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Dreams and Nightmares Part 1
by Korogi
It was morning,
if that dim, pale light of the rising sun choking through the heavy clouds
could pass as morning. It seemed to be that way a lot in this land ...
on this island ... inside the superstructure of what used to be the greatest
sento arena in all the lands.
Now, it sat completely
deserted : a desolate structure crumbling under the unforgiving hand of
time, slowly widdling away to be nothing more than a pile of useless rubble.
Once, the great Ankoku Bujuutsukai used to be held here every half decade,
drawing demonic crowds from every hole, corner and crevace of the known
lands, piling spectators to the great, amplitheateric open ceilings to
watch the scheduled competitors fight to the death in a week-long match
that was guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.
But no more would
the cheers of the crowds float through its cement structure ... no more
would it feebily try to fend off the awesome power released by the many
compeditors heald within its walls. Now, the remanants of the great Ankoku
Bujuutsukai arena was just a long forgotten memory.
Today, under the
dimming, stormy Makai sky, a poorly fed rat scurried through the heeps
of rubbel, munching on seeds and insects, making its way through the labyrinth
of stonework and wood to the vacant back lot that once served as a sort
of carcass dumpyard for the unfortunate loosers of the dark battle's fury.
Through the years, it still stunk of rotting flesh and musty, dead dirt,
concocting a terrible odor throughout. But the rat didn't mind, he was
quite used to it by now.
He scampered over discarded
armor and various decaying body parts to the most out of place object ever
imaginable, and sat back on his haunches, admiring it's beauty.
Through the death and
mortar, a huge, perfect red rose stood perched atop a mass of some sort
of dead Makai plant, it's petals crystalized and gleaming from the petrification
of time. It shimmered beautifully in the choked light trying to come from
the sun, sending shards of random light dancing about the dumpyard. The
last remaining sigh of Karasu-senshu ... that and the spidery, rusted mask
that lay silently beside the work.
The rat wiped
his face and munched on a chunk of something undescribable. He didn't really
care what it was ... it was food and it would keep him from starving for
another day. He continued to stare at the marvelous, stone-hard rose that
towered to monstrous proportions above him. There was something different
about it today.
Beedy eyes surveyed
the craftywork - it shifted, sending frantic glitters about the dumpyard.
The rat stood to its scrawny feet and inched back, returning to sit on
its rear, watching the piece of beautiful work seem to com alive right
before his eyes.
Again it shifted. A few
of the petals broke from the superstructure and shattered to the ground
under the sudden movement, sending red shards of glass in every direction.
The rat took to the rubbel piles beyond for safety, nestling itself in
a crack, watching.
In a piercing cry of
breaking glass panes, the rose shattered, raining its red remainets all
over the dumpyard, spooking the rat to force its small body further into
the crack.
And then, there came
silence.
It was an eerie silence,
totally void of any noise what so ever. No pitter-patter of other rats,
no whistles of the wind. Just complete, dim silence.
A dead silence.
Cautiously, the rat
poked it's nose out and sniffed the air. There was a new scent now ...
the scent of gunpowder ... and a light hint of a man's cologne.
Boldly, the rat scurried out to the edge of the concrete pile and looked over the site where the rose formation once stood ...
... a hand snatched him
easily from his pearch, quicker than the rat could counter. In a flurry
of little feet, the rat squeeled and tossed, bitting at the hand that held
it, drawing long, deep red streams of blood.
A finger flicked him
in the head. The rat squeeled violently and Turned its little red eyes
around aburptly.
A perfect pair of thin,
violet eyes glared holes through the rats skull, momentarily causing it
to faulter and hault it's struggles .. but only momentarily.
The violet eyes narrowed
as the rat continued to draw blood... they growled lowly like the heart
of a volcano about to explode ... and the rat flew qickly across the dumpyard
to smash headfirst into a cement pillar, ending the little struggles permanently.
The bloodied hand reached
for the spidery mask below, sharp, red finger nails scraping the rust and
debris from it's vented sides. "My lovely Kurama ... look what you've done
to me," the violet eyes spoke, raising the steel object. The mask fit comfortably
over the pale, hansom face, highlighting the violet eyes through a tiny
pair of spectacles perched steadily in the nose piece, settling into place
as the long, thin strands of deep black hair fell about the face. "I can't
wait to see you again... to see those beautiful green eyes of yours ...
feel that silky red hair streaming through my fingers... to hear you scream
in pain once more ...." the voice broke off into a muffled snicker and
disappeared
into the shadows beyond.
**** **** ****
**** ****
Yo-mawari streatched
at the low table of Kurama's apartment, trying to understand the bird songs
that came through the alley beyond the window before him. Yet another one
of those beautiful mornings he had come to find out the Ningenkai was famous
for. Before him, sprawled out in a great mess was the morning paper, blanketing
the large, wooden table. He had been furiously trying to understand the
odd ningen characters for some time now, being able to only pick out key
words and phrases.
He was bored. So incredibly
boared. As usual, he was the first one up in the apartment ... it was only
6:30! He ended his streatching and shoved the paper from infront of him,
leaning heavy elbows on the table. Perhaps they would all go to the Makai
today, do something interesting for a change. Not go on anymore of Koenma's
strange picnics. He was STILL picking cherry seeds from his long, black
hair after the food fight that resulted on the last one.
He looked out the window
and let his mind flow. He could feel the distinct ki of both Hiei and Kurama
in the loft off to his right, intertwined as they always were, though he
would rather not wonder why. He could feel faint aura's of ningens rushing
off to work ... and just on the edge of his senses, a strange new you-ki
perched. One he had never felt before. One that seemed that it should be
a certain you-ki to take very careful car of avoiding.
He paid it particularly
close attention, feeling it grow nearer with the passing seconds, much
faster than any human ki could move, but still not nearly as quick as Hiei’s
ki could move. It brought with it an odd chill and a funny feeling he had
never felt before. Yo-mawari turned to look directly at the front door
seconds before a hard knock came once to it.
Yo-mawari sat a minute,
watching the door with a thin, black eye, expecting it to be blown in on
him ... expecting some horde of youkai to come crashng in, weapons blazing
...
The hard knock came
once again. And no viscious intruders broke through.
Easily and quietly,
Yo-mawari pulled himself from the pillow on which he sat at the low table,
beckoning the ever-present shuriken at his side to keep a watch on the
stairs incase this visitor turned out to be trouble. Yo-mawari always found
himself taking abnormal precautions to ensure the safety of his twin brother
and his Meijin. From setting up the shuriken-youkai to guard the loft when
stepping out to get the mail, to having them accompany Kurama on his trips
about the Ningenkai. With this in mind, it took Yo-mawari about three strides
to reach his thin fingers to the door knob. He carefully and cautiously
turned the knob and opened the door.
"Ohayo," a deep, sultry
voice greated him suddenly, before the door was even opened.
Yo-mawari choked back
a surprised gasp as he met face to face with a thin set of violet eyes
and a keenly smiling face glancing him down behind black hair that seemed
to challenge the luster of Yo-mawari’s own, glimmering in the morning sun
like light off a rippled lake.
"Uh ... ohayo," he managed
finally. "Can I help you?"
"My my, Kurama ... how
you've changed," the man at the door smiled beautifuly at him, stepping
up on the last step to tower a good foot above Yo-mawari, the violet-eyed
man humming lowly… or growling.
Yo-mawari laughed slightly,
stepping back from under the man's shadow. "No, I'm not Kurama ... I'm
his brother," he smiled quaintly. :Ah, just another one of Kurama’s odd
friends’s, I bet:, he thought to himself, a bit ashamed at being so protective
over the household
The figure shifted a
bit uneasily, then the smile deepened, almost maliciously. "How quaint.
I never knew he had a twin. Twice the fun, I guess," the figure reached
a hand out quickly and laid it on Yo-mawari's shoulder, locking eyes.
Yo-mawari looked at
the hand cautiously for a second, then raised black eyes to meet the thin,
voilet ones. "Would you mind telling me your name, I'll tell him you stopped
by."
The man slowly retracted
his hand from the shoulder where it had been resting and reached into the
pocket of a neatly tattered coat, open at the chest. He pulled out an odd
mask, glinting in the morning light and handed it carefully down to Yo-mawari
as if it was a fragile glass sculpture. "Just give this to young Kurama
... he'll know who I am. Tell him I'll be seeing him later. And you too,
if I'm lucky." He smiled and turned quickly, dissapearing into the tree-line
beyond the apartment before Yo-mawari could follow
Yo-mawari huffed, watching
out the door, surveying the scene. The man was gone, his you-ki flitting
easily from his sesnses to fade into the backdrop of the rest of Tokyo.
Who in the worlds could that have been?
**** **** **** ****
Something sparked Hiei's
eyes to flash open a red brilliance. A vaguely familiar you-ki was slowly
fading from his senses, just thin enough to be noticed but also faint enough
that he could not put a name or a face to it. Kurama laid gracefully sprawled
beside him in a mess of sheets and red hair, an arm folded under his head
for support in the absence of his large, feather pillow. Hiei graced him
a long glance, gently pulling strands of red hair from Kurama's angelic
vision as he made it out of the bed quietly, tugging on a pair of black
trousers and a black, tatered tank top.
He forced order back
to his wild, spiky hair as he slipped deftly out of the room to flicker
down the stairs, past the shuriken's seemingly guarding the foot of the
stairs.
Yo-mawari was just closing
the front door with an odd glance, tucking an object into his pants when
Hiei’s fire stare caught him.
"Who was here?" the fire
demon growled, hints of sleep still heavy in his speech.
He watched as Yo-mawari
jumped, whirling quickly around. "Ah, Meijin-san. Ohayo gozaimasu!"
"Who was here?" Hiei
repeated again, glancing down the shuriken guardians as Yo-mawari crossed
the floor to plop his frame back down at the table.
"Just an old friend
of Kurama's, I imagine."
"Old friend?" Hiei flicked
from the stairs in a rush and whistle of gently displaced air to appear
on Yo-mawari's news paper, glaring him down.
"Nani, Meijin-san?"
Hiei glanced the man
over quickly, streatching a hand out to his left shoulder, gently resting
it there, the same possition the odd man at the door had laid his hand
only moments ago. There it was again ... that strange ki ... he could not
put a face to it, but it was definately a ki that had made his shit-list
a while back.
"I see I'm the last
one up .. again," Kurama yawned from the stairs, streatching and descending
a bit clumsily to the kitchen.
" 'Morning, kyodai.
You had a visitor this morning," Yo-mawari smiled easily, Hiei's hand retracting
from his shoulder to turn eyes to his sleepy lover.
"Oh really?" Kurama yawned
again, running a hand through his red hair as he poured himself a cup of
coffe. "Who was it?"
"He said you would know
him ..."
"He?" Kurama raised
an eyebrow and thought briefly and smiled as he raised the cup to sip.
"Did he leave a name?"
"No ... but he left this." Yo-mawari stood from the table and fished around in his pocket as Kurama began across the kitchen floor, a hand outstreatched as he threw a wink to Hiei.
A cold object landed
heavily in the red-head’s hand and he saw Hiei scowl and hiss violently.
Kurama turned attention quickly to the object ... his eyes grew wide and
the coffee cup slipped from his hand to shatter into several pieces on
the polished, wood floor.
Yo-mawarai raised an
eyebrow, watching his brother turn a deathly white, his hand shaking as
he held the steel mask in his hand. "Kyodai-kun ... dou-shita? Is something
wrong?"
"It can't be ..." he
whispered. "But he's dead... I killed him ..."
Hiei lept off the table and circled a glare around the room...
"... it can't be ... Karasu!"
**** **** **** ****
Karasu smiled deeply
in the Shinjuku Park where he felt Kurama's aura the strongest, hearing
the choked, unbelieving whisper float to his ears. "Yes Kurama. I told
you I would be back ... I told you that you would die at my hand only.
Do you think I wouldn't keep my promise, lovely?"
A young girl skipped
merrily by, stopping before him to pick a dandelion, rubbing it's yellow
flower over her hand. Karasu fought back a smile. The little girl was adorable
... shining brown eyes and black hair pulled back into two pigtails...
He beckoned up a bit
of his you-ki, pushing it silently off to the flower's face as the girl
pulled it down from her nose, twirling it between her fingers.
In a shatter of petals
and leaves, it exploded, singeing her fingers and the tip of her nose ...
and she screamed violently.
Karasu winced at the
noise with a malicious smile, thinking to himself how weak the humans were.
He watched, leaning heavily against a tree as the girls parents rushed
up and tried to calm their screaming child, immediately trying to nurse
the pain from her blistered fingers and nose.
The fathers eyes shot
up and caught Karasu's as he smiled widely. The human male rose quickly,
storming across the park, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "YOU!! Hey
you!"
Karasu sighed and heaved
himself from the tree. "Such rude tones."
"Hey! Did you do that
to my daughter?" he threatened.
"Yes .. and I'll do
it to you too!"
The ningen snarled and
threw a feable punch.
Karasu easily caught
it, glancing the violet eyes around his hand to the ningen. "I touched
you."
The ningen ripped his
fist out of the grasp and stumbled back. "I'll do more than TOUCH you!!"
"Oh, not with that hand
you won't," he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
A dull explosion set
off on the human's fist, taking half the hand with it in a spray of blood
and pain. Karasu smiled lightly, turning from the man and walking calmly
off into the park, listening to the wailing cries of the man and the frantic
screams of the female drift behind him.
"Such fragile creatures.
What a waste of flesh." He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "Kurama,
I wonder if you and that brother of yours will scream as loudly when I
have my way with both of you."
