Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One for the Ages ❯ Chapter Twenty-four: Where There’s a Will… ( Chapter 24 )

One for the Ages

By Gan Xingba

Chapter Twenty-four: Where There's a Will…

 

Eventually, Inuyasha and Kagome had simply decided to return home and await Botan's return to check on the results of the mission the next day so they could show her the picture. Botan was ecstatic, to say the least, and a five minute session of excited chatter, uttered so fast that it was almost incoherent ensued. Once they had finally calmed the delighted ferry girl down, Kagome left with her to go tell Yusuke, leaving Inuyasha behind. Kagome had no problem about bringing Inuyasha out into public as long as he had something to cover his ears up, but Botan had ruled it out. Being an official messenger of Spirit World meant that there would be hell to pay if Inuyasha's nature was discovered in her presence, and she wasn't going to take the risk that a mere baseball cap would suffice.

 

On the way, they made a stop at Keiko's both to tell her of the news and to take her with them to tell Yusuke, since she had a key to his apartment that she had been given while taking care of his body during the brief period of time when he was dead, although Botan had managed to keep Kagome from learning about that incident. Kagome may have been helping Spirit World, but since she wasn't officially working for them, that kind of information needed to remain classified.

 

When the finally arrived at Yusuke's apartment, the place looked deserted from the outside, but they decided to look there anyway, since there was a strong possibility that Yusuke had suddenly found his ceiling mildly interesting again. Sure enough, when they entered, they found a small amount of light escaping from one of the doors. Giving the other two a signal to wait, Keiko knocked lightly on the door.

 

“Yusuke? It's Keiko,” she announced, though she was not blessed with a response. “Botan and Kagome are here, too. Kagome found something that you need to see.”

 

Again there was no response. Sighing, Keiko opened the door and entered, with Kagome and Botan following close behind. Yusuke, as expected, was laying on his back and staring at the ceiling, fully clothed, but still without his hair gel.

 

“You're in my room. Get out,” stated Yusuke tonelessly, not taking his eyes off of the ceiling.

 

“Yusuke, there's something you need to know…” she began, and then took in a deep breath before speaking again. “It's about Kuwabara and the others…”

 

Suddenly, Yusuke's eyes were off the ceiling and now glaring daggers into Keiko. Keiko opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it and looked at the floor, overcome with a sense of shame.

 

“We haven't told you everything about what happened to them,” finished Botan for Keiko, causing Yusuke to glare at the ferry girl with ten times the potency. “It's just, that they aren't dead.”

 

“What in the hell are you talking about?” growled Yusuke through clenched teeth. “I saw them die. Don't lie to me.”

 

“It's the truth!” chimed in Kagome. “They weren't killed, they were just sent through time! Look!”

 

Kagome pulled out the worn picture with Kuwabara in it and hastily handed it to Yusuke. He irritably took the picture and began to glance it over, and midway through the process his jaw became so slack that one might think it had suddenly gone numb, and he began to blink rapidly as though to rid himself of an illusion.

 

“What…? How…?” he managed to stammer.

 

“Like I said, they were just sent through time, not killed by Naraku's blast. It's a little complicated, but it had something to do with the Sacred Jewel absorbing the time travel spell, or something like that,” Kagome reiterated patiently, and then flipped over the picture to the side with the date on it. “See? It even has the date on the back, so we can go find them and bring them back here.”

 

For several long moments, Yusuke just stared at the back of the picture. Then, as though a gear was turning in his head, his face slowly grew brighter and brighter until his lips twisted into a wide, toothy grin and his eyes shone so bright that they practically sparkled. When this happened, it seemed like a buzzer had just gone off in his head, and he suddenly shot up off of his bed and let out a loud cry of victory. Then, to the dismay of all three girls gathered in his room, he scooped them all up in a massive bear hug.

 

“They're alive! They're alive! I can't believe it!” he repeated as he swung the helpless young women about in his arms and laughed joyously. “I'd hug you guys harder, but it'd probably kill ya'!”

 

None of the three girls doubted this last statement in the least. Seemingly spontaneously, Yusuke released them from his hug, and all three fell to the ground, butt first. Yusuke was suddenly staring down at them with narrowed eyes, and while not quite as venomous as they were before, they were still fairly intimidating.

 

“You knew they weren't dead, didn't you?” he asked with controlled anger before raising his voice when there came no reply. “Why didn't you tell me? What, you didn't think I could handle i-”

 

Yusuke abruptly stopped in mid sentence, leaving his mouth hanging open as the anger disappeared from his face and his shoulders slumped slightly.

 

`Kuwabara said the same thing back in the Dark Tournament after he found out that Genkai had been killed. We had kept him in the dark, too,' Yusuke recalled regaining enough composure to smile slightly as he remembered the incident. `Well, that's rich. Maybe there's something to this karma stuff after all.'

 

“Yusuke…we're sorry, we were ju-” started Keiko before Yusuke raised his hand to stop her.

 

“It's alright. Forget about it,” he said dismissively. “The important thing is that the guys are fine, and better yet, we know where they are.”

 

Yusuke rose up off of the bed and began rummaging around in his drawer for something. Soon, he found the object, and quickly tucked it away in his pocket. He stopped and gave a sharp glance towards Kagome, who had suddenly begun to giggle.

 

“Why do you bother trying to hide it?,” she remarked, clearly trying to prod the boy. “What, did you think we thought that hair was natural?”

 

“What are you…oh, the hair gel,” Keiko said, and then joined in the giggling. “He's embarrassed about using it for some reason. You should see him when he goes to buy it. Sometimes he even just shoplifts it so that he doesn't have to explain himself to the cashier.”

 

“Hey! That's not funny!” Yusuke retorted, though he now took out the hair gel from his pocket and started applying it to his hair since his cover had been blown. “It's a guy thing, you wouldn't get it.”

 

“Well of course we don't, that's what we've been telling you,” replied Kagome with another giggle, much to Yusuke's chagrin.

 

“Whatever…” grumbled Yusuke as he finished applying the gel and made for the door with his hair triumphantly slicked back once again. “Botan, let's go. I need to talk to Koenma about this right away.”

 

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Koenma looked down at the picture that Yusuke had tossed onto his desk, stared at it, and then looked back up at Yusuke. The boy was absolutely beaming. Koenma couldn't even recall the last time he'd seen Yusuke so genuinely happy. That only made the situation that much more difficult.

 

“Well, pacifier breath, what are you waiting for? Let's head to that gate place and go find those guys!” said the boy energetically, causing Koenma to wince inwardly.

 

“Yusuke…” began Koenma, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath. “I can't.”

 

There was a long pause after this. Yusuke's mouth was contorting in various ways, as though it was trying to say several things at once, but simply had no breath to make sound out of it. Finally, Yusuke managed to speak.

 

“Just what in the hell are you talking about, toddler?” he demanded, though his voice was far weaker than the words he spoke.

 

“I can't, Yusuke,” repeated the pint-sized deity. “It's against Spirit World law to use free-destination time travel for anything bu-”

 

“Don't play games with me! This isn't something to joke about!” yelled Yusuke suddenly. “We traveled through time at the beginning of the damned mission, remember?”

 

“That's enough, Yusuke. Let Lord Koenma explain,” suggested Botan, her face full of concern.

 

“Thank you, Botan. Yusuke, the reason we were able to do that was because of a loophole in Spirit World law that allows us to pursue criminals or mission objectives without restrictions, as I'm sure Kurama explained to you at some point,” explained Koenma solemnly. “However, when not in the act of doing one of those things, free-destination time travel is expressly forbidden by Spirit World law.”

 

“Who cares? My friends are stranded out there! Can't we bend the rules to save teammates?” bellowed Yusuke, doing a very poor job at remaining calm.

 

“I'm sorry, Yusuke, but I can't. This is a very serious law, and for good reason. Free-destination time travel is extremely dangerous,” stated Koenma, closing his eyes and resting his hands on his desk. “Allow me to explain. We classify time travel into two types: free-destination travel and fixed-timeline travel. Free-destination time travel, as you might guess from its name, enables the traveler to go to any time period in the past or present with absolutely no limitations. However, it has been shown that if free-destination time travel is used too liberally, it can cause significant damage to the space-time continuum. This could cause history itself to be changed in significant ways, or, in the absolute worst case scenario, cause space-time to be torn apart. It is for this reason that it is forbidden.”

 

“If it's so dangerous, then how come you sent us there in the first place?” bellowed Yusuke, failing to control his anger yet again. “Hell, why did you even let that stupid gate even exist?”

 

“At the time, I'd thought that the threat of the Sacred Jewel shards might have been just as dangerous if they were being imported from the past. If I had known that Kagome and her allies were working against this threat, I never would have sent you into the past,” replied Koenma with a regretful sigh. “As to why the gate exists, it is there so that we can combat anyone who might find a way to utilize free-destination time travel and harm the space-time continuum. Fortunately, free-destination time has occurred very rarely in history, so we haven't had to use it much.”

 

“What about Kagome's well? If she can use that to go play around in the stupid feudal era, then how come we can't use the gate to save my friends?” Yusuke put forth, refusing to let go of his anger.

 

“Because Kagome's well uses the other type of time travel, fixed-timeline travel,” answered the deity. “This type of time travel is incredibly stable because it transports select people to very specific parts of time. For example, Kagome's well can only transport her to exactly five hundred years in the past and no where else. As a result, we have discerned that this method of time travel has no recordable effect on the space-time continuum. We're not exactly sure of the reason, but the leading theory is that it is because the events that occur on the `past' side of the portal are already an unchanging part of history on the `future' side of the portal, meaning that they already have happened.”

 

“Well why don't you just make one of those portals to where Kuwabara and the others are if they're so safe?” proposed the angered Spirit Detective, the volue of his voice now a little toned down.

 

“Those portals have to occur naturally, Yusuke, other wise they're just like free-destination time travel,” dismissed Koenma.

 

After this, there was a long pause. Yusuke could no longer think of anything else to say, and was simply glaring at the ground as though he was trying to burn through it. Botan was simply looking on sadly from behind the boy as she had been throughout the whole conversation. Koenma had pulled open a drawer, and was taking out a book when Yusuke suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar.

 

“Now you listen, you no good excuse for a midget,” he growled as he held the ruler of Spirit World up above his own desk. “I want my friend's back, damn it, and you're going to help me get them, got it?”

 

“Yusuke, stop it!” Botan cried out as she hastily moved forward to try and pry Yusuke's fingers away from Koenma's shirt. “If you break a law that serious, you could be thrown into a Spirit World prison! Lord Koenma is just trying to protect you!”

 

“I don't give a damn! If I can save my friends, it's worth it,” spat Yusuke as he glared at Koenma threateningly.

 

“Yusuke, I know how hard this must be for you,” said Koenma, remaining surprisingly calm. “So, I only have one job for you, and that is to deliver this book to Kagome as a token of Spirit World's aprec-”

 

Yusuke brought his fist back in preparation to punch Koenma straight in the face, but right before he released it forward, he stopped. Koenma had frantically held up the book in front of his face, opened up to a very specific page number, and was now cowering behind it with his eyes closed. The contents of the book seemed to be details on various relics of power, and one item in particular had caught Yusuke's eye. Next to a sketch of a large, rune covered katana was the name of the sword written in bold: Masaruten, also known as The Blade of Time.

 

“Now then, Yusuke, if you would be so kind as to put me down, then I could close this book, which was opened to a completely random page number, and give it to you so that you can go give it to Kagome and her allies in the feudal era,” said Koenma, speaking rapidly as Yusuke slowly lowered him back into his seat. “Like I said, immediately after you deliver the book you are on an indefinite vacation, meaning that you are not an official representative of Spirit World and that we would have no way of monitoring your actions. Hopefully, by the time you return back to duty, Kuwabara and the others will somehow have managed to find their way back on their own.”

 

Yusuke blinked and turned his head to the side slightly as though he had just been hit in the head with a large object and was recovering from the blow. Koenma simply closed the book and thrust it into the stunned boy's hands, and then wordlessly began to go over some papers on his desk. Yusuke looked from Koenma, to the book, and back again before finally grinning at the deity and turning towards the door.

 

“You may not be as big of a jerk as I thought, pacifier-breath,” he remarked over his shoulder before opening the doors to Koenma's office and exiting through them.

 

“Lord Koenma, sir, if I may ask, what does Kagome have to do with Ma-I mean the things in that book?” asked Botan as the door to Koenma's office shut behind Yusuke.

 

“Well, you see, Botan, that book is a database on powerful relics from the feudal era. Since Yusuke can go through the well, I, in my infinite wisdom, decided that it would be best if he deliver such a useful tome to Kagome and her allies,” Koenma answered with his usual air of superiority restored. “Why, they might even be able to gain some of the relics found in there for their own use.”

 

Botan nodded in understanding and smiled at her boss warmly. She had to admit, Koenma had certainly been well prepared for this situation, and while the solution he had used wasn't exactly the most forthright, it was effective nonetheless. Suddenly, she remembered that there had been something she had been meaning to ask Koenma today.

 

“Lord Koenma, you never did explain how Yusuke has the ability to travel down the well,” she stated, causing Koenma to jump in his seat slightly.

 

“Hmm? Why would you want to know something silly like that? You wouldn't, that's why…I mean that's why not…oh, you get the picture,” he said rather hastily, stumbling over his words as he spoke.

 

“Lord Koenma…” urged Botan, getting more than a little frustrated as this was no less then the seventh time she had pushed for this answer.

 

There was a moment's pause, and then Koenma let out a long sigh. When he looked back at Botan, his eyes were far more piercing, and his look was stern. It had been a rare thing for Botan to see Koenma this serious.

 

“Listen, Botan, it has something to do with a combination of generation-skipping genetics and spirit energy signatures, and that's all we know,” he said with emphasis. “We don't need to know anything else about it either, so long as he can go through the well. If we dig too deep, we may find something that we don't want to know.”

 

“I suppose…” acknowledged Botan. “Sorry for prying, sir. I'll go help Yusuke get back to the human world now.”

 

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On the feudal era side of Kagome's well, Inuyasha was becoming impatient, which was really not much of a surprise. Also not surprisingly, he was on the verge of leaping down the well and finding out what exactly was holding her up even though it had only been a few hours since she had gone to tell Yusuke the news about his friends. The world was spared a conflict that would inevitably end with several cries of “sit!” when the well glowed a deep purple just as he was about to jump in.

 

“'Bout time! What the hell kept ya?” he called towards the well as he neared it.

 

He quickly found himself at a loss for words when Yusuke Urameshi leapt out of the well with Kagome in his arms and her backpack on his back. Suddenly unsure whether to be angry, surprised, or simply confused, all the half-demon could manage to do was twitch the right side of his face in rage/shock/bewilderment for several moments. During this time, Yusuke set Kagome and her backpack down on the ground without noticing the half-demon, which turned out to be a very good thing as he surely would have dropped her had he noticed Inuyasha's rather disturbing amount of twitching.

 

“What's going on?” asked Inuyasha, finally able to pick an emotion.

 

“This is,” Kagome answered simply, holding the book Koenma had given Yusuke, opened up to the page with Masaruten on it, up to Inuyasha's face. “This sword can open up a portal to anywhere in time, and its last known whereabouts were here in the feudal era, according to the book.”

 

“So, if we find the sword…” Inuyasha muttered, putting two and two together.

 

“Yup, we can find Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei and bring them back home,” finished Yusuke with a triumphant smirk and a small chuckle. “If I'd left enough pieces of Naraku around to make a grave for him, I'd be dancing on it right now. Not only did I kill the bastard, but now I'm gonna' undo his final attack. Serves that freak right for messin' with me.”

 

Yusuke's smirk grew even wider, and he let out another chuckle before setting off the path down towards the village. Inuyasha stared after him for a second as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

 

“I forgot…he still thinks that Naraku is dead…” he said quietly, gulping a little as he thought about the prospect of dealing with Yusuke should the Spirit Detective find out that he was left out of the loop.

 

“That's no good…” added Kagome with equal worry. “What should we do? Should we tell him?”

 

“I don't think so. I think he'd be a lot better off just thinking that Naraku's dead,” advised Inuyasha, shaking his head for emphasis. “Besides, Naraku's probably off somewhere recovering. What're the odds that Yusuke would even find out that he's alive anyway?”