in the stone all around him. The woman pulled on the rope and Hiei found himself hanging upside down. The woman opened a drawer and started carefully selecting a knife.

More and more wind chimes covered the branches. As they were running, the air from their race filled the tubes with a breeze that came out chanting, high, low, in so many tones and notes it was almost deafening. As they followed the glistening silver of the river in the dark of night, Yuusuke barely felt his wound anymore under the unbearable tension that was building in his chest.

“We can’t be that far now.” Kurama offered after reading his friend’s expression.

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been hurt in the first place…”

“Stop. Hiei would punch you if he heard you and you know it. We should focus on lifting the barrier. Even if Hiei’s not there, there’s nothing they can do against his full power.”

“… Heads up.”

The two men stopped to find themselves in front of a waterfall running from fifteen feet above them in the stone.

“Where to now ?”

“Look. I think there’s something behind it.”

Kurama approached the flowing water and slid under it before calling for Yuusuke. As he slipped behind the translucent curtain, he found himself facing a rocky hallway lit up only by the moon piercing through cracks in the stone above. There was enough space for the both of them to stand side by side. Without looking at each other, they started running again.

Hiei heard more blood drip from his arm as his vision was fogging again. Fighting to stay awake, he felt the woman approach, a blade in hand. Something slid from his blood-soaked torso and came to hit against his face. His hiruseki necklace, he realized. He felt the cord slowly dangle from his neck until gravity forced it around his hair, and it fell from view.
The woman had opened the cage, and was now evaluating the angle in to cut his carotid artery. Hiei only saw the light dancing on the blade through the blood loss and anaesthetic. His fist tightened. The woman stepped in front of him, and readied her hand to slash. Hiei’s eyes opened wide.

Balancing himself forward, he released the fingers that had been holding the cord of his necklace, and wrapped it around the woman’s neck, pulling at each end as strong as he could. A strangled sound answered him. Hiei kept pulling blindly, unable to gauge his own strength, until finally, amidst gurgling sounds, he heard something metallic fall to the ground. Unable to hold much longer, he let his arms drop, the hiruseki stone dangling from his motionless fingers. His eyes closed.

At the end of the tunnel, another clearing awaited them. Soft humid grass grew wildly in-between thin ribbons of running waters. Over them, the moon bathed the whole scene in a tender light. Somewhere on the trunks, cicadas where chanting. Kurama silently pointed to a small bridge over the brook covered by a long white arbour leading to a small house. It was only once under it that Yuusuke realized what it was made of.

“… What’s wrong with these people ?”

“… I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with them at all.”

Kurama slowly pushed the unlocked door open and peered into the crack. Gasping, he opened it wide.

“Yuusuke ! Quick !”

He followed Kurama to the back of the main room, where a body was suspended inside a cage, while another was lying on the ground. Kurama undid the rope while Yuusuke slowly lowered Hiei to the ground. The young man was unconscious. The woman was dead. Kurama looked around and spotted an ensemble of plastic tubes likely meant to drain bodies. One of them had a syringe at its end. Kurama ripped out one of his sleeves and looked for a vein, gesturing for Yuusuke to attach the other end to Hiei’s.

“Anything I can do ?” Yuusuke asked as he saw blood slowly descending through the transparent tunnel.

“Search the house. That woman wasn’t the kekkai bearer, otherwise we would have gotten our powers back by now. We need to find the source. That’s Hiei’s best chance to recover quickly.”

Yuusuke did as instructed, passing by dozens of old photographs on the wall showing different generations of the family proudly posing next to the bled out corpse of a youkai suspended from a hook in that very house. The rooms were completely ordinary. Opening another door, he coughed at a sudden pungent smell of rotten flesh. All over what looked like a vegetable garden, hundreds of open graves were filled with dismembered body parts in various states of decomposition, assaulted by maggots and flies. Yuusuke turned to Kurama.

“Well at least we know where the smell comes from.” He winced.

Kurama sighed.

“How long have they been at it, I wonder…”

“Long enough.”

“House is empty. That’s not good, Yuusuke. We need to get out of here. The two of you need medical attention…”

“There’s still one left. He can’t be far from here. I’ll make him talk.”

“It’s too dangerous, you’re injured, and…”

“Hiei needs you. Let me deal with him.”

Kurama gulped and nodded.

“Be careful.”

“When have I ever ?” smiled Yuusuke.

Kurama chuckled.

Yuusuke closed the door behind him.

As soon as he found himself under the arbour, an arrow came straight at him from the other end. He rolled away from the path, feeling pain in every breath. The man materialized out of the arrow stuck in the door.

“Now, now, you haven’t been invited in ! Animals stay out unless they’re clean !”

“Fuck you.”

The man chuckled and split into multiple arrows that shot themselves at him. Yuusuke lunged forward to evade them and found refuge behind a large trunk.

“Come out, come out wherever you are.” Whistled the man.

I won’t be able to play dodge for long. I need to counter. Yuusuke exhaled regularly until he had to roll again. He got up and ran inside the arbour, the bones hiding everything from view.

“Oh, you prefer a clean execution ? I like that.”

The man appeared at the other end. Yuusuke didn’t move. A long, sharp arrow formed out of the human figure. It came straight at his head with incredible speed. Yuusuke’s hand rose.

A millisecond before the pointed end entered his skull, his fist closed on the shaft. He felt something wet fall from his forehead. Just as quick, he took out his lighter and lit up the arrow. It caught fire instantly.

As he let go, horrible screams came as soon as the wood touched the ground, the form human once again, whirling in flames, as the unbearable smell of human flesh seized him at the throat. It was too late before he even thought of trying to extinguish the flames. Or maybe he didn’t think of it at all. A scream tore the clearing.

“Daddy !!”

Two small figures ran up to him.

“How could you do that ? How could you do that ??” asked the children through the tears.

Yuusuke looked at them, his brain failing to connect any sort of reaction to the situation. In the end, he simply entered the house and shut the door. Kurama was still leaning over Hiei, watching coloration tint his skin once again.

“How is he ?”

“Better. But still no you-ki. The hunter ?”

“Ashes. But if it’s not him…”

“… Ashes… Ashes…”

Kurama frowned, then opened his eyes wide.

“Yuusuke ! That’s it ! The kekkai… It’s not one of them. It’s the forest itself.”

“What ?”

“The life that nourishes the kekkai is the one of the forest itself. It flourishes thanks to it. It lures preys in with this smell, then traps them in and feasts on them. Like one giant carnivorous flower. These killers are just the digestive juices.”

“So what do we do ?”

“You know what we do.” Coughed a croaked voice.

Yuusuke and Kurama looked down at Hiei who was tentatively taking a few breaths.

“We let it all burn.”

Kuwabara briefly untangled his fingers from Ayesha, taking care not to wake the woman up, and smelled the air. Frowning, he made his way to the living room. Behind the glass doors, a gigantic black cloud was obscuring the morning sky. He coughed as ashes carried by the wind entered the room. Running outside, he looked down at the forest plunged in inferno.

“Ayesha ! Come, quick !”

He heard hurried steps behind him until the woman put her hand on his shoulder.

“What’s going on ?”

“I don’t know ! It’s… below.”

Kuwabara carefully leaned over to try and distinguish anything amidst the lake of flames. A sharp pain pierced his back. He fell to his knees, looking up to see Ayesha’s icy gaze detailing him.

“What are you…”

“Cutting my losses, obviously.”

She withdrew a sharp hand from his back. Blood spurted out of the wound.

“I highly doubt they’ll fail to connect the dots.” She mused, looking at the fire. “They’d already connected them. People are not parrots. You can only distract them with their own reflection for so long.”

She looked back at Kuwabara, whose mouth was filling with blood.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die. Your death would make your friends go awry, and I need them to remain predictable. But you’ll be out of the picture long enough for it to be convenient.”

Kuwabara fell to the ground. Far away, in the fog of his last remains of consciousness, he heard her walk away :

“Thanks for the company. Say hi to Yukina for me. She was a big help.”

Their energy slowly getting back to them as the forest turned to cinders, Kurama and Yuusuke were cruising along the vertical cliffs of the valley, Kurama with Hiei on his back, Yuusuke with the two tied up kids slung over his shoulder.

“Here’s the house.” Kurama pointed. “Careful. Surprise is not exactly on our side here.”

Yuusuke nodded as he gave yet another jolt to his package who wouldn’t hang still.

With no small amount of relief, they reached the top and dropped their respective load on the ground. They ran to the house, and immediately froze as they noticed the form on the ground in a pool of blood.

“Kuwabara !!”

Kurama kneeled next to him, panicked, trying to assess the damage. Yuusuke ran inside, but came out only a few seconds later.

“She’s gone.” He simply said.

Yuusuke’s eyes were fixated on the glowing red light above the operation room, as if glaring at it would make it go out faster. The nurses had categorically refused the two men accompany Kuwabara inside, but they hadn’t been able to prevent them from dragging a metal bench from the waiting room to put it right outside in the hallway. Despite his protests, Hiei had been dragged away as well to be administered additional transfusion. Sitting side by side, Yuusuke and Kurama hadn’t exchanged a word since sitting down over three hours before.

“… It’s my faul…” finally uttered Kurama

“Don’t even start.” Yuusuke cut.

“But it is. I knew something was wrong with that woman, I knew it from the start. And if I hadn’t been on my fifth bottle at that time, I would have…”

He shook his head. Yuusuke observed him for a long time.

“… What happened in Tokyo ?” he asked as softly as possible.

“I… got reminded that I am a liar, and whatever I do, I will always be a liar.”

Kurama closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded broken :

“I want to tell her. Yuusuke, I want to tell her. She loves a son that doesn’t exist, and I love a mother who doesn’t know me. And I tell myself not to be greedy, that it’s all that I need, that it’s good enough for someone like me. But it’s not. Not anymore. Not when there is this other son, the one that doesn’t exist, and he’s so loved, and he’s perfect, and I’m not, but then I tell myself, that maybe, just maybe…”

He hid his face in his hands.

“You know” Yuusuke murmured after a while, almost to himself, “when my mother ODed again last year, and I was the one who found her again, and I had to wait for the ambulance all alone again, just like when I was twelve, just like when I was five, I realized… After I moved out, I thought it would be okay, you know ? That whatever shit me being born had brought into her life was over, and now it would be… I don’t know why I thought that. But as I was hearing the sirens, I just thought… ‘She’s my mom. That’s all she is. No more, no less.’ That’s huge, but at the same time, that’s nothing. I thought after that it would be better for me if it was nothing. But it’ll always be something as well. You’re her son… Whatever you do, whatever happens, it’ll never be nothing. Trust me, I tried. Maybe it won’t be… everything anymore. But it’ll never be nothing.”

Kurama took a long look at Yuusuke, and let himself slide a little from his seat. His head came to rest on Yuusuke’s shoulder.

“I’m really tired.” He murmured.

“Yeah, I know.” Yuusuke replied without even thinking of pushing him away. “Me too.”

Yukina stumbled out of the cab so fast she barely remembered you were supposed to pay the driver. Tipping generously over her respected wishes to ignore every red light, she entered the hospital in a blaze. The welcome desk was empty. Looking around for anyone who might be able to help her, she felt a scream slowly building up inside of her at this human world with all its rules and its directions and its dangers that were lurking around every corner and were taking everything away from her and…

“He’s not out of surgery yet.” Said a voice behind her.

She turned to see a passably exhausted Hiei, who was nevertheless valiantly standing upright, his right arm in a sling.

“Why aren’t you with him ? You said you would bring him back !”

“They won’t let anyone in. And I did.”

Yukina registered Hiei’s pale tone, his slightly unstable stance and the long stretch of bandages around his arm. She did her best to look halfway apologetic without actually apologizing. Her thoughts led her right back to Kazuma.

“… This is my fault. If I hadn’t been so harsh with him, if I hadn’t been so distant… He would never have gotten hurt.”

“You’d rather blame yourself for something that clearly isn’t your fault than admit shit happens, so you can feel a little in control ? That’s pathetic.”

“You’re pathetic !”

Sulking, Yukina let herself fall on one of the waiting room’s seats.

“I’m going to wait until Kazuma is out of surgery, so…”

Hiei nodded and started walking away.

“… If you want to sit and wait with me….”

He looked at her while trying to hide his surprise. Yukina was pointedly not looking at the seat next to hers. There was a hesitation. Then Hiei watched himself sit next to his sister, in silence, as they would for the next two hours, as nurses and patients came and went through the hall, barely noticing the two young people sitting side by side, their eyes so remarkably similar.

“So ?”

“So, nothing. These kids aren’t in the system. Neither are their parents. There wasn’t supposed to be any habitation down in that forest, it’s been classified as a natural reservation.”

“Okay, we’ll just create the info back at the prefecture. We can call for a social worker there.”

The policeman opened the car door to let in the two soot-covered children who were holding onto each other.

“Alright, let’s get in ! We’re going to go to a big house, and there a nice person is going to take you to a nice home with plenty of toys ! That sounds fun, right ?”

“We don’t like toys.” Sunea pouted.

“Not unless they move.” Esa added.

“I’m… sure they got those too.” The policeman replied.

As both men settled in the front of the car, the one in the driving seat confusedly looked around.

“Hey, did you take the keys out of the ignition ?”

“No.”

On the back seats, the children watched as the men’s heads disappeared and reappeared left and right of the headrests. Esa leaned over so she would make both men’s heads disappear at the same time. Just as she had found the right angle, a choking sound came from the front. Then a gurgle. And finally, it was like something popping. Esa followed the sudden splatter of red all over the car roof. Both torsos reappeared, falling on each other at the centre of the car. But they didn’t have heads anymore.

Sunea turned on his seat as the sound of footsteps approached the car. Someone came up to them, then bent down. A woman’s head, her turquoise hair flying all around her in the ashen wind, came to rest on her crossed arms at the open window.

“Hey guys.” She said. She had a very soft voice. “You wanna go do something that’s actually fun ?”

“Y-yeah !” Replied Esa, after exchanging a look with her brother.

“Alright.” Said the woman as she opened the car door. “If you’re very, very nice, then I’ll give you back the toys you lost this morning…”

“And this time, we’ll win the game !” Sunea exclaimed.

“And this time, you’ll win the game.” Ayesha confirmed.

Kurama closed the door to his house as quietly as possible. His family was usually in bed early. As he passed by the living room to walk to the stairs, a voice stopped him.

“Shuuichi ! Come here !”

He exhaled and entered the room, flicking the light on as he passed by.

“Mother ? What are you doing in the dark at this hour ?”

“I got your message. What was it about your friend being in the hospital ? Is he okay ?”

“He is now. He’s sleeping. I’ll go see him again tomorrow.”

“Good. Then what was the other part about ? You were saying you were sorry ? For lying to me ? About what ?”

“I… This was a mistake. I was tired. I just need to go rest.”

“You can talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It was silly. I don’t even remember what it was.”

“Shuuichi.”

Just as he was about to turn around, the firmness of the tone stopped him.

“Come sit here right now. And tell me what’s going on.”

As slowly as he possibly could, he came to sit next to her on the couch. He fiddled with his hands, trying to find the words.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Shiori said, her tone softening.

Kurama nodded.

“I’m ready.” He finally said.

Chapter Text

“Human stupidity is the only thing that can give a conceivable idea of the infinite”. This was something she must have read on a student’s T-shirt once, or an ironic greetings card, followed by the name of whichever thinker to whom it was misattributed. She did not personally see any appeal in the saying, as it was easily disproven via the theory of implication : if stupidity was infinite, then so, too, was intelligence ; only in the other direction. And if human intelligence was infinite, which most people would disagree with in the first place, then there was no limit to what human intelligence could conceive of, including the infinite ; and therefore the proposition contradicted itself. In her opinion, the statement existed for the same reason small talk, elevator music and moon landing conspiracy theorists existed : fear of silence, fear of emptiness. This saying was just another way of deluding yourself into thinking you could actually grasp what the infinite was, when truly, the only thing that could give you an idea of the infinite was the infinite itself. And the infinite didn’t give two shits whether or not you could conceive of It. It simply was, long before you were, and in all likelihoods would be long after you’d gone. It was the way infinite things tended to work out. And this fear, this utter inaptitude to face the infinite and shrug, might have been what truly separated humans from Youkais, in the end. Youkais weren’t any better at conceiving the infinite, but that did not paralyze them to the point they felt the need to cage themselves between as many barriers as possible. This was at least what Ayesha was idly thinking about, eyeing the little girl in the seat next to her. As soon as the plane had left the ground, the small creature, who was clearly flying for the first time, has stuck her plump, rosy face to the window to watch every cloud pass with an increasing worried look. Finally, she had cranked her head to look at her father, whose lap she was sitting on, to ask him with great anxiety : “daddy, where’s the edge ?”

The fidgety thing was sleeping now, having quickly tired of the endless blue of the Pacific below, freeing the view for Ayesha to distractedly follow the line that separated the sky from the sea. She liked plane trips. She liked in-betweens, generally speaking. She liked places you couldn’t go to or from, only through. There was this thing some of Solomon’s associates did, which was to set up a yacht somewhere in the High Seas, where no State had jurisdiction, and this was where they kept all their compromising documents and dirty laundry. This way, there was no risk of leak, no 6 am visit by the cops with warrant from a judge from a cleaner conscience and an emptier wallet than others. If she were them, she would have lived on one of these boats, never leaving them, conducting all her business online. She liked the internet – immateriality, it many ways, was but another form of infinite.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in a few moments we’ll engage our descent to LAX, we kindly remind you that this flight to Portland is overnight, all passengers must disembark the plane. If you have not yet booked a room in a nearby hotel, our company offers…”

She tuned out the microphone noise, only to have a hand intrude her vision field. She followed the arm all the way up to the hesitant smile on the flight attendant’s face.

“Can I clear your tablet, miss ? We are about to start our…”

“Not yet.”

She had not meant to sound curt, but as the young woman, whose tag name read “Sera”, immediately recoiled, hid her smile and moved on to the next row without completely taking her eyes off her, she knew she had. Her eyes fell onto her half-finished goblet of tea. She had ordered it more out of reflex than anything else, though she knew well by now there was no beverage quite as horrid as instant tea – she could not stand coffee. It was the same flight attendant who had poured it for her with that apologetic look of someone who knows exactly what they’re serving you, and respects you too much to hide it. After finishing her round, the woman had come back to bring Ayesha an additional biscuit that she hadn’t ordered and did not want, but did not have the heart to refuse when she’d seen the glint of timidity in the other’s eyes. Ayesha tilted her head to look a few rows down the aisle, where Sera, while manoeuvring her trash cart, kept throwing her furtive glances. As their eyes crossed, Sera reflexively hid her face behind a movement of her hand to seemingly readjust her cap over what Ayesha was pretty sure was a wig of long straight hair. The latter hesitated an instant before shoving her untouched biscuit into her goblet and waving it in the aisle to attract the woman’s attention. As the trash bag pulled in front of her row, Ayesha threw in the goblet and Sera prepared to walk away.

“Wait.”

The cart stopped. Ayesha waved her napkin, on which a hotel name and a number was written.

“You forgot this.”

She felt the corners of her lips pull up as Sera snatched the napkin and made it disappear in her blouse pocket before walking away, painfully trying to hide her beaming smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to LAX, the luggage depository is on your right at the end of the hallway, Mesdames et Messieurs, bienvenue à…”

Holding her one half-empty bag on her shoulders, she distractedly watched the end of the mechanical stairs get closer, as the people on the other side of the glass appeared, beach sandals first, followed by a forest of tanned, hairless legs. And among those, a pair of perfectly shined business shoes. She frowned. The shoes were soon completed by the black legs of an impeccably pressed suit, two hands with a college ring at each, a maroon ascot, and finally, a crown of white teeth lined up in a million dollars smile. Immobile on the moving steel ribbon, her eyes met with the ones hidden behind aviator sunglasses. She waited until her stair reached the bottom and stepped off, making her expression as unreadable as possible as she crossed the automatic doors.

“You did not warn me you’d be waiting for me.”

The man’s smile grew.

“I wasn’t waiting for you, I’m just coming to meet you. Can’t I just be excited you’re back ?”

“…”

“Come on, I’m just being nice. You flew half-over the world. Let me buy you a cup of real tea.”

“… Not in Moonbucks. I can’t stand their in-store playlist.”

“There’s a Beet’s one terminal over.”

After she’d ordered the “trend tea of the season”, a lily of the valley latte – as she found herself vaguely entertained by the idea of finding out how and why they’d managed to replicate the taste of a notoriously poisonous flower – she sat across the man in one of the faux wood-covered booths. The place was as empty as an airport coffee shop could get in this late hour, as summer holidays were waning into September. He did not take off his sunglasses.

“So ? How was Japan ?”

“Didn’t you get my message ?”

“I meant outside of work.”

“Non-existent.”

She took a sip of her drink. Chemicals.

“What about you ? Made any new enemies while I was away ?”

“Of course. I need to restock every once in a while, given the speed at which you deal with them.”

“The lot of you really needs to learn to play nice. We’re nowhere near ready to go on the offensive. The worst we could do right now is attract too much attention.”

“I’m always nice. I can’t help it if other aren’t. Did I ever tell you the tale of the turtle and the rabbit ? There was once a turtle who challenged a rabbit to a race…”

“Yes, you told me the story already.”

“… And the rabbit’s like, you’re crazy, I’m going to win, and so they start the race, and the rabbit is of course pulling first…”

“I remember.”

“… And just as he’s about the cross the finish line, a falcon swoops out of the sky and claws the fucking rabbit and carries it away. The moral of the story is there’s always a falcon somewhere ready to swoop in. And they usually go for the one on top.”

“So who’s your new falcon ?”

He slid an article cut conjured out of thin air across the table. She hoped the dramatics were worth the overpriced paper. She glanced over the caption.

“Senator Kinkaid ? Can’t remember much about him. Wasn’t he in our pocket ?

“He was. Pretty forgettable man, just another pawn on the payroll. Until last week.”

“So this is about the Ansley bill ?”

“It’s due to go through the senate foreign relations committee in a week, but we’ve heard chatter that Kinkaid isn’t going to kill it as planned.”

“And ? This would hardly be the first time someone on the rooster made a play for a little bonus at a critical moment. Just bump up his salary.”

“We tried that. He won’t take our calls.”

“… Any idea why he might have suddenly grown a conscience ?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

“That’s where you come in.”

“Here we go.”

“I need you to make a detour to D.C. and figure out what the hell is going on with the bastard. This shouldn’t take you too long.”

“I find it hard to believe there’s no one else who can take care of that for you, Solomon.”

“But you’re so good at that sort of things !”

“People ?”

“Yes. That.”

He flashed another smile, which sent a ripple of light on the sunglasses above.

“Come on, I know you were eager to go home and get some rest. But you know better than anyone how much time is saved killing this sort of problem in the womb, before you’ve got a full on crisis on your hands.”

“Certainly more than you.”

A slight crease appeared above his brow, quickly ironed over.

“I knew you’d understand. So, what do you fancy for dinner ? Pizza ? Grill ?”

“I can’t stay. I have to sort out my new flight and my hotel room.”

“Fine, we can meet afterwards…”

“I’m meeting someone else.”

“…Oh.” A pause. “Anyone I should worry about ?”

She threw him a smile of her own as she stood up from the booth.

“You said it yourself. You should always be worried.”

“That’s not your full name, is it ?”

“What ?”

Ayesha slightly raised her head from the tanned curve of the naked belly it was resting upon to look at the face it belonged to, as her hand reflexively swiped away the sweat from her forehead and untangled a few strands behind her ear.

“Sera, that’s not your full name.”

“How’d you know ?”

“It doesn’t suit you.”

The woman made an appreciative sound.

“I could have a very ill-fitted name.”

“People always end up resembling their name. Like dogs resembling their owner.”

“It’s Montserrat. But the company thought people might have trouble pronouncing it. I don’t know. My mom calls me Monse, it was her Nan’s name. But the company thought that sounded too urban. Whatever that means.”

“I think we know what it means.”

“… Yeah. We do.”

Montserrat rolled over to the edge of the hotel bed, as the chill seemed to be seeping back into her sweating body, grabbed the first item that presented itself, which happened to be Ayesha’s shirt, and endeavoured putting it on. Ayesha considered objecting – but then again, she had no need for it at the moment. And the tattered, distended shirt looked better on Montserrat’s regal frame than Ayesha’s. Montserrat looked down to decipher the upside-down transfer :

“Debby… Chainsaw ? Is that a band ?”

“Yeah. From about ten years ago. Their lead singer, she would dress like a ragdoll and do stuff like self-mutilate on stage, you know, the kind of things Izzy Osbourne did in the sixties. But since she was a woman, there were a hundred thinkpieces wondering if it was just for show or if she was really insane.”

“Was she ?”

“Every single performer is some flavour of a narcissist. Whether or not that makes her insane largely depends on what form of dysfunctionality society considers acceptable for the preservation of its own status quo. I like Montserrat. Goes up and down on the tongue like the mountains it takes its name from.”

“Well I certainly went up and down on your tongue.”

Ayesha chuckled.

“You like odd things, don’t you ?” Monserrat said, her deep brown eyes seemingly probing Ayesha’s. “You’re the type.”

“Am I a type ?”

“Well, you’re mine, in any case.”

Ayesha remained silent. Outside the hotel window, the lights of the airport hub eclipsed the moon on the pale canvas of the early hours.

“… This was my subtle segue into asking you if we can see each other again.”

“I figured.”

“… Is that a no ?”

“That’s a conditional yes, but you might not like the conditions. I’m away all the time.”

“I’m a stewardess.”

“I’m quiet most of the time. I don’t like noise.”

“My favourite place in any city is the holocaust memorial, because that’s the only one in which people actually shut up.”

“Your friends will probably hate me.”

“We’ll have at least that in common.”

Ayesha sighed.

“Hand me that pen over there.”

Senator Preston Kinkaid cut the engine and laid back in the dark of the empty parking lot in front of the apartment complex, still and silent at the wheel of his 1990 Chevrolet Caprice – the last one to come out of the assembly line of Lakewood Heights before the factory closed, he’d been assured. First and last of something were the only ones people ever cared about, he often mused. Difference was, you were never the last on purpose. He opened the glove box to extract a half-empty barbecue-flavoured crisps bag, and absentmindedly started munching on a few. His digital watch read half past eleven. Floor debates had dragged again, and then there’d been traffic. There was always traffic. Preston Kinkaid caught the rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror and briefly kissed the small wooden cross as its end before exiting the vehicle and closing the car door and quietly as possible.

The automatic lights of the building hall barely had the time to turn on before he was pressing the 17th floor button on the elevator panel. He passed by the anonymous apartment doors, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. He battled with the keys for a few seconds – damn these old hands - then slid into the silent flat. The darkness of the vestibule hid his frown.

“Maureen ? Are you there ?”

He passed by the bare living room without a glance for the scattered toys on the floor, and walked to the door at the end of the corridor.

“Tabitha ? Lee ? Grandpa’s home.”

He turned the doorknob, and his blood froze in his veins at the sight of the delicate figure hunched over the twin children beds. The woman threw him a soft smile in the half-penumbra.

“Hush, senator. They’re fast asleep.”

“They… they sent you, didn’t you ? Where’s Maureen ?”

Ayesha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she cautiously rose from the bedside she was kneeling at, as not to wake up the small occupant.

“Maureen received a call from your office telling her you’d be home early tonight and there was no need for her to come watch over the kids.”

“How did you find them ??”

“The question is rather how anyone didn’t find them sooner”, Ayesha continued in her half-hushed tone. “It hardly took me two days to figure it out.”

“Don’t… Don’t hurt them.”

“Oh, senator. You know how this dance goes. You’ve seen movies. I smugly explain to you how morally depraved I am, you retort that the whole point of a hostage is not to hurt them, and we really have nowhere to go from there. So allow me to speed things up by admitting that yes, it would be quite stupid of me to neutralize the very threat I’m here to make. But the thing is, you had the misfortune of having two grandkids.”

Kinkaid gulped.

“… Which means, I don’t have to choose between proving we mean business and preserving our advantage, do I ?”

With the tip of her nail, she went from one sleeping head to the other.

“So ? Which one’s demise would have the biggest emotional impact on you ? What do you think ? I’m thankful for any input.”

“… Please. They’re all I have left.”

“Of your son, you mean ? It must have been hard, after the accident, to learn of his dalliance. To find yourself saddled with two little monsters. Unless you already knew ? Is that why you hadn’t talked to your son in ten years before his death ?”

“They’re my blood. It doesn’t matter what they are.”

“So that’s what your little stunt with the Ansley bill is about. You want them to proudly remember grandpa as a trailblazer who helped pave the way for the acceptance of youkais in America. And overlook a career worth of kickbacks and lacklustre, blind partisanship.”

“…”

“Do you want me to tell you what will really happen if you go through with this ?”

“What ?”

“First we’ll have you killed, obviously. Your body will be dumped in a shady part of town, either with a needle in your arm or a hooker on your lap. Then we’ll send some cops to clean it up and make it look like you just died a good death. And then, we’ll leak the cover-up to the press. So now, you’re not just another pathetic page six casualty, you’re a symbol of everything wrong and corrupt with politics. Once your death has been picked clean, they’ll start digging into your life. They’re gonna find so much – some you know about, because it’s real, the rest, well, I never miss an opportunity to get creative. And these two, if they make it through – and that’s a big if – all they’ll have of you is some vague recollection of a washed-up guy who was on the news a lot and that one time they wore a tiny black suit and watched a box go down in the ground.”

“Just what do you want me to do ?”

“Go back to work. Kill the Ansley bill. Cash in your checks. Get your grandchildren ice cream by the seashore. Forget that one time you thought you discovered yourself some integrity. If you were built for that kind of weight, you’d have never put it down in the first place. And with some luck, you’ll have another five years with the little ones before the Parkinson catches up to you.”

Kinkaid flinched. Ayesha smiled.

“There’s nothing in your life you can hide from us, senator. We are the dirty secret at the centre of it. And we ate our way through the whole, bit by bit. You are part of us now. Don’t force me to come back here. The humidity in this town does my hair no favour.”

A sudden wind blasting through him, and she was gone. Preston Kinkaid, his eyes blurry, looked down at the two peaceful faces buried in plush toys and way too many blankets, their little horns peeking through, the only tell-tale sign of their origins. Tabitha’s fingers were curled around a washed-out grey piece of fabric that once had been a cuddly frog Preston’s wife had sewn for their son. She’d passed mere months before he had. The lymphoma had eaten her lungs. They didn’t know tobacco was bad, back then – or maybe they did, but they had pretended not to, like so many other things. Her name was Tabitha.

Preston Kinkaid kneeled slowly, his bones aching, and secured the frog deeper in the arms of the little girl who carried her name.

No, you were never last on purpose.

It was only six in the morning and Virgil was just settling in his booth for his day shift when the lights of a slick car briefly blinded him before its owner cut the engine. Virgil squinted to identify him. Even if this wasn’t the usual hour for drunkards and Sunday activists, he had to be careful. They were always weirdoes. The driver helpfully pulled out his pass.

“Senator… Kinkaid ?” The name wasn’t familiar, no matter how many times he’d surely passed him by. “Isn’t it a bit early ? The senate chambers won’t open until eight, and the cleaning crew is still at work in the offices.”

He accompanied his question with a gesture at the hive of blinking monitors that formed his desk, covering everything in Congress hall, from the indoor parking to the janitor closet.

The old man at the wheel seemed way too exhausted to be working early.

“Thank you, Mr…”

“Ford. Virgil Ford.”

Virgil the vigil. God knew his colleagues teased him enough about it.

“Well thank you, Mr. Ford. I’ll make myself discreet. Just wanted to avoid morning traffic, that’s all.”

“I get it.”

Virgil didn’t get it. With his hours, morning traffic is but a figment of a better life to come if he managed to get himself transferred on the afternoon shift, with all the good vigils.

The old man inclined his head somewhat to eye the monitors behind him in the booth.

“Those are blinking an awful lot. Are they even working ?”

Virgil turned on reflex to follow his gaze, though he was intimately familiar with the seizure-inducing sight of the flickering screens.

“Nah, they work fine. It’s the wireless that’s patchy is all, what with all those phones and computers in the building 24/7. Recordings aren’t like that.”

Virgil put his hand to his mouth to repress a yawn. The senator eyed him curiously.

“Difficult night ?”

“Um ? Oh, yeah. Little one is not sleeping through it yet, and my girlfriend, she works nights right now. But I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“Children can be quite a hassle, can’t they ?”

“I guess.”

“But worth it.”

“I guess.”

The old man tapped a few times on the leather of the wheel, having apparently run out of conversation topics with the working class man.

“Well, I shouldn’t keep you. Have a good day.”

Keep me from what ? mused Virgil as he pushed the button to raise the barrier and let the car in. The rubber screeched on the asphalt as the elegant car started to go park a few feet from the entrance. Here’s a guy who’s in a hurry for someone who’s early.

As he was about to turn back to his monitors and his coffee, Virgil heard another screeching, this time coming from the entrance to the parking. His hand still on the remote control of the barrier, he waited for the car to slow down. It was probably too much to ask that two officials in a row stop to chat him up. This one would most likely just flash his ID through the window, barely leaving the barrier enough time to lift again. But then again, everyone had a job to do.

Virgil pursed his lips as he readied himself to time his pressing of the button. The vigils kept a tally of how many times a car bumped the barrier on each of their watches. The guy with the best reflexes won the pot at the end of the month. If he did, maybe he could take Nasrin somewhere nice for their anniversary.

That car really wasn’t slowing down. A rather strange car, so dark even under this underground, so much so that you couldn’t see inside…

“Hey… Hey, wait !”

Just as the vehicle passed by his booth at full speed, he understood the windows weren’t tinted, but painted over.

“Hey, stop right here !”

Virgil rushed to the emergency button as the car hit the barrier with such force the metal bar detached from its stand, projected against the concrete wall with an awful sound which seemed to reverberate through the entire parking in a violent cacophony. The car wheels spun half a second before the vehicle could come crashing down as well, and made a U-turn back toward the entrance.

“What the fuck…”

Right as it seemed the car was about to head out just as brutally as it had entered, Virgil felt his gaze shift focus, just like it did in the movies, behind the furious vehicle, and to the old man frozen in place in front of his vintage car, his car keys in hand, his mouth agape.

“Senator…" Shit, what was his name again ? “Senator !! Watch out !!!”

Virgil knew it was too late the moment he spoke. He heard the sound of a rolled down window, and then a thundering, endless metallic sound that drowned the parking lot like a demented rain.

The heady sound of an incessant beep pierced through the voluptuous vapours of Layne Stanley’s voice over the unplugged guitars of Nutmeg. Ayesha, without raising from the old-fashioned floral-patterned couch of her veranda she was laying on in a semi-sleep, let her head roll on her shoulder to detachedly eye her vibrating phone on the coffee table. She waited three beeps before lazily rolling down with a sigh, her knees on the carpet, and pressed the answer button.

“What the fuck ??” barked the voice on the other end.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

”One thing. I asked you to do one thing. How did you fuck it up that badly ?”

She faked a sonorous yawn.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Turn on the fucking news.”

“I don’t have a TV.”

”Turn on something !”

Frowning, Ayesha fidgeted the portable radio’s frequency to find a news station.

”… who was pronounced dead at the scene, is still unfolding. The police hasn’t communicated any elements pertaining to their enquiry regarding the tragedy that took place in the very Congress building. However, the tapes from the surveillance camera relayed by every major news outlet appear to be genuine. The motive behind the violent attack that cost senator Preston Kinkaid his life is still unknown. Senator Preston Kinkaid had been an elected official for the last twenty-one years, serving as…”

Ayesha bit her lips.

“This your idea of taking care of a problem ?” bit the voice on the phone.

“Solomon, I didn’t do this. I’m in Portland. I took care of Kinkaid, then I went home. He was alive when I left. That was like fifteen hours ago.”

“Then who ?”

“How should I know ? What happened to the rabbit having to look out for the falcons ?”

”Don’t fucking start with me. I don’t give a fuck whose move for power it is. All that matters is that the vote on the Ansley bill is in two days, and it’s gonna pass unless you fix this shit.”

“Can’t you just…”

“You listen to me now. You fucked up. You fix it. I don’t care how, I don’t care if you gotta kill half of Congress to do it. Fix. It.” Click.

She let the phone slide off her palm to fall on the carpet and looked up outside, beyond the faded windows of the veranda. The rain had started earlier that night, draping Forest Park with a dreamlike, hazy mist that muffled sounds and sight, enveloping the small cabin like soap around a bubble. Inside, amidst the sparse, rustic furniture, her cotton shawl loosely wrapped around her shoulders, Ayesha shivered.