Reincarnation Arc Revived?
Oct. 2nd, 2006 06:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftThis is incredibly, incredibly rough, so fair warning.
A long time ago, I started a story I tentatively titled "Fornever" and mostly referred to as "The Reincarnation Arc". The plot was simple: Yuusuke and the gang take down a demon named Enarin who has been stealing human souls destined for the Spirit World, not realizing that the whole thing was a trap and that they've actually sealed the wrong demon. The true soul-stealer then attacks while they're unprepared and off their guard, killing Kuwabara, Genkai and Keiko before vanishing into the Makai. Koenma informs Yuusuke and the others that the three souls never made it to the Spirit World and that they're probably lost forever. The story flash forwards a hundred years or so to Yuusuke encountering Koenma's new Reikai Tantei as they hunt down Reveren, Enarin's twin, and the demon most likely responsible for the trap.
It was, admittedly, mostly an excuse to torment Yuusuke. In the original draft it was a Gundam Wing crossover (god help us all, right?) but who knows if that will make it into this version.
For no real reason this bunny reared its head tonight. The snippet below is what resulted. It's uneditted and unbetaed and may not make it into the final version. We'll see how it looks in the morning.
Speaking of morning, it's almost time for me to wake up, so I should get to bed. Night, all.
***
They return to the human world with the boisterous good humor that always comes at the end of a successful mission.
Yuusuke steps through the gate and into the empty field where the Reikai has hidden it's most recent gate to and from the Demon World. It is a spectacularly unimpressive lot, mostly bare dirt and some weeds; nothing grows there and since the Reikai knows how to protect its interests, anyone who thinks of buying it instantly forgets why they wanted it in the first place. It's not exactly an inspiring welcome home, but it's not the Makai and sometimes that's all that matters.
"We should do that more often," Yuusuke announces to the empty lot. "Why don't we do that more often?"
Somewhere behind him Kuwabara groans theatrically. "Because some of us bruise more easily than others," the human complains and Yuusuke grins at him over his shoulder; nothing makes a good mood better than picking a fight with Kuwabara.
"Awww. Was the big bad demon too much for you to handle? Is poor old Kazu feeling his age?" Yuusuke smirks as Kuwabara pauses in the act of rubbing his back. "It's okay, dude. Everyone gets old and feeble eventually. Except me. And Kurama. And Hiei. And Genkai."
"I'm not old." Kuwabara aims a glare at Kurama, who is grinning quietly, and flips Yuusuke off; between the two of them it means everything from 'you're an asshole' to 'good going' but Yuusuke gets the feeling it's more the former this time around. "I'm twenty-nine, for fuck's sake."
"Almost thirty," Yuusuke says in a sympathetic voice, nodding his head up and down and making little clucking sounds with his tongue. "Things start going downhill after a while you know. Knees start popping. Back starts aching. Hearing goes."
"Eyesight," Kurama adds. "Sex drive."
"I'm at my sexual peak," Yuusuke informs them both seriously.
Kuwabara makes a gagging sound.
"Anyway," Yuusuke continues, bracing himself to dodge in case Kuwabara decides to take a swing, "you shouldn't let it get you down."
"I wasn't," Kuwabara mutters.
Yuusuke ignores him. "I mean, Genkai's like, what? A hundred? A hundred and ten?"
"Eighty-five," Kurama corrects him. The youko is watching the byplay with a little smile, largely content to play the straight man.
Yuusuke waves him off. "Whatever. The point is, that even though there's just no way Kuwabara's gonna live as long as Genkai-"
"Thanks," Kuwabara says.
"-he's still got, like, a good thirty years left right?" Yuusuke widens his eyes and starts walking backwards. "Thirty years of, you know, aching joints and cataracts and eating bran muffins just to take a crap and Viagra. But still. Thirty years. You can't scoff at that." He pauses, makes a show of considering things. "Well, I guess you can, if you're immortal. Like me."
Kuwabara flips him off again and this time it definitely means 'you're an asshole.' "As much as I'm just loving this, I'm going to head for Genkai's. I'll catch you guys later."
"Say hello to Yukina," Kurama says.
Kuwabara nods and Yuusuke remembers that there was a time when that simple comment would have made Kuwabara blush bright enough to be seen from space. "He's really just going to get healed up," he tells Kurama in a deliberately loud aside. "At his age, he doesn't heal as fast as he used to."
"I'm three months younger than you are," Kuwabara calls over his shoulder. "So fuck off."
"Don't be like that man!" Yuusuke cups his hands around his mouth and shouts after Kuwabara, "At least you've still got the worst half of your life left to live!"
Kurama laughs and shakes his head. "You're terrible."
"Eh." Yuusuke grins and shoves his hands in his pockets. "He can take it."
"Gracefully?" Kurama counters.
"Oh, hell no. That's what makes it so much fun." Yuusuke laces his fingers together behind his head as they leave the lot, heading downtown toward their respective places, in the opposite direction as Kuwabara. "And after three days dragging around the Demon World, hunting a soul-stealing demon lord like Enarin, a little prank war will defrag everyone nicely."
Kurama pretends to consider this. "I don't need to defrag."
"Well, you're going to have to accept that you're just a casualty in this particular war." Yuusuke stretches as they walk, feeling tension fade away with every step they take back into the city.
***
Yuusuke may be immortal but he is, still, only human and there are many things that he cannot know. At the moment, only three of them matter.
He does not know that Keiko spent the afternoon shopping with Yukina and is at that moment at the temple, showing off purchases, trying on outfits and generally getting on Genkai's nerves.
He does not know that "at least you've still got the worst half of your life left to live" will be the last thing he ever says to Kuwabara.
He does not know that all of this was a trap.
***
Yuusuke's sprawled on the couch, half-asleep, a badly-dubbed Hong Kong martial arts movie on the television and a half dozen cans of soda (because Keiko doesn't like him drinking beer, says he's lost enough brain cells already) littering the floor around him. There's an open but forgotten bag of pretzels on his stomach. He's mostly asleep when something strange catches his attention.
Demonic power flashes on the other side of the city, a building wave that rises and crashes in a fraction of a second and makes the hair on the back of Yuusuke's neck stand on end. He sits up, jams the mute button on the remote and concentrates. Whatever caused it is still there, though it's muted behind something else now. Yuusuke frowns at the television screen and turns it off, making his way across the room in the dark, demonic eyesight compensating almost instantly so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like walk into a wall.
He grabs his cell phone off the table in the hall and shoves his feet into his boots. He's reaching for the door when the flash hits him. It happens in the time it takes to blink and just for an instant he's aware of the timbre of a voice, the scent of a body, the cadence of a heartbeat, the feel of skin and the texture of hair, a dozen little things he never realized he knew about Kuwabara. It's over by the time he opens his eyes, but the impression lingers.
Yuusuke hits the sidewalk at a run.
***
Botan is used to being summoned to Koenma's office, but the summons this time is unusual, even by her standards.
Koenma is in his adult form, which is older every year, and Botan idly wonders if anyone else has noticed that Koenma seems to be aging faster now. It's not any real indication of his age, of course, but she suspects it has something to do with Kurama's human form and Kuwabara both getting older, and the fact that Koenma is a little bit like a little boy who'll never grow up.
He is tense and somber as he hands her a file. His eyes are dark. He does not raise his voice once. He holds onto the file when she reaches out for it.
"I need you to go at once," he says in a tight, firm voice. There is not hint of flexibility there. "There must be no opportunity for others to get to their souls before we do, understand? Collect them and bring them here to me at once." He waits for her nod before he lets go of the file. "Botan."
She has already flipped the file open and she has to close it again immediately.
"Whatever you do," Koenma says quietly. "Don't let anyone see you. Especially Yuusuke."
Botan nods.
****
It takes about thirty minutes to get from his place to Genkai's on foot, if you're taking your time. Yuusuke makes it in a little less than three minutes and by the time his foot hits the first step he can feel Hiei coming in at a run from the other side of the temple and Kurama closing in from behind.
He's slowed by the time he reaches the top of the stairs and he stops altogether as he crosses under the arch. The grass is scorched and blackened, the trees are splintered and bent. Craters and pockmarks scar the ground, tearing up chunks of soil and ruining the flower bed Yukina tended every day. There are ashes and the greasy smears of oddly colored blood everywhere. Enough to have made up a small army, Yuusuke thinks.
Genkai is at ground zero, lying still on her side.
Yuusuke hesitates beside her but then Kurama is there, one hand pushing Yuusuke toward the temple. "Find them," Kurama says and there's something dark and hollow in Kurama's voice as the youko kneels beside Genkai.
Yuusuke doesn't particularly want to find anyone. There are no heartbeats inside that temple and he knows that if he goes in there his entire world will end.
Except it already has. He spares a quick glance for the woman who was his teacher and mentor, and backs away slowly before he turns on his heel and runs toward the temple.
***
Genkai's body lies outside the temple, in the middle of a circle of scarred earth. Demonic spirits rage all around her, a tempest of vindictive fury. Botan steeples her fingers and chants an exorcism, consigning them to the endless void without a second thought.
She pauses to breath a quick prayer over Genkai, but does not linger. The shell is meaningless without the soul.
The air gets colder as she climbs the steps into the temple and enters through the broken door.
There are more demons here and Botan exorcises them as well before they can do more than scream and wail at her. Ice clings to the walls and ceiling, though the day is warm and it has already started to melt, a slow drip of water beginning to speckle the floor. Yukina is kneeling on the floor just inside the door, her head bowed, her arms wrapped around herself. Botan pauses for a moment at Yukina's back, wanting to reach out and offer a touch, but Koenma had been too serious for her to think of disobeying him.
As Botan watches, Yukina shudders once, and raises her head. Tear gems tumble and fall from the folds of her dress as she shifts, a dozen or more dropping to the floor, clattering like spilled marbles. A few of them roll slowly to where Kuwabara and Keiko lay. Botan follows.
Kuwabara lies half on his back, his eyes open but sightless. His temple is reddened from a blow and a bruise had begun to form, his lip is split, and his arms are marked with cuts and claw marks. A gaping wound in the right side of his chest would have killed him if untreated, but it was the broken neck that ended his life. Botan has the ability to relive the death of her charges, a way for her to ease their spirits into death, a way to offer some comfort through understanding, but she can't bring herself to witness the last few moments of what happened here. She doesn't need it anyway, she can imagine how Kuwabara would have staggered from the bloody wound, she can picture a demon seizing his head in its talons while he was weakened and snapping his neck, letting him fall to the floor like a broken toy.
Just behind him, Keiko sat against the wall, her knees tucked under her, her hands at her sides. She is mostly unmarked save for a deep cut on her cheek that would have left a scar, and the deep gash in her throat from one ear to the other. Blood spilled down her shirt and into her lap. Her hands are stained red, probably from grabbing her throat, but it hadn't stemmed the flow. Keiko had died quickly once they had her.
Botan presses both hands against her face for a long second and doesn't move until Yukina crosses the room and kneels silently beside Kuwabara. She reaches out with one hand, delicate fingers brushing over his cheek. It's only been moments since he died; the body would still be warm. Botan can't bear to think about it.
In any event, they aren't here.
Time passes differently for the living and the dead. Botan, being neither, can see the passage of both. It has been only moments since they died, but at the same time it might as well be hours.
Botan can feel Yuusuke and the others coming as she steps outside again.
They're there this time, waiting for her at the top of the stone steps, Genkai on one side, Kuwabara and Keiko on the other. Keiko's fingers are wrapped in the material of Kuwabara's trenchcoat, and Kuwabara's hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
Yuusuke bursts into sight and stops dead at the top of the stairs, wide, shocked eyes taking in the damage and the sight of Genkai's corpse.
Keiko's face crumples at the sight of him, but she doesn't say anything. Maybe Genkai told her not to. Maybe she isn't able to speak; some spirits can't. Maybe she just doesn't know what to say.
Kurama is only a few steps behind and he hesitates for a moment at the top of the stairs, directly between the three of them, staring straight ahead at Botan. For a moment she thinks he sensed her or sensed them, but then his face settles into a grim, blank mask and she realizes he was listening for heartbeats.
Yuusuke runs for the temple as Botan descends the stairs. She pauses, but he runs straight through her without a pause or a glance.
"I'm here to take you to the Spirit World," Botan says quietly.
Kuwabara looks up at her and there's something terrible in his eyes as he says, "Did Koenma know this was a trap?"
Botan doesn't know. So she says nothing.
***
A long time ago, I started a story I tentatively titled "Fornever" and mostly referred to as "The Reincarnation Arc". The plot was simple: Yuusuke and the gang take down a demon named Enarin who has been stealing human souls destined for the Spirit World, not realizing that the whole thing was a trap and that they've actually sealed the wrong demon. The true soul-stealer then attacks while they're unprepared and off their guard, killing Kuwabara, Genkai and Keiko before vanishing into the Makai. Koenma informs Yuusuke and the others that the three souls never made it to the Spirit World and that they're probably lost forever. The story flash forwards a hundred years or so to Yuusuke encountering Koenma's new Reikai Tantei as they hunt down Reveren, Enarin's twin, and the demon most likely responsible for the trap.
It was, admittedly, mostly an excuse to torment Yuusuke. In the original draft it was a Gundam Wing crossover (god help us all, right?) but who knows if that will make it into this version.
For no real reason this bunny reared its head tonight. The snippet below is what resulted. It's uneditted and unbetaed and may not make it into the final version. We'll see how it looks in the morning.
Speaking of morning, it's almost time for me to wake up, so I should get to bed. Night, all.
***
They return to the human world with the boisterous good humor that always comes at the end of a successful mission.
Yuusuke steps through the gate and into the empty field where the Reikai has hidden it's most recent gate to and from the Demon World. It is a spectacularly unimpressive lot, mostly bare dirt and some weeds; nothing grows there and since the Reikai knows how to protect its interests, anyone who thinks of buying it instantly forgets why they wanted it in the first place. It's not exactly an inspiring welcome home, but it's not the Makai and sometimes that's all that matters.
"We should do that more often," Yuusuke announces to the empty lot. "Why don't we do that more often?"
Somewhere behind him Kuwabara groans theatrically. "Because some of us bruise more easily than others," the human complains and Yuusuke grins at him over his shoulder; nothing makes a good mood better than picking a fight with Kuwabara.
"Awww. Was the big bad demon too much for you to handle? Is poor old Kazu feeling his age?" Yuusuke smirks as Kuwabara pauses in the act of rubbing his back. "It's okay, dude. Everyone gets old and feeble eventually. Except me. And Kurama. And Hiei. And Genkai."
"I'm not old." Kuwabara aims a glare at Kurama, who is grinning quietly, and flips Yuusuke off; between the two of them it means everything from 'you're an asshole' to 'good going' but Yuusuke gets the feeling it's more the former this time around. "I'm twenty-nine, for fuck's sake."
"Almost thirty," Yuusuke says in a sympathetic voice, nodding his head up and down and making little clucking sounds with his tongue. "Things start going downhill after a while you know. Knees start popping. Back starts aching. Hearing goes."
"Eyesight," Kurama adds. "Sex drive."
"I'm at my sexual peak," Yuusuke informs them both seriously.
Kuwabara makes a gagging sound.
"Anyway," Yuusuke continues, bracing himself to dodge in case Kuwabara decides to take a swing, "you shouldn't let it get you down."
"I wasn't," Kuwabara mutters.
Yuusuke ignores him. "I mean, Genkai's like, what? A hundred? A hundred and ten?"
"Eighty-five," Kurama corrects him. The youko is watching the byplay with a little smile, largely content to play the straight man.
Yuusuke waves him off. "Whatever. The point is, that even though there's just no way Kuwabara's gonna live as long as Genkai-"
"Thanks," Kuwabara says.
"-he's still got, like, a good thirty years left right?" Yuusuke widens his eyes and starts walking backwards. "Thirty years of, you know, aching joints and cataracts and eating bran muffins just to take a crap and Viagra. But still. Thirty years. You can't scoff at that." He pauses, makes a show of considering things. "Well, I guess you can, if you're immortal. Like me."
Kuwabara flips him off again and this time it definitely means 'you're an asshole.' "As much as I'm just loving this, I'm going to head for Genkai's. I'll catch you guys later."
"Say hello to Yukina," Kurama says.
Kuwabara nods and Yuusuke remembers that there was a time when that simple comment would have made Kuwabara blush bright enough to be seen from space. "He's really just going to get healed up," he tells Kurama in a deliberately loud aside. "At his age, he doesn't heal as fast as he used to."
"I'm three months younger than you are," Kuwabara calls over his shoulder. "So fuck off."
"Don't be like that man!" Yuusuke cups his hands around his mouth and shouts after Kuwabara, "At least you've still got the worst half of your life left to live!"
Kurama laughs and shakes his head. "You're terrible."
"Eh." Yuusuke grins and shoves his hands in his pockets. "He can take it."
"Gracefully?" Kurama counters.
"Oh, hell no. That's what makes it so much fun." Yuusuke laces his fingers together behind his head as they leave the lot, heading downtown toward their respective places, in the opposite direction as Kuwabara. "And after three days dragging around the Demon World, hunting a soul-stealing demon lord like Enarin, a little prank war will defrag everyone nicely."
Kurama pretends to consider this. "I don't need to defrag."
"Well, you're going to have to accept that you're just a casualty in this particular war." Yuusuke stretches as they walk, feeling tension fade away with every step they take back into the city.
***
Yuusuke may be immortal but he is, still, only human and there are many things that he cannot know. At the moment, only three of them matter.
He does not know that Keiko spent the afternoon shopping with Yukina and is at that moment at the temple, showing off purchases, trying on outfits and generally getting on Genkai's nerves.
He does not know that "at least you've still got the worst half of your life left to live" will be the last thing he ever says to Kuwabara.
He does not know that all of this was a trap.
***
Yuusuke's sprawled on the couch, half-asleep, a badly-dubbed Hong Kong martial arts movie on the television and a half dozen cans of soda (because Keiko doesn't like him drinking beer, says he's lost enough brain cells already) littering the floor around him. There's an open but forgotten bag of pretzels on his stomach. He's mostly asleep when something strange catches his attention.
Demonic power flashes on the other side of the city, a building wave that rises and crashes in a fraction of a second and makes the hair on the back of Yuusuke's neck stand on end. He sits up, jams the mute button on the remote and concentrates. Whatever caused it is still there, though it's muted behind something else now. Yuusuke frowns at the television screen and turns it off, making his way across the room in the dark, demonic eyesight compensating almost instantly so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like walk into a wall.
He grabs his cell phone off the table in the hall and shoves his feet into his boots. He's reaching for the door when the flash hits him. It happens in the time it takes to blink and just for an instant he's aware of the timbre of a voice, the scent of a body, the cadence of a heartbeat, the feel of skin and the texture of hair, a dozen little things he never realized he knew about Kuwabara. It's over by the time he opens his eyes, but the impression lingers.
Yuusuke hits the sidewalk at a run.
***
Botan is used to being summoned to Koenma's office, but the summons this time is unusual, even by her standards.
Koenma is in his adult form, which is older every year, and Botan idly wonders if anyone else has noticed that Koenma seems to be aging faster now. It's not any real indication of his age, of course, but she suspects it has something to do with Kurama's human form and Kuwabara both getting older, and the fact that Koenma is a little bit like a little boy who'll never grow up.
He is tense and somber as he hands her a file. His eyes are dark. He does not raise his voice once. He holds onto the file when she reaches out for it.
"I need you to go at once," he says in a tight, firm voice. There is not hint of flexibility there. "There must be no opportunity for others to get to their souls before we do, understand? Collect them and bring them here to me at once." He waits for her nod before he lets go of the file. "Botan."
She has already flipped the file open and she has to close it again immediately.
"Whatever you do," Koenma says quietly. "Don't let anyone see you. Especially Yuusuke."
Botan nods.
****
It takes about thirty minutes to get from his place to Genkai's on foot, if you're taking your time. Yuusuke makes it in a little less than three minutes and by the time his foot hits the first step he can feel Hiei coming in at a run from the other side of the temple and Kurama closing in from behind.
He's slowed by the time he reaches the top of the stairs and he stops altogether as he crosses under the arch. The grass is scorched and blackened, the trees are splintered and bent. Craters and pockmarks scar the ground, tearing up chunks of soil and ruining the flower bed Yukina tended every day. There are ashes and the greasy smears of oddly colored blood everywhere. Enough to have made up a small army, Yuusuke thinks.
Genkai is at ground zero, lying still on her side.
Yuusuke hesitates beside her but then Kurama is there, one hand pushing Yuusuke toward the temple. "Find them," Kurama says and there's something dark and hollow in Kurama's voice as the youko kneels beside Genkai.
Yuusuke doesn't particularly want to find anyone. There are no heartbeats inside that temple and he knows that if he goes in there his entire world will end.
Except it already has. He spares a quick glance for the woman who was his teacher and mentor, and backs away slowly before he turns on his heel and runs toward the temple.
***
Genkai's body lies outside the temple, in the middle of a circle of scarred earth. Demonic spirits rage all around her, a tempest of vindictive fury. Botan steeples her fingers and chants an exorcism, consigning them to the endless void without a second thought.
She pauses to breath a quick prayer over Genkai, but does not linger. The shell is meaningless without the soul.
The air gets colder as she climbs the steps into the temple and enters through the broken door.
There are more demons here and Botan exorcises them as well before they can do more than scream and wail at her. Ice clings to the walls and ceiling, though the day is warm and it has already started to melt, a slow drip of water beginning to speckle the floor. Yukina is kneeling on the floor just inside the door, her head bowed, her arms wrapped around herself. Botan pauses for a moment at Yukina's back, wanting to reach out and offer a touch, but Koenma had been too serious for her to think of disobeying him.
As Botan watches, Yukina shudders once, and raises her head. Tear gems tumble and fall from the folds of her dress as she shifts, a dozen or more dropping to the floor, clattering like spilled marbles. A few of them roll slowly to where Kuwabara and Keiko lay. Botan follows.
Kuwabara lies half on his back, his eyes open but sightless. His temple is reddened from a blow and a bruise had begun to form, his lip is split, and his arms are marked with cuts and claw marks. A gaping wound in the right side of his chest would have killed him if untreated, but it was the broken neck that ended his life. Botan has the ability to relive the death of her charges, a way for her to ease their spirits into death, a way to offer some comfort through understanding, but she can't bring herself to witness the last few moments of what happened here. She doesn't need it anyway, she can imagine how Kuwabara would have staggered from the bloody wound, she can picture a demon seizing his head in its talons while he was weakened and snapping his neck, letting him fall to the floor like a broken toy.
Just behind him, Keiko sat against the wall, her knees tucked under her, her hands at her sides. She is mostly unmarked save for a deep cut on her cheek that would have left a scar, and the deep gash in her throat from one ear to the other. Blood spilled down her shirt and into her lap. Her hands are stained red, probably from grabbing her throat, but it hadn't stemmed the flow. Keiko had died quickly once they had her.
Botan presses both hands against her face for a long second and doesn't move until Yukina crosses the room and kneels silently beside Kuwabara. She reaches out with one hand, delicate fingers brushing over his cheek. It's only been moments since he died; the body would still be warm. Botan can't bear to think about it.
In any event, they aren't here.
Time passes differently for the living and the dead. Botan, being neither, can see the passage of both. It has been only moments since they died, but at the same time it might as well be hours.
Botan can feel Yuusuke and the others coming as she steps outside again.
They're there this time, waiting for her at the top of the stone steps, Genkai on one side, Kuwabara and Keiko on the other. Keiko's fingers are wrapped in the material of Kuwabara's trenchcoat, and Kuwabara's hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
Yuusuke bursts into sight and stops dead at the top of the stairs, wide, shocked eyes taking in the damage and the sight of Genkai's corpse.
Keiko's face crumples at the sight of him, but she doesn't say anything. Maybe Genkai told her not to. Maybe she isn't able to speak; some spirits can't. Maybe she just doesn't know what to say.
Kurama is only a few steps behind and he hesitates for a moment at the top of the stairs, directly between the three of them, staring straight ahead at Botan. For a moment she thinks he sensed her or sensed them, but then his face settles into a grim, blank mask and she realizes he was listening for heartbeats.
Yuusuke runs for the temple as Botan descends the stairs. She pauses, but he runs straight through her without a pause or a glance.
"I'm here to take you to the Spirit World," Botan says quietly.
Kuwabara looks up at her and there's something terrible in his eyes as he says, "Did Koenma know this was a trap?"
Botan doesn't know. So she says nothing.
***
