The Terrible Enemy

Chapter seven

By: Kowareta

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

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The world is full of chaos. It exists as a spider carefully weaving a web of intricate non-related incidents that, when control completely breaks, the strings of events snap and traps people in a cage of silver strings stronger than anything in the world. Chaos isn't random. It's meticulously planned event after event until so many non-related events become related because somebody took a step back to actually look at the strings and notice the web. But by then it's already too late: the web of chaos has caught another one--and the spider feeds.

It had been a nice night, Keiko reflected. That is until all that screaming happened. In fact, in the thirty minutes after they had left the redheaded boy, the evening could have been called lovely. Yusuke and Kuwabara had played a festival game and throughout the entire thing the boys had exchanged a series of coded hand gestures and untranslatable glares. Keiko didn't know why. It was probably a boy thing.

By the end of the game the coded gestures and untranslatable glares had grown quite wild. Kuwabara had won the game and was laughing. However, Kuwabara laughing, especially when he's trying to be quiet about it, is an event in and of itself. It's quite possible that Kuwabara is scientifically incapable of laughing quietly--or at least without someone's notice. He probably would have burst a lung trying.

He had stopped for a moment when they were prowling the festival grounds again looking for another game and stared solemnly at Yusuke. He leaned over and managed to whisper something around the location of his friend's ear. Then the tall boy tried to dash away--which is another event in itself seeing as it required other people to move away rather than needing Kuwabara to move in-between--laughing his head off. Yusuke's shoe hit him on the back of the head.

But the night was chilly and the wind was cold, so Yusuke quickly retrieved his shoe. He did not find Kuwabara. Of course he'd be gone, the dark-haired boy knew. If Kuwabara knew what was good for him, of course he'd be gone.

From there Yusuke began to steer Keiko and himself away from the crowds. Away from the swinging lanterns and away from the smells and sounds of the matsuri.

They found themselves on a lane where only two other people, about twenty feet away, sat on a bench. The streetlights had been aglow and the moon had been a ghostly silver disk above the trees. Walls of stone and mortar, about the height of a very tall man, stretched down the street.

The dark-haired boy leaned against a wall and the brown-haired girl watched him, somehow unable to look at him sternly.

"So," said the boy, looking at the girl's shoe.

"So," said the girl, leaning on the streetlight, directly in front of the boy. The brick to Yusuke's immediate left was particularly interesting.

And this is it. This is the moment that all the shy glances, nagging, caring, arguing, and feeling led up to. This is where the realizations, the soft moments, the strong words, and passion went. And every feeling and every action between the two had led them to this moment, this ultimate moment: the awkward silence.

Which passed, much to its description, awkwardly.

"Look," began Yusuke.

"I," Keiko had started.

They had both spoken at the same time.

Usually in moments like this the rule is that people should blush, turn away, and try to let the other person speak first. They would make the moment even more awkward; however, Yusuke believed in breaking rules and that if you have an opportunity to break a rule you should break it hard and with style.

"There's something I need to tell you," he said, hoping the expression on his face looked calm.

The only problem with Yusuke's rule about breaking rules is that he has no style. None at all. He's as common as dirt. However, dirt gets people places, and it's used to both monotony and change.

This time the boy and the girl looked at each other, really looked. Up until this point they had been avoiding each other's gaze. Well actually, up until this point they had been sneaking glances at each other whenever the other wasn't looking. But now they really looked.

And this is the hard part. This is the part where you question whether you can give your heart, as scarred and ugly and dark and weak as it is, to someone else. This is where you wonder whether that precious thing that only seemed to matter to you, that you weren't sure you could safely entrust to someone else, could truly be given to someone whose heart was just the same. And you weren't sure other people would care or understand. You weren't sure if this heart thing was good or bad, but you desperately hoped it would be alright. You hoped, you just hoped, that someone would hold your heart kindly without squeezing too tight.

Yusuke looked serious.

They continued to look, really look, at each other.

Until the screaming began.

---

Ronjiru had excellent survival instincts. By the time Moeko had burst through his window, yowling like a wildcat, and landed atop his bed, he already had rolled over to the side--safely out of the path of whirling limbs--and was, remarkably, still asleep. In fact, it was quite possible that Ronjiru was capable of fending off a very determined assassin while dreaming about impressing pretty girls and boys.

Most people associated this with the fact that he was black. People became extremely surprised when they found out that this bit of assumption was not true, but instead made them incredibly ignorant. These same people probably expected the lead pipe that lay close to his reach, just under his pillow, but those people also probably said he had six or seven guns hidden somewhere. Which he didn't. He didn't need them. The lead pipe was only for poking around for things on the floor in the middle of the night. He had something better than weapons. He had…

…Siblings.

Five younger siblings to be exact who could run circles around any incredibly skilled assassin, wild Moeko, or startlingly impressive duelist. It was likely that if Ronjiru's younger siblings ever found their way to demon world, it would have a few new demon lords. Or five very loud, very obnoxious, and very determined youngsters. And they weren't afraid of using certain bodily substances from the nose, ear, or mouth to get their way.

In any case, after years of having small hostile terrors jump him in the middle of the night, one lesser Moeko-shaped terror wasn't something that much worried the sleeping boy. He snored, rather loudly.

Moeko rolled him over and grabbed him by the nightshirt.

"Ronjiru!" she whispered in a way that suggested she'd be yelling if she wasn't fully aware that bursting through people's windows was not a generally acceptable way to get into someone's apartment.

The boy's eyelids fluttered.

"Moeko?" he mumbled trying to reason with the fact there was a girl gripping his nightshirt and who probably had every intention of beating the snot out him. Ronjiru didn't know why, but it seemed that a lot of people wanted to beat the snot out of him. It probably had to do something with the way he refused to get upset at things that normally distressed people. Like lions. Most people would overreact when they saw a lion jump out from nowhere and walk around. Ronjiru didn't see the need. If the lion didn't bother him then he didn't need to bother it. There's no point in bothering the poor lion just because it wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was probably looking for a friend.

For some reason Moeko never seemed to be impressed with this line of reasoning. Ronjiru also knew that girls who snuck into people's houses at night to wake up their sons were probably the sort of women his mother should have told him to avoid. He also found reason to ignore everything his mother should have told him.

The dark-skinned boy considered saying something, but then decided Moeko would probably get on with it. So he didn't bother wasting his breath on words his friend would only snap at. He closed his eyes again and waited.

The black-haired girl jumped off him and started rummaging through his closet. She threw a shirt at him.

"Get dressed. We have to stop the school paper from printing."

Ronjiru's room was the kind of room everyone wanted to clean up but could never find anything to actually clean. Not because there was nothing to clean, but because there was so much crap laying everywhere you didn't even know where to begin. It was the kind of room where you would pick up an object, look around for somewhere to put it, then place it somewhere else in the hopes that by moving that object the room looked cleaner. Then later, in that same day, someone else would come in, pick up that same object, look around, and shove it under the bed whose space was already at max capacity.

The girl circumnavigated the room perfectly, found some pants on the floor, and threw them onto the boy's bed.

Normal people would have reacted, "What the hell are you doing?" or perhaps "Err…" Maybe even they would have asked, "Why?" if they were conscious enough to comprehend what Moeko had said. But not Ronjiru. Ronjiru didn't react, he just came to a decision as if it had always been there and he had been waiting quietly for something to happen where he could use it.

Moeko turned away as the boy put on his clothes. The sounds of Ronjiru being lazy happened.

"How do we stop the school paper?"

"Don't know. I was hoping you'd have some idea."

Ronjiru nodded while finally getting around to pulling on his pants. He shuffled around on the floor for a bit and found a pair of socks. Only one was red and the other was green. Pairs were not a common occurrence in Ronjiru's room.

"Where is it being printed?"

The girl crossed her arms, "On Cherry Street, right behind the bookstore where I work."

"Isn't that bookstore part of a larger complex? Didn't it used to be apartments? So… doesn't it have a fire escape?"

Moeko started to nod before she stopped. "No, no more fire escapes. I climbed up the fire escape to your window. Then this lady attacked me with a cat because she thought I was a burglar, then for some reason, the staircase just kind of cuts off on your level and hurls people through windows."

"Oh, yeah, that is a nice touch. I'd forgotten about that."

Moeko glared.

A thought suddenly occurred to Ronjiru.

"Why did you come in through my window and not by the normal channels?"

"Normal channels meaning the front door?"

Ronjiru unearthed a shoe in a pile of extension cords. "Naturally."

"I thought it was a drama-approved method since we are now fully-operative Shuiichi Detectives."

The black boy nodded approvingly, "Sounds nice. Sounds capitalized. I like it. What's the real reason?"

"Didn't want to wake your parents… or your siblings."

The black boy's siblings were notorious. Even the dark-haired girl would rather tackle a bear than mess with his siblings.

"When do we start investigating?" Ronjiru finally got about to putting on his shirt. He scratched his head before rummaging around his room. Either he was putting the pick-object-up-place-object-somewhere-else technique of cleaning to the test, or he was looking for something.

"After we finish Operation Cherry Street," said Moeko, rubbing her forehead, "I have what is to be considered blackmail on Shuuichi."

"I thought you didn't want anything to do with him, let alone investigate him."

"I'm a hypocrite. We do things we don't even want to do for reasons we don't even believe."

"Ah. Then it all makes sense."

Moeko clambered through the window and carefully crept down the fire escape. The streetlights glowed in the distance. Deep shadows flooded the alleyway and very few people walked by. The shadows didn't last long. From the masturi grounds, the shots of fireworks sounded. Bright clusters of orange, blue, yellow, green, purple, and various other colors lit up the night like colorful stars.

"Here," said Ronjiru, tossing something towards the girl. It was a trench coat. Moeko looked at him quizzically. The boy finished putting on a different trench coat and clambered out over the window sill to join his friend.

"We are not true detectives unless we have the gear. Only detectives that have the gear can successfully accomplish their objectives."

In the light of the fireworks Moeko saw that Ronjiru was now wearing a fake mustache.

They were going to go spy-freak-magic-commando hamster.

Moeko groaned.

---

Kurama knelt down next to the bleeding demon under the streetlight. It was a heavily built humanoid one with ram horns on it's head. Its skin was red and it had very shaggy hair as well as a very curly white beard. One of its arms, it seemed, had been misplaced.

"What happened?" he asked Yusuke.

"Five, maybe six, demons jumped us. The couple on that bench," the detective pointed by way of demonstration to a bench, "started screaming when they saw horn-boy--that's him--and ran away. I knocked a few around until those fireworks went off. I think the display surprised them because as soon as it happened the one with the alligator jaws chomped off his friend's arm in confusion."

The redhead saw that someone had discarded the arm near the streetlight. He glanced at Yusuke. Keiko, who stood beside him, seemed to be very interested in the ground away from the injured demon. Kurama grimaced. Yusuke hadn't ditched Keiko for trouble as he had previously thought. Trouble ditched good timing for Yusuke and Keiko.

"Where are his friends now?"

The dark-haired boy shrugged, "They ran off."

Kurama glanced at Hiei, who was watching the demon without any apparent interest on his face. He was leaning against a wall and was obscured by the shadows created by the streetlight. He was also standing perfectly still and passers-by wouldn't have even seen him unless he moved or they got close enough to notice the Hiei-shaped space hidden in the shadow.

Hiei was the kind of person others avoided because he had the uncanny ability to stand perfectly still. He was the kind of person who just fit into shadows you never even knew were there. They were the kind of shadows you thought were there but were never able to look into properly because you didn't want to look in those shadows.

...Because things like Hiei lurked in them.

"Think you can catch them?" Kurama asked.

"Hn," he grunted--Hiei's universal language for "Yes," "No," "Get the hell away from me," and "I'm going to break your legs." Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara had all learned to translate.

As soon as he had said it, he was gone probably traveling in shadows to avoid prying eyes--not that many eyes wanted to stay focused on Hiei for too long. Even people used to seeing things not normally seen couldn't seem to linger on him for very long. It was like people knew he didn't belong here--that he was something that shouldn't be here. He was nothing that you should find in a world of only humans.

Kuwabara arrived shortly after that. He had probably sensed the sudden sharp increase of demonic energy, and he had probably even felt their panic. Kurama wasn't quite sure the extent of Kuwabara's spirit awareness, but he was sure that if you could develop it enough, you could be aware of mass hysteria simply because so much energy was bouncing around. He knew for a fact that this awareness reached past levels he himself could detect, but the redhead didn't much like to focus on it. A mere human youth who had better awareness than a demon-turned-human was a concept he didn't like to think too much about.

Kuwabara asked Yusuke what happened and the detective gave him the same answer he'd given Kurama. The tall orange-haired boy squatted near the demon who at this point was out of shock and was trembling and moaning. He looked at the green-eyed teen.

"So are you going to do anything?"

Kurama had been about to ask why when he caught both the looks of Yusuke and Kuwabara. Of course, he thought, they care. It was a thought that surprised the redhead so much he almost chuckled. It seems that while he had learned to love, thanks to his mother, and while he had learned friendship, thanks to Yusuke, the general populace produced no known feelings in him. Fifteen years in a human body and in a human world couldn't change how he regarded society. It seems that he really was just as cold and cruel as he was in demon world.

Yusuke and Kuwabara, well, weren't. They were used to battles where, while you beat the crap out of your enemy, that enemy still walked away in the morning. Or in Yusuke's case, didn't walk away if you hurt his friends. But that was hot passion. It wasn't the cold cruelty Kurama had learned in demon world. In the demon world you didn't have morals or ethics. The human teenagers had never watched an enemy die helpless, or die without there being something they could do about it. Whether they were helping or hindering didn't matter so long as they were doing it.

"Sewing the arm back on would be useless. His tendons are torn. Even if I managed to sew it back on, the arm would be worthless. I could treat the wound and he could live without the arm, but he'll probably die of blood loss or pneumonia. It's a cold night."

"He's going to die?" Keiko asked, looking anywhere but the ground.

"Yes."

"Oh."

Kurama heard the sound of footsteps and remembered the "Squee!" he had heard earlier. If the word "Squee" designated anything, it meant Fangirl. If footsteps meant anything after "Squee" had been said, then there were probably Fangirls coming around the corner.

"And," he added, lifting up the other arm of the demon. "I think that we should move the body before somebody else finds him."

"Hey," muttered the demon weakly, "I ain't dead."

"Yet."

---

"I believe we've been stood up," Nakita told Moeko's grandfather, who had arrived shortly after Moeko left. The large girl was still sitting at the noodle shop.

Moeko's grandfather, a short man with a squint and white hair, nodded and tapped his cane against the ground.

"Would you like me to give her a good slap around the head when she gets home?"

"No, no!" exclaimed Nakita. "That's mean. But…"

The girl looked at the ground.

"Well?"

"Maybe you could talk to her a little harshly next time you see her? I mean, just a little rough? But not so rough it hurts her feelings?"

The old man thought for a moment, withered gray hands resting on his cane.

"Little miss, I do hope you know that harsh words bounce off Moeko like rubber."

"Yes, but that's why you have to be nice about being harsh. It confuses her defenses and you can probably knock her unconscious with a pillow if you throw it hard enough."

"Or load it with stones."

---

Most people were stupid when it came to shadows. People thought that if you just wore a lot black and jumped into a shadow you were hidden from view. They thought that other people didn't see the idiot in black if they simply stood in the right shadows. They were wrong. Every shadow was the right shadow. People didn't see you in shadows not because you were wearing black and blended in. People didn't see you in shadows because they'd rather see the shadows than see you.

Tracking down the demons that attacked Yusuke had been easy. All Hiei had to do was follow the path of stricken humans who shouted things like "Oh my!" and "Arrrggghhohnonononooodwufflefloggity--not my kidney!"

The fact of the matter was most demons are like humans: They are incredibly, incredibly stupid.

The demons had hidden in an alleyway and threw themselves into the shadows. They were talking.

It had been a stupid stunt. All the demons agreed. Now they nursed bruised jaws and arms and other places only dirty street fighting taught you about. They'd lost Akrarrl. But it didn't matter. No one had liked him anyway.

"'E didn't smell right," muttered the demon with alligator jaws.

The other demons commiserated.

"I think he had fleas."

"And rice. Lots and lots of rice."

"D'you mean 'lice?'"

"He always struck me as a little weird. Liked barnyard animals a little too much."

"He's a ram."

"So? People get strange ideas and do weird things way out in the country."

Later someone might ask: Why attack Yusuke? That wasn't the right question. The right question was: Why not attack Yusuke? The detective didn't realize it, but he had become another Genkai. Another legend in the darkness of demon world.

The story goes like this: Way back when the worlds were one, demons preyed on humans. The demons were the right ones, they were the ones with power, and they were the ones for whom the world spun. But then the world changed. Demons fell out of favor with the gods, and the world turned to humans. There came the separation of worlds and then somehow humans mattered more. They were the right ones, they were the ones with power, and they were the ones for whom the world spun. All the demons could think of was that the gods now favored that pitiful world where weak humans managed to rule.

Then came Genkai, who was a nasty piece of work and who terrified demons. She'd shocked the demon world by winning the Dark Tournament. Here was a strong and beautiful human who considered becoming a demon lower than being human. Beautiful, powerful, human, but not weak. Not a weak human. Something that couldn't be preyed on. The right one, the one with power. She spun her own world.

But slowly time passed, and Genkai faded away in the eyes of the demons. She appeared in history books, but was nothing more in their minds but a fluke. Genkai was a special human; no others like her would come.

Then Yusuke happened. The demons couldn't say Yusuke came. Yusuke didn't have the ability to come. He happened to people, and that was it. He was a human, a spirit detective, and the student of Genkai. A new legend was born. He wasn't right, but he had power. He spun the world, but in the other direction.

And demons were tugged by the force of the spin. They say: Kill Yusuke, but the detective's line of travel cut right through words. People went through life in circles and curves and orbits. Yusuke took the straight path, mercilessly tearing circles, curves, and orbits apart.

Yusuke was a force of nature you couldn't help but want to stop; not to see him stop, but to see what kind of damage he was capable of inflicting. Demons are like fans at a monster truck rally--all they want to see is the cars getting smashed to little bits and sometimes catching on fire.

Hiei especially liked the fire bit.

"Wonder who the girl was?" voiced a demon.

The group gave a collective shrug. They wanted to kill Yusuke, but they didn't know the story. They also certainly didn't know why.

The shadows inside the alleyway lurched; there was a sound, and a gleam of light.

"Urk!"

"Nargle? You okay?"

The body tried to slump forward. There appeared to be a misplaced sword stuck in his chest. A booted foot roughly thrust the body off the sword.

Blood dripped from cold metal.

"I don't think he's sleeping," Hiei told them.

And two teenagers in trench coats slipped into a bookstore right next to the alley.

---

Fangirls were a lot like humans who were a lot like demons.

"Oh my! I think Shuuichi lost an arm!"

There was blood on the ground, and the discarded arm was still there.

"Do you think maybe we should return it to him? Tell him, 'We found your arm and we thought you might need it back'?"

"I don't know. This arm looks awfully red to be Shuuichi's."

"Maybe he got a bad suntan."

"But it's autumn."

"Body paint?"

The Fangirls thought about this for a minute. A long minute.

One girl picked up the arm and inspected it.

"Nah, I don't think so."

Somewhere it is rumored that Fangirls are not human. They have a genetic make-up that included a little more "insanity" and "obsessive-ness" than the average normal human. Or demon if you believed that humans were exactly like demons. In fact, a Fangirl is like personifying obsession and realizing obsession is obsessed with insanity. Fangirls don't have to focus on reality. They don't have to look at blood smears all over the ground and a bleeding, rotting arm and see that. They only have to see it in a situation where their obsession can take a play and replace what they're seeing.

"It's a prop."

"Yeah, a prop."

"What for?"

"He's leaving a trail for us to follow."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Like… hide and go seek. It'll be fun. C'mon."

The Fangirls left the arm where it was and talked excitably amongst themselves, drifting down the sidewalk. One Fangirl turned back and peered at the arm curiously.

"Come on Tsu," called one of the pack. "We're going to leave you behind."

"Right," said Tsu with one last look before returning to the others.

Shuuichi Minamino was their god and he could never lead them to danger.

---