Shuuichi's Secret 2 by Sionna Klassen, Sandra Jacobs, and Kristin Huntsman Yuusuke looked up as someone banged on the door to his apartment. "Oi, Urameshi!" a familiar voice yelled, "Let us in!" Yuusuke thought, moving down the hall to open the door. Yuusuke's thoughts stopped mid-sentence as he opened the door and saw Kurama folded limply over Kuwabara's shoulder. He stepped aside to let Kuwabara in, noting with some surprise that Hiei wordlessly followed Kuwabara inside. "Put him in my room," Yuusuke suggested, closing the door and falling in step behind the two. Kuwabara obeyed, setting Kurama on Yuusuke's bed with infinite care, though far less ceremony. "Where the hell did you find him?" Yuusuke questioned, examining Kurama. "The forest," Kuwabara answered. "Do you know what happened?" "'Cording to Mrs. Minamino, some youkai showed up in their yard and attacked Kurama, holding her captive. He had to fight back to save her, and apparently shifted to youko form to do it." "NANI?!" Kuwabara demanded. "She KNOWS?!" "Guess so," Yuusuke negligently replied, disappearing down the hall for a second. He returned with a first aid kit, and, taking off Kurama's shirt, began to clean his wound. "Hn. Kurama's own fault for ever trying to be human in the first place," Hiei commented. Yuusuke turned an icy glare upon Hiei. "And WHAT's wrong with being human?" he demanded. Hiei met his gaze. "Don't be stupid. None of us can shake off our pasts." Kurama suddenly took a hissed intake of breath through his teeth as Yuusuke dabbed the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball against the open wound again. His eyes didn't open, but he said quietly, "Is there any aspirin around? I have a headache that you wouldn't believe...." "Sure, I'll get some," Kuwabara offered. "I know where Urameshi keeps it." He vanished into the hall. "Fighting in this heat?" Yuusuke asked. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one of us." He tossed the cotton ball into his wastebasket. "I didn't exactly have a choice," Kurama pointed out. "He would have killed my mother otherwise." "For a youko, you certainly aren't very good at talking people out of things," Hiei said tartly. "Could you make that flower growing out of your arm vanish?" Yuusuke asked, getting out a roll of gauze. "Kinda hard to wrap your arm with that on it." The flower shimmered, then seemed to crawl back up its stem, until it re-entered Kurama's arm, its scarlet vanishing in the brilliant red of Kurama's blood. Kurama sat up slowly, and Yuusuke efficiently bandaged the wound, then went over to his dresser and tossed a t-shirt at Kurama. Kurama looked at him questioningly. "I don't think your mom's real experienced at washing out bloodstains," Yuusuke said with a shrug. "She's worried about you, you know." Kurama looked sharply at Yuusuke, then winced, holding his hand against his head. "She called?" Kuwabara re-entered the room with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin, which Kurama accepted with a murmured thanks. "What're you gonna do, Kurama?" asked Kuwabara, settling himself on the floor as Kurama took two aspirin and drank down the water. "I don't know," Kurama replied softly. "I need some time to think about this." "Well, all I told her for sure was that you and I both were mixed up with the Reikai," offered Yuusuke. "You want to call her, to tell her you're okay?" "No," Kurama replied automatically. "What?!" Kuwabara demanded. "But she's your mom!" Kurama looked down at his hands, resting on his lap. "... You didn't see her eyes when she saw me," he said quietly. Everyone was silent for a moment, then Yuusuke stood up. "Well, you can stay here as long as you need to, Kurama," he said. "I'm going to go call your mother and tell her you're safe. Someone here has to have some common sense, and since it's obviously not you, that leaves me." Down the hall and in the kitchen, Yuusuke picked up the phone and dialed one of the four numbers he knew by heart. "Hello, Minamino residence," Shiori said when she picked up, sounding only slightly less than perfectly calm. "Hi, Mrs. Minamino, it's me again, Yuusuke." "Yuusuke!" Mrs. Minamino's voice immediately changed, losing its calm and showing her anxiousness. "Have you heard from Shuuichi?!" "Yeah. He's over here right now. He's okay." Yuusuke hesitated. This was tricky. "He's gonna be staying here for a while." "Why?" Shiori asked. "He doesn't really know how to deal with this," Yuusuke confided. "Shuuichi's kept this from you for a long time, and he had his reasons. He just needs some time to be alone, to think. You understand?" "He doesn't want to see me," Shiori stated softly, her voice revealing her hurt. "Well... yeah." Yuusuke found himself talking into his hand. Kurama had somehow managed to take the phone from him right before he could confirm Mrs. Minamino's fears. "Kaasan?" "Shuuichi!" Shiori's voice was hoarse, as if at any moment she would cry. "Are you all right?!" She could have said anything at that point... that she was furious at him for deceiving her for all these years, that she never wanted to see him again. What hurt Kurama the most was her immediate and unconditional concern and love for him. It made him feel very low, as if he'd tricked her into affection for someone who wasn't truly her son in the first place. What he had to say would be extremely difficult. "Yes, mother, I'm all right, thank you. Listen..." began Kurama, sitting down heavily. Yuusuke left the room. It was going to be one of THOSE talks, and Yuusuke felt that THOSE sorts of talks were best avoided. "Mother, I'm very sorry that you had to be involved in what happened today. You can't imagine how relieved I am that you weren't hurt," Kurama said. "That's all very well, Shuuichi, but I need to know if--" Shiori interjected. "Hear me out, mother. I want you to understand the situation as well as possible. When I entered the body of your son, I didn't care about whether or not I was hurting you or your unborn son. I needed a place to escape, and my own welfare was the only thing I considered when I became Shuuichi Minamino, your son... I didn't care about you." "That's--" Shiori had never heard her son speak so coldly. Her voice quavered more than ever. "Please, mother... imagine someone who's lived many lifetimes longer than you, trapped in a helpless child's body. It was your face I saw, protecting me, caring for me. When you hurt your arm keeping me from falling... yes, that, I believe, was the day that I first realized that I was not your son by spirit, but your son by love." Kurama took a deep breath. He could hear muted crying on the other end. "How I wish sometimes that I was just a human. I wouldn't have had to lie for all this time. I have grown to care for you as deeply as I can for any human, or indeed, any being. I wish that I was fully Shuuichi Minamino, as that would make me your son in all respects. I don't deserve the kindness you've shown me. I'm not really your son." The crying stopped abruptly. "Then, Shuuichi," said Shiori tersely, "who was it that I was in labor 15 hours with?" "Uhm..." "Answer me. The way I see it, if I gave birth to you, and I took care of you for the last 16 years of your life, then I had better be your mother," Shiori said, her voice ringing through the receiver. Kurama was truly baffled... but she DID have a point. "Now, Shuuichi, would you please come home? I'm not angry. I'm just confused, but I want to see you, MY SON, face to face and straighten things out. Even if you aren't all you seem to be, you were my baby... and if you do care for me at all... Kurama..." "Wait, you know my real name?" Kurama nearly dropped the phone. "The-- the monster said it," Shiori said, pausing as she remembered the frightening incident that revealed her son's true name. "If you care for me, Kurama..." "Yes, mother, I do." "Then you'll let me see my son again. Come home." Kurama gasped as the tension in his heart snapped like a string. This was too much. "Mother, I can't!" "Why not?!" "Because," Kurama said, gritting his teeth against the painful words to follow, "the enemies I have in the Makai have found me out. Previously, I was considered dead in the Makai. Now that they know that I'm in human form, I'm not safe anymore, and neither are you. That is, you won't be safe if I'm with you. Please understand. It's because I care for you that I say that I can't go back to you. I want you to be safe." "No, no, Shuuichi, I--" Shiori began, her voice breaking. "I'm so very sorry. I promise that I will never forget you, and if they should ever try to harm you, I will help you, but the fact remains... it would be best if I left." "Left?" Shiori cried. "Where will you go?" "To Makai, Mother. I'm going home." "Shuuichi, please.. I..." Shiori's words blurred into sobs, and Kurama felt his eyes sting, the uncried tears pooling behind the tightly closed lids. "I'm sorry, mother. Goodbye." The word "goodbye" finally triggered his tears, and he let them fall. Cold drops, they burned his eyes like acid, and he realized with some panic that he couldn't stop them once they'd started, for he remembered that all the times he'd felt like crying, he would turn to his mother. Kurama turned his face to the wall and wept. * * * The servant ran down a hall paneled with screen paintings of the clan's great deeds, shouting at the top of his lungs, "My lord! My lord! Urgent news!" He bumped into the chamberlain on his way to the lord's audience room, nearly knocking the venerable courtier to the floor. "Please, my lord, forgive me for my terrible discourtesy, I bring urgent news for Lord Kanbei," stammered the servant as he bowed frantically. "So I understand from all your shouting. What is it, boy?" The chamberlain adjusted his coat and flicked his tail in some irritation at having been jostled by... the *help*. "Please, m'lord, I can't say it out here with all the people..." "But you were able to shout the fact that you had this news to everyone in Makai? Idiot! Very well, then," said the chamberlain, leaning with a bit of distaste closer to the servant. "Whisper it, then. I don't have all day, boy, do it!" The chamberlain's ears flattened against his skull. "WHAT?!" he barked. "Reports are sketchy, but they came from reliable sources, m'lord." The servant bowed a few more times, and when he looked up, the chamberlain himself was running down the hall shouting, "News, my lord! Urgent news from the Ningenkai!" The koto player looked up from her song with amazement as the usually composed chamberlain burst into the audience room, practically hopping with excitement. Lord Kanbei sat in state with his lacquered fan in one hand, the other hand resting upon a sword sheathed in sharkskin. Layers of stiff silk robes in shades of green and blue swathed his body, still athletic though he was a kitsune of great age. His long hair and longer mustaches had turned white some years ago, but the glitter of his yellow-green eyes betrayed a mind still alert and a vigorous maturity. His head wife, Lady Ayumi, shook open her fan with a flick of her white hand, hiding her smile at the odd behavior of the pompous chamberlain. She pushed back her silver hair with the other hand, lowering her eyes demurely but listening intently, the tip of her tail twitching almost imperceptibly from under her many robes. The chamberlain remembered himself and knelt before Lord Kanbei, puffing from his exertions. "My Lord, I bring news from the Human World." Already, the lord had lost interest. He yawned, showing pointed canines projecting from the rows of human-like teeth. "That backwater... well, proceed." "It is in regards to your son, my lord!" Lady Ayumi bit her lip to keep from shouting. A tiny drop of blood crept from the corner of her mouth unnoticed as she leaned forward. "My son is dead," began Kanbei, but the chamberlain continued in a rush before he could finish. "Reports from the human world indicate that he has been there for some time, in the guise of a human boy. What he's doing there is currently unknown to our sources, but his presence was revealed when one of our enemies to the north found him in the human world and attacked him. He then disappeared." The chamberlain bowed his head to the floor. "I want you to assemble my best soldiers," said Lord Kanbei, his face flushed, "and you and they are to go to the human world to find my son." The chamberlain bent his head to the floor again, then practically leaped to his feet and hustled to the door, his tail waving. Lady Ayumi folded her fan, her gold eyes glittering with emotion. After all this time, he had been in the human world? But why, after a sudden disappearance and an absence of many years, did her son appear from the dead as a human boy in another world? No matter. To a mother, it was all one, when the hope of seeing her child again sprang into her heart after she'd abandoned it so long ago. She allowed herself to smile, and, looking over at Lord Kanbei, she saw that he was smiling, too. "Kurama," she whispered, fanning herself softly, "Kurama is alive." * * * Shiori somehow finally managed to stop her tears, but she was left feeling drained and so utterly, utterly empty. Every time she'd felt that her life had no meaning, she'd looked at her son, letting her concern for him and her pride for what he'd become fill any void that could exist inside her. And now, he was gone, far too early. She'd never see him again - in the Makai he would be lost to her as surely as if he had died. In a way, this was worse. She would always be wondering what he was doing, what had happened to him, if he was happy. Even when children grew up and moved away there was always the possibility of contact, even if they moved to another country, for there was instantaneous communication in this technological age. And she couldn't bring herself to believe that Shuuichi would have moved that far away or would have dropped all contact with her, not if he'd just felt able to stay here. But the Makai was so impossibly far. Shiori had never really believed in demons and their separate world, but it didn't seem as if she had much of a choice now. She couldn't just call her son on the telephone if he was in another dimension. Especially if he was trying to avoid contact with her. To protect her, he claimed. So this was how he protected her - by breaking her heart? Didn't he realize that he was the most important thing in her life? her practical side told her, and in annoyance she told it to go away. She didn't want to be reasonable. She didn't want to just let her son run off into some unknown danger and never speak to her again. Suddenly, a noise outside attracted her attention. She sat up straight, then moved to the window and peeked out into the garden. She didn't see anything, but the rustling noises convinced her that something was going on out there. She squinted to see past the hedge of rosebushes and caught a flash of silver through the leaves, silver like the hair of the ethereal creature Shuuichi had changed into. Shiori thought excitedly, hurrying quietly to the back door. She wondered why he was hiding in the garden, and remembered what he'd said about things looking for him. He must have come back to cover his tracks, and just didn't want her to know. Well, it was too late for that. She opened the door and hurried past the rosebushes, her eyes locking on the fall of silver hair with two pale ears that twitched on the top. Like this, he wasn't Shuuichi. She couldn't see Shuuichi as anything other than her red-haired son. So she started instead, "Kura--" The youko turned. "--ma--" Shiori fumbled to a halt instantly. The youko's eyes were blue. Not gold, not even green. His face was sharp and angular, wider than the other face she remembered. He was wearing ornate, stiff robes of blue embroidered in gold. Next to him, more silver youkos in simpler blue-green uniforms looked up at her, their gazes locking on her as they moved liquidly to their feet, tails twitching. Shiori knew she should run, but she couldn't seem to make her feet move. "Apparently you know Kurama," said the youko in the lead. "Where is he?" All of Shuuichi's warnings about enemies rang in Shiori's head. "I don't know what you're talking about," she immediately lied. "I thought you were a friend of mine, an old woman named Kurama--" "You humans are such terrible liars," the youko announced, and as Shiori finally managed to make her feet move and turned to run, she found her path blocked by a wall of evil-looking plants, flowers gaping giant mouths at her. She pulled away with a gasp and a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. "Now really, there's no need for such a fuss. We've been sent to talk to Kurama, and we *will* find him with or without your help. It would simply be much easier for all involved if you decided to cooperate. Now where is he?" Shiori looked at the monstrous plants starting to hungrily devour the rest of her garden, still stretching dripping fangs towards her face, and at the group of silver youkos watching her with something like disgusted contempt, as if they just wanted to kill her and get her out of their way. Then she did the only logical thing. She fainted. They had followed Kurama's trail to the middle of nowhere and back again. Other scents had mixed with the strange, almost completely unfamiliar one that belonged to Kurama's human shape, and one had the sharp tang of another youkai. But they all led to a house. Rather than entering, since there were obviously people inside and the chamberlain didn't want to cause *another* scene with the humans if he could avoid it, or risk a fight with the unknown youkai, they were investigating the area outside. The woman obviously knew Kurama somehow, so he had instructed that she be brought along in case she could still prove useful. To prevent them from being observed, the chamberlain had used some of his own power to mask the presence and youki of himself and the men he had picked. He didn't want to waste the power of his men that they might need later if Kurama decided to be uncooperative. He couldn't maintain it for very long, but if there was a powerful youkai in that house, he didn't want to risk them being detected. Humans were one thing, but a youkai could delay them, and that would displease Lord Kanbei. Luck was with them, he found as one of his men informed him that Kurama's trail left the house again. The chamberlain gestured and they left the area before his masking effect could fall and let them be discovered. Kurama had slipped out of Yuusuke's house as soon as he could do so unobserved. He didn't want to be around other people right now - he wanted to be alone with his grief, to be miserable in private. But he couldn't go home, so he wandered to an empty, shaded corner of the park and sat under a tree, resting his crossed arms on his curled-up knees. His arm and side burned fiercely where he'd been cut, but he'd been ignoring it. He glanced at the bandages wrapped around his arm and was unsurprised to see that the blood was starting to soak through. The wound had been worse than he'd thought, but it would heal. He looked at the harmless greenery of the park - harmless unless he took a hand - and wondered if he should take some bits with him, then decided against it. Against the merciless Makai plants, these fragile Ningenkai ones wouldn't have a chance unless he altered them, and that was just the opposite of the point. He listened to the droning of cicadas in the trees as he tried to think of a plan. He couldn't leave for Makai until he was healed, because he would be far too easy a target. Also, he couldn't go unprepared, which meant he'd have to sneak back into his house at some point without being seen by his mother. For a thief of his skills that wouldn't really be hard - the hard part would be keeping his resolve not to reveal himself to her, even one last time to say goodbye. If he did, he would never be able to leave, not if he had to face her in person. So he would have to avoid home for a few days. He would probably end up staying with Kuwabara, since Shizuru wasn't likely to make a fuss about him as a guest. Atsuko was a less certain prospect. His thoughts were interrupted as he felt a flicker of youki behind him. Kurama thought angrily, cursing to himself. The youki didn't have the feel of Hiei's, and it was fuzzy enough that it was obvious that the youkai was trying to mask it and wasn't entirely succeeding. Well, he didn't have any energy left, so fighting was out of the question. He'd have to try talking himself out of this one, and if that failed, find some way to escape. He stood and turned in one movement, stepping away from the tree to see who faced him. He was prepared to say a greeting, but it died unsaid in his throat. "Kurama," his father's chamberlain announced. "It's time to come home."