Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Fluff Forevermore ❯ Showdown ( Chapter 12 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. Except the plot. And…Yeah. That's all.

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“Are you really that mad at me?”

Hiei's voice rang through the entrance hall, cool and calm, contrasting oddly with his pale, shocked face.

A sneer twisted Mukuro's face into an ugly mask. “You left, Hiei. For him.” She glared at Kurama, who flinched slightly at the pure hatred in her eyes.

Hiei rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like we were married or something. You were my boss.”

“And you were my best general! I lost a lot the day you went back to the ningen life!”

“And you decided to get back at me.”

“Actually, no. Not all things revolve around you. I joined Voldemort long ago. Ticking you off was just a perk.” Mukuro seemed to force her face into a condescending smile, though it was far more reminiscent of a grimace of rage.

“I should have seen this coming a thousand leagues off,” Hiei said, and a small bit of anger trickled past his carefully composed facade, giving his face a slight red tinge and causing his voice to rise a bit. “I should have been suspicious when you didn't find Kurama, with all those spies you've got! But like a fool, I trusted you.”

“And I trusted you.”

“To do what? To stay under your wing and do your bidding for the rest of my life? To be your own personal slave?”

“Well, of course! That's why I kept you around!” Suddenly, Mukuro laughed coldly and mirthlessly. “You aren't seriously telling me you thought it was for friendship!”

Hiei's jaw tightened. “I'd hoped so. But you were just using me.” His voice rose again, and he raised his eyes to meet Mukuro's in a glare. “That's one of the reasons I left, you know. All my life, people have exploited me. On the rare occasion that I dared make a friend, he either wanted to get rich or deliver my head to his superiors. And even though I hoped I was wrong, I felt that you were no different. So, I left and went back to the only people who cared, my only true friends. And now, here you are, trying to kill them.” Hiei snorted. “Fate sometimes deals strange hands, as Kurama says.”

“Fate. You truly believe this was fate's doing? No, Hiei, fate is not responsible for your inevitable death, or Kurama's, or Yusuke, or Kuwabara's. It is entirely your fault.”

Hiei scoffed. “I'm not planning to kill them with my own hands.”

“As fascinating as this conversation is, I find myself growing bored. Are you going to dispose of them, or do I have to kill you and the ones you claim to hate? Because that would give me work to do, which would make me profoundly unhappy.”

Hiei and Mukuro both started. They seemed to have forgotten about Voldemort entirely.

Hiei dropped back alongside Kurama, who took his hand and squeezed it gently. Hiei's fingers tightened for a moment, and then he drew his katana. Across the hall, Mukuro faced them all squarely, her face now devoid of emotion.

At the top of the staircase, the students watched with bated breath, while teachers stood at the doors to the Great Hall. Dumbledore was in front, his face grave and…frightened. It was this look, coupled with the fact that he didn't raise a hand to try and stop Voldemort, that caused the other professors not to charge the evil wizard.

After all, if Albus Dumbledore did not even try to fight his greatest enemy, whom he had been trying to stop for decades, for whatever reason, others generally tended to keep back.

“Let the fun begin,” Mukuro said, taking a dagger out of her belt.

As one, the four members of the Reikai Tentei leapt for the kill.

Onlookers would, in coming days, be asked to describe the fight and the events beforehand for the Wizarding newspaper. However, the reporters would leave mostly disappointed, for no one saw exactly what transpired, either before of during the battle.

The reasons for this were simple. For one thing, Hiei and Mukuro had been conversing in Japanese, so only seven other people in the hall understood the conversation, and they weren't going to tell anyone.

And for another, when asked to speak of the struggle, most people would say that they saw nothing except for multicolored blurs.

The only half-detailed description reporters got was this:

“I couldn't make out much, but I did hear the Japanese yell weird phrases.” When asked to elaborate, the boy said, “One was `Rose Whip'—he shouted it in English, for some reason. Another one was `Rei gun!' Just after one of them said that, there was a burst of blue light. But it went off target and blasted a hole straight through the wall! Scared the crap out of all of us. Another boy said something like, `Spirit Sword' but nothing really happened except that an orange blur got added to the fray. Oh, and there was one more—the guy said it right after what looked like half a sword almost hit me. `Fist of the Mortal Flame.' I didn't really hear or see anything else for a while.”

However, everyone saw the moment that changed the course of the fight, which had, so far, been pretty evenly matched.

It was the moment when a redheaded figure came flying out of the fighting mass, slammed against the wall, and slid, limply, to the floor, where he lay completely still.

Kurama couldn't pinpoint the moment his arm began to weaken. All he knew was that he was fighting Mukuro along with Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei when the hand clenching his whip slackened suddenly, without his permission or approval. He managed to hang onto it, but by the time he got his fingers back under control and looked back to Mukuro, he was unable to parry the blow aimed at him.

He caught the blow fully in the chest, and it hurt. His vision went fuzzy, and he felt himself lifted into the air. He hit the wall hard, and everything went black.

“KURAMA!” Yusuke yelled, throwing a punch at the dagger-wielding blur that was Mukuro.

“FOX!” Hiei yelled frantically. “NO!” Without thinking, he broke away from the others and flitted over to the fox. Crouching down, he lifted the fox's head gently and checked the pulse in his neck. Feeling a steady beat, he breathed an enormous sigh of relief. “Yukina!”

“Stay where you are,” Voldemort ordered softly as Yukina started to descend the stairs. “Do not touch him,” he added to Hiei, who had reached out to try and use his Koorime healing powers to restore Kurama.

Hiei glared at Voldemort in hatred and reached out to touch Kurama's forehead.

Just as his fingertips were about to brush the kitsune's skin, the fox went rigid. His lips parted in a wordless scream, and his limbs began to shake. Hiei, panicked, tried to hold him still, but his touch only seemed to worsen the problem. It wasn't until he let go completely that the fox quieted.

Hiei whirled around to see that Voldemort had his `wand' thing trained on Kurama. He gave a growl of rage and leapt to his feet to go for the wizard's throat.

“HIEI! HELP!”

Hiei gave another growl and turned away from Voldemort, who smirked and lowered his want to watch.

And it might have been a rather interesting sight, too, if it hadn't been for the fact that Yusuke and Kuwabara were about to die.

Mukuro had somehow managed to trap both Yusuke and Kuwabara at once. She held Yusuke tight against herself, dagger at his throat (which sent any perverted thoughts he may once of had straight out of his head) while her foot trapped Kuwabara in a position that would cause his neck to snap if he made the slightest movement.

Hiei glared at her, and a ball of flame formed again in his right hand.

“I wouldn't move, if I were you, Hiei,” Mukuro said sweetly. “If you so much as twitch wrong I can kill both of them at once, at the same time my master finishes off that bastard over there.”

“Wrong,” Kuwabara ground out, and he wrenched himself violently to the side, grabbing Mukuro's leg and throwing her off balance in one movement. There was a sickening crack as Kuwabara's neck snapped under the strain, and then Yusuke used the moment to grab Mukuro's dagger and bury it in her chest. She fell quickly—no theatrics. Just a hateful glare, and then she fell forward, and died.

Yusuke didn't even spare a glance for the body, running to Kuwabara. Hiei followed.

“Come on, come on, you can't seriously be thinking of dying now, of all times, you oaf,” Yusuke muttered, his eyes strangely bright.

Hiei crouched down next to the detective. “He's still alive,” he reported, noticing the slight, shallow rise and fall of Kuwabara's chest and barely restraining a sigh of relief. “Yukina, get over here!”

“Do not move,” a soft, deadly voice said.

Hiei stiffened. I am sick and tired of his orders…

He stood, slowly. “Detective, use your remaining reiki to shield the Fool, my sister, my fox and yourself. I'll take care of this.”

Yusuke stared at him for a moment, wondering how he would “take care of it” with a broken sword and barely half his ki remaining. But then he looked Hiei in the eye, and at the grim look in them, his jaw went tight, and he simply nodded, resting his hand on Hiei's shoulder for a second before turning his attention back to Kuwabara.

Hiei stood just as Yukina joined them. He smiled briefly at her, and then he left the small group. Kurama, lying on the floor a few feet across the room, began to glow with blue light, as did Yukina, Yusuke and Kuwabara, marking them as protected by Yusuke's energy. Hiei's eyes rested on Kurama's still form, and for a moment, his features softened and tears glistened in his eyes.

But when he turned back to Voldemort, his gaze hardened, and he said, “You have condemned yourself to death with all you have done to my mate,” he said in a deadly soft voice.

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Voldemort sneered. “You've been fighting hard and I am very well protected.”

“I know. I can feel the shields from here. But there is one way,” Hiei said, his face grim.

He spoke English, so at these words, everyone crowded forward, trying to see.

They were rather disappointed to see that Hiei was only unwrapping the bandage on his arm.

Kurama returned to awareness slowly. The room seemed to be…buzzing? Or was it just his pounding head? Probably the latter…why was his head pounding, anyway?

Mukuro.

Kurama gasped suddenly, and his eyes snapped open. He looked around, frantically, and gasped.

Mukuro was sprawled out on the floor, her own dagger protruding from her chest. A couple of feet from the corpse, Yusuke and Yukina were crouched next to the prone figure of Kuwabara, whose neck was bent at an angle it was never intended to be bent to, giving Kurama a feeling of awful, intense fear. All three of them glowed in a surreal blue light, and it was only them that Kurama realized he was, too.

What in Kami-sama's name…

Wincing, Kurama pushed himself to his feet. Ignoring everything around him—indeed, he was completely unaware of it, no matter who was involved. He didn't even see Hiei—he started to stagger over to the small group.

“Kurama, are you all right?” Yusuke asked as the kitsune knelt down next to him.

“Fine,” Kurama said, though he was woozy and his arm didn't seem to want to move. “But Kuwabara…”

“He'll be all right,” Yusuke said, though his face was pale with fear for his friend. “Yukina will heal him.”

“And Hiei. Where's Hiei?”

Yusuke dropped his gaze at that, and a sick feeling welled up inside Kurama.

“Yusuke, where's Hiei?” he asked more urgently. “Where is he!”

Yusuke pointed. Kurama followed his finger, and his eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

“No,” he whispered, noticing the rest of the room at last.

Hiei was standing about ten feet away. He hadn't even noticed that Kurama had woken up. He was staring at Voldemort only, as if unwilling to see anything or anyone else. His left hand was unwrapping his right arm from the hand up.

“HIEI, DON'T!” Kurama shouted. “You don't have enough energy! It will kill you!”

Hiei's hand continued its work even as he turned to face Kurama. “Fox,” he said quietly. That was all. His eyes said it all. Kurama's own dimmed with tears.

Hiei knew.

Hiei knew his fate, and he was only more determined because of it.

Hiei would die, yes, but he would take Voldemort with him.

He would do it…for his love.

Hiei blinked hard as Kurama turned away, but his eyes were still determined when he faced Voldemort again. He still hadn't stopped unwrapping his arm, and now a long winding strip lay on the floor, and his arm was practically bare.

When the last of the ward fell away, there was a collective intake of breath from students and teachers alike as they set eyes on the tattoo very few had lived to describe.

“It was like it was watching us,” one student remembered later with a shudder. “Like it would kill us with the one red eye it had. Like it was alive.”

Then Hiei reached up and tore off his headband.

People screamed out loud as the Jagan opened, blood red and angry. Many who looked into it had to look away quickly.

“I thought I would die when I looked into it,” a student recalled. “It was as if it could see right through me and tear me apart from the inside out.”

Voldemort, though, only laughed. “So this is supposed to scare me? A tattoo and a third eye?”

Hiei nodded calmly. “Even Mukuro never saw this. She asked me never to use it around her because it frightened her so. And though you do not seem worried, you are, and this weapon will seek out that fear. Besides, even on the very small chance that you are not afraid, it does not want fear.” As he spoke, the air around him began to crackle with visible, black, electric energy. Slowly, he raised his arm.

“Dragon…” He began quietly, though his voice did not shake and his eyes remained determinedly dry. “Dragon of the Darkness FLAME!”

Though everything had been quite dramatic up to this point, it was the next moment that stayed burned in everybody's memory for the rest of his or her life.

The great Dragon was a truly terrific sight to behold. A massive black flame, it whipped up away from Hiei, and as it did so, the tattoo on his arm disappeared. With an almighty roar, the manifestation rose to the ceiling and looked around, taking in all the people in the room. Hiei felt all its anger and its thirst for blood, and he very nearly broke, as he always did at this point. But he shoved the feeling down and forced the Dragon to turn away from the large group of Hogwarts students to Voldemort, who had lost his thin-lipped smile. Voldemort raised his wand and shouted something. A green beam of light flew toward the Dragon, bounced off it and slammed into the wall. Fear flickered across the wizard's face.

Hiei waved his hand, and the Dragon gave another roar, opened its jaws, and plunged toward Voldemort.

It was over in a second. All the trouble, all the pain, all the death and destruction Voldemort had caused, all the fear he had inspired over the years, and he was killed in a single moment.

A single terrified scream, a horrible sizzling sound, and then ominous silence.

Hiei, the Tentei, and the rest of the school had just enough time to register that there was now only a large black mark on the ground where Voldemort had been—there wasn't even time to raise a cheer—before the Dragon turned on Hiei, just as he had known it would.

Tears streamed unchecked down Kurama's cheeks as the Dragon turned to face Hiei. Next to him, Yusuke gripped his shoulder so tightly it was painful. Yukina, though, saw nothing, caught in her healing trance. As the Dragon started toward the small figure, Kurama screamed, “HIEI, DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME NOW!” But the Dragon didn't slow and Hiei didn't move.

It's no use.

“HIEI, DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME NOW!”

The words echoed over and over in his head, and brought to mind the image of Kurama sobbing over his corpse. A sudden determination rose in him.

He couldn't leave Kurama.

He had to live.

He raised his arm, and the Dragon slowed. Hiei stared at it, and it halted in confusion. When it realized that hiei was once more in control of it, its anger rose, and Hiei felt its intense hatred.

Hiei's control wavered, and the Dragon, delighted, started toward him again.

“No!”

Hiei gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, and once again the Dragon halted. But Hiei was losing strength rapidly, and in a moment, the Dragon moved again, swiftly. It stopped, then moved, stopped again, moved…

And each time, Hiei's control cracked even more.

Until finally, the Dragon was able to rush him faster than he could stop it.

He dropped his arm, defeated. He was tired, so tired…

Kurama once again entered his mind. Hiei smiled softly, keeping the image in his thoughts as the Dragon came closer, hovered in front of him, opened its jaws wide…

He heard Kurama's scream, heard Yusuke's curse. Felt a horrible, shooting, burning pain in his chest, and then he fell into blissful, silent, painless oblivion.

Kou stabbed his sword straight through the heart of his opponent. Jerking the sword out of the fallen demon, he jerked out a small glass ball and flipped a switch. Parrying the blow of his newest adversary with one hand, he held the ball up to eye level and said, “Ji, how does it look?”

A face appeared in the glass ball, the face of his air scout. He looked grim. “They're winning, sir. They outnumbered us two to one from the beginning anyway, but now we're down to less than five hundred men and they have over a thousand still. The only real choice we have now is to retreat—or surrender. And we both know you'll never do that.”

Kou shook his head. “No, and I won't retreat, either!”

“General, you may not have it in you, but think about all the men who died today—who are dying even as we speak—in loyalty to you. How many more will die in vain?”

Kou stared into the glass ball for a moment, still fighting his lower-class enemy one-handed. As he delivered the last critical blow to the demon's heart, he said, slowly, as if each word hurt, “Give the order.”

But it turned out that to retreat was unnecessary. As Kou flipped off the ball, terrified screams suddenly echoed across the battlefield where, hours ago, days ago, it seemed, the armies of Lord Voldemort and Lord Koenma had clashed. The screams came from the hundreds of enemy demons, and suddenly, without any explanation, every soldier disappeared, and the remains of Kou's command stood alone, still holding their bloodied swords, staring in shocked silence around the silent valley.

Voldemort's army had been defeated.

But Koenma's army hadn't done it.

The whole room fell into shocked silence at the abrupt end of the battle. Not one person moved. They just stared at the black mark that spanned over a quarter of the entrance hall, the inert form on the floor, and the small group of people staring in horror at the scene.

Then the silence was broken by a sob, and then quick footsteps as Kurama broke away from the group and raced over to the fallen hiyoukai. Still crying, he gathered the body into his arms, burying his face in the Jaganshi's hair, shoulders shaking.

Across the room, Yukina had come out of her trance, and Kuwabara started to come to. Yusuke, though, hardly noticed, as he was too busy trying to put his tears back in check, having already allowed one to escape.

“What happened?” Kuwabara asked, face still pale. “Mukuro broke my neck. How…?”

“I healed you. Yusuke, what is going on? What is the matter with my Oniisan?” Yukina asked softly.

Yusuke, though, said nothing. He just kept watching the scene in front of him, unable to comprehend it.

“His…his life force…it's draining away…” Kuwabara said softly.

Yukina shook her head, tears beginning to fall. “No! Kazuma, don't say that! It isn't true!” But deep down, she felt that her connection with her brother was fading away. She threw herself at Kuwabara, who held her tightly.

Yusuke finally walked over, and touched Kurama's shoulder. “Kurama?”

The kitsune didn't look up, but his hand grabbed Yusuke's and nearly crushed it in its grip. Yusuke crouched down and started into Hiei's face. He looked so…gentle, now. Brushing a tear off his cheek, he grasped Hiei's hand with his free one.

Every student and teacher watching was unable to keep their tears back, but one person's sobs were lost in a tangle of black hair.

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Okay, I am so sorry, I should have posted this sooner! But I was away for the weekend and on Friday my ride came before I had time to post this! But the good news is that while I was gone I actually wrote down the rest of the fic, so it's just waiting to be posted. Only two more chapters! How in the world will I react to not having this story to write anymore…?

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Reviewers' comments:

YokoYoukai: Not there, huh? That's weird…stupid FanFiction web site…grumbles Ah, well, life goes on. Thanks for letting me know, though! And also, if you're oblivious than so am I, because I didn't know Mukuro was on Voldemort's side, either, until the whole scene was written out…and also, I don't think I could ever turn Yukina against the Tentei…there just isn't anything there that could be turned to evil! I might try, but I probably wouldn't get very far…anyway, thanks for the review!

KyoHanna: I know how you feel. I hate that it's almost over too…sad But at least now I can get started on something new…thanks for the review!

Jessica: dizzy You talk fast…it took me five minutes to sort out everything you said…and I speak Shawna, so…but what's it matter, you REVIEW! Thank you!

MikaSamu: Well, there's your climax! I hope it was worth the forever-long wait! And I'm glad that you don't need shounen ai to be interested in a story…I'm really just going by the increased number of reviews I've gotten since I started writing Hiei/Kurama stories. And what's a Mary Sue story? I think a friend explained this to me once, but…I forgot. Please tell me, so I can try to avoid that, since it doesn't sound good…Thanks for the review!

shiorifoxiesmom: Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed the final battle as much as I did!

Pyro: WHY DO YOU HAVE TO EAT ME? looks at Hiei's dead body Oh, yeah…that…uh…would you believe me if I said it wasn't me? If I said it was my evil twin? No? That's not good…

Amine: I know, I love that quote too. I have this enmity for the government, so it seemed like a good thing to put there, even though it had ZILCH to do with the actual story. Thanks for the review!

StormAZ: Yep, Voldemort is toasties! Yippee! But poor Hiei…I feel rotten. And you're right, I always did think Yusuke and Hiei were a lot alike, though they'd both rather fall into a pit of crocodiles or a tank of sharks than admit it! Thanks for the review!

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“I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” -Winston Churchill